Suffolk's ambitious plan to replace septic systems is behind schedule, upping calls for more mandates

Five years ago, Suffolk County launched a plan to dig up and replace every outmoded, polluting septic tank and cesspool in the county. The ambitious project, one of the largest causes championed by Long Island environmentalists over the past several decades, was expected to take 50 years. 

The planners set a goal of installing 16,500 nitrogen-removing systems by this year. Today, roughly half that many are in the ground, according to the county’s figures.

The program has so far relied heavily on financial incentives to persuade homeowners to opt for a cutting-age system, and those grants have grown more generous in the past year. But some clean water advocates think tighter mandates, including rules requiring the new systems when old septic tanks fail or when houses are sold, will be necessary for the enormous undertaking to be successful.

"The septic improvement program began in 2017 as a pilot — we're not in the startup phase anymore," said Kevin McDonald, senior conservation policy adviser at The Nature Conservancy on Long Island.

"These changes will occur," McDonald said. "So why don't we do them sooner, and give the public their clean water as fast as we can?"

New rules aren't being considered just now, Michael Martino, spokesperson for County Supervisor Edward P. Romaine, told Newsday, because the county has been waiting for the revenue from a dedicated sales tax that took effect a year and a half ago to accumulate. Putting in new requirements for installing systems "before we saw what kind of money was coming in could have wiped out the fund," he said.

The fund generated nearly $48 million from its inception in March of last year through that December, about $25 million of which was earmarked for septic systems — slightly more than projected, according to county records.

Legis. Steven Englebright (D-Setauket), a member of the legislature's environment committee, said mandates to install new systems, such as when old septic tanks and cesspools fail, could get the job done faster: "The sooner that we can implement protection for our sole source of drinking water the better."

Presiding Officer Anthony Piccirillo (R-Holtsville) did not return requests for comment.

Why Suffolk doesn't have sewers

Suffolk County is largely without sewers, in part because of a 1970s scandal that turned the public against such large infrastructure projects. Roughly 360,000 standard cesspools and septic systems remain in Suffolk, and another 35,000 on the North Shore in Nassau.

These systems were "designed to get rid of the waste as cheaply and easily as possible," said Walt Dawydiak, an environmental engineer at the New York State Center for Clean Water Technology at Stony Brook University and a former director of environmental health for the Suffolk County Health Services Department. 

The wastewater filters slowly into the surrounding soil, a process that helps to remove bacteria but not nutrients like nitrogen that are found in human waste.

The nitrogen-loaded wastewater eventually seeps into the groundwater below, which flows toward streams, lakes and coastal waters. Conventional systems "put pollution very efficiently right into the groundwater and the surface waters," Dawydiak said.

Multiple studies have identified wastewater as a significant contributor to high nitrogen levels in Long Island's waterways, which have contributed to deteriorating conditions in marine waters and wetlands, including algal blooms, loss of marine and salt marsh plants such as eelgrass and cordgrass, low-oxygen zones, and acidification.

Some early models removed about half the nitrogen in wastewater. Now they remove upward of 80%, exceeding the county’s standard of removing nitrogen to 19 milligrams per liter or less, according to testing performed by the Center for Clean Water Technology.

Goal: 300,000 systems replaced

Suffolk County’s goal, set forth in its 800-page Subwatersheds Wastewater Plan in July 2020, is to replace nearly 300,000 conventional cesspools and septic systems with nitrogen-filtering models by 2069.

The interim goal was 16,500 innovative and alternative on-site wastewater treatment systems (also called IA systems) installed by the end of this year. The actual total through June was 8,313, according to Suffolk County’s records, a little more than half of the target.

"It’s a historic program," said Adrienne Esposito, the executive director of Citizens Campaign for the Environment, "and it needs to be accelerated."

Still, the number of installations has increased steadily over the past few years, from roughly 700 in 2021 to more than 1,600 last year. That's 80% of the county's goal of 2,000 a year for this stage in the program, Martino, Romaine's spokesperson, pointed out.

In 2024, a large majority of Suffolk voters approved a sales tax of 0.125% (12.5 cents on a $100 purchase). The proceeds now flow into a fund that provides grants to cover the cost of IA systems; it's expected to collect $3 billion through 2060, for both sewers and septic systems.

Martino said the number of installations so far is promising. "While below the forecast, the County considers this a strong pace," he wrote to Newsday in an email, especially since those grants were much smaller until last month.

Mandates for construction; not for failing systems, sales

The architects of the plan recommended that property owners should be required to install advanced systems under three circumstances: when building a new house or adding to its size, when an existing system is failing, and when properties change hands.

The Suffolk County Legislature passed a law in October 2020 requiring the IA systems in new houses or commercial properties, in areas not served by sewers or in a planned sewer district. Homeowners planning substantial expansions, such as creating a house with more than five bedrooms, also must install an IA system.

The Suffolk Board of Health then approved a measure in December 2023 that would require homeowners in certain priority areas to install an IA when replacing a failing system. That rule was meant to take effect one year after the county established a funding stream to pay for it — the 0.125% sales tax.

But the board’s decision was never incorporated into the sanitary code, which lays out regulations related to wastewater treatment, according to The Nature Conservancy's McDonald.

The rule hasn't been implemented, Martino said, because "we're assessing how the fund is being used now." Now that grants have increased, he said, the county will "evaluate program demand before considering any future policy changes."

McDonald said he believes it’s time to put that regulation into practice. In approving the sales tax two years ago, McDonald said, "the public told us, 'Here's the money to fix it. Let’s get going.' "

East Hampton no longer allows residents to install a conventional system when their old one fails, he pointed out, and the town now has the highest rate of IA installations anywhere on the Island.

A conventional septic system costs about $10,000 to $15,000, and an IA costs between $30,000 and $37,000, according to Tom Varley, watershed manager at the Center for Clean Water Technology. If site conditions are tricky, the price can be higher.

But state and county grants together provide up to $45,000 for an IA. "For the average home with good soil conditions," the grants "can likely cover the entire project," according to Danielle Quackenbush, an owner of Quackenbush Cesspools in East Hampton.

In most towns, however, residents have to cover engineering costs, which run about $3,000, according to Dawydiak.

Residents in the towns of East Hampton, Southampton and Shelter Island can apply for additional rebates of up to $20,000, which can be used for engineering fees — which are not covered by the state and county grants — or to cover the cost of a more complicated installation.

Donald Morea, the owner of Level Landscaping in Moriches, has been installing IAs for more than 10 years, both in new construction and replacements. "People are starting to know more about it now," he said. 

Grants, environmental benefits, but some finicky systems

When Howard and Josephine Brennan installed one at their house in Patchogue about eight years ago, they felt like pioneers. But the system has proved to be more finicky than they expected. They have had to pump it out several times, and they now avoid pouring bleach or alcohol down the drain, as they were told they can interfere with the process. "We're glad we did it, in a sense," Josephine Brennan said, "but the amount of products you cannot use is ridiculous."

Experts Newsday consulted said ordinary use of household cleaning products or alcohol will be highly diluted and shouldn't cause problems to IA systems.

Some homeowners are inspired to install an IA when they hear "that it's better for our environment," Morea said. 

For James Saakvitne, the decision to install an IA at his house in Bridgehampton three years ago was based on both financial and environmental concerns. The house was in the watershed of Poxabogue Pond and had an old septic system that he feared would soon fail. The grants he received covered the cost to replace it. His only complaint was that the caps in the yard are unattractive. 

He has since moved to Wading River, close to a salt marsh, and is about to install an IA there, too. "It makes so much sense for someone with an old system who is anywhere near an environmentally sensitive area," he said. 

Not everyone is thinking about coastal waterways when they undertake a big construction project, Mike Florio, the CEO of the Long Island Builders Institute, an industry group, said: "In most cases, people are going to go with the easier option and the most cost-effective option."

"If the grant's going to cover the whole price of upgrading the new system, then they'll go with it," he said. But some may be reluctant to fill out a grant application, he said. "People don't want to be hassled with it."

To bypass such resistance, clean water advocates would like to see a requirement to upgrade when a system fails, as the county Board of Health proposed more than two years ago, and perhaps also a mandate to make a switch when a property is sold.

Meanwhile, the engineers at the Center for Clean Water Technology are continuing to develop new versions of nitrogen-removing septic systems, including a less expensive retrofit and one that relies on sand and wood chips to remove nitrogen, uses no electricity and reduces the effluent to as little as 4 milligrams per liter, according to their tests.

"We're extremely hopeful that in the next 10 years, this program will lead to cleaner, safer beaches, bays and harbors," Esposito said.

Have a new IA system? Have an opinion about potential mandates? Let us know what you think by contacting us at tracy.tullis@newsday.com.