Are We Waste…ing Away?
by Jorie Latham
While researching water quality, I stumbled on a very informative website (East End Beacon: News of the Twin Forks), which provides thoughtful articles on a wide variety of local topics written mostly by editor Beth Young, who was happy (and kind) to let me copy and share with you some content pertinent to APC’s interests. (eastendbeacon.com will take you there.) The following was taken from East End Beacon Oct 10, 2013, with APC-relevant annotations in italics:
“SO, WATER WE REALLY GOIN’ TO DO?”
Excerpts from The Beacon’s follow-up article on a forum (“Toxic Tides and Pesticides and Sewage, Oh My!”) held in Farmingdale on October 7, 2013:
…Twenty five million pounds of nitrogen from human waste made their way to the bays through Suffolk County’s groundwater last year, says Stony Brook researcher Christopher Gobler, causing ever more frequent and long-lasting algae blooms that are causing serious harm to our marine ecosystem. . . .
Dr. Christopher Gobler, who does much of his work out of Stony Brook’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences center at the Southampton campus, has been studying algae blooms in the bays for more than a decade. He shared this frightening image of this season’s water quality issues in Long Island bays:
(NOTE that the rust tide in the Peconic Bay spread as far east as East Hampton!)
He said that, along most of the south shore bays and in the Peconic Bay along the South Fork, most of the nitrogen has been proven to come from human waste in groundwater, but on the North Fork, a significant amount still comes from agricultural fertilizers.
Not only does nitrogen lead to the growth of algae blooms, it also causes the roots of salt marsh grasses to get lazy and not grow as strong as they would have if the nitrogen wasn’t so readily available. The salt marsh grasses then begin to break off into the water “They call this the calving of the salt marsh,” said Dr. Gobler. “If you end up putting lots of nitrogen into the salt marsh, why would the marsh need to develop roots?” (NOTE: marshes weakened in this way provide less protection against coastal storms)
He said nitrogen also causes the growth of seaweed and other macroalgae on the surface of the water, which shades out eelgrass beds, another important habitat for the bays’ shellfish and young finfish.
As a longtime rural county, Suffolk historically had not had to face the large populations that in the past necessitated sewer systems in western Long Island. The Suffolk County Health Department has begun to approve alternative on-site denitirification treatment, but Bob DeLuca of the Group for the East End said at the forum that the work is going slowly, in part due to budget cuts.
He said the health department needs to finish its Comprehensive Water Resources Management Plan, which has been in draft form for more than two years.
…The Nature Conservancy’s government policy director, Kevin McDonald, likened the problem with Suffolk County’s septics to the automobile industry’s initial reluctance to put catalytic converters on cars 40 years ago. He said it would take engineers, creative financing and government support to fix Suffolk County’s septic mess. “My son is an engineer. He said there’s no doubt all that stuff can be done. You just have to want to do it,” said Mr. McDonald…
THIS JUST IN!!!!
A more recent post in The Beacon reports on a very positive response to that forum; In March 2014, County Supervisor Steve Bellone devoted much of his State of the County message to this very topic, quoting much of what was presented in the forum:
“For the health of our region today and the sake of future generations, we must address this water quality crisis,” he said. “Nitrogen is public water enemy number one.
“We have a million-and-a-half people unsewered,” he said. “This is probably the only place in world with that large a density where the waste is going into a sole source aquifer immediately beneath us that we are drinking.”
Mr. Bellone said water quality experts have told him that if the county can hook up 200,000 individual septic systems to either sewers or small-scale denitrification systems, it “will solve our water quality crisis.”
But to date, the county health department has been slow to approve alternate septic systems. Mr. Bellone said there are 17 different types of small-scale denitrification systems available that can halve the amount of nitrogen leaching from *septics. “The bad news is there are no approved single home treatment systems in Suffolk County,” he said. “I’ve directed the Suffolk County Department of Health Services to give manufacturers throughout the nation the ability to bring them to Suffolk County so we can approve them this year.
“This is a year of action for our water….The fact that this will take decades to solve has been a convenient excuse for inaction for too long.”
APC’S VIEW
While this sounds dire (because it is!), it is quite encouraging that our county supervisor has got the message and is taking action! We have long been hoping that someone could get through to SC Health Department to allow systems like the Nitrex, which could be shared by several neighbors, making it affordable and a better option out here than sewers. Now it looks like that may indeed be on the horizon.
What, you want even MORE information? Good for you!! Here are some links to websites/blogs that will keep you informed about local water and other issues that we all need to pay attention to!
eastendbeacon.com
longislandcleanwaterpartnership.org
nylcv.org/ecopoliticsdaily
