SagTown Coffee reopened on Main Street this week, bigger and better than before the fire that destroyed it and several other businesses, including the Sag Harbor Cinema, nearly eight months ago.

 “We did it,” said Shane Dyckman, who started the business in 2012. He quietly opened its doors over the weekend. “We finished construction at midnight on Friday and opened Saturday at 6.”

Mr. Dyckman, a volunteer with the Sag Harbor Fire Department, was among those who responded on the morning of Dec. 16, when a fire broke out in the building next door to his coffee shop. While the building was not destroyed, his shop was so damaged that it had to be gutted.

Working with Alex Baranovich, a Sag Harbor architect, he designed SagTown’s new home. It takes up not only his old space but also the front of the building, which housed Collette Consignment at the time of the fire. SagTown is now twice the size and has a new open, airy, beachy look, Mr. Dyckman said.

With more space, the shop is able to offer more than just coffee drinks. It now has sandwiches, flatbread pizza, fresh fruit, and acai bowls, all prepared on site. There is cold brew on tap, as well. Mr. Dyckman said draft lattes seem to be the biggest hit on the new menu. The condensed espresso infused with milk and nitrous oxide “settles like a Guinness,” he said.

SagTown’s hours are 6 a.m. to 9 p.m. daily, till 11 on Saturday nights.

“The best part is I don’t have to buy a cup of coffee anymore,” Mr. Dyck­man said.

Beginning in 2018, installation of advanced technology septic systems that treat waste for nitrogen will be required in East Hampton Town for new buildings, according to a law passed Tuesday by the town board, and home and business owners who want to switch to the environmentally friendly systems could,  beginning this fall, receive a rebate covering as much as the entire cost.

Nitrogen flow from traditional septic systems, which release untreated waste, have been tied to increasing ground and surface water pollution, and efforts to reduce nitrogen pollution are key to water quality protection plans enacted by the state and county as well as the town.

• Click here for the East Hampton Town septic rebate program brochure

The nitrogen reduction requirements adopted this week in East Hampton are the most stringent of any town in Suffolk County. “The town board has adopted the highest standard for water quality protection, and the rebate program should encourage property owners to replace failing waste systems with low-nitrogen alternatives,” Town Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc said this week in a press release.

The Suffolk County Health Department has approved five different low-nitrogen septic systems for use, and approvals for others, which have been undergoing testing through a pilot program, are forthcoming. A county grant program for septic system replacement got underway earlier this summer; East Hampton residents are eligible for that program as well as the town’s rebate.

Owners of primary residences in East Hampton, with incomes less than $500,000, and all commercial property owners are eligible for town rebates.

Those with properties in water protection districts, which surround the town’s harbors and watersheds and include high-density areas such as neighborhoods in Springs, or who meet county affordable housing income guidelines, may receive rebates of up to 100 percent of the costs, up to $16,000. Others are eligible for rebates of 75 percent of the costs, up to $10,000.

The rebate money may be applied to the costs of removing an old system and the design and installation of a new one. Restoration of landscaping that may be removed in the process will not be covered.

The money will come from the town’s community preservation fund, a 2-percent real estate transfer tax that was extended through 2050 in a referendum last fall. Voters also approved allowing up to 20 percent of the fund, traditionally reserved for land preservation only, to be used on water quality improvement projects.

Applications for the program will be accepted beginning on Sept. 1. Those interested can contact the town’s Natural Resources Department.

In a townwide study that led to the development of a wastewater management plan, consultants for the town estimated that there are more than 19,000 failing septic systems in East Hampton, comprising the largest source of nitrogen entering groundwater, ponds, and bays. An excess of nitrogen results in algal blooms, low oxygen, and bacterial contamination that harms plant and animal species and can pose health dangers to swimmers. 

Approved septic systems are those that reduce nitrogen levels of emissions to 19 milligrams or less per liter; that standard will become more stringent, at a maximum of 10 milligrams per liter, once the Health Department approves systems that can achieve that reduction.

The new low-nitrogen systems will be required for all new construction as well as when there is a substantial expansion of existing structures, when a sanitary system is to be voluntarily replaced, and when a commercial property proposing more intensive use requires site plan review.

A second hearing on the regulation was held by the town board last week after changes were made to exempt those who have already received Health Department permits, “grandfathering” their already approved traditional septic systems.

The exemption should also apply to those who are before the planning and zoning boards, Britton Bistrian, an Amagansett planning consultant, said, as those property owners have already spent substantial time and money planning development.

Chris Tucci, a contractor also speaking at the hearing, called the septic rebate program a “fantastic initative,” but suggested that those building new houses in a moderate price range also be eligible for town money. The increased cost of a low-nitrogen system, usually in the $15,000 range, will have a “significant impact” on the overall cost of some houses, he said. Property purchasers, who pay the preservation fund transfer tax, “have put into the C.P.F.,” he said, and should be eligible for rebates that will bring down construction costs.

In a letter submitted last week to the town board, the Long Island Builders Institute said that the low-nitrogen system requirement should at first only be applied in environmentally sensitive areas of the town. In view of the costs and additional permitting processes, the industry group said, new requirements should be implemented gradually. The letter also questioned the income restrictions for eligible residential property owners, and the lack of them for commercial landowners. Under the county program, Mitchell H. Pally, the chief executive officer of LIBI notes, commercial property owners are not eligible for rebates, a position his group supports.

“Protecting water quality is our highest priority because our quality of life and economy depend on safe drinking water and pristine surface water,” Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell said in a press release.

The first fish I ever caught was a snapper. Fishing off our rickety community pier on the east side of North Haven, the baby bluefish took a piece of spearing that was fished from the end of a saltwater-aged bamboo pole. The pole itself was a remnant salvaged from a broken-off Greenport Oyster Company oyster bed marker that had washed up on our beach a few months earlier. The fishing line was not much more complicated — old kite string. We’re talking old-school fishing here, a setup not far from the pages of Huck Finn. From a fishing point of view, it does not get any simpler than that.

However, the next fish I caught that same afternoon on my no-frills tackle was a blowfish. And to an overly curious 5-year-old boy, it was a fascinating creature to witness for the very first time. Blowfish go by several names — bottlefish, blow toads, northern puffer, sea squab, puffers, chicken of the sea, and a few other local monikers. No matter what you decide to call them, they are one of our oddest-looking fish, as well as one of our tastiest and most affordable. A mix of dark brown and pale orange on top with black, vertical tiger-like stripes, they have a prickly, pearly white underbelly that quickly expands when threatened. Unbeknownst to me at that time, blowfish also possess perfectly honed buckteeth. While eagerly playing with my newly discovered creature in my pail of water, my freshly captured friend must have tired and lost patience with my intruding hand and decided to take a bite of my right index finger. I can’t recall if I yelped in surprise, pain, or fear, but I quickly learned a lesson that day on that long-gone pier. Blowfish may be adorably cute to look at, but they clearly don’t tolerate probing fingers all too well.

Blowfish run in cycles. Back in the 1960s and ’70s, the waters of just about every bay and cove teemed with blowfish in all sizes. I still recall a story told by my mother of my grandfather catching 67 blowfish off that old dock one day. That’s a lot of fish cleaning for sure. By the 1980s, they became scarce and were hard to find on a consistent basis. Over the past five years or so, they have made a solid and welcome comeback to our local waters.

“Up until three years ago, I rarely sold a blow toad rig,” said Sebastian Gorgone of Mrs. Sam’s Bait and Tackle in East Hampton. “Now I can hardly keep them in stock. The action in and around the commercial dock in Three Mile Harbor has been particularly good since May. It’s great to see so many around these days.”

Over at Tight Lines Tackle in Sag Harbor, Ken Morse recommends small pieces of squid or clam as the bait of choice to put a catch together. “Smaller, long shanked hooks are best,” said Morse, who noted that Long Beach on the southern end of Noyac Bay is one of the most productive local areas to try.  “And if you are casting from the beach, there is no reason to cast your bait that far off either. The fish are in close to shore.”

Preferring to call them bottlefish, Harvey Bennett, owner of the Tackle Shop in Amagansett for 37 years, has witnessed the peaks and valleys of the species over a number of decades. “Bottlefish are all over the bays right now, as well as the hangar dock in Fort Pond Bay,” he said. “And they are really big too.”

No time to catch a blowfish? Not to worry, as many of our local seafood markets now have them. At Stuart’s Seafood Market in Amagansett, a healthy supply of blowfish can usually be found in their ice-cold display case starting in spring, courtesy of local pound trap fishermen. And compared to other fish, the savory tail meat sections are usually the cheapest on display, rarely reaching more than $15 a pound. A great treat for those in the know.

Beyond the great blowfish run, fluke and striped bass fishing remains strong out in Montauk. Porgies and sea bass are also in great supply. 

Farther offshore, the action for sharks, in particular threshers, has been particularly strong as more than 20 were weighed in on Saturday alone on the various docks of our easternmost port. Bluefin and yellowfin tuna activity has also perked up as well.

Back at the Tackle Shop, Bennett proclaimed the porgy fishing was off the charts. “There is some mighty fine porgy fishing off of Promised Land and Napeague, along with some fluke,” he beamed. “If you want sea bass, try off of Eastern Plains Point. Fishing has been good there. And snappers are snapping baits everywhere too.” Bennett was also enthused about the improved freshwater fishing scene. “Some cooler temperatures got the largemouth bass feeding at Fort Pond in Montauk too.” Bennett suggests trying a yellow popper or night crawlers for optimal results.

Action on the ocean beaches has been a bit quiet, but Bennett did note that a customer from Australia on holiday hooked and released a six-foot stingray while fishing clams, before landing a nice, 37-inch striped bass. Some good eats for the barbie there. 

We welcome your fishing tips, observations, and photographs at [email protected]. You can find the “On the Water” column on Twitter at @ehstarfishing.

Two Montauk restaurants that are allegedly transformed into nightclubs after dinner hours are feeling the heat this week, with East Hampton Town officials going to the State Supreme Court for injunctions to force them to operate according to the zoning code, which allows them to be restaurants only, and to limit the size of their crowds.

Both Ruschmeyer’s and Grey Lady have allegedly been removing dining tables and chairs to morph into nightclubs.

The town board on Tuesday authorized Michael Sendlenski, the town attorney, to seek a restraining order against Ruschmeyer’s. Over the weekend, close to 200 people were found partying in a cleared-out dining room with a legal occupancy limit of 48, Mr. Sendlenski said Tuesday.

The restaurant’s application for an outdoor gathering permit over the weekend had been denied, but it held the event anyway, Mr. Sendlenski said, setting up a bar for patrons outside.

Last week, State Supreme Court Judge Elizabeth Emerson issued a temporary restraining order against Grey Lady, on the harbor at West Lake Drive, which has been cited several times this summer for overcrowding. The town is now seeking a permanent injunction “to enforce a use pursuant to the zoning code,” Mr. Sendlenski said Monday, and was seeking a contempt charge against the landlords. A return to court is scheduled for Aug. 24.

The court order issued last week precludes the business and property owners from operating a nightclub and specifies that it may only be used as a restaurant; indoor occupancy is capped at 68.

The terms mirror those imposed by a judge two years ago when a different restaurant, known as the Harbor Raw Bar and Lounge, or the Harbor, was doing business there. Ordinance enforcement officers and fire marshals that summer shut down the place on busy nights, when as many as 300 patrons had been admitted. A temporary restraining order was issued.

The owner of the property, at 440 West Lake Drive, remains the same — a limited liability corporation called Spiritoso.

The town’s requests for court orders to force the restaurants to operate as permitted follow another appearance in Supreme Court by East Hampton attorneys cracking down on violations of the town code.

 On July 26, East Hampton officials moved against Tinder Select, an exclusive, members-only branch of the app-based dating site, which was using a private oceanfront residence in Montauk for its soirées. Commercial uses of private residences are prohibited.

The request prompted lawyers for Tinder Select to negotiate an agreement with the town through which illegal use of the property would cease. Tinder had reportedly rented the house for the month of July.

The disconnect between the science of and policy on climate change in the United States, particularly in the Trump era, will be the subject of a Hamptons Institute panel talk Tuesday at Guild Hall.

The 7 p.m. program, “Climate Change in a New Environment,” will be introduced by the actor Alec Baldwin. The panelists are Rhea Suh, president of the Natural Resources Defense Council, Alex Soros, the founder of the Alexander Soros Foundation, and Naomi Oreskes, professor of the history of science and affiliated professor of earth and planetary sciences at Harvard University. David E. Rattray, the editor of The East Hampton Star, will moderate the conversation.

Tickets are $25, $23 for Guild Hall members. Mr. Baldwin will host a reception with the panelists with informal discussion afterward at the Maidstone Hotel, for which tickets are $500.

Ms. Oreskes was featured in the Sony Classics documentary “Merchants of Doubt,” which was based on a book she co-authored about how industry sympathizers have used classic tools of propaganda to spread confusion about everything from toxic chemicals to climate change. Her 2014 book, “The Collapse of Western Civilization: A View From the Future,” imagined the year 2393 and the planet unrecognizable due to soaring temperatures, sea level rise, and widespread drought.

Mr. Soros’s foundation helps fund cutting-edge social justice and educational organizations around the world. These include Global Witness, which aims to counteract natural resource exploitation and poverty, and the Rainforest Foundation, which supports front-line environmental defenders in Panama, Peru, and Guyana.

Under Ms. Suh’s leadership, the Natural Resources Defense Council has continued to be a guiding force in pressing for remedies to climate change, including helping steer high-level talks that led to the Paris climate agreement, which President Trump has said he will scrap. She was formerly assistant secretary for policy, management, and budget in the Department of the Interior under President Obama.

Other programs in the Hamptons Institute series this month will be “The Trump Presidency and the Constitution” on Aug. 14 and “The New Normal in News: Ideology vs. Fact” on Aug. 21.

“It is no crime to kill a person here with a motor,” Ruth Gordon Stratton of East Hampton wrote home in 1917 from war-torn France, where she was helping to run a Red Cross field station. “They only arrest the corpse for obstructing the traffic but to run over a dog is a terrible thing . . .”

The passage is from a hitherto unknown letter, part of a 97-year-old collection called “East Hampton in World War I.” As of this week, its poignant accounts of the brutal “war to end all wars,” written by young soldiers and nurses who grew up on the tranquil South Fork, can be read with just a few clicks on a computer, thanks to the East Hampton Town Historic Records Project, a collaboration between the town and the East Hampton Library’s Long Island Collection that has scanned and preserved a trove of rare archival materials.

The project — covering the years 1649 to the mid-1950s and including many functions of town government, from minutes of ancient trustee meetings to “records of overseers of the poor,” “notices to become citizens,” “enrollment of persons liable to military duty 1864,” even chronicles of cattle earmarks — began with mold.

In January 2015 there was a serious mold outbreak in the old Town Hall. “Larry Cantwell told me that all the town’s archives were there,” recalled Steve Boerner, a Long Island Collection archivist. “Carole [Brennan, the town clerk] and I quarantined everything. We got a document-remediation company to come in and they fumigated and cleaned up. We wrapped some stuff in Saran Wrap and stored it in the new building.”

Town Supervisor Cantwell and Ms. Brennan agreed with Mr. Boerner that “protective action,” as Andrea Meyer, another Long Island Collection archivist, put it, should be taken. The oldest, moldiest, and most fragile materials were sent to the temperature-controlled Long Island Collection, on loan from the town, to be digitized and catalogued.

“I will get them back when I have a safe place to store them,” Ms. Brennan said Tuesday. “I like to sleep at night.”

The library is paying for the scanning, which took Mr. Boerner and Ms. Meyer, assisted by Lexie D’Attile and Sara Spataro, a little over two years. At the beginning, Ms. Meyer said, “We had to figure out what we even had here.”

Much of the material scanned — the records of town trustee meetings, for example — already existed in book form. But among the crumbling piles, said Mr. Boerner, “I identified three volumes that have never been published, manuscript volumes containing significant material.” Even one unpublished colonial document “could be vital to our understanding of our history here,” he said. “If it was never published, then the information in it is brand-new.”

He estimated that 95 percent of “what’s possibly out there” has now been digitized. “It’s a win-win situation,” Mr. Boerner said.

It surely is. The town preserves irreplaceable history, the Long Island Collection augments its already impressive reputation as a destination for professional and amateur researchers, scholars, historians, and students of local genealogy, and the public has a new website to get lost in on a rainy day.

Click on easthamptonlibrary.org/long-island-history/digital-long-island, then click East Hampton Town Historic Records.

Separately, the town has embarked on its own scanning project, which will eventually make most of its records of interest to the public available online. Becky Rahn, the receiver of taxes, said her department’s records are almost all there already. Ann Glennon, who heads the Building Department, said she has about 15,000 building permits remaining to be scanned out of 60,000, going back to 1957, when zoning was enacted.

“They started with my department because I had the oldest files,” Ms. Glennon said. “They began in 2015, then there was a lull, now they’re going full steam . . . this project is awesome.”

The Springs School Board has decided to tear up the asphalt covering a play area in order to "assess what is going on with our [septic] system, as well as determine what the dollar amount will be for repairs," Superintendent Debra Winter announced this morning at a special meeting of the board.

The school's septic system has been non-functioning since April and has had to be pumped out every 10 days.

Its architect of record, BBS Architects and Engineers, and Laser Industries, an excavation and clearing company, will begin excavating leaching pools on Tuesday, starting, said Ms. Winter, "with pools closest to the school."

Preliminary assessments performed by BBS and Lombardo Associates, an environmental consulting and engineering firm called in to assess the issue, found that several pools marked on the original site map can no longer be located.

Laser Industries is on the county list as recommended excavators and has worked on the Sag Harbor schools, according to Michael Henery, the school’s business administrator. They "come in like gangbusters" to open up the area to make an assessment, "then leave it looking better than before," Mr. Henery said.

"They have promised to do it in the least costly manner," Ms. Winter said. According to the school's attorney, the work is considered "an ordinary contingent expense and should not exceed $130,000."

If excavation results indeed prove that the school has a failed system, Ms. Winter said the course of action would be to "close it up and continue pumping until we get all the right approvals and permits."

Kim Shaw, East Hampton Town's environmental protection director, who was at the meeting, expressed dismay at the board's decision. "By definition, their system has already failed," she said. "Suffolk County's guidelines state that if you are pumping weekly, the system has failed. I understand that they feel the need to be cautious, but I hope they don't go over $130,000 only to determine they need to keep pumping, which is something they are not supposed to be doing."

New York State Senator Kenneth P. LaValle and State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., will be at the Springs School on Monday at 3 p.m. to learn first-hand about the septic system issues and the school's pending capital improvement project.

Correction: This has been edited and a headline changed to clarify that school officials intend to excavate under an asphalt play area, not the play area and a driveway. In addition, a quote in the original version of this article was incorrectly attributed to the superintendent, rather than the district's business administrator. 

Southampton Town police announced today the arrests of two men last Thursday on multiple felony charges related to the alleged dealing of heroin.

Xavier Gee, 30, of Southampton, and Sebastian DeMartini, also 30, of East Hampton were arrested by the East End Drug Task Force, which combines detectives and officers from various law enforcement departments on the East End, under the direction of District Attorney Thomas Spota. Police described the investigation as "long-term." 

The two are accused of dealing narcotics in Southampton Town. Mr. Gee was charged with two counts of criminal sale of a controlled substance in the third degree. Mr. DeMartini was charged with possession of a narcotic with intent to sell, as well as possession of a narcotic.

They were arraigned on Friday in Southampton Town Justice Court. Bail was set for Mr. Gee at $2,000, and Mr. DeMartini at $20,000. Mr. Gee posted bail and was released. Mr. DeMartini did not immediately post bail and was taken to the county jail. He has since been released from custody, according to jail records.

In Bridgehampton, a bicyclist was seriously injured when he was struck by a van on Friday, July 28, Southampton Town police said. Lt. Susan Ralph did not provide information on how the accident occurred, and detectives are investigating. It happened on Hayground Road, near Windmill Lane, at about 4 p.m.

Philibert Selmi, 38, of Bridgehampton was on the bicycle. The 2008 Ford van that hit him was driven by Inshane Armogen, 45, of Ozone Park, Queens. The driver was not issued any citations, Lieutenant Ralph said.

Members of the Bridgehampton Fire Department treated Mr. Selmi at the scene, and the ambulance transported him to the ball field at the Bridgehampton Firehouse, where a medevac helicopter landed and took him to Stony Brook University Hospital. As of yesterday, he was listed in critical condition.

A mosquito collected in East Hampton on July 26 has tested positive for West Nile virus, Suffolk County health officials announced on Friday.

The mosquito in East Hampton was one of 22 collected by the county that day to test positive for West Nile. While no humans have tested positive for West Nile virus in the county this year, 44 cases have been confirmed in mosquitoes, as well as in three birds. This year to date, no horses have tested positive.

This is only the third time since 2010 that a mosquito collected in East Hampton has tested positive for West Nile. The first was collected in August 2010; the second in August 2014.

News of the positive test in East Hampton comes as the town trustees, in conjunction with the vector control division of the county's Public Works Department and Legislator Bridget Fleming, enact a trial program that they hope will allow reduced and more targeted application of methoprene, a mosquito larvicide.

The county routinely applies methoprene via helicopter over marshlands in the Town of East Hampton including Accabonac Harbor, Napeague, and Beach Hampton, and at other sites across Suffolk. This week, the county was set to spray

At Accabonac Harbor and Napeague on Tuesday, weather permitting, and at Jagger Lane in eastern Southampton Town.

Methoprene's use is controversial, with vector control officials insisting it is safe but many others believing it harms nontarget species, including crustaceans. Town officials have often called for its elimination.

Under the trial program, interns from Stony Brook University and officials from the town's Natural Resources Department are sampling water from Accabonac Harbor to quantify mosquito larvae. Sample sites are recorded using global positioning system devices. Areas are to be treated based on analysis of the samples.

Sampling was taking place on Monday, with Tyler Armstrong of the trustees accompanying those conducting the work, according to Bill Taylor, a deputy clerk of the trustees. Mr. Taylor said on Monday that vector control officials are dropping a granulated form of methoprene via helicopter, rather than the typical aerial spraying, to more precisely target areas of concern and control the larvicide's drift. "We're taking incremental, small steps with vector control," he said, "trying to find alternative methods of taking care of it without mass spraying. . . . But it's still poison. . . . It still kills baby fish."

"The idea is that more testing, on a regular basis, will give them more accurate information as to what's going on," Francis Bock, the trustees' presiding officer, told his colleagues in June. Should conditions allow it, he said, methoprene application can be more accurately applied, "and they may be able to use a lower dose of the methoprene in the process." The Nature Conservancy, which owns land around Accabonac Harbor, has allowed the program on its property, Mr. Bock said.

In addition to the mosquito confirmed to carry West Nile virus in East Hampton, the other mosquitoes reported on Friday were collected in Oakdale, Stony Brook, Port Jefferson Station, Selden, Holtsville, Ridge, Lindenhurst, Copiague, West Babylon, Huntington, Greenlawn, Huntington Station, Nesconset, Commack, Smithtown, and Bay Shore.

"The confirmation of West Nile virus in mosquito samples or birds indicates the presence of West Nile virus in the area," James Tomarken, the county health commissioner, said in a statement issued on Friday. "While there is no cause for alarm, we advise residents to cooperate with us in our efforts to reduce the exposure to the virus, which can be debilitating to humans."

According to Dr. Tomarken, most people infected with West Nile virus will experience mild or no symptoms, but some can develop severe symptoms including high fever, headache, neck stiffness, stupor, disorientation, coma, tremors, convulsions, muscle weakness, vision loss, numbness, and paralysis. Symptoms may last several weeks, and neurological effects may be permanent.

Individuals, especially those 50 years of age or older, or those with compromised immune systems, have been urged to take precautions to avoid being bitten by mosquitoes. Residents have been advised to minimize outdoor activities between dusk and dawn; wear shoes and socks, long pants, and long-sleeved shirts when mosquitoes are active; use mosquito repellent, following label directions carefully; make sure all windows and doors have screens, and that all screens are in good repair, and keep mosquitoes from laying eggs inside and outside of residences.

Containers that hold water, such as vases, pet water bowls, flowerpot saucers, discarded tires, buckets, pool covers, birdbaths, trash cans, and rain barrels should be emptied and scrubbed, turned over, covered, or thrown out at least once a week.

The county offers an informational brochure called "Get the Buzz on Mosquito Protection," available in English and Spanish at suffolkcountyny.gov.

Dead birds may indicate the presence of West Nile virus in the area. The public has been asked to report dead birds by calling the county's public health information line at 631-787-2200, Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Residents have been encouraged to take a photograph of any bird in question.

Those wishing to report mosquito problems or stagnant pools of water have been asked to call the Department of Public Works' Vector Control division at 631-852-4270.

West Nile virus, first detected in birds and mosquito samples in Suffolk County in 1999 and again each year thereafter, is transmitted to humans by the bite of an infected mosquito.