SUFFOLK CLOSEUP: Concerns About Suffolk's Water Table Are Real

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

A just-released 83-page hydrology report done by the U.S. Geological Survey in cooperation with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation ignores the proverbial “elephant in the room” when it comes to saltwater intrusion in the groundwater to Suffolk County’s west.

A major cause in Nassau County of saltwater intrusion and the lowering of its water table—the freshwater aquifers below ground—has been its sewers which discharge effluent into the ocean and surrounding bays and other coastal waters.

That’s the key reason that John Turner, senior conservation policy advocate at Islip-based Seatuck Environmental Association, has long pointed to as to why in Nassau—which is 85% sewered—lakes, ponds and streams, the “uppermost expression of the aquifer system,” have lowered and there has been saltwater intrusion in the aquifers on which Nassau depends as its “sole source” of potable water. Hempstead Lake, he notes for example, now “is Hempstead Pond.”

All of Nassau County’s sewage treatment plants discharge their effluent rather than, as Turner and Seatuck have been in the forefront in calling for, recharging highly treated wastewater back into the underground water table. 

Says Turner, former legislative director of the New York State Water Resource Commission, of the USGS-DEC report: “There’s no mentioning of sewering and ocean or coastal water discharge. They really just focus on the phenomenon itself and discuss the magnitude of saltwater intrusion and the trend, but they don’t really explain, discuss the causes.”

“But clearly a major reason for the saltwater intrusion is because of the diminishment in the size of the freshwater aquifer. You have less freshwater and the saltwater pinches in.”

“And so,” says Turner, “Nassau County adopting a policy of extensive sewering with a decision to dump the water along the coast is the reason why saltwater intrusion is occurring even though they don’t mention it in their study.”

As to why the role of sewage treatment plants in Nassau is not included in the report, telephone calls made to the USGS were not returned. Initially, DEC emailed: “Unfortunately, we are unable to facilitate an interview at this time.” However, when I noted that I would have a focus in my column about the report ignoring the “elephant in the room”—Nassau’s sewage treatment plants discharging effluent—DEC informed me:  

“Thank you for the additional information and the chance to respond. Please note that Phase 1 focused on the aquifer system beneath Kings, Queens, and Nassau counties and provides valuable information about how the aquifer reacts under various scenarios, including sea level rise, drought, pumping, and more….DEC anticipates more detailed analysis of the phase 1 scenario results and future phase 2 and 3 results will lead to more understanding of areas and issues of concern. DEC will use this tool to predict the outcomes of various water withdrawal management strategies. Based on current and future model scenario outcomes, DEC will work with partners to develop policies and best management practices to protect Long Island’s groundwater resources.”

For Suffolk, the sewage treatment plant omission is very important, for on Election Day in November there will be a referendum raising the current county’s sales tax of 8.625% by 1/8^th of a cent to raise money for sewers and high-tech septic systems. If the referendum passes, a fund would be set up and it is estimated that $3 billion to $4 billion would be raised in coming decades, half for sewering, half for the high-tech Innovative/Advanced septic systems.

But will these sewers be like those operating in Nassau, discharging effluent into the ocean, surrounding bays and other coastal waters—and putting our water table in jeopardy, causing saltwater intrusion in our sole source of potable water, too?

Suffolk County is 25% sewered and many of the sewage treatment plants here also discharge effluent. Indeed, the largest sewage treatment plant in Suffolk County is the Bergen Point Wastewater Treatment Plant in West Babylon built to dump 30 million gallons of wastewater a day through an outfall pipe into the Atlantic Ocean.

In doing investigative reporting for the daily Long Island Press back when this plant was built 50 years ago, I wrote articles in which opponents of it warned of impacts to the water table in western Suffolk by its discharging of wastewater. Decades have gone by and I am glad to say that Suffolk County now has a county executive very concerned about this. Recently, Turner and Enrico Nardone, executive director of Seatuck, met with that county executive—Ed Romaine—along with top members of his new administration.

Romaine as a county legislator and Brookhaven Town supervisor, was critical of discharge of wastewater from sewage treatment plants and instead was for recharging highly treated wastewater back into the underground water table. He continued that at the meeting. And at it he directed that the county explore sending effluent from the Bergen Point plant to irrigate the adjacent county-owned Bergen Point Golf Course. There is precedent. In 2016, the “Riverhead reuse project” began sending wastewater from the Riverhead Sewage Treatment Plant to irrigate the nearby Indian Island County Golf Course. 

The USGS-DEC report is to be followed next year by one about Suffolk alone. It must address the consequences in Suffolk County of dumping rather than reusing wastewater.

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 at Old Westbury and the author of six books.

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP : "13 Magic Words" In Water Quality Restoration Act

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

Environmentalist John Turner calls them “13 magic words.”

They are 13 words that have been added to a measure likely to be voted on in a countywide referendum in November that would amend the Suffolk County Water Quality Restoration Act. The words are in a section of state legislation on what the fund for the act would finance. 

The 13 words are: “and projects for the reuse of treated effluent from such wastewater treatment facilities.”

Turner has long worked to have wastewater purified and returned to Long Island’s underground water table rather than being discharged into surrounding bays, the Atlantic Ocean and Long Island Sound.

Long Island is dependent on its underground water table, what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 1978 designated as the “sole source aquifer” for potable water for people here.

In Nassau County, the water table has lowered because 85 percent of the county is sewered and all its sewage treatment plants send wastewater into surrounding waterways. In Nassau, lakes, ponds, and streams that are the “uppermost expression of the aquifer system, have dropped considerably,” says Turner, former legislative director of the New York Legislative Commission on Water Resource Needs of New York State and Long Island and director of Brookhaven Town’s Division of Environmental Protection. He is senior conservation policy advocate at Seatuck Environmental Association based in Islip. 

Hempstead Lake now “is Hempstead Pond,” says Turner.

Suffolk is 25 percent sewered with—until recent years—all its larger sewage treatment plants sending wastewater into surrounding waterways. The biggest, the Southwest Sewer District’s Bergen Point Sewage Treatment Plant in West Babylon, was built to send up to 30 million gallons a day of wastewater through an outfall pipe into the Atlantic.

However, in 2016, providing a model for change, the Riverhead Sewage Treatment Plant began sending treated effluent to the county’s adjoining Indian Island Golf Course. This has provided irrigation and fertilization for the golf course and an alternative to the discharging of wastewater into Flanders Bay.

A revised Suffolk County Water Quality Restoration Act was first advanced last year with a referendum proposed for Election Day 2023. But the Republican majority on the Suffolk Legislature voted against it because the enabling state legislation then earmarked 25 percent of the funding for sewers and 75 percent for high-tech nitrogen-reducing “innovative/advanced” septic systems. The GOP majority sought a larger percentage for sewers.

In the new revision the split is 50 percent for sewers and 50 percent for “innovative/advanced” septic systems. It now will go before the Suffolk Legislature and State Legislature, where its sponsor in the Assembly is Fred W. Thiele, Jr. of Sag Harbor and sponsor in the Senate Monica Martinez of Brentwood, and, if approved, be subject to a referendum in Suffolk on Election Day 2024.

Other than for the change to a 50-50 division and those “13 magic words,” the measure remains otherwise as it had been last year. The funding for the Suffolk County Water Quality Restoration Act would, as proposed last year, increase the current 8.625 percent sales tax in the county to 8.75 percent, or l/8^th of a penny on each dollar spent on purchases.

If the new revised act gets legislative and voter approval, funds for projects for reuse of treated effluent could be used to implement the “Long Island Water Reuse Road Map & Action Plan” issued last year. The plan was created by Seatuck, the Greentree Foundation, Cameron Engineering & Associates and a Water Reuse Technical Working Group of 28 members. It proposes that treated wastewater to be utilized for a variety of purposes, notably on golf courses, but also on sod farms, lawns and fields at educational and commercial sites. It lists treatment facilities and sites that could be used including in Smithtown. 

It declares: “The benefits of water reuse have long been recognized and embraced in other parts of the world,” and currently in the U.S. “approximately 2.6 billion gallons of water is reused daily.” But, it says, in New York “large-scale water reuse projects have been limited. There are a few projects in upstate New York and one on Long Island,” the “Riverhead reuse project.”

At a press conference last month announcing the new revision, Suffolk’s new county executive, Ed Romaine, repeated what he had emphasized as Brookhaven Town supervisor and a county legislator, that in building sewers in Suffolk “let’s not pump the effluent out to the ocean or the Sound.” Romaine, like Turner and other environmentalists, stresses a need for not only water quality but quantity. 

The sales tax increase is expected to raise in its first year $26.5 million for sewers and $26.5 million for “innovative/advanced” septic systems, said the legislature’s presiding officer, Kevin McCaffrey, at the press conference. The I/A systems have an average cost of $22,000 and, as of 2021, have been required by Suffolk County for new construction of a house in a non-sewered area or major expansion of an existing house.