Phillips Avenue Elementary School Faculty Demonstrate Against Sewage Plant 

Faculty and staff demonstrated outside of the Phillips Avenue Elementary School in Riverhead to raise concerns about Southampton Town’s plan to place a sewage treatment plant nearby.

Teachers demonstrated during their lunch time to apprise the community of the situation and the location of a sewage treatment plant. Teachers want Southampton Town to analyze the environmental impacts a sewage plant may have on the school.

“We are concerned about the proximity in terms of the health and well-being of our students and staff. Our first hope would be for the Town to choose a different location,” Cheryl Pedisich, Interim Superintendent of Schools, said in a statement. “If that is not an option, then we are looking for assurances that there will be no ill effects or other negative impacts on our students, staff or Phillips Avenue Elementary School campus.”

The sewage treatment plant will be located in an industrial park that backs up to the elementary school and will be more than 900 feet from school building and is 575 feet from the property line.

Riverhead Central School District officials and other speakers raised concerns about proximity of the sewage plant to the school during a Southampton Town Board meeting in April and reiterated those concerns to officials through less formal channels.

The district is continuing discussions with the Town later this month at a meeting that will be attended by the district’s legal counsel and architects.

They are looking to the Town of Southampton to present definitive evidence that construction of the plant will not present health hazards or risks to students or staff at the school, Pedisich said.