Four days before Williston Park’s 33% water rate increase was set to hit her East Williston residents, Mayor Bonnie Parente sent Williston Park’s Mayor Paul Ehrbar a letter urging him to pause the raise.
The rate increase went into effect without any response from Mayor Paul Ehrbar March 1. Though Parente still had not received a response as of Monday, Ehrbar told the Schneps Media LI he planned to respond to the letter sometime during the first week of March.
Since 2016, the two villages have been in an agreement whereby East Williston purchases water from Williston Park’s wells. The agreement states that when rates are raised in Williston Park, they will be raised equally in East Williston.
This rate increase is to fund the construction of new filtration systems necessary to ensure the village’s compliance with new federal water quality standards set by the Environmental Protection Agency. These standards mandate that drinking water must contain less than four parts per trillion of PFAS, chemicals with detrimental health impacts. Currently, Williston Park meets and exceeds the standard that drinking water must contain less than 10 parts per trillion of PFAS.
A recent water rate study carried out by NewGen Strategies and Solution, a consulting firm that Williston Park worked with, estimated the cost of retrofitting the village’s three wells with granular activated carbon filtration systems to bring PFAS chemicals down to undetectable levels at over $29.5 million.
Parente sent the letter seeking a rate pause after attending Williston Park’s public hearing on the rate increase alongside many of her village’s residents last Monday night. She urged the mayor to take 30 to 60 days to reassess the necessity of the rate increase.
Her letter emphasized that according to measurements she found from the state Department of Health, Williston Park’s water was already very close to meeting the new standard, a point that one of her village’s residents, Eswar Sivaraman, had brought up at Williston Park’s public hearing.
Parente urged Ehrbar to seek out a second opinion on the proposed solution, suggesting that Williston Park should research if it might meet the new water quality standards by only installing the filtration system at one well or finding a cheaper, less intensive solution than the granular activated carbon strategy to clean the water.
She also suggested that the public be provided with additional information regarding the level of PFAS contaminants at each well. Implementing a localized treatment at the well experiencing the highest level of contamination might bring the water supply into compliance at a lower cost.
Parente said she asked for all of the reports Williston Park carried out to be shared with her and her board. She said three engineers whose expertise could be helpful in the matter were included.
Her letter also raised concern over an additional aspect of the water rate study, which included a reference to six planned water capital projects totaling an estimated $41.77 that were not thoroughly explained, the unconfirmed location of each filtration system, and the potential issues, like lost parking and greenspace, the structures could create. Filtration systems may be placed on Old Motor Parkway and in the parking lot behind Hillside Avenue.
Parente’s letter ended by stating that if Williston Park takes a pause to reflect and seek out a second opinion and reaches the conclusion that the current rate increase and the proposed solution are the best ones, it will have her full support.
She said she continued to await a response from Ehrbar.
