The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation recently announced plans to “streamline” a key method of environmental review. Part of the reason is that the department has been underfunded and spottily staffed for years. 

Cutting back on some responsibilities to be able to concentrate on others makes sense, given the financial realities. But it is hardly good news for those concerned about what effects public and private projects can have on their neighbors and surroundings.

The State Environmental Quality Review Act, often referred to as SEQRA, has been around for decades, and though its effectiveness has had its ups and downs, it remains an important tool for making sure that New York’s natural surroundings, wildlife, and community resources are protected.

The impetus for the change comes from Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s New York State Lean Initiative. In a proposal circulated late last month, the conservation department said it would expand the list of the projects exempted from SEQRA to include small solar arrays and parkland acquisitions, which would seem like good ideas. 

According to the state, the most frequent complaint from the business community is that permit approvals are often delayed as governmental review plods along. This is a valid concern; representatives of some industries have even said the slow pace of SEQRA review is an impediment to expanding or moving to New York.

On the East End, however, the state’s proposed relaxation of required review of subdivisions of 10 acres or less may go too far. Though the draft still calls for environmental assessment of such subdivisions if they were “substantially contiguous” to wetlands or other significant areas that would seem insufficient to fully protect them. Given the nearness of bays and harbors to nearly every parcel of land on the North and South Forks, as well as our groundwater sources, only the highest degree of scrutiny will do.

Local officials and environmental groups should look very closely at the state plan. Loosening the rules might be good for business, but, on the East End at least, the fragility of the natural surroundings should take precedence over monetary concerns.

The East Hampton Town Trustees could use a workshop on civility. For those who are not clear about what the trustees do, think of them as the stewards of much of the town’s waterways, some of its beaches, and a few woods roads. They oversee mooring permits outside of Lake Montauk and have a say on where docks and aquaculture projects are allowed, as well as on beach driving. 

One might think that of the town’s various public boards, given their purview, the trustees would be among the most peaceable. Think again. For some time now the meetings have been way too long, up to three-plus hours, and marred by sharp words and intemperate outbursts. Partisanship plays a part, as do long-held grudges about the nature of trustee authority.

Though the trustees are among the lesser-known arms of town government, they are nevertheless expected to behave in a dignified and respectful manner. Those who get into frequent conflicts with other members might want to ask themselves if they really should stay in office. 

By rough count, 30,000 active beach driving permits have been issued to East Hampton Town residents. This is an astonishing number but more easily understood if you consider that old red-and-white stickers are valid until a truck is sold, same as with beach parking permits. In practice, nothing stops a resident from passing on a vehicle to someone from away, and because nonresident beach driving permits are priced at $275, some purchasers may just leave one on the bumper when a vehicle changes hands as a little deal-sweetener.

Supervisor Larry Cantwell and other town board members said recently that they are interested in changing the law so that resident four-wheeler permits are renewed annually instead of not at all. Carole Brennan, the town clerk, has told them it would not be a problem for her office, which already handles yearly landfill, nonresident beach parking, and shellfish permits.

Mr. Cantwell would also like to limit beach driving permits to vehicles that can actually drive on the beach. The Mercedes sport utility vehicle, for example, with a four-wheel sticker inexplicably on the rear comes to mind. Were this to be the rule it might help cut down on the beach parking (as opposed to driving) that is popular among some permit holders but irritating to others — for example, on a small spit of hard sand inside the mouth of Three Mile Harbor.

Predictably, at least one or two East Hampton Town trustees have balked. Trustee Diane McNally told the town board last week that requiring residents to renew beach driving permits annually would be a slide down a slippery slope toward access restrictions. It is difficult to see how annual permits would do that, and sensible regulations, such as making sure that permits are issued to those who deserve them, might actually head off conflicts that could lead to actual losses.

An agreement between Town Hall and the trustees should be reached, as having separate sets of rules and fees for trustee beaches and the town beaches in Montauk, where the trustees do not have jurisdiction, would be confusing. Things are already tangled enough what with a separate permit needed for trucks on county and state beaches. Moreover, the trustees have never been terribly interested in opening a permit office of their own, rightly preferring to keep permits centralized in the town clerk’s office.

As the conversation between the boards, and perhaps with East Hampton Village officials as well, goes on, one other thing should be considered: Nonresident permits for beach parking lots cost $375, $100 more than a permit to leave one’s truck tracks all over the beach. At the very least, the fee should be the same. Otherwise, officials are giving people who do not live in town an incentive to use the beaches themselves for parking, which was not the intent in the original laws and agreements going back centuries that were supposed to assure access for the townspeople alone for fishing, gathering seaweed, and to spread their nets to dry.

Football in East Hampton, though not dying, according to the sport’s energetic coach, Joe McKee, has a problem because the high school’s new enrollment numbers have kicked it up into the hard-playing, black-and-blue Conference III, whose players greatly outweigh those of East Hampton’s, on average.

The kids, and presumably most of their parents, would rather remain in Conference IV, even if it means agreeing to forgo the playoffs — a proposal the district’s athletic director, Joe Vas, has brought before the Section XI football committee, the group of officials who govern high school sports in Suffolk. Three years ago, when Mr. Vas last asked, the answer was no, prompting East Hampton to eliminate football in the fall of 2014 — only the fourth time since 1923 that the Bonackers did not field a team.

Safety is Mr. Vas’s primary concern. While the combative sport never will be completely safe, the likelihood of serious injury is considered mitigated when teams are evenly matched in size and ability. He has also proposed that a new conference, an ability-grouped Conference V, be formed. It would be made up of schools in Port Jefferson, Babylon, Hampton Bays, Southampton, and McGann-Mercy in Riverhead, whose football programs are struggling. It would cut down on travel time, too, with the fuel savings going toward outfitting the new conference’s football players with the most advanced — and safest — equipment.

Years ago, other coaches and athletic directors made a plea for western and eastern leagues in Suffolk that would take into account enrollment, ability, and geography, the dividing line being Route 112. It made sense then, and it makes sense now.

For eastern Long Island, a White House budget item that would cut funding for the Coast Guard should be cause for alarm. Fortunately, opposition from members of Congress is bipartisan and loud. 

In President Trump’s Office of Management and Budget plan, more than $500 million would be eliminated from Coast Guard funding to help pay for expanding the border wall with Mexico. The cuts would include scrapping a planned state-of-the-art national security cutter and port patrol teams. Faced with the loss, the Coast Guard would have to shift its resources, with a chance that routine operations and search-and-rescue efforts, which are important to recreational boaters and commercial fishing alike, could be hampered.

From an immigration standpoint, the proposed cuts make no sense since, among the Coast Guard’s many jobs is watching for illegal migrants. If an expanded border wall with Mexico is eventually built on land, more people trying to reach the United States will take to the seas — often at great personal risk. This could lead to a humanitarian crisis not unlike that of the Syrian and other refugees making the dangerous passage by water to Europe in which so many people have died. 

In addition, those on the East End who have ever called on the Coast Guard for help or just enjoyed the reassurance that its expertly trained personnel were always at the ready should insist that it not fall victim to the president’s wrongheaded budget priorities.

Government does some things well and there are some things best left to private contractors. The East Hampton Town Trustees are thinking about buying and operating a dredge to keep East Hampton’s harbor entrances navigable. This is one job better left to the professionals.

We sympathize with the notion that crops up from time to time for the town to go it alone. Dredging is necessary and access to some waterways has been limited over the years as officials and boaters have waited for a contractor hired by the county to get around to jobs on the South Fork. In the meantime, shoals build up. The trustees and town have occasionally hired an excavating company to work from shore, but this is not the kind of large-scale approach needed, especially at the mouths of our larger harbors. 

In our experience, government entities that have taken a function performed by contract with qualified outsiders and assigning it to in-house employees have often come to regret it. Added salaries, staff discipline, even finding sites for a new government division have proven difficult. There are plenty of good reasons why everything from roads to NASA spacecraft are built by industry, not government hands. Dredging, though less complex than sending a probe to the edge of the solar system, nevertheless requires specific skills not in wide supply. Also, maintaining a town dredge during inevitable periods when there is no call for sand removal would be a problem and a financial drain. A promising alternative has emerged.

At a recent trustee meeting, consideration was given to creating a consortium of sorts among East End towns and incorporated waterfront villages, which would be able collectively to amass enough work to attract bids from contractors. This would likely avoid the cost of having a dredge stationed locally. Work could make the rounds on a prearranged schedule, keeping mobilization expenses from adding big money to the bill if a dredging barge had to be brought from far away each time it was needed.

The trustees are right in having a sense of urgency: The harbors need attention now. Using the power of an inter-municipal market to get the job done could be the most expedient approach of all.

Separately, the town trustees deserve credit for agreeing to expand the areas where noncommercial oyster-growers will be invited to place their gear. The prodigious filter power of oysters can help keep marine waters clean. Engaging residents more closely with the environment and food production counts as a good thing, too. More areas for oyster cultivation should be opened soon.

What ever happened to wait-and-see? State, Suffolk, and local governments announced closings in advance of a winter storm that was supposed to cover the region on Tuesday. When the expected snowfall did not, in fact, pile up, they and the schools that had followed in announcing they would not open appeared a little hasty. Officials might have been forgiven, since the television news was dominated as the week began with apocalyptic weather warnings. Pre-emptive panic, however, was contagious, and, on eastern Long Island at least, the surprise day off made little sense by hindsight.

If one took the time to look away from the TV screen, though, more level heads were saying on Monday afternoon that the storm would not be all that bad. Forecasters at the National Weather Service in Upton said they expected the East End would experience mostly rain and wind. As it turned out, they were correct. Schools most certainly could have held classes. Libraries could have opened. Banks could have operated. Government functions could have gone on. If President Trump really wanted to make America great again, he could have started by insisting that the East Hampton Post Office remain open, for crying out loud.

Certainly there is a degree of risk when winds are high. Just before lunch on Tuesday the wind took down a tree, blocking Main Street near the East Hampton Presbyterian Church. Roads were impassable elsewhere for a time, thanks to fallen limbs. Gerard Drive in Springs was flooded in the usual places. Electricity was interrupted in some locations. Downtown Montauk’s already thin ocean beach took yet another pounding. End of the world it was not. But there is something to be said for staying home on a nasty day with a cup of tea by one’s side and a cat on the lap. 

We hate to rain on the recently revived commuter train parade, but for all the enthusiasm, it is difficult to see how it could be a success. 

The dream of more frequent rail service on the South Fork has been around for a long time. In a new proposal led by State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., the Long Island Rail Road would add trains to its weekday schedule so that people getting to and from work would have an alternative to hopping in their cars. Buses would meet the trains to shuttle passengers the last few miles to their destinations. 

While some highway and main street traffic would be eliminated if the trains eventually were to roll, whether it would be enough to justify the cost is a good question.

The nature of much of the employment in East Hampton Town and on the two forks suggests that private vehicles and commercial service trucks will continue to be necessary. Because there are a limited number of white-collar jobs out here those traveling between towns or hamlets might well have to carry tools or equipment. Many service positions, such as housecleaning and landscaping, require that workers get to remote locations that would never be on any bus route. 

As for summer visitors, those who come by train are already being more or less accommodated by the L.I.R.R., if in ridiculously overcrowded conditions. Those who do not come by rail are unlikely to do so even with new, more frequent service. With tourists and renters coming by car from all over the Northeast, traffic would not be curtailed.

If traffic is the problem, it is unlikely that improvements to rail options will be the solution. Too many in the work force and the vacation crowd are never going to abandon their vehicles, so the ridership is not going to be there to support it.

If there is a real answer, it will be only when towns and villages exert greater limits on development and work to reduce the number of people attracted to the area — including day-trippers, renters in illegal situations, and even hotel guests. No realistic amount of public transit, whether by train or bus or something else, will make a meaningful difference given the diminutive land mass and limited roads. Instead of expanding the L.I.R.R.’s schedules or, as has been suggested, adding a second track here, the money might be better spent on other initiatives.

A fourth-grade initiative at the Montauk School to stop the use of plastic straws there and in the community is worth paying attention to — and bears a lesson for how we should think about our relationship to the environment. 

This winter, the students began sending letters to Montauk food businesses, hoping to persuade their owners or managers to switch from plastic to paper straws. The argument is based on the fact that plastic straws are not generally recycled and it reflects the growing awareness that plastic is among the top-10 kinds of debris entering marine ecosystems around the world. As with bans of single-use plastic bags, curtailing the use of plastic straws is a way to reduce the carbon emission impact of nonessential items. Alternatives include straws made from recyclable paper and compostable versions made from plant-based compounds.

A number of Montauk restaurants, ice cream shops, and takeout places have responded favorably to the students’ pitch. The people at Muse at the End, Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream, the Surf Lodge, Gosman’s Dock, and others deserve a tip of the hat for being willing to consider switching to paper or, at a minimum, making a plastic straw available on request rather than automatically plonking one into every drink. 

According to activists, there is at least one straw per person per day used in the United States, as many as 500 million by more expansive estimates. Though long-lived in landfills, plastic waste slowly begins to degrade when it hits the oceans, breaking into tiny pieces that can be fatal to marine life, notably endangered sea turtles such as the Kemp’s Ridley, which has been the focus of rescue efforts here and in its southern breeding grounds.

A recent video shows a single cloth microfiber causing the death of a plankton that ingested it; multiply that a billion-fold and the impacts up and down the food chain are beyond belief. Some plastics in water can absorb and concentrate toxic chemicals, including DDT, a banned pesticide that was among the causes of the last century’s precipitous drop in the populations of bald eagles and osprey, among other wildlife. An estimated 150 million tons of plastic waste disappears each year, much of it into the oceans, and it eventually makes its way into everything and everyone who eats seafood. 

As many as 51 trillion particles of micro-plastic are thought to be in the world’s waters today, about 500 times the number of stars in our galaxy. That is a lot of garbage. Montauk’s fourth graders are heroes in our book for doing something about it.

East Hampton Village should have just said no to a smoke-and-mirrors request from representatives of Ronald Perelman, the owner of the Creeks estate on Georgica Pond, at the outset. Mr. Perelman seeks a new zoning classification created for him alone specifically to legalize illegally built structures there. Instead, though skeptical, board members are taking time to consider the proposal. They should not have been so polite. 

Mr. Perelman’s problems at the Creeks are of his own making. The legal tangle there was triggered only by an accidental discovery following a 2012 fire, when a village inspector noticed that considerable illegal construction had taken place. Since then efforts to bring the property into compliance with the law have been stymied. 

Now, Mr. Perelman, who has not been a good neighbor to the pond over the years, according to his representatives’ admissions, is dangling a carrot before the board. In a March 2 presentation, his representatives said there were 17 septic waste systems on the property, and that apparently not all of them had Suffolk Health Department approval. If Mr. Perelman were granted the new zoning, he would then upgrade to the latest waste technology, they offered.

That he and his representatives would try to leverage doing the right thing only now in exchange for a sweetheart zoning deal is offensive. He could have afforded to make upgrades years ago; he was listed by Forbes in 2016 as the 33rd richest American.

Village Trustee Barbara Borsack put it right at the March 2 meeting: “If we are dealing with someone who doesn’t care about the rules, even if we put all these new rules in place, why would we assume that they would be followed?”

If officials give Mr. Perelman what he wants, it would in effect be rewarding him for flouting the law. If he gets what he wants, other wealthy village landowners are sure to take note and to clamor to be next in line for special treatment. 

As hard and expensive a fight as it may be to get Mr. Perelman to remove the illegal construction at the Creeks, that is the only right approach, and the village should be ready to slug it out over the long haul.