Second water main break in Baldwin sparks urgent calls for infrastructure upgrades amid ongoing service disruptions

Posted

Baldwin residents are dealing with the repercussions of a second water main break in four months, which occurred on Sept. 30.

The latest incident occurred at around 1 a.m., and left more than 100 homes on Winona Road, near Anderson Street, without water throughout the day and into the night, according to Liberty Water.

The break follows one on June 7 on the same road, which caused widespread disruption of water service in Baldwin, Island Park, Oceanside, Roosevelt and South Hempstead.

“Liberty crews were dispatched immediately, and were able to isolate the leak,” Noelle Mashburn, a spokesperson for Liberty Water, said in a statement to the Herald, adding that “115 customers were affected. We distributed bottled water to customers who needed it and had all customers back on the same day.”

A week after the water main break in June, Nassau County Legislator Debra Mulé, accompanied by community members and local business owners, called on Liberty Water to reimburse customers for their losses while spotlighting the broader issue of aging infrastructure. After last week’s break, Mulé renewed her demand that the county and Liberty Water invest in that infrastructure in a news release.

“This water main break is yet another clarion call for Nassau County to take decisive action to secure and repair our aging infrastructure,” she stated.

After the June incident, over 30,000 Liberty Water customers were issued a boil-water order, which impacted local businesses as well as Mount Sinai South Nassau Hospital.

One affected establishment, the Irish Pub, faced significant challenges during the weekend after the break, which occurred on a Friday. Owner Shawn Sabel told the Herald that he had to rely on nearby businesses, such as McBreen’s Beverage in Lynbrook, for ice and bottled soda for the weekend, and he called on Liberty to reimburse him for $1,000 in expenses.

In a recent interview, Sabel said he was never reimbursed, but added that the business was unaffected by last week’s break.

“We want to apologize for the inconvenience customers experienced with the recent outage,” Liberty Water said in a statement, “and want to assure our customers that we charge for the water used and customers will be charged accordingly — if less water was used, the bill will reflect that.”

The Merrick Public Library hosted a public meeting on the same day as last week’s break, to discuss the progress of the South Nassau Water Authority’s bid for a public takeover of Liberty Water.

The SNWA is an independent body that was created by the State Legislature in 2021. Mulé called on the Town of Hempstead to complete the transaction to municipal water under the SNWA.

“The first steps we must take are to greatly elevate our commitment to completing essential water, sewer, and road infrastructure upgrades in the County’s 2025 capital plan,” Mulé said in the news release, “and finally proceed at the Town level with removing control of our drinking water from a for-profit corporation that has failed ratepayers time and again. Until that happens, we will continue to experience substandard service and more frequent catastrophic incidents that will cost taxpayers more money to repair than if we take bold action now.”

Liberty Water acknowledged that upgrading the aging infrastructure is a “priority” for the company.

“We could not do such a large project during the peak summer season,” its statement read, “and put plans in place to begin the replacement this fall in order to help mitigate future main breaks in that area.”