Getting serious about a green Valley Stream

Many have slowly come to terms with the need to curb the onset of climate change in our communities. Nowhere is the need most acutely felt than in Long Island’s coastal towns, which are subjected to the ongoing erosion of their fisheries, beaches and bays from stormwater pollution — something many scientists say is on the rise because of climate change, thanks to more frequent and more intense storms, creating more flooding.

Stormwater is everyone’s problem. And it’s a persistently vexing one in Valley Stream, due to the village’s low-lying geography, which makes it easier for polluted water to accumulate as it makes its way through our suburban surroundings.

We’ve kept sewer and stormwater contamination at bay thanks to the dedicated efforts of village officials making local wastewater management a top priority. They have doubled down on these efforts with the creation of a village environmental protection department. And they should be applauded for it.

Yet there is so much that remains out of the village’s — or any municipality’s, for that matter — control when it comes to reversing the distressing reality of our diminishing water quality.

This is by no means a criticism of local government. Quite the opposite: It’s precisely due to our village’s watchful efforts that our streams and freshwater ponds have been spared the worst excesses of contamination, and have been saved time and again from invasive vegetation threatening to wreak havoc on the fragile marine life that lives there.

In 2010, when a cankerous freshwater plant, parrot feather, was sapping the oxygen of Mill Pond, village officials thoughtfully relocated native wildlife while the cleaning work was done. 

Despite local intervention, experts note that our waterways remain a far cry from meeting optimal water quality standards. The Long Island Marine Monitoring Network recently concluded that the quality of the Island’s waterways had hit an all-time low, based on samples collected from about 30 coastal sites.

Ridding the village’s waterways not only of big debris and invasive species, but also of peskier contaminants, like chemical residue from fertilizers and pesticides, is a big job. It’s also immensely expensive and extremely time-consuming.

And even if, hypothetically, the village was given millions of dollars in federal grant funding to throw at the problem, we’d likely find ourselves on the losing end of a Sisyphean game — scrubbing away the stubborn debris from our waterways only to watch our work be undone by new runoff from future rainstorms and harder-to-manage weather events.

Instead, observers suggest that we tackle the problem at the root by upgrading the outdated infrastructure of storm drainage systems that feed dirty stormwater into our municipal waterways in the first place. That kind of job requires enormous development, planning, and iron-clad political willpower.

Widescale problems need widescale solutions — and the help of other communities and governmental forces. The future of clean water in Valley Stream is inextricably tied to the clean water of its neighbors across Nassau County, who will need to co-sign on massive investments to replace septic systems and cesspools, and upgrade drainage systems and wastewater treatment plants.

That doesn’t mean the village doesn’t have its housekeeping responsibilities. We need a larger hometown emphasis on sustainable landscaping practices, like using bioswales and rain gardens — plants designed to catch the stormwater runoff and shoulder some of the burdens of our existing wastewater system. We need greater awareness of the dangers of using excess amounts of nitrogen-based fertilizers and pesticides. We need neighborhoods to crack down on illegal dumping and negligent behavior.

Many of these ambitious goals have been slowed to an unworkable pace because they often fail to incorporate the guidance and feedback of residents. For this to work, local input needs to play a leading role in these decisions. We’ll also need vigorous cooperation and coordination at every level.

A department dedicated to the environment speaks to the urgency of concerted, collective action, David Sabatino, a member of the village’s economic and development team, noted, “to show we’re serious about environmental protection.”

Sabatino is right. When it comes to the fate of our environment, we all need to get serious.

Have an opinion on this editorial? Send an email to jlasso@liherald.com.