Instead of having a consultant create a comprehensive wastewater management plan for East Hampton Town — a plan that is to include recommendations on environmental protection, ongoing surface and groundwater quality monitoring, meeting regulatory mandates, and what to do about the town’s currently inoperable scavenger waste treatment plant — Councilwoman Theresa Quigley suggested on Tuesday budgeting perhaps as much as $10 million to subsidize upgrades of private septic systems in ecologically sensitive areas of town.

    Both Ms. Quigley and Supervisor Bill Wilkinson have opposed the plan put forward by the other three board members to hire a consultant, likely at a cost of several hundred thousand dollars, to collect data and draft an overarching plan before final decisions are made regarding the waste treatment plant, for instance. At the start of last year, the two were ready to sell the plant to the sole private company that had submitted a bid but were stymied when Councilman Dominick Stanzione, who had supported seeking bidders, agreed with the two new board members, Sylvia Overby and Peter Van Scoyoc, that the bid was unacceptable.

    A committee that evaluated submissions by consultants interested in creating the town’s wastewater plan recommended that the board accept a proposal by a coalition comprising Lombardo Associates, a Massachusetts company, the FPM Group of Ronkonkoma, and the Woods Hole Group, along with Christopher Gobler, a Stony Brook Southampton professor. Mr. Wilkinson and Ms. Quigley criticized that recommendation Tuesday, but Mr. Stanzione said he would offer a resolution at tonight’s meeting to hire the group.

    Lombardo Associates has developed a wastewater treatment system that can be used on a small scale. Ms. Quigley charged that, if the town hires Pio Lombardo as a consultant “he is going to be suggesting that we put his product in, his own product.”

    “I’m suggesting that this man who’s selling the product is not going to find that there is nothing wrong,” she said. “There’s a foregone conclusion to this study, and that foregone conclusion is to shut down the plant and put Mr. Lombardo’s system all over town.”

    The board voted unanimously on Jan. 8 to seek proposals for the comprehensive wastewater plan from four pre-qualified firms that had previously submitted outlines and any others. The proposals were vetted by a committee of town staffers that included the heads of the Planning and Natural Resources Departments.

    Jeanne Carrozza, the town purchasing agent, told the board on March 19 that each was scored on 40 different criteria, with two proposals earning more than the 70 points needed for further review of their specifics and price. The firm selected for recommendation to the board “fully satisfies the requirements” outlined by the town board, she said, which included professional qualifications, financial responsibility, and the use of innovative technology.

    Ms. Quigley took issue with the vetting process at the March 19 meeting, comparing it to a similar group evaluation applied several years ago to bids by vendors on town beach locations. “We tried this and it blew up in our faces,” she said.

    In that process, a huge public outcry ensued when it was announced that a longtime Ditch Plain vendor had not made the grade and would lose its spot, and all vendors’ bids were thrown out by the board when it was discovered that not all had received the same information, invalidating the bids.

    “If we are so concerned about our groundwater,” Ms. Quigley said Tuesday, the town would do better to give money directly to residents for septic system upgrades, “instead of having Mr. Lombardo and police coming to our septic tanks. Trust me, it is the next step,” she said.

    Mr. Wilkinson pointed a finger at Mr. Stanzione. “This is a charade,” he said heatedly. “Dominick, you’re putting the public through a charade.”

    Turning to Len Bernard, the town budget officer, Mr. Wilkinson ascertained that four votes — a supermajority of the board — would be needed to issue a bond to raise the money for the consultants’ fees. The money could come from bonds, Mr. Bernard said, or could be taken out of a surplus from the town operating budget.

    “We’ll get it either way,” Mr. Stanzione told Mr. Wilkinson.

    “Really, you know that?” the supervisor replied.

    Mr. Bernard reported that borrowing $10 million for septic upgrades would add $700,000 a year to the town budget for 20 years, and would put an annual increase to the town budget, which must include unavoidable increases in costs for employee benefits and other items, over the state-imposed 2-percent tax increase cap.

    However, any sum the town commits to underwriting septic upgrades would be unlikely to be expended in one year, Councilwoman Sylvia Overby pointed out.

    “It’s a great idea to start thinking about septic upgrades,” Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc told Ms. Quigley. But, he added, “I don’t think it supplants the need to have the study.” One thing the wastewater management plan would do, he said, would be to identify, “scientifically,” the areas of the town where septic upgrades are most needed.

    Should the town move forward with an upgrade program, he said, it would not necessarily mean issuing bonds to raise the money — other options, such as establishing a septic upgrade tax district could be explored, he said.

     After establishing a Water Quality Protection Fund six months ago, Southampton Town officials recently began discussing an incentive program to help residents replace, repair, or upgrade aging or failing septic systems dating from 1981 or earlier. The proposal calls for providing up to $5,000 or 60 percent of the cost to homeowners who install systems verified by the County Health Department to reduce nitrates going into groundwater. Money from the water protection fund and rebates will be drawn from a Southampton Town budget surplus from 2012.

    Was the driveway asphalt, or was it gravel, or was it gravel-covered oil? And is gravel-covered oil the same as asphalt?

    Those were the questions of the day at the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals hearing on March 26. The driveway in question is part of a sprawling 186,000-square-foot property at 2118 Montauk Highway on Napeague owned by Lawrence Weiss.

    His representative at the hearing, Richard E. Whalen of LandMarks, told the board that after buying the property in 2005 Mr. Weiss began noticing pools of water on the driveway, and had a contractor from Speonk repave it with asphalt in 2009. He then went to the Building Department, seeking a permit to expand the house. In July 2012, Tom Preiato, the town’s head building inspector, ruled that the driveway had been altered, and because of that, no building permit could be issued.

    An asphalt driveway is not permitted in that neighborhood under the town code, unless it was laid down before the code was written.

    Mr. Whalen, in appealing Mr. Preiato’s determination, argued that it was. Asphalt and stone laid over oil are essentially the same thing, he said, and do not constitute an alteration. Asphalt, he said, is made up of oil and stone together.

    Brian Frank of the town Planning Department saw it differently. “Oil and stone do not have the same structure as asphalt,” he said. “To look at the driveway and to say nothing was changed is irrational.”

    Mr. Frank told the board it should tread lightly when considering reversing a determination by the building inspector. Such reversals can have “far-reaching” consequences, he said.

    Board members looked at before-and-after aerial photographs of the driveway. The problem was, said Don Cirillo, that though you could see stones on the surface, there was no way to tell what was beneath them.

    Drew Bennett, an engineer, addressed that issue for Mr. Weiss. “I was tasked with determining what is the content of the driveway,” he said. He took core samples of the current driveway in three locations, he told the board. In one sample, he said, it was clear that there was indeed oil under the gravel. The other two samples were inconclusive, which Mr. Bennett attributed to wear and tear.

    The zoning board agreed to close the hearing, and now has until May 27 to decide whether Mr. Preiato’s determination was correct.

    A majority of the East Hampton Town Board voted Tuesday to allow the Montauk Brewing Company, which plans to add brewing equipment to its tasting room in Montauk, to use three public parking spots in a nearby lot to fulfill a town requirement to provide more parking.

    The brewery founders, three East Hampton High School graduates, had asked the board to waive the standard $15,000-per-spot fee imposed if downtown businesses cannot provide their own parking spots. The money goes into a fund earmarked for providing public parking. The board took up the topic again this week after tabling two resolutions proposing different solutions two weeks ago.

    On Tuesday, Councilwoman Theresa Quigley again proposed a licensing agreement giving the business free use of the town spots for three years. “If they’re successful, then they could pay something in the future,” she said.

    Supervisor Bill Wilkinson agreed, citing a desire to help a local business get off the ground. “Somebody talked about moving Jimmy Kimmel from L.A. to New York,” said the former Los Angeles resident. “That’s what this is — it’s an incentive. It’s no different than having an incubator.”

    “We keep talking about creating jobs; retaining our kids,” Mr. Wilkinson said.

    Councilwoman Sylvia Overby and Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc, though evincing a desire to assist the entrepreneurs, expressed some qualms. Mr. Van Scoyoc had proposed a deal allowing the business to amortize the $45,000 fee over a number of years, and on Tuesday repeated his reservations about changing the requirement prescribed in town law on the basis of a particular request.

    “Is the process going to be driven by an individual’s request, rather than taking a look at the bigger picture, and changing the process?” he asked.

    “We had a process, and that process was losing our youth,” Mr. Wilkinson retorted. “I don’t know if you’ve read about it. It was called the brain drain of Suffolk County.”

    “I think the idea that we’re not allowed to vary from the process is so antithetical to land use — not everybody fits into the mold,” Ms. Quigley said. “If somebody comes to me with a proposal, if it sits with me well, given the facts. . . . If somebody else makes a proposal that works, I’m going to say yes to them, too.”

    The fees-in-lieu-of-parking requirement is part of the site plan process, overseen by the planning board. That board and the zoning board of appeals deal with such matters, Ms. Overby said. “There is a process. And I’m not going to supplant my ideas,” she said.

    Ms. Quigley pushed forward with a resolution approving the free use of the spots for the three-year term, after which the agreement would be reassessed, she said. Mr. Wilkinson seconded it. Councilman Dominick Stanzione asked that the deal include, after the initial three free years, a payment schedule through which the business would pay the parking fees over a five-year term.

    “The amortization should include a waiver, should they create jobs,” Ms. Quigley said. “That would in essence constitute a payment, because they’re providing someone with a job.” She agreed, however, to include Mr. Stanzione’s idea.

    Ms. Overby asked that the resolution include a description of the special circumstances — namely, the proximity of public parking. That way, she said, numerous other downtown businesses will not assume that they would be eligible for a similar deal. She also asked that the resolution be put on paper before being brought to a vote. Both her requests were ignored, and she abstained from the vote.

    Mr. Van Scoyoc voted no — “because I believe it’s changing a process,” he said. “I think it’s a response to a specific application. It was cooked up on the spot. . . .” He said he did not disagree with making an exception for businesses near municipal parking. “But until that is done in a way that takes a comprehensive look at parking issues in Montauk, we have to stay the course,” he said, adding that he believed he had already offered a “good compromise.”

    A plan to improve public safety by better controlling traffic and crowds at Indian Wells Beach was presented to the Amagansett Citizens Advisory Committee at its meeting Monday night. 

    Armed with the current draft proposal, Capt. Michael Sarlo of the East Hampton Town Police Department addressed committee members as to the concerted effort to limit idling cars and nonresidents’ vehicular access, as well as to police the hundreds-strong gatherings for which the beach has become infamous.

    As previously reported here, a committee including Captain Sarlo, East Hampton Town Supervisor Bill Wilkinson, Chief Edward Ecker of the Town Police Department, Ed Michels, the town harbormaster, John Rooney, the superintendent of recreation, John Ryan Jr., the town’s chief lifeguard, and Robert Connelly, an assistant town attorney, has been working to address a situation residents say has deteriorated in recent years, affecting safety and quality of life.

    An earlier plan, to place an attended barrier at the intersection of Indian Wells Highway and Bluff Road, has been abandoned, Captain Sarlo told the committee. “That created too many issues of safety,” he said, including backed-up traffic and vehicles standing for long periods. “It had a good idea in general, but once you piece together how much foot traffic and bike traffic. . . . It’s creating a different safety hazard instead of solving the issue.”

    The new plan, while still a work in progress, would create a restricted access point near the entrance to the parking lot. On weekends and holidays, a Parks Department employee would man a booth at a turnaround opposite the Amagansett Beach Association parking lot. When the town lot is full, Captain Sarlo said, the attendant will check vehicles for a resident permit. “If they do have a permit and are looking to drop off, we can let them through, and back out. If they don’t, we’re looking to turn them around in the mini cul-de-sac and send them back out down the street.”

    A traffic control officer would be stationed in the parking lot during the peak hours of midday, along with a part-time marine patrol officer. If possible, Captain Sarlo said, the attendant and traffic control officer would work in concert to make sure motorists allowed into the lot after it’s full were dropping off or picking up beachgoers, not idling or searching for a parking spot.

    Town attorneys are looking into the feasibility of banning vehicles carrying more than eight people, primarily taxis, said Captain Sarlo. The goal, he said, is to make the lot safer for beachgoers as they walk to the ice cream truck or the comfort station, and to eliminate idling vehicles at the road end.

    The plan would result in the elimination of three parking spaces, but clearing dead and dying underbrush behind the comfort station could create five new spaces, which would be for the use of lifeguards. Long-term planning may also include creation of additional parking on the west side of Indian Wells Highway, north of the existing spaces.

    The task is not an easy one, Captain Sarlo said, involving as it does multiple “moving parts” — adjacent wetlands, a roadway that may not be wide enough to accommodate the proposed turnaround, and the possible relocation of vendors, to whom the town has contractual obligations. “There’s a lot of obstacles to making significant changes in this small an area,” he said.

    In addition to improved safety, the committee is trying to balance regulation of already-restricted parking with allowance of fair access to the beach. “The balancing act we end up with in trying to address this is tricky, but we are working diligently on it,” he said.

    With regard to the large crowds drinking alcohol on the beach, Captain Sarlo reported progress. “From an enforcement standpoint, we feel like we’ve made great strides in our presence there to handle the influx of the partyers,” he said, citing summonses written, leaflets distributed, and public relations outreach. “We’re doing what we feel is everything we can, and if we get out in front of it earlier in the season than last year, it really should help put a dent in it even further.”

    The East Hampton Town Trustees’ plan to condense the 90 moorings set aside for large boats within a broad area in the center of Three Mile Harbor came under fire during the trustees’ monthly meeting Tuesday night.

    Sean McCaffery and Stephanie Forsberg, trustees, and the panel’s clerk, Diane McNally, explained to the dozen or so boaters in attendance that the board was trying to correct a disorderly pattern which boaters had come to accept as normal.

    Trustees said the loose mooring pattern took space away from kayakers, stand-up paddle boarders, and waterskiers, among others, and threatened to bring the State Department of Environmental Conservation down on the harbor’s shellfish beds. “It’s why you are given supplemental forms asking if you plan to stay on your boat overnight,” Ms. McNally told the boaters. She said the board’s plan followed the example of other East End towns and villages, Sag Harbor among them.

    Ms. McNally said the D.E.C. looks upon moored and anchored boats as they do marinas: as potential sources of coliform pollution from marine toilets. The bigger the area in which boats are moored, the bigger the potential for shellfish closures, is the trustees’ reasoning. “You might say, ‘But Three Mile Harbor is a no-discharge zone,’ but the D.E.C. will not take that into account,” she said. “They close areas because they don’t have enough people to test the water.”

    John Courtney, the trustees’ attorney, reminded the disgruntled boaters that the original arrangement for the large-boat mooring area was a tight pattern, in large part because of the shellfish closure issue.

    John Chadnick complained that the town code permits boaters to anchor within the mooring grid. Trustees admitted this should be changed, although a separate, formal anchoring area might draw unwanted attention in regard to shellfishing areas.

    John Sabastoanski, who has kept a boat in Three Mile Harbor for the past 15 years, said his “main concern is the boats are too close together,” an opinion shared by Glenn Bennett, a contractor who installs moorings.

    “On a strong southwest wind, sometimes it takes three passes to get to your mooring,” said Mr. Bennett. “Sag Harbor has accidents. At night, none of the boats are lit if nobody’s on them. People swim off their boats.”

    Most of the boaters who spoke said they found the tight quarters objectionable from a safety as well as a privacy standpoint. 

       Craig Humphrey said the condensed pattern would actually put his boat out of reach: “I row to my boat. I had a check ready for you and I paid for a dinghy slip on a sand spit on the north end of the harbor. It’s two-tenths of a nautical mile. I wouldn’t mind rowing a little farther, but not a mile.”

     Dustin Goodwin said the condensed pattern ruined the “poetry” of Three Mile Harbor. “The harbor is my summer home. I want my ashes spread there. Why do you think boaters come from Connecticut and Rhode Island? Three Mile Harbor is not a parking lot. The grid is too dense. You will lose the poetry.”

    As to the trustees’ contention that the tighter pattern would allow for more boaters in the future, Mark Mendelman, a contractor who sets moorings and who gathered the naysayers for Tuesday’s meeting, suggested that spreading the boats out within the grid also allowed for future growth. “You could fill in rather than expand out.”

    “It’s a bitter pill. Rules and regulations are hard,” Ms. McNally said. “I was at the high school when the trustees first said there should be a mooring field. The people said, ‘Mooring field? It’s our right to put them where we want.’ ” But ever-increasing use of the harbor made the regulations necessary, she said, adding that the trustees are willing to hear from boaters independently to see if their mooring location could be better fitted to their needs.

    All moorings, set on the bottom by independent contractors, must be approved by the trustees, who raised the cost of a resident’s permit this season from $7.50 to $10 per boat-length foot. Nonresidents now pay $20 per boat-length-foot. There is also a $50 inspection fee.

    Ms. Forsberg told the boaters the increased mooring fees were helping the board pay for a $25,000 program to test for coliform bacteria as well as algae blooms in the harbor.

    “It’s important for the town to take action with deliberate speed. The Montauk commercial district is threatened,” Drew Bennett, who chaired the town’s erosion control committee, told East Hampton Town Board members at a work session on Tuesday.

    Mr. Bennett’s caution was echoed by Montauk residents and business owners also at the meeting.

    After the board’s contentious discussion on April 2 about 11 recommendations issued by his committee, Mr. Bennett said he was on hand to “reiterate the recommendations,” while other speakers urged the board to find unanimity on at least some of the issues and move forward. At the April 2 meeting, the conversation derailed when Supervisor Bill Wilkinson and Councilwoman Theresa Quigley, pressing members to say whether they would accept a possible proposal from the Army Corps of Engineers to “drop rock” on Montauk’s shore, found no immediate accord.

    “The board has two matters,” Mr. Bennett said. “We would encourage you to endorse the engineered beach and we would encourage you to endorse some interim action. And we urge you to act on both.”

    The town has asked for federal funding, to the tune of $20 million, for beach repairs following the damage from Hurricane Sandy and other storms.

    But East Hampton’s chance to receive a piece of the pie could be threatened by a fractious town board, suggested Paul Monte, a Montauk business owner and member of the erosion committee. A lack of direction on erosion control efforts is surely being noticed by Representative Tim Bishop, the town’s point person on obtaining the federal funds, and other officials, he said.

    “If we can’t get our act together to give them a comfort level . . . after they jump through hoops and call in political favors . . . then the money will go elsewhere,” Mr. Monte said.

    “If the feds say, here’s money, and recommend hard structures, why wouldn’t you take the recommendations?” he said. “It’s ludicrous.”

    Board members appear to agree that an “engineered” beach — one reconstructed to specifications designed to withstand storms over a period of time — is called for in Montauk, in the area from Ditch Plain to downtown. Adding sand from offshore would widen the beach both above sea level and below the water line.

    If East Hampton is awarded funding, the beach would be created at no local cost by the Army Corps of Engineers, under plans developed in its Fire Island to Montauk Point reformulation study, and future repairs would also be eligible for federal funding.

    The plan could include a “reinforced dune core,” as Mr. Bennett described it, with rock or other structures placed beneath the sand dunes on the shoreward side of the beach.

    “You guys have fiduciary responsibility to the taxpayers of East Hampton,” Mr. Monte told the board, and should take “this once in a lifetime opportunity to have the government say, take this money and build a beach.”

    The funding status is still uncertain, Mr. Bishop’s spokesman, Oliver Longwell, said Tuesday. But, should the town be included in a federal erosion-control project, “the form the project will take — that’s going to be the result of a process the Army Corps goes through.” With the participation of Mr. Bishop’s office, he said, “the priorities of the local community” would be included. “There’s always collaboration,” he said.

    Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc and Councilwoman Sylvia Overby have resisted giving a thumbs-up to any plan the Army Corps might come up with, before seeing the details. But Mr. Van Scoyoc offered to draft a resolution that the board could approve, perhaps unanimously, next week, that indicates its support of an engineered beach.

    “And at the same time we will work toward amending the emergency provision,” Mr. Wilkinson said, outlining a way to allow property owners to take temporary measures in the interim.

    An oceanfront house on Marine Boulevard in Amagansett was before the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals on April 2 for variances that would allow what might be called a creative expansion.

    “I’m a composer,” Carter Burwell, the applicant, told the board. Mr. Burwell is, in fact, the composer for the Coen brothers, the Academy Award-winning film-making duo, having written the scores for all but one of their films.

    He was accompanied at the hearing by his wife, Christine Sciulli, a video installation artist, and their two sons. “Working at home, and our growing family, are our reasons for the expansion,” Mr. Burwell said.

    The property, at 39 Marine Boulevard, is about 27,663 square feet with a three-story, 3,149-square-foot house on it and a 1,430-square-foot deck. Mr. Burwell bought the property in 2010; it was previously owned by the fashion designer Elie Tahari.

    As designed by Katherine Chia of Desai/Chia Architecture, who was at the hearing and spoke at length, the plans call for a two-story addition to the living area and an increase in the size of Mr. Burwell’s recording studio.

    The expansion would total 1,191 square feet and be on the street side of the house, with a small, 218-square-foot deck. Several variances from the town code would be required, some of which are minor, such as a 5.4-foot variance from the required 100 feet from the dune crest. Two of the requested variances are somewhat rare: a 14-foot, 8-inch height variance from the pyramid law, which is intended to prevent buildings from looming over neighboring properties, and a total square footage variance of 353 feet.

    Calling the existing house “a little convoluted,” Ms. Chia said it was more or less a split-level. Laying out floor plans and a scale model of the house, she pointed out that the proposed extension would be at the top right, facing Marine Boulevard.

    Ms. Chia used a tool, apparently of her own design, to illustrate the impact of the pyramid variance being requested. Using a piece of Plexiglas cut to fit over the model, she dropped it in place, illustrating clearly what the height would look like from the street.

     “You should patent that for all our pyramid applications,” Alex Walter, the board’s chairman, said, only half in jest.

Mr. Walter asked what property would be most affected if the 14-foot variance from the pyramid law were granted. A beach access to the east was the response.

    Referring to the overall project, Ms. Chia said, “We’re trying to scale it down in proportion to the street.” She noted that the coverage variance requested was due to the requirements of the studio.

    Lisa D’Andrea of the Planning Department told the board that the only vegetation being taken out was manicured lawn, and she complimented the applicants on their presentation. She also noted that the extension was strictly landward. Mr. Burwell added that any natural vegetation removed during construction would be replaced.

    “I understand the rules of the code and take them seriously,” Mr. Burwell concluded.

    The board agreed to keep the hearing open for two weeks to allow the East Hampton Town Trustees, who own the beach in front of the property, to weigh in. It will then have 62 days to make a determination.

    Montauk’s Viking Fleet has its eye on Three Mile Harbor as a fishing site, and has asked for permission to dock a 60-foot boat at the East Hampton Town dock there, to take passengers out for daily fishing trips during the springtime months.

    The proposal was first submitted to the town board last fall and was renewed some weeks ago, with hopes that the boat could run out of the Gann Road dock in April, May, and June.

    At a town board meeting on April 2, Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc outlined the issues for the board. Carl Forsberg Jr., a Viking captain, was on hand.

    The slips at the town dock have been set aside for the use of commercial fishermen, and the town charges a low, “extremely subsidized fee” for dockage at Gann Road, Mr. Van Scoyoc said, “as a way for the town to support our commercial fishermen in an industry that is highly regulated and that’s having a number of economic issues — to keep the traditional fishing business going in the Town of East Hampton.”

    One issue, he said, is whether there’s enough parking at the site to accommodate fishermen’s boats and trailers, equipment, and cars belonging to members of the public who like to fish from the dock, as well as the Viking boat’s passengers.

    Another question, said the councilman, should the board wish to open the dock as requested, is “whether or not this is advertised as being available for all the charter captains in the town, and how you would do that.”

    “If this takes off, then next year we should probably allow it to be bid out in some way,” said Town Supervisor Bill Wilkinson.

    Councilwoman Theresa Quigley said Viking should be allowed to do business from the dock. “Because I do support business across the board; I don’t pick and choose,” she said.

    As far as allowing a “head boat”  — where passengers pay to go on board and fish — at the commercial dock, “commercial” fishing, Mr. Wilkinson suggested, could include “anyone who’s in the business of making money.”

    But at a town board meeting in Montauk on Tuesday, Brad Loewen, the president of the East Hampton Town Baymen’s Association, told board members the dock was given to the town in 1930 by a member of the Gardiner family with the stipulation that it be reserved for use by commercial fishermen such as those there at present: three trap fishermen, two lobstermen, four draggers, and one conch fisherman, “all earning their living off that dock.”

    In addition, he said, the Marine Patrol office is there, and the town barge, and equipment for the town shellfish hatchery. Other users include recreational fishermen and “romantics, if you will,” who visit to look out at the water or the sunset, Mr. Loewen said. All, he said, have “kind of reached an equilibrium. Nobody gets in anybody’s way. Our concern is, this is a change of use, and an increase of use, that will change that equilibrium.”

    Should the Viking boat also use the dock, he said, “somebody’s going to get evicted. There simply is not enough room for that kind of business.”

    A number of fishermen have contacted him, he said, to express concerns about the proposal. Mr. Loewen asked the board not to give space to the Viking boat at the commercial dock, but if the proposal is to be entertained, he asked that it be subject to a site plan review by the town planning board.

    Through that process, he said, a number of issues could be addressed: parking, including required handicapped-accessible  spots; adequate lighting, fire protection, traffic control, noise, and boat-fueling. In addition, he said, the board should ascertain that the Three Mile Harbor channel, which has been dredged but may have since shoaled, is adequate for the draft of the Viking vessel. “It may not be,” he said.

     Mr. Loewen also questioned the Viking Fleet’s assertion that the charter boat, while licensed for 75 passengers, would carry only 20 people on trips from Three Mile Harbor. “I believe that all of these questions may be answered by site plan review,” he said. “Again, I want to remind the board that it’s a commercial dock, and our concern is, those who would be evicted would be us.”

    “This isn’t right,” he said, his voice straining. “I shouldn’t be here talking about this. What’s wrong with you guys?”

    “Please reconsider any change down there that is going to affect the ability of the fishermen and other users.”

    The town’s fisheries advisory committee has not yet weighed in on the proposal.

    At a board meeting last Thursday, Ira Barocas, president of a community group of residents in the neighborhood of the dock and a former charter and party boat captain, urged the town board to get a fair price should it decide to lease space to Viking. “Gann Road dock is a town asset,” he said. “It doesn’t seem appropriate, as a taxpayer, to give a sweetheart deal to a business operating on town property. Commercial entities who use our town assets ought to pay a fair price.”

     “It’s not a bad thing at all,” he said of the proposal, “but if it turns out to be a viable thing, we ought to be compensated fairly, and by we, I mean the taxpayers.”

    Asked to research the history of the dock and any restrictions on its use, John Jilnicki, the town attorney, reported that he had found a 1943 deed from the Bank of New York to the town, which contains only a property description. A copy of a 1931 deed held by the town assessor is unreadable, he said, and a better copy must be obtained from the county clerk.

    Residents of the East Hampton neighborhood comprising Miller Lanes West and East and Indian Hill Road have been left frustrated with the results of their continuing appeals to the town board to do something about the volume of traffic and speeding through their neighborhood.

    The board was poised at a meeting on March 7 to approve restrictions on heavy trucks over nine tons on those roads (except for local delivery), and to pass a law prohibiting left turns from Indian Hill Road at its intersection with North Main Street or Three Mile Harbor Road. But the resolution was tabled after a group of residents that had sat through other board business — including a hearing that pushed the meeting well past 10 p.m. — questioned the board’s approach.

    “Now we’re left with, once again, a kind of piecemeal approach that’s not going to solve the problem,” said Julia Mead, a Miller Lane West resident who has been organizing concerned neighbors. “I’m wondering why no iteration of this plan has included a reduction of the speed limit on our road.”

    Enacting a weight limit and banning large trucks from the neighborhood’s roads does address part of the problem, she acknowledged. But residents, she said, are disappointed with the lack of a comprehensive solution. Why, she asked, has the board not included residents of the area in its discussions of the problem?

    Others wondered why a ban on left turns from Indian Hill Road is needed. The idea was first floated by Supervisor Bill Wilkinson in an earlier discussion. He said that the concept had been reviewed and approved by Eddie Ecker, the town police chief.

    Ms. Mead suggested a professional review by traffic engineers is warranted.

    A comprehensive look at the entire area is needed, Councilwoman Theresa Quigley said, as changing traffic patterns on any specific streets would have a ripple effect on other streets, including the nearby main byway of Cedar Street and its intersection with North Main Street.

    The board had held a hearing last fall on residents’ suggestion to ban through traffic on their streets. That suggestion prompted protests that the ban would, in effect, privatize roads that are paid for and maintained by the Town Highway Department.

    That proposal also included erecting stop signs at Downey Lane where it intersects with Miller Lane East and Miller Lane West. Ms. Mead asked the board last week why that had not happened.

    An East Hampton Town committee developing recommendations on protecting Lake Montauk from pollution presented the town board with several interim suggestions at a board meeting on March 12.

    New signs notifying boaters that Lake Montauk is a federally designated “no-discharge” zone are needed, the committee said, to make it clear that waste may not be released from vessels into the lake. The group suggested a public awareness campaign, perhaps coupled with a boating safety education effort focusing on issues such as boat driving while intoxicated and compliance with maximum-passenger limits.

    In addition, the committee said, waste pump-out services provided at a fixed station and by a pump-out boat operated by the East Hampton Town Trustees should be expanded, especially on weekends.

    The committee also suggested other signs, and perhaps kiosks, designed to inform people about the sensitive and unique ecology of the lake.

    A public outreach program could include litter clean-up efforts around the shores of the lake and a brochure covering guidelines for lake preservation and information about the Lake Montauk watershed.

    “It is suspected, but not proven, that some septic waste is finding its way into the lake from as far away as Ditch Plains,” the committee wrote in a report submitted to the town board.

    To avoid this, the group said, the town should encourage the upgrade and relocation of septic systems away from wetlands and surface waters, as well as the use of state-of-the-art sanitary systems, including those that can service more than one property.

    More frequent water testing for toxins and bacteria should be done at different sites around the lake, the group said, to “fill in the gaps” in data from tests done by the county and state.

    At the beach at South Lake, which has been closed to swimming by the County Health Department, the committee recommended that a sign now saying “Swimming Prohibited. No Lifeguard on Duty,” be changed to a more explicit message stating “Warning: Elevated bacterial levels have been recorded in this area. As a precaution all water contact in this area should be avoided.” The sign, the same as one used at Havens Beach in Sag Harbor, where there are also water quality problems, depicts a silhouette of a swimmer covered with a red slash.

    Town Councilwoman Theresa Quigley objected, saying that the water tests do not always show bacterial levels that would preclude swimming. “I find the sign completely contradictory, to the point that we want people to enjoy it,” she said of the beach.

    The levels do vary, said Julie Evans-Brumm, a committee member. But, she said, “Until we can actually remediate the source, we can’t actually open South Lake to swimming.” The committee’s final Lake Montauk watershed plan will address such mitigation.

    “The intent of the sign is to let people know that there is a possible health risk there,” said Brian Frank, a town planner and committee member. “Enterococcus is a pathogen,” he said, and those that are most vulnerable, such as the elderly and children, should protect themselves from it.

    “You can give me all the details you want,” Ms. Quigley said, “but, big picture, we have a town where you can’t do anything. We’re allowing downtown Montauk beaches to be eroded, we’re closing the lake. Where do people go?”

    “We are turning into a town where we shut down everything,” Ms. Quigley complained. “You guys have been in business for four years and all you’ve come up with is a sign?” she said to the committee members. “To me all that says is don’t use the beach.”

    She asked the committee to suggest language for a sign that “better reflects the science.”

    In its report to the board, the group reviewed its activities. It has mapped the lake watershed boundaries, modeled stormwater volumes for various level storms, developed a preliminary report on eelgrass, analyzed bottom sediments, inventoried finfish in the lake, and taken and analyzed coliform bacteria from 15 sampling stations around the lake.

    Continued work, resulting in a final Lake Montauk watershed plan, includes developing target goals, continuing discussions of sources of water quality impairments, and mapping the “sewershed,” or drainage infrastructure, around the lake.