Governor Kathy Hochul announced a key milestone to advance the Bay Park Conveyance Project, a partnership between New York State and Nassau County that will dramatically improve water quality and storm resiliency in Long Island’s Western Bays.
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The announcement marks the completion of a pivotal stage of the project that includes the successful completion of tunneling operations and the construction of nearly 11 miles of pipeline that will spur the ecological recovery of the South Shore’s Western Bays and storm resilient marshlands by upgrading existing wastewater management infrastructure. Expedited construction has been managed by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation.
The Bay Park Conveyance Project will reduce nitrogen pollution in the Western Bays by redirecting highly treated water from the rebuilt and upgraded South Shore Water Reclamation Facility (WRF) to the Cedar Creek Water Pollution Control Plant (WPCP).
This enables the treated water to be discharged, diffused, and dispersed approximately three miles offshore in the Atlantic Ocean through an existing ocean outfall where there is vast assimilative capacity relative to the warm and shallow Western Bays.
This innovative project, involving $158.6 million in State and State-directed grants to date along with comprehensive low cost financing by the Environmental Facilities Corporation (EFC), will prevent the discharge of an average of 50 million gallons per day of treated water from South Shore WRF into the Western Bays.
Today’s [February 7] key achievements include the construction of nearly 11 miles of new pipeline using innovative, low impact, tunneling technologies and the sliplining of an existing abandoned 100-year-old aqueduct pipe. The aqueduct, not used since the 1960s, was originally used to convey drinking water from Nassau County to New York City. 
A cutting-edge tunneling technique was employed to construct conduits for the new pipeline deep below the surface from the South Shore WRF extending two miles north to Sunrise Highway in Rockville Centre and from Sunrise Highway in western Wantagh extending more than 1.5 miles south to connect to the Cedar Creek’s ocean outfall.
By using this approach, DEC and Western Bays Constructors (WBC), the project's design-builder, minimized surface disturbance to the surrounding communities, reduced cost, and accelerated construction.
Two tunnel boring machines, named MARSH-MELLOW and P.O.S.E.I.D.O.N. by students at Fulton Avenue Elementary School, Oceanside School #8, and North Oceanside Road Elementary School, Oceanside School #5, were used for this project.
WBC began sliplining activities in March 2022 and successfully installed more than 37,920 linear feet of pipe in over seven miles of the abandoned aqueduct between western Rockville Centre and western Wantagh in Nassau County. The new conveyance system is anticipated to be tested in 2024 and fully operational in 2025.
The Bay Park Conveyance Project also includes construction of supporting infrastructure to push the treated water through the new pipeline to the ocean outfall. Construction is progressing on the new pump station at the South Shore WRF and the receiving tank at the Cedar Creek WPCP.
Project work began in March 2021. Built in 1949, the South Shore WRF serves more than 500,000 Nassau County residents and discharges treated water into the Western Bays each day. This discharge impacts nearly 10,000 acres of water and tidal marshland from Atlantic Beach to Point Lookout, including Hewlett and Baldwin harbors.
The Western Bays are a shallow waterbody with limited and poor tidal mixing. Due in large part to nitrogen in treated water from the South Shore WRF, the Western Bays are significantly impaired by macro algal blooms and other water quality issues, such as low dissolved oxygen.
Peer-reviewed scientific studies have linked excess nitrogen to the damage and ultimate disintegration of coastal marsh islands that serve as a resilient barrier to storm surge and associated waves.
The Bay Park Conveyance Project, costing approximately $500 million, is in addition to the $830 million State and federally funded comprehensive resilient rebuild and upgrade of the South Shore WRF.
State grants for the conveyance project totaling $81.7 million have been provided to Nassau County through DEC and EFC, further underscoring the State’s commitment to helping the county undertake this project affordably. The county will receive an additional $76.9 million through State-directed Federal Emergency Management Agency’s Hazard Mitigation grants. ■