“Faced with access versus no access, access won,” East Hampton Town Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc told the Amagansett Citizens Advisory Committee Monday night. The Cranberry Hole Road bridge to Lazy Point, a destination beloved of clammers, kite surfers, windsurfers, birders, and solitary seekers of peace and quiet, was recently reopened — though with no guarantee of permanence — after being shut down on May 7 when a large gap appeared in its wooden substructure.
After fruitless talks with officials of the Long Island Rail Road, which the town contends owns the rickety overpass above its tracks but has refused to take responsibility for a fix, the town stepped in. Highway Department workers began repairs on May 30, and opened the bridge on Saturday. “We put back exactly what was there: wooden timbers and asphalt,” Kevin Cobb, the town’s highway project inspector, said on Tuesday.
“The only problem with that bridge is overweight trucks going over it,” he added.
Small signs posted to east and west warn of a five-ton weight limit on the structure, but they are apparently often ignored. Mr. Van Scoyoc told the advisory committee that after the bridge was closed, Highway Superintendent Stephen Lynch “got a lot of calls” from Cranberry Hole residents blaming big rigs for the situation. Mr. Cobb said on Tuesday, however, that “the signs are appropriate to the speed of the road.”
After Michael Cinque, a longtime Amagansett Fire Department volunteer and ACAC member, reported that the bridge closure had impacted emergency response time in the area, the supervisor suggested that fire commissioners make that fact known in a letter to the Metropolitan Transit Authority. Mr. Cinque is the fire department’s liaison to state agencies.
The supervisor turned next to Old Stone Highway, where American beech trees are dying by the dozens. In keeping with town policy, no pesticides have been used, “though if you catch it early enough, you might save them,” he said. Unless falling trees “are threatening homes, the town will leave them.” Wildlife, he noted, can live and hide in dead trees.
An article about the beech leaf disease, with comments from several local arborists, appears elsewhere in this issue.
There are many dying or dead trees, mostly pitch pines, on Napeague as well, and they pose a serious fire hazard should it turn out to be a dry summer. The railroad tracks run through those woods on the way to Montauk, and “a cigarette tossed out a train window” could cause a disaster, Mr. Van Scoyoc said.
Mr. Cinque agreed. “The train, for sure,” he said. “The brakes lock up, any breeze, it could cross the road to the south side. Our trucks won’t drive over so many fallen trees in a row. We need a plan, and hope we never have to use it.” He added that Route 114 on the way to Sag Harbor has the same problem.
Monday’s meeting, which was unusually well attended with about 30 people present, concluded with brief updates from the supervisor on the future of the 18-acre Amagansett Plains parcel at 555 Montauk Highway, and on the hamlet’s proposed new lighting plan. The town board “has not taken up” ACAC’s request that the 555 draft plan be modified to confine the area to passive recreation, he said, but he will put it forward again before a public hearing is scheduled.
A hearing will take place on the lighting proposal as well, he told the group; specifically, on whether to undertake an initial study. It would begin next year, he said, and would cost $16,000. The question, however, is who would pay. Would the Amagansett Lighting District bear the cost? Mr. Van Scoyoc wondered. If yes, then the study would be followed by “a significantly more expensive feasibility engineering study.”
The town board was to set the date of the first hearing at its meeting today.
Finally, after reporting that the Amagansett Fire Department answered 34 ambulance calls in May, Mr. Cinque lamented that “we haven’t had a volunteer sign on in I can’t remember when.” One or two people came, he said, but after seeing how much time was required for training, “they didn’t stay.”
