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Hurricane Irene

Concrete barriers at the edge of Mount Sinai Harbor along Shore Road will not be removed as part of a project to improve the area’s stormwater infrastructure. Photo by Rebecca Anzel

By Rebecca Anzel

The Town of Brookhaven will start construction next month on Shore Road between Mount Sinai-Coram Road and Rocky Hill Road in an effort to alleviate the negative impact of stormwater runoff in Mount Sinai Harbor.

“This is one project I identified really early on when I took this office three years ago,” Brookhaven Town Highway Superintendent Daniel Losquadro (R) said. “I think if you’re a resident of Long Island, or this case specifically, the North Shore, you understand this is a very serious problem to our quality of life, our recreation opportunities and our health.”

Brookhaven is installing a series of 10 leaching pools along the road to capture stormwater before it reaches the harbor.

Paid for by a New York State Department of Transportation grant worth $382,560, the project will take almost three months to complete.

Losquadro became highway superintendent right after Hurricane Irene in August 2011 and before Superstorm Sandy in late October the following year. There was a lot of damage to the coast from both storms, he said, and none of the repair work had been done by the time he took office.

Currently, a lot of stormwater runoff is flowing into the harbor from the roads and rooftops in the area, bringing with it chemicals, sediment, debris and other pollutants. This is an issue plaguing 75 percent of impaired bodies of water in New York State, according to the Department of Environmental Conservation’s website.

To fix the problem, the town is installing a series of 10 leaching pools along the road to capture as much stormwater into the ground as possible before it reaches the harbor. Water enters these catch basins and percolates into the ground gradually, filtered through a natural process. Each one has a capacity of more than 3,000 gallons.

Two bioretention areas will also be installed to naturally filter out any toxins from the water that does make it to the harbor, much in the way wetlands do. An existing discharge pipe will be removed.

The town will be resurfacing nine roads in the area, including Shore Road, in addition to the stormwater project. Photo by Rebecca Anzel
The town will be resurfacing nine roads in the area, including Shore Road, in addition to the stormwater project. Photo by Rebecca Anzel

Losquadro said residents have asked if a concrete breakwater put along the edge of the harbor some years ago will be removed as part of this project. Because the harbor’s ecosystem has reestablished itself around that concrete, the DEC does not want it removed.

“I have to say it was kind of surprising to me, but I understand the DEC’s point,” Losquadro said. “They feel it would be more injurious to the environment to dig that out and replace it than to just leave it as it is.”

The town will also be resurfacing nine roads in the area, which Losquadro said are in “deplorable condition,” this fall. The cost, about $900,000, is not covered by the state grant.

Mount Sinai resident Julie Bernatzky walks along Shore Road often.

Although the project is starting a year later than planned, as a result of a delay following a change in the region’s DEC director Losquadro said, Bernatzky is happy for the upgrades, although she hopes the construction will not disrupt her route.

Losquadro said traffic in the area should not be any more disrupted than during any other project. Because the area the town will be working in is tight and there is not a lot of room on the side of the road, one lane of Shore Road may need to be closed.

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Hurricanes have caused power outages in recent years. File photo

With several emergency services packed into a small area, Port Jefferson Village officials hope to secure a grant from the New York State Energy Research and Development Authority toward building a local backup energy grid to be used in case of a crisis.

The village applied for the NYSERDA grant to build the backup grid, known as a microgrid, through a statewide competition because of the critical community services that cannot stop functioning during a power outage, Mayor Margot Garant said.

“During a severe weather event such as we had with [hurricanes] Irene and Sandy, where the hospitals lost power and some of us lost power — some up to 14 days, [and the] hospitals were out eight to 10 days — those … patients that were on critical care services were put in harm’s way,” Garant said at the village board of trustees meeting Monday night. “So basically if we have a microgrid during those severe weather systems … where the overall grid goes down, we flick a switch and keep our critical services online.”

Microgrids are independent of the regional grid and rely on their own power-generating resources. NYSERDA may award up to $40 million total to help communities around New York State build those microgrids.

Port Jefferson Village is not the only municipality on Long Island applying for a slice of the pie. Huntington Town officials recently agreed to pursue the grant funding for their own microgrid, to support buildings like Huntington Hospital and the town’s wastewater treatment plant. And a month ago, NYSERDA awarded the first five grants — $100,000 each — to communities from Buffalo to East Hampton, so the applicants could perform feasibility studies on their projects.

NYSERDA expects to announce the next round of grant winners soon.

“We have two major hospitals, a ferry, a railroad station, our own school district, a village hall, a wastewater treatment facility, a groundwater treatment facility, an ambulance company,” Garant said. “We have a lot of emergency services-related components within a very small radius.”

Port Jefferson is listed on the NYSERDA website as one of five “opportunity zones” on Long Island where microgrids might reduce strain on the regional utility system and have other positive benefits. The other zones are Long Beach, Montauk, Hewlett Bay and Inwood. Statewide, there are eight other regions that have their own opportunity zones.

With a $100,000 grant, the village would work with consultants and local stakeholders, like the fire department, to research the Port Jefferson project. In choosing which projects to award grants to, NYSERDA is using criteria such as the area’s level of vulnerability to outages, how a microgrid would improve community function and the possible effect on ratepayers.

Although power generation and distribution in the United States used to operate at a more local level, the grids have become more regional over time to make the utilities more cost-effective and reliable, according to NYSERDA’s website.

“These systems are, however, vulnerable to outages that can impact large regions and thousands of businesses and citizens, particularly as a consequence of extreme, destructive weather events,” the website said. “Microgrids could help minimize the impact of these outages by localizing power generation, distribution and consumption so that a fallen tree or downed wire will not interrupt critical services for miles around.”

Projects awarded the $100,000 grants to perform feasibility studies will later be eligible to apply for more funding under the NYSERDA program, to advance the microgrid construction efforts.