The proposed development is directly within the boundaries of a Special Groundwater Protection Area (SGPA), as defined by Article 55 of the Environmental Conservation Law. The Long Island Comprehensive Special Groundwater Protection Plan, published by the Long Island Regional Planning Board in 1992 states, “There is an urgent need to maintain SGPAs as sources of high quality recharge…the protection of groundwater in these areas is a first-order priority.” We believe that this proposed use within the SGPA is an intensive land use activity and therefore runs counter to that plan.
The Sole Source Aquifer Act of 1987 limits development on any deep flow recharge area because these areas are major sources of clean drinking water for both Nassau and Suffolk counties.
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Much of western Long Island’s natural recharge areas have been paved over by development and saving this parcel from that fate is critical to Long Island’s future.
Furthermore, the facility would add to both the point source and the non point source contamination to groundwater in this critical deep recharge area.
Download the Special Groundwater Protection Area Map:
Oak Brush Plains Groundwater Protection Area
“Thus the future well-being of a community is directly related to the awareness, knowledge and commitment of its citizens and their government to mitigate, to the extent possible, the degradations of over-development.”
(Quote from a 2003 letter Dr. Lee E. Koppelman, Executive Director of the Long Island Regional Planning Board and the Director of the Center for Regional Policy Studies at the State University of New York at Stony Brook, wrote in a preface to a booklet entitled Safeguarding a Sustainable Water Supply.)
