NEW YORK, NY May 24, 2007 —By now most New Yorkers have heard the emphatic call for reducing greenhouse gas emissions in order to make sure the city grows in an environmentally sustainable way. Some of the damage has already been done though and adapting to the effects of a warming earth is also necessary. That means preparing for more frequent and more severe storms. But just how far are New Yorkers ready to go to protect against dangerous floods and powerful winds that may not occur within their lifetime? WNYC’s Cindy Rodriguez reports:

REPORTER: On December 11th, 1992 a powerful NorEaster struck New York City - causing tide waters to rise 7 feet above normal and the wind to whip at 90 mph. There were power failures, transportation breakdowns, and a gated community in Coney Island lost several homes to flooding. The national guard frantically tried to save them:

NATIONAL GUARDSMEN:….The surf is coming in and we’re piling sandbags in front of the house so that the water doesn’t undermine the foundation and wash the house out to sea.

REPORTER: Researchers concur storms such as this one could pummel New York City more often and with greater intensity because of rising temperatures. A hundred year storm for instance – one of the most severe – could happen anywhere from once every forty years to once every four years. Scientists insist these wide ranges are necessary because the environment is a highly complex system with numerous variables. With hundreds of miles of shoreline, there are several low lying areas that could be affected by these storms - portions of Long Island City, Eastern Staten Island and Lower Manhattan are three among dozens.not to mention area airports – both La Guardia and JFK.

REPORTER: On a clear spring day in Battery Park, tourists board a Circle Line boat that will allow them to experience the great skylines of Manhattan from the water. Skate boarders, acrobats, vendors and the average New Yorker trying to take in the sun and the water before heading back to work are also milling around. Malcolm Bowman, an oceanography Professor from Stony Brook University in Long Island is sitting on a bench at the Water’s edge:

BOWMAN: …We’re just a few feet above the water here and this part of Manhattan – the business district is very vulnerable to flooding.

REPORTER: Bowman is the head of a research team studying storm barriers used to keep water from flooding land during severe weather. He believes New York City is need of at least three; one underneath the Verrazano Narrows Bridge, another in the upper east river between the Throgs Neck and the Whitestone Bridge and a third in Perth Amboy to stop water from coming in behind Staten Island:

BOWMAN: They would be made of steel and concrete. When they are closed they would look like sort of a dam and then when they are opened, you can think of barn doors being opened, hinged if you like at the edges to allow the river to discharge, and to allow the tides to come in and out and to allow the ships to pass through unhindered.

REPORTER: Bowman imagines these enormous structures would rise forty feet above the surface of the water and form a protective circle around the city. He says similar but much smaller barriers have proven to be effective in Stamford, Connecticut, Bedford Massachusetts and across the Atlantic in the Thames River of London. He says while it is possible to protect singular vulnerable spots by for instance building small walls around sewage treatment plants or highways such as the FDR Drive– eventually that won’t be enough:

BOWMAN: You can protect on an individual basis but you’ll get to a point where a more unified bold approach is needed to protect the city and that’s where the barriers really need to be considered.

REPORTER: Bowman acknowledges building barriers this large would be a considerable undertaking that would cost in the billions of dollars and with multiple agencies within each branch of government needing to sign off - it could take decades to complete. The city has met with Bowman but says it’s way too early to discuss storm barriers as a viable option. Rit Aggarwala is the city’s Director of Long Term Planning and Sustainability:

AGGARWALA: The fundamental point that we always have to remember is that all of the projections about rising sea levels and storm activity over time still have very wide variabilities.

REPORTER: Scientists may differ on just how much sea levels will rise over the coming decades but what they do agree on is – change is happening. The city plans to monitor levels and submit an annual report that will also keep track of greenhouse gas emissions. Aggarwala says 6 months ago the city and the country were engaged in climate change denial, now it’s important not to over react and engage in climate change hysteria: . AGGARWALA: You would not want to be in a position where you start building a flood barrier, you spend 10 billion dollars on that and you don’t build the second avenue subway as a result and then either you don’t need it or by 2030 it turns out it was too short to begin with.

REPORTER: Aggarwala believes a more prudent approach is to begin correcting outdated flood plain maps and change building codes so that waterfront structures would be more likely to withstand severe weather:

AGGARWALA: It could include things such as insuring that windows can stand up to higher wind speed if we do expect more violent storms. It could have to do with entrance design. There are any number of things but what’s important is not to pre-judge and suggest we know what the answer are right now.

REPORTER: The city believes there are multiple options to adapting to a warmer earth. There is the creation of wetlands to help with water absorption, individual sea walls and when it comes to future building there’s the option of favoring commercial buildings at the waterfront over residential ones since they pose less of an evacuation problem. That’s already a practice in certain parts of the UK:

CONNELL: We are now seeing planning permission being refused on the grounds of flood risk issues

REPORTER: Richenda Connell is from Acclimatise Inc. – a British consulting group that specializes in climate change risk. She recently spoke at a symposium hosted by Columbia University:

CONNELL: The idea is that if climate change is going to increase the risk above an acceptable level then development will not be allowed in those areas. But that’s quite a new development that’s literally in the last year or so.

REPORTER: But in New York City much of the waterfront has just opened up in the last few years and construction is booming. The Brits on the otherhand are not only restricting development but contemplating a coastal retreat. Richenda Connell:

CONNELL: We have this concept in the UK of managed retreat which says that overtime some areas that are currently developed will have to be given up. We haven’t yet had to face that in reality but it’s pretty close and there are some areas of the country where people are going to have to move eventually because it won’t be economical for their government to carry on protecting them in the longer term.

REPORTER: Retreating from Lower Manhattan or Long Island City or Coney Island is probably unfathomable for most New Yorkers. In the UK Connell says it took some major damage and loss of life to change perceptions and make the climate change risks of the future more palpable. for wnyc, I’m Cindy Rodriguez