Expanding Grant Program To Support Sewer Pipe Repairs
By Peak Johnson
A grant program in New York State aims to help communities address the issue of cracked underground sewer pipes.
According to The Journal News, municipalities can apply to the New York State Environmental Facilities Corporation for grants for specific projects. If the application is accepted, the state would fund 25 percent of the project's cost.
“We are talking about millions of dollars for repairs, so we need the help. Not one municipality can handle it alone," Mamaroneck Supervisor Nancy Seligson said to The Journal News.
City Manager Chuck Strome added that usually during heavy rainfall, stormwater will “seep into the sanitary sewer system” through cracked pipes which overloads the New Rochelle Wastewater Treatment Plant, owned and operated by Westchester County.
The treatment plant is unable to clean the water before it's pushed out to the Long Island Sound, Strome said. But municipalities have been cautious in repairing the pipes because of the price tag.
There is growing confidence that financial help is now available with the state grant program doubling from $200 million to $400 million this year.
“High costs combined with the tax cap have resulted in deferral of capital improvement projects,” Strome told The Journal News. “Unlike school districts, municipalities cannot exempt capital projects from their tax cap calculation.”
According to a federal lawsuit filed by the environmental group Save the Sound last August, years of putting aside “needed capital improvement projects” led to pollution in the Long Island Sound.
The group alleges "a substantial source of pollution" comes from Westchester County's cracked sanitary sewer pipes that are supposed to transport raw sewage to water treatment plants. The environmental group also claims that during storms, sanitary sewers overflow with rain water causing discharges of untreated or partly treated sewage into the Long Island Sound.