This afternoon at 5 p.m. is the deadline to submit comments on the Suffolk County Water Authority’s proposed North Fork Pipeline, designed to bring water from a site atop the groundwater divide near Route 51 in Northhampton to the Southold Town line.
A second segment of the proposed project would bring water from East Marion to downtown Orient.
Pictured Above: Water Authority representatives (l-r) Jeff Szabo, Brendan Warner, Joe Pokorny and John Milazzo at a mid-June scoping session in Peconic.
An online form to comment on the plan is available at the bottom of the Water Authority’s webpage for the project at www.scwa.com/nfp. Written comments will be accepted through the form or by contacting Joseph M. Pokorny, PE, Deputy CEO for Operations by emailing joseph.pokorny@scwa.com.
The Water Authority is in the early stages of preparing a Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) of the project, required under the New York State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) of projects that could have a significant environmental impact.
In this “scoping phase” of the DEIS process, the water company is required under SEQRA law to seek public feedback on which potential environmental impacts to study. Environmentalists have been urging the public to issue their comments in the forms of directives, e.g., “please study the impacts” of specific aspects of the project.
At three public scoping sessions in June, questions from residents focused how much water is coming, where it is coming from, what it could mean for development on the North Fork and when a second phase of the project will provide safe drinking water for Orient.
The comment deadline had initially been in late June but was extended after several members of the public asked for more time to digest the implications of the project.
The western phase of the pipeline, the North Fork Pipeline, which the Water Authority has been advocating for for years, would hook into an interconnection site on Flanders Road, and then travel 8.5 miles up Route 105, under the Peconic River, Main Road and Hubbard Avenue, to Northville Turnpike and then to Sound Avenue, where it will continue east to the Southold Town line, with a pumping station to be installed at Pier Avenue in Jamesport.
The Water Authority says this section is necessary to meet peak summer demand, driven primarily by irrigation, and to provide relief for its existing wells on the North Fork. Of 60 North Fork wells, 12 are suffering from high chloride levels due to saltwater intrusion, and would be shut down if the pipeline is built, Water Authority representatives said at a June 12 scoping session at the Peconic Recreation Center.
The second phase, a 3.8 mile section from East Marion to Orient, which Water Authority CEO Jeff Szabo told the Peconic crowd “may never happen,” does not yet have a funding source, while the Water Authority says it has budgeted for the $35 million western portion, which it would like to complete by 2030.
Many governments and environmental groups have already submitted their comments to the Water Authority, including the Group for the East End, the North Fork Environmental Council and Southold and Riverhead towns. The public at large is also invited to comment.
Both Southold and Riverhead towns had asked to be the “lead agency” coordinating the SEQRA review of the project, but the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation granted the Water Authority lead agency status to do the environmental review of its own project.
Public utility companies, whose networks often extend across multiple municipal jurisdictions, are among the few agencies that are given permission to do SEQRA review of their own projects.
Both Riverhead Town and the Group for the East End, in their comments, asked the Water Authority to submit to a “Monroe Balancing Test,” a test done to resolve intergovernmental land use disputes, because “the applicant in this case, which is also the lead agency, believes it may be exempt from land use regulations,” Riverhead environmental consultant Jeffrey Seaman told the Water Authority at a June 10 scoping session at the Riverhead Free Library.
“We do not believe the local approvals involved in this action are so extraordinary that the SCWA should seek to grant itself immunity from any zoning and land use regulations in the proposed action’s host communities,(which a Monroe Analysis could provide),” said the Group for the East End in its written comments.
In ten pages of detailed comments, The Group also asked the Water Authority to review numerous local planning documents, including a water study completed this summer by the Orient Association and the Peconic Estuary Program’s Comprehensive Conservation Management Plan and Southold Town’s Comprehensive Plan, both completed in 2020, and to provide extensive details of the construction process, focusing on directional drilling at three locations along Route 105, including under the Peconic River, and on the potential for the project to lead to more development on the North Fork, known as “growth inducement.”
“Growth inducement associated with the development and installation of infrastructure is well established, and it is reasonable to consider for a project of this size, even if the primary issue is water availability into an existing townwide service area,” according to The Group’s comments.
SEQRA requires that Environmental Impact Statements include potential alternatives to the proposed action, and The Group urged that alternatives, including the alternative of not building the pipeline, “not be given short shrift” in the review.
“While not exhaustive, I think we hit a number of the main points and offer some recommendations for mitigation, cooperation with the towns and other involved agencies,” said Group for the East End President Bob DeLuca in an email to stakeholders accompanying its comments.
Southold and Conservation
Southold Town Supervisor Al Krupski told the town’s Water Committee at its meeting Thursday afternoon, July 10, that the town has submitted its comments on the pipeline, focusing on the source of the water, in Southampton Town. He questioned whether those wells would be “supplying all of the South Fork at some point as well…. Are they going to serve eastern Brookhaven with the same well field?”
Among the town’s requests are for the DEIS to address how many new customers the project could serve under Southold’s current zoning, and how future development “in Southampton, Riverhead and points west impact the long-term viability of the project and its ability to continue to serve Southold customers,” as well as how peak water use impacted the size of the proposed pipeline. The town also asked whether the Orient section of the pipe “shouldn’t be a separate action under SEQRA,” as Orient is currently undergoing two studies of its groundwater, one privately commissioned and one in collaboration with the U.S. Geological Survey.
Mr. Krupski also said he is skeptical of the timing of a notice the Water Authority sent to Southold Town earlier this week stating that a Stage 1 Water Alert may soon be issued for the town, which would limit non-essential water use, including lawn irrigation, just ahead of the comment deadline.
At the Water Committee meeting, Mattituck High School Juniors Ryan Harned and Zoe King presented a detailed report on the North Fork’s water issues, prepared after a year of working with North Fork Environmental Council Southold Land Use Coordinator Anne Murray.
“Long Island’s identity is shaped by water,” said Ms. King. “Protecting water means protecting our way of life — fishing, farming and recreation, protecting this place we love for ourselves and future generations.”
Their report highlighted the potential benefits of the pipeline in alleviating some of the North Fork’s water issues, and urged residents to learn more about water conservation, both inside and outside their homes, and to look into installing new nitrogen-reducing septic systems to prevent nitrogen from reaching the bays and causing harmful algae blooms.
“Let’s all work as one town, not a group of individuals, to conserve our water the best we can,” said Mr. Harned. He urged the town to use social media to get the word out about conservation.
“Tick Tok is not just about someone doing a dance,” he said. “Just spreading that little bit of information out there, as someone is scrolling through, can really enlighten people as to what’s going on in their own community. It can really inform people and make them want to contribute to saving our water.”
Water Everywhere, But Can You Drink It?
The North Fork Environmental Council, which has also submitted comments, held an informational meeting discussing “Can We Conserve Our Way Out Of Our Water Issues?” at Peconic Landing on Wednesday, July 9.
At the NFEC presentation, geologist Ken Ettlinger and architect Glynis Berry, who has been studying the North Fork’s drinking water through her non-profit, Peconic Green Growth, gave an overview of the fragility of the North Fork’s drinking water supply, which is drawn primarily from the Upper Glacial Aquifer, the shallowest of Long Island’s three underground aquifers. Don Price, a member of Peconic Landing’s Environmental and Social Governance Committee, gave an overview of what Peconic Landing is doing to conserve water.
Both Mr. Ettlinger and Ms. Berry focused on the issue of saltwater intrusion into wells on the North Fork, which often occurs when pumping high volumes of water, in a process known as “vertical upconing.” The lens of fresh water in the aquifer lies atop a layer of heavier salt water, and that lens becomes more shallow closer to the coasts, where salt water can contaminate drinking water wells laterally as well.
Mr. Ettlinger said the North Fork is reliant on the Upper Glacial Aquifer because “really, that’s all we have.” As Long Island’s land mass increases in size to the west, the two deeper aquifers become larger.
He added that, further west on Long Island, wells tap into the deeper Magothy Aquifer because the Upper Glacial Aquifer there has become severely contaminated due to Long Island’s past industrial practices.
The saltwater interface, the line of demarkation between fresh and salt water in the aquifer “really breaks down the closer you get to Orient,” Ms. Berry told the crowd.
She added that the “peaking factor,” a ratio comparing the maximum daily demand for water to the average demand, was 4.52 in 2008, at which time environmentalists had said “if we can’t reduce it to 3 by 2030, you will lose 40 feet (of depth) in your aquifer.”
“When I did a study in 2016, the data was we were already pumping more than proposed for 2030,” she said. “We haven’t been able to reduce it. If anything it’s larger.”
The Water Authority has estimated that 70 percent of the summer usage of its water supply is for outside uses like irrigation.
“This is huge waste,” said Ms. Berry. “We’re treating that water to drinking water standards, and then using it for something that doesn’t need that level of treatment.”
She urged residents to consider conservation, reminding them that lawns that aren’t irrigated regularly grow deeper, stronger and more resilient root systems to tap into groundwater. She added that updating indoor fixtures could save 20 percent of water use in a house.
“If Suffolk County brings in water, we won’t be thinking about conservation,” she said. “There will be no incentive for conservation.”
“Right after air comes water in the hierarchy of needs,” said North Fork Environmental Council President Mark Haubner. “It’s so cheap — 11 cents for a thousand gallons, and you know what they’re charging at Costco. I’d like to see our water here good for another century. It’s been here for 12,000 years. Let it be here for at least another thousand. Every little thing we do matters.”
Comments on the Water Authority’s North Fork Pipeline are being accepted through 5 p.m. today through an online form at www.scwa.com/nfp or by contacting Joseph M. Pokorny, PE, Deputy CEO for Operations by emailing joseph.pokorny@scwa.com.
The Water Authority’s consultants, Nelson + Pope, will next prepare a final scoping document, after which they plan to complete the Draft Environmental Impact Statement this fall or early winter, followed by another round of public comment sessions, said Mr. Szabo at the Peconic scoping session.
In its written comments, the Group for the East End urged the Water Authority to commit to another round of public comments after it drafts the final scoping document.
“Given the size of this proposal, its incorporation of a planning assessment for a potential water main expansion into the hamlet of Orient (a longstanding community concern), and the clearly demonstrated interest of members of the public and local officials, we suggest the SCWA provide for a limited but reasonable opportunity for a supplemental comment on final scoping document when it is released,” they wrote in their comments.
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