Southold Town Trustees receive new pumpout boat
The Southold Town trustees have a new boat that will help keep the Peconic Bay clean.
Last Thursday, the 23-foot boat built in Rhode Island was delivered to the Cutchogue Harbor Marina, where the trustees were waiting for it on a chilly morning. The boat, which will be based at the marina, will be used as a “pumpout” facility for recreational boats in the bay that need their toilet holding tanks pumped out.
“The boat will go to boats in the bay that need to be pumped out,” said trustee Michael Domino. “Recreational boats can also call the new boat on the radio and arrange for a pumpout. Once the 420-gallon tank is filled, the operator will take it to Greenport where it will be hooked into the village’s sewage system.”
The new boat replaces an older pumpout boat that will no longer be used. The cost of the new boat was $99,211, with grants from Suffolk County and New York State picking up all but $19,500, which Southold Town contributed.
Last year, Greenport Village purchased a used pumpout boat from Riverhead Town that will complement one the village already had, which during parts of the summer of 2017 was out of the water for repairs and thus the village had no pumpout capability at all.
At last Thursday morning’s reception at the marina for the new boat, Mr. Domino reinforced how important it will be: in 2018, 2,511 gallons of effluent were collected by the town’s pumpout boat, sewage that otherwise might have ended up in the bay.
The boat will be operational from May 25 through Oct. 14.
Photo caption: Aboard the Southold Town Trustees’ new pumpout boat (from left): Rick Audette Jr., the boat builder with Trustees Greg Williams, Glenn Goldsmith and Nick Krupski. (Courtesy photo)
