Suffolk Closeup: Sales tax increase floated for sewers

A referendum on the November election ballot approving a Suffolk charter law increasing the sales tax in the county by 1/8 of a percent for “water quality improvement projects” may or may not happen after two public hearings last week.

Mainly along party lines, a legislative majority of 10 voted not to close the hearings, a move which could have triggered the referendum.

It remains to be seen whether on July 25, when the legislature next meets, there is a majority vote for closure of the hearings and then enough time to set the proposed referendum.

The sales tax jump would be predicated on a legislative declaration that Suffolk County “still relies on for disposal of wastewater more than 380,000 cesspools and systems which are not designed to actively treat wastewater” and “this has been widely recognized as a significant obstacle to sustainable economic growth.”

The objective is to deal with nitrogen pollution from cesspool use with a transition to conventional sewers and also a high-tech approach developed in recent decades called an Innovative/Alternative Septic Treatment System (IAs), which can be installed at a single home or business. The raising of $4 billion over 50 years is sought.

If there is a sales tax increase, the sales tax rate in Suffolk County would be the second highest in New York State, exceeded only by that in New York City.

A companion resolution also under consideration at the hearings was the creation of one countywide sewer district to include a consolidation of the now 27 separate sewer districts.

The problem cited by Kevin McCaffrey, a Lindenhurst Republican and presiding officer of the Legislature, for not closing the hearings, involved what he cited as a difference between state legislation authorizing the county’s actions and what the county would like. The state legislation, he said, provided mostly for financial support of IAs, rather than conventional sewage systems.

Steven Flotterson, a Bay Shore Republican and deputy presiding officer of the Legislature, said: “We want to maximize sewers” and a “much larger amount needs to go for sewers.”

Democratic legislators, meanwhile, pressed to close the hearings,

As for conventional sewage systems, they are “not an answer to water quality,” testified Doug DiLillo of Huntington Station, urging the legislators to consider neighboring Nassau County, which is 85% sewered, and also “look to Nassau County in terms of quantity.” DiLillo noted his service on panels in Suffolk for a Groundwater Protection Plan and a Pine Barrens Protection Plan.

In Nassau, he said, saltwater intrusion has come to the underground water table, which it shares with Suffolk, because instead of treating wastewater and recharging it back into the ground, Nassau’s many sewage treatment plants send wastewater through outfall pipes into adjacent waterways depleting the “sole source” aquifer.

Regarding having a countywide sewer district, Maryann Johnston, president of the Affiliated Brookhaven Civic Organizations testified that she was “concerned” about that, considering Suffolk County’s record with its Southwest Sewer District. This was a $1 billion undertaking, in which in the 1970s the county built a sewer system in its southwest portion, a project mired in scandal. Also, she scored the Southwest district’s treatment plant, at Bergen Point in West Babylon, built to dump 30 million gallons of wastewater a day through an outfall pipe into the Atlantic Ocean, an amount in recent years raised to 40 million gallons.

Suffolk County is now 25% sewered.

There were more than 40 speakers at the June 21 back-to-back hearings in Riverhead.

Representatives of construction and labor interests stressed that sewers encourage economic activity, facilitate more residents and create jobs. Matthew Aracich, president of the Building and Construction Trades Council of Nassau & Suffolk Counties, testified that sewers are important “if you want to get economic activity” and “are crucial to attract people.”

Elisa Kyle, a director for Northport-based Vision Long Island, said “sewers are critical for downtown revitalization.”

Among representatives of environmental organizations testifying, John Turner, senior conservation policy advocate for Islip-based Seatuck Environmental Association, called the initiative “incredibly significant.” He said that “the degradation of our water supply” is a critical problem and the legislators would “never cast a more important and consequential vote.”

Kevin McAllister, president of Sag Harbor-based Defend H20, said: “I think Suffolk County has constructed an excellent program. Good science has been applied.”

And Bob DeLuca, president of the Southold-based Group for the East End, said a referendum “simply places the decision in the hands of the electorate.”

Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone, in his nearly 12 years in office — he departs at the end of the year because of term limits — has made sewering in Suffolk a signature goal of his administration. In 2015, Bellone, a West Babylon Democrat, appointed Peter Scully as deputy county executive, to be the county’s “sewer czar.” 

Scully spoke extensively at both hearings saying the proposed program was the “culmination of a 10-year effort.”