County Legislature Approves
LI Sound Sewage Plants Upgrade;
With a Price Tag of $235 M,
Can We Ask the Fed for a Bailout?

– By Bill Lawyer –

Most of us who live along Long Island Sound appreciate the value that it adds to our lives. And we’re willing to pay more for that value. But recently enacted county water quality legislation is going to put our appreciation to the test.

Unless Rye’s county and state elected officials can get a federal “bailout”, the City’s property owners will be paying an average of $350 more per year in sewer taxes by 2014. Why? To upgrade sewage treatment plants so that they meet federal standards. In contrast, the average county taxpayer will only be paying $35 per year more in 2009.

Sewer taxes are part of the overall County tax, and they vary in amount by district. Four Westchester districts feed into Long Island Sound – Port Chester, Blind Brook, Mamaroneck Valley, and New Rochelle. The total cost is projected to be $235 million.

No one denies that something needs to be done about the water quality of Long Island Sound. Due to nutrients (primarily from human fecal matter) in the treated waste water and non-point run-off, aquatic plants are blooming in the spring and summer, then dying and causing hypoxia – a drastic reduction in the levels of oxygen. These levels are particularly severe in the western part of the Sound, due to the tidal action, which is slow to flush out the run-off.

Hypoxia causes massive die-offs of fish and other forms of aquatic life. It disrupts the natural marine ecosystem, and it is costly to commercial fishing, aquatic recreational activities, and even sunbathing on the Sound’s public and private beaches.

“A clean Long Island Sound is not just an environmental issue,” said Rye’s County Legislator Judy Myers, in support of the legislation. “Long Island Sound is an economic engine that contributes some $6 billion a year to the economy.” The measure was passed December 9 by a vote of 15 to 1; only New Rochelle legislator James Maisano voted no.

In 1998, the Long Island Sound Study adopted a 58.5% reduction target for nitrogen loads from human sources to the Sound by 2014, with interim five- and ten-year targets to assure steady progress.

In 2001, the EPA approved Connecticut’s and New York’s plan, called a Total Maximum Daily Load (TMDL), for achieving a 61.5% nitrogen reduction from point and non-point sources of pollution. The TMDL is targeted to be reduced from 4,552 pounds to 1,768 pounds per day. Since there’s no way to accurately measure reductions in non-point pollution, the wastewater treatment plants (WWTPs) are being required to carry out the entire 61.5%.

In terms of outflow from the WWTP’s, this would mean that for every liter of effluent, there could be a maximum of 4 milligrams of nitrogen.

As of 2005, upgrades to sewage treatment plants have decreased nitrogen discharges to the Sound by 20% from peak years in the early 1990s. The severity of hypoxia has decreased, but the goal is still far from being achieved.

Between 2001 and 2004, engineering studies of the four WWTPs were made to determine how they could be upgraded to achieve the goals, and what it would cost. The answers were startling, to say the least.

The New York Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) scientists said it was going to take major upgrade of Westchester’s four plants, and it could cost as much as $573 million. Rye’s Blind Brook plant would cost $84 million to upgrade. That comes out to $5,600 per Rye resident.

Even worse, the DEC informed Westchester that no state or federal funds were available to support this project.

While no one in local or county government was against the cleanup, everyone demanded that something be done to mitigate the shock to the Sound Shore tax rates. County officials worked diligently with the DEC and came up with the compromise enacted last month. The final agreement has not made anyone particularly happy, but at least the cost was reduced by over 59%.

The $235 million projected cost was achieved by focusing all the improvements in the two larger plants – New Rochelle and Mamaroneck, with $181 million set to be spent at the former and $54 million at the latter. Because of available space, the New Rochelle facility will construct additional biofilters that can result in better reduction – down to 2.5 mg/l. The Mamaroneck plant would receive a more compact system called Integrated Film Activated Sludge (IFAS), which adds additional nitrogen-removing media to the plant’s conventional activated sludge system.

But there may be light at the end of the sewer pipe…. The New York State Audubon Chapter has already submitted a “green group” proposal to the President-elect’s transition team for support. The request includes $37 million toward Westchester’s Long Island Sound WWTP upgrades.

In the proposal, Audubon spokesman Sean Mahar stated that the projects are in the national interest: “Long Island Sound is a globally significant ecosystem providing critical habitat for an extraordinary array of birds, fish and other wildlife, and contributing more than $6 billion to the Northeast regional economy annually. The quality of its waters and marine environments impact more Americans than any other estuary in the United States, as more than 28 million people (a full 10% of the US population) live within 50 miles of its shores.”

Audubon and a coalition of other environmental groups have pledged to continue the quest for federal funding. These include Citizens Campaign for the Environment, the Federated Conservationists of Westchester, and Save The Sound. They encourage all Rye and other Sound Shore residents to join them. Both Legislator Myers and NY State Assemblyman George Latimer have pledged their help as well.