Romaine Details Suffolk Environmental Priorities

Protecting Suffolk County’s environment has been a recurring theme throughout Ed Romaine’s long career in public office, and the county executive used his State of the County address to make clear that the commitment continues.

The people of this county have always stepped up to try to protect the environment of Suffolk County,” Romaine said, pointing to a tradition that includes clean-water initiatives, sewer expansion, farmland and open-space preservation and, more recently, protection of Suffolk’s working waterfronts.

It is familiar territory for Romaine, who served in the County Legislature, spent 16 years as county clerk, returned to represent the East End in the Legislature and later served five terms as Brookhaven Town supervisor before becoming county executive. Along the way, environmental protection — particularly clean water and preservation — became a signature issue.

Now, Romaine says one of Suffolk’s most pressing environmental challenges is underground.

“Seventy percent of Suffolk County is on cesspools or septic,” Romaine noted during his address before the county legislature. “Not good for water quality.”

With Suffolk dependent upon an underground aquifer for drinking water, Romaine said expanding sewers is critical.

“We don’t want wastewater contaminating our aquifer,” he said. “We’ve got to protect that as much as we possibly can.”

Romaine said sewer projects are extraordinarily expensive, noting that sewering only part of Mastic cost more than $200 million. He said projects in Holbrook, Oakdale and Smithtown are moving ahead, but sharply criticized Albany for providing Suffolk “zero” sewer dollars from the state’s $4.2 billion Environmental Bond Act.

“The people of this county have always stepped up to try to protect the environment of Suffolk County,” Romaine said, also pointing out that the county has received nothing from President Biden’s $1.2 trillion Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.

His preservation push also extends to Suffolk’s working waterfronts, where commercial properties face pressure from residential development. The county has committed $9.5 million toward preserving waterfront properties for fishing, boating and aquaculture.

“We want to make sure our working waterfront stays,” Romaine said, “and that the aquaculture of this county grows strong.”

For Romaine, it is a commitment stretching across decades — protecting the land above while safeguarding the water below for generations to come