The Suffolk County Water Authority Board on Thursday approved a resolution declaring a project to bring high quality public water to a community in Manorville with contaminated private wells as a Type II action, facilitating the process of securing federal funding for the project.
The action by the board is the latest step by SCWA to prepare to undertake the project; an engineering report on the project has been completed and Congressman Lee Zeldin has applied for funds for the project in the House Committee on Appropriations.
The total cost of the project to install water mains to connect 64 homes in the Town of Brookhaven portion of the community—another 64 impacted homes in the same community are in the Town of Riverhead—is expected to be $6.75 million.
“We stand ready to bring high quality water to residents who need it badly,” said SCWA Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey Szabo. “We are fully prepared to move forward, and I thank Congressman Zeldin for his efforts to secure the necessary funding.”
Tests on private wells in the community, which is south of the former Grumman naval weapons plant in Calverton, have detected various contaminants, with some levels over state and federal drinking water standards. The perfluorinated compounds PFOS and PFOA—regulated by New York State last summer at 10 parts per trillion—are among the contaminants detected.
The Suffolk County Water Authority is an independent public-benefit corporation operating under the authority of the Public Authorities Law of the State of New York. Serving approximately 1.2 million Suffolk County residents, the Authority operates without taxing power on a not-for-profit basis.