The waters of the East End are dying. It’s only a matter of a few years before toxic algae blooms become the summer norm, before fish populations mostly disappear due to asphyxiation, before harmful-to-humans bacteria make swimming iffy, and before our waterways become like the mostly dead mess that is western Long Island Sound today.
Proposition 2 is the Suffolk County Water Restoration Act. It would increase the county/local sales tax from 8.625 percent to 8.75 percent, with the revenue from the 0.125 percent increase required to be spent only on public sewage systems and subsidizing homeowner conversions to advanced septic systems.
Also, there seems to be foresight and teeth in the act to guarantee that this money will not in the future be siphoned away by opportunistic politicians.
Every study I have seen concludes that human sewage is the overwhelming cause of East End water degradation. All of the other sources of destruction are quite minor in comparison (farm runoff, street runoff, fertilizers, pet droppings, etc).
Lastly, it would also be nice to see our local papers and politicians come out loudly in support of Proposition 2. Where’s the noise? It’s a tiny bump up in taxes, with a big long-term existential payoff for the East End.
Jim Vos
North Haven
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