STATEMENT OF JULIE PENNY
AUGUST 13, 2002
"QUANTITY" OF LONG ISLAND'S GROUNDWATER
-THE SOUTH FORK-
I am Julie Penny, Co-Chair of the South Fork Groundwater Task Force.
The South Fork Groundwater Task Force is a not-for-profit organization made up of concerned citizens from the towns of Southampton and East Hampton. Its goal is to protect the South Fork's groundwater from contamination, depletion and misuse. Our aim is to implement protection of our Special Groundwater Protection Areas and promote wise stewardship of this finite resource. For years, we've been pressing Southampton and East Hampton to create a Watershed Protection/Management Plan for the South Fork Region as a unit. It's been slow in coming. Yet, we've raised awareness of this issue to a remarkable degree through public education and working with government bodies.
The question posed to us this day is-Can Suffolk County's water supply sustain unlimited development? The answer is a resounding NO! First of all, with more development there is less quality recharge, and less recharge, period. Second of all, our fresh water lens has been punctured from overpumpage in many areas of the island and we're suffering incursions of salt-water. Also, ponds and streams have lowered. We, along with the rest of the world, do have a water problem and have to make some hard choices. We can't think short-term, we must think long-term.
Let me say a word here about the process of "recharge."
Recharge is the process by which ground water is replenished. A recharge area is where water from precipitation is transmitted down to the aquifer.
Most areas, unless composed of solid rock, or covered by development, allow a certain percentage of total precipitation to reach the water table. However, in some areas more precipitation will infiltrate than in others. Areas which transmit the most precipitation are often referred to as "high" or "critical" recharge areas.
How much water infiltrates depends on vegetation cover, slope, soil composition, depth to the water table and other factors. Recharge is promoted by natural vegetation cover, flat topography, permeable soils, and a deep water table. On the Southh Fork our critical deep-water recharge areas are situated in the wooded and hilly regions of the terminal moraine.
A look at Southampton Town Code, for instance, goes to show how importantly these recharge regions are regarded. The code says: "The Town Master Plan and subsequent studies and updates have located geographic areas in the town where water recharge into the aquifers is the deepest and therefore the greatest recharge occurs. These areas have been designated as water catchment regions."
"These water catchment regions affect the water quality of the entire town . The types of land use which occur above the water catchment regions directly impact upon the aquifer and its quality. Thus, the type of land use in the water catchment regions must be compatible with the function of water recharge to ensure the goal of protecting the drinking supply of the town
Unfortunately, while the code exists, it seems when making decisions, the Town's Board members never seem to consult with it. Southampton is not unique in this respect. All across Long Island bad decisions are made that effect these precious resource areas.
It has been the goal of the South Fork Groundwater Task Force, and its predecessor organization, the South Fork Coalition for Fresh Water to create and implement a Watershed Protection/Management Plan for the towns of East Hampton and Southampton as a single region. Moving water across the Shinnecock canal to the South Fork would be cost prohibitive, and, from Southampton on out to Montauk, we must husband wisely what water resources we have in place. After much pushing, the Town of Southampton is working on a plan called the Critical Wildlands and Groundwater Protection Plan; East Hampton has included Groundwater Protection in its Master Plan Update. It remains uncertain if they will make the hard choices that must be made to protect this finite resource. And, if they will act as a unit in its protection and management. For all of Long Island, the time for action is now, in many areas it's already too late.
I am a member of Southampton Town's Citizens Advisory Committees for this abovementioned plan, and Chris Schubert of the U.S. Geological Survey is one of the members of the Technical Advisory Committee In a presentation made to the joint committees, his data showed that, when making allowances for the perturbations in drought years, the USGS measurements indicate a dropping in the water table. As the South Fork has been in the throes of increasing development with its concomitant demand for water use, quantity does become an issue. Figures show that every year the Suffolk County Water Authority's pumpage of water increases. This trend is not about to reverse itself; demand will become even greater.
The South Fork depends mostly on its Upper Glacial aquifer because our older aquifer, the Magothy, to a great extent has salt-water intrusion, and we have no ancient Lloyd aquifer to speak of, as they do west of the Shinnecock canal. The North and South Forks are mere tines of a fork with the immense pressure of the Atlantic Ocean, Sound and bays pushing in on us at all times making us prey to punctures in our delicate fresh water lens. Development with its increased consumption and concurrent diminishment of recharge exacerbates the problem. Around 1997-1998 I read the SCWA's DEIS for a proposed wellfield for Hither Hills. They were surprised when their test well hit salt water as soon as it did. In Montauk they have to cycle the wells every few weeks to keep salt-water intrusion at bay.
Salt-water intrusion is already a big problem in many of our coastal regions. Overpumpage from continuing development, overdevelopment, golf courses, agricultural irrigation, lawn sprinkling, etc., coupled with removal of vegetation and paving surfaces diminish the land's ability to recharge and the precipitation then ends up as run-off.
As I said, on Long Island and the South Fork, the USGS records indicate that there's been a discernable drop in the water table. We are not unique. If you look at it globally the world is running out of fresh water. Let me quote from an article in a recent New Yorker article about how corporations like Enron and Bechtel have been raiding third world communities with good water, bottling it for export, thereby jacking up the prices for the poor communities from whence this water comes. It says: "There's water everywhere of course, but less than three percent of it is fresh, and most of that is locked up in polar ice caps and glaciers, unrecoverable for practical purposes. Lakes, rivers, marshes, aquifers, and atmospheric vapor make up less than one percent of the earth's total water, and people are using more than half of the accessible runoff. Water demand, on the other hand, has been growing rapidly-it tripled worldwide between 1950 and 1990-and water use in many areas already exceeds nature's ability to recharge supplies. By 2025, the demand for water around the world is expected to exceed supply by fifty-six per cent…
"…Aquifer depletion, though less visible, is an even more serious problem. There is sixty times as much fresh water stored underground as in lakes and rivers aboveground. And yet parts of northern China, to take one example, are approaching groundwater bankruptcy. Beijing's water table has dropped more than a hundred feet in the past forty years. In the United States, the Ogallala Aquifer, which reaches from Texas to South Dakota and is indispensable to farming on the Great Plains, is being drained eight times faster than it can naturally recharge. In vast areas of India, Mexico, the Middle East, California' Central Valley the story is the same…"
Yet, in light of the above we constantly hear the Suffolk County Water Authority saying that if it were to stop raining today, we would have enough water for the next 300 years. Factually true, but what about the quality? What about the ramifications to the whole ecosystem? To make such statements to the public is irresponsible and wrong-headed. By and large the public has no notion of how our aquifers work and such statements lulls people into complacency and a false sense of security. The SCWA should be behaving like responsible stewards of our groundwater resources rather than indulging in such misleading statements. Such glib sound bites are ultimately harmful. The public should be given incentives to conserve water not to squander it. Such a statement is wrongheaded for other reasons too. The more water we use, the less volume there is to dilute the contaminants that are constantly coming in to insult the system. Think of a teabag in a teacup. It'll turn your water brown in a few minutes. Now, think of that same teabag in a swimming pool. With all that pool water you would hardly notice those tea molecules at all it would be so dilute.
No, the SCWA should be actively preaching conservation. Along with the Town, County and State. Educating the public in schools and in the community-and in a big, big way-is the only way we'll ever make headway in curbing the wholesale contamination and depletion that goes on daily.
Here are other errors to that way of thinking: Consumption affects the underflow into the sound, the bays, affecting the salinity. Changes in salinity affect our estuaries, which are the nurseries of our fishing industry. Consumption coupled with drought, lowers our ponds and streams, and negatively affects wetlands.
What studies have been done of the changing salinity on coastal waters? Are they being done? If so, the SCWA (as wells as our government bodies) needs to take these into account. If not, they should be promoting such studies.
If it were to stop raining and we kept on pumping, we'd get salt-water intrusion so much the quicker without recharge to the system. Yes. If it stopped raining, we'd have 300 years of unpotable water, destroyed fisheries, dried up ponds and streams thank you very much. What's the point?
Certainly on the South Fork, the SCWA is operating without a Master Plan to protect, conserve and manage the South Fork's fragile drinking water resources. It should have been leading the way at least, and be in the vanguard now, to impress upon Southampton and East Hampton the necessity of creating a Watershed Protection/ Watershed Management Plan that will protect this resource for hundred of years to come and beyond as we have to protect high-quality Special Groundwater Protection Areas for future pubic use. The SCWA needs a Master Plan-one in conjunction with the South Fork as a unit.
THINGS THAT AFFECT AMOUNT RECHARGE:
Type of Soil
Vegetation -
Amount of vegetation cover.
Leaf-litter cleanses the rainwater as it percolates
Drought
Agricultural Irrigation--loss to evaporation
Development
Clearing of vegetation, homes, asphalt
Noxious Land Use
(landfills, golf courses) products contaminated recharge
Use of great volumes of water like golf courses
Topography
More slope = more runoff and less percolation.
Net Recharge
is the amount of water per unit in the soil that percolates to the aquifer.
This is the principal vehicle that transports the contaminants to the
groundwater. The more the recharge, the greater the chances of the
contaminant to be transported to the groundwater table.
 South Fork Groundwater Task Force
PO BOX 2360 Sag Harbor, NY 11963
Phone/Fax: 631 - 725 - 6200
Site By: Hamptons Online
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