Stone Harbor Plans for Flood Control

STONE HARBOR – How best to prepare the borough for rising seas and the increasing threats of flooding? Those topics were discussed Aug. 15 at Stone Harbor Borough Council’s work session.
A stormwater management plan which officials hope will mitigate the impact of the island community’s vulnerability to sea-level rise is in development. 
A draft of the plan was discussed with promises from the borough’s engineering firm that a final report would be ready in two months.
The picture painted by Ray Roberts of Remington Vernick was one of a growing threat from tidal flooding and vulnerability to sea level rise that requires a comprehensive mitigation effort by the borough.
Raise Bulkhead
“The first thing you have to do is decide on your bulkhead height ordinance and then enforce it,” he said.
The bulkhead issue has been a significant topic of debate at council work sessions since the spring, but no consensus has yet been reached on what the new height requirement should be or how exactly the borough will bring what Roberts said was the 33,000 feet of bulkhead up to that uniform requirement.
Remington Vernick has submitted a proposal for a survey of the current bulkhead. The survey will provide the borough with a sense of its most vulnerable points and specific property owners who would be impacted by any change in the height requirement.
Everyone agreed that the bulkhead height requirements must be raised, and also the process for building a uniform height across the borough’s extensive bulkhead system will have to be phased in over time.
Beyond that, the specifics of what the height requirement would be, what will trigger a property owner requirement to add to a low bulkhead, what role the borough may play in helping property owners afford the cost or bulkhead repairs, and similar issues are known but as yet unresolved.
There was also discussion of a proposal to require that the bulkheads be leak-proof.
Such a requirement if enacted would mean that most property owners would have additional work to be done on their bulkheads since that was not a requirement for the most currently constructed bulkheads. 
Roberts said that the firm’s final report would contain details of a proposed system of pumping stations with as many as eight positioned in zones across the borough.
He indicated that they would not be placed in residential areas and would largely be underground except for “camouflaged” electric equipment that must be above grade.
The pump stations would work with a new system of drainage pipes to evacuate water from tidal flooding and significant rain events.
“These actions must be taken together,” Roberts said.
He emphasized that the proposed drainage systems would not work if it had to handle the overflow from a bulkhead system that was below necessary height requirements.
The engineering firm’s final report will contain details of the proposed mitigation plan, costs estimates, and data that might aid the council in deciding bulkhead height. Robert said the firm had not been assigned the task of actually recommending a height for inclusion in the bulkhead ordinance.
The discussions over these last months have shown a council stepping up to its responsibility to prepare the borough for the increased threats from sea water inundation.
Police Building
The new police building inched closer to reality. At the work session, the council received a presentation on the final design of the proposed one-story addition to the current facility.
Plans for a separate two-story police station were scrapped during the planning stages when it became apparent that no design would allow such a building to meet budget requirements.
In this new proposal, police will utilize about 3,000 square feet from the first floor of the existing station and add almost 6,000 square feet from the proposed one-story extension.
The new building will become the public face of the department with the main entrance and public lobby accessible from 95th Street. A drive-through sally port for the secure pickup and delivery of prisoners, holding cells including a separate area for juvenile detention, work areas for police officers and a secure vehicle storage area are all part of the design.
Remington Vernick had been instructed to deliver a design that met the borough’s budget of $3.7 million.
The plan as presented is estimated to require $3.9 million to construct. Roberts said that the borough committee had agreed to go ahead with the slightly more expensive design because it would save on maintenance costs in the long term.
Plans call for the bid process to be initiated in August with the opening of bids in October. The work would be phased so that the completion of the space would give a home to the department while renovation followed on the first floor of the current station.
The combined space envisioned in the design would be completed by mid-January 2019, Roberts said.
To contact Vince Conti, email vconti@cmcherald.com.