On Winona Road in Baldwin, aging water main spurs worries of more breaks

For the second time since June, a water main burst beneath a dense Baldwin neighborhood of single-family homes. And like nearly four months back, Monday's break meant hours without two essentials for any Long Islander — running faucets and flushing toilets.

The water started flowing from the broken Winona Road main early Monday morning and quickly flooded driveways and parts of the street. It was eerily similar to June.

At least 30,000 residents in the territory of the private water provider, Liberty Utilities, including those on Winona Road, lost water service when the pipe burst June 7.

But there was one difference Monday evening. Two towns over, as Winona residents waited for the faucets and toilets to flow once more, a public water authority held a meeting about potentially acquiring Liberty's territory for those 115 homes, and nearly 120,000 other customers in Liberty's territory.

It is now "time for the parties to meet," said John Reinhardt, a member of the South Nassau Water Authority, after the public meeting at Merrick Library.

The authority, created by state law after the approval of Liberty’s purchase of the former New York American Water in 2022, confirmed in July through a Hempstead Town spokesman that it had formulated a bid to acquire the territory for an undisclosed amount.

The authority "agreed on a price to offer Liberty" for the service area, which also includes Merrick and Lynbrook, Reinhardt said in July. The next month, the Public Service Commission approved a rate hike Liberty had sought, which Newsday previously reported amounted to water bill increases of 17% this year, 15% in 2025 and 13% in 2026 for Baldwin-area customers.

Like many of her neighbors on Winona Road, Sheila Efron, said she was far from pleased about the rate hikes and also would like compensation for her inconvenience, first in June, and again Monday.

"You can’t flush the toilets for an entire day, and they don’t give us any money," Efron said. "I’m not happy, I would like a public takeover."

In a statement provided to Newsday Thursday evening, Liberty said the new rates were designed in part to fund "needed upgrades to our infrastructure, including the replacement of aged out mains."

"We are very sorry for the inconvenience customers experienced with the recent outage and want to assure our customers that we charge for the water used ... if less water was used, the bill will reflect that," the statement continued.

Regarding any potential acquisition, the company said it is "committed to, and are actively having, good-faith negotiations around municipalization and will continue to do so. Because this is an ongoing negotiation, we are unable to provide any further information."

Two water main breaks mere feet from each other under Winona Road and less than four months apart is "not so surprising" said Wei Li, a civil engineering professor at Stony Brook University, considering Nassau County's "major infrastructure happened about 80 years ago. They’re all approaching their design life," which he added is typically "75 to 100 years for public water infrastructure."

In addition to the passage of time, fixed breaks beget breaks.

"Whenever you fix an old section of a pipe and insert a new section, that’s likely to cause some disturbance in the soil, and you have a new stronger section straining an older section," Li said. "That’s why replacing is better than putting a patch, just a short new section."

Liberty said they plan "to begin the replacement this fall," of the aging main below Winona Road.

But residents worry about the potential breaks before then.

"While we wait till the fall, there’s other weak areas that may blow," said Winona resident Larry Halpert.