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Updated
August 5, 2016

 

UPDATE - The Latest Beaverkill Sinkhole On South Lake Avenue

Back to The Sewage Still Spills

Another big sinkhole has opened up, bigger and more spectacular than the last one, this time on South Lake Avenue at Elberon Place on the west side of Washington Park. This time there was an accompanying water main break, and some poor college student’s parked car went down the hole. Looking at the video that made the rounds, apparently shot from the top widow of the apartment building next to the hole, I had the ludicrous thought that as the water gushing from severed water pipe blasted the car that car was finally getting a good wash.

Sure enough, this was the Beaverkill collapsing again, this time the part of the buried river that feeds into Washington Park Lake which is a stone’s throw away. The sinkhole that opened up at Madison Avenue and New Scotland Avenue this past June was the part of the Beaverkill that drains the lake. Probably not coincidently, both of these spots were drowned by a severe flash flood almost exactly two years in August 2014 when the Beaverkill backed up during a massive storm.

One End Of The Hole On south Lake Street At Elberon Place
One End Of The Hole On south Lake Street At Elberon Place

A few days after it opened up, and after the gushing water had been stopped and partial water service had been restored to the surrounding neighborhood, I went over there to see for myself. As with the last hole I saw a lot of guys with hardhats standing around staring into the hole. As a gawking member of the public I had to stand behind the yellow tape envious of the knot of Corporate Media employees who were hanging around near the edge of the hole fiddling with cameras and casually chatting with officials. Like the rubbernecking cops they didn’t even have to wear hardhats.

The Sinkhole On South Lake Seen From The Adjacent Building Before It Was Evacuated
The Sinkhole On South Lake Seen From The Adjacent Building Before It Was Evacuated

I had to park my pickup on the other side of Madison Avenue and walk in. The entire long length of South Lake running along the park is closed off. And kids, I want you to know that street is going to stay closed for a long time, probably months. That is one impressive hole that runs clear across the street and across the sidewalk. It turns out this is going to require a lot more excavating to repair.

The first thing that struck me as I approached the site was these giant sections of five foot wide pipe sitting ready to be installed. There was only one thing these could be used for here, and it wasn’t the severed water main. A large section of the Beaverkill was about to be replaced running up Elberon Street, which once was the bed of the river when it ran aboveground.

Joe Coffey, Commissioner Of The City Of Albany Department of Water And Water Supply,
Joe Coffey, Commissioner Of The City Of Albany Department of Water And Water Supply,

After circling around and the yellow tape and snapping photos I caught the attention of Joe Coffey, Commissioner of the City of Albany Department of Water and Water Supply, who walked over to the edge of the yellow tape where I was standing and graciously gave me a few moments of his time to answer my questions. Actually he didn’t look too engaged at that moment, but I could see that he was watching activity carefully and being present. As a longtime water engineer he probably understands the situation better than anyone present, and as commissioner he is, of course, responsible for whatever happens.

After I introduced myself, it turned out that he recognized both my name and the name of this blog and found it to be an enjoyable read. So I quickly apologized for mistakenly writing that he is a longtime Commissioner of Water, and for accusing him of turning a blind eye to the problem of the Beaverkill. While he was indeed born and raised in Albany, he was appointed to the position in January 2014 by then incoming Mayor Kathy Sheehan. So he really has been discovering ignored problems for himself.

Still From A Video, Note How The Sinkhole Is Below Elberon Place, The Water Line Actually Crosses To One Side Of The Beaverkill
Still From A Video, Note How The Sinkhole Is Below Elberon Place, The Water Line Actually Crosses To One Side Of The Beaverkill

I found out from Mr. Coffey that the water main actually crossed over the top of the Beaverkill pipe, that both pipes shattered, and it was anybody’s guess how exactly it happened. News reports mentioned that there is also a gas pipe running under the Beaverkill that apparently did not burst but which certainly complicates things. I did note the presence of National Grid power monopoly guys in hardhats among all the other hardhatted guys taking turns standing on the edge of the hole staring grimly.

Still From A Video, Note How The Sinkhole Is Below Elberon Place, The Water Line Actually Crosses To One Side Of The Beaverkill
Big Pipes That Will Replace Part Of The Existing Beaverkill Pipe

I could see that a good portion of Elberon Place running up the hill was also blocked off with yellow tape. Mr. Coffey told me that the original plan had been to replace this portion of the Beaverkill this coming fall, but circumstances have prioritized that plan. That explains the big pipes sitting on the sidewalk under the trees hogging the shade.

Mr. Coffey told me that this replacement is part of the $45 million Albany Pool CSO Long Term Control Plan from 2011 (CSO stands for Combined Sewer Overflow.) I hadn’t looked at the plan document for a while, admittedly it is confusing to read and appears contradictory in parts. Common Council member Cathy Fahey went out of her way to remind me of this document on my Spacebook page, thanks to her for that.

He maintains that the flash flood of August 2014 did not cause or contribute to the creation of this sinkhole or of the other one on Madison Avenue that opened up in June. I did not argue with him, despite his patience with me he clearly did not have time for any of my nonsense. But I find it hard to believe that flash flood, along with ongoing seepage, could not have been a major contributing factor to these two sinkholes.

It is a fact that I’ve personally observed that at this point uphill from the lake the Beaverkill does not stay confined to the underground pipe. Oldtimers that I talked told me that back in the middle of the 20th century the river would emerge behind the houses along Elberon Place during the spring. Working for a contractor on one of those houses back in the 1980s I saw how it actually floated on water, you could not dig more than a foot down in the cellar floor without encountering mud.

Staring Into The Sinkhole
Staring Into The Sinkhole

I also asked Mr. Coffey where he thought the sewage that pours into the Hudson River comes from, he maintained that it originated from residue sitting in or near the basin that connects the storm and sewer drains. This basin has recently been replaced with a bigger one and really ought to be clean at this point. It seems to me that there must be an awful lot of residue sitting in a pipe somewhere for that to be the only cause.

It was pointed out to me after I published the main article that there may be another line that joins the Beaverkill near Hackett Public Middle School. This was once the bed of a tributary stream, and sewer lines tend to follow those historic stream beds because they are the low spots. Perhaps this is the source of the sewage rather than Albany Med and the Park South developments. This needs investigation.

CSOs provide underground links between storm drains for the streets and with sewers for toilets and sinks, the idea is to provide overflow capacity for street storm drains in case of severe storms. But what happens with these CSOs is that sewage eventually ends up in the street storm drain lines, which is what is happening with the Beaverkill past Washington Park Lake. Despite implementing some of the mitigating features of this plan, untreated sewage is still stinking up my neighborhood and pouring into the Hudson River, as I reported in the main article to this update.

This Is Going To Take A Long Time To Repair
This Is Going To Take A Long Time To Repair

For obvious good health and environmental reasons the State and the Feds are encouraging the elimination of these CSOs, but reconfiguring these buried lines is mighty expensive. Cost is why our local politicians are loathe to build new sewer lines in populated areas so as to completely separate the storm drains and the sewer drains. Thus this plan does not eliminate the sewage in the Beaverkill, but tries to lessen it somewhat.

This is why third world countries and quite a few second world countries continue to have sewage generated epidemics such as cholera, they simply don’t have the cash to make their wastewater safe. As the richest and most powerful empire on Earth we don’t have that excuse.

Neglecting our sewage infrastructure looks a lot like policy. If this problem was happening in Clifton Park or Loudonville (wealthy suburbs of Albany) would it be ignored or merely mitigated in this manner for very long? Would a plan be advanced and implemented that maintained stinking raw sewage in a storm drain? Well, that’s what the State and the City are doing in the South End of Albany. We don’t deserve freedom from disease, we don’t matter.

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