Wednesday, April 6, 2016

De Blasio decides that water is not important

From the NY Times:

Mayor Bill de Blasio has postponed work to finish New York’s third water tunnel, a project that for more than half a century has been regarded as essential to the survival of the city if either of the two existing, and now aged, tunnels should fail.

The new tunnel has already been completed and is carrying water into Manhattan and the Bronx. But segments that would supply Brooklyn and Queens, home to five million people, though also virtually finished, still await the building of two deep shafts.

If calamity or age forced the shutdown of City Water Tunnel No. 2, which is 80 years old, the primary water supply to much of Brooklyn and Queens would be lost for at least three months, city engineers said, the time it would take for an emergency activation of the sections of Tunnel No. 3 in Brooklyn and Queens that have already been finished.

The entire Brooklyn-Queens leg of the new tunnel was scheduled to be finished by 2021, with $336 million included in the capital budget in 2013 by Mr. de Blasio’s predecessor, Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg, for whom completion of the third tunnel was the most urgent and expensive undertaking of his tenure.

But last year, Mr. de Blasio’s administration, eager to keep a lid on water and sewer rates that had grown by an average of 8 percent annually under Mr. Bloomberg, moved financing for the third tunnel to other projects, Amy Spitalnick, a de Blasio spokeswoman, said.

The city intends to finish the remaining portions of the tunnel sometime in the 2020s, but it has not set a date for completion nor allocated money in the budget to carry out the work. For the foreseeable future, the $6 billion tunnel will remain dry in the two largest boroughs, where well over half the city’s population lives.

23 comments:

JQ LLC said...

He is even imperiling his beloved Brooklyn? Say it ain't so.

Where is the money going to go now?

Taxation w/out representation again.

Fuck you Big Slow

Anonymous said...

The Blas figures if the taps don't run dry we will not miss the $ being misappropriated for things like universal baby sitting or any other stupid idea he can conjure up.

Anonymous said...

Where is your councilmen?

You would think that Jimmy No Brainer, for example, who is running for mayor (fat chance with his record) and through his distric this tunnel runs would say something - but then, he is too busy trying to keep the lid on unrest that suddenly reared up in his district - so little things like vital services to his community can take the back seat has he seeks to salvage his reputation.

Anonymous said...

The money will go to closing down Rikers Island, and opening of new prisons in other locations.

Anonymous said...

I can't believe that Mayor Fugazio is not going to give Brooklyn and Queens the shaft!

Anonymous said...

What about all the additional cash we've been bilked out of in our water bills? An average of 8% yearly increase and we in Queens and Brooklyn get squat and Manhattan and Bronx get it all.

Stop paying the water bills!

Make the boy mayor a one termer.

Anonymous said...

From The NY Times:

Asked at a City Council hearing last month when the tunnel would be working, Emily Lloyd, the commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection, said, “My guess is that we’re talking the mid-’20s.”

What??? All the commissioner can offer is a GUESS??

My guess is NEVER and it's probably more accurate than hers.

Anonymous said...

Water? What water? Drink fucking beer.

Signed - Commie the King

Anonymous said...

The money will go to closing down Rikers Island, and opening of new prisons in other
locations.

Exactly. REBNY's wet dream come true.
Can't wait to see the ads in the papers about the view and similar non-sense in the advertisements.
Commie King is a total sellout.
They got him by the cojones.

Anonymous said...

The bulk of the city's population live in Brooklyn & Queens. SMH!!
I guess we'll just have to drink soda to quench our thirst!!

Ms. Tsouris said...

Where is the money from our steep water bills going? It's just another tax! DeBlasio's the worst mayor!!

Anonymous said...

Like it or not this is considered the shit part of Queens. They would never act this way if it were the more prized real estate of the northeast sector.

Anonymous said...

The bulk of the city's population live in Brooklyn & Queens. SMH!!
I guess we'll just have to drink soda to quench our thirst!!
--
Everything is a glib feaken joke to you hacks.

This is people being not only treated like garbage - which is what you hacks think of us anyway - but a real danger to millions. What would happen if we lost water in the middle of a heat wave?

Assholes.

Anonymous said...

What??? All the commissioner can offer is a GUESS??


Again, where are the council hearings - that is if they can tear themselves away from the all consuming transgender bathroom issue.

Anonymous said...

Use the giant a-hole of Big Slow for a water tunnel. Surely that would carry more than an ample load, if the copious amount of BS he's been putting out is any indication.

Anonymous said...

He's moving the Rikers inmates into the tunnel (shhhhhh!!)

ron s said...

This shows that DeBlaz is just like douchebag Christie. The Hudson river rail tunnel and the NYC water tunnel are long scale major projects that positively affect the region forever. Only short sighted jerks put them off for temporary political reasons.
Just shows you that small mindedness and stupidity know no party.

Anonymous said...

Where is the money from our steep water bills going? It's just another tax!

Yep. The money is going to the NYC Waterboard (NJ address btw) and their shareholders.
Legalized theft in other words.

Anonymous said...

What would happen if we lost water in the middle of a heat wave?

Pretty much the same thing that happens in the winter with major snow storms.
Blame the elements. Or global climate change. Or Planet-X. Whatever works.
Incompetence, corruption, grandstanding.

Anonymous said...

Everytime I think the mayor couldn't get any more shortsighted, he proves me wrong again.

Anonymous said...

>What would happen if we lost water in the middle of a heat wave?

It's only Queens and Brooklyn, we don't count.

Anonymous said...

Like I said, "Let Them Drink Soda"

Anonymous said...

Looks like we have a federal investigation going on.

NYPD corruption scandal leads straight to de Blasio

http://nypost.com/2016/04/07/nypd-corruption-scandal-leads-straight-to-de-blasio/

"The two biggest and most recent scandals involve lucrative gifts and cash given to current and former top officers in the NYPD, and the removal of a deed restriction and sale of a city-owned Manhattan building that netted private investors a cool $72 million profit.

The rub is that both cases feature donors who contributed large sums to the mayor’s campaign and his slush fund. That would suggest the fish stinks from the head."