By Juan Soto
Help is on the way for southeast Queens residents who suffer chronic floods in their homes and in their streets everytime heavy rain falls.
The city Department of Environmental Protection has a $426 million project to fight this decades-long problem that occurs in flood-prone areas like St. Albans, Laurelton and Rosedale.
City Councilmen Donovan Richards (D-Laurelton) and I. Daneek Miller (D-St. Albans) hosted a town hall meeting with DEP Commissioner Emily Lloyd to offer the community an update on major proposed or underway infrastructure projects in southeast Queens.
“We are now moving in the right direction,” said Richards. “The new commissioner and the new administration are looking finally to southeast Queens to build this important infrastructure.”
The capital projects that DEP will construct in southeast Queens include the Twin Ponds plan that consists of a stream adjacent to Laurelton Parkway that will direct the floodwaters into Jamaica Bay, and the Springfield Gardens Bluebelt, a project that includes the installation of storm sewers and street reconstruction.
And recently, work has begun along 119th Avenue, where DEP is upgrading the sewer system along 111th Avenue between 155th and 158th streets and on 113th Avenue between 156th and 157th streets.
Also, there is work underway at 119th Avenue, between 192nd and 195th streets in Rosedale. In addition, the plan calls for a $175 million Springfield Gardens upgrade that will come with an additional 9 miles of storm sewers and 8 miles of sanitary sewers.
“There is a lot more work that needs to be done, but help is on the way,” said Richards. “We look forward to less conversation and more groundbreaking.”
Miller said the town hall meeting with Lloyd and her staff was positive.
“We did not want a meeting about promises,” said Miller. “We wanted to hear good news and we did.”
The two-hour-long meeting was held at the Robert Ross Family Center, at 172-17 Linden Blvd.
Miller is also a victim of the persistent floods. He said that in the past 18 years his Cambria Heights basement was flooded three times because of heavy storms.
But after learning about some of other southeast Queens residents’ problems, he said that “I felt like a man with no shoes until I saw a man with no feet.”
Reach reporter Juan Soto by e-mail at jsoto@cnglocal.com or by phone at 718-260-4564.
