{ title: 'The East Hampton Star. (East Hampton, N.Y.) 1885-current, December 27, 2012, Page 7, Image 7', download_links: [ { link: 'http://www.loc.gov/rss/ndnp/ndnp.xml', label: 'application/rss+xml', meta: 'News about NYS Historic Newspapers - RSS Feed', }, { link: '/lccn/sn83030960/2012-12-27/ed-1/seq-7/png/', label: 'image/png', meta: '', }, { link: '/lccn/sn83030960/2012-12-27/ed-1/seq-7.pdf', label: 'application/pdf', meta: '', }, { link: '/lccn/sn83030960/2012-12-27/ed-1/seq-7/ocr.xml', label: 'application/xml', meta: '', }, { link: '/lccn/sn83030960/2012-12-27/ed-1/seq-7/ocr.txt', label: 'text/plain', meta: '', }, ] }
Image provided by: East Hampton Library
A7 The East Hampton Star, December 27, 2012 GOVERNMENT The director of the Y.M.C.A. East Hampton RECenter said recently that be- cause of heavy pool use upgrades to the facility’s water filtration and ventila- tion should be undertaken. Jack Graves FORT POND Back and Forth on Hunting B Y J OANNE P ILGRIM A petition calling for East Hampton Town to prohibit waterfowl hunting on Montauk’s Fort Pond, submitted to the town board last month, prompted a dis- cussion at a board work session on Dec. 18. A number of pondfront residents had signed the petition circulated by a neighbor, Jane Bimson, who is an ad- vertising sales representative for The East Hampton Star. Board members had requested information from the town’s Department of Land Acquisition and Management, which was provided by Andy Gaites. The majority of the pond’s bottom- land is owned by the town — 176 acres. Five acres of bottomland are owned by the state, three acres by a group called Fort Pond Partners, and one acre by an- other private individual. According to Mr. Gaites’s report to the board, the land has not been included on a list in the town code of areas open to hunting. As owner of the bottomland, the town could enact restrictions on what can happen there, such as where, or how many, duck blinds could be anchored. It is less clear whether the town could say “no hunting” on the pond. Mr. Gaites told the board, however, that the State Department of Environmental Conservation said town officials could designate Fort Pond as a “no-discharge” zone, barring the use of firearms. “If I were to describe how long peo- ple have been hunting on Fort Pond, people would say generations,” Super- visor Bill Wilkinson said. “There are too many people” sur- rounding the pond nowadays, said Ms. Bimson, who attended the Dec. 18 meeting. “Make it a safe zone for geese, ducks, and swans.” “And people on boats,” said Chris Be- han, Ms. Bimson’s brother, also a Mon- tauk resident. Last year, Ms. Bimson had told the board, Steven LiPani, another Mon- tauker, was out fishing on the pond when young hunters shot in his direc- tion. East Hampton Town Police Chief Edward Ecker, who was at last week’s meeting for other business, confirmed that the incident involving Mr. LiPani had been reported, but said he knew of no other similar incidents. Police have, however, received calls about shots be- ing fired, he said. “At the time of this incident, these individuals were engaged in a legal ac- tivity that they were doing legally,” James Grimes, a Montauk resident and hunter, told the board. He said he had helped train some of the young hunters in hunting practices and safety. Mr. Grimes suggested that Mr. Li- Pani might also be at fault for the inci- dent. People “have to be considerate and respectful of every other person,” he said. “Hunters have to be consider- ate of property owners,” he said. And others using the pond “have got to be respectful of someone hunting legally.” Hunting season for ducks lasts only between 30 and 45 days, he said. The board, said Mr. Grimes, shouldn’t ban hunting on Fort Pond “because the peo- ple living on the pond don’t like the sound of gunfire.” “Fort Pond . . . is probably one of the most accessible ponds in Montauk,” Mr. Grimes said, and is used by a handi- capped youth. “This is the only place in East Hampton that he can go down and shoot.” “I think the state law — for safety — is you have to be 500 feet from any res- idence,” Mr. Ecker said. However, hunters shooting across the pond could position themselves closer than that to a house, as long as there was 500 feet of clear area in the direction they were shooting. The range of a shotgun, said Mr. Wilkinson, in answer to a question from Councilwoman Theresa Quigley, is “45 to 50 yards, at most. After that, it dissi- pates,” he said. Councilwoman Sylvia Overby asked if there were “alternative sites in Mon- tauk” for waterfowl hunting. “Plenty,” Ms. Bimson answered her. “In all fairness, every standard can be applied to those sites, as well,” Mr. Wilkinson said. If lots around the pond are now most- ly developed, Ms. Overby said, “then maybe something has to give on the oth- er side. If there are alternative sites, then I would like to consider those al- ternatives.” Ms. Quigley said she lacked informa- tion on which to base a decision — the number of hunters desirous of using Fort Pond, for instance. And, she said, “If that’s a part of how people have en- joyed the area, then I don’t want to just flippantly say stop. It’s a careful analy- sis that has to be made.” “I happen to live near a duck blind, and so I hear the duck blind shots, the shotgun shots going off. I don’t have a problem with it. You bought there,” Ms. Quigley said. Mr. Wilkinson asked if “absent of this unfortunate event that happened last year, would we be discussing this?” “I think so,” Ms. Bimson told him, “because my neighbors — they don’t want hunting, and this brought it all to a head.” In a letter dated Dec. 18, Jeremy Samuelson, the executive director of Concerned Citizens of Montauk, asked the town board to close the pond to wa- terfowl hunting, in light of the support of residents around the pond and the availability of other hunting locations. “Not all possible uses are appropriate for all locations,” he wrote, adding that the interests of various user groups “must be weighed and accommodated.” But, the letter said, as “Fort Pond is completely encircled by dense residen- tial, commercial, and industrial develop- ment . . . the real and possible impacts of waterfowl hunting — as well as the po- tential for conflict with other user groups and homeowners — are elevated.” Zachary Cohen, the chairman of the town’s nature preserve committee, sug- gested the uses of Fort Pond might be taken up by his committee, which could craft a management plan for the site, as it does for other town-owned lands. The committee could explore the pertinent legal and safety issues, he said. One rec- ommendation, Mr. Cohen suggested, would be to do what the town trustees do regarding trustee-owned bodies of water and institute a permit system for duck blinds, limiting their number and proscribing their locations. One audience member, Naomi Salz, also weighed in on the issue. “It’s hard to believe,” she said, that in light of the recent mass shooting in Connecticut “we’re sitting here talking about guns being used so freely.” “Accidents do happen,” she said. “Guns kill people. And if somebody wants a duck, they should go to Wald- baum’s.” “And we should all sit at home and play computer games where we kill each other,” Ms. Quigley replied. “The point being, is at least you’re outside. And out- side is better than inside.” Continued from A1 as the federal Municipal Separate Storm Sewer Systems require the town to ad- dress the impacts of septic systems. The town has an estimated 20,000 in- dividual septic systems, according to its water resources management plan. Their functioning, all of the qualified engineers said in their proposals, is cen- tral to environmental protection. “Bacterial contamination of surface water from failing on-site septic systems and cesspools remains an important con- sideration in the development of a wastewater management plan for the town,” the proposal from P.W. Grosser Consulting of Bohemia said. “Meeting regulatory requirements” that limit the amount of nitrogen — which is generated by waste — that can be discharged into water bodies “will soon be difficult,” according to the pro- posal from Cameron Engineering, a firm already acting for the town as a consult- ant on the scavenger waste treatment plant. Septic systems may already be ad- versely affecting local waters such as Three Mile, Accabonac, and Northwest Harbors, Napeague Bay, and Lake Mon- tauk, it said. The town has not been doing the mandated septic system inspections, Mr. Wilkinson pointed out at the Dec. 11 meeting. “We actually have to start figuring out how to do it,” Ms. Shaw told him. “It is a daunting responsibility.” However, she said, several of the con- sultants outlined in their proposals how such a process could begin. For instance, several said, higher-pri- ority, more environmentally sensitive ar- eas could be identified and systems de- veloped to provide more advanced wastewater treatment than typical sep- tic systems do. A look at septic pump-out records and data compiled by agencies such as the United States Geological Survey, the Suffolk County Water Authority, and the County Health Department could be a place to start, H2M Architects and En- gineers of Melville said in its proposal. Ms. Quigley suggested last week that the board seek separate formal propos- als from consultants regarding what to do about the scavenger waste treatment plant and what to do about wastewater management overall, which could in- clude an analysis of the use of individ- ual septic systems. “I suspect the issue of wastewater management is going to be far more complex than the issue of scavenger waste, and I think we need to deal with them separately,” she said. But Councilwoman Sylvia Overby, who was among the three-member ma- jority that overrode the objections of Mr. Wilkinson and Ms. Quigley to move ahead with development of an overall plan before making final decisions on what to do about the treatment plant, said that the two issues are inextricably linked. Whatever decisions are made about how to deal with the septic waste gen- erated by individual properties — work- ing with homeowners to get systems up- graded, for instance, or establishing small neighborhood treatment “plants” in sensitive areas, perhaps, using new technologies — will dictate what sort of municipal waste treatment plant, or transfer station, is necessary, she said. “I think this is an attempt from the start to take something which is an iso- lated facility and turn it into something it’s not,” Ms. Quigley said to her. “And we’re going to have to figure out what we’re going to do with our septic.” Mr. Wilkinson said that the proposals had “changed the focus completely” from looking at the scavenger waste plant to looking at individual septic sys- tems. “Scavenger waste is a component and aging septic systems are a component,” Ms. Overby said. No matter what is sug- gested by the experts, she said, “the town has to decide how far to go, and in what phases.” “This issue started with scavenger waste, and now we’re at people’s per- sonal properties,” Ms. Quigley said. “I’m just trying to get out to the public that that’s what’s happening.” “Because every one of the proposals mandates that people upgrade their sep- tic systems,” she said. “And that means individual property owners are bearing the cost.” “We’re not necessarily going to be saying that,” Ms. Overby said. “It’s not about coming to somebody’s house and being the septic police.” The overall goal, she said, would be to ensure that drinking and surface waters remain clean. Should septic system upgrades be deemed critical to that end, she said, the town could discuss ways to reach that goal, such as providing grants to home- owners, as a county program currently does, she said. Each of the town’s potential consult- ants listed options that could be ex- plored, such as financing a wastewater management district or instituting tax credits, rebates, refunds, or penalties to encourage sustainable practices. “Failing septic systems and improper stormwater management can cause bac- terial-pathogenic contamination of water bodies,” the professionals wrote in a pro- posal submitted by Lombardo Associ- ates of Ronkonkoma, the FPM Group, and the Woods Hole Group, along with Christopher Gobler, a Stony Brook Southampton professor. Mr. Wilkinson said on Dec. 11 that he opposes asking consultants to include any possible “audits” of individual sep- tic systems in their final proposals. “I would like to know what regulates us here,” Mr. Wilkinson said at that meeting. “I’m just trying to figure out, what are we required to do by the [fed- eral Environmental Protection Agency] or by the [State Department of Envi- ronmental Conservation] . . . as far as scavenger waste, as far as individual sep- tic systems.” At the board’s meeting last week, he again reviewed the history of the board’s discussions on the wastewater treatment plant. The previous board had voted unanimously to seek proposals to priva- tize it, but, after a proposal came in and the board’s membership had changed in early 2010, three members overruled Mr. Wilkinson and Ms. Quigley’s desire to accept the deal offered by the single company that expressed interest in tak- ing over the plant. The idea of doing some comprehensive planning for fu- ture wastewater management then took shape, over the minority’s objections. “From the start,” Mr. Wilkinson said last week, the town wasn’t setting out to do “long-range planning.” “I thought we should go on the out- side to recruit some competence,” he said. “That now . . . has become a com- ponent of something else.” Ms. Shaw said on Dec. 11 that each of the four responding consultants had “really nailed it” in terms of looking at “creative solutions and innovative tech- nologies.” Though the scope of what the town will ask a consultant to do remains un- determined, the cost of work outlined in the proposals by the four companies ranged from $108,750, which excluded ongoing water quality monitoring, to $350,000. Debate Focus of Wastewater Plan Continued from A1 fice is in downtown Montauk, was sup- portive of the site plan, but with reser- vations as to noise. “There’s been a lot of controversy,” she said, about Mon- tauk’s after-dark scene. “I know what I’m hearing. We need to address those comments.” Pat Schutte, a board member, agreed. “Last time this was brought up, the noise was a question for me. We have to rely on the applicants, or whoever’s there in the future.” The board encouraged the applicant, a corporation called Stone Lion Inn, to do more to assuage the fears of its neigh- bors regarding noise, through screening and possibly even by agreeing to re- strictive covenants. The next appear- ance in Town Hall for East by North- east will be before the zoning board. For two other applicants, the New Year’s one-word resolution might be, “Details!” Mary Schoenlein, the owner of two Mary’s Marvelous eateries, has made several missteps in her effort to add an exterior walk-in box to the store in Am- agansett, the largest being building it before she had official approval. The planning board has been highly sup- portive of her throughout the process, with a couple of members mentioning that they were devotees. Eager to sched- ule the needed public hearing and a fi- nal vote of approval, the board has en- couraged her, as it does with all appli- cants, to meet with town planners and attorneys for guidance. Ms. Schoenlein went before the Z.B.A. in September and eventually received zoning variances regarding the size of the walk-in box. The planning board’s patience with Mary’s Marvelous may have been strained, though, during the board’s Dec. 5 session, when it finally came time for the public site-plan hearing. It was learned at that time that Ms. Schoen- lein, who has represented herself throughout the complicated process, had not properly alerted her neighbors about the hearing. She apparently thought that when she sent them no- tices about the zoning board hearing the notices covered the planning board hearing as well. They do not. The planning board’s attorney, Kathryn Santiago, explained that the hearing would have to be rescheduled and that Ms. Schoenlein would be re- quired to send out new notices. The new date for the hearing on the now al- most year-old walk-in box is Jan. 9, at 7 p.m. Pesky details plagued another Ama- gansett business at the Dec. 19 session. The owners of Amagansett Building Materials, which occupies a 1.6-acre par- cel off Abram’s Landing Road, want to tear down three attached one-story buildings and replace them with a two- story building with a basement. They are still in the preliminary stage of ap- proval, and were presenting the board a revised site plan, a little over a year since the first one was submitted. The revised plan, however, lacked a square-footage calculation for the pro- posed project. It was also missing a floor plan for the second floor, and it failed to respond to previous board suggestions regarding landscaping and parking. Richard Whalen of LandMarks, an Am- agansett firm that helps applicants nav- igate the procedural maze involved in getting a building permit, faced some tough questions from the board. “This is going to be a difficult appli- cation,” said Diana Weir. “Why does it seem to be such a challenge to figure out the square footage? A lot of house- keeping issues need to be addressed.” “We’re early in the process. The ap- plicant has some homework to do,” said Reed Jones, the board’s chairman. The board also took up the issue of a potential road abandonment that would turn a town-owned cul-de-sac at the end of Water’s Edge in Barnes Landing into private property, split between two of the three parcels of land surrounding the road. The town board had referred the matter to the planning board for com- ment, at the suggestion of David Buda, a Springs resident, before moving ahead on it. “When I heard that an existing road- way was going to be abandoned, and there was not going to be any hearing, any public input, and that the town board was going to vote on it as a refer- endum, I felt that was insufficient re- view,” he told the planning board. Richard Whalen, an attorney, then spoke, and it quickly became clear that further exploration was needed. The planning board had initially been told that Neil and Miyoung Lee, who own two of the three properties involved, were applying for the road abandon- ment “together” with the owner of the third property, a holding company. But, according to Mr. Whalen, who repre- sents that company, the Lees were act- ing on their own. “They did not propose the road aban- donment,” he said about his client. “They’re not part of this request?” asked Ian Calder-Piedmonte. “They’re actually not,” Mr. Whalen answered. He said the Lees had been told, “ ‘Hey, we might be interested.’ ” He added, “All my clients want to know is, what’s involved. They would cooper- ate if it made sense.” In the end, the planning board agreed to advise the town board to seek written approval from the owner of the third property, and to seek comments as well from both the Springs Fire De- partment and the town highway super- intendent. Members also agreed, at Mr. Calder-Piedmonte’s suggestion, to rec- ommend that the town board hold a public hearing before it voted on the road abandonment. Restaurant Seeks Outdoor Dining Swap Continued from A1 pool pumps, etc.,” according to the agreement. The RECenter’s original design ca- pacity will not support the present lev- el of use, said Town Councilman Do- minick Stanzione, who agreed with Mr. Castro that air quality worsens in the winter. “Once you get into the off-sea- son and everything is buttoned up, that puts more pressure on the ventilation. But I have to go with Juan and say there’s some analysis that needs to be done on that. As far as requests to up- grade the chlorination system, I think it’s about $20,000 of requests for that. The balance of it probably has to be more, and they’re looking for profes- sional analysis on that.” The town board will have to review the request, said Mr. Stanzione, but he expects the board to agree to capital im- provements. “Those who say that’s a significant contribution by the taxpayers to the operations of that facility, you’d have to agree with that. But lease terms are lease terms, and we have to live by those. They’ve made a request that seems reasonable, and we’ll bring it to the board and act on it.” The board’s next work session is on Jan. 8. Steve Kenney, who owns SRK Pools, a Wainscott-based company that con- structs, services, and maintains residen- tial swimming pools, said the RECenter has long been operating in a negligent and even dangerous fashion. Mr. Ken- ney said in an interview that his children experienced severe coughing fits, stom- ach pain, and diarrhea after swimming there, and that other bathers, including RECenter swim instructors, have re- ported similar symptoms as well as skin irritation. These symptoms, he said, are indicative of waterborne pathogens that the RECenter is not controlling. Chlorine-based disinfectants have long been the most popular treatment to kill pathogens in swimming pools. But when chlorine bonds with ammonia that is excreted from the body via per- spiration or other fluids, a byproduct, chloramine, is formed. Exposure to chlo- ramine gas can contribute to respiratory problems. An extreme chloramine level at the RECenter, Mr. Kenney maintained, is responsible for the symptoms he de- scribed. “That’s going to make your eyes burn and your lungs tighten up, and it’s going to irritate your skin,” he said. The chlorine-ammonia bond, he said, has to be broken so that chlorine is free to fight bacteria. Oxidizing the bond is accomplished by adding more chlo- rine, a process known as shock chlori- nation, or through ozone or ultraviolet- based treatment systems. Poor air quality at the pools, said Mr. Kenney, is the result of poor water treat- ment. Compounding the problem, he said, is the swimming pool industry’s over-reliance on chlorine, from which some pathogens are now immune. Among these are cryptosporidium, which has sickened bathers at pools around the country and the world. Cryp- tosporidium infection, which can cause diarrhea, vomiting, fever, or abdominal cramps, is most dangerous to elderly and young bathers and those with compro- mised immune systems. Only an ozone or utraviolet-based treatment system, said Mr. Kenney, will kill cryptosporidi- um and other chlorine-resistant patho- gens. Mr. Kenney said he had suggested treatment systems to RECenter officials several times, and acknowledged the ap- pearance of a conflict of interest. But he insisted that he was motivated simply by the wish that all children be able to use Air and Water Qualms at RECenter the pools safely. He forwarded to The East Hampton Star an e-mail from an instructor at the center that attributed adverse health effects to the pools, men- tioned a relative who complained of symptoms after swimming, and de- scribed frustration with a management that has ignored complaints. “Every instructor I’ve spoken to there — and I’ve spoken to about six over the past eight years — said, ‘You’ve got to do something, I can’t teach here anymore,’ ” said Mr. Kenney. The author of the e-mail declined to speak on the record. Neither Tom Co- hill, aquatics director at the RECenter, nor Joseph Vasile-Cozzo, East Hampton High School’s athletic director, had re- sponded to multiple calls as of Monday. Mr. Castro said Mr. Kenney’s accusa- tions were misguided as well as inaccu- rate. “This is the first time we’ve had these kinds of claims,” he said. “You have individuals that want to sell us something, and what they’re selling is supposedly going to fix our problem. I have 300 people in there every day, and I’m not having a mass of people break- ing out. To the Health Department, we manage it within acceptable limits.” The RECenter is in the midst of up- grading its water-treatment systems, said Mr. Castro, and its request to the town for capital improvements is part of that effort. “But before you jump to con- clusions, you’ve got to do due dili- gence,” he said. “We should not make this more complicated than it is. Can we improve things? Absolutely. Are we op- erating an unsafe facility? No.” Espo’s Surf & Sport UGG Ugg Boots Burton Outerwear Surfboards Skateboards Paddle Boards Wetsuits Kayaks S ALE 631-267-SURF www.27surf.com OPEN YEAR-ROUND 2101 Montauk Highway No Contracts No Gimmicks No Kidding! Character, Integrity, and Honesty Family Owned and Operated Since 1983. 631-668-9120 Business With A Handshake MICKEY’S CARTING TIDE TABLE Times given for Promised Land. For Montauk, north side, subtract an hour. For Three Mile Harbor entrance and Accabonac Creek add half an hour. For Sag Harbor add an hour. For ocean beach subtract two hours for an approximate time. High Low a.m. p.m. a.m. p.m. Thu. 27 8:20 8:51 2:10 2:45 Fri. 28 8:59 9:21 2:50 3:22 Sat. 29 9:37 10:07 3:29 3:59 Sun. 30 10:14 10:45 4:08 4:37 Mon. 31 10:52 11:22 4:48 5:15 Tues. 1 11:32 —— 5:29 5:54 Wed. 2 12:03 12:17 6:14 6:38 Thu. 3 12:48 1:06 7:04 7:26 Fri. 4 1:37 2:01 8:00 8:19 – Not for navigational purposes 575 Mtk. Hwy. Amagansett • 631-324-7770 The Tackle Shop Capt. Harvey L. Bennett Scallop Knife Sale! Cheapest scallop knife in town! Sale on pre-owned Rods & Reels! Open weekends & by appointment. HAPPY NEW YEAR! THA T WORKS DEER FENCING EAST HAMPTON FENCE 324-5941 South Shore Budget Maintenance Complete Home Improvements Tom 668-4471 Trim & Finish Work • Painting • Roofs • Windows • Decks Reasonable Rates ~ Quality Guaranteed ~ Licensed & Insured ~ Free estimates
