Environment groups have expressed their dissatisfaction with the Suffolk County Legislature’s recent decision to keep the Suffolk County Water Quality Protection Act off of the Nov. 7 ballot as a referendum.
What is the Suffolk County Water Quality Protection Act?
New York State Assemblyman Fred Thiele (D-Sag Harbor) said in March that the act “will create a dedicated fund to improve water quality by reducing nitrogen, pursuant the Suffolk County Sub-watersheds Wastewater Plan. The fund would finance wastewater projects, including nitrogen removing I/A septic systems that will restore the quality of local groundwater and surface waters. In addition, the legislation would permit Suffolk consolidate its existing 27 sewer districts in to one district.”
Town and village sewer districts would not have been affected. Part of the proposal included a one-eighth percent county sales tax increase to help create a Water Quality Restoration Fund.
The Suffolk County Legislature met on July 25 to decide if the act would be a referendum on the the Nov. 7 ballot, leaving it up to the voters. But the legislature voted 10-7 — mostly along party lines — killing hope of the referendum going up for a vote before the public.
“Wastewater treatment is very important for all of Suffolk County,” Legislator Al Krupski (D-Cutchogue), who voted to put it on the ballot, said. “And if you look at the amount of septic systems that basically put our waste into our groundwater, it’s obvious that we need to do something. It would have provided for the funding for the replacement of all those septic systems.”
Krupski added that it’s important for the people of Suffolk to have a voice on something like this.
“As an elected official, it’s best when you’re always communicating with constituents, because we’re public servants,” Krupski said. “So to say, here’s the facts — you get to make a decision on this — is always a good thing.”
Island-wide environment groups react to the legislature’s decision on the Water Quality Protection Act
Environmental advocates are not pleased with this decision.
“We are deeply disappointed in the Suffolk County Legislature for refusing to place the Water Quality Restoration Act on the November ballot,” Julie Tighe, president of the New York League of Conservation Voters, said. “Hundreds of thousands of Suffolk County residents are in desperate need of septic system replacement or a transition to sewers, which this plan would have addressed, and which is why it is a top priority for NYLCV. But some members of the County Legislature chose to play politics and in doing so stripped residents of the power to tackle the water quality crisis happening in their own backyard. We strongly encourage the Suffolk County Legislature to call a special meeting in the coming week to right this wrong.”
Advocates at the local level spoke out as well.
“Clean water is not just for sailing and swimming and fishing for a living, but for drinking and keeping the entire Peconic Bioregion healthy,” Mark Haubner, president of the North Fork Environmental Council, said. “It is our right. Without support from our elected officials, we are simply kicking the proverbial can down the road and postponing the quest for clean water for another year. This denies our responsibility and puts the onus of urgent action onto the next generation of concerned citizens. By shirking their duty today, our elected officials are telling us that an informed and engaged citizenry is not sufficient a force enough to which to listen. My bigger concern is that if Nitrogen as a pollutant is not sufficient cause to act, then how will our elected officials respond to PFAS and 1,4-dioxane in our water and soil?”
A tax raise for water quality is not necessary, Trotta says
As for Republicans who voted against it, one of them — Legislator Robert Trotta (R-Fort Salonga), a former police detective and an outspoken advocate against county corruption — said it’s not as simple or as “scary” as the legislature wishing to deny residents clean water. In fact, according to Trotta, Suffolk has the money but is giving it out to the wrong people.
“We already have a clean water fund that they raided and took all the money from,” Trotta said. “We already have a sales tax which is supposed to do all this. We’ve had it since 1987. They raided the [clean water] fund because when Covid hit, everyone got afraid that the unions wouldn’t be able to pay their contracts. Suffolk County has a $700 million surplus. The federal government bailed us out so much, we have all that money. Why would I raise people’s taxes?”
Trotta added that the current quarter-cent sales tax expires in 2030, and this proposal would add an increase to it that wouldn’t expire until 2060.
This debate over funding to improve water quality in a county where three quarters of homes lack sewage hookups and instead use antiquated septic systems that pollute the groundwater, however, is unlikely to end with the legislature’s latest decision.
