You’re drowning.  The sleek cruiser taking you over swells and into crisp winds now rests at the bottom of the ocean.  Suddenly, an emergency line lands right in front of you.  You look at it.  Nod no.  Then you swim away.  You wanted a pink one.  That one was yellow.

The Suffolk County Legislature did the equivalent in June and again on July 24, turning their nose up to billions of dollars for clean water at a public hearing.  Meanwhile, nitrates from untreated toilet water caused the collapse of our shellfish industry, the warming of our bays, and the killing off of our eelgrass, the nutrient source of all sea life.

Nowhere else in the country will you find 380,000 septic systems in so small an area dumping water from our toilets into our waterways.  Mind you, our drinking water comes from a sole-source aquifer right below our feet!

The legislature didn’t merely decline a measure to set up a mechanism to fund sewers and innovative/alternative (I.A.) systems.  They refused to let voters vote on it.  Experts believe this is a once-in-a-lifetime chance to finally address our wastewater problem.  With the tools in their grasp and a crisis over the most important resource there is, clean water, the legislature’s aloofness—their refusal to let voters decide—is nothing short of arrogant. 

Here’s what the Suffolk Clean Water Act and Plan proposed in two bills, I.R. 1512 and I.R. 1573:

Consolidate 27 sewer districts into 1 more manageable district.

Fund waste-water projects including nitrogen removing septic (IA) systems and sewers.

One-eighth percent county sales tax to create a Water Quality Restoration Fund, which experts predict would raise $3.1 billion from 2024 – 2060.

Continue the current 1/4 percent tax through 2060, what we use to protect drinking water, which is expected to generate $1.9 billion.

Help qualify Suffolk County to receive state and federal funds for clean water.

The acts are expected to raise $60 million a year now and closer to $100 million a year in 2060.

The vote against bringing the measure to voters was 10-7 along party lines, with legislators choosing the technocratic route to duck responsibility.  They didn’t vote against clean water.  They voted for a recess instead.  Every Republican on the legislature voted for a recess, except Legis. Jim Mazzarella, who was absent.

Both the Republican (Romaine) and Democratic (Calone) candidates for county executive stated at an environmental forum they wanted the Clean Water Act on the ballot.  Romaine went further, stating he would “lead the change in Albany to get the right language before the public for a referendum.”   Town, state and federal elected officials, Democrats and Republicans alike, also support letting voters choose. 

In other words, the environment isn’t a partisan issue for anyone but county legislators.  They fear a clean-water ballot will turn out more Democratic voters and some will lose their seats.  Never mind that the same voters who supported a statewide environmental ballot put Republicans in office at unprecedented levels in Suffolk’s Red Wave. 

Disappointing doesn’t go far enough to describe the reactions of environmentalists, business owners, labor leaders, and residents (everyone, really) to Suffolk Legislature’s aborted July 24 public hearing.  More like calamitous.  Everyone knows Long Island’s future remains perilous until we address our wastewater problem.  At $6 billion a year, tourism is Long Island’s No. 1 industry. 

Dr. Christopher Gobler, a native Long Islander and Stony Brook professor of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, who directs a clean-water program for the university, referred to the wastewater plan as the “most scientifically robust wastewater plan of any county in that nation” at the legislature’s July 24 meeting.  It’s exactly what’s needed.  Gobler pointed out water temperatures of Long Island’s bays are increasing three times faster than the global average. 

The effects over time have been disastrous.  Gobler noted we’ve seen a 99 percent loss in scallop and clam harvests and a 90 percent loss in eelgrass and saltmarshes, the food source of sea life.  The Nature Conservancy points out that 70 percent of the nitrates in the Great South Bay, the lion’s share, are from human waste.  Gobler cited emerging research by the National Institute of Health that high nitrogen levels in drinking water also elevates the risks of all types of cancers, birth defects, and birth outcomes.  Never mind the risks to property values of homes within a mile of coastal zones due to a lack of water clarity. 

Kevin McDonald, the Conservation Project director for public lands at the Nature Conservancy, noted the Clean Water Act would have been the most significant policy decision to alter “the fate of its water resources for hundreds of years in the future.”    This plan is 10 years in the making.  McDonald noted a consortium of stakeholders worked to get clean water on the statewide environmental ballot for six years, which passed 2-1 this fall. 

Those legislators who dodged their responsibility by voting to recess are giving the public a big reason to vote against them.  Their actions here—preceded by five decades of inaction, which is how long the Great South Bay has been in decline—will likely cost some their seats.  Why?  There is widespread consensus behind this plan, there’s an obvious need for clean water, and they’ve failed to develop a plan for themselves.  When you don’t do your job, you get replaced.    

I encourage you to write these legislators to voice your displeasure:  Legislators | Suffolk County Legislature, NY (scnylegislature.us):

*James F. Mazzarella

Nick Caracappa     

Dominick Thorne 

Anthony Piccirillo

Trish Bergin

Steven Flotterton

Leslie Kennedy

Kevin McCaffrey

Manuel Esteban

Stephanie Bontempi

*Legislator Mazzarella was not present when legislators voted to recess on July 24.