Hey, there! Log in / Register
Consultant to study if Long Wharf can be saved in rising seas - and used to block flooding downtown
By adamg on Mon, 02/20/2023 - 12:06pm
King tides always a good time to kayak on Long Wharf. Photo by Adam Castiglioni.
The BPDA board last week agreed to spend $880,000 for a consultant to study ways to make Long Wharf, which now floods during particularly high tides, more resilient in higher tides - from water slopping over the end of the wharf and belching up through a storm drain further down, near the Chart House.
The board voted to hire Kleinfelder Northeast to spend a year studying "flood resilience" for the historic wharf - from which the British evacuated Boston in 1776 (and to which they returned in 2018). Today, the end of the wharf also serves as an emergency exit for the Blue Line, which enters the harbor underneath it - while the Atlantic Avenue side has an Aquarium entrance around which the MBTA has built a flood-barrier system.
Under the contract approved by the BPDA, Kleinfelder will study not just preserving the wharf and the businesses on it, but how to keep it from becoming "a flood pathway" from rising harbor waters that could leave the nearby section of downtown under water.
The objective is to, together with the area’s stakeholders, reach consensus on one approach that can be further developed and constructed in subsequent procurements.
The firm was one of five that applied for the job. BPDA staff recommended it in part because it has done work on the city's Climate Ready Boston plan.
Neighborhoods:
Free tagging:
Ad:
Support Universal Hub
Help keep Universal Hub going. If you like what we're up to and want to help out, please consider a (completely non-deductible) contribution.
Comments
This will get complex across
This will get complex across the waterfront fast now. We should as a matter of policy understand how much is reasonably the responsibility of the city and how much the responsibility of landowners. The city should not just assume we will do/pay whatever it takes in the face of inevitably rising seas.
No, that should have been of
No, that should have been of concern 20 years ago, before the rampant and rapid development of areas vulnerable to flooding. Little can be done now. how about 800k for sand bags instead of hiring "consultant". Lots of money has changed hands and the crooks have departed for high ground (Beacon Hill).
There are other ways to deal with it
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seattle_Underground
Seattle wanted flush toilets, so they raised the city off the mud flat. Also worked for their tidal flooding problems.
How much is the responsibility of the city?
I'm going to say zero. Zero sounds good. Build on the water, take your chances. You can't just grab prime real estate-- made prime to a great degree by taxpayer-paid harbor cleanup efforts-- make a pile of money, and then cry poverty when the ocean takes it back.
I kid, of course. Let's pay to help those south side Nantucket homeowners keep their dream mansions from falling into the sea. Makes sense. They-- or their grandparents, anyway-- earned that place, and it's OUR JOB to pay to help them keep it.
We need to block the sea
You can sacrifice long wharf, sure. But the water will flow right over the land into quincy market and the north end. If climate resiliency requires the city to take the land, it should. By paying for it.
The city, well, the BPDA, already owns most of it
The office building and the Chart House are privately owned, but the rest of Long Wharf is owned by the BPDA - which, as the BRA, spent more than ten years losing court battles over whether it could turn that Blue Line emergency exit/shelter into a restaurant.
Take a look at the assessors' map (takes a bit to come up, zoom out, then click on the green).
Gee
Aren't we glad a restaurant wasn't built there now?
That area
Has been flooding before you were born.
Not EVERYTHING is climate CHANGE. Some of it is just climate.
We just rebuilt a huge area
We just rebuilt a huge area between Maverick station and the harbor, I live there it's nice, Charlestown is next. It's definitely climate change and it's a lot of $ we're gonna fight.
Long Wharf
Flooding during a king tide is not climate change, it's been happening forever!
If it is climate change, then climate change must be the result of the pilgrims and not modern energy. Maybe its the result of burning to many tallow candles.
Ignorant troll
Disregard
Sue Exxon
They've known for decades this would happen, but chose to lie about it and throw the planet away so they could make even more insane amounts of money.
According to him
We should probably also sue the East India Company.
Ignorant troll. Disregard.
Ignorant troll. Disregard.
There are going to more king
There are going to more king tides in the future. They are getting a lot more common.
New York City is an island.
New York City is an island. What r they doing?
New York City is a lot of islands, and a bit of mainland
But in any case, the Army Corps of Engineers is looking at $52 billion worth of storm-surge barriers.
Boston is looking at stuff, too - as just one example, Moakley Park's going to be redesigned as a sort of giant bowl that can absorb floodwaters that would otherwise inundate South Boston. Minimizing flooding was a key part of the Suffolk Downs proposal. There's also planning going on for East Boston and Charlestown and along Fort Point Channel.
And apparently the Army Corps of Engineers is looking at bolstering the one flood barrier we actually already have - the Charles River Dam - by possibly replacing the pumps that keep the Charles River Basin from flooding.
As Adam says, New York City
As Adam says, New York City is on several islands, plus part of the US mainland.
One of the smaller but essential things they've been doing is removable anti-flood barriers around low-lying subway entrances near the ocean/river/harbor, because they learned the hard way what happens when huge amounts of salt water flood subway tunnels and destroy the electrical systems.
Australia is also an island
but Alice Springs is not in immediate danger. Island is a broad term.
This is the only way to save Boston
The only way to save the city is to build a barrier using the harbor islands. (see link)
I know I know if will change the ecology of the the water in the inner harbor.
Thats what happened to the Charles river and Mistic when they put barrier dams there.
What do we care more about our built environment and infrastructure being destroyed or the inner harbor becoming brackish water.
Did you know that a normal high tide is 6-8 feet higher than the level of the Charles river?
King tide is around 10 feet higher than the Charles river.
There is now way we are going to accomplish the current approved plan of building barriers around the entirety of the the coastline of the inner harbor.
We are screwed no matter what we do because nothing will be done until the flooding gets bad and floods tunnels, electrical manholes and destroys infrastructure.
By then it's too late.
http://archive.boston.com/bostonglobe/ideas/articles/2010/06/06/defendin...
I'm starting to think that
I'm starting to think this may be the best way. Trying to do our jagged coast load by doing building after building isn't the way to go. We need to stop this further out.. not close to the shore.
Or maybe we should have built this.. abiet with more of a coast follow (but up to Winthrop)
Yeah a highway but I dunno.. after 20 years of it opening underground, and now we have king tides, I'm not so sure a tunnel was a hot idea.
I haven't seen that joke in a
I haven't seen that joke in a few years. Sure, run a new highway (elevated causeway) across one end of the Logan runways.
Yeah its a joke
A joke with a slight bit of merit.
My point of posting this was more about building the levees at the mouth of the harbor needed to support the highway structure in this 'joke'. It almost looks like this
I mean it could have been a two for one banger. Get levees for climate change and a highway to add more to climate change. Win win!
And as far as the runway... I sit here on this warm February night with my windows open listening to the planes take off on L15. I'd be OK with L15 going away.....
Many problems
How high do you go? Won't help if historically precidented meltwater pulses happen.
How do you keep this from transferring the problem to other areas?
Other cities trying these things ended up massively over budget and taking decades longer to finish than projected.
Damage to coastal ecosystems.
(I love the Back the BB tie in, though)
I didn't realize there was going to be a quiz
Otherwise.. ;)
Right all good points.
Tbh the only to meet all your points (and tbh.. probably what we SHOULD be doing).. is just retreat from the coast. Consider what we lose a loss and start considering moving further inland.
its not elegant, but we need to accept that Mother Nature will win eventually.
What about MOSE?
the flood barrier system designed to save Venice. It's the textbook case of decades late and way over budget, but it's finally in operation, and, so far, appears to be effective. There is, of course, no city that has had to think more about flooding than Venice.
https://www.mosevenezia.eu/project/?lang=en
https://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-solutions/2022/11/26/venice-flood...
Venice is also a textbook case for the ethical dilemmas involved in making large public expenditures from which a relatively small number of people actually benefit. Only about 50K people live in Venice proper (there's another 200K on the mainland and other islands). This is slightly less than Framingham.The total cost of MOSE is expected to be around €5.5 billion. Would we spend $5 billion to save Framingham? But it's Venice; there's nothing like it in the world. I mean no disrespect, but you can't say that about Framingham. I think it's worth spending billions to save Venice, but not for the sake of the people who live there, or own property there.
Nope
That's a great handout to the construction industry, though.
Won't ever be enough or done in time if experience of other areas serves.
Maybe we could do what New Bedford did in the 60s
And build a hurricane wall , with one or two ways in and out around inner Boston harbor....
Not feasible
Boston is an outie, not an innie.
The barrier would be between castle island and the airport
It would need some type of opening for boat traffic that could keep the water from pouring in like a lock, but it does appear possible.
Open up the floodgates ...
... to the rising seas!