Editor’s Note 6/5/25: The final scoping session, on June 12 at 6 p.m. will be held at the Peconic Lane Recreation Center at 970 Peconic Lane in Peconic. This is a change of venue from the original location in Greenport
The Suffolk County Water Authority (SCWA) is holding three public “scoping sessions” in June as it prepares an Environmental Impact Statement for two proposed water main extensions on the North Fork.
Pictured Above: SCWA officials at the 2023 ceremonial groundbreaking for the North Fork Water Main. The project has not officially broken ground yet, and is currently going through environmental review.
The first pipeline is slated to begin in the Flanders/Riverside area and travel to Laurel, and the second pipeline, which would be constructed later as funding became available, would go from East Marion to Orient.
“In order to supply the North Fork the way we should, we probably should have initiated this project years ago,” said Suffolk County Water Authority CEO Jeff Szabo in a mid-May interview with The Beacon. “It’s a very large capital project for us. It’s eight-and-a-half miles of of very large water main, but it addresses a long-standing issue with water availability on the North Fork.”
“Every morning, I get a report from my production control department about overnight pumpage, and every morning, the first place I look is Southold, to see how we held up and if we were able to meet demand, how low our storage tanks are and how much water was depleted, because we just don’t have enough water,” he added.
The Water Authority operates 60 wells in 18 well fields on the North Fork, which supply 9,500 customers.
In its public presentation of the project on its website, the Water Authority highlighted the North Fork’s reliance on the shallow Upper Glacial Aquifer, which is vulnerable to pesticide and chloride contamination, growing concern about PFAS compounds in private drinking wells, and over-pumping, which “risks saltwater entering the freshwater aquifer, limiting expansion.”
Mr. Szabo said the Orient section of pipeline is likely to be constructed much later than the western section, which is mostly in Riverhead Town, but the Water Authority “intentionally included Orient so that we would do the environmental review for the entire North Fork at one time.”
The Water Authority is acting as the lead agency regulating its own environmental review of the pipeline, according to a Nov. 2024 determination by the Commissioner of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.
Mr. Szabo said both Riverhead and Southold towns had requested to be the lead agency for the project, after which it was sent to DEC Interim Commissioner Sean Mahar for a ruling.
Mr. Mahar said in his ruling that the “impacts of the project are both local and regional, and SCWA has the broadest governmental powers for investigating the impacts of the action.”
The Water Authority held a groundbreaking for the western portion of the proposed pipeline in March of 2023 on Peconic Bay Boulevard just east of the Southold/Riverhead line.
The groundbreaking, which the Water Authority later said was simply a ceremonial launch, puzzled Riverhead Town officials, who had not at that time provided road opening permits for the pipeline. Riverhead officials later said they would not grant permits on Peconic Bay Boulevard.
At the time, the Water Authority said the water main would travel down Peconic Bay Boulevard to Hubbard Avenue in Riverhead, where it would be laid under the Peconic River to a connection site at Flanders Road and Whitebrook Drive in Flanders, where the water authority has much deeper wells than on the North Fork.
Brendan Warner, the Director of Construction and Maintenance for the Water Authority, said the wells in Southold are very shallow — between 110 and 450 feet deep — while the ones in Flanders could be 600 or 700 feet, and contain an abundance of water.
The current proposed route of the North Fork Pipeline.
As currently proposed, the 8.5 mile pipeline would now travel from Flanders Road up Route 105 (Cross River Drive) to Northville Turnpike, east along Sound Avenue to a connection point at an existing water main at the Riverhead/Southold town line, with a booster station to be installed on the west side of Pier Avenue in Jamesport.
Mr. Szabo said Sound Avenue is a busier roadway than Peconic Bay Boulevard, but the Water Authority is “fully aware of traffic issues, congestion and the difficulty of doing road work on the East End, and we’re taking all of that into consideration.”
The Sound Avenue route also leads directly to the interconnection point at the town line, he said, adding that it would be far more expensive to install the pipeline in the Main Road.
“Just the cost to work on the Main Road would make it probably significantly more expensive, and the traffic restrictions are significantly more on the Main Road, which sometimes requires a lot more night work,” he said.
While there have been some rumblings in the community that this pipeline could supply proposed developments near Sound Avenue, including a recently nixed plan to allow agritourism resorts along the Long Island Sound in Riverhead, and Northville Industries’ proposed 176 units of workforce housing at the site of its Northville oil tank farm, Mr. Szabo said local zoning is what dictates what can be built there.
“I’m not familiar with any of the projects that you’re talking about,” said Mr. Szabo. “We don’t control local zoning and local development. I’ve said this on numerous occasions to elected officials, and they know that. This falls within the auspices of the jurisdictions of the townships, not the Water Authority.”
“We’re bringing 6,000 gallons per minute to meet existing demand,” he added. “Our intent is to make sure we have adequate supply for existing customers, and also, from a fire protection standpoint, that we’re able to have hydrants operating at full capacity when needed.”
The second pipeline extension would begin on the west side of the Dam Pond Bridge in East Marion, continuing east along the Main Road to Orient, and then south along Tabor Road and parts of Orchard Street, Navy Street, King Street, Vincent Street, Willow Street, Fletcher Street, Skippers Lane, Harbor River Road and Oyster Ponds Lane, according to a May 7 letter from the Water Authority to other interested agencies.
About 15 years ago, the Orient community flatly rejected a proposed SCWA water main extension.
The community has recently been dealing with private wells contaminated by PFAS and suffering from saltwater intrusion. The Orient Association has also recently hired a consultant to do an in-depth exploration of their water quality issues, and has been working with the US Geological Survey on a mapping project for the aquifer.
“You’re talking about many additional millions of dollars to cross the causeway and supply those folks at the tail end of the island, “ he said. “That area is a Suffolk County Health Department priority area, because they do have detections of PFAS at some of the highest levels in the county.”
Efforts at water conservation on the North Fork have thus far been voluntary, although Southold Town is currently considering legislation to regulate irrigation, which will be up for public hearing at its June 24 meeting.
“I give them all a lot of credit and a lot of praise for these initiatives,” said Mr. Szabo of the town. “We’re more than happy to have any restrictions or conservation efforts that the town puts in place to work with our conservation initiatives, which are pretty robust.”
There are numerous public meetings to discuss this topic in the upcoming weeks. The first is a community discussion hosted by the North Fork Civics, “A Water Pipeline is Coming… What Does This Mean For Southold” on Monday, June 2 from 6 to 7:30 p.m. at the Peconic Lane Recreation Center at 970 Peconic Lane. Town Supervisor Al Krupski and architect Glynis Berry will speak.
As part of the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA) review, the Water Authority will hold three June public scoping sessions to gather input from the community as part of the environmental review process.
The first will be held on Wednesday, June 4 at 6 p.m. at the Suffolk County Water Authority building at 624 Old Riverhead Road in Westhampton Beach.
The second will be held on Tuesday, June 10 6 p.m. at the Riverhead Free Library at 330 Court Street in Riverhead, and the third will be held on Thursday, June 12 at 6 p.m. at the Peconic Lane Recreation Center at 970 Peconic Lane. This is a venue change from the original location at Greenport’s Floyd Memorial Library.
Written Comments will be accepted until June 25 by contacting Joseph M. Pokorny, PE, Deputy CEO for Operations, Suffolk County Water Authority, P.O. Box 38, 4060 Sunrise Highway, Oakdale, NY 11769, or by emailing joseph.pokorny@scwa.com
Environmental review documents and a link to comment on the plan are available on the Water Authority’s website at www.scwa.com/nfp.
The Water Authority has contracted with Nelson + Pope to do the environmental review, and identified numerous other “Involved Agencies,” including the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which requires a wetland permit to install the main under the navigable waters of the Peconic River, the New York State Departments of Environmental Conservation, Transportation and State, the Suffolk County Legislature and Department of Public Works, the Metropolitan Transit Authority and Southold Town.
— BHY
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