BILL NUMBER: S3154

SPONSOR: COMRIE
 
TITLE OF BILL:

An act relating to requiring the city of New York to mitigate certain
property damage caused by environmental issues which are caused by acts
or omissions of such municipality

 
PURPOSE:

To ensure that residents are reimbursed for flood damages caused by
municipalities action or inaction failure in resolving flood crisis
problems.

 
SUMMARY OF PROVISIONS:  In a city with a population of one million or
more, where the municipality or its departments, by acts of omission or
commission either creates or greatly contributes to a flooding crisis
which impacts the Southeast Queens community, creating property damage
and threatening residents' health, and where such municipality or its
departments either owns or controls the infrastructure that can substan-
              

tially mitigate this flooding crisis and bring relief to those resi-
dents, then such municipality shall be required and directed to utilize
that infrastructure to provide a clear, objective and quantifiable plan
to obtain relief in timely manner.

 
JUSTIFICATION:

For one hundred years, from 1897 to 1996, Southwest Queens (in New York
City) received its drinking water from a private company, Jamaica Water
Supply Co. (JWS). That company had 69 wells from which is pumped 60
million gallons of water per day from underground.  Besides providing
water for this community, this pumping extracted water from the ground
and kept the standing water level at manageable levels. In 1996, New
York City purchased JWS and stopped pumping water from these wells. This
water left underground began rising at an alarming level. In testimony
before a NY City Council committee in September 2007, the Department of
Environmental Preservation Commissioner Emily Lloyd stated that the
ground water level in Jamaica, Queens had risen 35 feet since pumping of
the wells was discontinued in 1996. This rising level was flooding homes
and backing up in the existing sewers, hindering their effectiveness.
She stated that resolving the ground water problem was "as imperative as
continuing to install sewers in Southeast Queens. DEP officials told
Southeast Queens residents in the early 2000's they would face severe
flooding if this water was-not pumped out of the ground, and DEP began
only to quietly discontinue it because it was "too expensive".

That rising water level is now flooding large parts of Southern Queens,
where the standing water level is now higher than many basements or
lower level offices. As a result, York College (CUNY) pumps hundreds of
thousands of gallons of water per day from its lower levels; the Parsons
Blvd. subway is flooded; the Jamaica MIA Bus Depot is flooded, (rain or
shine); 108 Jamaica, PS37, Springfield Gardens, The Allen Senior Housing
Complex, Carter Community Church, Queens Bridge Home and other locations
are running electric pumps in their basements 24 hours a day, 7 days a
week to get rid of the water constantly invading their premises. This is
in addition to hundreds of homes and businesses throughout Southeast
Queens that are forced to run electric pumps to remove basement flood-
ing, and have had their home or-businesses literally ruined by the
rising water levels. One resident of St. Albans literally refuses to
enter her basement for the last year due to the water damage and mold
spores the size of golf balls that have grown on her walls due to
constant water presence. She runs two electric pumps in her basement, 24
hours a day, 7 days a week.

In the Summer of 2011, NYC DEP awarded a contract to begin pumping water
from the JWS wells in 2018, when NYC must shut down the Delaware Water
Tunnel that supplies a large share of New York City's water, and they
consider this well water to be part of their plan to replace the water
supplied by the Delaware system. However, they have refused to bring any
of these wells on line earlier, even though they are fully aware of the
flood damage throughout South Queens, and they know that dumping or
extracting the ground water is the key to reducing the water level and
easing the flooding plaguing the area.  Additionally, NYC sued Exxon-Mo-
bil on the grounds that their operations in Southeast Queens had damaged
the ground water in the area. They won a judgment for $104 million,
which is being appealed by Exxon. Five other oil companies sued by NYC
because of damage to the ground water in Southeast Queens settled with
the city for an additional $15 million. The community's position is that
NYC was awarded this money based on damage to the Southeast Queens water
supply, and should be used to resolve the problem that this water is now
creating for the residents and businesses in Southeast Queens.

 
LEGISLATIVE HISTORY:

S 1671 COMRIE Same as A7811 Hyndman

 
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:

None to the State.

 
EFFECTIVE DATE:
This act shall take effect immediately.