New Quarterly Fee Added To Suffolk County Water Authority Bill

SUFFOLK COUNTY, NY - Customers of the Suffolk County Water Authority (SCWA) will be seeing an increase in their bills starting next year. The company announced that in November, the board approved a $20 quarterly fee starting January 1, 2020.

The fee will cover the cost of developing and operating treatment systems for 1,4-dioxane and the perfluorinated compounds PFOS and PFOA.

"Our mission is to provide our customers high quality water that is constantly tested at the lowest possible cost," SCWA Chairman Patrick Halpin said in a statement. "When the state takes action to remove 1,4-dioxane, PFOS and PFOA from Long Island’s groundwater, SCWA will be ready to continue to fulfill that mission."

In October, the nonprofit Environmental Working Group, performed a study which found six contaminants exceeding its health guidelines and 40 total contaminants across the water supply between 2012 and 2017.

The contaminants include Chromium (hexavalent), Nitrate, Perfluorooctane sulfonate (PFOS), Radium, combined (-226 & -228), Radon and total trihalomethanes (TTHMs).

In response to the study, the SCWA, which serves 1.1 million people, challenged the EWG's findings and assured Suffolk County residents that the drinking water they're being supplied is safe, courtesy of the company's own strong testing.

"It's important for the public to know that some of the testing averages cited in the report as being over the Environmental Working Group's internally-developed health guidelines are actually so low that they cannot be reliably attained by New York State-approved methodology," Chief Executive Officer Jeffrey W. Szabo told Patch. "But that said, the Suffolk County Water Authority provides drinking water that meets all state and federal water quality regulations, and in fact our internal standards for drinking water quality are generally more rigorous than these regulations require."

However, the SCWA is anticipating New York State’s pending regulation of the contaminants. The regulation of 1,4-dioxane at 1 part per billion and PFOS and PFOA at 10 parts per trillion, was recommended last year by the New York State Drinking Water Quality Council, and is expected to be announced by state officials at any time, according to the SCWA.

If the regulations are put into place, the SCWA will need to put into service 56 new advanced oxidation process (AOP) treatment systems and 20 granular activated carbon (GAC) systems.

The cost of installing and operating those systems is expected to cost over $177 million over the next five to six years.

"As we’ve said since state officials first began considering the regulation of 1,4-dioxane and perfluorinated compounds, we fully support taking whatever measures are necessary to ensure our customers continue to have a drinking water supply that is among the best in the country," Szabo said. "But, as we’ve also said, these regulations come at a high cost. We need the funds that will be raised by the quarterly fee to develop the treatment systems to meet the new standards."

The SCWA says they have been testing for the compounds using a system already in place at an SCWA well field in Central Islip and have two more AOP systems in the planning stages.

In addition, the SCWA also initiated legal action in two separate complaints against the manufacturers responsible for polluting Long Island’s groundwater with the contaminants.

The company is looking to recover the costs of treating contaminated water to remove the chemicals from SCWA wells.

The PFOA/PFOS complaint charges that the 3M Company, Buckeye Fire Equipment Company, Chemguard Inc., Tyco Fire Products LP and National Foam Inc. knew or should have known that the firefighting foam they made, distributed or sold is dangerous to human health and contains unique characteristics that cause extensive and persistent environmental contamination.

The complaint includes the same claims against Dow Chemical Company, Ferro Corporation, Vulcan Materials Corporation, Proctor & Gamble and Shell Oil Company in regard to their products—primarily industrial degreasers, laundry detergents and other household products.

Resolutions of these complaints could take years.

This year, the water authority submitted 12 applications for state grant funding under the Water Infrastructure Improvement Act to help with the cost of developing 17 AOP treatment systems at SCWA well fields.