Too many of our neighbors are underwater — literally and figuratively — with flooded homes and the financial stress and health problems flooding causes. It’s long overdue for New York State to lend a helping hand.
Advocates across New York are pushing for legislation that would authorize the state to force polluters to pay for the climate crises they have caused and help homeowners cover the costs of critical flood prevention measures, including repairing faulty private sewer lines, connecting these lines to the street, and installing back-flow valves to prevent dangerous sewer overflows.
Extreme rainfall events have already increased and will continue increasing in number and severity because of fossil-fueled climate change. By the end of the century, the city could experience as much as 30% more annual rainfall than today, and 50% more days with more than 1 inch of rain. On top of that, as sea levels and groundwater tables rise, stormwater will drain more slowly and contribute to the severity and persistence of flooding.
Communities in which New York City has historically invested less money and resources — which tend to be Black, Brown, and low-income communities — disproportionately bear the burdens of flooding and sewage backups. For example, residents in Queens, the city’s most racially diverse borough, made more than 4,000 backup complaints involving private sewer systems to the NYC Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) in 2022 alone — nearly six times as many as Manhattan.
In addition to the risk of property damage, floods pose major health risks caused by excess water picking up pollutants such as oil, pesticides, bacteria, and trash. Plumbing and sewer backups, which increase with greater rainfall, can cause serious health problems, including respiratory illnesses and skin infections.
These backups make residents’ environments unsafe, unhealthy, and inhumane, interfering with their constitutional right to a clean and healthy environment, yet many homeowners cannot meet the compounding costs of short or long-term solutions to problems with their sewer systems. Without significant investment now, the problem will only get worse.
Fossil fuel companies that have exacerbated these problems have put all of the costs onto the public while continuing to make record profits, and it is past time to make them pay. Now is the time for our elected leaders to act and fix this issue before many more homes and livelihoods are ruined by flooding.
The Legislature has the critical opportunity to pass two key pieces of legislation to protect New Yorkers: First, S.8581/A.9342, bill that would expand the eligibility criteria and amounts awarded for loans and grants under the Resilient Retrofits program for private sewer repairs and upgrades. Co-sponsored by two of us and supported by grassroots organizations like the Southeast Queens Residents Environmental Justice Coalition (SQREJC), this legislation would help make New York a safer, cleaner place by ensuring that our sewers can handle the stronger storms we can expect in the coming years and decades.
Second, the Climate Change Superfund Act (A03351B) will ease the financial burden that state taxpayers and municipalities are bearing to clean up climate disasters like extreme rainstorms by making the biggest corporate climate polluters pay for the costs of the damage they’ve caused. This major revenue bill would go a long way to support programs like Resilient Retrofits.
It’s critical that residents receive this money quickly — severe storms can cause significant damage to homes and disrupt and endanger our lives. Repairs, such as replacing mechanical systems, plumbing, or even damaged belongings, can be costly and place financial strain on homeowners, renters, businesses, and especially on low-income households that may already be struggling.
FEMA estimates that just 1 inch of water, which can be caused by even a relatively minor storm, can cause as much as $25,000 in damages. While options exist to help prevent this — a $5,000 backwater valve can help stop sewer water from backing into a home — retrofitting homes is often far too costly for homeowners without financial assistance.
The Resiliency Retrofits expansion bill and the Climate Change Superfund Act will provide necessary financial support for New Yorkers facing the increasing private costs of flooding and sewage backups and help protect the safety, financial stability, and housing security of homeowners. Moreover, these bills will contribute to ensuring a clean and healthy environment for New Yorkers, a right every resident of our state is guaranteed by the state Constitution.
These are common sense bills that everyone should support. Now it’s time for our Legislature to make them laws before the next major storm hits.
Comrie is state senator from Queens. Anderson is an Assembly member from Queens. Scarborough is president of SQREJC. Cross is a staff attorney in New York Lawyers for the Public Interest’s Environmental Justice Program.
