Tag: water management

Dangerous Development for New York Metropolitan Area Water Management

There is a proposed plan for expanding the Teterboro Airport put forth by the US Army Corps of Engineers.  This plan proposes to fill 11 acres of wetlands around the airport to accommodate aircraft that are increasing in size.  However, filling in these wetlands pose a severe threat to the wellbeing of the surrounding area, both in terms of flooding and biodiversity.  After these wetlands are filled in, impervious asphalt airstrips and parking areas as well as metal hangers will fill the area.

This threat is being downplayed by the project managers, but local politicians and residents are more nervous about the potential expansion of the airport. The Meadowlands area already has issues with dealing with their runoff and flooding and this plan would only further the problem.  The local politicians are pushing for enhanced storm water retention systems to combat the flooding and runoff effects that this plan would potentially cause.  This system would not help to ameliorate the damage to biodiversity that this expansion could cause. Although local politicians and residents are fighting against it, the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection determined the plan was okay and “it does not require local approval.”

The impact on the environment and water management needs to new land development, particularly  when it extends into biodiverse wetlands. Although it seems that its impact is suitable, the fact that there is this much of a public uproar about the possible negative impact of the plan is worrying. Biodiversity needs to be protected and it seems it is being left behind in favor of the efficiency of airports, as the airport is being expanded to fit the growing size of planes. Considering water management is already an issue in this area, a plan that has a distinct possibility of negatively impacting an already tenuous system of water management seems worrying.

Water Management and the Risk of Flooding in America

It is clear that the United States must take on some sort of project for the betterment of our water management systems.  With recent devastation caused by flooding from Hurricane Harvey, Irma, Maria, and others in cities like Houston, Texas and San Juan, Puerto Rico, the need for effective flood control measures are growing increasingly more necessary, particularly in coastal urban areas. Extremely effective flood control measures have been put in place in places like Holland already and the Dutch are dumbfounded as to why the US has not followed suit.

According to the CNN article, after a ravaging 1953 storm in Holland, a country that is 7 feet below sea level, began discussing plans to prevent such an event from happening again. To contrast, since 1953, there have been 11 category 5 hurricanes that hit the US and have caused billions in damage, not to mention the loss of human life.  By 1959, Holland had regulations and a plan of action to build the Delta Works, a system of dams and levees that now protect The Netherlands from catastrophic flooding. Although the project was costly, upwards of 5 billion dollars, this cost is nothing compared to the enormous cost of hurricane damage, both in terms of money and loss of life. Considering the magnitude and extent of these storms are only going to increase with the seemingly unceasing advance of global climate change, the US is long overdue for an improvement in their water management and flood control systems.

The fact that the Federal government has done nothing major to fix this issue of massive flooding, despite the technology being there for quite some time, is concerning.  Not only does not bettering the current flood control systems cost billions and billions of dollars, but it also costs hundreds, if not thousands of lives.  The technology is there, but the government is unwilling to take on the cost of it, despite spending billions per year on military spending, among other  things that seem increasingly frivolous. Although updates to flood control systems are overdue, it is not too late to still implement them; however, considering the current administrations ideas about climate change and government subsidizing public works, it seems that this will not be achieved any time soon.