Suffolk County approves $3 billion budget for sewer expansion

Oakdale homeowners who have spent money pumping groundwater out of cesspools are among the first Suffolk residents set to feel relief as the county moves to expand sewer service into neighborhoods still relying on aging on-site systems. The work is meant to cut the sewage failures that hit low-lying areas during heavy rain, reduce pollution reaching bays and beaches, and ease a maintenance burden that has fallen directly on homeowners for years.

Suffolk County lawmakers approved a $3 billion capital budget on June 2, locking in spending through 2029 and dedicating $1.5 billion to wastewater infrastructure. The county says roughly 70% of Suffolk is still not connected to sewer service, a gap that has shaped everything from home repair costs to whether some business districts can grow. The budget sets up sewer installation or upgrades in Brentwood, West Babylon, Oakdale, West Islip, Wheatley Heights, Port Jefferson, Mastic, Shirley, St. James, Bellport, Centereach, Selden, Farmingville and Coram.

The next major investments already appear to be taking shape in Deer Park, the Southwest Sewer District and Nesconset. County budget review materials put the proposed 2026-2028 capital program at about $3.08 billion and identified an additional $184.7 million for sewers in Deer Park, $149.5 million to expand the Southwest Sewer District and $50.8 million for sewers in Nesconset. In Oakdale, federal environmental documents say the sewer extension would connect homes to Suffolk County’s Bergen Point Wastewater Treatment Plant and allow septic tanks and cesspools to be abandoned.

The county’s sewer buildout is rooted in a plan approved in 2020 as a New York Nine Element watershed plan. State environmental officials say the Subwatersheds Wastewater Plan is designed to reduce nitrogen pollution from wastewater and ultimately eliminate 299,000 cesspools and septic systems over 50 years, using sewer hookups where feasible and alternative on-site systems where they are not. That long-range effort is being financed in part by the Suffolk County Water Quality Restoration Act, approved by voters in November 2024, which raised the county sales tax by 0.125 percentage points and is projected to generate about $3 billion for clean-water infrastructure through 2060.

For communities like Oakdale and Great River, where residents voted 320-40 in December 2025 for a sewer expansion referendum in Phase 1A, the budget is more than a financial plan. It is the county’s clearest commitment yet to turn years of wastewater planning into pipes, treatment capacity and the kind of development that depends on sewer service.