Water authority to complete work in Stony Brook

The Suffolk County Water Authority is expected to approve a contract bid Wednesday to complete concrete work on Christian Avenue in Stony Brook.

The move would allow the Brookhaven Highway department to start a $700,000 street paving project for the busy, mile-long roadway.

"We anticipate approving a bid for subsurface concrete work on Christian Avenue at the lowest possible price," Joseph Pokorny, the water authority's acting director of distribution, said Thursday in a statement.

Town highway superintendent Dan Losquadro said his project was scheduled to be finished by summer's end, but the authority has to first repair the concrete after installing a new water main under the road surface earlier this year.

"This lack of planning has led to a substantial delay in the process of you seeing your road resurfaced," Losquadro wrote to Stony Brook residents in a July 3 letter.

Losquadro said water authority officials told him in early May the entire water main project, including the concrete repairs, would take six to eight weeks.

Christian Avenue, a well-traveled road that enters the heart of the hamlet, has several potholes and uneven areas.

Losquadro has placed the avenue near the top of his department's paving priority list.

As a result of the delays, authentic-looking yellow road signs that complain of poor road conditions have been put on local trees in recent months.

Losquadro said five signs, which highway employees removed in recent days, were nailed to trees without approval from a traffic engineer.

He described the rash of sign postings as "ongoing" issue. Town officials are not sure who posted the signs.