Talk of the possibility of natural disaster has spurred concern about Columbia’s Manhattanville expansion, even as the University commits to strict environmental codes.
Plans involve an eight-story underground space between West 125th and West 133rd Streets that would include an energy center and bus depot currently located in the expansion site, parking and loading facilities, and research support. University and New York Department of City Planning officials say the underground “bathtub,” as it is called, will improve the local streetscape and pedestrian access. Others have raised concerns about a nearby fault line and the possibility of flooding following a storm.
As with all construction, the expansion plan must comply with seismic design requirements in the New York City Building Code, which include minimum accommodations of earthquake risk. A City Planning report states that “sufficient studies have been conducted to confirm that design elements can address potential flooding conditions” and mandates future analyses of rising sea levels.
“Common sense dictates that Columbia will only move forward in ways that are safe for the students, the faculty, and members of the surrounding community,” Columbia Senior Executive Vice President Robert Kasdin said.
Kasdin said environmental issues had been discussed in the planning process. “I think they’ve been addressed,” he said.
But some say these measures are not enough. According to city planner Ron Shiffman, a major risk is a “storm surge,” or a rise in water level of the nearby Hudson River due to a large storm, which could flood the “bathtub.” The New York City Office of Emergency Management has classified the Manhattanville site as a “Zone C” hurricane evacuation zone, meaning flooding would result from a major hurricane making landfall just south of the city.
This risk could be compounded by an earthquake fault line below 125th Street, which would cause groundwater below the bathtub to penetrate upward, Shiffman said. Additionally, water pressure from the Hudson could “propagate some of the faults on the bottom of the basement,” said Klaus Jacob, a seismologist and expert in coastal hazards at Columbia’s Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory, in a January interview this year.
“All that will add appreciably to the cost of protecting against it, and nobody has calculated what those costs will be,” said Shiffman, who has worked with Community Board 9 and the Pratt Center for Community Development.
But most scientists and engineers interviewed said the risk of natural disaster in Manhattanville was “minimal” and could be addressed at low costs.
George Deodatis, professor of civil engineering at the School of Engineering and Applied Science, called the fault line a “trivial problem.” Any earthquake the fault would produce would be “quite small,” and the potential for storm surge would be easily remediable, he said.
“This is a fault that is insignificant. If a fault like this ruptures in California, it’s not even in the news because it’s so small,” Deodatis said. “I would very comfortably live in the building on the seismic fault with my family.”
Arthur Lerner-Lam, head of the seismology division at the LDEO, said the expansion will actually decrease the risk of earthquake damage by building larger structures.
“The piece that worries most of us are not the new buildings or the skyscrapers, but the five- to 10-story tenements,” Lerner-Lam said. “Those are historically and provably the most vulnerable to earthquake shaking.”
“By redeveloping Manhattanville, the project is building resilience into the area, not taking it away,” he added.
Jacob, Deodatis, and others have proposed a “slurry wall,” an underground barrier designed to hinder groundwater flow from the Hudson, which City Planning’s Final Environmental Impact Statement describes as a necessary part of construction.
Hoe Ling, professor of geotechnical engineering at SEAS, said the fault line is inactive and relatively small, but stressed the need for further investigation and involvement of “people at the research level.”
Nick Sprayregen, one of two remaining owners of private property in the expansion zone, filed lawsuits, in collaboration with Jacob and Shiffman, against Columbia and the city on grounds that neither party properly and independently evaluated environmental risks regarding the bathtub. The state court decision is pending.
Betsy Morais and Joy Resmovits contributed to this article.
daniel.amzallag@columbiaspectator.com
