HomeMy WebLinkAbout01/09/2025 Town of Southold Water Advisory Committee—Meeting Minutes
1/9/2025
Attendees: Brian Mealy,Anne Smith, Caroline Yates,Anne Murray,Vincent Orlando, Maggie Merrill, Kate
Daly,John Stype, (virtual: Nick Krupski,Joe Finora)
Guest:Tom Stevenson,Agricultural Advisory Committee and School Board
Minutes from 12.5./24 approved.
Agenda
1) Recap from John and Vinnie and Caroline on 12/17 Town Board presentation and next steps.
Going to Code Committee to determine implementation and educational component. Board appreciated
that we involved local businesses.
Q: Should we invite the irrigation professionals to the Code Committee meeting? Not unprecedented but
not typical. Comments are good to have before the Public Hearing.
Next Steps:We invite Tom and Terry Martin to Code Committee to be available for questions.
Anne S. knows an expert in Smart Sensors and can have them review the legislation. Mike Daly from the
Irrigation Association was helpful in this area.
Board asked us about pursuing grant monies.
2) Admin: Committee must annually appoint their Chairperson. Members with terms up must
reapply: Kate and Caroline.
a. Send a letter of interest to the Town Clerk regarding the reappointment
b. Kate to email the 7 Committee members regarding a 4:30 start and take a vote.
C. No need to take action on Bruce's role since his appointment in still in place. If we need to add
another member we can add one to the 7.
3) Presentation from Caroline on water health issues to help Committee narrow its focus in that
area
a. Suffolk County Comprehensive Water Resources Management Plan
b. Committee request for us to see the data on SCWA testing on wells
C. Microplastics: no evidence one way or the other that they're coming from aquifer or are in our
water source.
i. Interest in exploring how this is researched in other countries since there's not a lot of data in
the U.S.
d. Next Steps:The Drinking Water Plan Committee will conclude their recommendations and we
can use that to guide our plan for action. Likely in next few months.
i. Will those recommendations arrive in time for the Rezoning consideration? Mark Terry is on
those calls and can inform.
e. We need to determine who is working on these issues (other Committees, Civics, NGOs, DOH
etc.) and where we can support or where there are gaps.
f. Gap is for private water supply,that the DWPP2 is not addressing.
i. Committee must consider whether we support SCWA bringing more water to North Fork, in face
of opposition and concerns about this encouraging development(noting that there are other tools to
limit development that don't require limiting water)
ii. Focus on public health issue not development issue
iii. Is first step to give more access to testing ($100)fee/delays that has not yet been widely done?
Before making decisions about conversion from private wells to public water.
iv. Some note that SCWA is a private company and is it our role to benefit this conglomerate
V. SCWA is a public benefit corporation, monitored by NYS Senate Committee that doesn't seem to
pay attention. Lack of critical oversight an issue.Town Board has that lens.
vi. Owners of private wells are not necessarily knowledgeable about properly maintaining their
wells. Note that a big priority should be connecting them to water filtration experts,tests, etc.
vii. Suffolk County Article 6 allows you to reduce size of parcels and increase number of houses. So
Town can't restrict this on its own.This is the basis for the opposition to the water pipe extension.
Fundamental problem with our land use management and zoning.