There have been several hiccups along the road since Suffolk County launched a grant program in 2017 to help homeowners install new nitrogen-reducing septic systems, but this summer the county has relaunched the application process through a streamlined online form — with up to $45,000 in funding available to each homeowner.
When the program began in 2017, the county estimated there were about 360,000 outdated septic systems across Suffolk, leaching waste directly into the ground below peoples’ homes and businesses. The nitrogen leaching from these septic systems has been proven to be a major cause of harmful algae blooms in local waterways — some of these algae are toxic, and when the blooms decompose they consume oxygen in the water, leading to fish kills.
The new septic systems, known in the industry as IA/OWTS systems, remove nitrogen from the wastewater. They have been required in new construction since 2021, but to date, county representatives say only 7,000 systems have been installed — 3,000 of them through the grant program.
“Outdated septic systems and cesspools have led to the degradation of our waters and are a serious threat to our region’s groundwater and bays,” said Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine in the August announcement of the new application process. “By making the Suffolk County Septic Improvement Grant Program application process easier, more homeowners will take advantage of this funding and be part of the solution for clean water.”
As Easy as an Amazon Order?
We got a chance to see a test-drive of the new application process from Deputy County Executive Jennifer Juengst at the Stony Brook Center for Clean Water Technology’s Clean Water Symposium this June.
“The big hurdle was people were having a very hard time getting through the application process, and a lot of time from the staff was taken up answering the calls,” said Ms. Juengst at the conference.
“Since March, we’ve been stripping down the program so it’s a simpler online process for the public. You can do it on your phone,” she added. “We want this to work almost like an Amazon order. It’s been reported to me that it takes people about three minutes to get through this application now.”
“Some questions, we now allow people to say ‘I don’t know,'” she said. “A lot of folks calling in to the Department of Health said ‘I have no idea how old my system is. I bought my house 20 years after it was built.'”
“We’re most concerned about the ones built before 1973, because they’re mostly in the category of failures because they were built with block and brick,” she said.
The application does require homeowners to upload their property tax bill, and the county requires them to have a valid certificate of occupancy, which they can provide later, said Ms. Juengst. The application allows homeowners to upload documentation of the failure of their system. The county will respond to homeowners within about a week after receiving the application.
The funding through the county grant program goes directly to the septic system installer, and homeowners must pick an installer from the county’s list of nearly 40 approved installers. The state funding can go either to directly the installer or to the homeowner as a reimbursement.
According to the program regulations, installers would apply for permits for the new systems from the Suffolk County Health Department’s Office of Wastewater Management, and homeowners should work with their own design professionals to determine if the system requires town or village permits or wetland permits from Town Trustees or the DEC. Those costs are reimbursable through the town CPF programs in Southampton, East Hampton and Shelter Island.
The program requires homeowners to continue to carry an annual maintenance contract for the systems, and it pays for the first three years of maintenance. Currently, the Peconic Estuary Partnership is also offering grants to cover annual maintenance (up to $500 per year) beyond the initial three year period.
Many of these systems also include a pump that can add costs to homeowners’ electric bills, though the Center for Clean Water Technology is working on passive systems that don’t require a pump.
An Evolving Program
The initial program, through former County Executive Steve Bellone’s Reclaim Our Water Initiative, gave grants of up to $21,000 through state and county funding. Those grants were briefly counted as income and taxed by the IRS before the county won a decision from the IRS enabling them to be tax free. Costs of these septic systems have also escalated in the ensuing years, and homeowners applying for the program often found it wouldn’t cover their costs.
The towns of Southampton, East Hampton and Shelter Island also offer rebates for nitrogen-reducing septic systems. through their Community Preservation Fund water quality funding.
The relaunch of the program benefits from new funding from New York State’s Septic System Replacement Program and through the County’s eighth-penny sales tax through the Suffolk County Water Quality Restoration Act. The county administers the state funding through its application process.
Ms. Juengst said in June that the sales tax has generated more than $67 million since its inception in 2025. Ten percent is used for administration, while the remainder is split between IA system installations and sewers.
“The program is working and it’s developing the kind of money we need to go forward,” she said. To date, she said, 3,000 new septic systems have been installed through the county’s grant program, and in total there are more than 7,000 IA systems in the county.
The grant funding cannot be used for new construction.
“We still have over 300,000 units” of aging septic systems in the county that need to be replaced, said Ms. Juengst. “We need to ramp up to 5,000 installations a year to make a dent. It sounds like a high number, but it’s achievable.”
In the past, the program, which had limited funding, had prioritized houses near bays and harbors, where the nitrogen leaching from the septic systems would likely reach the surface waters in a short amount of time, guided by the county’s Subwatersheds Wastewater Plan, adopted in 2020.
“The County Executive has asked that there be no ranking whatsoever, other than failure” of a septic system,” said Ms. Juengst. “If you’ve got a failure, you’re definitely going to the top of the pile.”
“If you’re pumping it out one to two times a year or more, you’ve probably got a failure on the way and an IA may be the way to go,” she added.
Ms. Juengst recommended that homeowners install the systems even in areas where sewers may soon be planned, adding that it takes a long time for sewer systems to be planned and built.
“It may be 10 to 20 years, anyway, before you get the sewer, and a lot of areas in Suffolk County are never going to see a sewer,” she said.
All of the lectures from this year’s Clean Water Symposium are available on YouTube.
Learn More In Mattituck
The Mattituck-Laurel Civic Association will host a presentation on the county Septic Improvement Program at its next meeting on Monday, Sept. 28 at 6:30 p.m. at the Mattituck Park District headquarters at Veterans Beach. A representative from the Peconic Estuary Partnership and Morris Cesspool will speak.
— Beth Young
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