When Mayor Eric Adams of New York declared that he would shut off water service to nonpaying customers, he cast the effort as a fight against big landlords bilking city taxpayers.
The biggest “delinquent” customer of all, however, went unnamed: New York State, according to an internal city list of the top 20 water delinquents obtained by The New York Times.
The top three nonpaying customers on that list are the state-controlled Metropolitan Transportation Authority; Riverbank State Park, on Manhattan’s West Side; and the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, a bistate agency that manages the region’s ports and airports. Together, they owe a cumulative $76.5 million in overdue payments, according to the city’s calculations.
In all, New York City is owed roughly $1 billion in delinquent water and wastewater payments as of April. According to the city’s calculations, the M.T.A., Port Authority and Riverbank account for nearly 8 percent of that total.
The accused contest their deadbeat status for a variety of reasons. Many of the facilities run by the M.T.A. and the Port Authority do not have water meters, fueling disputes over exactly how much water has been used.
The state parks department and the city disagree over who is responsible for payments at Riverbank State Park, a 28-acre greensward with sprinklers, playgrounds, an Olympic-size indoor pool, an outdoor lap pool, a wading pool and also a city water treatment plant. (On Tuesday, Gov. Kathy Hochul appeared at the park to announce that she was waiving swimming pool fees at state parks this summer.)
On one point, the city is adamant: During the coronavirus pandemic, the M.T.A. and the Port Authority simply stopped paying some of their bills, according to the city’s Department of Environmental Protection.
“We count on government to set a good example and its agencies to comply with the rules,” said Eric A. Goldstein, the New York City environment director at the Natural Resources Defense Council. “It’s like the accountants who miss the April 15 filing date for their own tax returns,” he added. “How can we ask everyday residents to pay up if our own state agencies lead the pack of delinquents?”
New York City’s vast water supply is designed to be self-sustaining: 800,000 buildings pay to use water, and those payments keep the system running.
“When people don’t pay, it impacts all of us,” Rohit T. Aggarwala, the commissioner of the Department of Environmental Protection, said during a news conference last year announcing a partial amnesty program for nonpaying water users. “Because it is a closed system, and every year we have to balance our budget, if people do not pay their water bills, that means the rates have to go up higher for those people who do.”
“By not paying you aren’t merely cheating the city, you are taking money out of your neighbors’ pockets,” Mr. Aggarwala added.
Water rates are rising this year, but the culprit is not just the debtors — it’s also a so-called hidden tax reinstituted by the mayor. Mr. Adams redirected more than $1.4 billion from the Water Board over four years to the city’s general fund by charging the board to lease its water and sewer systems from the city. The board then voted last month to raise water rates, in part to recoup the money.
In a rare public rebuke of Mr. Adams, the Water Board — whose members are all appointed by the mayor — unanimously approved a nonbinding resolution in June calling on the mayor to rescind the rental payments.
The Adams administration did not heed the board’s wishes. But it has continued its aggressive stance toward water bill debtors: The city is now planning to reinstitute lien sales for private property owners with unpaid water bills. Opponents of the move say it could cause struggling New Yorkers to lose their homes.
The city has taken a more patient approach with the state entities that owe the most money. Discussions are underway about resolving their balances, according to Edward Timbers, a spokesman for the Department of Environmental Protection.
“M.T.A. and Port Authority historically paid their bills, but during the pandemic they elected to stop paying their bills,” Mr. Timbers said. Riverbank State Park’s balance, he added, is “due to a contractual lack of clarity about who pays for water and electricity usage at Riverbank State Park.”
James Allen, a spokesman for the Port Authority, said the agency disputes the size of the debt the agency owes to the city, and attributed the disagreement to “Covid’s impact on water usage” at Kennedy Airport. He also said that in order to avoid future such disputes, the city was installing meters at the airport to take more accurate readings.
The M.T.A. also disputes the size of its water bill.
“We know the usage is significantly less than what’s reflected in the charges and we’re working to resolve that billing dispute,” said Eugene Resnick, an M.T.A. spokesman.
Dan Keefe, a spokesman for the state Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, said conversations about Riverbank’s debt were continuing and that the parties “expect a resolution soon.”
The Department of Environmental Protection counts on those payments to maintain the city’s vast water and sewage system. It also relies on them to make the system more resilient to the increased storm water and flooding that come with climate change — a daunting task that it recently said could cost more than $250 billion.
Torrential, deadly rain storms have become more common with climate change. In 2021, 14 New Yorkers died after flash flooding, with 11 of them drowning in basement apartments. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in May predicted that this year’s hurricane season would be an unusually active one.
“New York City’s water and sewer system faces unprecedented challenges from climate change and requires significant capital investment to manage increasing rainfall and reduce flooding,” Water Board officials said last month, in the resolution challenging the mayor’s so-called hidden tax.
Kenny Burgos, a state assemblyman who spent years helping a Bronx middle-income apartment complex resolve its $400,000 water bill (which he said came with nearly $1 million in interest payments), found the M.T.A.’s water delinquency “almost laughable.”
“The M.T.A. cries broke while hiking fares, charging absurd tolls and racking up one of the biggest unpaid water bills in New York,” Mr. Burgos said. “Meanwhile, the rest of us foot the bill for their evasion with higher water rates.”