Suffolk Closeup: Move swiftly to sewer and cesspool alternatives

Is there a better system than conventional cesspools, short of full-blown sewer systems? Yes, according to presentations made at a forum held recently, organized by Suffolk Legislator Edward Romaine, Islip Town Councilwoman Trish Bergin-Weichbrodt and Peconic Baykeeper Kevin McAllister.

But the Suffolk County Department of Health Services and the county’s Board of Health do not endorse the on-site waste discharge systems advanced at the forum. “They say they are unproven and untried despite their being used throughout the United States — as close to us as New Jersey and Massachusetts,” complained Mr. Romaine last week.

Grace Kelly-McGovern, spokesperson for the Department of Health Services, said the systems recommended at the forum “would not meet current [department] design standards for acceptable on-site disposal systems.” However, she said, it is studying other systems.

The key problem with cesspools, which have long been the main means of wastewater and sewage disposal in Suffolk, is nitrogen being discharged into local groundwater and surface waters. Brown tide and other algae blooms have been linked to
nitrification.

Through the years there have been efforts to have the county move from cesspools to sewers. The most aggressive drive occurred in the 1960s and 70s as county officials pushed for the Southwest Sewer District to install sewers in a portion of the county. The project skyrocketed in cost to $1 billion (in 1970s dollars). It became a patronage trough for both major political parties. Prosecutions and convictions for corruption followed. And there were problems in the construction, concerns that persist.

There are now concerns about the rupture of the district’s concrete outfall pipe, which discharges 30 million gallons (soon to be 40 million) of treated effluent a day into the ocean. If a rupture occurs along the pipe’s run through the Great South Bay, the bay would be contaminated.

The Budget Review Office of the Suffolk Legislature has reported that “the pipeline cannot be repaired and replacement is the only alternative.” It has warned that “serious environmental and economic damage could occur if the outfall pipeline fails.”

Budget Review cites a county consultant as finding “this was the worst pipeline for breaks that they have ever monitored.” It has put the cost of a replacement at $150 million. Suffolk Public Works Commissioner Gil Anderson told us last week that his department expects “to receive the feasibility report for the replacement of the … pipeline very soon.”

Problems in sewer systems aren’t uncommon. Last week Newsday reported “studies measuring pollution in Hempstead Bay indicate water there is laden with nitrogen and awash in treated effluent from five nearby sewage plants.”

The new on-site waste disposal systems presented at the forum, held January 31 in Hauppauge, include the Nitrex and Bioclere systems. Mr. McAllister said “they have been demonstrated as highly effective in substantially decreasing nitrogen discharged.” Their cost is about twice that of conventional cesspool systems. The event was attended by 80 persons, but no one from the Department of Health Services was present.

In recent times, there has been a new drive led by Legislator Wayne Horsley and County Executive Steve Levy for expanded sewering in Suffolk. However, said Mr. McAllister, “I don’t think widespread sewering is going to happen in Suffolk. Sewering makes sense in some of the downtown areas for economic development,” but the new push “is not going to go very far. I don’t think the public will support the costs associated with sewering. And an underlying concern is that it would lead to overdevelopment.”

Indeed, development interests were deeply involved in advocating the Southwest Sewer District. Mr. McAllister criticizes Suffolk for being “in back of the class” in utilizing the new disposal systems.

Ms. Kelly-McGovern says the county “has begun a formal evaluation of innovative/alternative on-site sewage disposal systems capable of denitrification.”

Suffolk, its towns and villages, and the state, should move — and swiftly — to facilitate the use of the new systems especially in areas near nitrogen-sensitive water bodies. Mr. Romaine will be introducing a measure at the next legislative session defining what would be known as “nitrogen-sensitive zones.”