Health Department: Water at Crescent Beach ‘unacceptable’
You may safely wash your hands, but don’t refill a water bottle for drinking at the rest rooms at Crescent Beach, advises Public Works Commissioner Jay Card Jr.
The Suffolk County Department of Health Services has declared drinking water at Crescent Beach to be unsafe.
A recently released report on tests done at the public water facility at the beach last June states: “The physical condition of the water supply facilities did not meet acceptable sanitary standards.”
The report warned: “Analysis of your water supply indicates at the time of sampling [that] one or more of the parameters tested were not within recommended drinking water standards.”
The problem, according to the Health Department, is the water exceeds the maximum contaminant level for chlorides.
Iron in the water also can cause an “off-taste, odor or staining problems,” prompting the Health Department to recommend connecting to a public water supply where possible.
That’s something Shelter Island town governments over the years has rejected out of hand, rebuffing offers from the Suffolk County Water Authority to provide piped water here in place of individual wells.
Without public water, the Health Department recommended having water treatment equipment in place and serviced regularly to remove iron deposits so that drinking water meets county standards.
Commissioner of Pubic Works Jay Card Jr. said it was still O.K. to use the water for washing, but not, as the county has said, for drinking.
