What might have been a multi-billion dollar sea wall to protect New York City was scrapped after President Donald Trump mocked the plan.
The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers announced the project was “indefinitely postponed” because it did not receive federal funding for 2020, The New York Times reported.
The project called for a potential miles-long concrete wall to be constructed across the entry to New York harbor, and feature retractable gates. An initial cost estimate of $119 billion was later revised to $62 billion, although none of the several remedies considered had been chosen.
Last month, Trump tweeted that the proposed wall was “a costly, foolish & environmentally unfriendly idea,” and falsely stated the project would cost $200 billion.
“You’ll just have to get your mops & buckets ready!” he tweeted Jan. 28.
Representatives for the agency refused to say whether the president influenced the decision to abandon the wall.
The wall is one of five proposals put forward by the Army Corps to combat the effects of climate change on the New York metro area. The cheapest option it was studying was a nine-year, $14 billion project that would only include shore-based measures.
The sea wall idea received other criticism last month when environmental and resilience planning experts described it as an oversimplified idea that doesn’t address other climate threats, such as storm runoff and flooding from high tides. [NYT] — David Jeans