SCWA Gives Tour Of Wainscott Well Site

To celebrate National Drinking Water Week, the Suffolk County Water Authority joined with the Peconic Land Trust to offer the public a tour of the SCWA well site in Wainscott on May 11, and I went along for the ride.

John Flynn, assistant superintendent of production control, who grew up on a farm in Riverhead and served in the U. S. Army, commanded attention as the group moved to the different sites within the facility on Montauk Highway. Considering it was the first sunny Saturday in weeks, a dozen was quite the turnout.

Before the tour began, Yvette Debow wanted everyone to know that the Peconic Land Trust does not get the 2 percent real estate transfer tax when you purchase a home in the area. That money goes to the Community Preservation Fund. While the trust does work with East End towns at times to secure open space, it is a separate nonprofit organization dedicated to preserving land mainly for agricultural production, but also to protect our water quality.

Mr. Flynn has been working for SCWA for 16 years, and prior to that, he worked for Culligan Water, so he knows a thing or two about drinking water. He gave us a good overview of how SCWA pumps water from underground aquifers on Long Island, filters it, treats it, and distributes it to customers.

Using 238 pump stations countywide, SCWA pumped 70.1 billion pounds of water last year to 1.2 million residents. There are approximately 28 wells in East Hampton. “Every station is different depending on water chemistry,” he said.

The East Hampton Golf Club off Accabonac Road has its own well, which it pays for in total. There are 66 sites with a 70.6-million-gallon capacity. Montauk alone has a 1.4-million-gallon storage unit. There are 32 booster stations, for higher elevation. The main control facility is located in Bay Shore. “We see everything,” Mr. Flynn said. “Our department works 24/7.”

Thanks to its 2-year-old Water Wise Program, SCWA will send an expert to your home, by appointment, to analyze your individual usage and give pointers on how to save water, and money.

If you’re using a sprinkler system to water your lawn every day, for example, they will tell you to water every other day. Once or twice a week, is even better, but certainly not every day. In my opinion, it’s best to create a lawn that doesn’t need watering at all.

Home sprinkler systems use a “staggering” amount of water, especially in the middle of the night, from 2 a.m. to 7 a.m. “Tanks drop,” Mr. Flynn said. “Wells can barely keep up.”

With 500 new customers in Wainscott this year, SCWA added two new wells: one on Stephen Hands Path in Northwest Woods and one Deerfield Road in Noyac.

“The Health Department checks all wells, and buildings every year,” said Mr. Flynn, entering a brick building, probably built in the 1950s. Since the September 11, 2001, attacks, security is tight, and water authority personnel do not have to be on site to see everything that is going on at a certain location. SCWA can tell pressure and flows, pH, and chlorine remotely.

In Wainscott, there was 2.31 pounds of pressure per vertical foot. “Height gives pressure,” he said. “By law, 20 pounds of pressure feeds you. We try for a lot more.” Saltwater must be drawn “nice and slow” to prevent damage to the well.

Maintenance is done on an as-need basis, mostly in wintertime. The tank at Spring Close Highway was recently repainted to the tune of $3 million to $4 million dollars.

Before SCWA drills a well, the utility enlists help from the U.S. Geological Survey as to the best location. “We work with USGS,” Mr. Flynn said. “They have sonar.”

“They call it a freshwater bubble,” he added. “You don’t want to draw chlorides, saltwater.”

The layers below the earth’s surface of Long Island contain different aquifers like the Upper Glacier and the Magothy. Only Oak View Highway draws from the Magothy but Mr. Flynn said SCWA tries not to use that one. The Magothy is mostly reserved for future use, and like all the aquifers on the island, is continuously replenishing. In between the aquifers, are layers of clay and bedrock.

“None of our wells have any contamination on pump stations in Wainscott,” Mr. Flynn told one person in the group, concerned with recent news of drinking water contamination in the hamlet.

The contaminants, called PFOS and PFOA, can be filtered out with carbon if need be, Mr. Flynn said. He was confident that SCWA wells would remain free of those contaminants, thought to have come from flame retardants, and were detected only in the private wells of homeowners.

Contaminants migrate toward the bay or the ocean depending on the location. “That’s just the way it works on Long Island,” he said.

Iron and manganese are two naturally occurring metals that SCWA filters out of the groundwater. The metals are said not to affect our health but look bad aesthetically, leaving stains in toilets, sinks and washers.

There are four individual wells at the Wainscott site, 120-foot deep, on average. Wells, such as in Huntington, can reach 500 feet. If the well is below the ground, it’s called a “Gazebo.”

“We call this ‘the Vault,’” he said in front of a massive aboveground well.

The pumps run on 75-horsepower electric serviced by PSEG Long Island. “The LIPA bill was over $20 million last I was involved,” Mr. Flynn said. “They’ll never run out, I promise you.”

In order to save money, they run wells during “off-peak” hours. “Solar can’t keep up in summer,” he said in response to one participant’s question.

Groundwater is run through granulated activated carbon, or GAC, filters, made out of coconut shells or various other forms of charcoal to remove metabolites and other contaminants. “This is a Brita filter on steroids,” he said in the GAC building, which contains two active filters that act as one unit. The building protects the large pipes from freezing during the colder months.

“This is raw water,” he said. What matters is the length of time the water comes in contact with the carbon.

Although iron and manganese is taken out by SCWA, it’s not required by law. “We could bypass this filter but it keeps water mains cleaner too,” Mr. Flynn told the crowd.

The buildup of iron is called tuberculation and is like “clogged arteries.” The backwash, a thick sludge, is pumped into a pit in the back of the lot called a “blow-off basin.” A dehumidifier keeps the filter building free of mold in the summertime, as does air conditioning.

Chlorine is added to the water after it is filtered. The Wainscott site uses 40 to 50 gallons of chlorine per day, “more than normal.” The 1.5 parts per million of chlorine is reduced when the water comes out of the faucet.

Pulverized lime, from a mine in Pennsylvania, is also added to boost the pH, ideally between 7.0 and 8.5. Lime is also used to coat the lines so that the older copper pipes remain pinhole free.

Lastly, a standby diesel generator, run two hours per month, was replaced a year ago. It will be used if electricity is lost, and as fire protection.

As someone who has lived in Springs for many years on private well water, I have to say, hooking up to SCWA has made our quality of life immeasurably better. That’s not PR. That’s the truth.