Federal aid is available to baymen who lost revenue after two dismal scalloping seasons. The U.S. Department of Commerce has declared the Peconic Bay scallop a fishery disaster, making baymen who rely on the harvest of the scallops for income and the efforts to restore the scallop stocks eligible for federal disaster aid. In a statement from Secretary of Commerce Gina Raimondo last week, the collapse of the bay scallop population on the East End in 2019 and 2020 was one of four fisheries around the country that saw catastrophic collapses that impacted fishermen’s incomes and qualified as disasters worthy
Photo courtesy of the East Hampton Department of Natural Resources. Piping plovers are currently nesting and raising young on East Hampton beaches. Please be mindful of these areas and respect blocked off locations. The fencing is up temporarily to provide chicks with protection after they hatch and before they are able to fly. Thank you for your cooperation in our local conservation effort.
Reminder New beach parking permits are required this year for East Hampton Town residents. Stickers are free for residents, but you must have a 2021 sticker to park legally at our beaches. Renewal is now required every five years. Permits are issued by the Town Clerk. Info and link to application form: https://bit.ly/3hd0jXj
In the sixth webinar in the Community Science LI series, participants learned all about terrapins, the threats they face, and what they as community scientists can do to help environmental organizations better protect this iconic Long Island coastal species. Seatuck.org
“The bioblitz will take place from June 26th to July 3rd. Anyone can participate! All you need is the free mobile iNaturalist app. Once you download iNaturalist, visit the LI Coastal Bioblitz project page and join the project. Only project members can submit sightings to the LI Coastal Bioblitz. Top bioblitz observers will also reserve a prize!” More Information on the bioblitz
“We will be hosting a training webinar on June 23rd, 2021 at 7:00 PM to introduce participants to the iNaturalist app and the bioblitz format. Attendance is not mandatory to participate in the bioblitz but it is recommended. Registration for this webinar is required. You can register here. Please reach out to ehall@seatuck.org with any questions.” More about the Bioblitz
The first mosquito larvae survey of the season, in partnership with Suffolk County Vector Control, took place on the Accabonac Harbor Salt marsh on Monday June 14th. Trustees Susan McGraw-Keber and John Aldred, along with other volunteers surveyed their quadrants early Monday morning. The result: due to the low breeding of mosquito larvae there will be no treatment this week! The red dots on the map below indicate the “hot spots” where mosquito larvae were located during the survey. The sampling data are collected and sent to Suffolk County Vector Control for analysis in real time. The data allow Suffolk
Resolution (ID # 24275)Home Rule Request in Support of Senate Bill S 6331, Assembly Bill A. 7030 Supported and introduced to the Assembly and Senate by Assemblyman Fred Thiele. The resolution will provide for staggered terms of the East Hampton Town Trustees to provide stability and continuity to their commitment to current projects. In addition, instead of 18 candidates every two years, the top five elected candidates who receive the highest votes will serve four years and the other four elected candidates will serve 2 years. The East Hampton Town Board voted unanimously in favor of the resolution.
Good News! Accabonac Harbor- Friday, May 21, 2021 – we did a salt marsh walk through the various polygons we survey during the summer months for Suffolk County Vector in an effort to identify the mosquito larvae breeding “hot spots” – this enables SCV to specifically target treatment weekly- during past summers, there had been overall spraying of pesticides—-now, as a direct result of our surveying and collecting data, there is targeted treatment and there have been weeks when no treatment was needed! A step in the right direction- Continued data collection is scheduled for Summer 2021. More Good News!
Teachers and mentors, Briar Rose DeTommaso and Brian Schopfer of Avenue Studio Hamptons in East Hampton worked with the students on their service based learning project that involved advocating with local officials, collaborating with the local Surfrider Chapter and utilizing the design thinking framework to support change making in the local environment. In addition, the students advocated for clean beaches/waters and during a beach clean-up where they videotaped their reason for participating and encouraged community members to sign their petition. Students created a petition that is on Change.org to ban the sale and distribution of helium and gas filled balloons in the Town of
Cate Rogers, Sofia Mendoza, Beatriz Rivas, Betty Mazur, Susan McGraw-Keber. Photo by Durell Godfrey On Saturday, April 24th beach clean-up volunteers spent the morning collecting trash from the beaches of Maidstone Beach, Gerard Drive, and Louse Point. Organized by the Springs Citizens Advisory Committee and Accabonac Protection Committee, the weather was perfect and the volunteers came prepared with buckets, bags, gloves, garbage pickers, and masks! Kathee Burke-Gonzalez, Susan McGraw-Keber, Cate Rogers. Cate Rogers, a member of the Springs Citizens Advisory Committee, had this to say about the turn-out at Louse Point, “Thank you to the volunteers who came out to help
The East Hampton Town Trustees are currently reading the applications submitted by seniors of the East Hampton High School in the hope they will garner the highest vote from the Trustee board members to be awarded the annual gift of funds from the Captain William J. Rysam Scholarship Fund. The funds will help the student with their college tuition expenses. The Trustees are particularly interested in students who express their knowledge and history of the Trustees of the Freeholders and Commonalty of the Town of East Hampton as the first governing body established in 1686 and of the Dongan Patent. The applicant
Statement from Orsted Regarding Mooring System in Use
“As part of the fish monitoring study outlined in the SFW Fisheries Study Work Plan, the Stony Brook University team is conducting a regular visit to the sensor array off Wainscott today to collect data from sensors, replace batteries, and deploy new retrievable moorings alongside the previous moorings. As the Stony Brook team is deploying new moorings alongside the existing moorings there’s no change to the mariners briefing, our standard method for updating mariners on the presence of equipment in navigational waters. Members of the fisheries outreach team, in collaboration with the research team, have worked with the fishing community to select an alternative mooring, one that is smaller, lightweight and retrievable, and is more compatible with commercial fishing in response to the feedback we’ve received from the community on original deployment of cement moorings.”
Images of the mooring system and a diagram are shown below.
