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By William Stieglitz - May 23, 2025
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.”
For Fort Salonga, the recommended work includes salt marsh preservation for Sunken Meadow State Park and Crab Meadow Marsh. According to the National Audubon Society’s New York and Connecticut Director of Coastal Resilience Victoria O’Neill, “these two projects will restore over 300 acres of salt marsh, reinstating ecosystem services, ecosystem health, and providing habitat for priority species like the saltmarsh sparrow.”
Recommended land preservation projects, meanwhile, include acquisition of St. James’s Gyrodyne property and Nissequogue River State Park’s Grist Mill property at the end of its kayak and canoe trail. “It has a home on it that was made out of a 300-year-old gristmill,” said Esposito of the latter. “It truly is a walk back in time.”
Esposito encouraged villages, towns, and other stakeholders to submit their bond applications to the Department of Environmental Conservation soon, “so we can get this funding and make Long Island more livable and more sustainable and more economical because this funding is available.”
Environmental needs not identified in the report were also addressed. Koch advocated for funding to dredge the Northport harbor, which isn’t eligible for the bond act, but which she said would “greatly improve the water quality.” Romaine, meanwhile, put focus on pine barren preservation, nitrogen runoff from Stony Brook’s Sewer District 21 into Port Jefferson Harbor, the potential for solar panels for schools, and pollution from the Brookhaven landfill, which he said “leaked like a sieve” into nearby waters.”
Romaine called for the support of Gov. Kathy Hochul (D) in funding these efforts via the livestreamed event. “We have great projects. We just need the funding for it. And that’s why this bond act was supported overwhelmingly by the residents of Suffolk County. We want to see environmental change. We want to see a better future for our island.”