Despite proposing 3000 new apartments in Melville — the biggest residential development on Long Island — the Huntington town board has not engaged a professional planner and has not done a single impact study. Instead, a member of the planning board has disingenuously filled out a SEQRA form asserting that 3000 new apartments would have no impacts whatsoever!

Many residents are not opposed to the proposed “downtown” area with a few hundred apartments. However, this plan is being foisted onto the community without being professionallly planned — and without an update to the Comprehensive Plan, which would involve a citizens’ advisory board and ensure the coherence and continuity of sustainable development.

In addition, there are concerns about thousands of new residences being added to this ecologically sensitive area without addressing the impacts on our water supply.

According to an extensive study conducted by the Nassau-Suffolk Regional Planning Board in partnership with the USGS and the EPA, Melville is an important groundwater recharge site — a place where rain gathers and filters through the ground to keep our aquifer full. This is why it was initially zoned with large lots and low density — to allow the replenishment of our aquifer.

To accommodate thousands of residences in this important groundwater recharge site, the Town proposes to add sewers. There is currently some sewer capacity, but according to our town supervisor it can handle only 320 new residences. Apparently, the board’s assumption is that developers will pay to expand the system.

Sewers may seem like a good idea, but sewer lines carry away wastewater to larger bodies of water. In this case, the water would go to the Great South Bay. 3000 residences will use more and more water from our aquifer — and that water will not go back into our aquifer.

More significantly, the 90% lot coverage in the town center overlay will interfere with rainwater recharge. Storm water will not go back into the ground, our groundwater will be depleted and the remaining water will have a higher concentration of contaminants. An expanded sewer system combined with less open, permeable ground and high water use by thousands of new residents could be disastrous for our only source of fresh water.

We live on an island, and so our fresh water supply is finite. When the water table falls, wells must pump from deeper in the ground, making water more expensive. Streams, ponds and wildlife habitats begin to dry up. When we continue to draw from the aquifer without replenishing it, salt water begins to be drawn into the ground water. This is already happening in Nassau County. Once that salt water makes a full incursion into the aquifer, the aquifer is ruined and there is no getting it back.

If the town is serious about sustainable development, they need to hire a professional planner for the Melville project— to conduct surveys about the water/public health, as well as traffic patterns, quality of life and economic concerns, etc. Proper planning can include much more open space with trees — trees are critical to the natural filtration of groundwater — and/or a groundwater replenishment system, which will enable us to recharge our aquifer instead of depleting it. But the board seems to be in such a hurry to pass these resolutions that they don’t want to do the evaluation, research and planning needed to develop our community in a sustainable way. 

We must insist that they do this the right way: hire a professional planner, and update the Melville section of the Comprehensive Plan with a citizens’ advisory board!

The final public hearing on these proposals will be held Tuesday, June 11, 7pm at Huntington Town Hall. Please arrive early and sign up to speak!