Suffolk County Coastal Resiliency Initiative Project: FEMA HMGP, CDBG-DR, New York State Water Quality and Capital Programs, Clean Water State Revolving Fund, and Empire State Development Grant Program
State of New York
Project Description
Our Solution
The almost $390 million project was funded with $243 million in FEMA Hazard Mitigation Grant Program (HMGP) funding, $67 million in HUD CDBG-DR funding, $59 million from New York State Water Quality and Capital Programs, $20 million in low-interest loans from the Clean Water State Revolving Fund, and $4 million from the Empire State Development grant program. Without this complex funding package, Suffolk County would not have had the funds for these extensive resiliency measures. HGA developed the applications to secure the $67 million in CDBG-DR funding for two of the four watershed areas – Village of Patchogue and Carlls River – serving approximately 2,500 residents. HGA’s knowledge and experience with implementing projects that have multiple funding sources proved invaluable in successfully organizing the desired funding needed for each project as a requisite for implementation and to meet project goals and deadlines.
In preparing the HMGP grant application, particularly the BCA, the project team required specific and detailed information regarding the failure of on-site wastewater systems at the residences to be served by the project.
Value Delivered
GOSR reached out to HGA, knowing that HGA staff had the experience required to support this effort. HGA developed a detailed technical report describing what on-site wastewater systems (e.g., cesspools and septic) were present. The report then explained the various Long Island coastal flooding conditions under which the systems could fail, how a failure would occur, and what services would be affected by such a failure.
More specifically, it examined levels of risk, duration of loss of services when systems failed, and potential future costs
of restoration by location. The HMGP grant application included this HGA technical report as an attachment, and cited the report throughout the BCA calculation where required. The resulting preliminary BCA was referenced in FEMA’s Phase I grant approval. The project team noted that FEMA did not require additional information to document and evaluate the incidence of on-site system failure. This demonstrates the quality and thoroughness of HGA’s analysis.