Long Island homeowners, leaders call for emergency response to summer sinkholes
MINEOLA, N.Y. -- Long Island homeowners and community leaders are calling for an emergency response to sinkholes.
The sinkholes are being blamed on aging infrastructure, after multiple water and sewer pipes burst in Nassau County over the past two months.
"There were machines and pumps running. So much that they shook our house," said Erika Floreska, or Baldwin.
Floreska's community is one of three recently besieged by giant sinkholes when a 42-inch sewer main collapsed in June.
"It just reeked. I mean, it's sewer. It's disgusting, every day for 24 hours a day for about three weeks," said Floreska.
The creek at the end of their street was overrun with sewage. The DEC was called in when fecal matter started spreading into backyards.
County legislators had to approve all $15 million from its emergency fund just to repair the three major sinkholes in Baldwin, Oceanside and Lido Beach.
"Every community faces the same problem ... when tomorrow comes and it's broken, " said Matthew Ponsot, a member of the Baldwin Civic Association.
"Congress passed and President Biden signed into law one of the largest allocations of money specifically for infrastructure in our country's history," said County Legislator Debra Mulé.
Mulé is asking the federal, state and county governments to get a billion dollars of that infrastructure money into Nassau's aging water and sewer pipes.
"In some places, the sewer pipes in Nassau County are 70 years old and approximately 50 percent of them sit under what is considered the groundwater table. So they're constantly underwater," said Lauren Sternberg, a spokesperson for Veolia North America, LI.
They say infrastructure and environmental concerns must be addressed now as new housing goes up.
"You can only do good when you're doing well. So we need to make sure that we have an infrastructure here that can support any additional development of any kind," said County Legislator Siela Bynoe.
"No one should have to deal with that. I can't sit outside on my deck and enjoy the summer evening because it's so loud and stinky," said Floreska.
No one wants a repeat of this summer.