Editorials

Water quality and environmental well-being are taking top billing these days. Along with East Hampton Town, Suffolk is taking steps to reduce the amount of nitrogen and other pollutants in household wastewater.

By any measure, a report that at least two East Hampton Town employees may have been sickened after being exposed to fumes from spray-foam insulation barrels they were ordered to prepare for reuse as trash cans is bizarre. Both the worker who blew the whistle and the town safety official who shut it down deserve credit. But this risky, and probably illegal, practice has been going on for years, which suggests that far more oversight of some town departments is necessary.

President Trump’s attack on the Obama-era Clean Power Plan should be taken very seriously on the East End. Long Island’s hundreds of miles of bay and ocean shoreline are highly vulnerable to the increased erosion and worsened storms associated with global warming. Walking away from efforts to protect future generations, as well as the natural environment, is shortsighted, to put it mildly.

We were surprised to read recently that New York City prohibits rentals of fewer than 30 days. This is in an effort to keep apartments from being turned into de facto hotels and to protect the interests of neighbors and neighborhoods. Contrast that with East Hampton Town’s confusing regulations, which allow four sub-two-week rentals a year, provided that only two are in the same six-month period and that they are registered with the town clerk’s office.

A fourth-grade initiative at the Montauk School to stop the use of plastic straws there and in the community is worth paying attention to — and bears a lesson for how we should think about our relationship to the environment.

New York Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo announced a new, $70 million rebate program this week aimed at getting more electric vehicles on the roads. This is an important step, especially in light of hostility from the Trump administration to rational efforts to protect the global environment and fight climate change, though dollars and cents play a role as well.

For eastern Long Island, a White House budget item that would cut funding for the Coast Guard should be cause for alarm. Fortunately, opposition from members of Congress is bipartisan and loud.

East Hampton Village should have just said no to a smoke-and-mirrors request from representatives of Ronald Perelman, the owner of the Creeks estate on Georgica Pond, at the outset. Mr. Perelman seeks a new zoning classification created for him alone specifically to legalize illegally built structures there. Instead, though skeptical, board members are taking time to consider the proposal. They should not have been so polite.

What ever happened to wait-and-see? State, Suffolk, and local governments announced closings in advance of a winter storm that was supposed to cover the region on Tuesday.

Government does some things well and there are some things best left to private contractors. The East Hampton Town Trustees are thinking about buying and operating a dredge to keep East Hampton’s harbor entrances navigable. This is one job better left to the professionals.

President Trump, who owns a handgun and has a New York State permit to carry it hidden, has killed a rule that President Obama put in place before leaving office that would have limited access to guns by some of the more than 70,000 mentally ill who receive full disability benefits from the Social Security Administration. The Obama measure was opposed by both the National Rifle Association and the American Civil Liberties Union, an apparent anomaly that points to the possibility, however far-fetched, that strict gun control could become a nonpartisan effort, as it should.

There is scarcely any aspect of the South Fork economy that does not rely on immigrant workers to some degree. People from the Americas, the Caribbean, former Soviet states, and parts of Europe, among others, keep this place humming. Foreign-born hands help build the houses, make the food, take care of our elderly, write novels, create art, teach children, pay taxes, turn down the beds in the hotel rooms. In short, they are us but for place of origin, and paperwork.

After reviewing complaints from residents dating back several years, the East Hampton Town Board is taking a needed step to control film and television shoots on private property.

Football in East Hampton, though not dying, according to the sport’s energetic coach, Joe McKee, has a problem because the high school’s new enrollment numbers have kicked it up into the hard-playing, black-and-blue Conference III, whose players greatly outweigh those of East Hampton’s, on average.

It is a dilemma. On one hand, Representative Lee Zeldin would like to meet with his constituents. On the other hand, he does not want to be the focus of confrontations by First District residents who do not agree with his support for President Trump. So what is a congressman to do?

Buoyed by the prospect of millions of dollars over time from the community preservation fund, East Hampton Town officials are moving quickly on plans to reduce water pollution. In a program that could begin later this year, properties that meet certain criteria could have a portion, or even all, of a replacement sanitary waste system paid for with public money. This is good, but there is still reason to be wary about potential misuse because of a lack of clarity in the underlying state law.

By rough count, 30,000 active beach driving permits have been issued to East Hampton Town residents. This is an astonishing number but more easily understood if you consider that old red-and-white stickers are valid until a truck is sold, same as with beach parking permits. In practice, nothing stops a resident from passing on a vehicle to someone from away, and because nonresident beach driving permits are priced at $275, some purchasers may just leave one on the bumper when a vehicle changes hands as a little deal-sweetener.

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation recently announced plans to “streamline” a key method of environmental review. Part of the reason is that the department has been underfunded and spottily staffed for years.

The East Hampton Town Trustees could use a workshop on civility. For those who are not clear about what the trustees do, think of them as the stewards of much of the town’s waterways, some of its beaches, and a few woods roads. They oversee mooring permits outside of Lake Montauk and have a say on where docks and aquaculture projects are allowed, as well as on beach driving.

We hate to rain on the recently revived commuter train parade, but for all the enthusiasm, it is difficult to see how it could be a success.

A wave of commercial redevelopment in Montauk has had impacts on traffic and noise and the hamlet’s sense of neighborliness, but it also is suspected of having a huge impact underground.

From conversations locally, it seems that a fair number of rank-and-file supporters of President Donald J. Trump really fear, deep in their hearts, the prospect of a terror attack within the United States by radicalized Muslims. As irrationally improbable as that may be — deadly violence in the United States since 9/11 is overwhelminly a homegrown crisis — the so-called immigration ban makes them at least feel safer. They are not alone; according to polls cited by The New York Times, almost half of U.S. respondents favored more restrictions on migrants from “terror-prone” regions.

East Hampton and Sag Harbor Villages want drivers to slow down, way down. In separate votes, elected officials in both jurisdictions recently decided to reduce the speed limit on a number of streets — to 20 miles per hour.

Despite what Senator Jeff Flake from that great oceanfront state of Arizona said, the Montauk sandbag sea wall did what it was supposed to do this week as a northeaster pounded the beach. Senator Flake, you might recall, included the $9 million United States Army Corps of Engineers project among his annual list of wasteful government spending.

Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo has said he would like to close a loophole that allows the use of handheld cellphones by drivers when vehicles are stationary but on the roadway. This is a terrific idea.

On the eve of Donald J. Trump’s inauguration, opposition to his presidency is at a historic high. As few as 40 percent of Americans polled this week said they had a favorable opinion of the incoming president.

In his “state of the town” speech last week, East Hampton Supervisor Larry Cantwell made note of the effort to build a medical center on Pantigo Place. Southampton Hospital envisions an emergency room here, with doctors’ offices and related medical services, as it prepares to abandon its existing location and move to the Stony Brook Southampton campus on County Road 39.

There is irony in Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s recently coming out in favor of free in-state tuition to New York’s public colleges and universities. In an era when his signature 2-percent tax cap is causing school districts to struggle to meet expenses, his support for a higher-education program estimated to cost $160 million in the first year of full implementation is, well, astonishing.

With East Hampton Village Police Chief Gerard Larsen headed to retirement, a serious question faces the village board about who might replace him. Capt. Michael Tracey is to be appointed acting chief today, but it is not at all clear that he is interested in moving up. An issue is whether the village should seek candidates from among the members of its own force or go farther afield.

From an East Hampton perspective a baffling document from the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation arrived last week, a draft policy paper designed to encourage natural, or “living,” shorelines, as opposed to hard structures, for erosion control.