The Federal Bureau of Investigation arrested a Springs woman early Tuesday, charging her with being part of a scheme that used local banks and local addresses to defraud seven elderly people across the country of at least $697,000. The F.B.I. is searching for an East Hampton man and a Hampton Bays woman in connection with the alleged scheme.

Ana P. Leon, 50, also known as Ana P. Gonzalez, was taken into custody at her house at 112 Sycamore Drive in Springs. She was scheduled to be arraigned in front of United States Magistrate Judge Steven A. Locke in the U.S. District Court on Tuesday afternoon. Ivan D. Pelaez, 51, of East Hampton, and Sandra E. Leon, 47, also known as Sandra E. Chavarria, of Hampton Bays, are now on the F.B.I.’s wanted list.

The trio opened multiple bank accounts in Manhattan, Amagansett, and East Hampton, as well as mailing addresses in all three, the United States Eastern District Attorney’s office said in a release on Tuesday.

Using a series of aliases, they then began contacting elderly people across the country, telling them they had won a sweepstakes, according to the complaint filed in court Tuesday by Victor Gerardi, a special agent with the F.B.I. The scam was in operation from September 2012 to June 2014, the complaint says.

The complaint details seven victims, all but one 80 or older. One, who was 90, has since died. It is not clear from the complaint how they selected their victims, who were all living in different states. Agent Gerardi, who has been with the force for over 20 years and specializes in various forms of fraud, said the three would take turns, using a variety of aliases, telling the victims that they were the winners of a sweepstakes. The three used cellphones with the 202 Washington, D.C., area code, frequently stating that they were with government agencies.

Most of the victims were told they had won $3.5 million and needed to pay taxes and fees before they could receive the money. All seven victims complied, sending checks to post office boxes in Amagansett, East Hampton, and Hampton Bays, as well as a Manhattan address.

One victim was taken for $250,000, another, almost $200,000.

The banks at which the three set up accounts were Wells Fargo, Bridgehampton National Bank, Chase, Bank of America, and Citibank.

Investigators from Wells Fargo’s fraud unit became suspicious in the fall of 2013 after a relative of a victim who had paid almost $250,000 to an account in the name of Ana P. Leon contacted the bank. Ms. Leon had given 4 Rowman Court in Springs as her address.

The bank then called the number it had on file for Ms. Leon, who allegedly answered. When she was asked what the money the victim had paid out was being used for, Ms. Leon reportedly said that she couldn’t talk because she was in an airport and hung up. The agent said that the F.B.I. is in possession of video from the bank showing Ms. Leon making a withdrawal from the account in August 2013. It is not clear from the complaint whether the trio closed the account after that or not.

Mr. Pelaez allegedly used a 16 Bay View Drive, East Hampton, address to open a post office box and bank accounts. That property is owned by Olivia Pelaez, according to the complaint.

The specific charges against Ms. Leon were to be unsealed during her Tuesday afternoon arraignment.

Tentative budget numbers released last Thursday by East Hampton Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell call for $73.5 million in town spending next year, up from $71.5 million. The proposed $2 million, or 2.76-percent, increase will be offset in part by $910,000 in savings, reducing the amount to be raised by taxes and keeping it below the New York State mandated 2-percent cap.

“The 2016 budget increases enforcement personnel and our ability to enforce the law and codes throughout the community,” Mr. Cantwell said in a press release. That, Mr. Cantwell said, “will allow the town to more effectively identify and prosecute abuses, reduce the occurrences of violations by increased presence, and refine the adopted codes and ordinances with strong new legislation.”

The total amount to be raised by taxes would increase by $176,732 or 1.8 percent. Because assessed values have increased, however, tax rates would rise by 1.67 percent for the majority of residents, to $29.38 per $100 of assessed value. For those with a house valued at $1 million, that would equal $34.

Tax rates would increase by only .48 percent for those who live within East Hampton or Sag Harbor Villages, with a $4 increase estimated for those with million-dollar houses, and the proposed tax rate at $11.69 per $100.

While the board “made great strides” this year toward that goal, the supervisor said, the tentative budget for next year “funds permanent staffing to ensure we continue this positive momentum.” In addition, the supervisor said the tentative budget addresses “planning needs for infrastructure improvements.” Meanwhile, he said, the budget maintains “strong financial and budgetary controls that have resulted in the town achieving its highest credit rating in nearly 10 years.”

If adopted as proposed, one fire marshal, one code enforcement officer, and three additional police officers would be hired. Along with positions filled this year, including a new assistant town attorney and a new building inspector, salaries and benefits would come to $625,000.

These positions, Mr. Cantwell said in his budget message, “will improve the town’s ability to identify violations, enforce the codes, prosecute offenders, and draft new legislation.” The hires will bring the number of Ordinance Enforcement Department officers to 7, and police officers to 65.

The budget adds two seasonal Parks Department workers to expand summer garbage and litter programs, as well as $825,000 for part-time seasonal help and overtime costs in the Marine Patrol and Police Departments.

Mr. Cantwell’s budget would make use of just over $1 million from surplus funds and reserves. At present, all of the town’s major funds, except for the scavenger waste fund, are in the black, with surpluses ranging from 21 to 34 percent. At the close of 2016, increases in most of those surplus amounts are anticipated, except for the highway and airport funds, with the latter expected to decrease by 2 percent. The $322,271 deficit in the scavenger waste fund this year would go down by $100,000, to $222,271, under the tentative budget.

Overall town indebtedness is projected to decline, from $104 million to $98 million, under the tentative budget. In recent years, the town has reduced its debt payments by keeping new debt — borrowing for capital projects —  below the amount that is being paid off each year. That policy, as well as refinancing existing debt to take advantage of lower interest rates, will achieve a $315,000 savings next year.A reduction in mandated state retirement system contributions will save the town $580,000, and closing the scavenger waste processing plant and transfer facility will save $15,000.

 If the budget is approved, the budget in the airport fund would increase next year by over 22 percent, to $5.9 million. Just over $1 million is allocated on the “outside professional” line, up from $270,000 this year. Litigation as a result of the town’s attempts to reduce airport noise is ongoing, and lawyers’ fees would be on this line.

Also included in the budget is $50,000 for engineering for infrastructure improvements, $22,000 to upgrade the town website, and $155,000 for water quality monitoring and improvements.

Outside cultural, educational, and human services groups that would receive funding under the proposed budget include Phoenix House, with $50,000 for its substance abuse counseling. The South Fork Health Initiative, which focuses on mental health, would receive $25,000, and the Retreat, a domestic violence services agency,  $5,000.

Funding for children’s services at the Eleanor Whitmore Early Childhood Center is budgeted at $80,000, Project Most, the after-school program, at $35,000, the Montauk Youth program, at $5,000, and the Pediatric Dental Fund, at $2,500.

The East End Disabilities Group would receive $5,000, the East End Special Players, $10,000, and the East Hampton Historical Society, $20,000, earmarked for Second House in Montauk.

The town board will review the budget and discuss suggested changes. A preliminary budget will be the subject of a hearing that, according to state law, must be held before Nov. 15. The budget for next year must be adopted by Nov. 20.

That a national task force recently endorsed widespread screening of adolescents for what is called major depressive disorder resonates here among school officials, health professionals, and individuals who have lost family members to suicide.

In issuing its recommendation for screenings, the Preventative Services Task Force said they would only be beneficial if comprehensive resources are in place to support those who are eventually diagnosed — and that may not be the case now on the East End. According to The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, major depression is now the second leading cause of death among those 15 to 24.

The mental health of teenagers and young adults touches a deep, dark place in the local community. In the last three years, two young adults — David Hernandez Barros, 16, and Tyler Valcich, 20 — took their own lives. While depression was not identified as a specific cause of the latter death, his mother, Valinda Valcich of Montauk, has founded the Tyler Project to raise awareness and prevent suicides among young people.

Adam Fine, the principal of East Hampton High School, said in an email that he would like to see “some form of screening for depression or even suicidal tendencies.” Last year, according to high school administrators, more than 50 students were referred to the East Hampton branch of the Family Service League, resulting in 20 undergoing psychiatric evaluation and 9 being hospitalized.

 “The challenge, Mr. Fine said, is the time it takes to complete and the additional resources needed to help these children who have been deemed at risk.”

“There is no inpatient or otherwise psychiatric program at Southampton Hospital, and that’s typically the case in most small community hospitals,” Robert Chaloner, chief executive officer of Southampton Hospital, said by phone this week.

Mr. Chaloner agreed with others in the local mental health community that more widespread screenings for depression among te­en­agers would be beneficial. “I think that’s a great idea,” he said. “The logistics would be important, involving the parents . . . and getting more people and providers involved.” However, he added that the goal was “really not to have a unit. . . . That would be the wrongmore resources close to home so that the kids in crisis can see someone right away.”

He reported that the hospital is actively looking for another psychiatrist to add to its mental health staff, which now consists of one psychiatrist, one psychiatric nurse-practitioner, and a handful of social workers. The hospital’s impending merger with Stony Brook University Hospital should also help expand resources, he said.

For Ms. Valcich, the existing screening gap took a personal toll. She suggested screenings should occur during annual school physicals, although she said they should be subtle to avoid perpetuating a stigma associated with mental illness  as students enter eighth grade or high school.

“If we can catch these children’s issues beforehand . . . there would be a better chance of getting these children help,” she said. She took issue with local providers’ waiting lists and costs, and said youth experiencing extreme crises have to travel all the way to Stony Brook University Hospital for help.

“Therein lies the biggest problem — resources,” she said. “These kids are falling through the cracks.”

Larry Weiss, the chief program officer of the East Hampton branch of the Family Service League, said in an email this week, however, that it was “way too simple to ascribe the problems to lack of services, remoteness of the East End, or anything special about the population.”

“Without early identification and prevention, the clinic system will never be able to keep up with the demand,” he said, adding, “It isn’t inevitable for early emotional problems to evolve into treatment-requiring problems.”

The Community Behavioral Health Collaborative, a new program here of which Mr. Weiss is a member, has been at work identifying emotional and mental health not just in teens but in younger children, too. It recently received a boost in state funding through the South Fork Behavioral Health Initiative.

“When we consider that assistance to children and youth means that we also reduce adult problems and the impact on social and economic factors — divorce, family violence, child maltreatment, vocational failures, chemical dependency, et cetera — a better perspective becomes evident,” Mr. Weiss said.

That a national task force recently endorsed widespread screening of adolescents for what is called major depressive disorder resonates here among school officials, health professionals, and individuals who have lost family members to suicide.

In issuing its recommendation for screenings, the Preventative Services Task Force said they would only be beneficial if comprehensive resources are in place to support those who are eventually diagnosed — and that may not be the case now on the East End. According to The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, major depression is now the second leading cause of death among those 15 to 24.

The mental health of teenagers and young adults touches a deep, dark place in the local community. In the last three years, two young adults — David Hernandez Barros, 16, and Tyler Valcich, 20 — took their own lives. While depression was not identified as a specific cause of the latter death, his mother, Valinda Valcich of Montauk, has founded the Tyler Project to raise awareness and prevent suicides among young people.

Adam Fine, the principal of East Hampton High School, said in an email that he would like to see “some form of screening for depression or even suicidal tendencies.” Last year, according to high school administrators, more than 50 students were referred to the East Hampton branch of the Family Service League, resulting in 20 undergoing psychiatric evaluation and 9 being hospitalized.

 “The challenge, Mr. Fine said, is the time it takes to complete and the additional resources needed to help these children who have been deemed at risk.”

“There is no inpatient or otherwise psychiatric program at Southampton Hospital, and that’s typically the case in most small community hospitals,” Robert Chaloner, chief executive officer of Southampton Hospital, said by phone this week.

Mr. Chaloner agreed with others in the local mental health community that more widespread screenings for depression among te­en­agers would be beneficial. “I think that’s a great idea,” he said. “The logistics would be important, involving the parents . . . and getting more people and providers involved.” However, he added that the goal was “really not to have a unit. . . . That would be the wrongmore resources close to home so that the kids in crisis can see someone right away.”

He reported that the hospital is actively looking for another psychiatrist to add to its mental health staff, which now consists of one psychiatrist, one psychiatric nurse-practitioner, and a handful of social workers. The hospital’s impending merger with Stony Brook University Hospital should also help expand resources, he said.

For Ms. Valcich, the existing screening gap took a personal toll. She suggested screenings should occur during annual school physicals, although she said they should be subtle to avoid perpetuating a stigma associated with mental illness  as students enter eighth grade or high school.

“If we can catch these children’s issues beforehand . . . there would be a better chance of getting these children help,” she said. She took issue with local providers’ waiting lists and costs, and said youth experiencing extreme crises have to travel all the way to Stony Brook University Hospital for help.

“Therein lies the biggest problem — resources,” she said. “These kids are falling through the cracks.”

Larry Weiss, the chief program officer of the East Hampton branch of the Family Service League, said in an email this week, however, that it was “way too simple to ascribe the problems to lack of services, remoteness of the East End, or anything special about the population.”

“Without early identification and prevention, the clinic system will never be able to keep up with the demand,” he said, adding, “It isn’t inevitable for early emotional problems to evolve into treatment-requiring problems.”

The Community Behavioral Health Collaborative, a new program here of which Mr. Weiss is a member, has been at work identifying emotional and mental health not just in teens but in younger children, too. It recently received a boost in state funding through the South Fork Behavioral Health Initiative.

“When we consider that assistance to children and youth means that we also reduce adult problems and the impact on social and economic factors — divorce, family violence, child maltreatment, vocational failures, chemical dependency, et cetera — a better perspective becomes evident,” Mr. Weiss said.

A young couple who bought a house on Queens Lane in East Hampton wound up losing hard-earned money and being evicted in February when the Suffolk County sheriff’s office showed up at the door.

“I was seven months pregnant. There was two feet of snow outside,” Amanda Keyser said Monday. “It was a 72-hour eviction notice.”

Ms. Keyser was describing what happened 11 months after she and her husband thought they had purchased the house, at 128 Queens Lane, from Hampton Dream Properties, which is run by Michael O’Sullivan and has addresses in Remsenburg and on Fort Pond Boulevard in Springs.

With a baby on the way, and a son who is now 5, the two-bedroom, one-bathroom house seemed perfect. It had been in foreclosure for years, Ms. Keyser said. Her husband, Shaun Jones, a Montauk commercial fisherman, had several friends who had bought houses through Mr. O’Sullivan’s company, with an East Hampton man, Gerry Kucher, the real estate broker.

The website for Hampton Dream Properties L.L.C. describes itself as a “real estate investment company specializing in houses in foreclosure and pre-foreclosure.” The site goes on to say, “For over three years we have fought with banks all the way to the Supreme Court and have helped countless homeowners in the process.”

The company buys and sells at prices that are significantly below market. The Queens Lane house cost $160,000, according to the recorded deed listed in The East Hampton Star last year. Ms. Keyser, an East Hampton native, and Mr. Jones paid $55,000 up front, taking out a five-year mortgage for the balance.

Then came sweat equity, along with $80,000 to renovate the house, which was dilapidated. They replaced floors and walls, and were almost done, putting off reshingling until spring, when the sheriff came knocking.

After being served with the eviction notice, the couple called Mr. O’Sullivan. He insisted the sheriff was wrong and that the deed was free and clear of liens, Ms. Keyser said. Ms. Keyser learned that one of the several banks that had held the debt on the previous failed mortgage had challenged Mr. O’Sullivan’s right to sell the property, and had won the case. The couple were forced to place most of their belongings in storage and to move in with Mr. Jones’s parents in Montauk.

When they demanded their money back, they said Mr. O’Sullivan refused, offering instead to put them in another house temporarily until he found a permanent replacement. The couple refused the offer. Eventually, they said, Mr. O’Sullivan refunded the purchase price, but they are out the $80,000 they put into the house and are also paying off a loan they took out for its renovation, as well as a monthly storage fee.

“We were lucky,” Ms. Keyser said, alleging that “he is selling houses he doesn’t own.” Mr. O’Sullivan did not return calls asking for comment this week.

Meanwhile, another website calling itself Hampton Dream Properties has sprung up, which says Mr. O’Sullivan and his attorneys have been “reported to state and federal authorities.” It also lists seven houses in East Hampton, Amagansett, and Montauk, alleging that victims had lost large, and specific, sums of money.

Perry Duryea III was thanked by the Fighting Chance cancer organization at his restaurant on Tuthill Road overlooking Fort Pond Bay on Friday and presented with a portrait of himself painted by Paul Davis, a well-known artist and friend of Fighting Chance’s founder, Duncan Darrow.

Before the lunch began, Mr. Darrow said that when Mr. Davis offered to paint something for the organization that helps cancer patients navigate appointments, insurance, and other challenges, the staff decided the picture should be of a cancer survivor. Mr. Darrow immediately thought of Mr. Duryea, he said. “He’s a really great person.”

Mr. Duryea, who is known as Chip, fought colon cancer for almost seven years and is now cancer-free. Immediately after he started treatment, he founded a support group that meets at his restaurant monthly, except in July and August. He was also a Fighting Chance board member for several years and has hosted a late-summer or early-fall lunch at the restaurant for six years.

Mr. Davis drove to the hamlet to visit Mr. Duryea in early summer and took many photographs, at every angle of his face, and familiarized himself with the dockside surroundings. The finished painting is a likeness of Mr. Duryea, with seagulls overhead. His eyes match the light blue of the shirt he is wearing in the portrait.

Mr. Davis painted two pictures of Mr. Duryea, one for his office in the fish house, and the other to be placed in the Fighting Chance office in Sag Harbor. That painting is slightly different, with a Fighting Chance logo in navy blue on an orange life ring above Mr. Duryea’s right shoulder.

When the two paintings were unveiled, a murmur went through the crowd.

“It really reflects Chip,” Mr. Darrow said. Karrie Zampini Robinson, the director of Fighting Chance’s clinical program and its oncology social care worker, said she could see in the portrait Mr. Duryea’s resilience and kindness.

The Springs School facilities committee appears poised to recommend a multimillion-dollar bond referendum to pay for more portable classrooms or permanent classrooms, a new gym, and a science, technology, and arts laboratory, along with numerous infrastructure repairs. The committee will present its recommendations at the Oct. 5 school board meeting.

The committee, which consists of community members, parents, and school administrators and teachers, was not unanimous in its recommendation for a bond proposal. According to the results of a Sept. 16 questionnaire, which each member answered anonymously, 12 members agreed the school has a space problem and the questionnaire yielded a 10-to-2 tally in favor of a referendum. One member did not answer “yes” or “no.”

Considering how to deal with overcrowding in the school, the committee appeared divided on whether to bring prekindergarten students back on campus from the Most Holy Trinity Catholic School building in East Hampton. However, most members favored bringing kindergartners and firstgraders into the building from their current spaces in modular classrooms and Springs Youth Association buildings. To do so would require building more classrooms in or onto the school.

The committee fine-tuned its decision on Tuesday night, at which time it turned to the idea of adding more temporary portable classrooms. That was not among the recommendations made by Roger Smith of BBS Architects and Engineers, the Patchogue firm that assisted the committee during four meetings over the last four months.

 Mr. Smith had previously projected that adding four temporary classrooms for three years would cost about $1.06 million, and said the project would under any circumstances take a few years to complete due to lengthy state approval and design and construction processes.

The committee grappled on Tuesday with its lack of a short-term solution.

“We know what we want, what we would like to see, but how do we get it faster than a five or six-year plan?” asked Jodie Hallman, a first-grade teacher at the school. “I would love to see if we could do it faster or in phases. These are things that, program-wise, we need.”

The committee has also struggled with whether a bond referendum would be well received. “I’m just concerned that we could have another referendum which the taxpayers in Springs aren’t going to go for. I think our referendum has to be on what we need, and not what we want. There has to be a prioritization,” said Susan Harder, a committee member. “I’m also trying to be realistic about what the community can handle.”

John J. Finello, the Springs superintendent, received a copy of the results of the committee’s questionnaire last week. In an interview Tuesday, Mr. Finello said, “We appreciate the findings of the committee and look forwardo discussing it with the board.”

The committee began developing its report the same week the school board president acknowledged there may have been a misstep with its interactions with BBS Architects, which has been helping Springs deal with its space problem since early 2014.

In an email last week, Liz Mendelman, president of the Springs School Board, confirmed that the board never passed a resolution approving payment to BBS Architects for a spatial analysis of the school and related architectural designs. “It was an oversight,” she said.

According to a Jan. 20, 2014, letter from the firm to Mr. Finello, the initial project was to cost  $8,000. However, the invoices sent from BBS Architects to the school, obtained by Freedom of Information Act request, show the work expanding in scope and rising in cost from the start.

The district’s first payment amounted to more than $12,000 and subsequent invoices totaled more than $34,000. There was no discussion of a cap on the cost, Mr. Smith said by phone yesterday. The school has only paid the firm about $26,500 so far. The district had $3,000 budgeted for architectural services during the 2013-14 school year, but, in addition to BBS, it spent $5,060 for work by Chaleff and Rogers of Water Mill for the renovation of the front entrance of the school. The extra architectural expenses were covered by a capital reserve fund.

BBS Architects has worked free of charge since May, when two of its architects began working with the Springs facilities committee.

Mr. Finello has consistently praised Mr. Smith, with whom he had worked while superintendent of the Huntington School District. On Tuesday, he declined to comment on the resolution oversight or rising project costs.

In an email this week, Ms. Mendelman explained that Mr. Smith and his team publicly presented the proposed spatial analysis and related concept proposal during the Feb. 10, 2014, board meeting “prior to the board voting on a resolution.”

“It was an oversight that the resolution was not on the agenda,” she wrote. “If there are any outstanding/unpaid invoices for BBS, then the board would need to have a resolution to authorize payment.”

The East Hampton Library could hardly have found a more suitable incarnation of local history than the old waterman Bruce Collins to close out its inaugural Tom Twomey lecture series on Saturday. Speaking off the cuff with only the aid of old maps and photographs, many of which he himself had donated to the library, Mr. Collins kept a sizable audience, which had renounced the season’s last 80-degree afternoon to hear him, enthralled.

Promised Land, that eastern arc of Amagansett on Gardiner’s Bay where menhaden-processing factories once thrived, was Mr. Collins’s ultimate destination, but he took a short detour along the way to talk about oysters. Not so very long ago, he said, the North and South Forks had a huge oyster industry, so huge that on a visit to Greenport in 1937 he remembers seeing “piles of oyster shells as big as two-story houses.” (So it looked to a 7-year-old, anyway.)

Oysters were prized depending on where they came from, he said, and some of the finest were found in the waters between Old Fireplace Road in Springs and Gardiner’s Island. In those days town governments leased out the bottomlands around Peconic and Gardiner’s Bays to private parties and a few companies, who would stake out their territory to warn off trespassers. Mr. Collins thinks the rental moneys may have gone to the local school districts. In any event, he recalled, grimacing, “it was a nightmare running a boat through there, especially at night. You might get a tree trunk stuck up through the boat.”

Dennis Fabiszak, the director of the library, who was manning the PowerPoint screen, flashed a close-up of a 1930s-era map showing some of the leased oysterbeds. “That’s the only map of its kind I’ve ever seen,” said Mr. Collins, but for whom the map would never have seen the light of day.

He explained why: “In the winter of 1960, I was a town councilman. The ground was frozen, but then we had a warm spell, and a pond developed,” near where Goldberg’s is now. “Water built up and got into the conduit, which came into the cellar of Town Hall. The basement was flooded. Hundreds of documents — books, records, surveys — were covered with mud. They were loading them into cars and throwing them out.”

He spotted the old map in thesoggy mess. “I asked Bill Bain, the supervisor, if I could have it. He said it was old and no one used it anymore. I took it home and cleaned it up.”

A few years ago, Mr. Collins got a phone call from Mr. Twomey with a question about fishing, “and it ended with him saying, ‘So, I’ll see you at 4 p.m. Friday,’ ” when the library’s board of directors was to meet. “I’ve never been a library person,” he said, but he went to the meeting anyway and then became a member of the board. Then he discovered the library’s highly regarded Long Island Collection, which pretty soon came to include the rescued map.

Mr. Collins, who spent some of the most memorable years of his life on menhaden-fishing steamers, was surprised to find that the collection contained nothing about the Promised Land processing factories, once such a huge contributor to the economy of eastern Long Island that the area had a postal address of its own.

“These fish were put on the face of the earth just to feed other fish,” he said, as a blown-up photo of a menhaden — people here say “bunker” or “mossbunker” — came on the screen. “They have no teeth. They swim in huge schools with their mouths open. You can cast into a school of a million bunkers all day long and never catch one. They’re not going to take your lure.”

“When you’re eating swordfish at Gosman’s, you’re really eating bunkers.”

Menhaden fleets catch the oily, bony fish “by the billions” every year, said Mr. Collins; in the past by hand, now with a crane and hydraulic block controlling the enormous nets. “Setting light, without fish, the boat draws five feet; loaded it draws 12 feet to the bow. At times I’ve seen the fish so heavy that they actually take the boat underwater.”

Ten boats, with about 280 men, himself among them, fished out of Promised Land from 1954 to 1960. In a conversation on Sunday, Mr. Collins recalled how he, the son of a man who owned a retail fuel business, came to be on the water: “From the age of 15, every summer in high school, I went on lobster boats. I ran one of Emerson Taber’s boats at age 17. Later I went as crew with Cap’n Carl Erickson, the best trawlerman I ever knew. We fished here in summer and Morehead City, N.C., in winter.” He never went to college.

“In ’54, Cap’n Jack Edwards called me. He wanted me to come on the Shinnecock with him, as coast and harbor pilot.” Mr. Collins was stunned by the offer, he said. “Most of these pilots were in their late years. I was 23.” But he studied up for his U.S. Merchant Marine master pilot rating and was licensed to work from Eastport, Me., to Port Isabel, Tex.

It was his job, he told Saturday’s audience, to “bring the steamer — they’re diesel-driven but we still call them steamers because the original boats were steamers — up against the set and not lose thousands of dollars worth of fish.” Menhaden, said Mr. Collins, are “arguably the most valuable fish that swims, used in maybe 400 or 500 products. Fertilizer, lipstick, margarine, paints of all kinds, pharmaceuticals, turkey pellets. . . .”

The catch was pumped out at the factory, which went by several names, he said: Smith Meal, Atlantic Processing Company, Seacoast Industries. “They were pumped into a big perforated screen and passed over a weighing scale and counted, so we knew at the end of every trip how many we’d got. We flew a U.S. flag on the last trip of the summer because we were the high boat — 30 million fish.”

The fish were pressed in a contraption almost like a wine press, Mr. Collins said, that squeezed out the oil. “The dry part went on to be ground up, and that was used for cattle feed and such.” One hundred percent protein, “it was sent out of here by tanker carloads. Purina, etc., bought it.”

“When that place was cooking you could smell it from here,” he told his listeners, many of whom nodded in recognition. “It just drove the summer colony crazy.”

Mr. Collins has given the Long Island Collection a good number of his photographs and papers relating to Promised Land and the trawlers that supplied it. (There has been much conjecture about the name of the place, but he said it was called that as long ago as the late 19th century, “by black crews from the South. They felt the fish here, especially in the fall with cold water, had more oil than any other fish and brought in more money.”)

Mr. Collins got a huge hand.

Smith Meal shut down in 1968. The factory was taken down and the company sold, to Hanson Ltd., a big industrial complex in England. Today, only one menhaden-processing plant remains on the East Coast, in Reedville, Va. The company, Omega Protein Inc., was fined $7.5 million two years ago under the Clean Water Act for discharging pollutants and harmful amounts of oil into Chesapeake Bay.

Massive wastewater treatment and water quality improvement plans for Hook and Town Ponds were described at an East Hampton Village Board meeting Friday, calling for projects such as a groundwater treatment system running along Egypt Lane, a sewage treatment facility under the triangular open space between Egypt and Middle Lanes for 87 properties, and the construction of a wetland.

Pio Lombardo of Lombardo Associates, who was hired by both the village and town to identify water quality problems and come up with solutions, spoke of a costly and years-long process.

“We know the patient is very ill,” Mr. Lombardo said. However, “We’ve made tremendous progress. We’ve taken the plan recommendations and started the implementation process.”

Three preliminary engineering plans have been developed for the village, and grant applications already have been submitted to prospective funding agencies, Mr. Lombardo said. 

Near Town Pond, a system to treat stormwater from Route 27, James Lane, and Ocean Avenue would be developed. Eliminating direct discharges into Town Pond is critical, he said. The wetland would filter out phosphorus and nitrogen from water passing through it. An existing system of pipes would have to be relocated to construct the wetland, an effort Mr. Lombardo called “a little complicated.” He proposed that the area be vegetated with help from the Garden Club of East Hampton and other interested organizations.

A groundwater treatment system running parallel to Egypt Lane and the Nature Trail, Mr. Lombardo said, would comprise an approximately six-foot-wide swath in which nitrates would be converted into a gas and phosphorus dissolved into mineral form. That area would be revegetated, Mr. Lombardo said, suggesting its integration into the Nature Trail would “show how, working with nature, water quality improvements can occur.”

A third project would address wastewater systems on 87 properties in the Egypt Lane to North Main Street area that Mr. Lombardo said are “if not in groundwater, awfully close and not getting proper treatment.” He proposed constructing one system at the village-owned triangular green on Egypt Lane.

In addition to projects to improve long-range water quality, existing sediment in Town and Hook Ponds, which builds up and releases nutrients that cause excessive algae growth, wouldhave to be removed. “Without dealing with the sediment, we will not see appreciable water quality improvements.”

The sediment has to be tested before its disposition can be determined, he said. “Can it be reused on residential versus commercial versus industrial property, or does it have to go to a hazardous waste site?” Disposal at such a site would be far costlier, he said. He anticipated three rounds of testing, with the objective to minimize the quantity that would have to be removed and determine the means of excavation. Those sediments rich in phosphorus would be the priority.

A separate taxation district would need to be created, Mr. Lombardo said, which would require approval of voters. “We anticipate other needed improvements will be identified as the program evolves,” he said. “Not least would be any additional stormwater improvements that are going to be necessary.”

Mr. Lombardo suggested that the project be paid for through a proposed change in the law governing the community preservation fund, which would siphon off a percentage of revenue for water quality projects. “I would urge everyone to see that as a huge opportunity for community preservation,” he said, “but for discussion purposes, we need to assume self-funding.”

The board will consider Mr. Lombardo’s proposals at its October work session next Thursday, Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. said.

In other news at the meeting, the board voted unanimously to adopt an amendment to the zoning code prohibiting detached residential garages in front yards. Front-yard garages that have been constructed in recent years, in order to maximize rear yards, are not in keeping with the character of the village’s residential neighborhoods, according to the law’s legislative intent.

The board also approved a code amendment requiring that all garbage receptacles be covered securely at night. This requirement, which already applies to receptacles on commercial premises, was extended to private residential property and construction sites. ­

Richard E. Klein, a science and computer-coding teacher at East Hampton High School, is due in court on Oct. 5 to answer misdemeanor charges that he allowed illegal rentals of his Montauk house during the summer.

East Hampton Town Ordinance Enforcement Department officials said that Mr. Klein, 58, violated local laws twice during August.

An inspector’s sworn statement alleged that the house at 14 Hoover Court was rented by a group of eight people for several days around Aug. 11; the town code allows the rental or use of a property by no more than four unrelated people.

The same ordinance inspector, Aldi Binozi, in a separate document, alleged that Mr. Klein had rented the house three times for a term of less than two weeks between July 10 and Aug. 17; town law allows sub-two-week rentals no more than twice in any six-month period.

In court documents, Mr. Binozi said that one of Mr. Klein’s tenants, Nelson E. Bohorquez, 41, of New Jersey, took a Friday-to-Sunday rental of the Hoover Court house in July, with 10 people paying $350 each.

On Aug. 7, Mr. Binozi reported, another tenant, Alexander W. Stotik, 28, told him he was part of a group of “eight guys staying at this house. We are here for a bachelor party.”

At about 11 that night, East Hampton Town police received a complaint about noise coming from the Hoover Court house.

Neighbors said the party grew over the rental period and continued for more than 24 hours with frequent yelling and taxis coming and going with horns blaring at all hours.

The house is listed in East Hampton tax records as a 954-square-foot, one-story, three-bedroom ranch with a full basement. It has a certificate of occupancy from the town for a deck addition and the conversion of a basement to habitable space. The work was done before Mr. Klein took ownership.

Mr. Klein, whose hours as a teacher at East Hampton High School had been reduced last year amid a budget crunch, had his salary restored to just over $125,000 by the board of education on Sept. 15.

Richard Burns, the East Hampton School District superintendent, said that he had been unaware of the charges and declined further comment.

The case concerning 14 Hoover Court came during an increased effort by East Hampton Town this summer. Others cited for alleged excessive turnover during August included Sandra Saldana of 30 Ocean Boulevard in Springs and Eileen Aivaliotis of 49 Gannet Drive in Montauk, according to Betsy Bambrick, the director of ordinance enforcement for the town.

Mr. Klein pleaded not guilty to the charges in East Hampton Town Justice Court on Aug. 31. His wife, Denise, who is also a teacher at East Hampton High School, was with her husband in court but was not named in the complaint.

During that court appearance, Mr. Klein and the town prosecutor discussed a settlement, but Mr. Klein apparently balked when a condition allowing for official inspections of his house was proposed.

On their way out of town court last month, both declined to comment for this article. “We’re both local teachers, and I don’t think that’s a good idea,” Ms. Klein said.

With Reporting by Doug Kuntz and Christine Sampson

Two men escaped injury by leaping overboard just before their boat was struck by another vessel off Montauk Point last Thursday night. The boat that rammed Nicholas T. Sorbi’s 2001 21-foot-long Seaswirl Striper did not stop and has not been found.

According to Senior Chief Eric Best, the commanding officer of the Montauk Coast Guard station, Mr. Sorbi and his passenger, whose name has not been released, jumped overboard when they realized that the other vessel, approximately 30 feet in length, was going to hit their boat.

The impact damaged the stern and port side of the Striper and disabled its engine.

There were many other boats in the area that night, Chief Best said, and the Coast Guard responded, sending out a 47-foot rescue craft.

The men were out of the water within minutes, he said, and the disabled Striper was towed to the Star Island Coast Guard Station, where it remained as of yesterday. Mr. Sorbi and his passenger returned to Massachusetts, where they live.

Mr. Sorbi’s father, Randall Sorbi, spoke briefly about the incident on Tuesday, saying that he believed police have identified the operator of the vessel that fled. East Hampton Town Police Captain Chris Anderson declined to confirm that investigators know the identity of the missing boat operator.

Anyone with information has been asked to contact police at 537-7575.