Following a weekend meeting at which Orient residents essentially said, "Thanks, but no thanks," the supervisor reported that the state, which funnels the federal dollars to local projects, is now less inclined to keep Southold on its project list.
The controversial project hit another roadblock this week when the supervisor said Orient is not designated on the town's official water service map as an appropriate area for new public service.
Mr. Russell called the Orient project "a foolish way to spend stimulus money."
The $3.8-million Orient expansion was designed to pipe water from East Marion, across the causeway to the Browns Hills community. The 24 homes there are served by a small public system, but with the well water carrying high nitrate levels, the water authority maintains individual treatment systems in each home. The water main installation option became financially feasible in August, when the SCWA was awarded federal stimulus funding that would cover half the cost.
Several Orient homeowners met with Suffolk County Water Authority representatives on Saturday to discuss the project. With approximately 10 Browns Hills property owners gathered in her living room, Venetia Hands praised the way the authority has run the community's well-water system since 1998, when it bought the system from the residents for a dollar.
"You do a fabulous job," she told Paul Kuzman, the water authority's director of production control, and Timothy Kilcommons, deputy director of distribution, as fellow residents applauded. But then the homeowners quickly proceeded to pick apart the SCWA's case for building a water main over three miles long just to serve them.
Promotional material for the project distributed by the two men promises that it would "bring safe drinking water" to Browns Hills, where nitrate levels in the well water exceed the state's safe drinking water standard of 10 parts per million. Several residents noted that the filters reduce the nitrate content at the tap to just two parts per million, which Mr. Kuzman acknowledged would be probably be a lower level than the water that would be transported through the main.
"I have never heard of any complaints about the reverse-osmosis filters," said William Ryall, to which Mr. Kuzman responded, "We've been happy with them, too."
Ms. Hands and several other residents who attended oppose construction of the water main until the Town of Southold has taken steps to protect East Marion and the Orient peninsula from the overdevelopment they fear the project would facilitate.
The authority maintains that it doesn't control development, and that the town controls land use. It defended the Orient project not only as a way to improve drinking water safety but also as a means to reduce its maintenance costs at Browns Hills, where the authority must gain access to houses four times a year to ensure the reliability of the under-the-sink filters.
Because serving the community's residents with a main would cost less, their water bills could have dropped on average from just under $500 annually to around $335.
Although SCWA regulations stipulate that at least 40 percent of residents in a community must commit to a proposed extension of service, the authority says that didn't apply to Browns Hills homeowners because they're already customers.
"Whether we wanted to hook the 'package system,' back into our East Marion system is strictly our call," the authority's CEO, Stephen Jones, said in a phone interview last week.
As for serving additional homes in Orient, Mr. Jones said by e-mail that "we will proceed to install an additional main if at least 40 percent of the people agree to take service." According to the authority, about 700 homes in this category are potential customers.
The SCWA received an administrative permit from the Town Trustees for the main to Browns Hills in June, and the state Department of Environmental Conservation issued permits for the project in September to both the authority and the town. Permits are required because the SCWA would have to install the main under Dam Pond Channel in East Marion.
Issuance of permits came as a surprise to Town Board members. Councilman Al Krupski said he didn't learn of the approvals until someone mentioned it at a meeting on the town's comprehensive plan last Thursday. Asked about the DEC permit received by the town, Mr. Russell said he was unaware of it until a reporter informed him Monday. Later that day, after investigating, Mr. Russell said, "As far as we can tell, the permit was issued to the town in error."
A DEC spokeswoman said, however, that the permit wasn't issued by mistake. Even though the project would have been built on a state-controlled right of way, said the spokeswoman, Aphrodite Montalvo, "the property is still technically owned by the town, so the permit will go to the town. The authority acts as the town's agent."
Efforts to obtain comment from the SCWA by presstime were unsuccessful.
tkelly@timesreview.com