Sinkholes And Water Outages: Main Ruptures Plague NYC

A major water main break in New York City left hundreds of people without tap water last week.

“A water main broke beneath the Manhattan entrance to the Brooklyn Bridge Wednesday afternoon — sparking massive traffic delays, closing down the street and cutting off water to hundreds of locals overnight, according to officials and witnesses,” DNAInfo reported.

The 20-inch water main was damaged by construction work on the Brooklyn Bridge, the report said.

“Tenants of the Southbridge Towers high-rise at 333 Pearl Street were left without water Wednesday into Thursday morning, as hundreds of residents lugged home water from area supermarkets and drugstores to drink, cook and bathe in,” the report said.

Another troubling sign of the city’s water infrastructure challenges: A “gaping sinkhole” opened up on the Upper West Side after a water main broke last week, according to the New York Daily News. Along with opening the sinkhole, the rupture flooded the street, partially swallowed a car, and flooded a dance studio, the report said.

“Our two studio floors are destroyed. All the costumes in the basement are flooded,” said Eduardo Vilaro, the studio’s CEO, per the report. “When Sandy hit, our other costume warehouse in New Jersey was destroyed, so this is round two.”

In 2014, 513 water mains broke in New York City, according to NBC New York. “Estimates are that as much as 20 percent of the treated water that enters the city's pipes leak out before it even makes it to the faucet. In western New York, the Erie County Water Authority had 1,453 water main breaks thanks to an unusually cold winter that froze the ground deeper than usual,” the report said.

It’s not just a problem in the city. Policymakers say the entire state is facing a water and wastewater infrastructure crisis. The New York Environmental Conservation Department describes it as a “gathering storm.”

The city’s water infrastructure consists of a “6,800-mile-long network of mostly iron and steel pipes, some of which are a century old, distributing water that has wended its way down from upstate,” The New York Times reported.

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