Raising a stink over sewer-funds delay

Get ready for a "smelly" day in Mineola Monday. Or, at least, it will look like a smelly day.

Four organizations -- the Long Island Contractors' Association, the Public Works Alliance, the Citizens Campaign for the Environment, and Local 138 of the Operating Engineers -- plan to show up on the steps of the old Nassau County Court House on Franklin Avenue in Mineola at noon carrying what will appear to be half a dozen five-gallon jugs of sewage.

Fortunately, the sewage will really be just dark water that LICA executive director Marc Herbst swears won't smell. But the purpose will be serious.

The organizations are protesting the wrangling by members of the Nassau County Legislature, which has held up $170 million in funding for sewer and stormwater improvement plans.

Herbst said that funds from 2010 were held up so long that only a few such projects have gotten started, and that the legislature has failed this year to approve any new funding so far.

"We're not attacking individuals or parties," Herbst said. "We're just asking that they approve these programs that will protect the safety of the environment."

Democrats and Republicans blame each other for the delays.

"We fully expect to pass" the bills, said Ed Ward, an aide to Presiding Officer Peter Schmitt (R-Massapequa.) "It's the Democrats who have been holding it up."

Ward said Democrats argued over percentages of such work in their districts.

But Legis. David Denenberg (D-Merrick), said Schmitt delayed any voting on the matter last year and this. "By and large, we are now a year behind" in the projects, Denenberg said.

Billy Duffy Jr., Local 138's president, said that although there will only be mock sewage, "it still stinks that anyone would delay approving funds to cover needed sewer and stormwater repairs."