It's hard to believe it is already time for the Sag Harbor Fire Department Carnival at Havens Beach, but it opens Tuesday night and will run until Saturday night, Aug. 6, with fireworks on Friday, Aug. 5.

The latest water quality report from Concerned Citizens of Montauk stands out for a whopping outlier: A persistent and unresolved problem with elevated enterococcus bacteria levels at East Creek in Montauk hit a new high mark this week.

The Old Whalers Church needs a paint job.

To help raise money for it while offering some solid tunes, there will be a "Let's Paint the Church" benefit concert featuring the HooDoo Loungers on Friday starting at 6 p.m. Tickets are $20 for adults and $10 for 10 to 18-year-olds. The under-10 set can listen for free.

On Long Island, while we are not technically in a drought, unusually dry conditions are prompting the Suffolk County Water Authority to ask residents to cut back on water usage. “It’s not that the aquifer is in danger of drying out,” said Joe Pokorny, deputy C.E.O. for operations at the water authority. “It’s that the demand is outstripping the water authority’s ability to pump fast enough.”

“It’s not a glamorous job,” Savannah Van Der Walt observed one day last week as the East Hampton Town Trustee pumpout boat she was piloting glided toward a dense array of houseboats at Snug Harbor Marina on Lake Montauk. “But you see the thousands of gallons that we pump every week. If people dumped it here, we would have a disgusting mess."

Tinder-dry conditions and spiking temperatures were only two of the challenges firefighters faced as they worked to extinguish a brushfire that burned some 20 to 25 acres of grasslands in Hither Hills State Park on Friday night and then rekindled on Saturday. Equally challenging was the fire’s difficult-to-reach location between Goff Point and the Walking Dunes, more than a mile from any paved road.

As of Tuesday afternoon, Suffolk County had documented 16 cases of monkeypox in total, the second-highest case count in the state outside of New York City. Across the United States there have been just shy of 3,500 cases, including about 1,000 in New York, according to the Centers for Disease Control. Dr. Gregson Pigott, Suffolk County’s health commissioner, said that even though Suffolk’s case count is relatively low, those numbers are expected to increase and the department is watching them with concern.

Following her residency, Dr. Gail Schonfeld was hired to work on the East End because there was no pediatric practice in the community. Then: “The community grew, so the practice grew itself," she said. That was 40 years ago, and East End Pediatrics is still going strong.

Thirty years later, Patty Eames says it was “a day that’s right here at the front of my brain.” She was one of many locals and luminaries who were arrested at Indian Wells Beach in Amagansett on July 28, 1992, during a storied protest that found the East Hampton Baymen’s Association in open defiance of a 1990 state ban on haulseining for striped bass off the ocean beaches.

The draft environmental impact statement for the 50-lot Wainscott Commercial Center is still not ready for public comment, the East Hampton Town Planning Board agreed earlier this month.

East Hampton Town’s Nature Preserve Committee has recommended to the town board that the 6.9-acre wooded area bordered by Crandall Street, Lincoln Avenue, Norfolk Street, and Fort Pond Boulevard in Springs be made part of the town’s nature preserve. Not everyone agrees.

The East Hampton Town Democratic Committee elected Anna Skrenta as its new chairwoman and Michael Koegler as its vice chairman on July 20. Frederick Brooks, representing the town’s Election District 18, in Montauk, was elected secretary of the committee.

Since July 4, ordinance enforcement officers have observed numerous instances of overcrowding at tt’s, at 466 West Lake Drive, and Sel Rrose, at 4 South Elmwood Avenue, according to a town attorney. East Hampton wants to compel both establishments to comply immediately with the town code.

A new affordable housing fund, to be paid for by a .5-percent real estate transfer tax, is headed for the November ballot in East Hampton Town.

The East Hampton Town Board will hold a public hearing next Thursday at 2 p.m. on the adoption of the draft Coastal Assessment Resiliency Plan, which was issued in April. The plan is described as a first step to reduce the town’s vulnerability as a coastal community and adapt to a changing climate.

The five-foot-tall MTK letters on the front lawn of the Montauk Chamber of Commerce have been a popular selfie spot for visitors since being installed a couple of years ago. Now, they're getting a new look at the hands of the artists Kylie Ogburn.

After National Grid closed off the Reutershan parking lot for half the day on Friday to complete the tie-in of a new gas main, East Hampton Village Mayor Jerry Larsen, who had not been contacted in advance, was incensed. Disrupting traffic at the busiest time of the year is something local officials do not take lightly.

Warren Whipple (1910-2003), a renowned cartoonist and former art teacher here, created this map for the 1948 East Hampton tercentenary celebrations.

 “A little bit more back-and-forth dialogue with the community would be appreciated,” Ben Gregor told the Sag Harbor School Board on Monday, as one of several parents who spoke about the $13.5 million overhaul of Mashashimuet Park that the school and park administrations have proposed.

In this week's lineup for kids, teens, and families: A Rainbow Party at CMEE, old-fashioned toys at the East Hampton Library, an ocean-themed scavenger hunt, magic in Sag Harbor, and more.