Three sinkholes emerge in two months

Foxhurst Road in Oceanside became the third sinkhole to disrupt traffic on the south shore of Long Island in the last two months. According to officials, the issue was caused by the eruption of an underground water main pipe on Sunday, which caused the road above to buckle and making the roadway impassible for several hours.

“This latest sinkhole — the third in just two months’ time — makes it clear that we are in the midst of a growing infrastructure crisis,” Nassau County Legislator Debra Mulé said in a release. “The current state of Nassau County’s aging sewer mains, water pipes, and other vital infrastructure demands an immediate response from leaders at all levels of government if we are to adequately safeguard the welfare of our communities and protect the environment from further harm.”

Committees in the Nassau County Legislature recently voted to authorize $15 million worth of funds to replenish a capital budget line that was recently used for repairs on two of the three disruptive sinkholes — one in Baldwin and one in Lido Beach.

In addition to the amending the 2023-2026 capital plan, legislators with the Public Works, Finance, and Rules Committee voted to dedicate additional resources to the “lateral sewer repair” capital budget line.

Funds over the past two months have been tapped from the budget lines amid repairs to the sinkholes on Lido Boulevard in Long Beach and Grand Avenue in Baldwin.

“This is the first of many significant investments that we must make in order to rebuild and reinforce Nassau County’s aging critical infrastructure,” Mulé said. “As we look ahead to the 2024 capital plan, I am committed to ensuring that vital resources for road, sewer, and water infrastructure are our County’s top priorities.”

The issue with roads and infrastructure has become a pertinent one to Nassau County, as multiple sinkholes have interrupted normal daily activity in frequently traversed areas.

The Foxhurst Road sinkhole is the latest following the one on Grand Avenue in Baldwin on June 27, when a 42-inch sewer main failure resulted in the spilling of untreated sewage, which seeped into the creek and neighbors backyards, harming the local ecosystem. Prior to that, another sinkhole opened up on May 31 in Lido Beach, which took two weeks to complete while stifling east-west traffic on the barrier island.

“The sinkholes happened because of the aging of the sewer infrastructure,” Veolia North America spokesperson Lauren Sternberg said. “These were 70-year-old pipes that had reached the end of their life cycle. The failure of the underground sewer pipe resulted in the ground above the pipe collapsing and then the roadway collapsed.”

Veolia North America operates Nassau County’s sewer systems, including in Oceanside, Lido Beach and Baldwin.

Sternberg added that each of the sinkholes occurred due to different infrastructure failures. In the case of Lido Boulevard, a manhole failed 20 feet below the ground, causing the sinkhole to occur. The 20-foot-deep sinkhole opened up near Lido Boulevard’s intersection with Regent Drive, right in front of Lido Elementary School and Long Beach Middle School, on May 31, and was the result of a manhole failure. It forced the Point Lookout Lido Fire Department to initially evacuate its headquarters nearby, and necessitated the closure of multiple lanes of the only roadway in and out of Long Beach to and from the Loop Parkway.

The Baldwin sinkhole had sewage seeping up from a broken 36-inch sewage line on Grand Avenue. The sinkhole was caused by a pipe failure, which required repairs to the pieces of pipe along with installation of 721 feet of lining. Sternberg added that the exact costs of the sinkhole repairs are not available yet.

Through the years there have been several other occurrences of sinkholes on the south shore of Nassau County.

In 2014, a similar incident took place in Rockville Centre, when a woman’s Subaru sunk into a 10-to-15 foot deep hole on Driscoll Avenue, which was caused by an old cesspool that had caved in. 

“No part of our County or our region is immune from infrastructure failures like the ones we have experienced during the last month,” Mulé said in a letter to local, state and federal representatives on July 3. “We must take decisive action to protect our environmental assets and secure the health and safety of all Nassau County residents by averting future catastrophes such as the ones that the residents of Baldwin and Lido Beach have endured.”

Mulé said she appealed to New York Gov. Kathy Hochul, Senator Chuck Schumer, Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, US Rep. Anthony D’Esposito, and Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman to express the critical need for additional resources to repair and upgrade the county’s aging infrastructure and proactively prevent future sinkholes and the related transportation burdens caused by them. She also urged federal representatives to expedite the delivery of billions of dollars in general infrastructure aid that was previously authorized through the federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act in November 2021.

“I write with an urgent plea for your offices to work in partnership with your federal colleagues to take all necessary steps to expedite the delivery of funding that has been earmarked for New York State and Nassau County in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act,” Mulé wrote in a letter to Schumer and Gillibrand.

Officials say that final approval for the additional bonding could come as soon as the scheduled meeting of the full county legislature on Monday, Aug. 7.

Additional Reporting by Daniel Offner