L&M Publications
Merrick Life • Bellmore Life • Freeport-Baldwin Leader • Wantagh-Seaford Citizen

Construction has begun to link up the over-50-year-old Jones Beach sewage treatment plant with the Cedar Creek outflow pipe that flows two miles into the Atlantic Ocean, George Gorman, deputy regional director of the state Office of Recreation and Historic Preservation, Long Island region, told Bellmore Life last week.   

The hookup could quickly help reduce sewage found in Zachs Bay, which comes, in part, from the sewage plant’s outflow pipe into East Bay just southwest of the Sloop Channel bridge when the tide rises into the Western Bays. Zachs Bay has been a family recreational swimming location for decades, and is often closed due to high counts of E-coli bacteria. Mr. Gorman said a team of divers and surveyors has been to the site where the linkup of the new pipe from the sewage plant to the Cedar Creek outflow pipe will take place. 

“Divers have been down into the water to survey the spot of the hookup,” he said. He said the project is scheduled to be completed by Memorial Day, 2011.

First proposed by SPLASH

The project was first proposed seven years ago by Freeport-based grassroots organization Stop Polluting, Littering and Save Harbors, (SPLASH) and Rob Weltner, its executive director. He has led the charge to remove effluent from the bay in order to  improve habitat and water quality.  SPLASH has chapters in Bellmore,  Wantagh and Seaford, as well. 

The new pipe will run from the Jones Beach sewage treatment plant under Ocean Parkway, heading two miles east to hook up to the Cedar Creek Water Pollution Control Plant’s outflow pipe. Effluent from both facilities will then be flushed out to sea. Cedar Creek is a Nassau County facility.

The bays are a sub-region of the South Shore Estuary Reserve, which represents a large area of shallow water and fragile salt marsh islands. The bays are the home of marine and bird life, such as the snowy egret and blue herons. Hard shell clams and other mollusks live in the marshes.  “Jones Beach is the largest bathing facility in the world,” said state Assemblyman Dave McDonough. “This will make for cleaner, healthier waters for swimmers.”

$2 million cost paid for

The construction cost is $2 million, funded by New York State. An intermunicipal agreement allows the state to hook up to Cedar Creek at no cost; the county, in turn, will be permitted to use state land for the purpose of a 911 center. 

“It’s a win-win agreement,” said Carol Ash, state parks commissioner. “It’s important to have these public-public partnerships, because we have the capacity as well as the money to get things done, and this needed to be done.” Nassau County Executive Edward Mangano agreed. “This project makes so much sense and is a giant step for the environment. Jones Beach [treatment plant] shouldn’t discharge into one of the nation’s most famous beaches. We need to do our part to keep its surrounding shores and waters pristine.”

At a meeting of the Cedar Creek Health Risk Assessment Committee at the Cedar Creek Water Treatment Plant, some residents expressed concern about the impact the hook-up would have on the facility’s ability to process sewage. “No impact at all,” explained Joseph Davenport, county engineer, who added that the pipe will have a shut-off valve. 

Five years ago SPLASH was joined in support by Citizens Campaign for the Environment. Both organizations have been tireless advocates for cleaning up the bays.

One state official said, “Whenever we slipped or tried to pull away from the project it was the nonprofits [SPLASH and Citizens Campaign for the Environment] that reminded us what we needed to do.”  “This is a great day,” said Mr. Weltner. “It just shows you what can be achieved if we work together to solve problems. We made a lot of phone calls, had a lot of meetings and now we are here today.”

County Legislator David  Denenberg, another early proponent of the project, remembered coming to the Jones Beach sewage plant with Rob Weltner other SPLASH members, “Seven years ago. I thought, ‘Well, it looks like we are going to have to move mountains. But in the end we got it done.’ ”

Gary Smith, president of the Bellmore chapter of SPLASH, said that “Since SPLASH first got in to tour the facility in June of 2003, along with Bellmore Life, we thought this was one of five offending waste-treatment plants at that time that could be taken care of fairly easily.

“I thought that a hook up to the outflow pipe from Cedar Creek into the ocean was the solution, and said so. I’m happy that after seven years we now have a date” as to when the effluent from the Jones Beach sewage plant will stop going into the bays, and go into the ocean instead, he concluded. 
- Douglas Finlay contributed to this story. 

By Laura Schofer

Laura Schofer, staff writer for L&M Publications, has been recognized with several awards for many of her feature pieces published in Bellmore and Merrick Life, The Citizen and The Leader.