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Bay Park sewage plant may have cost Toback election

BY SID CASSESE

November 19, 2009

If any one issue cost Oceanside Legis. Jeff Toback the election - and the Democrats their legislative majority - it was the consolidation of area sewage into the plant at Bay Park, political observers say.

Preliminary results have Toback losing to Republican Howard Kopel of Lawrence, 6,715 to 5,513.
Many factors came into play in the election, observers said, including the Orthodox Jewish community's strong support of Kopel, low Democratic voter turnout, what some called a dull campaign by Democrats, and even the resentment of minority groups over a failing community center in Inwood.

But sewage was the major local issue, and Bay Park and adjacent East Rockaway residents rose up against Toback, who backed the consolidation that has not been completed yet.

"We had many meetings and did a lot of research and brainstorming on this," said Connie Petrucci, a consolidation opposition leader. "What got out the vote [against Toback] was networking on the telephone and Internet and especially our Web site: Greenbayparkers.org."

But Toback, a 10-year legislator and the third-ranking Democrat of the 10-9 majority, said consolidation was the right thing to do. "It was a win-win situation for everybody, fiscally and environmentally," he said. "But the Republicans saw it as an issue for creating fear among some residents and exploited it."

Petrucci and her group saw it differently. "It was never about saving money or the environment," she said. "It was political - closing down the stations in Cedarhurst and Lawrence, and shifting the responsibility for the sewage from the villages to the county."

Others saw additional obstacles that Toback faced.

Lawrence Levy, the executive director of Hofstra University's National Center for Suburban Studies, said Nassau's entire Democratic campaign was "lazy, sloppy, unfocused . and that includes the Toback race against Howard Kopel." He added that the support of Orthodox rabbis in the area also helped Kopel.

Rabbi Bruce Ginsburg of the conservative Congregation Sons of Israel in Woodmere, while noting that he had no active role in either candidate's campaign, said he remembered a local newspaper advertisement by Orthodox rabbis supporting Kopel. "It didn't say anything against Toback, but just backed Kopel," he said.

But both Toback and Kopel said they believed other issues had more impact than the religious one. Kopel said "sewage consolidation hurt the incumbent more, and also taxes and spending."

Hempstead sues Nassau over Bay Park sewer consolidation

BY EDEN LAIKIN

October 12, 2009

Hempstead Town is suing Nassau County, accusing the county of approving the Bay Park sewer consolidation plan without a detailed environmental impact statement.

The suit, filed in State Supreme Court in Mineola on Oct. 7, seeks to stop the county from moving ahead with the consolidation plan - approved in June by the County Legislature's Democratic majority - until the environmental review is completed.

Democrats and Republicans in the County Legislature have clashed over the plan, introduced by County Executive Thomas Suozzi, which would close sewage treatment plants in the Villages of Cedarhurst and Lawrence, convert them to pump stations and pipe the waste to the county treatment plant at Bay Park in East Rockaway.

County Public Works Commissioner Ray Ribeiro said the consolidation will help the water quality in the bays along the western portion of the county's south shore by improving the waste when in the treatment process at Bay Park.

Ribeiro said the environmental review was properly done and approved by the state.

"The federal government loves the idea and agreed to fund it," Ribeiro said. "So the villages, the county and the state and federal governments think it [the environmental study] was done right - everybody but the Town of Hempstead."

He said the Bay Park plant can handle the extra waste because it can treat up to 70 million gallons of sewage a day and treats only 58 million now.

Residents near the Bay Park plant - led by Hempstead Town councilman Tony Santino - have complained that the additional sewage would add to the foul odors and pollutants the plant already produces.

The suit states that residents are "deprived of the enjoyment of the public parks, beaches and waterways in the area . . . due to pollutants and contamination of the waterways in the form of brown suds."

Ribeiro said the county has done "everything we could to control the odor problem. We've spent millions of dollars on odor control systems . . . There's no correlation between the amount of flow and odor complaints."

The suit alleges that a Nassau County Planning Commission saying the plan would cause no significant negative environmental impacts was based on an improperly prepared environmental assessment form that failed to recognize the significant adverse effects.

The suit claims that "The town and its residents will be adversely affected and aggrieved by the Sewer Consolidation Plan . . . if the proper environmental review is not undertaken and appropriate mitigation measures are not implemented."

Residents react to Kopel victory
Decade-long Democrat incumbent ousted as legislator

BY ANTHONY BOTTAN

November 12, 2009

Republican Howard Kopel defeated 10-year incumbent Jeff Toback by more than a 1,000 votes.

After serving the 7th Legislative District for ten years, Jeff Toback will be replaced by republican Howard Kopel after losing this year’s election by more than a thousand votes. But for some East Rockaway and Bay Park residents, the change couldn’t have come at a better time.

Toback was an advocate for the consolidation of the Lawrence and Cedarhurst sewage plants to the county’s facility in Bay Park, which most East Rockaway and Bay Park residents opposed.

“I’m elated that he lost,” said Connie Petrucci, an East Rockaway resident who advocated against consolidation. “He was an adversary to this community, and when you have deaf ears toward your constituents, that’s what happens. You lose an election.” Petrucci said she is happy that “the little people finally won” and added that she worked hard with the Green Bay Parkers — a group of East Rockaway and Bay Park residents who fought against the sewage consolidation — to convince voters to oust Toback. “When a group comes together and they have one common goal, you can make it happen,” she said.

The sewage plant consolidation would send an extra 2 million gallons of sewage per day to the Bay Park facility. The plant currently processes 60 million gallons per day, and the state Department of Environmental Conservation allows it to process up to 72 million gallons. Currently, the Town of Hempstead is suing the county as well as Lawrence and Cedarhurst in an attempt to stop the consolidation until state environmental agencies determine how the extra sewage processed by the Bay Park facility will affect Reynolds Channel, where the plant pumps treated effluent. Lawrence and Cedarhurst were also in Toback’s legislative district.

Lorraine Keegan, a member of the Bay Park Civi Association, said she’s lived in Bay Park her entire life, and never put political signs on her lawn. This year, she said, her lawn was filled with pro-Kopel posters. “Toback didn’t want to listen to us,” Keegan said. “I’m very happy he’s out. We may not have a lot of money in this community, but we do have the power and the people who care about where they live.”

Keegan noted that she doesn’t know if Kopel will be any better than Toback, but hopes he will listen to the people who got him into office. “I hope he does better,” she said. “I don’t think he could do any worse. Toback had to realize, he turned his back on us and lost because of it.”

President of the Bay Park Civic Association, Richard Brennan, agreed with Keegan that he is happy Toback is out, but doesn’t know what Kopel will bring to the table for East Rockaway and Bay Park residents. “It remains to be seen,” Brennan said of how well Kopel will do in office. “We are going to have to see how he performs. I don’t think he has to raise the bar too high to beat Toback.”

Trish Louw, an East Rockaway resident who fought against Toback and his consolidation plan, said she met with Kopel to discuss upgrading the Bay Park sewage plant, and hopes he will address the concerns of her community. “Our residents were very aware that we were not being served or listened to,” Louw said. “We needed Toback to address our quality of life issues, and most of the time, he didn’t support us.”

East Rockaway resident Kristen Ochtera said there was a high level of frustration with voters in her community, and felt their needs were dismissed because East Rockaway and Bay Park are small communities.

“We feel like we weren’t given a fair shake,” Ochtera said. “It’s always an uphill battle. You convince yourself that the little man can’t win, but then our community was heard.”
James Trantel, a member of the Green Bay Parkers, said he expected Toback to lose because he and other East Rockaway residents made their rounds in the community, imploring people to vote for Kopel. “We worked hard to get the vote out,” Trantel said. “I think Toback got his just dessert. He would have done much better working with the community than against us.”

Trantel added that even though Toback is out of office, it doesn’t mean Kopel will do any better. “I’m cautiously optimistic,” Trantel said of Kopel. “If he doesn’t do what we need him to do, we’ll put his feet to the fire.”

©Herald Community 2009

Town sues to stop consolidation
Environmental review called for Western Bays

BY ANTHONY BOTTAN

October 8, 2009

The sewer consolidation of the Lawrence and Cedarhurst plants would send an extra two million gallons of sewage per day to the Bay Park facility.
In June, the Nassau County Legislature approved a bill that would close the sewer plants in the villages of Lawrence and Cedarhurst and transfer their waste to the county’s facility in Bay Park.

On Oct. 1, the Town of Hempstead board unanimously voted to sue the county as well as Lawrence and Cedarhurst in an attempt to stop the consolidation until state environmental agencies determine how the extra sewage processed by the Bay Park facility will affect Reynolds Channel, where the plant pumps treated effluent.

The plant consolidation would send an extra 2 million gallons of sewage per day to the Bay Park facility. The plant currently processes 60 million gallons per day, and the state Department of Environmental Conservation allows it to process up to 72 million gallons.

East Rockaway resident Connie Petrucci, who has been fighting the consolidation for two years, said she is glad someone is standing up for the residents of East Rockaway and Bay Park. “We are applauding the Town of Hempstead,” Petrucci said. “It’s the only government entity that steps forward to protect its constituents against the possible health hazards for the residents that live near the plant.”

Town Councilman Anthony Santino said that if the town wins the lawsuit, the county would be required to conduct an environmental review before the consolidation is completed. Santino explained that if the review concludes that the extra sewage adversely impacts the Western Bays — which extend from the town’s western boundary to the Suffolk County line — the county will have to upgrade the Bay Park plant before it begins processing more sewage. He noted, however, that the town does not have the power to stop the consolidation.

Lawrence Mayor C. Simon Felder said he didn’t understand the reason for the litigation. “I don’t see why there would be opposition to it,” Felder said. “It’s a win-win for everyone.”

The environmental review, known as a Total Maximum Daily Load test, determines the amount of pollutants a body of water can handle without exceeding state water quality standards. But Ray Ribeiro, commissioner of the county’s Department of Public Works, said that the test could not be completed until 2013, and if the county had waited until then to consolidate, it would have missed out on the federal stimulus money it has already received for the project.

Adrienne Esposito, executive director of the Citizens Campaign for the Environment, said that the first step toward a healthier Western Bays is consolidation, and the lawsuit is holding up the process. “It sounds like the town is playing politics rather than engaging in a long-term protection plan for the Western Bays, and that’s disturbing,” Esposito said. “... They should be our partners.”

Esposito added that she is confident that the findings of the Total Maximum Daily Load test will show that the Western Bays has levels of nitrogen, bacteria and ammonia that are too high. With consolidation, she said, sewage would be more efficiently treated, which would benefit the Western Bays.

Santino said he thinks the load test should have been done first. “The Legislature put through their proposal to send extra sewage to Bay Park, and they didn’t do any studies or air quality tests,” he said. “That, in my opinion, is bogus. East Rockaway and Bay Park deserve a full environmental review of the proposal to see how it impacts them.”

Legislator Jeff Toback (D-Oceanside), who has been a staunch advocate of the consolidation, said he had not yet seen the court documents and did not know the reason for the lawsuit. He did say that the county followed all the necessary guidelines for the consolidation.

“We believe that we followed the law to a T,” Toback said. “We are confident that we followed all the laws. It required that we do certain studies before we embarked on the project, and I know we followed the law in every respect.”

Town Supervisor Kate Murray said she wanted to make sure that the waterways would not be adversely impacted by the extra sewage, which is why she voted to move forward with the litigation. “We want Nassau to do right by residents around the Bay Park sewage treatment plant,” Murray said. “The county needs to do a thorough environmental review to make sure our bays are safe and clean.”

The consolidation entails the construction of a pumping station in Lawrence that would send sewage to Inwood, and then to the Bay Park facility, Ribeiro explained. Gravity would move the sewage from Cedarhurst to an upgraded pumping station in Inwood, which would move it on to the Bay Park facility. The Bay Park plant processes sewage more efficiently than the other two plants, Ribeiro noted, removing 95 percent of solids, 10 percent more than the local plants.

Upgrading the Lawrence and Cedarhurst facilities would have cost $30 million. Consolidation will cost $18 million. Federal stimulus money will fund up to half of the construction costs, Toback said, with the remainder covered by 30-year bonds worth up to $12 million and $14 million and issued by Cedarhurst and Lawrence, respectively. The project is slated to begin by the end of the year, and to be completed by Jan. 1, 2012.

Cedarhurst Mayor Andrew Parise added that he thinks the consolidation is the right thing to do. “Why would the Town of Hempstead get into it?” Parise questioned. “We’re the last two villages in the Town of Hempstead to get into the county system. We’re definitely for it.”

Stephen J. Bronner contributed to this story.

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