Manorville

Congress is expected to pass a spending package this week that includes $2 million for public water extensions for homes in Riverhead serviced by private water wells contaminated by harmful chemicals.

Residents of Manorville, where many private wells are contaminated with toxic chemicals, are angry that NY State has again denied grant funding for public water to 128 homes near the former Grumman facility in Calverton.

Riverhead Town will enter into an agreement with the Suffolk County Water Authority to have the authority provide public water to an area of Manorville the town water district has been unable to serve.

Residents lobbying for more than 60 homes in Manorville to be hooked up to public water pleaded with the Riverhead Town Board Tuesday to sign an inter-municipal agreement with Suffolk County Water Authority to strengthen its grant application and finally bring water to their neighborhood.

Riverhead officials hope the July 8 meeting made headway against the Navy's resistance to bearing financial responsibility for public water to homes near the former Grumman plant, but a Navy spokesperson reached after the meeting was noncommittal.

Riverhead Town and the Suffolk County Water Authority are negotiating the terms of the intermunicipal agreement for their planned joint effort to bring public water to an area of Manorville near the former Northrop Grumman manufacturing plant in Calverton where private drinking water wells are contaminated by toxic chemicals.

Under a preliminary agreement discussed "in broad strokes" yesterday, the water authority would install about 3,000 feet of water main and serve 64 homes in the Town of Riverhead from the SCWA system.

The Suffolk County Water Authority has offered to assist Riverhead Town in the construction of a water main extension to the Manorville area south of the former Grumman facility, where residential private wells are impacted by or threatened by chemical contamination.

Riverhead Town has come up short on federal and state funding requests to cover two water district extensions to serve homes in Manorville and Calverton in the vicinity of the former Northrop Grumman facility in Calverton.

Today marks the 10th anniversary of a wildfire that burned more than 1,100 acres of Pine Barrens in Manorville, Ridge and Calverton. The fire, later ruled to have been intentionally set, burned for more than 24 hours.