East Hampton’s Water Quality Committee Issues Grant Recommendations

East Hampton Town’s Water Quality Technical Advisory Committee, which considers the merits of applications to fund water quality initiatives and issues recommendations to the Town Board, endorsed four projects and grant funding totaling just under $1 million in a presentation to the Town Board on Tuesday.

Up to 20 percent of Community Preservation Fund proceeds can be used for water quality initiatives annually, thanks to voter approval in a 2016 referendum. The town issues a biannual request for applications to fund projects ranging from wastewater treatment improvement to aquatic habitat restoration and abatement of pollutants from point and nonpoint sources. The Town Board, based on the committee’s recommendations, votes on approval of the expenditures.

Applications are ranked based on criteria for water quality benefits, cost, maintenance and monitoring and longevity. The latest request for applications was issued on June 1 and due on August 9. Grant funding totaling $1.5 million was available for this round.

Mellissa McCarron, the principal environmental analyst in the town’s Natural Resources Department, detailed the applications recommended for funding to the Town Board on Tuesday. Seven applications were received. Two were deemed ineligible, and the application for another was incomplete. Three of the applications recommended for grant funding are for replacement of conventional septic systems and the fourth for a permeable reactive barrier.

The D&R Realty Group at Maidstone Park in Springs, where the Rita Cantina restaurant is situated, requested $200,614 to upgrade septic systems serving the restaurant and a single-family residence to innovative/alternative systems, which sharply reduce nitrogen. The site is within the zero-to-two-year groundwater travel time to Sunset Cove, a known impaired water body. The new septic systems are installed, with an expected reduction in nitrogen of 267 pounds per year.

Because it is a commercial venture, the restaurant is eligible for 65 percent of installations costs. An award of $70,038 was given toward the cost of its septic upgrade. The committee recommends that the applicant apply separately to the town for its incentives for the residence. Because the site is in the process of rectifying past code violations, McCarron said that the board may want to condition the award on resolution of those violations.

The committee recommended a $151,240 award for the installation of two innovative/alternative sanitary systems to serve the main house and visitor center at the nonprofit LongHouse Reserve in East Hampton. This will benefit groundwater quality, the committee concluded, with an expected reduction in nitrogen of 185 pounds per year.

The Driftwood Apartment Corporation, which operates the Driftwood Apartments on Napeague, was recommended for the maximum award of $200,000 for a commercial property toward the $1.46 million cost of replacing eight existing conventional septic systems with I/A models. There are 55 units and three cottages at the site, which is within the one-year groundwater travel time to the Atlantic Ocean and is in the vicinity of wetlands.

Finally, the committee recommended an award of $521,235 to the Peconic Land Trust for design and installation of a permeable reactive barrier targeting nitrogen reduction and removal of a class of “forever chemicals” known as PFAS at the Georgica Pond Preserve, which for many years was the site of a restaurant.

The town previously awarded a grant to the Peconic Land Trust for site characterization for a permeable reactive barrier, or PRB. The location has been identified as a hot spot of high groundwater flow with high nitrogen and PFAS loading. An estimated 35 to 80 pounds of nitrogen would be removed per year, McCarron told the board.

The PRB is believed to be the first of its kind, with its potential to treat PFAS while also targeting nitrogen, which is known to have promoted recurring harmful algal blooms in the pond.