Riverhead hires lawyers to fight SCWA lawsuit over $35M North Fork pipeline

Riverhead Town has hired an outside law firm as officials dig in for a legal fight against the Suffolk County Water Authority over the controversial $35 million North Fork pipeline.

Supervisor Jerry Halpin and his fellow board members reluctantly passed a resolution on Tuesday, March 17, to retain Perillo Hill, LLP, as the town’s special counsel ahead of upcoming litigation proceedings. 

An administrative court date is set for Wednesday, March 25, but the first steps are mainly procedural with no in-person appearance of the parties required. According to court documents, recent stipulation, agreed upon by both parties, has given the town until April 24 to respond to the complaint.

“We did not ask for this,” Mr. Halpin said before Tuesday’s unanimous vote. “Now we the taxpayers, together, everyone sitting on this board, and you at home, you sitting here, and I have to pay for special counsel to defend our right to enforce our zoning and land-use laws and regulations.”

The town has agreed to pay the Sayville-based law firm $320 an hour for partners and of counsel services, $225 an hour for associates and $85 an hour for paralegal services.

SCWA sued the town in February to push forward its 12-mile, $35 million North Fork pipeline project. The proposed pipeline would run 8.15 miles from Flanders through Riverhead, supplying about 9,500 Southold customers whose existing wells are nearing capacity.

SCWA says the project is critical to maintain water pressure and reliability on the North Fork, especially during summer months when irrigation demand peaks. Riverhead argues the project bypasses its zoning laws and will pose no benefit to town taxpayers.

“I wish the Suffolk County Water Authority President Jeff Szabo would come out and speak with us so that we don’t need to go through litigation — we’re open minded here — we’re just looking for what’s best for our taxpayers,” Councilman Kenneth Rothwell said at the meeting. “Until he wants to resume talks about that, we’ll go through the litigation side.”

Mr. Halpin urged residents to reach out to Mr. Szabo’s email directly at [email protected] to express their opposition to the litigation. He also alerted the public to a SCWA board meeting taking place on Thursday, March 26, at 3 p.m. at the company’s headquarters on Sunrise Highway in Oakdale. 

“I’m imploring Riverhead residents to take action, to stand up and say, ‘We will not be taken advantage of,’ because they are pulling up water from a major draw from the Pine Barrens,” the first-year supervisor said. “We did not preserve the Pine Barrens to feed irrigation on the North Fork … They’re going to be pulling water instead of pushing it. That is a major, major power grid issue.”

Mr. Szabo and the SCWA declined to comment on the Riverhead Town board’s recent call to action.

“As this matter relates to pending litigation we will not comment,” said Dominick DiCarlo, SCWA communications assistant, in an email on Friday, March 20.

Toqui Terchun, president of the Greater Calverton Civic Association, said the civic has sent a letter to the SCWA. Other civics, such as the Heart of Riverhead Civic Association, are working on getting the word out to the public as well.

“We’re going to be supportive of Riverhead in any way we can,” Ms. Terchun said in a call on Friday.

The Riverhead Town Board voted unanimously on Oct. 7, 2025, to adopt its own Monroe Test results, concluding that it had authority over the project and that the SCWA was not exempt from local zoning and land-use regulations.

The Monroe Balancing Test — named for a 1988 New York Court of Appeals case — is used to decide whether one level of government can bypass another’s zoning authority. It weighs nine factors, which include the project’s public benefit, environmental impact and whether local oversight would hinder regional goals.

The SCWA lawsuit alleges that Riverhead’s determination “was arbitrary and capricious, an abuse of discretion and affected by error of law because the Monroe Balancing Test clearly weighs in favor of immunity,” according to court records. 

SCWA officials presented the findings of their own Monroe Balancing Test at a public hearing on Oct. 9, 2025, and concluded that the agency has immunity from local regulations because it serves as a regional public entity.

It adopted those findings in a formal resolution dated Nov. 20, 2025, which state the SCWA is “indisputably immune from local municipal jurisdiction,” according to the court documents.