Save The Sound Reaches Settlement With New Rochelle Sewer District

WESTCHESTER COUNTY, NY — Save the Sound has reached a settlement with four municipalities of the New Rochelle Sewer District.

An agreement has been reached between Save the Sound and the four municipalities of the New Rochelle Sewer District, which includes the City of New Rochelle, the Town of Mamaroneck, the Village of Larchmont, and the Village of Pelham Manor. The settlement is the most recent in a case which dates back to 2015, when Save the Sound filed suit against Westchester County and 11 municipalities over violations of the Clean Water Act.

"This case really is a perfect example of why we're here," said Roger Reynolds, Save the Sound's senior legal director, who leads a legal team that enforces the Clean Water Act in cases across the Long Island Sound region. "We sparked huge clean water infrastructure investments in Westchester County and in these communities that are going to pay off in the long term for local water quality and for Long Island Sound."

An initial agreement was reached in November of last year, after which the municipalities had to formally approve it through their respective governing boards. The settlementwas finalized on January 19, and delivered to the Department of Justice and Environmental Protection Agency for review. The agreement is expected to become effective in early March.

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• Hudson Valley On The Water: Save The Sound Beats City Hall

Previous settlements had been reached with the other seven municipalities: the City of Rye, City of White Plains, Town/Village of Harrison, Village of Mamaroneck, Village of Port Chester, Village of Rye Brook and Village of Scarsdale. However, the case against Westchester County remains ongoing.

The settlement will mean infrastructure investments in the form of repairs to sewer lines in the affected communities, according to Save the Sound. The four municipalities of the New Rochelle Sewer District agreed to study and repair 170 linear miles of pipe and fix 25,000 defects. The agreement means that in total, 642.5 miles of sewer pipes have been or will be repaired and more than 64,000 defects have been or will be fixed across the 11 municipalities involved in the long-running dispute.

The case was first opened when Save the Sound became aware of the frequency and magnitude of raw sewage overflows throughout Westchester County, which degrade the quality of the Sound and the waterways that feed into it. Much of that pollution comes from the sanitary sewer pipes that carry wastewater from homes and businesses to treatment facilities, where pollutants are supposed to be removed so that the water is made safe to be discharged into the environment.

However, the aging wastewater infrastructure has deteriorated over the years, making it vulnerable to stormwater overwhelming the leaky sewer pipes during heavy rains, which have grown more frequent and more severe over the years due to climate change, according to Save the Sound officials.

The increased volume of water in pipes causes sanitary sewage overflows and discharges of untreated sewage into the Sound both from the pipes themselves and from the treatment plants that are unable to handle the volume of water. This sewage pollution contributes to beach closures, the closure of shellfish beds, depletion of certain fish stocks, fish consumption advisories, and restrictions on recreational activities.

Specifically, the complaint claimed that Westchester County and the 11 municipalities were in violation of the Clean Water Act by:

• Discharging partially treated sewage.
• Causing a public nuisance.
• Failing to enforce the County Sewer Act to limit illegal levels of flow from municipalities to the treatment plants.

"We saw there was a huge problem with the frequency of sewage overflows, which harmed Long Island Sound and endangered public health, and that the government agencies were not effectively addressing it," said Reynolds, who first became aware of the problem through local pollution watchdog reports and alerts from New York’s Sewage Protection Right to Know Act, launched in 2013.

The New Rochelle Sewer District settlement took a different path than with other previous ones. The four municipalities filed a motion to dismiss, with several claims, including that they were not responsible because the overflow occurred on Westchester County property. However, the court sided with Save the Sound, noting that if a municipality’s excess flow causes a county plant to overflow, they could be held liable for that pollution under the Clean Water Act.

After the court’s decision and months of continued litigation, a final agreement was reached.

Save the Sound said it has been monitoring and enforcing the agreements it has already reached when the municipalities have failed to comply. In addition to the original consent decrees, Save the Sound has entered into supplemental consent decrees with the municipalities of Port Chester, White Plains, and Rye, all intended to enforce the original orders and, in some cases, receive additional Environmental Benefit Projects., according to the group.