The school board has agreed to spend up to $800K in reserves on upgrading its aging septic systems and set an April 19 deadline to decide whether to join the Town’s proposed centralized wastewater treatment plan.
The Board of Education enacted the funding resolution at a special meeting last week. The money would come from a repair reserve that voters authorized two years ago.
Board President Margaret Colligan said the trustees would decide during a special meeting next week whether to proceed with onsite upgrades or partner with the Town. It takes place Wednesday, April 19, at 6 PM in the school conference room.
Onsite upgrades
The school district has been anticipating septic upgrades for its four aging systems since at least the 2015/16 school year. Then-Town Engineer John Cronin approached the school about cooperating on a centralized system. But planning stalled.
In early 2020, the district conducted a feasibility study for onsite upgrades. And it hired Patchogue-based BBS Architects, Landscape Architects & Engineers PC to investigate options for onsite replacement.
However, Town officials asked the school district to hold off on a final decision, as the new Town Engineer, Joe Finora, was pursuing a plan to remove more pollutants while saving taxpayers money by reducing redundancies.
To ensure that the district retained the flexibility for onsite septic upgrades, BBS continued to seek permitting with county and state regulators, a long process percolating in the background.
At last week’s meeting, John Longo, a BBS landscape architect, said the permitting is nearly complete. The district is under no immediate state or county pressure to decide whether to pursue its upgrades or join the Town. However, Longo said, costs that soared during the pandemic continue to rise.
So if the district wants to finish the job this summer, BBS will need a decision soon.
The school would replace the four aging septics with three innovative advanced onsite wastewater treatment systems. By combining two older systems and rerouting some plumbing, Longo said the three resulting I/A systems would be more effective.
One small system, located near the garden at the elementary wing, would have a grease trap and mainly treat kitchen waste. For another small system, installers would construct a concrete vault under the parking lot at the back of the building. The most extensive system would be under the front lawn between the school and North Ferry Road.
Longo said BBS needed the board’s $800K funding resolution to obtain final state approval for the onsite septic proposal and allow bidding. He estimated the upgrades would cost between $800K and $1M, noting he’d have a better idea once formal bidding got underway.
Additional funding might come through grants or state financing.
With the district’s go-ahead, BBS could hire contractors to begin preliminary construction in May. However, the most disruptive work could wait until school lets out at the end of June. Then, under a tight schedule, Longo said work could conclude before classes resumed in September.
Join Town’s proposed system
Finora, the town engineer, and other town officials attended the school board meeting. He encouraged the school trustees to join the Town’s proposed system.
He said the Town’s planned system will:
- do a far better job of removing nitrogen and other contaminants from treated wastewater
- make more effective use of limited taxpayer resources by reducing redundancies
- enhance regulatory oversight and remove responsibility from the school district to the Town
“We have a really unique opportunity for the municipality as a whole to join forces and have a tremendous impact by linking all of the buildings together with the ability to achieve treatment levels not possible on an individual scale.”
According to the Town’s data, the school’s untreated effluent now carries 150 milligrams per liter of nitrogen into the groundwater. The onsite proposal aims to reduce that to 19 mg/l.
“You have the opportunity with centralized treatment to achieve 3 mg/l,” Finora said. Put another way, the school’s proposed system will release six times more nitrogen than the Town’s.
The centralized system would include the Town Hall complex and rental housing next door, Community Center, Police Department Headquarters, and Justice Court — all owned by the Town. Other contributors are the school, Shelter Island Public Library, and Center Firehouse, each governed by an independent board but all drawing from the same tax base.
Holding tanks at each of the eight contributing sites would collect solids to be emptied about every seven years, with contents removed to an off-Island facility for disposal.
The Town plan calls for wastewater to be collected and piped to a new facility at 16 Manwaring Road for treatment and dispersal into groundwater in the Gardiners Creek subwatershed. According to an independent consultant’s State Environmental Quality Review (SEQR), the plan would have no significant adverse environmental impact.
Continued toll on drinking water
Finora said that even with reduced nitrogen, onsite systems at the school would have a continued toll on the Menantic Creek subwatershed and potable water supplies for numerous homes there.
“That’s their only source of drinking water,” Finora said. “It’s a fact that neighborhoods as close as School Street and Smith Street have the highest concentration of nitrogen on the Island. In some cases on School Street, it’s five times the portability limit of 10 mg/l. That’s without a doubt caused by the impact of these municipal buildings, and mainly the school.”
Finora described the school as “the single greatest wastewater producer on Shelter Island.”
“So when we talk about the opportunity for impact, it really is here,” he said. “And this opportunity for centralized treatment is an opportunity to magnify that impact. We’re asking, I think, for a reasonable extension of this partnership.”
He said that the Town’s proposal — with an estimated price tag of $3M or more — has about $330,000 of grant funding in place. It’s already undergone extensive technical review, including groundwater sampling and modeling, and thorough public discussion. Finora said it is “on the verge” of being ready for construction permits.
“So I would urge you to consider extending this period of time to hash out further what the benefits could be for this community.”
Board member questions
Trustee Kate Rossi-Snook asked the BBS architect about the impact of high ammonia levels on the school effluent. Longo said that the school’s proposed I/A systems include additional treatment steps for optimal processing due to high ammonia levels.
Trustee Dawn Hedberg asked Longo to explain the proposal’s short- and long-term effects on nitrogen in the groundwater.
“I don’t have that information,” he said. “We didn’t sample the groundwater. Or do detailed modeling.”
He explained that the onsite plan would basically swap aging systems with modern components. The school’s facilities director Mike Dunning said the aging infrastructure had already caused problems, including a burst pipe and a blockage.
Rossi-Snook asked Longo about possibly adding permeable reactive barriers to the systems if they don’t meet nitrogen-reduction targets.
“I can’t answer that because it’s not in my wheelhouse,” he said, adding that onsite systems generally allow back-end additions.
Colligan asked Finora to explain what other treatments are possible with the Town’s centralized system.
Facilities like schools and other municipal buildings, where people congregate, tend to have higher concentrations of contaminants in wastewater, Finora said.
With centralized systems, there’s “the ability to adapt and change, add additional treatment, change out treatments as new technologies … as new regulations come on line,” he said.
“You lose that ability with individual systems,” he said. Making changes is “often cost-prohibitive or the systems are not able to be adapted.”
The Town’s proposal includes space and utilities to expand for additional treatments, such as pharmaceuticals and emerging contaminants like PFAS and PFOA.
Other input
Several audience members commented, attempting to sway trustees to proceed with the onsite proposal or join the Town system.
Anthony Rando offered a compromise. The school might phase its project, first installing the two smaller systems (for the kitchen waste and in the back parking lot), which are furthest from the proposed connection to a centralized system. Later, the district could join the Town for effluent targeted for the most extensive system under the school’s front lawn.
“That way, we’re mitigating the costs upfront, and when the Town comes on a year or two down the road, we could tie in, saving a lot of money for the district and the town.”
Longo said Rando’s suggestion could work since each system operates independently.
