On May 14, the Farmingdale-based Citizens Campaign for the Environment (CCE) released a report of Long Island Sound water quality restoration projects it would like to see funded through the New York State Environmental Bond Act. The list was composed following meetings with village, town, county, and state representatives from across Long Island and shared digitally following a press conference at Northport Yacht Club.
CCE Executive Director Adrienne Esposito, speaking alongside Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine (R), Northport Village Mayor Donna Koch, and other environmental organization leaders, described the Bond Act’s previous funding to Long Island as “insufficient” for local water protection. Passed in 2022, the act has so far funded $61 million dollars in projects across Suffolk County and $2 billion of an approved $4.2 billion in projects statewide. The problem, according to Esposito, is that “not one [project] yet has been on the north shore of Nassau or Suffolk County that would provide restoration and protection of the Long Island Sound estuary.”
The report of new recommended projects divides them into categories of water quality and resilient infrastructure, restoration and flood risk management, and open-space land conservation, each of which receives separate funding from the bond act. “Many of the projects we’re suggesting,” said Romaine, “will improve the quality of life, help fight climate change, make us more energy efficient, and improve water quality on the North Shore, as well as the South Shore.”…