SCWA seeks zoning immunity for 8.15-mile pipeline through Riverhead
The Suffolk County Water Authority claimed its proposed 8.15-mile North Fork pipeline through Riverhead is exempt from local zoning laws — setting up a contentious battle over the project.
The agency held a hearing in Southold on Wednesday, Oct. 8, arguing it should have immunity as a regional entity. On Thursday, it will take that argument to Riverhead at 6 p.m. at the Riverhead Public Library, with residents having until 5 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 15 to weigh in.
The pipeline would carry water from Flanders through Riverhead to supplement Southold’s supply, serving 9,500 customers across 60 wells that the authority says are at capacity. Riverhead officials contend that their town would shoulder the construction impacts without receiving direct benefits.
“The authority operates in 10 towns and approximately 33 villages within Suffolk County,” Richard Finkel, a lawyer representing SCWA, said at the hearing held at the Southold Recreation Center. “If the authority was bound by local land-use regulations in each, it would be subject to the regulations of all 43 municipalities in which it operates.”
He added that such subjection would “hamper” the authority’s ability to deliver drinking water across Suffolk County.
The SCWA — an independent public-benefit corporation operating under the state’s Public Authorities Law — claims it has immunity as a regional entity. Riverhead officials disagree.
On Tuesday, the Riverhead Town Board unanimously approved findings that the SCWA should follow local zoning laws — the result of what’s called a Monroe Balancing Test, a legal standard that weighs whether regional projects can override local control.
The SCWA is conducting its own version of the same test, which dates to a 1988 land-use dispute between Monroe County and the City of Rochester.
Mr. Finkel said the SCWA would minimize and handle traffic impacts caused during pipeline construction in Riverhead.
The dispute underscores concerns over North Fork development. Riverhead resident John McAuliffe said the pipeline assumes a pace of growth that “needs to be debated.”
“It is a community question, a larger community question, of where we see ourselves 10 years from now or 20 years from now,” McAuliffe said at the Oct. 8 hearing.
Even Southold officials — whose residents would get the water — questioned whether SCWA was overstating the extent of the water crisis. Plans for a North Fork pipeline date back to 2003, according to Riverhead Water District Superintendent Frank Mancini.
“I wonder whether the urgency created by the SCWA in moving this proposal forward is in fact artificially created,” said Southold Councilman Greg Doroski, who is running for Suffolk County Legislature in next month’s election.
Southold Supervisor Al Krupski and Doroski asked the SCWA to wait for results from an ongoing U.S. Geological Survey study on the aquifer and to consider effects of irrigation legislation the town passed in July.
SCWA has received more than 100 comments on the project through public hearings this year, including one in Southampton held on Monday, Oct. 6.
The authority will release its final project scope in the coming weeks, publish a draft environmental statement in winter 2025, and complete its final environmental impact statement by early 2026.
Public comments can be submitted at scwa.com/nfp through Wednesday’s deadline.
