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Sewer strife
KP civics criticize plan
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Talk of expanding the sewage treatment plant serving Smithtown and Kings Park onto state parkland has drawn harsh criticism from area civic groups.
Further, the state Parks Office says it won't permit the proposal unless the county demonstrates all other options have been exhausted.
A January 2009 feasibility study identifies land at the former Kings Park Psychiatric Center, now under the control of the state Parks Office, for the wastewater treatment facilities necessary to accommodate expanding sewers throughout downtown Kings Park and Smithtown in a $40 million project.
The study is flawed, Kings Park civic leaders say. They have raised the specter of unmentioned potential ramifications for the local environment and the property's status as parkland, as well as questions of fairness and efficiency. While the Smithtown hamlet also stands to gain economically from expanded sewer capacity, Kings Park would have to handle the entirety of sewage, they point out.
The feasibility study, conducted by Cameron Engineering and Associates LLP, discusses placing the sewer district's requisite leaching fields and/or recharge basins on acreage at the former mental hospital, adjacent to the property housing the current treatment facility. "Available real estate for groundwater recharge within the property boundaries of the Kings Park sewage treatment plant is limited," the study notes, and goes on to suggest that the county contact the state Parks Office regarding use of its land, without discussing other potential sites.
"The County's study seems to reveal that the County never considered any other possible alternative sites for the sewage effluent recharge system," Linda Henninger wrote in a Friday memo. "This study is poorly prepared and the county's preparation of a final design based on this study is unconscionable." Henninger is past president of the Kings Park Neighbors' Association, which folded in 2009. Now she acts as an independent watchdog on developments at Nissequogue River State Park through her website, www.theparkadvocate.com.
To convey wastewater to Kings Park for treatment, Smithtown sewers would be pumping the sewage north on a route close to or across the Nissequogue River, Henninger pointed out. However, no environmental impact study has been conducted on ramifications to the area's environment or the river's health from the expansion, she said.
In addition, the Kings Park community has battled long and hard to earn the psych center's inclusion as state parkland, the civic advocate said. Using the land for leaching fields may set a precedent for other future development of the site antithetical to the hamlet's parkland vision for it.
"The Nissequogue River State Park should not be used by any politicians and/or county officials in a manner detrimental to the growth of this Park," she wrote.
The Parks Office has permitted the county to conduct test borings at the former hospital site to determine whether the soil would accommodate wastewater recharge, but "that's the limit of our agreement to the idea," Parks Regional Director Ron Foley said Wednesday. Some Parks sites, for example Jones Beach, house sewage structures, but they are state-owned and "serve park purposes," Foley said.
Suffolk must prove no other suitable parcels can be obtained to house the treatment facility before Parks would agree to the plan, the regional director said. "Parkland is generally not used for these types [of facilities] unless it's the absolute last alternative."
Should the state agree, the move may well require alienation, as wastewater treatment is not considered a park use, Foley confirmed. However, "until we see proof there is no other choice, we're not going to put a lot of time into researching how to do it," he added.
The exhaustion of other options shouldn't be too difficult to show, according to county Legislator John Kennedy Jr. (R-Nesconset). Not only would purchasing new property to house the treatment plant potentially add millions in expense to a project already strapped for cash, he said, but the relatively high water table in lower Smithtown all but rules the region out as acceptable for wastewater recharge. In comparison to the roughly 100 feet between the Kings Park hospital land surface and groundwater, not to mention a beneficial natural clay lens that protects the drinking water aquifer, properties near Main Street Smithtown have as little as six feet, with many basements underwater. "The last place I should build a sewage treatment plant is where I have got groundwater equivalent to ground level," he argued.
Suffolk's Public Works department has set its sights on the state land because the county-funded engineers ruled out other options, Kennedy said. "If there was a viable alternative, I'd look at it," Kennedy said. But "people who are knowledgeable and skilled and do this work all over the country are making the recommendation that this is the way to go forward."
The Kings Parkers are also questioning the combination of the two sewer projects. Nissequogue River State Park Foundation Chairman Mike Rosato stated in a Jan. 30 letter to Legislator Kennedy that once the town's landfill in Kings Park — which generates over 40,000 gallons of wastewater per day — is completely closed, the current treatment plant would have more than sufficient capacity to accommodate a Kings Park sewer expansion. Acquiring property and constructing a separate treatment facility for Smithtown sewage closer to the downtown area may actually prove less expensive than enlarging the Kings Park facility and piping the wastewater there, Rosato said.
"As a representative of the Smithtown community, you have an obligation to protect our parks," Rosato wrote to Kennedy, who has taken a lead role in the sewering effort although his district only encompasses the downtown Smithtown portion of the project, "Instead, you are promoting the use of 30 acres of parkland to treat raw sewage. The business owners in your district may benefit from this venture, but the people of Kings Park and the State of New York would be the unfortunate recipients of its effluent in perpetuity."
The claims of environmental disruption are overblown, according to Kennedy. The wastewater potentially recharged in a Kings Park treatment plant is far cleaner than that routinely returned to the soil by residential septic tanks, as unlike septic systems, a facility would treat sewage to kill bacteria and decompose waste material before it was discarded into Kings Park leaching basins, the lawmaker said. Further, he pointed out, sewer pipes running within a thousand feet of the Nissequogue River have connected Smithtown entities such as St. Catherine of Siena hospital and adjacent nursing home to the current Kings Park plant for years without environmental incident. A downtown Smithtown sewer district would just feed into those pipes along Route 25A, Kennedy said.
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