Republican Suffolk County Legislaors Shrug Off Need to Act Now

 

What’s the Hurry?

I was there. And I'm angry and frustrated.

No rush necessary. That was the attitude of the Republican members of the Suffolk County Legislature on July 25 as they voted not to approve the resolution that would have started a historic effort to purify the drinking water and the bays that surround our beautiful Long Island.

In a world where the desires of the public in a democracy should have won the day, our representatives chose to ignore the 40 people who testified that they should approve the resolution without delay. Forty people who turned out and sat through not just the testimony but the grandstanding of the legislators who tried to put some kind of rationale on their refusal to listen to both the experts and the people living with results of on-going water pollution.

It didn’t matter when Christopher J. Gobler of Stony Brook’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences startled the audience with the news that the nitrogen in our drinking water might very well be contributing to cancer among Suffolk residents. The levels considered safe by the EPA and the Suffolk County Water Authority might not be safe after all, according to new information.

It didn’t matter that the two new advanced septic systems approved for commercial use in Suffolk County remove at least 80% of the nitrogen that is contaminating our waters.

The opposition legislators listened but chose to delay indefinitely despite testimony that the nitrogen in the Great South Bay has been the death of the once-thriving clam industry there. Or that the luscious little scallops that used to be harvested in great numbers in the Peconic Bay can no longer survive there. No rush necessary to deal with those problems.

It didn’t matter when representatives of labor and the business community testified that the jobs created by replacing hundreds of thousands of polluting septic systems, and installing sewers in places with low groundwater, would create an economic boom in Suffolk County. The septic replacements would support an industry of small businesses, the kinds of businesses that are the heart of a local economy.

It didn’t matter that funding from New York State and the federal government would immediately flow to Suffolk County had the legislature put the proposal on the ballot and had voters approved it. Plenty of time, they said, in the face of being told that the money is being doled out now to other counties, and that enabling legislation passed by the state to allow the referendum might be impossible to get again.

In the face of repeated testimony that all the best science said the mix of improved septics and sewers was the best way to clean our waters, the Republican legislators just shrugged it off.

Instead, the Republicans, including Presiding Officer Kevin McCarthy, kept pushing for support for more sewers, more sewers, prodding speakers to say whether they supported sewers or improved septic systems. Wisely, the speakers declined to take the bait of a false choice. The Republican legislators insisted that the mix of funding from the sales tax increase of 1/8 of one cent--75% for septics and 25% for sewers—should be changed to favor sewers.  This despite the fact that about an equal $2 billion would have gone for each when funding from another source was included.

In the end, no hurry at all won the day in a party-line vote to deny Suffolk residents the chance to decide the issue themselves.

Why? That is the question. Supporters speculated that it was fear of Democrats turning out in big numbers in November to support clean water, resulting perhaps in losses to the Republicans running for re-election. Could it have been ignorance about the necessity of acting? Hard to believe because the experts were there to answer all their questions.

I was a reporter at Newsday in the era of the scandal-plagued Southwest Sewer District. Big public works projects are susceptible to bribery and corruption. Could it be that some individuals are licking their lips at the prospect of all those hundreds of millions of dollars in public contracts? Much harder, if not impossible, to profit off work of the many small businesses installing new septic systems in people’s homes.

And remember, this is the same Legislature that has refused to create an independent Inspector General to try to stop the corruption that has been endemic to Suffolk County for decades. Note that both Republicans and Democrats have opposed that safeguard.

July 25 was a sad day for democracy, and a sad day for the people of Suffolk County. We deserve a legislature that truly represents us. ##