New water quality fund and 1/8-cent sales tax hike eyed to address nitrogen pollution in Suffolk

Gov. Kathy Hochul’s executive budget proposal includes legislation that would allow the Suffolk County Legislature to establish a countywide wastewater management district with the goal of reducing nitrogen pollution from septic systems.

The countywide wastewater management district was a recommendation of the county’s 2020 “Clean Water Plan” for transitioning away from conventional cesspools and septic systems, which are major contributors to nitrogen pollution of groundwater/drinking water and local surface waterways, to advanced onsite treatment systems.

High levels of nitrogen in waterways are associated with excessive algal growth, hypoxia (low oxygen), harmful algal blooms and the loss of eelgrass along shorelines. Harmful algal blooms have also been identified as a primary contributor to the loss of scallops and clams in local bays.

If the governor’s bill is enacted, the county legislature would be empowered to establish a countywide wastewater management district, consolidating all of the county-owned sewer districts and taking in all currently unsewered areas of the county. It would not include existing town and village sewer districts, though the bill states the “ultimate purpose of the district” is to extend its boundaries “to coincide with the territorial boundaries of the county of Suffolk.”

The district would be created by a local law adopted by the county legislature, subject to a mandatory ballot referendum.

The governor’s bill would empower the county legislature to authorize the district to collect charges, rates and taxes, to be deposited into a new county fund called the water quality restoration fund.

But the governor’s bill “has no money in it,” Assembly Member Fred Thiele said in a Feb. 10 phone interview.

Thiele said he is working to amend the governor’s bill to track the language of legislation he had previously introduced at the request of the Bellone administration. His bill, he said, would have extended the county’s Drinking Water Protection Program from 2030 to 2060. It would have also authorized an 1/8 of a penny increase in the county sales tax to raise revenues for the water quality restoration fund. Thiele’s bill would also have consolidated the county’s existing sewer districts, which Thiele noted doesn’t affect the East End, because there are no county sewer districts in the five East End towns.

The 1/8-cent sales tax increase would bring the total sales tax rate in Suffolk County to to 8.75%, which is higher than Nassau County’s 8.625% rate, but lower than New York City’s and Westchester County’s 8.875% rate.

Seventy-five percent of the sales tax revenue would go to rebates for individual septic systems, which we have a lot of on the East End, and 25% could be used for new infrastructure for for sewer districts, Thiele said.

The sales tax revenues would first be allocated to areas ranked by the Clean Water Plan as surface water and groundwater priority areas.

The county is working toward achieving its goal of transitioning from conventional septic systems that are not designed to remove nitrogen to the new advanced onsite wastewater treatment systems, known as innovative/alternative (I/A) systems that are designed to remove nitrogen from wastewater before it is discharged to groundwater.

In 2021, Suffolk County began requiring I/A systems for new construction in unsewered areas. But there are an estimated 360,000 homes — more than 70% of all homes in the county — and 11,800 commercial properties that rely on conventional cesspools and septic systems. The cost of the I/A systems — upwards of $20,000 installed for a residential system — has slowed the transition. The new revenue source would address that.

“We need we need language in there that that makes it clear that only the areas being serviced by the sewers get taxed to basically pay for those sewers,” Thiele said. “And that the only thing that you can do with the non-sewered areas that aren’t in a (county) sewer district, like on the East End, is basically the (wastewater management) district could administer these these funds for the I/A (advanced) systems,” he said.

“We want to limit the district to administering the fund,” Thiele said. “And there needs to be express language that it’s all home rule — that we don’t pay for the west end sewer districts, and the county can’t create any sewer districts on the East End without without town or village consent,” Thiele said.

The 1/8-cent sales tax increase will generate an estimated $3.1 billion in revenue from 2024 through 2060. Extending the Drinking Water Protection Program through 2060 will generate an estimated $1.9 billion for open space acquisition.

Environmental organizations have been “trying to get something like this across the finish line for close to a decade and remain hopeful that the bill can advance with all the elements proposed by Fred Thiele in his bill,” Bob DeLuca, president of Group for the East End said in an email today.

“If it comes to pass, this initiative will be the single largest comprehensive, long-term policy and program investment in the region’s wastewater management since the work of the much heralded Long Island 208 study back in the 1970s,” DeLuca said.

“Significant work remains to get a final product that includes a voter-authorized opportunity to create a stable and recurring revenue source, maintains a clear focus on environmental protection/restoration and does not create a cover for the promotion of growth inducement, strikes a regional balance between sewer funding and I/A system installation (where I/A installation is advanced on the East End and sewering is primarily in already-urbanized areas – generally in the western parts of the county), and provides a balanced funding strategy which protects unsewered areas from having to cover the operation and maintenance for already sewered county districts,” DeLuca wrote. “These elements are all essential.”

The county needs to consolidate its existing sewer districts to provide more efficient management and cost equalization over time, De Luca said. “But that funding need and the related operating expenses it requires is a distinct cost unique to county sewer districts, separate from the needs of a broader countywide district that is largely intended to manage the county’s long-term wastewater strategy,” he said, describing the long-term strategy as the installation, monitoring and maintenance of tens of thousands of residential I/A systems defined as a priority in the Suffolk Subwatershed Wastewater Plan.

Kevin McDonald of the Nature Conservancy said today his organization is “supporting an effort to establish a water quality restoration fund at the county level.” It benefits all of Suffolk, he said, noting such a fund “will accelerate recovery of water quality in the Peconic Estuary by accelerating polluting septic replacements, in effect scaling up the existing program more effectively.”

County Legislator Al Krupski said he’ll have to “see all the details” before forming an opinion on the bill proposed by the governor or the amendments being advanced by Thiele.

Krupski said fairness and trying to “balance out” the people already paying for wastewater treatment in locally owned sewer districts, like those in Riverhead Town and Greenport Village, are “the critical part” for him.

The countywide wastewater management district would managed by a 17-member board of trustees comprising county, town and village governments, the State Department of Environmental Conservation and the Central Pine Barrens Commission, municipal representatives from the Peconic Estuary Partnership, South Shore Estuary Reserve and Long Island Sound Estuary, as well as representatives of the Long Island Federation of Labor, the Building and Construction Trades Council of Nassau and Suffolk and a regional environmental organization.