New York State Parks today announced it has entered into a consent order with the State Department of Environmental Conservation to address septic systems at five Long Island state parks that are not in compliance with water pollution control permits.

“State Parks takes its stewardship of parks and their environment seriously and handles all non-compliance with top priority,” Commissioner Rose Harvey said.  “Upon discovering a potential issue with the septic systems at our parks, we took aggressive steps to investigate and are developing solutions that will comply with environmental standards while maintaining crucial services for millions of visitors to these parks.”

State Parks’ ongoing engineering review has preliminarily concluded that 30 septic systems at Belmont Lake, Heckscher, Robert Moses, Sunken Meadow, and Wildwood State Parks that were installed many decades ago are not in compliance with current septic treatment standards.  The outdated systems pose no current threat to public health. In total, these five parks contain about 100 septic systems. The remaining 70 are in compliance with applicable standards.

The consent order calls on State Parks to immediately initiate the design and installation of replacement systems, to assure all septic systems comply with current standards within three years.  The cost of installing replacement systems is not yet known, but is expected to be in excess of $5 million.

As part of the settlement, the agency will pay a $25,000 fine, will be assessed an additional $25,000 if the terms of the order are not met in three years, and will undertake a $250,000 environmental benefit project. The project will improve groundwater quality in Suffolk County, through installation of a nitrogen reduction demonstration technology or educational projects.