Water Authority accepts final review of North Fork pipeline

Southold no longer has enough water to meet demand, says the Suffolk County Water Authority, and its fix, a pipeline from Flanders, has now cleared environmental review.

The authority's board has issued the final environmental impact statement for its North Fork Water Main Project and voted to accept it, the agency announced Oct. 30. It calls the pipeline its biggest single piece of infrastructure work in 75 years. The statement is posted on the authority's website.

One step remains under SEQRA, the state's environmental review law. The board must adopt a findings statement by resolution, and the authority said that could happen at its November meeting.

"This project is a requirement for the long-term sustainability of the North Fork," SCWA Chairman Charlie Lefkowitz said. "The confirmed route protects ratepayers by lowering project costs and ensures a sustainable supply of drinking water for the North Fork."

About 9,500 North Fork customers depend on 60 authority wells spread over 18 well fields. The shallow aquifer most of them tap is already exposed to farm chemicals and rising salt, the agency says, and the risk grows the harder those wells are run.

Piping water in from the west, the authority argues, means less pumping in Southold and fewer local wells that would need expensive treatment equipment.

The plan calls for a 24-inch transmission main of about 7.5 miles and a new booster station. The water would come from the authority's South Shore Low pressure zone through a Flanders connection. The agency says that zone already has water to spare. State environmental notices place the start of the first phase in Southampton Town, where Cross River Drive meets Flanders Road, with the line ending at the Riverhead and Southold border. A possible second phase from East Marion to Orient Village is included for long-range planning, because some homes and businesses in Orient have contaminated private wells.

The original route followed Northville Turnpike and Sound Avenue. When the authority accepted the draft statement in July, it named a new preferred alternative running down Cross River Drive, then along Main Road to the Southold line, keeping the main on state and county roads. The authority says the change makes the line a mile shorter and moves the projected completion date up from 2030 to 2028, and that the route costs less, though the Oct. 30 announcement gave no figure.

The revision followed scoping sessions held in June 2025. Hearings on the draft were held Aug. 19 in Westhampton Beach, Aug. 20 in Peconic and Aug. 26 in Riverhead.

"Construction is scheduled to take twelve months once all the final permits are in place," said Brendan Warner, the authority's director of construction maintenance. "We will stage the work specifically to avoid traffic disruptions on the North Fork during the peak summer and fall months."

Riverhead residents will see the work but get none of the water. The authority has said it will make no connections inside the Riverhead Water District.

The town is still fighting the project. On Oct. 6, the Town Board voted unanimously that the Main Road route falls under the town's land use rules, including a special permit for the booster station planned for an Aquebogue site where Main Road meets Cross River Drive, site plan review, road opening permits and easements. It was Riverhead's second finding under the Monroe balancing test, a standard courts use to decide when one government's project can bypass another's zoning. The first covered the Sound Avenue route, and the water authority sued the town over it earlier this year. That case is still before State Supreme Court in Suffolk County. The authority's position is that as a public benefit corporation building a water supply project, it does not need town approval.

"While the North Fork Water Main Project is critical to the region's future, it's not a silver bullet," Lefkowitz said. "We need everyone in Southold to adopt water conservation practices, especially during the summer when demand is at its highest." The authority has been pushing an odd and even day schedule for lawn watering.

The water authority, which cannot levy taxes, serves about 1.2 million Suffolk residents.