NEW YORK STATE ASSEMBLY MEMORANDUM IN SUPPORT OF LEGISLATION submitted in accordance with Assembly Rule III, Sec 1(f)
BILL NUMBER: A2547
SPONSOR: Hyndman 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 a 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 Commission-
er 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 (CONY) 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, Spring-
field 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 flooding 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:
2015-16: S.5412 Referred to Cities.
FISCAL IMPLICATIONS:
None to the State.
EFFECTIVE DATE:
This act shall take effect immediately.
STATE OF NEW YORK
________________________________________________________________________
2547
2023-2024 Regular Sessions
IN ASSEMBLY
January 26, 2023
___________
Introduced by M. of A. HYNDMAN -- read once and referred to the Commit-
tee on Environmental Conservation
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
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and Assem-bly, do enact as follows:
1 Section 1. In the city of New York, where the municipality or its
2 departments by acts of omission or commission either creates or greatly
3 contributes to an environmental crisis which impacts a sizable segment
4 of its citizens, creating property damage and threatening residents'
5 health, and where such municipality or its departments either owns or
6 controls the infrastructure that can substantially mitigate this envi-
7 ronmental issue and bring relief to those residents, then such munici-
8 pality shall be required and directed to utilize that infrastructure to
9 provide a clear, objective and quantifiable plan to obtain relief in a
10 timely manner.
11 § 2. This act shall take effect immediately.
EXPLANATION--Matter in italics (underscored) is new; matter in brackets
[] is old law to be omitted.
LBD03350-01-3
