Officials say no raw sewage leaked into Huntington Harbor from broken pipe 

The Suffolk County Department of Health Services issued a precautionary health advisory on Monday for Huntington Harbor after a broken pipe was found during the weekend inside a tank at the Huntington Sewage Treatment Plant on Creek Road.

The pipe malfunction led to elevated levels of "total suspended solids" — particulate matter floating in the water — being discharged into Huntington Harbor around 2 a.m. Saturday, according to John Clark, Huntington's director of environmental waste management.

The elevated levels of solids discharge could have lasted from between a moment to as long as six hours — the length of the monitoring cycle, Clark said. Still, he noted, there was no risk to the public.

"There's really nothing significant about the raised levels except that there were increased numbers for a period of time," Clark said.

The town said no raw sewage was ever emitted into the harbor from the plant during the malfunction, and that all discharged sewage was treated as normal.

The Health Service's advisory sent out Monday said "to take precautions before recreating in Huntington Harbor near the Huntington Sewer District Wastewater Treatment facility effluent discharge located near the head of the harbor. The advisory is being issued out of an abundance of caution following a pipe break resulting in the discharge of residual solids. . ." The agency "will be sampling the effluent from the treatment plant located on Creek Road in Huntington, as well as multiple locations throughout Huntington Harbor for bacteriological quality," the advisory added.

The state Department of Environmental Conservation said Tuesday in a statement that it "inspected the Huntington plant this morning and is closely monitoring the plant. Based on our inspection, the plant is undertaking additional steps to stay in compliance. DEC plans additional inspections of this facility as it works through operational issues."

The town "discharge(s) on average 1.9 million gallons per day of treated sewage into the harbor so there is no change to the fact that 'treated sewage' after going through the complete [Sewage Treatment Plant] process (sludge removal, de-nitrification, UV disinfection, etc.) was discharged into the harbor after being properly treated," Clark wrote in an email statement.

After discovering the broken pipe, which had come loose from its coupling, town employees manually "perform functions in that SBR tank" that include adding polymers to settle the solids and removing with the sludge and pumping clean water to another tank. The broken pipe is expected to be replaced by this week, Clark added.