Water quality hearing comes to a boil

The topic of brown water was on tap at a hearing Monday morning at the Elmont Library, with irate residents packing a meeting room to air what, in many cases, are 30-year grievances.

The issue, which homeowners in Elmont and Franklin Square have long been familiar with, is the occasional brown — or black — tap water flowing from area faucets. State Sen. Craig Johnson (D-Garden City) organized the hearing after getting multiple reports of the reappearance of undrinkable water in many homes.

The issue was raised in March, in a letter written by Joyce Stowe of the Tudor Manor Civic Association. Johnson received conflicting reports about the seriousness of the issue from the Water Authority of Western Nassau County and the Nassau County Department of Health.

Testimony early in the hearing from the heads of three local civic associations painted an ugly picture of the problem. Pat Nicolosi, head of the Elmont East End Civic Association, said he has been fighting brown water in his neighborhood since he moved there in 1977, and that the problem has gotten progressively worse every year. Nicolosi said that even with the use of filters and top-of-the-line water boilers, he still sometimes travels to the home of a family member in the Bronx and bottles water to use later.

Nicolosi was joined by Mimi Pierre-Johnson of the Argo Civic group and Stowe, both of whom said that their water quality varied, but was always somewhere near the troublesome end of the spectrum — and sometimes simply disgusting. Stowe brought with her what became the hearing’s most troubling prop, a container filled with a thick brown liquid that she said came out of her tap.

“This is the water that came out of your tap,” Johnson said, holding the container in his left hand, “and this is the coffee I’m drinking this morning,” he continued, holding up a clear cup with his right. Both liquids were an opaque brown, and residents laughed and applauded at the comparison.