What happens after you flush the toilet?
Suffolk County officials want you to think about that — because more than 360,000 homes in Suffolk are not connected to municipal sewage treatment systems. And what happens after you flush directly affects both the quality of your drinking water and the health of the waterways surrounding our island. That’s because your backyard septic system doesn’t treat wastes at all before they’re discharged to groundwater — and groundwater flows into the surrounding surface waters.
If you live in one of those 360,000 homes unsewered homes, when you flush your toilet, the waste flows out to an underground septic system in your yard. That “system” likely consists of a cement cesspool ring with perforated walls that allow wastewater to flow into the surrounding soil. Solids settle and are digested by naturally occurring bacteria. According to the county, 252,530 of those 360,000 homes predate the current requirement for a septic tank and have only that perforated cesspool ring.
Wastewater containing human wastes has high levels of nitrogen. Nitrogen pollutes our waterways — it is a nutrient harmful algae feast on. Harmful algal blooms deplete oxygen in the waters and stress or kill off marine life.
Nitrogen at high levels is also considered a contaminant in drinking water.
Suffolk County is working toward phasing out traditional septic systems and replacing them with new high-tech systems that treat wastewater to reduce nitrogen before wastewater is discharged to groundwater.
The county has been testing systems currently available from a variety of manufacturers in a demonstration pilot program conducted over the past few years. Willing manufacturers donated systems for installation at nearly 40 homes throughout the county and Suffolk health department officials have been closely monitoring their performance.
Suffolk County has so far provisionally approved three of those systems. A fourth is expected to be provisionally approved next month.
Officials have not yet decided exactly what widespread implementation will look like. Will they be phased in for new construction only? Will they be required when a homeowner builds an addition that needs county health department approval? Will there be a date by which all homeowners must replace the old systems? And if homeowners are going to be required to install them at some point, who will pay for them?
The technology doesn’t come cheap. One of these new advanced on-site septic systems costs between $15,000 and $20,000, installed. They also require regular maintenance, adding more costs for the homeowner.
County Executive Steve Bellone is determined to develop a funding source to provide help for homeowners in the form of grants or loans, according to Deputy County Executive Peter Scully. Bellone is seeking state legislation to authorize a water surcharge fee on all public water customers to create a dedicated fund for this purpose as well as municipal sewer system expansions.
The county meanwhile is updating its laws and regulations to provide for the use of these new advanced septic systems. It also continues its push to raise public awareness about the problems with traditional septic systems and educate town and village officials as well as architects, engineers and other professionals in the trades about the new advanced systems.
County officials are holding public forums in various locations to discuss the coming changes and familiarize people with the advanced on-site systems that have been provisionally approved for use.
The two provisionally approved systems can be voluntarily installed for residential use right now — with a county health department permit, of course.
Representatives of the companies that install the two approved systems on Long Island addressed a gathering at a forum convened last night at Riverhead Town Hall.
Presenting were Mike Densieski of the Riverhead-based WasteWater Works, the local distributor for Hydro-Action and Bob Eichinger a consultant for Bayshore-based Roman Stone Construction, the local distributor for Norweco. They explained how their systems work.
Though they use different technologies, both systems are essentially small-scale versions of the sophisticated technologies that treat sewage at large volumes at municipal plants — employing biological media to digest wastes, for example.
“This has been many years in the works,” County Legislator Al Krupski said last night. “It’s exciting that we have three systems ready to go.”
Suffolk County health department environmental projects coordinator Justin Jobin said the county is currently developing standards for systems to be used in commercial settings. “We hope to have those in place within a couple of months,” he said.
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