PUBLIC HEARING re: DRAFT GENERIC ENVIRONMENTAL IMPACT STATEMENT for SUFFOLK COUNTY SUBWATERSHEDS WASTEWATER MANAGEMENT PLAN 300 Center Drive Riverhead, New York September 5, 2019 6:09 p.m. Stenographically recorded and transcribed by Donna C. Gilmore, a Notary Public within and for the State of New York. Enright Court Reporting (631) 589-7788 2 1 Riverhead Public Hearing - 9/5/2019 2 A P P E A R A N C E S: 3 4 Council on Environmental Quality: 5 R. Lawrence Swanson, Chair Michael Kaufman, Vice Chair 6 Robert Carpenter, Jr. Andrea Spilka 7 John Corral, CEQ staff 8 Al Krupski, SC Legislator 9 Kenneth Zegel, PE, Associate Public Health Engineer 10 SC Department of Health Services Office of Ecology 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 Enright Court Reporting (631) 589-7788 3 1 Riverhead Public Hearing - 9/5/2019 2 CHAIRMAN DR. SWANSON: I'd like to 3 call the meeting to order. 4 First of all, I want to thank all of 5 you for coming out and participating in 6 this very important process. It's one of 7 the privileges that we have, living in 8 the United States, and we should 9 participate every time we have an 10 opportunity. So thank you. 11 My name is Larry Swanson, and I'm 12 the chair of the Suffolk County Council 13 on Environmental Quality, and I would 14 like to begin by having people at the 15 table introduce themselves, starting with 16 the Honorable Suffolk County Legislator. 17 LEGISLATOR KRUPSKI: Legislator Al 18 Krupski, District 1. 19 MEMBER SPILKA: Andrea Spilka. 20 MEMBER CARPENTER: Rob Carpenter. 21 VICE CHAIR KAUFMAN: Mike Kaufman, 22 Vice Chair. 23 MR. CORRAL: John Corral, staff to 24 the CEQ. 25 CHAIRMAN DR. SWANSON: Thank you. Enright Court Reporting (631) 589-7788 4 1 Riverhead Public Hearing - 9/5/2019 2 This is a meeting to solicit 3 comments on the Draft Generic 4 Environmental Impact Statement for the 5 Suffolk County Subwatersheds Wastewater 6 Management Plan. This is not a 7 question-and-answer session, this is an 8 opportunity to hear you, the public, 9 respond to the document that you had the 10 opportunity to read. 11 The Suffolk County Department of 12 Health Services will also be accepting 13 written comments up through 14 September 16th of this year. A second 15 public meeting will be held tomorrow, it 16 will be in the same fashion as tonight, 17 and it will be at 3:00 p.m. at the 18 Suffolk County Community College 19 Brentwood campus. I want to emphasize 20 Brentwood campus, not the one on Nicolls 21 Road. 22 At this time a short presentation 23 will be given by the Suffolk County 24 Department of Health Services concerning 25 this plan. After that, we will begin the Enright Court Reporting (631) 589-7788 5 1 Riverhead Public Hearing - 9/5/2019 2 questioning, or will begin the 3 questioning period and the public comment 4 period, and we are, because of the size 5 of the audience, we are going to keep the 6 presentations to three minutes. 7 So Ken, anxious to hear what you 8 have to say. 9 MR. ZEGEL: Thank you, Larry. 10 So, excited to be here today to 11 present some of the findings of the 12 Subwatersheds Wastewater Plan. I'm going 13 to keep it short and sweet, focused on 14 the purpose and the need and the 15 findings. For folks that are interested 16 in the presentation today, this will be 17 posted on our website. You're welcome to 18 download it, probably tomorrow afternoon. 19 And so I'm Ken Zegel, Associate 20 Public Health Engineer for the Department 21 of Health Services, and project manager 22 for the Subwatersheds Wastewater Plan, 23 and we're here to talk about nitrogen 24 today, and talk about excess nitrogen 25 contributing to water quality degradation Enright Court Reporting (631) 589-7788 6 1 Riverhead Public Hearing - 9/5/2019 2 in our surface water bodies. And that 3 excess nitrogen has been linked by 4 numerous studies as a primary source 5 coming from onsite wastewater sources. 6 And so while a little bit of 7 nitrogen is a good thing and healthy for 8 the ecosystem, too much nitrogen is a bad 9 thing and can result in algae overgrowth, 10 which can result in reduced dissolved 11 oxygen that's insufficient to sustain 12 healthy ecosystems. These harmful algal 13 blooms, Suffolk County had recently, by 14 an expert panel into the Harmful Algal 15 Bloom Symposium and Action Plan, as 16 having one of the most diverse and 17 frequent harmful algal blooms potentially 18 in the United States. Excess algae also 19 reduces the amount of light that gets 20 down to the bottom, which reduces the 21 coverage of submerged aquatic vegetation, 22 doesn't provide sufficient light for 23 eelgrass and other submerged aquatic 24 vegetation to grow. That habitat 25 provides habitat for shellfish; for Enright Court Reporting (631) 589-7788 7 1 Riverhead Public Hearing - 9/5/2019 2 example, for bay scallops. 3 In addition, dissolved oxygen is 4 needed for fish to survive, right, so 5 we've experienced frequent fish kills in 6 Suffolk County. And if we look at the 7 slide here, we've seen significant 8 declines in our hard clam landings and 9 the scallops. Now, overfishing is a 10 major, probably the major contributor to 11 that, but excess nitrogen, or studies on 12 excess nitrogen, particularly for hard 13 clams helps to prevent especially brown 14 tide repopulating, reestablishing the 15 population of the shellfish. 16 So for those of you that aren't 17 familiar with wastewater management in 18 Suffolk County, Suffolk County is roughly 19 74 percent unsewered, and 74 percent of 20 those homes, roughly 380,000 of them, 21 dispose of their wastewater in onsite 22 disposal systems that consist of either a 23 cesspool or a conventional sanitary 24 system. Those cesspools and conventional 25 sanitary systems are not designed to Enright Court Reporting (631) 589-7788 8 1 Riverhead Public Hearing - 9/5/2019 2 remove nitrogen. 3 The last change that the county made 4 to the requirement for onsite disposal 5 systems goes back all the way to 1972, 6 and the only change made at the time was 7 to require a septic tank in front of the 8 cesspool to remove solids, still not a 9 technology to remove nitrogen from the 10 system. 11 Since the 1970s there's been major 12 advancements in onsite treatment 13 technologies, major advancements. And so 14 those new technologies, I'm going to 15 refer to them as innovative alternative 16 onsite wastewater treatment systems, 17 these systems are being rigorously tested 18 in Suffolk County right now under their 19 pilot program, and through their Septic 20 Improvement Program, their grant program, 21 they're achieving greater than 70 percent 22 nitrogen removal on all county 23 average-wide. But it's not to say that 24 sewers and this concept of these other 25 wastewater management tools into small Enright Court Reporting (631) 589-7788 9 1 Riverhead Public Hearing - 9/5/2019 2 cluster systems still aren't important in 3 the overall plan of wastewater management 4 in Suffolk County. 5 So the county recognizes that if 6 we're going to shift from this paradigm 7 of conventional sanitary systems, the 8 cesspools which essentially require no 9 maintenance to systems that require 10 maintenance, we need to start kicking off 11 a full-scale program that considers all 12 the factors that need to be considered 13 for this. So here's a five-prong 14 approach that the county developed: 15 I already mentioned that we started 16 pilot testing demonstrating that these 17 systems do work in Suffolk County; 18 We've also been preparing the 19 industry and completing rigorous training 20 programs to both the installers/designers, 21 as well as maintenance providers to 22 properly maintain these systems; 23 The county has established a 24 responsible management entity to ensure 25 that these systems are designed, Enright Court Reporting (631) 589-7788 10 1 Riverhead Public Hearing - 9/5/2019 2 installed, maintained properly and that 3 there's an oversight agency responsible 4 for ensuring that that happens; 5 And then last but not least, we have 6 380,000 of these systems in the ground. 7 Where do we start? Where do we start 8 chipping away at the problem in terms of 9 addressing these water quality 10 degradations in wastewater management. 11 So that's where the Subwatersheds 12 Wastewater Plan comes in. That's the 13 last leg on this graphic here. 14 Now, keeping it in perspective, it's 15 a common theme that I'm going to say 16 today, none of this moves forward unless 17 a stable recurring revenue source is 18 identified and procured to offset the 19 cost to homeowners to facilitate the 20 installation of these systems and make 21 them affordable to homeowner. So that's 22 a common theme that everybody needs to 23 keep in perspective. 24 The Subwatersheds Wastewater Plan 25 doesn't just fall under the umbrella of Enright Court Reporting (631) 589-7788 11 1 Riverhead Public Hearing - 9/5/2019 2 of a county initiative, Reclaim Our Water 3 initiative, it falls under a larger 4 umbrella called the Long Island Nitrogen 5 Action Plan, which is, was established a 6 couple of years ago to identify the 7 sources of nitrogen in both surface 8 waters and groundwater island wide, 9 Nassau County plus Suffolk County, 10 establish nitrogen reduction endpoints 11 and load reduction goals, as well as 12 develop an implementation plan to address 13 all sources of nitrogen.