Penny Wise and Pound are stupid?New York City budget cuts severe flooding and death toll

Penny Wise and Pound are stupid?New York City budget cuts severe flooding and death toll

It has been four months since the rain caused by Hurricane Ida flooded the streets and houses of New York.Subway station and basement In all the flooded administrative districts, the news was released for a few weeks, but it may soon be forgotten.However, the city’s rescue agency is Still spending millions of dollars Support the affected homeowners and distribute food, clothing and funds to the displaced. The resumption of work is commendable, but it will take years for many families to stand up again. Sadly, 11 people were killed in the basement In Queens. Can most of this impact be avoided?

The drainage network was blocked by rubbish, making the September flood worse. In the past four years, the city government has reduced the number of trash cans on street corners, ostensibly to reduce the accumulation of rubbish, but in fact to reduce collection costs. Recently, it reduced the frequency of checking storm drains from once a year to once every three years.Mayor De Blasio cut the budget by $106 million in June 2020, worsening the situation Reduce the collection of public trash baskets by 60%. These measures have Increased the amount of garbage on the street, May have contributed to the rapid increase in the number of rats, caused public health hazards to low- and middle-income communities, and reduced the overall quality of life.

Mayor de Blasio argued Ada is the unprecedented and unpredictable result of climate change. In response to the risks of climate change, New York City has been implementing large-scale infrastructure resilience projects.Plan and design one Seawall with an energy cost of more than 119 billion U.S. dollars The “high-value assets” surrounding Lower Manhattan are being addressed The worst situation IPCC predicted climate change. The irony is that millions of dollars saved to reduce garbage and sewer cleanup have caused poor residents to suffer unfavorable flooding consequences, and it is recommended to spend billions of dollars to protect Wall Street and its surrounding areas. Of course, the risk of rising sea levels threatens the entire New York City, so smart solutions are needed. However, protecting climate change does not justify reducing the quality of life by solving our current problems through “small” resources. Let us not be overwhelmed by rubbish. Without basic drainage infrastructure maintenance, even mild rainfall events can cause this type of flooding and exacerbate the impact of larger events.

Although garbage removal initially seemed unrelated to flooding, the urban system is highly interconnected. After a light rain, street trash will enter the rain drain—the city looks magically clean—but you can imagine where the street trash has gone. By reducing the frequency of checking storm drains for blockages, this garbage can accumulate and reduce the capacity of the drainage network. Even a small storm event can cause local nuisance floods. Under super storm conditions, the results will be amplified and large amounts of water cannot pass through the sewers.The water overflows back into the street and enters Basement for low-income families Due to lack of affordable housing. It is difficult to price the impact of all these negative consequences of budget-saving measures aimed at cleaning up garbage and drains, but recent events should remind people to strike a balance between new major infrastructure and less obvious maintenance.

The city is advancing several new flood control infrastructure projects. The seawall project will be implemented by the incoming Adams government. The current de Blasio government has spent US$1.9 billion in 2018 to reduce flooding in southwestern Queens. According to WeGov.NYC, US$198.7 million is planned for new rainwater mitigation infrastructure, such as biological swamps and green streets in certain areas. These technologies may be cost-effective, but they cannot solve the current flooding problem, half of which run three years later than planned. In addition, if there is no existing system maintenance, garbage removal and drain cleaning, it will cost very little money. Did the US$300 million in “green infrastructure” spending on a small portion of the city’s rainwater control offset the city-wide loss caused by the US$100 million in spending cuts that led to storms and floods?

Since March 2021, the city has used the federal government’s COVID relief assistance to restore health services, but this is not enough. During Ida, most of the city’s 153,000 catchment basins were blocked by garbage, forcing locals to run outside during the storm. Clean the sewer by yourself. New York is not alone on these issues; Philadelphia Office of Emergency Management Begging residents living near storm drains to clean up their catch basins Before Hurricane Ida.

These events indicate the need to improve infrastructure maintenance and New flood protection infrastructure. Unlike new water conservancy infrastructure, more frequent garbage collection services are a cost-effective solution that can be implemented immediately, and the benefits go beyond just reducing flooding risks in low-lying communities. The maintenance costs of cleaning up these sewers are much lower than the city’s assistance to uninsured citizens’ houses.

The most vulnerable people in New York City need the city government to come forward before the next flash flood or super storm. The current trend of spending tens of millions of dollars to build “green rainwater infrastructure” will only cause low- and middle-income communities to wait for overdue and over-budgeted projects. Our solution needs to consider the interconnectivity of our urban infrastructure. In these infrastructures, small changes in maintenance such as garbage collection may have knock-on effects, such as basement flooding. If we are willing to adopt this mentality, we can ensure that families do not suffer preventable tragedies like the one we saw in Queens in September.

Yunus Kovankaya is an undergraduate majoring in civil engineering and engineering mechanics.

Sara Schwetschenau is a postdoctoral researcher at the Columbia Water Center.

Upmanu Lall is the director of the Columbia Water Center and the Alan and Carol Silberstein Professor of Engineering at the Columbia School of Engineering and Applied Sciences.