Southold Plans Its Own Monroe Balancing Test
The Suffolk County Water Authority has deemed itself exempt from local review of its proposed North Fork Pipeline, as Southold Town officials announced Tuesday that the town plans to hold its own “Monroe Balancing Test” on whether the easternmost portion of the project should be subject to local review.
Pictured Above: Southold Councilman Greg Doroski, Town Clerk Denis Noncarrow, Town Attorney Paul DeChance and Councilman Brian Mealy at the Town Board’s Dec. 2 work session.
A Monroe Balancing Test is a nine-point test to determine whether a large project should be exempt from review by local land use boards.
Riverhead Town has already conducted its own Monroe Balancing Test on Phase 1 of the project, an 8.5-mile stretch of pipeline under roads that are primarily in Riverhead Town, and found in October that the project was not exempt from local review, setting the town in direct conflict with the Water Authority’s position.
In the midst of that process, the Water Authority conducted hearings for its own Monroe Balancing Test in early October, over Riverhead Town’s objection that state law requires the test to be held by the “host municipality” in which the work was being done.
The Water Authority found in favor of itself in its own Monroe Balancing Test on Nov. 20, issuing a resolution that “SCWA is immune from zoning and land use regulations, including, but not limited to the towns of Southampton, Riverhead and Southold in connection with the project,” according to a resolution posted on its North Fork Pipeline webpage.
“The Suffolk County Water Authority has adopted a Monroe determination confirming that the North Fork Water Main Project is not subject to local zoning,” according to a statement provided to The Beacon by the Water Authority on Dec. 3. “Public authorities are specifically designed to carry out critical infrastructure work efficiently and without municipal obstruction and imposing local zoning requirements can delay a project that directly affects public health and water reliability. SCWA, in performing its essential governmental function, has clear statutory authority to construct and operate water supply facilities, and longstanding case law supports this position. We are moving forward to ensure the delivery of reliable, high quality drinking water to our customers on the North Fork.”
The project has proved highly controversial throughout the North Fork, with Riverhead saying the work will be done primarily in Riverhead Town without providing any benefit to Riverhead residents, who have their own water district. Many Southold residents have raised concerns about the potential for more development if public water is more readily available, and questioned why the pipeline was necessary when the Water Authority has said 70 percent of its summer use is due to lawn irrigation. And Orient has been struggling in recent years with a plume of PFAS groundwater contamination surrounding Village Lane, which could one day be served by the Orient extension, if it is built, and with saltwater intrusion into its private wells. The Orient community had defeated a federal grant-funded Water Authority pipeline about 15 years ago, before the contamination was discovered, in fear that public water would lead to increased development there.
The Water Authority also released the final scoping document in preparation for its state-mandated Environmental Impact Statement analysis of the project on Nov. 18, a 67-page document that it says was “guided by verbal and written comments received from the involved and interested agencies, local organizations and the general public during initial agency coordination and outreach,” including three public scoping sessions held in June of 2025.
In 2024, the Water Authority had deemed itself lead agency overseeing the environmental review of the project, over the objections of Riverhead and Southold Towns, which had both requested lead agency status. The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation settled the matter in favor of the Water Authority in late 2024, issuing a determination that the Water Authority would be the appropriate agency to conduct the review.
Southold Takes Up The Fight
Southold Town Councilman Greg Doroski announced Southold Town’s plan to hold the Monroe hearing at the Town Board’s Dec. 2 work session.
“We did send the Suffolk County Water Authority notice that were going to hold our own Monroe Balancing Test, specifically on Phase 2” of the North Fork Pipeline, said Mr. Doroski. Phase 2, which Water Authority officials say may never happen, is an additional 3.8 mile pipeline from East Marion to Orient.
The Water Authority maintains Phase 2 was included in its Environmental Impact Statement planning to avoid what’s known as “segmentation,” when developers of large projects propose them in small pieces to circumvent full environmental review.
Mr. Doroski said Southold Town Attorney Paul Dechance had sent the Water Authority notice of the town’s intent to hold the hearing, “but we have not received correspondence yet.”
He urged other board members to set a date for the public hearing relatively soon, and suggested the town ask the North Fork Civics coalition to hold an informational session on how to address Monroe-specific issues at a public hearing, similar to a forum the Civics held this spring on how to provide input at the scoping sessions on the environmental review.
“It’s as much us presenting our case as it is the public,” he said of the hearing, adding that the town may also have expert witnesses it wants to testify.
A Water Authority spokesperson declined Dec. 3 to comment on Southold’s plan to conduct its own Monroe proceedings.
Mr. Doroski said the hearing could be held as late as January, when he will have already assumed his role as a newly elected Suffolk County Legislator. He said he would attend the hearings, as he had attended the Water Authority and Riverhead’s hearings, to advocate for the needs of Southold Town.
Mr. Doroski had said in August that, if the pipeline traverses Southold Town Trustee jurisdiction in Southold Town (as it would during the Phase 2 Orient extension), “they sure as hell have to get a wetland permit, but they don’t want to acknowledge this.”
“The Suffolk County Water Authority has this view of manifest destiny, where they are just taking over,” he said at the time. “They do have a ton of authority, but they also need to engage with the interested parties and the affected parties. Right now it’s pretty clear that they’re not.”
What Is Monroe?
The Monroe Balancing Test is named for a court case in which Monroe County, in upstate New York, wanted to expand its Greater Rochester International Airport, which was within the City of Rochester’s boundaries. The city sued, claiming the project was subject to city zoning laws, but the county prevailed in its view that, as a government function, its expansion of the airport was immune from local zoning. The framework established by that case involves the weighing of nine factors that determine which agency has greater authority in intergovernmental land use disputes in New York State.
The nine points include the nature and scope of the project, the encroaching agency’s grant of authority, the kind of land use involved, the effect of local land use regulation on the project, alternative locations, the impact on local interests, alternative methods of providing the proposed improvement, the extent of the public interest to be served by the improvement and intergovernmental participation in the project development process.
Few people spoke at the Monroe Balancing Test hearings held by the Water Authority in October, and many who attended told The Beacon they were overwhelmed by the jargon from the Water Authority’s lawyers, who made their case for why their agency should be exempt from local review.
In Riverhead’s Monroe decision, the town resolved that the project would be massive in scope and have significant impact on property owned by Riverhead Town, that construction on Sound Avenue would have a significant impact on traffic, that the Town Board is aware of alternative options and that “there is no discernible benefit to Riverhead Town residents and property owners.”
With regard to the environmental review, Suffolk County Water Authority Attorney John Milazzo had said at the Water Authority’s Monroe Balancing Test hearings in October that the final scoping document had been expected to be released by the end of October and a Draft Environmental Impact Statement(DEIS) was expected to be ready by the end of the year.
A Water Authority spokesperson said Dec. 3 that the DEIS is now expected to be complete by “mid to late January, 2026,” after which the Water Authority will hold public hearings and then make a final determination on the project’s environmental impact. The agency has not provided a public comment period on the final scoping document.
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