SCWA moves forward on Brookhaven part of Manorville
The Suffolk County Water Authority on Thursday designated a plan to bring public water to a portion of Manorville in Brookhaven Town as a “Type II” action, which officials say will facilitate the securing of funds for the project.
The $6.75 million project affects 64 homes in the Brookhaven Town portion of Manorville.
“We stand ready to bring high quality water to residents who need it badly,” said SCWA chief executive officer Jeffrey Szabo in a release. “We are fully prepared to move forward.”
Mr. Szabo said Congressman Lee Zeldin (R-Shirley) had applied for the funding.
Riverhead Town has objected to allowing SCWA to do this work within town borders and has separate plans to conduct this work using the Riverhead Water District.
Mr. Zeldin said he has also submitted a $7.2 million Community Project Funding request on behalf of the Town of Riverhead to extend clean drinking water to affected homes in Manorville that rely on private wells. The funding would come from a low-interest or no-interest loan administrated by the New York State Drinking Water Revolving Fund.
Town officials have expressed concern that SCWA is trying to take over the town water district.
Riverhead Town also has objected to allowing SCWA to supply water to the town-owned Enterprise Park at Calverton. The state Department of Environmental Conservation has not allowed Riverhead’s subdivision application at EPCAL to move forward, saying that SCWA should be responsible for supplying water to EPCAL. The town has filed a lawsuit against the DEC on that issue.
Kelly McClinchy, who lives in the Riverhead Town portion of Manorville, said in an interview that residents fear their water has been polluted due to work done at the former Grumman site over the years.
“We don’t care who the water comes from, we just want clean water,” she said.
Tests done in December on private wells in the community, which is south of the former Grumman naval weapons plant in Calverton, detected various contaminants at levels that exceed state and federal drinking water standards, officials say. The perfluorinated compounds PFOS and PFOA are among the contaminants detected.
Last summer, New York State adopted a limit of 10 parts per trillion for both. The December testing showed the presence of PFAS in 14 of 95 private wells sampled.
