East Williston’s Board of Trustees and residents are still not satisfied with their neighboring village’s explanation for an increase to their water rates as evidenced by the packed room of residents asking questions at Monday night’s meeting.
Williston Park, which provides East Williston with water, said at a Feb. 24 public hearing the village was increasing its water rate by 33% March 1 to fund the construction of new granular activated carbon filtration systems. Williston Park’s Board of Trustees said the village was working to construct these filtration systems to meet new federal water quality standards related to PFAS chemicals, which are known as forever chemicals and have well-documented detrimental impacts on human health.
However, some in East Williston, including the village’s mayor, are not convinced that the filtration systems that Williston Park is proposing, which would bring levels of PFAS chemicals in the water down to undetectable levels, are necessary to meet the new standard. That new federal standard mandates drinking water contain less than 4 per parts per trillion (ppt) of the chemical by 2029.
East Williston residents and electeds are raising questions about the filtration system’s necessity primarily because the water studies that Williston Park has provided do not appear to use water quality data from 2024 or 2025. And the data points the village appears to primarily be using to justify the need for these filtration systems seem to be outliers from 2019, with most measurements listed as undetectable or under the new 4 ppt standard.
Williston Park has three wells, two of which (Well 1A and Well 2) are located next to each other, and a third (Well 4), which is located separately.
Between 2019 and 2023, only one of the village’s three wells, Well 2, consistently had concentrations of PFAS chemicals over 4 ppt. In July 2019, Well 1A was recorded as having multiple PFAS chemical concentrations over 20 ppt. But the majority of measurements at that well between then and the last two from 2023, which found PFAS concentrations over 5 ppt, are listed as non detectable. Nearly all of the measurements from Well 4 found PFAS concentrations under 4 ppt besides measurements in 2022 and 2023.
East Williston Mayor Bonnie Parente, as well as East Williston residents, say they want to ensure the major expense of retrofitting all of Williston Park’s wells with granular activated carbon filters is truly necessary, that the measurements above 4 ppt are not mistakes, and to understand what the water quality measurements from 2024 and 2025 are. Suggestions of only retrofitting the well that seems most impacted, or using a different filtration solution have been floated by East Williston residents.
Parente has asked Williston Park Mayor Paul Ehrbar to pause the increase to water rates for 30 to 60 days in order to reassess. Ehrbar denied the request, though Parente said she hopes he reconsiders. She also requested water quality data from 2024 and 2025 from Williston Park Monday night and may look to run additional studies on the village’s water and potential filtration solutions to discuss with Williston Park.
Amid this dispute, legal challenges from national utility trade groups, which include many public water companies on Long Island, to this new federal water quality guideline have been filed in federal courts in recent days.
Williston Park’s Feb. 24 presentation on the rate increase to the public put the cost of retrofitting all three wells with granular activated carbon technology at $29.5 million, though the report also included a mention of six water-related capital projects that would cost $41.7 million.
Ehrbar did not respond to a request for comment.
