Sewage is their specialty

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Trisha Kearney, financial secretary of the Bay Park Civic Association, said that since the county is not actually selling the Bay Park plant, hiring a company to run it is “the only alternative,” since the county, she said, has admitted to its incompetence in running the plant. (In 2012, The Herald reported that several South Shore civic and elected leaders decried a proposal by Mangano to sell or lease the sewage treatment plants to a private company for roughly $1 billion.)

“We would be opposed to a transfer of ownership,” Kearney said. “But [United Water] has a lot of experience with water management and wastewater management — and they do bear considerable expertise.”

Camus said that United Water would make it a priority to keep current county employees who know the facilities, and that the company would guarantee a minimum of $10 million in annual savings for Nassau taxpayers. County employees, he said, would work with United Water to help improve the efficiency of the wastewater and sewage systems.

Adrienne Esposito, executive director of the Citizens Campaign for the Environment, said that her organization fully supports the county’s hiring of United Water. “We believe this is an essential component for cleaner bays, estuaries and our ocean,” she said. “It has become exceedingly clear the [sewage plants] must be operated by a management and engineering firm possessing a proven history of successfully operating and implementing advanced wastewater technology.”

Esposito added that the arrangement should create a unique opportunity to employ modern treatment technologies that will improve the quality of effluent the treatment plants release and reduce plant noise and odor in nearby communities.

“An experienced contractor brings global resources, technology and knowledge that cannot be found in the county,” she said. “We believe a professional contractor, with community and county oversight, is the best safeguard for protecting public health, our groundwater and our waterways.”
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