Sparring Over Springs Water, Land-Candidates addressed concerns in the most crowded hamlet in town

Extending public water to Springs and balancing the need for affordable housing with the need to preserve some of the open land left in the town's most densely developed hamlet were the overriding themes at the Springs Citizens Advisory Committee's meet-the-candidates night on Tuesday.

Candidates for town justice, town clerk, town assessor, town highway superintendent, and town trustee introduced themselves to Springs voters, but those running for town supervisor and town board were the focus of the forum.

Roger Walker, the Republican candidate for town supervisor, and his running mates, Larry Penny and Bill Gardiner, would like to see Suffolk County Water Authority mains extended north into Springs.

Their Democratic opponents, Supervisor Bill McGintee, Councilwoman Pat Mansir, and Brad Loewen, chairman of the town planning board, want to first be sure that bringing more water to the hamlet will not have a negative impact on the harbors and bays and plan to commission an environmental impact statement to study the proposal.

In some areas of Springs, Mr. Walker said, "the water is not all that good." He also supports bringing public water to the hamlet for fire protection purposes, because it is so densely developed.

The Republicans say the town board has been too slow to act on the matter. "How much do you need an environmental impact statement to run water through a pipe?" Mr. Gardiner asked on Tuesday night.

Drafts of the town comprehensive plan prepared by Lee E. Koppelman and the company Horne Rose during Jay Schneiderman's administrations suggested that zoning changes recommended in Springs be put in place before public water was brought there.

"You don't move quickly on issues that can have such a profound impact on this community," Mr. McGintee said. He reminded people that the water authority is a business and that, when it proposed extending mains to Springs, it "said we won't bring you water unless half the people sign up."

When the water authority extended its main to Montauk, it said it would pump no more than 20 million gallons a year there; now, however, "they're way over 100 million gallons," Mr. McGintee said. "I'm concerned about the inroduction of water into an area where the water table is at four feet," he said of Montauk.

"I have always been a proponent of water to Springs and I still am," Ms. Mansir said. She told voters that the town is preparing requests for proposals now to find a company that can undertake the environmental study.

"If we have one of those horrible Hurricane Bobs or Hurricane Glorias, not everybody has a generator hooked up to their well," Mr. Penny said. As the town's natural resources director, Mr. Penny helped draft a water resources management plan for the town's comprehensive plan. He also said that he deals with homeowners who have concerns about their well water.

"Think about all the people taking medicines that are coming back into your private well," Mr. Penny said, recalling a case where one homeowner found her water had traces of an anti-epilepsy drug that probably came from a neighbor's septic system. He is also concerned about nitrates in well water.

"If you live on a big lot, you're probably pretty well protected," Mr. Penny said, "but if you live on a small lot, you should probably have your water tested." The problem in Springs, he said, is that there are so many small lots.

Mr. Loewen recalled that when he was a child, Springs was far less developed than it is today. "We've watched Springs grow and it's become the most densely populated hamlet in the entire town, and along with that come problems."

Heather Anderson, a member of the Springs Historical Society, asked what the supervisor and town board candidates would do to see that vacant land would be preserved. "What will the board members do to ease the problems of Springs with all the little lots?"

Mr. McGintee said he is committed to preserving the large undeveloped lots that remain in Springs. Among other things, he said, he has begun talks with the Girl Scouts about a long-term plan for Camp Blue Bay, which is the largest undeveloped tract in Springs.

The town board has also asked the Community Preservation Fund committee to make an inventory of vacant small lots and contiguous small lots for neighborhood parks. The areas around Accabonac Harbor and Three Mile Harbor have benefited from the recent townwide upzonings, he said. "But there are also small lots that still need to be available to young families."

Mr. Walker said he would sit down with the citizens committee in Springs and work with it to decide what should be preserved.

"I think we have to keep in mind that public water is only one step toward increased density," Mr. Loewen said.

"The Community Preservation Fund could come down here in Springs and could do a lot to protect open lots," Mr. Gardiner said. Although he has been highly critical of some Community Preservation Fund purchases over the past year and a half, he said he strongly supports it and he strongly supports the purchase of open space. "What we need to do is put the C.P.F. back on track."

Among other things, he criticized the town for spending $1.8 million to buy a 6.9-acre reserved area in the Buckskill Farm subdivision. As part of the subdivision process, the area would have been protected from development anyway, he said, but in the end, the owner not only got four building lots and was exempted from upzoning, but he also got almost as much money for the reserved area as he paid for the entire property in 2003. "The town board took C.P.F. money and threw it away," Mr. Gardiner said.

Mr. McGintee pointed out that the original proposal was for eight houses on the property. After negotiations with the town, the owner agreed to reduce the subdivision to four lots and increase the size of the reserved area, which the town, in turn, agreed to buy once the subdivision was approved.

Mr. Gardiner has also criticized the town's decision to buy Dayton Island in Three Mile Harbor for $3.8 million which could have only one house built on it and of its proposal to buy a five-acre sculpture park off Town Lane in East Hampton and keep it as a display area for one artist's work.