Long Island Resiliency & Clean Water Infrastructure Meeting New York State and Nassau County Host Long Island Resiliency & Clean Water Infrastructure Meeting Joe Martens, Commissioner May 12, 2014

The Western Bays – Resiliency Matters Marshlands of the Western Bays (May 12, 2014)

Marshlands of the Western Bays

Where the Sea Lettuce Goes….

Where Sea Lettuce Was Concentrated on August 26, 2008

Marshland Erosion

Hurricane Sandy Bay Park STP Damage 1. The Bay Park Facility was severely degraded by Hurricane Sandy on October 29, 2012 – going off-line at approximately 10:00 pm and remained off-line for approximately 58 hours.  After the implementation of an emergency recovery effort, power was restored and influent/raw sewage pumping re-established at approximately 6:00 AM on November 1, 2012.    2. During the period that the facility was off-line, the County estimated that approximately 69 million gallons of raw untreated sewage was discharged to the waters of New York State 3. The County has indicated that full secondary treatment was not restored until December 14, 2012. 4. On March 13, 2014, we notified the County, the City of Long Beach and the Greater Atlantic Beach Reclamation that (i) excessive nitrogen in the Western Bays contributes to impairments due to excessive Ulva, hypoxia, algal blooms and (ii) there is not yet a final Total Maximum Daily Load (or other regulatory process) with calculated, required nitrogen reductions-but it is clear that the magnitude of nitrogen reductions in waste water effluent will likely be very high. Furthermore, the potential that the Limit of Technology nitrogen treatment systems will almost certainly required for waste water treatment plant discharges to the Western Bays to meet annual average total nitrogen concentration of four milligrams per liter. 5. On March 20, 2014, we notified the County that while setting precise nitrogen discharge limits generally requires lengthy, detailed assessments of water quality, DEC confirms that it does not foresee circumstances where a nitrogen discharge limit, if required, would be more stringent that 8 mg/l on the Bay Park Facility so long as this facility is discharging through a properly designed Ocean Outfall. FEMA Recovery Scope

Discharge From Bay Park After Hurricane Sandy Photo courtesy of Doug Kuntz

What Resiliency Looks Like

Making Long Island More Resilient and Improving Clean Water Infrastructure Here Today to Find Ways to: Mitigate the Existing Problems of the Western Bays Prevent Marshland Loss to Ensure and Improve the Resiliency of this Important Ecosystem

How to submit comments: Written comments at all three meetings or by email: liwaterquality@gw.dec.state.ny.us. Verbally during the evening portion of the May 28 meeting