Containment islands in New York Harbor

Abstract

from the abstract, "In this report we will present information which indicates that the construction of large or medium-sized containment islands in New York Harbor is within the present technical ability, that containment can be achieved, and that environmental problems, such as effects on water quality, tidal flushing, and shore erosion, can probably be anticipated and ameliorated by proper design. The cost of such containment facilities is estimated to be between 2 and 3.5 times the cost of open-water disposal. The specific cost and unavoidable environmental impacts, however, cannot be determined until the facility has been designed and the facility cannot be designed until a site is chosen. At the present time, one obstacle to the selection of a site appears to be the presumed adverse ecological impact of the loss of bay floor. There are no standard procedures for assessing changes in those biological resources that are important to man due to the removal of specific areas of the bay floor from the subaqueous ecosystem. With the available data, however, areas of the bay floor may be found that seem to have relatively low population densities. If we assume that such impoverished areas are also relatively less important to the bays ecosystem, then these are the most likely sites for large containment islands. Three sites have been identified in the Lower Bay (Figure 17)."