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Breaking, heebie's rule. Could someone please put up a thread about the Whole Woman's Health decision. Really need a place to process and get info on what things are most useful to do. Climate Change and the built environment also super important and hugely interesting. 2021 doesn't feel quite as bad as 2020, but it still pretty awful in an existential kind of way.
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Yeah, I'll put up a thread. I'm feeling impotently sad and angry in a way that doesn't lend itself to saying much, but I can make a space.
It's my understanding that New York City is really heavily built-up and densely populated. Maybe green methods of controlling flooding don't work as well in that case? Like the subway probably just needs a bunch of pumps and the like.
Pumps too, but the green stuff is, I semi-professionally understand, really surprisingly effective if you've got enough of it.
I was wondering if there was enough space for enough of it.
Permeable pavement takes zero space, it just replaces pavement. Green roofs likewise -- they're roofs. And bioswales can be smaller than you'd think, something twice the size of a tree pit is useful.
But two of those things involve letting water go underground to be diffused slowly. But the underground is lots of basements and subways. The volume is dirt is going to be bet much lower per acre.
I do think they should put a tree on the top of the Chrysler Building.
But two of those things involve letting water go underground to be diffused slowly. But the underground is lots of basements and subways. The volume is dirt is going to be bet much lower per acre.
Sure, but it's still a lot of dirt. Especially since it's the whole depth down to bedrock.
As for LB's question in the OP, I haven't seen much detail on what exactly is in the bill but I'm sure there's some of this stuff in there.
I thought that Manhattan was built up so much partly because the bedrock isn't very deep so foundations are easier.
That's mostly a myth. Manhattan is built up so much because it's a major economic center so land is expensive.
Anyway, the bill does establish a grant program for stormwater control infrastructure using "new and emerging, but proven, stormwater control technologies" funded at $10 million per year for five years.
Bill text is here if anyone's curious about exactly what's in there. It's a lot! The stormwater program is at Section 50217.
I thought the exposed rocks in Central Park were bedrock.
They are, and there definitely are parts of Manhattan with shallow bedrock that often do have skyscrapers, but that's not why they're there. This post explains the myth.
Interesting, like with the sewer alligators, the wrong way was better.
Double-plus good butt.
Probably the most directly relevant thing in the Senate bill (which is most likely what will become law if anything does) is the Healthy Streets Program, which authorizes $100M/year for grants supporting porous pavement (among a few other greener streets measures), with a preference for low-income/disadvantaged communities. But there's also a significant amount of money for "resiliency"--around $50B total (over 5 years) is the figure I've seen in summaries--which includes everything from cybersecurity to flood mitigation. It also allows states to use a portion of their federal highway funds for flood mitigation, and adds natural hazard mitigation as a consideration in awarding federal freight program grants, both of which could amount to some real money. Quite a few flood-relevant research projects as well.
My basement stream is very impressive this year. Easily I'm pumping more water out of my basement than I could get from the tap if I ran them all.
24. I know some people who were in that position. They lined their basement with swimming pool cement and it seems to have fixed the problem.
I can't turn the basement into a pool because it's a small house and the basement is the garage and all the storage space.
Why would swimming pool cement makers want to keep the water out?
But the serious answer is that keeping the water out does not solve the problem. If you let the water sit there, you're foundation will not stay properly founded.
27. Think inside out. Swimming pool cement stops water leaking out of a pool. It can also stop water leaking into a basement. Apparently.
28. The water is presumably flowing, an underground stream. The original builders seem to have taken this into account, since the house has stood happily for 120 years. I suppose the effect of waterproofing the basement is to keep it within whatever underground water courses use for banks.
it's the whole depth down to bedrock.
Only down to the water table, and the water table is at the water level where the land goes underwater.
Plus saturating the soil can make air-filled underground structures float, which sometimes is not what their engineers were expecting to be the problem.
The Netherlands build "room for the river", and the PRC is building "sponge cities". Imagining how NYC soil drains, I am thinking that going with the traditional gargoyles might be better. Direct everything you can capture straight into the rivers in giant overhead spouts, or repurpose appropriate streets into temporary gullies (directed straight into the river). Rafting the latter will be illegal and glorious.
I get anxiety just from reading about it.