Roosevelt Island’s AVAC system is aging and neglected, teetering on collapse, while RIOC remains silent and unaccountable. Local intervention is desperately needed to avert disaster.
by David Stone
The Roosevelt Island Daily News
The Daily Problem with the AVAC
One of my first assignments as a freelancer on Roosevelt Island involved the AVAC. The Roosevelt Island Operating Corporation’s (RIOC) top gun for infrastructure was Tom Turcic. The article was about infrastructure specifically, but the AVAC system stayed top of mind.
Tom’s concern was with the deluge of inappropriate junk residents threw into the chutes and the damage caused. RIOC was not doing enough to inform residents. When this became clear, my editor had me create a sidebar piece of dos and don’ts.
That was 15 years ago, and despite countless system breakdowns since, no uniform rules have ever been posted. A lack of leadership results in only one building complex (Rivercross) with anything approaching clear guidance in its AVAC room.
Circumstances have gotten far worse in the years since I interviewed Turcic. RIOC is not just failing in leadership, it’s mute when it comes to general information about the AVAC.
Be Shocked
The number one thing residents don’t know about the AVAC system is that it’s already way past its life expectancy. The AVAC opened in 1975 with a 40 year life expectancy. Do the math. You have to because RIOC hasn’t.
The original builders thought the AVAC system should be replaced almost 10 years ago. Heard anything about it from RIOC or its hapless board? A majority of the members wouldn’t recognize an advanced plan if it sprung legs, dropped its pants and peed on their bedroom slippers.
This places the AVAC in a very dangerous position. It’s more perilous than what RIOC or its partners, NYC Department of Sanitation, have ever admitted.
10 years too late, Acting Chief Operating Officer Mary Cunneen is “looking at it.” That’s news. It is important news for those who live and work here. But, as with the Tram problems, RIOC hasn’t informed anyone. The state agency that never fails seems to have lost its mission to serve the community.
It’s like RIOC’s a big, wobbly moon circling around but always keeping a distance. No skin in the game. None.
In perspective
In 1975, the Urban Development Corporation, RIOC’s predecessor, broke ground on 4 complexes. The “WIRE Buildings” were Westview, Island House, Rivercross and Eastwood (now The Landings.) The AVAC was well-equipped for that load of trash.
But times changed while RIOC slept. We’ve become a more consumption-oriented culture, generating far more trash per person over 50 years. Everything’s disposable. Yet, that’s nothing compared to other demands on the AVAC.
New construction, from The Octagon in the north to Southtown, overwhelmed the capacity of those once futuristic vacuum tubes. RIOC made zero adjustments apart from laying down extensions.
Did you ever notice that not one other community of any size adopted a similar system? Did RIOC? Was any wisdom gained? This unique system demanded unique attention but never got it.
Here, RIOC’s ghastly employee turnover rate played a hand.
Tom Turcic left RIOC less than a year after my article was published. And then-CFO John O’Reilly, the only executive who tried tackling the AVAC’s future, left in 2022. He was so alarmed, he had a plan developed. It was on his desk the day he left. No one seems to know what became of it. And RIOC being RIOC, no one has called him and yelled, “Help!”
Devastating Lack of AVAC Maintenance
No question. The circumstances we see today include one breakdown after another. The absence of solutions results from the lack of routine maintenance. We see it everywhere. Once the ribbons are cut, the officials take bows, then disappear. The infrastructure crisis is man-made. Nothing fixes itself, but deterioration is a constant. Unaddressed, weaknesses become gaping failures.
That’s what you have with the long-neglected AVAC.
But there’s a recent exception. The board approved millions for updates starting while Susan Rosenthal was still RIOC’s CEO. These updates included electrical controls and piping inside the AVAC building. The extended system, however, was left to rot and corrode.
The cliche about rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic comes to mind. But RIOC didn’t do that. They bought new chairs.
Is It Too Late for a Solution?
Even as RIOC scrambles with patches, it’s a safe bet that prolonged neglect condemned the AVAC system to permanent failure. In the grossest terms, consider that building the system in 1975 cost $16 million. Not a scary number until it’s projected forward and the number in 2024 is $93 million.
No resources are available for anything like that.
And, there is already a backlog of uncompleted and not started projects. Eleanor’s Pier and The Prow remain shrouded after months. The East Seawall, at risk of “catastrophic collapse,” has not been touched in years. Dangerously deteriorated stacks tower over the old steam plant. The Tram is in desperate straits. RIOC had to cut back service and slow down the cabins for safety reasons. No alternative plan is out there. We could go on, but what’s the point?
The biggest threat to saving the AVAC is its original construction. Running the lines under buildings poses significant challenges. Replacing them would require digging up foundations. Even patching piecemeal would lead to months of shutdowns.
Finally…
While none of this is good news, it’s enlightening. It shows that RIOC – as a project itself – is a failure birthing worse. Somebody with some gumption must force change. The price of not doing so is too great.
Albany must cede some local control, giving those governed and most affected a piece of the power. Otherwise, Roosevelt Islanders are forever stuck with upstate tentacles extending down the Hudson without local values or insight.
We already now know what that get us, don’t we?
AVAC: Where the Pipe Curves
This is the final installment in my notes from the December 2nd, Operations Advisory Committee meeting, following “An Emergency, Apparently” and “Rust Is Funny Until It Isn’t”.
2 COMMENTS
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Thank you for making this public. It is unfortunate that NYS government never will.
Thanks. Sadly true. RIOC thinks everything is about them and gives little thought to how their actions or lack thereof impact this community, long or short term.