The MTA has a plan to repair a chronically broken fire sprinkler system at the sprawling East New York bus depot — and it isn’t more band-aid fixes.
The transit agency is on the brink of soliciting bids to replace a leaky 2,000-foot loop of subterranean pipe that’s kept the facility without fire sprinkler protection for nearly two years, the Daily News has learned.
The MTA’s construction and development division will soon post a request for proposals seeking an outside firm to replace the troublesome pipe with an above-ground line connecting the sprinkler system to the city’s water main, according to multiple transit sources.
The pipe is designed to provide pressurized water to the depot’s thousands of sprinkler heads in the event of a fire. As previously reported by The News, the pipe has repeatedly burst and failed pressure tests.
The above-ground replacement is expected to cost roughly $4 million, and take two years to complete. But the wait could cost twice as much as the work.
In a memo obtained by The News, MTA’s bus boss, Frank Annicaro, estimated it could cost as much as $4.8 million a year to staff the round-the-clock fire-watch required to keep the facility safe in the absence of a functioning sprinkler system.
That figure backs up a News analysis conducted earlier this year that found at least $4.1 million in overtime is paid each year to a small group of less than three dozen employees tasked with conducting the fire-watch. In other words, the two the MTA expects it will take to complete the sprinkler pipe replacement will likely cost more than $8 million in fire-watch overtime alone.
The depot — which is home to about 250 buses as well as maintenance, repair and tire shops, fuel tanks and MTA offices — has been without a working sprinkler system since 2021, when a portion of the underground feed pipe ruptured under the facility’s bus wash.
Work crews made a repair to the pipe, but it was unable to hold high pressure. The pipe burst again in July 2022, 8 ft. beneath a storeroom on the first floor. That storeroom has seen at least two additional leaks since.
At least a portion of the damaged pipe contains asbestos — a hazardous material that’s complicated repair efforts and earned the MTA a safety violation from the state’s Department of Labor earlier this year.
Transit brass have weighed replacing the compromised water pipe with an above-ground loop for more than a year, after Annicaro raised the possibility in a March 2023 memo to MTA’s construction and development wing.
“The existing fire loop is located underground and is over 70 years old and has reached its useful life,” the bus boss wrote.
Earlier this year, MTA officials hinted any overhaul of the sprinkler system would have to wait for a full overhaul of the facility.
But an MTA spokesman confirmed this week the agency would soon be seeking outside contractors to replace the pipe, even though attempts to repair the existing pipe remained ongoing.
“The East New York Bus Depot houses a structurally challenging and aging underground fire suppression system,” Eugene Resnick told The News in a statement. “We are currently working to remove impediments to fire safety at the depot with ongoing repairs, while also looking at long term strategies to shore up the system for future viability.”
