As the summer high season rapidly draws to a close, East Hampton officials and leaders of the various environmental and business organizations here should take a look around and ask if a new, overarching plan is warranted to manage our town’s exploding popularity as a destination for short-term tourism and visitors.

Judging from the stunning number of rentals (mostly illegal) on online listing sites such as Airbnb and HomeAway and the fact that many houses were booked solid this summer, East Hampton’s guest-accommodation capacity has swelled almost overnight. Massive and continual traffic headaches support the casual observation that far more people were here between June and Labor Day than ever before. Restaurants were full every night of the week, grocery lines were a fact of life at all hours except the very early morning or late at night, and the beaches were crowded.

Downtown Montauk fairly boiled over with pedestrians this year when the sun did not shine, and the thunder from its clubs and gin mills could be heard for miles pretty much every night. Police struggled to meet the demand for increased patrols. Daytime beer parties and evening bonfires left the ocean beaches in appalling condition in Montauk and in other parts of town. All in all, summer 2014 appears to have been one in which the old, peaceful order hung on by just a thread.

The East Hampton Town Comprehensive Plan, last updated in 2005, is undoubtedly due for an overhaul anyway, but the escalating draw of people who do not own houses here or rent for a season, or even a summer month, suggests that the more urgent need is for effective controls that balance the desires and needs of tourists and visitors with those of residents.

We believe that East Hampton Town has reached a saturation point beyond which irreparable harm to the place we know and love will be inevitable. Community leaders, both from private groups and among elected officials, must make a priority of preparing for the seasons to come and the ever-greater demands the Hamptons’ notoriety has wrought.

In and of itself, a massive members-only club proposed for the former East Deck Motel site at Ditch Plain does not represent the end of Montauk as we know and love it, but it comes close.

Here is what is understood so far: An anonymous new owner has come up with a plan to more than double the use of the property by building a two-story complex with an Olympic-size swimming pool, a restaurant, and below-grade parking. The club would be open to some 179 members, along with their families and guests, based apparently on the space available on the beach in front of the parcel.

Built to meet Federal Emergency Management Agency standards, with a ground floor about 15 feet above sea level, the proposed 12,000-square-foot main building would tower over the area, cutting off views from nearby houses, and greatly change the look and feel of the area — for the worse. It could be that a grandiose plan for the new club was presented as an initial ante to be bargained down to what the owner really wants. But even at half the size, it would represent an unwise doubling of the former motel. And remember, this comes in part from the legal team responsible for the Montauk Beach House, another intrusion on parking, public property, and the community.

Viewed another way, the project amounts to a proposal to privatize a longstanding, popular public beach. If the plan eventually is approved, the club’s members, by force of numbers alone, would take over the sand between the so-called East Deck parking area and the legendary Dirt Lot. Though passage would not technically be blocked, amenities, like daybeds and beach lounge chairs, might well make it clear that ordinary folks are not welcome. Surfers at Ditch, already often frustrated by the crowded lineup, might well have to swallow a new and more self-entitled breed less willing to share the waves because they’ve paid for the privilege. And East Hampton officials will also have to consider what additional burden the additional club crowd might put on the town lifeguards just to the west.

The plan was the talk of Saturday’s Montauk Playhouse fund-raiser, where Alice Houseknecht, a former East Deck owner, was among the honorees. It appears that Ms. Houseknecht was hornswoggled by the mystery owner or his or her representatives when she sold the property. She reported last fall that she had been assured there would be no second story on the new structure and that the integrity of the site would be maintained. Based on the paperwork submitted to town planners so far, this is not true, which suggests that the people behind the scheme cannot be taken at their word. Town officials must proceed with the greatest suspicion in reviewing their project.

Our doubts also have been raised by the faceless owner’s successfully getting the town to accept a questionable gift of an expensive dune restoration project that looked then, as it does even more now, like a pot-sweetener for requests that were to come. We wonder just how ethical, or even legal, it was for a municipality to accept a donation from a party with an active plan working its way through its regulatory offices or about to be. Whether or not the gift was intended to curry favor (which it almost certainy was), it was unwise of officials to accept it.

Unfortunately, the project makes it clear that the site’s zoning, and that of other attractive parcels, especially around Montauk, is too permissive. In the 2005 East Hampton Town Comprehensive Plan, no changes were recommended for the resort zoning at Ditch Plain, including the Montauk Shores Condominium trailer park. This means that well-funded investors could further try to maximize their returns in spite of a widely held view that Montauk is already at its saturation point in terms of resorts and visitors.

What happens at East Deck aside, as pressures continue for more, bigger, and fancier projects, officials need to take a hard look at whether existing rules are adequate to assure that the town’s shoreline remains one residents can be proud of. Concepts like the Ditch Plain club, which only add to congestion and environmental impacts and at the same time use public resources as if they were their own, have little place here.

Everybody eats; not everybody plays golf. And there, in a nutshell, you have why a private club’s offer to take over most of a large parcel of town-owned former farmland in Amagansett should be rejected out of hand.

Some weeks ago, after successfully negotiating a community preservation fund purchase of a multi-parcel site for which luxury housing for the over-50 crowd had been planned, the East Hampton Town Board called for proposals about how the property might be used. Among the responses was a thick document from the South Fork Country Club offering to set up a driving range and instruction tees and greens there. A fine horse barn there would be used for club equipment and about a third of the land would be returned to farming. While the new site would serve the club’s members, the proposal notes that the public would be able to use the facility, presumably for a fee. The club said it would pay the town $75,000 a year for the land’s use and return it in better shape than when it was purchased.

Even though the preservation fund law allows municipalities to buy land for recreation, and golf is indeed a form of recreation, the South Fork’s proposal should be rejected. Perhaps 1 in 10 people in the United States occasionally golf, but only a fraction of that number do so more than a few times a year. According to a recent report from the National Golf Foundation, the sport suffered a net loss of 400,000 players last year. Looking toward the future, golf’s biggest defections were seen among those under 35. This is hardly the kind of trend the East Hampton Town Board should consider hitching itself to — especially on such a visible and, at $10.1 million, expensive recent land buy.

As we understand it, there are several other proposals making the rounds, and apparently most of them involve better agricultural purposes. Several East Hampton Town Board members have expressed a preference for farming or related uses there, and we agree. Food production is preferable, as it would revitalize the site, preserving community access and providing educational opportunities for a much larger proportion of local residents than golf ever could. You can’t fault the South Fork Country Club, which has an 18-hole course and clubhouse nearby, for asking. Nevertheless, its option should be placed on the bottom of the pile.

Tuesday’s Democratic primary in which Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo managed to defeat a progressive insurgency from Zephyr Teachout, a first-time candidate, was a stunner to which New York’s old-line power brokers should pay close attention.

Over all, votes for the challenger can be read as messages of dissatisfaction with the governor’s approach to leadership, agenda, and priorities. Ms. Teachout landed a solid blow when she counted among her qualifications, vis-a-vis the governor’s, that she at least was not the subject of a federal probe; Mr. Cuomo’s role in dismantling his much-heralded anticorruption commission is being looked at by the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York.

Ms. Teachout’s relative success also came from her bootstrap campaign’s mastery of social media and, by extension, much of the news cycle. If Twitter, the online message platform, were the polls, she would have won in a landslide. During the lead-up to Tuesday’s primary, tweets from her and her supporters dominated feeds; the governor’s were few and perfunctory.

Two negative aspects of Mr. Cuomo’s first term stand out: the 2-percent tax increase cap, which imposed austerity on school spending that harms students, and a lackluster effort on environmental protection. Both, it appears, come from overarching political ambition, which by Mr. Cuomo’s reckoning requires that he govern from the center if he wants to have a run at the White House at some point. The 2-percent cap actually shrinks government as well as school spending because it fails to keep up with inflation. Inevitably, as choices are made to cope with the cap, it often will be less-wealthy state residents and disadvantaged areas that suffer the consequences.

On the environment, this year’s state budget contained a paltry $157 million for the environmental protection fund, a sum that has been described as not enough even for basic programs. Part of the problem has been the state’s skimming money supposed to go to the environment for other purposes — drastically shortchanging the Department of Environmental Protection, for example. Under the governor’s watch, Albany also has failed to lead, either with money or from the bully pulpit, on climate change, alternative energy, and coastal resiliency.

Unfortunate, too, has been Mr. Cuomo’s increasingly ludicrous way of dismissing challenges. He ducked multiple calls to debate Ms. Teachout, calling some he has participated in the past a “disservice to democracy,” and apparently forgetting the single most bizarre example, a nine-person clown show, which was set up at his behest as a way to minimize opposition. Then there was the embarrassing spectacle of him and his running mate’s, Kathy Hochul’s, refusing to shake Ms. Teachout’s hand during a Labor Day parade. Only on Governor Cuomo’s Planet Albany does this kind of thing make sense.   

Progressives nationwide were watching Tuesday for indications in Ms. Teachout’s numbers that a new chapter could be dawning in New York. They also were paying close attention to how Tim Wu, Ms. Hochul’s opponent for lieutenant governor, fared. Only time will tell, but that there was wide interest in Ms. Teachout and her message is something that politicians across the spectrum might ignore at their own risk.

LILCO, LIPA, PSEG — the names may have changed over the years, but for more than 30 years electrical service on Long Island has been one frustration after another. At a meeting in East Hampton on Tuesday, residents and elected officials were expected to speak out about a host of issues; whether their pleas will receive a meaningful response is subject to doubt.

Back in the 1970s, the Long Island Lighting Company tried to bring the region the never-to-be-opened Shoreham nuclear power station. Its successor, the Long Island Power Authority, was responsible for continually soaring rates and wholly inadequate storm preparation. And now, as the region gets to know the Public Service Enterprise Group (as Orwell might have called it), we have been subject to a thuggish approach that brought unsightly and perhaps unsafe massive transmission lines to residential neighborhoods and treasured agricultural areas and an absence of long-term vision including a meaningful commitment to renewable sources and reducing greenhouse emissions.

PSEG is a for-profit company listed on the New York Stock Exchange. It seems that the bean-counters within it and its external shareholders are the guiding forces. This is evident in the new “Utility 2.0” plan, which relies on old-fashioned oil-burning power plants to meet supplemental demand on the East End, and seems to be a behind-the-scenes effort worthy of pulp fiction at intimidation of its critics.

PSEG’s deal with the state has the familiar hallmarks of a typical insider arrangement. The law pushed through by Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo, which supposedly was intended to reform Long Island’s electric service, does not clearly require the company to use competitive bidding, leaving key aspects of its operation essentially unregulated. As with many other initiatives from the governor’s office, when it came to PSEG, he left local governments twisting in the wind, able to do little more than beg for solutions.

Critics, including the Sierra Club, have said the “Utility 2.0” plan fails to provide for adequate alternative generation, notably by offshore wind turbines. PSEG also has sought to delay a 280-megawatt renewable-power project for which bids already had been sought.

Other critics have sharply faulted a demand-reduction project that appears likely to be watered down amid PSEG’s debt-minimization schemes. Gordian Raacke, the director of Renewable Energy Long Island, decried the utility’s approach, saying that it “seems determined to drag us back into the fossil fuel past.”

One has to wonder what it will take to finally break the utility nightmare that has defined electric service in the region. Without Albany taking the lead, there can be little hope of reform or alternatives. Given how much businesses and residents pay for power, they deserve better. Governor Cuomo, who has been understood as having national political aspirations, should recognize an opportunity here to demand a progressive, forward-leaning power policy for Long Island. New York State could become a model for the rest of the country. Instead, “Utility 2.0,” which was supposed to signal a new start, appears doomed from the outset. In the absence of the governor’s leadership, there is little hope for an environmentally sound energy future.

Things are bad in the air around East Hampton Airport. Even though just how bad may be open to debate, there is no question that residents across the North and South Forks have been suffering from aircraft noise. The good news is that relief may be on the horizon.

According to the latest numbers, flights in and out of the town-owned airfield have increased substantially over last year. Between Jan. 1 and Aug. 4 helicopter traffic jumped by almost 44 percent over the same period in 2013. Fixed-wing aircraft using the airport rose as well. The surprising 2014 numbers come as officials are already grappling with accumulated complaints about noise from earlier years and a previous town administration that spent four years basically giving helicopter operators a free pass. Better weather this summer may have played a part in the dramatic spike, but people were also complaining last year, which underscores the fact that noise is a longstanding problem and cannot be ignored.

Unless East Hampton Town acts, route changes mandated by the Federal Aviation Administration could be approaching that would only anger a different set of residents. At a meeting last week in Southold with that town’s supervisor, F.A.A. staff, Representative Tim Bishop, and aides to Senator Charles E. Schumer, the discussion was about shifting flight paths away from the North Fork. But the numbers show that moving traffic around is not going to make a meaningful difference on the ground here. Whether the F.A.A. agrees to direct the loudest aircraft over Northwest Woods, Georgica Pond, Noyac, or the North Fork, some people are going to suffer unfairly for the convenience of a tiny portion of summer visitors and part-time residents.

Paid spokesmen for the helicopter industry have predicted dire consequences if airport limits are put in place. These claims, even if credible, do not outweigh the expectation of peace and quiet by residents of both forks. Officials from all of the affected towns and villages should work with the F.A.A. on an aggressive plan to reduce the total number of flights and curtail the hours helicopters can use the airport. The rights of those who live here must take precedence over commercial interests and the desire of some of the well-off to avoid the maddenly slow Long Island Expressway. You know what? If a certain number of weekend hedge-funders and others decide to spend their vacation time elsewhere, we’ll manage just fine without them.

Unfortunately, as the debate over airport traffic raged, conditions there deteriorated, particularly putting private pilots at risk. East Hampton Town officials are moving quickly now on several safety upgrades. These include lighting, tree work, and reconstruction of a crumbling and dangerous secondary runway. All of this can be paid for without F.A.A. money by using income from landing fees and other airport revenue. This is important because federal dollars come with attached strings, which make local regulation of noisy aircraft more difficult.

East Hampton Town Councilwoman Kathee Burke-Gonzalez has taken on a monumental task in getting many of the airport’s constituencies to talk to one another. She is to be congratulated for helping to guide the town toward likely new rules on noise and much-needed repairs.

The emerging united front among local pilots and anti-noise advocates must include the F.A.A. as well, since its cooperation will be essential if the town, as expected, imposes helicopter curfews, so-called slot limits on the number of landings and takeoffs, or other measures.

On paper, East Hampton Village’s proposed code changes to allow some duneland projects to proceed with reduced official scrutiny may make sense; on the ground, however, one of the proposals — to allow property owners to place “beach-compatible” sand on the dunes without applying for a variance from the code — is regrettable. Hearings on these and several other changes are scheduled for tomorrow’s village board meeting.

Our objection to exempting oceanfront property owners from prohibitions that now cover work on the dunes comes down to the simple fact that there is not enough sand to be found of sufficiently high quality. One thing is clear: The junk that passes for beach-compatible sand is garbage, pure and simple.

Take Georgica Beach in East Hampton Village, for example. Stone-flecked yellow sand from who knows where was dumped there to protect the exposed foundation of a guest house. To the east, a lot of the material brought in to protect threatened Montauk resorts has left the beach altered. In several places on the bay beach as well, we picked up bits of asphalt roadway and even what appeared to be a chunk of a green-painted concrete tennis court. The state’s Department of Environmental Conservation later told us the detritus came from an A-okay project.

With the standard for what passes as beach sand these days so low, village officials should not ease the way for property owners to fast-track coastal work. In the worst-case scenario, you could expect high “privacy dunes” to arise in these extraordinarily fragile micro­environments. It doesn’t seem as if the village trustees actually thought this through.

Another duneland regulation the board has proposed is reasonable, however. Property owners would be able to seek permits for elevated walkways with reduced paperwork and a minimum of delay. We support this change. On the matter of dune-building, however, the board should take a long, hard look before acting. Exempting property owners from thorough review would be likely to damage natural habitats and diminish the quality of one of East Hampton Village’s most precious assets — its beaches. At a time when projects near the beach should be getting more scrutiny, not less, the proposal is moving village government in the wrong direction.

The East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals has it exactly right in asking an applicant for a rock revetment in Montauk for a full environmental impact study before proceeding.

John Ryan, who owns a bluff-top house overlooking the Atlantic, has a big problem. Erosion is eating away at the property. But East Hampton Town banned so-called hard structures on the beaches there, and in much of the rest of town, in about 2005 when it adopted a comprehensive Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan. This plan was the product of more than a decade of effort, and it carries the weight of state law. It should bind the zoning board’s hand.

The rationale behind setting out zones where seawalls were allowed and where they were not was based on considerable observation and thought. It is clear that in the places where dunes or bluffs are fortified with stone, wood, or steel, security for private property comes at an unacceptable cost — the loss of beaches over which the public has a centuries-old right of passage. Armoring also results in the loss of habitat, potentially including that of the plover, on the federal list of endangered species, and myriad others that depend on untrammeled nature for nesting, feeding, and resting places during migration.

Mr. Ryan is hardly alone in his hope to stem the tides. This week the town zoning board also heard from a group of property owners whose Louse Point area bluffs in Springs are being eaten away. Together, they are asking for hundreds of feet of rock, which would almost certainly mean the end of the beach there, as it has nearby, and dire down-drift effects.

Officials at every level must begin to recognize when protecting private property comes at the too high price of the loss of the people’s access to the shore. East Hampton’s beaches are valuable to all of us, residents and visitors alike, and no more should be sacrificed to save anyone’s house.

The board will study the environmental impact as presented by Mr. Ryan, but that work was done long ago as part of the town’s coastal hazard plan. The conclusion was clear: There can be no hard structures there.

Serious attention is now being paid to water quality in the Town of East Hampton after a patchwork effort dating back decades. Georgica Pond, which has been closed to the taking of shellfish for years due to pollution, was found to be contaminated with a form of toxic algae about a year ago and closed to crabbing, its last remaining active harvest.

Concerned Citizens of Montauk and the local Surfrider Foundation released test results this week that found elevated bacteria in a dreen that crosses a popular ocean beach and at several places in Lake Montauk. If there ever was any question about what is causing some of these results, the C.C.O.M.-Surfrider tests can dispel it.

To take just one location, close to a former town bathing beach at South Lake Drive, the highest readings come after Memorial Day, with the greatest spikes around the middle of July. Called East Creek on the surfrider.org website, this narrow waterway carries much of the more of less unfiltered waste from the Ditch Plain area’s many houses into the lake. In this case, the samples are checked for enterococcus, a form of intestinal bacteria found in humans; what other contaminants may be present, including household chemicals and dissolved pharmaceuticals, is subject to conjecture.

East Hampton Town officials have targeted undeveloped lots around Lake Montauk for purchase using money from the community preservation fund. This initiative will probably prevent conditions from getting much worse. But other measures will have to be taken to see long-term improvement.

Several levels of government, including town and village officials, and representatives of the Nature Conservancy and other groups have begun meeting to discuss possible solutions. These may include an educational campaign aimed at waterfront property owners to seek better compliance with rules about fertilizers, lawns, and clearing, among other methods of watershed protection. Another option, if money could be set aside, is an incentive program to replace outdated or failing septic systems.

Meanwhile, in Sag Harbor the village board was expected to vote last night to impose a moratorium on building near its waterfront as development pressure swells beyond the existing regulations’ ability to control it. And East Hampton Town is working on a comprehensive wastewater study, which should provide some more answers.

Making water quality a top priority is the right thing to do in a region that so values its surroundings. It is heartening to see people inside and outside of government taking it so seriously.

Saturday is International Coastal Cleanup Day, and East Hampton Town is joining the effort by providing trash bags, gloves, and collection sites for volunteers who want to help pick up trash from the beaches. Then, on Sunday, the organizers of the People’s Climate March expect it to be the largest demonstration in New York City since the anti-Vietnam War protests. Both are worthy.

The People’s Climate March promises to involve leaders from the labor movement, faith-based organizations, and people from across the nation, along with 32 marching bands and a single call by trumpets, bells, drums, and whistles for change. The beach cleanup here, sponsored by the Ocean Conservancy, may present an opportunity for change of the sometimes overlooked but growing problem of the mess left behind by bonfires. East Hampton Village allows fires on the beach provided they are kept inside a metal brazier or other container. Southampton does the same, and requires a permit. Many other Long Island municipalities ban them altogether. East Hampton Town, on the other hand, allows fires to be built right on the sand, subject to a host of regulations about size, location, and hours, which are largely ignored and in any event fail to address the enduring problem that fire debris, be it half-burned logs or the more-difficult-to-remove bits of charcoal, are leaving many popular bathing beaches almost permanently scarred.

 If you look closely (and we invite you to), dozens of small, black chunks can be picked up within an area no bigger than a single beach towel at Indian Wells in Amagansett. Downtown Montauk’s shore one morning this summer was a wasteland of smoldering wood and empty beer cans. It’s time for town officials to realize something has to change. Fires on town beaches could be permitted only within metal containers for a distance of perhaps 300 feet in either direction from beach road ends. Fires could be allowed on the sand beyond those limits, but only if a way can be found for marine patrol officers to obtain identification of responsible parties to whom littering tickets could be directed if a mess were found in the morning.

It is high time that beachgoers here began to practice the old backpacker’s mantra of “leave no trace.” As for time, it is running short to protect those very beaches from eventually falling victim to climate change.