de Blasio's D.O.T.'s and D.E.P.'s primitively cheap remedies for potholes and damaged catch basins

 

 Impunity City


New York is not only famous for being the biggest city in the world (by default, reputation and hype) but it’s also infamous for it’s potholes which manifest from time to time and also notorious for the tardiness to repair them. But decades riding (and at few occasions driving) in this big city of dreams, I don’t think I have ever seen the creative and quarter-assed way Mayor de Blasio’s Department of Transportation has displayed to remediate or even fix these blights on the roads and pavement. Especially with the usage of traffic cones.

 

 But the de Blasio’s D.O.T.’s shiftlessness is not limited to the lame efforts and solutions to warn citizens of road hazards, it also applies his Department of Environmental Protection for our dilapidated water catch basins. Especially the ones in the perpetually ignored neighborhoods in Southeast Queens.

 

Elderly man's driveway floods whenever it rains

From PIX11:

"I pray when it rains. I say, Lord, I hope you stop the rain. Please don't flood. Help me out," said Gadson, who still preaches at a local church once a month.

PIX11 News reached out to the Department of Transportation and Department of Environmental Protection for answers.

A DEP spokesperson says their "records show that DEP inspected catch basins on that block, as well as on the adjacent blocks, last week, and they were found to be clean and working properly."

A DOT spokesperson said that "a recent roadway inspection revealed a low curb in front of the residence in question. As you may be aware, Section 2904 of the New York City Charter places the responsibility for the repair and maintenance of the sidewalk and driveway area on the property owner. DOT is scheduling a subsequent inspection of the sidewalk and curb to determine next steps."

Catch basin hazards in Jackson Heights

From PIX11:

Residents called PIX11 News to investigate nasty catch basins in their Queens neighborhood posing a threat to pedestrians and bicyclists trying to traverse the streets.

When we arrived on Wednesday, we spotted a young family with a new baby having to watch their step while walking past a busted catch basin on Northern Boulevard and 74th Street.

Mohammad Haque called it a hazard.

Residents said they’ve been complaining to the city about the problem for months but nothing has been done to fix the issue.

“It’s terrible; an accident waiting to happen,” one passerby said.

Yearly inspections of catch basins now mandated

From the Queens Chronicle:

A bill passed unanimously by the City Council last week that would increase inspections and repairs to clogged catch basins is one step in fighting the problem of flooding in Queens, according to two borough councilmen.

The bill, introduced by Councilman Jumaane Williams (D-Brooklyn), would force the Department of Environmental Protection to inspect catch basins on a yearly basis rather than every three years. It would also require the DEP to report twice a year to the mayor and Council speaker about inspections, maintenance and repairs.

Councilman Rory Lancman (D-Fresh Meadows) said he fully supports the measure as another tool in preventing flooding. His district includes a part of Utopia Parkway that has a long history of severe floods due to heavy rainstorms and the topography.

In a telephone interview on Tuesday, Lancman said he had been surprised to learn that the DEP only inspects catch basins every three years.

“It should be every year and this bill does that,” he said.

He pointed out that the public can call 311 to report a clogged drain, but sometimes debris and sediment are underneath and can’t be seen.

DEP, where are you?

This wonderful site is located at Onderdonk Ave and Suydam Street. It appears that metal thieves stole the original curb protector and it was replaced with concrete, which has been destroyed by something. This is just a mess.

DEP: No money for storm drain

From NBC:

A portion of 148th Avenue in Rosedale lacks a storm drain, leading to flooding even when there isn't a lot of rainfall, according to residents. Checkey Beckford reports.

And the Courier has other crappy DEP news:

Despite recent attempts by the Department of Environmental Protection to fix a sinking section of a Lindenwood street, the pavement at the corner of 79th Street and 157th Avenue has again sunk by as much as a foot.

The corner is totally unusable to cars, and residents worry about pedestrians walking there and vehicles possibly getting stuck in the dip.

“The hole has gotten worse than ever since they came in to fix it,” said Joe Thompson, a Lindenwood resident and president of the Howard Beach Civilian Observation Patrol. “We visited the hole this week and saw a large puddle completely frozen over. What if someone slips into that because the water can’t drain correctly, or what if a car makes too fast of a turn around the corner not realizing the hole [is there]? It’s dangerous.”

The DEP came in October to work on the street after The Courier first reported on the situation. They did extensive work on the infrastructure of the pipes below ground. This included fixing the connection of the catch basin and sewer at the location. They also inspected the adjacent ground water and sewer infrastructure and found everything to be working normally.

Once the repair was completed, the road was resurfaced from 80th Street down to the sinking area. But, almost three months after the work was completed, some of the resurfacing has begun to sink in, creating potholes on the block, and the corner still remains a problem.

Forest Park hole plugged

From the Queens Courier:

The sinkhole that has blocked the entrance path to Forest Park for years is finally fixed, according to the city Parks Department.

The contractor has finished the work to fix the hole, including clearing and upgrading existing drainage systems, reconstructing the sidewalk and stabilizing the adjacent slope.

The final portion of the project is to repave the strip with new asphalt, which will be completed once the weather permits, according to a Parks Department spokesperson.

The hole is located on the entrance path to the park from Woodhaven Boulevard. According to locals, the sinkhole started about two years ago and has been getting worse ever since it first appeared. It was most likely caused by runoff that deteriorated the catch basin beneath the roadway, the department spokesperson said.

Big project to prevent big problems

From the Epoch Times:

Residents of the flood-prone Laurelton section of Jamaica, in Southeastern Queens received good news today.

Another $18 million has been pledged by the city’s Department of Environmental Protection to upgrade area sewers, adding capacity to a system that has long been the cause of repeated flooding and property damage in the low-lying region.

A single pipe that carries both wastewater and storm water from homes and businesses currently serves the middle-class community, known for its streets lined with Tudor homes, co-ops, converted garden apartment complexes, and lack of high-rise buildings.

Its streets will soon be equipped with an added 142 catch basins that will allow rainwater to drain from roadways before it enters the basements of homes and businesses, and overflows into the ecologically sensitive Jamaica Bay.

Catch basins clogged up

From NY1:

Rockaway residents who live on Shorefront Parkway, located just feet from the ocean, are concerned there are too many catch basins or storm drains covered in weeds and packed with dirt.

"We're already compromised in terms of being on the waterfront, so I can't imagine the water has a place to go," said Marie Raico, a concerned resident.

Longtime Rockaway resident Dan Brown says after taking his own inventory of the clogged catch basins, he was startled at what he found.

"There were some that were unrecognizable, I had to dig to find them," he said.

Some residents say it didn't take Hurricane Sandy to overwhelm the drains. They say average rainstorms can mean flooding.

"What happens is the water goes down and goes into that stairwell. Down there we have all of our electric. We have boilers, we have hot our water tanks," said Ray Watson, a concerned resident.

Residents say they have called 311 but feel like they're just getting the run around.

149th Street down the sewer

"In late 2010, at the intersection of 149th Street and 33rd Ave in North Flushing, four of the sewer catch basins on my corner were replaced, reason unknown, and by August 2011 the grass and dirt between the curb and sidewalk collapsed and created a large enough hole for someone to fall all the way down into the bottom of the catch basin, especially when the metal curb piece shifts away.
It was reported by my neighbor 3 times and myself 2 times. In January 2013, a car with "Premier Utility Services" showed up, blasting Latin music, to mark up the street, curbs and some sidewalks on all 4 corners and intersection in red and yellow paint marking electric and gas lines. The workers told me it was to fix this corner's catch basins. Nothing more has been done yet, as of this writing. Let's see what happens.

BTW, this street was repaved in April of 2011, after these basins were installed. So now the newly paved street will probably get torn up and have a patch." - Frustrated in Flushing

What to do?

From the NY Times:

I spent several days walking the Rockaways with Mr. Gair; Mathew W. Wambua, the city’s housing commissioner; and Marc Jahr, the president of the city’s Housing Development Corporation, for whom I worked as a tenant organizer in East Flatbush, Brooklyn, in the early 1980s.

Theirs is a complicated task, made more difficult by a judgment day that will arrive this summer, when the federal government sets new flood standards. If a home sits in Zone A — and much of the Rockaway Peninsula in Queens; Coney Island and Red Hook in Brooklyn; and Staten Island will — homeowners’ insurance rates could jump crazily, to perhaps $10,000 a year from less than $500. There is a deceptively simple way to sidestep this increase: homeowners can raise homes on stilts, and some have set out to do this. But the cost is great, extending into the hundreds of thousands of dollars for some homes.

At Dayton Towers, the chief executive, Jeff Goldstein, had installed new boilers, elevators, lobbies and laundry rooms. His tab ran into the millions of dollars. Then Hurricane Sandy blew in. Swells washed across the shore road and turned his boiler room into a briny aquarium.

Mr. Goldstein’s men restored electricity and heat within two weeks. And now? Commissioner Wambua stood in the well of Dayton Towers, yelling against the roar of the boilers. “Where do you put these?” he asked. “On the roof?”

You could encapsulate the boilers, making the basement watertight, much as a battleship safeguards its engine room, but the cost is terrific.

For many decades, the federal government rebuilt Southern cities lashed by storms. Now Congressional Republicans want to change course. Talk of storms intensified by global warming sounds suspiciously like science; they insist that New York and New Jersey not use a lot of federal money to armor their coastlines.

New York has traveled this road alone before. In the early 2000s, a developer built Arverne by the Sea, a middle-income housing development in the Rockaways.

City officials told him to take account of rising seas levels. So he trucked in landfill, raising the entire development above flood level. He buried electrical lines and put in catch basins, dunes and black pines. In late October, this neighborhood was one of the few in the area that did not flood.

The trick is to extend that sleight of hand to miles and miles of coastline, and so preserve a necklace of neighborhoods.

Call for end to Little Neck flooding

From the Queens Gazette:

State Senator Tony Avella joined residents who live along 57th Avenue in Little Neck in calling on the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) for the immediate installation of curb openings and additional catch basins to alleviate the massive flooding conditions that plague their neighborhood even after the most marginal rain.

Residents have been complaining to DEP for years that the current catch basins clog far too easily, leading to the flooding of basements and garages of at least six houses on the block.

Flooding of this area is recurrent and dates back to 1987 when the city installed sewers and catch basins on 57th Avenue after the settlement of a suit brought by the homeowners.

At that time, a private engineer retained by the homeowners, advised the city that their plans failed to provide adequate catch basins and the basins should be of a hook and hanger type.

The city ignored the engineers’ recommendations.

The streets of Glendale or Venice?

From the Times Newsweekly:

Every time a heavy rain hits Glendale, John Iwanciw realizes that he’ll need to clear away a small pond at his doorstep once the last drops have fallen.

For the last four years, the 34-year resident of 69th Street has been dealing with a flooded sidewalk after periods of heavy rain. The large puddle blocks most of the driveway he shares with a neighbor and reaches the top of the last step of his front stoop.

Normally, storm runoff flows down the curb to an awaiting catch basin. But the resurfacing of his block conducted several years ago made the street grade higher than that of the sidewalk, Iwanciw claimed, resulting in the chronic ponding condition in front of his home.

A cherry blossom tree in front of the residence died and was recently cut down; Iwanciw blamed its demise on the regular flooding, which oversaturated the tree pit.

The Times Newsweekly contacted the DEP for an update on the situation. Spokesperson Mercedes Padilla told this paper on Tuesday, [July] 19, that the DEP launched its capital project to repair multiple catch basins last month, and that a catch basin will be installed in front of the Iwanciw home.

And when would that be? I can imagine what happened on that block this past Friday night...

City admits responsibility for flooding

From the Times Ledger:

Representatives from the city Departments of Environmental Protection and Sanitation met with residents at the Rosedale offices of state Sen. Shirley Huntley (D-Jamaica) Sept. 1 to provide more information on what happened Aug. 22, when several streets and homes were flooded.

Springfield Boulevard north of the Belt Parkway and west of the Cross Island Parkway, which is prone to flooding during storms, was hit with heavy rains that evening and many homeowners said they were caught off guard by the amount of water that poured onto their properties.

DEP Chief of Capital Planning Jim Garin said the agency had finished installing new storm sewers in the area in 2001 to prevent flooding.

“From historical knowledge we know southeast Queens gets hammered when storms hit,” he said.

Garin said catch basins and an 8-foot-by-17-foot storm sewer were installed during that construction to collect the water from storms. Between 9:51 p.m. and 10:11 p.m. Aug. 22, 0.88 inches of rain fell on the area and such a storm was estimated to occur no more than once every two years, according to the DEP administrator.

Although the sewer could have handled the load, water did not get through the catch basins since they were filled with debris and leaves, Garin said.

“The sewer system could handle the flow, but the water was not getting through,” he said.

When first responders and residents began opening manholes to non-storm sewers to alleviate the flooding, the excess water backed up that system and led to water going into people’s homes, he added.

Garin said the basins are now being cleaned and DEP will place the area on its “hot list” for highly flooded areas. Neighborhoods on that list will have their catch basins monitored thoroughly before storms and made sure they are clean before any more torrential rain hits, according to Garin.

In the meantime, City Councilman James Sanders (D-Laurelton) will be hosting a separate meeting this Monday night, where affected homeowners can talk to representatives from the city comptroller’s office about seeking help on filing damage claims for storm damage.

Good luck with that. Ask the people who were flooded in 2007 about how much help they got from the comptroller's office.

A hell of a hole in East Elmhurst

From NY1:

East Elmhurst building owner Mike Shehadeh was worried about a huge hole by a street drain that grew bigger by the day, and the danger it posed to his Queens neighborhood.

Shehadeh was also concerned for the five little kids who live in his building, right behind the hole. He said the drain had been around for three months and he had called 311 about the hazard at least a dozen times.

After Shehadeh called NY1 For You, the station called the Department of Environmental Protection and a spokesman told NY1 that the agency was aware of the problem and that the catch basin was missing a couple of pieces.

The next day the hole was fixed, much to the resident's delight.

Hey folks, it's an election year!