An East Hampton Town proposal to build a sewage treatment plant in Montauk appears to be dead in the water for now following a unanimous 8-to-0 vote by Suffolk County Parks Commission trustees last week to reject a proposed town-county land swap that was key to the project’s getting off the ground.
Following the vote last Thursday, Town Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc expressed disappointment at the county’s decision and stressed the need for sewage treatment in Montauk, noting that “effective sewage treatment through a centralized system would allow long-range planning goals for the hamlet, such as coastal adaptation in response to sea level rise and eroding shorelines, as outlined in the Montauk hamlet plan and East Hampton Town’s comprehensive plan, to move forward.”
Much to the dismay of many residents, the town and its contracted engineering firm had identified 14 acres of county parkland in Hither Woods adjacent to the former town landfill as the only viable place to site the treatment plant. It proposed to swap a recently purchased 18.8-acre town-owned parcel off East Lake Drive, adjacent to Montauk County Park, for county land in Hither Woods, where it would clear 4.7 acres for a buildout of the facility.
In order to remove the acreage from the county’s holdings in Hither Woods, the State Legislature would need to approve the repurposing, or “alienation,” of the parkland.
State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. weighed in on the controversial plan two weeks ago when he announced that neither he nor State Senator Anthony Palumbo would sponsor “park alienation legislation until the town has completed a full” analysis of the proposal as required by the State Environmental Quality Review Act. “All reasonable alternatives must be considered in a full public and transparent matter,” he wrote in a letter to Mark Potter, president of the Southampton Trails Preservation Society, which opposes the project. “Once a full and complete SEQRA record has been developed, we can all determine the best course of action.”
Richard Whalen, president of the Coalition for Hither Woods, a not-for-profit environmental group, declared a cautious victory following last week’s county vote held in Sayville. “We don’t know if the parks trustees’ vote will end East Hampton Town’s almost obsessive two-year quest to build a centralized sewer system for Montauk, but we hope so,” Mr. Whalen said in a statement this week. “That decision is now up to the town board, which needs to hold its deliberations in public. The decision of the parks trustees should send a clear message to the town board: It is time the board laid the Montauk sewer project by the wayside. There are better and cheaper ways to improve Montauk’s environment than to build a centralized sewer system for the hamlet.”
Mr. Whalen noted that town engineers estimated that a phase one buildout of a centralized Montauk sewer system could cost up to $75 million. He believes the actual cost would be much higher and would compel the town to add a new level of bureaucracy to manage the new sewage district, further burdening taxpayers who have already paid for preliminary work on the wastewater plant.
The town contracted with the Melville firm H2M Architects and Engineering in February of 2021 to scope out and design a wastewater plant in Montauk, where about half a million gallons of wastewater are generated daily in four areas, according to the town — the Montauk dock area, the area around the Long Island Rail Road station, Ditch Plain, and the downtown commercial district. After signing off on the initial $129,500 contract in 2021, the town board voted in favor of sending an additional $30,000 to the firm in mid-February.
Despite the major setback in Sayville last week, Mr. Van Scoyoc pledged that “the town will continue to seek solutions to the ongoing wastewater problem in Montauk, where inadequate individual septic systems on properties in areas such as the downtown business district result in a release of raw sewage that exceeds Health Department standards.”
Mr. Whalen, for his part, will continue his efforts to highlight the value of the parkland the town had targeted for the swap. A longtime walk leader with the East Hampton Trails Preservation Society, on March 11 he will lead a second hike at what the society calls the “imperiled Laurel Canyon” in Hither Woods. The first, on New Year’s Day, drew dozens of participants, many with signs protesting the town’s plans. Hikers on March 11 will meet at the Montauk Recycling Center parking area at 10 a.m. for the five-mile trek.
