By Ryan Schwach<\/p>\n
Officials are pouring more than $8 million dollars into three projects to help prevent water from pouring into Queens\u2019 streets. <\/p>\n
Governor Kathy Hochul and Mayor Zohran Mamdani announced funding last week that will pay for three projects to transform road medians into infrastructure built for flood protection in Whitestone, Forest Hills and Queens Village. <\/p>\n
The announcement of the projects, two of which are already underway, comes after Queens faced two serious episodes of flooding this month alone, inundating homes with water and shutting down major roadways. After the water subsided, local pols called for the mayor to do more to prevent flooding in the borough he used to live in. <\/p>\n
The trio of projects \u2013 which cost $8.4 million \u2013 will turn concrete medians in the three neighborhoods into \u201csponges\u201d meant to absorb flood water and prevent extreme flooding. Officials say they could capture around five million gallons of stormwater a year. <\/p>\n
\u201cClimate change is bringing more intense and unpredictable bursts of rain, and without action, those storms will continue to overwhelm New York City\u2019s sewer system,\u201d Mamdani said. \u201cThis $8.4 million green median project meets that challenge with infrastructure that works for our environment and our neighborhoods.\u201d <\/p>\n
Work will remove the old medians and will install specially engineered soils and underground storage systems designed to absorb water.<\/p>\n
In Whitestone, the nearly completed work will upgrade the medians along Francis Lewis Boulevard between 20th Avenue and 21st Road. The Forest Hills work will be done this fall and will replace concrete medians on Union Turnpike between Metropolitan Avenue and 71st Road. Finally, the work in Queens Village, which flooded twice this month, will begin later this year on medians on Springfield Boulevard between Lucas Street and Merrick Boulevard. <\/p>\n
\u201cBy planting native species and wildflowers above an underground stormwater storage network, we will capture five million gallons of stormwater each year, easing pressure on our sewer system and keeping New Yorkers safe,\u201d said Mamdani. <\/p>\n
The projects are funded in part by $5 million worth of grants from the Green Innovation Grant Program administered by the Environmental Facilities Corp. and the Water Quality Improvement Project overseen by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation. <\/p>\n
\u201cWith flash floods becoming more the norm due to extreme weather tied to our changing climate, it\u2019s imperative we do all we can to protect our communities,\u201d said Hochul. \u201cHere in New York, we are implementing innovative solutions to strengthen our infrastructure and better protect our communities. Working with Mayor Mamdani and the City of New York, these critical green infrastructure projects will help make Whitestone, Forest Hills and Queens Village more resilient and safe.\u201d<\/p>\n
The funding announcement comes hot off of three serious flooding events across Queens in July and August. <\/p>\n
After the flooding, Queens officials asked the Mamdani administration to start rerouting city money to immediately address the issue. <\/p>\n
\u201cNew York City needs a long-term investment in sewer capacity on a scale we have never seen before,\u201d wrote Queens Councilmember Phil Wong in a letter to Mamdani. \u201cThe storms we are experiencing today are not the storms this sewer system was designed to handle. We know that. The administration knows that. Continuing to respond to each flood as though it were an unexpected emergency is no longer acceptable.\u201d <\/p>\n
Wong asked the administration to use money from city residents\u2019 water payments to pay for fixes to Queens\u2019 outdated sewer infrastructure. Currently, the funds go directly to the citywide general fund. <\/p>\n
Queens Councilmember Jim Gennaro told the Eagle that the Department of Environmental Protection \u201cis literally being robbed of money that it needs to get us out of this flooding crisis,\u201d as long as they aren\u2019t using water payments for flood mitigation. <\/p>\n
While the administration didn\u2019t comment directly on the letter, Mamdani said in an unrelated press conference that addressing flooding is \u201cone of the foremost priorities for our administration.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Ryan Schwach Officials are pouring more than $8 million dollars into three projects to help prevent water…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":334898,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[37],"tags":[9,24,63,122,124,123],"class_list":["post-334897","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-queens","tag-new-york","tag-new-york-city","tag-nyc","tag-queens","tag-queens-headlines","tag-queens-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334897","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=334897"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/334897\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/334898"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=334897"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=334897"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ny\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=334897"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}