SUFFOLK CLOSEUP- Suffolk Reaches A Milestone Electing Errol Toulon Sheriff

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

Suffolk County Sheriff Errol Toulon Jr.The election of Errol Toulon, Jr. as Suffolk County sheriff—the first African-American ever elected to a (nonjudicial) countywide government position in Suffolk—is a milestone for a county that has long known prejudice and racism.

It took nearly a month after Election Day for 14,000 absentee ballots to be counted and Mr. Toulon, a Democrat who also ran on the Conservative and Independence Party lines (a key to his victory) declared the winner.

Last week the Suffolk Board of Elections announced that the final tally showed Mr. Toulon winning the sheriff’s race against Republican Larry Zacarese by 2,043 votes out of more than 300,000 cast. Mr. Toulon got 25,733 votes on the Conservative and Independence lines—more than ten times his winning margin. It has become extremely difficult in Suffolk for a candidate for any level of government to win running on one line alone. Having a grouping of party lines has become critical. 

Mr. Toulon is thoroughly qualified to be Suffolk sheriff which has not always been the case for candidates for the post. He was previously a deputy corrections commissioner in New York City and before that, for 22 years, a uniformed officer in the corrections department. He knows Suffolk well, too, having been an assistant deputy county executive for public safety.

Being Suffolk sheriff is a big job involving the supervision of almost 900 corrections officers, 250 deputy sheriffs and 130 civilian personnel and running the county’s jails in Riverside and Yaphank.

His win, considering Suffolk’s history, is quite a breakthrough.

This is a county where, as Christopher Verga writes in his recent book, “Civil Rights on Long Island,” 18 percent of the population were slaves through the 17^th Century to the late 18^th Century. Long Island “had the largest slave population in the North,” notes Mr. Verga.

It’s a county where in the 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan was a dominant political force—with one out of seven Suffolk residents members of the KKK! 

It’s a county which, in the 1930s, was a center in the New York Metropolitan Area for Nazi activity—with a parade ground called Camp Siegfried in Yaphank where rallies were held and a surrounding housing development built with streets named for German Nazi leaders.

The jaws of my millennial college students drop when I tell them the story of the late State Senator Leon Giuffreda telling me how in the 1950s he became the first Italian-American to break through the white Anglo-Saxon Protestant control of the then omnipotent Brookhaven Town Republican Party and get a nomination to run for public office. He had to wage a primary challenge to get the nomination to run for town justice.  

(Mr. Giuffreda of Centereach represented a Senate district now held by Kenneth LaValle of Port Jefferson, also Italian-American, encompassing eastern Suffolk.)

The situation for Mr. Giuffreda seems very strange to the young people with Italian-American officials so numerous now in government on Long Island and in New York State.

Regarding Brookhaven Town, the late Kenneth Anderson, president of the town’s NAACP chapter, would repeatedly in the 1960s describe Brookhaven as “my Mississippi.” He was referring to cross-burnings and other acts of racism.

The treatment of blacks politically in my over 50 years as a journalist backed in these parts was bad for decades. I wrote columns, for example, on how the first African-American judge in Suffolk, Marquette Floyd, elected to the Suffolk District Court in 1969, had to wait nearly 20 years to progress up the judicial ladder and be nominated for a seat on the State Supreme Court here, and he won. Justice Floyd, a fine jurist who went on to become presiding officer of the court above Supreme Court, the Appellate Division, saw race as the reason for his long, long wait to move up from District Court. 

Importantly, these days the win by Mr. Toulon of sheriff is not tokenism. In Suffolk today DuWayne Gregory of Amityville, also African-American, is the presiding officer of the Suffolk Legislature, considered the Number 2 position in county government. (He wasn’t elected countywide, however, but from his legislative district and then voted in by the other members of the legislature as presiding officer, first in 2014.) A star on the legislature now is Dr. William Spencer of Centerport, a medical doctor as well as an ordained minister and also African-American. 

Suffolk has come a long, long way in fairness and inclusiveness in government.

Still, there is far to go.

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.

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP - Discharging Wastewater Into Waterways Has Consequences

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

The Long Island Commission for Aquifer Protection will hold a meeting next week at the Suffolk County Water Authority Education Center in Hauppauge at which it will consider a Draft Groundwater Management Plan. The plan is massive—321 pages—and a major element involves what I’ve been writing about in this space for the past two weeks: the quantity of our water. 

The commission was established in 2013 by passage of legislation in Suffolk and Nassau Its mission is “to address both quality and quantity issues facing Long Island’s aquifer system, and to advocate for a coordinated regional approach to groundwater resources management.”

The plan opens with the bottom line regarding our water supply: “The aquifer system that underlies Long Island is the only source of drinking water for Nassau and Suffolk Counties.” And that’s why the EPA “recognized the importance of the groundwater source of Long Island water supply in 1978 by designating it a Sole Source Aquifer.” 

There have been the claims through the years—especially by those who support sending wastewater from Long Island out into the ocean, Long Island Sound, bays and rivers—that the underground water table is vast so there’s no need to worry about quantity. Baloney!

The draft plan notes that “it is estimated that Nassau and Suffolk Counties together have between 60 and 65 trillion gallons of groundwater stored in the aquifer system. However, only 5% to 10% of this volume is extractable from the aquifers.”

Declares the plan: “In addition to its value for drinking and irrigation, groundwater is also the primary source of freshwater in streams, lakes and wetlands, and maintains the saline balance of estuaries. When large volumes of groundwater are withdrawn, the water table is locally depressed and this, in turn, reduces the quantity of groundwater available to discharge to streams and estuaries. Large-scale sewering practices have also reduced groundwater levels and discharge to surface waters. In some areas of Long Island, groundwater pumping has resulted in saltwater intrusion into the aquifer system and has also impacted streams, ponds and coastal areas that rely on groundwater discharge to sustain them.”

In other words, with sewage treatment plants—including all in Nassau and most of the big plants in Suffolk including the one in Sag Harbor—discharging wastewater through outfall pipes into waterways rather than recharging it back into the ground, there are consequences.

Forty-plus years ago, Charles Pulaski, conservation chairman of the Suffolk County American Legion, and George A. King, chairman of the Long Island Baymen’s Association, led in opposing the outfall design of the Southwest Sewer District—and I wrote extensively about this at the daily Long Island Press and in national media. They warned about the district being designed to send 30 million gallons of wastewater a day into the Atlantic impacting on Carlls River, streams, and on the Great South Bay, changing its salinity by diverting so much freshwater into the ocean. (The bay was the source then of 60% of America’s hard claims, a huge fishery that has since collapsed.)

The plan states that since Southwest, “the largest sewer district in Suffolk County,” began operations, “base flow in the Carlls River dropped from 27.3 cubic feet per second (cfs)…to 20.5 cfs during the 1968-1983 period,” and the U.S. Geological Survey “predicts that flow will decline to 11.9 cfs by 2020, a 50% loss of over 50% of its pre [sewer] development base flow.”

Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone is now pushing for an expansion of the Southwest Sewer District and piping wastewater from the massive Ronkonkoma Hub project over to it—and Southwest through its Bergen Point Treatment Plant sending even more millions of gallons of wastewater daily into the ocean.

The plan puts a spotlight on reuse of treated wastewater. “Throughout Long Island, water reuse has great potential to reduce pumping demand on the groundwater system for non-potable purposes,” it says. It points to last year’s redirection of 350,000 gallons a day of treated wastewater from the Riverhead Sewer Treatment Plant for irrigation at the county’s adjoining golf course. It says “Suffolk County has identified 26 golf courses that are within one-half mile of a sewage treatment plant. Use of treated effluent from all these plants…for golf course irrigation could conserve millions of gallons of groundwater annually.” It also cites “industrial reuse of treated sewage effluent…For example, the Port Jefferson Sewage Treatment Plant is adjacent to the PSEG powerplant. Using treated wastewater to cool the plant rather than utilizing water from Port Jefferson Harbor, as is the current practice, could have positive impacts on the ecosystem of the harbor.” 

The plan—available through the commission’s website at  http://www.liaquifercommission.com/—calls for an “islandwide water reuse feasibility study which assesses the technical, logistical, financial and social dimensions of water reuse so as to provide a roadmap and blueprint for its implementation island-wide.” 

That’s the road we need to be on. 

The commission meeting will take place on Wednesday, December 13, between 10 a.m. and noon. The Suffolk County Water Authority Education Center is located at 260 Motor Parkway in Hauppauge.

Long Island ‘Encore’ Theater Award Winners – 2017

Long Island ‘Encore’ Theater Award Winners – 2017

By Jeb Ladouceur

Once again this year, theater on Long Island was dominated by Theatre Three in Port Jefferson, and the John W. Engeman Theater in Northport, each organization having received multiple ‘Encore’ Awards for musicals. Theatre Three garnered a trio of nods … one for the Long Island debut of heartbreaking ‘The Bridges of Madison County,’ another for that show’s famed Director, and the Best Actress designation went to the star of Theatre Three’s ‘Saturday Night Fever.’ Not to be outdone, The Engeman took home four ‘Encores’ … two for an impressive ‘Jekyll & Hyde’ (Best Actor and top Costume Design), one for Best Child Actor, in ‘Gypsy,’ and a well-deserved Supporting Actor salute. That left three of the ten awards annually bestowed for excellence in Long Island theater … and that trio was divided equally among The Gateway Theatre, The Star Playhouse, The Babylon Arts Council. Thus, from Bellport and Lindenhurst on The Great South Bay, to Port Jeff and Northport on The Sound, the axiom has been proven once again that no matter where Long Islanders may live, exquisite live theater is virtually ‘right around the corner.’

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Best Play or Musical

From book, to film, to drama, to musical … this story depicting four days of illicit romance between a married Italian war bride in rural Iowa, and a divorced National Geographic photographer assigned to record the area’s covered bridges, works perfectly. The story never pretends that there is anything cute or acceptable about adultery. Quite the opposite is true; the lovers recognize their transgressions, and the decision involving their future becomes an unforgettably heart-wrenching one.

 

‘The Bridges of Madison County’

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Best Director

To say that ‘The Bridges of Madison County’ is a musical right up Director Jeffrey Sanzel’s alley would be an unnecessary understatement. While the perennially top-rated king of Long Island directors is best known for his annual production of ‘A Christmas Carol,’ to overlook Sanzel’s ability also to elicit the best from today’s actors and scripts … and wring-dry the hearts of modern audiences … would be to diminish him unfairly. The man’s soul permeates every production he undertakes.

 

Jeffrey Sanzel - ‘The Bridges of Madison County’

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Best Actress

Four years ago, we named Rachel Greenblatt our ‘Encore’ Award winner as ‘Best Newcomer’ for her work in ‘Grease.’There was little question that with the influence of top area directors and co-stars, the lovely young woman from Nissequogue would develop into one of Long Island’s finest performers. And blossom, she has. One gets the impression that Greenblatt can now handle any stage assignment given her. Rachel has arrived at the lofty heights we predicted she’d achieve.

 

Rachel Greenblatt – ‘Saturday Night Fever’

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Best Supporting Actress

The classic ‘Death of a Salesman’ can’t work without the doomed Willy Loman’s long-suffering wife, Linda, who functions as Arthur Miller’s only hero in the play. And Staci Rosenberg-Simons pulls off her theatrically near-impossible assignment beautifully. As the compassionate Linda Loman gives up virtually everything to comfort her suicidal husband (and her useless sons) the audience is inclined to yell, “Get out. Don’t you see there’s nothing that can be done for them?” That’s acting.

 

Staci Rosenberg-Simons – ‘Death of a Salesman’

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Best Actor

Some of Nathaniel Hackmann’s best work in the superbly costumed and lighted musical ‘Jekyll & Hyde’ is turned in as he transforms himself from Henry Jekyll to Edward Hyde behind a rear-lit translucent screen. The audience sees only the silhouetted gyrations that Hackmann performs in order to achieve the conversion, and the effect is incredible. From that first piece of stage business on, Nathaniel Hackmann has won his audience … and he can do no wrong thereafter.

 

Nathaniel Hackmann – ‘Jekyll & Hyde’

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Best Supporting Actor

To most theatergoers, the role of Oliver ‘Daddy’ Warbucks in ‘Annie’ can hardly be considered a ‘supporting’ one, but Nathaniel Hackmann was so good in ‘Jekyll & Hyde’ that he simply could not be denied the top nod. George Dvorsky makes ‘Annie’ work, though, and he deserves one of the ten ‘Encore’ prizes we distribute annually. George has all the tools and his impressive Broadway resume is justifiably diverse.

 

George Dvorsky - ‘Annie’

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Best Child Actor

There is nothing more adorable than a child actor … unless it’s a child actor who can sing and dance. Kyla Carter is a professional singer, actress, dancer, model and voice-over artist … and now she can lay claim to the title ‘Encore’ Award winner for excellence in Long Island theater. The 11-year-old’s bouncy rendition of ‘May We Entertain You’got The Engeman’s ‘Gypsy’ off to a toe-tapping start this fall, and the appreciative audience couldn’t wait for more.

 

Kyla Carter (center) – ‘Gypsy’

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Best Scenic Design

Brittany Loesch has one of the most unusual jobs in show business … she’s the House Scenic Coordinator for the Gateway Playhouse in Bellport. In that capacity, Loesch handled presentation of the famed ‘Flesh-eating Plant’ in The Gateway’s ‘Little Shop of Horrors’ with such professionalism that it was impossible to overlook her for this year’s ‘Encore’ Award. It should be noted that the show’s highly impressive set was designed by Scott Pask. 

Brittany Loesch – ‘Little Shop of Horrors’

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Best Costume Design

‘Jekyll & Hyde’, like so many plays set in Victorian England, depends greatly on authenticity in costuming in order to make the story resonate. Indeed it’s hard to imagine this show ringing true without the capes and bloused shirts that Kurt Alger provides his actors. Alger is always at the top of his game however, and this award is really for his body of work in multiple shows wherein he’s dressed his players to perfection.

Kurt Alger – ‘Jekyll & Hyde’

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Best Newcomer

Whoever spotted Michael Brinzer, and decided to cast him in the role of Ludwig van Beethoven in the challenging ‘Promethean Concerto’ (one of the season’s most pleasant surprises) deserves to share his ‘Encore’ Award. Not only does the gifted musician perform beautifully on the piano in this tour de force, by Cindi Sansone-Braff, the music spills over into his powerful-to-tender monologues. When young Brinzer is through, we feel as if we’ve spent the evening with a genius … and maybe we have!

 

Michael Brinzer – ‘Promethean Concerto’

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 Award-winning writer, Jeb Ladouceur is the author of a dozen novels, and his theater and book reviews appear in several major L.I. publications. His recent hit, THE GHOSTWRITERS, explores the bizarre relationship between the late Harper Lee and Truman Capote. Ladouceur’s newly completed thriller, THE SOUTHWICK INCIDENT, introduced at the Smithtown Library on May 21st. involves a radicalized Yale student and his CIA pursuers. Mr. Ladouceur’s revealing website is www.JebsBooks.com

HIA-LI Women Leading The Way Breakfast #MeToo and More

#MeToo and More

HIA-LI Leans In for Women in the Workplace

By Nancy Vallarella

HIA-LI orchestrated the 7^th Annual Women Leading the Way Breakfast last Thursday, November 30^th.  Women of various career levels, spanning generations and industries took the time to share experience, business knowledge, and make suggestions for enhancing capability while navigating workplace issues.

Terri Alessi-Miceli, HIA-LI President, and Dianne Faria, HIA-LI’s Director of Operations deftly addressed a full ballroom of attendees at the Hyatt Regency Long Island. Their opening statements painted a picture of relevance and competency while highlighting the impressive cast of panelists, the spectrum of attendees, and topics impacting the economy, business, and individual careers. 

Senator Kirstin Gillibrand led the way via video address outlining the progress and shortfalls concerning women working in today’s economy. Talking points of life and work balance, finding voice, networking, mentoring and navigating a career path, prompted commentary from the panel of female executives: Randi Shubin Dresner, President and CEO, Island Harvest, Kristin Jarnagin, President and CEO, Discover Long Island, and Martha Stark, Senior Vice President and Group Director, Signature Bank.     

Island Harvest’s Randi Shubin Dresner, attributed her career success to mentors in her life that encouraged her throughout her career path.  She also credited work and life blending, not balancing, as a more realistic approach.

Arizona transplant and single mother of two, Kristen Jarnagin advised, “Take risks. Take on challenges. Examine your strengths. Stretch yourself. Do something you are afraid of every day. Fear leads to intimidation, and that holds you back.”  

Senior Vice President of Signature Bank, Martha Stark, known for her expert relationship building abilities, is an advocate of maintaining and building relationships and not relying on networking.  

Over 60 minutes, the businesswomen also exchanged opinions on interview impressions, local economics, pay equity, gender bias and social media. Social media organically prompting the #MeToo phenomenon with a thought-provoking conversation that voiced positive and concerned opinions.  Panel Moderator, Domenique Camacho-Moran, Partner, Farrell Fritz led the event’s panel discussion leaving the controversial topic for last. Her masterful navigation gave way to panelist’s insights on the other topics that also have ongoing relevance without being consumed by the national limelight of one.

Skillfully organized by the HIA-LI, this forum of credible information from relatable, accomplished, and local businesswomen proved to be an impressive resource for all working women.

Nancy Vallarella is a freelance writer well known for her articles under the headline What’s Cookin? Smithtown. She is also an advisory board member of the Smithtown Children’s Foundation and program coordinator - Know Real Food LI.

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP - Water Quality On LI Part II

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

Sewage treatment plants all over Long Island are discharging wastewater into bays, rivers, the Atlantic Ocean and Long Island Sound. This reduces the quantity of our water—all of which comes from the underground water table below. 

It doesn’t have to be that way. Of the nearly 200 sewage treatment plants in Suffolk County, most perform “tertiary” treatment of waste—extensive cleansing—and the effluent then is “recharged” back into the ground. This way there is no water loss. But most of these are small private plants, mainly built for housing developments. 

Most of the larger sewage treatment plants in Suffolk send wastewater into waterways. This is not unlike the way sewage was handled centuries ago in ancient Rome, home of sewering. It doesn’t have to be that way—even with bigger plants. 

Take the Riverhead Sewage Treatment Plant which last year began sending treated effluent to the adjacent county golf course instead of into Flanders Bay, as was the practice for years. “The microbiology of the soil is pretty aggressive and will render the effluent harmless,” notes Suffolk Legislator Al Krupski of Cutchogue, a fourth-generation farmer with a degree in plant science. The change in Riverhead, he said, “really sets an example.”

Or consider Suffolk County’s sewage treatment plant at its Francis Gabreski Airport in Westhampton. The plant does tertiary treatment and recharges the effluent back into the ground. The Village of Westhampton Beach is now in the process of establishing a sewer district to be  hooked into the Gabreski plant—its capacity increased, but continuing to recharge.

Mr. Krupski—along with some other public officials in Suffolk—is concerned about the way most wastewater from sewage plants is dealt with on Long Island: pumped into waterways.  Instead, as Mr. Krupski emphasizes, “we need to keep the groundwater in the ground.”

Long Island naturalist John Turner, who with the Seatuck Environmental Association, where he is conservation policy advocate, points to neighboring Nassau County where, he says, all sewage treatment plants “discharge into coastal waters.” As a result, there has been a drying up of streams and creeks and the lowering of lakes because of the loss of quantity in the water table. Further, saltwater intrusion into the set of aquifers that comprise the water table has happened destroying the potability of some of Nassau’s freshwater.

In Suffolk, the sewage plant discharging the greatest volume of wastewater into a waterway is the county’s Bergen Point Wastewater Treatment Plant in West Babylon built to send 30 million gallons of wastewater a day through an outfall pipe into the Atlantic Ocean for the county’s Southwest Sewer District. There is now a drive by the administration of County Executive Steve Bellone to expand the boundaries of the Southwest Sewer District. Mr. Bellone has also been pushing for piping the wastewater from the massive proposed Ronkonkoma Hub, to the Bergen Point plant, miles away, and out to sea. The Hub is to be a $600 million complex of 1,450 apartments and many offices and retail stores.

Brookhaven Supervisor Ed Romaine, as a county legislator and now town supervisor has been—and like Mr. Krupski is—very concerned about the discharge of wastewater into waterways and has urged instead a sewage treatment plant with recharge for the Hub.

“We don’t need to pump wastewater out into bays and the Long Island Sound and ocean,” says Mr. Romaine. “Sewage treatment plants should recharge wastewater back into the ground. We need to be concerned about the quantity of water as well as quality.”

Although the county’s Bergen Point Treatment Plant sends the most wastewater out into a waterway, also doing include: Village of Northport Wastewater Treatment Plant which discharges into the Long Island Sound; Port Jefferson Sewage Treatment Plant which also discharges into the Sound; Greenport Village Sewage Treatment Plant that discharges into the Sound, too; Patchogue Sewage Treatment Plant which discharges into the Patchogue River (and the area which it serves is proposed to be expanded); Shelter Island Heights Wastewater Treatment Plant which discharges into Shelter Island Sound; and the Sag Harbor Wastewater Treatment Plant that discharges into Sag Harbor Bay.      .

Mr. Turner is seeking a “consensus on the island for an islandwide water reuse feasibility study” that could be a “blueprint and roadmap for the implementation of water recycling programs.” He states that “wastewater has been reliably and safely used” in states including California and Florida, as well as in the Southwest. 

Indeed, Sag Harbor Mayor Sandra Schroeder notes that in Palm Harbor, Florida, west of Tampa, where she has a vacation home, treated wastewater is pumped to residents and businesses for irrigation and other uses. “I water my lawn there with the reclaimed water,” she says. “It’s a win-win.” Pinellas County Utilities, which operates the William E. Dunn Water Reclamation Facility, points out on its website (http://www.pinellascounty.org/utilities/reclaimed.htm)

that the “reclaimed water” is carried in a “separate reclaimed water pipe system…identified by the color purple.”

Hooray for purple pipes. Hooray for reclaimed water. Long Island needs this system.

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.