Full Transcript for Billion-Dollar Projects vs. Thousand-Dollar Solutions

that we're doing that's new is taking on actually projects and plans around neighborhood level resiliency. 00:05:02.639 --> 00:05:05.839 And so one example is at Flushing Meadows Corona Park. 00:05:05.920 --> 00:05:11.360 We just wrapped up last year a resiliency study looking at how to reduce flooding within the park. 00:05:11.439 --> 00:05:15.920 And it's a park that floods one of the parks that floods the most in New York City, but it's not really known. 00:05:16.000 --> 00:05:26.560 It's it's super low-lying, and um it used to be filled with tree uh streams and and creeks and tributaries that were filled in to create the World's Fair and the park that we know today. 00:05:26.639 --> 00:05:32.720 Um so we worked with the parks department to actually put together a study and some recommendations for how to reduce flooding in the park. 00:05:32.959 --> 00:05:43.839 Similarly, we're in the middle of a project right now along the Coney Island Creek, looking at how to reduce flooding for the Coney Island community um and some of that flooding that's coming in on the creek side. 00:05:44.000 --> 00:05:52.720 And so that's a little bit of what I'm excited about is getting some some wins hopefully in the budget for resiliency, but then also moving forward on these kind of local plans for resilience. 00:05:53.920 --> 00:05:55.600 Fingers crossed for the budget. 00:05:55.839 --> 00:05:59.839 And yeah, our parks are so important in thinking about green infrastructure. 00:06:00.399 --> 00:06:07.920 So, Sam, you uh are co-founder and principal at Field Form, which is not your typical landscape design firm. 00:06:08.160 --> 00:06:19.360 Your company thinks collectively, you work across block association, uh, you're building data, and you're really encouraging policy that helps the city see stormwater at a neighborhood level. 00:06:19.519 --> 00:06:23.519 So, can you give us a little bit of background on Field Form and the philosophy behind it? 00:06:23.920 --> 00:06:24.079 Sure. 00:06:24.160 --> 00:06:27.360 So Field Form has been in existence for about seven or eight years. 00:06:27.519 --> 00:06:41.360 We're a small landscape design and build firm, and we've been responding to the perspectives of our clients who are mostly living in residential properties, primarily in Brooklyn, a little bit in Queens, Manhattan, some of the Bronx. 00:06:41.600 --> 00:06:48.480 And we've recognized sort of like uh firsthand flooding has gotten a lot worse over the last few years, as we all know. 00:06:48.639 --> 00:06:57.199 And we have tried to, in the most simplest way, be able to communicate how flooding is affecting any given property and what can be done about it. 00:06:57.360 --> 00:06:58.800 So, what the solutions look like. 00:06:58.959 --> 00:07:13.360 We've worked on at this point hundreds of individual properties, and so and at a certain point over the last few years, we've just decided that we need to just scale out a little bit and try to identify where these

properties are located adjacent to one another. 00:07:13.600 --> 00:07:22.720 As we all know, and you mentioned Cassandra, obviously, stormwater not behaving according to property lines, and we feel like we need to design accordingly to that. 00:07:22.959 --> 00:07:26.800 So we are really looking at the block as the unit of design. 00:07:26.959 --> 00:07:41.920 There's strong social ties that exist already within blocks and neighbors, and we're trying to leverage those relationships and those connections to create a stronger, more practical design perspective by which to incorporate a lot of these retrofits. 00:07:42.000 --> 00:07:54.160 There it's a lot of really small interventions, and the philosophy is that if you do thousands of really small interventions, it can actually support the larger scale capital improvement projects that are happening at the same time. 00:07:54.240 --> 00:08:01.519 So we feel strongly that both of these are very important needs and they need to be sort of implemented in parallel with one another. 00:08:01.680 --> 00:08:14.639 And as we try to make these improvements on the ground, we also have an eye towards city policy to the extent that we think that uh we'd like to promote the notion of a distributed neighborhood scale kind of infrastructure initiative into the minds of New Yorkers. 00:08:16.000 --> 00:08:24.720 What Sam calls out, not just in design solution, but in the strong social ties that exist within blocks and among neighbors, is essential social capital. 00:08:24.879 --> 00:08:32.720 It's hard to measure, but when a crisis happens and we can only expect more storms, more emergencies, you have to lean on who is around you. 00:08:32.960 --> 00:08:44.720 Having neighbors collaborate on something as tangible as flooding, is a way to strengthen those social threads, to get to know each other better before the next storm arrives or before the next storm arrives. 00:08:45.039 --> 00:09:04.159 To pivot a bit back to Tyler, when I think about flood resilience as a New Yorker, uh I tend to think of the larger projects that happen in lower Manhattan that are pretty far away from what Sam's describing of like block by block, but these like really large billion-dollar infrastructure projects. 00:09:04.320 --> 00:09:07.279 Can you give us an example of what one of these looks like? 00:09:07.600 --> 00:09:08.080 Absolutely. 00:09:08.240 --> 00:09:12.240 I'll just say before that, I totally agree with Sam's um philosophy. 00:09:12.480 --> 00:09:27.279 There are these capital big, big, multi-million, sometimes billion dollar infrastructure projects the city is working on, but that's only so much and only protecting so much, and there's so much more that has to happen inland on that kind of neighborhood by neighborhood block by block approach. 00:09:27.360 --> 00:09:35.519 I just want to you know support a lot of the work that that Sam you're doing and and just echo the importance of addressing the problem in a comprehensive and holistic way. 00:09:35.759 --> 00:09:49.679 So to get to the the billion-dollar kind of project, you mentioned Lower Manhattan, so maybe I'll start with what I think of as the kind of signature project in that Lower Manhattan Coastal Resilience Portfolio, and that's the Eastside Coastal Resiliency Project. 00:09:49.919 --> 00:09:57.919 That is a project that spans around two and a half miles of waterfront around East River Park or Astra Levy Park. 00:09:58.000 --> 00:10:07.279 And for those that are familiar with the neighborhood, all of these projects that we're talking about in the Lower Manhattan Coastal Resilience Portfolio, they were all born out of Hurricane Sandy. 00:10:07.360 --> 00:10:16.080 They were all post-Sandy ideas and post-Sandy funding, a big eye toward coastal and hurricane storm risk. 00:10:16.159 --> 00:10:24.320 And so the Eastside Coastal Resilience Project alone was around, I think, one and a half billion dollars, mostly funded by New York City. 00:10:24.480 --> 00:10:31.039 There was some federal cost share that came in there, but that's actually one that New York City poured a lot of money into themselves. 00:10:31.279 --> 00:10:34.559 If you go south of that, you have the Brooklyn Bridge Montgomery project. 00:10:34.720 --> 00:10:37.759 I think that's around$520 or$550 million. 00:10:38.000 --> 00:10:44.000 South of that is the Financial District Seaport project, Climate Resilience Plan, by far the largest price tag. 00:10:44.080 --> 00:10:49.120 I think that one's estimated at around$5 or$6 billion if construction started today. 00:10:49.519 --> 00:10:56.159 The city's own estimates show that if you started construction in 2029 for that project, it'd be closer to$8 or$9 billion. 00:10:56.639 --> 00:10:58.320 So we are talking billions. 00:10:58.480 --> 00:11:05.679 There's a question here about how scalable that is and how realistic I guess that is to happen across New York City's 520 miles of shoreline. 00:11:05.919 --> 00:11:14.960 But to go back to Eastside Coastal Resilience, that is a project that the city installed 18 swing and sliding gates across the two and a half miles of waterfront. 00:11:15.200 --> 00:11:20.399 Those gates would shut in the event of a major hurricane or coastal storm. 00:11:20.559 --> 00:11:21.840 And again, there's 18 of them. 00:11:21.919 --> 00:11:23.200 You can actually find them in the park. 00:11:23.279 --> 00:11:24.480 They're numbered one through eighteen. 00:11:24.559 --> 00:11:31.679 So if people want to go out and look in East River Park, you can see each of the gates and you can kind of tell which ones slide and which ones swing. 00:11:32.080 --> 00:11:34.240 That's a huge part of the fabric of that project. 00:11:34.399 --> 00:11:40.240 Another thing the project did was elevate portions of East River Park in some areas by eight to ten feet. 00:11:40.399 --> 00:11:47.200 That's also to address the surge that would come in and also sea levels, you know, sea

levels rising and making tidal flooding more frequent. 00:11:47.360 --> 00:11:52.720 Importantly, the city added some level of adaptability into that project to allow for future add-ons. 00:11:53.039 --> 00:11:56.960 So you could actually build an additional two feet of elevation if you needed to. 00:11:57.039 --> 00:12:06.399 And I think that's kind of something that if we're thinking about adaptation and resilience, that has to be something that's embedded in all of the projects, is thinking about how you would adjust them in the future as climate conditions change. 00:12:06.879 --> 00:12:31.919 And then the last kind of tidbit on the Eastside Coastal Resilience Project is that I talked a lot about the coastal features, but there is also a big stormwater control for that project that the Department of Design and Construction calls parallel conveyance, where this the city essentially installed new sewer pipes alongside the existing ones, and that would help to increase capacity and reduce some of the flooding inland after a rainfall event. 00:12:32.240 --> 00:12:39.759 That project protects the city estimates around 110,000 people, a lot of whom are NYCHA um tenants right behind East River Park. 00:12:39.919 --> 00:12:41.120 And so it's a great project. 00:12:41.200 --> 00:12:43.679 We're really excited to see those kinds of projects come to life. 00:12:43.840 --> 00:12:52.720 To go back to my first point there, how realistic is it that we're going to get one and a half billion dollars invested across every stretch of shoreline across New York City? 00:13:00.399 --> 00:13:06.320 Yeah, I remember I moved to New York City maybe like six months before Hurricane Sandy. 00:13:06.480 --> 00:13:08.720 A good chunk of Manhattan was shut down. 00:13:08.960 --> 00:13:19.840 Um I couldn't start my job at like a local Starbucks, the economic impact and the ways in which this city has been thinking about when the next really big hurricane comes in. 00:13:20.000 --> 00:13:23.840 These types of large-scale infrastructure projects make a lot of sense. 00:13:24.080 --> 00:13:27.360 That's really interesting about the park and being able to see the number of the gates. 00:13:27.440 --> 00:13:28.879 I'm gonna have to go do that. 00:13:28.960 --> 00:13:37.840 Um but I think when we uh the types of cloud bursts we've been experiencing, a lot of New Yorkers inland are experiencing flooding. 00:13:38.000 --> 00:13:49.840 When I was in Bedsty uh close to Herbert Von King Park, we definitely had raw sewage flood into our basement uh during uh what was that, like September 2021. 00:13:49.919 --> 00:13:58.159 Um, and so when we think about where the city also needs to be really heavily investing in, is thinking about these more block-by-block solutions. 00:13:58.480 --> 00:14:15.360 So, Sam, can you share a bit around what a much smaller ticketed price uh investment looks like and then what that could also entail if you're if you're doing it for the entire block or if you're thinking about it from a watershed perspective? 00:14:16.240 --> 00:14:19.200 These little interventions are things that we all know. 00:14:19.360 --> 00:14:20.320 They're very common. 00:14:20.559 --> 00:14:24.159 A lot of them you could do yourself with a little bit of sweat equity. 00:14:24.320 --> 00:14:41.919 They range from downspout diversion, so diverting water from your rooftop into your garden theoretically, rather than having it continue as it normally would into the sewer, a rain garden, an infiltration chamber, the right type of planting with gravel in the right place, a French strain. 00:14:42.080 --> 00:14:44.879 These are all things which can make a little bit of a difference. 00:14:44.960 --> 00:14:48.000 And for us, the key is being strategic. 00:14:48.240 --> 00:14:53.120 It's important to know exactly where a property is located and what the flood exposure may be. 00:14:53.200 --> 00:14:59.120 And then the strategies that would be implemented can be done according to where the most need is. 00:14:59.360 --> 00:15:02.960 And so on the block scale, we look at every property on the block. 00:15:03.039 --> 00:15:05.440 We have a tool that we use called flood form. 00:15:05.759 --> 00:15:07.279 It's a site analysis tool. 00:15:07.440 --> 00:15:12.000 It allows us to know which properties are exposed to which type of flooding. 00:15:12.159 --> 00:15:15.600 Some properties have none, some properties have all four. 00:15:15.759 --> 00:15:28.480 We we have a project in Greenpoint that literally has all four types of flooding, including coastal sewage, stormwater runoff, and groundwater all happening at the same, not the exact same day, but sometimes you know there's overlap. 00:15:28.720 --> 00:15:30.000 So it can get pretty extreme. 00:15:30.080 --> 00:15:35.279 And then other properties have no problems with flooding whatsoever, and you can have both those properties on the same block. 00:15:35.440 --> 00:15:40.320 So really getting strategic, looking into the details is critically important. 00:15:40.559 --> 00:16:03.840 The uh the idea is that if you can target, let's say, you know, 15 or 20 properties on the block that either have the most exposure or have the most potential to mitigate flooding coming upstream to downstream, then those are going to be the properties that we think uh are the best candidates for these types of small scale interventions. 00:16:03.919 --> 00:16:07.120 And we try to communicate those on a property-by-property scale. 00:16:07.200 --> 00:16:10.639 At the same time, we can communicate that to a block scale, which we've done in the past. 00:16:11.200 --> 00:16:18.000 Give us some examples of what the cost might be, like on the lower end for a property versus the higher end. 00:16:18.159 --> 00:16:21.039 I'm assuming this is not$100,000, but less. 00:16:37.679 --> 00:16:47.679 If you have a potentially well-drained soil, but you've got you know three feet of anthropomorphic backfill on top of it

when the building was constructed and they threw a bunch of clay back there. 00:16:47.840 --> 00:16:50.720 But you need to dig down, you know, four feet or so. 00:16:51.039 --> 00:17:06.720 It could be upwards of thirty thousand dollars if you need the diversion, banded drains, you want to install a nice linear drain, you want to connect it to a really large uh stormwater chamber, and then have it kind of flow back into the area drain. 00:17:06.880 --> 00:17:15.119 If you're trying to manage three inches uh of static capacity, we would call it, which on an average townhouse uh area would be probably around 1,500 gallons. 00:17:15.200 --> 00:17:19.039 Uh it could be it could be over 20,000 into the 30,000 range. 00:17:19.119 --> 00:17:36.480 But if you just have a typical house and you're trying to capture one inch, which is what we aim for because that's kind of a retrofit equivalent of what DEP expects through the unified stormwater rule, we're pretty confident it should be done at the absolute maximum would be 10,000, but closer to 5,000. 00:17:36.799 --> 00:17:38.160 That's a goal that we've looked at. 00:17:38.319 --> 00:17:40.559 Everything's kind of in between those two ranges. 00:17:40.720 --> 00:17:42.960 It's relatively low cost to make some impact. 00:17:43.119 --> 00:17:46.319 These solutions are really fast to deploy and implement. 00:17:46.559 --> 00:17:50.319 Even the one that was should be installed five to seven working days. 00:17:50.559 --> 00:17:56.160 We like to also discuss maintenance because maintenance is very important for long-term impact. 00:17:56.400 --> 00:18:03.680 These systems need to be installed so that they can be easily maintained, preferably either by the people that live there or by somebody that they can call upon. 00:18:03.759 --> 00:18:06.079 And it's very simple and obvious what needs to be done. 00:18:06.240 --> 00:18:13.039 Looking forward to the future, we don't want people to be spending money that's um just going into the ground and there's no way to access it. 00:18:13.359 --> 00:18:16.880 You want to be able to make sure that this can continue to perform as storms get worse. 00:18:17.279 --> 00:18:23.519 I know in some richer neighborhoods you might have homeowners or landlords who can just pay out of pocket. 00:18:23.839 --> 00:18:31.279 For folks who don't have that, what are some solutions that you find for your firm getting paid? 00:18:31.680 --> 00:18:34.799 There's some uh 0% interest loans. 00:18:34.880 --> 00:18:37.519 Uh Hebrew Free Loan Society is a good example of that. 00:18:37.680 --> 00:18:51.599 Um let's say you want a system that's gonna cost$5,000, maybe$7,500, and you're willing to take out a loan uh and you make under a certain amount of money, you just call them up and apply, and they're looking for people to do so. 00:18:51.759 --> 00:18:53.359 I know that from firsthand experience. 00:18:53.599 --> 00:18:55.839 There's a couple other grant programs floating around. 00:18:56.000 --> 00:19:04.000 There's probably uh a state uh resilient retrofit program that's going to be available uh later this summer into the fall. 00:19:04.079 --> 00:19:13.279 It's a mixed grant, uh low-interest loan uh kind of hybrid option, and the funding uh amount for that is a bit higher. 00:19:13.359 --> 00:19:16.079 I think it's up to potentially even$50,000. 00:19:16.480 --> 00:19:29.680 As we move through 2026 into 2027, there might be some more viable options for you know what we tend to see in terms of your average um retrofit kind of uh expense. 00:19:29.839 --> 00:19:34.160 There's some other grant programs that are out there that we haven't had that much success with. 00:19:34.240 --> 00:19:37.359 Um there's also the insurance uh options. 00:19:37.759 --> 00:19:48.559 We have parametric insurance in our office, which floods well, not so much anymore since we've installed all of these sort of micro mitigation systems, but it did flood when we moved in there. 00:19:48.720 --> 00:19:54.960 That's that's an insurance policy that is um activated by an on-grip-the-ground sensor. 00:19:55.119 --> 00:20:01.039 You have to be eligible to have that installed, but they let us do it, and we're pretty close to being in a flood zone. 00:20:01.119 --> 00:20:04.799 So I think it's more flexible maybe than your traditional insurance policies. 00:20:04.960 --> 00:20:07.039 We pay about$850 a year. 00:20:07.200 --> 00:20:20.960 If we get eight inches of water, not necessarily rainfall, but water where the sensor is located, it triggers an automatic$20,000 payout that goes into our account within 48 hours. 00:20:21.119 --> 00:20:26.319 And we have that system because we feel confident in the little interventions that we've already done. 00:20:26.480 --> 00:20:32.480 We just want to make sure in the event of a really, really big storm, we can get some money back really quickly. 00:20:32.799 --> 00:20:35.839 It's typically a product that's available for small businesses. 00:20:36.079 --> 00:20:38.319 We've seen homeowners purchase it as well. 00:20:38.480 --> 00:21:00.960 It's a really good sort of mini-day uh security market mixings, maybe some low interest 0% loans if they're available to you, and some of the new grant opportunities that should be coming out this year and next uh with that type of insurance policy is a pretty good way to uh ensure that you're not going to experience a huge cost from massive damage. 00:21:01.440 --> 00:21:05.359 It's great to hear that there's some additional options down the line. 00:21:05.519 --> 00:21:13.599 And both of you have talked about the three different ways in which we're experiencing flooding, coastal rainfall, and then of course groundwater. 00:21:13.920 --> 00:21:25.920 So, Tyler, when we think about flood resilience, uh yeah, there's this bigger question of like where is all the funding going to come from for all the different solutions we need to explore as a city. 00:21:26.079 --> 00:21:31.279

Our uh city agency DEP is responsible for major green and great infrastructure. 00:21:31.519 --> 00:21:40.160 They're not an agency that usually comes into the budget season feeling very confident or leaving very confident, and that's probably not going to change. 00:21:40.319 --> 00:21:53.440 You've mentioned that some of these larger scale projects didn't use as much federal funding, the city and perhaps the state put in money, but we know that budgets are going to be really tough these next couple of years. 00:21:53.839 --> 00:22:10.799 Has there been any conversation around a shift in the scale or type of investments in being discussed and I'll I'll also add that when I just think of the different ways in which uh a field forum is able to offer local residents, you know, is there is there any kind of crossover. 00:22:11.200 --> 00:22:11.519 Yeah. 00:22:11.680 --> 00:22:13.519 Um it's a good question. 00:22:14.000 --> 00:22:24.400 I think the east side coastal resilience example is a rare exception in the city putting up a majority of the funding for a large scale coastal infrastructure project. 00:22:24.559 --> 00:22:32.880 I most, if not all, of the other projects that the city is looking at for coastal resilience rely very heavily on federal funding. 00:22:33.279 --> 00:22:39.519 The financial district seaport project that I mentioned, the city is not looking at really funding that in any major way. 00:22:39.759 --> 00:22:45.680 We've been advocating for pennies on the dollar to keep that project just in the engagement and design phase alive. 00:22:45.920 --> 00:22:58.319 Advocating for seven and a half million dollars in the budget this year just to continue the level of community engagement and getting the project into some level of concept design so that it could be eligible for some construction funding. 00:22:58.480 --> 00:23:04.160 Seven and a half million is what we're arguing for on a you know five to eight billion dollar project. 00:23:04.240 --> 00:23:09.440 So I don't think the city has real plans for funding large-scale coastal infrastructure. 00:23:09.599 --> 00:23:19.759 We can talk a little bit about inland and stormwater because I do think you know Hurricane Ida and all of these cloudburst events that we've been talking about has has in a lot of ways shifted the city's uh perspective. 00:23:19.920 --> 00:23:30.240 There's lots of great projects that are coming out in the kind of stormwater front and inland flooding front, which is good, but we we continue to call for thinking about it in a more comprehensive way. 00:23:30.480 --> 00:23:33.359 If I could just do like a quick um math exercise. 00:23:33.519 --> 00:23:59.440 After Hurricane Sandy, the Army Corps of Engineers was tapped to look at the highest risk areas in the North Atlantic coast uh and New York and New Jersey's harbor region was identified as i the highest or one of the highest areas of risk and they've been working on a study called the Harbor and Tributary Study or HATS as we like to call it that's a proposal for addressing the kind of coastal storm surge, hurricane risk across the New York and New Jersey Harbor region. 00:23:59.680 --> 00:24:10.640 And the project that the Army Corps selected in collaboration with New York State and New Jersey was one that had like a$52 or$53 billion price tag on it. 00:24:10.799 --> 00:24:17.119 And that was a few years ago so I'm sure that number has gone up because let's just use that$52 billion number. 00:24:17.519 --> 00:24:29.920 At a city council hearing a couple years ago the former DEP commissioner and chief climate officer testified around um what it would cost for stormwater um projects on the public right of way. 00:24:30.000 --> 00:24:36.880 This is all kind of thinking about the you know public uh city state federal infrastructure investments a little different than what I think Sam is talking about. 00:24:37.039 --> 00:24:49.039 And in there in the in DEP's estimates that it would cost around$30 billion to achieve what they say is some basic level of stormwater resilience across 80 priority sites around the city. 00:24:49.279 --> 00:25:10.480 Some estimates have it much higher if you're talking about full stormwater resilience, something ridiculous like$250 billion, but just for the sake of of sanity and for this conversation, let's assume$30 billion for stormwater,$52 billion for coastal infrastructure, so the city staring down the barrel potentially of like$82 billion for flood solutions on the coastal and stormwater front. 00:25:10.559 --> 00:25:15.599 Again, this is not perfect math but just for some level of awareness of what options have been put out there. 00:25:15.839 --> 00:25:22.319 And so it's very unrealistic to think that the city is going to be able to pay for all of that on its own, especially just in the public right of way. 00:25:22.720 --> 00:25:27.039 You're right that federal funding has been shrinking and going missing considerably. 00:25:27.119 --> 00:25:50.000 I think we were coming out of a moment with the bipartisan infrastructure law in the IRA where there was a huge injection of investment into the federal government's strongest resilience infrastructure funding programs, that being HUD's community block development grant, FEMA's BRIC building resilient infrastructure and communities program, EPA was announcing a large kind of community change grant. 00:25:50.160 --> 00:25:54.480 So there was all this money available for planning infrastructure it's not there anymore. 00:25:54.559 --> 00:26:04.400 And so it really does beg the question of where do we go from here and how reliant should the city be on federal funding alone to solve this problem. 00:26:04.640 --> 00:26:18.000 I want to throw a little bit of shade at the city's Office of Management and Budget who in a lot of ways does kind of throw their hands up and say coastal resilience not sure that's something that the city is fully responsible for federal fund federal

government can help. 00:26:18.240 --> 00:26:23.279 This is a perfect moment to look at that strategy and say that's not a reliable strategy. 00:26:23.519 --> 00:26:32.880 We want support from the federal government and and would you know want a lot of that funding to come back but it's not enough to just put all your eggs in that basket and say the federal government's going to bail us out. 00:26:33.119 --> 00:26:44.799 The federal government is good at providing resources when it comes to a post-disaster recovery but not as good at a proactive building resilience into these projects ahead of time model. 00:26:45.119 --> 00:26:52.400 It was starting to get there with FEMA brick but that has really really started to take a downward fall under the under the Trump administration. 00:26:52.559 --> 00:27:07.279 We need to think about how the city is going to invest dedicated sustained funding in these projects that's really the key is so that we're not just thinking of it as a disaster hits okay now we got to unlock millions of bit millions or billions of dollars into a community. 00:27:07.599 --> 00:27:28.000 You can actually do it on a much more year by year baselined funding build the steps toward those projects get things shovel ready and then maybe leverage federal funding for those plans that already have been conceptualized by the city with the community and the neighborhoods that they're in that's a much better model in our mind for how we should be investing here. 00:27:28.400 --> 00:27:39.440 And the last thing I'll say is just to support a lot of what Sam is is talking about these grant programs and and just the work that the private property has to play in this world is really, really key. 00:27:39.680 --> 00:27:46.480 The city can only do so much in the public right of way and we're out there trust me calling for them to do everything they can in the public right of way. 00:27:46.640 --> 00:28:21.599 But there is a lot that private property has to do in a city that is so built and so dense like New York City we are looking at other kinds of resources and tools and and potentially fee mechanisms that could incentivize this kind of green infrastructure and retrofitting for property owners, for landlords to play in that kind of play in the team that the city is a part of but that private property is also yeah and when I think about the intersection of these billion dollar large scale projects and then the opportunity for working with private properties I think of the Gowanus watershed. 00:28:21.759 --> 00:28:33.039 And Sam Fuel Form is working on a white paper on earlier draft of that informs what I'm going to lay out which is that at the bottom of the Gowanas watershed is the Gowanas Canal. 00:28:33.119 --> 00:28:47.119 It's a super fun site it's where every time there's uh a major storm there's raw sewage that comes out partial solution has been these over billion dollar stormwater retention tanks that will be online soon. 00:28:47.359 -->

00:29:20.559 And what you and your colleagues if you think about the slope, the hill that leads down into down to the canal, if you were to find a way to work with say like 700 properties across the slope using these interventions that are maybe$20,000,$15,000 per building um which would mean you'd need around what like$15 million, you could get around 25% of the retention capacity of these billion dollar tanks, which is 3% of the cost. 00:29:21.039 --> 00:29:31.039 Can you talk about uh that math uh still makes sense since I am using it uh broadly in conversations and thinking about block by block interventions. 00:29:31.119 --> 00:29:36.000 It's kind of what you're doing at the micro can really make a a significant impact at the macro. 00:29:36.319 --> 00:29:44.960 Sure yeah I think I look I think the reality is nobody knows how to uh work the math out and it's because these storms are so unpredictable. 00:29:45.279 --> 00:29:50.480 And um we saw last October 30th it actually rained one inch in 15 minutes. 00:29:50.720 --> 00:30:08.880 That wasn't widely reported because it's hard to get quick reporting on precipitation accumulation in kind of the normal media world that we have it's you know there's a lot of um unknowns right after a storm hits but those types of precipitation levels change uh the reality and we we're expecting that. 00:30:09.119 --> 00:30:13.519 So the CSO, the combined sewer overflows fundamentally it's about timing and volume. 00:30:13.680 --> 00:30:38.559 Those tanks that are being built where they're being built based on um uh the outfall area so the Owls had 0007 and the Red Hook 034 tanks they will function very well to manage a high percentage of you know the potential precipitation one of the issues is just that they're very expensive you know to Tyler's point like doing it everywhere where they're needed is unrealistic in terms of how much money it really does cost. 00:30:38.640 --> 00:30:43.200 You know, Gowanus was prioritized because of the rezoning and the fact that it was a super fun site. 00:30:43.519 --> 00:30:45.200 What we're seeing is this other approach. 00:30:45.359 --> 00:30:56.559 If you think about this in simple terms, the cheapest way, the most expensive and the easiest way to reduce CSO is to capture that water before it even enters the system. 00:30:57.119 --> 00:31:05.200 This is why the upstream block by block approach is much, much less expensive than the large scale infrastructure downstream approach. 00:31:05.440 --> 00:31:24.480 You know we're trying to prove that by implementing these micro strategies on you know 20 to 30% of any given block and then follow up after a heavy storm and see how those properties experience that storm and then do the math on that one block and determine how many gallons did not enter the system that otherwise would have. 00:31:25.279 --> 00:31:35.680 So kind of working our way through that if you flatten the peak just like COVID language but you're spreading out

you know the amount of water over time you're reducing the likelihood that the system is going to be overwhelmed. 00:31:35.759 --> 00:31:38.559 And we can't rip all the pipes up and put larger ones in. 00:31:38.720 --> 00:31:39.680 It's really expensive. 00:31:39.839 --> 00:31:42.079 We have to do the best that we can under the circumstances. 00:31:42.319 --> 00:31:51.119 The building technologies that are in the uplands of Park Slope are very repeatable a lot of row homes, you've got repeatable blocks, lots, rooftops. 00:31:51.279 --> 00:31:59.039 So we can intervene kind of in a repeated consistency across these buildings and you can have these high level impacts at a fraction of the cost. 00:31:59.119 --> 00:32:04.079 And it's not a replacement for large scale you know infrastructure which is desperately needed. 00:32:04.240 --> 00:32:07.839 Like it's a powerful complement that makes the system more resilient. 00:32:08.240 --> 00:32:16.640 Resilience is being prepared well before the storm hits and maintaining after the storm so you can be even better prepared for the next one. 00:32:16.720 --> 00:32:23.839 It's not oh the storm hit we have to now throw all this money at the problem and all of our lives are kind of affected by what just happened. 00:32:24.079 --> 00:32:27.039 We have the ability and the wherewithal to be better prepared. 00:32:27.279 --> 00:32:31.839 We just have to work together and be smarter but that's what we're we're good at as New Yorkers. 00:32:31.920 --> 00:32:33.519 So I have confidence that we can make it happen. 00:32:33.759 --> 00:32:34.079 Yeah. 00:32:34.319 --> 00:32:40.160 And one of the big questions that I have is there is there a way we can bring private capital to the table? 00:32:40.400 --> 00:32:42.720 Sam you had mentioned no one quite knows the math. 00:32:42.880 --> 00:32:50.160 When you look at different financial vehicles you you need a baseline of data and a way to be able to measure returns. 00:32:50.319 --> 00:33:01.839 I'll I'll ask this question first to Tyler but Sam you you might also have ideas how would you measure returns that might be avoided flood losses, reduced insurance costs, you might see property value stability. 00:33:02.400 --> 00:33:17.519 I think of Floodnet as a potential resource if it was expanded Tyler couldn't explain who's behind FloodNet, their sensors one of the gaps is I don't think they have data across an entire watershed um which would be needed for something like this. 00:33:17.839 --> 00:33:19.920 Yeah it's a very good question. 00:33:20.160 --> 00:33:31.680 I'll caveat that this isn't my area of of expertise Floodnet is a partnership among academic institutions and city government to basically deploy flood sensors across New York City. 00:33:31.839 --> 00:33:44.480 It's a partnership between NYU and the mayor's Office of Climate and Environmental Justice, DEP it's a whole host of really great organizations and agencies who are trying to get us more transparency in

real-time flood data. 00:33:44.559 --> 00:33:51.200 And so FloodNet is is a great tool that you can activate and you can Google to see exactly how much it rained in this one area. 00:33:51.279 --> 00:34:03.359 And it's been really really great for places and neighborhoods that historically haven't been able to access that data or have relied on backwards looking data or 311 reporting none of which are like perfect tools. 00:34:03.680 --> 00:34:20.800 Floodnet is is really really great and is still very I would say new it's been around for a few years but to your point Cassandra it is not scaled out at the level that I think it would need to be to um be included in maybe some of these kind of instruments of private investment. 00:34:20.960 --> 00:34:36.239 It's something that the city could think about as a way to actually provide some public level transparency, which is actually one of the big problems in this whole question is that insurance and the data, flood data is sometimes a big black box. 00:34:36.639 --> 00:34:39.119 And insurance companies have really great data. 00:34:39.280 --> 00:34:41.760 There are other foundations that have really great data. 00:34:41.920 --> 00:34:49.039 We for a long time used to use First Street foundation data that's now not not available to the public anymore. 00:34:49.280 --> 00:34:54.960 That and that just speaks to how important and who's using that data and why and why it's so critical. 00:34:55.280 --> 00:34:57.679 We would definitely support transparency in that. 00:34:57.760 --> 00:35:21.119 I think that's maybe somewhat separate from what you're asking but it could be it could offer the city an opportunity to kind of as it's thinking about capturing that risk and bringing in private funding to actually help uh understand you know where resources can go to to match maybe some of what the city is spending I do think there's also an opportunity to think about how you make that data more accessible, more transparent for everybody else as well. 00:35:21.280 --> 00:35:23.199 But I wonder um if Sam has other thoughts. 00:35:23.519 --> 00:35:29.119 Yeah I mean I think the insurance companies and financial institutions they work according to clear outcomes. 00:35:29.280 --> 00:35:34.800 I mean in order to meet them halfway and integrate with those tools you also need to be able to provide clarity. 00:35:35.039 --> 00:35:41.119 I fully support transparency for data that can be used to improve clarity on the reality on the ground. 00:35:41.280 --> 00:35:50.480 You know we're using a lot of what we call ground truth data in order to connect all of the open source data that's already available with what the lived experience is. 00:35:50.639 --> 00:35:57.039 You know oftentimes people flood in storms where they've never flooded before they never expect it to flood it just happens. 00:35:57.360 --> 00:36:05.119 We want to be able to respond according to that reality after it does happen and it helps you know put together a clearer picture of what's actually going on. 00:36:05.199 --> 00:36:07.679 It's complicated to know what's going on below the ground. 00:36:07.840 --> 00:36:50.000 New York City does not have a robust groundwater map uh we have you know a lack of connection between the information between different agencies, geological information, even the soil uh type so you know we've tried our best to kind of put together some of those pieces of that puzzle uh the boundaries by which we organize ourselves need to adapt Sam just mentioned groundwater mapping and there is a bill actually in front of the city council now it's called Intro 662 um and that's been introduced by council member Nantasha Williams who's the deputy speaker of the city council she represents Jamaica Queens which is a community with a very high water table and a lot of groundwater flooding. 00:36:50.239 --> 00:37:01.440 She's actually taken on legislation that would that would force the city to create a groundwater flood map because to Sam's point that doesn't exist right now and so there are there are these gaps in our knowledge. 00:37:01.599 --> 00:37:12.880 Even as much as we know about flooding we still have all these gaps and he brought up another good point which is that the the data is not complete in terms of who floods and where where you flood on any given event. 00:37:13.039 --> 00:37:20.800 I think the a a sad but clear example of that was in some in the rainfall event last October two people drown in their basements. 00:37:20.960 --> 00:37:30.800 One gentleman was living in Washington Heights if you look at the intersection it was on Broadway and I extremely elevated in the heights um and nowhere to be found on a flood map. 00:37:30.880 --> 00:37:51.440 Not a 2050 not a 2080 not a 2100 stormwater flood map it really speaks to that ground truth thing that Sam's talking about the data is helpful but it's really incomplete and anybody could be at risk at any time especially with these cloudburst events and resiliency needs to be invested across the city we should prioritize it based on risk but nowhere is really quote unquote safe. 00:37:51.519 --> 00:38:02.800 If we say that we're giving people a false sense of security and these solutions should be available to everybody um and and you know that's something that we really want to support with some of the some of the incentive programs that we're advocating for. 00:38:03.119 --> 00:38:20.159 I was talking to Caroline um Mossell who's an atmospheric climate scientist that I know through Sam and it's her research that helped uh document that end of October was an inch and a half and 15 minute reality that we're experiencing when it comes to cloud bursts. 00:38:20.320 --> 00:38:34.480 And something that she mentioned to me is that when you map where people are dying in basements during these flooding events, there's usually an old creek or ancient river what have you underneath. 00:38:34.960 --> 00:38:49.119 And so I

think about the work of Eric Sanderson and the ways in which you know we as a city have this information in different pockets but we need we need the city to invest in a way to be able to connect these dots. 00:38:49.519 --> 00:39:11.519 Yes that's that's such a good plug yeah the blue zones kind of research that that Eric and others have been doing is is super important and we used a lot of that actually in our Flushing Meadows resiliency study that I was talking about because the main recommendation that came out of that was to actually unearth or daylight the flushing creek that used to run through the park and has been buried now. 00:39:11.679 --> 00:39:21.440 And so what better way to capture excess water also to reimagine this park to embrace its history to make it more green. 00:39:21.599 --> 00:39:40.239 You could add living shorelines, wetlands, really create this floodable spaces within the park we've used a lot of the research and and um the research that that Eric Sanderson and others have put together and and really noticed that this is an area that water used to run and in a lot of places to your point the water is just finding its way back to where it always went. 00:39:40.480 --> 00:39:47.840 There's something to say about how we think about scaling out infrastructure too is is how you create spaces and design places to flood. 00:39:47.920 --> 00:39:58.800 And that's why I love Sam's kind of block by block approach because something that really excites me about climate resilience and adaptation is that it really offers us this opportunity to think very different, very creatively. 00:39:58.960 --> 00:40:11.679 I in the climate space we have the mitigation solutions which are to decarbonize buildings, solar, you know, accelerate offshore wind those are all great and important things but there is something still there that's not that creative. 00:40:11.840 --> 00:40:16.320 You know we know the solutions and it offers some level of creativity but it's also very clear what we need to do. 00:40:16.559 --> 00:40:30.880 Resilience and adaptation offers you this much more imaginative and creative opportunity to rethink how this what the city looks like but also to like break from historic wrongs that we've done and have happened in neighborhoods over the years. 00:40:31.199 --> 00:40:34.400 Something that I always like to say is that everything is gonna flood. 00:40:34.559 --> 00:41:02.000 Everything should be built to flood because it will flood and how does that offer you an opportunity to think about reshaping the the the facades of buildings our parks capturing water there's something really beautiful and creative in that some of that was detailed in the latest New Yorker Funge City article that made the rounds if we can capitalize and capture that imagination and creativity resilience and adaptation is really like an a a moment that we can do something and make something different for the city. 00:41:02.320 --> 00:41:09.760 Yeah and when I think about creativity I think of resilience districts which is a new idea that came out of Connecticut. 00:41:10.480 --> 00:41:18.719 You had mentioned that we we need to be thinking about organizing ourselves differently the boundaries that we're we've been using just don't make sense. 00:41:19.119 --> 00:41:24.719 New York City also is just massive regardless if you kind of look at even at a borough wide approach. 00:41:24.800 --> 00:41:45.840 And so when we think about resilience districts with like Connecticut and California have passed statewide legislation is an example of some of that creative thinking that can be applied which is that it would it gives these communities an ability to think about adoption through geographic layouts that make sense like watershed. 00:41:46.079 --> 00:41:53.440 So can you talk a little bit about what you're hoping to see New York do following what Connecticut and California has passed. 00:41:53.760 --> 00:42:15.760 Sure yeah and this is just very practical common sense the boundaries that we have politically don't necessarily translate for resilience other than the social side socioeconomic side currently the idea is that you would use either environmental boundaries such as watersheds or infrastructural boundaries such as sewer sheds. 00:42:16.079 --> 00:42:29.679 Let's take the neighborhoods around the Gowanas watershed or the Gowanas Canal, you've got 11 different sub sewer sheds and each of them has properties that tie directly into the sewer system that results in combined sewer overflow. 00:42:29.760 --> 00:42:36.320 And so being able to work along the framework of those boundaries has a direct impact in terms of reducing CSO. 00:42:36.480 --> 00:43:10.880 If you look at the the geological, ecological watershed conditions, the natural topography from a high ground 100 feet, 150 feet above sea level to sea level itself there's many neighborhoods that have high points, low points and slopes on them from you know the natural terrain of the land before development, you will also see dynamics that exist, such as preferable pathways that some people call historic streams that just naturally have you know slopes and components of them that leads heavy stormwater to flow down into low-lying areas. 00:43:11.039 --> 00:43:18.480 So recognizing where those exist allows us to shift our expectations as to which areas are going to be more likely to flood. 00:43:19.440 --> 00:43:24.159 We can start to have a real conversation about what's going on and not be sort of left in the dark. 00:43:24.320 --> 00:43:41.440 The sewers underground the natural subsurface of the soil is underground it's hard to actually see them until it rains in terms of the way that you know these jurisdictional boundaries can be applied to things like bonds examples are starting to appear there are ways to fund according to these boundaries. 00:43:41.519 --> 00:43:51.119 They've been doing it in other countries for a very long time and it's just common sense now is just to define the boundaries as such and start interacting with the blocks that we work with according to the fact that they already exist. 00:43:51.199 --> 00:44:02.960 And our hope is that yeah the city and the state can kind of get to the point where they think this might be a smart way to invest in infrastructure longer term Uh that these these resilient districts can provide. 00:44:03.119 --> 00:44:16.880 You know, the connective um tissues that links policy, funding, and on-the-ground action, the outcome of which could reflect how water is actually operating within the city itself, and we can live in a better world. 00:44:17.199 --> 00:44:18.079 I love it. 00:44:19.280 --> 00:44:22.239 Thank you to Sam and Tyler for this conversation. 00:44:22.719 --> 00:44:27.119 Otto Frello painted the rain as something that cannot be stopped. 00:44:27.440 --> 00:44:32.800 But Tyler and Sam are showing us it can be, at times, redirected. 00:44:33.199 --> 00:44:36.400 One block, one downspout, one neighbor at a time. 00:44:36.639 --> 00:44:42.719 The city will always need large infrastructure investments, but the block-by-block approach isn't just cheaper. 00:44:42.960 --> 00:44:49.199 It could be more responsive to how water actually moves through a neighborhood, and it puts neighbors at the center of the solution. 00:44:49.440 --> 00:44:58.239 In our next episode, we'll look at the civic tools New York City already has to make that kind of community centered decision making possible.