Letters to the Editor: SCWA pipeline
Cutchogue
SCWA pipeline
I strongly oppose the Suffolk County Water Authority’s proposed $35 million, eight-mile pipeline project. This massive infrastructure project is a bad idea due to its significant environmental and financial impacts. The pipeline will harm the Pine Barrens and Peconic Estuary — ecologically sensitive areas crucial for biodiversity and a healthy ecosystem.
The SCWA’s proposal seems driven by a desire to increase water consumption, rather than promoting conservation and sustainability. Meanwhile, 70% of the water supplied by the SCWA during the summer months is used for irrigation, highlighting the potential for significant water savings through conservation measures.
Given the ongoing USGS study of Long Island’s aquifer system, it’s premature to move forward with the project. We’re already seeing early signs of saltwater intrusion in some areas, and further stress on the aquifer system could worsen this issue.
Instead of this costly and destructive project, we should implement water-saving alternatives. These include reducing lawn sizes and planting native vegetation, installing rain barrels and cisterns, implementing efficient irrigation systems and promoting water-efficient appliances. We should also consider reusing gray water and mitigating stormwater runoff through permeable pavers and rain gardens.
Current rezoning efforts provide an opportunity to prepare for our future needs sustainably. By prioritizing density limits, mixed-use development and environmental protection, we can reduce the strain on our aquifer and infrastructure while promoting a more resilient and sustainable North Fork.
Let’s set an example for other communities. I urge residents to voice their concerns directly to the SCWA at scwa.com/nfp-comment/.
By acting now, we can preserve the beauty, character and environment we love so much.
Sharon Kelly
Peconic
Raising the SALT cap
Our congressman, Nick LaLota, claims victory for us on the East End because the House-passed budget bill raises the State and Local Tax (SALT) cap to $40,000, which will save property owners up to $11,000 a year in federal taxes. But the Congressional Budget Office has found that the same budget will cut millions of people off Medicaid and millions of children off SNAP (food stamps) — cuts that will harm many thousands of people in this district.
I wonder how many wealthy people on the East End would welcome this trade-off: a few thousand dollars extra for themselves in exchange for thousands of adults and children on the East End consigned to deeper suffering. Really? I hope Mr. LaLota comes before us in a public forum where he can hear from his constituents on this and other life-and-death matters now before us as a people.
Michael Zweig
Southold
Take time for a referendum
Kudos to Vincent Guastamacchia for an excellent critique of the Town Board-commissioned ZoneCo zoning revision report (“ZoneCo’s voice, not our choice,” May 22). He neatly pointed out that the process was flawed from its inception.
ZoneCo, an up-island entity (Cincinnati, Ohio, elevation 742’), made an effort but failed to identify the real issues that theaten the visibility of our historic low-lying harbor communities.
Apparently, they feel it’s those nasty “corridor” retailers who’ve been here 40, 50 and, in one case, 145 years that now endanger the hamlets. Hence the need to abandon Business zoning, form a new CB district and designate them as non-conforming. So much for “respecting the past.”
The current Town Board assures us a rewrite is in the works, but I suggest we go further.
Don’t rush to complete another flawed document. Take your time and incorporate input from long established businesses as well as newly elected Town Board members.
Recognize that a change of this magnitude requires everyone’s participation via a referendum — a focused vote where the electorate decides on an important issue.
Michael Domino
Southold
Fearing education
From Anchorage to Bangor and even the East End of Long Island, NPR and PBS provide news and culture to people of all different ideologies. Sesame Street continues to entertain and educate children without commercials to sell them toys and sugar cereals. PBS provides culture from Broadway plays that many people would never see, some because of price, others because of distance. Without PBS, countless people would not experience Willie Nelson, Barbra Streisand, opera etc. Donald Trump stated, “I love the poorly educated” after winning the Nevada Republican presidential caucuses in February 2016. This statement was made during his victory speech, so naturally he and the lemmings in Congress do not want educated people, hence opposing funding.
Rosellen Storm
Riverhead
Job well done
Compliments to the Southold police and Greenport buildings and grounds department for their rapid response.
On May 21 at about 10 a.m. police and the Greenport highway department responded in minutes to prevent a street light globe from falling and causing serious injury — or worse — to pedestrians. The street light globe was located at Main and Adam streets. We owe them a special thanks.
Warren McKnight
Cutchogue
American division hurts us all
After Sept. 11, Americans became one. Our mission was to make America safe and never forget that day! Fast-forward 24 years and we are not the same country. We do not think as one anymore
Our people, our media, our schools have conflated the Founding Fathers’ Constitution with respect to the 1st Amendment. The amendment gives us the right to free speech with limitations, peaceful assembly and to petition the government, among other human rights.
It does not give the people the right to commit violence or defamation and call it free speech. The college campus is no place for discrimination or violent protests, including denying access to Jewish students.
This past weekend another violent attack on a peaceful assembly of Jews in Colorado, which followed the killing of two Israeli diplomats, both perpetrators shouting “free Palestine.”
America, wake up! We cannot allow what has become commonplace antisemitism. We cannot allow individuals who overstay their visas or who entered the country illegally to roam freely within our borders; to do so is dangerous.
Our children, our grandchildren and posterity beyond deserve what the Preamble to the Constitution was initiated for: to establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare and secure the blessings of liberty.
We cannot flounder lost in separate ideology any more. We must learn compromise, which the founders did in the writing of the Constitution.! For ourselves and our posterity we cannot remain lost in division. “L’Chaim.”
Bob Bittner
Calverton
How did this happen?
If you are a fan of the ice rink at EPCAL, the hookup of the bathroom to a sewer line would probably be a good thing. If you use the passive recreation trail, maybe not so much.
According to Town Board Resolution No. 2025-329, the sewer line was needed to connect the new bathrooms to the sewage treatment facility at EPCAL and required the “excavation and removal of … 782 cubic yards of material.” The 782 cubic yards of material included destruction of approximately 275 feet of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Recreation Trail and 500 feet of asphalt from Line Road, which also serves as part of the recreation trail route. Those 500 feet of Line Road approximate 0.5 acres of six-inch-thick asphalt that underwent repairs to cracks, at significant cost to the town, just a few years ago.
Two volunteer town committees — the Alternative Transportation Advisory and the Open Space Advisory committees — were affected by the installation of the sewer line. The ATC, formed in 2008, assumed responsibility for completing the 9.5-mile recreation trail loop. Through the determined efforts of former councilwoman Jodi Giglio, grant funding was eventually secured to complete the trail by 2018. Never was any funding asked for or received from the Town and the trail, which does not require electric or water service, has done quite well without an expensive bathroom.
The resolution for installation of the sewer line implies that there was a lack of adequate funding for the project, because it stipulates that $48,500 shall be transferred from “parks improvements” (specific to Sharpers Hill in Jamesport) and $23,500 from a “restricted fund balance.” Subsequently, at the April 24 Town Board work session, Councilman Rothwell announced that there was no funding left available for repaving or repair to the excavated [portion] of the recreation trail.
I suggest that there be some explanation or accounting of how this occurred without any consideration for, consultation with or advice from two official town committees composed of unpaid volunteers.
George Bartunek
Mattituck
No hotel exemption
I urge the Town Board to reject the request for an exemption to the hotel moratorium by the developers of the proposed 81-room hotel on Main Road in Mattituck. This location is the gateway to all of Southold Town and will have far-ranging impacts all the way to Orient Point. The town supervisor and trustees should not allow any exemptions to their own unanimous extension of the moratorium passed just last week until the ongoing, taxpayer-funded comprehensive zoning study by ZoneCo is completed.
Many important questions remain about the impact of this proposed hotel. Has the applicant completed a formal “traffic study” to assess the impact on Main Road? The need is obvious. The Main Road corridor is already congested, and the hotel will likely make it worse. In addition, East End hotels primarily employ low-wage, seasonal workers. Where will these workers live in a town already lacking enough workforce housing? Finally, how much additional revenue will this so-called “redevelopment” actually produce for town taxpayers? Voters should see hard financial projections, not just vague assurances.
There are already an estimated 337 hotel rooms in Southold and the five new hotels proposed would bring the total to at least 515. That is a massive increase in traffic, density and water use. The Town Board just adopted a resolution stating that they need “additional time to finalize comprehensive zoning updates pertaining to resort, hotel and motel developments.”
Any exemption for this large hotel now is in direct conflict with that resolution. It would put the town on the legal “slippery slope” to multiple future proposed exemptions and undermine the ongoing zoning plan. I respectfully urge the Town Board to deny this exemption and let their own planning process take its careful and deliberate course to protect our bucolic North Fork character.
Troy Rosasco
