Towns offer $75K in grant money to water authority

With new funds in place, the Water Authority of Southeastern Nassau County will continue to explore a public takeover of Aqua New York. The Towns of Hempstead and Oyster Bay recently contributed a total of $75,000 to the authority, which was in addition to the $15,000 in seed money that the towns originally contributed when the authority was reinstituted in late 2010.

Residents in the authority’s coverage area, including Bellmore and Merrick residents, currently receive water from Aqua New York, a privately held company. The water authority was originally created through state legislation in 1991, with the responsibility of determining whether a public takeover of a private water company made economic sense. The authority, which did not reach a conclusion, had been dormant since 1997 until it was reinstated. Aqua’s service area includes Bellmore, Merrick, Wantagh, Seaford, East Massapequa, Levittown, Massapequa Park and parts of Glen Cove.

The Water Authority was struggling to move forward with its study in previous months, citing lack of money as the main problem. The authority’s secretary, John Reinhardt, said that the board had been able to hire legal counsel with the previous money, but additional funding was required to continue moving forward with investigating the feasibility of a public takeover.

The additional $75,000 will get the ball rolling on evaluation studies. “Hempstead and Oyster Bay townships are committed to determining if savings would be realized with a public takeover,” Councilman Gary Hudes, a Republican from Levittown, said in a release.

With the funding now in place, the authority will put out requests for proposals, or RFPs, for evaluation studies. The authority will then choose the group that it feels would be able to give them the best study; the studies will evaluate the details and financial implications of a public takeover. The money will also go toward various contract negotiations that will become necessary as the authority moves forward, Reinhardt said.