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Residents of Bay Park/East Rockaway started a campaign on January 10th, 2008 when we found out the county was planning to vote on entering an Inter-Municipal Agreement (IMA) with Glen Cove, 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 representative Jeff Toback. Going door to door we collected in excess of 700 signatures over the 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 Legislature meeting to deliver the signatures and pleaded with the powers that be to table the vote until more information could be gathered and passed on to the community. The residents of Bay Park/East Rockaway presented an intelligent and valid argument for postponing the vote. 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.

Since the 1/14/08 meeting, we have sought to express to Nassau County our disappointment in this ill-conceived plan and our determination to prevent it from becoming a reality. Our rally on March 1st in Bay Park 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 tell the county "NO MORE SEWAGE!"

You may ask "Why continue?" The vote entered the county into an agreement to take over these plants. It does not address consolidation itself - logistically or economically. Those plans have yet to be hammered out. Our concerns can and should still be addressed. We are not convinced Bay Park could handle additional sewage in its present condition. Odor control continues to be an issue as it stands now. We know the outfall pipe into Reynolds Channel is already causing irreparable damage to the ecosystem and needs to be extended at least 2 miles off-shore like the plant at Cedar Creek. 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, never mind adding 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 and Lawrence 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.

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 government and express your concerns with the plant, ask them the tough questions and make them do their job of representing you, the taxpayer.

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