On the heels of the 10-year anniversary of Hurricane Irene, comes commemoration of another calamity: It’s been almost two years since the Halloween Storm of 2019 dumped a frightening amount of rain in the Southeastern Adirondacks, an event that probably received less attention than was due because it centered on a less populated part of the park.
The storm washed out the road to the much-ballyhooed Boreas Ponds, scarcely six weeks after it had opened. One small victim of the storm was a bridge leading to Hammond Pond, a sparkling blue sheet in the Eastern Adirondacks. It took two years, but the state has finally replaced it with a beefy piece of infrastructure that is part bridge, part work of art (see photo above).
It may seem like overkill for such a small stream, but as the climate changes, that’s what it’s going to take to withstand the beating that trails, roads and bridges are likely to absorb from rising rivers and streams. Notably, the Restore Mother Nature Bond Act on the ballot next year would spend no less than $1 billion to brace against the impact of flooding. Many have fretted over the costs of lowering carbon emissions. But failing to lower carbon emissions is likely to cost us far more.
— Tim Rowland, Explorer contributor
Bond Act deep dive
November is around the corner. That means voters will be deciding on an unprecedented level of state debt–$4.2 billion–to fund water-quality projects, climate change mitigation, open space protection and more.
As I was teasing a couple of newsletters back, we dug into records from 26 years ago to see what New Yorkers got for their borrowing the last time around. It was remarkable to compare the detailed responses I got from some state agencies to how little I got from others. Some even said they’d purged records from that far back. You can read about the record hunt here.
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