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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. Now, our Climate Story of the Week, which we do every Tuesday on the show now. You have Casual Fridays. You have Throwback Thursdays. We have Climate Tuesdays. It doesn't have to be an alliteration here on The Brian Lehrer Show. Climate Story of the Week every Tuesday. This week, new Amsterdam meets old Amsterdam, you might say, to prepare for warmer waters. New Amsterdam, of course, is New York City, where two big water and climate events are happening this week.

The first, United Nations Water Conference. It's a United Nations water conference and it's the first one in 50 years. The second, New York Water Week, which is a series of events co-hosted by the city of New York and the Kingdom of the Netherlands. Some of you may know that Amsterdam in the Netherlands has long been known for its system of levees that has helped keep floodwaters at bay even before global warming became a global priority. The reason, it's the rare major city that actually sits below sea level.

With us now are two guests representing Dutch companies working on resiliency projects here in New York, old Amsterdam meets new Amsterdam, as well as elsewhere around the globe. Edgar Westerhof, vice president of the company, Arcadis. He's got an engineering perspective on adapting the New York waterfronts. Matthijs Bouw, founder of a company called One Architecture & Urbanism. His specialty is design. Edgar and Matthijs, thanks for joining us. Welcome to WNYC.

Matthijs Bouw: Thanks for having us.

Edgar Westerhof: Thanks for having me.

Brian Lehrer: Edgar, could you introduce American listeners to the idea that the Netherlands has been developing coastal protection systems for 900 years, is the number that I've seen? Did something get invented around the year 1100 or how far back would you start this history?

Edgar Westerhof: Well, indeed, clear point, Brian. The history goes back a long, long time, many hundreds of years. I would say around 1,000 years ago, that's when farmers started to organize themselves, acknowledging that water was a shared resource, but also a shared burden and a shared risk, which was very much the case well over 1,000 years ago. They started to organize themselves, forming so-called "water boards" that still exist in the countries and that still take care of how we manage our assets around water.

That landscape, of course, has changed drastically over the past 100 years to what the Netherlands currently is. As you say, we earn our money at or below sea level. Just to throw in a fact here, about 60% of our GDP, our annual income, is earned at or below sea level. That really urges the need as a country to protect ourselves. That is taking shape through various concepts that have evolved over time. Coastal protection, the Delta Works, of course, are very famous.

The large engineered solutions, the gates, the flood gates, but also natural dunes because about 80% of the system consist of natural dunes that have been there for a very long time. Coastal protection, which comes with its own level of protection, up to once in a 10,000 year. Also, inland protection around our rivers, up to a level of protection of once in a 5,000 year. Then there's inner-city solutions to address rainwater in a natural way. I would say all three systems really function in tandem. Sometimes when you travel through the Netherlands, it's really hard to see these solutions function. That's, indeed, the reality that comes with working on water management for so, so long.

Brian Lehrer: Matthijs, I see that both your companies have been working on projects in New York City since Hurricane Sandy slammed floodwaters into our New York and New Jersey homes and businesses back in 2012. Want to give our listeners an example of something you're working on? I know we're going to talk about two particular projects, the BIG U and East Side Resiliency. Is there something that's already been going on since Sandy that you've been working on that maybe draws on knowledge from the Dutch experience?

Matthijs Bouw: Yes, I think I'll start there with the BIG U, right? We came here as our firm and teamed up with Arcadis and a host of other companies in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. In that process, after Sandy, there was the realization that the way people have dealt with disasters in this country was not the way people should be dealing with it in the future. It was time, specifically because of the climate crisis, to think about more integrated solutions and forward-thinking solutions.

With the team that we collate, we developed a concept for the BIG U, which looked at the coastal protection of Manhattan, where we started to not only design that coastal protection in order to keep the floodwaters out but also to see it as a way to rethink and maybe even improve the waterfront so that it could be an infrastructure that is also, in some way, a social infrastructure, an infrastructure that is useful and has benefits for the city and its communities on all those days that there is no coastal storm threatening us.

Brian Lehrer: Let me ask you to take that idea of the BIG U, which a lot of the listeners will not have heard of, and draw an audio map for our radio listeners because it is literally a big U with the curve being Lower Manhattan, right?

Matthijs Bouw: Exactly. If you look at the floodplains of Manhattan, Manhattan, of course, is an island and much of it is at a pretty high elevation. Specifically, in Lower Manhattan, over time, many marshes that used to be there have been drained. Land has been filled. There is a large floodplain, more or less, from East 42nd Street and then down to The Battery and then up to, let's say, West 57th Street.

That is one of the areas that has been impacted by Sandy up to maybe in the East Village, about five, six blocks inland from the coast. The BIG U was a vision to protect that area with a coastal protection system, which basically means elevating the coastline there in various ways to make sure that that floodwaters in other next version of Sandy, which will be coming, which will start to come at increased frequency to keep the floodwaters out.

Brian Lehrer: Edgar, do you want to go further into what that is or what that looks like since you're the engineer in the room in this conversation?

Edgar Westerhof: Yes, most definitely. When we talk about engineering, first and foremost, it's very important to understand risk. What does risk mean? What does risk mean right now? Also, what does risk mean in the future? That means addressing sea-level rise when you get to engineer your solution is very important. Just to take a step back at the current reality, we know that by 2035, water will break the waterfront edge in lower parts of the city and basically flow into the city during a high tide. It's really not a matter of waiting and see what we can do.

No, we really have to work on climate adaptation in the city right now as we speak. Working these factors into our designs, that's what you can see currently also for the East Side Coastal Resiliency study. That's where the first phase of that project that Matthijs just described is being realized. That comes with a certain so-called "design life." We keep the waters out of communities up to a certain level with a certain design life. The design life, as a matter of fact, is 50 years, but it also allows for future changes to allow for further sea-level rise to impact our solution strategies. The useful life of what we design is about 100 years.

Brian Lehrer: Matthijs, for you as the design person, you know and our listeners well know because it comes up on the show a lot that people in some of the neighborhoods that the BIG U or East Coast resiliency project developments would be at don't like the way that they have been designed. For example, just three days ago, there's a headline in The Tribeca Trib, the local newspaper for that neighborhood. Headline is 'This Horrible Wall.' Advocates Push for Rethinking Possible Flood Barrier Plan. Can you speak as a designer to how you do this, so it says neighborhood-friendly as possible, because you know it's out there?

Matthijs Bouw: I know it's out there and I understand why it's out there. The climate crisis forces us to make a new type of infrastructure in cities that already build up and are lift in and that are used on a daily basis. This new infrastructure can sometimes stand in the way. In the BIG U and its follow-up projects, we have been very careful in trying to work as much as possible with the local communities to come up with solutions that work with that particular community and that particular urban fabric.

That means making sure that the water is still accessible, that routes along the waterfront are even improved, that maybe the FDR is crossed better and really trying to build in those benefits. At the same time, it is often something that stands in the way. Specifically, what we, for instance, see is that in the early phases of these projects, there is not only the BIG U vision, but there's also, at this moment, a big conversation about the Army Corps HATS study that has shown--

Brian Lehrer: To be fair to you and to be clear, that's what the article is about. It's the Army Corps of Engineers' proposal to have, I guess, 10 to 12 feet, what they call "extra-large floodwalls" 10 to 12 feet high. The article says along the esplanade of the Hudson River from basically Battery Park City up to about 34th Street. Is that a different project than the one you're working on?

Matthijs Bouw: That is a different project and that is at a different stage also. At this moment, the East Side Coastal Resiliency project is being implemented. There are a number of other projects on the East Side of Manhattan that are further into design. As we progress with these designs together with the city and the local communities, we try to make sure that the projects weave better into the urban fabric.

The Army Corps projects, and it has to do with how they are regulated and what they're allowed to do, shows at this moment floodwalls on, for instance, the western side, but also in other parts of the city that seem to be very almost brutal. One of the things that I hope is that by showing how you can do these things differently in a much more neighborhood-sensitive way that as the Army Corps projects will evolve, it will start to integrate those elements as well and start to weave itself into the fabric better. I guess there's no guarantee for that. It's a complex process, but that is what needs to happen.

Brian Lehrer: That's interesting. Are you a competitor to the Army Corps project or are they taking any input from you on how to make the design better as you were just indicating it could be?

Matthijs Bouw: Maybe I can follow up after this. They're not taking input from us, but they take input from communities. They have a big and extensive product process. A lot of communities and a lot of not-for-profits who think about these things have been able to give comments. I am pretty sure that the commentators will show these examples as a possible way forward. Edgar, do you want to add something to that?

Edgar Westerhof: Yes. Maybe to build on that, Matthijs, Brian, if you would let me, I think the Corps' plan is a very mature attempt to not just take what the city has been working on for, well, a decade post-Sandy. It also makes it more regional by filling in gaps that will need additional protection. We see that they really zoom out into what is the New York metro area and it comes with a more regional plan.

That is exactly what New York City needs right now. It's not just the local interventions at the neighborhood scale. Now, we also need to zoom out and see what other assets, what other boroughs are at risk. They will need to implement their own strategies. What you now see in this plan by the Corps is that there, for example, are a couple of flood barriers, floodgates implemented.

That is not the place to start your flood protection plan regionally. We've seen that in the Netherlands. If the Dutch would have to do it again, they will definitely not start with the Delta Works. It's a very good approach, I think, that the Corps is taking, working what is already there, but also acknowledging that there's a broader region with many assets at stake, including New Jersey.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, if you're just joining us, it's our Climate Story of the Week here on The Brian Lehrer Show, which we now do every Tuesday. This week, it's new Amsterdam meets old Amsterdam to prepare for warmer waters. New Amsterdam, of course, is New York City. Old Amsterdam in the Netherlands is one of the rare cities in the world that's below sea level. They've been doing floodwater resiliency for 900 years there, so our guests are two people from Dutch companies who are consulting New York right now post-Sandy, and with the global warming era obviously galloping along.

Edgar Westerhof, vice president of the company, Arcadis. He's got an engineering perspective on adapting the New York waterfronts. Matthijs Bouw, founder of a company called One Architecture & Urbanism. His specialty is design. We're going to get into the first UN Water Conference in 50 years, which is taking place right now in New York. UN Headquarters, of course, is here. We open up our phones. If you live near the shore anywhere in our area, New York City, New Jersey as just referenced, anywhere else, how are you adapting to rising sea levels and how do you want public policy to?

212-433-WNYC, or if you have a design or engineering questions for our guests or even maybe experience with the low-lying areas of the Netherlands. Any Dutch expats listening right now? Both our guests are from there with lessons they've been learning in that partly below-sea-level country for almost a millennium. 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, and we'll continue in a minute.

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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC and our Climate Story of the Week as we continue with Edgar Westerhof, vice president of the company, Arcadis, with an engineering perspective on adapting the New York waterfronts, and Matthijs Bouw-- I apologize, Matthijs. I was saying "bow" before, but I should know, a bow is something you play the cello with. A Bouw is something that you take when you're the founder of a company called One Architecture & Urbanism. You have a design specialty working on protecting the waterfronts. Let's take a phone call. Here's Charles in Roslyn on Long Island. You're on WNYC. Hi, Charles.

Charles: Good morning. Thank you for taking my call. The water that is diverted from this Lower Manhattan will be going somewhere. While regional plans were just alluded to, I wonder, we're protecting in this plan arguably one of the richest areas in the area. Does this approach create problems for less fortunate, less prosperous areas?

Brian Lehrer: Are you concerned about Roslyn also? I know Roslyn. Roslyn is waterfront too, right? It's on the north shore of Long Island on Nassau there.

Charles: Yes, I do have some concerns, but it's not as immediate as the waterfront here. There's a great deal of building going on there. If, indeed, the Antarctic ice sheet that's currently suspended, if there were flooding, I believe that would be an area. My own home is far enough away that I believe it may be a problem for somebody who buys this house from me.

Brian Lehrer: Interesting. Charles, thank you for that question. Edgar, where does that water go once it's diverted and could it afflict other people?

Edgar Westerhof: Well, what I hear is basically two questions. I hear a perspective about Manhattan, Manhattan that will indeed have its plan, a very complex plan. It will take quite a bit of time, but it's happening. There's also the more remote areas, which I hear in that question as well. I think we all have to realize that climate adaptation, adapting to our rising sea levels, our more extreme precipitation, water runoff, our drainage system that is at a high at an old age, it all requires updates.

Climate adaptation is a process. In the US, also in New York, we've started that process only recently, definitely, compared to the Netherlands where we've been doing it for a very long time. I think the observation is a correct one. Manhattan, New York is not an easy place to do this, but it's happening. We are also pushing the boundaries literally out. We mentioned the HATS study by the Corps. That plan doesn't stop with the boundaries of Manhattan.

There is indeed also Long Island and there's a process taking shape there as well. A process that starts with a realization that our low-lying waterfronts may not be the best place to be to live in, say, 50 years from now or even beyond. That may bring its own implications with communities moving away from the coast, moving to higher ground. It's a process. Climate adaptation is a process and we'll see investments in that space for decades to come.

Brian Lehrer: Well--

Matthijs Bouw: I should answer also-

Brian Lehrer: Yes, please, Matthijs. Go ahead.

Matthijs Bouw: -to the concern of the caller about the equity rights. He'll be glad to know to understand that the East Side Coastal Resiliency project in Manhattan protects the most vulnerable populations that live in Lower Manhattan. It protects mostly the public and affordable housing, campuses that you have there. That was also one of the reasons that the city really wanted to start there because we all know that people who are more vulnerable, who have lower incomes, are less resilient.

Because when a flood event happens, they don't have the ability to miss a day of work or to recover quickly, et cetera. You'll be very happy to know that we started with these vulnerable areas and these vulnerable populations. We've also done our flood modeling because the water needs to go somewhere. We have understood that if you start at the BIG U and its projects, the effects across the East River will be relatively minimal, but that is notwithstanding, of course. That project shows that at some moment in the very near future, many of those calls might have to be elevated as well.

Brian Lehrer: Carolina in Red Hook, you're on WNYC. Hi, Carolina.

Carolina: Hi, thank you very much for addressing this really important topic. I run the maritime nonprofit, PortSide NewYork in Red Hook. We've been, since Sandy, added to our mission, resiliency in terms of facing flooding. We're otherwise focused on the benefits of the harbor. Last night, we hosted a Zoom with two presentations. The one I want to talk about now, the Belgian firm Aggeres, who has a surge-powered flood barrier or they call it a self-controlled flood barrier, SCFB.

PortSide has been trying to get New York City planners to assess this for quite some time and then we just try and decide to have them present themselves. The trigger was this Army Corps plan, with this big plan, with its short deadline for public comment, because the permanent high wall in many locations is not welcomed and certainly not in Red Hook for many reasons, preventing maritime activity, current and forthcoming access to the water. Not just the front, the waterways themselves.

In some cases, the Army Corps plan sacrifices historic buildings and cuts through and severs the historic fabric of this area. I wanted to know if your speakers are familiar with these surge-powered walls and are willing to comment on them. In any case, I just wanted to make people aware of the fact that there is such an optional wall that is not permanently there. That's it.

Brian Lehrer: Thank you. I will leave it to the two of you to decide who's more the expert to take that.

Matthijs Bouw: I'll start. I'll start by saying, this is really one of the great things about New York Water Week that you have all these people from all over the world congregating here and having these conversations and starting to show their innovations because we need that. This is a relatively new field that is in development and we are still learning. We've been looking often at these movable barriers, specifically those barriers that raise themselves. I don't know this specific one that you have been presented yesterday, but what we have realized compared to the ones that are in use in the Netherlands, that the ones that are in use in the Netherlands are often in areas where the flooding is relatively calm.

They're not on the sea. They are on areas that are on lakes or along streams that can flood on harbors. One of the things that, in New York City, you have to be very concerned about, specifically in Red Hook and anywhere basically in the New York Bay, is that the forces of wave and the forces of the water are really significant and that those movable or self-deployable barriers often have a higher risk of failure and might not be able to withstand those forces yet. I really hope that this Belgian company will continue to develop their ideas so that they can make the products that would also work in this specific context.

Brian Lehrer: I hope that's responsive, Carolina. It's very interesting. It sounds like there are so many ways to skin the cat and you're having to figure out the best way under these changing circumstances environmentally. This is WNYC FM HD and AM New York, WNJT-FM 88.1 Trenton, WNJP 88.5 Sussex, WNJY 89.3 Netcong, and WNJO 90.3 Toms River. We are New York and New Jersey Public Radio and live streaming at wnyc.org.

A few more minutes on our Climate Story of the Week, this week on New York Water Week, and the first UN Water Conference in 50 years with our two guests from Dutch firms, with all the experience the Netherlands has, with Amsterdam sitting below sea level at floodwater mitigation. Edgar, do you want to tell us a little bit more about Water Week? I think Matthijs just said that people are coming from all over the world. What's going on? What is New York Water Week hosting?

Edgar Westerhof: It's fantastic. Even though I'm Dutch and I've been living in New York City for a long time in offshore and the ocean and seeing the risk, but seeing all these people come to New York City to discuss what is ahead of us, that is fantastic. We are building on cross-Atlantic ties. Even though the Dutch government is organizing it, it's organizing it in tandem with our US counterparts. Many other countries are involved. It's really a true deep dive in all the lessons learned and sharing those perspectives.

We have been doing that for a long time. Various processes rebuild by design, which resulted in the BIG U. Dutch dialogues, which lead to the planning in New Orleans. As we all know, New Orleans gave a fantastic plan that kept the community safe twice now during hurricanes. We know that these cross-Atlantic collaborative processes are very important. I think that is what the UN is bringing to us, various skills, high level, and it's generating attention that we very much need.

Brian Lehrer: Matthijs, how about the UN? Are these two different things, New York Water Week that Edgar was describing and this UN Water Conference? Are you familiar with what the UN is doing?

Matthijs Bouw: Yes, we are part of some of those events as well. For the UN, I think it's a bit more curated. You need to be a formal side event. I think New York City with the Dutch has decided that the conversation will benefit from being a bit more inclusive. We're bringing other voices in as well. That's why many events are being organized.

For instance, we, yesterday, had a great event with DEP, the Department of Environmental Protection, and a lot of other city agencies, but also private sector folks and community representatives to think about that other issue. How do we deal with stormwater, which is also going to start reshaping our city? To have these broad conversations is just really, really critical. So many people are here this week. I see that they're very, very productive.

Brian Lehrer: Matthijs, why don't we just pull back? Instead of building all these floodwalls and everything else, if we acknowledge that we're in the global warming era that a certain amount of sea-level rise is inevitable. Even if we take all the due mitigation steps that we should be taking as a human race that the coast is just not going to be where it used to be. Instead of stopping the sea from doing what it does, just build back another half-mile or whatever the right distance is all over the place.

Matthijs Bouw: Edgar already alluded to that. I think you have a really good point, right? If the ice on the poles melts, we are looking at tens of feet of sea-level rise. It's going to be very difficult to protect against that in the long term. Pulling back for many, if not all places, has a certain inevitability to it. Pulling back also takes time. These coastal protection projects that we have now will give us that time to start thinking about these other options that are going to play out in the much longer term in maybe two centuries or three or four centuries.

Pulling back, strategic relocation, managed to retrieve, those are the sort of words that are being used, is definitely something that should be on the table. If anything, we should not continue to build at areas that are currently at risk or that are at risk in the foreseeable future because we will be wasting our money and having to invest much more to protect those things as well. That's where we should start with the pulling back is not build new stuff at places where it shouldn't be.

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Edgar Westerhof: It's also an opportunity to prepare waterfronts, low-lying waterfronts for nature to take over literally. Strategies like nature-based solutions will show a lot of potential, Brian.

Brian Lehrer: We have time for one more call. We've gotten a Red Hook perspective on the phones. We've gotten a Roslyn perspective on the phones. Here's Winthrop in Manhattan, who says he used to live in New Orleans and has a New Orleans perspective. Winthrop, you're on WNYC. Hello.

Winthrop: Thank you, Brian. I worked in New Orleans in the Lower Ninth Ward as a volunteer for seven years.

Brian Lehrer: Was that after Hurricane Katrina?

Winthrop: Yes, after Katrina. It was a community effort. I came as a member of the Grace Episcopal Church in New York and we were there for seven years. The levees worked just fine. If they had been maintained, the Lower Ninth Ward and the rest of New Orleans would have been in a very different position to react to Katrina. The problem was that the levees breached as these gentlemen know. It was a totally different ballgame. My question for you is, knowing that a levee system can work if you can get it built, and you say it's for 100 years, what's the plan to maintain these levees so that they will continue to work and not deteriorate as the ones in New Orleans did?

Brian Lehrer: Again, I'll let you two decide who takes that.

Edgar Westerhof: Yes, that's a great question. I really appreciate the question being asked here because we know that operation and maintenance of whatever we design and engineer and construct is vital. We see that for the BIG U for East Side Coastal Resiliency. The operation and maintenance manual is hundreds and hundreds of pages. This is also where we build on the experience that we've gained in New Orleans. My company was the lead engineer in providing all those protective measures. It has showed that it worked.

It kept Hurricane Isaac out of the city and it also kept Hurricane Ida out of the city. It did its job twice already. Also, it shows a tremendous success in that regard, but it also shows that it doesn't stop there. It's not just speaking for New Orleans' outer layer of defense. We also need to think about how to address extreme precipitation and really make that solution function as a system. I think that's what we are starting to see in New Orleans, also at the realization that what you have built needs to be maintained and operated.

It's part of also the certification that comes with it. In collaboration with FEMA, we need to certify the system. New Orleans is a best practice nationwide, but New York City will soon have its own best practice through East Side Coastal, a certified solution, which is based on extensive operation and maintenance manuals, which, again, is a result of the collaboration that we've had between the Netherlands and the US because we are working with the knowledge that has been gained tens of years ago. That has been applied in the cities that we are discussing here.

Brian Lehrer: Let me close with one question that's sort of global in nature. I think everything that we're discussing here about adapting the New York City shorelines and other nearby New York area shorelines to the realities of climate change is, in a way, born of privilege. Even from where you both originally come from, from the Netherlands, which is another relatively well-off Western industrial country. In a way, we can afford to adapt.

We can afford to build sea walls and all these other things, but a lot of the rest of the world, the Global South, in particular, many areas can't and suffer the worst effects of climate change. By doing these things, are we exerting privilege that, in a way, gets us out of having to mitigate as much or changes the subject too much away from preventing more climate change and makes it easier to do not enough to prevent it to protect the rest of the world?

Matthijs Bouw: Thank you for this question, Brian. I think it's a really critical question. The answer is yes. Adaptation is often local. Rich places and rich cities can invest more in that. The onus is on us to continue to really focus on mitigating greenhouse gases and emissions because that is the most effective way to make sure that the vulnerable and the poor in the Global South who have not contributed significantly to the climate crisis have reduced impacts. At the same time, for a long time, the climate community said, "Let's not talk about adaptation all that much because of this need to focus on mitigation on reducing greenhouse gas emissions," but we realized that the climate crisis is here.

We are feeling the impacts. We're feeling the impacts around us almost daily and so we cannot avoid it. I'm really happy to see that there is slowly a bigger conversation globally about how the rich West can pay for what the Global South lost in damage. We are not paying nearly enough. Some pledges are starting to be made. I feel that it is really critical to make sure that we not only double down on reducing greenhouse gas emissions but also making sure that the rich countries start to pay into the adaptation of the most vulnerable populations.

Brian Lehrer: Matthijs Bouw, founder of the company, One Architecture & Urbanism. Edgar Westerhof, vice president of the company, Arcadis. Both from the Netherlands, both working on New York waterways adaptation projects. New York Water Week and the UN Water Conference continue. That's our Climate Story of the Week. Thank you both so much for joining us.

Matthijs Bouw: Thank you for having us, Brian.

Edgar Westerhof: Thank you so much.

 

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