By ANTHONY BOTTAN
On Jan. 14, in a 10-8 vote, the county Legislature approved the consolidation of the Lawrence, Cedarhurst and Glen Cove sewage districts with the county's system in Bay Park. East Rockaway and Bay Park residents have strongly opposed the consolidation, fearing that the extra 2 million gallons of sewage per day that would be diverted to the Bay Park sewage treatment facility would worsen the odor in the neighborhood and damage the environment.
"It makes the most sense, financially and environmentally," Suozzi said. He explained that the consolidation would reduce capital and operating costs, and increase the chances of getting grants from the state Department of Environmental Conservation and the federal Environmental Protection Agency, which encourage consolidation.
According to Suozzi, the consolidation would decrease the amount of sewage dumped into Reynolds Channel by 100,000 pounds per year. The construction needed for the consolidation would begin in January 2009, Suozzi said, and end by December 2010.
Ray Ribeiro, commissioner of the county's Department of Public Works, gave a presentation regarding the common fears of Bay Park and East Rockaway residents: odor, the closure of bathing beaches, truck traffic, construction, environmental impact and plant capacity. In response to the claim that the extra sewage would negatively impact on the environment, Ribeiro said that belief "could not be further from the truth."
According to the DEC, pathogens - infectious germs that cause disease or illness - are the most prevalent pollutant of waterways, and are often found in stormwater runoff. Ribeiro explained that there are no pathogens in treated sewage. "[Consolidation] will not increase pathogens and have an adverse impact on the environment," he said.
Peter Tortorici, former president of the Bay Park Civic Association, responded to Ribeiro by saying that marine wildlife in the bay is dying. "Everything is dying around us," Tortorici said. "We can't even clam anymore."
The consolidation would also increase the amount of nitrogen released into the bay by 1 percent, Ribeiro said, and the county's plan is to study the impact of the extra nitrogen in the water and discuss the option of an ocean outfall pipe. Nassau officials estimate that extending an outfall pipe into the ocean would cost $200 million. This pipe would carry the waste two miles out into the ocean instead of into Reynold's Channel.
East Rockaway resident Connie Petrucci said she did not understand why it has taken so long to propose an outfall pipe in the ocean. "You do not need to consolidate Lawrence and Cedar Creek to propose an outfall pipe to the ocean," she said. "We've been waiting since 1978, isn't that long enough?"
Addressing residents' concerns about the closure of bathing beaches, and whether more sewage would cause more closures, Ribeiro said that the closures are caused by an increase in pathogens -usually during heavy rainfall - and not by the treated effluent pumped into Reynolds Channel.
Suozzi added that the county is looking for funding to implement its stormwater management program.
Though residents have complained of odors coming from the plant, Ribeiro said there is no correlation between odor and sewage flow. Odor complaints are a function of variations in the processing of sewage, he said, as well as external factors like proximity, weather and ocean tides. During one particular two-week span, the Bay Park facility treated 200 million gallons of sewage per day, Ribeiro said, and received no odor complaints. "We do everything we can to keep odors to a minimum," he said. Currently, the plant treats an average of 58 million gallons of sewage per day.
Ribeiro also tried to allay concerns about construction and truck traffic, saying that there would not be any construction in Bay Park or the streets surrounding the plant. Also, in the interest of decreasing truck traffic, the county pledged that by April 30, it will no longer accept grease trap waste at the plant, which would eliminate 45 waste trucks per week from the roads around the facility. Grease trap waste, Ribeiro said, would be diverted to a plant in either Glen Cove or in Suffolk County.
Still, Bay Park and East Rockaway residents said they felt the consolidation is just another means of making Bay Park "the toilet of Nassau County."
"We are tired of being dumped on," Petrucci said. "We will slowly be choked to death like the western bays themselves."
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