By Adam Lidgett
The Great Neck Water Pollution Control District has received state funding to aid in the construction of a grease receiving station to help generate revenue for the district.
The district received a $270,000 grant from the Empire State Development Corporation to help cover a portion of the cost to install the station, according to a press release from the district.
The station will receive the grease from local restaurants and treat it at their facility at 236 East Shore Road.
“It’s going to be good for all parties involved,” district Commissioner Jerry Landsberg said. “It’ll be good for the district, for the restaurants who will be supplying the grease and for the haulers who are going to be really ecstatic about it. It allows them more use of their trucks.”
Landsberg said the project’s total cost of the receiving station will be about $1.2 million. He said the district hopes to get bond approval from the Town of North Hempstead by February to help fund the rest of the project.
Landsberg estimates that the project, once started, will take a little less than a year to complete.
The district will charge a fee for grease trucks to dispose grease for recycling at the station, the release said. Grease will be fed into a system that takes out certain disease-causing microorganisms, and then turned into fuel.
The district will then use the fuel to power their vehicles and microturbines.
Landsberg said the new station will be beneficial financially to taxpayers.
“Between the income from the tipping fees [the fees paid to dispose grease at the facility] and the increased heat and electricity we will be able to produce from the methane gas given off from the processing of sewage, we’ll be able to save a lot of money and taxpayers definitely benefit from it,” Landsberg said.
All restaurants are required to get rid of the grease from their grease traps. Currently, the two closest places to do that are in Suffolk County and New Jersey.
Landsberg has said the district will not only be able to use the grease for fuel, but it will also cut down on the transportation cost for the drivers who haul the grease away from the restaurants.
“This is an exciting moment for the Great Neck community,” district Commissioner Deena Lesser said in the release. “The communities we serve recognize our dedication to environmental protection, which has garnered the much-appreciated support from our elected officials.”
“The support we receive from the local, state and federal level is part of the reason why we are considered an ideal model for wastewater management and operations in New York State,” she added.
District Superintendent Christopher Murphy said in August he got the idea for the project while he was in California, when he visited a sewage treatment plant that was using the same process to power its plant.
Empire State Development grant funds are typically given to businesses and municipalities that are doing something to encourage growth in the state, the release said.
In December 2013, the Great Neck Water Pollution Control District completed a consolidation project with the Village of Great Neck that allows for all village sewage to be handled through the water pollution control district’s new plant.
The plant was designed to reduce nitrogen dumping into the Long Island Sound in accordance with the state Department of Environmental Conservation.
