Improving resiliency along New York’s Great Lakes shoreline

From 2017-2019, the Lake Ontario, St. Lawrence River, and Lower Niagara River shorelines experienced an extended pattern of extreme high-water conditions and flooding. These events were driven by basin-wide wet weather that sent unusually large volumes of water into Lake Ontario while outflow capacity was periodically constrained by high water and flooding downstream on the St. Lawrence and Ottawa Rivers. As lake levels rose, storm surge and wind-driven waves overcame breakwalls and revetments, saturating bluffs and banks and accelerating erosion. The resulting flooding jeopardised public safety and caused extensive damage to natural and built shoreline systems, including homes, marinas, roads, parks, and other critical infrastructure, and disrupted people’s lives, as well as water-based businesses and tourism-dependent local economies.

In response to these events, New York State created the Lake Ontario Resiliency and Economic Development Initiative (REDI), which reflected a new vision and provided an organisational framework for rebuilding the shoreline from the perspectives of resiliency and economic development. To support community ownership, REDI was designed to encourage robust public input on assets at risk and the projects needed to protect those assets.

Planning for near- and long-term resiliency

As the project’s lead consultant, Ramboll assisted the New York Governor’s Office, New York State Office of General Services (NYSOGS), 11 other state agencies, and local communities with the development of plans and implementable projects across the entire impacted coast. Through close coordination with the community and stakeholders, our team worked with the Lake Ontario REDI Commission to address the near- and long-term resiliency needs of the region while also facilitating uplift in local economies.

Overall, we facilitated 25 stakeholder meetings, more than 15 planning committee meetings, and dozens of site visits in the five REDI regions (Niagara and Orleans; Monroe; Wayne; Cayuga and Oswego; and Jefferson and St. Lawrence counties) to discuss planning to address immediate and long-term resiliency needs and identify assets at risk. These events were followed by personal communications with individual asset owners to further define the assets and identify conditions that threatened their contributions to regional shoreline resilience and economic stability. Once identified, Ramboll worked with stakeholders to prioritise needs and develop means to improve long-term resiliency.

Colour-coding the assets by risk level

Using the NYSDOS risk assessment tool, we quantitatively evaluated risk for more than 550 assets based on factors, including the likelihood and magnitude of a future flood event, landscape features that help reduce flood risk, and the vulnerability of assets to flood risk. Our team provided the generated risk scores to the regional planning teams with a “colour ramp” where the risk score was assigned a colour, and people could easily see which assets should be prioritised to help improve community resilience. This graphic was used in conjunction with qualitative evaluations performed with the regional planning teams to finalise the list of recommended regional projects. Together with REDI planning committees, Ramboll identified 300 priority projects. Eventually, that list was reduced to 132 projects that aligned with the $300M program budget.

Following selection of the 132 final projects, we prepared 16 region-specific reports summarising the project selection outcomes. Our team coordinated the development of 49 artistic renderings to support program announcements and community engagement.

Subsequently, we supported the REDI program’s transition from project selection to engineering and implementation and led efforts to comply with the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA).

Actionable and equitable progress

This intensive, science-based, and community-driven process led to an equitable and effective distribution of projects across the Lake Ontario-St. Lawrence River shorelines and across economic sectors. These projects reflected the needs and priorities of the communities, combined with an in-depth understanding of the technical and scientific drivers for resiliency. Since the completion of the initial planning phase of REDI, 111 of the 132 recommended projects have been implemented by New York State or other local project owners.

The work continues

Our team worked with regulatory and technical state experts to discuss the vast array of engineering project profiles and potential natural and nature-based solutions and blue-green infrastructure projects for water and wastewater, transportation, ports, and marinas. Ramboll developed 28 engineering reports providing design alternative analyses, recommendations, corresponding 10% designs, cost estimates, and next steps to advance engineering and permitting processes and support fast-track implementation.

Coordinated dredging and sediment management was a key stakeholder priority that emerged from REDI. As such, the $15M Regional Dredging Program was an essential project funded by REDI. This program included the dredging and sediment management for 20 ports and harbours along the Lake Ontario and St. Lawrence River waterfront over a two-year timeframe. We provided site program management, investigation, design, permitting, and implementation services, and 90% of the dredged sediment was beneficially used for several applications, including beach and littoral zone nourishment and bluff repair as well as efforts to build nesting habitat for the US federally threatened Piping Plover.