East Hampton Town

Board Suspends Testing

       The East Hampton Town Board agreed Tuesday to suspend $4,000-a-month chemical testing at the scavenger waste plant, which is shut down and serving only as a transfer station for septic waste that is trucked elsewhere for treatment. Testing of the liquids coming into the plant is no longer necessary, Pio Lombardo, a consultant who presented a report on the plant, told the board last month, because no liquids are being released into the ground. Along with the suspension of several other wasteful practices, Mr. Lombardo recommended abandoning all operations at the plant.

Committee Assignments

       Councilwoman Kathee Burke-Gonzalez will serve as liaison to a new senior services committee.By town board resolution onMarch 6, the group will assess “the diverse needs and desires of a senior population that spans three generations,” look at what services are offered by the town and other institutions, and “develop a plan to provide a coordination of services.” Members include private individuals and town staffers as well as representatives of the Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter, East Hampton Library, and East Hampton Healthcare Foundation. In addition, an advisory board on affordable housing has been re-established. In a resolution sponsored by Councilwoman Sylvia Overby, seven members were appointed to the board, which willmake recommendations for establishing affordable housing using the town’s community housing opportunity fund. The group will include Michael DeSario,Katy Casey, Jeanne Frankl, Michelle Thompson, John Lycke, and Barbara Jordan, with Tom Ruhle, the town’s director of housing and community development, and Marguerite Wolffsohn, the planning director, as ex officio members. Job Potter, a former town councilman who did not win election when he ran for a seat on the board last year, will be the chair.

Seeking Diverse Bids

       Bids will be accepted until 3 p.m. on March 27 by the town’s Purchasing Department from those interested in running the food concession at Atlantic Avenue Beach in Amagansett. Bids are also being sought for the purchase of a vehicle for the town police that will be designated for “hostage negotiation.” They will be accepted until 3 p.m. next Thursday.Bid specifications are available from the department office.

A.D.A. Inspections

       Businesses in East Hampton Town will be checked to see if they are instituting “readily achievable” changes allowing easier access by the handicapped, in keeping with the federal Americans with Disabilities Act, Councilwoman Kathee Burke-Gonzalez reported Tuesday.

       The town fire marshal will check businesses for compliance at the same time annual fire safety inspections are made. Previously, the councilwoman said, inspections were done only when there were complaints.

       Dave Browne, the town’s chief fire marshal, will send a letter to businesses with information about the basic, “readily achievable” changes they are expected to make. It will be accompanied by a letter from Glenn Hall, a member of the town’s Disabilities Advisory Board, describing what it is like for the handicapped to encounter obstacles in accessing public places.

       The town will also begin making some changes, Ms. Burke-Gonzalez said, by installing handicapped-accessible doors at Town Hall, the Montauk Playhouse, and the Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter.

Tax Receiver Leave of Absence

       A leave of absence granted to Monica Rottach, the town tax receiver, under the Family and Medical Leave Act, was recently extended by two weeks, through Friday.

       Ms. Rottach went on leave early this year after extensive problems came to light regarding annual property tax bills. Nearly one-fourth of town property owners did not receive their bills, which had not been printed, and the mistake was not caught until taxpayers began to make inquiries. Neide Valeira, a town accountant, has been made interim tax receiver.

Repairs to Start at Fort Pond

       Town Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc announced this week that repairs to Fort Pond House in Montauk have been mapped out and that numerous residents and groups have offered to help with labor, donations, and supplies.

       The four-acre waterfront site provides the only public access to the pond,Mr. Van Scoyoc noted at a meeting on Tuesday, adding that the house will provide “a great place” for meetings. The board voted unanimously on March 6 to issue a $75,000 bond to repair the house and clean up the property. Replacement of the roof is expected to start immediately, Mr. Van Scoyoc said.

       The previous town board majority’s decision to sell the site had prompted a public outcry and several lawsuits, and the house had been left in disrepair for several years while the property was for sale.             J.P.

Suffolk County

Tick Advisory Board

       The Suffolk County Legislature last week unanimously passed a resolution creating a tick-control advisory committee to work with the county’s division of vector control on a plan to reduce tick-borne illnesses in the county. The resolution, sponsored by Legislator Jay Schneiderman of Montauk, sets up a 12-member committee that will be led by a member knowledgeable about tick control. Also on the committee will be the director of the division of vector control, the county executive, the Legislature’s presiding officer and deputy presiding officer, DuWayne Gregory and Mr. Schneiderman; the chairmen of the Legislature’s public works and health committees, and the Suffolk County Parks Commissioner. Representatives of an environmental group, of the East End Supervisors and Mayors Association, and of the Cornell Cooperative Extension will also be on the committee. Creation of the committee follows 2013 legislation sponsored by Mr. Schneiderman that calls on vector control to submit an annual plan to reduce instances of Lyme disease and other tick-borne illnesses.

       A new Federal Aviation Administration rule going into effect in early May will be a “significant consideration” in East Hampton Town’s decision-making regarding the town airport and whether to continue taking F.A.A. money, Town Councilwoman Kathee Burke-Gonzalez, the airport liaison, said in a press release this week.

       The ruling will add a new “Stage 3” class of helicopters to the existing Stage 1 and Stage 2 categories, which are based on noise standards. Direct F.A.A. approval is not required for the town, as the airport owner, to restrict access by the noisier (Stages 1 and 2) helicopters. But restrictions on Stage 3 helicopters will not be allowed without F.A.A. approval at airports supported by federal grants, such as East Hampton’s.

       Acceptance of federal airport grants comes with a set of obligatory “grant assurances,” standards which the town must follow in airport management. Pursuant to a lawsuit settlement, several obligations that accompanied acceptance of prior grants will expire at the end of this year.

       That, airport noise advocates have said, will give the town more latitude in enacting restrictions designed to lessen the impact of aircraft noise. Aviation interests disagree, pointing out that overarching F.A.A. requirements will remain in place.

       The town’s airport counsel, Peter Kirsch, has advised the town board that both things are true. However,  in a memo last year he noted that the new helicopter classification could have a significant effect on the town’s ability to put its own airport-use rules in place.

       In a memo this week to the East Hampton Aviation Association, which wants the town to accept F.A.A. money, David E. Schaffer, an aviation attorney engaged by the group, offered his opinion on the effect of the new rule. “F.A.A. approval will be required even if the East Hampton Airport is not receiving grants from the F.A.A.,” he said.

       “With this new rule, the F.A.A. has now imposed an additional hurdle for grant-obligated airports,” Ms. Burke-Gonzalez wrote in the release. “As the town considers whether to remain grant-obligated after Dec. 31, 2014, when grant assurances 22 (a) and (h) expire, the latest F.A.A. rule will be a significant consideration.”

       The Springs Citizens Advisory Committee has recommended against the purchase of a 16-acre woodland tract on Neck Path, which was the subject of a town board hearing last month.

       The proposed $2.7 million purchase would be made using the community preservation fund, and the site designated for recreation and the preservation of open space.

       In a resolution passed at a meeting of the committee on Feb. 24, and provided last week to the town board, the group expressed its opinion that adequate open space would be maintained should the property remain in private hands, and a pending three-lot subdivision proceed.

       The subdivision calls for an eight-acre reserve at the back of the property. It would create a 4.5-acre lot with an existing house and pool, and two additional lots of 1.9 and 1.5 acres.

       The property is owned by Catherine Lederer and Rodney Plaskett. The pool would be removed, according to the town’s plans, but the house could remain and be used for public programs.

       Taking that house, and the others that would be built in the subdivision, off the tax rolls would cause a loss of tax revenue, the advisory committee told the town board.  And, it said, “if the house were to remain standing, the town would then become responsible for its maintenance, which over time would be considerable if properly maintained.”

       The group suggested that, should the subdivision proceed, the town could then purchase the two smaller properties “at a fraction of the cost of buying the entire property.” 

       Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc pointed out at a recent town board meeting that the tax dollars needed to pay for the education of even one student living on the property must be weighed against any incoming revenue.

       Scott Wilson, the town’s director of land acquisition and management, said at the hearing that the land was in the “Accabonac Harbor critical environmental area,” in the watershed of the harbor, and in a critical area designated by Suffolk County.

       “Reducing development has the potential to positively impact the quality of groundwater and surface waters by reducing contaminants carried into the harbor,” he said.

       The site is adjacent to other town-owned preserved woodlands. “The protection of large blocks of woodland is essential for the preservation of wildlife resources, especially forest interior birds,” Mr. Wilson said. It could provide “an important trail link” between the parcels, and a connection to the Paumanok Path and Jacob’s Farm trails, he said.

       The town board has not publicly discussed the purchase since the Feb. 20 public hearing.

       If the East Hampton Town Trustees have their way, advertisements for this summer’s Great Bonac Fireworks Show over Three Mile Harbor will include an explanation as to why the harbor will be closed to shellfishing in the days following the event.

       A discussion at the trustees’ meeting on Tuesday night laid bare their frustration with the State Department of Environmental Conservation, which typically closes the harbor for approximately one week based on the assumption that the boats gathered in the harbor during the display, which can number as many as 200, will result in unsafe levels of fecal coliform bacteria.

       The trustees, in cooperation with Christopher Gobler of Stony Brook University, have been monitoring the waterways under their jurisdiction since last year. The harbor is a no-discharge zone, and a trustee-operated pumpout boat is stationed in the harbor.

       “The facts bear out that they’re not polluting,” Bill Taylor, a trustee and the town’s waterways management supervisor, said of the boats that gather in the harbor for the fireworks display, scheduled for Aug. 2. “It’s a no-discharge zone, there shouldn’t be any pollution.”

       “Then why does the D.E.C. close it?” Deborah Klughers, a trustee, asked.

       “Because of the possibility of pollution,” Mr. Taylor said.

       “Exactly,” Ms. Klughers replied, underscoring the trustees’ frustration. The D.E.C.’s closure of the harbor, said Diane McNally, the trustees’ clerk, is a function of the agency’s scarcity of personnel and other resources, and not based on current data.

       The harbor is not being polluted as a consequence of the many boats in it for the fireworks display, Mr. Taylor said. Rather, he said, D.E.C. officials’ thinking is that “if there’s more than one boat every acre, if one person flushes the toilet, you could pollute that one acre.”

       “But the question is, is there enough public benefit for the fireworks display to warrant the closing of the harbor for a potential issue?” Ms. McNally asked. “Are our constituents more likely to appreciate the fireworks and the closure of the harbor, versus relocating or eliminating the fireworks and having the waterway open?”

       Ms. Klughers asked how the trustees could compel the D.E.C. to use “sound science” — a notion that drew derisive laughter from her colleagues — to keep the harbor open if it is not in fact polluted. “If we’re closing it to shellfishing to the public, they lose,” she said. “And perhaps they shouldn’t lose.”

       “And although it is based on the potential, it’s the implication that the use of our waterway by the boaters is detrimental,” Ms. McNally said. “That’s not good to anybody. The boats really are not causing that much trouble.” Upland septic systems, she said, are the real culprits in contamination. “We’re doing everything we can, and this one entity that has so much power still has no staff, no funding, no resources,” she said. “That’s our conundrum. That drives us nuts.”

       Stephanie Forsberg, a trustee, recommended reiterating to the public that “this board is very vested in that harbor,” citing its water quality monitoring and scallop seeding projects. It is essential, she said, that the public understands that “so far, all the data is showing that, as far as this one event, there isn’t a detrimental impact. . . . If we felt there was this huge, negative impact, we would be stopping it.”

       Mr. Miller suggested that the applicant, the Clamshell Foundation, which must get a permit from the trustees to hold the fireworks show, include in its advertising an explanation as to why the one-night event will close the harbor to shellfishing for the following seven or eight days. “Put it in the D.E.C.’s hands, not ours,” he said. His colleagues agreed.

       Ms. McNally said that the trustees should emphasize to the public that “we support their use of the waterway. Boating is great, shellfish seeding is great. It’s just [because of] this D.E.C. protocol . . . that this is the way it is.”

       Advisory Committee left the group’s Monday-night meeting feeling like they were chasing trains that have left the station.

       Jack and Helene Forst, residents of East Hampton Village, had been invited to the meeting to tell Amagansett residents of their effort to halt PSEG Long Island’s ongoing upgrade to the electrical grid. That discussion is covered elsewhere in this issue.

       The expected opening of a 7-Eleven convenience store at the former Villa Prince restaurant building was also on the agenda. The prevailing belief was that a large corporation may be unstoppable, but its impact could perhaps be mitigated.

       As reported last week, a building permit has been issued, but, said Larry Cantwell, the town supervisor and liaison to the committee, “My understanding is there is some internal review about whether or not a site plan review is required.”

       The town has no law prohibiting a 7-Eleven if it conforms to the zoning code, Mr. Cantwell explained. “As much as I don’t like it, trying to discriminate between 7-Eleven and Joe’s Deli is not constitutional.”

       The committee should do what it can to ensure that the store, including its signs, looks nice, said Susan Bratton, a member of the committee. The town does have control over signs, said Mr. Cantwell, and he suggested the committee put its concerns in writing to the architectural review board. Members unanimously agreed to draft a letter supporting signs “in keeping with the taste of Amagansett.”

       A years-long quest for a public restroom in the hamlet was resumed. Mr. Cantwell showed plans depicting a restroom in the southwest corner of the town parking lot, north of Main Street.

       Britton Bistrian, a land planner and committee member, said that Randy Lerner, who owns Amagansett Square and is a client of hers, has commenced the permitting process to construct a public restroom in the square. That one will likely be completed long before the town builds one on the other side of Main Street, Mr. Cantwell observed. He suggested that it might be a good idea to see if the one in the square was sufficient before going ahead with another.

       A prefabricated restroom could be installed in the town parking lot, he said, or a more attractive one could be built. Neither would be cost-prohibitive, he said, but “We can question whether we want to spend a couple hundred thousand dollars to a build a decent restroom if we have an alternative that could cost us almost nothing.”

       Cynthia Young, director of the Amagansett Library, where the committee meets, sat in on the discussion. The library is overwhelmed with visitors seeking a public restroom in the summer months. They are most often directed there, she said, by businesses on the square. “I would advocate for two [restrooms], one at the square and one in the lot,” she said, given ever-growing demand.

       Likewise, she said, the parking lot itself cannot accommodate demand in the summer. People park there and walk to the beach, she told the committee. “That’s who’s using the bathrooms” at the library. “They use whatever facilities they can find.”

       A public restroom, Ms. Bistrian said, is one component of Amagansett’s broader needs, which include affordable housing above the stores on Main Street, additional parking for residents and businesses, and a plan for sewage treatment, without which new housing above businesses cannot be created.

       “Why don’t we agree we want to cooperate with and encourage Amagansett Square to build this bathroom,” Jeanne Frankl said, “and that we put on the agenda for future discussion, infrastructure of Amagansett — and don’t forget a bathroom.”

       “I will bring some ideas back to you,” Mr. Cantwell promised.

      Inclement weather has forced two postponements of Shoreline Sweep 2014, but the beach cleanup has been rescheduled for Saturday at 9 a.m. Volunteers will meet at five locations between East Hampton and Montauk Point. Bags and gloves will be provided.

      Those interested in participating can sign up at the website of its principal organizer, Dell Cullum, at imaginationnature.com.

      A get-together at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church’s Hoie Hall in East Hampton will follow and feature live music by Job Potter and friends, donated food, and a presentation from representatives of the Riverhead Foundation for Marine Research and Preservation about the marine animals found in local waters and on local beache

       A three-year capital project plan being considered by the East Hampton Town Board includes close to 100 projects for which the town would issue $12 million in bonds.

       It would allow the town to take care of overdue repairs and improvements while keeping annual debt service payments level, at the $15 million range, Len Bernard, the town budget officer, said at a town board meeting on Tuesday.

       Meanwhile, the town’s overall indebtedness will decrease over the next few years from $116 million to $92 million, due to debt being retired. A plan to restructure some existing debt will save the town $300,000 a year beginning next year.

       “Over time, there are infrastructure investments that we really need to make here,” Supervisor Larry Cantwell said. “We’ve got roofs leaking, we’ve got lights out. . . .”

       The proposed capital budget includes $2 million to rebuild the old town hall building, beginning next year, $75,000 to rebuild the roof at the Fort Pond House in Montauk, and close to $375,000 for refurbishing the East Hampton Town Senior Citizens Center in East Hampton and repaving its parking lot.

       According to the proposal, more than $500,000 would be spent at the Terry King park on Abraham’s Path in Amagansett to replace the tennis courts and nonfunctional lighting at the ball field and for repairs to the basketball courts.

       Playing fields at the Terry King and Stephen Hand’s Path facilities in East Hampton and at Lions Field and Camp Hero in Montauk would be repaired for $100,000, and goal posts would be replaced at Stephen Hand’s Path for $80,000. Tennis courts in Springs would be refurbished for $25,000.

       Over the next two years, $50,000 would be spent to replace public garbage cans in Amagansett, and $30,000 for garbage cans in Montauk. Two new buses for transporting senior citizens would be purchased, for $130,000. A $225,000 budget item would cover the digitization of town records, and $60,000 would be borrowed to install a vault for records at Town Hall.

       Doors at town buildings, such as the Montauk Playhouse Community Center, Town Hall, and the Y.M.C.A.-East Hampton RECenter, would be made handicapped-accessible in compliance with the Americans With Disabilities Act, at a cost of $30,000, and $85,000 would be budgeted over the three-year period for other projects to make town properties A.D.A.-compliant.

       Repairs would be made to the pier at Navy Road in Montauk, to a number of town buildings, such as the Parsons Blacksmith Shop in Springs and the home base of the Aquaculture Department, and equipment would be purchased for lifeguards and buildings and grounds personnel.

       The proposed capital budget also includes a total of $2.8 million for police vehicles and equipment, and $2.5 million for Highway Department projects, including $300,000 to augment the department’s road reconstruction budget, and $225,000 over the next three years for sidewalk reconstruction. The capital plan also calls for the replacement of several trucks, and the purchase of a new street sweeper.

       Capital projects had been put aside during the previous administration under Supervisor Bill Wilkinson, even after a complicated tangle of financial accounting, a legacy of the prior administration’s mismanagement, was sorted out.

       The 2014 to 2016 capital plan, Mr. Bernard said, is “pretty conservative, but it does get a lot done. There are a lot of projects that need to be done, that are overdue.”

       It does not include capital improvements at the East Hampton Town Airport, which fall under a separate airport plan adopted by the town board late last year.

       Town board members will review the capital plan and discuss it at an upcoming board meeting before voting on its adoption.

       Mr. Cantwell said Tuesday that each individual project, and the bonds to be issued to pay for it, will be discussed separately by the board and voted on before getting under way.

       For the second time in about a year, the owners of a house on Gardiner’s Bay in Amagansett have asked the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals to allow them to demolish it and build a larger one. And, for the second time, the Planning Department has taken a vociferous stance against their proposal. At issue are distances from the wetlands on the property and from the dune crest.

       Carol Sedwick, a retired television director, and Michael Patrick, a New York attorney, own the slightly over 2,000-square-foot house on about an acre at 295 Cranberry Hole Road. They hope to build a 3,100-square-foot, two-story house with decking on both floors. The decking would be between 31 and 27 feet from wetlands when 100 feet is required, and the house and decking would be 85 feet and 72 feet from the dune crest where 100 feet is required. Variances would also be needed for the septic system and the amount of clearing.

       During a public hearing on Feb. 4, William Leeds, the couple’s architect, told the board that the house, built in the late 1980s, had “outlived its usefulness. It does not respond to this site,” he said. “The plan used was a plan that could be purchased from the back of a magazine.” He added that the existing brick chimney was decrepit, because “it was not set up for the kind of winds” it is subjected to on a regular basis, and that the house would have to be raised in order to meet Federal Emergency Management Administration regulations.

       He had made these points previously, on Jan. 29, 2013. Opposing the application at that time was David Rattray, the editor of The Star, whose house  is separated from the parcel in question by a wetlands lot owned by the Peconic Land Trust. He had expressed concern about ongoing dune erosion.

       Brian Frank, the Planning Department’s chief environmental analyst, called the wetlands there significant, much as he had last year. Explaining the Planning Department’s adamant opposition to the application, Mr. Frank said the property has “significant volumes of standing water year round. I have never seen it dry. You have one of the highest diversity of species. This network of wetlands is sweet,” he said. “I have seen waterfowl, raptors, wading birds, marsh hawks, northern harriers, spotted turtles, snakes.”

       Mr. Patrick and Ms. Sedwick were represented by a team headed by Laurie Wiltshire of Land Planning Services, and Rick Whalen, their attorney. Ms. Wiltshire and Mr. Frank argued about whether the house had been built within 25 feet of the wetlands, in keeping with a variance granted when it was constructed, or 30 feet, which Ms. Wiltshire said was the case, with five feet remaining.

       Mr. Whalen challenged Mr. Frank about the effect granting the variances would have on the wetlands. “Brian Frank spoke 35 minutes and did not give you one factual reason how this project would upset the wetlands. No evidence,” he said.

       The board has until April 7 to make its decision. However, since the first hearing on the application, two new members have joined the board. David Lys replaced Sharon McCobb last year, and Cate Rogers replaced Lee White this year. Both former members had voted against the application. It now appears that Mr. Lys and Ms. Rogers may control the decision.

       East Hampton Town’s 30-year-old scavenger waste plant, offline since 2012, is of little value to the town, according to a report by Lombardo Associates, consulting engineers who have completed an in-depth evaluation of the facility and its operations.

       Because of aging equipment that could no longer be operated without substantial repair, the plant on Springs-Fireplace Road in East Hampton has functioned over the past two years solely as a transfer station, where local septic waste pumping companies can transfer collected waste into holding tanks rather than driving it to facilities in Riverhead or West Babylon for processing.

       Closing the transfer station, Pio Lombardo of Lombardo Associates told the East Hampton Town Board on Tuesday, could save the town $40,000 to $50,000 a month.

       Local carters, he said, could bring the waste they have collected to the other sites, which have ample capacity. Even factoring in transportation costs, because the other facilities charge less per gallon to dump, the cost to the carters would remain the same, Mr. Lombardo said. Because East Hampton can only accept up to 10,000 gallons a day, many are already heading upIsland, he said.

       East Hampton’s facility is “not really competitive in the marketplace,” he said, and would need an annual subsidy of about $500,000 in town tax dollars to become so and continue to be used by carters.

       In 2012, the cost to run the transfer station, he said, was 34 cents per gallon of waste dealt with, while the income was 16 cents per gallon. “So you can see there’s a huge loss,” Mr. Lombardo told the board. “As a transfer station, there’s just no way that that could be financially sustaining.”

       Should the town wish to keep the transfer station open, he said, $18,000 a month could be saved by making simple changes and eliminating wasteful practices. For instance, he said, scavenger waste and groundwater testing has continued, at a cost of $4,000 a month, although it is no longer required by the State Department of Environmental Conservation because waste treatment at the plant was suspended.

       By reducing operations at the transfer site to four hours a day, Mr. Lombardo said, the town could save $8,000 a month.

       But, Mr. Lombardo told the town board, “We frankly see no value in the facility being operational at all. There’s no compelling financial reason to do anything with an East Hampton scavenger waste facility.” 

       Rebuilding the treatment plant, Mr. Lombardo said, could cost more than $5 million initially, with annual operating and maintenance costs another $1 million or more. Emerging technologies could provide more “green” options for the future, he said.

       The location of the wastewater plant is also a concern. “That site is a very sensitive environmental location,” Mr. Lombardo said, atop a groundwater divide. “Anything discharged goes directly, vertically into groundwater, and remains there for decades,” he said. “So any contamination in that area tends to stay in the water for a long time.” The site also includes the former town dump, now a recycling center, where water contamination has taken place. Monitoring wells surrounding the wastewater plant have shown little contamination, Mr. Lombardo said.

       The consultants looked at other possible sites for an East Hampton treatment plant, Mr. Lombardo said, but could find no viable alternatives.

       To ensure that waste from East Hampton would continue to be accepted at the other plants, the town could enter into an agreement with them to “buy capacity,” paying for the ability to dispose of a certain amount of waste.

       An analysis of the wastes being disposed of at the transfer station, Mr. Lombardo said, revealed that the majority, about 67 percent, hails from failing septic systems that must be pumped out regularly and “not from routine maintenance.”

       Mr. Lombardo suggested that the money the town could save by closing the plant could be put to better use. “Our recommendation is those funds could and should be used for wastewater management improvements and water quality improvements. We think that the investment to improve or repair the malfunctioning [septic] systems is going to have a good economic payback,” he said, along with a positive environmental effect.

       Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell said that a $50,000 a month cutback in spending on the transfer station would accrue to $6 million in savings over 10 years, savings that could be used in the “broader context” to “confront this problem of this creeping degradation of surface water quality.”

       The board will have to carefully review and discuss Mr. Lombardo’s report, he said, and decide how to proceed.

       The town is “where we are today,” Mr. Cantwell said, because decisions on the scavenger waste plant were delayed. “As a result of that, that operation down there has become very inefficient and very wasteful.”

       “If there were savings, those savings should be reinvested,” Mr. Cantwell said, into, for example, a program to address failing septic systems in sensitive areas near water bodies.

       “This is a wonderful opportunity to redirect funding,” Mr. Lombardo said, from a “black hole” providing little benefit to the town.

       After the town board determines a proposed path to take, Mr. Cantwell suggested, a meeting should be held to solicit public opinion on the ideas.

       The Lombardo Associates report is one portion of a comprehensive wastewater management plan being developed for the town. It will include recommendations not only for scavenger waste management, but also for water quality protection and monitoring. Information and documents related to the project, including a full report on the scavenger waste plant, are posted online at ehwaterrestore.com.

       State and local officials expressed cautious optimism this week about the chances of PSEG Long Island’s changing its mind about its installation of super-size utility poles and high-tension wires in East Hampton Village and Town. Homeowners have objected strongly to the tall poles and wires being put in aboveground, close to their houses.

       To accommodate new, higher-voltage transmission lines designed to guard against widespread outages and impacts from severe storms, PSEG has been installing the poles and wires, at a breakneck pace in the face of controversy, along a six-mile route from a substation at Cove Hollow Road in East Hampton, along narrow village streets, up Accabonac Road to Town Lane, and down Old Stone Highway in Amagansett to another substation.

       At the behest of members of a hastily formed group, Save East Hampton: Safe Responsible Energy, both Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell and Village Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. have written to Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, asking him to get involved. Besides aesthetic concerns, residents have raised fears of poles falling in a storm, and about the health effects of both the high-voltage wires and the chemicals used to treat the utility poles.

       State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., who, with State Senator Kenneth J. LaValle, was to discuss the issue yesterday morning with the head of the state Public Service Commission, said Tuesday that the governor’s announcement last week that $730 million in Federal Emergency Management Agency funds that has been earmarked for improvements to Long Island’s power grid as a hedge against damage from storms, could be a “key part” of a satisfactory solution.

       Homeowners have demanded that the power lines be buried, along an alternate route such as along the railroad line. Mr. Cantwell and Mr. Rickenbach, with a group of concerned residents, are to discuss such options at a meeting in East Hampton next week with PSEG officials.

       Burying the power lines “clearly qualifies,” Mr. Thiele said, as a project eligible for funding with the federal money for energy-grid upgrades. But, he warned, “the fact that construction has started limits options to some degree.”

       In addition to $705 million already promised for post-Sandy utility repairs, the new money brings to $1.4 billion the recovery funding for work designed to prevent future widespread electrical outages. FEMA will provide 90 percent of the money; the remainder will come from federal Department of Housing and Urban Development community development block grants.

       “I think we have the attention of the P.S.C. and of the governor,” said Mr. Thiele.

       The governor’s office, Mr. Cantwell said, has acknowledged receipt of his letter. “To a large extent, the decision is going to be made by the governor’s office,” said the supervisor.

        Based on his discussions with PSEG representatives, Mr. Thiele said that “it comes down to money.” The utility, he said, “wouldn’t mind” burying the lines, but does not believe its entire customer base — all or most of Long Island — should foot the bill.

       The cost of the new lines, as presently being installed above-ground, is $7 million, Mr. Thiele said, while the estimated cost of burying the lines is between $20 million and $24 million.

       The assemblyman pointed out that when the Long Island Power Authority, which handed over control of the electric grid to PSEG on Jan. 1, proposed a similar project some years ago in Southampton, it offered to bear the cost of burying at least some of the lines. Residents took on some of the cost. This time around, he said, neither the town nor the village was presented with that option. 

       One solution, Mr. Thiele suggested, could be to pay for a third of the underground wire costs from the federal storm-mitigation funds, to charge all PSEG Long Island ratepayers for another third, and to raise the rest of the cost through a surcharge on ratepayers in the affected areas.

       Concerned residents spoke at both a meeting of the town board last Thursday night and a village board meeting the next morning, sometimes emotionally. “It’s a travesty,“ Wendy Gehring of McGuirk Street said last Thursday. “We have not slept in three weeks,” said Lynne Brown, also a McGuirk Street resident. McGuirk Street homeowners have spearheaded the bury-the-poles effort.

       Even residents of areas away from the transmission line route should concern themselves with the project, David Buda of Springs said at last week’s town board meeting. “Everyone, even if these poles aren’t on your street, should speak up,” he said. “It’s going to radically change the look and feel of our community.”

       Debra Foster, a former town board and planning board member, said that “this project is the ugliest, most intrusive, stupid project that has ever marked this town — since 1648.” It goes “through the heart of the village,” she said, cutting through a “premier resort community” and past land that “the townspeople taxed themselves to preserve,” as well as “a recreational facility and a house that’s on the National Register of Historic Places.”

       “What the hell happened?” she asked. “I haven’t spent 40 years to see this sliced through the heart of this community. This is an abomination.” She branded the stop-PSEG drive “a David-and-Goliath undertaking.”

       “I can’t believe whoever the gatekeepers are in our government let this happen,” Ms. Brown said. Her husband, Michael Brown, said his involvement has only led him to “more questions” and “more frustration . . . that it slipped by two municipalities.”

       Ms. Foster gave an account of a meeting that took place last fall at Town Hall with then-Supervisor Bill Wilkinson, Highway Superintendent Steve Lynch, and Len Bernard, the town budget officer, in attendance. It ended with Mr. Lynch issuing PSEG the road-opening permit it needed to begin the transmission line work.

       The project was reportedly presented by LIPA representatives as largely an “in-place, in-kind” replacement. However, an environmental assessment provided to both the town and the village provided more details.

       Mayor Rickenbach said yesterday that when LIPA originally got in touch about the project, “I felt there should be a total degree of transparency.” He asked the utility to present the details at an ad hoc public meeting, to be attended by the village board, which was held in early September.

       The plan was presented in detail at that time, he said, and “no major concerns” were raised by those in attendance. Mr. Rickenbach said he did ask LIPA about placing the lines underground, but was told it would be more disruptive than installing the new, taller poles, as well as cost-prohibitive.

       Environmental assessment documents prepared by LIPA, as required under the State Environmental Quality Review Act, were available at that point, the mayor said, “but nobody really questioned . . . wanted to see them at that point.” And, he said, “I did not see any communique from LIPA that said the clock was ticking,” as far as a period in which the town or village could raise questions. That period has now passed.

       Assemblyman Thiele has been collecting all the legal and procedural documentation on the project and the process the utility followed.        

       “It certainly would be inaccurate to say that the village and the town didn’t have some information on this,” he said.  But, he added, “I have serious questions” about whether the municipalities were given the full picture.

       “We’re just kind of growing impatient because of the feverish pace” at which the PSEG poles and lines are being erected, Mr. Brown said Monday. Trucks from the utility were working their way up Accabonac Road