Improvements on the Buffalo waterfront are moving out into open water, to the breakwalls that protect the harbor.
While many millions of dollars has gone into improvements on the waterfront and Outer Harbor, the guardians of all of that are deteriorating. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will be putting more than $12 million into the giant rock walls that protect the length of the harbor and waterfront.
Rep. Brian Higgins (D-Buffalo) said this $12 million will be on top of $100 million that has gone into cleaning up the Buffalo River and the harbor and other Corps projects.
Higgins said the future needs this work.
"You can't rebuild a great waterfront city without clean and navigable waterways and this $12.5 million dollars of federal investment by the Army Corps of Engineers will go a long way toward helping to position Buffalo to what I hope will be the major destination of recreational boating on the Great Lakes," he said.
He said the money also lets the waterfront be a place for commercial shipping.
"So long as it's properly managed, you can have both Great Lakes freighters and canoes, kayaks, recreational boaters co-exist, not only peacefully, but in a way that celebrates the full potential of Buffalo's waterfront," Higgins said. "So that's what we're striving for all the time. We will continue to deal to bring more federal investment."
Higgins said when Democrats take over the House of Representatives in January, he will be pushing a massive infrastructure bill for projects like these, suggesting the bill might provide $1 trillion nationally.
