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By Chrissy Ruggeri - July 26, 2023
At yesterday’s Suffolk County Legislature general meeting, Republican legislators voted to recess the hearing on the Water Quality Restoration Act, preventing its presence on the November ballot for a public vote.
Over 40 people spoke at the July 25 public hearing, which lasted more than four hours, with all but two voicing their approval for the measure. A public vote in November would have been the last phase of legislation that has already received bipartisan support and approval at the state level. Among the speakers were environmentalists, scientists, local business owners, teachers and elected officials who stressed the urgency of moving these bills forward and making strides in improving Suffolk County wastewater systems. Legislators asked experts who spoke many follow-up questions to explain why they support specific aspects of the bills and how they would positively impact the drinking water and waterways throughout Suffolk County.
The Suffolk County Water Quality Restoration Act includes two bills that would create a fund to restore clean water by connecting homes and businesses to sewers, and finance clean water septic system replacements. One bill would authorize an 1/8 of a cent addition to the county sales tax, providing an estimated $3.1 billion in revenue from 2024 through 2060. It would also extend the existing 1/4% tax through 2060, which funds Suffolk’s drinking water protection program and is expected to generate $1.9 billion for drinking water projects.
The other bill would consolidate 27 sewer districts and restructure sewer fees to streamline investments, reduce costs and stabilize sewer rates. If the bill passed, all residential users would pay the same amount for the same service, and businesses would be charged by usage.
The measure would also expand and sustain an existing tax-free grant program for homeowners who are upgrading to clean water septic systems, and allow the county to take advantage of significant federal and state grants that are currently available for sewer expansion, with match requirements that can be funded by the sales tax revenue.
Among the experts who spoke in favor of the bills was Kevin McDonald, the conservation project director for public lands at The Nature Conservancy, who said that advocates including himself have been trying to get a measure like this passed at the state level for six years. Putting it off, after it’s been approved by the state, may be a missed opportunity, he suggested. McDonald said the Suffolk County Drinking Water Protection Program and this Water Quality Restoration Act are “the two most significant policy decisions that Suffolk County will have ever done that altered the fate of its water resources for hundreds of years in the future.” “Nothing about this has been easy,” he noted, adding that instead of going to Albany for a seventh year to ask for a revenue source to fund programs related to water health, this measure should be passed now.
David Ansel, vice president of water protection at Save the Sound, said that “the opportunity costs of failing to put the Water Quality Act on the November ballot are enormous.” He explained that voting against the bills would harm the environment and public’s health, while also having economic implications because of the current grants being awarded and green jobs that would be created. He said there’s no certainty that this could be recreated in Albany and there’s no reason to think a better deal is on the horizon.
Adrienne Esposito, executive director of Citizens Campaign for the Environment, said it has been decades since environmental advocates began working on measures like this one. “We have to get going sometime,” she said, adding, “I don’t know why we have public hearings, when we all trundle up here and 95% say that we support this, and you vote against us anyway.”
Republican legislators who spoke in opposition of the measure said that the plan doesn’t allocate enough funds for sewer systems compared to advanced septic systems, called Innovative/Alternative Wastewater Systems (A/Is). Under the bill, at least 75% of the funds raised by the 1/8% sales tax increase will be used on upgrading septic systems, which are much more prevalent in Suffolk because of existing infrastructure and topography. Democratic legislators and environmental advocates stated as a rebuttal that both systems are important in Suffolk communities, and there are currently state grants that would cover a large portion of the sewer projects (paying for 75-90% of the work). The existing Drinking Water Protection Program also contributes to sewer funding and would be extended under this measure. Reasons beyond this to oppose the measure were not provided publicly by Republicans.
Many speakers and Democratic legislators expressed their opinion at the hearing that voting against this measure is a political play that would keep an environmental project off the ballot and improve Republican outcomes during the November election, at which time all 18 Suffolk legislature seats are up for reelection. Local legislators Robert Trotta and Stephanie Bontempi both voted against moving the bills forward. Legislator Trotta said that he will never vote for a tax increase when the county should be using its surplus and running the government more efficiently. Legislator Bomtempi said that she isn’t against the small tax increase for water quality protection, “once we get all of this done right.”