Saltaire, Suffolk County Water Authority sign 40-year water pact

The Fire Island Village of Saltaire is handing control of its water system to the Suffolk County Water Authority on Friday after more than a century of operating independently, a move officials say will lower bills and shore up the system during emergencies.

Saltaire is a community of roughly 100 full-time residents that sits across the Great South Bay from Bay Shore. Its water system depends on two wells and has been operated by the village for roughly 110 years, according to Mayor Hugh O’Brien.

That local control will come to an end Friday when the water authority takes over Saltaire's system as part of a 40-year contract. Saltaire's five-member village board signed off on the agreement last week in a unanimous vote.

Saltaire currently charges residents a $670 annual flat fee for water consumption. The deal will save ratepayers about $70 on average. O’Brien said the key upside is that it will protect Saltaire from a system collapse should another Superstorm Sandy-like event strike.

The water authority will fund major repairs, for example, and Saltaire’s system will now be meshed into the water systems of almost every other Fire Island community.

“When we have another hurricane, if our water system were compromised or destroyed … we’d be in a very serious position,” O’Brien told Newsday. “SCWA [will] integrate us with our neighboring water systems in case there’s an emergency and continue to provide water.

“We felt that for all of these reasons, the time had come,” he added.

An integrated system

The water systems for all Fire Island communities are physically connected. But the flow between SCWA’s pipes and Fire Island communities that run their own systems — Saltaire, Ocean Beach and Seaview — remains stopped unless there’s an emergency.

“The only way they open is if there is a well failure in Saltaire or the system fails for whatever reason. Then … [SCWA] opens the valve,” said Fire Island Association president Suzy Goldhirsch.

Those valves will be permanently opened to Saltaire under the new deal. Village administrator Mario Posillico said that should make the system more capable of avoiding service disruptions if something goes wrong.

“It makes us more resilient and it makes us better able to handle emergencies going forward because, like I said, we’re integrated into the west end of Fire Island,” he said. “Kismet has wells, Fair Harbor has wells, we have wells. So, the loss of one well will not be as catastrophic because the other wells will continue operating."

The village will still retain ownership of its part of the integrated water system, while SCWA just manages and operates it moving forward, O'Brien said.

SCWA also will be on the hook for any major repairs or upgrades.

O’Brien said part of the deal mitigates the possibility that Saltaire may have to foot a big repair bill in the future — something that has become a larger risk in recent years.

“You never know when a disaster is going to come and what’s going to have to be replaced, repaired or addressed,” Posillico said. “So, it allows us to take those future capital costs and offload them to Suffolk County Water, and we can focus on the rest of our infrastructure.”

The village expects to save on operating costs.

Posillico expects to “break even” or possibly incur some extra expenses during the transition. But, he told Newsday, “we anticipate that to flip very quickly within the first two or three years and that operationally we’ll be saving money.”

Resident costs

O’Brien said the water fee structure on Fire Island is flawed because it forces some residents to shoulder an outsized share of the village’s overall expense.

“Fire Island is mostly a seasonal community — there aren’t that many people on Saltaire or Fire Island who live there year-round. For half of the year or a third of the year, people aren’t using their water at all,” O’Brien said.

SCWA will install meters on homes under the new contract, so Saltaire residents will now pay a water bill that’s in line with their usage.

Posillico expects the average homeowner will ultimately pay “slightly less than $600 annually” once the water authority fully takes over the system. That’s a savings of roughly 10%.

“We’re becoming part of their larger system, so they have tremendous economies of scale that we simply don’t have,” Posillico said.