The Ocean Colony Beach and Tennis Club, which occupies a six-acre site  east of the Lobster Roll restaurant on Napeague, wants to enlarge all but one of its units’ decks, but needs an East Hampton Town Zoning Board decision before it can proceed.

The resort has appealed a determination by Dan Casey, a building inspector who is no longer with the department, that enlarging the decks would constitute an expansion of use. On Sept. 22, the zoning board debated for almost two hours about whether it does or does not; meanwhile, the resort’s application to the town’s planning board is stalled.

Although there are a number of motels and three restaurants in the eastern half of Napeague, the area is zoned not for resort use but for residences. The businesses predate the coming of zoning, which allows them to continue to operate.

According to a memo by JoAnne Pahwul, the town’s assistant planning director, Ocean Colony is seeking to expand 39 of 40 decks from 78 square feet each to 112.

Jonathan Tarbet of Tarbet & Lester, representing the Ocean Colony, told the zoning board that there were “15 years of precedent allowing certain accessory structures” to consider. He pointed to two Montauk sites as examples, Ruschmeyer’s on Second House Road and East by Northeast on Edgemere Road, which are both in residential zones.

The late Don Sharkey, who was East Hampton’s chief building inspector, told Ruschmeyer’s in 2002 that the addition of decking would not constitute an expansion of use, Mr. Tarbet said, and in 2012 one of his successors, Tom Preiato, told East by Northeast that it could add a deck.

However, board members noted that in the case of East by Northeast, there was a caveat: The restaurant was required to remove the same number of seats from inside that it was adding outside. “If you added seats,” said John Whelan, the board’s chairman, “that would be an expansion of use.” He called the Ocean Colony proposal “an expansion of outdoor living space.”

Cate Rogers agreed, saying she saw a lot of “leeway” in how the East by Northeast decision should be considered.

Mr. Tarbet had started his argument by telling the board that “forty-three percent of our commercial businesses, 425 in total, pre-exist our town code.” The effect of not allowing the addition of accessory structures for those businesses would be “devastating,” he said.

David Lys, a board member, argued that the board needed to think of the future, not the past. He called Mr. Casey’s determination “site-specific.” And Ann Glennon, the current head building inspector, also supported Mr. Casey’s determination. She told board members that they were being asked to interpret the code, not the precedent.

However, the board’s own lawyer, Beth Baldwin, seemed to be encouraging them to side with Mr. Tarbet, telling them they did need to consider precedent.

Board members were not happy that Mr. Tarbet had submitted a great many documents at the last moment. Not only did members need time to read through them, but the planning department did as well. In the end, the board agreed to keep the record open for a few weeks to allow them to consult with the Planning Department.

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.

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.

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.

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 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.­

Work is set to begin in three weeks on an $8.9 million artificial dune that will largely cover the width of the Montauk downtown beach between the dune and the ocean from South Emery Street at the western edge to the Atlantic Terrace motel near Surfside Place on the east. 

The dune will, based on the normal, though fluctuating, width of the beach, extend from its landward edge across the entire stretch of sand right up to — or even into — the ocean, according to construction specifications.

With a core of geotextile bags filled with sand, the 105-foot wide dune will spread along 3,100 feet of shoreline. Pedestrian walkways on pilings above the 161/2-foot-high dune are planned.

The project was designed, and will be paid for, by the Army Corps of Engineers, and was developed in cooperation with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and East Hampton Town officials.

 Twenty-six thousand cubic yards of sand will be excavated from the Montauk beach and piled three feet deep on top of the filled sandbags and the dune face. The bags themselves will require about 50,000 cubic yards of sand to fill.

 The plan calls for the town and Suffolk County to shoulder the costs of the dune’s annual maintenance, including replacing the sand atop the bags whenever it is depleted or washed away. The average annual maintenance cost has been estimated at $150,000, though questioned by some who believe it could well be significantly more.

Although preliminary work is to get under way on Oct. 1, the construction, which will entail closing the area, will not begin until after the Columbus Day weekend. The work is expected to be completed, barring weather delays, by the end of January 2016.

Defend H20, an environmental advocacy organization, and four individuals who have filed a lawsuit to stop the project, have now applied in federal court for permission to seek an injunction halting it.

Carl Irace, an East Hampton lawyer representing the plaintiffs, said yesterday that he would press for a judge’s ruling.

 The lawsuit asserts that the reinforced dune conflicts with the policy against hard structures on the ocean beach in the town’s Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan and challenges the permits for the work.

“It appears that there will be no room to sit on the beach, no room for a lifeguard stand, no room for Marine Patrol to pass,” Mr. Irace said yesterday.

The artificial dune has been cast as an interim emergency measure to be in place only until the Army Corps begins more extensive beach reconstruction under its Fire Island to Montauk Point reformulation plan. This project has been in the works since 1960, and several upcoming administrative target dates for the project were recently extended.

  The dune’s placement will vary along its length according to the existing dune line, with a landward buffer in some places as wide as 50 feet between it and road ends or shorefront properties, which are largely developed with hotels or condos.

Though the town has been informed of each step of the process and has participated in discussions about details, there is limited local involvement in many elements over which the federal agency holds sway, such as the type of sand that will be used in the sandbags.

Because the bags have a finite useful life and can be damaged, environmentalists have raised concerns about the aesthetic and environmental impacts of sand from upland quarries, with which they will be filled.

Town officials have been asking for samples of the sand for months, Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell said at a board meeting on Tuesday. “We’re still at issue with respect to the sand, the quality of the sand that’s going to go into the bags,” he said. The grain size of the sand is supposed to be similar to the natural beach sand in Montauk, Town Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc said.

“We have taken the position that both the sand that goes in the bags and the sand that goes on top of the bags should be indigenous sand,” Mr. Cantwell said. “We’ll continue to press for that.”

The Army Corps has not specified the color of the sand. Kim Shaw, the town’s natural resources director, said Tuesday that the D.E.C. has the ultimate authority for what sand will be used. The upland sand the corps reportedly intends to use has an orange color.

The corps has approved the installation of four 81/2-foot-wide walkways over the dune for the public, but town officials are to decide, after site inspection in the coming weeks, if all four are needed or desired. The approved locations are at the road ends at South Emery, South Embassy, and South Edgemere Streets and at Lowenstein Court.

Oceanfront property owners who have signed easements allowing the dune to be constructed on  a portion of their properties have been guaranteed their own four-foot-wide sand paths over the dune. There will be 10 of them.

The dune will be surrounded by wood fencing along its length on both the landward and ocean sides, and more fencing will edge the private walkways. In addition, a cut in the dune for vehicular access to the beach will be created at South Edison Street, which also will be fenced. The roadway’s surface material has not yet been determined, but could be concrete, Ms. Shaw said.

The cut is also designed as a solution to flooding in downtown Montauk during heavy rains, when runoff typically flows out to the beach. The dune will prevent that, the engineers say, except in the access area at South Edison. However, because the dune is also designed to protect the downtown from flooding, the Army Corps will provide a stockpile of sand that could be used to plug the access should a surge be expected.

The town will be responsible for that work, and for replenishing the 250-cubic-yard stockpile if it is used.

Another drainage issue, at Lowenstein Court at the eastern end of the project, will be resolved, at town expense, with the installation of a 12-inch pipe through the dune, allowing runoff into the ocean.

However, questions have been raised by H2O members about whether that solution to flooding may be precluded by the federal Municipal Separate Storm Sewer Systems program, or MS4, under which the Environmental Protection Agency has required municipalities to prevent the discharge of untreated stormwater runoff into water bodies.

As of this week, county legislators had not approved the inter-municipal cost-sharing agreement. County Legislator Al Krupski, who opposes the Army Corps project and late last year called for a county Department of Public Works examination of it, said Tuesday that “the project should be reconsidered” because “hardening the shoreline on the Atlantic Ocean” is counterproductive and would ultimately be unsuccessful.

Legislator Krupski said he was unsure why the county had not inked the cost-sharing agreement, but that, while it remains unapproved, he has been seeking “everyone I can talk to [to] inform them that this is a bad idea. I think this is a tremendous financial obligation for the county.”

In addition, Mr. Krupski said he predicts “lawsuits galore” stemming from the dune construction and its impact. “You harden the shoreline, you lose your beach, you lose your public access,” he said.

Mr. Irace noted yesterday that while the county had agreed to shoulder future maintenance costs for a beach restoration project on Fire Island, it was unwilling to take those on entirely for the Montauk dune. “The funding of the operation and maintenance is a big issue for East Hampton taxpayers,” he said.

According to Alex Walter, Supervisor Cantwell’s assistant, who updated the town board on the status of the project Tuesday, an Army Corps coordinator will live in Montauk during the construction, and there will be weekly meetings among the involved agencies.

The contractor selected by the Army Corps, H & L Contracting of Bay Shore, will use the Kirk Park parking lot as a site for equipment and stockpiling some of the 50,000 cubic yards of sand that will be trucked in at an estimated five truckloads a day for the duration of the project. Sand will also be kept at the South Emerson Street road end. If the parking lot or road pavement is damaged by the large trucks, the contractor is to have it repaired.

Under its agreement with the Army Corps, the company may work seven days a week from 7 a.m. till 8:30 p.m. In a meeting last week, however, the contractor indicated a five-day-a-week schedule, beginning at 7 a.m. daily.

Pilings for the pedestrian accesses will go in first. Then, Mr. Walter said, sand will be excavated in 1,000-foot swaths, and 500-foot sections of the dune built, going from east to west.

The East Hampton Star and the East Hampton Group for Good Government will co-host a debate with candidates for supervisor and town board on Saturday from 2 to 4 p.m. at the Emergency Services Building in East Hampton.

Tom Knobel, the Republican Party’s candidate for supervisor, along with Margaret Turner and Lisa Mulhern-Larsen, the party’s candidates for town board, will join Supervisor Larry Cantwell, Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc, and Councilwoman Sylvia Overby, incumbent Democrats facing re-election.

Each candidate will provide a one-minute presentation of their qualifications and main ideas for the town and the board. A series of prepared questions for the candidates will follow, with each given up to one minute to answer. The candidate asked to answer first will rotate so that all candidates will have an opportunity to be the first and the last to answer questions. Members of the audience will be asked to submit written questions.

Election Day is Nov. 3.

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.

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.