Floods and Storms Are Ravaging the Jersey Shore. Why Do We Keep Building It Back?
This Vulnerable Community Feels Left Behind as New York City Builds Seawalls
The case of Edgemere reflects a wider trend among coastal resiliency efforts currently underway across US cities.
"To be over-developed is to hasten decay,
And this is against Tao,
And what is against Tao will soon cease to be." - Lao Tzu, Tao Teh Ching.
#NewYorkCity May Be Sinking Under the Weight of Its #Skyscrapers
A scientific journal suggests that the city’s 1.68 trillion pounds of buildings are causing the city to descend, in some neighborhoods faster than others.
by Tim Nelson, May 17, 2023
Excerpt: "The scholars first estimated the cumulative weight of New York’s buildings to be 1.68 trillion pounds, and then calculated the downward pressure these buildings exert on the mixture of clay, sand, and slit that make up most of the ground beneath the city’s streets.
"Based on their model, New York experiences a '#subsidence rate' (the technical term for sinking) of about one to two millimeters per year on average, though Lower Manhattan, as well as particular areas of Brooklyn and Queens, show a propensity for greater subsidence risk. As the authors note in their paper, much of lower Manhattan is currently no more than one to two meters above sea level, possibly exacerbating the effects of climate change in turn.
"While one to two millimeters per year may not seem that much, the study’s authors warn that this amount is more than enough to cause major coastal cities serious problems in the future. 'The combination of tectonic and anthropogenic subsidence, #SeaLevelRise, and increasing hurricane intensity imply an accelerating problem along coastal and riverfront areas,' the paper states. 'Repeated exposure of building foundations to salt water can corrode reinforcing steel and chemically weaken concrete, causing structural weakening.'
"As the study’s authors further point out, this level of annual collapse could potentially exacerbate the impact of #ExtremeWeather events like #HurricaneSandy, which saw sea water pour into New York."
This proposal also opens the door for #NewYork prosecutors to bring charges against individual #OilExecutives, the memo says.
#RachelRivera, a member of environmental justice group #NewYorkCommunitiesFor Change whose home was destroyed by #HurricaneSandy, expressed support for the proposal. Sandy “was done to us by #oil and #gas companies”, she said.
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