The Great Neck Water Pollution Control District is replacing an above-ground waste pump station at the Saddle Rock Grist Mill damaged in Superstorm Sandy with a new underground pump, the district announced Tuesday.
“The devastation wrought by Superstorm Sandy included massive flooding at the existing pump station. The only option was to replace it,” said district Commissioner Steve Reiter in a statement. “This gave us the opportunity to apply for a grant from [the Federal Emergency Management Agency] which supplied over $800,000 toward building the new Saddle Rock pump station underground.”
The new pump should enhance service reliability to the Saddle Rock area, the district said in a release.
Wastewater from Saddle Rock will continue to be pumped to the district facility on East Shore Road from the Grist Mill pump station.
“The new waterproof pump station will be state-of-the-art,” said district Commissioner Deena Lesser in a statement. “We are purposely installing the new waterproof station underground which will be less prone to the type of damage incurred during severe storms like Superstorm Sandy.”
The pump station is located on the same site as the Saddle Rock Grist Mill, an 18th structure listed on the National Register of Historic Places.
The Grist Mill, which is located inside a small cove leading into Little Neck Bay off Grist Mill Lane, is owned by Nassau County and is under the authority of the county Department of Parks, Recreation and Museums.
Charles Schneider, vice president of external affairs for the Great Neck Historical Society, has said he has been told on two separate occasions that the historic building has significant flood damage that resulted from Hurricane Sandy.
Alice Kasten, president of the historical society, said the society is trying to pressure the county into allocating funds to restore the grist mill, but that her pleading has fallen on deaf ears.
She said she has written to Nassau County Executive Ed Mangano, but has gotten no response. She said she has gotten a response from Nassau County Department of Parks, Recreation, and Museums Commissioner Brian Nugent after she made a series of phone calls, but still has yet to hear from Mangano.
Nassau County Legislator Ellen Birnbaum (D-Great Neck) said in December she was committed to obtaining a grant to refurbish the Saddle Rock Grist Mill following a recent walk-through of the historic building.
She has said she had attended a walk-through of the building with members of the Nassau County Executive’s Office, the Department of Public Works and the Department of Parks, Recreation and Museums.
Birnbaum had said she was seeking money from the county to assess the Grist Mill’s current condition.
