Board feeling better about shellfish farming program
Bays wouldn't be so crowded after all
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The Town Board rescinded its disapproval of the county's new bay bottom leasing program on Tuesday after county officials quelled board members' fears that the program would leave Southold's bays overrun with shellfish farming equipment.
County Planning Director Tom Isles assured the board that only 60 acres of underwater land would be added to the leasing program each year. Together with the 2,600 acres that already have been leased for decades, the county at the end of the program's first 10 years can lease no more than a total of 3,173 acres, he said.
The town's chief concern had stemmed from county maps that showed Great Peconic and Little Peconic bays crowded with underwater five- and 10-acre plots.
"The map that was produced made the Peconic Bay look like a subdivision in Mastic," Town Supervisor Scott Russell quipped prior to Mr. Isles' description of the program.
Mr. Isles noted that while there are 30,000 acres of underwater land included in the "shellfish aquaculture zone," a small percentage will actually be leased.
"We created a grid that looks very busy, but the reality is that there could be as little as six leases a year," Mr. Isles said during the board's morning meeting at Town Hall. "This is a very small-scale ... aquaculture program. We're literally putting a toe in the pond."
But the placement of such buoys is optional, said Dewitt Davies, the county's chief environmental analyst. Furthermore, the lots are surrounded by 10-acre buffer zones so that "we don't have lease spaces bumping against each other," Mr. Davies said.
Councilman Al Krupski asked how the county would enforce the removal of shellfish cultivation equipment from the bay if and when a shellfish farmer terminates a lease. Mr. Davies said that the lessee would be responsible for "removing everything they placed there."
"If not, the county will go after them," he added, to which Mr. Krupski asked, "What if they disappear ... or move to another state?"
"Then we [the county] would have to go out there and remove it," Mr. Davies said.
The Aquaculture Lease Program allows the county to lease an additional 60 acres of bay bottom each year for the next 10 years. It requires most of existing aquaculture operations -- which cover 2,573 acres in Peconic and Gardiners bays -- to join the county leasing program, Mr. Isles said.
The existing operations mainly include land grants issued by Suffolk in the late 1800s and early 1900s and temporary marine assignments more recently awarded by the state Department of Environmental Conservation. The new lease sites will be limited to five and 10 acres, Mr. Isles said.
WEEKEND GARBAGE WILL SIT
The board accepted a recommendation from Highway Superintendent Pete Harris to stop emptying the town's trash containers on weekends. The move, aimed at sparing the town thousands of dollars in labor costs, will not be instituted until July 11 and 12.
"It will be a trial and error to see if it works," Mr. Harris said. "I don't want the town to look like a pigpen, but every penny saved is a penny earned."
The highway department collects garbage from 90 receptacles across the town. The department will continue to empty the bins on Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays.
"I'm not sure, given the volume, how it's going to work, but we can go ahead and try it," Mr. Russell said.
Mr. Harris and Public Works Director Jim McMahon griped that much of the garbage being emptied from town trash barrels is household waste stuffed in small, white garbage bags.
Mr. Russell suggested that renters and other visitors are likely to blame for much of the trash filling the town containers. "A lot of it is from people going back west throwing stuff out in remote areas," he said.
John Betsch of the Kenny's/McCabe Civic Association offered the board a solution to the illegal dumping. He said one of the civic association's members opened up a garbage bag dropped in one of the town's containers, found an address on an envelope and returned the bag of trash to the person's home.
Animal shelter committee
Now that the town's new animal shelter is finally open for business (see separate story, page 34), the Town Board agreed Tuesday to create an animal shelter committee to monitor expenditures at the facility.
Councilman Tom Wickham, who proposed creating the committee, volunteered to serve on it until his term on the board expires Jan. 1. Board members Vincent Orlando and Al Krupski also volunteered to serve on what will be a three-member committee.
Not all of the board members were enthusiastic about the idea of creating another Town Board committee.
"I'd like to be on the committee that looks into the feasibility of selling the thing," Councilman Bill Ruland quipped.
Mr. Russell added, "It seems like a resolution that tells us to do our job. You're supposed to be doing this [monitoring the animal shelter] as council people all the time."
bharmon@timesreview.com
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