Bay Park illegally dumping into bay

“You just smelled it again,” said Legislator Dave Denenberg (D-Merrick), who stood at West Bay Drive in Long Beach two weeks ago with several West Pine Street residents, watching a brown plume move across Reynolds Channel. “That is [from the] sewage treatment plant,” he said. “You shouldn’t be smelling it from here.”

The repugnant odor and sight, which Denenberg said is the result of illegal sewage discharge into Reynolds Channel from the Bay Park Sewage Treatment Plant in East Rockaway — owned and operated by Nassau County, and treating about half of the county’s sewage — has alarmed residents who live near the channel. They say it has become an environmental hazard and a quality-of-life issue.

Long Beach resident Jim Hangley said that the county’s “toilets are flushing out right behind my house.”

At a press conference on Nov. 23 at the pier off West Bay Drive, a group of local environmentalists, Long Beach officials and residents joined Denenberg to demand that Nassau County officials take immediate action to stop the “sludge” from being illegally discharged into the bay. “The violations have become repeated and excessive,” said Denenberg, who called for legislative hearings and an immediate investigation into the treatment plant.

Since March, the state’s Department of Environmental Conservation has issued numerous violations for the discharge. William Spitz, the DEC’s regional water manager, explained that the agency is conducting an investigation after it discovered in October that the plant was discharging more sewage, or suspended solids, than allowed by environmental law. Spitz said the discharge has created cloud plumes in the effluent released into Reynolds Channel.

“There shouldn’t be a brown plume,” he said. “This is an egregious violation — we will be levying fines and insisting on whatever other measures are required to bring about compliance at the plant.”