Water and Waste
by Nick Bryan
APC invited Bob DeLuca, President of Group for the East End, to speak to our Steering Committee about our groundwater and our harbor waters. He feels that the East End’s focus now desperately needs to be:
• WATER PROTECTION
• WATER DISTRIBUTION
• WASTE MANAGEMENT
He said that, at best, 25-40% of nitrogen in our septics goes into the ground and therefore our water. It’s a town, county, statewide problem. There are 350,000 systems in Suffolk. There has been a 200% increase in nitrogen in our aquifer.
The State has mandated that 12 towns upstate that are in water trouble do regular inspections and pump outs.
The Green Committee of Southampton, which Bob serves on, has a draft proposal for a bill that would require inspection of septics every five years and upon transfer of ownership. Septics moderately used can last five years without clean out, so inspection wouldn’t necessarily result in a pump out. Inspection could also discover conditions that would lead to imminent failure of the system, so an owner would be prepared. Cost for inspection is minimal. The homeowner and Town would both receive a record of the inspection.
We are all accustomed to having other home fixtures inspected regularly, such as our oil burners. We ignore what’s underground because we aren’t faced with it regularly. Also, the life of a septic system could be extended for years with proper maintenance.
Asked about our waste treatment plant, Bob believes it would need a lot of work to bring it to a safe operational level. He pointed out that the company bidding to run it is insisting on a “hold harmless”
clause, meaning that if anything went wrong due to problems that existed before they took over, they would not be held responsible. This would make it easy for them to claim almost any problem was the result of an existing condition.
Bob thinks “Hold and Haul” would be the best solution for now – use the plant as a holding system and have a hauler hired to move waste to another treatment plant possibly Riverhead, which seems to be working well.
It is our hope that the Town Board will
- Address ways in which inspection of the systems can be implemented.*
- Find a way to begin reducing the over-crowding in Springs. It is, day after day, infecting our beautiful Accabonac Harbor and our drinking water. It enriches a few landlords who make large sums on the backs of poor working people while destroying the quality of life of long-time middle class Springs residents.
*Southampton is working on a bill for septic system inspections to insure that they “operate and are maintained in a manner which will prevent hazards to the public health, to protect the drinking water supply and to protect the integrity of the town’s fragile and diverse array of freshwater and marine ecosystems.
