A proposition on the ballot next month proposes to increase the Suffolk County sales tax to fund sewers, on the inaccurate theory that sewer construction will provide cleaner drinking water.
Over-sewering, however, can do more harm than good, and, in any event, the county has huge amounts of cash left over from federal Covid aid, thereby obviating the need for a sales tax increase.
While sewers may be needed in some areas with high water tables, or where higher-density workforce housing or industrial development is needed, extensive sewer development to mirror that in Nassau County may be wasteful and counterproductive.
If building sewers led to cleaner drinking water, as some proponents claim, Nassau County, which is 90 percent sewered, would have cleaner water than Suffolk (only 27 percent of which is sewered), but that isn’t the case. In fact, Nassau completed a study in 2022 looking for ways to tap into New York City’s reservoir for a cleaner, more plentiful water supply.
Moreover, sewers haven’t improved our shellfishing harvest or prevented algae blooms. If they did, shellfish harvesting would be robust in Nassau County and absent in Suffolk. But there is little shellfishing going on in Nassau, with the exception of Oyster Bay, which, ironically, is the one area of Nassau not sewered. The drop-off of shellfishing in our bays corresponds to the installation of sewers in Nassau and western Suffolk in the 1970s.
Too much sewering leads to a depletion of the water table, because sewers require a tremendous amount of groundwater to clean waste. That water is flushed out into the ocean and not replenished in our groundwater, as is the case with septic systems. That in turn leaves a gap in our subsurface water, which can result in saltwater intrusion, as well as nitrate contaminants on the surface being sucked down into our aquifer.
Nor do street-based sewers, which are not hooked up to outflow pipes, resolve the issue of nitrogen flowing into our streams and tributaries via road runoff.
The county should not be raising the sales tax any further for this purpose when hundreds of millions of dollars are available in county reserves — Covid aid that came from the federal government, which can be used for environmental purposes.
Of equal concern is that the sales tax increase is tied to a provision that would further extend the current quarter-penny sales tax for another 30 years — despite the fact that this program doesn’t expire for six more years.
The sales tax funds property tax relief, stabilizes sewer rates, and preserves open space and pays for other environmental projects. Since very little open space remains to be purchased, the formula should be changed so that some of those tens of millions of dollars can fund sewer construction and cesspool remediation instead of raising the sales tax even further.
Sewers are indeed needed in some areas, but oversewering elsewhere will be far more expensive and less protective than other available options. Officials need to do more cost-benefit analysis of paying $20,000 to $30,000 for an upgraded cesspool compared with bringing current systems up to code, and to determine the impact each alternative will have on our environment. Planners should lay out the cost of the construction of tertiary treatment plants and determine if they are better than expanding hookups to existing sewer systems or constructing new sewers that don’t help recharge the aquifer.
Let’s get all those numbers together, do a comparison and then decide how much sewering we want, how many new tertiary plants we prefer and how many super-sized cesspools we think are worth it. Let’s get that info in hand before we ask for billions of dollars more from our residents.
Remember that in 1986, it was touted that by increasing the sales tax by a quarter of a penny, we would preserve our groundwater forever. Well, $3 billion has been spent on that venture since then, and now we’re being told, “Oops, we have to do it all over again.”
Don’t be bullied into approving this tax increase by those with vested interests scaring you into believing you’ll be drinking polluted water unless you give them billions of dollars to save you. Of Suffolk’s 600 wells, only two have ever been threatened.
We can be proactive without having our already outlandish taxes being raised once again.
Steve Levy is president of Common Sense Strategies, a political consulting firm. He served as Suffolk County executive, as an assemblyman, and as host of “The Steve Levy Radio Show.” He is the author of “Solutions to America’s Problems” and “Bias in the Media.” www.SteveLevy.info, Twitter @SteveLevyNY, steve@commonsensestrategies.com.
