This week Sag Harbor Harbor Committee Chairman Bruce Tait formally requested the village board to keep his committee in the loop as trustees continue to work towards possible remediation at Sag Harbor’s Havens Beach. The committee also wondered if some of the monies generated by the village’s harbors and docks should not be earmarked towards projects along the village waterfront.

Over the last two years, village officials and the Peconic BayKeeper have been working towards determining the water quality at Havens, announcing earlier this winter that bacterial levels in the drainage ditch, and occasionally at the beach, next to the beach exceed county health standards. Bacteria attributed to animal and human waste was detected in DNA tests completed by the Cornell Cooperative Extension in Riverhead.

According to Tait, committee member Brian Halweil has been working with the village’s grant writer, who is searching for grants that may be used for a remediation at the beach, although village officials are still determining the right course of action at Havens.

Sag Harbor village planning consultant Rich Warren told the committee the village has reached out to Southampton and East Hampton towns in an attempt to clean the stormwater runoff drains throughout the village, and his firm has been researching inserts that may filter the runoff before it reaches the ditch. Testing of the water at Havens is also ongoing.

Tait said he would like to see a management plan set up for the stormwater runoff drains in Sag Harbor, and one that includes more regular cleaning. That the towns only lend the village the proper vehicles for such a task, he added, is “woefully inadequate.”

“I know now the dockage fees all go into the general fund,” said Peters. “Maybe now it is time to start thinking about taking a percentage.”

Peters said he would like to explore using some of the monies generated by the village’s harbors and docks towards projects like remediation at Havens Beach and addressing stormwater runoff issues in general in Sag Harbor.

“I know we have to get further along on the human contaminant issue [at Havens], but I don’t know if we need any more testing to start addressing stormwater runoff issues in the village,” agreed Tait.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Sag Harbor Village officials will spend the next several months working with a cadre of experts — from the Peconic Baykeeper to state and county agencies and the Cornell Cooperative Extension (CCE) — to determine the source of pollutants in the drainage ditch at Havens Beach, the village’s sole bathing beach. Following last week’s revelation that CCE detected human DNA in bacteria taken from the ditch, identifying how much of that bacteria exists and where it is coming from will be at the top of the agenda.

On Tuesday, January 12 the village board convened a special work session to receive a status report on the beach from Sag Harbor Village environmental planning consultant Rich Warren of Inter-Science Research Associates.

Warren opened by acknowledging that contaminants, particularly from stormwater runoff, in the Havens Beach ditch is a problem the village has been looking at for a number of years, and was highlighted several years ago by Baykeeper Kevin McAllister. In addition to testing by the Suffolk County Department of Health, for the last year-and-a-half McAllister and Chris Gobler, a professor at SUNY Stony Brook-Southampton completed their own round of testing.

According to Gobler’s study, the outflow ditch adjacent to Havens Beach consistently measured levels of enterococci and fecal coliforms well above healthy standards for a bathing beach or shellfishery during wet weather days. During a handful of wet weather days in 2008 and 2009, Gobler also detected bacterial levels exceeding safe standards in the bathing beach water.

The village’s own testing, conducted with the county and CCE, showed that in addition to DNA from dogs and a variety of birds, bacteria stemming from human DNA was also present in the ditch next to Havens Beach. The same bacteria were not found in the bathing water itself. The bacteria could be from someone using the ditch as a bathroom, from a faulty septic system in one of the nearby homes or from a sanitary system literally sitting in groundwater near the site.

According to Warren, stormwater runoff contaminants in the ditch at Havens Beach, collected from the 138-acre watershed around Sag Harbor, is also likely an issue.

Since these revelations, the county health department, headed by Robert “Mac” Waters has begun a sanitary inventory of homes around the drainage ditch and will attempt to identify the source of any human-related bacteria. The county has also sent a sample from the ditch to a state laboratory, which will test for bacteroides, a more conclusive sign of human-related contamination.

“The expectation is, following this meeting tonight, our group will get together and talk strategy about the next round of sampling,” said Warren, adding they are also hunting for a possible second drainage pipe that connects to the dreen.

Waters also suggested the village adopt its own method for closing the beach if more than an inch of rain falls, as a precautionary measure. While the county normally issues that advisory to 65 beaches throughout Suffolk, Waters said Sag Harbor weather varied drastically from western Suffolk County and the village should create its own protocol.

“Human waste is a potential pathogen – disease causing,” said Waters. “It is a real concern.”

Mayor Brian Gilbride asked Waters how harmful the situation truly is.

“It is very hard to say in terms of the results we have,” said Waters, noting the bathing water itself has tested clean with the exception of a handful of days after storms.

Florian Koch, representing Gobler, said as a former pump out boat operator in Sag Harbor he has watched small children play in the ditch at Havens Beach.

“Even though the beach itself, the bay is fine and does not exceed limits, in the ditch the sampling is always elevated,” said Koch.

“I question the proximity of the dog park and I know that is a little bit of a hot button issue,” said Warren.

“We sampled there in December and we had a hard time not stepping in something,” agreed Waters.

Warren suggested the board look at the dog park and other short-term solutions, like cleaning the drains throughout the watershed. In the long term, Warren said the village will work towards completing a new round of samples, attempt to determine the source of any human-source bacteria found in the samples, as well as non-human bacteria, and begin to identify a remediation plan for the area.

McAllister, he added, has agreed to lend his talents to researching different kinds of remediation plans and in helping the village secure funding for the project.

Warren also suggested the village install signage and fencing around the ditch to keep children out this coming summer, when a remedial plan will not likely be in place.

“How do you create the fencing where it goes across the beach to keep the kids out of that water,” asked Harbor Committee chairman Bruce Tait about the stream that enters the bay from the ditch. He recommended looking into piping the water below the sand.

Popularity: 2% [?]

While talks are ongoing on what to do about stormwater runoff and other pollutants at Havens Beach, the village Harbor Committee is sure about one thing: Sag Harbor should no longer use the parking lot at the popular bathing beach to dump snow collected throughout the village.

Following a meeting on Monday, January 11, the committee blasted off a letter to the Sag Harbor Village Board of Trustees demanding the village look for other locations to dump snow plowed from village streets.

“We have now heard the preliminary report on [Havens Beach] and we have learned that we have a significantly greater problem then we anticipated and that the Havens Beach area turns out to be a very environmentally sensitive area in the village because of where it is and because such a large flood plain drains into the area,” said Harbor Committee chairman Bruce Tait.

Tait added the committee is also concerned about a dog park adjacent to the drainage ditch at Havens Beach and that it is largely un-policed, with irresponsible pet owners leaving their dog’s waste behind despite dog waste baggies and a trash can next to the park.

“The times we have talked about the snow removal we have been told that the village meets the [New York State Department of Environmental Conservation] regulations that [the snow is dumped] 300-feet from the wetland,” said Tait, adding the department of public works did make an effort after the blizzard in December to spread the snow out and pull it back from the drainage ditch area.

“But it was easily within the 300-feet,” he said, adding that the Harbor Committee, as the village agency charged with upholding Sag Harbor’s Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan (LWRP), has the ability to require more than the DEC.

“We all know what this is,” chimed in Harbor Committee member Jeffrey Peters. “It’s the first runoff you are taking with the snow. I personally find, in an environmentally sensitive area like this, it is terrible that we are doing that right there.”

Citing four separate charges of the LWRP, the committee voted unanimously to ask the board of trustees to ban the removal of snow to the Havens Beach lot for the remainder of this year and beyond.

On Tuesday, Mayor Brian Gilbride said they would look at other places, but the board as a whole seemed reluctant to ask the Department of Public Works to change the locale, again citing DEC standards.

In other news, the committee loosened its requests that dockage of mega yachts be restricted on Long Wharf, opening up the west side of Long Wharf during holiday weekends after banning dockage there altogether last year.

“There are substantial revenues involved with renting out Long Wharf,” noted Tait, who reminded the committee that while the village has allowed dockage on the east side of Long Wharf, last year it prohibited dockage on the north and west ends in an effort to promote local access to the waterfront. Tait said that while the village has traditionally rented the east side for the whole of the summer to Summer Wind he would also like to see a variety of big ships able to use the space throughout the year.

As a compromise with the village, which Tait said could use additional revenues during an economic downturn, the committee agreed to continue to allow boats to dock on the east side of Long Wharf, but only for a two-week period per vessel. Consulting with Harbor Master Bob Bori, they also agreed to allow the west side to be rented during Memorial Day, Fourth of July and Labor Day weekends and voted to keep the north end of Long Wharf closed to dockage throughout the summer.

Peters, who did not agree with the idea of opening up the west side for mega-yachts at all, voted against the recommendation.

On Tuesday night, the Village Board of Trustees agreed with the committee’s recommendations, but decided to allow Summer Wind to dock for the whole summer season.

Popularity: 1% [?]

The discovery of bacteria from human waste found in the ditch at Sag Harbor’s Havens Beach has prompted a special meeting by the village’s board of trustees. They will meet on Tuesday, January 12, at 5 p.m. to review the findings by officials from Cornell Cooperative Extension.

Working with the Village of Sag Harbor, scientists from Cornell Cooperative Extension, using samples taken by the Suffolk County Department of Health, discovered DNA evidence of fecal coliforms in the drainage ditch adjacent to Sag Harbor’s lone bathing beach. Sag Harbor Village engaged Cornell Cooperative Extension to discover the source of bacteria this fall in an effort to determine where any contaminants originated from before laying out a plan for remediation of the ditch.

During dry weather sampling, taken on October 6, Cornell discovered both human and bird coliforms in the ditch water. During wet weather sampling, taken the next day, Canada goose, herring gull, dog and human coliforms were detected, according to Sag Harbor environmental planning consultant Richard Warren. On the same days, in the bathing water itself, Warren said dry day testing showed black duck coliforms and on the wet weather data showed unknown coliforms, although not human in nature.

The Suffolk County Department of Health tests for enterococcus, not coliforms, explained Warren, due to changes in county health department standards, making it difficult to discern at this time how much of the bacteria stems from a human or animal source or as a result of stormwater runoff.

“It is something we will have to have a discussion about,” he said on Wednesday. “We will have to discuss how we try and determine what the percentage is that is being contributed by the different sources.”

According to Warren, testing completed by the county health department throughout the summer and fall, in addition to testing completed by Chris Gobler, a professor at Stony Brook-Southampton who has been working with the Peconic Baykeeper to study water quality at Havens Beach, does lead him to believe there is bacterial contamination on certain days in the ditch at Havens.

“There is fairly significant attenuation occurring in terms of the enterococcus once it reaches the saltwater,” added Warren. “But that doesn’t mean we want it to reach the saltwater.”

Warren said it is his recommendation that additional samples be run by both the county and Cornell Cooperative Extension, to ensure the results can be relied upon as the village moved towards creating a clean-up plan for the ditch.

The drainage ditch collects water from 130 acres around Sag Harbor. Peconic Baykeeper Kevin MacAllister forced a spotlight on the possibility of stormwater runoff contaminating the ditch over two years ago, setting off a controversy about the water quality at Sag Harbor’s only bathing beach. Since then, village officials, working with the Baykeeper and with the county department of health, have sought to discover the source of any spikes in bacterial counts in the drainage ditch before developing a plan to remedy the problem.

The discovery of the possibility of a human source of bacteria in the ditch led Warren to have the village’s building department inventory the age of homes in the watershed. That inventory will be used by the county health department in a sanitary survey, meant to discern whether the bacteria is a result of groundwater discharge or an improperly installed or maintained private sewage system.

“My guess is we won’t have the answers before the end of the summer,” he said.

On Tuesday, Warren will present a progress report as well as the next steps the village will have to undertake. Representatives from the Cornell Cooperative Extension and the Suffolk County Department of Health will also be in attendance and MacAllister and Gobler are expected to make a presentation on their year-and-a-half study on water quality at the beach.

On Monday, MacAllister said he was pleased to see the village taking action on the issue, rather than sweeping it under the rug.

“From day one, I have felt this is a serious problem that needs to be addressed,” he said. “As long as the village is committed to following through on this investigation to find out all of the details I am okay with it, as long as there is a commitment to do something about this in the future.”

MacAllister said he plans to be a part of the process until it reaches a conclusion, which he hopes will include the creation of a reconfigured bio-filtration system leading into the drainage ditch.

“To the extent I can, I will also help identify funding sources and try and contribute in helping the village package a grant proposal that will have a good chance of being approved,” he said.

Popularity: 4% [?]

The village of Sag Harbor has been served with a notice of claim by East End Ventures, the firm that has sought to construct 18 condominiums on Sag Harbor’s waterfront. The claim lays the groundwork for a possible multi-million lawsuit against the village over a new village code that drastically changes what development is legal on the parcel known to village residents as Ferry Road.

The same firm has already filed suit against the village over the enactment of the village code, which they allege was done without proper environmental review.

During a Sag Harbor Village Board of Trustees meeting on Tuesday, September 8, Mayor Brian Gilbride confirmed the village had received the notice of claim. According to village attorney Fred W. Thiele, Jr. such an action is required before a formal lawsuit seeking monetary damages can be filed against a municipality.

The notice of claim charges that the village “acted in bad faith in delaying [East End Ventures’] applications while the zoning code was changed.” In addition to seeking monetary relief, the notice of claim also asks East End Ventures’ proposal for 18 waterfront condos and 18 accessory boat slips be reviewed under the old village code.

In addition to prohibiting the construction of three-story buildings, which was proposed by the developers, the new code also reduces the number of units allowed on the parcel by more than half. In July, building inspector Tim Platt informed the Sag Harbor Planning Board, which has been reviewing a number of different proposals for the property over the last two years, that the current project did not comply with the new village code, effectively ending the review.

In related news, Mayor Gilbride said a title search was currently underway regarding a parcel located between the Ferry Road property and village owned beachfront. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority announced last month it intended to sell the property to East End Ventures, despite village requests since 1996 that the authority sell the land to the village with an ultimate goal of creating a public park next to the Lance Corporal Haerter Veterans Memorial Bridge.

Budget Woes

Sag Harbor Trustees are closely watching the current village budget, facing unexpected increases in retirement benefit costs as well as a decrease in transient dock rentals.

On Tuesday, Gilbride said the cost of the village’s retirement system for civil service employees and police officers could increase by $100,000 in February. According to Gilbride, New York State Comptroller Thomas DiNapoli informed municipalities that the state has seen a 27 percent decrease in investment revenues for the system.

“What happens is when the plan earns more in interest our contribution is less,” explained Gilbride on Wednesday. “In real hard times, when we can least afford it, our contribution goes up.”

Gilbride said increases may not be limited to this year alone. The village is currently exploring pending state legislation that would allow the village to pay for the increase over a 10 year period, said Gilbride, but may choose instead to pay upfront depending on the interest rate the state offers municipalities under the amortization plan.

In other budget news, trustee Tim Culver announced the village’s transient dock revenues are down $8000 from projected revenues in the current village budget, although Labor Day revenues have yet to be calculated. Last budget cycle trustees planned for a decrease, budgeting $25,000 less in revenue from the harbors and docks.

“It may turn out we are right on budget,” said Culver.

However, trustees said use of the village docks was noticeably down this season.

“This is the first year we have actually had slips available and sometimes there are even vacant slips down there and that never, never has happened,” said Gilbride.

Justice Court Talks Renewed

On Tuesday, the board voted to support a grant application for the Town of Southampton for the creation of video arraignments in its justice court, although Sag Harbor Village Police Chief Tom Fabiano said he would like to see talks of a Sag Harbor Village Justice Court renewed.

With discussions of Southampton Town moving its justice court out of its village and into Hampton Bays, talk of a village court has been on the table since 2004. After lawsuits, the addition of a fourth judge in Southampton Town, talk of video arraignments and the town’s continued use of its Southampton court, trustees pulled back from the concept in 2007.

“The video arraignment is nice, but it will not resolve the issues we have,” said Fabiano on Tuesday, citing transportation costs, loss of potential revenues and a lack of control as reasons to re-open discussions about a village justice court.

“Southampton Village went to its own court and it has been more profitable and they have had more control over village issues,” said Fabiano.

Madison Street resident Patricia Field approached the board on Tuesday night, objecting to Stacey Pennebaker’s requests to expand an accessory housing law to include detached units. Under the current code, accessory apartments are allowed as attached units. Pennebaker has approached the board on a number of occasions asking them to broaden the law in favor of creating more affordable housing opportunities.

Field charged that Pennebaker, who is her neighbor, has made these requests for personal reasons, alleging a barn on Pennebaker’s property has been converted into an illegal apartment.

On Wednesday, Pennebaker said this is “a private dispute between two neighbors that regrettably has become public.” She said she would cooperate with village officials as they look into the matter.

In other village news, the board granted village planner Richard Warren of Inter-Science Research Associates permission to increase water quality testing at Havens Beach after rain events in order to test more locations at the bathing beach. The village is hoping current testing will identify a source of contamination in a stormwater runoff ditch at the bathing beach so they may remediate the area.

“It certainly seems like the right thing to do,” said Gilbride

“Without a doubt,” said Trustee Tiffany Scarlato.

Popularity: 2% [?]

Humayun Chaudhry, Commissioner of the Suffolk County Department of Health services, has issued an advisory against bathing at 64 county beaches, including Havens Beach in Sag Harbor, due to the heavy rainfall forecasted for Friday night and all day Saturday as a result of tropical storm Danny.
The advisory was announced today and is based on the potential that bacterial numbers in excess of New York state standards, resulting from heavy rain, will impact these areas.
The Department says the beaches covered by the advisory are located in areas that are heavily influenced by stormwater runoff from the surrounding watersheds and/or adjacent tributaries, and, because of their location in an enclosed embayment, experience limited tidal flushing.
Beaches not directly influenced by stormwater runoff, including those located on the Atlantic Ocean, the Peconic Estuary, and most beaches on Long Island Sound, are not affected by this advisory.
The Department recommends that bathing and other water contact be suspended in affected areas until the waters have been flushed by two successive tidal cycles – at least a 24 hour period – after the cessation of rainfall. Unless sampling done by the Department finds elevated bacterial numbers persisting beyond the 24 hour period, this advisory will be rescinded as of 8 am on Monday, August 31.
For the latest information on affected beaches, call the Bathing Beach Hotline at (631) 852-5822 or visit the website link at http://www.suffolkcountyny.gov/health and click on “2009 Bathing Beach Monitoring.”

Popularity: 2% [?]

The Sag Harbor Village Board of Trustees is one step closer to identifying why bacterial levels have exceeded county health standards for swimming at the village’s lone bathing beach, Havens Beach.

On Tuesday, August 11 the board approved additional water tests at the beach aimed at giving the village definitive knowledge not only on what bacteria may exist in a stormwater runoff drainage ditch and adjacent beach, but where that bacteria is coming from. Theories on the source of contamination have ranged from the effect of an improperly filtered runoff, to sewage from boats illegally dumping offshore or animals waste.

Water quality at Havens Beach has been an ongoing debate over the last decade. In the last three years, Peconic Baykeeper Kevin MacAllister has raised the issue as a critical problem for village officials to address. At the same time, Suffolk County, which tests the water at Havens weekly as part of its health department’s monitoring of all bathing beaches in the county, showed just a couple of days annually where water quality at Havens Beach exceeded appropriate standards for swimming.

Eventually the Baykeeper and village officials seemed to reach an agreement, with the Baykeeper engaging the services of Chris Gobler, a Stony Brook Southampton associate professor and the director of the Coastal and Estuarine Research Program, to conduct a year of testing at Havens Beach. However, after a year of testing — and even a poster that alleged water quality at Havens Beach was poor —neither the Baykeeper nor Gobler have offered any testing results to the village, according to officials, leaving the village with no recourse but to begin a new round immediately.

According to Sag Harbor Village Environmental Planning Consultant Rich Warren, the village has secured Cornell Cooperative Extension to aid them in this project. Cornell’s Emerson Hasbrouck has agreed to use the extension’s source library – a database of bacterial sources – to help village officials identify the source of any contamination.

“We want to do duplicate sampling,” explained Warren on Tuesday. He said the key would be to broker a deal with the county where they take two samples at the same time during their weekly tests, and send the additional bottle of water to Hasbrouk. This, said Warren, would ensure everything aspect of the water collected was uniform, but would allow the village an independent lab to not only conduct testing, but identify where, if any, contaminants were coming from.

“We are taking the bull by the horns,” said Warren. “It will be interesting to see what shows up.”

A number of residents of the Azurest, Sag Harbor Hills and Ninevah neighborhoods attended Tuesday’s meeting in hopes of learning whether water quality at their bathing beaches was effected by the drain at Havens Beach. At a village meeting, convened a year and a half ago, the Baykeeper and village officials discussed the possibility of moving some of the testing into bathing beaches in front of those neighborhoods as well.

Laurie Gibbs told the board she was concerned about the water and wondered how widely disseminated any bacteria may be from Havens Beach.

“There was no plume,” cautioned trustee Tim Culver.

Gibbs quizzed the board on what action plan they had in mind for remediation.

Trustee Tiffany Scarlato explained the first step would be to identify the cause and without that the board could not move forward.

Azurest Property Homeowners Association President Anita Rainford explained the three communities had expected testing would have been expanded into their waters, hence the disconnect.

“Since then we haven’t heard anything, seen anything,” said Rainford.

“We have not gotten it either,” said Scarlato of the testing completed by Stony Brook Southampton representatives. “Some testing was done. We don’t know how it was done, we don’t have the data.” Scarlato added Stony Brook representatives seemed reluctant to present any findings to the village.

“We have been relying on the Suffolk County Health Department,” she explained.

According to village officials, they hope the testing and identification at Havens Beach is completed in the fall.

Sag Harbor Food Pantry Music Fest

The Sag Harbor Food Pantry was approved for a Music Fest at the Sag Harbor Historical and Whaling Museum, although trustee Scarlato and Mayor Brian Gilbride cautioned the Whaling Museum that they would only be allowed so many events each year per the village code’s rules on mass gatherings which limit the museum to six. In addition to the Sag Harbor Food Pantry Music Fest, scheduled for Sunday, September 13 from 6 to 9 p.m., the museum has scheduled a wedding and their annual clambake the same weekend.

“We are off to the races,” said Scarlato, noting the village should inform the museum of the code’s limitations on mass gatherings.

Popularity: 1% [?]

Once the Village of Sag Harbor has identified with certainty that contaminants in the drainage ditch at Havens Beach are related to stormwater runoff and not another source, it will move forward with a remediation plan, according to Mayor Greg Ferraris, although what that plan will be remains to be seen.

For two years now, the village has been in an ongoing discussion with Peconic BayKeeper Kevin MacAllister about water quality in the ditch, and whether stormwater runoff contaminants or fecal coliforms found in the ditch itself are contaminating water off the popular bathing beach.

Over a year ago, MacAllister, who had engaged the services of Chris Gobler, a Stony Brook Southampton associate professor and director of the Coastal and Estuarine Research Program, had agreed to a testing protocol for Gobler’s research of the water quality at Havens Beach. At a meeting last August, a full-year schedule was agreed to, and Gobler, MacAllister and village officials vowed not only to determine what the water quality was at the beach and in the ditch, which runs north to south through marshlands and onto the beach, but also what the source of any contamination was.

As the dreen collects stormwater runoff from drains throughout Sag Harbor, MacAllister has long maintained he believes this is a stormwater runoff issue, but after hearing complaints from neighbors over concerns that boats could be illegally dumping waste into the bay, village officials said they wanted to identify the source of any contaminants with certainty before they moved forward, banning dogs at Havens Beach until the testing was completed to ensure results were not skewed by their waste.

Expecting results from Gobler in April, village officials said they were kept in the dark about the results of his testing before a poster was unveiled at a college symposium charging that Gobler found levels of bacteria exceeding appropriate levels for shellfish and bathing by 31 percent and 44 percent, respectively, during the full-year of testing.

However, on Monday night, the village’s harbor committee convened a session with Robert “Mac” Waters of the Suffolk County Department of Health Services Bureau of Marine Resources, whose team by law tests the water quality in the bathing area at Havens Beach weekly.

Waters said his results differed greatly from the results displayed on the college poster, and he reached out to Gobler via e-mail to discern the differences between their results. According to Waters, Gobler apologized for the fact that the posted results included a number of samples taken from the dreen itself, and not the bathing beach, meaning the results are not indicative of the water quality specifically in the bathing portion of the beach.

In fact, Waters told the harbor committee that the county has only found levels of enterococcus that exceed state standards five times out of 110 samples collected at Havens from 2004 to 2008. Enterococcus is a bacteria the county tests for that helps determine water quality. It can cause health-related issues in humans such as urinary tract infections, diverticulitis and meningitis.

Waters said his results were specific to the bathing area of the beach, which his department hopes to start testing twice a week, rather than once. The department is also going to start a testing protocol in the ditch itself, which he noted can have elevated levels of enterococcus, particularly after a heavy rainfall.

While Waters assured “this beach is not a killer,” he did note the county, as a precaution, will issue a recommendation that county residents do not bathe for 24 hours at any beach with a stormwater runoff drain tied to it after a heavy rainfall. Unlike last year, added Waters, the county will start using local weather, rather than weather across the county, to determine when an advisory is issued.

“The take home out of this, from the testing we are doing, is that except for exceptional rain event days, Havens Beach is safe for bathing,” said harbor committee chairman Bruce Tait. “It is not exceeding levels.”

However, due to levels found in the drainage ditch, Tait and committee members expressed concern over parents allowing their children to play in the ditch. He asked trustees to place a sign at the ditch prohibiting people from playing in that water.

“I think it is great to put this issue, how big or small it may be, in the context of remediating stormwater runoff in the village,” said committee member Brian Halweil, who said he would also like to ask the village to begin looking for grants to address the stormwater runoff problem once the village’s research is complete.

On Tuesday, MacAllister said he was fairly certain this was a stormwater runoff issue, due to the salinity of water in the ditch itself, which had properties matching fresh water rather than bay water. He did add it was possible waste from waterfowl, dogs and other wildlife could have an impact on the water in the dreen, but as testing shows spikes in bacteria following heavy rains, stormwater runoff is more likely at the root of the issue.

MacAllister said he did not disagree with Waters that, as long as there has not been significant rainfall, swimming in the bathing area at Havens Beach is safe; although he said water in the ditch itself does pose a public health threat.

“I completely agree with Mac’s representation, but I would add a caveat,” said MacAllister. “I think it behooves the community to be cognizant of rainfall relative to the times they swim at Havens Beach.”

As for the lack of communication between Gobler and the village, MacAllister said he would try to bridge the gap in an effort to speed up remedial efforts at the beach.

According to Rich Warren, Sag Harbor’s environmental consultant, the village is just at the beginning stages for planning how it will handle the drainage ditch at Havens Beach should it be determined this is specifically a stormwater runoff issue, which he agreed was the most likely culprit. Warren said he will work with the harbor committee to formalize a program that will include additional testing. Warren is searching for a lab willing to identify the source of bacteria found in the ditch, and hopes to present the committee with cost estimates for that project at next month’s meeting.

As for a remedial plan, Warren said it would ultimately depend on the source of the bacteria, although if it is stormwater runoff, he noted there is technology available in the form of filter inserts for drainage basins. While Warren noted those inserts will certainly aid water quality in the ditch, filtering out sediments, oils and the like, he expected additional remedial efforts may also be needed.

On Tuesday at the Sag Harbor Village Board meeting, Mayor Greg Ferraris continued the discussion, telling community members the bathing beach is safe to swim in and explaining the county would issue advisories as a precaution during the warmer months of the year after large rain events. He asked Sag Harbor Village Police Chief Tom Fabiano to purchase a sign to let village residents know when an advisory has been issued.

“I think we are all of the same mindset that these elevated levels are a result of stormwater runoff,” said Ferraris. “Although I don’t think we should make a decision until we know 100 percent this is the issue. Then we can more forward with some remediation.”

 

Popularity: 6% [?]

Havens Study Will Continue
By Marissa Maier

Members of the Stony Brook University research team, who have been testing for harmful levels of bacteria at Havens Beach in Sag Harbor for almost a year, say their work will continue through the summer. Chris Gobler, a Stony Brook Southampton associate professor and the director of the Coastal and Estuarine Research Program, has spearheaded the team with help from graduate and doctorate students, like Florian Koch.
Koch was on hand at a recent Coastal and Estuarine Research Program environmental symposium with a poster showing the testing data as of March 2009. The team, in conjunction with Peconic Baykeeper Kevin McAllister, has been studying the site since April 2008 and say the data they have collected is alarming.
“I think the data speaks for itself … The water quality in this area is being negatively affected, but this isn’t a new issue,” said McAllister. “Hopefully, this report will place a spotlight on Havens and be a call to action for the village and the harbor committee.”
According to data presented by Koch at the symposium, levels of harmful bacteria have exceeded healthy thresholds for bathing and shell fishing throughout the year. From April 2008 to early April 2009, testing from the receding water stations located in the bay showed bacteria levels were above adequate standards for shell fishing 31 percent of the time during testing and 44 percent of the time for bathing thresholds. These numbers pertain to results collected from three testing stations set-up in the water.
At three “source” stations — which consist of a ditch, a culvert leading to the beach and a steady stream of water flowing from the beach into the bay — levels were even higher. When averaging the whole year, the source station surpassed healthy standards 70 percent of the time for shell fishing and 60 percent of the time for bathing.
Because the source stations indicated more frequent high bacterium levels than the receding water stations, Gobler said his team studied the source stations to ascertain where the bacterium was coming from. That research is ongoing.
Koch and his fellow researchers tested the beach on a monthly to bi-monthly basis, but did responsive testing after heavy rainfalls. The ditch, or the first “source” station, collects storm water run-off for a 275-acre area, said McAllister, through a complicated network of piping. According to McAllister, the water collected at the ditch, seeking the lowest elevation, then flows into Havens Beach by way of the culvert. Gobler added that it is possible the ditch is also subject to ground water seepage.
As the Stony Brook team has been conducting their research, Suffolk County has been testing the waters of Havens Beach.
“By law, the county tests Havens and all other beaches on a weekly basis,” said Sag Harbor Village Mayor, Greg Ferraris. “Suffolk County has never issued a directive to close the beach.”
McAllister said the discrepancy between the county’s and Stony Brook’s results could be attributed to the Stony Brook team’s responsive testing after heavy rainfall. He noted that contaminates are more likely to flow into the ditch when it rains, but in drier weather are likely to stay put.
Village planner Richard Warren, who also operates an environmental consulting firm, said the discrepancy could also be attributed to different testing methodologies. He added that he would like to sit down and review side by side the county’s results and the Stony Brook results, with the help of Chris Gobler.
“With Kevin [McAllister] and Chris [Gobler], I hope we can set aside a testing protocol and start having a dialogue,” said Warren.
Village officials said they weren’t contacted before the yearly results were presented at the symposium and felt this went against a communications protocol established by both parties.
“We expected once the testing was complete to meet and discuss the findings,” Ferraris noted. “[We hope] to review the data and come up with a plan of action.”
Although the Stony Brook team planned to test for only a year, Koch said they would continue through the summer with no fixed end point in mind. Gobler added that the team believes it is important to continue monitoring the site and he also wishes to set up testing sites to the east and west of the beach.
McAllister noted that beyond testing, actual measures would need to be implemented in the future.
“Havens Beach and this ditch is a problem,” he said. “But developing this data will hopefully lead to a remediation project. It is going to cost money to deal with this and I recognize the challenges the village is facing. Are they going to be able to finance a project that is going to eliminate this pollution problem?”

Popularity: 8% [?]

Matthew Culen returned to the Sag Harbor Harbor Committee, on Monday, December 8, looking for a new home port for his 75-foot Schooner, “Mary E.” Culen hopes to permanently dock his boat on Long Wharf and to run a sailing charter business on it. This highly visible location is imperative to the success of the business, said Culen because it would attract walk-on clients. The committee, however, had many concerns. They told Culen his venture would require upland support. Among the committee’s chief concerns were parking accessibility for charter clients.

Previously, the harbor committee recommended to the village board to disallow permanent or transient docking on the north end and the west side of the Long Wharf. This recommendation targeted larger boats and yachts which obstructed views of the water and impeded local children from fishing off of the wharf. This decision, however, meant the village lost revenue from dockage fees.

“We made a decision to lose docking fees. We gave it over to public use. This boat would have a different historical use, but this seems like a revision of our decision,” said committee member Brian Halweil. The committee believed the “Mary E,” built in 1902, could be used for educational purposes with school children. The committee finally suggested that Culen return to next month’s meeting with a proposal for upland support, especially provisions for parking.

Sag Harbor Village Environmental Planning Consultant, Richard Warren, gave a brief status report on the study of storm water runoff contamination at Havens Beach. Warren said the Peconic BayKeeper, who is conducting the study, will deliver a full report by April. Jim Early, of the village department of public works, has also provided Warren’s office with a list of existing drainage systems in the village, and they are in the process of plotting them out on a map. Warren also reported that the village is looking into installing filter systems, which would be installed in the drainage catch basins.

Popularity: 10% [?]