(Correction 6:11 p.m. Tuesday, April 9: In the second paragraph, the terms used by Ms. Lauricella was “climate change and sea level rise,” not global warming. NancyOnNorwalk regrets the error.)
NORWALK, Conn. – Hurricane standards are built into the plans to rebuild the Calf Pasture Beach fishing pier, but one Norwalk activist has been pleading: “Let’s not just keep building the same pier only to have it be destroyed, then rebuilt on the taxpayers’ dime.”
Diane Lauricella, an environmental consultant, has been speaking with Department of Recreation and Parks Director Mike Mocciae and at public hearings, trying to persuade officials that the angle of the pier should be reconsidered, that the plan to raise the pier a maximum of 5 feet is insufficient. Climate change and sea level rise are facts, she says, and we won’t have to wait another 100 years for weather with the strength of Superstorm Sandy.
Lauricella points to a study done for the city by Bourne Consulting Engineering of Franklin, Mass. So does Mocciae.
The study says it would be best to raise the pier 9 feet, but says it would be impractical.
“If the pier can be constructed above the wave crest elevation, it will be much less susceptible to future storm damage,” the study says. “The existing pier deck elevation, based on survey prior to Sandy, is +13.4 feet above Mean Low Water (MLW). … In order to minimize future damage for a 100-year event, the pier deck would need to be raised above Elevation +21.7 MLW. This would require raising the pier by approximately 9 feet, which will be impractical at this location without major changes to the existing jetty. The base width of the jetty would need to increase by approximately 36 feet with a significant area of new impacts of approximately 5,000 square feet. Expanding the jetty would require approximately 8,000 tons at a cost of $800,000.”
The 2013-2014 capital budget, which includes funds to rebuild the pier, will be voted on Tuesday night by the Common Council.
A letter written Feb. 1 by Finance Director Thomas Hamilton explains, “$750,000 has been recommended to pay for the cost of restoring and hardening the seawall and fishing pier at Calf Pasture Beach, which was destroyed in Storm Sandy. $650,000 was appropriated in the FY 2012-13 capital budget for repairs to the seawall and fishing pier, which had been damaged in the earlier August 2011 storm Irene. The total cost of replacing and hardening these facilities is now estimated at $1.4 million, which includes raising the elevation of the deck of the fishing pier by three feet.”
Mocciae said raising the pier 9 feet isn’t feasible.
“The environmental impact would be too great,” he said. “You’d have to widen the jetty to accommodate the height of the pier. Once you widen the jetty, now you’re going into the fragile ecosystems on either side. What Diane doesn’t read into is we’re even going up higher than three. We’re starting at three, we’re doing an incline that is accessible – a foot, spread out across about 150 feet. Once we get to one transition point, we go up another foot. At the end, we’ll be up 5, 5½ feet higher than it is. Which is the main platform area.”
Lauricella has a problem with the Bourne report: It uses data from Bridgeport, as none is available from Norwalk. Not due diligence, she said.
“They misstate the actual current situation at the beach,” she said at a March hearing. “I ask that this go back to the drawing board.”
Mocciae doesn’t see that as an issue. “These are pretty reputable people,” he said, of the company.
Lauricella also thinks the angle of the pier should be studied, an idea she says she got by “reading, National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) info, years being around engineers, taking physics class, oceanography class and reading about wave action and climate change.”
“Bottom line, even though each storm could be coming from a different direction, the pier seems to be an expensive ‘sitting duck,’” she said in an email.
Mocciae said the cost for the pier will be $1.2 million, with some reimbursement expected from FEMA. “I don’t know how much yet but I would say at least $500,000,” he said.
The design is maintenance friendly, with galvanized handrails to prevent splinters, and it will be handicapped accessible, with lowered railings in spots so people in wheelchairs can fish.
The pier wouldn’t have been damaged as much if it were built to hurricane code, he said. Milford’s pier sustained heavy damage during Sandy, he said, “But they didn’t lose piles, they didn’t lose the main stringers; they lost the decking, the rails. With current standards, you don’t sustain as much damage.”
He hopes the work will begin in June so beach-goers will see something is being done. “After two storms, the paperwork gets hairy, he said, referring to FEMA.
It needs to get rebuilt, he said, even with the risk of weather.
“If we get a storm like Irene again, I think we’ll go through without any problems,” he said. “Sandy was a 100-year storm. If we get that? I don’t know, if we get it again,soon. What are you going to do? The pier is quite an attraction and it’s really the only fishing pier in the city. We have to build it again. We’re just building it stronger and to current code.”
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