New York City could soon ban the sale of plastic water bottles in parks, beaches, and public golf courses to cut down on trash. Two cities, San Francisco and Concord, Mass., already have banned them, according to The New York Times, and are promoting the use of refillable bottles by residents and visitors. Given the unsanitary overflow of garbage receptacles at many South Fork beaches during the summer, the time apparently has come for a similar ban here.

On Earth Day weekend, the sheer number of plastic water bottles collected, at Montauk Point in one example, was stunning. Many had been capped and apparently thrown still partially filled into the brush along the paths, while others were carried in on the surf. Beer bottles were in the brush, too,  alcohol-addled jerks being what they are. But what of the thinking of some ostensibly healthy person who drinks half a Poland Spring then heaves it into the brush? It is much the same at other cleanups; volunteers in Greenport in February, for example, picked up more than 660 plastic water bottles.

East Hampton Village officials last week enacted a retail prohibition on foam takeout containers. This is a positive step, even though few village eateries package goods in foam. A more effective measure would be for the village to eliminate the sale of water in plastic bottles at its Chowder Bowl concession at Main Beach. Similarly, East Hampton Town might ban their sale at its beaches and recreational facilities. 

“But what will the people drink?” one might ask. In the cities that have banned plastic water bottles, officials have made fountains and reusable-container filling stations available. Reports are that people adjust quickly. On the other hand, bowing to industry pressure, the Trump administration last year reversed a six-year-old ban on the sale of plastic water bottles in national parks, claiming a need to “expand hydration options for recreationalists.” 

In truth, most of us are adaptable; this was underscored in a recent announcement about how quickly habits changed following a Suffolk County prohibition on disposable shopping bags. Montauk School students took on plastic drinking straws not too long ago and got several restaurants and takeout places to pledge to provide straws only upon request or switch to paper ones. In addition, Suffolk legislators are now thinking about limiting plastic cutlery and straws across the county.

If for no other reason than helping keep public spaces clean, a plastic water bottle ban makes sense, particularly since very few, if any, are recycled. East Hampton Town has struggled historically to keep up with the volume of garbage put in its beach trash cans during the summer, adding extra crews to make evening pickups at significant expense. 

Cutting down the number of these bottles would reduce the volume of waste the town has to haul away, and would, in and of itself, be a significant step toward a greener East Hampton. Vendors might consider selling water or other drinks to beachgoers in their own branded, reusable containers to make up for any financial loss. If Washington is going to head in the wrong direction on litter and the energy-wasting manufacturing of plastic, at least local governments, businesses, and consumers can — and should — battle back on their own turf.

Luis Marin-Castro’s arrest by federal agents while he was working in Wainscott on April 9 highlights the need for a rational immigration policy. Mr. Marin, 31, came to East Hampton from Ecuador as a child, attended high school here, graduated from Suffolk Community College, and was a valued employee, working his way up from bus boy to sommelier at Nick and Toni’s restaurant in East Hampton. Like many others who were not born here, however, he did not have legal status in this country, and, after pleading guilty to drunken driving about three years ago, ended up in the sights of the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency.

Already, more than $50,000 had been contributed to a legal fund set up to try to win Mr. Marin’s release. This is a tremendous statement of support and good will. Donations can be made online at gofundme.com by searching for “Luis Marin.”

What passes for policy on immigration today can be summed up by President Donald Trump’s longed-for wall and the fact that he opened his campaign by stoking racist fears of rapists and “bad hombres” coming over the southern border. Sadly, the pitch worked. 

A recent analysis by scholars at the University of Massachusetts found that racism (as well as hostile sexism) correlated strongly with the likelihood of someone’s having voted for Mr. Trump for president, outweighing the economy, populism, and other variables. Separately, Google data show that searches with racist epithets or jokes soared nationwide during the presidential primary in areas that ended up going his way in November. It is notable that in recent polls as many as 57 percent of Americans believe the president is a racist.

It is difficult to draw an absolutely direct line from Mr. Trump to Luis Marin. However, enforcement actions have increased dramatically since the president was inaugurated and reports are that ICE will continue its aggressive ways. While apprehensions on the border initially dropped, arrests inside this country surged by almost half in 2017. 

Mr. Marin may be just a number to the White House, but here, he is a son, husband, and key employee. That makes it clear that the current United States immigration approach makes no sense. With statistically full employment, businesses from one end of the country to the other are desperate for workers. Mr. Marin, through no fault of his own, came here as a child and, but for one youthful and unfortunate brush with the law, for which he has long since made amends, has been a model member of the community. 

As we move rapidly toward the fateful midterm congressional elections, repairing the current immigration mess should be at the top of voters’ minds. Finding a way to officially welcome immigrants is a national priority. America needs more people like Luis Marin, not fewer.

Central to the new East Hampton Town hamlet studies are recommendations about one of the greatest challenges: how to increase the supply of houses and apartments that the town’s working people and other residents can afford. Meanwhile, a proposal to pay for other answers to the housing shortage via an additional real-estate transfer tax has been put forward at the state level by Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr.

East Hampton Town has been a leader among local governments making an attempt to solve a decades-long housing imbalance. Now, as real-estate prices rise — and much of the lower-end housing rental market is sucked up by short-term visitors using online booking agencies — the shortage has become severe. 

The issue ripples across the local economy as businesses may not be able to pay their employees enough to find adequate places to stay. In East Hampton Town, Democratic board majorities have tried with some success to meet the need, as has an independent housing authority. The town also has sought to create incentives for private property owners to add apartments or convert outbuildings into code-compliant rental units, subject to strict limits. But the need remains.

Enter the authors of the new hamlet plans, who seem to have tried to consider work-force residents at every juncture. In Wainscott, for example, new and renovated commercial buildings would ideally have second-floor apartments. Also, the sand mine and cement plant north of Montauk Highway would be home to a new combination of single-family houses, commercial-industrial uses, and a park. An affordable housing district could be on a portion of the sand mine site, as well as at the sand pit on Springs-Fireplace Road in East Hampton.

Upgrades to an ad hoc affordable housing area on North Main Street in East Hampton could be planned, provided steps were taken to deal with the wastewater flow that increased residential density would create. At the former Stern’s store on Pantigo Road, housing could be added in a mixed-use development. Apartments also could be encouraged above existing businesses along Amagansett’s Main Street.

For Montauk, the plan’s authors have suggested new solutions for both year-round and seasonal workers, something many businesses would benefit from. Among these are more second-floor apartments, promoting existing rules that allow apartments on residential lots, and “small house” and other alternative kinds of semipermanent dwellings, especially in the dock area. Another idea is for a seasonal housing district in which residences in existing commercial districts might be allowed to double the town occupancy limit of up to four unrelated adults to a maximum of eight with no more than two per bedroom. All of these would necessarily be tied to the town’s ongoing study of new wastewater treatment options.

Mr. Thiele’s proposal might just be the  fuel needed to help make the town planners’ vision become reality. In a bill he wrote, a surcharge on high-end real estate transactions would bring in an estimated $15 million, which would be made available as loans to first-time homebuyers, repayable upon the sale of the house. If approved in the State Legislature, the program would not go into effect until it was okayed in a local referendum.

The need is obvious as many workers and young families are faced with the difficult choice of whether to move away. Supply could be increased through the programs outlined in the new town plan. The means to pull it all together for new homebuyers could be found in Mr. Thiele’s bill. In all, this is an optimistic moment for solving the housing crisis in East Hampton and elsewhere on the East End.

Last month, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority began the work of raising the railway tracks above the much-battered trestles at North Main Street and Accabonac Road in East Hampton Village. For neighbors Down Hook, it has become something of a sport to wager when the next overambitious driver will wedge a too-tall truck under the bridge. This has its humorous side, it’s true, but the potential damage to the tracks and trestles from repeated strikes by drivers who ignore warning signs isn’t really a laughing matter. Readers might recall one of the more dramatic truck-versus-trestle crashes, in 2014, when a driver who had begun work only the day before behind the wheel of a garbage truck hit the underpass so hard it shifted the Long Island Rail Road tracks.

The project, which began last week with the clearing of trees and underbrush from the south side of the embankment, revealing the bare embankment in all its midwinter ugliness, will cost nearly $20 million and take some 18 months.

It isn’t entirely clear how much higher the actual trains chugging through town will ride once all is said and done, but, according to M.T.A. engineers who spoke at a meeting of the village board in the fall, the distance from road asphalt to underside of underpass — the space to be driven through — will increase to 14 feet from a current height of about 10 or 11 feet.

There isn’t much to be done once the heavy equipment rolls out on an M.T.A. project like this, but it seems that the village board is still in negotiations with the M.T.A. on certain aspects of its aesthetic impact on what is, in essence, the visual centerpiece of the business district: Hook Hill, which is so central to the image of East Hampton that it appears on the official village seal. How will the planned ground-to-track-level wall of shaped concrete blocks — a wall that will replace the tree-covered embankment — look as a visual frame for the windmill? Should the concrete “stones” be tinted brown or green? As it is, on clear days you can already see Dump Mountain in the distance behind the windmill, if you are passing near Citarella. 

M.T.A., we’re watching you.

East Hampton Town Hall might well be built on a foundation of forgotten studies. But much of what was presented this week in a series of hamlet study proposals has the makings of substantial change for the better. Ideas ranged from improving traffic patterns to providing more affordable housing, along with a blockbuster: relocating a considerable portion of commercial development in Montauk that is threatened by erosion.

A redesigned downtown in Montauk would shift density away from the ocean shoreline and from the narrow flood zone at Fort Pond where a grocery store and 7-Eleven are today. The so-called front row of motels and residences would be removed and rebuilt to modern flood-proof standards behind a restored beach and natural-appearing dunes. In a future phase, assuming that sea level continues to rise, yet more structures would be eliminated and Montauk Highway elevated across a wetland where, from time to time, Fort Pond would breach and open to the ocean. 

Elsewhere in Montauk, a proposal is for vulnerable houses along West Lake Drive to be removed from the 100-year-flood zone. Near the harbor inlet, a section of road would be removed, with dune restoration and additional relocation of structures away from Block Island Sound.

This is headline-grabbing stuff. For a long time, people who watch the coast have said that Montauk needed serious attention. Behind the scenes, a town coastal resiliency committee has been working on plans that are expected to dovetail with the hamlet studies. And yet, given how massive the redesign of much of Montauk would be, its effect on town residents would be minimal.

Much more important for those in other parts of town are prescriptions for affordable housing and how people get around. These include more second-floor apartments, as well as new work force houses adjacent to commercial areas. Redevelopment of two sand mines, one on Springs-Fireplace Road, the other in Wainscott, would provide so-called mixed-use areas, houses and apartments in one portion, parkland in another, and businesses in another. The property at the former Stern’s department store on Pantigo Road would be redesigned this way. The land adjacent to the Amagansett I.G.A. might have additional shops as well as apartments.

Throughout the studies is a commitment to the environment. For example, no new initiative for sewage treatment should encourage development. Effort is to be made to provide more trails and link them together, along with a waterfront route at Three Mile Harbor. Community character is stressed, too, with a commitment to recognizing and preserving vernacular architecture and streetscapes. Work-truck parking, which has been a sore point in some parts of town, could be provided in designated locations.

Over all, there is a lot to digest in these hamlet plans, and surely a great deal of debate to follow, but they appear to be a worthy start in which no one has tried to avoid even the most difficult questions.

There is no question that the Springs School needs more space. The question is whether voters will approve a nearly $17 million bond to pay for expansion. They should. 

Central to the proposal is the addition of classroom and support space, improved play and sports fields, and a state-of-the-art septic upgrade. The last aspect of the work is not something to overlook; the school’s wastewater system has been on the verge of complete failure for some time and is thought to be a large contributor to pollution in nearby Accabonac Harbor.

But it is the kids who are most important here. At present, the school’s superintendent says the building is appropriate for about 340 students; 2017-18 enrollment was 736 students. Even on a cursory visit to the school the inadequacies were apparent, with a warren of classrooms, crowded halls and multipurpose spaces, and poor air circulation. A portion of the money for the estimated $22 million project would come from a reserve fund. 

As a bedroom community for a good part of the East End work force, Springs has had to shoulder an unfair burden in paying to educate its young people, while other districts, such as Amagansett, Wainscott, and Sagaponack, enjoy small class sizes and taxes that are low by comparison. Correcting such an outrageous imbalance is an urgent moral challenge for which state leadership is needed, but that is a question for another day. Right now, educating Springs’s kids in the best setting possible is the priority.   

The East Hampton Town Trustees have come dangerously close in recent months to becoming entirely co-opted by the anti-wind power crowd. This has led them to inappropriately take on a role on the South Fork Wind Farm project over which they have minimal say and which runs the risk of their otherwise looking past their specific responsibilities.

The trustees’ intentions came from the right place; first and foremost they see themselves as upholders of traditional, mostly commercial fishing activities. This is, of course, a historical simplification, as their purview is to serve as caretakers of certain common lands and natural resources for all East Hampton residents. 

Certainly there are concerns about the placement of the Deepwater Wind company’s turbines and whether a power cable might interfere with dragger nets and other gear, but the trustees are getting very close to two-layer tinfoil hat territory in trying to extort unrelated high-dollar concessions from the company in exchange for permission to route the cable under the beach at Wainscott. The company has said that if the trustees make things too difficult it simply will seek to bring the line ashore on state property or on town land outside trustee jurisdiction. 

Alarming, too, is the fact that the trustees have become so tied in knots on this that they held an illegal closed-door session to go over their response, fearing they might be sued. The state open meetings law does not allow for so-called executive sessions, from which the public is excluded, on only a vague anxiety that maybe there could be, might be, litigation. If that were the case, no government business would ever get done in public. 

If anything, the trustees should be trying to make alternative energy easier, not more difficult. As stewards of much of the town’s critical wetlands, they should be concerned about the effect of climate change on sea level rise and shorelines, as well as marine acidification, both linked to soaring carbon dioxide emissions. Wind power is an essential part of a more climate-sensitive future, and the trustees should understand this. There also is an implicit responsibility to the rest of earth’s inhabitants; East Hampton should be generous enough to try to make even an incremental difference on a global scale. The trustees can and should be part of that.

Ethnic animosity has, unfortunately, turned up in an ugly way in advance of Tuesday’s vote on the proposed renovation of the overcrowded Springs School. While hardly speaking for everyone in the district, a few opponents of the construction project have sought to bolster their arguments by dragging anti-immigrant sentiment into the debate. This cannot go unchallenged.

It should be a source of community shame that a handful of people seeking to block the $17-million bond vote have tried to amplify ethnic divisions. Questions about the plans and the full cost are fair game, and opinions are strong. But some, and notably the most-recent Republican candidate for East Hampton Town supervisor, Manny Vilar, have resorted to uncalled-for Trumpist dog whistles, implying that a significant portion of Springs residents are illegal immigrants who may at some point soon be rounded up. This is extraordinarily irresponsible rhetoric, inappropriately echoed by the new town Republican committee chairman, Amos Goodman. 

The suggestion made by Mr. Vilar and others, that tougher immigration enforcement will cause a decline in the Springs School student population, is a reprehensible assumption because it is based on the upsupported notion that because some students come from Spanish-speaking households, a number of them must be in the country illegally. Sadly, with a president calling immigrants “bad hombres” and fantasizing about a “big, beautiful wall,” this kind of speech has become more prevalent.

This is a moment when cities, towns, and hamlets across the United States should be working to become more inclusive, not less. Communities should welcome the many immigrants who come here for opportunity and, especially on the South Fork, who provide so much of the labor on which much of the economy is based. Instead of hyping divisions, East Hampton’s public figures should speak out to push Washington toward sensible immigration policies. 

It needs also to be pointed out that even if the critics are right that the school-age population growth is tapering off (which we doubt), the Springs School is at present several hundred kids above its capacity of roughly 350 students. 

Vote against the Springs bond, if you feel you must for reasons of cost or design, but do not be seduced by racist rhetoric suggesting that Springs’s children — whatever the color of their skin or language spoken by their parents — deserve any less than the best possible place to learn. 

The red-winged blackbirds returned to Cranberry Hole Road this week, announcing themselves by their rusty, spring-sounding calls from hiding places among the scrub. It seems far too soon.

For years, I have taken note of the emergence of spring peeper frogs and the arrival of osprey, writing the date I first notice them each year on the wall next to the basement stairs. Over time, the older markings have become faded, so even with a bright light and my reading glasses, they are difficult to make out. One of these days I intend to copy the dates onto something more permanent before they whisp away completely.

Keeping track of nature’s seasonal comings and goings is a way of trying to slow if not stop time, I think. As we get older, we are reassured that the cycles go on, changing subtly from year to year maybe, but plowing ahead indifferent to us. 

Each day on the beach in front of the house, through the winter, gulls and shorebirds walk, heads down, looking for something to eat. In the brambles, cardinals lurk, picking at hard berries as gaudily colored as they. The red-wings strip seed heads from the phragmites and wait for insect larvae that will begin to hatch in a couple of weeks. Wild turkeys strut, the males competing with their tall brown and gold fans for a chance at the hens’ affections. 

The forecasters say that a storm is coming by the weekend, a northeaster. The red-wings, here already and getting a jump on the season, will just hunker down in the swamp, with instinctual surety that they have not returned a minute too soon.

Those who have handled a semiautomatic rifle of the sort used in the Marjory Stoneman Douglas shootings on Feb. 14 know that these are not ordinary weapons. Their power is unmistakable; an errant shot striking a small tree will go through that tree and the one behind that, and so on. A shot striking a human body will result in a cascading wave of force, crushing tissue and making recovery difficult for anyone who manages to survive the instant, massive bleeding or organ damage.

Outside of law enforcement and military use, these guns have no purpose during peacetime, other than to satisfy the puerile thrill of owning and shooting them and, often, posting pictures of oneself displaying them on social media. Target shooting can be accomplished with far less potentially lethal weaponry and there are better options for hunting and for self-defense, if that is ever really a necessity. 

Gun lobby activists and the politicians they support have tried to shift the discussion following the mass shootings to questions about mental health and, in the case of schools, arming teachers, coaches, administrators, and support staff. This is a deliberate smokescreen put up to obscure the real issue: There are too many guns in the United States, and those capable of killing dozens of people in a matter of minutes are scarcely regulated, if at all. A similar smokescreen has been raised about changing the age at which someone can buy a gun. Arguing that because Americans can be sent to war at 18 they should be able to handle an automatic weapon at home is a false equivalent.

In the military, training comes first, then 18-year-olds are armed for the precise reason that they may someday be asked to kill other human beings — under supervision and on the field of battle. To use military service as justification for allowing the same powerful guns among an untrained civilian population is wrong. Then, too, arguing about whether people under 21 should be allowed to possess assault rifles without even the same regulation imposed on pistol owners in most states misses the point that high-powered weapons must, at a minimum, be strongly regulated. 

Like the debate about whether teachers and school personnel should be armed, the question of what is an appropriate age to be able to buy a gun obscures the real problem — that there are too many guns in this country and they are too easy to obtain.

The sale and possession of semiautomatic rifles should immediately be regulated at least as tightly as pistol ownership in the most restrictive states, such as New York, if not banned altogether. Lives are at risk. The longer America delays meaningful and effective gun control, the more killing there will be. No arming of teachers or age limit on who may buy dangerous firearms will change that.