Earlier this fall, residents of Williston Park and East Williston received their first water bills after a 33% rate increase took effect in March.
Williston Park, which supplies water to both villages, voted to raise the rate to pay for a filtration system to remove harmful chemicals, like PFAS, from the drinking water to meet stricter federal standards from the Environmental Protection Agency.
East Williston Mayor Bonnie Parente is still pushing for Williston Park Mayor Paul Ehrbar to reconsider or pause the rate increase until both villages can re-evaluate the plan to figure out the best option. Ehrbar says there’s nothing he can do, as the village “has no choice” but to build the filtration system, as it must act quickly to meet EPA standards and ensure clean drinking water.
Parente said she wants to meet with Ehrbar to discuss and determine if there may be an alternate plan the village could take to meet the stricter guidelines or another way to filter out the contaminants.
“We remain steadfast that Williston Park should stall the creation of a $40 million facility to filter out contaminants, and instead, should find a way to prevent the contaminants from getting into the water in the first place,” Parente said. “In an ideal world, Williston Park will pause the plans to create infrastructure that may not be needed in the future.”
Ehrbar has emphasized that he believes moving forward with the current plans for constructing granular activated carbon filtration systems is the only viable option and he has consulted extensively with the village’s engineers.
“It’s not something I’m happy about, but we don’t have a choice,” Ehrbar said. He said he is happy to speak with Parente on the matter.
Both mayors said they’ve tried to meet with the other, but a date for a conversation has not yet been set.
The water rate increase for both villages remains in effect and planning has begun to construct the water filtration systems in Williston Park.
