SUFFOLK CLOSEUP: Suffolk County Receives "F" For Ozone Pollution

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

How can Suffolk County—this county jutting out into the Atlantic Ocean and far from the urban parts of the New York Metropolitan Area— receive again a failing grade for pollution from ozone in a report released last month by the American Lung Association.

The reason we are hit with ozone is because it blows here in the wind from the New York Metro Area, and the Long Island Sound is also a factor. 

“If you live in Suffolk County, the air you breathe may put your health at risk,” declares the ALA’s annual “State of Your Air 2024” report in its pages about Suffolk County. You can view the report at https://www.lung.org/research/sota 

There’s an online provision on its first page to learn about details about the “State of Your Air” by clicking on the “Select a Location” button and inputting your zip code.

Suffolk has been given an “F” by the ALA for ozone pollution for years.

Most of New York City also scored poorly receiving D’s. Queens, like Suffolk, got an F.

With all the problems nationally and internationally, who needs this!

Providing an explanation of our situation is NESCAUM which stands for Northeast States for Coordinated Air Use Management. It describes itself as a “a coalition of state air agencies [that] promotes regional cooperation and action by its member states in support of effective programs to reduce the adverse public health and environmental impacts of air pollution and climate change.”

In an online posting headed “Long Island Sound Tropospheric Ozone Study,” NESCAUM says: “A unique feature of this chronic ozone problem is pollution transported in a northeast direction out of NYC [New York City] over Long Island Sound. The relatively cool waters of Long Island Sound confine the pollutants in a shallow and stable marine boundary layer. Afternoon heating over coastal land creates a sea breeze that carries the air pollution…”

Suffolk County in the 2020 to 2022 period covered in the ALA report, went beyond the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s air quality standard for ozone—70 parts per billion—for 25 days. For 24 of those days, it reached 71 to 88 parts per billion here. And on one day the ozone level in Suffolk was between 86 and 105 parts per billion. 

As Newsday in its article about the ALA report noted about Suffolk and its record, “No other New York county in the report has as many high ozone days.”

A four-page statement—titled “Ozone and Health”—from the New York State Department of Health online begins: “Ground-level ozone is the main ingredient in smog. Breathing in unhealthy levels of ozone can increase the risk of health problems like coughing, breathing difficulty, and lung damage.”

It further explains: “Ozone pollution forms in sunlight usually on hot summer days when volatile organic compounds and nitrogen oxides react to sunlight. These pollutants come from sources such as vehicles, industries…”

Under a heading, “When Outdoor Air is Unhealthy,” the Department of Health says people should: “Spend more time indoors. This is especially important for at-risk groups (‘sensitive groups’) such as children and teenagers, older adults, people with lung disease like asthma, and those who exercise or work outdoors; When it’s too hot inside, cool off with air conditioning. Find a place to get cool; People who must work outdoors should do so in the morning when levels are usually lower and take frequent breaks; Schools, child and adult care facilities, employers and activities programs should plan for more indoor activities or schedule outdoor activities in the morning when ozone levels are lower; People with health symptoms should contact their health care provider; Get the latest air quality conditions by visiting DEC’s [the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s] air quality forecast website or airnow.gov.”

The Department of Health says: “New York State alerts the public when ozone levels are expected to be unhealthy. An Air Quality Alert is issued the day before or the same day for the region of the state that is affected. These alerts are often broadcast on the news or weather stations.” 

The American Lung Association is seeking action to deal with the cause of the problem through its Lung Action Network. “Stronger Ozone Limits Would Improve the State of the Air” says a posting about this made along with issuance of its report.

Its report found that in the nation “too many people are living with unhealthy levels of air pollution.” The report “shows that 131 million people (nearly 40% of the U.S. population) live in an area with unhealthy levels of ozone pollution, or smog. There are national limits on how much ozone can be in the air—but those limits are outdated.”

A “Letter to Administrator Regan” is offered for folks to send to EPA Administrator Michael Regan, that starts: “I urge the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to update the current, inadequate National Ambient Air Quality Standards for Ozone. EPA has recently taken several critical steps to reduce air pollution and address climate change, including stronger National Ambient Air Quality Standards for particulate matter, tighter emissions standards for cars and trucks…Stronger ozone standards, however, are missing from this list of life-saving measures. The science is clear: stronger ozone standards are urgently needed.”

Karl Grossman is a veteran investigative reporter and columnist, the winner of numerous awards for his work and a member of the L.I. Journalism Hall of Fame. He is a professor of journalism at SUNY/College at Old Westbury and the author of six books.   

Long Island Water Conference Hosts 36th Annual Drinking Water Tasting Contest

Long Island Water Conference Hosts 36^th Annual Drinking Water Tasting Contest

Public Encouraged to Taste, Vote and Learn About the Water Delivered to Their Homes

FARMINGDALE, NEW YORK (MAY 10, 2024) — In honor of National Drinking Water Week, the Long Island Water Conference (LIWC) hosted its 36^th annual drinking water tasting contest at Farmingdale State College from Tuesday, May 7 to Wednesday, May 8. 14 water providers from across Long Island vied for the title of best drinking water in Nassau County and Suffolk County, respectively.

“Our annual drinking water tasting contest is one of the most exciting times of year for us,” said LIWC Chairman Jason Belle. “It not only serves as a fun, friendly competition between our many water providers, but it affords us the opportunity to engage with the residents whom we serve and help them understand just how much work goes into providing them with high-quality water every day.”

More than 240 participants voted for their favorite tasting water and received exciting giveaways. In addition, LIWC representatives educated attendees on the water delivered to the homes and answered questions on the treatment methods maintaining Long Island’s high-quality drinking water. 

This year’s winners were the Bayville Water Department for Nassau County and the Suffolk County Water Authority for Suffolk County. For emerging triumphant with the best tasting drinking water, these water providers hold onto the coveted trophy for a year and win bragging rights among their fellow providers. They will also participate in the New York State Regional Metro Tap Water Taste Contest held in New York City in early August to compete for entry into the statewide contest held at the Great New York State Fair.

About the Long Island Water Conference

The LIWC has been committed to providing pure and plentiful water for the Long Island community since 1951. The LIWC represents over 50 water suppliers regionally and aims to provide and maintain an adequate and safe water supply today, while anticipating the water concerns of future generations. LIWC members provide more than 375 million gallons of clean water daily. For more information, please visit www.liwc.org.

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP: PSEG Has A History

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

I first got to learn about PSEG (Public Service Enterprise Group) in the early 1970s driving down Dune Road in the Hamptons and there, next to Hot Dog Beach, was a weather station with various devices. It was surrounded by a chain link fence with a sign saying U.S. Atomic Energy Commission and Brookhaven National Laboratory on it.

I called BNL and was told by its PR office that the station was set up because “this company from New Jersey”—PSEG—planned to construct a string of “floating nuclear power plants” in the Atlantic starting off the coast of southern New Jersey and extending to 20 miles off the southern coast of Long Island.

I was told the station monitored how, in the event of an accident at one of the plants, a radioactive cloud might move. A 75-foot landing craft was on loan from the Navy and also aircraft and a trawler were being used. Clouds of smoke were discharged, and the PR representative said it was determined that because of prevailing winds coming here from the southwest, the smoke mainly floated to Long Island.  

Upon finding I was working on this, Dave Starr, editor of the Long Island Press and national editor of the Newhouse newspaper chain, telephoned and said I should “play down” the story. “I don’t want to get people upset,” said Starr. This was among my earliest experiences in finding out how nuclear issues are hot media potatoes.

My article was published, but not on Page One as most of my articles as an investigative reporter began, but inside The Press. The episode was featured in a 1980 book—I started writing it the day of the Three Mile Island nuclear plant accident in 1979—titled “Cover Up: What You Are Not Supposed to Know About Nuclear Power.” It is in a chapter “How We Got So Far” that includes details about media treatment of nuclear issues.

Also, in the book is how the floating nuclear power plant scheme began. In PSEG literature it was credited to Richard Eckert, a PSEG vice president, who, it said, while taking a shower in 1969 thought the sea could supply the huge amounts of water nuclear power plants need as coolant. PSEG got Westinghouse to agree to build them. Westinghouse partnered with Tenneco in a company called Offshore Power Systems and constructed a massive facility on Blount Island off Jacksonville, Florida. The plants were to be towed up the Atlantic into position.

The book devotes several pages to an Offshore Power Systems sales brochure and also the announcement of the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (which replaced the AEC in 1974) that it was issuing a “manufacturing license” for the floating nuclear power plants. However, the scheme went belly-up with Offshore Power Systems losing $180 million.

Jump to 2012. Then New York Governor Andrew Cuomo brought in Newark-based PSEG as the contractor to run Long Island’s electric grid for the Long Island Power Authority. That came after major failures of LIPA’s then contractor, London, England-based National Grid, when Superstorm Sandy hit in 2012 and most LIPA customers were left without electricity. Then when Hurricane Isaiah struck in 2020, with PSEG as LIPA’s contractor, more than half of LIPA customers lost power, too, many for as long as a week.

 A Legislative Commission on the Future of the Long Island Power Authority, a bipartisan eight-member panel co-chaired by State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele of Sag Harbor, concluded last year after an extensive investigation and many public hearings, that LIPA should operate the electric system on Long Island itself and not contract out the work—the original vision when LIPA was created in the 1980s. But despite strong support for this in the State Assembly and its passage of legislation facilitating it, Thiele has just said that action “has stalled” because of “the failure of any member of the State Senate” to introduce a needed companion bill and “the silence” of New York Governor Kathy Hochul. 

This stall, said Thiele, has come amid intense lobbying of state officials by PSEG to continue its contract to operate the electric grid for LIPA. Said Thiele: “PSEG has been spending millions of dollars on lobbying.”

LIPA was created to block the Shoreham nuclear power plant and prevent the construction of six to ten more nuclear power plants the now defunct Long Island Lighting Company sought to build in Suffolk County, and instead to focus on green energy. 

PSEG didn’t get anywhere with its floating nuclear power plant scheme, but it is the major nuclear utility in New Jersey. It operates the Salem 1 and 2 and Hope Creek nuclear plants. 

“I don’t hold PSEG in high regard,” says Maya van Rossum, the Delaware Riverkeeper, who for years has been battling PSEG on nuclear and environmental issues. Kills of billions of fish annually by the Salem plants has been a major issue. She told me last week: “I think PSEG is a purely profit-making venture that throws money at government entities and government officials and also tries to manipulate through messaging, claiming it is pro-environment.”

Van Rossum is the woman behind the Green Amendment, an initiative to have states and the federal government enact constitutional amendments declaring that “each person shall have the right to clean air and water and a healthful environment.” She was in Suffolk last year giving the keynote address at the Docs Equinox celebration in Southampton honoring Earth Day. With her help and Assemblyman Steve Englebright of Setauket a prime sponsor, a Green Amendment for New York State was approved by 70 percent of voters in a 2021 referendum and is now part of the state’s Constitution. 

Karl Grossman is a veteran investigative reporter and columnist, the winner of numerous awards for his work and a member of the L.I. Journalism Hall of Fame. He is a professor of journalism at SUNY/College at Old Westbury and the author of six books.   

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP: Suffolk County Needs A Water Reuse Policy

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

photo Aquifer.org“If we look to western Long Island, there are a lot of lessons that should be applied to us—how a lot of mistakes were made regarding water,” environmentalist John Turner was saying. 

Turner was speaking about far-western Long Island—Brooklyn—and how it blew its underground water supply more than a century ago. 

Brooklyn then tried to tap into the aquifers under the Pine Barrens of Suffolk County for potable water but was rebuffed. So, it needed to look for water from reservoirs built upstate.

These days, the 2.6 million residents of Suffolk and Nassau Counties won’t be able to tap into those reservoirs if they blow their underground water supply because they’re functioning at their maximum, notes Turner. “Suffolk and Nassau will not be able to turn to New York City simply because there’s just not excess or surplus water that the city could provide to those two counties because of the water supply needs of New York City. Plus the cost of trying to interconnect, even if there were excess capacity, would be cost-prohibitive,” he said last week.

Thus, he emphasizes, it’s critical we preserve the water supply we have—the aquifers below our feet—our “sole source” of potable water.

Turner is senior conservation policy advocate at Seatuck Environmental Association in Islip and former legislative director of the New York Legislative Commission on Water Resources Needs of New York State and Long Island. He is also former director of Brookhaven Town’s Division of Environmental Protection.

He has been a leader in the effort to have wastewater purified and returned to the underground water table on Long Island rather than it being discharged into surrounding bays, the Atlantic Ocean and Long Island Sound—as most sewer systems on Long Island do.

Nassau County is 85 percent sewered and as a result of its releasing wastewater in this way, “the uppermost expression of the aquifer system” in Nassau has “dropped considerably,” notes Turner. Hempstead Lake now “is Hempstead Pond.”

What Turner has been warning about is not new.  

Dr. Jeffrey A. Kroessler, a historian and professor and chief librarian at John Jay College in Manhattan, wrote and lectured about the Brooklyn and Long Island water story years ago. He lived in Sunnyside, Queens and died in 2023. In 2011, in the “Long Island History Journal,” published by Stony Brook University, there was an extensive article by Kroessler titled “Brooklyn’s Thirst, Long Island’s Water: Consolidation, Local Control, And The Aquifer.”

“In the 1850s…Brooklyn tapped ponds and streams on the south side of Queens County, and in the 1880s dug wells for additional supply,” he related. “This lowered the water table and caused problems for farmers and oystermen, many of whom sued…for damages. Ultimately, salt water seeped into some wells from over-pumping. By 1896, Brooklyn’s system had reached its limit.”

“Brooklyn had to find additional sources for its increasing population,” said Kroessler. “Wary of those intentions, as early as 1884 the supervisors of Suffolk County resolved to oppose ‘the enactment of any measure which, under the plea of supplying water to…Brookyn, may presently or prospectively take from any part of Suffolk County water needed for the use of its own population.’” That legislation was enacted by the Suffolk County Board of Supervisors.

Brooklyn “was casting a covetous eye on the Pine Barrens in Suffolk County.”

“As one writer explained in 1899,” related Kroessler, “In considering the subject of the water supply of Long Island, we must first of all leave out the idea that we receive water from any other source than which falls directly from the sky.” Kroessler said: “The aquifer, therefore, can only be replenished by rainfall filtered through many layers of sand and soil. That slow process accounts for Long Island’s particularly fine water, but also points to the vulnerability of that limited resource.”

The action by the Suffolk County Board of Supervisors was buttressed by New York State. As Kroessler wrote, “Governor Levi P. Morton…signed a law sponsored by Assemblyman Carll S. Burr of Commack that prevented Brooklyn from drawing off Suffolk’s water without the approval of a majority of the county supervisors.”

Meanwhile, New York City “built a new system of reservoirs and aqueducts to deliver water from the Catskills” and “Brooklyn’s old water system was transferred to the City of New York.” 

“Only in 1993 did the state legislature pass the Pine Barrens Protection Act to conserve the valuable and irreplaceable resource” as “Suffolk approached the limit of its precious water supply, just as Brooklyn had a century before. But while Brooklyn could look to additional water from New York’s system,” concluded Kroessler in his “Long Island History Journal” article, “Suffolk has no option other than reforming its own practices and policies.”

That is truer than ever today. 

Turner is excited about the Suffolk County Water Quality Restoration Act proposed to be  on the November election ballot providing for county funding for “projects for the reuse of treated effluent”—notably for utilization on golf courses, sod farms and similar sites—to help  preserve the quantity in the underground water table in Suffolk. Turner says it “behooves all levels of government to focus on water reuse.”

Karl Grossman is a veteran investigative reporter and columnist, the winner of numerous awards for his work and a member of the L.I. Journalism Hall of Fame. He is a professor of journalism at SUNY/College at Old Westbury and the author of six books.   

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP: Plum Island's Many Challenges To Consider

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

Photo: WikipediaCan Plum Island, the 843-acre island a mile and a half off Orient Point, be safely preserved as a “national monument” with public access, as is being advocated by a grouping of environmentalists and Congressman Nick LaLota?  LaLota, of Amityville, whose district encompasses Smithtown, part of Huntington, northern Brookhaven and the five East End towns and includes Plum Island, has introduced a bill facilitating this.

But as an official of the National Park Service testified last month at a hearing in Washington on LaLota’s measure: “The department appreciates the bill’s intent to increase public access to and to protect Plum Island’s natural and cultural heritage, and we support that goal,” he testified. “However, given the multiple hazards to human health and safety that may exist, we have serious concerns about the bill’s requirements that the department assume administrative jurisdiction over the island.”

Michael T. Reynolds, deputy director for Congressional Relations of the National Park Service, a part of the Department of Interior, continued: “Plum Island’s long history of serving as a site for military operations and animal pathogen research has led to a series of ongoing environmental challenges.”

  He said the Plum Island Animal Disease Center’s “biocontainment facilities must be decontaminated.” He said an environmental assessment by the Department of Homeland Security “recommends that a decontamination process, complete validation testing, and soil testing be conducted… Decontamination will include methods such as scrubbing, liquid cleaning, thermal disinfection via autoclaves, chemical disinfection, and fumigation. As a result of the use of cleaning chemicals such as formaldehyde and the thermal disinfection of nearly all equipment within the facility, once usable infrastructure at PIADC will be rendered unsafe for human occupation until this costly decontamination work can be completed.”

Also, “A number of waste management areas must be remediated,” Reynolds said. He said the environmental assessment notes that this includes “numerous sites of concern, including removing buried waste, capping contaminated areas, and conducting soil and groundwater monitoring. However, 10 additional sites of concern require further action.”

“In addition,” said Reynolds, “the Department foresees budgetary challenges—and potentially further environmental concerns—involved with rehabilitating or demolishing aging buildings, maintaining a costly marine transportation system, and upgrading island infrastructure to accommodate use in a manner that is safe and accessible for employees and the public.” 

His testimony is online at https://naturalresources.house.gov/uploadedfiles/testimony_reynolds.pdf

Michael Carroll, author of the New York Times best-selling book “Lab 257: The Disturbing Story of the Government’s Secret Plum Island Germ Laboratory,” has long said Plum Island can never be made safe for the public. “The island is an environmental disaster,” says Carroll. “You can’t let anybody on it…There is contamination all over the island” and thus it needs to be “forsaken.” 

Up until recent decades all waste generated by the Plum Island Animal Disease Center and from prior animal disease work stayed on the island. No waste was removed, including animal remains. Some of it was incinerated, much of it buried on the island.  

After the 9-11 attack, Plum Island was transferred from the Department of Agriculture to the Department of Homeland Security out of concern about its vulnerability and access by terrorists seeking disease agents it experimented with, some of which cross over to people. The island sits along a major water route between eastern Long Island and Connecticut. The U.S. thereafter decided to shut down its Plum Island Animal Disease Center and shift operations to a National Bio and Agro-Defense Facility that is to function at the government’s highest safety level, BioSafety Level 4. Built at a cost of $1.25 billion in Kansas, it opened last year.

With operations on Plum Island being made extraneous, the government first considered selling it for private use. Donald Trump, in 2013 before becoming president, was interested in constructing “a world-class golf course” on it. LaLota’s predecessor in Congress, Lee Zeldin of Shirley, and some environmentalists, opposed a sale and Zeldin introduced a bill that was enacted to keep the island in government hands and preserve it. LaLota’s measure advances that. 

Plum Island was developed in the early 1950s by the U.S. Army with a Cold War mission involving biological warfare that would be waged against livestock in the Soviet Union. As Newsday investigative reporter John McDonald reported in 1993: “A 1950s military plan to cripple the Soviet economy by killing horses, cattle and swine called for making biological warfare weapons out of exotic animal diseases at a Plum Island laboratory, now-declassified Army records reveal.” A facsimile of one of the Army records documenting the mission covered the front page of Newsday. There was an extensive article.

However, as Carroll’s book discloses, based on research by Carroll, an attorney, in the National Archives in Washington, the U.S. military became apprehensive about having to feed millions of people in the Soviet Union if it destroyed food animals. The U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff “found that a war with the USSR would best be fought with conventional and nuclear means,” he relates in “Lab 257.” Thus, the island was turned over to the Department of Agriculture to conduct research into foreign animal diseases, although department officials have acknowledged doing “defensive” biological warfare research on it, too. 

Karl Grossman is a veteran investigative reporter and columnist, the winner of numerous awards for his work and a member of the L.I. Journalism Hall of Fame. He is a professor of journalism at SUNY/College at Old Westbury and the author of six books.