Programmatic Environmental Assessment draft, Jan 2002

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

• $ 100 million for “Capital Investment Grants” for “transit agencies most severely impacted by the terrorist attacks..(administered by the Federal Transit Authority)

Department of Housing and Urban Development: • $2 billion for Lower Manhattan Redevelopment Corporation

This PEA does not evaluate a number of the on-going emergency actions that have been covered under FEMA statu! -ry exclusions and which have received emergency permits from the applicable regulatory agencies, including the Army Corps of Engineers and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. These actions include the massive debris removal effort that is estimated to encompass over 1.6 million tons (cubic yards) of debris and approximately a 1 year of effort to completely remove the remains of the destroyed buildings and their contents. The debris disposal is taking place at the Staten Island Landfill and is being monitored by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC). In addition, several areas have been dredged to allow for debris removal operations (barge access) and for temporary ferry service necessitated by the loss of the subway and PATH train access to lower Manhattan. The dredging operations were permitted by the USAGE and dredged material is being deposited at the Newark Bay Confined Disposal Facility (CDF) in Newark, New Jersey.

2.2 DESCRIPTION OF ALTERNATIVES

The actions evaluated in this PEA reflect the complete destruction of several of the World Trade Center buildings, substantial damage to adjacent buildings, and massive damage to the roads, utilities, subway, and the underground PATH train infrastructure in the vicinity of the collapsed buildings. Consequently, emergency activities have served to protect lives, remove debris, and to restore utility services lost on September 11, 2001. It is anticipated that while the majority of actions would entail the repair or replacement in kind of damaged facilities and infrastructure, there may be opportunities to incorporate upgrades and hazard mitigation components into projects. The area of study with community board boundaries is represented by Figure 1-3. In addition, emergency transportation measures have and would need to be taken to provide critical access for people who live work and visit the WTC vicinity.

The proposed action is typically the alternative that has been proposed by the applicant/grantee as their preferred alternative. The piupose of this section is to list and describe the proposed actions in detail adequate to develop accurate assessments of potential impacts described in Section 3.0, and to provide a boundary of application of this PEA (future projects outside of these listed projects o. assiuned scope would require additional study). These alternatives do not provide site-specific project details, but rather describe a typical application of each alternative. A detailed, site-specific discussion of the proposed action and alternatives would be provided in each project specific Supplemental Environmental Assessment (SEA).

2-3

NYC-WTC_000141687