SUFFOLK CLOSEUP : "LI Water Reuse Road Map & Action Plan"

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

Karl Grossman

Water reuse. It’s essential for Suffolk and Nassau Counties, dependent as they are on an underground water supply, a “sole source” aquifer below for water. A “Long Island Water Reuse Road Map & Action Plan” will be unveiled next week about making use—through reuse—of water from below.

For years, there’s been concern over the quality of the water in Suffolk and Nassau and steps have been taken to prevent and deal with contamination of water. But the issue of water quantity has been largely ignored.

Ancient Rome pioneered the building of sewers that dumped used water into nearby waterways. The centuries-old Roman system continues in Nassau. Some 85% of Nassau is sewered. And from those sewage treatment plants along Nassau’s north and south shores this so-called “wastewater” is sent via outfall pipes into nearby waterways and the Atlantic Ocean and Long Island Sound.

As a result, the underground reservoir of Nassau is “shrinking,” explains John Turner, senior conservation policy advocate at Islip-based Seatuck Environmental Association. Previously he was legislative director of the state Legislative Commission on Water Resource Needs of New York State and Long Island, and also director of Brookhaven Town’s Division of Environmental Protection. 

Seatuck, working with the Greentree Foundation and Cameron Engineering & Associates and a Water Reuse Technical Working Group of 28 members, has put together the “Long Island Water Reuse Road Map & Action Plan.” 

It will be presented this coming Wednesday on what significantly is World Water Day. Several nations around the world now excel in water reuse, and so do a few states in the U.S., notably California and Florida.

Meanwhile, with wastewater just dumped by Nassau and its water table dropping, Hempstead Lake has become known as “Hempstead Puddle,” notes Turner. Valley Stream is “Valley No-Stream.” Also affected have been other streams and water bodies in Nassau, and wetlands have been seriously impacted, too. 

About 25% of Suffolk County is sewered. It does have smaller treatment plants that recharge treated wastewater into the ground, but most of its bigger sewage treatment plants follow the way of Nassau County—and ancient Rome—and discharge into nearby waterways, the Atlantic and Long Island Sound.

Suffolk’s largest sewage plant, its Bergen Point Treatment Plant in West Babylon, was built to send 30 million gallons of wastewater a day through an outfall pipe into the Atlantic. 

And Suffolk County government has been pushing for new sewer systems to also send what they process through the Bergen Point plant into the Atlantic—including from a gigantic commercial development proposed for Ronkonkoma miles away, in the middle of the Suffolk.

A breakthrough in Suffolk County was an upgrade of the Riverhead Sewage Treatment Plant and in 2016 its treated effluent sent to the adjacent Indian Island Golf Course where it fertilizes the turf rather than, as was the practice, dumped into Flanders Bay. That water reuse project is a model for the “Long Island Water Reuse Road Map & Action Plan.” 

The plan begins: “Over the past half century, water quality in Long Island’s groundwater aquifer—the sole source of drinking water for more than 2.5 million Nassau and Suffolk County residents—and both freshwater and coastal surface water has steadily declined. Notably among this water quality program is the detrimental impacts to human and ecosystem health associated with excess nitrogen.”

“During the same time period,” it continues, “Long Island’s water quantity problem has also come into focus. High rates of pumping have impacted Long Island’s vast aquifer resources, with water table levels significantly decreased in many places.”

“Water reuse or water recycling, as it is also known, is a complementary strategy that can meaningfully help Long Island address its water issues,” it explains. “It involves ‘reusing’ highly treated wastewater generated from sewage treatment plants for water-dependent purposes instead of discharging it into the ocean or local coastal waters.”

That highly treated wastewater can be used for, among other things, irrigation “at locations such as golf courses, sod farms and greenhouses, as well as for lawns and fields at educational and commercial campuses.” It can be used at “commercial centers, industrial parks and jobs sites” which have “considerable potential to utilize reclaimed water for a range of purposes, from cooling to cleaning to mixing non-consumptive products, e.g., concrete.” And treated “reclaimed water can be used to address hydrological or ecological needs, especially those associated with over-pumping, such as augmenting streamflow or restoring aquatic habitat.”

More next week on the visionary and much-needed “Long Island Water Reuse Road Map & Action Plan.”

Karl Grossman is a veteran investigative reporter and columnist, the winner of numerous awards for his work and a member of the L.I. Journalism Hall of Fame. He is a professor of journalism at SUNY/College at Old Westbury and the author of six books.