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Supe: $100 million in state aid needed to fight pollution

 

BARBARA ELLEN KOCH PHOTO | Supervisor Jim Dougherty is leading an effort to secure a large state grant to ensure clean water for the future.
BARBARA ELLEN KOCH PHOTO | Supervisor Jim Dougherty is leading an effort to secure a large state grant to ensure clean water for the future.

The issue of antiquated or failing septic systems compromising the quality of ground water on the Island and surrounding bays has taken center stage.

Supervisor Jim Dougherty, as chairman of the East End Supervisors and Mayors Association, has sent a formal request to Governor Andrew Cuomo and the leaders of the New York State Legislature to spend $100 million to subsidize homeowners installing state-of-the art septic systems.

Mr. Dougherty and the leaders of the five East End towns are seeking rebates from the state of about $5,000 for individual homeowners who install the new septic systems. If the state acts on the rebate program, it’s estimated that a quarter of all 81,000 systems on the East End could be improved.

Mr. Dougherty has organized support for an issue presented to the town a year ago by Town Engineer John Cronin who characterized the situation as so bad it would “only get worse without some radical changes.”

Mr. Cronin has been calling for a rebate system for homeowners for more than a year. “This is good news,” Mr. Cronin said Monday morning.

Mr. Dougherty has identified the pollution of water as a “crisis” for Shelter Island.

The problem is dangerous pollutants, including nitrogen, that are not being controlled due to antiquated or faulty septic systems that poison drinking water and flow freely into surrounding surface waters such as ponds, creeks and bays.

Just one example of an approaching crisis in water quality was the release last spring of a federally funded study by the Nature Conservancy on regional sea grass health. The study concluded that nitrogen pollution from sewage and fertilizers is a major factor in “killing off sea grass populations throughout the coastal waters of southern New England and New York.”

In addition to seeking state help, Mr. Dougherty is supporting a Suffolk County project to fund an application by Sylvester Manor for a pilot septic project adjacent to Gardiners Creek and Dering Harbor.

Recently Assemblyman Fred Thiele Jr. (I-Sag harbor) called for taking a small portion of the Community Preservation Fund — a 2 percent tax on real estate deals that funds open space acquisitions — and using the money to improve water quality on the East End. His proposal was met with strong local opposition, but Mr. Thiele has said the idea is still in play.

Just last week, Mr. Dougherty had castigated Governor Cuomo for policies that threaten Shelter Island’s sovereignty.

In addition to the East End Supervisor’s and Mayor’s Association plan for $100 million in state funds, the proposal also calls for “an additional $3 million in the enacted Fiscal Year 2015-2016 New York Sate Budget for the creation of a Long Island nitrogen management and mitigation plan, as well as an additional $2 million for the creation of science-based numeric nitrogen standards.”

According to the association, nitrogen standards will ensure that state, county and local governments are dealing with the same facts and figures.

“The longer we wait,” the proposal to the state for funds states, ” the more expensive remediation will prove to be, if it can be accomplished at all.