A Great Kills couple is concerned about a persistent bubbling leak in the street outside their home.
“Is the street going to collapse down the line? I have no idea,” said Cloverfield Avenue resident Susan Carilli.
Water is seen running down Cloverdale Avenue in Great Kills from an unexplained leak that began last year.Staten Island Advance | Tom Wrobleski
The leak can be seen in the street at the end of the driveway of the Carilli home.
The water bubbling up from what appears to be a fissure in the street asphalt loudly trickles down the sidewalk and runs noisily into a storm sewer a few feet away.
Carilli said that workers from the city Department of Environmental Protection have been to the property three times but have said that there’s nothing they can do about it.
Carilli said she was told by DEP that the water is coming from an underground stream.
“We’re in that house almost 41 years,” she said. “We’ve never had an underground stream there making its way to the surface.”
As for the DEP inspections, Carilli added, “They say it’s not a problem. I guess I believe them.”
Carilli’s husband, Rick, said that the water began to appear around October of last year.
“It’s like a lot of water,” he said. “It sounds like there’s a hose running into the gutter.”
Carilli said he worries because the water froze last winter and created an ice hazard in the street.
He added, “We were dumbfounded because we really didn’t understand the answer that [DEP] had for us. Because there’s no answer, there’s no resolution that we know of.”
Carilli said, “It’s very strange.”
“DEP has investigated this condition several times and found all infrastructure to be in proper working order,” a DEP spokesperson said. “Earlier [last] week, we scanned and sounded the water main, using specialized listening equipment, and there is no indication of a leak.”
The spokesperson said that the DEP “will schedule a shutdown in the upcoming week to confirm conditions have not changed.”
According to the agency, service tickets for the location date back to 2003 and note that water appears intermittently.
Based on these observations, the agency believes this is a groundwater condition, which may have been recently exacerbated by heavy rain.
The DEP said that when rainfall occurs, water seeps into the ground; if the rain is light enough, the soil absorbs it and allows it to travel through permeable layers of rock and soil until it reaches the water table.
However, the agency said, when the water table becomes oversaturated, groundwater can rise and make its way back to the surface.
DEP in November 2024 conducted an extensive investigation at Cloverfield and found that the area had dried up. All water mains and service lines were tested and confirmed to be functioning as intended.
It’s not the only mystery leak that Staten Island residents have been grappling with recently.
A resident of North Randall Avenue in New Brighton pointed to a persistent leak that runs down their street from Castleton Avenue around the block.
Water covers manhole cover on Castleton Avenue in New Brighton amid report of underground leak in the area.Staten Island Advance | Tom Wrobleski
DEP said that a leaking underground was the culprit in that case. The agency said that the valve would be replaced.
If you purchase a product or register for an account through a link on our site, we may receive compensation. By using this site, you consent to our User Agreement and agree that your clicks, interactions, and personal information may be collected, recorded, and/or stored by us and social media and other third-party partners in accordance with our Privacy Policy.