Protecting a Shoreline and Rebuilding a Community
Living Breakwaters is a $70 million project funded by the US Department of Housing and Urban Development and a winner of HUD’s Post-Sandy Rebuild by Design Challenge. It was designed as a storm mitigation project in the aftermath of the devastation wrought along the Tottenville, Staten Island shoreline by Hurricane Sandy in 2012. The project is, however, intended to be much more than a defense against the inevitable superstorms to come in the age of climate change.
Its aims are threefold and mutually reinforcing: to adapt the vulnerable south shore of Staten Island to withstand the worst ravages of likely future superstorms, to restore and enhance shoreline biodiversity, and to foster stewardship by reconnecting a community with its rich marine heritage.
From an environmental standpoint, the breakwaters are designed to reduce wave energy, and reduce or reverse shoreline erosion in the project area. Extensive modeling efforts were performed to understand the potential impacts of the breakwater system on shoreline change in order to maximize risk reduction and erosion benefits while minimizing negative environmental and aesthetic impacts. The breakwater system has been designed to capture sediments along the shoreline, reducing historic shoreline erosion and in most places widening the beach over time. This wider beach will provide additional protection from erosion and wave action for on-shore coastal features and other assets.
If some small pockets of public resistance can be overcome, the Living Breakwaters project will draw people to active and passive waterfront activities, and create connectivity to adjoining communities and parks along the south shore waterfront.
Meanwhile, building on its rich marine history, Tottenville is being considered as a site for a kelp farm under a New York State initiative that will seek to ameliorate the pollution of local waterways using natural means rather than costly infrastructure.
Learn more and explore Regenerating Tottenville on our project site.
