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Overcast Suozzi delivers government funding for L.I. Sound
U.S. Rep. Tom Suozzi gave residents an Earth Day present. At a press conference on Friday, he promised $33 million in federal funding for environmental projects. He was joined by public officials and representatives from local environmental groups at Sea Cliff Municipal Beach to deliver the welcome news. Mayor Pam Panzenbeck and members of the Water Department were also there.
Suozzi said environmental conservation is important to him, as it should be to all Long Islanders. It has been a key goal of his work in Congress for years.
“The Sound is a very big part of all of our lives,” Suozzi said. “I always talk about how Long Island Sound is our national park, and that’s how we should think about it. It’s this great natural resource that really uplifts our lives just by being around it.”
A Glen Cove native, Suozzi said can see how much the ecosystem has improved since his childhood.
“When I was growing up, we didn’t see red-tailed hawks, we didn’t see bald eagles or bunker roiling in the water,” Suozzi reminisced. “Thanks to the people here, who are committed to protecting and preserving our Sound, it’s better than it’s ever been before.”
The majority of the funds, roughly $31 million, is targeted to restore the Sound. Adrienne Esposito, executive director of Citizens Campaign for the Environment, accepted the check from Suozzi. It wasn’t easy, she said, to raise the federal funds.
“This does not happen by chance,” Esposito said. “This is a lot of hard work, a lot of organizing. We would get up at two in the morning, we would travel down together by bus to go to Congress. Why? When we improve the quality of Long Island Sound, we improve our homes.”
Suozzi also said that $1,000,000 of the money would be going to rehabilitating the Nancy Court Well Station. At the event, Panzenbeck explained that this money would be a huge boon to Glen Cove and the Water Department.
“This is the most unglamorous project, infrastructure for our water department,” Panzenbeck said. “Although we’re having an unglamorous project, I just have to say we are so in need of this, for the infrastructure of our ecosystems.”
Then she called up the members of her Water Department. Mike Colangelo, the head of the department, was pulled to the front by Suozzi, who said he had been his son’s Little League coach. Suozzi was also proud to announce that his son was now playing for the minor league team the Brooklyn Cyclones.
The Nancy Court Well Station is one of several active wells which provide fresh water to Glen Cove. There is another at Kelly Street, and three more at Duck Pond. Together, these wells provide most of the city’s clean water.
Speaking several days later, Panzenbeck also highlighted how vital the rehabilitation of the well would be to preserving the city’s water autonomy. This has been a concern for Glen Cove since 2017, when some of their wells at Duck Pond were forced to shut down due to high concentrations of Freon 22, a chemical compound used as a refrigerant.
“Improving the quality of our wells and keeping all of our wells up to date and pumping clean water for our residents, that’s what this is about,” Panzenbeck said. “I was on the council at times when we had to buy water from other communities like from Locust Valley and we do not want that again.”
