SUFFOLK CLOSEUP - Honesty In Sewering

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

There was a partial win for major sewer construction in Suffolk County last week—two projects promoted by Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone were approved, one in Mastic and Shirley and the other in Babylon Town. Voters in Great River, however, rejected what was to be a third project.

The Mastic-Shirley and Babylon Town projects would be the first major sewer undertakings in Suffolk since the corruption-riddled $1.1 billion Southwest Sewer District project 50 years ago.

The Mastic-Shirley project is being made possible by $191.3 million in federal and state grants which in the referenda last week voters in those communities accepted. They will have to pay an annual sewer tax estimated at $430. The project in Babylon Town is made possible by $140.2 million in grants that voters in the communities of West Babylon, North Babylon and Wyandanch voted to accepted. They’d pay an annual sewer tax estimated at $532.

The Great River project would have been enabled by $26.4 million in federal and state grants which voters there rejected They would have been charged an estimated $755 yearly sewer tax.

The grants are being given by the state and federal governments based on the claim by Suffolk County post-Superstorm Sandy that sewers are necessary to provide “resiliency” to the county’s shoreline. They would, it’s claimed, assist in the growth of wetlands that would serve to counter storm surges. 

If the costs for the sewer construction are higher than anticipated, “the projects would go in front of the Suffolk Legislature,” according to an account in Newsday. 

In 1969 voters in the southwestern portion of Suffolk voted for the Southwest Sewer District. The project spiraled in price and was mired in corruption becoming one of the biggest scandals ever in Suffolk. The scandal brought down the administration of County Executive John V. N. Klein of Smithown.

With the scandal central to his campaign, then Islip Town Supervisor Peter F. Cohalan challenged Mr. Klein in a Republican primary for re-nomination for county executive and won and then won in the general election. Mr. Cohalan’s campaign slogan called on GOP voters to “Flush Klein.” (Mr. Cohalan is now Suffolk County historian.)

There was an array of investigations and indictments. Then Suffolk DA Patrick Henry, in taking action, spoke of how “we must prevent the cost of corruption, graft, kickbacks and payoffs from breaking the financial backs of our citizenry.”

Importantly, “the Southwest Sewer District was envisioned as the first phase of a sewer network that would extend north through Melville and east through Brookhaven [Town] to the Hamptons,” noted Long Island Business News in 2006 in an article about how, “The memory of the Southwest Sewer District is so potent that candidates who mention sewers still go down in defeat.”

But with Mr. Bellone, there was a dramatic change. Since his election seven years ago he has emphatically pushed sewering in Suffolk. He has declared: “Nitrogen pollution is public enemy number one for our bays, waterways, drinking supply, and the critical wetlands and marshes that protect us from natural disasters like Superstorm Sandy…More than 300,000 homes in Suffolk County are not sewered and are contributing nearly 70 percent of the pollution.”

But there has been controversy over his stand. Kevin McAllister, founding president of the Sag Harbor-based organization Defend H20, has pointed to advanced denitirication systems that can be added to cesspools as a substitute in most areas of Suffolk for sewers. He has repeatedly charged that Mr. Bellone’s sewer push is for economic development—with Mr. Bellone seeking sewers because reliance on cesspools limits development while with sewers there could be substantially increased development. Also, he says the basis for how the county has gotten state and federal funds for the new projects, claiming they’re for “resiliency,” is a “thin argument.” Says Mr. McAllister: “I am for honesty in sewering.”

Another serious issue involving sewering in Suffolk, which is dependent on its underground water table as its sole source of potable water, is it having many of its sewer plants sending tens of millions of gallons a day of wastewater out into bays and the ocean rather than having it fully treated and recharged back into the ground so the underground water table isn’t depleted. 

The largest amount of wastewater is discharged from the Bergen Point Wastewater Treatment plant in West Babylon designed to process 30 million gallons a day sending it out into the Atlantic through an outfall pipe that traverses the Great South Bay.

But plants in Suffolk also doing “outfall” include the Village of Northport Wastewater Treatment Plant which discharges into the Long Island Sound; the Patchogue Sewage Treatment Plant which sends wastewater into the Patchogue River; and the Port Jefferson Sewage Treatment Plant which discharges into the Sound. On the other hand, the new sewer system to serve Westhampton Beach will utilize recharge making use of a sewage treatment plant that services the county’s Francis Gabreski Airport in Westhampton.

Depletion of the underground water table is what has happened in neighboring Nassau County where all its sewer plants do “outfall” and thus lakes and streams in Nassau have dried up or lowered. 

The Mastic-Shirley project is based on recharge. But the Babylon Town project would have wastewater sent to the Southwest Sewer District’s Bergen Point plant and out through its outfall pipe into the Atlantic. Other big sewer projects Mr. Bellone is boosting, in Ronkonkoma and Brentwood, would also send wastewater out of Bergen Point into the Atlantic, impacting on Suffolk’s underground water supply.

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. 

Hospitali~TEA at the Smithtown Historical Society

Smithtown by the Sound

By Nancy Vallarella 

Hospitali~TEA at the Smithtown Historical Society

Miss Penelope Proper of the Mad Harlot Tea SocietyOverseeing 22 acres of grounds, 4 historical buildings, and over 100 programs offered throughout the year, Executive Director, Priya Kapoor and supporting staff open SHS’s doors for a new event. 

On Sunday, April 14, 2019, from 1:30 pm to 3:30 pm ** history repeats itself as the Smithtown Historical Society’s Frank Brush Barn is transformed into a Royal Victorian Tea Experience.

In the 1920s, women entrepreneurs converted old barns and deserted mills into tea rooms throughout Long Island.  The Orchard Tea Room in Yaphank was one of Eleanor Roosevelt’s favorites.  The Roslyn Grist Mill was converted into the Grist Mill Tea House by Alice Titus. It attracted celebrities from around the world long before the Hamptons.

From western Nassau County to the tip of the island’s tines in Suffolk County, women operated tea rooms in Great Neck– Blue Moon Tea House, Garden City –Black Swan Tea Shop,  Westhampton-Blackbird Tea Shop. 

In the heart of Smithtown, relive this tradition and go even further back in time as Long Island’s Mistress of Tea Time, Miss Penelope Proper of the Mad Harlot Tea Society hosts the afternoon filled with jaunty fun, whimsy, and culture. Victorian garb is encouraged (Prizes will be awarded for the fanciest hat and most historic costume).

Temptations of scrumptious delights to tickle the palate will be prepared by Smithtown’s own Culinary Goddess, Myra Naseem of Elegant Eating Catering. Proper Victorian afternoon tea time fare (scones, clotted cream, tea sandwiches, an assortment of sweets, a selection of teas, and sparkling cider) will be served with customary accoutrements.  

Tickets are available from the Smithtown Historical Society. Call 631-265-6788.

 $50/pp* - Minimal seating available.  

*Proceeds will fund the Smithtown Historical Society.  

**Edited to correct time. The event begins at 1:30 pm NOT 10:30 pm as originally posted.

NYS DEC And Peconic Land Trust Team Up To Protect Aquifer

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) and the Peconic Land Trust today announced the preservation of a parcel in the Central Pine Barrens Core. The acquisition of this property will help protect Long Island’s groundwater. The town of Brookhaven, Suffolk County, parcel is the first in the state to be approved and purchased with funding from DEC’s Water Quality Improvement Project (WQIP) grants that specifically target the protection of source waters.  Funding for the project comes from a $2.3 million DEC grant awarded in December 2017 to the Peconic Land Trust for implementation of a Regional Aquifer Protection Land Acquisition Program (RAPLAP). The Trust paid $135,000 for the one-acre parcel on Cornfield Road. The property was identified by the Town of Brookhaven as a priority for conservation because of its location in the Central Pine Barrens Core, adjacent to other protected Suffolk County and Pine Barrens conservation easement lands, and its proximity to land owned by the Suffolk County Water Authority (SCWA). The Trust proposes to maintain the property for passive recreational uses such as hiking and birdwatching. There will be no interior parking. Potential improvements would be limited to a foot trail, placement of trail markers, and a trailhead kiosk.  New York’s Water Quality Improvement Program (WQIP)  WQIP is supported by the landmark $2.5 billion Clean Water Infrastructure Act and the Environmental Protection Fund. It is a competitive reimbursement grant program to fund projects that improve water quality, reduce the potential for harmful algal blooms, and protect drinking water across the state. Grants are awarded for municipal wastewater treatment; nonagricultural nonpoint source abatement and control; salt storage; aquatic habitat restoration; municipal separate storm sewer systems; and land acquisition projects for source water protection. Last month, DEC announced more than $103 million for 124 projectsbeing awarded through the WQIP grant program.  Two rounds of WQIP grants specifically for land acquisition have already been made, with more than $28 million awarded to more than 25 projects statewide. Protecting drinking water is a high priority for New Yorkers and additional land acquisition grants will be made available over the next three years, with a new round of applications for projects to be solicited this spring. For more information about the WQIP grant program, please visit DEC’s website. In addition to the WQIP program, DEC and the New York State Department of Health have launched a Drinking Water Source Protection Program to provide municipalities with resources and tools to proactively protect their drinking water sources. As part of the program’s first phase, DEC is currently soliciting applications from municipalities interested in receiving free assistance in preparing drinking water source protection plans. Applications are being accepted until Feb. 15, 2019, and more informationcan be found at DEC’s website. To continue supporting these and other initiatives, Governor Cuomo’s 2019-20 Executive Budget proposal includes a total of $5 billion for drinking water and wastewater infrastructure - building upon the $2.5 billion Act and effectively doubling the state’s investment in clean water over the next five years. The Regional Aquifer Protection Land Acquisition Program On Long Island, where 100 percent of the drinking water for 2.8 million residents comes from underground aquifers, protecting the land through which water filters is critically important. It costs up to 10 times more to produce clean drinking water from wells where surrounding lands is heavily developed than from wells in the Pine Barrens where the land is protected. Peconic Land Trust’s RAPLAP is a multi-year program using WQIP funding to acquire land or development rights for surface water quality, groundwater recharge areas, and drinking water protection. The Trust received $2.3 million from DEC to work with the Town of Brookhaven to identify and acquire properties to further protect drinking water sources. Funding for this project allows properties to be protected in and near the Special Groundwater Protection Areas within the Peconic Estuary and Forge River Watersheds and the South Shore Estuary Reserve.  The Peconic Land Trust is partnering with Peconic Estuary Program to pool resources and expertise to identify and acquire land or development rights on parcels that meet source water protection criteria. The $2.3 million from DEC will provide 75 percent of acquisition costs and the remaining 25 percent is matched with other public and/or private funds. The Trust was awarded an additional $3 million by DEC in December 2018 for Phase II to assist the Towns of Shelter Island, Southold and Riverhead. For more information, visit the Trust’s website. People interested in the DEC’s WQIP grant program and other New York water-related issues are encouraged to sign up for the weekly e-newsletter “Making Waves.” “I would be hard-pressed to recommend a more significant one-acre property in Brookhaven Town than this parcel,” said John Turner, a land management specialist with the Town of Brookhaven and a longtime Pine Barrens Protection advocate. “Not only will the purchase protect the trees and wildlife on site and help safeguard the ecological integrity of a complex of properties previously preserved adjacent to the parcel, acquisition will also prevent a new house with fertilized lawns and a septic system from being installed a few dozen feet from the Peconic River. Congratulations to the Peconic Land Trust on completing this important project.”

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP - Pine Barrens Society Lawsuit Loss Is A Win

By Karl Grossman

The lawsuit brought by the Long Island Pine Barrens Society, which would have crippled Suffolk County’s visionary and nationally heralded Farmland Preservation Program, is no more. 

New York’s Court of Appeals, the state’s highest court, refused to consider it and the society has abandoned its last chance for a “re-argument” before that court.

The society’s lawsuit claimed that allowing “structures” on preserved farmland, as permitted by amendments to the Farmland Preservation Program, was not legal.

One judge, State Supreme Court Justice Thomas Whelan, ruled in 2016 in favor of the lawsuit. State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele, Jr., an attorney and former Suffolk legislator, said Justice Whelan “basically misconstrued what the county’s original intent was—to prevent the development of farmland but still allow typical and acceptable farm practices to be utilized. Under the program, farmers have been “entitled” to build sheds, barns and other structures. “The idea was that farming is dynamic and that there would have to be changes in the future.”

Suffolk County appealed the judge’s ruling. It retained a law firm that has long fought for the environment, Riverhead-based Twomey, Latham, Shea, Kelley and Quartararo. The appeal was handled by a partner in the firm, Lisa Clare Kombrink, who has a specialty in farmland preservation as former Southampton Town attorney.

Justice Whelan’s judicial superiors on the Appellate Division of State Supreme Court last year reversed his ruling. Still, the Pine Barrens Society pushed for the Court of Appeals to step in. It refused. On December 27, 2018 came the deadline for the society to seek a “re-argument” on getting the high court to consider the case. The society let the deadline pass.

The legal brief prepared on behalf of Suffolk County by Ms. Kombrink was strong. “Now,” it stated, “under the two amendments which have been invalidated, farmers cannot build a barn, install irrigation or underground utilities, or offer hayrides or ‘you-pick’ for strawberries or other crops grown on their property….The impact is so extreme that farmers cannot even put up a fence to protect their crops from predator animals.”

“In essence,” it said, Justice Whelan “has ruled that the Suffolk County Farmland Preservation Program is meant to preserve open space, and not lands used in agricultural production.” The brief declared that the ruling “contradicts” various New York State laws that it enumerated, “all of which recognize the importance of farmland, farming and agricultural production as an important natural and economic resource in the state.”

If the Pine Barrens Society lawsuit had won, it would have undermined the Farmland Preservation Program begun in 1974. As John v.H. Halsey, president of the Peconic Land Trust, itself long involved in conservation including of farmland, commented: “If we want farmland to be farmed we have to allow farmers to do what we told them they could do when they sold their development rights. They retained the right to build structures. They never sold that right to the county and the county didn’t buy it. Suffolk’s Farmland Preservation Program, the first of its kind in the country, was created to protect not only farmland but farming. Farm operations by definition are the land, the structures, the improvements and the practices necessary to perform agricultural production.”

The program is based on the brilliant and then novel idea of purchase of development rights. Farmers are paid the difference between the value of their land in agriculture and what they could get for it if they sold it off for development. In return, the land is kept in agriculture in perpetuity. The Suffolk program has been emulated across the nation.

Suffolk Legislator Al Krupski, a fourth-generation Suffolk farmer, is “very happy” with the outcome of the matter. Ms. Kombrink did “a very good job.” If the lawsuit had succeeded, “it would have been very damaging to farming in Suffolk County going forward.” He added, “My thanks to the county executive” for his leadership on the appeal. Suffolk Executive Steve Bellone had said that if Justice Whelan’s ruling stood, it would “effectively gut the Farmland Preservation Program. If farmers can’t do the things necessary to run a successful operation, we can’t have farming here anymore.”

Ms. Kombrink comments that the “answer” to claims raised in the Pine Barrens Society lawsuit “seemed obvious. Farmers need to build structures such as barns, fences and irrigation equipment to farm their land. I am very grateful that the courts agreed and recognized this basic and very important principle” and decided “in favor” of Suffolk County.

For her, said Ms. Kombrink, “working on the case was one of the highlights of my career.” It is also one of the highlights in the history of farming in Suffolk. As a result of its  Farmland Preservation Program, Suffolk continues as a top agricultural county in the state with farming a major industry and a key to another big industry here, tourism.

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. 

SCPD Mourns Loss of Police Officer Fadi Rafeh

Members of the Suffolk County Police Department are mourning the loss of active member Fadi Rafeh who died unexpectedly on January 20.

Rafeh, 38, is survived by his wife, Jennifer, and two sons, Nicholas, 5, and Benjamin, 3.

Officer Rafeh was sworn into the academy in June 2010 and served the residents of the Fifth Precinct his entire career, first in patrol, primarily in Patchogue and Bellport, and then as an investigator in Crime Section as of October 2017.

Rafeh’s partner Dan Hogan added, “We are all shocked and saddened by this loss. He was a great partner and an even better friend. He will be greatly missed.”

According to his colleagues in the Fifth Precinct, Rafeh, a 1999 graduate of Longwood High School, was never without a smile on his face and was always looking for ways to build camaraderie among the officers. Several recounted his efforts organizing group trips to baseball and football games. 

Police Officer Patrick Ryan said Rafeh was so well-regarded by his friends and colleagues, that in November, when a group from the precinct planned a football trip to Charlotte, North Carolina and they found out Rafeh could not go, they all instantly changed their trip to another weekend so he could attend. 

“We changed our plans because he is the type of guy that can walk into a room and just bring the energy,” Ryan said. “He was a great guy all around. I have only known him here but I already feel like he was a little brother to me—He was just a very intelligent guy.”

“The untimely passing of Police Officer Fadi Rafeh is an unbelievably tragic loss to his young family and an incredible loss to our police family,” Suffolk County Police Chief of Department Stuart Cameron said. “Fadi Rafeh exemplified the diversity that makes our department great, having been born of Lebanese immigrants and serving as an Arabic translator for our department. I ask the public to join the members of our department in keeping his family in their thoughts and prayers.”