Listen to this articleSuffolk County will use $7.9 million in federal funds towards a project that expands sewer service in portions of the Wyandanch, Wheatley Heights and Deer Park communities.
Suffolk County Executive Ed Romaine announced that the county’s Department of Public Works will use the American Rescue Plan Act funds to pay for the engineering design and planning phase of the $158 million project that will expand the Southwest Sewer District to serve areas located within those three Town of Babylon hamlets, according to a county statement.
“Clean water is essential to the long-term viability of our region and the allocation of more than $1 billion dollars towards wastewater infrastructure in the county’s capital budget signifies our commitment to build a better future in the Town of Babylon and throughout Suffolk County,” Romaine said in the statement.
The project aims to connect some 2,600 parcels, 200 of which are commercial or business properties. A related project will serve an additional 372 parcels in the Deer Park corridor, according to a county spokesperson. Woodbury-based D&B Engineers and Architects has been selected to perform the project’s engineering design and planning.
The county’s 2025-2027 Proposed Capital Program includes more than 35 wastewater infrastructure projects with a total investment of more than $1.23 billion, according to the statement. The extension of sewer service is aimed at facilitating economic development and eliminating the use of thousands of outdated residential and commercial cesspool systems, improving water quality and increasing resiliency.
The funding announcement for the county project in Babylon Town comes on the heels of the passage of Proposition 2 as part of the Suffolk Water Quality Restoration Act to improve water quality and fund long term investments in clean water systems and technologies. The bill extends the existing one-quarter percent sales tax that funds water quality initiatives and establishes a new one-eighth percent sales to modernize sewers and fund critical county wastewater infrastructure.
The project to expand the Southwest Sewer District to serve portions of the Wyandanch, Wheatley Heights and Deer Park areas will begin this month and take a year and a half to complete the design phase. Construction of the entire project is expected to be completed in late 2029 or early 2030, according to a county spokesperson.