Safety first, and more than ever, during this hurricane and tropical storm season, which began in the Atlantic on June 1 and will last until Nov. 30.

As of this morning, Hurricane Arthur was moving north along the coast, and, while there are no land impacts anticipated, "plans at the beach would be the biggest concern," said David Stark, a meteorologist intern for the National Weather Service in Upton. Mr. Stark advises caution with regard to water activities as there are "dangerous currents directly along the coast, rip currents from the churning-up waters, and high surf predicted." 

Saturday's marine weather forecast was for seas up to eight feet with strong northwest winds, conditions that could very well lead to dangerous rip currents. 

Bruce A. Bates, East Hampton's emergency preparedness coordinator, said on Wednesday night that rip currents already exist and surf conditions would only worsen over the weekend. He offered a reminder to swimmers to swim only at lifeguard protected beaches. 

The National Weather Service Hurricane Center, as of 11 a.m. on Thursday, posted that the hurricane's maximum sustained winds were 90 miles per hour and that the storm was 260 miles southwest of Cape Hatteras, North Carolina and 110 miles south-southwest of Cape Fear, North Carolina.

Additionally, forecasters are "seeing potential for thunderstorms and showers starting Thursday, not related the storm itself, but the cold front," explained Mr. Stark.

During hurricane and tropical storm warnings and watches, people can look on the East Hampton and Southampton Town websites as well as that of Suffolk County for detailed guidance. Mr. Bates advises that during a storm, people "monitor local news sources and governmental announcements and follow what is suggested." The Federal Emergency Management Agency, Ready Campaign, Citizen's Corps, the American Red Cross, and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Hurricane Center can offer further information about any hurricane or tropical storm.

After assessing your risk level and finding its corresponding procedure, possible safety measures could include making a family disaster plan, assembling a disaster supply kit to last a minimum of three days, and gathering important documents. Pet owners can visit the Federal Emergency Management Agency website and should know the location of a shelter that accepts animals.

Southampton Town police arrested a Manhattan real estate developer Wednesday at the eastbound Hampton Jitney stop in Bridgehampton after he picked up a package sent from New York.

Barton Mark Perlbinder, 71, who also lives in Sagaponack, was charged with felony possession of prescriptive drugs, illegal on the open market. The package contained quantities of Xanax, Oxycodone pills, and cocaine, according to the police report.

Agents of the Suffolk District Attorney's East End Drug Task Force alerted the Southampton force to the presence of the package, police said. A Southampton Town officer boarded the bus when it reached its Southampton stop at the Jitney's Omni headquarters; other officers were deployed at the Bridgehampton stop, where the pickup was scheduled.

Mr. Perlbinder, 71, was charged with felony possession of a controlled substance and two related misdemeanors.

A bicyclist was rushed to Southampton Hospital on Thursday afternoon after being struck by a vehicle whose driver, police said, was high on an unspecified drug at the time.

The driver, James M. Bayrami, 25, of Sag Harbor was arraigned in East Hampton Town Justice Court on Friday morning on a charge of driving while intoxicated on drugs.

Based on statements made in court on Friday, Mr. Bayrami had been headed south on Route 114 near Goodfriend Drive in East Hampton at about 3 p.m. when his Ford moved onto the road shoulder and struck Steven Ramirez, 26, whose address was not immediately available.

Police arrested Mr. Bayrami and charged him with driving while intoxicated. They have not said was the alleged substance was. At police headquarters, Mr. Bayrami allegedly refused to submit to a blood test.

Mr. Ramirez, 26, sustained what appeared to be serious, though not life-threatening injuries. His condition could not be learned on Friday.

The Nature Conservancy, a conservation organization that works to protect ecologically important lands and waterways, issued a report last week asserting that wastewater from residential septic systems and sewage treatment plants contributes approximately half of the nitrogen pollution found in 25 of 43 areas surveyed within the Peconic Estuary.

Large quantities of nitrogen are leaching from onsite disposal systems into waterways on the South Fork, the report stated, an overabundance of which is blamed for oxygen-depleted water, algal blooms, fin and shellfish kills, and the loss of seagrass and marsh habitat. The areas studied are within the towns of East Hampton, Southampton, Shelter Island, Southold, Brookhaven, and Riverhead.

Fertilizer and atmospheric deposition — the natural accumulation of nitrogen — each account for roughly one-quarter of the nitrogen pollution, the report said. Nitrogen from these sources reaches water bodies through both ground and surface water flow.

“There is no denying that excess nitrogen is the largest threat to Long Island’s beautiful and economically important water bodies,” Nancy Kelley, the executive director of the Nature Conservancy on Long Island, said in a release accompanying the report. The report called on Suffolk and Nassau County officials to act quickly to reduce nitrogen leaching.

Residential septic systems and cesspools, said Chris Clapp, a marine scientist with the Nature Conservancy, “are the majority of the problem. If we don’t address them, we run the risk of giving up our maritime heritage and tourism industry.”

In single-family houses, wastewater from toilets, showers, sinks, and washing machines converge to a single pipe leading to the underground septic tank. The systems are designed so that the effluent — liquid waste discharged from the system — is discharged from the tank into a set of pipes with holes, known as a leach field, through which the effluent is released. It is then filtered by soil or sand.

“The concept was that we lived on a big sandbar and the sand was good at removing pathogens,” Mr. Clapp said of current methods. “Aside from systems near surface water, they’ve done the job okay. But as sea level rises and people build closer to shore, there are many systems that are now tidally influenced: One or two times a month or, in some places, during a storm, the tide comes up, the groundwater rises and floods the septic. When the tide goes out, it takes everything away with it.”

“Most of our septic systems don’t deal with nitrogen,” said Bill Taylor, the town’s waterways management supervisor and an East Hampton Town trustee. “Once you get organic nitrogen in the water system it creates all these algal blooms. We’ve been trying to prevent this for a long time.”

East Hampton Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell pointed to faulty septic systems and “legacy systems around our harbors and bays that were built many years ago before the Health Department and local wetlands laws were created.” The next phase of the town’s wastewater study, he said, will be issued in the fall and focus attention on nitrogen pollution and mitigation strategies. “We’re going to need to find ways to upgrade, relocate, and replace systems that are causing nitrogen loading,” he said.

Modern septic systems, Mr. Clapp said, are essentially “mini wastewater treatment plants.” Such a system “would have a shallow drain field that gets a regular dosing over time of the effluent. You get extra treatment just by moving it closer to the surface. Put them shallow in the ground to take advantage of the microbes in the soil and the potential for surf grass to uptake the nutrients. Between the actual treatment unit and the change in how we disperse the effluent, you can really make substantial changes.”

Replacing septic systems, however, “is not inexpensive,” Mr. Cantwell said. “How you ask an individual to pay for that, or provide assistance to do so, is a challenge.”

The town’s current effort to purchase undeveloped properties in the Lake Montauk watershed using money from the Peconic Bay Region Community Preservation Fund transfer tax, Mr. Cantwell said, is part of a long-term proactive effort to reduce pollution in the lake. “Rather than being faced with that situation where we’re required to approve more cesspools, we can use C.P.F. to avoid that problem on those parcels in the future.”

Mr. Taylor and Mr. Clapp also mentioned the overuse of fertilizers by homeowners, farmers, and for recreational use, such as golf courses. “People have got to understand that anything they put on their lawn winds up in their water,” Mr. Taylor said.

“It would be nice to see the agricultural community embrace some of the voluntary options that they have now to reduce nitrogen,” Mr. Clapp said, such as targeted, efficient use of fertilizer.

Stephanie Forsberg, a town trustee who has a doctorate in marine science, welcomed the Nature Conservancy’s report. “As a county and town, we need to delve deeper into the source of what is causing events in our estuaries such as seasonal, harmful algal blooms,” she wrote in an email.

The trustees, in cooperation with Christopher Gobler of Stony Brook University, have implemented a water-quality monitoring program in trustee-managed waterways. “We plan to look at specific types of nitrogen in the water to see if they are present before, during, or after harmful algal bloom events,” Dr. Forsberg wrote. “By obtaining this data, we hope to work with our fellow constituents and elected officials at the town level and higher to collaborate jurisdictions and work towards fixing the source of what may be setting off these undesired chains of events in our trustee ecosystems.”

The Nature Conservancy report, she wrote, “is a step in the right direction; now we will continue by focusing on water quality and possible nitrogen sources within our town’s watershed.”

The consequences of not acting, Mr. Cantwell said, include more toxic algae blooms and degradation to shellfish and other marine life. “That,” he said, “is too high a price to pay.”

Firefighters from six different departments braved hot, humid weather Thursday to battle a fire that badly damaged part of a house in Water Mill, though they were able to stop it from spreading.

Bridgehampton Fire Department Chief Gary Horsburgh said the first captain to arrive at 285 Hayground Road, north of Montauk Highway, reported "flames blowing through the roof." A homeowner had called 911 at about 4:10 p.m.

The fire, believed to be electrical in nature, was under control in about 25 to 30 minutes, according to Second Assistant Chief Jeff White, who was one of the first to arrive at the house. The occupants were already outside.

Since the flames went behind the Sheetrock, it was an hour and 15 minutes to an hour and a half before firefighters fully extinguished all of the fire, the chiefs said.

The southside of the second floor of the house was destroyed, Chief Horsburgh said. The kitchen below had heavy water damage, he said. "The northside of the house is in good shape, though. It was a good stop."

The fire may have started in the attic, and the Southampton Town Fire Marshal's office is investigating the cause.

Chief Horsburgh said he immediately called for assistance from neighboring fire departments, partly due to the high temperature — it was 86 degrees when the fire broke out. Firefighters, wearing up to 50 pounds of gear, can easily overheat."Because it was so hot, we have to rotate guys out quickly," he said, adding, "I didn't go inside and I was dying."

No injuries were reported, the chief said.

In all, about 80 to 100 firefighters responded. Bridgehampton had help from fire departments from East Hampton, North Sea, Southampton, and Sag Harbor, which brought its rapid intervention team in case firefighters needed to be rescued. The Amagansett Fire Department stood by with an engine at Bridgehampton's headquarters, along with an ambulance from the East Hampton Village Ambulance Association.

Southampton Village Volunteer Ambulance joined Bridgehampton emergency medical technicians in checking firefighters' vital signs after they went to work inside.

All firefighters were back in service by about 6:15 p.m.

Through the combined efforts of officers from East Hampton Village and Town, a Brooklyn man was arrested Friday afternoon following a chase through the woods near Georgica Pond. The town officer, who suffered a knee injury during the pursuit, finally stopped the fleeing man by discharging his Taser, police said. 

Paul Freckleton, 25, was first stopped by the village officer, as he rode his motorcycle near Georgica restaurant, where he is employed as a cook. He faces a felony charge of destroying the motorcycle's vehicle identification number.

“One of our officers made a stop for passing on the right,” said Detective Lt. Anthony Long of the village force. Mr. Freckleton had passed several vehicles, he said, while riding on the shoulder of Montauk Highway in an effort to get past a line of stalled traffic headed east for the weekend. 

The officer pulled Mr. Freckleton over on a sandy shoulder just off the highway. Although the wheels were sitting in sand, Mr. Freckleton suddenly "tried gunning the motorcycle,” said the detective. "It spun out and fell to the ground.”

Mr. Freckleton then took off, running through the restaurant's parking lot, hopping a fence, and heading into nearby woods. The village officer raced after him, and the town officer, who was patrolling in the area, joined the chase. Mr. Freckleton was brought down when he came out of the woods onto Wainscott Stone Road, about 2,000 feet from Montauk Highway.

He was handcuffed, though not before a struggle that ended when the town officer discharged the Taser. The Taser was added to the gun belts of all town police last year.

The stunned man was taken to Southampton Hospital and treated for the effects of the Taser, then released to village police custody. The town officer, Luke McNamara, was advised by a doctor to undergo an M.R.I. scan to determine the extent of the injury to his knee.

The license plates on the cycle were allegedly stolen, Det. Long said, and the bike's V.I.N. number was ground off. Police are trying to determine whether the cycle itself was stolen, by comparing serial numbers on its parts and matching them up with New York State records.

In East Hampton Town Justice Court Saturday morning, Justice Lisa R. Rana asked the defendant where he lived. “Brooklyn,” he said. He told her that he commuted from Brooklyn to the East End daily. “At first I took the Long Island Rail Road.” He then began to tell the court how he obtained the motorcycle, but Justice Rana cut him off. “This is being recorded,” she said, explaining that anything he said could be used against him.

Mr. Freckleton said he had been unemployed before coming to work at the Wainscott restaurant, and that he had been traveling.

“Those two don’t normally go together,” Justice Rana observed. She read out the charges against the man, three misdemeanors in addition to the felony: fleeing a police officer, resisting arrest, and possession of stolen property (the license plates). He was also cited for six vehicle infractions.

The district attorney’s office requested that bail be set at $5,000, a number the justice said she was inclined to agree with, considering Mr. Freckleton’s scant ties to the area. He told her he had only $16. “Can I ask that bail be reduced to something more feasible? Can you make it $1,000?”

“I thought you only had $16.”

Mr. Freckleton said that Georgica Restaurant owed him some back salary.

“A police officer was hurt in this,” Justice Rana said. She set bail at $3,000. 

Mr. Freckleton appeared surprised to hear of Officer McNamara's injury. “It is impossible for me to make bail at $3,000,” he protested. 

Justice Rana said that was as low as she was prepared to go.

“I am sorry an officer got hurt,” Mr. Freckleton said, sitting back down on the prisoners’ bench. He is being held in the county jail in Yaphank and will be returned to the local court on Thursday. If no grand jury indictment is obtained by then, he will be released without bail.

The Riverhead Foundation for Marine Research and Preservation saved a leatherback sea turtle that was entangled in a lobster trap line a mile offshore on Sunday afternoon around 5.

After receiving the report from the Montauk Coast Guard Station, the Riverhead Foundation gathered its biologists and disentanglement gear, as the Coast Guard confirmed that it still had a visual on the turtle. Keeping tabs on the turtle's location could have been problematic, explained Robert A. DiGiovanni Jr., the foundation's executive director and senior biologist. "A turtle is a different kind of animal to have entangled. A seal goes in and out of the water, while a turtle usually is not in and out."

Able to re-identify the whereabouts of the leatherback sea turtle, the Montauk Coast Guard transported the response team to its location. "The boat crew assessed the level of entanglement and then freed the animal by unwrapping and cutting the lobster trap," said Dr. DiGiovanni. Based on the turtle's height of about five feet and approximate weight of 800 pounds, Dr. DiGiovanni estimated that the animal was most likely not a young one. The gender of the turtle was undetermined. The team was on site for about a half hour to ensure that the animal didn't resurface with further problems after it was freed.

The Coast Guard crew members who helped in the rescue operation named the turtle Oriskany after a United States aircraft carrier that was sunk in 2006 and is an artificial reef now.

Dr. DiGiovanni stressed that as leatherback sea turtles are more common in local waters at this time of year, it is "important for the public to report what they see." There foundation's 24-hour hotline can be reached at 631-369-9829.

Last year, there were two leatherback sea turtles in Gardiner's Bay in the same week, one on the south side and the other on the north side. Additionally, the Riverhead Foundation has recently received calls about dolphins in Shinnecock, and one distressed dolphin in Southampton that did not make it. The foundation will continue to do public releases of rehabilitated seals; the next one will be on July 5 during a U.S. Coast Guard and U.S. Coast Guard Auxiliary Open House in Hampton Bays.

Update, 8 p.m.: The Springs Fire Department quickly extinguished a fire that was believed to have started on the oustide of a house, Chief Ben Miller said Tuesday evening.

A neighbor reported flames around the door of the house at 52 Cedar Drive, between Locust Drive and Dogwood Drive, in Springs at 5:46 p.m., according to the chief.  The fire, which he said started to the left of the front door, had already traveled up the side of the house and into the eaves, burning through the attic. 

"We knocked it down in 15 minutes, and the rest was overhaul," Chief Miller said, adding that they used a nearby hydrant. "We made a good stop." 

However, the house is not livable at this time, the chief said. Most of the front wall was burnt, and basement stair wells were badly damaged, and part of the roof collapsed on the one-story, two-bedroom house. The rest of the house sustained smoke damage, he said. 

The East Hampton Fire Marshal's office is investigating the cause, though Chief Miller said he does not believe it is suspicious. 

The East Hampton Fire Department's rapid intervention team also responded to assist. In total, there were about 35 volunteers at the fire. 

Just a few minutes after the first arriving chief confirmed the house was ablaze, an accident was reported elsewhere in the fire district. Since the Springs Fire Department's fleet was responding to the fire, Chief Miller immediately asked the East Hampton Fire Department and East Hampton Village Volunteer Ambulance Association to respond to the intersection of Holly Oak Avenue and Church Lane. Chief Miller said an assistant captain who lives in the area passed by the two-car accident on his way to the fire. 

Update, 6:40 p.m.: The fire at a house on Cedar Drive in Springs has been extinguished, and firefighters are packing up after searching for any pockets of flames.

Chiefs have released the Amagansett Fire Department from standing by at its headquarters. 

Check back for more details on the blaze when it becomes available.

Original, 6:10 p.m.: Firefighters are battling a house fire in Springs on Tuesday evening.

The fire was initially reported to 911 dispatchers as flames were shooting through the front door at 52 Cedar Drive at 5:46 p.m.

Just minutes after a Springs Fire Department chief confirmed a working structure fire, responding units reported a car accident with injuries at the intersection of Holly Oak Avenue and Church Lane at about 5:55 p.m. Springs chiefs called for the East Hampton Fire Department and East Hampton Village Volunteer Ambulance Association to handle that call for them.

Springs fire chiefs called for the rapid intervention team from the East Hampton Fire Department to respond in case firefighters needto be rescued during the fire. An engine from the Amagansett Fire Department was asked to standby at Springs' headquarters.

The East Hampton Town Fire Marshal's office is responding.

Check back for more information on the fire and the accident as it becomes available.

The average house price in 11932, Bridgehampton’s ZIP code, is $2.3 million, according to Trulia, the real estate website. What, you thought it was higher? Commensurate with, say, next-door Sagaponack 11962, whose average is a whopping $8.6 million? It just may be that the teensy houses that dot the Bridgehampton-Sag Harbor Turnpike and another street you may not have known existed have almost singlehandedly brought the number down.

That other street is Huntington Crossway, which was not so long ago dubbed “Crack Alley” by locals because of drug activity on the block. The street, which runs north from the turnpike to Scuttlehole Road, land of horse farms and grapevines, has indeed been the location of many drug arrests. While neighborhoods surrounding it have gradually been gentrified, the Crossway has remained staunchly downscale.

Chris Burnside, a broker with Brown Harris Stevens in Bridgehampton, was kind enough to give a tour this past Monday of the neighborhood — not his usual more tony turf. He recalled how in the early ’90s he drove down the Crossway in a BMW and the car was pelted by a group of kids throwing something hard. “I didn’t know if it was rocks or beer cans or what,” he said. “It was scary.” Fortunately for him they were only snowballs.

A pioneering real estate agent purchased a parcel on the Crossway in 2004 for $300,000 and built a dramatically nicer house than her neighbors’. She lived in it for four years before selling for it for $975,000 in 2008. It was marketed partly by touting its “completely convenient location — minutes to either Sag Harbor or Bridgehampton.” True enough. But today it is still the only upscale house on the street.

A ride in Mr. Burnside’s Peugeot S.U.V. down the Crossway revealed minuscule, by Hamptons standards, ranch houses and capes, without basements, of roughly 800 to 1,000 square feet, mostly built in the 1960s. He pointed out that while some properties are fairly well maintained, most are not. Certainly none can be considered “landscaped,” with the exception of the agent’s former residence, which is cut off from its disheveled neighbors by hedges. Lawns are overgrown and appear to be mowed irregularly. A truck or two sits on lawns. One car has been raised above the grass to be worked on, in a front yard. Helter-skelter scraggly bushes form the only attempt at prettification.

But when, about halfway down the Crossway, Mr. Burnside turned west onto Caldwell Road, we suddenly entered a different world. This could be a street in upscale suburbia, Anywhere, U.S.A. Houses are beautifully landscaped with a variety of shade trees, attractive fencing, and the ubiquitous seaside hydrangea. They are two-story, gabled, and clad in cedar shingle.

Two nearly identical cul-de-sacs branch out from Caldwell. Houses in this neighborhood, many of them abutting the backyards of the Crossway’s houses, are valued in the high ones: $1.8 to $1.9 million.

One of these streets, Birchwood Lane, leads to a wooded six-acre area. Well, it won’t be wooded for long. On Monday, Greg Konner of Konner Development, which is developing 7 of the 11 lots, was overseeing his crew as a backhoe carved out a deep recession.

“We’re digging the first hole!” he said, clearly excited at the prospect. When finished, his seven houses will ask $1.9 million each.

His company has been instrumental in gentrifying other parts of Bridgehampton. After building houses on Norris and Narrow Lanes, he said, those neighborhoods rose in value.

The asking price is solid, according to Mr. Burnside. “They’re selling close to what it would cost to build.”

If you were to drive through this new development you would end up at another subdivision in progress, Barn and Vine. Instead, we took another route to this 50-acre parcel, which will contain 37 houses, bordering Channing Daughters Winery on the west and the houses of the leafy suburban grid on the east — by taking Meadows East, a new road just to the west of the Crossway off Scuttlehole, to Barn Lane. Between 5,800 and 7,200 square feet, these future abodes mark another rung up the price ladder: All are asking circa $3 million.

If sold now, the half-acre lots on the Crossway, with all houses considered teardowns, would go for between $400,000 and $450,000 apiece. A deal? Perhaps. Along with the houses on the turnpike south of Scuttlehole, these are some of the last true Hamptons bargains. But no one seems willing, yet, to take the plunge.

Would Mr. Burnside, who is also a builder and currently finishing a $5 million house about a half-mile away, consider building on the Crossway?

“I’m a location snob,” he said. He prefers to build big, beautiful, sustainable houses with all the amenities on untouched land. But, he acknowledged, the street would serve customers looking for a “starter home” very well.

It would cost approximately $4 million per mile to put six miles of already installed PSEG Long Island high-voltage transmission lines underground from East Hampton Village to Amagansett, according to the State Department of Public Service. In a June 23 letter to East Hampton Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell, Audrey Zibelman, the department’s chief executive officer, also says the cost of burying the lines should be borne by the residents of the affected area, which could include not only those who live along the route but residents of a wider area, as determined by the town. She says that was the procedure followed not long ago in Southampton and that there is “no reason to deviate” from it.

After meeting earlier this year with East Hampton residents and officials who were alarmed about the aesthetic and environmental impacts of the overhead transmission lines being installed, PSEG said it would place the lines underground only if the town and/or its residents paid the entire cost. The utility estimated that cost at $4 million to $6 million per mile, and the matter was referred to the Department of Public Service.

In a June 27 response to Ms. Zibelman, officials including Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., State Senator Kenneth P. LaValle, Representative Tim Bishop, East Hampton Village Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr., and Mr. Cantwell said they were “deeply disappointed.”  They took issue with the characterization of what happened in Southampton when the Long Island Power Authority agreed to put an 8.7-mile transmission line between Southampton Village and Bridgehampton underground. In that case, the officials said, all of LIPA’s ratepayers shouldered 55 percent of the cost, and the local customers “receiving the visual benefit of placing the transmission line underground” paid for 45 percent.

“Why was East Hampton treated differently than Southampton?” the letter asks. “The report ignores any facts that do not support PSEG Long Island’s position,” the officials wrote. “New York could be the leader in providing an innovative approach to rebuilding the region’s energy infrastructure. Unfortunately, your report serves only the interests of the utility company and its shareholders. Long Islanders deserve better.”

Ms. Zibelman’s letter said she has asked PSEG for further detail on the costs of burying the lines, and how they might be amortized, and to provide the municipalities with information on alternatives that could mitigate the need for extending the transmission line — energy efficiency measures, the use of alternative energy sources, or other “innovative” actions.

The Public Service Department’s report also disappointed Long Island Businesses for Responsible Energy, a group that has sued PSEG, alleging, among other things, that the installation of utility poles coated with pentachlorophenol, a wood preservative, has introduced toxins at an unacceptable level into the nvironment.  On that matter, Ms. Zibelman cites an opinion recently issued by the New York State Department of Health, which relied on an Environmental Protection Agency review of the toxicity of the chemical, called penta, and its determination that “its use in approved applications would not pose an ureasonable risk to humans or the environment.” The Health Department, the Public Service commissioner noted, has contacted the Department of Environmental Conservation about the possible misuse of penta around the poles, and PSEG Long Island has denied any post-purchase application of the chemical.

In an email, Helene Forst, LIBFRE’s chair, said Ms. Zibelman’s response was unsatisfactory given the expert opinions the group has solicited and submitted regarding penta, as well as on the impact of electromagnetic fields surrounding high-voltage wires. In a press release, LIBFRE says Ms. Zibelman “is relying on outdated and incomplete scientific information.”

The release cites one of the experts LIBFRE has consulted, Chris Busby, the scientific secretary of the European Committee on Radiation Risk in Brussels, who said, “There is strong scientific evidence that living near high voltage power lines increases the risk not only of child leukemia and brain tumors, but also neurodegenerative disease in adults. There is indication that miscarriage and the rates of other diseases are also elevated.”

The overhead lines and penta-treated poles should be removed, the advocacy group believes, and the lines rerouted or buried at a cost to be fairly shared by PSEG ratepayers and stockholders. At the same time, the group has suggested “alternatives that will insure a resilient electric power supply” should be investigated.