Support Funding for Water Quality Improvements

The Community Preservation Fund, financed by a 2-percent tax on most real estate transfers, was initiated in 1999. Since its inception, it has raised over $1 billion for open space and historic preservation in the five East End towns for community preservation and water quality protection purposes.  Despite the great success in preserving open space, the eastern end of Long Island where the Eastern Long Island Chapter is based, has seen water quality become more and more impaired in its bays, lakes and coastal ponds due to ineffective wastewater treatement practices, largely septic systems.   The Eastern Long Island Chapter joined a large coalition of local and regional community and environmental organizations to support the successful passage of a ballot measure to extend the Community Preservation Fund in the five east end towns and allow up to 20% of the funding to be spent on water quality improvement projects which will include incentives for replacing and upgrading septic systems, installation of reactive permeable barriers to remove nutrients from flowing into surface waters from contaminated groundwater, and stormwater management projects.  The chapter supported the coalition's efforts to build voter support for the ballot measure by sharing their BWTF water quality data (Easthampton & Southampton) in the community to build awareness of pollution problems and talking about sources of pollution and the importance of this source of funding for solving problems in their educational and tabling events locally.  Local press on this victory here.