Good water reuse plan in Suffolk

It didn't take long — less than a month — for Suffolk County taxpayers to see potential benefits from the sales tax hike they voted to impose on themselves last month in the name of improving water quality.

County officials plan to tap into the funds raised by the 0.125% increase for a water reuse project that will allow treated wastewater from the Bergen Point sewage treatment plant in West Babylon to be used for irrigation at the nearby Bergen Point Golf Course, a county-owned facility. The proposal is a winner in many ways.

Treated effluent typically is discharged into bays, the ocean, or other water bodies where its high nitrogen content fouls the water and harms the creatures that live in it. But nitrogen also is a fertilizer that helps grass grow. Piping some of Bergen Point's effluent to the 142-acre golf course addresses both problems. And by becoming the course's major irrigation source, the project will reduce the volume of water pumped from our precious sole-source aquifer. That's major bang for modest bucks — the project is anticipated to cost around $5 million.

This is welcome progress, albeit with a sobering asterisk. The idea is not novel, even in our region. Water reuse here began in 2016 when another Suffolk County-owned golf course, Indian Island, started using treated wastewater from the Riverhead Sewer District. That project has been a success; officials estimate it has prevented one ton of nitrogen from entering the Peconic Estuary every year while keeping 63 million gallons of water annually in the aquifer. Environmentalists identified 49 other golf courses in Nassau and Suffolk that lie within two miles of a wastewater treatment facility. Sixteen of 17 water reuse projects identified by two environmental groups as having the "highest feasibility" involved golf course irrigation. Bergen Point was the least costly and lowest-lying of that fruit; the course literally adjoins the treatment plant. And yet, at least nine years will have passed before Suffolk has a second project up and running. No courses in Nassau have such projects but the Bay Park and Cedar Creek sewage treatment plants are using water reuse technology.

The good news is that Bergen Point might be the start of a refreshing trend. Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine is a big believer in water reuse, especially for golf courses, and sees Bergen Point as emblematic of his "long-term vision." Already, Suffolk Legis. Steve Englebright is pitching a similar project for St. George's Golf and Country Club in East Setauket. Now that a funding stream is in place, there's reason to hope the county legislature will be eager to tap it.

Water reuse now takes its place among water quality improvement projects like sewer expansions and septic swaps, and among water conservation ideas like permeable pavement and higher charges for heavy water users. When it comes to a resource as precious as water, everything should be on the table.