Sewage leak near Peconic River prompts health warning in Riverhead

Suffolk County health officials warned residents to stay out of the Peconic River this weekend after up to 10,000 gallons of raw sewage leaked during construction at a Riverhead apartment complex near the waterway.

The spill occurred around 10 a.m. Wednesday at the Heatherwood construction site at 203-213 East Main Street, between Riverview Lofts and the East End Arts campus.

According to a state Department of Environmental Conservation alert, an unknown lateral pulled away from an existing 12-inch-diameter gravity sewer in a pipe trench during construction of a new sewer line at the Heatherwood site — a 165-unit apartment complex.

Untreated wastewater commingled with groundwater in the trench and flowed into the Peconic River for about 45 minutes, the alert said.

The Suffolk County Department of Health Services issued an advisory Wednesday afternoon urging residents to avoid recreational activities in the tidal portion of the Peconic River east of Grangebel Park.

County health officials said contact with the affected water should be avoided.

“If contact does occur, rinse off with clean water immediately,” the advisory said.

Anyone coming into contact with the potentially contaminated water should seek medical attention if they experience nausea, vomiting or diarrhea, skin, eye or throat irritation, or allergic reactions or breathing difficulties after exposure.

At a town board work session Thursday, Riverhead Sewer District Superintendent Tim Allen said contractors working on encasing a sewer main on the property noticed the wastewater leaking into the ground. Workers stopped the flow within 45 minutes using a bypass pump system installed the day before, he said.

“There was no cleanup because it saturated into the ground — the dewatering pump points might have took it into the dewatering box, [but when] I went and looked at the dewatering box, I didn’t see anything,” Mr. Allen said. “It was still nice, clean groundwater going out into the river, no smell, no odor.”

The replacement piece of the broken pipe was installed within an hour, Mr. Allen said. Officials from the Suffolk County Health Department and the state DEC approved the pipe repair and took samples from the Peconic River.

Results from the sampling will be available in the next three or four days, Mr. Allen said.

“Thank you so much for your team for mitigating this and keeping us as safe as possible,” Town Supervisor Jerry Halpin said to Mr. Allen at Thursday’s work session. “We’re looking forward to those samples getting back.”