Renewing westeRn Bays’ sea life For Freeport, the Bay Park Conveyance Project is up close and personal
T
o lifelong Freeporter and Operation Splash president Rob Weltner, 23 years isn’t too long if it means the campaign for the renewal of the Western Bays is on track for victory. “We started in 1999,” Weltner said in a recent interview. “It didn’t happen overnight.” The Western Bays, which supply much of the marine life for Freeport’s fishing industry, have been dying for decades because treated wastewater from an outfall pipe in the Reynolds Channel has raised nitrogen levels in the water. The campaign to reverse the dying process started in 1999. The victory achieved is a massive infrastructure redo known as the Bay Park Conveyance Project. When the project is completed in 2023, treated wastewater from the South Shore Water Reclamation Facility, in East Rockaway’s Bay Park, will be conveyed along a 15-mile pipeline to the ocean outfall pipe at the Cedar Creek Water Pollution Control Plant. The state Department of LIVING IN FREEPORT - 2022-2023
Environmental Conservation is partnering on the project with the Nassau County Department of Public Works. Elected officials are enthused about the project. “It has been described as the most transformative environmental project on Long Island in decades,” said Nassau County Legislator Debra Mulé from Freeport. Legislator Steve Rhoads, a Republican from Bellmore, calls it the “single most important environmental project” in the county since the construction of sewers in the 1960s and ’70s. Reine Bethany/Herald
Above photo: An osprey approached its nest on a hassock in the Western Bays last July. Both shore wildlife and area fishing industries depend on the restoration of bay water health. Drop-in photo: Rob Weltner, executive director of Operation SPLASH, shows the location of the Bay Park outfall pipe in Reynolds Channel.
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