MTA worker tasted leak to determine Queens-Midtown Tunnel flooding source: ‘Yum, yum’

The selection has a nice oceany bouquet with hints of fish and garbage water.

One brave maintenance worker solved the mystery of the heavy flood of water that poured through the ceiling of the Queens-Midtown earlier this month by tasting the stream to see where it was coming from, officials said.

The unnamed crew member became a seawater sommelier when the person detected notes of salty brine that indicated the water was flowing from the East River and not from a burst water main.

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“How we determined it was salt — Yes, someone did taste it,” MTA Bridges and Tunnels President Cathy Sheridan said at a news conference Wednesday.

“Yum, yum,” MTA Chair Janno Lieber responded.

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The anonymous taste tester solved the mystery two hours after the busy passageway sprang a leak in the south tube on the Queens side on Sept. 4 around 10 a.m.

Maintenance workers who were already on the scene were the first to spot the unusual stream, which after an extensive hunt was traced to a 2.5-inch hole in the exhaust duct, Sheridan said Wednesday.

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A city-funded private contractor had accidentally caused the damage while drilling through the cast-iron liner of the tunnel to find pylons for the planned East River greenway, officials previously said.

Terrifying videos of the massive leak showed cars driving through the passageway as water cascaded down from square openings.

Officials shut down the heavily used tunnel for several hours, causing intense traffic that stayed snarled well after the hole was patched and the roadways reopened.

How much water poured through during that time is still unknown, and likely will remain so.

“We didn’t calculate how much water came in. That really wasn’t our focus. We were focused on fixing the problem,” said Sheridan.

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