Steven A. Cohen, the well-known hedge fund manager and owner of two estate properties here, established a successor fund to his SAC Capital Advisors in 2014 after SAC was fined $1.8 billion for insider trading, and set up offices for the new fund, Point72 Asset Management, in Stamford, Conn.; New York City, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Singapore, London — and now East Hampton.

Mr. Cohen, whose old firm was under legal scrutiny for many years by both the United States Justice Department and the Securities and Exchange Commission, is now taking on another governmental agency: the East Hampton Town Planning Board. He has built a gated fence in front of his new branch office, at 203 Pantigo Road in East Hampton, the former Wei Fun restaurant, that has raised the eyebrows of several planning board members.

The offending structure is a six-foot-tall chain link fence with a cedar facade. It was built without site plan approval.

“Character is very important to this town,” Nancy Keeshan told her fellow board members, and Alexander Baranovich, an architect who is representing Mr. Cohen, on Feb. 9. The gate, she said, “is not friendly” to the rural character of Pantigo Road.

“The town has always avoided having gated communities. Generally speaking, we like to keep things open,” Job Potter said. “I think it is pretty unusual to have a commercial site with a gated parking lot. The question is why?”

Mr. Baranovich, who never identified his client by name, answered by focusing mainly on parking. In the summer, overflow traffic from neighboring restaurants and delicatessens like Goldberg’s Famous Bagels was “a little bit out of control,” he said.

Mr. Cohen, whom Forbes magazine called “one of the most successful hedge fund managers ever,” paid $3.3 million for the slightly less than half-acre site on Jan. 20, 2015. According to a memorandum by Eric Schantz of the Planning Department, the property is zoned for neighborhood business and was most recently occupied by a restaurant. It has since been converted into an office for Mr. Cohen, which is allowed under the zoning code.

Besides the appearance of the gate, Marguerite Wolffsohn, who heads the Planning Department, faulted the size of its opening. “Every access driveway on nonresidential properties shall have a minimum unobstructed width of 20 feet,” she read from the zoning code. That regulation, Ms. Wolffsohn said, cannot be waived.

The gate’s opening is only 14 feet. Mr. Baranovich acknowledged that it would have to be reconstructed.

In addition, it was clear that the fence had been built right over a handicapped parking access space. Patti Leber, a member of the board, had gone to the site and taken some photos.

While Mr. Baranovich stressed that the use of the site was low intensity, Ms. Wolffson was more concerned with its future. She asked board members that whatever they determine will stay with the building in perpetuity, no matter who may come to own it.

Mr. Baranovich touched on two topics besides parking that likely are important to his client. The interior of the office building, following its conversion from the restaurant use, includes an office for a representative of the S.E.C., in accordance with a final agreement reached last month between Mr. Cohen and the regulatory agency.

Mr. Cohen, while not admitting guilt, was barred from trading with other people’s money for two years, and SAC Capital is in the process of closing down. Point72 Assets Management proclaims that it is “a family office managing the assets of its founder, Steven A. Cohen, and eligible employees.” Mr. Baranovich suggested that Mr. Cohen may be a bit “paranoid” at this point about outsiders.

Planning board members agreed that a public hearing should be held before the proposed site plan can be approved. A hearing will be scheduled after Mr. Baranovich submits a revised plan.

Georgica Pond will only be brought back to health through new approaches to waste management, landscaping practices, and road runoff.

That was the consensus of a meeting Friday at Town Hall that included officials of East Hampton Town and Village, the town trustees, the Nature Conservancy, a coastal ecology researcher, and a property owners’ association, all of whom pledged cooperation in the effort. The pond has experienced dense, harmful algal blooms in the past two summers.

“We know that we have a growing problem that is the result of many years of human activity, mostly,” Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell told the group, referring to other local waterways that have suffered similar algal blooms. The algae suppress oxygen, killing fish and posing health hazards to humans. “In focusing on Georgica Pond, there’s a unique opportunity here, because we have a group of people coming together to try to deal with this,” Mr. Cantwell said. 

A monitoring buoy placed in the pond last year revealed the extent of its ill health, said Christopher Gobler, a professor of marine biology at Stony Brook University who monitors trustee-managed waterways here. Dr. Gobler, who was recently engaged by the Friends of Georgica Pond Foundation, the property owners’ group, said that at night during the summer, “the pond goes not hypoxic but anoxic” — fully depleted of oxygen — “and there were fish kills and other ills associated with it. Serious ecological and human health issues are in play.”

Friday’s discussion focused on nitrogen emanating from septic systems, which has been identified as a key culprit in the excess nutrients that cause algal blooms. “We have, primarily, an individual on-site septic system problem that sewers are not going to be the answer to, for the most part,” Mr. Cantwell said. The town board, he said, is assembling a water quality improvement plan that it hopes would be funded with money from the community preservation fund. Reauthorization of the C.P.F., with a provision allowing a portion of it to be allocated to water quality improvement projects, will be subject to a townwide referendum in November.

“We have all these legacy septic systems,” Mr. Cantwell continued. The question, he said, is when and how to encourage, or require, homeowners to replace them. Discussions have been held with the Suffolk County Health Department about identifying “trigger points” that would require their replacement, possibly targeting areas with known water-quality problems. Making replacement mandatory could be tied to a property’s change in ownership, or renovations. “There may be outright time frames in certain critical environments,” the supervisor said. “That’s where a possible rebate program or some use of C.P.F. funds could come into play. But that has to be thought out.”

One positive development, said Nancy Kelley of the Nature Conservancy, is that new septic systems tested in a geographically similar area — Cape Cod — have demonstrated 90-percent nitrogen removal, at a cost comparable to a typical existing system. “If we’re able to work with industry, government, and science to effectuate a plan that allows systems at affordable rates . . . as early as 2016, we can really get this job done,” perhaps sooner than anticipated, she said.

That timeframe is realistic, Dr. Gobler said. Peter Scully, the deputy county executive and formerly the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation’s Long Island regional director, “is taking this very seriously,” he said. County approval of new septic systems, while not necessarily those tested on Cape Cod, can happen by year’s end, he agreed.

Sara Davison, the Friends of Georgica Pond group’s executive director, said that macro-algae would be harvested from the pond this summer. “We will learn if that is an effective mechanism of removing nitrogen,” she said. She also suggested installation of a permeable reactive barrier, a device comprising trench boxes filled with ground-up woodchips that intercepts groundwater as it seeps into a lake or pond. Such a barrier was tested at Pussy’s Pond in Springs, said Kim Shaw, the town’s director of natural resources, with results indicating an 85-percent reduction in nitrogen seepage. The town plans to install more of the devices at Three Mile and Accabonac Harbors, she said.

An initial analysis of groundwater at Ronald Perelman’s 57-acre Creeks estate bordering Georgica Pond “shows there are very high levels of nitrate there, seeping up through the sands,” Dr. Gobler said. That could dictate design and placement of a permeable reactive barrier, he added.

A more low-tech solution, said the marine biologist, would be placing barley straw in the pond in an enclosed container. “Scientists don’t know entirely why, but barley straw can mitigate blue-green algae blooms,” or cyanobacteria, the algae that afflicted the pond in 2014 and ’15. “I’m not saying that this is the long-term solution; however, I think it’s worth piloting on a small scale while we get other issues under control.”

The tidal flushing that occurs when the pond is let open to the Atlantic Ocean, which the trustees traditionally do in the spring and fall, allows more saltwater in, eliminating algal blooms. In addition to the openings, the town and trustees are pursuing renewal of a D.E.C. permit to dredge the pond, Mr. Cantwell said. By dredging, coupled with the twice-yearly letting to the ocean, “we’re going to maintain higher salinity levels for greater periods of time, which is the best enemy we have of the algal blooms,” he said.

In October, the town engaged GEI Consultants, a Connecticut firm, to assist in the permitting process, Ms. Shaw said, and a permit application will be ready in a few weeks. “The window we’re looking at,” Mr. Cantwell said, “is to make that application and obtain that permit in time for a dredging in the fall.”

In the past, the D.E.C. permit has been in the town’s name, as the trustees did not recognize the state agency’s authority. “It doesn’t matter to me,” Mr. Cantwell said. “I’m pragmatic about this.”

“We’d like to take that,” Francis Bock, who was elected the trustees’ presiding officer in January, replied. “The trustees are completely on board with this. We’re excited to be part of it.” 

A sand-management plan must be developed, Ms. Shaw said, and the town will seek an annual limit of 25,000 cubic yards of excavated sand, up from the 16,000 cubic yards allowed by the previous permit.

A spirit of optimism pervaded the meeting, with the group, which plans to convene quarterly, confident of achieving measurable results. But progress will be slow, Dr. Gobler warned. “Groundwater travel time can take awhile,” he said. “The watershed is large. To address all these nutrient issues is not going to happen overnight.”

A spike in drug-related incidents at East Hampton High School this year has spurred officials to organize two forums on the dangers of drugs and addiction — a Spanish-language presentation at 7 p.m. next Thursday and an English presentation on March 23 at 6 p.m. The forums are intended for the community at large. Parents, students, families, and educators in surrounding school districts have also been invited.

Adam Fine, the high school principal, Robert Tymann, an assistant superintendent, Kenny Alversa, the school resource officer, and Teresita Winter, a bilingual social worker, are coordinating the program.

“We’re seeing an uptick in drug-type incidents at the high school, and we think, and I truly believe, it’s a community issue that needs to be addressed,” Mr. Fine said this week. “We need to bring everybody together.”

Representaives of the Long Island Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependency, the East Hampton Town Police Department, Suffolk County Emergency Medical Services, and other entities will take part. Training will be offered in the use of Narcan, an anti-opiate overdose treatment, and kits will be given to those who participate.

Mr. Tymann said the district was not sure what was causing the increase. It could be an actual jump in numbers or, he said, the result of heightened awareness on the part of parents who may be more comfortable sharing information with the school district than in the past.

“People are giving us tons of information we have to address, which never happened before at this level,” Mr. Fine said. He would not provide a number on how many incidents had occurred so far this year, but said it surpassed last year’s total.

According to data sent annually by the school district to New York State, East Hampton reported nine drug-related and two alcohol-related incidents last year, four drug-related and six alcohol-related occurrences in the 2013-14 school year, and seven drug-related and four alcohol-related the previous year.

Ms. Winter explained that a committee of parents whose primary language is Spanish recently urged the school to plan such an event. “They wanted to know what can we do, how can we prevent it, what are the red flags? They said, ‘You provide all this information to the students, but some of the things are happening in the home, and we need to be more aware of it.’”

Three years ago, the district began bringing in police dogs to sniff out drugs at the high school. This is occurring multiple times a year and is not announced. Mr. Fine said the practice had helped discourage drug use at the school. He added that the problem spans all ethnicities among the student body and one extends past adolescence.

Mr. Alversa agreed. “There is no way that one organization or entity can combat this. It has to be a community issue, a school issue, a police department issue, a county issue, because it’s not just isolated to East Hampton,” he said. “It’s a nationwide epidemic that has to be taken on from many fronts to have any effect on it. We’re all committed to bringing in whatever resources are necessary to start that fight.”

A man was injured when he was run over at a construction site in Bridgehampton on Friday morning, according to Southampton Town Police Lt. Susan Ralph. 

Lieutenant Ralph said the injury was reported at 2510 Montauk Highway at 11:25 a.m. The Bridgehampton Fire Department treated the construction worker for a leg injury caused by a Bobcat earthmover and called for a Suffolk medevac helicopter to fly the patient to Stony Brook University Hospital, the closest trauma center.

The accident took place at the construction site of a two-story commercial building. A CVS pharmacy had been planned for the site, but the company pulled out of the project after community members raised objections. The construction project has continued, however. 

Friday's accident was the second serious construction-related accident on the South Fork in about 24 hours' time. A 44-year-old man lost his life on Thursday after he was run over by a Traverse telehandler forklift while he was working on a dock project in Montauk.

Southampton Town police detectives are investigating the incident. The Occupational Safety and Health Administration has also been notified. 

Update, 5:10 p.m.: A house in Noyac was badly damaged by fire Wednesday afternoon, displacing a couple who lived there year round, despite firefighters having made a quick stop after they were called out to the blaze. 

A passer-by saw smoke in the vicinity of the car repair shop on the corner of Noyac Road and Cedar Point Lane and called 911 at around 12:40 p.m., Sag Harbor Fire Department First Assistant Chief Bruce Schiavoni said. Members of the department who were working in the area arrived first and confirmed that a house on Cedar Point Lane, on the same side of Noyac Road as the car repair shop Greg's Garage, was on fire. Thick smoke was pouring from the eaves, he said. No one was at home at the time.

Chief Schiavoni said that while flames weren't very visible from outside the house, firefighters who went in through the front door with a hose found the entire ceiling ablaze. The house, of wood frame with a stucco exterior and a slate roof, built at least 20 years ago, was constructed in a way that held the fire in. He said the fire could have been burning at least 20 minutes before it was noticed. 

"The guys did an excellent job," the chief said. The fire was mostly extinguished within 20 minutes. Firefighters remained at the house, venting the smoke and looking for pockets of fire, for about 40 additional minutes. 

The first and second floors sustained significant smoke, fire, and water damage, while the basement suffered water damage. There was a report that the first-floor floor had partially collapsed, but the chief said it was a hole in the floor that opened up as firefighters were making an interior attack on the flames. Firefighters avoided the section of floor after it was compromised, he said. No one was injured.

The Southampton Town fire marshal's office is investigating the cause of the fire. Chief Schiavoni said the house was the primary residence of the couple, who were not home at the time. 

A portion of Noyac Road was closed while firefighters worked. They had planned to stretch a hose across the road, but ended up using a hydrant close to the house. "They made such a quick stop, we didn't use that much water," the chief said. 

Original, 1:37 p.m.: Firefighters are battling a fire that broke out in a house on Noyac Road in Noyac on Wednesday afternoon. 

The fire was reported in a two-story wood-frame house, next to a car repair shop near the corner of Noyac Road and Cedar Point Lane, across from Millstone Road. The floors reportedly parially collapsed on the first floor. When it was first reported at about 12:40 p.m., the fire was thought to be coming from the repair shop, Greg's Garage, next door.

The Southampton Town fire marshal's office was called to investigate the cause. 

The Sag Harbor Fire Department reportedly extinguished the flames at about 1:30 p.m., but firefighters were still looking for pockets of fire and searching the walls for heat. The East Hampton Fire Department stood by with its rapid intervention team, in case firefighters battling flames from the inside needed to be rescued. 

The Sag Harbor Volunteer Ambulance Corps and the Bridgehampton Fire Department each responded with an ambulance. 

The trial of Thomas Gilbert Jr. of Wainscott and Manhattan, who was charged with homicide in the Beekman Place murder last January of his financier father, moved a step closer on Wednesday.

New York State Supreme Court Justice Melissa Jackson told Mr. Gilbert's lawyer, Alex Spiro, that she considered the information he had thus far provided to the prosecution "woefully inadequate," and ordered him to give the opposing lawyers clearer details about the evidence he intends to submit.

She also questioned Mr. Spiro's application to call the psychiatrists who testified during the 31-year-old Princeton graduate's hearing, in order to question them about his sanity at the time of the crime. "You have not provided from any of these doctors the specific malady that he is suffering from," Justice Jackson said. "As we know, those doctors testified as to his competency to stand trial. That has nothing to do with his mental state at the time of the crime. That is what is pertinent and relevant."

"I am not going to delay this case," she said later. "I am going to set this down for trial sooner rather than later."

Craig Ortner, the prosecutor, objected to Mr. Spiro's repeated references to the sanity hearing. "The hearing is over," he said. "He lost. It is not incumbent on the people to sift through the doctors' testimony and discern what would be presented at trial."

"We can't be subject to the whim of the defendant as to whether or when he will submit to an examination," Mr. Ortner added. "At some point, if the defendant declines to submit to a psychiatric examination, than that ship has sailed."

In December, Justice Jackson found Mr. Gilbert competent to stand trial. The defendant has rarely appeared at his own court proceedings, a fact Mr. Spiro has repeatedly cited as indicating mental instability. Justice Jackson made it clear on Wednesday, however, that a defendant declining to appear at his own trial was not a sign of insanity.

Mr. Gilbert was brought to the Manhattan courthouse on Wednesday but refused to enter the courtroom. "My client would not give a reason why," Mr. Spiro said, adding, "He asked me to provide him information regarding Cablevision."

Since last year's sanity hearings, he told Justice Jackson, Mr. Gilbert has refused to meet with psychiatrists. "He is unfit," the lawyer insisted. "He remains unfit, and for the record, I don't believe these proceedings are constitutional."

At one point last year, Mr. Gilbert asked the court to remove Mr. Spiro as his attorney. He withdrew the request three weeks later.

"He has never had a meaningful interaction with counsel," Mr. Spiro said.

Justice Jackson gave the lawyers until the end of March to submit written briefs. The next court session is scheduled for April 12, when, she said, she will set the date of a jury trial.

"Hopefully, Mr. Gilbert will agree to return to court," the justice commented as Mr. Spiro was leaving the courtroom with the defendant's mother, Shelly Gilbert, by his side. She has attended every court session since the case began.

Update, 4:45 p.m.: Police have identified the man killed in an industrial accident Thursday morning as Hector O. Duarte-Roque, 44, of Hampton Bays. 

East Hampton Town police said a Traverse telehandler with an extended forklift was carrying dock material and traveling north on East Lake Drive when it struck Mr. Duarte-Roque.

Mr. Duarte-Roque was "actively assisting the forklift operator in guiding/moving the dock material at the time the accident occurred," police said in a statement.

The equipment operator's name was not released. Police previously said no criminality was involved.

Police impounded the Traverse telehandler for a safety inspection, and the investigation is ongoing. Anyone with information is asked to contact police at 631-537-7575.

Update, 3:03 p.m.: A man who was run over in Montauk on Thursday morning by a piece of machinery has died from his injuries, East Hampton Town police said. 

Sgt. Chelsea Tierney said the 44-year-old man, a Hampton Bays resident, was run over by a mobile lift as it was moving material in the road in front of the Montauk Lake Club and Marina on East Lake Drive. She was unsure what type of material was being moved, but said that workers were involved in the construction of a dock at the club.

Town police received the call at 10:54 a.m.

The man was treated by emergency medical personnel with the Montauk Fire Department. County paramedics were flying him in a helicopter to Stony Brook University Hospital, a trauma center, when his condition deteriorated. The helicopter landed in Southampton, where it was met by an ambulance. The victim was taken to Southampton Hospital, where he was pronounced dead.

Police did not release the victim's name pending notification of his family.  

The area remains closed to traffic as detectives conduct a full accident reconstruction, as part of their investigation. However, "it's not criminal in nature," Sergeant Tierney said.

Investigators with the Occupational Safety and Health Administration will also investigate the fatal accident. 

Originally, 12:16 p.m.: A piece of machinery seriously injured a person at the Montauk Lake Club and Marina in Montauk on Thursday morning. 

East Hampton Town police detectives are investigating the accident, which involved a piece of equipment believed to be a telescoping lift that was doing work at the private dock. 

The Montauk Fire Department was called to 211 East Lake Drive at 10:52 a.m., according to East Hampton Village Police Chief Gerard Larsen, who oversees the dispatchers that took the 911 call. The caller reported a person had been "runover by a piece of machinery."

The Montauk Fire Department responded with two ambulances and its heavy rescue squad. A medevac helicopter landed at the Montauk Airport, also on East Lake Drive, and transported the patient to Stony Brook University Hospital, a trauma center. However, the helicopter landed a short time later in Southampton, and the patient was taken to Southampton Hospital.

A portion of East Lake Drive was closed between Homeward and Pocohontos Lanes.

Police were not immediately available for comment. Check back as more details become available. 

It hit zero degrees Fahrenheit in Noyac early Sunday morning. An email from someone in northeastern Montauk told me it hit 5 degrees there. I haven’t recorded a zero temperature since 1979 when I moved here. I’ve had an outside thermometer up for almost all of those 36-plus years, so this may have been the coldest temperature the Noyac-Sag Harbor area has witnessed since that time. But alas, I cannot verify my claim.

I can no longer call up my favorite weatherman of the century, Richard Hendrickson, who always had the correct answer to my queries. That wonderful man passed from us two weeks ago.

A few days before that cold one, it was 60 degrees and I could see insects in flight from my window. (I hope they were overwintering mosquitoes, which came out of their torpor for a few hours only to freeze to death prematurely.) Active mosquitoes cannot survive zero temperatures. However, if secreted and “hibernating” in a safe, semi-warm spot, they can survive many winters.

With global warming in the wings, the distribution of all of nature’s living things, including mosquitoes, is in flux. Mosquitoes, of all of the disease-carrying vector organisms, are by far the worst, much worse than ticks, sand flies, rats, white-footed mice, and all the rest of them. It is particularly important that we watch what happens to foreign mosquito immigrants as the upper latitudes warm up. Already, perhaps, the worst of the disease-bearing mosquitoes, Aedes aegypti, that carries a potpourri of disease microbes and viruses including dengue, malaria, and, now, Zika, has established from a tropical base in Florida, Texas, Hawaii, and, within the last four years, in Washington, D.C. 

In the first quarter of the past century there were a few cases of malaria in western Long Island, which prompted the creation of mosquito control districts with offices, staff, and equipment to protect us all. Before we were able to determine which mosquito species — ones that bred only in freshwater, or those which bred in both freshwater and saltwater — were responsible, we took steps to eradicate them all. These districts treated both fresh and salt waters. Ponds were covered over with oil, ditches were dug throughout Long Island’s saltmarshes, miles and miles of them. In East Hampton alone, more than 50 miles of such ditches, two to three feet wide and one to two feet deep, were dug, with special shovels distributed by Franklin Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration. Multiply those 50 miles, principally in Northwest Creek, Accabonac Harbor, and Napeague Harbor marshes, by the rest of the towns on Long Island, many with more salt marshes than East Hampton, and you end up with more than 1,000 miles of such interconnected, crisscrossing, tidal inroads across the island.

The oil on the surface of freshwaters was to prevent the mosquito larvae from getting oxygen. The ditches were to allow the tidal waters to move in and out, drain the tops of the marshes more quickly, and let the killifish and other predators get to the larvae before they metamorphosed into adult mosquitoes and flew out of the marsh.

Lots of ecological damage was caused by all of these ditches. Ditch reed, Eurasian phragmites, moved in to occupy the mounds of dirt left beside each ditch, the water drained off the marsh too quickly, and the peaty banks of the ditches eroded more quickly by ice and storms. Thus the area of each ditch marsh covered with spartina grasses and other native saltmarsh species receded.

Suffolk County Vector Control no longer creates new ditches or clears out older ones, and no longer spreads oil on the surface of mosquito-breeding ponds. While the department used to treat marshes with DDT and other poisons, that hasn’t been done for more than 50 years now. The poisons have been replaced by bacteria which are pathenogenic to mosquito larvae, such as Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis (Bti) and methoprene, a synthetic hormone, which prevents the larvae from metamorphosing into adults. Of these, Bti is the least harmful to non-target species, while methoprene can also inhibit molting and achieving adulthood in a wide array of marine organisms, including insects such as saltmarsh dragonflies and crustaceans such as crabs and lobsters.

Both of these agents are used by county vector control in Accabonac Harbor and Napeague. The latter area just may be the most mosquito-prone area on the South Fork.

On the other hand, there are at least two mosquito-borne diseases on Long Island, equine encephalitis and West Nile disease. We’ve experienced both in Suffolk County, the former in Montauk as well, and each year “mosquito pools” with West Nile viruses are found here and there across Long Island and, for that matter, throughout most of the United States.

But what is truly scary is dengue fever and the Zika virus running rampant in Brazil, Colombia, and other Latin American countries. It’s only a matter of time before these diseases spread deep into the United States as it continues to warm up during the millennium, principally as a result of the redistribution northward of the number-one carrier, Aedes aegypti.

And what about the other introductions? The Asian tiger mosquito is rampant on Long Island. It is not yet a serious vector for any disease, but mosquito species tend to evolve almost as quickly as they spread.

There are some very efficient natural controls, including the saltmarsh dragonfly and killifish and the becoming-naturalized mosquitofish, Gambusia affinis. Killifish live in fresh, brackish, and saltwater. Some birds such as swallows and flycatchers, our wood pewees, phoebes, and great-crested flycatchers, as well as some bats, also can feed on flying mosquitoes.

One biocontrol method that has been tried locally, and which is working, is also good for the saltmarsh. East Hampton, with the help of Emerson Hasbrouck and Cornell Cooperative Extension, has applied it to about 20 miles of marsh in Accabonac Harbor and Northwest Creek. The vector control ditches are dammed at their outfalls with sandbags or piles of sand, to the level that only lets the top of flood tides in and flood tides out during the tidal cycle. Thus there is almost always enough water behind the dams to support killifish and other organisms, including dragonfly larvae that feed on mosquito larvae.

The dams also prevent the water from leaving the top of the marsh too quickly during flood tides, which is good for the native marsh plants but hard on phragmites, and tend to keep the E. coli bacteria from defecation by wildlife species and waterfowl in the ditches and out of the adjacent shellfish waters. As the ditches mature they tend to repopulate with spartina grasses as well, thus increasing the amount of good vegetation coverage.

Another advantage of these dams not too long ago discovered by Dr. Christopher Gobler and his graduate student Stephanie Talmage Forsberg, now a Ph.D. graduate from SUNY Stony Brook and a former East Hampton Town Trustee, was that the water coming out of the dammed ditches on the falling tide had less nitrates and nitrogent products in it than the water behind the dams. In Accabonac Harbor, for example, many of the ditches are down-gradient from homes with septics, a major source of nitrogenous materials.

We can’t stop global warming in its tracks, but in the long run biological controls such as those practiced in East Hampton since the mid-1990s, and others being developed around the globe such as genetically modified adult male mosquitoes — first developed in England and now being loosed against the Zika and dengue viruses crisis in Brazil — give the larvae stemming from fertilization a condition which prevents them from maturing into adults. Such non-toxic controls, once perfected and applied, will be the best way to keep salt marsh mosquito populations down, and good for the salt marshes and the coastal waters they border on and help cleanse.

A bit ironical, isn’t it, that the synthetic hormone which prevents the mosquito larvae from attaining adulthood and flight, is the same one that keeps the saltmarsh dragonflies that feed on mosquitoes from becoming dragonflies? 

Larry Penny can be reached via email at [email protected].

A Springs man who crashed a 2007 Saab into the woods off Old Stone Highway in Amagansett on Monday morning had to be given the life-saving drug Narcan after East Hampton Town police found him unresponsive in the driver’s seat.

Kenneth J. Morsch, 27, was revived by the drug, an emergency nasal spray that is administered in cases of an apparent overdose involving an opioid drug, such as heroin.

Police said they found a hypodermic needle in the car. Mr. Morsch was taken to Southampton Hospital, accompanied by an officer who had charged him with driving while high on drugs. At the hospital, he consented to have his blood drawn. The sample will be tested by the Suffolk County Crime Lab.

Because of his condition, police said, he was released to the hospital staff, to be treated. He is scheduled to be arraigned in East Hampton Town Justice Court on Wednesday.

For Mr. Morsch, it was an almost exact repeat of an earlier incident. On March 17, 2011, Southampton Town police found him semiconscious behind the wheel of a car that had crashed into a tree off Great Hill Road in North Sea. He had a syringe with heroin in it on the passenger seat, police reported.

Besides the drug charge, he was charged with drunken driving, both misdemeanors, but was allowed to plead guilty in Southampton Town Justice Court to a reduced charge of driving under the influence of alcohol, a violation. 

According to court observers, it is unlikely that Mr. Morsch, a local musician, will be given the same opportunity on his second trip through the justice system.

While the frigid weather kept most people off the roads, another local artist was arrested this past week after a car crash also off Old Stone Highway in Amagansett.

Martin K. Megna of Sag Harbor, 59, lost control of his 2004 Chevrolet Silverado pickup truck last Thursday night at a fork in the road with Town Lane. His truck sustained severe front-end damage, but Mr. Megna was apparently unhurt. Failing roadside sobriety tests and charged with driving while intoxicated, he took the breath test at town police headquarters in Wainscott, which, police said, produced a reading of 0.22, well over twice the legal level. He now faces a more serious misdemeanor charge of aggravated D.W.I.

Mr. Megna, who produces hand-blown glass, was released the next morning without bail, but with a future date on East Hampton Town Justice Steven Tekulsky’s criminal calendar.

Judiann Carmack-Fayyaz has many responsibilities at the Bridgehampton School, among them teaching classes in nutrition and botany and running the school’s garden and greenhouse program. Ms. Carmack-Fayyaz is the founder of Edible School Gardens, an organization of representatives of similar garden and greenhouse programs, and is the governor of the New York State chapter of Slow Food USA.

In recognition of her work, Ms. Carmack-Fayyaz is one of the recipients this year of a national award for excellence from the Department of Agriculture. She has also received the 2016 New York Agriculture in the Classroom Teacher of the Year Award. The national award was announced Tuesday. It will be presented at a conference in Arizona later this year, during which she will make a brief presentation.

“The ways in which you weave agricultural concepts into opportunities for teaching and learning inspires students, teachers, and families,” Katie Bigness, the coordinator of New York Agriculture in the Classroom, which is based at Cornell University, said in a letter to Ms. Carmack-Fayyaz. “We are pleased to recognize your innovative teaching of agriculture throughout your curriculum with this honor.”

For Ms. Carmack-Fayyaz, the national and state awards are a validation of her efforts. “I’ve been working really, really hard these past couple of years,” she said in an interview Tuesday. “It was really deeply fulfilling to get this kind of recognition. It was a real gift.” She said she hopes the awards “broadcast the message . . . that this work can be done anywhere in a similar vein.”

To earn the national award, Ms. Carmack-Fayyaz submitted a lesson plan geared for high school students that incorporated history and scientific problem solving. After providing a background in the ways food has been produced over time, the lesson challenged students to “be the scientists of the future” by exploring ways to grow enough plants to support a projected world population of nine billion by the year 2050. It also incorporated hydroponic cultivation.

“I am inspired to teach in a way that wasn’t available to me when I was in high school,” Ms. Carmack-Fayyaz said. In her tenth year at the Bridgehampton School, Ms. Carmack-Fayyaz also teaches robotics, digital photography, and other technologies. “There are many students who learn by doing and who have interests that transcend academics. I also love what I do because I hope to model what lifelong learning should look like.”