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As talk continues about nitrogen pollution from septic systems, Southold Town will prepare inventory, a blueprint for action

There’s been a lot of discussion about nitrogen pollution affecting groundwater and water bodies and the need to replace conventional septic systems, but Southold Town officials are setting out to develop a blueprint for action.

The town will attempt to prepare a database of existing septic systems in the town, using county records and field-observations submitted by service providers. No such database currently exists anywhere in the county, not even at the county health department, which issues the required permits for septic systems, according to town engineer Michael Collins, who pitched the idea to board members during yesterday’s work session.

“There’s no good measure of how many systems there are or where they are located,” Collins said. “County officials have been saying there are 360,000 septic systems in Suffolk, but I’ve learned that number only represents residential systems,” Collins said.

“We have larger commercial and institutional systems serving schools, businesses and offices. To leave them out of the equation is a mistake,” he said. “It may be a lot more cost-effective to fund a retrofit of commercial systems.” Upgrading one larger commercial system could have the same benefits as upgrading 50 individual home systems, he said.

So Collins proposed the town first do an inventory of how many systems there are in Southold, and where they are located, so it could determine how expensive it would be to update all of these.

Conventional septic systems — currently the only kind approved for use in Suffolk County — consist of a cesspool ring and a septic tank. Solids in the waste stream are settled out in the septic tank, a kind of a holding tank, where bacteria consume them. Liquid wastes, including human urine, which has high concentrations of nitrogen, pass into the ring, from which they leach into the ground, reach the groundwater table and eventually flow out to the water bodies and their tributaries. The liquid wastes are not treated, except by passing through the sandy soils surrounding the cesspool ring before they enter the groundwater. Groundwater — which is also polluted by nitrogen from lawn fertilizers — is thought to be responsible for most of the nitrogen pollution of local water bodies. Nitrogen is a major contributing factor in harmful algal blooms, which destroy marine life.

Collins said he’d like to obtain from the county the most recent sanitary permit records for properties in Southold, scan them and tag each one to each individual parcel. “That way we’ll know exactly where every one is and how it’s constructed,” he said.

“We could consider going forward, requiring everyone that services a septic system to give us a hand drawing, so we can locate it. We could scan the drawing in and it becomes part of our plan,” he said.

The county’s sanitary records are not digitized, Collins said. He would utilize an intern in his office and, he hopes, work with an intern from the GIS department at Stony Brook to create a local database.

“At the local level we have the best vision of what our town looks like and how easy or difficult it is to upgrade,” Collins said, “so when the technology is authorized and funding is made available, we will have a blueprint for how to get this done.”

“The town needs to get ready,” Supervisor Scott Russell said. “We’re going to establish priorities” in anticipation of the availability of the technology and funding to replace or upgrade existing septic systems.

Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone last month proposed a water use surcharge fee of $1 per thousand gallons of water used. It would generate an estimated $75 million in annual revenue, that would be used for wastewater improvements, according to the county executive. All public water providers in Suffolk County would be required to collect the surcharge, including the Suffolk County Water Authority and the Riverhead Water District.

“When we were discussing the new excise tax, we raised concerns about our fair share and asked if they have a good understanding of the inventory,” Russell said. “Apparently they have the information sitting in boxes somewhere.”

Building a local inventory is the first step for prioritizing and addressing the matter in a logical manner, Russell said and board members agreed to authorize the work.

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Denise Civiletti
Denise is a veteran local reporter and editor, an attorney and former Riverhead Town councilwoman. Her work has been recognized with numerous awards, including a “writer of the year” award from the N.Y. Press Association in 2015. She is a founder, owner and co-publisher of this website.