Satisfied with Satur yet?
Cutchogue neighborhood still not happy with approved changes to farm
9 comments below
Cutchogue farmers Paulette Satur and her husband, Eberhard MŸller, hope a new building at Satur Farms will help clean up the dusty - and noisy - day-to-day operations of packing and shipping vegetables in a mostly residential neighborhood on Alvah's Lane. Their neighbors say it's not enough.
The Southold Town Planning Board on Monday approved the much-contested Satur site plan, which was written with the intent of keeping the vegetable farm's delivery trucks off the road and out of sight, and to reduce the noise of their idling.
The board's approval requires farmers Paulette Satur and her husband, chef Eberhard Múller, to relocate an existing 450-square-foot greenhouse on their 17-acre parcel and to install diffusers on the vents of two other greenhouses, which now blow toward the home of Pindar and Nicole Damianos of Pindar Vineyards.
At a Planning Board work session two weeks ago, the Damianos family argued that the greenhouses emit toxic gases that travel directly into their infant son's bedroom, located about 450 feet away on the other side of a field.
Though she said she will install the diffusers to appease the neighbors, Ms. Satur said that Mr. Damianos' argument was not based on facts.
"First of all, I don't understand the problem," Ms. Satur said. "There are no emissions from the greenhouse. We don't use pesticides. And there is no engine -- it's an air fan. It uses air."
"If Mr. Damianos wants to spray in his vineyards, all he needs is a 250-foot buffer [from a neighboring property]," she said. "So this is a non-issue. But yes, we're going to try to direct the air downward. I'm tired of the complaining."
Mr. Múller said he will abide by the "ridiculous" requirements of the Planning Board's decision, including the installment of diffusers on the greenhouse ventilators, in order to "have a little peace and quiet around here."
"The ones who are most bothered by the dust and the noise are myself and my wife," he said. "I could not have predicted this increase in business 12 years ago."
But Mr. Múller, who worked for years as a chef at several noted Manhattan restaurants before committing to Satur Farms full time, said the growth of his business isn't over yet.
"We haven't seen the end of development, and this new building will help us do more with less interference to our neighbors," he said. "But I can see that it's too small already. Down the road, we'll have to look at a different situation, but I don't know what that might be yet."
With his new and improved building, Mr. Múller said he hopes Satur Farms will be a template for other North Fork vegetable farmers. He noted that his existing operation is approved by the FDA under the Hazard Analysis and Critical Control Points hygiene standard.
"We barcode every box of lettuce, every box of tomatoes," he said. "And everything is properly packaged and inspected. We've been following HACCP for the past three years. Everyone will have to by next fall."
At Monday's meeting, Planning Board member Joe Townsend said he felt that Satur's plan addressed most of the neighbors' concerns and that the situation would be "greatly improved."
"You'll see it get better," he said to audience member John Lademann, who expressed his unhappiness with the site plan after the resolution was passed. "There will be no parking on Alvah's Lane."
Even so, Mr. Lademann and his wife, Joan, said they were still disappointed with the actions of the Planning Board and its applicant. They own a vacant house across the street from Satur Farms, which they haven't been able to rent out for years, they said.
"You have to hire a lawyer to get anything done," Mr. Lademann said, shaking his head outside the meeting room. "[Satur Farms] will continue to do what they want."
eschultz@timesreview.com
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9 comments found
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Truth or Hype : 8/23/2011
Hype is not Truth
Satur Farms claims to be a local farmer. But Satur Farms does not sell locally.
>> Satur Farms will soon have a 8,558-square-foot agricultural storage barn with a loft and loading dock and an expanded dirt parking lot complete with an asphalt apron.
Almost 2 years have passed and Satur has not yet started to comply with the site plan they submitted after Southold Town sued and won.
Hype may be good enough for advertising, but the North Fork Community will not settle for less than the honest truth.
Satur Farms : 9/17/2009
I might only be 13, but I stayed on Alvah's Lane this summer, in August. That place is noisy, and the drivers drive fast. I was walking a baby, and they seem to bump along the road and go fast. The drivers throw their cigarette butts out the window, and the trucks are noisy all day long. There is a constant hum, I hear when I am out in the yard. I am sad to hear they were approved to build that big barn.
Satisified with Satur Yet? : 9/17/2009
We appreciate the interest and attention that The Suffolk Times has extended to our farming operation. However, the article released on 9/17 contains many factual errors that we would like to correct. We are not building a barn to appease our neighbors, we are building it because our business, as it expands at a rapid clip, requires it. When our facility is completed, much of the activities that have generated complaints will be contained within it. The photo that you printed was taken on our own property and not on a public road. We cannot imagine a farm that can operate without a truck, a hi-low (or tractor), and a little dust. There is no logic in printing such a photo and insinuating that this depicts a valid complaint. This photo is on our property which is in the Agriculture District, and we are certainly allowed a truck, a hi-low and a little dust in our farming operation. The Town board does not require us to move our greenhouses. We need to move our greenhouses to accommodate the new building and we received the appropriate permits from both the Farmland Preservation Committee and Town Board to do so. Concerning the ‘emissions’ from our greenhouses, The Suffolk Times is correct in quoting me saying that “there is no engine—it’s an air fan”. But then you report that I said “It uses air”. That is not what I said. It does not use air, it is a fan that draws air through the greenhouse for ventilation. There are no emissions of any kind, we are circulating only air. It is not town code that requires a 250-foot buffer for pesticide application. That is not what I said. I said that if one wanted to certify land as organic, that a 250-foot buffer is required by the USDA between land where pesticide is used in a horizontal blast sprayer (i.e. a vineyard) and the land one desires to certify as organic. Only a 50-foot buffer is required by the USDA between a sod or potato farm and land certified as organic. My point was that if the USDA considers a 250-foot buffer as adequate between the most insidious use of pesticides (such as applications to Dr. Damianos’ vines), then there is no logic in his making public issue with a 450-foot buffer as being insufficient to buffer any imagined ill-effects of an air fan! Inaccuracies continue. My husband did not refer to the Planning Board’s decision as “ridiculous”. He was referring to the need for a diffuser as being ridiculous in light of the fact that we are venting hot air. On the contrary, we agree with the wisdom of the board and will satisfy Dr. Damianos’ nonsensical concern by installing the diffusers. HACCP is not an FDA program. We are HACCP Certified by a third party agency, SCS Scientific for food safety and sanitary procedures. It is not that all farms will need to be certified by next fall; our government is drawing up standards for food safety which will be based on HACCP and other global programs, so even though a law is imminent, it has not yet been issued. Farms will need to have bar codes on every box for product traceability by the spring of 2010. There is a vacant house owned by the Lademanns across the lane from us. Although it has been vacant for years, there is no evidence that it has been advertised as available in the local paper, it is not listed with a rental agent, and there is no ‘for rent’ sign in front of the house. Under these circumstances, I can’t imagine how Mr. Lademann expects to secure a tenant. Indeed, he had an adjacent second house that was vacant for years, and it was only when one of our former employees convinced him to rent it to him, did he succumb to renting it. As we were the impetus in finding his first tenant, all he needs to do is ask us- we can have a tenant in his house starting Oct 1. On a broader note, our farmland has been farmed for centuries, and was on the market for several years before we bought it 12 years ago. If the Lademanns wanted to protect themselves from the possibility of an operating farm, they should have purchased it themselves. News reporting of any kind should be accurate and factual. So if The Suffolk Times chooses to report on a newsworthy story, we are certain its readers would expect them to adhere to more rigorous journalistic standards in adhering to facts.
