When the Suffolk County Water Authority holds public hearings in the coming week on the proposed North Fork Pipeline, a few things will be different than they were during last year’s rounds of public meetings.
Pictured Above: Suffolk County Water Authority CEO Jeff Szabo at the Aug. 6 forum at the Greenport Firehouse.
First and foremost, the route has changed — the pipeline is now slated to travel down the Main Road from Route 105 to the Southold Town border in Laurel, instead of down Sound Avenue. It’s a route change that will shorten the pipeline distance by about a mile, and will also shorten the construction time by two years.
The Water Authority announced in late July that, with those changes, it now anticipates competing the project by 2028 instead of 2030, at a cost of about $25 million — down from $35 million initially projected.
By avoiding Sound Avenue, a Riverhead Town road, Water Authority officials hope to address some of the major objections to the route brought by Riverhead Town, which asserted that it needed to issue road opening permits in order for the work to be done there. The Water Authority has since sued Riverhead over the town’s determination that it had a right to local zoning control over major public infrastructure projects.
Southold had considered holding its own hearings, using a process known as a Monroe Balancing Test, to determine whether it can retain local control over the pipeline, but that effort stalled after the litigation in Riverhead, which is still pending.
More than a year after the Water Authority first announced it was preparing a Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) and solicited public comment at scoping sessions, it says the need for a pipeline has only grown, despite Southold Town’s new irrigation code, passed in the midst of concern over potential increased real estate development due to the pipeline last summer.
Upcoming Hearings
Water Authority officials laid out their case at a special meeting of the Greenport Village Board on Aug. 6, ahead of three formal public hearings on the DEIS over the course of the next week.
The first hearing will be held on Wednesday, Aug. 19 at 6 p.m. at SCWA’s facility at 624 Old Riverhead Road in Westhampton Beach. The second is scheduled for Thursday, Aug. 20 at 5 p.m. at the Southold Town Recreation Center at 970 Peconic Lane in Peconic. A final meeting will take place at 4:30 p.m. on Wednesday, Aug. 26 at the Riverhead Public Library at 330 Court Street.
“Peak demand continues to stress the aquifer, and our ability to drill additional wells is limited,” Water Authority CEO Jeff Szabo told attendees at the Aug. 6 meeting. “We’ve noticed an increase in overall consumption. During Covid, we saw a winter-spring jump in use in Southold, and then it stayed at a higher level and I don’t think it’s decreased since then. The pipeline we’re bringing to the town line is to meet current demand, and make sure there’s water available during emergencies.”
Public water on the North Fork is currently drawn out of 60 Suffolk County Water Authority wells in 18 well fields pumping from the Upper Glacial Aquifer. Wells pumping from this shallow aquifer pale in comparison to SCWA well fields in the middle of Long Island, which can pump a much greater volume of water from the deeper Magothy Aquifer.
Pumping from the deeper aquifer isn’t an option on the North Fork, and the Water Authority says overpumping from its wells here is causing chloride levels to rise, as salt water is pumped into the system from below the freshwater lens of the aquifer.
“These wells need a rest,” said SCWA Deputy Chief Executive Officer for Operations Joe Pokorny at the Greenport forum. “They usually get a rest in wintertime, but year after year, they never recover completely, and the overall trend is in an upward direction.”
Mr. Pokorney said he anticipates that if the pipeline is built, those wells will be able to recover and remain useable, and could be used to meet peak demand in the future.
Are Irrigation Restrictions Working?
Currently, the Water Authority says about 70 percent of water used at peak times is for outdoor uses such as irrigation, and Mr. Szabo says his staff hasn’t seen a decrease since Southold’s irrigation law went into effect. That law currently requires smart controllers on new automatic irrigation systems and mandates odd-even watering schedules for automatic systems, but a mandate for smart controllers on existing automatic irrigation systems doesn’t go into effect until 2028.
“The reality is that even with conservation, it’s not going to be enough to meet demand in Southold,” said Mr. Szabo.
In recent years, Mr. Szabo said, the first thing he does on summer mornings is ask the Water Authority’s production team how low the water level is in storage tanks in Southold Town.
“The tank levels deplete overnight, and as the level drops, the pressure in the system decreases. It takes all day to refill,” said Mr. Pokorny. “In a properly sized water system, the tank level will dip a little.”
The Water Authority issued a “Stage One Water Alert” for four of the five East End towns earlier this summer, during a heat wave that led to heavy irrigation use. During the water alert, the Water Authority emailed its customers asking them to refrain from watering their lawns entirely.
But the Water Authority is not a law-making entity, and it can’t mandate that people refrain from watering, or adhere to odd-even watering schedules, said Mr. Szabo. That task, he said, would fall on local or county government.
Southold Town Supervisor Al Krupski, a former county legislator, had introduced a bill mandating odd-even watering schedules in the legislature, with no success.
“We can’t force [local governments] to adopt a bill, but we can, through our conservation efforts and education, show the need for it,” said Mr. Szabo, adding that the Water Authority’s attorney, John Milazzo, had shopped a draft irrigation code around to local governments, but found no takers. “We’ve tried to lead by example. A resolution my board adopted [on conservation] said a lot, but it had minimal impact because of enforcement. We knew it was largely symbolic, but thought it was important to take a stand.”
The Water Authority does issue rebates for water-saving devices, including smart irrigation controllers and low-flow fixtures.
The Proposed Work
Water Authority officials said the current plan for construction of the pipeline is to trench about 300 feet a day, mostly at night along county and state roads. No new customers would be hooked up along the route, as this pipeline is expected to act as a transmission line bringing water directly to existing infrastructure near Franklinville Road in Laurel. Horizontal directional drilling would be done under the Peconic River and under major intersections, but “most other areas would be open cut,” said Mr. Pokorny.
The water, they said, would be coming from an area known as the “South Shore Low Zone,” collected from existing wellf ields under the pine barrens in Westhampton and Northampton, tied into Water Authority infrastructure on Whitebrook Drive in Flanders. A booster station would be built on property already owned by the Water Authority on the Main Road near Route 105.
A second phase of the route, from East Marion to Orient, is included in the DEIS, but in Greenport Aug. 6 Mr. Szabo reiterated his statements last year that there “is no plan to bring water to Orient. The people of Orient need to reach out to us.”
Growth-Inducing Impacts?
Orient residents had turned down a grant-funded SCWA water main nearly two decades ago, fearing it would lead to increased development.
While many environmentalists in Southold were concerned last summer about the “growth-inducing impacts,” or the potential for future land development, with access to public water, the Water Authority has long maintained that local governments, through their zoning, are in the best position to control overdevelopment.
Southold Town has been in the midst of a zoning update for five years now, but has not yet adopted major zoning changes.
The DEIS also deflects responsibility for development density to local government.
“The ultimate buildout and development density of any town is under the control of the respective town board, planning board, zoning board and health department,” according to the DEIS prepared by Nelson, Pope & Voorhis. “Such development decisions are typically based on a duly vetted, environmentally reviewed and adopted town zoning map…. The authority and responsibility for ensuring that development is controlled by established town goals and laws is the primary responsibility of the town’s decision makers, and the granting of variances, permits and approvals, not the delivery of needed potable drinking water by SCWA.”
Greenport Mayor: “Clean Water Should Be A Human Right”
“It’s important for the public to know it’s our job, as legislators, to manage zoning and deal with all these enforcement issues,” said Greenport Village Mayor Kevin Stuessi at the Aug. 6 forum. “There’s certainly more the village can do with the town to better manage these things…. It’s a critical issue, and it’s more important by the day.”
Mr. Stuessi added that a U.S. Geological Survey study of the water table in the village, the results of which have not yet been made public, has shown “significant saltwater intrusion” below the village, which is corroding underground pipes and inundating basements.
“It affects everything, from the sewer pipes being compromised to folks’ basements to the wells in the village, which have begun to fail due to saltwater intrusion,” he said.
The village, he said, had 13 wells that it sold to the Water Authority, eight of which are still functioning. The village’s water district buys water wholesale from the Suffolk County Water Authority to serve its customers.
Mr. Stuessi rescheduled the Village Board’s Aug. 20 work session, usually at 6 p.m., to instead be held 3 p.m. in order to ensure village officials and residents can attend the Water Authority’s Southold hearing, which will be held at 5 p.m. Aug. 20 at the Southold Town Recreation Center on Peconic Lane.
“Clean water should be a human right in my opinion, and it is up to elected leaders like myself along with our village and town boards to properly manage growth through zoning and water conservation laws,” said Mr. Stuessi in an Aug. 17 email to village residents. “That is our job as elected representatives of the region and the Water Authority’s job to ensure the delivery of clean water and act as advisor on needed local conservation efforts. The Water Authority has no responsibility or impact over zoning and development, which is under local town and village control due to New York State home rule law.”
Greenport has also been exploring allowing increased downtown development for affordable housing, which would require additional water.
At the Greenport forum, Mr. Krupski, the Southold Town Supervisor, thanked the Water Authority for supporting the town’s irrigation code, and urged the public to continue conserving water.
“I know the Water Authority was trying to hand out smart controllers pre-Covid, but there were not a lot of takers at that time,” he said. “But people are getting the idea that water is a public resource.”
The Water Authority’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement is available online here, along with other documents related to the pipeline.
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