Neighbors Lament The Return Of ‘Lake Kensington;’ Councilman Brad Lander, DOT & DEP Work To Mitigate The Persistent Problem

After this week’s rain caused familiar flooding at the south ramp of the Fort Hamilton Parkway subway station, forcing pedestrians to scale the guard rail if they didn’t want to wade through the murky water deemed “Lake Kensington” by neighbors, the Parks Department drained the water yesterday after being contacted by Councilman Brad Lander.

Lander said in a statement to us that:

So-called “Lake Kensington” was a problem when Council Member Lander first came into office, but he took immediate action with the Parks Department, Department of Environmental Protection, and the Department of Transportation to address this issue, and the “lake” hasn’t returned for quite some time.

When [DNAinfo Managing Editor and neighbor Michael Ventura] tweeted Brad yesterday that the drainage problems at the station had returned, our office contacted the Parks Department to make sure that the issue was taken care of in time for the evening commute, and we got the issue resolved as quickly as possible.

While neighbors were not pleased with the return of the giant puddle, Lander’s office stressed that the persistent flooding has gotten better since 2011, when the lawmaker began working with various city agencies on the matter.

“In recent days we had unusually heavy rain and this problem resurfaced—but this is an issue that the Parks Department does actually monitor regularly and, to our knowledge, the incidence of “lake”-sized flooding has reduced dramatically since 2011,” Lander’s office wrote to tus.

Lander’s office said in the same email:

Council Member Lander is well aware of the drainage issue at the Fort Hamilton subway station, and has worked to address it in various ways. During the first year of participatory budgeting, in 2011, there was a project proposal to improve the drainage by replanting the green areas near the station entrance. That project didn’t win funding, but our office worked with city agencies as best we could to work on the issue anyway, outside the PB process.

We spoke with the many City agencies with jurisdiction in the area (including MTA, City DOT, State DOT, DEP, and Parks) and the Parks Department agreed to regularly sweep around the drain. The Dept of Environmental Protection also agreed to “snake” the drain as needed. Parks and the MTA also agreed to reduce erosion by installing new fencing around the green spaces. (They installed a new station identification “globe,” too, so you could see where the entrance is from uphill.) In 2013, at our request, NYS Department of Transportation installed pigeon spikes under the Fort Hamilton Parkway overpass, to prevent debris from nests that had been accumulating.

When we reached out to the DOT about the flooding, a spokesperson said the agency is aware of the issue and is working with the DEP to remedy the situation.

What has your experience with Lake Kensington been like? Have you seen the situation get better in recent years?