Last month, Perry Gershon, the Democratic Party’s candidate to represent New York’s First Congressional District, told The Star that he was confident that the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the party’s campaign arm for the House of Representatives, would soon add him to its Red to Blue list of top-tier candidates to which it provides funding and organizational support. “They’re aware of our race; they know it’s winnable,” he said at the time. 

His confidence was well founded: The campaign committee has added Mr. Gershon, who will face Representative Lee Zeldin in the Nov. 6 election, to the program. The race is one of 82 among the 435 House races to hold the designation. 

Representative Ben Ray Lujan of New Mexico, the committee’s chairman, said in a statement issued on Friday that Mr. Gershon “is bringing the same tireless work ethic and determination that made him successful in business to his campaign for New York’s First Congressional District, and because of that this race is competitive and winnable in November.”

Mr. Gershon, who bested four others in the Democratic primary election in June, has earned a place on the Red to Blue roster by “surpassing aggressive goals for grassroots engagement, local support, campaign organization, and fund-raising,” the statement said. 

“The Red to Blue races are the priority races,” Mr. Gershon said on Tuesday. His campaign’s designation in the program, he said, “makes a statement that it’s a race they believe has a strong chance of winning over an incumbent Republican. What they’re saying here is that they see us having the potential vote support and energy and volunteerism, the campaign organization and fund-raising ability in order to defeat Zeldin.” 

Chris Boyle, the communications director for Mr. Zeldin’s campaign, dismissed the move. “Being the 82nd pick of top targets by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is nothing to brag about,” he said in an email on Tuesday, noting former Southampton Town Supervisor Anna Throne-Holst’s 59-to-41-percent loss in her 2016 challenge to Mr. Zeldin despite being chosen for the Red to Blue program. 

“It’s worth noting that she was actually from the district, as opposed to Park Avenue Perry, who recently registered in our district just to run against Congressman Zeldin,” Mr. Boyle said. Mr. Gershon built a house in East Hampton in 1999 and became a year-round resident last year. 

The Cook Political Report and the political analyst Scott Rasmussen place the First District in their “likely Republican” columns, and the website Real Clear Politics says the race “leans Republican.” 

But Mr. Gershon has been upbeat throughout the campaign. A 76-percent increase in turnout over the Democratic congressional primary in 2016 means that Democrats are energized, he told The Star, while the candidates he bested have all pledged their support. Conditions were less favorable two years ago, he said, while President Trump, of whom Mr. Zeldin is a strong supporter, is divisive and unpopular, despite having won the First District by 12 points in 2016. 

Mr. Zeldin, a former state senator, is seeking a third term. He defeated Representative Tim Bishop, who served six terms, in 2014. 

Mr. Gershon’s campaign began airing television ads on Sept. 4, which he said are helping his name recognition in the district. From discussions with district residents, he said that “the big issues to people are health care, gun safety, the environment . . . and Zeldin’s absenteeism and lack of caring for the district, for people here. People feel like Lee has deserted them."

A week after David Lys won the East Hampton Democratic primary for town councilman and voters rejected the Reform Democrats’ efforts to remake the town’s Democratic Committee, the local party remains split even as November’s election looms.  

Mr. Lys, who was appointed to the East Hampton Town Board in January to fill the seat vacated when Peter Van Scoyoc became town supervisor, handily defeated David Gruber in last Thursday’s Democratic primary. 

Unofficial results from the Suffolk County Board of Elections had Mr. Lys winning the contest 1,489 to 884, victorious in all but two of the town’s 19 election districts. 

The board of elections received 503 absentee ballots, an official said on Tuesday. Though they have yet to be counted, Mr. Lys’s lead is insurmountable if the unofficial count is certified.

“I think what happened is that the Town of East Hampton decided to go with the moral values of David Lys instead of the moral compass of David Gruber,” Mr. Lys said at Rowdy Hall last Thursday night, a reference to the Reform Democrats’ logo and slogan. “They decided to make sure that the person who stays above the fray and does it for the whole town instead of themselves will always come up above. I always wanted that.”

Mr. Lys will face Manny Vilar, the Republican and Conservative Party candidate, in the Nov. 6 general election. Mr. Vilar lost to Mr. Van Scoyoc in the campaign for supervisor last year. “I think it’s going to be great to talk about the issues, to make sure that the whole town now gets to vote on the candidate, the person that they want to represent them on the town council,” Mr. Lys said. “I hope that’s me.”

The vote was “a reaffirmation of the selection the Democratic Committee originally made of David Lys to be the candidate,” Christopher Kelley, the East Hampton Democrats’ campaign chairman, said on Monday. “It was an affirmation that the Democrats are happy with the job the town board is doing and support the leadership of the party that got them there.”

Looking ahead to the general election, Amos Goodman, chairman of the East Hampton Town Republican Committee, had a different point of view. “This race is really Manny versus the entrenched political machine,” he said yesterday. “It’s a referendum on more of the same versus reform and independence, business as usual versus change. We are confident Manny’s message of experience and independence will resonate with voters.”

But last Thursday, with a contentious primary in the rearview mirror, the mood was jubilant at Rowdy Hall in East Hampton as Mr. Lys and Democratic officials including Supervisor Van Scoyoc, Councilwomen Sylvia Overby and Kathee Burke-Gonzalez, County Legislator Bridget Fleming, Francis Bock, clerk of the town trustees, Susan McGraw Keber of the trustees, and incumbents and candidates for the Democratic Committee watched returns come in on the board of elections website. 

The East Hampton Democratic Committee chose Mr. Lys as its candidate in the spring, in the midst of a fraught campaign to select a new committee chair to succeed Jeanne Frankl, who retired. That struggle, in which the Democratic Committee ultimately chose Cate Rogers as its new chairwoman over Rona Klopman, was followed by the establishment of the East Hampton Reform Democrats. Mr. Gruber became its standard-bearer and candidate for the town board.

The Reform Democrats ran a full slate of candidates for the 38-member Democratic Committee last Thursday. Mr. Gruber won a seat in Election District 7, in Wainscott, but he was one of few among his caucus to win. Party leaders including Ms. Frankl, Ms. Rogers, Mr. Kelley, Mr. Bock, Ms. McGraw Keber, and Betty Mazur, the committee’s vice chairwoman, were among the victors. Ms. Klopman was among the Reform Democrats to lose a bid for a seat on the committee. For a full list of people elected to the Democratic Committee last Thursday click here.

The primary election campaign was at turns genteel and punctuated by attacks. Democrats held a 4-0 majority on the town board after the November 2017 election. Mr. Lys’s appointment to the fifth seat angered some Democrats, who complained that Mr. Lys was a lifelong Republican. Indeed, Mr. Lys had only recently changed his party registration from Republican to Democratic. He said, however, that he had never participated in politics before but had come to realize that his views align with those of the Democratic Party.

Since forming the East Hampton Reform Democrats, which he described as a caucus within the Democratic Party, Mr. Gruber has been a frequent critic of the town board, particularly Mr. Van Scoyoc, Ms. Overby, and Ms. Burke-Gonzalez. In mass emails and on social media, the Reform Democrats harshly criticized the town board over its handling of the town’s emergency communications system and the proposed South Fork Wind Farm. At the town board’s meeting on Tuesday, he continued to criticize the board’s actions with respect to the proposed wind farm. 

Councilman Jeff Bragman, also a Democrat, joined the Reform Democrats in their criticism of Mr. Lys’s move to form an independent party, the East Hampton Unity Party, to ensure himself a line on the Nov. 6 election ballot were he to lose in the primary. Mr. Goodman has mounted a challenge to Mr. Lys’s Unity Party nominating petitions, which is pending. He said yesterday that he believes Mr. Lys is 50 to 60 valid signatures short of the requirement.

In another unusual aspect of the campaign, the East Hampton Independence Party chose Mr. Gruber as its candidate for town board. East Hampton Republicans, however, challenged the validity of the Independents’ nominating petitions. A State Supreme Court judge sided with the Republicans, and the petitions were invalidated. Mr. Gruber was not involved in the gathering of signatures for the Independence Party petitions. 

Ms. Rogers expressed gratitude to Democratic voters on Monday “for overwhelmingly supporting David Lys and the East Hampton Democratic Committee slate. I am proud that running on merit still wins in East Hampton and that attack politics do not resonate here.” She asked that as attention turns to the Nov. 6 election, “all Democrats unite and commit to working together as we always have to continue the good work of electing Democrats for the betterment of our community.”

Last Thursday, his nomination assured, Mr. Lys, the former Republican, also sought to close the chasm that has opened among Democrats. “With time, all rivalries will melt away,” he said to the gathering at Rowdy Hall. “The angst, the anger we might all be feeling will melt away when we all come together as one unified Democratic Committee. That’s what we need to do right now. Let’s go forward. Let’s change Washington, let’s change East Hampton, let’s make sure that we have this on Nov. 6.” 

If he wins in November, Mr. Lys will fulfill the final year of Mr. Van Scoyoc’s term and would have to stand for re-election to a full four-year term in 2019, should he wish to continue on the board. “I think I’ve worked hard, I’ve researched hard, I’ve done my homework, and I’m ready to keep going forward for another year,” he said last Thursday.

New Union Support for Zeldin

Representative Lee Zeldin’s campaign has announced endorsements from eight unions, bringing the congressman’s total number of union endorsements to 25. 

Mr. Zeldin, a Republican, is seeking a third term in Congress. He is opposed in the race by the Democratic Party’s nominee, Perry Gershon, who lives in East Hampton. 

The International Union of Operating Engineers Local 15, the Laborers’ International Union of North America Local 78, the Patrolmen’s Benevolent Association of the City of New York, the New England Regional Council of Carpenters of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners of America, the Sergeants Benevolent Association of the N.Y.P.D., the International Brotherhood of Teamsters Joint Council No.16, the New York State Troopers Police Benevolent Association, and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers Local 2230 are the latest unions to announce endorsement of Mr. Zeldin’s campaign. 

“The Congressman’s strong record of passing legislation that protects workers’ rights and helps create good paying jobs has earned him widespread support for his re-election campaign for Congress,” a statement from Mr. Zeldin’s campaign said.

Gershon Gets Grassroots Group’s Backing

Swing Left, a volunteer organization that is working to elect a Democratic majority in the House of Representatives, announced last Thursday that it is directing people to donate their time and money to Perry Gershon, the Dem­ocrats’ candidate for the First Congressional District, who is running to unseat Representative Lee Zeldin. The First District is one of six Republican-held districts it is newly targeting. 

Along with the first district, which encompasses the Towns of East Hampton, Southampton, Shelter Island, Southold, Riverhead, Brookhaven, and part of Smithtown, the group’s newest targets are districts in Florida, Illinois, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Texas. In total, it is working to unseat Republican incumbents in 84 congressional districts. 

“With Democrats contesting nearly every single House seat this year, and grassroots activists fired up and ready to win, we want to ensure that we connect everyone who can help with the smartest ways to invest their time, money, and energy this November to help us take back the House,” said Ethan Todras-Whitehill, co-founder and executive director of Swing Left. “We’re adding these new swing districts where we see the grassroots is building power and volunteers can move the needle to secure critical wins.” 

Swing Left examined districts’ candidates, voting history, fund-raising gaps, and geographic proximity to its volunteers to identify the new districts where its volunteers could make a difference. The group has raised more than $7 million for Democratic candidates since it was formed in January 2017.

Earlier this month, the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee added Mr. Gershon to its “red to blue” program, which also seeks to defeat Republican incumbents. The race is one of 82 among the 435 House races to hold that designation. 

A.F.L.-C.I.O. for Thiele

Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. has announced the New York State A.F.L.-C.I.O., on the recommendation of the Long Island Federation of Labor, has endorsed his re-election effort. 

The 250,000-member Long Island Federation of Labor, A.F.L.-C.I.O., represents a range of union workers including teachers, technicians, public employees, painters, bus drivers, and bricklayers, as well as retail, auto, janitorial, utility, health care, and construction workers.

“I will remain committed to protecting and advocating for good jobs with decent pay and benefits for all working families on Long Island,” Mr. Thiele said in a statement.  

The Town of East Hampton is coming to social media. 

Last Thursday, the town board passed a resolution authorizing Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc’s office to establish and maintain official Facebook and Instagram accounts for the town, citing the social media platforms’ effectiveness in disseminating information and raising awareness. 

Social media, Anne Bell, an assistant to the supervisor, told the board at its Sept. 18 meeting, could be utilized to share alerts now posted to the town’s website. Information about hurricanes and snowstorms, services such as the town’s senior citizens center and youth activities, events, job postings, construction updates, LTV’s videos of public meetings, schedule changes, and the like could be more widely disseminated via social media, she said, along with press releases and public service announcements. 

The town’s Police Department runs its own Facebook page, and Steven Lynch, the town’s highway superintendent, shares information on road conditions on his personal Facebook page, Ms. Bell said. “We can centralize all that with our own page that’s monitored regularly . . . so people don’t necessarily have to be friends with Steven” to access such information, she said. “We can use our own page to share the same information, reach more people, and encourage public participation.”

“Any way we can amplify the message and get the word out on any number of topics within the town is very important,” Mr. Van Scoyoc said. 

Ms. Bell said in an email on Tuesday that the town’s social media accounts could be active as soon as Friday.

The Suffolk County Board of Elections has certified the Sept. 13 Democratic Party primary election results, with East Hampton Town Councilman David Lys defeating his challenger, David Gruber, 61 percent to 39 percent. 

Mr. Lys won 1,757 votes to Mr. Gruber’s 1,117, according to the board of elections. The unofficial result, prior to the counting of absentee ballots, had Mr. Lys winning by 1,489 to 884 votes. 

“I am very happy and thankful that East Hampton Democratic voters concurred with the Democratic Committee who selected me to be their candidate,” Mr. Lys said in a statement issued by the East Hampton Town Democratic Committee on Tuesday. “I will work hard between now and November to win over all voters throughout East Hampton, as I hope to be the councilman for everyone regardless of party by winning the general election.” 

Turnout was 38.9 percent. 

“This decisive outcome bodes well for Democrats in East Hampton, and not only for David Lys but for ensuring Perry Gershon is elected to Congress,” Cate Rogers, the Democratic Committee’s chairwoman, said in a statement issued on Tuesday. Mr. Gershon, who lives in East Hampton, is challenging Representative Lee Zeldin in New York’s First Congressional District. 

The primary election was one chapter in a schism that has opened within the local party. Mr. Gruber leads a caucus called the East Hampton Reform Democrats, which also ran a full slate of candidates for the committee. Few of its candidates prevailed in the Sept. 13 vote. 

Mr. Lys also won the Working Families Party primary election and will appear on that party’s line in the Nov. 6 election, in which he will face Manny Vilar, the Republican and Conservative Parties’ candidate.

If a “blue wave” is coming in November, it could strike our South Fork shores, largely due to a recent surge in youth voter registration.

Although one of the abiding realities of American politics is that young voters do not participate proportionally in midterm elections, we’re in what some call “the golden age of student activism.” Propelled by a spate of school shootings, anger over gun laws, and a continuing disapproval of President Trump, a record number of 18 to 22-year-olds registered to vote this year. More important, a recent study conducted by Harvard University’s Institute of Politics showed a marked increase in this age group of those who said that they will “definitely be voting” in the November elections.

New York State reported a 10-percent increase in youth registration this year but the reality is that on Nov. 6, the date of the midterm elections, most of those eligible first-time voters will be away at colleges and universities, or traveling abroad — in other words, out of the district in which they are registered. 

But here on the East End — New York’s First Congressional District is one of 108 congressional districts nationwide that intersect with pivotal counties that went from Obama in 2012 to Trump in 2016 — younger voters seem undeterred by geography and appear to be galvanized to exercise their right to vote via absentee ballot. Most first-time voters polled on the South Fork said they will vote for Perry Gershon, the Democratic candidate seeking to replace the Republican Lee Zeldin, elected in 2014 to the House of Representatives.

Tali Friedman of Springs, a freshman at Butler University in Indiana who graduated from the Ross School in June, said she will be sending in her absentee vote for Nov. 6 because “I am unhappy with the way the government is currently being run. I disagree with many of the social and political issues of this president’s administration.” 

For Tali, and other young voters, the need for Mr. Zeldin to be replaced is clear. As reported in The Star, Mr. Zeldin has accepted $14,850 from the National Rifle Association since his first congressional run, the most of any sitting New York representative, earning an A rating as a solidly pro-gun candidate who has reliably supported N.R.A. positions.

Maya Schultz, who graduated from East Hampton High School in June and attends Emory University in Atlanta, Ga., registered to vote in August and is awaiting her absentee ballot. She will vote for Mr. Gershon because “Lee Zeldin is in lockstep with Trump and I don’t support Trump. I want common-sense gun control and the right to choose, and Zeldin doesn’t want either.”

Another recent Ross School alumnus, Kai Parcher-Charles, is taking a gap year and is currently in Prague in the Czech Republic, studying filmmaking. Despite the distance, Kai has taken the necessary measures to cast his absentee vote for Mr. Gershon and explained his reasons in an email.

“I’m very uncomfortable with what’s going on in our country right now. I feel voting is taking the first step in taking the next step to bringing change,” wrote Kai. “I think my age group will make a difference . . . if everyone in my age group were to make it their priority to not only vote but to educate themselves about our political environment as well, it would be huge.”

Historically, young people have the lowest turnout rate of all age groups because they are more transient and have not yet established the habit of voting. Students also face unique voting hurdles, including proof of residency, absentee ballot use, and voter identification — all issues that tend to unfairly affect college students because so many students travel out of state for college. Confusion and misinformation results in one in five mail-in ballots submitted by 18 to 24-year-olds being rejected because it arrives late.

All this has led universities and colleges to facilitate the process of student voter registration and absentee voting. Stony Brook University has joined forces with the Vote Everywhere, a program that is part of the Andrew Goodman Foundation, whose goal is to “ensure that every new student at Stony Brook University has an opportunity to register to vote, and to vote.” To date, this Long Island chapter claims to have helped 13,000 students register to vote.

Likewise, more than 176 colleges and universities around the country have formed a partnership with TurboVote, a nonpartisan effort that aims to increase voter engagement on college and university campuses. TurboVote has developed an app that offers a “one-stop-shop” voter platform available to students at campuses throughout the country as well as through companies like Starbucks, Univision, Facebook, Google, and Snapchat.

For Milo Munshin, a Sag Harbor native and freshman at the New School in Manhattan, an absentee vote for Mr. Gershon is forthcoming. “I’m well aware that every vote counts and would like to have someone with beliefs that align with mine in office,” he said.

With younger voters seemingly poised to have an outsize impact in key races in November, here are some facts about registering and casting an absentee ballot:

You must be a registered voter in Suffolk County with a valid reason to vote absentee. New York explicitly allows students to keep their voting residency even if they move out of their district to attend school, and the only way they will lose this is by establishing residency in a new state.

Voter registration and absentee ballot applications can be downloaded on the Suffolk County Board of Elections website (suffolkvotes.com) or at vote.org. 

Absentee ballot applications should be mailed to the Suffolk County Board of Elections, P.O. Box 700, Yaphank 11980, postmarked no later than the seventh day before the election. Generally, at least 20 days before the election is advisable.

Validated applicants will receive an absentee ballot in the mail. The completed absentee ballot must be postmarked by a governmental postal ser­vice not later than the day before the election and received no later than the seventh day after the election.

The South Fork commercial fishing industry remains opposed to Deepwater Wind’s proposed offshore wind farm, and now several hundred Wainscott residents have opened another hostile front, this one specific to the Rhode Island company’s preferred cable-landing site, the ocean beach at the end of Beach Lane in their hamlet.

On Monday, a group calling itself Save Beach Lane submitted a petition with 341 signatures to the East Hampton Town Board and the town trustees,  taking issue with the landing beneath the beach, which may be within trustee jurisdiction. Deepwater Wind submitted an application to the New York State Public Service Commission on Sept. 14 for the portion of the transmission cable that would lie in state waters and underground.

“We demand that East Hampton not disturb Beach Lane with its planned wind landing site and select one of the other multiple viable alternative options,” the petition says. The beach “is already prone to erosion” and “will be forever altered by a for-profit (hedge fund-owned) company,” it adds. The D.E. Shaw group, an investment and technology development firm, is Deepwater Wind’s principal owner. 

The signers also assert that Wainscott “is already shouldering a disproportionate set of burdens for our broader community,” citing airport-related noise and contamination detected in many of the hamlet’s private wells.

By a 3-to-2 vote, the town board agreed in July to support the granting of an access and utility easement allowing Deepwater Wind to route the transmission cable from the proposed 15-turbine wind farm to the road end at Beach Lane. From there, it would be buried on a path to a Long Island Power Authority substation near Cove Hollow Road in East Hampton.

The trustees have been more hesitant, making no commitment, to date, to a land-use agreement. Both governing bodies have retained special counsel to advise their own lawyers and guide them through the P.S.C.’s Article VII review process, which covers applications to construct and operate a major electric-transmission facility. 

Should Deepwater Wind ultimately be allowed to lay the cable along its preferred route, offering the shortest path to the substation, it has agreed to fund an $8.45-million community benefits package for sustainability programs and infrastructure improvements. If it is denied an easement to land the cable at Wainscott and turns to an alternative site — probably state-owned land at Hither Hills — company officials say that offer will be withdrawn.

At the trustees’ meeting Monday, Pamela Mahoney of Wainscott read the petition into the record and told the trustees that the hamlet’s citizens advisory committee supports it, although one member, Frank Dalene, does not. The large number of signatures was obtained in just a few weeks, she noted.

Alexander Edlich, an organizer of the petition, wrote to Kathleen Burgess, the P.S.C.’s secretary, that “a for-profit company installing power cables will forever alter our sole, undivided community beach. . . . Many alternative and more reasonable landing sites exist other than Beach Lane. Nearly all those already-identified alternative sites would have less impact than on a heavily used and popular public beach.”

Another comment made to the state commission was more direct. “I vehemently oppose this project,” Franziska Klebe posted Tuesday on the State Department of Public Service website, “and will vote against any official who supports it.” 

But Mr. Dalene, a former chairman of the town’s energy sustainability advisory committee, is a vocal supporter of the wind farm. The citizens advisory committee “was in full support of Deepwater Wind until it was announced that the cable was coming down Beach Lane,” he said. “I view it as pure nimbyism.” 

“I’ve been dispelling a lot of fake news,” Mr. Dalene said, for which he blamed the wind farm’s opponents. “A lot of it is fear-mongering — scare tactics, fake news, and nimbyism.” 

A letter from Save Beach Lane to the town board dated Friday said that “the same type of cable with a similar installation executed by the same company two years ago became exposed in Block Island last month.” The Block Island Times reported on Aug. 17 that about 10 feet of the cable connecting the five-turbine Block Island Wind Farm to the island had become exposed in shallow water. In remarks to that newspaper, Jeffrey Grybowski, Deepwater Wind’s chief executive officer, cited “more sand movement than had been anticipated.” 

“This happened after a particularly aggressive storm that resulted in some visibly noticeable changes to the contours of the beach itself,” Clint Plummer, Deepwater Wind’s vice president of development, said earlier this month. In an email on Tuesday, he said that the cable has been fully covered since mid-August, when Deepwater Wind applied additional sand.

Mr. Plummer also maintained that the proposed South Fork Wind Farm and its cable route have earned “overwhelming support from Town of East Hampton residents, officials, and local environmental organizations. The long public review of this project has clearly demonstrated that the Wainscott route is the best option for the transmission cable because it will have the least impact to the town as a whole.”

“The beach will not be impacted, and public access to the beach will be maintained throughout construction; any claims to the contrary in this petition are simply false,” he continued. In fact, he said, “the South Fork Wind Farm cable will be installed beneath Wainscott Beach using a different method than that at the Block Island Wind Farm. This will allow the cable to be set much deeper under the beach and nearshore area, ensuring that it’s protected from erosion over the life of the project.”

The East Hampton Town Board agreed last Thursday to issue bonds through which it will spend up to $200,000 for a map, plan, and report, including a cost estimate, of  the proposed creation of a beach erosion-control district in downtown Montauk. 

The move follows a call last month by the recently formed Montauk Beach Preservation Committee for a feasibility study and engineering analysis for a plan to combat erosion of the hamlet’s ocean beaches. Laura Tooman, the committee’s chairwoman and president of Concerned Citizens of Montauk, had asked that the board provide funding for the initial steps of a project she estimated would cost $15 to $17 million. 

Approximately $50,000 will pay for the feasibility study, which would draw potential boundaries of an erosion-control district and explore funding mechanisms, and an additional $100,000 to $150,000 will go to an analysis including beach and inshore surveys, a study of the sediment of potential sand sources, beach replenishment options, and preliminary plans.

The Army Corps of Engineers has indicated that its Fire Island to Montauk Point Reformulation Plan, known as FIMP, would provide significantly fewer cubic yards of sand to replenish Montauk’s ocean beaches than town officials had hoped. Though decades in the making, the plan’s implementation remains several years in the future. 

 Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc said at the town board’s Sept. 18 meeting that any federal work “could be offset and bettered by an erosion-control district project.” He said the town must pursue both FIMP and an erosion-control district, given the length of time federal projects take. “We need to have things in place to deal with what we know will be a continual cycle of erosion downtown,” he said. 

Also last Thursday, the board authorized a $700,000 bond for the purchase of property at 36 Gann Road at Three Mile Harbor. The money will supplement $1.42 million from the community preservation fund to complete the $2.12-million purchase of the property, where the town is to relocate its shellfish hatchery, which is now at Fort Pond Bay in Montauk. 

The new hatchery will be adjacent to the shellfish nursery in Three Mile Harbor and consolidate the town’s aquaculture program, in which waterways are seeded with juvenile clams, scallops, and oysters. The effort is aimed at both restoring shellfish, which were decimated by algal blooms in the 1980s, and promoting healthier waterways, as the bivalves’ filter water. 

A small residence on the property will house the town’s Aquaculture Department; other structures are to be removed. The property’s existing sanitary system is to be upgraded, Scott Wilson, the town’s director of land acquisition and management, told the board last month. A permeable reactive barrier, bioswales, and rain gardens may also be installed to intercept nitrogen in groundwater before it reaches the harbor, he said. 

The board also authorized a joint request for proposals, with the Town of Southampton, for the “last mile” shuttle service each town is to provide in connection with additional Long Island Rail Road trains that are to begin early next year between Speonk and Montauk.

The additional trains are aimed at alleviating traffic congestion. A key component is the shuttle service through which commuters would get from train stations to their workplaces and back. Two eastbound trains are to be added in the morning, along with one additional westbound train in the afternoon. 

Traffic to and from the South Fork, where the so-called trade parade clogs the primary route throughout the year, makes it difficult for employers, including the town, to find qualified employees, Mr. Van Scoyoc said earlier this month.

It wasn’t long after the earthmoving equipment began digging a trench into Windsor Lane in Wainscott, commencing a months-long effort to install approximately 45,000 feet of water main in the hamlet, that reports of sticker shock began circulating. 

One homeowner, who asked not to be named, told The Star that the Suffolk County Water Authority informed him that connecting the house on his flag lot to public water would cost $93,775. Another property owner complained to East Hampton Town Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc via email that authorizing the water authority’s contractor, Asplundh Construction, to connect his house would cost $14,800, while a local contractor quoted just $2,338. 

"The residents of Wainscott are paying attention," He wrote, "and virtually everyone I speak with is ready to vote the lot of you out of office." 

The Aug. 20 commencement of the water main extension followed the discovery of perfluorinated chemicals in more than 150 private wells in the hamlet to date, the declaration of a state of emergency, the establishment by the town board of a water supply district, and the board’s partnering with the water authority to develop the project. In the interim, the town provided free bottled water to affected residents and offered a rebate of up to $3,000 for those opting to install a point-of-entry water treatment system. 

The cost of extending the water mains throughout the hamlet will be covered through a bond issue, to be repaid in taxes assessed to all the town’s residents outside the villages. Property owners, however, are responsible for the expense of connecting the main to their residence, should they choose to do so. Should property owners use the water authority’s contractor, the town would pay the cost up front, and residents would repay it through a special assessment on their property tax bill, amortized over at least 20 years. 

That structure is behind the sticker shock: Publicly bid labor contracts are typically three to four times higher, or more, than private contracts because of public procurement rules including Wicks Law, a state law mandating the use of independent prime contractors — large companies that handle sizable and complex government undertakings — for most projects. 

The town board issued a statement on Monday encouraging Wainscott residents who plan to connect to public water to solicit estimates from both the water authority’s contractor and a private plumber. “The water authority must adhere to state law and bidding procedures,” according to the statement, “including selecting the lowest responsible bidder; winning bidders are required to meet certain Department of Labor and insurance requirements, which drives up costs.”

Hiring a private plumber, which residents are free to do, is likely to cost significantly less, the release said, but that cost would be the property owner’s responsibility. “Every property owner,” Mr. Van Scoyoc said at the town board’s meeting on Tuesday, “has to make that decision on their own.” 

The town has instructed the water authority to “make residents fully aware of their options before they are asked to make a choice,” according to Monday’s statement. At the board’s direction, the water authority has suspended Asplundh’s direct contact with potential customers. Residents who agreed to use Asplundh without the contractor’s having informed them as to the cost are to be reimbursed the difference between the public and private contractor costs, Mr. Van Scoyoc said. 

While residents are not required to connect to public water, the town board is strongly recommending it. The financing option, using the water authority’s contractor, will expire in July 2020. Under an emergency declaration in May, the town instituted a rebate program for the installation of point-of-entry treatment systems. That program expires once public water installation is completed.

The irate property owner who complained to Mr. Van Scoyoc softened his position following the supervisor’s reply, in which he explained the circumstances behind the cost of connecting to public water. “While I appreciate that government bids are higher because of the regulatory overhead, I’m still hard pressed to believe that they should be 4-plus times higher,” he wrote. And though the out-of-pocket cost of hiring a private plumber may be easily absorbed by most of the hamlet’s residents, for some it could be difficult or impossible. Those residents, he wrote, must choose among few options, none of them good.

To date, around 8,700 of the 45,000 feet of water main have been installed, Mr. Van Scoyoc said on Tuesday.

Summer may be unofficially over, but the harmful algal blooms associated with the hottest months are proliferating across the South Fork and elsewhere on Long Island. 

Last Thursday, Concerned Citizens of Montauk announced that its sampling conducted on Sept. 5 confirmed a bloom of cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, in the southern portion of Fort Pond in that hamlet. The northern end of Fort Pond showed elevated risk of a bloom, C.C.O.M. reported, so the entire pond should be avoided. Fort Pond also saw cyanobacteria blooms in 2015 and 2017. 

The East Hampton Town Trustees announced on Monday that cyanobacteria contamination in Georgica Pond in East Hampton, which has experienced blooms of the harmful algae in each of the last seven summers, exceeds the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s standards. The pond is closed to all recreational uses until further notice. 

In an email to Francis Bock, the trustees’ clerk, and Sara Davison, executive director of the Friends of Georgica Pond Foundation, Christopher Gobler of Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, wrote that levels of blue-green algae jumped after a sensor in the pond was replaced on Friday, more than doubling over the weekend and continuing to intensify.

“Even more troubling is that the levels of the blue-green algal toxin, microcystin, jumped by an order of magnitude during the past week to 5 micrograms per liter,” above the E.P.A.’s limit for recreation, Dr. Gobler wrote. Microcystins can cause serious damage to the liver if ingested, and may promote liver and colorectal cancers. 

Dr. Gobler monitors waterways under trustee jurisdiction and for the Friends of Georgica Pond Foundation, a group of pondfront property owners who banded together to develop mitigation strategies after a dog died after ingesting the pond’s water in 2012. In May, he and C.C.O.M. announced a partnership to monitor Fort Pond. 

On Friday, the State Department of Environmental Conservation confirmed new blooms of cyanobacteria in Poxabogue Pond in Sagaponack and Old Town Pond in Southampton. On the South Fork, blue-green algae persist in Wainscott Pond, Sagg Pond in Sagaponack, Mill Pond in Water Mill, and Lake Agawam, Cooper’s Neck Pond, Wickapogue Pond, and Little Fresh Pond in Southampton.

Blue-green algae is naturally present in lakes and streams in low numbers, but can become abundant at times, forming blooms in shades of green, blue-green, yellow, brown, or red. They may produce floating scums on the surface of the water or cause the water to look like paint. 

Health officials urge residents not to use, swim, or wade in waters afflicted by cyanobacteria blooms and to keep pets and children away from the area. Contact with waters that appear scummy or discolored should be avoided. If contact does occur, one should rinse with clean water immediately, and seek medical attention if nausea, vomiting or diarrhea; skin, eye or throat irritation, or allergic reactions or breathing difficulties occur after contact.

Another algal bloom, of cochlodinium polykrikoides, or rust tide, appeared late last month in the southern portion of Three Mile Harbor in East Hampton. Rick Drew, a trustee, wrote to Dr. Gobler last Thursday that some residents described it as “the worst one ever seen.” Though not a threat to human health, rust tide is lethal to shellfish and finfish. 

Dr. Gobler’s lab at the university’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, according to an Aug. 29 press release, has monitored what has grown from an isolated rust tide event in eastern Shinnecock Bay to span Great South Bay, parts of Long Island Sound, and the Peconic Estuary. Last month, tens of thousands of caged oysters and fish in Old Fort Pond in Southampton were killed by rust tide, Dr. Gobler said. Late in August, bloom patches were also detected across Conscience Bay in Setauket and Port Jefferson Harbor. “Beyond large kills in Southampton this year, prior rust tides have brought kills of both natural and aquacultured populations of fish and shellfish on eastern Long Island,” Dr. Gobler said in the release. 

Dr. Gobler pointed to climate change “and specifically warm summer temperatures as a trigger for these large, widespread rust tides” in the Aug. 29 statement. Compared to the 20th century, summer water temperatures “are significantly warmer and it’s been a warmer than usual summer. When we have extended heat as we have seen this summer, intense rust tides often follow.” 

Excessive nitrogen is an equally important factor for rust tides, he said, and can make them more intense and toxic. “As nitrogen loading has increased in Suffolk County waters, these events have intensified,” he said in the Aug. 29 statement. 

Pointing to excessive nitrogen loading from aging septic systems and stormwater runoff, the Friends of Georgica Pond Foundation and C.C.O.M. have encouraged replacement of septic systems with state-of-the-art systems that reduce nitrogen. This week, C.C.O.M., Group for the East End, and Citizens Campaign for the Environment announced a partnership to help raise public awareness about the need for such systems and available funding opportunities for system upgrades as part of the Suffolk County Septic and Nitrogen Awareness Outreach Campaign. The county’s Water Quality Protection and Restoration Program, which is administered by the Department of Economic Development and Planning, has awarded the partners $112,000 to implement the campaign.