DEP to replace problem pump

The hot button topic of a meeting between Western Queens residents, elected officials, and government agency heads to discuss flooding was a drainage pump along the Brooklyn Queens Expressway (BQE).
In response to concerns, Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) Commissioner Emily Lloyd said that the agency planned to replace the existing pump - located nearby to 65th Street and 48th Place - with smaller units as early as next summer, so long as a time-consuming permit process was not required.
DEP hopes that the switch will “reduce the possible effect of water going in and slowing down drainage,” Lloyd said, explaining that the pumps would operate in sequence so that a large amount of water wouldn’t be dumped into the city’s sewer system at once.
“It’s something that we think is really worth a try so lets try it,” she told about 100 local residents, Congressmember Joseph Crowley, Assemblymember Margaret Markey, Councilmember Eric Gioia and Community Board 2 Chair Joseph Conley, all gathered in St. Mary’s Winfield auditorium on Tuesday, November 27.
In addition, Lloyd outlined a four-point plan, which included the installation of two tidal gates along the Bowery Bay and capital projects to enlarge sewers and improve drainage along Calamus Avenue, 69th Street, 48th Avenue and 65th Street. At the meeting, officials estimated the preliminary cost of the capital projects at about $30 million and said that two of the plans were scheduled for fiscal year 2011 and 2012. In 2008, the agencies expect to project a more definitive timetable for the work.
Some of the projects, including the Calamus Avenue overhaul in Woodside, were already in the planning stages, however officials also investigated drainage issues after the August 8 floods in western Queens - later declared by President George Bush as a disaster area.
“There were many areas in this neighborhood that had flooding from time to time, but this was an event that was really a before and after event,” Lloyd said.
Crowley, who led Tuesday’s town hall meeting and lives in Woodside himself, said that a neighbor called him to say that Crowley’s backyard was flooded with five feet of water that day.
“I never in my life saw 65th Street, the street that I live on, flood,” Crowley said, later describing how he rushed to remove electric appliances and later shut off his own electricity during the flooding. “What was a trickle of water in the basement became a couple of feet of water,” he said.
Crowley questioned whether a pump to drain water in the neighborhood - similar to the ones along the BQE - would lessen flooding during severe storms.
Meanwhile local residents pointed to the BQE pump as a root cause of flooding in the area, describing how the highway, which connects the two boroughs remained fairly dry during the August 8 rainstorm while water shot up to the height of streetlamps in the surrounding neighborhoods, most of which are at higher elevation.
“The DEP feels that the BQE is more important than the homes being contaminated by raw sewage,” said Pat Florio, a 55-year Woodside resident, adding, “We can’t wait until 2011. This is happening every single year to us.”