Residents of Bay Park/East Rockaway started a campaign on January 10th, 2008 when we found out Nassau County, under the administration of former County Executive Tom Suozzi, planned to vote on entering into an Inter-Municipal Agreement (IMA) with Lawrence and Cedarhurst regarding the operation of their sewage treatment plants.

We reached out via email and encouraged friends/residents to express their concerns by email and telephone to the legislature, especially our former legislative representative Jeff Toback. Going door to door we collected in excess of 700 signatures over the course of a weekend from those people who were opposed to dumping more sewage into the Bay Park facility.

On Monday, January, 14, 2008 several residents went to the Nassau County Legislative meeting to deliver the signatures and present an intelligent and valid argument for postponing the vote on sewer consolidation until more information could be gathered and passed on to the community. Several legislators from both sides of the aisle stated they had just received information or were still waiting for more information.

After three hours of testimony and questioning, a motion was made to table the vote for at least 2 weeks until the next legislative session. That motion was defeated and the vote on the three IMAs went through 10-8 down party lines. Being at that meeting, and the press coverage that followed, leaves little doubt that the county had an agenda and "railroaded" this ill-conceived plan through regardless of the negative ramifications to local residents or the health of the bay.

Since the 1/14/08 meeting, we have sought to express to Nassau County our disappointment in their sewer consolidation "Master Plan" and show them our determination to prevent it from becoming a reality. We will continue to take our elected officials to task and hold their feet to the fire to make sure they work to find realistic solutions to fix Nassau County's sewage problems and help to clean up and save the bay from becoming an environmental disaster.

The community proved their determination on March 1, 2008, when a rally held in the shadows of the Bay Park sewer plant was attended by well over 400 people from Bay Park, East Rockaway and the surrounding communities of Oceanside, Lynbrook, Island Park, Rockville Centre and Valley Stream. People from all these communities, people whose quality of life would be negatively impacted by addition sewage into the bay, joined together to help save our bay and tell the county "NO MORE SEWAGE!"

You may ask "Why continue?" The vote entered the county into an agreement to take over these plants and eventually, the county must legally abide by its contracts with these villages. Regardless, our concerns can and should still be addressed. The health of the bays and estuaries of Southwest Nassau effects all county residents in the long run.

We are not convinced Bay Park can handle any additional sewage in its present condition. We are concerned that the more than 60 million gallons of treated sewage effluent being dumped into Reynolds Channel every day is already doing irrepriable damage to the bays and estuaries of Southwest Nassau.

Odor control continues to be an issue as it stands now.

We know the outfall pipe into Reynolds Channel is already causing major damage to the ecosystem and must somehow cease dumping its effluent into the bay.

We know the plant already cannot handle the intake during "Peak Flow" periods.

We know the shoreline of our beaches are often covered in brown foamy slime and during heavy rains our beaches are usually closed due to high bacteria levels in the water.

All these points need to be addressed as is, before adding any more sewage into the plant.

Bay Park is a lovely, old-fashioned, small community that is relatively unknown to the rest of Long Island. Allowing us to accept the sewage from the plants in Cedarhurst, Lawrence and possibly Long Beach would be to accept our new identity as Nassau County's toilet. And that is unacceptable to us.

??? WHO ARE WE ???

We are greenbayparkers.org, a community activist group that is trying to prevent the consolidation of Cedarhurst, Lawrence and Long Beach into the plant at Bay Park until the County finds a solution to dumping over 60 million gallons of sewage a day into Reynolds Channel.

Greenbayparkers.org is NOT a formal environmental group that holds monthly meetings, has any offices or officers, or goes door to door soliciting your hard earned cash for our cause. We are nothing more than concerned citizens from Bay Park/East Rockaway and the surrounding communities such as Oceanside, Island Park, Lynbrook and beyond. The responsibility of greenbayparkers.org is simply to gather as much information as possible about operations at the sewage plant and the impact it has upon our quality of life and then make that information available to the community.

It is then up to each concerned individual to represent their community by doing what they can to help. Go to a legislative meeting and vocalize your concerns about the existing conditions of the plant. Attend community meetings in your neighborhood and open up discussions about the plant. Write, call or email elected officials from all levels of local, state and federal government and express your concerns with the plant, ask them the tough questions and make them do their job of representing you, the voter and tax payer.

questions, comments, info, stories, etc. - gbpinfo@greenbayparkers.org

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