The East Hampton Town Board unanimously approved the extension of the town’s community preservation fund program by 20 years, through 2050, and authorized the use of up to 20 percent of the fund on water quality improvement projects. The changes will not go into effect unless they are approved by voters in November. Based on a 10-year average of preservation fund revenue, the change and extension of the fund, if approved by voters, could provide $4.6 million a year for water projects, or approximately $152 million over the life of the program.

Eligible for funding, under the law, will be wastewater treatment systems, aquatic habitat restoration, pollution prevention, stormwater diversion, pumpout stations for boats, and participation in regional improvement activities.

Specific projects on which East Hampton may spend preservation fund money if the November referendum is approved are detailed in a town water quality improvement plan.

The community preservation fund receives the proceeds of a 2-percent tax on most real estate transactions. It was initiated in 1999 and has raised more than $1 billion for the five East End towns for which it was established. The money was earmarked solely for land and historic preservation until now.

Unless new information comes to light, the East Hampton Town Trustees will neither claim nor disclaim ownership of the bay beach at Driftwood Shores in Springs, where there is a dispute between longtime residents and Kenneth and Judith Reiss, the owners of the last lot to be developed. The Reisses have asserted, citing their deed, that their land extends to the mean high water mark, and therefore the beach in front of their house is private property. 

In June, several residents of the private community implored the trustees to inform their new neighbors that they, the trustees, own the beach on behalf of the public, and that people have enjoyed unfettered use of it for generations. To be restricted to the beach below the mean high water mark was unrealistic, at best, because of ongoing erosion, they said.

The Reisses insisted at that meeting that they had no objection to anyone’s walking on the beach in front of their house, and said that they felt “under siege,” complaining of hostility and harassment by their neighbors. The trustees, facing multiple challenges to their jurisdiction, asked the neighbors to settle the matter amicably, but agreed to undertake a title search.

Richard Whalen, the trustees’ attorney, told the board on Monday that the earliest deed found in a search by Fidelity National Title is a handwritten document from 1884 that depicts Gardiner’s Bay as the northerly and easterly boundary. Subsequent deeds, he said, list the bay or the mean high water mark as the boundary, bolstering the Reisses’ claim.

“I have two theories,” Mr. Whalen told the trustees. “One is that if we were able to go back further, we would find that at some point the boundary jumps from the bank or the bluff to the bay, but if the title company can’t take us back further, we’re stuck.” The other concerned the trustees’ 1770 sale of 104 acres, including beachfront land in the area, to Benjamin Leek. “I think that that land was probably the Cape Gardiner peninsula,” he said. “The trustee records do not actually describe it very well, and I’ve never seen a deed to it, so I don’t know.”

Thomas Fahey, a Driftwood Shores resident, told the trustees on Monday that he had engaged someone to research the matter, who informed him of the existence of deeds prior to 1884, “and before we put this whole issue to rest, we ought to see whether they can be found.” He asked if the trustees would object to a further search, and was told he was free to do so.

The problem, Mr. Whalen said, is that “sometimes when you go back to the old deeds it can get tricky to know where you are . . . the descriptions are so vague.”

Later in the meeting, Mr. Reiss addressed the board. “Now that you’ve gone back to 1884,” he said, “it would just help us with our neighbors if there was some clarification that, at least as far as the trustees are concerned, we do have title to the high water mark at least, if not to the shore of Gardiner’s Bay, just so we can deal with them in an effective way.”

“We have found no information that contradicts your deed,” Mr. Whalen repeated. “Unless some new information comes to light . . . we’re out of the picture.” Nonetheless, he advised the trustees not to disclaim ownership. “I never say never,” he said, “because there’s always the possibility that somebody someday will come back and find deeds before 1884.”

Two school bus companies, which lost potential business when the Wainscott and Sag Harbor School Districts signed a transportation agreement in April, have brought suit against the districts.

 The McCoy Bus Company, which had transported Wainscott’s students since September 2009, and Montauk Student Transport, which bused them previously, claim Wainscott should have put a contract out for bidding and that the districts needed a public vote and state approval to enter into such an agreement. They also claim the pricing does not meet negotiating standards for public contracts.

The Article 78 proceeding asks the court to invalidate the five-year contract   the districts signed and to stop Wainscott from paying Sag Harbor. It is before Suffolk County Supreme Court Judge Joseph Farneti. The parties appeared in court this week, but the next court date has not been set.

McCoy had a formal agreement as the operator of a contract that Wainscott, which educates students from kindergarten through third grade, initially signed with Montauk Student Transport. It had been renewed on a year-to-year basis. The agreement with Sag Harbor covers transportation to classes in Sag Harbor, the East Hampton School District, in private schools, or in Board of Cooperative Educational Services programs. Wainscott is to pay Sag Harbor $247,500 during the 2016-17 school year.

Last year, Wainscott paid McCoy about $300,000, the school superintendent, Stuart Rachlin, said in an email. But in the  complaint, McCoy said it would have bused Wainscott’s students this year for about $211,600, less than the district agreed to pay Sag Harbor. The complaint notes that one less bus route will be needed this year, because the Child Development Center of the Hamptons has closed.

“Therefore, this agreement improperly uses Sag Harbor taxpayer money, and makes the Wainscott district taxpayers pay in excess of $28,463.63 more than they would if the Wainscott district competitively bid the transportation services,” the complaint reads.

The Wainscott School District has hired Raymond Keenan, a Shirley attorney, while Sag Harbor has hired David Arntsen of the Smithtown firm Devitt Spellman Barrett. The districts share the Nesconset firm of Thomas M. Volz as general counsel, but have agreed to hire separate attorneys in this case.

“We believe that this suit is completely without merit,” David Eagan, the Wainscott School Board president, said Monday. “We don’t expect this suit to have any real impact at all. We look forward to working cooperatively with Sag Harbor.”

Mr. Eagan contends that Wainscott’s contract with Sag Harbor is a shared service between two public entities that did not require bidding. He called the complaint about pricing invalid, saying Wainscott and Sag Harbor used an “equitable allocation method, which is specifically provided for in the statute of the general municipal law.”

Mr. Keenan could not be reached, and Mr. Arntsen declined to comment. Katy Graves, Sag Harbor’s superintendent, also declined to comment, saying the district will bus Wainscott’s students when school begins in September.

McCoy and Montauk Student Transport are being represented by Patrick McCormick of the Ronkonkoma firm Campolo, Middleton & Associates. Mr. McCormick could not be reached for comment.

A Manhattan man was saved from drowning off Montauk Point Sunday afternoon by the captain and mate of a Montauk fishing boat, the Breakaway.

That the man, Juan Rosario, was spotted at all was happenstance. Jason Walter, a former senior chief petty officer and former commanding officer of the Star Island Coast Guard station, was working at the Montauk Lighthouse in his new civilian job as maintenance supervisor for the historical site, wrapping up the Lighthouse’s annual weekend festival. Shortly before 3 p.m., he said yesterday, he went to his truck. “It was a freak thing. I was sitting in my truck. The water was pretty rough, pretty choppy out there.” Then he spotted Mr. Rosario, whose kayak had flipped over, struggling to stay afloat. He was about a quarter-mile out, Mr. Walter said, well past the point of safety. “He was drifting around to the east, whipping by the Point.”

“Twenty-one years of training paid off,” Mr. Walter said. The Coast Guard logged a call from him at 2:55, according to Petty Officer Ryan O’Hare.

The two closest commercial boats Mr. Walter could see were the Breakaway and the Viking. The Breakaway appeared closer to the man in the water. A 43-foot sportfishing boat, it is also far smaller and more maneuverable than the 100-foot Viking.

Mr. Walter knows the captains in Montauk, most of whose numbers are on his cellphone. He called Rick Etzel, captain of the Breakaway.

“I was coming in from a shark trip,” Mr. Etzel said yesterday. “Jason Walter calls me: ‘You just passed a guy in the water.’ ”

Mr. Walter guided Mr. Etzel back toward Mr. Rosario, who was drifting toward the rocks. “He was wearing a child’s life jacket,” Mr. Etzel said. “It was hard to see, especially in the choppy water.” He was concerned by the rocks, but at an 18-foot depth, he had the room to maneuver.

Meantime, 25 to 30 people who were participating in a boater safety display being conducted by two members of the Women’s Auxiliary Coast Guard, Maria and Tisha Bouboulis, moved to the shore’s edge, shouting out encouragement to Mr. Rosario.

Captain Etzel’s mate, Ed Harrison, “tossed the life ring to the guy.” The two men pulled Mr. Rosario toward the stern of the boat and lifted him in. “He wasn’t doing too well. Vomiting,” the captain said. “He told me he had lost his friend.” There had been a second Manhattan man on the kayak, Mr. Rosario told his rescuers. The Breakaway took him to the Coast Guard station, where he was treated for exposure by emergency medical technicans.

Meanwhile, a search began for the missing man, with the Coast Guard 47-foot rollover rescue vessel taking part. That search was soon called off, however, after someone reported spotting Carlos Espinal swimming ashore to safety, west of the Point.

“The whole thing took 15 minutes total,” Mr. Walter said. Fifteen minutes, a lot of luck, and even more skill.

Damark’s Deli, a popular delicatessen on Three Mile Harbor Road in East Hampton, seems about to become a much larger store even though questions have been raised by a few East Hampton Town Planning Board members, the board’s attorney, and the town’s head building inspector. If approved, the plans before the planning board would make it the largest retail prepared-food business in East Hampton.

The planning board approved an application for changes at Damark’s in 2012 despite the fact that the floor of the basement would have been less than three inches above groundwater, meaning construction would take place well in the  groundwater in an area classified as a harbor protection overlay district.

That application began in 2009 with a proposal to increase the first floor of the building to 4,571 square feet and the basement to 3,907 square feet. Plans at the time called for a 1,770-square-foot apartment in the two-story structure. The planning board approved the site plan in March of 2012, but Bruce Damark, the owner, never acted on the project although approval required that a building permit be obtained within three years.

Under the current plan, the cramped space the deli occupies would be enlarged many times over. With the basement floor area included in the total square footage, the new structure would be a “super store” under the town code, with over 11,000 square feet of floor area. How much of the basement should be counted in the calculations is one of several questions.

The building, which was built before zoning was adopted, was originally a residence, and there is no record of its having a certificate of occupancy. When asked by Reed Jones, chairman of the planning board, on Aug. 17 about the new application, David Kirst, an attorney with Eagan and Matthews, said the approved site plan was never pursued within the time permitted because financing was not, at the time, available.

In the site plan now, the apartment is gone, with more than 1,400 square feet originally planned for the apartment added for a total of 6,000 square feet in the basement and 5,400 square feet on the first floor.

On Aug. 10, Nancy Keeshan addressed what turned out to be a controversial matter, saying the site plan should be treated as a new one rather than a modification. With two board members absent, one of whom was the chairman, Ms. Keeshan, the vice chairwoman, put the question to a vote. She was joined only by Kathleen Cunningham, with the resulting 3-to-2 vote meaning the plan would be treated as a modification. John Jilnicki, the attorney for the board, however, said on Monday that the vote was not binding.

Damark’s Deli was again front and center at the planning board meeting on Aug. 17, during which Mr. Jones read an email from Ms. Cunningham, who could not attend. In it, she expressed strong opposition to the new plan. She pointed out that Mr. Damark never applied for an extension of time under the 2012 approval. Now, Mr. Jilnicki said Monday, if Mr. Damark does not apply for a time extension, any modification would be of a voided site plan.

 Mr. Jilnicki also cautioned the board that if it were to hold Mr. Damark to the language in the 2012 approval, it might be acting in an “arbitrary and capricious” manner. He said time limits had been intended to give the board control over any major changes after it granted approval.

In her email to the board, Ms. Cunningham said, “I have several serious concerns regarding the cellar, as it will be built only three inches above groundwater, which, as a practical matter, is in groundwater.” She also questioned whether the plan was in the interests of good planning for Three Mile Harbor. “Just because it can be done doesn’t mean it should be done,” she said.

Her point of view was not shared by some of the board members. “We have to be careful in questioning previous determinations,” Ian Calder-Piedmonte said. But Job Potter asked, “Why is it okay to put this in with so little space to groundwater?” Patti Leber pointed out that the basement would now be well over 20 percent larger than in the previously approved site plan. She asked that the plan be sent to the Building Department for a review of total floor coverage in the basement.

The applicant’s representatives have said that almost the entire basement would be used for storage and an employee locker room was deemed storage. The problem for the board was determining how much of the approximately 6,000 square feet of the basement was being used exclusively for storage, and how much was being used for other purposes. Only 720 square feet is shown in the gross floor area calculation.

It also seems that the expanded building’s use as a catering facility would be of concern for Anne Glennon, the town’s head building inspector. She said catering could be considered a second use, which would trigger the need for more employees and more parking spaces. “They have to stay within the limits of what neighborhood business allows,” she said, referring to the property’s zoning. “What throws you to site plan is septic, parking, or additional seating,” she said.

One point all planning board members agreed with is the need for a public hearing. “A public hearing is very, very important,” Mr. Calder-Piedmonte said.

Once an undocumented immigrant from Mexico, Lucia Martinez of East Hampton will cast a ballot in the November general election for the first time as a naturalized citizen and newly registered voter.

Ms. Martinez saw how the major parties’ political campaigns were shaping up this year, heard what she said were discriminatory statements made all too often, and realized she wanted her voice to be heard.

“I never thought about voting or anything until this election. That’s when I decided I needed to do it,” said Ms. Martinez, a single mother who has been in the United States for more than 20 years and, after a three-year process of applying for citizenship, successfully achieved her goal about 11 years ago.

“At the beginning I felt nervous,” she said, referring to the voter registration process. “I thought, ‘What if they don’t count me?’ Then I felt very confident when they took my information and I received in the mail my card that said I’m registered to vote and where to go to vote.”

No one had to encourage Ms. Martinez to register, but she knows that will not be the case with other immigrant citizens who are eligible to do the same. That’s why she will be volunteering over the next several weeks with Organizacion Latino-Americana of Long Island, which recently received a grant to run a get-out-the-immigrant-vote registration drive on the East End.

The grant was provided by the New York Immigration Coalition and will vary in size up to about $10,000 based on the final expenses OLA incurs while registering new voters. But Minerva Perez, OLA’s executive director, said the funding will go far to “turn the tide of this apathy or feelings of powerlessness” that people may have during this election cycle.

“There’s so much going on that would make a person say, ‘Why bother?’ . . . That will never serve us as a country,” she said. “I want OLA to be a voice that counters that and says, ‘We need to do everything we can to put all of our voices in the mix.’ ”

OLA will set up tables in different communities at places like supermarkets, church events, and sporting events. There will also be door-to-doors and phone calls, for which names will be drawn from a special database to which Ms. Perez has been given access through the New York Immigration Perez has been given access through the New York Immigration Coalition. The process involves helping someone fill out a voter application form and making sure it gets to the Suffolk County Board of Elections by the registration deadline — applications must be postmarked by Oct. 14 and received by the board of elections by Oct. 19.

The grant stipulates that OLA’s efforts must be nonpartisan, meaning that support of specific political parties or candidates may not be encouraged during the voter registration process, Ms. Perez said.

OLA has an initial goal of registering 500 people, but Ms. Perez said she would love to see it climb into the thousands. The effort will also include the recruitment of new voters from other minority groups.

“I’m not going to turn someone away if they don’t have recent immigrant status,” Ms. Perez said. “There’s the connection also with diverse voters — linking up with other groups that might be African-American or Shinnecock, for example. We’ll make sure there is a focus on that as well.”

The New York Immigration Coalition calls immigrant voters “a powerful force” that has the ability to impact government policy.

Indeed, a “partisan divide over immigration” is emerging as a key issue in the 2016 presidential race, according to The Harvard Political Review. The journal reported in January that Republicans’ or Democrats’ “links to specific demographic groups,” such as Latino voters to name just one, may sway the vote. The Harvard Political Review cited research showing that among naturalized immigrants, 62 percent identified as Dem­ocrats. The blog Democracy: A Journal of Ideas has said voting by naturalized immigrants still lags far behind other groups in the general electorate.

According to the 2014 American Community Survey, 18.8 percent of year-round residents in East Hampton Town are foreign born, or about 4,100 people. Of that population, about 53 percent are U.S. citizens. In Southampton Town, the percentage of foreign-born, year-round residents is about the same at 18.8 percent, or 10,800 people, but of that population, 41.3 percent are U.S. citizens.

Isabel Sepulveda, who founded OLA about 14 years ago, said there is a large population of potential immigrant voters, and specifically Latino citizens, to reach out to across all of the East End. She said OLA used to run voter registration drives years ago, but stopped because of financial hurdles.

“This grant is huge,” she said. “We need it so bad. . . . The amount of Latinos who vote is very low. Some people register when they become citizens, but others have not done it.”

She speaks from experience, having observed what went on while working as an election inspector at the polls at Southampton High School for more than 10 years. People, she said, sometimes need “time and encouragement from other people” before registering to vote.

“The culture is different, the language is different,” Ms. Sepulveda said. “A lot of things are different and you need to learn.”

Ms. Martinez said she hopes the grant given to OLA will help get more new Latino citizens, in particular, registered to vote.

“If we let the people know that it’s safe to register, it’s okay to do it, then it will be helpful,” she said. “But they have to hear from us, from the same Latinos.”

Ms. Perez said momentum is key. “We need to keep generating the interest and excitement, because we need to bring that back into the forefront. You can’t sit on the couch and yell at the TV and get on Facebook and post a bunch of stuff. We need to be positively effective.”

Southampton Town police said they arrested a man in Bridgehampton on Saturday who had been on his way to Montauk with a pound of marijuana, 300 vials of hash oil, about five pounds of concentrated cannabis gel, and assorted marijuana-laced edible items.

Officers in the police department's community response unit were focusing on pedestrian safety enforcement when one of them noticed a driver talking on a cell phone while heading east on Montauk Highway near School Street just before 7:30 p.m.

The officer stopped Christopher Jennings Jr., 36, of Northport, who was driving a 2005 Ford sport utility vehicle. When the officer approached the S.U.V., he noticed a strong odor of marijuana coming from inside, police said.

The officer said he saw "a clear plastic vial containing a brownish liquid that he recognized to be consistent with 'concentrated cannabis'," a controlled substance, police said in a press release. The suspicious substance was tested in the field and tested positive, police said.

Officers searched the S.U.V. and allegedly found far more. Recovered in the bust were 300 vials of liquid concentrated cannabis, 16 ounces of fresh marijuana, two canisters containing nearly five pounds of concentrated cannabis gel, which, police said, is used in baked goods, and 150 pre-made and individually packaged marijuana-laced edible goods, which police likened to homemade Rice Krispy treats. They also reportedly found $1,350 cash and nearly 100 other pieces of manufacturing, processing, and packaging paraphernalia. The S.U.V. and the cash were seized for possible forfeiture.

Mr. Jennings was charged with criminal possession of marijuana in the second degree, criminal possession of a controlled substance in the fourth degree, criminal possession of a controlled substance in the fifth degree, all felonies, and criminal possession of a controlled substance in the seventh degree, a misdemeanor. He was held overnight for arraignment in Southampton Town Justice Court on Sunday morning. Additional charges are expected, according to police.

Southampton Town police community response unit had been assigned to Bridgehampton Main Street in response to complaints about the lack of enforcement in the area. Officers focused on vehicles yielding for pedestrians in crosswalks, jaywalking, and distracted drivers, the department said.

The Bridgehampton Citizens Advisory Committee has been expressing concern about the lack of enforcement at its meetings in recent months. The C.A.C. and town officials are working on ways to increase pedestrian safety, and they are expected to revisit the issue at its next meeting, on Monday.

Frustrated by continued noise from helicopters and planes using East Hampton Airport, several people are calling for the airport to be closed, saying the approximately 600-acre, town-owned site could be put to better community use.

Patricia Currie, a Noyac resident, and Barry Raebeck of Wainscott have formed a group called Say No to KHTO, using the airport’s aviation designation (KHTO). In a press release, the organization said it was asking that the facility be closed due to “increased East Hampton Airport operations coupled with the lack of meaningful aircraft noise abatement.”

Say No to KHTO suggests that the right course of action is to “transform our land to benefit all residents.”

Though the use restrictions that took effect at the start of the summer season included an overnight curfew and extended limited hours for takeoffs and landings by those planes deemed noisy, a once-a-week limit on takeoffs and landings by noisy planes, which the town board hoped to adopt, is tied up in court following lawsuits by aviation groups. Anti-noise advocates, including former members of a town-appointed airport noise advisory committee, have asserted that the restrictions in place do not make enough of a difference.

The commercially zoned airport acreage “could be used to support environmentally sensitive businesses providing many times the local jobs that the airport does,” Mr. Raebeck said in the press release. A co-founder of the Quiet Skies Coalition, he has broken away from that group to advocate for the airport’s closure.

“The airport is being operated at a huge cost to the community in lost jobs and lost dollars,” Mr. Raebeck said. “We are actually subsidizing the destruction of our own environment and quality of life — simply to benefit the handful of commercial operators and their customers.”

While under agreements with the Federal Aviation Administration, the town must use all revenues generated from the airport for airport purposes, if the land were put to other uses the town could generate lease income that would reduce the burden on taxpayers, according to Mr. Raebeck. The new group plans to develop alternate uses that would be submitted to the public.

“This land could be used for wind and solar power generation, for affordable housing, for parks and recreation, and for low-impact businesses,” Mr. Raebeck said in the release.

Also frustrated by the town board’s efforts to respond to aircraft noise complaints, members of the former town airport noise committee have regrouped independently this summer to continue a public focus on what David Gruber, a member of the committee, has said is an “issue too important to be left to town government alone.”

The original town airport noise committee had recommended that the town adopt a number of “mutually reinforcing” airport restrictions, according to Kathleen Cunningham, a member of the committee and chairwoman of the Quiet Skies Coalition. That only some of the original committee’s recommendations were adopted weakened “the entire proposed structure of noise control,” she has said.

In a series of letters to the editor, Mr. Gruber, among others, has criticized Peter Kirsch, the town’s aviation attorney, and the strategies he recommended by which the town tried to navigate the legal framework of enacting restrictions while not running afoul of the F.A.A.

Traffic at the airport, according to a recent report, increased by 3 percent between January and July this year, compared to 2015, but the number of takeoffs or landings from May through July was lower, by 570.

Use of the airport by turboprop planes, including seaplanes that fall outside the most restricted category based on noise, seems to have replaced some commercial transportation company helicopters. Turboprop plane use increased by 11 percent in the first seven months of this year, over last year. Jet traffic also increased, by 15 percent.

Although complaints to the town’s airport noise hotline have decreased sharply from the number lodged during the January to June period last year, the cause — whether from a dropoff in the number of people bothered by aircraft noise or fatigue among those who think it is futile to call — is unclear.

The notion of closing a municipal airport believed to be have negative impacts on its community is not unique to East Hampton. In California, the Santa Monica City Council voted earlier this week to close its airport as soon as possible, citing a range of adverse impacts including noise, air pollution, and safety problems. It proposed using the land as a park instead.

“Our council and community in solidarity, want to close the airport that predominantly caters to the 1 percent that can afford to travel by private jet,” the Santa Monica pro tem mayor, Ted Winterer, said in a press release.

The vote represents the third time the city government vowed to close the airport, after voters approved the idea in a 2014 ballot measure. The F.A.A. has legally blocked this, however.

Elation brought on by last week’s surprising near-disappearance of the cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, bloom that appeared in Georgica Pond in East Hampton in June was dashed by a dramatic resurgence of the toxic algal bloom on Monday and Tuesday, which in turn was quickly followed by an order-of-magnitude decline.

As it has since July 1, the pond remains closed to the harvesting of shellfish, crabs, and other marine species by order of the East Hampton Town Trustees, who manage many of the town’s waterways and bottomlands on behalf of the public.

Data collected by a monitoring buoy in the southern end of the pond generally measured fewer than 2 micrograms per liter, and often well under 1 microgram per liter, of cyanobacteria from Aug. 10 until Monday, when it began a steep increase, to 14.28 micrograms per liter on Tuesday afternoon. Since then, the toxic algae had fallen to less than 1 microgram per liter but were on a slight upward trajectory, measuring .95 microgram per liter at noon yesterday. Values above approximately 3 micrograms per liter meet the State Department of Environmental Conservation’s threshold constituting a harmful bloom.

Exposure to cyanobacteria at high concentrations can cause nausea, vomiting, diarrhea, allergic reactions, breathing difficulties, or skin, eye, or throat irritation. It can be fatal to children and animals.

The fluctuating but generally low measurements of cyanobacteria in Georgica Pond over the summer come amid intensifying blooms in 10 other East End lakes and ponds, Christopher Gobler of Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences said on Saturday. These include Hook Pond in East Hampton, Wainscott Pond, Sagg Pond in Sagaponack, Kellis Pond in Bridgehampton, Mill Pond in Water Mill, and Old Town Pond and Lake Agawam in Southampton.

Dr. Gobler has led a water-quality monitoring effort for the trustees since 2013 and is now also working on behalf of the Friends of Georgica Pond Foundation, a pondfront property owners group that formed last year to fight the pond’s environmental degradation.

The trustees “are considering the situation in Georgica Pond to be unchanged, and will be very careful in making any announcements on it in the future,” Francis Bock, their clerk, or presiding officer, wrote in an email on Tuesday. Yesterday, he said that the intense heat of the past week would presumably cause the water temperature to rise, promoting conditions in which the cyanobacteria bloom could thrive.

The trustees, he said, hope soon to open the pond to the Atlantic Ocean, which is typically done on a biannual basis and serves to flush its waters and restore salinity, causing the algal bloom to dissipate. That, however, cannot be done until piping plovers and least terns, federally protected birds that nest along the shoreline, are confirmed to have departed the area, along with their fledglings. The shorebirds’ presence in the spring prevented the April letting of the pond this year.

There has been speculation that the relatively low measurements of cyanobacteria in the past few weeks were a result of the Friends of Georgica Pond Foundation’s effort to remove macroalgae, which releases nitrogen and phosphorus as it decays and is believed to promote the cyanobacteria blooms that have fouled the pond over the last several years.

“We need more information to conclusively say what the cause is,” Dr. Gobler said on Saturday.

The foundation launched an aquatic weed harvester, a motorized craft that removes macroalgae, in May in an effort to quantify its nitrogen and phosphorus content. It has removed several pickup-truck loads of macroalgae, a project that is meant to determine if removing it is effective in combating cyanobacteria. Depending on the amount of macroalgae in the pond, the harvester is to continue operating through this month.

The foundation “is delighted that to date the 2016 field season has produced low toxic blue-green algae levels,” Sara Davison, the group’s executive director, said in a statement issued on Monday, “but it is still too early to draw any conclusions on the reasons for the decline, and there is still time for new harmful algal blooms to develop.”

The statement proved prophetic, given the following day’s dramatic if brief surge. “It is important to take a long view here,” Ms. Davison wrote in an email on Tuesday evening, “and not react to day-to-day spikes. Many factors can affect the cyanobacteria levels,” including weather, pond depth and salinity, and nutrient input. “Many that we don’t understand fully.”

To an outsider, what looked like a pile of trash filling the commons room at the Springs School on Monday was, on closer inspection, a collection of materials intended to be taken apart and reassembled to create new contraptions by the kids at Camp Invention.

While they were exploring scientific and engineering concepts in small group workshops, Sema Mendelman, a parent of two students and a frequent Springs School volunteer, was busy organizing the trash — egg cartons, wicker baskets, plastic bottles, lampshades, bubble wrap, cardboard tubes, cassette tape players, computer keyboards, video game controllers, radio speakers, and much, much more.

The Springs program had its genesis a few years ago when Ms. Mendelman searched for science-related summer activities for her children. She said the closest program was in Hampton Bays, and “that was too far.” 

What she did next was to get in touch with Camp Invention, a program developed by the National Inventors Hall of Fame, about building a camp here. Now in its fourth year at the Springs School, Camp Invention is a weeklong summer event for kids entering kindergarten through sixth grade that promotes science, engineering, math, technology, and imagination. Sean Knight, a Springs science teacher, immediately jumped on board as its director.

Of the camp’s 80 students, 65 are from Springs and the John M. Marshall Elementary School in East Hampton. The rest are from nearby districts or children whose families are here for the summer. Many of the kids come back for a second year, Mr. Knight said. The camp also attracts middle school students as counselors-in-training and high school students who earn community service credit.

The teachers this year are Melissa Knight, Dina Rafferty, and Kim Havlik, local elementary teachers, and Jennifer Marchignoli, from Manhasset. They receive instruction from the National Inventors Hall of Fame before camp begins and go on to develop their own lessons.

The activities this year are Epic Park, in which kids design an amusement park of their dreams using physics, design, entrepreneurship, and clean energy concepts. A  CrickoBot workshop has  students making solar-powered bugs and other tiny inventions inspired by crickets. There’s a Maker Studio, where kids apply reverse engineering to take apart electronic devices and use the pieces in new projects, and a Where Pigs Fly lab in which they experiment with everything from demolition and cup- tower explosions to programming and coding as well as the chemistry of polymer slime and spinning disco ball circuits.

According to Mr. Knight, many students  have not been able to work on projects for extended periods or explore subjects to their fullest extent during the school year ever since the Common Core curriculum standards were adopted. “Here, they get to work on a project all week. One of the great things about the camp is that kids get to have a lot of trial and error, instead of coming into a 50-minute lab where they have to solve the problem right away,” he said.

Opinions from some of the kids taking part were positive. “It’s really fun. It gives you a chance to explore,” Finn Hopkins, a Springs School fifth grader, said. “The really cool part is every year they come up with something new.” Jameson Grant, a Springs sixth grader who has signed up for the camp all four years, said that after her first year, she started asking her parents for things around the house she could take apart and reuse. Chloe Swickard, also a Springs sixth grader, said, “This really makes you think. You don’t think this much in your daily life.”

Mr. Knight said he doesn’t see Camp Invention “slowing down anytime soon” and Ms. Mendelman said the program complements what is taught in school. “The thing I really love about this camp is that there is no right way to do things. They figure things out for themselves. Kids are exploring, and that’s really cool.”