The Riverhead Water District has been awarded a $3 million water quality grant from New York State to defray the cost of a manganese filtration system for one of its wells.
The grant was one of 13 announced yesterday by Gov. Andrew Cuomo to support critical municipal water infrastructure projects on Long Island.
Riverhead will use the funding to address an issue with manganese at one of its wells at Plant No. 5, located on Middle Road east of Northville Turnpike, Riverhead Water District Superintendent Mark Conklin said in a phone interview this morning.
Well 5-1, built in 1980, has manganese readings of three parts per million, Conklin said. Manganese is a secondary contaminant — considered an aesthetic rather than a health issue, he said.
The federal Environmental Protection Agency recommends a concentration of manganese in drinking water not to exceed five parts per million. This recommendation is to avoid staining of clothing and fixtures and is believed to be more than adequate to protect human health. Conklin said water officials believe manganese will be classified as a primary contaminant in the future.
Currently water from well 5-1 is blended with water from 5-2, Conklin said. The filtration system will allow the district to better utilize well 5-1 and improve the system’s capacity, he said.
The total project cost is estimated at about $5.1 million, Conklin said.
The Plant No. 5 improvement is part of the district’s master plan given the green light by the town board, which sits as the governing body of the water district.
Conklin estimated that the project will take about two years to complete and the filtration system will be on line in late 2020 or early 2021.
He thanked Dawn Thomas and Joseph Maiorana of the Riverhead Community Development Agency and John Collins of H2M, the water district’s engineering consultants, for putting together the district’s successful grant application.
In a press release, Riverhead Supervisor Laura Jens-Smith thanked the governor for the financial assistance with “much-needed improvements” to the town’s water district.
“Protecting our water resources is essential to maintaining our residents’ health,” she said.
“Investing in our state’s water infrastructure is critical to regional growth and prosperity and maintaining safe, healthy communities,” Cuomo said in a press release.
Grants announced by the governor yesterday total $36.1 million for Long Island, including a $9.7 million grant to the Suffolk County Water Authority for a $24 million water main project in Wainscott.
Statewide a total of $270 million in grants being awarded to communities, Cuomo said, including over $19 million to support projects that address cyanotoxins associated with harmful algal blooms, and previously announced grants totaling $15 million for projects addressing emerging contaminants such as PFOA, PFOS, and 1,4 dioxane.
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