Nothing illegal about dumpster found in Orient wetlands

A culprit has been identified in the case of the two commercial dumpsters found along the shore in Orient.

It was Mother Nature. Well, actually, her offspring, Tropical Storm Irene.

Through an investigation by one of its environmental conservation officers, the state DEC discovered that the two dumpsters had been at Orient Beach State Park but the storm’s high winds and high tides conspired to push them into and across Hallock’s Bay.

“Stranger things have happened,” said Jonathan DiVello of Mattituck Sanitation, which owns the dumpsters found with a few hundred feet of each other. “It was a nasty storm.”

The company wasn’t immediately aware that the steel containers were missing.

“The park assumed we took them away as a precaution before the story and the road to get down to the park was closed due to storm damage,” Mr. DiVello said. “It’s goo to know the dumpsters are watertight.

Mattituck Sanitation has pulled the dumpsters out of the marsh.

“We’ll float them down the bay to a spot where we can pick them up, hopefully in the very near future,” said Mr. DiVello