Public Employee Press

World's largest ultraviolet disinfection plant:
Contracting IN for safe water

By GREGORY N. HEIRES

A wall-to-wall union workforce will be running the world's largest ultraviolet light plant for disinfecting water when it starts operating in August.

As late as this spring, the city Dept. of Environmental Protection was moving ahead with a plan to let a private contractor run the plant, which will treat all the water flowing into New York City.

But in the end, thanks in part to a union campaign, the city decided to keep the work in-house and reevaluate that decision two years from now. DEP also scrapped its plan to privatize a water filtration plant in Croton-on-Hudson.

This was the first time the city notified DC 37 about a major privatization plan under a local law strengthened by the City Council over Mayor Bloomberg's veto to make the contracting process more transparent.

2.2 billion gallons

Recently, a union team visited the 160,000-square-foot facility, which straddles the towns of Mount Pleasant and Greenburgh in Westchester County. The plant's chief operator, Local 1322 member Tony Pironti, led a walk-through with several DC 37 members who are preparing the facility to go online.

After training for up to 18 months, over 50 unionized DEP employees will work the day shift. A skeletal staff of under 10 employees will work the night shift. The plant will deliver up to 2.2 billion gallons of pure drinking water daily to 8.2 million city residents.

"Being involved in a project this big from the ground up has been very exciting," said James Perez, who will be stationed in the plant's console room, where about 10 Local 376 members will monitor plant operations on computers that will be maintained by a team of Local 2627 members.

"Our members will be the ones with their fingers on the buttons," said Robert Weaver, Watershed Maintainers' chapter chair and a vice president of Local 376. Recently, a Local 376 group performed a preliminary start-up on the water flow at the plant, he said.

Instrument Technician 2 Andre Smalling will be one of 13 Local 375 members monitoring the water to ensure that it meets federal Environmental Protection Agency standards. The EPA required the city to construct the $1.4 billion plant, which will treat surface water from the Catskill and Delaware aqueducts. The city lost its legal challenge to the EPA plan.

The plant will use ultraviolet light to disinfect water from upstate reservoirs. Four huge rooms each contain 14 UV units that will process millions of gallons of water flowing through giant 38-inch pipes. The water will return to the pipes of the Catskills and Delaware water systems and eventually wind up in New York City.

"The UV disinfection process is a very safe and effective way of keeping the water supply free of harmful waterborne microorganisms," said Local 375 1st Vice President Michael Rosenberg, who is also 1st Vice President of DEP Chapter 40. Rosenberg joined Local 375 President Behrouz Fathi, Legislative Chair Jessica Dewberry and DEP Chapter 40 President Richard Kowalczy for the tour on May 15.

Fathi, DC 37 Associate Director Henry Garrido and Local 1322 Vice President Al Ambrosino testified against privatizing the plant in April before the City Council's Environmental Protection Committee, and Local 376 President Gene DeMartino submitted written testimony.

The committee chair, James F. Gennaro, raised his concerns about the contracting with DEP, Garrido said. The union reached out to the entire City Council, U.S. Sens. Charles E. Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand and DEP management.

"Privatization would have represented a very big loss of infrastructure work that we believe should be the responsibility of government," Garrido said.

"City workers have maintained the reservoir system for 100 years," Fathi said. "Our members certainly are capable of protecting the city's water system well into the future."