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Maintenance Issues at Cedar Creek
Originally published in the 2006 April 06 edition of The
Wantagh-Seaford Citizen. There it was, a photograph showing a pool of oil on the floor in a building at the Cedar Creek Sewage Treatment Plant in Seaford. Christine Marzigliano, Chairwoman of the Cedar Creek Health Risk Assessment Committee, held up the photograph for everyone to see at a recent Wantagh-Seaford Homeowners Association meeting. Marzigliano explained that there was three inches of oil on the floor, requiring sandbags to contain the area. People gasped. "What's going on in there," exclaimed one woman. This and other incidents were not reported," replied Mrs. Marzigliano, "while the DPW (Department of Public Works) is telling us that everything is fine."
But everything is not fine. On March 17th another incident occurred. Bill Fonda, spokesperson for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) told The Citizen that "there was a problem. They [Cedar Creek Sewage Treatment Plant] experienced a 5,300 gallon waste water spill. About 4,700 gallons entered a catch basin, referred to as the Wantagh Creek and an additional 100 gallons entered Cedar Creek." Mr. Fonda said that "two pieces of equipment malfunctioned." In a letter dated March 21, Mr. Richard Cotugno, Superintendent of Sewage Plants for Nassau County, wrote to the DEC that "there was an overflow of diffused Air Flotation Tank Subnatant that occurred on Friday, March 17, 2006, at approximately 4:30 PM." The letter goes on to say that an employee observed water coming out of one of the plant buildings. "Plant personnel found that the bubbler system that measures the level of the subnatant in the suction well for the operation of the subnatant pumps was not reading a level, therefore a signal calling for the automatic operation of the subnatant pumps did not occur. This caused the level of the subnatant from the Dissolve Air Flotation Thickener process to rise above the normal operating level and back up into a drain line that empties into the subnatant well from the south Wet Air Scrubber Room, overflowing the bermed areas of the Wet Scrubber room and flowing outside onto the roadway and entering two stormwater catch basins.
"It should be noted that the flapper cover to prevent any backup flow into this drain system was stuck in the open position. In order to minimize the effect of the overflow condition, Operations staff operated Subnatant Pump #4 manually by using the jog button and circuit breaker for the pump." The spill was also reported to the Bay Constable for the Town of Hempstead. According to Town of Hempstead spokesperson, Susie Trenkle, "we received a phone call at 6:45 PM from Tom Flaherty at the plant. "There was a spill and some of it was in the storm drains. Nassau County was clearing it up with a VAC truck and we sent a unit [from conservation and waterways] and discovered the drains had been blocked and the area sanded," she said. At 11 PM, Nassau County reported that the drain was pumped, deodorized and chlorine was added to the drain. We don't believe there is any further contamination." Nassau county spokesperson Chris Munzing told the citizen that the March 17th incident "posed no danger to the community." Ella Stevens, President of the Wantagh-Seaford Homeowners association and Legislator Dennis Dunne were both at Cedar Creek the night of the spill. "You could see the ring on the roadway and the aroma was wonderful. I heard they brought in workers from other areas to keep the neighborhood from knowing," said Ella. Mr. Dunne agreed. "When we got there it was cleaned up pretty well but it smelled. They did this with a short staff. They need to hire more people." "There are maintenance issues happening because you are using maintenance staff people to do other work," said Ms. Marzigliano. Nassau County has approved the hiring of 23 new workers between 2006 and 2007 but only one worker has been hired for Cedar Creek maintenance. "The plant lost two employees" said Christine Marzigliano. Problems Continue On the 3rd of April, 1,490 gallons of sodium hypochlorite spilled. "They recovered the whole amount," said Mr. Fonda who explained that the spill occurred when a main storage tank transferred the sodium hypochlorite to a smaller tank. "It was recovered when it went into a floor drain and returned to the head of the plant." Cedar Creek Sewage Treatment Plant is one of two sewage treatment facilities in Nassau County. The other is Bay Park, located in East Rockaway. Cedar creek is the newer facility, about 37 years old, and has a permit to process 72 million gallons of sewage per day. The plant currently processes about 57 million gallons of sewage a day. Effluent, which cleaned and treated water, is discharged through an outflow pipe into the Atlantic Ocean, two miles offshore. It is the only facility along the South Shore that carries its effluent out to the ocean. Resident James Gallagher, who regularly attends the meetings of the Cedar Creek Health Risk Assessment Committee urged other residents "to go down there and air your concerns. The workers can't take on any additional work." Legislator Dunne also urged people to be vigilant about Cedar Creek. "Let me know where the fires are so I can put them out." |
