$6.25 Million Awarded To Rockland For Sewer District No. 1

CLARKSTOWN, NY — Rockland Sewer District No. 1, which serves Clarkstown and Ramapo plus a few properties in Orangetown, has been awarded $6.25 million in state grants through a program to support municipalities and public authorities that are working to upgrade their drinking water and wastewater systems.

• Rockland County - $2,875,000 and $3,375,000 WIIA grants for Sewer District No. 1 projects, including pump station upgrades, odor control system replacements and improvements to heating and ventilation systems.

Formed in 1963 and extended in 2000, the sewer district has a history of scandal, from expensive dirt to illegal stipends. After he was elected, County Executive Ed Day made investigations into its operations a priority.

A plan to have the Sewer District pay for a Clarkstown Police Department storage building hit a snag in 2015 when residents questioned why Sewer District officials expected the County Legislature to approve selling county bonds for the building for "the pump station and collection system." The Rockland Voice quoted a former commissioner saying that the Sewer District had made many similar deals.

Also in 2015, Day discovered that elected officials serving as sewer commissioners had paid themselves illegal stipends for years. The County Sewer District laws say elected officials serving on the board are not to be paid, while non-elected officials earn an annual $2,375 stipend. In 2018 a judge ruled the elected officials serving as commissioners had to pay their stipends back. The statute of limitations only allowed the county to seek repayment for six years, though some Commissioners got the stipend for much longer — such as former Ramapo Supervisor Christopher St. Lawrence, convicted of fraud in unrelated cases, who was paid $24,000 for 2003-2015. He was required to pay back $13,062 in principal, plus interest. SEE ALSO: Rockland Sewer Commissioners Must Pay Back Stipends

Then there was the dirt. The Sewer District paid the Town of Ramapo $400,000 in 2012 to remove dirt from a sewer expansion project — work the town didn't do, leaving piles in place for years in Sloatsburg and Hillburn. It was cleaned up in 2017. The county sued to recoup the money and won in 2019.

in 2016, the Rockland County Legislature voted unanimously to amend significant portions of the local law that governs Sewer District 1. The changes included tighter reporting requirements regarding the status of the Sewer District's overall operations, reducing the size of the Board from 13 to 10 members, and docking the pay of those who failed to attend or who had no documented excuse for missing meetings. Additionally, in what was believed to be the first such requirement of a board in Rockland, any Sewer District commissioner convicted of any felony is automatically and immediately disqualified from the Board.