Earlier on May 23rd, Governor Kathy Hochul signed the Suffolk Water Quality Restoration Act to protect public health and improve water quality. Legislation S.8473/A.8993 will allow Suffolk County to put forward a ballot referendum that would fund long term investments in clean water systems and technology – revitalizing wastewater infrastructure for the residents of Suffolk County.

VIDEO of the event is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.

AUDIO of the Governor's remarks is available here.

PHOTOS of the event are available on the Governor's Flickr page.

A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks is available below:

Well, good morning everyone and thank you for joining us on this beautiful, almost summer day. But I'm a voter, and you go out in all seasons — no matter if it's raining or shining, and this is a spectacular part of our State. I could not be prouder to be back here in Suffolk County, and I'm so grateful to have partners and friends — our legislators who've joined us, sponsors of what we're about to sign here, Senator Monica Martinez — a real champion for this region — I want to thank her for her work.

Also, Assemblymember Fred Thiele — they’ve both been there from the very beginning and I want to thank both of them for championing this through, along with many of the advocates who've joined us here today. I was just talking about the fact that this took almost a decade to accomplish. And that's quite extraordinary to get something like this done. And my question is always what took so long? Why was this so complicated?

But also, our County Executive, Ed Romaine — always makes me feel welcome. Supervisor Rich Schaffer, who's always very welcoming — we’ve spent a lot of time together in the diners and all the places we love to be. We solve all the problems together.

So, this will not take a lot of time — although it took a lot of time to get us here —because there are people who realize that something that's precious is clean water and the fact that there are parts of this county that are denied what other parts of our State have already readily available, and that is systems that work.

It is the fact that we’ve needed clean water upgrades for so long — the infrastructure upgrades — and so, what happens is you get this deterioration of the environment around us. And this is an island. We talk about this all the time. Perhaps you take it for granted, but if we don't manage our water here and keep it clean and make sure it's accessible, and deal with this now, future generations will say, “Why were they so negligent? Why didn't they care enough to do something?”

Well, we have leadership here today that cares. And this is a manifestation of that as well. So, it's a bipartisan issue — always happy when we can find those — and let's give that a round of applause.

I know that the 75 percent of Suffolk County homeowners who go without sewers are going to be delighted with this. Right, Adrian? Adrian is shaking her head, yes. She's worked with this. So, we're going to power the elected officials here in Suffolk County to be able to safeguard their water. It's just a basic responsibility of government, but they need the mechanism to do it.

And Albany was able to deliver for them. So, in a minute, I'll sign the Suffolk County Water Quality Restoration Act, and that law will clear the way for a referendum. So, the work begins after today. We're not done. This is the beginning. And so, we need to make sure that all Long Islanders will have a chance to make their voices heard and protect the clean water for future generations.

So, let's get that over the finish line. I believe it'll have strong support, but people need to know about it. They need to know the urgency with which we bring to this. So again, I want to thank everybody who made this happen today. My part is as simple as picking up a pen and supporting this, because I believe in local government.

I believe in listening to what communities want. I spent 14 years in local government and there was a time when people didn't pay attention to localities the way that I do because I know what it's like. When you need something, there's something that's a simple matter, we can get a signature from a governor, then we can do the rest of the work here and that's exactly what you've asked for and you will get today.

So, congratulations to everyone.