G.O.P. Officers

    The East Hampton Town Republican Committee re-elected Kurt Kappel and Tom Knobel as its chairman and vice chairman at its annual meeting last Thursday. Richard Gherardi will be the committee’s treasurer and Deborah Schwartz will be the secretary for the 2013-14 year.

Meet-and-Greets

    Republican candidates for East Hampton Town Board, town justice, town clerk, highway superintendent, and trustee will be at Cittanuova restaurant in East Hampton tomorrow from 6 to 8 p.m. to meet the people. Voters can toast, question, or chat with Councilman Dominick Stanzione and Fred Overton, who are running for town board, Carl Irace, who wants to be the next town justice, and Carole Brennan and Steve Lynch, who are running unopposed for town clerk and highway superintendent, respectively, as well as all nine Republican trustee hopefuls.

    Also tomorrow, East Hampton’s Democratic candidates along with Representative Tim Bishop will be at D’Canela restaurant in Amagansett for a happy hour from 5 to 7 p.m. The event, which includes cocktail snacks and an open bar, is open to all, but an extra effort has been made to reach Spanish-speaking voters, with an invitation sent out and posted in both English and Spanish.

    A meeting on East Hampton Town’s comprehensive wastewater management plan, which was to have been held in Montauk on Wednesday, will be rescheduled.

    Consultants hired to develop the plan, which will include recommendations regarding the town’s septic waste-treatment plant, individual septic systems, and ongoing water-quality monitoring, are planning a series of meetings to focus on the needs and issues of individual hamlets.

    They also plan to form ad hoc project advisory groups, with “interested and knowledgeable professionals” as members, to review materials generated by the consultants and provide feedback. Members of the public will be invited to listen in and observe.

    A group focusing on the science of surface and groundwater-quality issues, and one designed to let business owners convey their wastewater-related challenges to the consultants, will be formed immediately. Another advisory group, on legal, financial, and land-use issues, will be formed later.

    Experienced professionals knowledgeable about the topics and interested in participating have been asked to send a brief outline of their relevant experience to Pio@LombardAssociates. com.

    Consultants are currently gathering data from various sources, including the East Hampton Town Trustees, on surface-water quality, the Lake Montauk Water Quality Management plan, assessors’ records, and water quality information from Suffolk County and the Suffolk County Water Authority. Reports, maps, and updates are posted at a project Web site, at EHWaterRestore.com.

    This week, a deep water-monitoring well is being installed along the shoulder of Springs-Fireplace Road near the scavenger waste treatment plant. According to a press release from Pio Lombardo, a lead consultant on the wastewater project, the well will help scientists evaluate whether the treatment plant has had an effect on the deeper groundwater near the plant and to gain a better understanding of groundwater flow in the area. Samples will be taken not only in the deep well, which goes down approximately 150 feet, but at existing monitoring wells around the septic plant and at areas of the plant that discharge waste products into the ground.

    The results, Mr. Lombardo said, will be coordinated with those of an ongoing groundwater monitoring program at the nearby former landfill (now the recycling center) “to allow for a comprehensive evaluation of groundwater quality and flow patterns” in the vicinity.

    In the aquaculture report she delivered to her colleagues at the East Hampton Town Trustees’ meeting on Tuesday, Stephanie Forsberg said that levels of cochlodinium, or rust tide, had decreased from the levels measured in local waters two weeks earlier.

    As reported previously, the algae that can be fatal to shellfish and finfish were discovered earlier this month in Three Mile Harbor, Northwest Harbor, and Accabonac Harbor. The trustees, in cooperation with Christopher Gobler of Stony Brook University, have been monitoring the waters under the trustees’ jurisdiction.

    “We still have rust tide — cochlodinium bloom — however, at decreased levels,” Ms. Forsberg told her co-trustees. “It’s not a full, intense bloom.” In the densest concentrations, she said, the cells-per-liter count of the algae is declining. Falling temperatures, she said, account for the decreasing concentration.

    Testing has turned up no cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, in Georgica Pond, Ms. Forsberg said, adding that the trustees will issue a statement in the coming weeks regarding “last year’s alleged event.” She was referring to the death, last September, of a dog that apparently drank water from a pond adjacent to Georgica Pond.

    Personnel at Dr. Gobler’s laboratory will continue biweekly testing of local waters through November, Ms. Forsberg told her colleagues, depending on weather conditions. Data from the testing will be compiled and presented to the public next year, she said.

    In other news from the trustees’ meeting, Sean McCaffrey, a trustee, asked that the group approve the opening of Georgica Pond to the Atlantic Ocean on or around Oct. 15. His colleagues were unanimously in favor.

    Billy Mack of First Coastal, a coastal engineering firm based in Westhampton Beach, who was attending the meeting on behalf of clients with applications before the board, asked that the trustees consider awarding a contract for the work to his company. Diane McNally, the trustees’ clerk, agreed to consider First Coastal but advised Mr. Mack that the project was not an excavation but the standard biannual opening of the pond.

    Ms. McNally told the trustees, who own and manage beaches, waterways, and bottomlands on behalf of the public, that Fred Overton, the town clerk, had received a request for permission to film a commercial on Friday evening at Atlantic Avenue Beach. As part of the project, she said, “They want a bonfire with a truckload of wood.”

    “I make a motion to deny,” Ms. Forsberg said. Her colleagues seconded the motion.

    The meeting started with a presentation by local girl scouts. Lisa Schulte Brown, a troop co-leader, told the trustees that 13 scouts, all students at the John M. Marshall Elementary School and two of whom were in attendance, are to donate 20 hours’ community service in pursuit of a bronze award. She felt that the scouts’ service should involve local history and the environment.

    “Thirteen active girls at your disposal,” Ms. Schulte Brown announced. “It should be something of value.”

    Deborah Klughers, a trustee, suggested that the scouts interview past, or currently serving, senior trustees. “Some have outstanding environmental stories,” she said. Raising awareness of not only the monetary value of shellfish, but its historic value, might be a worthy goal, she added, suggesting that such a project take the form of an educational video, literature, or public service announcements. A similar study of eelgrass, beach grass, dunes, or marshlands would also be valuable, she suggested, as would a beach cleanup.

    Ms. Forsberg advised Ms. Schulte Brown to take these ideas to the troop and determine which would be of greatest interest to the scouts and value to their community-service project.

    Candidates for East Hampton Town supervisor and town board will meet at the Emergency Services Building on Cedar Street Saturday afternoon for the first of several debates scheduled over the next five weeks.

    This one, sponsored by the East Hampton Group for Good Government, is likely to include questions on the airport, deer control, wastewater, code enforcement, and the merits of a town manager, the group’s president, Jeffrey Fisher, said Monday. The debate will start at 2 p.m.

    Larry Cantwell, who is running unopposed for town supervisor on the Democratic, Independence, and Working Families lines, will be on hand, as will his Democratic running mates, Kathee Burke-Gonzalez and Job Potter, and their Republican challengers, Fred Overton and Dominick Stanzione, who also have Independence Party backing.

    “The G.G.G. hopes to encourage more residents to take an interest in local issues,” Mr. Fisher said. The debates are “an effective way to educate the public and at the same time bring people from both sides of the aisle together to participate in the electoral process.”

    The Group for Good Government, established in 2009, is a nonpartisan group formed to educate its members and the community at large about local issues. Over the past four years, it has held a number of meet-the-candidate events and forums and debates on East Hampton Town and East Hampton School District matters. This year, the group has held forums on wastewater and a town manager.

    This election year, “I think there’s a lot of enthusiasm,” Mr. Fisher said.

    On Saturday, candidates will answer questions prepared by a committee of the group’s members. There may also be an opportunity for those in the audience to write their own questions for candidates. The meeting will be recorded for later broadcast on LTV.

    A number of other debates and candidate forums will follow the Group for Good Government’s event in the coming weeks. On Oct. 20, candidates for East Hampton Town supervisor, town board, town justice, and Suffolk County legislator will be at the Concerned Citizens of Montauk’s meet-the-candidates forum from 1 to 4 p.m. at the Montauk Firehouse. Candidates for East Hampton Town Board and Suffolk County Legislature will also meet at an Oct. 21 League of Women Voters debate to be held at 7 p.m. at the Emergency Services Building in East Hampton.

    The Northwest Alliance, a group formed to protect Northwest Creek and Harbor, Barcelona Neck, the Grace Estate, and the environmental quality of areas in East Hampton’s Northwest Woods, has asked candidates for East Hampton Town Supervisor and town board to answer a short list of questions on water quality, the dredging of Northwest Creek, and aircraft noise “in the hopes of building a consensus on the urgency of the protection of this area,” according to T. James Matthews and Patricia Hope, members of the alliance’s steering committee.

    “We feel like our concerns have really been neglected for the last long while,” Mr. Matthews said Friday.

    Answers from three of the five candidates, the Democrats Larry Cantwell, Job Potter, and Kathee Burke-Gonzalez, have been circulated to the group’s 80 members and to the press. The Republican town board candidates, Fred Overton and Councilman Dominick Stanzione, had not responded by the group’s deadline, but said this week they planned to do so.

    The alliance asked what the candidates would do to ensure that the town code adapts to changes in water quality resulting from rising sea level, wetland retreat, “compromised” septic systems, and “saltwater intrusion into our aquifer.” It questioned what they would do to address the “governmental impasse” preventing the dredging of Northwest Creek. The creek has been closed to shellfishing for several years. Were it dredged more regularly, water quality might improve significantly, but the Suffolk County Department of Public Works will “dredge based only on navigational needs,” the group’s questionnaire said.

    Finally, the alliance asked, “What will you do to create and maintain a balanced and informed discussion of the issue of effects of aircraft noise on wildlife habitat protection?” The concern has to do with the routing of helicopters over the Barcelona Neck and Northwest Creek area.

    The candidates’ responses have been posted in their entirety on the alliance’s Web site, northwestallianceny.org and will also be posted on The Star’s.

    Larry Cantwell was the top vote-getter in the Republican primary for East Hampton Town supervisor, but Mr. Cantwell, the former East Hampton Village administrator who is running on the Democratic, Independence, and Working Families lines, has declined the nomination.

    Turnout was lower than 2 percent, and even in countywide Republican races, like those for sheriff or district attorney, less than 8 percent of registered Republicans showed up on Sept. 10.

    Of the 4,094 registered Republicans in East Hampton Town as of primary day, only 69 voted in the write-in primary for town supervisor. Mr. Cantwell received 35 votes, Supervisor Bill Wilkinson, who is not running for re-election, got 13. Next in line was Councilwoman Theresa Quigley, with 3 votes. There was one vote each for Fred Overton and Councilman Dominick Stanzione, who are running for town board on the Republican line, Zach Cohen, who tried for the Democratic nomination for supervisor, and Legislator Jay Schneiderman, who was tapped by the G.O.P. to run for supervisor before deciding to seek a final term on the County Legislature. Twelve others also got one vote each.

    The newest voter enrollment figures for East Hampton Town, released on Tuesday by the Suffolk County Board of Elections, show 4,063 registered Republicans in the town. There are 6,390 registered Democrats, 995 registered with the Independence Party, 170 Conservatives, 49 in the Green Party, 37 in the Working Families Party, and 6 Libertarians. East Hampton has 4,340 unaffiliated voters and 101 who are registered with myriad minor parties.  

    At the urging of Senators Kirsten Gillibrand and Charles Schumer, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has granted a six-month extension for Sandy-impacted homeowners to file flood insurance claims. The move follows a bipartisan call led by Ms. Gillibrand to extend FEMA’s Oct. 29 deadline for homeowners to file a Proof of Loss form under the National Flood Insurance Program the agency manages.

    Ms. Gillibrand and Mr. Schumer, along with New Jersey’s U.S. senators and members of both states’

Congressional delegations, emphasized that many homeowners are unable to meet the deadline because they are still awaiting repair work to begin or only recently learned of additional expenses as they commence repairs or reconstruction. Ms. Gillibrand personally lobbied Craig Fugate, FEMA’s administrator, for an extension, which now reaches to 18 months from Sandy’s landfall on Oct. 29 of last year.

    “Sandy-impacted homeowners who suffered damages from the storm should not be denied claims due to the timing of their paperwork,” Ms. Gillibrand said. “This critical extension will give struggling families more time to apply for the resources they deserve to repair and rebuild their homes.”

    On the 28th anniversary of Hurricane Gloria’s landfall on Long Island, the Village of East Hampton’s Zoning Board of Appeals held a second, lengthy hearing to consider whether or how to allow an oceanfront homeowner to protect her property from extreme weather events. 

    Molly Zweig of 11 West End Road, had already conceded in her efforts to keep a pole-mounted camera that would monitor the ocean and her adjacent property. But as her attorney, a representative from an environmental consulting and marine construction company, and the clerk of the East Hampton Town Trustees delivered multiple and lengthy presentations, the board was still asked to approve a proposal to remove an existing stone groin and construct a sand-covered rock revetment on the beach in front of her property. The state Department of Environmental Conservation has issued a tidal wetlands permit but, as the proposed action would affect the dune, the zoning board must also issue a permit in order for the work to proceed.

    Stephen Angel, of Esseks, Hefter, and Angel, came armed with a United States Supreme Court decision as he sought to nullify a claim, made in the previous hearing on Sept. 13, that the town trustees have jurisdiction over the area in question. “The reason for this application was avulsion,” Mr. Angel began. “A cataclysmic series of acts — Irene, Sandy, a couple northeasters — chunked out portions of the shoreline in this area along the ocean.” Avulsion, he said, does not change title to property. “A big storm came in and it chunked out a piece of your property, the title to the property that you lost in the storm stays with you pretty much forever. The only property you lose along the shoreline is property that’s eroded.”

     Mr. Angel, citing a 1998 decision written by Supreme Court Justice David Souter involving a dispute between New York and New Jersey, quoted from the decision. “ ‘We have long recognized that a sudden shoreline change known as avulsion, as distinct from accretion or a gradual change in configuration, has no effect on boundary,’ and that, ‘This is the received rule of law of nations on this point as laid down by all the writers of authority.’ ” There is no question, Mr. Angel said, that Ms. Zweig has title to the area in question. “We’d like to get this resolved so there’s a possibility we can do this work as soon as possible.”

    “Why do they have to take the rocks away?” asked Christopher Minardi, a member of the board. “It seems like a lot of digging close to the shore.”

    Aram Terchunian of First Coastal, an environmental consulting and marine construction company in Westhampton, answered. “We look at the current status of the stone groin,” he said. “Because it wasn’t attached to anything behind it except for the dune, as dune was removed during the storm, the back side of the groin became exposed and is starting to disintegrate from the back forward, not from the seaward side backwards.” It is in a state of disrepair, he said, and is not functioning as designed. It was designed, he said, to be integrated into a revetment so that waves would “focus on the rock, on the head of the groin, and be dissipated as they approach the shoreline. When you remove this really important element — this revetment attached to the groin — its effectiveness drops close to nil,” he said.

    Would the stones forming the groin be reused in the revetment, asked Lysbeth Marigold, of the board. Yes, Mr. Terchunian said. Additionally, “because it’s become so dislocated from the original line of the structure . . . it can be exposed to wave action. It could present a potential hazard to people walking down the beach or bathing on the beach.” Removing it would have very little impact, he said. “We’re digging into sand and replacing that area with sand.” The new revetment would be located a substantial distance landward, he said. “On balance, we end up with a much-improved situation and our impacts are very little.”

    Diane McNally, the trustees’ clerk, addressed the board. She agreed that the board is not charged with property title decisions, but the trustees often must address the issue. The trustees, she said, want to “let the public know that we are still . . . struggling to ensure that the public’s property is protected. That’s what I was elected to do.”

    “The passion that you see surrounding this application is not unique,” Ms. McNally said, noting that the East End of Long Island has been seeking a solution to moving shorelines for many years. “Most of the conflict revolves around a soft solution, which is sand, versus a hard solution, which is rock revetments or wooden bulkheads, etc. At this point, no definitive answer has been reached by any particular entity.”

    What is known, she said, is that the experts who drafted the town’s comprehensive plan and Local Waterfront Revitalization Program, “which restricts erosion-control efforts on the ocean beaches to the addition of sand,” are supportive of repair or replacement of existing shoreline hardening structures. “To repair or replace what we know has already been damaged along our shorelines is fine,” she said, but new shoreline-hardening structures should be approved only after much deliberation. “Although there are a significant number of them throughout the village area, this particular site is not hardened. I would ask you to please reach out to some of the other entities and agencies that have been doing research on the shoreline,” she said, rather than rely exclusively upon the testimony of Mr. Terchunian, whose firm would perform the work.

    Ms. Zweig’s house is not in imminent danger, Ms. McNally said. True, it is in an area that has sustained erosion in recent storm events, but “allow those experts . . . who understand shorelines to consider an alternative before jumping to the worst-case scenario.”

    It is a complex issue, said Frank Newbold, the board’s chairman, “but to risk someone’s personal property on a wait-and-see contingency does not seem fair to the homeowner, quite frankly.”

    Ms. McNally agreed, citing “the heart-wrenching angst of being that upland homeowner who’s watching the water come toward your house.” On the other hand, she said, “What would one expect if they buy something that’s adjacent to a waterway?” Rock revetments did not protect the houses behind them from Hurricane Gloria, she said. A revetment will merely “offer some short-term protection, but on either side of the rock revetment you’re going to have scouring. Somebody is going to be impacted somewhere. . . . I don’t want see anybody’s home fall in the ocean, either. But there has to be a way to find that balance so that we can ensure the public’s property is still protected so we have a public beach. If we don’t have a public beach, we don’t have an economy anymore.”

    The question, the board’s Craig Humphrey summarized, is whether this work is necessary. “Can you see erosion at the shore side of that groin?” he asked Mr. Terchunian. “I understand it’s four feet under sand.”

    The answer was no. Further, Mr. Terchunian said, “In our discussion with the D.E.C. on this application, they were adamant that they wanted to see that groin removed. . . . Their position was, when originally proposed and built, it was part of a unified shoreline protection system.” That system was only partially constructed, he said, and is not providing the intended level of protection. “Therefore, as we adapt the original design to what we’re dealing with today, that groin becomes superfluous and has potential negative consequences.”

    Ms. McNally reminded board members that the town is authorized to enact more stringent rules than state guidelines, and has done so in the past. “The state is not looking at it as we are,” she said. “This is our community. . . . What’s the impact on the neighboring property? What’s the impact on the public property?” Again, she asked the board to look to local authorities and gather its own data so that it would have a thorough understanding of the proposed action’s effects.

    Mr. Newbold said that the board is prepared to move forward, and would aim to issue a determination at its next meeting on Friday, Oct. 11.

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation late Wednesday announced that it would partially lift a temporary ban on shellfish harvest in some East Hampton waters. Several areas remained off-limits, awaiting the results of water tests. The closures were put in place as a precaution following heavy rain on Sept. 3. No specific human health threats have been identified.

As of sunrise on Thursday, harvesters will be able to take shellfish from Accabonac Harbor, Napeague Harbor, and Lake Montauk. Hog Creek, Three Mile Harbor, Northwest Creek, portions of Northwest Harbor, and around Sag Harbor remained off-limits.

In Southampton and Brookhaven Towns, the state will reopen portions of Moriches Bay at dawn Thursday. Closed areas remained Quantuck, Shinnecock Bay, Cold Spring Pond, North Sea Harbor, Noyac Creek, and the Sag Harbor coves and their tributaries.

    Turnout for Tuesday’s Republican primary was low in East Hampton, with just 67 people casting ballots at the polls.

    While the results of the write-in primary for East Hampton Town supervisor will not be known until at least early next week, unofficial tallies in the races for the G.O.P. nomination for district attorney and county sheriff show clear wins for the incumbents, Thomas J. Spota and Vincent De Marco respectively.

    In East Hampton, no one had stepped forward to express interest in challenging Larry Cantwell, who is running for supervisor on the Democratic, Independence, and Working Families lines. In fact, there was a concerted Republican effort to nominate Mr. Cantwell as a write-in. He has informed the Suffolk County Board of Elections that he would decline the nomination if he won it, but he still has some time to think about it.

    The Board of Elections will not begin the recanvassing process until Monday, tallying write-in votes from polling places as well as affidavit and absentee ballots. The candidate with the majority of votes would be considered the winner, but he or she can choose to decline the nomination.