Shelter Island advisory panel sets 4 goals as part of long-term water quality plan

Officials in Shelter Island Town, where nearly 90% of people get their water from private wells, have outlined a long-term plan that suggests enlarging the public water system as one way to address water-quality issues.

The town’s water advisory committee presented its Ground and Surface Water Management plan during a March 3 town work session mapping out four long-term water goals, one of which is ensuring residents have access to drinking water that meets all government standards.

Shelter Island, which has approximately 2,500 year-round residents, faces unique drinking water problems due in part to nitrogen contamination, a shallow amount of fresh water and because treatment and testing are not mandated for private wells.

The other three goals are as follows: continuing to provide water from the Island’s own groundwater; lowering the nitrogen load from wastewater effluent into the aquifer; and not impacting the water surrounding Shelter Island with human activity, such as groundwater outflow from septic systems.

“Think about this as a vision of where we would like to be as an island 15 to 20 years from now,” said Councilman Mike Bebon, an engineer and member of the advisory committee.

The committee will seek community input and probably edit the report before incorporating it into the town’s comprehensive plan.

The report looks at long-term objectives, such as the possible build out of an islandwide system in 11 years, but does not cite costs. Another suggestion would require the installation of nitrogen-reducing septic systems for all home sales.

Other goals, such as enforcing a Suffolk County law requiring retailers to display information on the risks of nitrogen-based fertilizers, could be undertaken immediately, Bebon said.

But in an interview, John Hallman, a former water advisory committee chairman, criticized the town’s historical response to water quality and questioned how it could pay for public water infrastructure.

“Our feeling has always been the state has given the town the right to regulate drinking water on the Island and they have not done a very good job at it,” said Hallman who owns a commercial water testing business. “I’ve always said to the town board for 40 years you don’t need public water if you manage the water properly.”

However, Bebon noted that a lack of commercial industry on Shelter Island means that the town probably doesn't have the manufacturing-related pollution issues plaguing other communities.

“There are areas of Long Island that have worse problems than we do,” he said.

The annual rainwater filtered through the ground, a process known as recharge, provides more than enough water to meet the town’s drinking needs, Bebon said. But some areas, particularly those close to the coast, have less fresh water while others have nitrate contamination issues.

Bebon said town officials met with the Suffolk County Water Authority to begin discussing public water infrastructure, which could transport potable water to the affected areas and resolve that problem.

“By and large we feel that there is sufficient water, although it may not be in the right place,” Bebon said.

By Vera Chinese

vera.chinese@newsday.com@VeraChinese

Vera Chinese joined Newsday in 2017 after working as an editor for the East End lifestyle publication northforker and a general assignment reporter for the New York Daily News.