The East Hampton Town Board introduced legislation on Tuesday that would require most restaurants and commercial business complexes in the town’s harbor protection overlay districts to use modern technology that greatly reduces the amount of nitrogen released into the environment.
The law, which will be the subject of a public hearing on April 7, requires that any new development or upgrades to existing sanitary systems, meet the new standard if the property is within a harbor watershed, as mapped out in the town’s Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan.
The new systems must reduce nitrogen levels in waste water to an annual average of just 3 parts-per-million with a single month’s average of no more than 5 parts-per-million.
Current septic standards, which are set by the Suffolk County Department of Health, allow for systems that can release as much as 50 to 60 parts-per-million of nitrogen in wastewater.
The new rule would apply to any property that produces between 1,000 gallons and 30,000 gallons of wastewater a day, which would encompass any restaurant, multi-family housing like motels and apartments, and most multi-unit commercial offices or shopping complexes.
In just the last five years, scientists have drawn concrete connections between development and nitrogen loading in wastewater that flows into tidal waters and the emergence of chronic algae blooms that have increasingly impacted tidal and freshwater ponds in the last three decades.
While developing affordable septic systems for single-family residential homes that reduce nitrogen loads has proven difficult thus far, several such systems are available for so-called “intermediate flow” properties, like those captured in the new law. Environmental advocates have called for broad mandating of the use of such systems across the entire region.
But Suffolk County has long lagged behind much of the nation on septic standards and East Hampton would be just the second location where the higher standards have been applied with limited scope. The East Hampton law is modeled after one adopted in 2013 in Brookhaven Town as part of its effort to improve water quality in the Carmens River.
“I think this is the beginning of the process,” Supervisor Larry Cantwell said. “We’re fortunate here in East Hampton. We haven’t been as impacted as much as some other areas. But it’s coming. We’re starting to see it … and we’re going to have to step up.”
on Mar 15, 2016