County’s pipe project progresses At a meeting at Operation SPLASH headquarters in Freeport on June 26, a panel offered an update on the study of the aqueduct running underneath Sunrise Highway.
Members of the panel included Adrienne Esposito, executive director of Citizens Campaign for the Environment, left; Brian Schneider, assistant to the deputy commissioner of the Nassau County Department of Public Works; Rob Walker, Nassau County deputy executive; Mike Martino, Suez community affairs director and Alan Weyland, Suez director of operations.
County officials announced last week that they are accepting design proposals from engineering firms after a three-month study confirmed that a 110-year-old aqueduct running underneath Sunrise Highway is a “viable host pipe” to transport treated sewage from the South Shore Water Reclamation Facility in Bay Park to the ocean outfall pipe at the Cedar Creek Water Pollution Control Plant on the Wantagh-Seaford border.
As of June 30, Nassau County Deputy Executive Rob Walker said, 83 percent of the pipe had been studied.
“So why waste more time and money?” Walker noted that engineers could also continue the study during the design process.
Now it’s a real option, when before it was just an idea.” The Bay Park plant discharges 50 million gallons of sewage per day into the Western Bays, according to Esposito.
“The condition of our outfall pipe is the number one issue,” he said.
“This pipe is almost 40 years old already.
We don’t want the Western Bays to suffer, but we also want our bay to be protected.” The ocean outfall pipe is 2½ miles from the shore at Jones Beach.
Franco suggested that county leaders test the ocean outfall pipe to determine what would happen during large storms, when flow through the pipe system would increase.