Former Peconic Baykeeper launches new environmental organization

Kevin McAllister is back.

The former Peconic Baykeeper, a Quogue resident who was fired from his position after almost two decades at the helm, has unveiled a new not-for-profit group, “Defend H2O”, aimed at protecting and restoring water quality across Long Island.

His lifetime mission, he said, is to protect groundwater and natural shorelines, and to take action to reverse the course of continued degradation to area waters.

Reflecting on the end of his run as the Peconic Baykeeper, McAllister said he’d “rather not go back there. It was unfortunate. I felt I was wrongfully fired. I’m challenging that, through New York State.”

At least one member of his former Peconic Baykeeper board, Skip Tollefsen, has joined McAllister in Defend H2O.

And, McAllister said, he’s thrilled to once again be focused on protecting natural waterways. “I”m back at it,” he said.

His first objective, McAllister said, is to adopt numeric, metric, science-based water quality standards, and move away “narrative, subjective” standards set by the federal government 15 years ago.

“The state of New York has been dragging its feet,” he said.

Speaking about “The Long Island Water Quality Control Act,” a bill sponsored by Assemblyman Robert Sweeney and New York State Senator Ken LaValle that failed to pass, McAllister said while the measure “had some elements that were positive toward greater protection of area waters, there was one glaring omission — adopting these numeric standards. That’s imperative if there’s a do-over on that bill  in the works. I will be very vocal about the need to include that.”

The federal government’s Clean Water Act is to be administered by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, McAllister said, adding that while he feels adopting the numeric standards is critical, it might trigger some pushback.

“This will be controversial and will have implications to both developmental interests as well as the agricultural industry,” he said.

Currently, he said, the  Peconic Estuary Program has set 0.45 ml. per liter as the threshold value for nitrogen; if nitrogen exceeds that level, he said, it could trigger algal blooms. “If establishing these standards as hard and fast through the Clean Water Act requires implementation of cleanup or restoration measures, it could have implications to local zoning, the management of wastewater by thousands of septic systems, and have implications to the agricultural industry’s use of fertilizer. This could be far reaching,” McAllister said.

McAllister said he’s been petitioning since 2006 for a look at more environmentally friendly septic systems. A list of impaired water bodies published in 2010 included the entire South Shore of Suffolk County and, on the North Fork, Marratooka Pond in Mattituck, he said.

“The real challenge is dealing with nutrient loading into coastal waters,” he said. “I was the first to start sounding the alarm on cesspools back in 2005. I’ve been really tenacious about the need to upgrade these systems and move from conventional septic cesspools to new systems.”

Over the years, McAllister said, there has been progress. “It’s a conversation that’s obviously happening throughout Long Island and in Suffolk County,” he said. Sweeney and LaValle’s legislation was a reflection of those change, he believes. “But we have to make some very hard choices and take some very bold action. It’s very difficult for elected officials, because this has cost implications. I understand that, but let’s not shelve the notion because it’s difficult or costly. The fact remains that wastewater from conventional systems is a tremendous factor in water pollution. We can’t continue to kick the can down the road. We have to address this challenge.”

One way to move forward, McAllister said, would be to utilize Community Preservation Funds as way to offset the cost of retrofitting wastewater systems — an idea pitched by New York State Assemblyman Fred Thiele this week. The CPF real estate  transfer tax has previously been used to preserve open space on the East End.

“Why not perpetuate that funding stream but consider using it to explore alternative ways to ensure waters are protected or restored?” McAllister said.

All new major developments, he said, should be required to feature state-of-the art wastewater treatment systems. “It’s about innovation,” he said. “We’ve really been stuck in the Dark Ages hydraulically because of our sandy soils. Aftr 30 or 40 years, the nitrogen is degrading our waters and we’ve got to do something different.”  Nitrex systems, he said, are one alternative.

Of his new group, McAllister said he received approval from the Internal Revenue Service in September and initially began creating Defend H2O in June. “We’re starting to build momentum,” he said. “I’m getting out there and doing what I do best — speaking for our local waters in a very scientific and unbiased manner. I’m as apolitical as they come.”