The Oyster Bay Water District has asked to have .53 acres of the Tiffany Creek Preserve from Nassau County for a future use for a well. The property is part of the Groundwater Protection Area and adjacent to the Oyster Bay Water District property on Berry Hill Road, where they currently have a tank, said Robert McEvoy, OBWD commissioner.
The land will be acquired with a swap. Sean Rainey, Nassau County deputy director of real estate, explained that the Nassau County Police Department – in concert with the Oyster Bay Cove Police Department – needs to put an antenna on top of the Oyster Bay Water District water tower in Oyster Bay Cove. As a result, the OBWD originally asked for 4.5 acres of property similar to what had already been done for other water districts in the county, but Oyster Bay Cove Deputy Mayor Ralph Fumante negotiated with the Oyster Bay Water District to accept a smaller parcel.
Mr. Rainey explained that this has been done by the Jericho Water District (in 1985) on property that is part of the Muttontown Preserve where two and a half acres were carved out for a well site; two acres were carved out of Stillwell woods (in 1983) for a Jericho Water District well site; and two and a half acres were carved out of Christopher Morley Park (in 1992) to be used by the Port Washington Water District; recently, Shattuck estate carved out 3.3 acres in 1993 for the Plainview Water District.
Mr. Rainey said, “Residents will probably see more of this in the future because you need pristine sites for drinking water. What are the best sites, but preserve or park land because they don’t have a problem with pollution.”
He added, “There is a precedent for this, not something new.”
This newspaper had originally been informed that the Oyster Bay Water District was going to buy the Tiffany Creek Preserve of “48.89 acres, with an estate home, built in 1908, of 2,322 square feet, two and one-half baths, etc, plus a number of outbuildings. This is a little less than a quarter of the total preserve.”
It turns out that this is not the case. We are grateful for the members of local government who were available to us to find the entire story.
True to form, the complete story is actually better than the one we originally tried to confirm. Our thank you to all the experts for helping us get the story straight.
Much of the original story came from Bruce Piel, chairman Park Advocacy & Recreation Council of Nassau, without whom we would not have been able to discern the entire story – and whom we thank.
The lesson learned is – please let us know about any issues you are concerned about and with a little luck and the right people to contact – we can fill in the details and we all benefit.
We informed Mr. Piel of what we found out and it is good to note that sometime the Power of the Press is to clear up issues and end them, rather than to put out a “stop the presses” type of story.
