NORWALK — Staring down the possibility of a 20-inch rise in the sea level by 2050, city and state officials are outlining the flooding that Norwalk could experience if nothing is done to mitigate climate change.
The Planning and Zoning Department, in a partnership with the Connecticut Institute for Resilience and Climate Adaptation at the University of Connecticut, held the first of three public meeting outlining flood and heat mitigation plans for Norwalk.
About 100 residents registered for Thursday night’s virtual public meeting and about 60 people attended, said Geoffrey Morrison, principal urban planner at AECOM. the engineering firm hired for the study.
“Tonight, is about showing the community the existing solutions and talking about contributing factors,” Morrison said. “The next meeting is showing alternative solutions. We wanted to understand what’s happening locally, hear from the community first, then hear about interventions.”
Through CIRCA, South Norwalk was one of seven communities in the state chosen for the mitigation study. The program, dubbed Resilient Connecticut, is focused on New Haven County and Fairfield County.
Resilient Connecticut is a collaboration of CIRCA, along with state agencies, regional councils of governments and municipalities, according to the program. Among Norwalk’s advisory committee and involved in discussions, particularly regarding green roofing and tree canopies, is South Norwalk Electric and Water Company, CIRCA Director of Resilience Engineering David Murphy said.
“CIRCA’s vulnerability assessment in the two counties resulted in the identification of about 60 areas of flood- and heat-related needs,” Murphy said. “Of those 60, we moved ahead with seven for further study, including South Norwalk.
“South Norwalk was selected because of the needs, and the potential for the typologies (the nature of flooding and heat risks) to yield findings that can be used in similar communities,” he said.
Under state guidelines, shoreline towns are working on infrastructure plans that would account for a sea level rise of 20 inches by 2050, Morrison said. In mockups presented at Thursday’s meeting, the CIRCA team showed what certain areas in South Norwalk would look like with 20 inches of water flooding the roadways.
A main source of flooding in Norwalk is storm surge, which is an abnormal rise in sea level during storms, AECOM civil engineer Megan Gibbons said.
“Air patterns in hurricanes travel counterclockwise and the effect of each storm varies on strength and landfall,” Gibbons said. “Water is pushed from the Atlantic into the Long Island Sound, where it’s getting trapped and piles up in the Long Island Sound and by SoNo and move to what is normally dry ground. The shape of the coastline greatly effects storm surge flooding.”
Three areas of discussion were heat vulnerability, flood risk and existing and future conditions.
Changes up for discussion include increasing maintenance of the area’s tree canopy, implementing more pervious road and ground materials that prevent pooling of water and preventing an increase in building density. Other alternatives will be explored in the coming months.
Several members of the public weighed in on the study, including several nonoperative pumping stations and the possibility of expanding the borders of the study area.
One resident recommending the installation of an underground flood protection system, such as New London’s extensive barrier protecting 173 acres of industrial and commercial areas in the vicinity of Shaw Cove, according to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.
“Constructing elaborate and expensive flood protection systems will be rare, so we try to ensure that these types of studies consider things that can be done by the city,” CIRCA’s David Murphy said.
South Norwalk was split into three regions for the study: the north, central and south study zones, said Lorayne Black, a project manager and architect at engineering firm AECOM.
The north study zone is made up of waterfront industrial development, Soundview landing, the area surrounding the South Norwalk train station, and Day and Water streets. The central study zone includes Harbor Shores, Shorefront Park and South Main neighborhoods along with Meadow Street and Woodward Avenue.
The south study zone includes Village Creek and Harborview neighborhoods, Longshore Avenue and the Manresa Island powerplant, Black said.
The study will examine five key points: creating flood mitigation options, maintaining dry emergency evacuation corridors, establishing “resilient corridors” to maintain access for residents and emergency vehicles during floods, assessing how land is used and density of buildings, and reducing the impact of extreme temperatures and heat pockets, according to the Resilient Connecticut program.
By 2050, the area’s average temperature is expected to rise by 5 degrees and the number of days a year over 77 degrees will increase from 81 to 118, Black said.
With the 20-inch rise in sea level expected by 2050, rainfall is also expected to increase of about 8 percent, or 4 inches per year, Black said.
Resilient Connecticut is part of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development’s National Disaster Resilience Competition. it was established in 2018 to help guide the state in planning framework for climate mitigation due to the impact of Superstorm Sandy.
South Norwalk was chosen as one of seven vulnerable populations as the area’s ZIP code rates high on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Social Vulnerability Index. The 06854 ZIP code was designated by the state Department of Public Health as among the highest in the index, which weighs factors including poverty, employment, housing, access to transportation, education and other variables.
Abigail Brone can be reached at abigail.brone@hearstmediact.com.
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