Sewer Upgrade Project Planned for Little Neck This Summer

The city will begin upgrading storm sewers and water mains along several streets off Little Neck Parkway in an attempt to prevent overflow into local waterways, Community Board 11’s district manager said.

The city’s Department of Design and Construction will kick off a project in the next two months that will include building new storm water collection sewers, wetland plantings and adding new distilling basins as well as fixing water mains and storm sewers in Little Neck.

The upgrades will take place at several sites, including 34^th Avenue between Brookside Avenue and Little Neck Parkway, 255^th Street between 34^th and 39^th Avenues, Little Neck Parkway between 34^th and 38^th Avenues, 38^th Avenue between 254^th and 255^th Streets and 39^th Avenue between 254^th and 255^th Streets.

“It will be a big project,” said Susan Seinfeld, district manager for CB 11. “They are going to replace an outfall, which will prevent runoff to Little Neck Bay.”

An outfall sewer is a pipe or conduit that carries raw sewage to a final point of discharge into a body of water.

The Little Neck project will bear some similarity to a that wrapped up last year, but will be significantly smaller in size.

That project was also completed in an attempt to prevent flooding in northeast Queens and filter overflow from Douglaston’s sewers following rainstorms.

Seinfeld said there is currently no starting date for the Little Neck upgrade, but that it is expected to begin within the next two months.

The project will likely be completed by October 2013, she said.

Seinfeld said the largest impact from the upgrade on the local community could be parking and traffic issues.

“There could potentially be limited parking on the north side of the Long Island Rail Road,” she said. “Another issue that needs to be addressed is access to these roads from Little Neck Parkway.”