NYC won’t make up difference after feds pull funding on study to protect city from next Hurricane Sandy: de Blasio official

The city has no plans to replace funding for a huge federal study on preparing for the next Hurricane Sandy after the Trump administration pulled the plug, a top de Blasio official said Wednesday.

The preliminary budget proposed by the mayor earlier this year relied on the feds to keep funding a multimillion-dollar analysis by the Army Corps of Engineers looking into a huge seawall, among other possible plans to protect the city from catastrophic weather.

Since then, the Corps announced it was no longer receiving funding for the project, drawing fury from city pols and environmental activists. The study had cost $19 million and counting as of 2018.

Asked by Councilman Costa Constantinides (D-Queens) whether the city has changed its budget plans to make up for the halt to the federal study, Environmental Protection Commissioner Vincent Sapienza gave an inaudible response.

After the hearing, he confirmed the city isn’t planning to keep the Army Corps of Engineers study going or otherwise change its funding to explore steps to protect from the next Sandy.

“We’re always hoping that we can receive more federal and state funding to invest in the city’s infrastructure, that it doesn’t always have to be on the dime of the city [taxpayers],” Sapienza said.

He noted funding for a protective barrier for Staten Island is so far unaffected by President Trump, who derided the barrier the Army Corps of Engineers was considering for New York Harbor as “costly, foolish & environmentally unfriendly.”

“Time is of the essence to make these resilience plans and reconfigure,” Constantinides, chair of the Council’s Committee on Environmental Protection, said during the hearing.

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