The federal government could shoulder 65% of the cost of Boston’s plan for nearly $10 billion of coastal resilience infrastructure protecting Boston from coastal flooding and sea level rise following a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers risk management feasibility study released last week. The first draft of the study outlines more than 20 infrastructure projects along 16 miles of Boston’s coastline that would protect inland areas from flooding during extreme weather events. The Army Corps estimates the infrastructure will prevent an estimated $41 billion in damages. “The Army Corps partnership is a once-in-a-generation opportunity to unlock significant federal funding to protect Boston’s major job centers and our state’s economic competitiveness,” Lindsey Butler, executive Director of the Green Ribbon Commission. Boston started the process of sponsoring the study, which is required for the city to be eligible for federal funding, in 2022, Chief Climate Officer Brian Swett told Smart Cities Dive. The study, he said, "is the big kahuna.” The final report is expected in 2028. The city began to take coastal resilience seriously after it just missed being hit by Hurricane Sandy in 2012, Swett said. One-sixth of Boston sits on filled tidelands built under the assumption that sea levels would remain static, Swett said. Sandy’s near-miss — on top of a history of 24 federal or state disaster declarations, 14 of them involving major flooding, since 1991 — spurred the city to pursue resilience. Its Climate Ready Boston initiative, published in 2016, resulted in the creation of Coastal Resilience Solutions plans, which identify flood risk locations and opportunities for prevention infrastructure. Boston is the only major U.S. city to zone new construction to a future flood standard that projects 40 inches of sea level rise by 2070, he said. “We recognized the significance of what we were facing —