Feds look to expand flood protection
Norwalk’s Grassy, Chimon islands and more included in proposal
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service wants to increase the size of the state’s natural coastal flood protection system in hopes of preventing a repeat of Superstorm Sandy’s devastation.
A proposal by the service seeks to add 4,800 acres of wetlands, islands, shoals and parkland in New Haven and Fairfield counties to existing storm surge barriers.
Those barriers include regions in Branford, Milford, Bridgeport, Norwalk and Greenwich. Another 3,189 acres would be added between Stonington and Branford.
“We strongly support the expanded protection to tens of thousands of acres of natural dunes, marshes and tidal flats all around Long Island Sound,” said Curt Johnson, president of the Connecticut Fund for the Environment and Save the Sound.
If approved by Congress, the mostly vacant areas would forever remain free of development.
The process of expanding the existing Coastal Barrier Resources System has been ongoing for years. The federal Fish and Wildlife Service is also removing some property that should not have been included due to inaccurate mapping and other errors.
A similar effort is underway on Long Island, where some 23,000 acres is being added to the flood protection system and other tracks are being rearranged or removed to reflect updated maps.
Protection zones are being expanded in Maryland, Rhode Island and Virginia as well.
Massive damage
Property within the flood protection system is effectively barred from development because federal flood insurance cannot be purchased within the region.
Existing buildings and manmade structures are grandfathered and allowed to remain.
“More than half of the structures proposed for addition are on public lands or parks; the remainder are on private land,” the Fish and Wildlife Service said in a news release.
“Nationally, the CBRS contains 862 geographic units that encompass 3.5 million acres of relatively undeveloped areas along the Atlantic, Gulf of Mexico, Great Lakes, U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico coasts,” the service said.
The protective effort began after Hurricane Sandy devastated the East Coast in October 2012 and Superstorm Sandy caused more than $360 million in damage in Connecticut.
Some 600,000 electric customers lost power throughout the state and coastal towns were hit with high winds and flood surges, which downed trees and blocked roads for days. Greenwich, Westport, New Canaan, Fairfield, Milford, East Haven and New London were among the hardest hit.
As for storm damage, the Danbury area wasn’t hit as hard as the communities along the coast. Downed trees were the biggest challenge, blocking roads, crushing homes and knocking down power lines.
Ridgefield was completely without power. Ninetynine percent of Redding and 97 percent of Newtown were left in the dark at the worst part of the storm. It took days to restore power, causing Redding and Ridgefield to cancel school for the rest of the week and delaying many Halloween events.
Eversource eventually undertook an aggressive tree-trimming campaign to prevent trees from falling on power lines and causing outages in future storms.
Fairfield’s damage stood out. More than 1,000 trees were knocked down, 1,000 homes were flooded and some 5,000 residents had to be evacuated.
Six Fairfield homes were washed out to sea by the storm’s repeated tidal surges.
Valuable acreage
Johnson said the protective shoals, wetlands and islands included in the flood barrier zone both protect the shoreline and offer enormous economic value for the state.
He pegged the value of that protection at $76 million a year and between $288 million and $1.9 billion annually in ecological services, including water pollution filtration and absorption of greenhouse gases.
“They save taxpayers and property owners by reducing flood impacts to our neighborhoods during our region’s increasingly frequent coastal storms,” Johnson said.
“These natural areas on Connecticut and Long Island’s shoreline provide a refuge for fish, wildlife and people to enjoy 365 days a year,” Johnson said.
The barriers also serve as “nature’s filters,” providing hundreds of millions of dollars in value by acting as “water pollution sponges,” Johnson said.
“Let’s give these areas the protection they deserve, for our families and future generations,” he noted.
The Fish and Wildlife Service said the proposed additions would add about 141,072 acres to the system nationally, including 5,057 acres of land above mean high tide and 136,015 acres of wetlands and open water.
“Undeveloped coastal barriers and wetlands are critical in protecting inland areas from destructive weather forces, providing a buffer against high winds, waves and storm surges,” the service said.
“They protect public safety and the substantial investments along mainland coastal communities,” the service said, adding a recent study found that wetlands alone avoided $625 million in direct flood damages during Hurricane Sandy.
The service said while new construction on protected land would not qualify for federal flood insurance, a “grandfathering” provision allows already built structures to maintain flood insurance.