As Election Day approaches, the East Hampton Environmental Coalition is working toward two goals: Making sure candidates in local races do not forget about environmental causes, and making sure the general public knows which way they stand.

The environmental coalition, made up of, at last count, 17 organizations that come together every other year around this time, announced a three-pronged plan of action on Friday. It will distribute its “East Hampton Green Guide,” summarizing its members’ concerns and detailing their policy goals, to the candidates, and will publish in full their unedited responses to a questionnaire on environmental issues. On Saturday, it will sponsor a question-and-answer forum with the candidates at the Amagansett Library from 2 to 4 p.m. Candidates running on the Democratic slate will make their case in the first hour; the second hour will be for the Republicans.

The coalition’s member groups include the Quiet Skies Coalition, which campaigns against aircraft noise; the Dark Sky Society, which addresses light pollution; Defend H20, which wants to improve water quality; the Concerned Citizens of Montauk, Long Island Businesses for Responsible Energy, and more. Jim Matthews, the head of the Northwest Alliance and co-chair of the environmental coalition with Jeremy Samuelson, estimates that it has 6,000 members in all.

“What they share in common is a tremendous commitment to the East End environment,” Mr. Matthews said. “As we all commonly know and believe and cherish, the East End is certainly one of the most preserved and marvelous environments that we could possibly hope to live in. It has become the obligation of those who live here to do everything we can to protect it.”

He praised “the sensitive leadership” of East Hampton town and village, saying that, over the years, wisdom has largely prevailed here when it has come to environmental issues.

“Of that we are very proud; on the other hand we are also very defensive,” Mr. Matthews said. “Each year that there is an election, we gather to do what we can to be sure that everyone remembers that the environment is what makes this place great. We want to keep the candidates and the electorate, in particular, very much aware of the issues that concern all of these groups.”

The owner of property at the southeast corner of Montauk Highway and Sayre’s Path in Wainscott, which prompted an unsuccessful suit by neighbors when it was before the East Hampton Town Planning Board in 2012, is back before the board. This time, Michael Davis of Michael Davis Design Construction, a builder of high-end houses, proposes merging the properties to the east, clearing them, and building a new structure for his business.

Laurie Wiltshire of Land Planning Services, representing the applicant, told the board on Sept. 16, during an initial site plan review, that Mr. Davis wants to combine the lots, take down the existing structures at 405 and 407 Montauk Highway, and replace them with a larger building and a storage garage. She said Mr. Davis’s construction company, as well as the landscaping company belonging to his son Jonathan  Davis are using the two sites. The single 2,104-square-foot building that would result has the exact square-footage, combined, as the structures it would replace. Ms. Wiltshire said there was not enough room in the existing buildings for meetings, nor was there enough space for parking.

In the original project, Mr. Davis received approval from the Building Department and the planning board to build both a business and a small house on the site, although the land is zoned for residential use, because its business use predated the town’s zoning. David E. Eagan of Eagan and Matthews sued on behalf of Concerned Citizens of Wainscott to stop the project, but lost.

Besides being zoned for residences, the two half-acre lots are in a one-acre zone. Ms. Wiltshire argued that merging them would create a single conforming lot. However, in a memorandum to the board, JoAnne Pahwul, the town’s assistant planning director, said a question had arisen as to whether combining “the square footage of the two nonconforming uses into a single new structure for an office use is permitted.” She told the board a decision from the town’s lawyers and Building Department is pending.

Ian Calder-Piedmont questioned why the Planning Department’s resources were being spent on a project that might not be legal. He agreed with thinking laid out by Job Potter, a fellow board member. “I’ve never heard of taking two nonconforming lots and merging them into one,” Mr. Potter said, suggesting that the existing buildings might lose their status as legal pre-existing and nonconforming uses. Kathleen Cuningham, another member of the planning board, agreed.

Mr. Potter also called the use of the storage garage a red flag. Denise R. Schoen, Mr. Davis’s lawyer, promised the board, in turn, that no heavy equipment would be stored there.

Other board members took varying positions on the zoning question, though several praised the original project. “That corner property was a significant improvement,” Reed Jones, chairman, said.

All members agreed, however, that the presentation was well done. Roger Ferris, Mr. Davis’s architect, placed a wooden scale model on a survey for the board to consider the proposal in three dimensions. “Can I bring these home for my kids?” Mr. Jones asked.­

A Montauk restaurant and bar will no longer be allowed to have bands playing on its patio or to use speakers outdoors for the next year after being cited five times over the summer for violations of the town code regarding outdoor music and noise.

The East Hampton Town Board moved last week to curtail the music entertainment permit issued to Ciao by the Beach, imposing the special restrictions. The board vote was 3 to 1; Councilman Fred Overton declined to support the restrictions, and Councilwoman Kathee Burke-Gonzalez was absent from the vote.

All restaurants and bars that have any type of music, live or recorded, need permits from the town. They are issued annually and are in effect from Jan. 1 to Dec. 31 each year.

Under the law, the town board can call for a hearing on permits issued to any bar or restaurant that is cited three or more times for town code regulations, and the permit may be revoked, suspended, or modified. The board can condition issuance of a permit on the installation of soundproofing or other measures to mitigate noise problems.

Ciao was issued three tickets for excessive noise and was ticketed twice for having amplified music outdoors after 9 p.m., which the code outlaws. Several Montauk residents who spoke at Aug. 19 and Sept. 1 hearings on the music permit complained of being disturbed by the music at the restaurant.

Tina Piette, a lawyer for the business who spoke at the hearings, said that a music promoter who worked for Ciao and was responsible for the noise violations was fired. But, the town board found in its resolution censuring the permit, “this was the only mitigation measure offered on behalf of the permittee.” That “is inadequate,” the board found, to address the noise concerns and prevent future issues. Two summonses were issued after the promoter was fired, the board pointed out.

Based on police reports and testimony at the hearings, the town board determined that all of the noise concerns were related to the use of an outdoor area, with either a live band playing or amplified loudspeakers used.

A spokeswoman for the restaurant, Sharon Buckler, had told the board that the restaurant had decided to close because of the town’s enforcement actions.

However, even if the restaurant changes hands, that won’t change the new terms of the permit. According to the town law, all modifications and limitations of a permit “shall be binding on subsequent owners.” Owners may seek to remove permit restrictions by requesting a new town board hearing, though.

The federal government’s plan to sell Plum Island, a former animal disease research center off Orient Point, will be subject of a public hearing on Monday.

The New York State Assembly’s environmental conservation committee opposes the sale of the 840-acre island, and is urging the federal government to instead create a National Wildlife Refuge there. The public hearing is meant to attract testimony on steps that can be taken “to preserve Plum Island as open space in light of the pending sale.”

The hearing will take place in the auditorium of Brookhaven Town Hall, at 1 Independence Hill in Farmingville at 11 a.m.

In a June 16 letter to Senator Charles Schumer, State Assemblyman Steve Englebright, the committee’s chairman, as well as Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. and 20 other members of the State Legislature, protested Congress’s plans to sell the island and use the proceeds to decommission the Plum Island Animal Disease Center and set up a new government research facility in Kansas. The committee argued that two factors will render the sale disadvantageous: the high anticipated costs associated with decommissioning the research facility and Southold Town’s 2013 rezoning of Plum Island for conservation and research purposes.

Mr. Englebright and his colleagues also said the sale of Plum Island “runs counter” to past dispositions of federal property, including those in the Northeast that led to the creation of several National Wildlife Refuges, and “is incongruous” with efforts on Long Island and in New York State to preserve parkland over the last 30 years.

Those wishing to make remarks during Monday’s public hearing must sign up in advance by filling out an online form available at the New York State Assembly’s website, assembly.state.ny.us, or by printing out the form and mailing it in.

One sure sign of summer in recent years is the chokepoint on Montauk Highway on Napeague in the vicinity of Cyril’s bar and restaurant, where patrons parking up and down the highway shoulder and looking to cross the highway, which has a 55-mile-per-hour speed limit, cause a slowdown — and concern.

Because Montauk Highway is a state road, East Hampton Town officials cannot institute a no-parking zone in the area, although that has often been discussed. But last week, with a unanimous vote, the town board resolved to ask the New York State Department of Transportation for approval to prohibit parking on the south side of Montauk Highway for a stretch in the Cyril’s area.

According to the board’s resolution, the town’s Police Department has “expressed its concern for the safety of the vehicular and pedestrian traffic in this area,” and the fire marshals office has also expressed concerns, including about the fact that all of the fire hydrants in the area are on the south side of the highway, and “a lineup of parked cars, even if not parked directly in front of a hydrant, could make it difficult for rapid and effective Fire Department access and response in the event of an emergency. . . .”

The resolution will be sent to the D.O.T.’s regional traffic office in Hauppauge, which town officials hope will issue a go-ahead.

Also last week, the town board authorized emergency repairs to the boat-launching ramp at Lazy Point in Amagansett. The ramp has sustained damage, the board said, but attempts to close it until repairs could be made under a normal schedule have been “difficult to enforce,” according to a board resolution. The D.J. Whelan Corporation will be hired, at a cost of $24,000, to do the work.

Repairs are also needed at the pier out at Navy Road in Montauk, and the town will accept bids on the job until tomorrow. They can be directed to the town’s Purchasing Department, which can provide specifications for the job.

Georgica Pond will remain closed to crabbing until further notice, the East Hampton Town Trustees decided at their meeting on Tuesday, because of the persistent bloom of cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, which appeared last month. Meanwhile, cochlodinium, or rust tide, which is toxic to shellfish and finfish but is not harmful to humans, has appeared in Three Mile Harbor.

The cyanobacteria bloom “has only intensified,” Diane McNally, the trustees’ clerk, told her colleagues, and microcystin, a class of toxins that can cause serious damage to the liver, was also present at low levels. The bloom, she said, would dissipate when the pond is opened to the Atlantic Ocean, which typically happens in the fall and spring.

Christopher Gobler of Stony Brook University, who has led a monitoring program of waterways under trustee jurisdiction for the past three years, had detected patches of rust tide in Three Mile Harbor, Ms. McNally said, and has increased his sampling to occur weekly. He will deliver an update when he has more information, she said.

Montauk was the focus at the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals meeting Tuesday when members voted to hold a second public hearing on an application for construction on the oceanfront at Ditch Plain and approved an application from National Grid for work at its substation on Industrial Road.

The Ditch Plain application is from the owner of Unit 22 at the Montauk Shores Condominium, Mike Lukacs. The first hearing, on June 16, was on his request to build a one-story structure near the dune and for variances for setbacks from the bluff crest. The application was similar to others from oceanfront owners in the trailer park, seeking larger, modern structures on small pieces of land. Mr. Lukacs had already received approval from the condominium’s board.

At the time, the condominium board failed to note, and the Planning Department failed to elaborate upon, the fact that the property is in a designated Federal Emergency Management Agency flood zone. It was only after the June 16 hearing that the Z.B.A. began asking about the FEMA requirements. The answer, it turned out, was that living spaces in that flood zone had to be elevated 22 feet.

Britton Bistrian of Land Use Solutions, Mr. Lukacs’s representative, subsequently presented the board with a revised proposal. The new residence  was placed on pilings, to be enclosed with a wall. The result, in appearance, would be a two-story building, one that would tower over the other residences by the ocean. That was too great a change for Z.B.A. members. “Imagine how the neighbors will feel,” Don Cirillo asked.

A second potential problem with the revised plan was pointed out by John Whelan, the Z.B.A. chairman. Under FEMA rules, Mr. Whelan said, walls around pilings must be “breakaway” walls, to allow water to flow through.

Beth Baldwin, the board’s lawyer, pointed out an irony now facing the board, the applicant, and the trailer park: “They are complying with the law,” she said about the applicant’s revised plan. “By not complying with the law they would be in conformance with the rest of the structures.” The board voted 5-to-0 to essentially start over with the hearing process.

While a few residents in the park had expressed opposition to the original proposal, the Surfrider Foundation and the Ditch Plains Association may be heard from in opposition at the new, not-yet-scheduled hearing since these organizations were strongly opposed to a since-abandoned plan to build a two-story building on the old East Deck site, just west of the park.

In the other Montauk matter, the Z.B.A. approved National Grid’s application to remove obsolete underground fuel storage tanks as well as other outdated equipment from the electrical substation, which is on Fort Pond.

The board had asked Laurie Wiltshire of Land Planning Services to provide data via core samples taken at the site, to ensure that nothing toxic was in the ground there. The data she provided indicated it was safe to proceed. However, the board stipulated in approving the project that a series of safety measures was to be taken in case any toxins were found during excavation.

A resolution that would withdraw funding for future maintenance of the artificial dune the Army Corps of Engineers is set to build on the downtown Montauk beach beginning next month could reach the Suffolk County Legislature at its next general meeting, on Oct. 6.

The county had agreed last year to help East Hampton Town shoulder the cost of maintenance of the dune. Under an agreement with the Army Corps on the $8.9 million dune project, the town and county would be responsible for keeping the sandbag core of the dune covered with three feet of sand, which could require extensive sand additions after storms.

If approved, the resolution would not only repeal the county lawmakers’ authorization for an intermunicipal agreement with the town, which has not yet been signed, but would also require the county to conduct a review of the potential environmental impacts of signing the agreement under the New York State Environmental Quality Review Act.

The annual dune maintenance cost has been estimated at an average of $150,000, though that estimate has been questioned as unrealistically low by a number of people.

Among them is County Legislator Al Krupski of the county’s First District, which includes the North Fork. Mr. Krupski, who has continually expressed opposition to the Montauk dune project and the approach of building a structure on the shore, wrote the resolution, which will be discussed on Sept. 28 by the Legislature’s public works committee, which he leads.

If approved by the committee, it will be brought before the full Legislature at the early October meeting.

Contractors are scheduled to begin staging and other preparations for the construction of the 3,100-foot-long artificial dune on Oct. 1; excavation of the beach and the filling of sandbags with trucked-in sand are slated to begin after the Columbus Day weekend.

The dune will span the beach at 105 feet wide, topping out at a 16.5-foot elevation, which will require the construction of walkways on pilings so that people might reach the shore.

An analysis of East Hampton Town’s coastline and the potential impact of future storms, which is about to get under way, will “help determine the town’s response with regard to sea level rise, storms, and erosion,” Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc announced on Tuesday. The town’s Natural Resources Department is coordinating the work, and it will be paid for by two separate grants.

East Hampton was awarded $250,000 last year from the New York State Department of State to develop a coastal resiliency plan. Kim Shaw, the town’s natural resources director, said Tuesday that an advisory committee has been established to develop a request for proposals from consultants who will help gather and assess data for the coastal resiliency plan.

Another grant, of $185,000, was received from the state’s Energy Research and Development Authority, which will fund an inventory of the shoreline, including a tally of shorefront structures, along with maps showing storm surge and wave action. Other aspects of the study are the science of coastal processes, future erosion rates, and other risk factors.

Results will be incorporated into town planning projects such as the Montauk hamlet study, Councilman Van Scoyoc said.

The League of Women Voters of the Hamptons will observe National Voter Registration Day on Tuesday by distributing registration forms and absentee ballot applications in both English and Spanish at 10 sites between Montauk and Westhampton. Those who have not registered previously, have moved, or have changed their name must fill out a voter registration form in order to vote in the upcoming election.

From 11 a.m. to 1 p.m., the league’s voter registration tables will be located outside the post offices in Montauk, East Hampton, and Bridgehampton; One Stop Market in East Hampton; Schiavoni’s Market in Sag Harbor; the Rogers Memorial Library and CVS pharmacy in Southampton; the King Kullen and Stop & Shop supermarkets in Hampton Bays, and Simon’s Beach Bakery in Westhampton Beach.

National Voter Registration Day was established in 2012 and falls on the fourth Tuesday in September. More than 1,000 organizations participate to draw attention to on-time voter registration. The state’s mail-in deadline is Oct. 9. This year’s general election will be held on Nov. 3.

The league will also host two candidates debates next month. Candidates for county legislator, East Hampton Town supervisor, and town board will meet at the Emergency Services Building in East Hampton on Oct. 13 at 7 p.m. Candidates for legislator, Southampton Town supervisor, and town board will meet on Oct. 22 at 6 p.m. at the Rogers Memorial Library in Southampton.