As temperatures rise in East Hampton Town’s waterways, algal blooms are appearing, growing, and, in at least one case, declining.

The East Hampton Town Planning Board came close to scheduling a public hearing on an application for the relocation of a 150-foot communications tower at the Springs Firehouse on Fort Pond Boulevard last week. Instead, despite pressure from Elite Towers, the applicant, the board decided one more meeting was necessary. 

Gov. Kathy Hochul signed legislation at Suffolk Community College in Brentwood last week aimed at making septic system upgrades more affordable, which environmental advocates say is critical to addressing impaired water bodies, including in East Hampton Town. 

A coed double-elimination softball tournament played each year in memory of Travis Field, who died at age 20 in a car accident in 2008, is to begin at 5 p.m. Thursday with opening ceremonies at the Terry King ball field in Amagansett.

Dennis and Barbara D’Andrea have been active as preservationists and community advocates for as long as the collective institutional memory of Wainscott serves.

In 1975 a Bock and a Topping were netting for porgies and hauled in a dusky shark. And other tidbits from our pages.

The East Hampton Town and East Hampton Village entries topped the women’s field in last Thursday’s Main Beach invitational lifeguard tournament, while the town’s men’s A team finished third, behind Smith Point and Jones Beach.

Rue Matthiessen will be at the Hampton Library in Bridgehampton on Aug. 1 at 5 p.m. for the Fridays at Five series to read from her 2024 memoir, “Castles & Ruins.”

Organizacion Latino Americana of Eastern Long Island has launched a scholarship initiative with seven Latino-owned businesses to support “the future of East End Latino youth,” according to the nonprofit.

Student artwork inspired by Springs, the Mermen at Guild Hall.

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation issued an air quality health advisory on July 26 because of particulate matter, descending on the East End from wildfires that are again raging in Canada. If the East End were a city, it would have been ranked seventh worst in the world, between Doha, Qatar, and Lahore, Pakistan, according to iqair.com.

Four people were assessed by responders from the Montauk Fire Department, but declined further treatment, after they were struck by a woman trying to park her Honda sedan near the Montauk Brewing Company. Also in Montauk, a Volvo S.U.V. struck an e-bike on Main Street, resulting in injuries to the 13-year-old bicyclist.

Through a window in the second-floor den of a house on Cranberry Hole Road, the undeveloped dunescape of Napeague State Parks comes into view. The house — on the market with Sotheby’s at $3.8 million — was sited deliberately to take in as much of the landscape as possible.

Ryder Abran, a key figure in the East Hampton Little League’s county-finalist 10-U all-star team’s most recent season, has overcome a disease that can reduce the ball of the hip’s ball-and-socket joint to putty by interrupting blood flow.

At the Jordan’s Run 5K, which starts just off the hill at the foot of Jordan Haerter’s alma mater, Pierson High School, two more recent grads, Justin Gardiner and Penelope Greene, finished first and second on Sunday.

Thanks to the pitching of Max Kra and a walk-off hit by Alex Schuchard in the bottom of the seventh inning, the East End Ospreys repeated as the Hamptons Adult Hardball league’s champion Sunday in Bridgehampton.

Last week, Capt. Rich Jensen, who keeps a charter boat at Orient, did something different. He had an open date and took some friends and family out on the water to catch and release sharks.

Summertime, and the letters are many . . .

Among the points made at a forum held on July 20 about landscaping, sustainability, and community action was the idea that incentives for homeowners could help the groundwater supply.

The East Hampton Town Board voted 3 to 1 last week in favor of a $20 million contribution from the community preservation fund toward a land deal at Georgica Pond, but public access is limited.