Rep. Malliotakis believes Sea Wall project finally ready to move ahead after years of delays

After years of delays, Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-Staten Island/South Brooklyn) believes a vital resiliency project is ready to move forward along the East Shore.

Malliotakis has long maintained that design conflicts between the city and federal governments have been a key cause to delays for the massive project officially known as the South Shore of Staten Island Coastal Storm Risk Management Project, but colloquially referred to as the East Shore Sea Wall.

But now, Malliotakis said the top official from the city Department of Environmental Protection (DEP), Commissioner Rohit Aggarwala, recently joined those conversations and is helping to move the project forward.

“Because it wasn’t one entity taking on the entire design, they had to get in-sync, so that has been a lot of the back and forth over the last year,” she said. “I’m hopeful that this is the city’s final design, that it will get swiftly approved by the Army Corps, and then we can move forward with issuing the first phase of contract.”

A spokesperson for Malliotakis’ office said Wednesday that the city’s design plans had been finalized and that they were ready to move forward with the initial work.

Aggarwala confirmed that the issues had been resolved and that the project was ready to move forward.

“All parties involved want a project that will best protect the people of Staten Island and by working together we have resolved the outstanding issues,” he said. “I want to thank NYS DEC Commissioner Basil Seggos and the USACE leadership – both Colonel [Alex] Young and his predecessor, Colonel [Matthew} Luzzato, for dedicating tremendous resources and time to getting this critical project moving.”

Initial contracts will be for interior drainage portions of the project around South Beach. Drainage work for the project will also tie into the city’s ongoing bluebelt work along the East Shore.

The project is made up of several contracts for the interior work, a buried sea wall running from Fort Wadsworth to Oakwood Beach, and a flood wall that will run inland from the beach to Hylan Boulevard. Officials expect the project to cost nearly $1.7 billion.

In January, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) quietly updated the website for the East Shore Sea Wall with information about the latest delays.

“Design of all project construction contracts is currently underway, including assessment of potential design refinements for several project features and updated project cost estimates,” the update reads. “Project schedule revisions are also currently being assessed. Significant coordination is ongoing between the Corps and state and city of New York.”

A USACE spokesperson confirmed that update last week saying the agency doesn’t expect details of the project to be updated until the end of the year.

He said in late June that the agency expects a contract for an interior drainage portion of the project to be advertised by the end of the year, and that design efforts for other parts remain underway.

The change came a month after the Advance/SILive.com reported on Dec. 8 that Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), who along with Malliotakis has been one of the leading advocates for the project at the federal level, worked to include language in this year’s National Defense Authorization Act that made the federal government responsible for 90% of costs exceeding $615 million.

Cost sharing among the federal, state and city governments became a sticking point as the price-tag ballooned from the project’s initial 2016 authorization of $571 million. A 2019 agreement among the city, state and federal government upped that total to $615 million.

In December, Schumer’s office shared their latest estimate of about $1.67 billion for the project, and last week, pointed to a letter the senator sent last May asking USACE to expedite the project.

That number was nearly the same as the $1.7 billion estimate an official with Mayor Eric Adams’ office shared with the City Council in October. The USACE spokesman said the agency would update its cost estimate by the end of the year.

State and city governments will be responsible for 35% of the costs up to that $615 million threshold, but with the reduced burden after that, Schumer expects the federal legislation to save the city and state hundreds of millions of dollars.

Talk of the project dates back decades, but the federal government first authorized a feasibility study for a coastal storm risk management project along the Island’s coast in 1993.

Motivation for the project was insufficient until Hurricane Sandy decimated the Island’s East Shore in 2012, and received its initial funding in 2016.

When complete, the project will be comprised of internal drainage improvements, a 4.5-mile seawall from Fort Wadsworth to Oakwood Beach, a mile of floodwall and levee along Great Kills Park, and road raising from the shoreline up just past Hylan Boulevard.

PROJECT DELAYS

In part, project delays stem from environmental remediation needed near the park date back to 2020, but early this year, city officials said those conflicts had been resolved.

An NYPD anti-terror flyover in 2005 preparing for a possible “dirty bomb” scenario originally found the radiation around Great Kills Park, which is part of Gateway National Recreation Area. Information about the radiation wasn’t made public until 2006 after a congressional survey.

According to the National Parks Service, New York City chose to landfill the former wetland that now makes up Great Kills Park starting in 1925 in an effort to turn the area into usable property. At the time, waste was commonly used to fill land for such purposes.

The majority of the waste was placed from 1944 to 1948, and the site operated as a city park until 1972 when it transferred to the federal system, according to the Parks Service.

Language in the Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA), which passed in 1980, typically precludes the federal government from handling hazardous waste remediation out of a concern for liability.

Schumer wrote in his letter to the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works, Michael Connor, seeking a policy waiver that would allow the Army to handle the needed cleanup.

“During Hurricane Sandy, Staten Island was flooded all the way up to Hylan Boulevard, devastating thousands of homes and leading to a tragic loss of life,” Schumer wrote. “I am gravely concerned that the lack of any immediate action threatens further project delays and costs, as well as the climate resiliency of Staten Island, and I urge you to agree to a policy waiver to allow the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to remediate the [hazardous, toxic, and radioactive waste] on site as they have elsewhere throughout the country in the past for other projects. Thank you for your att”

Despite that, most of the government and elected officials involved had long believed the Corps would be handling the remediation, but that changed in late 2020 causing the conflict.