Hochul should sign water bills

Newly installed in office and racing to get up to speed on numerous statewide issues, Gov. Kathy Hochul can’t be expected to instantly master the nuts and bolts of every local bill headed her way.

But two pieces of legislation passed earlier this year to address Nassau County’s water wars are pretty straightforward. Hochul should sign the bills, which create pathways for two new public water authorities in Nassau, based on the overwhelming and bipartisan support of Long Island’s legislative delegation, and because the measures have no real downside.

The outrageous bills paid by 120,000 New York American Water customers from Massapequa to Sea Cliff are unjustifiable: A 2019 study found that the company’s Sea Cliff customers, for example, paid an average of $1,124 a year for water, while customers of the neighboring Jericho Water Authority paid an average of $196.

And that was before the 26% rate increase imposed on Nassau’s American Water customers on May 1, which determined scrambling by former Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and state senators Todd Kaminsky, James Gaughran and John Brooks failed to forestall.

The two bills that passed would create pathways to forming two new water authorities in the county. They do not address the far more controversial $25 million in property taxes American Water customers pay on the system each year through their bills. That's a tougher political lift that Hochul should address next year.

Municipal water authorities are not subject to property taxes on their systems. Over 95% of water customers in New York State get water from municipal sources not subject to property taxes. But if municipalization frees American Water customers of the $25 million, others will need to carry the burden of those taxes. That will mean higher tax bills for residents who are not American Water customers, and they aren’t going to be happy about the hikes.

These are significant issues, but also pieces of a larger puzzle. Water is an increasingly vulnerable resource on Long Island, and for-profit companies are not the best guardians of it. Neither are some of the dozens of small municipal water authorities that dot Nassau County.

The situation is further complicated by the efforts of Liberty Water to buy the Nassau assets of American Water for $608 million. That deal has been frozen by the Public Service Commission, which put out a report earlier this year supportive of municipalizing the assets.

The long-term solution to safeguarding Long Island’s sole-source aquifer from pollution and localized problems with both saltwater intrusion and potential shortages requires a more regional, centralized approach, featuring large, efficient municipal providers that can handle the pollution and usage challenges to come.

That’s a controversial and complicated goal that these bills won’t achieve. But they will, if signed, allow a path toward that solution to begin developing.