Village Prepares to Submit Application for County Sewer Funding

The Northport Board of Trustees will hold a special meeting in Village Hall Friday at 4 p.m. to discuss an application for roughly $7.5 million from Suffolk County to offset the cost of mandated upgrades to the village's sewer system.

Northport is reportedly vying over a portion of the $30 million fund with 12 other infrastructure projects. The money would cover a large portion of the over $9 million needed to upgrade the sewer system to DEC's mandated Nitrogen emission standards by 2014.

The village has been working closely with Suffolk Legislator William Spencer since his election to secure county assistance for the project in order to avoid excessive cost to the taxpayer.

"[The project] comes close to one year's worth of property tax revenue," said Tobin. "Even spread out over two or three decades, that could increase the cost of sewer operation by 50 to 100 percent. We just don't have a large enough tax base to absorb that cost without hurting businesses and residents."

While the project has been shovel-ready for quite some time, Northport has been waiting on the County to release an application. The application was released April 5 for construction-ready municipal and private sewer infrastructure expansion projects within Suffolk County.

The projects submitted will be evaluated by the Suffolk County Sewer Infrastructure Committee and then presented to the Suffolk Legislature for approval based upon criteria listed here.

“Investing in sewers makes both environmental and economic sense,” said County Executive Steve Bellone. “Sewer expansion is essential to creating jobs in Suffolk County in an sustainable way.  We also know that water quality is critical to our way of life, and that expanding our sewer infrastructure protects our groundwater, estuaries and public drinking water.”