A Forest Hills man was arrested by FBI agents on Thursday morning for participating in a multi-million dollar bank fraud scheme while he was a high-ranking official in the administration of former Mayor Bill de Blasio.
Tommy Lin, 41, was charged in a superseding indictment along with two co-defendants for defrauding financial institutions which resulted in the theft of over $10 million while serving as the Director of Constituent Services in the Community Affairs Unit.
Beginning in 2018, Lin participated in a scheme with his co-defendants Zhong Shi Gao and Fei Jiang, and others to steal millions of dollars by causing transfers of funds between accounts they controlled, then falsely and fraudulently reporting that the transfers were unauthorized, which induced the financial institutions to credit them the amount of the transfers, according to the indictment. The scheme was responsible for over $10 million in actual losses to nearly a dozen banks.
“Tommy Lin allegedly participated in a complex bank fraud scheme while also serving as a Director in the New York City Mayor’s Office and Senior Advisor to the NYPD’s Asian Advisory Council,” U.S. Attorney Damian Williams said. “Leveraging his connections to law enforcement, he allegedly leaked personal identifying information to members of the scheme, ran background checks for them and even arranged for federal immigration authorities to arrest an individual in exchange for $20,000 in cash.”
Lin allegedly accepted that $20,000 bribe in cash in exchange for arranging for a Deportation Officer with Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to arrest a disgruntled accountholder who had previously participated in the scheme, according to the indictment.
“To facilitate this conspiracy, Lin allegedly assisted members of the scheme in running background checks and accepted a significant cash bribe to arrange the arrest of a slighted account holder by immigration authorities,” FBI Assistant Director-in-Charge James Smith said. “Those in municipal offices are expected to conduct themselves with rectitude and obedience to the law, not engage in the purposeful manipulation of our economic infrastructure.”
Lin is charged with one count of bank fraud conspiracy, which carries a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison; one count of conspiracy to commit wire fraud affecting a financial institution, which carries a maximum sentence of 30 years in prison; and one count of aggravated identity theft which carries a mandatory sentence of two years in prison to be served consecutively to any other sentence imposed.
Wednesday, June 12, 2024
Bill de Blasio DEP office staffer currently working under Mayor Adams indicted for bank fraud
Monday, May 6, 2024
Thirsty for taxes
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Photo by JQ LLC |
Mayor Eric Adams plans to implement what critics claim is a “hidden tax” that would make homeowners’ water bills soar 8.5% – despite boasting his new budget plan won’t include more taxes.
The city plans to charge its own Water Board at least $1.4 billion in rent over four years to lease water and sewer systems, The New York Times first reported.
In turn, the city’s Department of Environmental Protection wants the Water Board to raise rates in July for homeowners and landlords by 8.5%, according to a proposal released Friday by the board.
If approved, the rate increase would only cover some of the rent charges, with the rest likely picked up by funds that usually cover water and sewer system capital project upgrades.
Owners of single-family homes pay $1,088 on average for water each year, and the proposal would add on nearly another $100 a year, according to the city.
Councilman James Gennaro (D-Queens), who chairs the Committee on Environmental Protection, said the city is bringing back a “hidden tax” that was implemented in 1985 and used for decades until then-Mayor Bill de Blasio discarded it seven years ago.
He added the old “budget trick” might be legal — but it doesn’t make it fair.
“It’s using water and sewer monies to pay for parts of city government and services that have nothing to do with water and sewers,” he told The Post Saturday.
Landlords usually pay for water but pass along the cost to tenants in their monthly rents, making the plan nothing more than a regressive tax that will ultimately hurt low-income households the most since, they historically use more water than average New Yorkers, according to critics
Tuesday, April 23, 2024
Sunday, March 24, 2024
Tuesday, December 5, 2023
The city will pay you to participate in workshops to control rain
Dear Community Leader,
Our city has endured tremendous hardships with the onset of more frequent and intense rainfall
events. In the face of this challenge comes an extraordinary opportunity to rethink its physical
and social infrastructure to reduce the risk from heavy rain while creating benefits for New
Yorkers every day.
The Mayor's Office of Climate & Environmental Justice and the NYC Department of
Environmental Protection, with Rebuild by Design and One Architecture and Urbanism, are
launching an open call for individuals and organizations who have lived or professional
expertise to recommend strategies and policies to address the increasing rainfall in New
York City. This work builds on an initiative launched by Rebuild by Design and One Architecture
to Rainproof NYC, as well as the City's efforts to improve flood resilience, including strategies
outlined in “PlaNYC: Getting Sustainability Done.”
Apply here by December 11 to express interest in joining a working group.
The Rainproof NYC working groups will have 15-20 members, split between NYC agency staff
and community leaders. The working groups will convene regularly from January 2024 to June
2024 and collaboratively propose new, or expand existing, policies, programs, and projects to
increase New York City’s resilience to heavy rainfall.
Each group will focus on the following topic areas. As part of the application, we ask that you
prioritize which group you would like to take part in:
● WORKING GROUP 1: How can we shift NYC’s policies and priorities to create a
comprehensive plan to prepare for increasing rainfall? Address gaps in infrastructure
and risk management to protect from and prepare New Yorkers for more intense
precipitation.
● WORKING GROUP 2: What does an equitable buyout program look like for NYC?
Inform the development of the City's Housing Mobility & Land Acquisition Program
announced in “PlaNYC: Getting Sustainability Done.”
● WORKING GROUP 3: How can we build capacity among communities, the private
sector, and CBO's to share responsibility to address increased heavy rainfall? Every
drop counts. Build out an education and communications campaign to build the
capacities of communities, the private sector, CBO's, local nonprofits, and other
agencies to do their part in managing increasing heavy rainfall.
We strive for diversity in the composition of each group across lived and professional expertise
and across intersectional identities. If you know someone who will bring new and unique
perspectives to these topics, please encourage them to apply too.
If selected, Rebuild will provide non-government members a stipend of $1500 at the end
of the process to support your high-level commitment. For those who cannot commit but
may want to stay involved, there will be various other opportunities to participate in working
towards a Rainproof NYC. We will continue to keep you apprised of those opportunities, even if
you choose not to apply to participate in a working group.
If you believe you have the expertise and availability to participate in a working group,
please APPLY HERE by noon on December 11, 2023. If you are accepted, you will be
invited to an afternoon half-day kickoff meeting that will be held on January 9, 2023 (please
hold your calendar for that date). Selected working group participants will be notified on or
around December 19.
If you have any questions, email Rifal Imam at rimam@rebuildbydesign.org.
Sincerely,
The Rainproof NYC Steering Committee:
Rebuild by Design
The NYC Mayor’s Office of Climate & Environmental Justice
NYC Department of Environmental Protection
The NYC Mayor’s Office of Housing Recovery Operations
One Architecture and Urbanism
Mayor Adams took his 5% austerity machete to cut budgets from schools, libraries and the FDNY for these workshops to pay people to be make believe city planners to "mitigate" water coming from the sky. Workshops are the biggest farces going on in this town.
Wednesday, September 7, 2022
Queens grounds are parched
With the borough just recovering from the latest heat wave (and bracing itself for the next one), it may not be difficult to fathom that Queens is in a moderate drought — or at the very least, is approaching one.
The U.S. Drought Monitor says that Queens County is in a moderate drought, and, in parts of southern Queens, a severe one. College Point environmentalist and visiting scientist and faculty member at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution James Cervino characterized it as “the worst ever” in Queens.
That is barely an exaggeration — Matthew Wunsch, a spokesperson for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, told the Chronicle that between June 1 and Aug. 28, the area surrounding JFK Airport received 5.14 inches of rainfall. That’s the area’s second lowest level since 1949 for that period. The area surrounding LaGuardia Airport has gotten 8.09 inches of rainfall over those 12-odd weeks, the 14th lowest since 1940.
But the New York City Department of Environmental Protection has not gone so far as to declare an official drought.
“Things are certainly dry here in New York City. We have not had a lot of rain this summer — the ground is brittle and everything is pretty brown,” said Ted Timbers, the DEP’s communications director. “But New York City gets its water supply from protected reservoirs in the Catskill Mountains in the Hudson Valley.” Those, he said, have an “ample” amount of water in them, adding that the agency is monitoring the supply and the forecast closely.
But as the borough prepares for hurricane season, the first since Hurricane Ida took 11 lives in Queens and damaged countless homes a year ago to the day, the drought may be cause for concern, and may lend itself to flooding.
“You’d think that because the ground is dry, that it can actually absorb more water,” Wunsch said. “But dry ground, it actually becomes less porous, and more likely to have runoff, especially if a lot of heavy rain happens at once.”
Or, as Cervino put it: “Drought leads to cracks, desertification, floods and erosion.”
Friday, February 25, 2022
Dutch Kills bulkhead erosion gets noticed by electeds
Over the past few months, observers have noticed large portions of a structural wall along the shoreline of the Dutch Kills tributary on 29th Street have collapsed into the waterway.
As the shoreline has crumbled, it has dumped debris into the water and threatens to further cave in and affect the stability of the roadway next to it.
Last week, the Newton Creek Alliance and elected officials sent a letter to the city Department of Transportation, state Department of Environmental Conservation and Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which owns the plot of land, urging them to address the unsafe conditions that the deterioration poses to the road and surrounding areas.
“In addition to our now greatly elevated concerns over public safety regarding a potential street-collapse, there is also concern about liability, and the process for rebuilding this shoreline,” reads a section of the letter, signed by U.S. Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-Manhattan, Queens, Brooklyn), Councilmember Julie Won (D-Sunnyside), state Sen. Mike Gianaris (D-Astoria) and Assemblymember Cathy Nolan (D-Long Island City).
In response to the dangers posed by erosion, the alliance is asking the city and state go beyond merely mitigating a public threat to creating an environmental benefit. The letter calls on the agencies to rebuild the shoreline in a way that would restore the ecosystem, add public access to the water and remove the two abandoned barges from the tributary.
Though the agencies could not be reached for a response prior to initial publication, the MTA and the DOT said in subsequent statements that they are on board.
MTA Spokesperson Eugene Resnick:
“The MTA appreciates the concerns of the Newtown Creek Alliance and is collaborating with State and City partners to determine the best course of action for protecting the integrity of the bulkhead,” said MTA Spokesman Eugene Resnick.
A DOT spokesman also said his agency is ready.
"The DOT will work in collaboration with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and Department of Environmental Conservation to develop strategies to limit overweight vehicular access to the street, as well as the area immediately adjacent to the bulkhead," he said.
The most recent cave-in, which took place at the end of January, the alliance says, is actually the third on the shoreline in recent years. Each has ended up dumping tires, concrete blocks and fill into the creek.
Monday, December 6, 2021
Odorama drama in Howard Beach
Linda Miranti decorated most of her house for Christmas already but now she does not know if she will be able to have her family over for the holidays, or if she will even be there herself, because of a strong stench that has filled her home and wafts through the air around 88th and 89th streets in Howard Beach.
Starting around Nov. 10, Miranti’s home, especially her garage and the front of her house, has had a strong odor of what she thinks is methane.
She said it gives her migraines and nausea and makes her skin itch. “I’ve never felt like this before. I’ve been so sick,” said Miranti, a 75-year-old grandmother. “Everything is an effort. I can’t live like this.”
She has been sleeping on the couch in the back of her house just to escape the smells and her son has been pushing her to stay with him but she is reluctant to leave.
Miranti’s neighbors experience it too, but it is not as bad in their houses as it is in hers. When her next-door neighbor, Barbara Smith, walked into her house, she noticed the odor right away, despite all the candles lit and cleaning Miranti has done to try to mask it.
“How do you stay down here?” Smith asked her. “I’m literally dying,” Miranti responded.
Miranti has lived in Howard Beach for 47 years and said she has never experienced anything like this. People are used to smells from the nearby bay but this is different, she said. She and Smith wonder if it could be related to the work being done near Spring Creek Park off of 165th Avenue.
Miranti has made several calls to 311 that were referred to the Department of Environmental Protection, and National Grid and the FDNY have come but no gas leaks or sewer blockages were detected.
Miranti is not alone in her persistence. Nicole Bruno lives on the next block and has been experiencing the same thing.
“I’m going on four weeks of calling multiple times, as well as most of the people on my block,” said Bruno. “They just don’t come or can’t fix it.”
“I can’t even open a window. If I do, it absorbs the whole house and you get headaches. It’s disgusting — you shouldn’t have to smell sewage,” said Bruno. “You know, all this money we pay to live here.”
Wednesday, October 27, 2021
Governor Kathy shuts off the gas
Siding with Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and the environmental left, Gov. Kathy Hochul on Wednesday killed two proposed natural gas-powered projects in Queens and upstate Newburgh.
State Department of Environmental Commissioner Basil Seggos said both proposals failed to comply with the state’s “Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act” to reduce carbon emissions.
Power company NRG said the project would retrofit its 50-year-old natural gas-burning plant near the Robert Kennedy/Triborough Bridge and claimed it would cut polluting carbon emissions.
The Astoria plant is called a “peaker” facility because it provides needed additional power to the electric grid during peak usage, such as during summer heat waves when millions of New Yorkers blast their air conditioners.
“Our review determined the proposed project does not demonstrate compliance with the requirements of the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act. The proposed project would be inconsistent with or would interfere with the statewide greenhouse gas emissions limits established in the Climate Act,” Seggos said in a statement denying the permit.
“Astoria NRG failed to demonstrate the need or justification for the proposed project notwithstanding this inconsistency.”
Seggos rejected the Danskammer Energy Center’s proposed natural-gas powered project in Newburgh on identicial grounds.
Hochul hailed the action taken by her environmental agency.
“I applaud the Department of Environmental Conservation’s decisions to deny the Title V Permits for the Danskammer Energy Center and Astoria Gas Turbine Power, LLC in the context of our state’s clean energy transition. Climate change is the greatest challenge of our time, and we owe it to future generations to meet our nation-leading climate and emissions reduction goals,” the governor said in a statement.
The proposed project is in the district of Ocasio-Cortez and state Sen. Michael Gianaris (D-Queens) — opponents of the project .
Ocasio-Cortez, a proponent of the Green New Deal to phase out carbon-spewing fossil fuels, rallied against the Astoria power plant, which would burn natural gas produced by fracking, during an Earth Day celebration in April.
“We’re not going to allow our water to be compromised. We’re not going to allow our air to be compromised,” the congresswoman said.
NRG, in a statement, called Hochul’s decision a mistake, saying there are “not enough renewable resources” to “keep the lights on in New York City today.”
“It’s unfortunate that New York is turning down an opportunity to dramatically reduce pollution and strengthen reliable power for millions of New Yorkers at such a critical time,” said Tom Atkins, NRG’s vice president of development.
“NRG’s Astoria Replacement Project would have provided immediate reductions in greenhouse gas emissions and would have been fully convertible to green hydrogen in the future.
Sunday, September 26, 2021
Hole lotta floodin' goin' on
The residents of The Hole, a small neighborhood on the northwestern edge of Lindenwood that sits more than 10 feet below street level, are no strangers to flooding.
Overflows that continue to burble up from the ground over two weeks after a rainstorm, on the other hand, are a new phenomenon.
A neighborhood with a history of neglect, The Hole lies in a 12-block basin that lacks a sewage system and is largely without street drainage. Though the city has begun the process of installing limited drains in the neighborhood, it has stalled on taking the steps to connect the area to the sewer system for over 15 years. As city officials continue to reckon with the fact that the limited capacity of New York’s beleaguered, antiquated sewer system led to Hurricane Ida’s fatal flooding, residents in the neighborhood continue to live with the storm’s after-effects.
Some residents are hopeful that the newfound pressure on the city to modernize its sewer system could kickstart a focus on their neighborhood. Others, who have grown accustomed to having their infrastructure needs summarily ignored by city agencies as the surrounding area has developed, do not believe that the storm will help change conditions.
For its part, the Department of Environmental Protection did not recognize the instances of recent extended flooding as being related to the storm. The agency pegged the residents’ recent problems as resulting from systemic groundwater flooding, rather than the hurricane.
The residents beg to differ.
“It usually would go down quick if we got some water in there,” said Ruben Garcia, a homeowner who’s been living on the Queens side of the neighborhood for 52 years.
Garcia has had flooding in his basement before but nothing quite like what Ida caused. Years ago Garcia’s daughters slept in the bottom floor of his house, which has intermittently been flooded by groundswells of water for two weeks after the recent storm.
“The last 10 years it’s gotten worse,” he said of flooding on his block.
Monday, July 26, 2021
de Blasio's D.O.B. enables illegal demolition of house
Before the first fireworks launched on the Fourth of July, booms and bangs were already reverberating around a residential block near Prospect Park.
That morning, despite a city order halting construction work, a small demolition crew revved up a backhoe and began ripping apart what had once been a three-story house at 1935 Bedford Ave. in Prospect Lefferts Gardens, alarming local residents.
“Everyone heard a huge crash,” said Cal Hadley, who lives adjacent to the property on Fenimore Street. “We all looked out the window, thought there was an explosion.”
For years, Hadley and a group of concerned neighbors have complained to city agencies and local politicians about what they asserted were unauthorized demolition, unsafe conditions and trash dumping at the site and a property next door at 1931 Bedford Ave.
The city Department of Environmental Protection found asbestos at the site in 2018 — and last year fined the owner more than $68,000 for multiple violations of asbestos-removal safety rules. While DEP certified the site asbestos-free as of this March, locals, especially many who live in a neighboring co-op and on Fenimore Street, fear they’re inhaling toxic particles kicked up by demolition.
Bedford Holdings JV, LLC, an entity associated with developer Gabriel Sakaff, purchased the side-by-side lots on the Bedford Avenue block in 2017. Where two homes once stood, only half of one remained until Wednesday, its backside gutted and debris strewn across the lots.
Sakaff intends to build a seven-story residential building with at least 39 apartments and a community facility, city records show. THE CITY could not reach Sakaff at any of the phone numbers or emails provided on applications his firm submitted to the city Department of Buildings.
ince work on the property began years ago, residents of the neighboring co-op in the fast-gentrifying neighborhood have complained about debris blowing into their homes. “I can’t get fresh air because I have to keep my window closed,” Olga Baly-Noel, who’s lived in the co-op for more than 20 years, recently told THE CITY.
During the clamor on July 4, residents called 911. Several agencies, including the NYPD, FDNY and DOB’s emergency response team, arrived and forced demolition to stop. DOB officials issued a $12,500 fine to Bedford Holdings for violating city orders.
After city officials left, a man neighbors identified as Sakaff began “raving up and down the sidewalk” and shouting obscenities, said Leif McIlwaine, a co-op resident. A neighbor, James Parks, recorded a video showing a confrontation between the man and McIlwaine. In another, the man blows a kiss into the camera before storming off down the street. THE CITY reviewed the footage.
The demolition crew returned the next day to tear down the home. Residents confronted and filmed the workers, who left before the authorities arrived. The DOB issued several more fines to the property owner on July 6, city records show.
On the night of July 14, a worker used a hacksaw to remove a lock that FDNY placed on a fence surrounding the property, according to local residents who filmed the incident and called the police. That heightened local concerns about demolition work.
A DOB spokesperson initially told THE CITY that demolition work couldn’t proceed until the owner obtained proper permits, contractors produced an engineering report on the site’s conditions and remedied unsafe conditions, and the DOB inspected the site.
Now, city officials are reversing course on their stop-work orderMonday, February 10, 2020
Zero Vision shown by city regarding destroyed fire hydrant in Whitestone
For years the residents of 5th Avenue in WHITESTONE Queens have been advocating and begging for safety. They have asked for extension of bollards to prevent speeding cars and trucks from turning up their narrow residential street to a one way conversion going toward the bridge. Always met with different excuses, never once coming up with a safe Solution.
In the last 3 months, the hydrant on the corner has been taken out three times by speeding cars careening into oncoming traffic and jumping the sidewalk. A few months ago, a speeding car took the turn at such high speeds that it bounced off the hydrant and spun to the other side totaling a parked Jeep. The mother and her two daughters and just parked the Jeep and missed getting hit or killed by two minutes.
Thursday, December 19, 2019
Broken 30 year old sewer main pipe caused raw sewage to flood houses in South Ozone Park

NY Post
The city Department of Environmental Protection’s six-page review, a copy of which was obtained by
The Post, found the key clue came from a massive sinkhole that opened in a roadway above where the massive 42-inch sewer main broke.
“The road collapsing due to the subsidence of overburden demonstrates that the 42-inch sewer constructed in 1987 is significantly collapsed, and that any other cause for the November 30th blockage is extremely unlikely,” DEP concluded.
The massive 20-foot deep sinkhole revealed that an estimated 250 cubic feet of dirt had disappeared from the site.
“DEP accepts responsibility,” for the flood of sewage and resulting damages.
It filed the report with the City Comptroller on Dec. 16, clearing the way for the city to pay the South Ozone Park residents for damages.
All told, the DEP said 74 homes were flooded when the sewer line, which was built in 1987 and buried 40 feet beneath ground, broke along 150th Street, near JFK Airport.
The result mess left dozens of residents in the southeast Queens neighborhood waking up on Nov. 30 to the putrid smell of sewage in their basements.
City officials initially pinned the mess on a grease clog in the pipe and even suggested that residents may have caused the problem by dumping grease from Thanksgiving meals down drains.
How did it take 3 weeks to find this out when there was a massive sinkhole in the middle of South Conduit Blvd? When did the EPA actually show up there?
Saturday, December 14, 2019
NYC Department Of Environmental Protection debuted new sewer infrastructure in Southeast Queens a few days before South Ozone Park homes got deluged with dung water
QNS
After breaking ground in the community of Brookville in southeast Queens earlier this year marking the beginning of an $84 million infrastructure upgrade project, the New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) announced on Nov. 26 the installation of new storm box sewers to help alleviate flooding.
DEP Commissioner Vincent Sapienza joined with the Department of Design and Construction’s (DDC) Deputy Commissioner for Infrastructure Eric Macfarlane and Councilman Donovan Richards to review the progress of the project that includes the installation of 9-foot-by-5-foot storm box sewers.
“To date, 1,650 feet of storm sewers, 2,500 feet of sanitary sewers and 11,800 feet of water mains have been installed,” the DDC said in a statement to QNS. “Additionally, 25 hydrants were replaced and seven additional fire hydrants were installed as well.”
The project, which is funded by DEP and managed by DDC, is anticipated to be completed in the summer 2021. The large box sewer will form one of the major spines for Mayor Bill de Blasio’s $1.9 billion buildout of the drainage system throughout southeast Queens.
It was a much-needed development for the area which has historically flooded even with the slightest bit of rain, Richards said.
“This is one of 55 projects that are slated for southeast Queens over the course of the next decade or two, and these are projects that have been on the books for a very long time, like many other projects in southeast Queens,” said Richards, former chairman of the Environmental Protection Committee, who lobbied for infrastructure investment in the community.
Going by what happened on Thanksgiving weekend, it looks like this upgrade didn't make it to South Ozone Park yet.
Thursday, December 12, 2019
City Council gets to hear it from South Ozone Park residents about city's shitty response to sewage overflow
In the basement of Laron Harmon's South Ozone Park home, no space went to waste. It was fully furnished, and Harmon kept all his clothing down there. It's where his daughter, who was back home from college for Thanksgiving, had put her clothes into the washing machine. His 10-year-old son's toys and bicycle were there too.
About 2:30 a.m. on Nov. 30, that basement started filling with waste. Harmon had gotten used to sewage and flooding issues in the three decades he'd lived there, and he cleaned out the sewer trap in his basement twice a year. But he had never seen anything like this.
"By nine o'clock in the morning, I had close to four feet of sewage in my basement," he said.
"I'm one of those families that had to sleep in their car, in my driveway with my children," Harmon said in his testimony.
Nearly two weeks later, residents like Harmon continue to grapple with the aftermath of the sewage that devastated their homes. Harmon said he still hasn't gone back home, where there's no heat or hot water. Instead, he's living in a hotel.
"I've never seen nothing like this before," he said. "This was a disaster."
City Council representatives lambasted the Department of Environmental Protection, which oversees the city's wastewater plants and sewer system, for being slow to respond to the crisis and promoting a narrative that blamed the backup on residents pouring grease down their drains.
"They certainly didn't deserve to be publicly shamed in the midst of a tragedy," City Council Member Adrienne Adams said.
Adams said her constituents' calls to 311, the city's emergency hotline, went unaddressed for hours and that it took the Department of Environmental Protection hours to arrive at the scene and start fixing the issue.
Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Vincent Sapienza said crews had arrived that morning, hours before Adams claimed, but acknowledged that issues communicating with 311 representatives meant they were slow to realize all the flooding complaints were connected.
Queens Eagle
Tuesday, December 3, 2019
D.E.P. immediately blames 300 homeowners for the rivers of feces in their basements
New York City residents are dealing with awful and vomit-inducing conditions days after a sewer backup forced them to leave their homes. Officials say the disruption pushed human waste into about 300 homes in Jamaica, Queens.
They think cooking grease poured down the drain might be the culprit. The city’s water agency says drinking water is safe and unaffected.
Cynthia McKenzie said she woke up around 3 a.m. Saturday to an odor she thought was a gas leak, only to realize that sewage water was rushing into her basement.
“When you open it, it just smells,” she said. “It makes you want to vomit. We have to pack up all the clothes.”
Raw sewage. There were worms coming out of the toilet. Sludge. Feces. All kinds of stuff," said South Ozone Park resident Gwen McElroy.
Why does the city (mainly the D.E.P.) think the residents are at fault and are sticking with that theory before they actually find the cause? This preemptive determination smells shittier than the stench and the gallons of biological waste they are hosing back out.
Sunday, December 1, 2019
Backed up sewer line inundates South Jamaica homes with crappy water and the city is slow to help
Officials from the Department of Environmental Protection, which runs the city sewer system, said they weren’t sure when flooded-out residents could return.
“We are alive and OK but everything is gone,” said Sani Lakudi, 50, an Uber driver who lives in the neighborhood. “My TV, printer, computer — they are ruined. We stayed up all night pumping water. We had to do what we had to do or the water would have destroyed everything.”
Residents were asked to turn off their heat, hot water and electricity while the problem was addressed.
DEP spokesman Edward Timbers said crews worked overnight to “pump around” a blockage in the neighborhood’s main sewer conduit near 150th St and Rockaway Blvd.
“We don’t know when it will be fixed,” said Timbers. “People should contact their home insurance carrier. The DEP has been helping people fill out claim forms against the city.”
Saturday, August 24, 2019
de Blasio's D.O.T.'s and D.E.P.'s primitively cheap remedies for potholes and damaged catch basins

Impunity City
New York is not only famous for being the biggest city in the world (by default, reputation and hype) but it’s also infamous for it’s potholes which manifest from time to time and also notorious for the tardiness to repair them. But decades riding (and at few occasions driving) in this big city of dreams, I don’t think I have ever seen the creative and quarter-assed way Mayor de Blasio’s Department of Transportation has displayed to remediate or even fix these blights on the roads and pavement. Especially with the usage of traffic cones.

But the de Blasio’s D.O.T.’s shiftlessness is not limited to the lame efforts and solutions to warn citizens of road hazards, it also applies his Department of Environmental Protection for our dilapidated water catch basins. Especially the ones in the perpetually ignored neighborhoods in Southeast Queens.
