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Q&A
Council Member Gennaro discusses SWPPP, BRIC funding, and Cloudburst projects with Deputy Commissioner Licata
1:12:26
·
4 min
Council Member James F. Gennaro engages in a Q&A session with Deputy Commissioner Angela Licata about various environmental and funding issues. They discuss the Stormwater Pollution Prevention Plan (SWPPP), the ending of FEMA's Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program, and the impact on New York City's Cloudburst projects.
- Gennaro acknowledges challenges with SWPPP implementation and mentions ongoing discussions to balance benefits and project progression.
- Licata expresses concern over the loss of BRIC funding, which had previously secured over $240 million for the city.
- They discuss the status of Cloudburst projects, with four currently funded by the city and two additional projects with separate funding sources.
James F. Gennaro
1:12:26
So what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna finish going through my statement and before I get to my prepared questions, I'm gonna call on council member council member Villas to to ask her questions.
1:12:39
This is a very busy time of the year for council members.
1:12:42
Really got a primary coming up.
1:12:44
I'm not supposed to talk about politics, but, you know, I just it's a reality that people are running around doing things.
1:12:51
And so Thank you for your attention to the SWPPP.
1:13:08
I I know this is it's it's got developers going out of their minds.
1:13:13
I've I've spoken with the commissioner about it.
1:13:16
There are things coming down the, you know, things coming down the line regarding how we maintain like a good balance between getting the benefits from the SWPPP and getting projects to move.
1:13:36
And so right now we have one and not the other.
1:13:39
And so we're gonna get both.
1:13:42
Any developers watching on wherever this is broadcast should know that that's why I'm I've had productive conversations with the commissioner on that.
1:14:13
Yeah.
1:14:14
You talked about BRIC grants from FEMA and the new administration ending the BRIC program.
1:14:23
And you talked about, you know, you're trying to figure out what impact this may have.
1:14:33
Where do we think this is going?
1:14:37
You know, kind of difficult to imagine that the state is gonna help us out because even when we get federal funds, that we get federal funds through the state, we don't get them.
1:14:50
And so but the formula that has been made for all kinds of, you know, like, whether it's the Bond Act, federal funds, whatever.
1:15:00
And so we're just like a small town on the Hudson, and we get cheated all the time.
1:15:04
So, the absence of BRIC funding, what do you think the prognosis is?
1:15:12
And what is gonna be the of like the result of that kind of not so good prognosis?
1:15:24
We can always do bad news here.
1:15:26
We do bad news at hearings.
1:15:28
And so
1:16:53
in Yeah.
1:16:54
Yeah.
1:16:54
Thank you.
Angela Licata
1:15:29
It's very upsetting and disturbing after all of the success that we had in securing over $240,000,000 in BRIC funding.
1:15:39
I don't know where this is going to end necessarily.
1:15:44
We're we're in, as we said in the testimony conversations with the oversights.
1:15:51
The one thing I know is that we are funded in the city for four cloudbursts that we plan on on doing.
1:16:01
We are about 60% design, so we have a budget estimate for those.
1:16:07
We believe that we can accomplish those four with the current city funding.
1:16:12
What would be and we have an additional two.
1:16:15
One that was funded under another federal program and another project that also currently has funding, so that would bring us to about five or six.
1:16:27
The impact would be if the BRIC funding is eliminated that we could not reach further down our list.
1:16:35
So when we developed our Cloudburst projects, we had about 31 Cloudburst hubs that looked very good to us in terms of cost benefit and the amount of flooding that would be alleviated.
1:16:46
We were hoping with that federal funding to be able to leverage that and get further down the list.
1:16:51
So that's the impact
1:16:55
You're welcome.