Connecticut has received a $54 million federal grant to improve shoreline infrastructure and make portions of the state more resilient.
On Friday, officials said Connecticut was one of just a few states to receive the grant from the National Disaster Resiliency Competition.
Much of the money will be used to help Bridgeport's coastal communities, including the city's South End, damaged after flooding from Superstorm Sandy in 2012.
Governor Dannel Malloy said climate change is real, and this federal money will help make the most vulnerable portions of the state safer. He said the federal grant will pay for work from New Haven to the Greenwich border.
"It will serve as a blueprint," Malloy said, for what Connecticut needs to do to strengthen other portions of the state along Long Island Sound in advance of future storms.
The grant will specifically pay for:
• Bridgeport - South End East Resilience Network - $34,368,759: Elevation of University Avenue and construction of a greenway earthen berm to create a new baseline for the establishment of an urban coastal community that will be protected against future storms and sea level rise, removing the risk to reinvestment and inviting new development to strengthen this extension of downtown Bridgeport.
• Bridgeport – Community Design Center - $1,000,000: Construction and rehabilitation of an anchor community center in the South End to serve as a design center and central location for future recovery efforts.
• Bridgeport – South End District Energy Infrastructure Study - $350,000: Analysis of opportunities to utilize micro-grids, co-generation systems, and alternative energy sources to limit disruptions in energy supply due to emergencies.
• New Haven/Fairfield County – Floodplain Design Guidelines - $330,000: Development of new guidelines to incorporate cutting edge flood mitigation technologies
• New Haven/Fairfield County – Connecticut Connections Coastal Resilience Plan - $18,228,600: Extend this existing planning effort to more communities in New Haven and Fairfield Counties with the goal of providing accessible down-scaled inland and coastal flooding information at the watershed scale for inland and coastal municipalities.
