Protecting Open Waters - No dumping allowed - The Long Island Community Foundation

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December 5, 2018 | By compass

Protecting Open Waters – No dumping allowed

With $50,000 in grants from the Kraft Fund for the environment at the Long Island Community Foundation, Peconic Baykeeper, a nonprofit advocate for the Peconic and South Shore estuaries, helped establish a “no discharge zone,” where boats can no longer dump their sewage in open waters. During a typical summer weekend, more than 24,000 boats crisscross the South Shore Estuary, which includes barrier islands, bays, beaches, sea life and underwater vegetation from the Nassau-Queens border to Southampton.

Before the law took effect, many of the boats would empty their sewage holding tanks while under way or dump their treated sewage waste overboard. Now they must discharge their waste at pump out facilities. The “no-discharge” designation has prevented millions of gallons of waste from entering the water, but Baykeeper’s work is far from done. Sewage treatment plants, storm water runoff, and fertilizers continue to add harmful nitrogen to our ocean waters.