BY RICH LOGIS

THE PATENT TRADER
(Original publication: January 23, 2003)

YORKTOWN - Members of two local organizations came out to a Jan. 21 town board meeting to protest the county's plan to divert sewage from Yorktown to

Peekskill, claiming taxes would go up and the watershed would be polluted.

Rather than divert effluent, or raw sewage, to a plant that already treats 6.3 million gallons daily, Paul Moskowitz, of the Croton Watershed Clean Water Coalition, said it makes more environmental and financial sense to upgrade Yorktown's Hallocks Mill Plant. Hallocks Mill treats 1.7 million gallons of effluent daily.

The New York City Department of Environmental Protection and Westchester County Executive Andrew Spano favor diverting the effluent from Yorktown to Peekskill. The county owns the Peekskill plant, which is at the waterfront's Annsville Creek. If diversion happens, the Hallocks Mill plant would be shut down.

Yorktown Supervisor Linda Cooper said Yorktown is open to both suggestions. She said the town has been caught in a "push me, pull me" situation for years over the sewage issue.

Several groups in the Peekskill area are opposed to the plan because they want no more sewage pumped into the city.

The diversion plan is the result of a 1996 watershed agreement with New York

City that required municipalities to fix plants that pollute the city's watershed. The Hallocks Mill Plant overflows, especially during storms, and pollutes the Croton watershed, according to the county. The watershed serves

9 million people throughout metropolitan New York.

Moskowitz said diversion also exacerbates a problem the region faces: overdevelopment. "If you do diversion, it will spur development."

Steve Kaplan, a Yorktown resident, said the diversion plan will pollute the watershed. "It (diversion) relieves Yorktown of its responsibility to treat sewage produced by its residents."

Nick DiTomaso, a member of the United Taxpayers of Yorktown, said diverting sewage could raise taxes tens of thousands of dollars over the next several decades. The diversion plan would cost $29.3 million, with $25 million coming from the DEP and the balance from the county.

A study conducted by Yorktown several years ago said an upgrade of the Hallocks Mill plant would cost $25 million.

"We know the plant has problems. But the county has the money," Yorktown town board member Nicholas Bianco said.

The county has not said that it will offer money for an upgrade, Bianco said.

Cooper said there's a lot of misinformation regarding taxes and the environmental effect of diversion. The county will hold public hearings starting next month on whether to spend $1.4 million on a study to determine the effects of diversion.