Rye Brook, Rye Town Park Commission receive grants to plan for climate change
December 12, 2024 at 1:12 a.m.
Combating the effects of climate change enduringly must start with a plan.
The Village of Rye Brook and Rye Town Park Commission are two of 15 municipalities and institutions joining a cohort eager to study those tenable solutions.
A new bi-state program connecting communities in New York and Connecticut—the Long Island Sound Resilience Planning Support Program—offers grant monies to communities in the Sound Shore region to be used to help plan for a future where extreme weather-related events will be more frequent.
The initiative—with a mission to improve water quality, habitats and communities along the Sound—was largely manifested by a partnership between the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the New York and Connecticut Sea Grant programs, a university-based organization under the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Through monies and other resources, the program will help communities advance climate resilient-focused projects by supporting studies of climate change issues and implementation plans to effectively address them.
On the chilly morning of Friday, Dec. 6, municipal leaders from across the Long Island Sound region gathered in Rye Town Park for an outdoor presentation awarding $1.1 million in grant money toward the cause.
Rich Manor Park becomes a pond due to flooding after a storm dumped 5.6” of rain on Rye Brook in September 2023. The Village received funding through the Long Island Sound Resilience Planning Support Program to study solutions to combat flooding in the area.By File Photo
“It’s a cold day but there are warm hearts whenever grant money is being given out. I know Westchester County and the municipal governments represented here are appreciative and grateful for this allocation of resources,” said County Executive George Latimer. “It’s important for us to understand that the long-term improvement of our environment comes with studying what the resources and actions need to be, doing that professionally and then following up with the kind of capital investment that will make those improvements that planning identifies.”
The Long Island Sound 2024 Resilience Planning Support Program is a crucial step in not just fostering that research phase but creating a structure that tackles climate change collaboratively.
The grants come without a financial matching expectation, “which is rare for assistance programs,” said Mark Tedesco, director of the EPA Long Island Sound office.
“A big part of the effort recently launched is to support local communities in their efforts to be sustainable and resilient in the future face of climate change and the challenges they have locally,” said Tedesco. “And what we’re trying to do really is change from the approach we’ve had in the past, where often government says: ‘here’s some money available, and let’s see who can jump highest to qualify to receive those funds.’
“We have to recognize that some people are taller than others, some people can jump higher than others,” he continued. “Instead, what this effort is really focused on is meeting communities where they’re at and having a dialog about how we can help you solve local problems and how we can help you be more resilient.”
Ten communities in New York and five in Connecticut were awarded money through the Long Island Sound 2024 Resilience Planning Support Program. Of the New York cohort, the Village of Rye Brook—with a slew of flooding-related issues due to its proximity to the Blind Brook—received the biggest share, earning nearly $111,000 for an application to study flooding in the Rich Manor Park area.
The project, under the contractor SLR, will help identify feasible solutions to the regular flooding that occurs in the park off Acker Drive, adjacent to the east branch of the Blind Brook.
Previously, the Village has implemented a large retention basin in the area as well as other flooding mitigation strategies that were identified in a 2002 study.
“We do notice flooding in that area,” said Rye Brook Mayor Jason Klein. “The detention basin that was constructed at the corner of Meadowlark has helped, but more is needed.”
The area was identified as a “high risk” in the Blind Brook Flood Mitigation and Resilience Report in November 2022.
The Rye Town Park Commission, which embodies representation from Rye Town, Rye City, Rye Brook and the Village of Port Chester, received $69,500 to conduct a climate vulnerability assessment for the waterfront park that is directly off the Sound Shore.
The Commission, through the contractor Indigo River, looks to understand the predicted impacts that rising sea levels, flooding, and increased storm frequency and intensity will have so they can plan projects that will protect the space’s historic infrastructure—which has already faced varying degrees of damage due to severe storms.
The park also has a history of flooding during such storms.
“We have been severely impacted by Super Storm Sandy, Hurricane Irene, and similar storms that have occurred over recent years. We’re all aware that climate change is real and it has devastating effects on all of the Sound Shore communities,” said Rye Town Supervisor Gary Zuckerman. “The development of the climate change vulnerability study will allow us to understand some of the potential effects and help us work towards developing projects that will help in curing, or at least mitigating, the effects of climate change.”
Director of New York Sea Grant Becky Shuford said the initiative was created in recognition of the growing need to support Long Island Shore communities with resources and information, and she believes the projects being funded will establish actionable plans and innovative solutions to address vulnerabilities while promoting sustainability.
Once studies are completed, the participating communities will have credible recommendations that, it’s believed, will help them attain more grant funding for the purpose of implementation.
Zuckerman emphasized praise for the program because it removes the competition factor that often sees communities pitted against each other for grants.
“It’s important to understand that the Long Island Sound is an ecosystem unto itself that stretches from Connecticut to New York City,” he said. “It’s really important that we all band together under a unified banner with the EPA to address the effects of climate change. And we encourage other communities who have not applied for this to apply for the second round so we can all advance together and make our communities safer for our residents.”
That chilly day at Rye Town Park didn’t just celebrate the Long Island Sound Resilience Planning Support Program grant awardees, but officially opened the second round of the program.
Sound Shore communities have until Feb. 7, 2025, to apply.
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