Dive Brief:
- New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio announced his plans to "accelerate" work by a year on a third city water tunnel after a critical New York Times article reported that he was delaying the project, according to the Gothamist.
- According to The Times, five million residents of Queens and Brooklyn have only two aging water tunnels to rely on, and the third is considered "essential to the survival of the city if either of the two existing, and now aged, tunnels should fail." The Manhattan and Bronx portions of the third tunnel are operational, but "two deep shafts" still need to be built to be able to serve Brooklyn and Queens.
- De Blasio said he will add $305 million to the city's budget for work on the tunnel, and that construction should begin in 2020, according to The Times.
Dive Insight:
In 2015, the de Blasio administration moved the tunnel funds to other projects as part of an effort to keep rising water and sewer rates under control, The Times reported. At a press conference after The Times article was published Wednesday, de Blasio said the movement of funds was "a matter of accounting." He blamed his staff for failing to clearly explain to The Times his plan for the tunnel, according to the Gothamist.
The new tunnel was a priority for the Bloomberg administration after a series of disaster and preparedness meetings after he first took office in 2002. "As ugly and disastrous as those scenarios were, none of them came close to the possible collapse of one of the two water tunnels that would make half the businesses and residences inside the city of New York uninhabitable," Kevin Sheekey, a former deputy mayor, told The Times.
This latest dustup comes only a few weeks after de Blasio achieved a victory with the passage of his affordable housing plan. The new plan offers developers building height waivers, special financing and tax breaks in exchange for meeting mandatory set-aside requirements. Administration officials estimate that the plan will result in the addition of 80,000 new affordable housing units and the preservation of 120,000 units.