In an attempt to keep the sands cleaner East Hampton Town mandated this year that all beach fires be made within metal containers. In several locations early this summer, the rule appears to have improved conditions a great deal. But compliance is not complete, and in some places, Atlantic Drive on Napeague for one and parts of downtown Montauk’s shoreline and Ditch Plain for others, problems with messy charred wood and blackened sand remain. 

Fault the fine print: Though the relevant town regulations are posted at nearly every beach, bay and ocean alike, the information is in an impenetrable block of small, black text that no one — not even the most policy-wonk geekiest among us — is going to read.

The town should take note that people rushing to the beach to build a fire are likely to be doing so at night and to pass by so quickly that, at most, only a split-second’s attention would be paid to the text of a sign. The astonishing welter of signs at the road ends exacerbates the attention gap and makes attention all the more brief.

Idiot-proofing is the solution. Instead of the existing verbiage, which looks like one of the more boring chapters in “Moby-Dick,” the town should display an unmistakable visual message. We can envision a graphic depiction of a fire on the sand with a big “X” through it on one side and a fire properly blazing away in a metal container with a bucket of water nearby on the other, with a big, fat thumbs-up symbol. Emoji are now the common language, and the point will get across. 

If clean sand is the goal, making the rules easier to understand for all beachgoers is a priority.

A number of changes at Amagansett’s Indian Wells Beach have corrected what had seemed a permanently bad situation, and East Hampton Town officials deserve a great deal of credit.

Think back to the summer before last, and the several before that, when Indian Wells regulars faced a hundreds-strong weekend social scene there. Beer seemed a key ingredient in a daytime party that drew young adults to swim, talk, and play games that included throwing full cans of Bud Light at one another in the surf. Taxis and buses swarmed the narrow Indian Wells parking lot as they jockeyed to shuttle the party crowd to and from the beach. On a summer weekend afternoon, heaps of garbage overflowed the metal bins.

Residents and visitors who had always thought of Indian Wells as a quiet place to go with children, read a book, and take in some sun pressed the town, which manages the beach there, for action. Doing something about the parking lot was a must, as, it appeared, was some limit on alcohol consumption.

Well, that last part, banning alcohol, caused some strife. The town trustees, who own many of the town’s beaches on behalf of the public, seemed at the time more narrowly concerned with protecting the rights of the few to drink booze than to assure a reasonably sane situation for all beachgoers. The negotiations between the town board and trustees on the beer question were the stuff of legend, but in the end, they agreed on a test prohibition in 2014.

A town board move to put a gatehouse and vehicle turnaround near Bluff Road, far landward of the parking lot, with attendants checking for resident parking permits met with less opposition. A new rule that bonfires be only in metal containers and more frequent trash collection reduced problems.

By itself, the Indian Wells success story is significant. A drunken scene that made parents unhappy about bringing their children there on Saturdays and Sundays is gone, it is generally easy to find a parking space (provided one has the correct sticker), trash no longer mars the view, and the sand — ah, the sand! — has returned to its glorious, pillowy white, unstained by thousands of flecks of charcoal, as it had been in previous years.

Indian Wells also proves that something can be done to make sure favorite places return to the way most residents want them. As the downtown Montauk beach, in particular, has now become the new party spot, those irked by the chaos might ask the town board: Why not change the rules there as well? Meanwhile, it should be thanked for effective action in Amagansett.

Everything looks great on the downtown Montauk ocean beach at the moment, but behind the scenes a massive economic disaster looms and what could be a major political embarrassment is unfolding. Meanwhile, objections are being heard to a United States Army Corps of Engineers plan to expand the stone bulwark at Montauk Point.

At the downtown beach, thousands of plastic sandbags lie buried under an artificial dune after the completion of a roughly $9 million Army Corps project built under false pretenses and with assurances that it was temporary. This last point is critically important: Officials, including East Hampton Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell and Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc, had defended the work as a stopgap solution to protect shorefront buildings until the Army Corps released its Fire Island to Montauk Point Reformulation Plan. 

At the time, The Star and other critics pointed out that waiting for the Corps was a fool’s gambit — and so it was. In an announcement last week, the Corps said that Montauk’s downtown would be left out of a $1 billion-plus plan to shore up Long Island’s beaches. 

Town officials’ rosy belief that the Army Corps would return to make everything all right had been the key assumption in their justifying the project, which unquestionably violated town law governing the duration of such supposedly emergency measures. Under town and state law, emergency erosion-control structures, including the Montauk sandbags, are allowed for up to six months, with an additional three months possible, until permanent, nonstructural measures are in place. With the official completion of the downtown work in the spring, the sea wall would have been due to be removed right about now. 

There was one small bit of good news in the Army Corps announcement. Federal money can be used to keep the sandbags buried with sand. Maintenance of the structure was to be the sole  responsibility of the town and county. Hearings next month on the $1 billion spending plan are to be announced. 

Things get weirder still in Army Corps land. While it shortchanged downtown Montauk with a sure-to-fail half-effort, it appears ready to spend $18 million or more to increase the stone bulwark at the Montauk Lighthouse. This could put three much-loved surfing breaks and one of the East Coast’s greatest striped bass fishing spots at risk. In typical fashion, the Corps has said the work would actually improve the surfable wave there, but that is far from credible, given the Corps’s questionable engineering expertise.

Sadly, the South Fork’s state elected representatives, Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. and Senator Kenneth P. LaValle, sped a bill through the State Legislature giving lead agency authority for the Lighthouse work to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, whose staff looked the other way when laws were being broken to get the downtown Montauk project under way.

Considering the broken promises made by the Army Corps and apparent collusion among town and state officials now is the time to step back and seek independent analysis, not to rush into a new set of mistakes. East Hampton Town must take the time to get it right where the ocean shore — one of its greatest assets — is concerned.

Move over — that’s the least we can do for our ambulance and fire volunteers as they rush on the roads to a call — and now it’s the law, backed up by a $275 fine and points on your license.

A law signed on July 21 by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo makes it mandatory for motorists to slow down and shift over a lane when approaching a vehicle with flashing green or blue lights operated by volunteer firefighters or ambulance workers involved in a roadside emergency. Until then, the law applied only to parked police and emergency vehicles with flashing red and white or amber lights. The intention is to give other vital personnel a safe space in which to do their critical work.

While the measure only applies to multi-lane highways it should help spread awareness statewide about what the flashing green and blue lights mean. Here, where two-lane roads are the norm, it is good practice to pull over to allow volunteer responders approaching from behind to pass. By highlighting their importance, lawmakers are giving a necessary tip of the hat to the many individuals who help keep all of us safe.

Stories have proliferated this summer about odd encounters between a few surfing instructors and the public at Montauk’s Ditch Plain. There was a report of a fight involving a flip-flop slap to someone’s face. We have heard about teachers who suggest, sometimes aggressively, that regular surfers move away from their students. With the popular beach and parking spaces at a premium, further conflict seems inevitable — as if the members of the East Hampton Town Board, who might be asked to do something about it, need one more thing to worry about.

We have seen it in action. There’s too much of a “don’t-you-know-who-I-am” attitude among some instructors and their friends, who don’t seem to realize that being able to conduct business on public property is a gift from the town. The problems are real and not limited to Ditch Plain. 

At Accabonac and Napeague Harbors, for-profit water sports and fitness operations clog limited accesses. Rental outfits think nothing of taking up parking spaces or blocking boat launches whenever they want. Caterers cordon off large swaths of sand on many summer evenings at beaches like Atlantic Avenue and Indian Wells. Recently, we heard about a floating yoga studio, moored in yet another location. It is likely that Ditch’s instruction problem is just the beginning of a headache for officials as more residents get fed up when those who conduct business act as if they own the place.

Unfortunately, it seems that Town Hall and the East Hampton Town Trustees have been unaware of the growing trouble and much too generous when it comes to how common assets are used by money-making ventures. If they are to be allowed at all, they must be strictly managed to assure they do not interfere with others. As for surfing lessons, they should be limited to places that are far away from popular breaks like Ditch Plain in order to reduce opportunities for conflict.

Everyone needs to remember that the South Fork’s beaches and waterways are cherished spaces for residents and visitors alike to share, protect, and enjoy. 

In the good news department, we are thinking, although a little belatedly, about an expanded effort by the Food Pantry Farm to get quality produce into the kitchens of East Hampton’s less well-off residents. Until now, membership in one of the area’s community-supported agriculture programs had been more or less limited by cost to those in the upper strata of household income. Now, in a first-year effort, the Food Pantry Farm, which is on Long Lane, has 25 members receiving ample portions of vegetables, flowers, and herbs for a fraction of the cost per week of the better-known and established C.S.A.s.

Canned goods and staples distributed to the area’s in-need residents by food pantries are necessary, but providing fresh ingredients as well is a worthy goal. The low-cost Food Pantry Farm effort helps bridge a gap between those who might be hesitant about accepting donations from the food pantries, but who might be eager to enjoy the best the land has to offer. A recent weekly selection, for example, included a delicious array of cucumbers, radishes, lettuce, kale, carrots, peas, and basil.

Food aid here takes a number of forms, and each is important. Though the South Fork has tremendous wealth, life is difficult here for many in the work force. This is made all the more so by exorbitant housing and utility costs, which can leave little for much else, including fresh vegetables. The disparity between the tables of the rich and the less-wealthy can be wide despite this area’s productive soil and resurgent agriculture. 

Other C.S.A.s and for-profit artisanal farmers and food producers are also quietly helping out, and are to be thanked. To those who have not yet made a commitment to provide what they can, let us suggest they do so. Enjoyment of the abundance of the East End should not be the sole province of the region’s richest.

After seven appearances before the East Hampton Village Zoning Board of Appeals, Shahab Karmely had had enough. So, too, did Kenneth Kuchin, his neighbor and adversary in a bitter proceeding about a tennis court, who time and again since early this year went to a zoning board meeting for yet another continuation of what should have been an open-and-shut hearing. So-called continuations are the rule rather than the exception in East Hampton Village zoning matters. They should not be.

Elsewhere, notably at the town zoning board of appeals, continuations are rare. There, as in other towns and villages, applications are heard in a formal way, more as they would in a court appearance, with which they share characteristics. Not so in the village, where a sense of horse-trading continues to prevail. 

Lawyers who appear regularly before the village zoning board know how it works: Draw out the affair as long as possible with late submissions and/or offers to tweak applications and return in a month. But it gums up the works and gives the impression that those with means and expertise are able to be persistent enough to get what they want in the end. That is not how it is supposed to work.

There are hints that some members of the village zoning board are trying to stop late paperwork submissions. This is a good step, which would help streamline the review process and help uphold the zoning code. It may be that the village zoning board is only trying to be fair, but the result is that it allows people to run out the clock and maneuver their ways around it.

Only an insider could get terribly excited about recent East Hampton Town Trustee tension with regard to their so-called harbor management committee. Few town residents — some trustees among them — really know anything about the group or what it does. In fact, as far as we know, the committee has scarcely met since about the beginning of 2011. 

Officially, it is the Trustee Waters Improvement and Management Task Force. It was created as a three-member panel in 2001 to make recommendations about dredging, shellfish regulations, launching ramps, and problems in need of prompt attention. What the committee was asked to do is vital, but many of its responsibilities would seem more properly handled by the trustees as a whole. 

At another level, the committee’s continued existence brings into question the role of the trustees as an elected body. Harbor committee members have in the past gone around in personal vehicles and boats to look for derelict vessels and abandoned duck blinds, for example, taking on semi-official enforcement roles better suited for the town’s professional Marine Patrol officers. The trustees, like the members of the town board, are supposed to set policy for the areas under their authority, not be the cops on the beat. Most significantly though, the harbor committee cannot be of use unless it meets, which it apparently has not done at all in 2016. 

We have long believed that the town trustees had to catch up with the rest of town government in the way they function. Finding money to pay for its own trained staff might be one solution. Another might be for the town board to hire additional personnel for Marine Patrol and the Natural Resources Department to provide the trustees with expert advice and enforce its regulations.

The harbor management committee, by failing to meet in the face of rising challenges to the town’s waterways, has shown that it is now irrelevant. It should be replaced by something more efficient and reliably professional. 

The trustees’ bays and harbors are among the town’s most treasured public assets. Confusing or halfhearted efforts to protect them are not enough.

For all the attention being paid to water quality on the South Fork, surprisingly little is being done in the way of data collection by East Hampton Town itself. And, in the absence of regular town or county testing, the East Hampton Town Trustees and Concerned Citizens of Montauk, in partnership with the Surfrider Foundation, have had to fill the gap to the best of their abilities.

Their findings have been alarming. Christopher Gobler, a Stony Brook University scientist hired by the trustees for an ongoing project, has found toxic algae in several ponds, as well as dangerously low oxygen levels. Based on fecal coliform tests, Dr. Gobler at one point recommended shellfish closures much more sweeping than those now in place. Among the most startling of his recommendations was that Napeague Harbor, which was previously believed to be essentially pristine, should be closed to shellfish harvesting between May and October.

In its recent testing, C.C.O.M.-Surfrider found high levels of enterococcus bacteria, associated with fecal waste, in parts of Lake Montauk, Pussy’s Pond in Springs (which drains into Accabonac Harbor), Georgica Pond in East Hampton, and Fresh Pond in Amagansett, as well as shockingly high results at Sagg Pond in Sagaponack. These vital tests have come from organizations that saw a need for information and tried to provide it, not from the main town governing body or the state or county.

To underline the need for the data, the Lombardo Associates wastewater plan for the town observes that, at the very least, additional studies should be conducted in Lake Montauk. Furthermore, the plan comes right out and says that because bacteria are not systematically measured throughout town, there is no way of knowing if swimming is actually safe in the bays and ocean. The necessary scientific studies, Lombardo wrote, to restore water quality have not been done. The firm said the county’s current regimen of one sampling station per harbor in East Hampton Town is unfortunately limited, while it lauded the trustees for providing valuable insights by funding Dr. Gobler’s work.

This is all alarming and makes us wonder what the heck Town Hall is thinking. If improving water quality is such an important goal — and we’ve heard officials say it is — the starting point has to be carefully gathered information. It is disappointing that the town has shirked this responsibility, passing it on to the cash-strapped trustees and two private organizations. If the town is to get serious about water pollution, it must fund the research first.

There was alarm among environmental activists when the Long Island Power Authority failed to take a widely anticipated vote in July on a wind farm that, had it gone forward, would have been the largest in the United States. Perplexingly, LIPA explained that the delay was at the request of state officials, who, LIPA said, wanted to align the proposal with forthcoming offshore wind and clean energy plans. To some observers, this sounded more than a little suspicious, even for an industry that has been plagued by regulatory stalling and controversy.

 What is odd about such a state request is that the clean energy mandate from Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo centers on the goal of New York’s meeting 50 percent of its power needs from renewable sources, such as wind, by 2030. With construction on the Deepwater company’s wind farm set to begin within three years should LIPA approve it, it would appear that the project would have no problem being aligned with the state’s plans. 

The project calls for a 15-turbine installation about 30 miles off Montauk, with transmission lines tying into the electric grid in East Hampton. The 90 megawatts it would produce has been described as enough to supply as many as 50,000 houses, emissions-free. 

LIPA’s board of trustees is scheduled to meet next on Sept. 21 in Uniondale. We hope that it votes on the Deepwater plan, whether or not the state’s documents are ready. From the start, the alignment excuse appeared bogus; if LIPA is ready to move forward, the state should not be standing in the way.