Suffolk CO, NY; "Every Water Body Listed As Impaired; Dead Rivers, Closed Beaches, Algal Blooms"

[hatrack]

OAKDALE, N.Y. — The Great South Bay, flanked by Fire Island and the South Shore of Long Island, once produced half the shellfish consumed in the United States, and supported 6,000 jobs in the early 1970s. Since then, the health of the bay has declined. Housing development meant more septic tanks depositing more nitrogen in the ground. The nitrogen flowed to rivers and the Great South Bay, leading to algae blooms. It depleted salt marshes that serve as fish habitat and suppressed oxygen levels. One result is that the shellfish industry has all but collapsed. The annual harvest of hard clams, for example, has fallen more than 90 percent since 1980.

After sweeping legislation that Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo signed in April, Suffolk County and other local governments in New York are hoping to deal with their aging — or absent — sewer lines, drinking water systems and other water infrastructure. The law, the Clean Water Infrastructure Act, allocates $2.5 billion to a variety of projects, as concerns about the safety of drinking water are growing.

Across the United States, impressive gains in water quality were made in the decades after passage of the Clean Water Act of 1972. But courts have generally ruled that the federal law was designed to address surface water contamination, and are divided about its application to tainted groundwater. As a result, problems from industrial pollution and untreated sewage have persisted.

The water quality problem is acute in Suffolk County. With 360,000 septic systems, Suffolk has roughly the same number as all of New Jersey. For years, nitrogen from leaky septic tanks has seeped into groundwater and eventually into rivers and bays. “What we have been doing for decades is just managing the decline of water quality,” said Steven Bellone, the Suffolk County executive. “Every water body is listed as impaired. We have dead rivers, closed beaches, harmful algal blooms.”

EDIT

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/08/nyregion/dead-rivers-closed-beaches-an-acute-water-crisis-on-long-island.html?_r=0

[NNadir]

1. I grew up there. I know this problem very well. I remember, as a child, being able to harvest...

...bushels of steamers with my dad during a trip to the beach.

By the time I was ten, the beaches were closed for shellfish.

I have spent a lot of time thinking and reading about sewage - not necessarily a conversation one can have frequently in what is called "polite" conversation - and I think probably the reason is my experience with growing up on Long Island.

Another big problem on Long Island, which has been somewhat ameliorated in some places by liners - hardly a permanent solution - is landfills on Long Island.

I think growing up there made me think a lot about treating waste as a completely recyclable resource; something that has not gone far enough in my lifetime, regrettably.

The sandy soil of Long Island - it is a glacial moraine geologically - and the dependence on groundwater for its water supply makes for a disturbing mix. Nitrates and nitrites in drinking water are a very problematic exercise particularly for infants subject to methemoglobinemia .

They need to move away from "distributed" waste treatment to centralized waste treatment, but it will be very expensive to build this infrastructure and all efforts up to now have failed.