By Doug Miller
Suffolk officials would like to dig an 845-foot-deep, 300-gallon-per-minute well into the Lloyd from Northport that would be used to dilute the unacceptably high nitrate levels that have been found in the drinking water supply of Fort Salonga, an unincorporated community in the Town of Huntington, near Suffolk's north shore. But state law forbids further tapping into the well by non-coastline communities, so the Suffolk Water Authority is applying for a waiver to that law.
A ruling on the application would be made by the office of Peter Scully, the Long Island regional director of the state's Department of Environmental Conservation. Scully did not return a call for comment.
The application will be vigorously opposed by Long Beach, City Manager John Laffey said, describing the city's policy against sharing the Lloyd as "unbending."
"Our position is 'no,'" Laffey said Tuesday. "The Lloyd Aquifer is the only water available for this barrier beach. We do not know the extent of the Lloyd, and my responsibility as city manager is to protect the potable drinking water for Long Beach."
Laffey said he has been huddling with the city's corporation counsel and the engineering department, formulating a strategy for this legal fight, and has appointed Steve Kohut, an advisor and the city's top public relations officer, to coordinate the effort.
To that end, the city has drafted a letter, a copy of which was sent to the Herald this week, outlining the city's position. An excerpt:
"While arguments will be made that the proposed pumpage in question is inconsequential and of no direct hydro-geologic impact to the well system of Long Beach, the ramifications are far reaching. The NY State's moratorium prohibiting the use of the Lloyd was enacted to preserve this sole source of water for small communities like Long Beach that have no control of development beyond its borders. As such the City must take the role as watchdog to insure that regulatory agencies protect our interests by insuring strict and unbending compliance to this edict.
"There is no assurance that the current nitrate levels within the Magothy aquifer in Northport will remain static, in fact, if contaminant levels increase, the need for added Lloyd dilution water will become the next hardship issue, and in all reality permission will be granted. Though costly, Northport has viable options, Long Beach does not."
Suffolk's application is hardly the first incident of Lloyd coveting. New York City has tried to push a law through the Assembly designating the Lloyd as an emergency water supply for the five boroughs should terrorists succeed in poisoning its upstate reservoirs. Assemblyman Harvey Weisenberg, the Democrat whose district includes Long Beach, said he has been fighting that bill since its birth.
"I spent hours with geologists explaining this to [New York's] engineers and their people, and said, 'These are the facts,'" Weisenberg said. "And they said, 'We really don't care - this is what we want to do.'"
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