For over four years, the sewage treatment plants in Great Neck have been struggling to determine how best to meet the federal and state requirement to drastically reduce the pounds of nitrogen they release into Manhasset Bay by the year 2012. Combine, divert or upgrade? Those were the questions.

This dilemma was no secret.

Now, just as the deadline to decide whether to accept a grant for diversion only from the Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) is upon us, county Executive Tom Suozzi presents a cavalier offer to make the numbers for diversion work. Cavalier, because it comes at the last possible moment, and cavalier because it was presented in a sweeping fashion without much of a chance to digest the numbers and with a presentation that seemed more "pitch" than substance.

On the other hand, it also appeared to be a shrewd attempt at an assets raid, similar to corporate takeovers. Who knows in five years how much the property the sewage treatment plants own would be worth on the open market? Everyone knows that undeveloped land in Great Neck is at a premium, especially waterfront property.

In the meantime, the ploy to fund a "study" for nitrogen reduction and yet only have grant money to help finance one alternative, diversion, as crafted by the DEC, was also an example of chutzpah. Other North Shore plants received grant money for upgrades. It is a pity that Great Neck got caught in the diversion trap; we could have been well on our way to upgrading our facilities with state aid.

The irony of this whole spectacle is that while these relatively small sewage treatment plants valiantly endeavor to reduce the pounds of nitrogen they release into the bay, New York City releases tons of nitrogen a day. Guess what? Their deadline for reducing their nitrogen output by 60 percent is 2017....and NYC will still be putting out more nitrogen than our pipsqueak plants do today! Does anyone else find this situation a little irrational? Chutzpah seems too kindly a word. Maybe the operative word is mashugga.

Residents of Great Neck may want to leave the discussions of proper sewage treatment to the experts, but they may well have opinions about the effects on their quality of life if two sewage treatment plants are demolished (keep in mind that no environmental impact study has been done on the least harmful and disruptive way to go about this big job) and if our prime roadways are torn up for months on end.

And since when is questioning public officials about their plans and motives, chutzpah?

- Carol Frank