NYC Officials Blame Sinkholes on Global Climate Crisis
By: Search Nissim
As NYC sees an increase in sinkholes or pits opening up in city streets, city officials are chalking up the blame to global warming.
As reported by the NY Post, this fiscal year New York City streets saw a 38 percent increase in sinkholes, with sightings rising to a total of 3,920. Problems with infrastructure were only partly to blame, with local politicians pointing a finger at climate change. “The issue right now is we don’t know exactly what we would do with more money that would systematically reduce the likelihood of sinkholes,” Rohit Aggarwala, NYC’s chief climate officer and the commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection, said at a City Council meeting last week. She pointed to the record rates in gaping voids on cemented city streets across the boroughs this year, saying there isn’t much that can be done, as the problem is bigger than NY. “If something is random, you could fix whatever you want and it may not have any impact,”Aggarwala said.
The problem is that it’s close to impossible to predict where the next sinkhole could be when the cause is something as aloof as global warming. Pavement collapses or cave ins are usually the result of water leaks. Some 45 percent were due to city water mains and sewers, while 23 percent of the pits had causes which were officially “undetermined,” or considered a result of natural drainage, the Department of Environmental Protection told Crain’s NY. “We just can’t pinpoint that this location is more vulnerable to a cave-in than another location,” Department of Transportation assistant commissioner for highway inspection and quality assurance Vincent Maniscalco told Crain’s. “We’ve seen brand-new streets develop cave-ins and older streets that have none at all.”
On July 18, a shocking oversized sinkhole appeared suddenly on Radcliff Avenue in the Morris Park neighborhood of the Bronx. The sinkhole was an estimated 58-feet-long, 15-foot-wide and 20-foot-deep deep. It swallowed up a van and damaged a water main, temporarily cutting service to roughly 70 homes in the area. The incident came a day after a severe storm and torrential rain fall. Climate experts predict that the ongoing climate crisis can lead to more sinkholes in the future. Urban and heavily populated metropolitan areas are more at risk for such occurrences, because there is more ongoing road traffic movement. New York is unfortunately in a “defensive position versus a proactive position,” said Robert Freudenberg, Vice President of energy and environment for the Regional Plan Association. “I think what’s playing out is how the climate crisis is hitting the city in ways that we might not have even considered.”
