After voters authorized up to 20 percent of participating towns’ annual community preservation fund income to be spent on water quality improvements, no one really knew how it would play out in the real world. Now, several years in, East Hampton can begin to see what the money can go to and that it could very well make a difference. The town board is looking at about $2.2 million in spending, mostly for replacing outdated or failed septic systems near important waterways.
As with a previously funded effort to pay for residential installations, the town cash goes to low-nitrogen-wastewater treatment, the cost of which would otherwise have put the improvements out of reach. For example, in the latest round of grants, the Springs Presbyterian Church could get more than $300,000 to keep sewage and parking lot runoff from reaching Accabonac Harbor. Just up the road, the new owners of the Springs General Store could receive about $100,000 for a new wastewater system. The area of the harbor nearest to where the church site and general store drain is closed year round to shellfishing by order of the State of New York, one of just two permanently off-limits sections.
Less dire, but of concern nonetheless, is an area of Three Mile Harbor north of the Commercial Dock and Gann Road; Harbor Marina there could get just over $100,000 to help pay for improvements. Much of the effluent that now may flow through groundwater into the harbor itself comes from Bostwick’s on the Harbor restaurant, which occupies a second-story space at the marina. Its wastewater would be dealt with if the plan goes through. But by far the biggest-ticket item is in Sag Harbor.
The town’s water quality committee has recommended more than $1 million to help pay to expand the Sag Harbor sewer district. Forty properties that now leach as much as 12,500 gallons of wastewater a day into the ground would be connected to the sewage treatment plant. Densely packed Sag Harbor Village has had shellfish closures for years, as well as no-swimming warnings at its popular Havens Beach. The money might not turn all of that around, but it is a valid next step.
Though there is still nagging uncertainty about officials identifying nitrogen as water-quality enemy number one, modernizing septic systems makes sense. Keep up the good work, East Hampton Town.