The Long Island Clean Water Partnership hosted its seventh annual “Water We Going To Do?” Conference on Wednesday, October 24th. About 200 Long Islanders filled the room to hear the latest on the effort to restore the Island’s water quality. Government officials and scientists discussed the problems in our waters, and provided solutions and hope for the future.
Ryan Wallace, from the Gobler Lab at Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences started off the program with an overview of Long Island’s water quality impairments. Our coastal waters did not fare well in the Summer of 2018 – nearly every major bay and estuary across Long Island was afflicted with a toxic algae bloom, oxygen-starved waters or both. It is a widespread and serious problem.
Ty Fuller of the Suffolk County Water Authority discussed the emerging contaminants appearing in Long Island’s waters, their associated treatment methods and their costs.
Next, Mary Anne Taylor of CDM Smith and consultant for Suffolk County, released data from the County’s subwatershed mapping. Their study calculates the current nitrogen loading to the Island’s 200+ subwatersheds and will set nitrogen-reduction goals for each of those watersheds. It is clear that we will have to drastically reduce nitrogen across the Island to see ecosystem recovery.
Following that, Suffolk County Officials Peter Scully and Justin Jobin, discussed the status of the County’s septic replacement program. Scully discussed the successes of the grant and loan program available to homeowners to replace their polluting systems with new nitrogen-removing technology. Jobin discussed the outstanding performance of several new systems to significantly remove nitrogen from household effluent.
Representatives from Stony Brook’s Center for Clean Water Technology, Frank Russo, Molly Graffam & Samantha Roberts, discussed the new nitrogen-removing technology that is being researched at the institute. This included nitrogen-removing biofilters, permeable reactive barriers and constructed wetlands.
James Tierney of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and John Cameron of the Long Island Regional Planning Council provided updates on the status of the Long Island Nitrogen Action Plan.
Keynote speaker, Dr. Christopher Patrick from Texas A&M University, discussed the successes of the Chesapeake Bay Restoration Program. A 23% reduction in nitrogen entering the watershed has resulted in a 316% increase in seagrass. Healthy seagrass meadows are an indicator of a clean marine environment. Chesapeake Bay’s successes provide hope for Long Island’s waters. We know that when nitrogen is removed from a watershed, the ecosystem can recover.
Other speakers included Chris Schubert from USGS on groundwater sustainability; Brian Schneider on Nassau County’s water initiatives; Mary Wilson and Janice Scherer from Southampton Town on the success of the town’s Community Preservation Fund water improvement program; and Joseph Davenport on the re-opening of the Town of Hempstead’s water quality laboratory.
It was a great conference and we truly thank all of our speakers and attendees for their interest and involvement in protecting Long Island’s water quality. If you missed the conference, powerpoint slides can be downloaded here. Stay tuned for video coverage of the event!