Featured Letter: Can’t afford to wait to solve water issues

To the editor:

Last week, The Suffolk Times ran a long article on water issues and nitrogen. Thank you.

So what are we waiting for? We have known about this problem for a long time. It isn’t going away and it will only get worse as the years roll by. The State of New York did not pass the legislation that would have helped relieve the problem and didn’t vote on the bill because of pressure from agriculture and developers. The Southold Planning Board continues to approve development without advanced septic systems. The county health department has moved slowly to test alternative systems, and I believe won’t approve any alternative to septic rings at the moment.

Do we need another brown tide? Must we sit on the shore and watch our water quality decline? We have created a mess and now we are going to need to fix it. That will cost each of us some serious money, but what is the choice?

The next time you go to vote, ask where the candidates stand on water quality and exactly what they plan to do about it.

Other areas have started to address the problem. Why hasn’t Suffolk County?

Steve Curry, Southold