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~ 2008 ARCHIVES ~

Nassau scraps pipeline bond after intense objection

(09/02/08) WOODBURY - After a heated public hearing Tuesday morning, Nassau lawmakers scrapped a $150 million environmental bond that would have built a pipeline to discharge sewage.
The pipeline, proposed by Legislator David Denenberg (D-Merrick), would release sewage from the Bay Park plant into the ocean instead of the bays. He calls saving the South Shore Estuary the single greatest environmental concern in the county.

At the hearing, residents said they want the western bays cleaned up. However, there was no consensus on how to do so. Some took lawmakers to task for asking taxpayers to pay the county even more money with the bond proposal.

Environmentalists argued a pipeline should be part of the county's capital budget and not left up to voters. Minority Leader Peter Schmitt (R-Massapequa) called the bond fatally flawed.

The issue of upgrading the South Shore sewage plants remains. Officials say Nassau may have to follow Suffolk?s lead and fund pipeline repairs as a public works project.

Video : http://news12.cv.net/video/CL0902BT.wmv

Bay Park protests sewage consolidation plan

(03/01/08) BAY PARK - Hundreds of locals banded together Saturday to protest a consolidation plan that would bring more sewage into their town. Alexis Johnson, 10, tells News 12 Long Island that local kids like playing in the town park, but that the area often smells bad. "Like dead fish," she says.

The reason for the bad smell is the sewage treatment plant located within the park. Nassau County's Democratic majority passed a sewage consolidation plan that aims to shut down plants in Lawrence and Cedarhurst and bring their waste to Bay Park. County Legislator Jeff Toback says that the plan will save money and the environment, but locals are not happy about it.

"We already have enough sewage in a plant that is not working properly," Bay Park resident Judy Caracciolo says. "Our shores have foam, our beaches are closed during the summer when there's rain."

According to Toback, Bay Park's plant is operating under capacity and the additional sewage shouldn't have an impact on people's quality of life. He says the new plan would only increase the volume of sewage at the Bay Park plant by 4 percent each day. Hempstead Town Councilman Anthony Santino argues that the plan should be changed.

"Nassau County should spend that money to rehabilitate the plants in Lawrence and Cedarhurst so the wastewater generated in those communities can be processed in those communities," Santino says.

Community members are collecting signatures on a petition they plan to give the county legislature during its next meeting. Organizers say they've already gotten 700 signatures.

Nassau lawmakers start '08 with legislative fireworks

(01/15/08) MINEOLA - The Nassau County Legislature started off its new session with a heated debate Monday that some legislators say turned ugly.
It was the first session with new Presiding Officer Diane Yatauro (D - Glen Cove). On the table was a controversial proposal for a county takeover of three local sewer districts, one of which is in Yatauro’s hometown.

Arguments for and against the proposal escalated, prompting Yatauro to shut off the microphones of Leg. Francis Becker (R-Lynbrook) and Leg. John Ciotti (R – North Valley Stream), who were critical of the plan.

Ciotti continued his argument and Yatauro told him to lower his voice. “You shut my microphone off so I have to speak loudly,” he said. “Put my microphone on and I won’t have to speak loudly.”

Becker said former Presiding Officer Judy Jacobs never shut somebody off in that manner. Yatauro maintained she turned the microphones off to catch the lawmakers’ attention and was just following the legislative rules to keep the hearing moving.

Republicans voted against the county takeover of the sewer districts, but majority Democrats voted for and approved it. A state panel overseeing Nassau County’s finances and the county comptroller called for the decision to be put off until more financial details were released, but those calls were not heeded.

Suozzi to drop bond float segment of budget

BY SID CASSESE AND WILLIAM MURPHY

October 22, 2008

Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi will drop a budget maneuver that had prompted Republicans in the county legislature to threaten a lawsuit that could put the county's credit rating at risk.

"We're going to change that language," a Suozzi spokeswoman said last night, about a full day after the county executive's top budget aide had declined to make the same promise at a budget hearing of the Nassau County Legislature.

Legis. Peter Schmitt of Massapequa, leader of the Republican minority, had said Suozzi had built a fiscal gimmick into his proposed budget for next year that would allow him to offer bonds for water and sewer projects without the required two-thirds approval of the legislature.

Because Democrats hold just a 10-9 edge in the legislature, GOP support is needed to float any bonds. "I'm putting it on the record that if the budget is passed by a 10-9 vote ... we're going to litigate," Schmitt said Monday night at a legislature meeting.

He was objecting to a reference contained deep - on page 356 - in Suozzi's proposed $2.6 billion budget that said additional borrowing next year by the county's Sewer and Storm Water Financing Authority could be carried out "without further action by the County Legislature."

Schmitt's spokesman, Ed Ward, said yesterday that Schmitt meant that he would file suit if the budget approval fell short of 13 affirmative votes, and if the "without further action" section was not amended or deleted.

County Attorney Lorna Goodman, who works for Suozzi, said she disagreed with Schmitt's position, and that the inclusion of the language was legal.

Deputy County Executive Thomas Stokes said during the Monday hearing that delays in negotiating with the legislature on a bond refinancing earlier this year had cost the county $4 million in additional borrowing costs. However, he did not offer to remove the language.

Eric Naughton, director of the Office of Legislative Budget Review, said he would not offer a legal opinion on the merits of Schmitt's argument, but said any lawsuit, "would have severe negative impact on the county's bond rating."

Naughton said he had not seen such language about bonds in prior budgets, and found no other reference to it in the current budget documents.

County Comptroller Howard Weitzman refused to take a position on the issue. He issued a statement saying, "This is not the time to be threatening lawsuits that will only end up costing our hard-pressed taxpayer money."

Saving the bays - This could be a plus from bond fiasco

Newsday editorial, September 5, 2008

Nassau County residents won't get the chance to vote on preserving open space and protecting air and water quality in this fall's election.

This missed opportunity for a third environmental bond is the result of Democrats on the legislature overreaching on how the money should be spent, and the reluctance of County Executive Tom Suozzi to support it because he's considering a tax increase to balance his 2009 budget.

Voters who overwhelmingly approved the county's two prior bond acts should have been allowed to decide, even in this economic downturn, whether protecting the environment was worth their money.

There may be one benefit, however, from this misguided attempt by Legis. David Denenberg (D-Merrick) and Jeff Toback (D-Oceanside) to use $50 million of the bond to build a pipe to send Bay Park sewage-treatment waste further out in the Atlantic Ocean. This political debacle highlighted the need for the county to be more aggressive in dealing with the deteriorating water quality in the South Shore estuaries.

Dumping Bay Park's effluent in the shallow waters near East Rockaway has been a problem for decades. The answer may be an ocean outflow pipeline or an upgrade of the treatment plant, or both. Only a feasibility study analyzing the engineering needs and the costs will provide those answers.

At the suggestion of local environmental groups and with the bipartisan support of its Congressional delegation, the county has applied for a $25 million federal grant to pay for such a study. New York State offers low-interest loans to fund infrastructure upgrades. With effective leadership, Nassau's western bays can be saved.

Sewer project cited as Nassau drops environmental bond

BY WILLIAM MURPHY

September 3, 2008

After a bruising public debate yesterday, Democrats who control the Nassau County Legislature dropped their plans to put a $150 million environmental bond on the ballot this fall.

The Democrats said they decided in caucus after the meeting that they could not get a consensus on the need to include a sewer project in the bond program, and that the bad economy would make it difficult to get support from voters.

Advocates for the environment countered that the Democrats had killed any chance of another environmental bond issue this year - the first was in 2004 and there was another in 2006 - by insisting on the sewer project.

The plan became public barely a week ago, but the presiding officer, Legis. Diane Yatauro (D-Glen Cove) had indicated she wanted to get it passed at yesterday's special meeting, and then get approval from the full legislature at its regular bimonthly meeting today.

Legis. David Denenberg (D-Merrick), pushed the sewer project, arguing that it was imperative to upgrade South Shore sewage treatment plants, or extend the current outflow pipe at Bay Park out into the ocean.

People who live near the Bay Park plant told the legislators that they wanted the outflow pipe, but not if it meant that the county would go ahead with plans to close village treatment plants in Cedarhurst and Lawrence and pump the effluent to Bay Park.

"You're slick. You want us to speak first, before you give us information," Bay Park resident Connie Petrucci testified.

Members of Operation Splash, a South Shore estuary group, testified in favor of the sewer project, even if the $50 million would be only a fraction of the total cost. "If you want to show people you're serious, you have to put up money in advance," Splash member Gary T. Smith testified.

Ralph Fumante, chairman of the Nassau County Open Space and Parks Advisory Committee, said he was concerned that including the sewer project had endangered traditional bond projects, such as acquiring open space for preservation and improving parks.

Adrienne Esposito of the Citizens Campaign for the Environment said she and her allies had been hoping to negotiate a $100 million bond that would not include the sewer. "This is what happens when some people try to hijack the process. Dave Denenberg killed his program for Nassau County residents," Esposito said.

Denenberg said it was the environmentalists who were being rigid, and blamed them for not being more amenable to projects involving sewers and stormwater runoff.

Nassau's environmental bond due for public hearing

BY WILLIAM MURPHY

September 2, 2008

A deeply divided Nassau County Legislature was scheduled to hold a public hearing today on what started out last week as a proposed $150 million environmental bond, but may turn out to be only $100 million - if it passes at all.

The bond issue was first announced last week as $150 million, and at least one third of the money would have been set aside for a sewer project. But the entire bond issue was in jeopardy going into the holiday weekend after objections from environmentalists, who said the sewer project should be in the county's regular capital budget.

"We're negotiating it. We're working on it," Legis. David Denenberg (D-Merrick) said late Friday. Denenberg is the prime sponsor of the bond act and chairman of the Committee on Planning, Development and the Environment, which will conduct today's hearings.

He said the sewer project, which calls for upgrading the Bay Park and Cedar Creek sewage treatment plants, or extending a sewage outflow pipe miles from Bay Park to take effluent past the bays and to the Atlantic Ocean, was one of the most pressing environmental challenges facing the county.

However, a leading advocacy group for using environmental bond money to purchase open space said it continues to oppose the sewer project as a bond item.

"We thought we had an agreement on this [at $100 million], but apparently there is now some vagueness," Adrienne Esposito, executive director of the Citizens Campaign for the Environment, said Friday.

The presiding officer of the legislature, Legis. Diane Yatauro (D-Glen Cove), released a statement Friday saying today's hearing would be on a $150 million bond act.

But Yatauro added: "We anticipate that there will be possible amendments discussed, including one making the final amount $100 million." It was not clear whether that $100 million would include the sewer project, which is supported by Legis. Jeffrey Toback (D-Oceanside), who represents the Bay Park area.

Legis. Peter Schmitt (R-Massapequa), leader of the nine-member Republican minority, said he was against the bond issue as proposed. At least one of the 10 legislative Democrats, David Mejias of Farmingdale, said he was against any measure that would increase taxes.

Because any bond issue would require a supermajority of 13 votes, passage was uncertain. Democrats rushed it onto the agenda last week, meaning it will have to be approved by the full legislature this week to get on the ballot in November.

The latest dispute continues a running controversy on the use of environmental bond money between environmental groups on the North Shore who want more open space purchases, and county legislators from the South Shore and center of the island who want more park improvements and projects to control stormwater runoff.

The hearing is slated for 9 a.m. in the legislative chamber of the Theodore Roosevelt Building in Mineola.

Nassau County Legislature OKs health benefits measure (edited)

BY WILLIAM MURPHY

August 19, 2008

In other news, lawmakers in committee unanimously approved the acquisition of 74 more acres of open space under the county's voter approved environmental acts.

The $27-million purchases will go to the full legislature Sept. 3. The county administration said under questions from lawmakers that they are working on plans to notify the public of the new parcels and provide access.

But a Democratic-sponsored proposal to ask voters to approve another $150-million environmental bond issue this fall sparked opposition from most Republican lawmakers. They complained they had not been consulted about the proposal, filed late last week unlike the 2004 and 2006 bond issues, which had bipartisan support. The minority Republicans also questioned $50 million set aside in the proposal to help pay for construction of an ocean outflow pipe from the Bay Park sewage treatment plant, saying that should be considered a public works project.

Legis. Denise Ford, whose Long Beach district would benefit from the outflow pipe, was the only member of the Republican minority to back the proposed bond program.

Staff writers Sid Cassese and Celeste Hadrick contributed to this story.

Little public access to Nassau's open spaces

BY CELESTE HADRICK

August 18, 2008

From a few small salt marshes on the South Shore to rolling meadows and old forests on the North Shore, Nassau has preserved 103 acres of open space over the past four years.

But few members of the public know the location of the parcels and even fewer can gain access to the property they own.

Today county lawmakers will consider buying another 74 acres.

Questions about the public's rights to the preserved open space first arose at a legislative hearing last week into the 2004 and 2006 environmental bond issues, totaling $150 million.

"Red Spring Woods looks like a backyard," complained Legis. David Denenberg (D-Merrick), referring to the county's first open space purchase of 9 wooded acres in Glen Cove not far from County Executive Thomas Suozzi's home. "I'd hate to think we used $4 million to buy people's backyards that we can't go on."

County officials acknowledged that in the rush to preserve property they have yet to publicly identify or provide access to many of the parcels purchased.

"We're working on that right now," said Tom Maher, Nassau's environmental coordination director. "It's in the process of being considered."

"Being considered is not good enough," Denenberg responded. "We should know how to make it accessible before we make an acquisition."

Legis. Edward Mangano (R-Bethpage) asked administrators in the future to provide the status of access to every property each time the bond programs are updated.

A quick survey of four county-acquired parcels along the North Shore confirmed some legislators' concerns:

At Red Spring Woods, purchased in September 2006, there were no signs identifying the acreage as public property and no obvious paths to enter the parcel, which is ringed by homes.

A "PRIVATE, No Trespassing" sign was still posted on the only driveway leading into the 25-acre Smithers Estate in Mill Neck, bought by Nassau for $7.8 million following legislative approval in February.

A small sign at the corner of Yellow Cote Road and Route 25A in Oyster Bay Cove announces the Pulling Estate has been preserved, but the 16-acre parcel purchased for $6.5 million in November 2006 is fenced, with no place to park.

No signs announce the addition of 34 acres to the north side of the Tiffany Creek Preserve in Oyster Bay, but the preserve itself is marked, with parking available.

"You need parking lots. You need signs. You need to mail everyone in Nassau County a map and a global positioning system," said Legis. David Mejias (D-Farmingdale), describing the lack of public information as "ridiculous."

Denenberg and three other Democratic legislators are proposing that voters be asked to approve another $150 million environmental bond for open space preservation, water resource protection and contamination cleanups. It would also set aside $50 million to help built an outflow pipe from the Bay Park Sewage Plant to the ocean.

Mejias opposes it. "My constituents are paying the taxes to support the pristine views of millionaires on the North Shore," he said. "We made sure their views will be protected and their property maintained and that they don't pay any taxes for it and there will be nobody using it - and we paid them a boatload of money to do it."

But Denenberg, who chairs the legislature's planning and environment committee, said Mejias was taking an "uninformed, parochial view" of open space preservation. "Open space, regardless of where it is, is to be for everyone's enjoyment, which is why I'm questioning how we make it accessible," he said. "It also protects everyone's drinking water."

Nassau's deputy real estate director, Sean Rainey, said a new sign for the Smithers Estate was prepared Thursday.

He said two parcels before the legislature today will connect to the Pulling Estate, where a parking lot is planned.

And he said the purchase of the 40-acre Old Mill horse farm on the border of Jericho and Brookville, also under consideration today, will open access to the county's underused Muttontown Preserve.

SAVING PUBLIC LAND

2004 and 2006 Nassau environmental bond issues

Total land acquired outright: 103 acres

Total land cost: $36.465 million

Total development rights purchased: 43.5 acres

Total development rights cost: $8.75 million

Land to be approved for purchase today: 73.56 acres

Total cost to be approved today: $27 million

NASSAU: Schumer intervenes for sewer repayment

CELESTE HADRICK

July 30, 2008

U.S. Sen. Charles Schumer yesterday urged the federal government to reimburse Nassau County for $25 million in sewer projects dating to the mid-1980s.

Schumer wrote a personal letter to Stephen Johnson, administrator of the Environmental Protection Agency, asking him to quickly approve payment of the money Nassau spent on projects upgrading the Cedar Creek and Bay Park sewage treatment plants.

Although the federal agency originally refused repayment, the county appealed and was promised the money, Schumer wrote.

Deputy County Executive Thomas Stokes said Nassau asked Schumer to intervene to end the stalemate. He said the county had expected reimbursement last year.

An EPA spokesman did not return a phone call.

Broken sewage pipe in Woodmere draws concern

CARL MACGOWAN

May 22, 2008

A broken sewage pipe in Woodmere yesterday renewed a controversy over the proposed consolidation of two village sewage treatment plants.

Though officials said the leak was minor and posed no public health threat, critics said it was one more reason to flush a plan to divert sewage from Lawrence and Cedarhurst to Nassau County's Bay Park treatment facility.

"It has to raise some very, very serious concerns about pumping additional raw sewage in Bay Park through a system that has problems, " said Hempstead Councilman Anthony Santino. "How much can one community take?"

County workers discovered sewage seeping from a manhole cover along Peninsula Boulevard at about 8 a.m. yesterday, said Ray Ribeiro, Nassau commissioner of public works. The leak, from a pipe buried about 10 feet underground, did not disrupt service, he said.

Workers were to repair the pipe last night and were expected to be finished by this morning, Ribeiro said.

The pipe is connected to the Bay Park facility, which would take in sewage from Cedarhurst and Lawrence under a plan promulgated by County Executive Thomas Suozzi. The Nassau Legislature last month passed the county's $200-million capital budget, but only after $21 million earmarked for the consolidation project was stripped from the bill.

East Rockaway residents have complained that Bay Park emits a foul odor and pollutes Hempstead Bay, into which the plant discharges treated sewage.

Yesterday's leak could have been worse if the county proposal had been implemented, Santino said.

"To put a couple of million more gallons (through Bay Park) raises some very serious safety issues," he said. "It gives people pause to rethink and triple-think what they're doing."

A supporter of the consolidation plan, Legis. Jeff Toback (D-Oceanside), whose district covers Bay Park and East Rockaway, said the leak was a "relatively minor issue."

Nassau to halt shipment of grease to Bay Park plant

WILLIAM MURPHY

April 18, 2008

The county said Friday it will stop the shipment of up to 225,000 gallons of used cooking grease a week to the Bay Park Sewage Treatment Plant, which has been blamed by area residents for emitting foul smells.

Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi revealed details of the plan Friday at a news conference with Legis. Jeff Toback (D-Oceanside), who represents the area.

Toback has come under harsh criticism from residents of East Rockaway and other neighborhoods around the plant for supporting Suozzi's plan to consolidate the county's sewage system.

That plan calls for closing the small village treatment plants in Cedarhurst and Lawrence and pumping the effluent to the larger Bay Park plant.

Souzzi said the move would eliminate about 45 trips per week by the grease-laden trucks, which travel through narrow, residential streets to reach the facility.

And Suozzi planted the first of what he said would be 175 trees, that will create a buffer between the plant and nearby homes.

The grease, which gums up the cleaning equipment and thereby contributes to odors, will now by taken to private recycling facilities by the truckers, who contract with restaurants for the removal.

The county's public works commissioner, Raymond Ribeiro, said restaurants might have to pay a "modest" increase to dump the grease at the private facilities, which recycle it.

However, the president of the Long Island Chapter of the New York State Restaurant, Francis Dorazi, said the increased cost was "just another nail" in a restaurant industry that is being pinched by a bad economy and rising oil prices.

Neither Dorazi nor Ribeiro could cite the actual cost of disposal.

Suozzi, GOP legislators OK Nassau capital budget

WILLIAM MURPHY

April 3, 2008

Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi has reached an agreement with Republican legislators to pass the county's overdue capital budget for this year, but without funds he had sought for a sewer consolidation effort, officials said yesterday.

Suozzi, a Democrat, agreed to withdraw about $75 million he had included in a four-year capital plan for sewer takeovers in Long Beach, Great Neck, Cedarhurst and Lawrence, administration and GOP officials said.

Republicans did agree to include $1.4 million in funding for design work at the village sewage treatment plants in Cedarhurst and Lawrence, which would be converted to pump stations under the plan and the effluent piped to the county treatment plant at Bay Park, the officials said.

While the deal was a victory for Republicans who have been critical of Suozzi's sewer consolidation plans, it let Suozzi proceed with plans for Cedarhurst and Lawrence, and he can attempt to amend the capital plan at a later date.

Labor unions that wanted construction jobs for their members, and environmentalists who favored the sewer consolidation, had pressured both Republicans and Democrats to reach an agreement.

The expected approval on Monday of the four-year capital budget, which includes $200 million this year, will allow the county to start work on a wide variety of projects, from drainage improvement on Hempstead Avenue in West Hempstead to a stream-flow project for Massapequa Creek.

The latest plan also includes new funding, $13.6 million - with half coming from the state - for a major overhaul of the parking lots at Nassau County Community College in East Garden City, the officials said.

The sewer consolidation plan was pushed through the legislature on Jan. 14 despite incomplete reports from the county comptroller and the Office of Legislative Budget Review on the finances of the plan.

All 10 Democrats voted in favor, and Republicans voted against it. However, the actual funding for the projects requires a supermajority, and at least three of the nine Republicans have to join the 10 Democrats to get the required 13 votes.

Nassau: Sewage plant's yellow smoke OK, temporary

WILLIAM MURPHY

March 29, 2008

There's a reason for that stream of yellow smoke coming from the Bay Park sewage treatment plant.

County officials said Friday that the smoke occurs every two or three years when a device similar to a car's catalytic converter is replaced on one of the four engines that provide power to operate the plant.

"The converter gives off yellow smoke when it is first installed, and continues at lesser levels for up to two weeks until the converter is broken in," Raymond Ribeiro, Nassau's public works commissioner, said in an interview Friday.

Still, the smoke - and more reports of foul odors Thursday night - caused concern among East Rockaway residents, who have been fighting a county sewer consolidation plan that calls for closing the village sewage treatment plants in Cedarhurst and Lawrence and diverting the flow to the county facility at Bay Park.

Jill Cote said she saw it about 8:30 a.m. as she was dropping her two children off at the Rhame Avenue Elementary school. It lasted about 20 minutes, she said.

"It was a yellow stream of smoke," Cote said. "It wasn't a plume."

Cote said she and several women drove to the plant after dropping off their children, and were told by an employee that the emission was residue from a pipe-cleaning that is done every two years.

However, she said other East Rockaway residents told her they called the plant and were told that the smoke was caused by a new "catalyst" on an engine in the plant, which, along with the Cedar Creek plant, processes about 90 percent of the sewage waste in the county.

Legis. Jeffrey Toback, who represents the area, said Friday that county officials told him the yellowish haze dissipates "in a week to 10 days" and is not a health hazard.

Area resident Connie Petrucci said the stench that drifts across East Rockaway was particularly strong Thursday night.

Ribeiro said the engines - which usually run on natural gas or methane from the plant - are running on diesel while the converters are being broken in. He speculated that the diesel fumes could have created a different odor.

Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi and Ribeiro were among the officials who attended a raucous meeting in East Rockaway on March 20 at which area residents complained about odors and pollution in Hempstead Bay, where the Bay Park plant discharges sewage.

Nassau legislators clash over sewer consolidation

WILLIAM MURPHY

March 27, 2008

Democrats and Republicans in the Nassau County Legislature clashed sharply yesterday over a sewer consolidation plan that threatens to hold up the county's $200-million capital plan for this year.

The tangled dispute included testimony from residents near Bay Park, who said the consolidation plan would add to the sewage flow and odors at a county sewage treatment plant in their neighborhood.

Several leaders of construction unions and contractors urged the 10 Democrats and nine Republicans to resolve their differences so road work and other capital projects could proceed.

Legis. Peter Schmitt of Massapequa, leader of the Republican minority, was critical of the county's plan to acquire a sewage plant in Glen Cove, the hometown of Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi and Legis. Diane Yatauro, the Democratic presiding officer of the legislature.

He said it amounted to a "bailout" of financially troubled Glen Cove, which is under state fiscal monitoring after five years of budget deficits and $31.2 million in outstanding debt as of last month. Aides to Suozzi and Yatauro have denied the bailout charge.

Schmitt said Republicans would not provide the votes needed for supermajority approval of the capital plan unless the sewer consolidation is withdrawn before a legislative vote scheduled April 7.

However, Public Works Commissioner Raymond Ribeiro said after the hearing that the capital budget was "a package" of projects that need to be kept together so the county could track the projects and their costs.

Schmitt said he met with Suozzi last Thursday and they "agreed on 99 percent of the capital budget," but not the sewage consolidation. He said Suozzi had promised to get back to him with further details, but that he had not heard from him by the start of the meeting.

Suozzi said he would be happy to speak with him anytime. "Nothing's stopping him from picking up the phone and calling me," he said.

Also yesterday, the legislature scheduled a vote April 7 on legislation requiring the county to implement a broad "green" policy for purchasing products that are the least damaging to the environment. It would also ban buying products made of polystyrene foam, commonly called Styrofoam.

The legislation would require the county to set up a committee that would use existing guidelines and standards, such as those of the federal Environmental Protection Agency, to pick three products or materials in each of 10 broad areas. The committee would identify three office supply products, three food service products, three building construction products and so on.

Thomas Maher, the county's environmental coordinator, said the Suozzi administration had worked with the legislators and supports the bill.

The Office of Legislative Budget Review said in a report that it could not determine the fiscal impact of the legislation because the specific products had not yet been chosen.

The legislature also delayed action until April 7 on a home rule message requested by the State Legislature to authorize the installation of red light cameras at 50 intersections in the county. The current budget anticipates $7 million in revenue this year from that initiative.

Also yesterday, the Rules Committee approved Nassau's portion, about $200,000, of the settlement of a class-action lawsuit against the pharmaceutical industry over the pricing of Medicare-eligible drugs. The county settlement is up for a vote on April 7.

The impact

A sample of Nassau County capital projects for 2008 that could be held up:

Park Street drainage improvement, Long Beach $2 million

Massapequa Creek stream flow improvement $1.75 million

Hempstead Avenue drain improvement, West Hempstead $1.75 million

Installation of synthetic turf at Cantiague Park, Hicksville $1.5 million

Intersection improvement, Ocean Avenue at Merrick Road, Lynbrook $1 million

Lido Boulevard improvement, Lido Beach $1 million

SOURCE: NASSAU COUNTY EXECUTIVE

Sewage concerns in Bay Park revive old proposal

JENNIFER SMITH

March 23, 2008

Every day, Nassau County's Bay Park sewage plant discharges some 58 million gallons of treated effluent to Reynolds Channel amid a classic South Shore backdrop of marsh islands, migratory birds and lonely bay houses.

It's the only place on Long Island where a major sewer pipe empties into an enclosed bay - the other big South Shore plants discharge to the ocean - and Bay Park operates with fewer restrictions than the North Shore plants that flow to Long Island Sound.

But in recent months, concerns about the sewage's impact on water quality and marine life along with a much-debated proposal to consolidate nearby sewage plants have pushed Bay Park pollution to center stage. They've also revived a 30-year-old discussion to extend the plant's outfall pipe two miles to the ocean.

"We don't want to see what happened in Jamaica Bay happen to our bay," said Rob Weltner, head of the Freeport nonprofit Operation Splash, which works to clean local waterways. Scientists blame sewage, pollution and development for the loss of dozens of acres of Jamaica Bay marshland.

Extending the Bay Park pipe to the Atlantic was first recommended in a 1978 landmark water-quality study by the Nassau-Suffolk Regional Planning Board. But for three decades, the idea was relegated to the back burner by lack of interest, money and political will.

New interest in ocean pipe

That's changing now. The state Department of Environmental Conservation has agreed to study the bay's water quality, which could lead to better sewage treatment and maybe even an ocean pipe. Meanwhile, after prodding from residents and environmental groups, Nassau has cautiously taken up the extension idea.

Bay Park was built in East Rockaway on the cusp of the postwar suburban boom. Then, treated sewage was dumped right off the bulkhead, north of the marsh islands and narrow channels in western Hempstead Bay. In the 1960s, as a condition of more than doubling the plant's capacity, Nassau moved the Bay Park outfall pipe two miles south to its current location in Reynolds Channel, west of the Long Beach rail bridge.

Beside Bay Park, four other plants also have outfall pipes in the bay. Together they add another 7 million to 8 million gallons of sewage each day.

Tides carry it all to the ocean, the DEC says, though the agency doesn't know how long it takes to flush sewage from the bay. With local high tides ranging from 3 to 5 feet, however, "that's a fairly significant tidal exchange for a bay that is relatively shallow," said William Hastback of the agency's Bureau of Marine Resources.

The other two large Island facilities, Cedar Creek in Wantagh and Bergen Point in West Babylon, pump effluent south of the barrier islands to the ocean, where sewage dilutes more quickly than in a bay. Both these plants opened in the 1970s: Nassau showed no interest then in extending Bay Park's outfall pipe, said Lee Koppelman, former head of the Long Island Regional Planning Board and the 1978 study's project director.

Troubled waters

State environmental officials consider western Hempstead Bay "impaired." Shellfish harvesting is prohibited west of the Meadowbrook Parkway because of high fecal coliform levels that the DEC says stem from storm-water runoff from the communities to the north and recreational boating. The levels also occasionally close beaches at Hewlett Point and Island Park, and summertime algal blooms can discourage swimming and boating. Conditions are better to the east, though large swaths remain closed to shellfishing.

Environmental advocates say that decades of effluent have clouded the western bays, killing off fish, and that nitrogen has triggered algae blooms that smother life on the bay bottoms. They want Nassau to improve treatment at Bay Park and ultimately extend the pipe out to sea.

"It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that millions of gallons of sewage a day is going to diminish the water quality of the bay," said Adrienne Esposito, of Citizens Campaign for the Environment in Farmingdale.

Storm-water runoff isn't the only reason shellfishing is prohibited in western Hempstead Bay. Hastback said that harvesting is prohibited within a certain distance of outfall pipes in case plants fail and discharge untreated sewage. But DEC staff doesn't know the size of the sewage safety zone in western Hempstead Bay - the entire area was already closed to shellfishing when the agency came into being. It remains closed because of high coliform levels.

The regional planning board study found that in 1976, treatment plants discharged 16,000 pounds of nitrogen there each day - the largest load released to any Long Island bay. But since the 1970s, little more has been done to monitor these nitrogen levels or explore how exactly sewage may affect the bay's ecology. Meanwhile, millions have been spent on water-quality problems in Long Island Sound and Jamaica Bay.

Hempstead Bay, however, has yet to experience the dramatic declines that ring alarm bells, such as the summer fish kills in western Long Island Sound that happened after widespread algal blooms.

"This bay doesn't get the attention because it's not anoxic [lacking oxygen]," said DEC regional water manager William Spitz. The agency listed nitrogen, which causes such plant growth, as a suspected pollutant there in 2006. Still, he added, "No scientist could look you in the eye and say they're certain that nitrogen is a problem."

$200M for ocean outfall

Nassau officials estimate that extending the pipe would cost $200 million. They're reluctant to spend that kind of money unless the DEC says they must. But DEC officials say nothing prevents the county from acting. "The benefits of an ocean outfall are clear," said regional director Peter Scully. "There is no reason Nassau County couldn't start taking steps today to shift to an ocean outfall."

That said, County Executive Thomas Suozzi's administration appears to be the first to take even a remote interest in the idea since it was first proposed 30 years ago.

Nassau officials said the outfall pipe is an option under consideration in the county's master sewage plan, scheduled to be completed this summer. The first part of the plan looks at saving money on treatment plant upgrades by diverting effluent from smaller municipal facilities to Bay Park and Cedar Creek. Suozzi says the plan would help the environment because the county plants treat sewage more and have fewer permit violations than the older plants targeted for consolidation.

Earlier this year, the Nassau Legislature approved a takeover of three plants that would send about 2.5 million gallons of sewage per day from older plants in Lawrence and Cedarhurst - which discharge to tributaries of Hempstead and Jamaica bays, respectively - to Bay Park. County officials also hope to sign on Long Beach, whose plant also sends an average of 5 million gallons per day to Reynolds Channel.

The plan has angered many residents near the Bay Park plant, who fear more sewage will increase odor and worsen pollution in the bay - charges Nassau officials deny.

"We need the [ocean] outfall pipe before you start to bring more sewage into one place," resident Connie Petrucci, 46, said last week at a heated public meeting on the proposal. "Bay Park alone is enough for the legislature to propose an outfall pipe today."

Environmental advocates, meanwhile, back the consolidation. They say it would make it easier to secure federal money for treatment upgrades at Bay Park, and, eventually, to extend the pipe to the ocean.

Grant money for sewage projects has all but dried up since the outfall pipe recommendation first was made in 1978. Back then, about 75 percent of municipal sewage construction costs were picked up by the state or federal governments, said Howard Golub of the Interstate Environmental Commission, which enforces water quality regulations in adjacent waters of New York, New Jersey and Connecticut. These days, most assistance comes as low-interest government loans or through direct borrowing.

Working with Esposito and Weltner, Nassau officials have started lobbying state and federal lawmakers in hopes of securing special grants to help upgrade treatment at Bay Park and Cedar Creek - with an eye to possible expansion of the Bay Park outfall.

Another option

Still, earlier this year Nassau public works Commissioner Raymond Ribeiro said it didn't make sense to commit to an ocean pipe until researchers know how much Bay Park actually contributes to the estuary's water quality problems. It could be as effective, and cheaper, to simply upgrade the plant to reduce nitrogen in the wastewater.

Given the estimated cost of the pipe extension, "it would be reasonable to look at nitrogen removal," said James Tripp, general counsel for the Environmental Defense Fund and a member of the 1978 study's citizen advisory committee. Tripp also noted that over time, sewage dumped in the ocean can also cause similar problems, such as algal blooms and low oxygen levels.

"An assumption was that the ocean was kind of an infinite sink for nitrogen. That's not true," Tripp said.

DEC to launch new study

In December, Scully announced that the DEC would undertake a detailed study of western Hempstead Bay to identify the sources of suspected contaminants such as nitrogen. The analysis will also establish how much pollution the estuary can handle while still remaining healthy - what scientists call the total maximum daily load.

Such calculations for Long Island Sound have led to mandated improvements over the last decade for sewage treatment facilities along the North Shore. Those upgrades are expected to cost $114 million.

Environmental advocates had been pushing for a daily load analysis for western Hempstead Bay and others along the South Shore since 2001, when the South Shore Estuary Reserve management plan was created. DEC officials expect the analysis to begin late this year or next.

Marine life

Despite degradation from sewage and stormwater runoff, life still stirs in Hempstead Bay. Among the inhabitants there:

BIRDS - Herons, egrets and ibises nest on marsh islands, as do terns and gulls. Ducks and geese flying south stop by to rest and feed from shallow waters and tidal flats, which also draw migratory shorebirds such as piping plovers, red knots and American oystercatchers.

FISH - Menhaden and winter flounder spawn in the sandy shallows. Young bluefish, striped bass and summer flounder use the bays as nurseries. Soft clams, bay scallops and ribbed mussels have been reported here, although shellfishing is mostly prohibited because of water-quality concerns.

OTHER ANIMALS - Harbor seals frequent these waters in the winter. Summer brings sightings of bottlenosed dolphins and minke whales, and sometimes juvenile Atlantic ridley and loggerhead sea turtles.

SOURCE: U.S. FISH AND WILDLIFE SERVICE

East Rockaway meeting on sewage plant draws ire

JENNIFER SMITH

March 20, 2008

At a raucous public meeting last night, East Rockaway residents who live near the Bay Park sewage treatment plant expressed opposition to a Nassau County proposal to divert sewage there from smaller plants.

Speakers complained of odors and pollution in Hempstead Bay, where the Bay Park plant discharges sewage. Residents said the plan would benefit Cedarhurst and Lawrence, whose sewage would flow to Bay Park under the proposal, at the expense of those who live near the plant, which treats nearly half the sewage in Nassau County.

At times the crowd of 200 or so at East Rockaway High School interrupted County Executive Thomas Suozzi's defense of the plan with shouts and jeers.

Hempstead Town Councilman Anthony Santino drew applause when he said the plan would lead to more beach closures, saying "Bay Park is not Nassau County's toilet."

Suozzi, whose team spent the previous hour trying to allay community fears about odor and pollution, called Santino's remarks "completely irresponsible," adding "What do you suggest, we close down the sewage plant?"

The plan was approved by the county legislature in January in a vote opponents said was not fully publicized beforehand.

Residents protest South Shore sewage proposal

TIMOTHY ROBERTSON

March 1, 2008

For many Bay Park and East Rockaway residents, Nassau County's sewage plant just plain stinks.

With a toilet on the park's grass, colorful protest signs in their hands and masks covering their faces, more than 300 of them Saturday called for Nassau to flush its new sewage plan.

The county legislature on Jan. 14 approved the takeover of the Glen Cove, Cedarhurst and Lawrence sewer districts in a move that Democrats praised for its environmental benefits and Republicans criticized as a bailout for financially strapped Glen Cove. The move would close the antiquated plants in Cedarhurst and Lawrence and redirect at least 2 million gallons of waste water a day to the Bay Park plant.

"Instead of spending $15 million to build a pipe to bring that waste water here to Bay Park, use that money to rebuild the plant in Lawrence, rebuild the plant in Cedarhurst," Hempstead Town Councilman Anthony Santino said to vigorous applause.

Members of the grassroots organization against the plan, greenbayparkers.org, reported 300 new signatures on its anti-sewage plan petition, which .already had 800 names.

Residents said the 2 million gallons would contribute not just to the horrid smell .emanating from the plant, but the additional waste would threaten fishing and swimming in the bay.

"It would be unbearable," said Stanley Lombardo, 54, of East Rockaway. "If they come in with more sewage, who's going to even bother [to fish]?"

Many of the handmade signs and crowd's chants criticized Legis. Jeff Toback (D-Oceanside), whose district covers both Bay Park and East Rockaway and who voted in favor of the sewage plan.

Toback said by phone Saturday that any plan to upgrade the two smaller plants would be "counterintuitive to the consolidation plan." The county's sewage system needs consolidation so that it can become eligible for federal .funding for piping that would deposit the waste further out in the ocean, instead of the bay, he said.

In addition, the Bay Park plant can hold 70 million gallons of waste a day, he said, and another 2 million won't "affect the quality of life." The plant, according to both residents and Toback, processes around 56 million gallons of waste a day.

"I challenge anyone to show me that adding 2 million gallons, plus or minus, will change the impact the plant has on the community," said Toback, who will hold a public meeting at 7 p.m. March 19 at East Rockaway High School.

Despite passage of the plan in January, Santino said the deal isn't set, as any funding for the construction of a pipe would require a bond vote, which needs a two-thirds .majority to get on the ballot.

"Bay Park shouldn't be the toilet bowl for the entire South Shore," Santino said.

GOP: IT STINKS - Sewer plan split along party lines

CELESTE HADRICK

February 11, 2008

Hempstead Republicans are taking on Nassau Legis. Jeffrey Toback (D-Oceanside) over his vote to approve a sewer consolidation plan that calls for sewage now processed in Lawrence and Cedarhurst to be pumped to the county's Bay Park treatment plant in his district.

At a stormy first meeting of the legislature this year, the 10-vote Democratic majority approved the plan over the objections of residents from Bay Park and East Rockaway, both GOP strongholds.

Hempstead Supervisor Kate Murray and Town Board member Anthony Santino wrote Toback, asking him to change course.

They also issued a news release announcing a petition drive against the plan as well as a protest rally on March 1 at the entrance to the Bay Park plant.

NEWSDAY LETTERS

February 7, 2008

Nassau's failure of due diligence

My thanks to Newsday for the editorial "More dysfunction" [Opinion, Jan. 30], highlighting the Nassau County Legislature's chronic inability to perform adequate due diligence on behalf of the taxpayers.

It is critical that our elected legislators be given sufficient time to thoroughly review all proposals. Nassau taxpayers know all too well from the Gulotta years that minimizing appropriate due diligence comes at a significant cost.

The Democratic legislative majority rubber-stamped the Suozzi administration's request for takeover of the Glen Cove, Cedarhurst and Lawrence sewer districts. The Democrats approved the takeover despite the request to delay voting for two weeks until the Nassau comptroller, the Office of Legislative Budget Review and the Nassau Interim Finance Authority could provide financial analyses of the takeover.

Nassau County will now own and manage the sewage plant previously owned and managed by the City of Glen Cove, which had become too expensive for the financially strapped city to operate. Nassau County will be responsible for the upgrade and repair of the plant with annual operating costs around $4 million. The total cost of Nassau County bailing out Glen Cove is estimated to be in excess of $30 million.

How can Nassau County afford to bail out Glen Cove, where County Executive Tom Suozzi and Presiding Officer Diane Yatauro make their home, when Nassau County has a projected 2008 deficit in excess of $65 million?

Michael P. Mulhall

Rockville Centre

Mergers don't always consolidate problem

JOYE BROWN

January 17, 2008

Two Long Island school districts are considering a merger.

That goes against the status quo, challenges the bedrock of local control on which this region stands.

And that's exactly what makes the notion so astonishing.

Hats off to Center Moriches and East Moriches school district residents. They are to be commended for bravery in wrestling with the question of whether a merger makes sense.

Consultants say the move, over time, would reduce local property taxes by more than 25 percent. That should be enough for most tax-weary residents in any school district to jump at consolidation.

But consultants also counseled patience, so auditors could recheck the finances of both school districts. The idea, presumably, is to pull the merger's opponents and supporters together, leaving as few stones unturned, as few questions unanswered, as possible.

Contrast that with the merger of sewer districts unceremoniously rammed through the Nassau County Legislature on Monday.

Maybe the move makes economic and ecological sense, but judging from the avalanche of e-mails I received on the subject yesterday, most residents don't think so.

They said they didn't have enough information to make a judgment, and during the legislature's rowdy meeting on Monday, Democratic lawmakers weren't inclined to give them any.

But that's probably because they didn't have sufficient information, either. "Residents are not backing down," Connie, a 41-year resident of the East Rockaway/Bay Park area, wrote. "We got bullied ... to say the least. We are regrouping, considering our options and will get a plan together."

Is that how any open process is supposed to work?

Let's get real.

Gov. Eliot Spitzer recently asked Nassau County Executive Thomas Suozzi to put his money where his mouth is. Suozzi had demanded Spitzer cap property tax increases; in response, Spitzer put Suozzi in charge of a commission that's supposed to find some way to do just that.

But capping increases can't work unless the hundreds of taxing entities on Long Island also find ways to reduce expenses (or some other source of revenue). And that should put consolidation of services, school district mergers and everything else back on the table.

Residents are hurting. On Monday, a reader in Suffolk handed me a copy of her tax bill as I left a community meeting. "Tell me," she said, "I'm not getting a raise this year, gas and everything else is going up, how am I supposed to pay an increase like this?"

On the same day, a colleague who lives in Nassau handed me a copy of her latest assessment notice. "What am I supposed to do with this?" she said. "What makes them think that the value of my house is going up when there's no way I could sell it for this?"

Consolidation, where it works, is worth trying. But these are decisions residents will have to live with for a long time. And, as Moriches and Nassau's legislature show, there's a way to get there.

And a way not to.

Her silencing of Nassau lawmakers speaks volumes

JOYE BROWN

January 15, 2008

Abolish the Nassau County Legislature.

Maybe that's harsh.

But, darn it, who could blame anyone for harboring legis-cidal thoughts after yesterday's parody of a business meeting?

It was the first full session of the term, a time for new beginnings; a time when the Legislature's brand new presiding officer, Democratic Legis. Diane Yatauro, could have begun the hard job of restoring dignity to what had become a laughingstock of a branch of local government.

But nooooooo.

Yatauro instead turned into a high-tech version of the Queen of Hearts from Alice in Wonderland.

Off with their mikes!

She didn't say it. She did it, with a flick of a switch.

Legis. Francis X. Becker was criticizing a proposal to have Nassau take over three local sewer districts.

Off with his mike!

"This is a disgrace, this was never done by [former presiding officer] Judy Jacobs," cried Becker, so angry his voice needed no amplification.

Legis. John Ciotti was asking questions about the proposal when Yatauro struck again, complaining he was talking too loudly.

Off with his mike!

"I'm shouting," Ciotti shouted, "because you turned off my microphone; so I could be heard."

Curiously (not), Yatauro cut off only Republican legislators, allowing fellow Democrats to talk and even interrupt other legislators.

But the cutting hardly stopped there.

The county comptroller's office had asked the legislature to put off a decision on the sewer takeover because it needed more financial information.

So did the Nassau Interim Finance Authority, a panel overseeing county finances.

So did a group of local residents, armed with 700 signatures they had collected over two days, who said they had just heard about the proposal.

"I can say I have a right to be angry," a woman from East Rockaway told legislators. "This vote is premature ... We just want to know what the plan is."

Meanwhile, Eric Naughton, director of the legislature's independent office of budget review, sat in the chamber's audience, waiting to testify about the proposal's financial impact.

He waited - and was still waiting when Yatauro called the proposal to the floor for a vote.

Republicans voted against it.

The Democratic majority voted, and passed it, just as it had been determined to do before yesterday's session even started.

It didn't matter that legislators - or the public - had questions; that the comptroller and NIFA wanted more financial information; or that the legislature had a budget review office, ready and willing to give lawmakers information.

Nassau needs a functioning legislature and a presiding officer willing to lead it, not silence it.

In the past few months alone, the county has made some boneheaded moves.

It's bonding the cost of millions of dollars in property tax appeal refunds, a move that put Nassau's finances in jeopardy years ago - even as sales tax revenues plummet and its budget grows increasingly tight.

Last week, Nassau reported that lawmakers were stunned to find expensive televisions and other items in their offices at the newly renovated county courthouse building.

Everybody went on record complaining, but not one legislator said, hey, maybe we should take another look at this as finances are tighter now than when we agreed on this thing.

That's what legislatures are supposed to do.

But not in Nassau. Last month, the outgoing legislature voted big raises for every elected county official - except themselves, because the county charter bars legislators from raising their own salaries during an ongoing term.

But that may change soon.

"I've been assured that this body is going to vote themselves a raise and change the charter," Legis. Roger Corbin said last month.

That's magnanimous. And a sign of even more outrageousness to come.

Environmental bond nixed

By ANTHONY BOTTAN

September 04, 2008

After staunch opposition from Republicans and environmental groups, the Democrats who control the Nassau County Legislature decided on Tuesday to nix plans to put a $150 million environmental bond on the November ballot.

The deal breaker for the proposed bond was the idea of using $50 million of it to build an outfall pipe for the Bay Park sewage treatment plant into the Atlantic Ocean. Residents of East Rockaway and Bay Park have expressed support for a pipe that would send treated effluent out into the ocean rather than into Reynolds Channel, where it is currently pumped. Residents and environmentalists were outraged, however, that the cost of the proposed pipe would be borne by county taxpayers.

"This is not an option. This is a necessity," Adrienne Esposito, executive director of Citizens Campaign for the Environment, said of the pipe. "Put it in the capital budget for next year."

The Legislature's presiding officer, Diane Yatauro (D-Glen Cove), said that putting an additional strain on taxpayers with a bond, especially during tough economic times, is not a good idea, which is why the bond plan was dropped. "We believe it may be asking too much for our constituents to seriously weigh the impact of any bonding proposal at this time," Yatauro said. "We agreed that, for now, we need to focus on working cooperatively toward resolving the problems of our western bays, the South Shore coastline and the threat to our waters and beaches."

Hempstead Town Councilman Anthony Santino recently sent a letter to East Rockaway residents, asking them to urge the Legislature to fund an outfall pipe. Santino warned them, however, that such a project might lead to the diversion of sewage from other plants in Nassau County - specifically, facilities in Cedarhurst and Lawrence - to the Bay Park plant, where there are already complaints about the smell and the outflow's effects on Reynolds Channel.

Connie Petrucci, who has lived in East Rockaway for 40 years, said that East Rockaway residents and Bay Parkers are in favor of an outfall pipe - unless Santino's contention is correct, in which case they would oppose it. "How dare you ask taxpayers to contribute more money?" Petrucci asked, directing the question to Legislator Jeff Toback (D-Oceanside), who is a strong advocate of a pipe. "Can you pledge that a new outfall pipe won't be used as an excuse to force us to accept more sewage from other plants?"

Environmentalists like Rob Weltner, president of the environmental advisory committee Operation SPLASH, said that though Republican and Democratic legislators argue on the best way to fund the outfall pipe, it needs to be built now. "Upgrades to the sewage treatment plant isn't rocket science," Weltner said. "The longer we wait, the worse the bay is getting."

Victor Consiglio, a member of Operation SPLASH, said he conducted tests of the water around Amityville, and his findings were shocking. He said he tested the acidity of the water, using a scale of 1 to 9 - from most to least acidic - and found the water rated a score of 9. For aquatic life to flourish, water should be "neutral" - measuring, on Consiglio's scale, close to 5. Instead, Consiglio explained, "The water is completely alkaline. Everything in that area is completely dead."

Legislator Peter Schmitt (R-Massapequa) questioned the bond, which was primarily sponsored by Legislator David Denenberg (D-Merrick), and how it would be funded. "We say now, we will not support bonding until the Nassau County executive comes up with a comprehensive plan ... what, when and how much money, then we will go ahead," Schmitt said. "We find this proposal, as it's written, fatally flawed."

Legislator Jeff Toback (D-Oceanside ) said an outfall pipe for the Bay Park plant would cost upward of $300 million, but insisted that the county needs to address this problem immediately. "I think the county needs to act now - the bays can't wait any longer," Toback said.

Environmental advocates have stepped up their fight to limit further pollution of local waterways in light of the recent vote by the Nassau County Legislature to consolidate two sewage treatment facilities into a plant in Bay Park.

ANTHONY BOTTAN

April 3 , 2008

New concerns were first raised in January, when the Legislature voted to combine the Lawrence and Cedarhurst sewage facilities and divert their 2 million gallons of sewage per day to the county facility in Bay Park. One of residents' and environmentalists' biggest concerns is the impact the consolidation will have on the South Shore's Western Bays, particularly Reynolds Channel, where the treated effluent from the Bay Park plant is emptied. The Western Bays extend from the Atlantic Beach Bridge to the Wantagh Parkway, and include Lawrence, Woodsburgh, Hewlett, Bay Park, Island Park, Long Beach, Baldwin, Freeport, Merrick and Bellmore.

Two local environmental advocacy groups, Citizens Campaign for the Environment and Operation SPLASH - Stop Polluting Littering And Save Harbors, a nonprofit organization dedicated to ending coastal pollution - are in favor of consolidation, as long as a Total Maximum Daily Load assessment is performed and significant upgrades are made to the Bay Park plant. A TMDL determines how much discharge a waterway can tolerate without deteriorating. It also investigates why waterways become degraded and proposes ways to return them to a healthy state.

The New York State Department of Conservation has listed the Western Bays as an impaired body of water, and the DEC's Long Island regional director, Peter Scully, recently announced that it would conduct a state-funded TMDL. The study, Scully said, will cost $1 million and take a year to complete.

Adrienne Esposito of Citizens Campaign for the Environment said the TMDL is needed to establish a standard for the amount of nitrogen that will be allowed to be pumped into the water. As of now, Esposito said, there is no nitrogen standard for the Western Bays. "Sewage treatment plants discharge nitrogen into the water and cause an excess growth of algae and marine plants and depletes oxygen levels in the water," she said. "A nitrogen cap will tell us what the standards are for this body of water." Esposito added that since the Western Bays are shallow, they are more susceptible to nitrogen damage.

A joint press release issued by the CCE and SPLASH stated that the DEC listed the Western Bays as impaired because of the 64.5 million gallons of effluent that is discharged into the water each day. According to the release, the four sewage treatment plants that discharge into the Western Bays have been issued a total of 79 violations by the DEC since 2000. For example, the Lawrence plant has been cited for exceeding of "biochemical oxygen demand," said Bill Fonda, spokesman for the DEC. "BOD limits are important because they impact the oxygen levels in a receiving body of water," Fonda said. "The less oxgen available for organisms in the receiving body of water, the more stressed they become."

Jeff Fullmer, director of the Long Island South Shore Estuary Reserve, said he has collected information from charter boat captains that fluke and crab populations are diminishing in the Western Bays. Fullmer added that these waterways are important to the health of local fisheries as well as the regional economy. "What needs to be understood are the impacts of pollutants in effluent," Fullmer said. "The main two issues are pathogens and nitrogen. You don't want to eat crabs that are infected with pollutants."

The DEC has closed parts of the Western Bays, including Reynolds Channel, to shellfish harvesting due to the presence of sewer discharges from sewage treatment plants in Bay Park, Long Beach and Hewlett. A closed safety zone is required around each plant's discharge.

According to Aphrodite Montalvo, a spokeswoman for the DEC, nitrogen levels do not directly cause the death of marine life. Rather, nitrogen in the water acts as a fertilizer, triggering blooms of marine life, like algae. When the nitrogen supply is exhausted, the algae die, and as they decay, the oxygen in the water is used up by the bacteria that break down the dead algae. This process can deplete the level of dissolved oxygen in the water to the point where marine wildlife is endangered.

Esposito said that an ocean outfall pipe, which would discharge treated effluent two miles out into the Atlantic, could help restore the Western Bays. It would be easier to lobby for such a pipe for one combined sewage treatment facility than for several, she said. "The objective is to clean up and restore the Western Bays," Esposito said. "In order to achieve that goal, we need an ocean outfall pipe or a dramatic upgrade at the Bay Park facility. Either one of those actions will have a tremendous positive impact on the Western Bays."

The DEC supports the sewage consolidation for two reasons. The Lawrence and Cedarhurst plants are approaching the end of their useful lives, Montalvo said, and it would be more cost-effective to upgrade one plant rather than three. Secondly, she said, the DEC anticipates that by combining the flow from Lawrence and Cedarhurst to Bay Park, the biochemical oxygen demand - the amount of oxygen used by microorganisms as they decompose - in the Western Bays would be reduced by 80 pounds per day.
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Residents boo consolidation plan

ANTHONY BOTTAN

March 28, 2008

Boos and jeers rained down on County Executive Thomas Suozzi on March 18 at East Rockaway High School, where more than 300 Bay Park and East Rockaway residents gathered for an informational meeting with county legislators on the recent plan for consolidation of sewer districts.

On Jan. 14, in a 10-8 vote, the county Legislature approved the consolidation of the Lawrence, Cedarhurst and Glen Cove sewage districts with the county's system in Bay Park. East Rockaway and Bay Park residents have strongly opposed the consolidation, fearing that the extra 2 million gallons of sewage per day that would be diverted to the Bay Park sewage treatment facility would worsen the odor in the neighborhood and damage the environment.

"It makes the most sense, financially and environmentally," Suozzi said. He explained that the consolidation would reduce capital and operating costs, and increase the chances of getting grants from the state Department of Environmental Conservation and the federal Environmental Protection Agency, which encourage consolidation.

According to Suozzi, the consolidation would decrease the amount of sewage dumped into Reynolds Channel by 100,000 pounds per year. The construction needed for the consolidation would begin in January 2009, Suozzi said, and end by December 2010.

Ray Ribeiro, commissioner of the county's Department of Public Works, gave a presentation regarding the common fears of Bay Park and East Rockaway residents: odor, the closure of bathing beaches, truck traffic, construction, environmental impact and plant capacity. In response to the claim that the extra sewage would negatively impact on the environment, Ribeiro said that belief "could not be further from the truth."

According to the DEC, pathogens - infectious germs that cause disease or illness - are the most prevalent pollutant of waterways, and are often found in stormwater runoff. Ribeiro explained that there are no pathogens in treated sewage. "[Consolidation] will not increase pathogens and have an adverse impact on the environment," he said.

Peter Tortorici, former president of the Bay Park Civic Association, responded to Ribeiro by saying that marine wildlife in the bay is dying. "Everything is dying around us," Tortorici said. "We can't even clam anymore."

The consolidation would also increase the amount of nitrogen released into the bay by 1 percent, Ribeiro said, and the county's plan is to study the impact of the extra nitrogen in the water and discuss the option of an ocean outfall pipe. Nassau officials estimate that extending an outfall pipe into the ocean would cost $200 million. This pipe would carry the waste two miles out into the ocean instead of into Reynold's Channel.

East Rockaway resident Connie Petrucci said she did not understand why it has taken so long to propose an outfall pipe in the ocean. "You do not need to consolidate Lawrence and Cedar Creek to propose an outfall pipe to the ocean," she said. "We've been waiting since 1978, isn't that long enough?"

Addressing residents' concerns about the closure of bathing beaches, and whether more sewage would cause more closures, Ribeiro said that the closures are caused by an increase in pathogens -usually during heavy rainfall - and not by the treated effluent pumped into Reynolds Channel.
Suozzi added that the county is looking for funding to implement its stormwater management program.

Though residents have complained of odors coming from the plant, Ribeiro said there is no correlation between odor and sewage flow. Odor complaints are a function of variations in the processing of sewage, he said, as well as external factors like proximity, weather and ocean tides. During one particular two-week span, the Bay Park facility treated 200 million gallons of sewage per day, Ribeiro said, and received no odor complaints. "We do everything we can to keep odors to a minimum," he said. Currently, the plant treats an average of 58 million gallons of sewage per day.

Ribeiro also tried to allay concerns about construction and truck traffic, saying that there would not be any construction in Bay Park or the streets surrounding the plant. Also, in the interest of decreasing truck traffic, the county pledged that by April 30, it will no longer accept grease trap waste at the plant, which would eliminate 45 waste trucks per week from the roads around the facility. Grease trap waste, Ribeiro said, would be diverted to a plant in either Glen Cove or in Suffolk County.

Still, Bay Park and East Rockaway residents said they felt the consolidation is just another means of making Bay Park "the toilet of Nassau County."
"We are tired of being dumped on," Petrucci said. "We will slowly be choked to death like the western bays themselves."
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Rally cry: Don't dump on us!

MARY MALLOY

March 06, 2008

Amid cries of "Don't dump on us", "We are not Nassau County's toilet" and "Toback, your plan stinks", close to 200 protesters showed up at a Bay Park rally on Saturday to voice their outrage at a county Legislature-approved consolidation of Lawrence and Cedarhurst sewage into the county's sewage plant in Bay Park.

Waving homemade signs, wearing masks and biochemical garb, one participant was dressed as a toilet bowl, residents from Bay Park, East Rockaway, Angle Sea, Oceanside, Island Park and Long Beach joined Hempstead Town Councilman Anthony Santino who called the rally to protest the consolidation plan.

"Our message is simple", said Santino. "Rather than shutting down the plants in Lawrence and Cedarhurst, and spending, by some estimates, $15 million to build a pipe ... that money can be used to rebuild a plant in Lawrence and Cedarhurst ... our cause is right and just."

New York State Sen. Dean Skelos reminisced about fishing for snapper in Reynolds Channel when he was a young man. "The reason we live here is quality of life for ourselves and our children", Skelos said." We want to make sure that what you catch is safe to eat. I pledge to work with Santino to see that Bay Park does not get dumped on."

Kristin Ochtera, spokeswoman for the residents, marveled at the size of the crowd. "Look around you", she said as she scanned the small sea of people. "We are together on this. We want to tell the county that their decisions affect our lives. We will not be deterred."

Legislator Fran Becker, who joined the protest, recalled the meeting at which the consolidation plan was passed. "I stood with all of you, and they shut the microphone off on me", Becker said. "Look at all these kids", he added gesturing toward the crowd. "Look at what they're learning. I'm so proud of each and every one of you, and I was ashamed of the way the Democrats took the vote that day. I pleaded with them to table it. It was passed 9-10 along partisan lines. They have shut you and me out."

Becker likened the rally to the Boston Tea Party, and jokingly suggested throwing something into the bay in protest. Someone from the crowd shouted, "Throw Toback in!"

Mayor Brian Curran attended the rally to show his support. "We in Lynbrook care about this issue, and we stand behind you 100 percent", he said. East Rockaway Mayor Ed Sieban said simply, "We will get our bay back again."

In addition to writing to county officials on the sewage plan, Hempstead Town Supervisor Kate Murray and Santino have commenced a petition drive against the plan to increase the sewage that Nassau will pump into Bay Park. To date, the town leaders have collected over 1,000 signatures.

"We're hopeful that Nassau officials will be persuaded to listen to the united voice of hundreds of Bay Park and East Rockaway neighbors", Santino said. "Indeed, there is only one thing worse than the stench emanating from Bay Park, and that is the foul aroma of government that refuses to address the concerns of the residents it represents."

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