A close-up photograph of a crack inside the Delaware Aqueduct. Photo provided by the NYC DEP.
Yesterday, the Associated Press ran a nice feature story about the soggy dilemma facing homeowners in the Ulster County town of Wawarsing, who have been sitting atop a leak in the Delaware Aqueduct for years. The story appeared across the country -- the link above is to the one that ran in Seattle.
The Wawarsing leak has inundated basements and ruined homes, and until recently, the New York City Department of Environmental Protection, which manages the aqueduct, has done little about it. But now things are finally turning around with a buyout program that was announced back in June.
The AP story interviews Wawarsing residents about how they'll be affected by the buyouts. Apparently, the general attitude among those with damaged homes is that the buyouts are a nice gesture, but not a real solution:
"I'm glad to see them finally stepping up and doing something, but for me it's a little late," said 65-year-old Andrea Smith as she walked around her trailer to point out a sinkhole on her lawn. She and her husband applied for a buyout as a way of telling government officials they have a problem, but she says they won't sell ...
[Julianne] Lennon and others say the assessed value of a home in a depressed market will not cover the costs of moving into another house or the thousands of dollars spent over the years replacing furnaces, dryers, flooring and electricity to run sump pumps for days at a time.
Her neighbor David Sickles said he bought his house for $134,000 in 2008 before the market dipped and still owes about $120,000. In addition, he spent around $30,000 spent on the roof, driveway and other capital projects. He doubts that a buyout offer would make economic sense.
"I put in an application still," he said. "I can almost guarantee that I'm not going to take it."
