Tunnel Vision Incision

⛔️ 𝗕𝗥𝗘𝗔𝗞𝗜𝗡𝗚 𝗡𝗢𝗪
This is video from the Queens-Midtown Tunnel showing water pouring into it.
The East River is above it
(Video by @whatisnewyork)#NYC #Tunnel pic.twitter.com/GqyYxotbcq

— Ꮃꭺꮮꮮ Ꮪꭲꭱꭼꭼꭲ Ꮪꮋꭼꭼꭲ (@wallstreetsheet) September 4, 2024

 

 NY Post

Water from the East River flowed into the the Queens Midtown Tunnel Wednesday afternoon after a drilling contractor accidentally punched a hole in the roof and caused a deluge that terrified drivers, according to officials and shocking video.

Workers were doing “investigative work related to the design of the upcoming UN esplanade project” when they punctured a hole in the edge of the tunnel, Josh Kraus of the New York City Economic Development Corporation said at a press conference.

The busy passageway sprung a leak in the south tube on the Queens side at around 12:30 p.m., prompting officials to close it for roughly 45 minutes.

Video of the massive leak, showed cars driving trough the tunnel as water cascaded down from square openings.

“Well that’s scary,” said someone in a video posted online by @whatisnewyork.

By 3 p.m. officials had reopened one lane in each direction — but traffic remained snarled.

The tunnel fully reopened hours later, according to Mayor Eric Adams.

“Both tunnels are now back open to east/west directions of travel. There will be some residual delays as traffic gets moving in the area. Please be patient,” the mayor wrote on X just after 6 p.m. 

MTA CEO Janno Lieber said city-funded private contractor caused the damage while drilling to find pylons for the East River greenway and that the hole was 2 1/2 inches in diameter in the roof, according to Fox News.

“We determined it was a drilling contractor who drilled about a 2.5 inch hole through the cast iron liner [of the tunnel],” Cathy Sheridan, President of MTA Bridges and Tunnels said at the press conference.

“We don’t know when we will be open. We hope it will be within hours and not days,” she said.

 

Saturation pricing now

 

Gothamist

 

New York City officials signed off on an 8.5% water bill hike for property owners on Thursday — the largest increase since 2011.

The city Water Board begrudgingly approved the new rates during a meeting where the group also passed a resolution saying they were forced to approve such a steep hike due to a budget maneuver by Mayor Eric Adams.

The members said Adams imposed new fees on the Water Board, an independent agency that oversees the city’s water supply. The resolution said the increase will make it more difficult to justify water bill hikes in the future, which could limit board's ability to fund infrastructure to handle increasing rainfall and rising sea levels caused by climate change.

“It undermines the board's ability to consider rates in the future for critical water infrastructure, like storm water resilience and coastal resilience,” board member Dan Zarrilli said in an interview after the vote.

The increase will add $93 to the average city property owner's water bill, from $1,088 to $1,181. The new rates go into effect July 1.

 

 

Swimming banned at Riis Park after bacteria found in water

  

 

NBC News

A popular beach escape for sweltering New Yorkers took a hit this week, the same day heat indices climbed back near the triple digits.

Park officials announced the closure of all swimming at Jacob Riis Park until further notice citing unsafe water conditions.

Samples taken from water along the Queens beachline produced high bacteria levels that exceed the National Park Service safety standards.

Regular swimmers to NYC beaches know well the challenges of getting in the water this summer. In addition to a handful of shark sightings that have suspended swimming for brief periods, large stretches of the Rockaways have been closed through much of the summer for construction and restoration of the beach. 

 

 

Current mayor's climate event and emergency plan will take 2 more years to complete

 

 NY Post

 City officials were well aware of the death traps that basement apartments would become in the event of a flash-flood emergency like the one that drowned at least eight New Yorkers living below grade Wednesday night — yet they did nothing to warn them.

Mayor Bill de Blasio’s Stormwater Resiliency Plan, released in May, includes an initiative that would “develop notifications for basement dwellings to keep residents out of harm’s way.”

The plan required the Office of Emergency Management to “pre-draft messaging regarding potential dangers for residents living in basement dwellings to be used for outreach and notification in advance of forecasted extreme rain events.”

Completion date? 2023.

“There are multiple initiatives, all that are very pressing and important, that are currently underway,” City Hall spokesman Mitch Schwartz said.

Leave it to Mayor Big Slow to draft a plan to make basement dwellings part of the city's housing program first and then come up with an emergency plan for them over a year later. What a stupid fucking idiot. 

 

Did not age well at all. https://t.co/2EuW0DMUCh

— Queens Crapper (@QueensCrapper) September 3, 2021

Parks Dept opens up more accessible paths to the Ridgewood Reservoir

 

 NY1

What once provided water for Brooklyn, now delivers peace and quiet for New Yorkers, and a habitat for a variety of wildlife. 

It’s the Ridgewood Reservoir, which sits on the Brooklyn-Queens Border at Highland Park. The East Causeway of the reservoir, with its original fencing from 1858, is now open weekends thanks to the work of the Parks Department and not-for-profit environmental education group NYC H20. 

"We bring students and families and community groups out to natural places like the beautiful Ridgewood Reservoir to teach about nature, water ecology and the water system, and to give people an appreciation for it and why they should care about it,” said Matt Malina, the executive director and founder of NYC H2O. 

Fed by 13 reservoirs reaching out east through Queens and Nassau Counties, the reservoir was built in 1858 to provide the then city of Brooklyn with water. It provided water for 100 years, and was last used in the 1960s when it was drained. Two of the basins have become forests again, the middle basin a freshwater pond.

"It's home to ducks, dragon flies and other birds and there are also dozens of species of birds that come through on their spring and fall migrations,” said Malina, who also noted that if you look closely there are even Italian Wall Lizards that call the area home. 

Here's hoping that the initial 're-imagining" plans to build a waterslide and performance space got thrown in the garbage.

 

Some improvements in Flushing Meadows Park

Dear Queens Crapper:

A few years ago I sent you some pictures of this stretch of road in Flushing Meadows Park.  After extensive work there was still significant flooding. Well, that stretch was under construction again recently (for a long time!) but they seem to have solved the drainage problem.  There is still a bit of water but this picture was taken today after a ton of rain this week.  This is on the north side of the lake.  They also fixed a chronically flooded spot on the south side. 

As you can see from the second picture, there is still work to be done, but I thought to be fair to the parks department I should let you know of the improvements.

Drinking fountains in Queens public parks are loaded with lead

 

Gothamist


The water from one drinking fountain in Pelham Bay Park in the Bronx has 50 times as much lead in it as permitted by federal regulations, according to an official test. Another at a tennis court in Cunningham Park in Queens has nearly 23 times above what officials consider safe.


The New York City Department of Parks and Recreation has published early results from its program to test for lead contamination at its public drinking fountains. And while many of the numbers are alarming, they’re also “very common” for cities with aging, lead-based plumbing, according to Marc Edwards, a civil engineer at Virginia Tech who helped uncover harmful lead levels in Flint, Michigan.


A Gothamist/WNYC analysis of the city’s data found that, out of the 448 fountains checked thus far, 20 fountains (4.5 percent of the early total) tested above the federal standard of 15 parts per billion (ppb). By comparison, in a similar exercise carried out in New York City public schools in 2017, roughly 8 percent of water sources tested above the same threshold once all the results were tallied.


The testing program is a component of Mayor Bill de Blasio’s LeadFreeNYC campaign to eliminate childhood lead exposure in the city. The parks department said drinking water from public fountains is not a known source of exposure, but the city’s health commissioner, Dr. Oxiris Barbot, said the tests “will ensure that we leave no stone unturned.”


Research has shown that even low levels of lead exposure can cause reduced IQ, hyperactivity and other behavioral problems in children. In adults, lead is a risk factor for cardiovascular disease and other health issues.


Sampling in parks and playgrounds started on May 6th in Queens. All of the city’s 3,500-plus public fountains are scheduled to be tested by June 14th. Two samples are drawn for each source, one after a fountain has sat unused for up to 18 hours prior to testing, and another after a flush of several seconds to help determine how deep the source of contamination in the plumbing goes. Any fountain that exceeds 15 ppb will be turned off until it can be fixed, officials say. Test results are to be updated on a weekly basis.


At the Dry Harbor Playground in Forest Park in Queens, a drinking fountain where children regularly play came in at 296 ppb, nearly 20 times the federal standard.


“There's no doubt that that's too much lead to be drinking from a fountain,” Edwards said. “You should be worried about it. You should remediate that tap. That shows there's a hazard.”

 This investigation only started a few weeks ago and Queens parks dominate the list. And despite Gothamist's headline and the odious NYC Parks officials marginalizing this vast public health hazard, these are a lot of parks with high level toxicity and not "some".

City using strongarm tactics at Willets Point

From the Queens Chronicle:

Wais Mohibi doesn’t like to go down without a fight.

With his partner Jamie Sabeti, he owns A&B Repair Shop & Discount Muffler at 38th Avenue and 126th Street, the lone holdout in an otherwise barren section of Willets Point.

The Bloomberg administration made deals with other businesses in the area, so the properties could be cleared to make way for a since-killed plan to build a 1.4 million-square-foot mega-mall. Many of the businesses were given money and moved to the Bronx but ended up evicted from their new home.

Mohibi and his partner didn’t end up taking an offer.

“I fought with the city,” he told the Chronicle. “They wanted me out.”

Because the business stayed, its lease with the previous owner of their lot was still in effect and they had to start paying their rent to the city.

Mohibi said he doesn’t regret the decision to stay, and not take a relocation deal, but noted that it hasn’t been painless.

“We had a loss of business,” he said.

Not helping his company is its lack of accessible water — which is often a necessary part of auto work.

“[The city] cut off the water,” Mohibi explained. The issue is compounded by the fact that there is no meter the business can use to gauge its electricity usage, a problem he said was also created after the city took over the lease.

Because of the lack of services, Mohibi and Sabeti stopped paying rent to the city about a year ago, according to Ira Cooper, their attorney.

The de Blasio administration is suing them.

Middle Village basements fill up with crap after heavy rain

From the NY Post:

Residents in Middle Village are up to their knees in their own waste any time there’s heavy rain — thanks to aging sewer lines the city hasn’t fixed despite a decade of promises, The Post has learned.

“I pray when I hear storms coming,” said Pat Donovan, 66, one of many local residents affected by the overflowing sewers.

Last Tuesday, a powerful storm pounded the central Queens community, causing the sewers to back up and leaving homeowners with as much as 3 feet of waste in their basements, with “actual turds” floating in the noxious waters, residents and a local official said.

“We had a waterfall just coming out of the toilet in my basement,” said Louisa Gennari, 61, who called dealing with the floods a “horrific” battle.

“Somebody came in to help us at some point and he went home and put his feet in alcohol,” she said. “It was disgusting.”

The problem goes back decades, but came to light on Aug. 8, 2007, when a flash flood left Middle Village residents with tens of thousands of dollars in damage, with many needing help from FEMA.

The city’s Department of Environmental Protection said the existing storm drains can handle only 1.5 inches of rain — and after that storm, it vowed to fix the issue with drains that can handle 1.75 inches.

It slapped a $22 million price tag on the project, but waited nine more years to break ground in May 2016. It was then halted in November 2017 when contaminated soil was discovered.

The city’s Department of Design and Construction said an additional $8 million was needed to finish the job, but those funds were never allocated.

Water towers are kind of gross

From City and State:

Despite years of reforms, new data reveal widespread neglect in the thousands of weathered wooden water tanks that supply drinking water to millions of New York City residents. A review of city records indicates that most building owners still do not inspect and clean their tanks as the law has required for years, even after revisions to the health and administrative codes that now mandate annual filings.

There are still many thousands of water tanks across the city for which there is no information at all. The city can’t even say with certainty how many there are or where they are located, much less their condition – even well-maintained water tanks accumulate layers of muck and bacterial slime.

Building owners who do self-report the condition of their water tanks provide suspiciously spotless descriptions on annual inspection reports. These reports include bacteriological test results, but in almost every case the tests are conducted only after the tanks have been disinfected, making it a meaningless metric for determining the typical quality of a building’s drinking water. And regulators have issued dramatically fewer violations in recent years.

The data show that the city reported drinking water tanks on municipal buildings, including the city sanitation offices and several court buildings, tested positive for E. coli, a marker used by public health experts to predict the presence of potentially dangerous viruses and bacteria. Oversight remains lax: It took health officials more than a year to investigate several isolated reports of E. coli in drinking water tanks. After inquiries from City & State, however, officials now say that their own reports were erroneous.

But scientists at the federal Environmental Protection Agency and public health experts consulted by City & State warned that animals can easily get into New York City’s water tanks, that mucky sediments inside the tanks may contain pathogens and that poorly maintained water tanks could be the source of disease outbreaks.

Pipes run dry in Whitestone

From the Times Ledger:

Residents of 2nd Avenue in Whitestone said they have been living each day not knowing if they will have water due to insufficient pipes.

State Sen. Tony Avella (D-Bayside) was joined by eight homeowners from 2nd Avenue to call on the city and the DEP to address serious quality-of-life issues regarding their water. Avella said that for years eight homes on 2nd Avenue between 147th Street and 147th Place have dealt with flooding conditions and poor water pressure, if they have had water at all. Residents said the flooding issue was resolved when the city Department of Transportation resurfaced their road but the city has not addressed the lack of water.

Auto Mirror Guard
Avella said he has reached out to DEP since 2013 about the water problem and has gotten zero response.

Residents are blaming the lack of water on an inadequate, two-inch wide water supply pipe that is not able to service all of the homes on the block. While the DEP has acknowledged in the past that the pipes are not wide enough, Avella contends the DEP has refused to take any action.

Here's where they want you to hold onto your poop

From QNS:

The next time it rains, the city’s Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) wants Queens residents to wait until it stops before doing the dishes, taking a shower or flushing a toilet.

The appropriately titled “Wait…” pilot program is expanding throughout western Queens, the DEP announced on Monday. Participating homeowners and tenants are sent text messages alerting them that the Newtown Creek and Bowery Bay Wastewater Treatment plants are near capacity — and that they should minimize their water use in order to prevent sewer overflows from spilling into already polluted waterways such as the Newtown Creek and Flushing Creek.

The pilot program area of Queens covers all neighborhoods north of the Jackie Robinson Parkway and west of the Van Wyck Expressway, as well as portions of Kew Gardens Hills and Briarwood.

According to advocates, the Wait Program is geared at educating the public about where their dirty water winds up after going down the drain. Wastewater produced whenever someone washes clothes or dishes, or even flushes a toilet, travels into the city’s vast underground sewer system, destined for one of many sewage treatment plants for cleanup and processing.

But in a heavy rain event, not all of the storm runoff and wastewater winds up in the sewage treatment plants. When the plants hit capacity, excess wastewater is expelled through combined sewer overflows into waterways across the city. About 90 percent of the overflow is comprised of storm runoff, and the rest is household wastewater containing detergents, chemicals and raw sewage.

Hey, how about limiting the building in these boroughs until the city gets a handle on how much waste they produce?

Calamus Ave residents concerned about water quality

From PIX11:

The DDC has now changed its regulations as a result of the mistake in Maspeth. In a statement to PIX11, a spokesman says “The agency has added a new specification to its construction requirements that mandates that only hose manufactured for potable water be used in future projects.”

So you mean to tell me that there was no regulation in place prior to this that hoses for drinking water be made for drinking water? How many other have been affected by contractors cutting corners?

Is Calamus Avenue water safe to drink?

From the Queens Tribune:

Ben Geremia, a 60-year resident of the street, said that, in 2015, he saw that the city Department of Design and Construction’s contractor, CAC Industries Inc., had installed a red rubber hose as a temporary water supply for his home.

Geremia took a photo of the rubber hose, found the manufacturer and called to ask for its use. According to Geremia, the manufacturer does not recommend the hose for use of drinking water. He noted that a few days later, he spoke with CAC’s foreman and had the hose removed from his house.

Then, a clear hose was installed a few days later and Geremia once again consulted the hose’s manufacturer to discover that it was also used for non-potable water. Eventually, his home received the correct temporary hose.

Two years later, he was astonished to discover that CAC Inc. was uncovering red hoses buried in the ground and supplying water to his neighbors.

He points out that he was the only one who complained and [although he has no evidence], he is worried that his neighbors are not getting quality drinking water.

How NYC protects the environment

From Brooklyn Daily:

The state has approved a permit for the city to pour up to 7.2 million gallons of contaminated groundwater into Coney Island Creek every day for up to two years while the city upgrades sewer and water mains in Coney’s west end.

The permit allows the city to overlook nearly a dozen heavy metals found in the water because only small amounts were discovered in the creek, and state officials say locals have nothing to fear because Coney creek flows into Gravesend Bay, which will dilute the pollutants. But with millions of gallons gushing into the inlet each day for years, experts and locals fear that the contaminates could amass to dangerous levels, and aren’t buying the state’s argument that being connected to a large body of water will mitigate the risks.

The project being run by the Economic Development Corporation will upgrade aging water mains and storm and sanitary sewers in an area bounded by W. 17th and W. 22nd streets from Neptune Avenue to the Boardwalk. Shovels are expected to hit the ground this summer and the project will last for roughly two years — with an embargo on Surf Avenue construction from May 15 to Sept. 15 so as not to clash with the swell of beach-goers, according to city records.

But to keep the construction site dry, the city applied for a State Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit to “dewater” contaminated groundwater from several sites by pumping it into Coney Island Creek — where people swim, students routinely wade for city-run education programs, and some congregations use the waters for religious rites such as baptisms.

Poop continues to flow into Bergen Basin

This has been going on for quite some time now.

This alert can be found here.

Lots of crap in Bergen Basin!

"Hi,

Just thought that QUEENS CRAP might be an appropriate addressee for this CRAP.
It is over 719 hours since CRAP first started being dumped in Bergen Basin.
That's just about 30 days.
That's alot of crap!" - anonymous

Bill signed to curb Jamaica Bay pollution

Forgotten-NY

From the Forum:

The Jamaica Bay Borrow Pit Bill creates a five-year extension to legislation prohibiting the dumping of toxic materials into the borrow pits – areas of deeper water depths in the bay created by projects that excavated, or “borrowed,” seabed sediments for use in other areas – under the bay. This extends through 2022 language in state Environmental Conservation Law requiring permits for filling borrow pits with materials generated by dredging projects in area waterways. Under this restriction, the sediments must also meet the State Department of Environmental Conservation’s Class A criteria for chemical contamination, the state’s highest sediment classification.

The law is set to take effect immediately, with an expiration date of June 30, 2022.

No more horse poop in sewers

From the Daily News:

The New York Racing Association has agreed to stop dumping water contaminated with horse manure and detergent from the Aqueduct Racetrack into city sewer drains.

The Brooklyn U.S. Attorney's office filed a lawsuit under the Clean Water Act alleging in 2013 and 2014 the racetrack had discharged more than 1 million gallons of wastewater into the Hawtree and Bergen Basins which ultimately flowed into Jamaica Bay.

An NYRA employee is responsible for making sure there are no discharges of contaminated water into storm drains when horses, wash pads, and manure bins are hosed down. Sixty-two trees will be planted at Belmont Park to help capture storm water runoff.

De Blasio decides that water is not important

From the NY Times:

Mayor Bill de Blasio has postponed work to finish New York’s third water tunnel, a project that for more than half a century has been regarded as essential to the survival of the city if either of the two existing, and now aged, tunnels should fail.

The new tunnel has already been completed and is carrying water into Manhattan and the Bronx. But segments that would supply Brooklyn and Queens, home to five million people, though also virtually finished, still await the building of two deep shafts.

If calamity or age forced the shutdown of City Water Tunnel No. 2, which is 80 years old, the primary water supply to much of Brooklyn and Queens would be lost for at least three months, city engineers said, the time it would take for an emergency activation of the sections of Tunnel No. 3 in Brooklyn and Queens that have already been finished.

The entire Brooklyn-Queens leg of the new tunnel was scheduled to be finished by 2021, with $336 million included in the capital budget in 2013 by Mr. de Blasio’s predecessor, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, for whom completion of the third tunnel was the most urgent and expensive undertaking of his tenure.

But last year, Mr. de Blasio’s administration, eager to keep a lid on water and sewer rates that had grown by an average of 8 percent annually under Mr. Bloomberg, moved financing for the third tunnel to other projects, Amy Spitalnick, a de Blasio spokeswoman, said.

The city intends to finish the remaining portions of the tunnel sometime in the 2020s, but it has not set a date for completion nor allocated money in the budget to carry out the work. For the foreseeable future, the $6 billion tunnel will remain dry in the two largest boroughs, where well over half the city’s population lives.