Ever since Hurricane Sandy swept ashore and killed 24 people on Staten Island in 2012, New York City officials have promised protection against similar storms, including a sea wall stretching along the borough’s eastern flank.
But more than 13 years after Sandy, that long-delayed project is stalled again after the U.S. Army fired its builder, a Bronx-based construction company with a checkered safety record.
The Army Corps of Engineers had hired Triumph Construction to complete part of a $2.3 billion project, which was a response to the deadly flooding Sandy wrought on the island. The Army corps awarded Triumph a $133 million contract for construction of a 4.3-mile-long sea wall in 2024, a year after the federal government cited the company for serious safety violations related to a trench collapse that killed two workers at Kennedy International Airport.
The federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration fined Triumph nearly $60,000 for those violations, the fifth time in 15 years that the agency had cited the company for failing to adequately protect workers doing excavation-related work.
An Army corps spokesman, Hector Mosley, said that there had been “safety issues” on Triumph’s work site before the corps terminated the contract in late May. But he declined to provide details because, he said, the matter might be the subject of litigation.
A lawyer representing Triumph, Brian Gardner, acknowledged that a drilling rig “did tip over” on the site in October but added that “fortunately nobody got hurt.” Mr. Gardner disputed the suggestion that safety had been an issue that justified his client’s dismissal.
“It’s not like this was an emergency situation,” he said.
Triumph had fallen behind schedule, Mr. Gardner said, but it could have made up for any delays in the 19 months left for completion. He said that he hoped to work out an agreement with the Army corps before resorting to litigation.
Mr. Mosley declined to say how long the project would be delayed because of the termination of Triumph’s contract.
Pia Fouilloux, a spokeswoman for the Mayor’s Office of Climate & Environmental Justice, declined to comment and referred questions to the corps. Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, a Democrat who pursued federal funding for the project, expressed his displeasure with the disruption.
“Staten Islanders have waited far too long for this critical flood-protection project, and the last thing they want to hear is the Army corps dredging up excuses that could delay the sea wall finally getting built,” Mr. Schumer said.
Sandy’s storm surge inundated the eastern and southern shores of Staten Island, leaving 24 people dead, more than in any other borough of the city. For more than a decade, New York officials have pressed the Army corps to build a wall to protect against a flood of similar magnitude.
In 2016, the corps approved a plan for safeguarding the island that included a wall that was nearly five miles long and 19 feet tall. In a 2019 report, the corps said that it expected to hire a builder for the wall by 2022. But it did not select one for two more years.
In 2024, the corps chose Triumph, whose bid of $133 million was the lowest of 14 it received, records show. Other bids ranged as high as $361 million, a log of the bids shows.
Representative Nicole Malliotakis, a Republican from Staten Island, stood before a yellow excavator adorned with the logo of Triumph Construction when she joined corps officials to announce the start of work on the sea wall in October 2024. A spokesman for Ms. Malliotakis declined to comment on the suspension of work.
The corps’ records show that the expected date of completion was extended by one month to Jan. 30, 2028, and the estimated cost increased by about $200,000. No reasons were given for those changes.
Mr. Gardner, the lawyer for Triumph, said that the corps had cited the company for failing to stay on schedule. But he said that the cause of any slowdown was that the corps “kept issuing stop-work orders.”
Mr. Gardner said he was drafting a letter that would argue that Triumph was not responsible for the delays. He said that he believed the dispute could be resolved without filing a complaint in federal court.
Mr. Mosley said that the corps was coordinating with an insurance company to devise a plan to restart work. Federal agencies require contractors to post performance bonds to insure against their failure to complete projects.
The suspension of work on the sea wall came as disappointing news to Joseph McAllister, president of the South Beach Civic Association, a group of community organizations on Staten Island.
“It’s disgusting that it’s taking so long,” Mr. McAllister said. But he said he had not lost faith in the corps. “Sooner or later, it’s going to be done,” he said.
Not all Mr. McAllister’s neighbors in the borough shared his optimism.
“Staten Islanders are pretty much nonbelievers,” said Joseph Tirone, a real estate investor. “They are big-time doubters. So I don’t think anybody thought this would ever be built.”
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