Boston Harbor Flood Protection Projects

BeyondRevenue said:
The Atlantic Ocean doesn't care about politics, or districts, or political will. It will flood right in and spit us out... unless we play some Dutch level defense right quick.
An Airport Seaport barrier was a half-effort from a quaint time when we actually could have done something to prevent the now inevitable massive inundation to come. Boston's flood plan and everything in it is woefully out of date. Higher sidewalks? Berms? Individual building barriers? Adorable.

How much do you think all the seawater abutting and adjacent vulnerable property on these waterways is worth?
Obviously, Boston Harbor
Lower Charles
Mystic River
Chelsea Creek
Island End River
Malden River
Short Beach Creek
Belle Isle Marsh
Weir River
Straits Pond
Weymouth Fore River
Beal Cove
Weymouth Back River
Mill Cove
Town River
Black's Creek
Squantum
Neponset River
Fort Point Channel

And if we want to control backfill from the north side, a phase 2 might have to involve the Rumney Marsh and the Saugus River borders, too.

Now, how much is all that worth after repeated flood damage and replacement? How about after losing all the unprotected infrastructure to rapid erosion? How would would the Conley Terminal's bonds get paid back if it ends up underwater? How many planes would take off from a submerged Logan International?

I need a governor with a brain and a spine -- tout suite! Eminent domain it all.
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I agree with you on everything you've said here. My only lament is that it's so hard to get any major infrastructure projects done in this country. I'm almost certain that if serious planning for a barrier were undertaken, including an EIS, there would be a major shitstorm of lawsuits over fisheries and everything else to do with the project. I've faced that myself in my career as a civil engineer dealing with the public, the Army Corps and USFWS. I just wish we could come together as a country and get some of these really important projects built.
 
My assumption here is that Winthrop and Hull will be substantially altered, possibly to the point of being unrecognizable, in the construction of a barrier. The current owners in those towns will lose their community, potentially their homes, for a barrier that actually protects OTHER PEOPLE’s homes and communities. I have a hard time imagining a barrier with minimal impact on where it touches the mainland. Many people are going to be displaced and they aren’t going to accept that without a fight.
 
fattony said:
My assumption here is that Winthrop and Hull will be substantially altered, possibly to the point of being unrecognizable, in the construction of a barrier. The current owners in those towns will lose their community, potentially their homes, for a barrier that actually protects OTHER PEOPLE’s homes and communities. I have a hard time imagining a barrier with minimal impact on where it touches the mainland. Many people are going to be displaced and they aren’t going to accept that without a fight.
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While I agree that some Winthrop and Hull residents would probably be opposed to the visual impacts of a flood barrier, I'd imagine a large amount of residents are also aware that rising sea levels will displace a large amount of the population and visually mar the area much more than a barrier ever could. I feel like the flood barrier is unlikely to happen more so because of the cost and complexity of the project and less because of concerns from residents.
 
You have 3 freshwater rivers draining into the same harbor. The change in salinity will obliterate the wildlife in the harbor and destroy its natural defenses. Goodbye marshes at Belle Isle and the Neponset River Estuary, goodbye game fish like striped bass. Hello dependence on machines. It may one day be necessary but it is a dystopian future for a city that spent billions on the harbor cleanup
 
Scott said:
You have 3 freshwater rivers draining into the same harbor. The change in salinity will obliterate the wildlife in the harbor and destroy its natural defenses. Goodbye marshes at Belle Isle and the Neponset River Estuary, goodbye game fish like striped bass. Hello dependence on machines. It may one day be necessary but it is a dystopian future for a city that spent billions on the harbor cleanup
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What you are calling dystopia is your new reality.
Yes. The ecological Acadia. Idyllic. Fine thoughts to have in 1976. But we've all been very stupid, greedy and lazy since then. The salinity is going to be just as fucked if we kill ourselves right now. I am opting for not dying and saving the city. We have to deal with the world we've been given, not the one we could have had.
And if you don't think we're dependent on machines already, well, I don't know what to tell you. The good news is that when we put a sea wall up we can include some locks to be open for the low tide part of the day -- not completely shutting it off. Maybe generate some power. And what water we'll have in the harbor won't be full of floating sewage or surrounding flaming trash piles. Take the win, deal with reality, or get ready to catch stripers on State Street.
 
BeyondRevenue said:
What you are calling dystopia is your new reality.
Yes. The ecological Acadia. Idyllic. Fine thoughts to have in 1976. But we've all been very stupid, greedy and lazy since then. The salinity is going to be just as fucked if we kill ourselves right now. I am opting for not dying and saving the city. We have to deal with the world we've been given, not the one we could have had.
And if you don't think we're dependent on machines already, well, I don't know what to tell you. The good news is that when we put a sea wall up we can include some locks to be open for the low tide part of the day -- not completely shutting it off. Maybe generate some power. And what water we'll have in the harbor won't be full of floating sewage or surrounding flaming trash piles. Take the win, deal with reality, or get ready to catch stripers on State Street.
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👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽👏🏽

We can no longer continue to fall in love with the harbor as we know it. We have to fall in line. I’ll always have memories of going to Lewis Wharf with my dad, but we have to be realistic.

My dad and I were walking near the Christopher Columbus Statue and him being the Bostonian Historian, he gave me lots of history about the Charles River Dam. I asked him why the dam was there, and his answer was simple. “Because the Charles would be flooded everyday.”
 
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There needs to be established a national fund at the Federal level to help fund flood barriers for coastal cities, something on the order of magnitude of the Interstate Highway program launched in the 1950s. The Big Did Central Artery and Ted Williams Tunnel project was $15-20 billion. comparable in cost to a Winthrop-Hull flood barrier. So, the Winthrop-Hull flood barrier funding could be fundable politically if looked at in that light.
 
Charlie_mta said:
There needs to be established a national fund at the Federal level to help fund flood barriers for coastal cities, something on the order of magnitude of the Interstate Highway program launched in the 1950s. The Big Did Central Artery and Ted Williams Tunnel project was $15-20 billion. comparable in cost to a Winthrop-Hull flood barrier. So, the Winthrop-Hull flood barrier funding could be fundable politically if looked at in that light.
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Yep. And it’d be a shame if the Big Dig was perma- flooded because nobody remembered how science — or even a tape measure — works. Honestly, unless we get some reasonable people in the flyover state’s senate seats, those conservatives will be content to let us drown. Even though most of them are ruralite tax leeches who we keep paying to keep flush in federal benefits. I am sadly resigned to watching everything I’ve come to love about this city and the people in in it to slowly get eaten by the sea because of the fascist fuckwits who can scream louder than I can.
 
Clearly few discussions will ever be based on reality any more because somebody told the children at SSP where we are
 
You don't have to listen but this blaming of the locals cuz they is dum is tiresome. This, like a lot of things, is far more complicated than that
 
Scalziand said:
^https://skyscraperpage.com/forum/index.php
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Yeah I was thinking that SSP bit was a dismissive inside-baseball kind of comment
For everyone reading this, don't get me wrong. I dig everything we discuss here on aB.
I'm a YIMBY.
I want a few more awesome trophy skyscrapers.
I want the NSRL to the exclusion of almost any other project in the world.
I think parking lots are a blight, the suburbs were a shit idea, and urban infill gives me a chubby.
I want it all.
But
When public projects are proposed on this forum, we hear almost exclusively about the fiscal impossibility without ever really acknowledging the very. fucking. real. threat. of climate change.
Money is notional. High tides are real.
Land speculation is a gamble. Massive forecasted insurance losses are real.
Business as usual is a delusion. Science-based thinking is smart.
The recent development past is not an example of future behavior. It's a hubritic diorama from a future history class.
 
BeyondRevenue said:
What you are calling dystopia is your new reality.
Yes. The ecological Acadia. Idyllic. Fine thoughts to have in 1976. But we've all been very stupid, greedy and lazy since then. The salinity is going to be just as fucked if we kill ourselves right now. I am opting for not dying and saving the city. We have to deal with the world we've been given, not the one we could have had.
And if you don't think we're dependent on machines already, well, I don't know what to tell you. The good news is that when we put a sea wall up we can include some locks to be open for the low tide part of the day -- not completely shutting it off. Maybe generate some power. And what water we'll have in the harbor won't be full of floating sewage or surrounding flaming trash piles. Take the win, deal with reality, or get ready to catch stripers on State Street.
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Yeah but some posters here feel the MOST at-risk landOWNERS along the coast in Hull/Winthrop are both actual and economically suicidal for some strange, unknowable reason (beautiful views? Right wing tax conservatives?). Why would anyone shoot themselves in the head because they love their feet?
 
Charlie_mta said:
There needs to be established a national fund at the Federal level to help fund flood barriers for coastal cities, something on the order of magnitude of the Interstate Highway program launched in the 1950s. The Big Did Central Artery and Ted Williams Tunnel project was $15-20 billion. comparable in cost to a Winthrop-Hull flood barrier. So, the Winthrop-Hull flood barrier funding could be fundable politically if looked at in that light.
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Well, that's not happening on the federal level, so states and cities will have to find their own solutions.
 
Wash said:
Well, that's not happening on the federal level, so states and cities will have to find their own solutions.
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Not only is it not happening at the federal level, there are those in congress who intentionally want coastal cities to fail and probably see this as an opportunity toward that end (while they lie through their teeth to their constituents about climate change being fake). Let's fund it locally, use it as an opportunity to thrive, and in doing so, set the standard for how everyone else will want/need to act following our lead. This is how some of the most effective national policy has been set historically: by local example that showed itself to be too good to pass up (see: labor policy reform that began locally in Wisconsin and set the stage for a national movement/the New Deal).

Side note: this is how billionaire philanthropists basically waste all their money instead of having any real impact. They spread $$ like peanut butter globally, funding billions across vast areas such that local impact is near zero at any given spot. Instead, they should create models for success that are hyper local and meant to set a slam-dunk example to be replicated by others.
 
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YIMBY or YIYBY? However, plowing ahead uninformed may not result in an actual solution. Yes, I remember 1976 but I wasn't born in 2006. Listen to the old people, they know from experience how the best of intentions can go terribly wrong
 
Scott said:
You have 3 freshwater rivers draining into the same harbor. The change in salinity will obliterate the wildlife in the harbor and destroy its natural defenses. Goodbye marshes at Belle Isle and the Neponset River Estuary, goodbye game fish like striped bass. Hello dependence on machines. It may one day be necessary but it is a dystopian future for a city that spent billions on the harbor cleanup
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Flood barriers of this type are usually open to circulation except at times of severe tide threat. You typically allow some level of tidal flushing inside the barrier.
 
I think there is a lot of misunderstanding about the nature of the proposed Winthrop to Hull barrier alignment.

That barrier would extend from the tip of Deer Island to the tip of Hull. It protects a small portion of Winthrop and Hull inside the barrier (harbor facing parts), but the majority of both communities are outside the barrier (ocean facing parts).

So the communities would face the disruption of barrier construction, but not the benefits. (Any barrier has to end someplace, so this will always be an issue.)
 
shmessy said:
Yeah but some posters here feel the MOST at-risk landOWNERS along the coast in Hull/Winthrop are both actual and economically suicidal for some strange, unknowable reason (beautiful views? Right wing tax conservatives?). Why would anyone shoot themselves in the head because they love their feet?
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You have me convinced that this project could be sold to the local stakeholders. Civilizations collapse because people get entitled, lazy and myopic, but I have faith the people of Mass will see the big picture and think about a world for their children and grandchildren. Just a few years ago I worked directly with native coastal villages in western Alaska who were in the planning stage to relocate their villages, in which the coastline had already migrated several hundred feet inland in the last 70 years. Of course there was no dedicated Federal program for this type of climate change impact project, but a couple of the native Tribes managed to scrape together barely enough funds from various Federal pots to move their villages. So, where there's a will there's a way.
 
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