State Awards $910,000 For Brookhaven Flood Mitigation

BROOKHAVEN, NY — The Town of Brookhaven is slated to receive $910,000 to raise Bellhaven Road in Brookhaven as part of a flood mitigation project, Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Thursday.

The road, which is regularly impacted by cyclic tides and storm surges, will not only be raised but additional storage for stormwater will be added, as well as more areas for natural absorption.

The project will include best management practices that incorporate green infrastructure, water quality, increased retention, and disconnection of direct discharges.

The project will increase its resiliency along the roadway.

It was not immediately clear if the DEC's funding will pay for the entire cost of the project.

Patch has reached out to Brookhaven Town for comment.

The funds were awarded through the State Department of Environmental Conservation's Climate Smart Communities Grant program, which has allocated over $11.6 million to 25 municipalities across the state.

The goal of the program is to help municipalities with projects that save taxpayer dollars over the long term, while also reducing greenhouse gas emissions and "helping communities adapt to the ongoing impacts of climate change, including reducing flood risk, relocating or retrofitting critical infrastructure, and increasing community resilience to extreme weather," officials said in a news release.

"The significant funding under New York's Climate Smart Communities Program is critical in supporting local efforts to protect residents and infrastructure from the effects of climate change," Hochul said. "We continue to see increasingly extreme weather each year and these grants help empower locally-driven, bold action to help meet New York's ambitious climate goals while setting an example for other municipalities to follow."