News: Revised story

County plans to redirect groundwater from Bay Park

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A project to temporarily redirect groundwater is underway at Bay Park and is under review by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.

As part of the ongoing Bay Park construction, a berm is being built and the field will be raised by 3 feet to install advanced wastewater management to reduce pollutants released during the storm, according to the County.

The process calls for excavation at the park and the ground water level is very high and excavation would reach the groundwater. This project will reroute the water deeper underground and eventually into the Mill River. It is a temporary project that will only be in place until construction at the plant is completed.

The plant, which now sends roughly 650,000 gallons of water into the river each day, would temporarily discharge approximately 3.45 million gallons during the project — roughly 5.3 times the amount that is discharged now — through an existing storm drain. Some of the water that now flows into Reynolds Channel would be released into the river instead, but the channel would still receive the vast majority of the 55 million gallons that the plant discharges daily.

The project would also protect the plant against future flooding, according to county spokeswoman Mary Studdert. The volume of treated water will not change, but instead be routed further underground, lowering the water table and making the plant less susceptible to flooding. With the outflow directed farther underground, the water table would be lower, and thus less susceptible to flooding. Studdert said this change would help keep the plant from being taken offline in the event of another storm on the order of Hurricane Sandy.

“In the wake of Hurricane Sandy, we wanted to prevent floods from happening again,” she said. “The project is a flood-mitigation project to prevent potential storm-surge damage to the plant’s electrical distribution system.”

The potential effects of the proposed changes on the plant’s immediate environment are unknown. The project is currently under review by DEC geologists, according to Matthew Penski, a spokesman for the department.

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