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Home My WebLink About03/06/2025 Town of Southold Water Advisory Committee—Meeting Minutes 3/6/2025 Attendees:Anne Smith, Caroline Yates,Anne Murray, Maggie Merrill, Kate Daly,John Stype, Elizabeth Peeples. (virtual:Vinnie Orlando,Joe Finora) Introduction and Welcome to Kariane Chew, new Committee Secretary. Legislation update:Town Board to address.Then will go to Code Committee. In the Attorney's office. Public hearing would then be scheduled. No action for Committee at this time. Enactment more likely in 2026. Spring advertisement/education. Maybe partner with CAC. Maggie will raise issue. Water conservation ad. March 27th issue. Maggie will find in folder. Add "consider upgrading to smart sensor—ask your irrigation professional". Choose three points to make.Then Kate can contact Town Clerk. Working with the Civics. Get literature from Suffolk County Water so Civics can send to people on their mailing list. Maggie and Anne M to plan a joint Civics effort. Guest spot in paper for conservation practices (after we review last year's ad) 30-second radio spot to record with Gwynn in April after clean-up (monthly). Need to create script for 30-second ad. Kate will do first draft. Vinnie always did ad in May: "water your lawn not the road" He will circulate the ad to everyone. March 14th: LICW or LICAP meeting in Bethpage.John will attend. Committee roles. Water health: 1. Saltwater Intrusion State Senator Palumbo had annual environmental forum. Anne M attended for North Fork Environmental. Spoke with Fred Stumm in advance. Fred said Southold should do its own study because his results are not specific enough in addressing interface between the lens of the fresh water and the saltwater intrusion. Riverhead is doing its own study. Southold should do its own.Town has three discontinuous fresh water bubbles/ lenses. Anne M asked State Senator to have DEC to fund a Southold study.To pinpoint locations. A number of homes in Orient and East Marion already have salt water intrusion. Al attended as well. Anne S:Town Board could follow up to support that request. She will speak with Al. Anne M: If Fred is doing Riverhead study—we can find out what consultant they're using, their scope of work, how much it cost. Relevant to zoning and commercial expansion permits. Prop 2: State funding still hasn't started flowing for addition to Al septic program. Anne S:what is status of state and county monies, she will ask Al. 2. Nitrates. Study was supposed to identify priority areas, e.g. near shoreline, properties within recharge areas and 50-year crucial recharge area of public supply wells should also be priority area for conversion to new system. Our nitrate concentrations are increasing and that's the most widespread, chronic issue. Priority: how do we identify priorities for new septic systems Joe Pokorny shared with Caroline the 6 areas that still don't have public water but their nitrates levels warrant it. Anne S will ask Gwynn can tell us if the County grant program still has funding. Committee can do education, public awareness. Consider town survey of where private wells are, identify those homeowners and use our public service announcement and letters asking them to get their water tested. $60-100 to test the water. Suffolk County DOH testing results can take a long time. Maybe we can recommend other private testing labs. We can recommend people have their water tested each year. Schools and restaurants, commercial do need to get tested. Pairing messages of get your private wells tested, but public water is safe. Orient monitoring program underway. Can target people outside the monitoring area: Civics can do that, to people outside the monitoring area. Caroline has info on neighborhoods needing. Message: don't forget to test your well! Linked to Spring cleaning, or spring irrigation turn-on. Don't created unintended consequence of people on SCWA water thinking their water is not safe and they should use plastic bottles. Committee could create programmatic themes. April:Water Conservation Month May:Water Quality Month Greenport water supplier—at least 30 years. Committee members don't know origin. Administrative: Maggie nominates Kate Daly to be Chair for next year. John seconds. Unanimous.