Desperately Needed Drinking Water Filtration Plant Clears Hurdle

HARRISON, NY — The agency that supplies drinking water to Sound Shore municipalities, including Mamaroneck, Harrison, New Rochelle, Rye, Port Chester and Rye Brook, is under increasing pressure to build a filtration facility to filter tap water.

The NYS Department of Health and EPA have each ordered the Westchester Joint Water Works (WJWW) to provide filtration for the water source at Rye Lake in order to comply with surface water treatment rules and control potentially harmful levels of disinfection by-products, including haloacetic acids, or HAA5.

The contaminants are the result of treatments required to make drinking water safe. The new filtration plant will allow the WJWW to use lower amounts of sanitizing chemicals thereby lowering the levels of harmful chemicals in the tap water. Regulators say that while current levels of HAA5 do not pose an immediate risk to the public, the EPA and state regulators cited the water authority for violation of the Maximum Contaminant Level of 0.060 parts per million (ppm) for HAA5 under the Stage 2 Disinfectants and Disinfection Byproducts Rule. The more recently enacted Stage 2 Disinfectants and Disinfection Byproducts Rule requires increased public health protections for cancer risks associated with long-term exposure to high levels of disinfection by-products, including HAA5.

A court order to construct the filtration facility and mounting fines have only increased the urgency of breaking ground on the planned $100 million facility. The filtration plant has been on the drawing board since the early nineties, but permitting issues and a debate over which jurisdiction would be the lead agency on the massive public works project has so far stymied the start of construction.

The March 10, decision by the The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (NYSDEC) designates the WJWW as the lead agency under the State Environmental Quality Review Act (SEQRA). The ruling is an important step forward in that it will allow the water authority to proceed with the scoping process on the Environmental Impact Statement for the proposed plant.

The WJWW will hold a virtual public meeting on April 13, 2021 at 5:00 p.m to discuss the next steps for the project. Residents will have an opportunity to ask questions or air concerns about the related water quality issues. It looks like Friday’s order from the NYSDEC might finally be clearing the path to a much needed filtration plant in Harrison and eventually clearer drinking water in our glasses.