Southampton Town Residents Voice Objection to Alleged Site for Southampton Village Sewer Wastewater Treatment Plant, Outside Its Borders

Several Southampton Town residents came out to speak at a Town Board meeting on Tuesday afternoon, May 9, to express their opposition to an area in their neighborhood being considered as the site for a sewage treatment plant for Southampton Village’s proposed sewer district.

Southampton Village officials have not yet announced a chosen site but are planning to notice a public hearing on the sewer district at their May 11 meeting. That hearing likely will take place in June, and Southampton Village Mayor Jesse Warren said earlier this week that the village would announce a map and plan at the hearing, and also discuss the environmental review done on the site.

The residents who spoke at the Town Board meeting on Tuesday said they’d been made aware that the village has its sights set on a vacant parcel of land for sale at 1 Bowers Lane along Flying Point Road, an area that is technically not within the boundaries of the village. The town is involved not only because the land is within Southampton Town boundaries and not village boundaries but because the village wants the town to acquire the land with money from the Community Preservation Fund, using revenues earmarked for water quality improvement projects.

Kathryn Littlefield, who lives near the proposed site, said that “everyone is alarmed” about the specter of a sewage removal site being constructed near their homes, and said “it’s gotten a little feverish” among the neighbors in terms of concern about the project.

Paul Travis, who heads the sewer task force for the village, declined earlier this week to confirm or deny that the Bowers Lane property was the site the village has its eye on. “We’ve been searching for a site for a wastewater treatment plant, and I think we’ve looked at 10 sites in the last year,” he said. “We’re getting much, much closer at this point, but nothing has been finalized.”

He added that the village likely would be ready “within a week” to go public with the environmental assessment form.

According to town officials, the plan is still very much in flux.

Southampton Town Attorney James Burke said at the meeting that “right now, we don’t have a willing seller for the Bower property,” but he promised residents that, “if, at some point, we do, we’d have a public hearing.”

Later in the meeting, general counsel to the CPF, Assistant Town Attorney Daniel McCormick, said the town is “not presently negotiating the purchase of the property at all,” and that it would be “speculative” to try to understand what’s going to happen until the village presents more information to the town.

Southampton Town Supervisor Jay Schneiderman asked McCormick why the village would spend time pursuing a property that isn’t for sale.

“If they believe, in their scoping analysis of various sites that this presented to be the best option compared to those other sites, you could see how they thought this was the way to go,” McCormick said. “But we haven’t seen any documents or analysis that speaks to this property being the best course of action at this particular juncture.”

Many of the neighbors who spoke at the meeting took issue with the fact that a sewage removal site meant to serve only village residents would be located outside of village boundaries.

Dr. Grace O’Malley, who lives on nearby Mill Farm Lane, said, “We’re all very concerned about this issue, with the sewage treatment facility being in close proximity to a residential neighborhood. On the face of it, it’s very concerning. Does the village even have a right to do what it’s doing? There are a lot of concerned residents who live close to the site.”

Schneiderman addressed some of those concerns and shared his thoughts about the site at the meeting.

“Southampton Village has been trying to connect the downtown to sewers and has been working with engineers, not us, and they have finally or maybe finally come up with a plan and have ID’d a site outside the boundaries of the village, and they are asking us to consider that site for possible sewage treatment,” he said. “They have sort of laid out what that might look like.”

Schneiderman said the proposed plan had not yet reached the point of scheduling public hearings, because the village was still finalizing environmental analysis, but he said the town has asked the village to consider alternative sites.

“So far, they’re saying that they have looked at alternative sites, and that this is the best site for them,” Schneiderman continued, adding that village officials told the town that the Suffolk County Health Department also has told them it’s the best site.

“I personally wish they’d picked a property within the village,” Schneiderman said. “The people who are affected in this location don’t get to vote for village trustees — but they do vote for Town Board members.”

Later on, Schneiderman pointed out that the town has land use control over the property, and said of the village, “If they want our money to acquire [the parcel], they need to have our permission.

“We have made no promises that we will support the site,” Schneiderman added. “We will do our due diligence and listen to the community and make a decision, if it gets to that point.”