Dispatch: Dirty Water Hard to Find in Green Port [VIDEO]

For Mike Acebo, manager of Brewer Yacht Yard in Greenport, keeping his marina pollution free isn’t anything new. He’s been doing it for decades.

But that’s in stark contrast to the norm, since numerous, fouled by not only runoff, but fuel, sewage and chemicals discharged by the boats docked there.

“We have always had a great ability to keep pollutants from landing on the ground and into any runoff water that might carry them over the bulkhead,” he said. “If efforts in good housekeeping and best management practices make you green, then I guess we are, but I would consider that we are just a well-run marina.”

That includes simple matters, like keeping dumpsters closed.

“The drains in the dumpsters are always sealed, so if water does get through it won’t percolate … and take whatever is in there out through the drains and run overboard when it rains,” he said.

Paint, varnish, used batteries and other toxic material used by boaters and workers in the yard are also sealed in containment sheds and disposed of properly. Acebo and his staff meet for periodic training sessions to discuss different sources of pollution in the facility and how to handle them before they become problematic.

The yard, covered in bluestone to help absorb storm water runoff, is home to one of the oldest pump-out facilities in the state, a structure that allows boats to unload their sewage so it doesn’t end up in the water.

“I’ve never seen any reason why boat sewage should be dumped overboard,” he said. “It doesn’t make any sense to me why you would defecate in the same place you gather shellfish to eat."

Even the recently passed ban on sewage dumping in the Long Island Sound seems like something that should have happened long time ago, he said.

Aside from sewage, runoff from cleaners can foul marina waters, which is why Acebo only stocks eco-friendly cleaners and boats must be taken out of the water and cleaned over a porous surface so none of the wash-water spills over the bulkhead. Acebo also said he has plans to install a wash pad to collect power washing water that could be carted away.

The federal government and New York State have mandated that marinas be in compliance with a “multi-sector general permit for storm water discharges associated with industrial activities” in 2009. And to Peconic Baykeeper Kevin McAllister, Acebo and Brewer Yacht Yard is more than a shining example of the government’s goals.

“There really is a strong clean water ethic there,” McAllister said. “And what’s demonstrative of that is back in 2002 when I started to launch a campaign to make the Peconic Basin a no-discharge zone, Mike was the first to stand up and support that in a time when there was a general resistance from the rest of the marine industry.”

Another testament to Acebo’s green efforts happened when tropical Irene tore through the region, dousing the landscape. Heavy rains can typically cause a spike in pathogens along the coast, due to above normal runoff. But Acebo said that even after the heavy rains and wind of Irene, levels of aluminum, zinc and lead in the yard's waters were within the parameters allowed by Environmental Protection Agency Guidelines.

“And we’ve been below those levels every year that we are checked,” he said.

Acebo said that he has no control over what boaters dump into the water themselves at Brewer Yacht Yard, he can only hope people do the right thing.

“I really can’t control what people pour down their sinks in the galley,” he said.

To McAllister, just the fact that boats have been required to pump out sewage at Brewer for so long has kept the water in good condition. And to client Lloyd Leder, who for 20 years has commuted from Rockville Centre to use the marina, underwater visibility is better than it ever has been.

“I go under the boat on occasion to fix something, and I have to say that the water is pretty darn clear right now,” he said. “Mike is very, very particular when it comes to doing good things for the environment, and the visibility getting better and better because of it.”

Acebo, a native of Colorado, doesn’t get to boat during the busy summer – he’s an ice boater – but he did say that he’s recently been “astounded” by how clean the water is, especially in the winter.

“We’ve always been proactive to try to keep the water clean, simply because we make our living off the water,” he said.