H2M

The Riverhead Town Board is expected to choose the firm that will finish the update to the comprehensive plan as soon as next week. The Town Board heard from its two finalists, H2M and BFJ, during a work session on Thursday

The appointment of a new planning firm to take on Riverhead's long-stalled comprehensive plan project could come as soon as the next town board meeting, officials said, if board members reach a consensus after interviewing two "finalists" at next week's work session.

The project calls for the installation of an innovative process at the district’s waste treatment facility on River Avenue that will reduce the total volume of dehydrated sludge produced at the plant — and that, in turn, will reduce the district's ever-increasing cost of transporting it to a Pennsylvania landfill for disposal.

The plan, calling for additional estimated expenditures of more than $15 million over the next 10 years, is seen as a crucial commitment to retaining the Riverhead Water District as an independent public water supplier.

Riverhead Water District rates and fees have gone up, effective Aug. 1, under new schedules approved by the town board last week.

Facilities required to remove the contaminant perchlorate from Riverhead Water District’s well 16, one of the district's newest facilities, has a price tag of more than half a million dollars. The town board approved the $522,500 project budget and awarded a $279,516 bid last night.

The $2.2 million well 16 in Calverton, a critical supply well completed in 2011, needs treatment system that will cost Riverhead up to $555,000. A public hearing on the expenditure is scheduled for Jan. 6 at 2:10 p.m.