KINGSTON – US Senator Charles Schumer stood under umbrellas and April showers in Kingston Tuesday afternoon, flanked by Ulster County Executive Michael Hein and Mayor Shayne Gallo, demanding that the Federal Emergency Management Agency change its policies towards fixing sinkholes.
Eighty feet beneath the officials’ feet lies a complex network of tunnels, pipes and underground streams, which combined with Hurricane Irene, Tropical Storm Lee, and Superstorm Sandy, have caused one of the most notorious and persistent urban sinkholes along the eastern seaboard.
L-R: Hein, Gallo, Schumer on a barricaded Washington Avenue
“The City of Kingston has been struggling to find a way to pay for the needed repairs, without passing an enormous burden onto the taxpayers,” Schumer explained. “So we need the federal government here to help.”
Washington Avenue traffic has been snarled by the problem since March 2011, with a price tag of $7 million, so far.
“How can they take $7million, when they have a $40 million [annual city budget], to fix this sinkhole?” the senator asked. FEMA does generally not supply money to repair sinkholes, and the agency has no record of ever doing so, the senator said. “It’s not that the law says ‘don’t pay for sinkholes,’ it’s the way FEMA has interpreted the law.”
Previously, Schumer helped obtain $1.2 million from the US Economic Development Agency for part of the project, “but that’s a drop in the bucket,” the senator said.
Hein said that he witnessed a manhole cover launched 30 feet into the air at the sinkhole during Hurricane Irene, on his way to the county Emergency Management Center. “It was petrifying,” he recalled.
“Local communities are literally struggling with their budgetary responsibilities, under the yoke of unfunded mandates,” Mayor Gallo said. “It’s very difficult to get the funding to complete this kind of project.”
Schumer said he will speak to the top brass of FEMA. “We need a policy change. I’ve been able to persuade FEMA to be a lot more flexible than they used to be, we’ve had a lot of luck in many instances and I hope we have here,” Schumer maintained. “That is the biggest sinkhole I have ever come across.”
