Town sues to stop consolidation

In June, the Nassau County Legislature approved a bill that would close the sewer plants in the villages of Lawrence and Cedarhurst and transfer their waste to the county’s facility in Bay Park. On Oct. 1, the Town of Hempstead board unanimously voted to sue the county as well as Lawrence and Cedarhurst in an attempt to stop the consolidation until state environmental agencies determine how the extra sewage processed by the Bay Park facility will affect Reynolds Channel, where the plant pumps treated effluent.

The plant consolidation would send an extra 2 million gallons of sewage per day to the Bay Park facility. The plant currently processes 60 million gallons per day, and the state Department of Environmental Conservation allows it to process up to 72 million gallons.

East Rockaway resident Connie Petrucci, who has been fighting the consolidation for two years, said she is glad someone is standing up for the residents of East Rockaway and Bay Park. “We are applauding the Town of Hempstead,” Petrucci said. “It’s the only government entity that steps forward to protect its constituents against the possible health hazards for the residents that live near the plant.”

Town Councilman Anthony Santino said that if the town wins the lawsuit, the county would be required to conduct an environmental review before the consolidation is completed. Santino explained that if the review concludes that the extra sewage adversely impacts the Western Bays — which extend from the town’s western boundary to the Suffolk County line — the county will have to upgrade the Bay Park plant before it begins processing more sewage. He noted, however, that the town does not have the power to stop the consolidation.

The environmental review, known as a Total Maximum Daily Load test, determines the amount of pollutants a body of water can handle without exceeding state water quality standards. But Ray Ribeiro, commissioner of the county’s Department of Public Works, said that the test could not be completed until 2013, and if the county had waited until then to consolidate, it would have missed out on the federal stimulus money it has already received for the project.

Adrienne Esposito, executive director of the Citizens Campaign for the Environment, said that the first step toward a healthier Western Bays is consolidation, and the lawsuit is holding up the process. “It sounds like the town is playing politics rather than engaging in a long-term protection plan for the Western Bays, and that’s disturbing,” Esposito said. “... They should be our partners.”

Esposito added that she is confident that the findings of the Total Maximum Daily Load test will show that the Western Bays has levels of nitrogen, bacteria and ammonia that are too high. With consolidation, she said, sewage would be more efficiently treated, which would benefit the Western Bays.

Santino said he thinks the load test should have been done first. “The Legislature put through their proposal to send extra sewage to Bay Park, and they didn’t do any studies or air quality tests,” he said. “That, in my opinion, is bogus. East Rockaway and Bay Park deserve a full environmental review of the proposal to see how it impacts them.”

Legislator Jeff Toback (D-Oceanside), who has been a staunch advocate of the consolidation, said he had not yet seen the court documents and did not know the reason for the lawsuit. He did say that the county followed all the necessary guidelines for the consolidation.

“We believe that we followed the law to a T,” Toback said. “We are confident that we followed all the laws. It required that we do certain studies before we embarked on the project, and I know we followed the law in every respect.”

Town Supervisor Kate Murray said she wanted to make sure that the waterways would not be adversely impacted by the extra sewage, which is why she voted to move forward with the litigation. “We want Nassau to do right by residents around the Bay Park sewage treatment plant,” Murray said. “The county needs to do a thorough environmental review to make sure our bays are safe and clean.”

The consolidation entails the construction of a pumping station in Lawrence that would send sewage to Inwood, and then to the Bay Park facility, Ribeiro explained. Gravity would move the sewage from Cedarhurst to an upgraded pumping station in Inwood, which would move it on to the Bay Park facility. The Bay Park plant processes sewage more efficiently than the other two plants, Ribeiro noted, removing 95 percent of solids, 10 percent more than the local plants.

Upgrading the Lawrence and Cedarhurst facilities would have cost $30 million. Consolidation will cost $18 million. Federal stimulus money will fund up to half of the construction costs, Toback said, with the remainder covered by 30-year bonds worth up to $12 million and $14 million and issued by Cedarhurst and Lawrence, respectively. The project is slated to begin by the end of the year, and to be completed by Jan. 1, 2012.

Stephen J. Bronner contributed to this story. Comments about it? ABottan@

liherald.com or (516) 569-4000 ext. 246.