East Hampton Town

Seasonal Housing for Montauk Harbor

The East Hampton Town Board plans to issue a request for proposals for a 30-bed seasonal housing structure to be situated on town-owned property at Montauk Harbor. 

Tom Ruhle, the town’s director of housing, told the board at its March 20 work session that the pilot program, which would begin next year, would see one entity serving as a licensee and manager of the housing, providing a single point of contact for the town. Housing would be erected on or after April 1 and removed by Oct. 31. 

The housing would be on a 25,650-square-foot parcel that is partially occupied by a comfort station, which will remain. The lot is served by public water, Mr. Ruhle said, and the licensee would be prohibited from using the comfort station’s septic system in its proposal. 

All businesses in the area would be eligible to seek housing for employees, he said, citing smaller businesses with few employees. Larger businesses, such as Gosman’s Dock, long ago acquired older motels in the area to house employees of its seasonal restaurant and wholesale and retail seafood businesses. 

Mr. Ruhle proposed a three-year license, with the board reserving the right to terminate the program if it became problematic. He recommended a July 31 deadline for responses to the R.F.P. 

Management of the structure would be important, Mr. Ruhle said, so that “this didn’t become a party camp” at the dock area, which has an active nightlife in the summer season. The licensee would be responsible for any and all improvements to the site, he said. “The town is, importantly, providing the land and asking the private sector what they would consider doing,” he told the board. 

Board members proposed an addition requiring video surveillance of the site to the R.F.P., and stipulated that it be operational no later than the Thursday before Memorial Day. Mr. Ruhle said he would add those provisions prior to the R.F.P.’s issue. C.W. 

Outdoor Dining in Montauk

The East Hampton Town Board will hold a public hearing next Thursday on a proposed amendment to a pilot program that would permit takeout food stores in downtown Montauk to offer outdoor dining. The amendment would add takeout stores such as delicatessens to the pilot program under which restaurants are allowed up to 16 outdoor seats within right-of-way areas. 

Businesses would be eligible to participate provided they possess a certificate of occupancy that includes the permitted use as a takeout food store, Beth Baldwin, an assistant town attorney, told the board at its March 20 meeting. The town’s fire marshal would ensure that access and egress to the site comply with code. 

Seats would have to be removed daily and stored on the businesses’ property. 

Councilwoman Sylvia Overby said that she hoped the program would be in place in time for the summer season, “so that any tables out there are out there legitimately and comply with the fire marshal.” 

Next Thursday’s meeting is at Town Hall at 6:30 p.m. 

Multiple references were made to Joni Mitchell’s 1970 song “Big Yellow Taxi” at Tuesday’s meeting of the East Hampton Town Board, as residents applied its popular refrain — “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot” — to a plan to pave “Dirt Lot,” the easternmost of three parking lots serving the popular Ditch Plain Beach in Montauk, and reconfigure the others. 

Plans that were developed to address a scarcity of parking, dangerous conditions created by overcrowding, emergency vehicle access, and drainage issues clashed on Tuesday with residents’ collective frustration that Montauk’s rural character is already endangered by a flood of arrivistes, manifested at Ditch Plain in the form of the luxury sports cars occupying the aforementioned scant parking. Paving Dirt Lot, many residents told the board, will not only harm that character, but an impervious surface would force stormwater to the ocean, harming land and sea alike. 

Several iterations of reconfigured parking schemes in the three lots were displayed on a video monitor, with Councilman David Lys walking those in attendance through the proposed changes. Before the illustrations were displayed, however, several residents spoke out against any changes to Dirt Lot. 

“If it’s not broken, don’t fix it,” said Randall Rosenthal, who said he has been surfing at Ditch Plain for more than 50 years. While the westernmost lot can be very difficult to circumnavigate, that is not the case in the eastermost lot, he said. “I have waited a few seconds, but have never seen it where you couldn’t drive around Dirt Lot. People have been pretty ingenious about parking patterns. . . . Any paved, marked lot is going to diminish that greatly.” 

Lou Cortese, representing the Ditch Plains Association, noted the irony of adhering to the Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan’s call for greater access to public property by clearing vegetation and covering the earth with asphalt to achieve it. “We want to maintain the rural quality that Montauk has,” he said. “That’s what attracts people to Montauk. We don’t want to pave paradise and put up a parking lot.” 

Thomas Muse, environmental coordinator of the Surfrider Foundation’s eastern Long Island chapter, said that the need for additional spaces has neither been fully established nor communicated to the public, while prioritizing parking at the expense of vegetation that naturally mitigates storm surge is unwise. “Many questions remain about the conveyance of stormwater on the site, which will change radically with paving,” he said. Two inches of rain, he said, would generate 55,000 gallons of stormwater to be managed. “Can the public see an engineering overlay to better understand the current thinking, and a site plan with existing and proposed elevation?” he asked. 

The cost of paving Dirt Lot to the area’s rural character, Mr. Muse said, would be difficult to quantify. 

“I can understand the board’s desire to tame the chaos . . . at Dirt Lot,” said Stephen Mahoney, also of the Surfrider Foundation, “but this plan seems hastily prepared” and lacking “real thought given to the environmental qualities of such a large-scale oceanfront project.” He asked that the board rethink its proposals and “come up with a better plan.”

Councilwoman Sylvia Overby, the town board’s liaison to the Montauk Citizens Advisory Committee, compared plans to improve the parking lots serving Ditch Plain to changes made to the lot at Indian Wells Beach in Amagansett while she served as liaison to that hamlet’s citizens advisory committee. There, “a real chaos” caused by buses, taxis, and nonresident vehicles has been calmed by an attended booth that turns those vehicles back before they reach the residents-only lot, rendering it safer for pedestrians and restoring a family-friendly atmosphere to the beach. The lot was also enlarged to accommodate more parking spaces. 

Given the Montauk citizens committee’s suggestion that the westernmost lot be designated for residents only, it was natural to consider improvements to the other two lots, Ms. Overby said. 

And, said Chief Michael Sarlo of the town’s Police Department, the westernmost lot and middle lot, at the end of Otis Road, “really need to be improved to make them have better flow.” If the westernmost lot is designated resident-only, “we have to look at improving other areas, because the overflow will go there,” he said. What has worked at Indian Wells Beach can work at Ditch Plain, he said, “but it’s going to push people to the other lots.” 

Later in the meeting, the board authorized a bond issue of up to $250,000 to finance parking lot improvements at Ditch Plain, with Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc pointing out that the move does not represent a commitment to pay for or carry out the project. Councilman Jeffrey Bragman, who appeared the most skeptical of the project and proposed that the board rescind a declaration that it posed no detrimental environmental impact, abstained from the vote.

The discussion, the supervisor said, “has really just begun about potential paving of Dirt Lot. This is obviously a topic which has a great deal of interest in the community.” He and his colleagues will “go back to the drawing board,” he said, and publicize any plans before adoption.

“Nothing is set in stone,” said Mr. Lys. “Or asphalt.” Multiple references were made to Joni Mitchell’s 1970 song “Big Yellow Taxi” at Tuesday’s meeting of the East Hampton Town Board, as residents applied its popular refrain — “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot” — to a plan to pave “Dirt Lot,” the easternmost of three parking lots serving the popular Ditch Plain Beach in Montauk, and reconfigure the others. 

Plans that were developed to address a scarcity of parking, dangerous conditions created by overcrowding, emergency vehicle access, and drainage issues clashed on Tuesday with residents’ collective frustration that Montauk’s rural character is already endangered by a flood of arrivistes, manifested at Ditch Plain in the form of the luxury sports cars occupying the aforementioned scant parking. Paving Dirt Lot, many residents told the board, will not only harm that character, but an impervious surface would force stormwater to the ocean, harming land and sea alike. 

Several iterations of reconfigured parking schemes in the three lots were displayed on a video monitor, with Councilman David Lys walking those in attendance through the proposed changes. Before the illustrations were displayed, however, several residents spoke out against any changes to Dirt Lot. 

“If it’s not broken, don’t fix it,” said Randall Rosenthal, who said he has been surfing at Ditch Plain for more than 50 years. While the westernmost lot can be very difficult to circumnavigate, that is not the case in the eastermost lot, he said. “I have waited a few seconds, but have never seen it where you couldn’t drive around Dirt Lot. People have been pretty ingenious about parking patterns. . . . Any paved, marked lot is going to diminish that greatly.” 

Lou Cortese, representing the Ditch Plains Association, noted the irony of adhering to the Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan’s call for greater access to public property by clearing vegetation and covering the earth with asphalt to achieve it. “We want to maintain the rural quality that Montauk has,” he said. “That’s what attracts people to Montauk. We don’t want to pave paradise and put up a parking lot.” 

Thomas Muse, environmental coordinator of the Surfrider Foundation’s eastern Long Island chapter, said that the need for additional spaces has neither been fully established nor communicated to the public, while prioritizing parking at the expense of vegetation that naturally mitigates storm surge is unwise. “Many questions remain about the conveyance of stormwater on the site, which will change radically with paving,” he said. Two inches of rain, he said, would generate 55,000 gallons of stormwater to be managed. “Can the public see an engineering overlay to better understand the current thinking, and a site plan with existing and proposed elevation?” he asked. 

The cost of paving Dirt Lot to the area’s rural character, Mr. Muse said, would be difficult to quantify. 

“I can understand the board’s desire to tame the chaos . . . at Dirt Lot,” said Stephen Mahoney, also of the Surfrider Foundation, “but this plan seems hastily prepared” and lacking “real thought given to the environmental qualities of such a large-scale oceanfront project.” He asked that the board rethink its proposals and “come up with a better plan.”

Councilwoman Sylvia Overby, the town board’s liaison to the Montauk Citizens Advisory Committee, compared plans to improve the parking lots serving Ditch Plain to changes made to the lot at Indian Wells Beach in Amagansett while she served as liaison to that hamlet’s citizens advisory committee. There, “a real chaos” caused by buses, taxis, and nonresident vehicles has been calmed by an attended booth that turns those vehicles back before they reach the residents-only lot, rendering it safer for pedestrians and restoring a family-friendly atmosphere to the beach. The lot was also enlarged to accommodate more parking spaces. 

Given the Montauk citizens committee’s suggestion that the westernmost lot be designated for residents only, it was natural to consider improvements to the other two lots, Ms. Overby said. 

And, said Chief Michael Sarlo of the town’s Police Department, the westernmost lot and middle lot, at the end of Otis Road, “really need to be improved to make them have better flow.” If the westernmost lot is designated resident-only, “we have to look at improving other areas, because the overflow will go there,” he said. What has worked at Indian Wells Beach can work at Ditch Plain, he said, “but it’s going to push people to the other lots.” 

Later in the meeting, the board authorized a bond issue of up to $250,000 to finance parking lot improvements at Ditch Plain, with Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc pointing out that the move does not represent a commitment to pay for or carry out the project. Councilman Jeffrey Bragman, who appeared the most skeptical of the project and proposed that the board rescind a declaration that it posed no detrimental environmental impact, abstained from the vote.

The discussion, the supervisor said, “has really just begun about potential paving of Dirt Lot. This is obviously a topic which has a great deal of interest in the community.” He and his colleagues will “go back to the drawing board,” he said, and publicize any plans before adoption.

“Nothing is set in stone,” said Mr. Lys. “Or asphalt.”

Clearing has begun for an energy-storage facility on a site between Fort Pond and Fort Pond Bay in Montauk after a sharply divided East Hampton Town Planning Board voted to approve the project on March 14. The vote was 4-3. The board had held off on its final discussion and vote on the project since early January, to allow its newest member, Ed Krug, to “get up to speed” on the proposal, as the board’s chairman put it. Mr. Krug voted to approve the project.

In order for NextEra Energy to move forward with its proposal, named the Montauk Energy Storage Center, the company needed to obtain site plan approval from the board, as well as a special permit to operate at the location as a public utility. Both were granted on March 14. NextEra Energy had already obtained the needed variances from the town’s zoning board of appeals. 

The property in question, a triangular parcel less than a half-acre in size, is bordered to the north by the Long Island Rail Road tracks and to the west by North Shore Road, which connects Second House Road to Navy Road on the other side of the railroad tracks.

It is owned by Peter Joyce, who is leasing it to NextEra Energy. A 90-by-46-foot battery-storage building, along with accessory structures, will be built on the site. A public hearing on the proposal was held on Aug. 9. The area is zoned for commercial-industrial use.

The planning board approved a similar site last year for the Cove Hollow area of East Hampton, near Dune Alpin Farm and adjacent to the L.I.R.R. tracks. Ross D. Groffman, the head of NextEra Energy, said then that he hoped the site would be operational this summer.

  It does not appear that NextEnergy Era is wasting any time on the Montauk site, either: A front loader was observed moving earth there Tuesday.

The facilities work by drawing power from the grid during off-peak hours, storing it in racks of lithium-ion batteries, then releasing the electricity for use at peak hours, when demand is highest. 

Proximity to a Long Island Power Authority substation was critical to the choice of sites for both energy-storage facilities. There already is an adjacent substation on Cove Hollow Road, in the Dune Alpin area. In Montauk, there is a substation at the southern edge of Fort Pond, on Industrial Road; it is to be moved to a property adjacent to and just to the east of the storage unit. 

Opponents of the Montauk facility are numerous, and they have expressed their objections to the project both at the public hearing in August and in letters to the board. Noise was one concern, but even more urgent, in their eyes, was the question of what would happen in the event of a catastrophic flood. 

During the August hearing, Rameshwar Das, an author of the town’s Local Waterfront Revitalization Program and a member of the town’s coastal assessment and resiliency planning committee, had told the board that in the past the area where the storage facility is to be build had been impacted by hurricanes. He warned that, in the future, a breach could come not from the ocean side, “but from the backside, through Fort Pond Bay.”

The site is, itself, not in a major flood zone as defined by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. However, it is surrounded by major FEMA flood zones, and is only about 100 yards in either direction from Fort Pond and Fort Pond Bay.

In response to the flooding worries raised last summer, NextEra Energy agreed to raise the facility 10 feet above sea level. It also agreed to add more sound buffering to the project.

NextEra’s site plan was received by the planning board in late 2016, and board members, with the exception of Mr. Krug, had been mulling it over for more than a year. 

A week before the March 14 vote, the board had a discussion about it, to determine how the final vote might pan out and, thus, establish the wording of the Planning Department’s final determination. That discussion, on March 7, began with comments from Nancy Keeshan, the board’s vice-chairwoman, who was enthusiastic about voting‚ “yes.”

  “I have been a supporter of this from the beginning,” Ms. Keeshan said. 

Mr. Krug, who was named to the board on Jan. 2 as a replacement for Diana Weir, spoke next on March 7. His vote would be key, as two other board members, Kathleen Cunningham and Patti Leber, along with Mr. Potter, had previously expressed their disapproval and were potential “no” votes. 

“This is a hard one,” Mr. Krug said, “but I have to say I am generally supportive.” He continued, “It is a tricky situation. There are no great locations in Montauk for such a thing.” However, he said, the facility was desperately needed. “Some of the flooding concerns some people have I don’t share, exactly.”

Ms. Cunningham was not so sanguine. “I just don’t like the location,” she said. “The applicant has met every request we have made, but I am just not sure this is the right spot.” 

She told the board she was on the fence. “You will have to vote next week,” Mr. Potter reminded her. “I will,” she responded. 

Ian Calder-Piedmonte said that the company’s responses to the board’s various points of unease had tipped his vote toward “yes.”

“At the end of the day, we have expressed a lot of concerns. The community at large did. And I think they have been met,” Mr. Calder-Piedmonte said. “Like probably every other board member, if I were to design the town and pick a spot, this wouldn’t be it.” However, he concluded, the company had met the requests of the board, and the project should be approved. 

Ms. Leber called the site “an impractical location on an unsuitable piece of property. It is surrounded by flood zones.” 

“Our hamlet studies are discussing the rise of sea level, and the ability of people in Montauk to move away from the water,” Ms. Leber said. And, because the facility is to be raised off the ground, she warned, it would “loom over” the area. 

“We should do this,” Randall Parsons said. “Montauk needs a better energy facility.” He said that this was one of the few areas in Montauk zoned for industrial use.

Mr. Potter wrapped up March 7’s pre-vote discussion by saying he had supported the approval of the facility in East Hampton, but that the Montauk proposal was another matter. “This is being raised to 10 feet above sea level, but it is between Fort Pond and the bay. We have not really been let in on the discussion of moving the substation, which is now almost in Fort Pond. It is a good thing to move it, but I feel that it is a mistake to bring it next door to this project, and I think the two projects are linked.” 

In the end, despite Mr. Potter’s opposition, it was clear that there were at least four votes to approve, and Mr. Potter instructed the Planning Department to word its determination accordingly.

In the end, on March 14, Ms. Cunningham joined Ms. Leber and Mr. Potter in voting no.

A Southampton lawyer is taking the Town of East Hampton and several chemical manufacturers to court over the contamination of drinking water in Wainscott. 

In a lawsuit filed yesterday in State Supreme Court in Riverhead, Daniel Osborn, the attorney, alleged the town had “negligently and carelessly allowed commercial businesses to operate” on leased land at the East Hampton Airport and on Industrial Road, which runs along the airport’s south boundary. He called the town responsible for allowing the harmful chemicals manufactured by the other defendants to reach the water supply. The lawsuit was filed on behalf of Kim Shipman, a part-time Wainscott resident. 

The Suffolk County Department of Health Services began a survey of water in private wells in the area of the airport in August. The survey was later expanded, and earlier this month, the East Hampton Town Board announced that 118 wells south of the airport had been found to be contaminated by the perfluorinated compounds known as perfluorooctane sulfonate, or PFOS, and perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA. The chemicals are used in firefighting foam and degreasing applications. 

Those living near the airport “obtain their drinking water predominantly from groundwater pumped by either municipal or private wells,” Mr. Osborn said in the suit. “For years, these residents have been drinking water laced with dangerous chemicals,” which, when consumed, “can cause serious health issues.” The town, he alleged, had “breached the duties it has expressly undertaken, namely to protect the health and welfare of its residents, particularly those in the expanded affected area, by failing to ensure that their drinking water is free of contaminants.”

Mr. Osborn seeks damages sufficient to fund and implement medical monitoring and blood tests to determine Ms. Shipman’s exposure to the chemicals; the connection of her house to the municipal water supply, or installation of filtration systems; compensatory damages for the loss of use of her property and the contamination’s negative impact on property values, and punitive damages. He also asked that water testing continue until it is determined that any risk of contamination to Ms. Shipman’s well has ended. 

Mr. Osborn said yesterday that he expects more Wainscott residents to join the lawsuit. “They wanted more time to absorb everything,” he said. A call to the East Hampton Town attorney’s office seeking comment had not been returned as of noon yesterday. 

The complaint lists the 3M Company, National Foam, and four other manufacturers that it says are or were manufacturers of aqueous film-forming foam. The products, known as AFFFs, were sold to entities that used them at or near the airport, Mr. Osborn alleged. 

The Suffolk County Water Authority has cited the same manufacturers in a suit filed in Eastern District federal court, claiming they knew or should have known that the foam is dangerous o human health and causes extensive and persistent environmental contamination. 

“The situation has gone from one of mild concern to essentially a crisis if you own a home in Wainscott,” Mr. Osborn said this week. “Six months after residents were notified for the presence of these contaminants, we have no information about the source of contamination, and in fact the county has actually expanded the area it thinks may have been affected by these contaminants. Some residents have been using bottled water since October. Imagine having to drink, cook, and bathe with bottled water. It’s like camping.” 

The problem will only worsen as summer approaches, Mr. Osborn said. “Then there’s the issue of diminished property values. Imagine these people trying to rent or sell their property, given everything that’s going on.”

The town has offered bottled water to affected residents, and at a town board work session on March 6 discussed making point-of-entry treatment systems available to homeowners with contaminated wells, while also pursuing an inter-municipal water infrastructure grant to connect affected residential properties to public water. Given the expected timeline of the latter project, in which the Suffolk County Water Authority would act as lead agency, the board expressed a desire to pursue the former initiative as a short-term measure. 

Ms. Shipman, could not be reached for comment yesterday. Mr. Osborn said his client was referring questions to him. “I expect that more people will come forward and want to participate in the lawsuit,” he said yesterday. 

Ms. Shipman works as a project manager for the Osborn Law Group, Mr. Osborn’s firm. It was she, Mr. Osborn said, who alerted him to the discovery of contaminated wells after receiving notification from the county in October. 

Paul Giardina, a former official with the  Environmental Protection Agency who ran unsuccessfully for a seat on the East Hampton Town Board last year, said yesterday that the situation in Wainscott is very serious from multiple perspectives.

“This is a significant chemical that causes significant health concerns,” he said of perfluorinated compounds. “The fact that the lawsuit is calling for medical monitoring in the future . . . is important. I don’t think anybody in Wainscott who had a well test or is in this situation should overlook the importance of future health tests.” 

In addition, homeowners’ ability to rent or sell their property is now severely compromised, Mr. Giardina said. Most worrisome, though, is the prospect that Wainscott’s restaurants and takeout food stores may also have contaminated water, he said. “That widens the group of people who might sign up to this suit. Frankly, I have talked to several citizens who, my impression is, will join in the suit.”

In light of the fall 2017 detection of chemical contamination of more than 100 wells in Wainscott and the recent discovery of concentrations of lead and chemicals in the surface water and aquifer around the Sand Land mine on the Bridgehampton-Noyac border, the president of the advocacy group Amagansett-Springs Aquifer Protection and other residents implored the East Hampton Town Board to act quickly to preclude additional development atop the Stony Hill aquifer in Amagansett. 

At the board’s meeting last Thursday, Alexander Peters of Amagansett-Springs Aquifer Protection, who is also on the board of the New York League of Conservation Voters, asked that the board use the community preservation fund to solicit the purchase of some 50 lots atop the aquifer, which provides potable water to northern East Hampton, Amagansett, Springs, Napeague, and most of Montauk. “It’s just incredibly important for the vast majority of the people in our town,” he said.

Mr. Peters, who is known as Sas, read a letter to the board from Assemblyman Steve Englebright, who is chairman of the State Assembly’s committee on environmental conservation. The Stony Hill aquifer recharge area is important to the portion of the upper glacial moraine aquifers that underlie this part of the South Fork, according to Mr. Englebright’s letter, and can provide potable drinking water to East Hampton residents “because it is relatively large, geographically centered within the town, and still lightly developed.” Relatively few potential sources of contamination, its present pristine state, its value as a source of drinking water, and the voter-approved use of a portion of community preservation fund money for water-quality improvement all point to the importance of implementing a plan to preserve the remaining open land atop this part of the glacial moraine, the letter said.

“Freshwater reserves are limited in East Hampton,” particularly east of Amagansett, Mr. Englebright wrote, due to the region’s geology and topography. Further, “Because sea level is rising, the fresh groundwater reserves of the entire town will be significantly diminished in the next 50 to 150 years,” while residential development “is likely to follow the trend of numerous other towns, by gradually transitioning from a mixture of partial and year-round occupancy to almost exclusively year-round use, and thereby create a higher demand for potable 

water.” 

Should a severe contamination crisis occur elsewhere in the town, the letter continued, the Stony Hill aquifer recharge area “will also be vitally needed” for short-term emergency water supply. “Considering East Hampton’s unique geological and hydrological limitations as well as threats to the future availability of pure drinking water, I believe it is critically important to act now upon the fact that protection of this groundwater catchment area should be a priority.” Additional development, he said, “should be considered to be just as inappropriate and unwelcome as would be any hypothetical houseboat development” atop the Ashokan, Roundout, or Croton reservoirs that supply New York City’s drinking water. 

New development at Stony Hill, Mr. Englebright’s letter said, “could be a tipping point,” and he urged “wise utilization of the C.P.F. tool that the State Legislature and the people of the town of East Hampton have provided to preserve and protect, both for now and all time, the clean recharge of rainwater into the Stony Hill aquifer recharge area.”

Richard Smolian of Amagansett also decried “the rapid pace of development that has endangered the aquifer” and lamented the fact that the town had purchased just two lots above it in the last four years. “This must be the year for change,” he said. “With the Democratic town board in command, a program to initiate the purchase of undeveloped land in order to conserve and protect our water supply must now commence.”

Mr. Peters and Mr. Smolian share an unusual bond, one that underscores their mutual aspiration. Mr. Peters bought the lots at 42 and 46 La Foret Lane in Amagansett from Mr. Smolian in 1992 and 1997. He has long sought to sell the 3.5 acres of undeveloped land to the town. The deed to each lot, however, gives Mr. Smolian, along with Randy Smolian, his former wife, Darielle Smolian, his daughter, and Jonathan Smolian, his son, a right to repurchase the land so long as the family retains ownership of an adjacent lot. In April 2015, Mr. Smolian signed an affidavit formally waiving his right of first refusal; while he supports preservation of the land, his family members do not. 

Mr. Peters told The Star in December 2014 that the right of first refusal was included in the deeds “for the very simple purpose of making sure that the land was always conserved. I promised Dick I would never develop the land and never have, and now am trying to nail that down forever.”

Mr. Peters said he had offered a settlement of $100,000 to Jonathan Smolian through an intermediary. He refused, and a suit filed in December 2014 claims that he told Mr. Peters “he had enlisted ‘partners’ who he intended to work with in order to develop the property and achieve a substantial profit.” Randy Smolian and Darielle Smolian, the suit alleges, will not waive their right of first refusal unless Jonathan Smolian also does.

Last Thursday, the elder Mr. Smolian told the board that his son “prevailed in his ability to exercise a right of first refusal” on the land he sold to Mr. Peters, preventing its sale to the town, “and that particular dispute is still in a holding pattern that’s going to go on forever. . . . I have thrown my lot in with Sas, and have incurred the wrath of my family to make good on a promise I made over 25 years ago to Sas, to keep the aquifer clean.”

Councilman Jeff Bragman told Mr. Peters and Mr. Smolian that Scott Wilson, the town’s director of land acquisition and management, was “at work already for us” to identify the owners of parcels that the town could potentially acquire with C.P.F. money. 

“You’re not going to find anyone here on this side of the board arguing against the importance of our recharge areas within the town,” Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc told Mr. Peters and Mr. Smolian, “and I thank you for your efforts.” 

Mr. Peters said on Monday that he is hopeful that the board will act swiftly. “We’re really hoping the town board gets moving here, and frankly we have a dream team of conservationists on the board now,” he said. “There should be no disagreement. I hope to God they move ahead quickly.”

Dogs and birds — not humans — are responsible for most of the fecal bacteria measured in Georgica Pond, with road runoff the primary source, according to a report from Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences.

The study, conducted by Christopher J. Gobler between May and November last year using DNA-based microbial tracking, quantified fecal bacteria at four tributary sites in the pond: Talmage Creek, Georgica Cove, Jones Creek, and Seabury Creek. Human-derived bacteria accounted for less than 5 percent of the total. Instead, results pointed to animal-derived bacteria — 67 percent from dogs, 24 percent from birds, and 6 percent from deer. The 67 percent attributed to dogs, according to the report, could include fecal bacteria from such species as cats and rodents.  

East Hampton Town and Village officials, the town trustees, and the Friends of Georgica Pond Foundation, a group of pondfront property owners, are working to improve the ecological health of the pond, which has had toxic algae blooms in the last several summers, causing the State Department of Environmental Conservation to prohibit shellfishing. The foundation financed the study.

“The low levels of human fecal bacteria within the pond are both reassuring and somewhat expected,” the report states. “Wastewater traveling 100 to 400 feet in sandy aquifers experience a 12-order-of-magnitude reduction in fecal bacteria,” and most septic systems in the watershed are a greater distance from the pond. “Hence, it would seem that fecal bacteria emanating from household wastewater is retained within the sands of aquifers before it discharges into the pond via groundwater flow.”

That finding will have no effect on the Friends of Georgica Pond Foundation’s push for property owners to upgrade their septic systems to reduce nitrogen seepage, which is a factor in the algal blooms that prompted the trustees to close the pond for harvesting crabs and other marine life for parts of the last several summers. 

“But we didn’t want to ignore stormwater runoff in the pond,” Sara Davison, the foundation’s executive director, said, “because there have been some very high readings.”

“Rather than emanating from household wastewater, there are multiple lines of evidence that indicate the main source of pathogenic bacteria to the major tributaries of Georgica Pond is runoff, especially from roads,” the report states. The highest levels of pathogenic bacteria were found in Talmage Creek, and the report suggests that runoff from Montauk Highway and surrounding roads drains directly into the creek via a low-lying rest area, taking animal waste with it. 

“While there are many wild and domesticated animals in this region,” the report reads, “this specific area is also the only public pull-off area” on a long stretch of Montauk Highway, “and may be used to walk dogs during long drives from New York City to points on the South Fork, particularly during summer months.” The hypothesis is supported, it reads, by peak measurements of both enterococcus and dog-derived fecal bacteria in the creek during summer months.

Levels of fecal contamination in Talmage Creek are often higher than most other areas, as well as above the water quality criteria recommended by the Environmental Protection Agency and used by Suffolk County to issue swim advisories. 

While not directly adjacent to Montauk Highway, Georgica Cove, in the southeastern section of the pond, receives drainage from a large section of Cove Hollow Road, which extends well north of the highway, the report states. “As is the case for Talmage Creek, this purposeful drainage of this large region likely leads to the collection and delivery of significant amounts of fecal bacteria to Georgica Cove.”

That road runoff is the primary source of fecal bacteria is further supported, the report states, by the lower level of dog-derived bacteria in Seabury and Jones Creeks, which are not directly adjacent to roads. Spikes in canine bacteria following rainfall further support the premise. 

Jones Creek was shown to be unique among the sample sites, having higher levels of both bird and deer-derived bacteria, little dog-derived bacteria, and almost no human bacteria. The three other sites had similar distributions of bacteria, according to the report. 

As Talmage Creek and Georgica Cove are the likely sources of bacteria in the rest of Georgica Pond, actions to divert runoff to these tributaries should lower fecal bacteria levels in the pond and its tributaries, the report states.

The report supports a push to redesign the rest area at Talmage Creek, Ms. Davison said, and members of the foundation have discussed the matter with town and State Department of Transportation officials. “The idea is to redesign the rest area so trucks could still pull off as needed, and perhaps create a better launching area, but re-pitch it and repave with pervious pavement so surface water runs through pavement instead of across it. Any opportunity to have stormwater percolate into the ground before it meets a water body is preferable to it washing right in,” she said.

Reducing direct discharge into the pond from a drainage pipe originating at Cove Hollow Road will also help, she said, and a plan to divert more water from the pipe along its course and install more filters to eliminate pathogens is underway.

Another result of the study, Ms. Davison said, is an education campaign aimed at pet owners. “People think if they walk their dog along the road they don’t have to pick it up, but you really should. Even if you’re a mile from the pond, a big, heavy rainfall can wash it in.”

Sampling will resume this summer, Ms. Davison said, including in the main body of the pond for comparison with its tributaries. But, she said, “the tributaries seem to be the main conduit for the runoff.”

Water samples obtained from 10 test wells drilled by the Suffolk County Department of Health Services around the Sand Land mine, on the border between Bridgehampton and Noyac, indicate the presence of abnormally high concentrations of nitrate, manganese, and cobalt in the aquifer below the mine, and lead, arsenic, and manganese in the surface water. 

A private testing firm analyzed the test results and discussed them at a meeting on Friday in Noyac.

Each of the contaminants poses potential health risks. For example, charts displayed at the meeting showed that levels of manganese, an essential nutrient under normal circumstances, spiked above 5,000 parts per billion in the aquifer and 730 p.p.b. in the surface water, when the “maximum allowable level” in drinking water as defined by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation is 300 p.p.b. 

“Elevated manganese exposure over a long time could harm the nervous system,” the D.E.C. states on its website. “Infants and children up to 1 year old should not be given water containing manganese over” that amount.

The test results were presented to a roomful of concerned citizens and members of the press who gathered at the Old Noyac Schoolhouse on Friday for a public meeting hosted by the Noyac Civic Council. Among those speaking were Robert DeLuca, president of the Group for the East End, Adrienne Esposito of the Citizens Campaign for the Environment, and Stuart Z. Cohen of Environmental and Turf Services of Wheaton, Md.

The Sand Land mine is estimated to span between 30 and 50 acres off Millstone Road and to run as deep as 60 to 70 feet below the original grade. It is owned by the Sand Land Corporation, also known as Wainscott Sand and Gravel, which has been using the site for composting and mulching since running out of sand to mine decades ago. That secondary, unpermitted use has been the focus of litigation for several years.

In 2013, Sand Land was granted a permit to continue operating under New York State’s Mined Lands Reclamation Act. That permit, which is set to expire this year, does not allow for solid-waste management operations. 

“We argued that there should be no permit extension until they figure out the potential environmental risk of mulching operations, which is the type of business Sand Land is actually conducting,” Mr. DeLuca said. “The D.E.C. granted the permit anyway.”

In 2015, lawyers for Sand Land began to seek permission to expand the mining operation by 4.9 acres and to excavate 40 feet deeper than authorized under the 2013 Mined Lands permit. That expansion was not granted, but is currently the subject of legal challenges.

In 2016, the State Supreme Court Appellate Division upheld a 2012 decision by the Southampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals ruling that Sand Land was not permitted to conduct waste processing at the site. The 2016 decision as challenged by attorneys for Sand Land, and was overturned by a State Supreme Court justice.

Sand Land Corporation is represented by Brian Matthews of Matthews, Kirst & Cooley of East Hampton. Mr. Matthews did not return a call for comment.

Mr. Cohen, who holds a Ph.D. in organic chemistry and is a nationally certified “groundwater professional,” analyzed the raw data collected from the wells and attributed the contamination to above-ground dumping of waste into the mine and to the mobilization of naturally present subsurface heavy metals that are released as a consequence of contaminated flow-through.

“There are no manifests,” Mr. Cohen said. “We don’t know what’s being delivered there. Nobody is tracking this.” 

When asked how other communities around the country deal with this kind of problem, Mr. Cohen said, “I have never been involved in a case like this. It’s unusual for the local government to turn a blind eye.” He added as an aside that he had worked with the environmental activist Erin Brockovich, whose fight against the Pacific Gas and Electric Company for groundwater contamination in residential areas was the subject of a 2000 film starring Julia Roberts.

“Everybody understands the value of this particular geographic space to our drinking water,” Mr. DeLuca told the crowd on Friday. “For 30 years, every level of government has worked to make this part of our town a special groundwater protection area under state law, a critical environmental area under county law, and an aquifer protection overlay district under town law.”

He said the state D.E.C. was made aware of the improper use of the site for composting and mulching and of the environmental risks involved in large-scale mulching projects.

“They were told that underneath these types of operations we have the mobilization of heavy metals, radioactive activity, in some cases pesticides. We are liberating toxins we don’t want to have in our drinking water,” Mr. DeLuca said. 

The test results released last week are being compared to documented evidence of groundwater and surface water contamination discovered in the Horseblock Road area of Yaphank that have been traced back to vegetative waste mulching and composting operations run by Long Island Compost/Great Gardens.

“When Sand Land wanted to expand, Bob and I reported to the D.E.C.,” Ms. Esposito said. “We told them we saw mulch being dumped in the middle of Sand Land with our own eyes. They didn’t believe us.” 

Referring to the charts and diagrams surrounding her and her fellow panelists, which illustrated the abnormally high levels of toxins found in the test wells, she added, “Apparently we have good eyesight.”

“We were ignored,” Mr. DeLuca said. “Over and over again. Those arguments were made in writing and made in person. They did nothing. The frustrating thing is that the contamination has been there while we’ve spent years trying to get at the data.”

The panelists called for the state to step in to determine the extent of the contamination, get rid of the material causing the pollution, and prevent the Sand Land operation from continuing.

“What we have is a first look,” Mr. DeLuca said. “The Suffolk County Health Department went in and popped in 10 wells. The wells are telling us there is contamination. It’s a framework. Now we need a formal site characterization: Has the contamination migrated off-site? How far? What is the remediation plan?”

He added, “The agency that is responsible and that needs to be held accountable is the State of New York, which knew for close to a decade that this was a risk and did nothing about it. The state cannot continue to say that a mining operation that has a pile of compost as high as this room is somehow in the process of reclaiming the facility, and that therefore this is not a problem. It is a problem. At the end of the day it is a reservoir, not a landfill, and we have to start treating it that way.”

A staff member from the office of Representative Lee Zeldin was in attendance at last Friday’s meeting. Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. was not at the meeting, but in a press release that day said, “For more than five years I have expressed my concerns to government regulators at all levels about the environmental threat presented by the various industrial operations being undertaken by Sand Land at its Noyac location.”

He faulted the D.E.C. for turning “a blind eye to these community concerns. Years of regulatory neglect have yielded a stew of contamination that would more likely be associated with an open dump than a legitimate business.”

“Assemblyman Thiele has been very supportive,” said Mr. DeLuca. “But if this issue is going to be fixed the governor’s office is going to have to get behind it. It’s to the D.E.C.’s and Governor Cuomo’s advantage to get ahead of this thing.”

A second meeting on the water data that was to have been held on Tuesday, also at the Old Noyac Schoolhouse, was canceled due to the snowstorm.

On the heels of having received Deepwater Wind’s environmental and permitting assessments of its proposed 15-turbine offshore wind farm and transmission cable, the East Hampton Town Trustees agreed on Monday to ask the town board for an environmental review of the project, while two of the nine-member panel expressed adamant opposition to the project.

Rick Drew, a deputy clerk of the trustees and member of its harbor management committee, which has hosted numerous meetings with Deepwater Wind and commercial fishermen, who  have expressed almost unanimous opposition to the project, said, “Everyone’s just starting to review the document. I think we’ll have a lot more to talk about at the next meeting.” 

John Aldred, who was elected a trustee in November, suggested that his colleagues ask the town board for the environmental review. “They have professional departments that do this kind of thing,” he said, referring to the  Natural Resources and Planning Departments. Those departments “are better equipped to assess” the proposed wind farm’s parameters,” he said. “A local environmental review would be a very helpful perspective on the project and ensure that a more thorough look is given.”  

The Rhode Island wind farm developer has identified Beach Lane in Wainscott as the preferred landing site for the transmission cable, which would require an easement from the trustees, who have jurisdiction over most of the town’s beaches, waterways, and bottomlands, excluding those in Montauk. 

“It is possible that, if some form of an easement or lease is granted, there may not be the same level of review done by a non-local agency. There is a risk to not having a local review done,” Mr. Drew said. “We’d be remiss in not putting this through the same standard of review that any other applicant would abide by,” Jim Grimes, another trustee, said. 

Mr. Aldred referred to a process under the state’s Public Service Law for reviewing applications to construct and operate major electric transmission or fuel gas transmission facilities. Last month, the trustees announced that they would file for intervener status under the law, known as Article VII, and retain counsel to represent the community before the Public Service Commission.

Mr. Grimes moved for the trustees to send a letter to the town board asking that it direct the Natural Resources Department to conduct a review of the South Fork Wind Farm. “Add planning to that,” Mr. Aldred said. 

The body unanimously approved the motion, but not before Dell Cullum, another first-term trustee, spoke at length against the wind farm. “As much as I would hope that an environmental study would be done in anything that is going to, by chance, harm our environment, I would be much happier if the trustees would just deny these people the easement . . . and let’s get on with business. I don’t like the idea of industrializing our oceans,” he said.

Deepwater Wind officials have implied that the company would seek a transmission cable landing on state-owned land on Napeague should the trustees deny an easement on the ocean beach in Wainscott.

 “Regardless of how we feel individually,” Mr. Aldred said, “I think we all recognize that it probably will come ashore somewhere. . . . If we can push a local environmental review, even if it comes ashore in Napeague . . . it’s the same beach, it’s the same ocean.” 

Mr. Cullum was not convinced. “I’m not giving in that it is going to come ashore. I’d like to see it stopped. Period,” he said. Calling for a vote, he and Susan Vorpahl, also a first-term trustee, raised their hands in opposition to the wind farm. 

In other action at the meeting, the trustees reauthorized the oyster garden program in which individuals and families grow oysters in designated areas of town waters. Launched in 2016 in Three Mile Harbor and expanded last year to Hog Creek, the trustees voted to add Accabonac Harbor to the popular program. The latter site is contingent on public notice in the trustees’ newspaper of record, The Star, which is expected in next week’s issue. 

The 60-by-70-foot Three Mile Harbor site will accommodate up to 40 gardeners, while the Hog Creek and Accabonac sites will be 30 by 70 feet and available for up to 20 gardeners. The town’s shellfish hatchery will administer the sites. 

Modeled on what is known as SPAT, a Cornell Cooperative Extension initiative in waters off Southold, the program allows individuals to harvest half the 1,000 oysters seeded. The cost, approximately $250 per participant, includes gear and instruction in addition to the oysters. 

Demand may exceed capacity at the three sites, Mr. Drew said on Tuesday, and those interested in participating have been advised to contact the hatchery or the trustees’ office.

People showed up in force at the Old Noyac Schoolhouse on Friday to hear the results of groundwater tests that were conducted at the Sand Land mine on the Noyac-Bridgehampton border.

Among those speaking at the meeting, which was hosted by the Noyac Civic Council, were Robert DeLuca, president of the Group for the East End, Adrienne Esposito of the Citizens Campaign for the Environment, and Stuart Z. Cohen, Ph.D., from Environmental and Turf Services of Wheaton, Md.

Dr. Cohen, an organic chemist and certified groundwater professional, analyzed the raw data collected from the test wells placed by the Suffolk County Health Department.

According to Dr. Cohen, the preliminary findings indicate the presence of abnormally high concentrations of nitrate, manganese, and cobalt in the aquifer below the mine, and lead, arsenic, and manganese in the surface water. He attributed the contamination not only to the above-ground dumping of waste into the mine, but also to the mobilization of naturally present subsurface heavy metals that are released as a consequence of contaminated flow-through.

The Sand Land Corporation, also known as Wainscott Sand and Gravel, which operates the mine, has been using it for composting and mulching operations since running out of sand to mine decades ago. That use has been the focus of several legal actions in recent years, as has an application to expand mining operations there to cover an additional 4.9 acres and an additional 40 feet of depth.

The Sand Lane mine, which covers some 50 acres, is in one of the county's six special groundwater protection areas.

“Everybody understands the value of this particular geographic space to our drinking water,” Mr. DeLuca told the crowd on Friday. “For 30 years, every level of government has worked to make this part of our town a special groundwater protection area under state law, a critical environmental area under county law, and an aquifer protection overlay district under town law.”

He said the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation was made aware of the improper use of the site for composting and mulching and of the environmental risks involved in large-scale mulching projects.

“They were told that underneath these types of operations we have the mobilization of heavy metals, radioactive activity, in some cases pesticides. We are liberating toxins we don't want to have in our drinking water,” Mr. DeLuca said.

When Sand Land wanted to expand and get new permits for industrial waste processing, the D.E.C. was asked to look at the impact of the Sand Land operation on the water underneath the mine.

“We were ignored,” Mr. DeLuca said. “Over and over again. Those arguments were made in writing and made in person. They did nothing. The frustrating thing is that the contamination has been there while we've spent years trying to get at the data.”

He and his fellow panelists called for the state to step in to characterize the extent of the contamination, get rid of the material causing the pollution, and prevent the Sand Land operation from continuing.

“The agency that is responsible and that needs to be held accountable is the State of New York, which knew for close to a decade that this was a risk and did nothing about it,” said Mr. DeLuca. “The state cannot continue to say that a mining operation that has a pile of compost as high as this room is somehow in the process of reclaiming the facility, and that therefore this is not a problem. It is a problem. At the end of the day it is a reservoir, not a landfill, and we have to start treating it that way.”

A staffer from Representative Lee Zeldin's office was in attendance on Friday. Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. was not at the meeting, but in a press release that day, he said, "For more than five years I have expressed my concerns to government regulators at all levels about the environmental threat presented by the various industrial operations being undertaken by Sand Land at its Noyac location."

He faulted the D.E.C. for turning "a blind eye to these community concerns," and said, "Years of regulatory neglect have yielded a stew of contamination that would more likely be associated with an open dump than a legitimate business."

A second meeting on the water data was to be held on Tuesday at 7:30 p.m., also at the Old Noyac Schoolhouse at 3010 Noyac Road, although an impending storm may force a rescheduling. Other public meetings across the South Fork on Tuesday have already been rescheduled.

Scores of people spoke out against offshore drilling on Long Island at a hearing hosted by Representative Lee Zeldin at Brookhaven Town Hall on Friday. 

Prompted by a Trump admimistration proposal to promote oil and gas drilling on 90 percent of the outer continental shelf off the United States, the hearing gave state and local officials, environmentalists, and residents a chance to share their concerns with Department of Interior representatives.

Long Island residents and their representatives had protested that a previous hearing held in Albany was too far away from the people who would be most affected by the plan. Mr. Zeldin, a Republican who opposes the plan along with most other Long Island lawmakers, requested the second hearing. 

It was announced just two days earlier, but was well attended despite the heavy wind and rain that accompanied Friday’s northeaster. 

Having worked with Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke while the secretary was in Congress, Mr. Zeldin said he thought Mr. Zinke would be willing to reconsider New York’s inclusion in the plan after hearing from Long Islanders. “There is no evidence of these resources even being located off of Long Island,” Mr. Zeldin said. “That alone is reason enough to take Long Island off the table.” 

Within five days of Mr. Zinke’s initial announcement, the State of Florida was dropped from the plan. The state’s governor, Rick Scott, cited Florida’s multibillion-dollar tourism industry and other economic impacts such as the threat to hundreds of thousands of jobs. Lawmakers up and down the coast have asked for their states to be removed from the plan for similar reasons.

Those who spoke at Friday’s meeting applied the same tactics. Many, including Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., emphasized the statewide bipartisan opposition to offshore oil and gas exploration. Many pointed to economic data indicating the billions of dollars generated by Long Island’s coasts. “Our environment is our economy,” Mr. Thiele said. 

Those speaking from conservation and environmental groups raised the specter of previous disasters: exploding platforms, birds soaked with petroleum, and contaminated seafood. Several, such as Colleen Henn of the Surfrider Foundation, described the air guns used for seismic testing as disruptive to marine mammals and their ability to communicate, migrate, and find prey.

Speaking for the Citizens Campaign for the Environment, Adrienne Esposito said the residents of Long Island do not live here for the traffic, but for the water. “We consider the water our backyard, our front yard, but we would never consider it our junkyard.” She thanked Kate MacGregor, the deputy assistant secretary for land and minerals at the Department of Interior, the first of two representatives who showed up for the hearing, but asked, “Who are you to threaten it?”

Officials such as County Legislator Bridget Fleming joined their state and county colleagues in urging the department to eliminate the waters off Long Island from the proposed program and to endorse renewable energy efforts instead for the state and region.

According to material shared by Ms. Fleming in a letter addressed to Mr. Zinke, Long Island generates tourism income in excess of $5.6 billion, supporting more than 100,000 employees. “According to a 2016 study by Tourism Economics, over $700 million in state and local taxes is generated annually by Long Island tourism and the average Long Island household would have an annual tax bill increase of $745 without that revenue.”

Assemblywoman Christine Pellegrino, who represents an UpIsland district, questioned the lack of notice for the meeting. “We’re left wondering if the federal government actually wants to hear what we have to say,” Ms. Pellegrino said. 

Refusing to yield after her time had expired and the moderator began striking his gavel, Ms. Pellegrino said, “Long Island will not stand idly by while others ruin our coastline.”

After two hours of public comment, Ms. MacGregor addressed the crowd before turning the hearing over to John Tanner, another department representative. Ms. MacGregor thanked them for their boldness in their comments. Responding to the calls for coastal wind energy development made during the hearing, she said that was a shared goal of the department and something it was working on while taking into consideration the concerns that accompany that kind of development. 

The public comment period on the offshore oil and gas exploration plan will close Friday. Comments can be submitted to the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management at boem.gov/National-Program-Comment. Ms. MacGregor said the review process is long and will “involve a multitude of comment periods with potentially more meetings when we come to the next step in the program process.”

This article was modified from the print version to correct an editorial modification of the original text. The Trump administration proposal would open the entire United States coastline to oil and gas exploration (not merely the East Coast), with the exception of  Florida, which was removed from the proposal five days after it was issued.