Page 8 - Work Force March 2016

Water crisis causes flood of questions about state funding, infrastructure needs
TROY — A recent water crisis in this upstate city is putting the spotlight on New York state’s failure to fund infrastructure improvements.
Public utilities crews recently worked around the clock to repair
a 33-inch rupture in the city’s main water line. A 110-year-old cast-iron pipe burst in the city’s Lansingburgh neighborhood, heaving 8 million gallons of water into city streets
and basements, causing flooding and chaos, leading to a state of emergency.
Troy city workers were among the public employees who worked nonstop to stem the flooding and respond to urgent needs.
The city’s water supply was also drained, leaving thousands of people in and around the city without water; in some cases for nine days.
Breaks point to larger problem
Troy, which has aging infrastructure throughout the city, has dealt with numerous water main breaks in recent years.
While city workers took the latest crisis in stride, the continuous patch
up of the broken pipes is an example of how the governor’s state budget is shortchanging localities.
Municipalities have long sought state or federal funding assistance to update infrastructure, but to date, no help has come their way. In fact, the state tax cap has hurt efforts to budget for infrastructure upkeep.
The governor’s state budget proposal includes $22 billion
over five years for upstate capital investments, $700 million for Thruway infrastructure investment and millions upon millions for assorted other projects, which sounds great on paper.
The only problem? The money is nowhere to be found and the budget includes no plan to get more money into state coffers.
Long hours, few resources
Troy city employees charged
with fixing the pipes scrambled to handle additional repairs and three more breaks during the same period. Sadly, these kinds of crises are commonplace. And, for public works employees, so are the long hours.
cseany.org
WorkForce
8 The Work Force
March 2016
“Local governments are being buried under the weight of the state’s unfunded mandates and tax cap.
When will the governor increase AIM funding to”
assist municipalities? When they collapse under debt?
— Vicky Miller, Albany County Local president, Albany County Department of Social Services senior caseworker
Rudy Reynolds at work on excavation at the site of the break.
On the cover, workers do excavation work near the water main repair.
“One time, we worked for 36 hours straight,” said Troy Water Department employee Rudy Reynolds, a CSEA member and mechanical equipment operator. “We finish one repair, then head over to another.”
Reynolds said that his 14-person crew has a huge territory to cover. “It’s not like we can take a break and let another shift come in,” he said. “We are it.”
“I always tell people I would do
this job for free in the summer,” Reynolds said. “Winter, being cold and wet, that’s another story.”
Water crews liken the work to a game of whack a mole.
“I would say it’s like doing more with less, but it’s really more like doing less with less,” Reynolds said.
Winter work is especially dangerous and the unpredictable hours make it harder to plan anything in off hours. “We joke sometimes calling our wives ‘water widows,’” Reynolds said. “We’re just not home.”
Troy Mayor Patrick Madden, who took office on Jan. 1, said
the city would be applying to the state for a $22 million grant to fund replacement of a larger portion of the pipe.
While the project is long overdue, questions remain about paying for it.
“People come up to us all the time when we’re working. Telling us we should just replace all the lines, (laughing) it’s not that simple,” said Reynolds. “Maybe if we won the Powerball, we could afford it.”
— Therese Assalian
Failing Infrastructure
page 8
Also, state budget analysis and reaction from CSEA members Pages 3, 8–11
March 2016 • Vol. 19, No. 3
Photo by Therese Assalian