Tidal Flooding Project Update

High School student Amy Mahon makes her way through the tide enroute to the "A" Train Station in Broad Channel.

The West 12th Road Block Association attended a meeting earlier this afternoon at Queens Borough Hall regarding the status of the Tidal Flooding Project as it pertains to West 12th Road as well as West 11th and 13th Roads.

Attending this meeting were:

The West 12th Road Blaock Association
Grace Arnemann
Sophia DiVirgilio

John Heaphy  

Peter J. Mahon
Scott Valentine  

The Broad Channel Civic Association

Dan Mundy Jr., President
James Harper, Vice President
Dan Mundy Sr., Trustee 

Asemblywoman Audrey Pheffer's Office
Joanne Shapiro

Congressman Anthony Weiner's Office
Angelica Katz

 Councilman Eric Ulrich's Office
Bart Haggerty

Community Board 14
Jonathan Gaska

Office of the Queens Borough Presidient
Helen Marshall, Queens Borough President
Alex Rosa
Mark Scott
Jerry Lamura
Dan Andrews
Cara Viukae (last name illegible)

N.Y.C. Department of Transportation (DOT)
Maura McCarthy
Michael Flynn
Amir Rasty

N.Y.C. Department of Design and Construction (DDC)
Hugo Leon
Maria Centeno
Ali Mallick
Jennifer Lester
Irina Braginskaya
Mikhail Ustoyev

N.Y.C. Department of Enviromental Protection
Rick Muller

The RBA Group
Joseph Menzer
Regan McKendry
Linda Reardon

The meeting opened (at 3:10 pm) with Queens Borough President, Helen Marshall, stating that everyone in the room was aware of the problems being experienced by the residents of Broad Channel regarding tidal flooding and that she was happy to announce that we are now "...on our way to a remedy!"

Maura McCarthy, DOT Commissioner for the Borough of Queens, then introduced and requested Mr. Joe Menzer of the RBA Group to present those in attendance with a description of the problems at hand and their iniitial proposed options for mitigation of same.

A summary of Mr. Menzer's presentation folows:

The initial objective of the RBA Groups actions in this matter was to develop feasible alternatives with which to mitigate the impact of coastal flooding in the affected Broad Channel areas.

The RBA Group reviewed existing data, reports and studies relaive to coastal flooding of the affected area, collected subsurface information and performed topographic surveys and assessed the cause and severity of the existing flooding problems from published tide tables, historic flood events, FEMA flood maps and local records and taing into consideration projected sea level rise over the next 20 years.

Based on the above, the RBA Group has set forth the following three recommendations:

1.  Raise the street to reduce flooding (specifc elevation as yet to be determined),

2.  Build a bulkhead at the roadway terminus (end of block),

and,

3.  Install an innovative storm water system to increase the efficiency of tide and storm water run off.

The RBA Group has provided several specific alternatives to be considered by the City and the Community in this matter which differ on the minimum recommended elevation of the streets involved and the type of drainage system to be installed on the newly eleevated roadway. 

The good news is that the minimum recommended plan of action would, hopefully, eliminate 85% of street flooding, however, flooding resulting from damaged or missing residiential bulkheads or severe weather events would still remain problematic. 

Once a decision is reached regarding the final elevation of the street and the exact type of drainage system to accompany the new road, we wil have a much clearer idea of how individual W12th Road properties might  be impacted.

The next step in this process is for the RBA Group to meet with D.O.T. to review all proposed conceptual alternatives in light of our discussions today and, once a revised plan of action can be decided upon, they will advance to a detailed project design phases.  At that time, the City and the RBA Group will be asked to present their plan to the West 12th Road Block Association Flood Task Force prior to any presentation of same to the entire Broad Channel community at a Civic Association meeting.

It was stated that complete design approvals by DOT, DEC, DEP, etc., may be obtained by January 2012 at which time the contract can be bidded out with construction to hopefully take place in the Spring/Summer of 2012.

The fact that we will have to deal with the issue of tidal street flooding for the next year, although unfortunate,
should be viewed in the context that we are finally moving towards a real and viable resolution to our long standing issue of tidal street flooding.

As always, we will keep you apprised of any additional devleopments in this regard as they take place.