Government

Despite a massive die-off of bay scallops in the Peconic Estuary last fall, many waters under East Hampton Town Trustee jurisdiction, though by no means all, were of a high quality in 2019.     

A group of Springs property owners sued the Town of East Hampton last week over a plan to relocate the town’s shellfish hatchery from Fort Pond Bay in Montauk to 36 Gann Road.

Suffolk County Legislator Bridget Fleming and her potential opponent come November, Representative Lee Zeldin, have garnered new endorsements.

As one of the warmest winters in memory nears an end, the Town of East Hampton’s energy sustainability committee looks toward a looming deadline: the town’s goal to meet 100-percent renewable energy consumption, communitywide in all sectors, by 2030.     

The East Hampton Town Board voted last Thursday to authorize an agreement with Orsted and Eversource Energy, partners in the proposed South Fork Wind Farm off Montauk, to conduct survey work for the 15-turbine installation's cable route in Wainscott.

The Southampton Town Board, using money from the community preservation fund, voted last week to purchase two parcels in Shinnecock Hills, in an area believed to be ancient burial grounds of the Shinnecock Indian Nation. Members and supporters of the Nation had lodged strong protests over housing construction at a nearby site.     

Though a statewide ban on plastic bags officially took effect Sunday, the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation said Friday that it would not begin enforcement of the action until April 1.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency announced in January that it would not perform the independent Superfund evaluation that many Noyac residents had hoped for. 

A proposal from AT&T to build a 50-foot-high freestanding “campanile” to house cellphone antennas, at St. Peter’s Chapel on Old Stone Highway in Springs, took a big step forward on Feb. 26, when the East Hampton Town Planning Board determined the project would not have a negative impact on the environment.     

The East Hampton Town Board is expected to vote tonight on a resolution authorizing Orsted and Eversource, partners in the proposed South Fork Wind Farm, to conduct survey work for the 15-turbine installation’s transmission cable route in Wainscott.     

The companies have identified a subterranean path from a cable landing at the ocean beach at the end of Beach Lane in Wainscott to a Long Island Power Authority substation in East Hampton as the preferred route.     

Yearly maintenance dredging at Georgica Pond — up to 15,000 cubic yards of sand — is nearing completion.

In its ongoing effort to remediate the degraded condition of Georgica Pond, which has experienced toxic algal blooms every summer since 2012, a group of pondfront property owners sought and received permission from the East Hampton Town Trustees to take part in a sediment chronology study.