Hicksville Water District Gets $14M To Fight Likely Carcinogen

HICKSVILLE, NY — Hicksville's water authority has received more than $14 million to help fund the construction of two treatment facilities that are designed to remove a chemical linked to cancer.

The Hicksville Water District announced Wednesday the state grant money will cover about 60 percent of the total capital costs needed to install two treatment systems — known as advance oxidation process, or AOP, and granular activated carbon, or GAC — at two plants. The district called the treatment combination innovative, and said it's required to eliminate trace amounts of 1,4-dioxane that was detected at most of the district's supply wells.

"This is a significant level of funding that will greatly improve our ability to minimize the financial obligation of our residents to construct the necessary treatment for 1,4-dioxane," William Schuckmann, chairman of the district's board of commissioners, said in a statement. "We are pleased that the governor and our state representatives heard our concerns about the cost for treatment and took action to help ease the burden on our community."

Karl Schweitzer, a water district commissioner, said that the water authority is working to install well-head treatment for 1,4-dioxane at each impacted supply well, but noted the permanent installation of treatment at the two impacted well sites "makes the most sense from a strategic standpoint."

"These two plants are the workhorses of the District’s supply system, and constructing treatment at these sites first puts in the best position to deliver 1,4-dioxane-free water during the times of peak demand," he said.

The district has passed multiple emergency resolutions to begin the design and construction for the new systems as state regulators propose regulating 1,4-dioxane and other emerging compounds. Doing so stands to cost the water authority more than $60 million in capital improvements needed to build the required treatment facilities at the 10 impacted wells.

In other words, much more funding is needed, the authority said.

"We are appreciative of this significant level of funding, but we don’t want our residents to lose sight of the fact that much more funding is needed to offset the necessity of future water rate increases," Nicholas Brigandi, a fellow water district commissioner, said in a news release. "As we have been doing for the past couple of years, we will seek out all potential avenues for more funding and will continue our legal pursuits to hold the polluters accountable for the treatment-related expenses."

The latest round of infrastructure money, recently announced by Gov. Andrew Cuomo, provided more than $416 million for water and wastewater projects across the state. More than $120 million of that money was earmarked to help Long Island communities pay for treatment projects for emerging contaminants.

The AOP treatment will blend raw groundwater with a low concentration of an oxidant, usually hydrogen peroxide, that then goes through a sophisticated ultraviolet light reactor to destroy any 1,4-dixoane molecules. Groundwater that undergoes the treatment is then piped into industrial-sized carbon filters — known as GAC vessels — that remove any remaining hydrogen peroxide and other volatile organic compounds. Once that process is complete, the water is disinfected with chlorine, measured to make sure it's not acidic or basic, and delivered to neighbors' taps.

The grant comes after the water authority announced a moratorium on water service connections for Hicksville homes and businesses seeking a new or larger water service line. At the time, water officials said the proactive move was to prepare for the looming approval of the state's emerging contaminant regulations.

The temporary freeze on new connections will likely be lifted after all treatment systems for emerging contaminants — meaning 1,4-dioxane and PFAS — are up and running, and the district is pumping water at full capacity.

Numerous health groups and agencies have labeled 1,4-dioxane a likely cancer-causing chemical. The Department of Health and Human Services considers 1,4-dioxane as reasonably expected to be a human carcinogen, while the Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, established that it's a probable human carcinogen.

Meanwhile, the International Agency for Research on Cancer, or IARC, classified 1,4-dioxane as possibly carcinogenic to humans.