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For the past 30 years, saying the word sewer around a Suffolk politician would undoubtedly elicit a dirty look. Such reactions are the response to the debacle surrounding the development of the Southwest Sewer District, which claimed the political life of then-Suffolk County Executive John Klein and led to the decades-long ruin of the Babylon Town Republican Party. Since that time, politicians from both parties have shied away from pushing new sewer projects for fear of following a similar path.
The district, which ran five times over budget—costing more than $1 billion—and left streets in Babylon and Islip upended for years, is now widely considered a huge success despite its inauspicious beginnings. It serves the largest concentration of business development in all of Suffolk, while proving to be an environmental blessing. Struggling areas in eastern Suffolk that are without sewers, meanwhile, have seen plans to revitalize stalled or altogether dumped by frustrated community advocates and entrepreneurs.
And that’s been the story along Montauk Highway in the Mastic-Shirley area, which has seen restaurant owners bail and plans for smart-growth-friendly economic and environmental pick-me-ups start and stop all too often.
That may soon change. In late April, Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy and Legislator Kate Browning announced that Suffolk will explore, through a feasibility study, the possibility of bringing sewers to the Mastic business area. The county Legislature passed a resolution authorizing the Department of Public Works to determine the cost of the project and detail the expected size of a sewage treatment facility and the needed infrastructure. Browning is hoping to lay pipes in the Mastic business district when the county reconstructs Montauk Highway in 2009. Browning and other sewer proponents were hoping that these pipes could be hooked up to a proposed treatment plant farther south along William Floyd Parkway.
Levy, who has been an avid proponent of sewer expansion in Suffolk County, said preliminary information about the plant’s size and the cost had to be determined and shared with the local community. “It is important that the people of this area know how big this plant would have to be and that they agree to its location, as well as knowing how much money the users in the new district would have to pay for the sewer fees. Once these questions are answered, Legislator Browning and I will feel more confident in being able to move forward,” says Levy. “It is a gratifying feeling to know that we have been working together with the community to help move this process forward in an intelligent and deliberative manner.”
In addition to providing a much-needed economic-development foundation for the area, sewer proponents also point to the environmental benefits for the contaminated Forge River as a reason for the project. “The Forge River is polluted. The cesspools are reaching right into the Forge River. We’ve been waiting almost 60 years for a sewer district,” Mark Smothergill, president of the Mastic-Shirley Chamber of Commerce, said in a recent Suffolk Life story. “This area never gets its fair share. The bottom line is we need this—we need a sewer district. The community needs this.”
