The Suffolk County Water Authority announced Friday, July 24 that it is planning a new route for its proposed North Fork Pipeline, which will shift construction to the Main Road. It had initially been routed on Sound Avenue.
The Water Authority says it will hold three public hearings on its Draft Environmental Impact Statement for the project in August to “showcase the plan and accept public comments.”
In the original proposal, the pipeline would have originated at existing Water Authority infrastructure at Whitebrook Drive in Flanders, traveled up County Route 105 to Northville Turnpike and headed east on Sound Avenue to the Southold Town line, a total of 8.5 miles. The new proposal instead travels down the Main Road to a connection point with existing infrastructure on the Main Road just west of Aldrich Lane, about 7.5 miles.
Sound Avenue is a small Riverhead Town road that is often overloaded with severe traffic, especially during fall pumpkin-picking season, and Riverhead Town officials have adamantly opposed that route. The town and the Water Authority are currently involved in litigation over whether the project is subject to regulatory review by Riverhead.
The pipeline had initially been proposed in 2023 to run down Peconic Bay Boulevard, a route that Riverhead had also objected to.
According to the Water Authority, “the transmission line will run exclusively on state and county roads, resulting in a route that is one mile shorter than the original proposal…. The pipeline will transport water directly to the North Fork, bypassing the Riverhead Water District service area where no connections will be made. The project also includes a new booster station to stabilize water pressure and improve system reliability.”
The Water Authority says “this modification reduces environmental and traffic impacts and accelerates the project schedule, moving the anticipated completion date from 2030 to 2028.”
“Construction is scheduled to take twelve months once all the final permits are in place,” said SCWA Director of Construction Maintenance Brendan Warner in the announcement. “We will stage the work specifically to avoid traffic disruptions on the North Fork during the peak summer and fall months.”
A separate hypothetical 3.8-mile extension from East Marion to Orient, where many wells have been found to be contaminated with PFAS, was also included in the environmental review for the project, though Water Authority representatives said last year that they did not have funding for that section of the pipeline and did not know when or if it would be built. (Other media outlets have reported that the pipeline would be 12 miles long. This is incorrect.)
Public Hearings in August
The Water Authority made the July 24 announcement of the change in route concurrently with the release of the project’s Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS) and an announcement of three upcoming public hearings.
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.
The Water Authority had already held three public “scoping sessions” in the summer of 2025 to get public feedback on environmental issues that could be raised by the pipeline, as part of its preparation of the DEIS.
“We listened to the public during our 2025 scoping sessions and designed a plan that reflects their input,” said SCWA Chief Executive Officer Jeff Szabo in the announcement. “This new route allows us to execute the project swiftly while keeping community impacts to an absolute minimum.”
The Water Authority currently operates 60 wells across 18 well fields on the North Fork, serving 9,500 customers.
Last year, when it announced the initial round of scoping sessions, the Water Authority made the case that the North Fork’s thin, shallow Upper Glacial Aquifer is susceptible to saltwater intrusion and threatened by surface contamination from pesticides, herbicides and rising chloride levels. The agency said that demand was increasing at a pace that would tax the existing water supply — currently there is no infrastructure connecting the North Fork to deeper and more plentiful water supplies in Long Island’s Central Pine Barrens.
Concurrently, said the Water Authority, “concerns over PFAS contamination are driving private well users to seek connections to public water. Over-pumping to meet this demand carries the risk of drawing saltwater into the freshwater aquifer. If saltwater infiltrates the supply, it limits future water availability for residential neighborhoods and the local farming community.”
Water Authority representatives also pointed out last summer that 70 percent of its summer water use is believed to be for lawn irrigation, which lent urgency to Southold’s adoption last year of its first-ever code regulating lawn irrigation.
Drought Alerts and A Year of Controversy
This summer, the Water Authority has issued a Stage 1 Water Alert for four of the five East End towns, and asked its customers during a mid-July heat wave to refrain from lawn irrigation entirely.
The pipeline proved highly controversial, with Riverhead Town objecting to its construction on town roads and Southold Town officials and residents concerned about the “growth inducing impacts” of increased development that often accompany access to public water.
Riverhead Town declared the project was not exempt from its local review in late 2025, after which the Water Authority sued Riverhead in February of 2026, claiming the project was not subject to local review according to a legal framework known as a Monroe Balancing Test, which is often invoked for public works project that are believed to have a public benefit.
Riverhead Town Supervisor Jerry Halpin said Friday morning that he and the town’s legal team are reviewing the route change and expect to make a formal statement later today. He said the town was not notified of the route change before it was announced by the Water Authority.
On Friday afternoon, Riverhead Town released a statement that it is “in communication with our Special Counsel regarding impacts to pending litigation. The town has alerted its Environmental Consultant Jeff Seeman for review of the Draft Environmental Impact Statement on the SCWA website. We are reviewing the new proposed route and its associated impacts to our taxpayers. It is understood that this route considers some, albeit not all of the prior significant environmental impacts on our taxpayers. Our town is an Involved Agency pursuant to SEQRA, and shall undertake its due diligence in our review of all aspects of this project.”
Southold Town Supervisor Al Krupski said Friday morning that the “concern on Sound Avenue was obviously the traffic, and it’s a smaller road and a historic corridor. The Main Road is a larger paved area, but there’s going to be disturbance to the businesses.”
But, he said, “the bigger question goes back to the ‘why’ for the whole project. Is there a reliable water source they’re pumping from, and what is the true cost of developing that well field.”
He added that Southold’s irrigation law is still being phased in — while timers, rain sensors and odd/even watering are now required for new irrigation systems, “existing systems don’t have to go online until 2028. That’s why you see automatic systems out there still pumping water when it rains. But a significant amount of savings will take place.”
He added that he had encouraged the Water Authority to await the results of a U.S. Geological Survey hydrogeological study of the North Fork, which are anticipated to be released shortly, before completing its environmental review.
“The USGS has that information on water flow, and they’ve done a great job,” he said.
The Water Authority dug in its heels in its July 24 announcement of what it says will be the “largest single infrastructure project in its 75-year history, which it said would reduce the need to install specialized treatment systems at existing wellheads and ease the daily pumping burden on local wells, “allowing the thin Upper Glacial Aquifer to recover and preventing saltwater intrusion.
The project was expected last year to cost about $35 million, paid for through money already included in the Water Authority’s Capital Improvement Plan budget.
“This project is a requirement for the long-term sustainability of the North Fork,” said SCWA Chairman Charlie Lefkowitz in the announcement. “It protects our local water resources while ensuring we meet the current needs of our communities. This project is a win for the environment, it protects future ratepayers and ensures that we have a sustainable supply of high-quality drinking water for the North Fork.”
The DEIS is available on the Water Authority’s website, alongside a submission form to accept public comments through September 11, 2026. For more information, to review the DEIS, or to submit a comment, visit www.scwa.com/nfp
The Village of Greenport is also holding a special meeting on Thursday, Aug. 6 at 5 p.m. at which Water Authority Chief Executive Officer Jeff Szabo is expected to speak. The meeting will be held at the Third Street Firehouse.
Greenport Mayor Kevin Stuessi says Mr. Szabo is expected to speak about the “drought, issues with wells on the North Fork and the North Fork Pipeline.”
Read Our Ongoing Coverage of the North Fork Pipeline
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