Overview
- The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the City of Boston released a draft feasibility study on Monday proposing roughly $9–10.5 billion in more than 20 projects to protect about 16 miles of the city’s shoreline and the draft is open for public comment through Sept. 18.
- If Congress authorizes the work, the Corps estimates the federal government could fund about 65 percent of baseline construction costs while state, local and private partners would cover the remainder.
- Officials say the package focuses on hard infrastructure—flood walls, levees, berms, surge gates and building retrofits—and the study projects roughly a 4-to-1 benefit-to-cost ratio by preventing an estimated $41 billion of future flood damage.
- City leaders have asked the Corps to clarify how wetlands, living shorelines and stormwater fixes would be integrated and who would pay for those nature-based measures instead of mostly stone-and-concrete solutions.
- A final report is expected to be submitted to Congress in 2028, design and permitting would continue after authorization, construction is unlikely before the 2030s with larger elements stretching into the 2040s, and earlier projects such as Moakley Park could move sooner.