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.

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.

Too late to be included in an editorial in our print edition last week was the number of undeveloped parcels of land within the boundaries of East Hampton Town. Including vacant commercial and residential land in the two incorporated villages (Sag Harbor and East Hampton), there are approximately 2,580 lots classified as open. 

This figure comes from the East Hampton Town Planning Department, with an cavaet: Among the total are an unknown proportion of substandard urban renewal lots that might not be buildable. But on the other hand, another unknown percentage of the total number of parcels might be dividable, through the subdivision process, into more than one house lot. 

As it stands, the vacant property in the town that has not been preserved in one way or another amounts to more than 10 percent of the total number of private parcels. If they are not saved as open space, most (though not all, due to presumed ecological or other constraints) eventually will be built upon. The overarching question for planners and elected officials is whether the South Fork can reasonably accommodate another 2,000 or more houses from Wainscott to Montauk. The impact of construction and property services here is felt in neighboring areas as well, making East Hampton’s ultimate build-out a matter of regional concern. 

The number, give or take a couple of hundred, is known. It’s a shame that no one in elected office or even among local civic organizations or political groups is even asking what, if anything, to do about it.

Elected officials on the East End, as well as many environmental advocates, are barreling ahead with a plan to seek voter approval to draw as much as 20 percent of future community preservation fund revenue for water quality improvement. However, in presenting the initiative as a good thing, they have failed to study its potential impacts in a meaningful way.

If all goes as expected, voters in the East End towns will see a measure on their Nov. 8 ballots that, if approved, would extend the lifetime of the preservation fund to 2050. Shackled to this — improperly, in our view — is wording that would allow money to be spent for wastewater management and various projects. Its backers have pitched the program as necessary and overdue, and while it may be, just how it would affect such things as development, traffic, and housing density has yet to be explored. Anytime politicians say, “Trust us,” as they appear to be doing now, the public would be wise to be very, very skeptical.

Southampton and East Hampton Towns have put forward varying drafts of proposed ballot measures. The fine print varies a little, but over all they deal with private waste systems, stormwater runoff, and fertilizer contamination of waterways. So far so good, but where the real concern lies, at least in East Hampton and for us, is that it could provide incentives for small, neighborhood sewage systems. But wait, you cry, what’s wrong with that? A lot, unless a great deal of care is taken.

According to officials, there are 2,580 undeveloped commercial and residential parcels in East Hampton Town. Many of them remain open precisely because of problems related to water quality, such as a high water table, proximity to wetlands, or a neighbor’s drinking water well. Removing these barriers through a well-meant but poorly considered system of stand-alone sewage treatment facilities could cause an unwanted construction boom. 

More houses mean more cars, more crowds, more frustration for residents and visitors alike. Just for fun, ask anyone (other than a gas station operator) if East Hampton needs any increase summer traffic. Who among us believes that anyone is going to say, “Yes, bring it on!”

At the same time, individual property owners who, because of their land’s constraints, might have been willing to sell it to the town at a reasonable price might instead be eager to maximize their income by choosing development over preservation. East Hampton officials won’t know what the effect will be in time for an expected hearing next month, and they won’t know in November.

On top of all this, the proposal vests too much power in the hands of the town boards. Methods of seeking a super-majority or getting planning board approval for projects in excess of a certain dollar figure, perhaps $1 million, would also appear to be essential. Imagine the chaos that would have ensued if the Bill Wilkinson, Theresa Quigley, and Dominick Stanzione East Hampton Town Board had its hand on this particular honey pot.

Before taking the matter to voters, the two parts of the referendum must be separated. Extending the preservation fund to 2050 is a terrific idea and should be approved. Using the fund to preserve open space and historic places is without question the right thing to do. Taking 20 percent for water quality might be a good idea, too, but an easy windfall of millions of dollars could lead to particularly inappropriate decision making. 

As laudable as the goal of water quality improvement is, not enough is known yet about how making the money available would play out in the big picture. Waiting until next year, or the year after that, in order to take time to fully understand how the program might change the East End is the only prudent course.

When East Hampton Village Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. abruptly demoted Barbara Borsack on July 5 from the position of deputy mayor in favor of a relative newcomer to the board, Village Hall’s normally decorous atmosphere was rattled. Calling the move a cabinet shuffle, the mayor declined to elaborate on his decision. 

Credit Ms. Borsack, who had held the post for 16 years, for greeting the news with aplomb. Not as much can be said charitably about Mr. Rickenbach. Asked for additional comment, all he would say was, “I would just tell you what I said. We’ll leave it at that.”

The bottom line is that if Ms. Borsack was the right person to be next in line should something happen to the mayor for all of those 16 years, she was the right person to stay on in the role.

Mr. Rickenbach’s blunt non-explanation was dismissive of the public interest. He is 80, and had said this would be his last term in office. We are not alone in suspecting that he wanted to position his chosen successor, Bruce Siska, who took over the deputy mayor title. 

Though the village has been run well in recent years, and although only a tiny number of residents bother to vote in village board elections, that does not excuse the way in which Mr. Rickenbach handled the matter. At the very least, Ms. Borsack deserves an apology — and village residents deserve a full explanation.

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.

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.

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.

“Welcome to New York,” two billboards set up overnight by state workers read, along with six others with similar messages. And Montauk went nuts. To understand why the easternmost hamlet was alarmed, you need to know a little of its history and why the idea of a port of entry there is not all that far-fetched.

Between the late-19th century and the Great Depression, several schemes were floated to build a deep-water port in Fort Pond Bay. This had been a goal for Austin Corbin, an early president of the Long Island Rail Road, who in about 1885 decided it would be lucrative to have express trans-Atlantic liners dock there and discharge New York City-bound passengers onto waiting trains. The plan never evolved, and it faded after Corbin’s accidental death in 1896. 

Various attempts to revive it in one fashion or another persisted, however, including, in 1911, an idea that the ocean liners Titanic and Olympic might dock in Montauk. In 1912, a French investor secured an option on a large suitable tract. The sense was that a Fort Pond Bay port could shave about eight hours off a voyage from the United Kingdom in good weather and up to a full day when there was fog. Finally, in 1931, the chairman of the House Committee on Naval Affairs had Navy vessels sent to Fort Pond Bay to support an L.I.R.R. plan to revive Corbin’s dream.

Subsequent, less ambitious efforts have amounted to nothing, at least so far. At one time, the operators of the Cross Sound Ferry, which has service between Orient to New London, Conn., sought a South Fork terminal, perhaps in Montauk, perhaps at Promised Land in Amagansett. Cross Sound sued East Hampton Town after it adopted a law in 1997 banning most ferries. Although the suit eventually was settled, it could be revived.

Most recently, rumors have been heard that the real reason an investor bought up a number of waterfront properties, including Duryea’s Dock on Fort Pond Bay, is that cruise liners could soon begin calling there, though a spokesman, Marc Rowan, has laughed off the notion. However, the law is just wiggly enough that cruise ships anchoring in Fort Pond Bay is not necessarily beyond the realm of possibility. 

Layer on the general sense that Montauk is changing in ways that longtime residents find disturbing, and it is more or less clear why the state signs set the hamlet’s collective teeth on edge. East Hampton Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell channeled his best Ronald Reagan in declaring on social media, “Mr. Cuomo, take down those signs.” It added a note of humor to an online conversation that had turned quickly toward vigilante talk of chain saws and strong trucks capable of doing the job. 

Montauk is besieged. We expect that the signs will be gone before too long. But the feeling among residents and fans that Montauk is becoming new, shiny, and unfamiliar is likely to endure.

On Monday, the South Fork’s only Fourth of July parade will take place in Southampton Village. It is a tradition-filled, small-town affair, with marching groups, veterans and elected officials riding in open cars, and spectators dressed in red, white, and blue waving flags. As lovely as the Southampton parade may be, it raises, at least for us, the question why none is organized in East Hampton Town. One should be.

Amid all the summer hubbub here, many might fail to reflect that the Fourth of July is much more than a chance to see fireworks — or a reminder to get the grocery shopping done before the weekend hordes wipe out the bread aisle. But the date really marks the official starting point of the American experiment: when the Continental Congress ratified the Declaration of Independence. By signing, on July 4, 1776, the delegates gave force to an idea that had been stirring the colonies for years — a break from Great Britain.

That break was something that the celebrated East Hamptoner Samuel Mulford, known as Fish Hooks Mulford, might have welcomed. He sailed to England in 1704 to demand relief from a tax on whale oil. During the Revolutionary War, East Hampton supplied two militia companies to the Eastern Regiment, as did Bridgehampton. After the disastrous Battle of Long Island in August 1776, local men continued to harass the occupying force, capturing an English ship in Napeague Bay and a skiff filed with coffee and tea in Accabonac Harbor. Some 115 soldiers and supporters of the cause are known to be buried here.

East Hampton’s role in the War of Independence and in the creation of the United States is something that should be commemorated each year. A July Fourth parade seems the right way to do that and to remind us, if only for a few minutes, of the historical ties that make us one nation.