When you go into the woods with Marguerite Wolffsohn, your vision starts to change. At first look, the view through tall pines and oaks and spindly sassafras trees into bright spaces where the sun reaches open ground, covered with grass, is a pleasing sight.

But then Ms. Wolffsohn describes her more knowledgeable view: The small plants under the trees are primarily huckleberry or ferns, plants that deer don’t much like. Look for the sapling trees and variety of young shrubs that should fill the mid-layer under the trees, and there is nothing much to see.  There is leafy vegetation above a certain height and wide open space where a dense understory should be.

It is not that Ms. Wolffsohn, East Hampton Town’s planning director and a longtime nature observer here, wants to diminish anyone’s enjoyment of a forest stroll. Just the opposite. She cares passionately about the forest ecosystem, all of it, and wants to insure the health of all of the elements that keep it in balance, from the soil where seedlings take root, to the understory of native shrubs and small trees, to the established pines whose lower limbs are being stripped of leaves by munching deer.

All of it — the soil microbes and insects, the berries and nuts and seeds and leaves — supports the birds, reptiles, and mammals that together need, and feed, a healthy, balanced ecosystem.

The deer are herbivores that eat just about anything in the woods. A full-grown deer of 100 pounds, Ms. Wolffsohn said, eats five to nine pounds of vegetation a day. “That’s a lot of leaves, because they don’t weigh a lot,” said Andy Gaites of the town’s land management department, another guide on a recent afternoon forest tour.

Ms. Wolffsohn points to the difference, at deer-mouth height, between the abundance of plants at various levels of the woods. The damage is already obvious and widespread, she says. Ms. Wolffsohn, along with Mr. Gaites, supports what they see as the only viable option to reverse the damage: increased hunting.

A town deer management plan calls for that, among other things, and steps have already been taken to facilitate it, such as opening up more land to hunters.

Mr. Gaites walks down a trail to an area pinpointed on a global  positioning system and marked by a wooden stake in the ground. A patch of woods there is one of eight study areas from Wainscott to Montauk that are being monitored to gauge the health of the forest. “We’re trying to show some of the damage in a scientific way,” he said. This is the second season the areas are being tracked, and comparisons will be made.

“You’re watching specific spots of seedlings to see if they can grow,” says Ms. Wolffsohn. “But aside from that, just take a look at the woods — a browse line is an indication that there’s just too many deer.”

If new trees, shrubs, and other plants are stripped of leaves or eaten entirely by deer as soon as they sprout, then the ongoing cycle of forest regeneration will halt, and areas like those observed on a recent forest tour will revert to open, meadow-type swaths.

“The acorns that drop from that tree,” Ms. Wolffsohn says, pointing at an oak, “there should be some of that.” But no oak saplings are growing below the tree. Mr. Gaites says there “should be at least 10 seedlings” coming up in the area around a healthy sassafras tree. “We had a hard time finding any.”

“When you see the grass in the woods returning, it’s not a healthy thing,” Ms. Wolffsohn says. “It’s not a meadow.”

Natural tangles of cat briar are important, as they provide nesting areas and food for forest songbirds. “Reduce the number and variety of sizes of plants like that, you’re going to reduce the number of species — birds, especially. It’s just wrong. It’s simplifying the habitat.”

If the impact of deer were reduced, the makeup of plants in the study plots would begin to change, and diversity return, Mr. Gaites believes. The deer have begun to browse on what he calls “stuffing food,” plants that are not preferred, but that are nonetheless beginning to show signs of being eaten: pines, beeches, red cedar. Those huckleberries — the only thing in lots of areas providing a green cover on the forest floor — could well be next.

Driving along Old Stone Highway in Springs, Ms. Wolffsohn turns her trained gaze out the window. “The leaves should be down to the ground,” she says, eyeing a stretch of woods. “The red maple, the tupelo, the sweet pepperbush should be thick under there.”

Deep into the Grace Estate, a 500-acre preserve in Northwest, there is a place Mr. Gaites and Ms. Wolffsohn have been watching, where a tall deer fence erected by residents adjacent to a preserve creates a stark line between one type of woods and another. Look through the fence onto the private land, and the lower levels of the forest are crowded, chock full of green. Goldenrod, low-bush blueberry, sumac, bittersweet, summer grape, and Virginia creeper are growing. Turn to the left, and the unprotected public land looks sparse by comparison.  “It looks like somebody just cleared it yesterday,” Ms. Wolffsohn says.

In a 2014 report that is posted on the town website, Thomas J. Rawinski of the United States Forest Service, who took a similar tour of East Hampton’s woods, writes of observing “jaw-dropping deer impacts.” He called the sight “shocking, even to me.”

“We were witnessing deer-induced forest disintegration,” he said of the Grace Estate. “Unless the deer population can be brought into balance, the forest will continue to disintegrate.”

A number of other studies from forest ecologists across the country document the same issues. “It’s not just here, it’s the entire Northeast that has this problem, because we don’t have the predators” for deer, Ms. Wolffsohn says. “Like everything in ecology, it’s complicated.”

But, she says,  “We’re hoping that the more people understand how bad the problem is, the more they’ll be willing to help with the solution.”

Not all are convinced. Bill Crain, the founder and head of the East Hampton Group for Wildlife, which is strictly opposed to an increase in hunting and advocates nonlethal deer management strategies instead, said this week that town officials should objectively evaluate what is occurring in the woods before setting deer policies.

At a forum sponsored by his group in June, he said, the town’s former natural resources director, Larry Penny, contended that deer have not significantly harmed the understory. There are other factors, Mr. Penny said, such as trees that inhibit growth beneath them.

An East Hampton Town rental registry law has been honed and is being readied for a hearing, probably next month. The hearing will provide an opportunity for members of the public to give their opinions on the draft legislation to the town board.

East Hampton Town Board members got an earful at two previous hearings on an earlier draft law — almost exclusively against a requirement that property owners who want to rent their houses would have to register with the town.

Officials are moving forward nonetheless to answer a call for better enforcement of housing statutes as residents continue to complain about short-term rentals, share houses, and overcrowded housing in their neighborhoods.

A new draft rental registry law was developed in response to previous public comments, Michael Sendlenski, a town attorney, and Councilwoman Kathee Burke-Gonzalez said last week.

The information kept on file in the registry about rental properties in the town would include the number of legal bedrooms and the number of legal occupants in a house based on bedroom square footage, according to state law.

Landlords would have to provide information about their tenants — the number, not their names — as well as about rental periods.

Should it appear that properties are being used outside of the town code bounds, this would provide a “more expedient manner of getting compliance,” Mr. Sendlenski said earlier this week, making it easier for enforcement agents to prove overoccupancy or other infractions, such as repeated short-term rentals.

The draft law includes a list of “presumptive evidence” that could be presented to the court — the number of mattresses observed in a bedroom to prove overoccupancy, for example.

To obtain a registry number, property owners would have to verify that their properties meet certain standards.

The new draft law eliminates the potential for a property inspection by town officials before a registry number is issued. Instead, property owners will be given a checklist of New York State property maintenance code requirements and will be asked to certify, with a notarized signature, that the various safety items are in place.

Included among the 22 items are smoke and carbon monoxide detectors, proper pool fencing, and stairway handrails.

The rental registry would be administered by the Building Department, which would provide data on individual properties to the Ordinance Enforcement Department, as needed.

Property owners would be required to include registry numbers in rental ads, with a fine of up to $1,500 for not doing so.

Other violations of the rental registry law could incur a minimum fine of $3,000 and a maximum of $15,000, with the fine reaching as high as $30,000 for a second violation within 18 months. Tenants of unregistered premises would also be subject to fines.

Under the proposal, new registration numbers would be required every two years and would cost $250. Property owners would have to file updates, at $25 each, whenever a new rental period begins or tenancy changes.

The board discussion drew residents both for and against the rental registry to the work session last week.

After further town board review, a hearing is expected to be scheduled for a date next month.

Parents of second-grade Springs School students asked the district to hire teaching assistants for their children’s classrooms at a school board meeting on Oct. 5. The request is the result of the fact that there are three second-grade classrooms this year while there were four sections of first grade last year.

The move has resulted in larger class sizes, with each section at 24 or 25 students instead of around 20. At the same time, while each first-grade classroom had a teacher and a teacher assistant, the second-grade classrooms do not have that second teacher.

“This is a really crucial year, and we’re asking you to put assistants in all three sections. We really need help,” Laura Petscheitis, a parent of a second grader and a fifth grader, told the school board.

Eric Casale, the school principal, said earlier in the meeting that he was working on a plan to schedule an existing staff member for a few extra periods per week in each of the second-grade classes. But, reached by phone after the meeting, Ms. Petscheitis said she didn’t think that would be enough “to cover the job that needs to be done.”

“These are kids who just learned to read and just learned to write,” she said. “They’re trying to do small group reading. If you’ve got one group with four or five students, the teacher also has to manage the rest of the classroom.”

Tony Long, another parent, also told the school board more support was necessary for second- grade classrooms. “It’s tough, it always comes down to money,” he said. “Please do what you can.”

Ilaine Bickley, a second-grade teacher, also asked the school board for more support. “This is my 18th year teaching here. One thing that hasn’t changed in 18 years is studies that show if there’s a gap after second grade it doesn’t go away,” she said, referring to students who fall behind in reading or math. The bottom line, she said, “is we need full-time assistants in the second-grade classrooms.” .

After the meeting, another parent, Stacey Pitts, whose oldest son is in Mrs. Bickley’s class, said she believes “there are just too many in one classroom” for one teacher. “My son tells me it’s busy. It’s a little hectic. Not in the sense that Mrs. Bickley isn’t doing her job . . . she’s just wonderful, but she’s just one person.”

 Mr. Casale pointed out last week that the second-grade classes are within the range the school board has identified as the target size during the most recent budget process — 25 students, even though class sizes were around 20 students in the past. He also said there was no room in the building, he said, to split the second-grade classes into four sections.

He added that he believes a floating teacher between the three classes will help. “If that doesn’t work then I will go back to the board, and the board will either stay with the course of action we have or they’ll look to make a change,” Mr. Casale said.

“It’s their budget. I can only make a recommendation. In an ideal world, I’d like to keep the student-teacher ratio as small as possible, but that’s not my call at this point.”

Financial filings with the New York State Board of Elections indicate that roughly three-quarters of the money raised by East Hampton Republicans since June has come from businesses and individuals with ties to the town’s airport.

Of the $79,000 raised by Republicans this reporting cycle, at least $58,200 came from helicopter companies and their backers or people with connections to the airport. The most recent campaign finance disclosures were due on Oct. 2; more recent contributions will not appear until after a filing date at the end of next week.

Town Democrats said they raised just over $95,000 during the same period.

HeliFlite Shares of Newark, N.J., was listed as contributing $5,000, as was MVRE, which shares the same Newark address. HeliFlite is among a group suing the Town of East Hampton hoping to overturn new noise-control measures.

The company provides charter helicopter service, including to East Hampton Airport. In 2013, its chief executive officer, Kurt Carlson, told Business Insider that a five-person trip from Newark to East Hampton would cost upward of $3,000 for the 40-minute ride.

HeliFlite has been tied through a New York attorney to the appearance last week of anti-Democratic-candidate door hangers being distributed by hired workers. The East Hampton Leadership Council, which said it was responsible for the effort, and gives an apartment address in New York City, has yet to file campaign finance disclosures.

Another big donor to the East Hampton Republicans was David Heller of Manhattan, a retired Goldman Sachs executive who gave $10,000. He is a member of HeliFlite’s board of directors.

During a debate Tuesday night sponsored by the League of Women Voters, Tom Knobel, the Republican Committee chairman who is running for supervisor, said that aviation interests “do not think the town is acting in good faith. They want to talk with someone who they think has an open mind.”

He also said that David Gruber, a one-time supervisor candidate himself and airport activist, had contributed more than $300,000 to the Democrats over the years.

In a phone interview yesterday, Mr. Gruber said that the money had overwhelmingly been spent on his own 2001 campaign for supervisor.

“The message is pretty clear that they want to elect a slate that will do their bidding,” Kathleen Cunningham, the director of the Quiet Skies Coalition, said yesterday. “It’s a little terrifying. It’s a lot of money.”

“Tom Knobel’s support of the aviation interests has always been very clear,” she said. The Republicans, she said, “want to take Federal Aviation Administration funding and lift the town’s restrictions on when loud aircraft can use it.”

According to the Democrats’ most recent disclosure, which covers July 12 through Sept. 28, the actor Alec Baldwin was among top donors to their Campaign 2015, contributing $5,000. Mr. Baldwin has a house in Amagansett and has been active in local preservation efforts and Democratic campaigns. He is a founder of the East Hampton Conservators, a political action committee that has overwhelmingly supported Democrats. Janet Ross of East Hampton gave $10,000.

Others giving large sums to the Democratic funds included Mr. Gruber, and Pat Trunzo, a former East Hampton Town councilman who has also been outspoken about airport noise.

Overall, Campaign 2015 accepted 130 individual contributions, as reported in the most recent filing. The Democrats’ other main fund had 33 individual contributions.

The East Hampton Town Republican Committee, the G.O.P.’s main fund-raising vehicle, listed 37 individual donations during the same period.

Margaret Turner, who is running for a seat on the East Hampton Town Board, accepted $1,000 each from Hampton Hangars of Wainscott as well as from two pilots who keep aircraft at the airport.

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To see campaign finance discosure reports of active committees supporting East Hampton candidates for the period of July 12 through Sept. 28, click on the links below. Committees not listed reported no activity for that period.

Campaign 2015 (Democrats)

East Hampton Town Democratic Committee

Friends of Larry Cantwell (Democrat)

East Hampton Town Republican Committee

Turner for Town Board (Margaret Turner, Republican)

Lisa Mulhern-Larsen (Republican candidate, East Hampton Town Board)

East Hampton Conservators (political action committee)

A panel including Southampton Town Supervisor Anna Throne-Holst, East Hampton Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell, and Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone addressed environmental issues at a standing-room-only forum sponsored by Concerned Citizens of Montauk at the Montauk Firehouse on Sunday.

The discussion was led by Jeremy Samuelson, the executive director of C.C.O.M., who said that when the community preservation fund was established in 1998, it was hoped it would cause a slowdown in building, which would help alleviate wastewater problems. However, he said, the condition has only worsened as a result of faulty septic systems. He was not alone in targeting septic systems as a major culprit of the deterioration of local waterways.

Mara Dias of the Eastern Long Island Chapter of Surfrider Foundation said the foundation, working with the Blue Water Task Force, monitors the waterways monthly. On a graph, she pointed out that nitrogen levels in local waters have risen extensively, especially during the week of Sept. 28 when all areas of Lake Montauk showed high levels caused by fertilizer runoff, as well as bacteria from animal and human feces and other pollutants from septic waste.

failing septic systems,” she said.

Algal blooms have affected ponds townwide more this year than before. Mr. Samuelson said that with 68 percent of Montauk preserved for open space and zoning laws to protect fragile areas, the East End is better off than some other areas but that more needs to be done.

He asked Mr. Bellone, who is running for re-election, how it was possible for the county to monitor the East End when 85 percent of his constituents live in western Suffolk. The county executive answered that he has a regional approach, encourages interaction, advice, and collaboration with communities, and uses specific resources for implementation. “I look at the county and consider what is right for all of it,” he said.

All of the speakers agreed that the East End’s septic systems need to be overhauled. Mr. Cantwell, who is seeking re-election this year, said he would encourage people to monitor their own systems, and added that septic inspections should occur whenever a property is sold. The town, he said, should offer incentives to replace faulty systems, since replacement might not be affordable for everyone, with a funding source created.

To that end, Mr. Cantwell said he hopes the community preservation fund will be reinstated when it expires in 15 years, and he said he would like 20 percent of the fund earmarked for water quality improvement.

Ms. Throne-Holst, who hopes to run against Representative Lee Zeldin next year, said planning required resilience and diversity. She agreed that current septic systems can no longer handle more buildout. She would like a mapping system created that would highlight faulty systems, and an incubator for research and development of new technologies.

Mr. Cantwell agreed that better technology could accelerate the update of the septic systems and help take nitrogen out of the waterways.

Foster Maer, the senior litigation counsel of LatinoJustice, a New York City civil rights organization, has written East Hampton Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell asking for an investigation into Town Police handling of the death of 21-year-old Gabriela Armijos in September of last year. He is also hoping for something else: increased awareness by the Police Department of the needs of the local Latino community.

The department classified Ms. Armijos’s death as a suicide. She had disappeared on Saturday night, Sept. 27. She had moved to East Hampton six weeks earlier and was excited about her new home and new job, her family told Mr. Maer. When she did not show up for work that night, the family became worried and called the police.

According to Mr. Maer, the police declined to look for Ms. Armijos that night in the wooded area between Three Mile Harbor Road, where the family lived, and Springs-Fireplace Road, behind the One-Stop market, although the family said they suspected that was where she might be found. She had been missing for a time two days earlier, in those woods, the family told the organization.

Ms. Armijos was found dead hanging from a tree the next day. According to Mr. Maer, who spoke about the death yesterday, there were two sets of footprints, intermingled, in the woods.

The young woman had just broken up with a boyfriend she had met over the Internet, who had been reported to be harassing her. The family believed it possible that she was murdered. The police immediately classified the death as a suicide, Mr. Maer said, and did not treat the area as a crime scene. “They don’t really know,” Mr. Maer said about the family, “but there are all these indications” that someone else might have been involved in her death.

LatinoJustice had hired Dan Montgomery, a 53-year veteran of police work and a former police chief, to investigate the case. In a report, which was forwarded to Mr. Cantwell, Mr. Montgomery said the police had made numerous mistakes in their investigation.

Capt. Chris Anderson of the town police said yesterday that he had not seen the report, but he disparaged the criticism of the department’s handling of the case. “This matter was fully investigated,” he said, “in conjunction with the medical examiner’s office, and the case has been closed, noncriminal.”

East Hampton Town Police Chief Michael D. Sarlo declined to comment yesterday, citing the possibility of litigation. Asked about that possibility, Mr. Maer said, “We aren’t thinking about that, one way or the other.” The main focus, he said, was the family’s concerns.

“By bringing attention we are hoping there is a realization within the Police Department to treat all investigations equally.”

A contingent hoping to see increased opportunities for affordable housing in East Hampton Town rallied at Town Hall on Tuesday to express support for a proposed project in Wainscott that has been decried by the Wainscott School Board.

Speakers questioned why the town board had failed to throw its support behind the 48 affordable apartments for low-income residents that have been planned by the Windmill Village Housing Development Fund Corporation, which developed Windmill affordable housing complexes in East Hampton and the St. Michael’s senior citizens housing in Amagansett.

 The proposal is to site the housing on town acreage off Stephen Hand’s Path. Town officials, in the face of vociferous opposition by the Wainscott School Board, have not acted on a request to dedicate the land to the project.

“The whole town has a crisis in housing throughout,” Keith Kevan of Amagansett said at the town board’s Tuesday work session. “One of the basic human needs is not being addressed. A very bad precedent has been set in Wainscott, and I am very disappointed in the town board.”

 Mr. Kevan said he had polled 213 Wainscott business owners and citizens and found 74 percent in favor of the housing — “three to one for affordable housing and this particular project,” he said. “Wainscott needs to do its fair share. Everyone knows someone who needs housing in this town.”

Mr. Kevan noted that a town election is coming up, and said, “I have seen no evidence that this board cares about affordable housing one iota.”

Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell differed. “The board is making progress building real affordable housing,” he said. A cooperative development dubbed a manor house is under way in East Hampton, he said, and zoning changes were made to ease the way for apartments in business districts. He also pointed to a vote last week to back a bond issue for the East Hampton Housing Authority, which just revealed plans for an affordable housing complex in Amagansett. That project is reported on separately in today’s Star.

A community housing opportunity fund committee was reconstituted recently, Town Councilwoman Sylvia Overby pointed out, which has updated a housing plan last revised in 2005. Work on initiatives, such as fostering more accessory apartments in single-family residences, is ongoing, she added.

“A healthy community is one where everybody has an opportunity to live decently,” Kathy Engel, a Sagaponack resident, told the board. “I can’t imagine how we would not welcome an opportunity to make that possible for more people.”

“I’m bewildered; I’m wondering what the reasons are, what the problems are,” Tinka Topping, who was celebrating her 91st birthday that day, said about the lack of support for the Windmill proposal. “Why isn’t it possible to have low-income housing in Wainscott?” she asked. “We have to have it.”

Ms. Topping, a founder of the Hampton Day School who was also involved in the creation of the Hayground School in Bridgehampton, addressed the basis of objections to the affordable Wainscott housing, which centered on the ability of the Wainscott School to absorb new students.

“The issue of having the few kids that probably would go, if the housing was built; the issue of the school is a false issue,” she said. The real issue, she suggested, “is the resistance of people” to new residents of the community and a potential change in its demographics. “I would like to say . . . the more diversity there is in our community now — with all of the expansion of very wealthy people — the better,” Ms. Topping said. The audience applauded.

Town Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc acknowledged “a broad need” for affordable housing. “The most we can possibly do is what we should do,” he said. Of the Wainscott site, he said, “We haven’t ruled out that possibility at all.” But, he said, “It may not be moving forward as proposed by this particular group.”

Valencia George, another speaker, shared her own story with the board.  A native of Grenada, she has lived and worked in East Hampton for 20 years. An in-home caregiver, she has been unable to find an affordable apartment of her own and therefore has had to take only jobs that offer housing. A volunteer at the town senior citizens center, she said she hopes to find housing of her own “so that I can retire here and still contribute to East Hampton.”

The Springs School facilities committee on Monday stopped short of recommending a bond referendum to finance a capital project, as it previously appeared poised to do, and instead introduced suggestions that will cost the school district money without proposing a way to pay for them.

The committee developed a prioritized list of steps in a phased-in approach to solving the school’s space needs, presented during the school board meeting. First on the list was installing at least four modular classrooms by the beginning of the 2016-17 school year, so the students in the Springs Youth Association building and the existing portable classroom buildings, which are approximately 40 years old, can learn in better facilities that are closer to the main school building.

Next on the list was renovating the playgrounds to make them compliant with the federal Americans with Disabilities Act. After that, the committee said, the school district should tackle the list of renovations, repairs, and A.D.A. issues needed to strengthen the school’s infrastructure. That list totals about $3 million, according to documents provided in May to the facilities committee from BBS Architects and Engineers, the consultant that helped the committee come to its recommendation. The facilities committee’s fourth priority was adding a middle school gymnasium that could also be used as an auditorium.

“We didn’t decide on the amount of classrooms to add, but it was definitely a majority of the committee that decided we do need that space,” said Jodie Hallman, a teacher and committee member. “What that looks like we sort of stepped away from. We felt that the bigger plan had to come after the community saw the effort in getting the little things done.”

No price tag was attached to the committee’s recommendations. The facilities committee’s work was strictly on an advisory basis to the school board, meaning nothing is set in stone until the board finalizes its own plans.

However, the school board on Monday approved the transfer of $1.75 million to its capital reserve fund from last year’s school budget surplus. That is the reserve fund that was supposed to fund  the new parking lot and other campus improvements that the community voted down in May. That reserve fund now totals $3,751,000, according to Carl Fraser, the interim business administrator. Mr. Fraser said Tuesday that the reserve fund could theoretically be spent on modular classrooms and renovations in the future.

“Once the board has made a decision on how they would move ahead with the capital work, then this money that’s set up can be used with the approval of the voters for any capital work that is planned,” Mr. Fraser said. “It depends now on the total cost of whatever project is finally approved by the board. If a project for, say, $15 million is approved based on the work that’s planned out, certainly the $3.7 million in the capital fund will offset the need to borrow all of the monies that the capital work isprojected to cost.”

Some of the facilities committee members said they would like to keep meeting to continue the space needs discussion, as well as help the board communicate with the community at large.

“It would be important to include local experts who do not have a financial interest in the building and the design of those facilities,” Susan Harder, a committee member, said with reference to BBS Architects, which advised the committee while concurrently submitting a bid in response to a request for proposals that called for ideas from architects and engineers.

“We would highly recommend that the school board continue this committee and add qualified volunteers who live in the town, and preferably in Springs, to consult with and advise the board,” Ms. Harder said, specifying the committee could use the help in the fields of landscape, construction, architecture, planning, maintenance, environmental issues, and other areas “particular to our town.”

Ms. Harder also said the committee suggested making School Street a one-way or no-through street during school hours from Sand Lot toward Old Stone Highway, and suggested adding more parking spaces off of School Street in such a way that parking in front of people’s houses is prohibited.

In the bigger picture, Ms. Harder said, “It may be useful to consider a consolidated seventh and eighth-grade school for Amagansett, Springs, and Montauk to further avoid overcrowding and located in a less sensitive area.”

Even as storm-force winds blew across Montauk last week, sending waves high up onto the downtown beach where a line of sandbags covered with excavated sand is slated for construction by the Army Corps of Engineers, project contractors set up shop with a trailer at Montauk’s Kirk Park parking lot.

Opponents of the project — members of Defend H2O, a local environmental organization, the local Surfrider chapter, and several Montauk individuals — who sued in May to stop the reinforced dune, were denied an immediate restraining order last Thursday. They say the project will destroy the beach and remain hopeful for a court order that would halt the work, which is slated to begin after the Columbus Day holiday.

The lawsuit challenges the project as outside the bounds of East Hampton’s local waterfront revitalization project plan, which outlaws hard structures on the ocean beach. It is before Judge Arthur D. Spatt at Eastern District Federal Court.

Last week Judge Spatt transferred the request for an injunction to keep the project from moving forward while the lawsuit is adjudicated to Judge Anne Shields for determination.

The Army Corps and the town were to submit their argument to the court by today; the plaintiffs — East Hampton Town, New York State, and the Army Corps — have until tomorrow to respond.

As the start of construction looms, the downtown Montauk beach — where the 15-foot-tall artificial dune will stretch for almost three-quarters of a mile, with slopes onto and off of the dune spanning a width of 105 feet — was almost completely wave-washed earlier this week, with only about 20 feet of sand between the water line and sand fencing at the toe of small dunes up against shorefront motel buildings.

A photo circulated by Thomas Muse, a Montauk resident who is among those suing, showed the water on the downtown beach during the stormy end of last week practically at the natural dune. “Today this garden variety nor’easter has the ocean occupying the space where the wall is supposed to go. How is that going to work?” he asked on Facebook.

Mr. Muse also posted on Facebook a video and article about North Topsail Beach in North Carolina, where a sandbag wall has been installed. The article was written by Robert Young, a professor of coastal geology at Western Carolina University, who says the beach has been destroyed by the effect of the structure.

“This is a revetment,” Carl Irace, an East Hampton attorney representing the lawsuit plaintiffs, said this week. “This is the fundamental opposite of a dune. This is solid, 1.7-ton blocks.” Besides taking up the area of the beach, he said, the artificial dune will result in increased erosion.

“The beach is everyone’s resource,” he said.

The commisssioners of the Springs Fire District came under a barrage of fire at a hearing before the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals Tuesday, concerning a cellphone tower erected behind the Springs Firehouse on Fort Pond Boulevard in April. The 150-foot-tall structure is owned by Elite Towers, which agreed to pay the fire district $18,000 a month in return for allowing it to use the tower for commercial antennas.

The hearing was on an appeal by the tower’s critics of building permits for the tower that Tom Preiato, then-chief building inspector, had issued in November of last year and again in Januuary. They charged that the building permits enabled the commissioners to bypass proper review. According to Anthony Pasca of Esseks, Hefter & Angel, a lawyer for the opponents, the permits were issued on the mistaken assumption that, because the land was owned by the fire district, the commissioners had governmental immunity and did not need to follow the site plan process.

“There is no such thing as blanket immunity,” Mr. Pasca said, telling board members that he wasn’t asking them to vote up or down on the tower, but to force the district to go through the normal planning process.

Much of the discussion Tuesday concerned what was called “the Monroe test,” which arose from a 1988 State Court of Appeals decision. The decision lays out a necessary balancing test when two governmental bodies are in conflict over a building. New York State provides the following guidance on its website: “When a local government, fire district, or fire company undertakes the construction of a firehouse within its own borders or within the boundaries of another municipal government, such construction may be subject to the requirements of the host municipality’s zoning.”

Saying the commissioners had side-stepped the balancing test, Mr. Pasca asked, “Why are they so hell-bent on going ahead? It’s about money. Elite is not doing this for fun.”

He also criticized the fact that the district, after the firestorm of opposition erupted, completed its own State Environmental Quality Review Act study, which, he said, ended up with a predictable finding that the tower would have minimal community impact. He added that the commissioners had failed to comply with requests under the Freedom of Information Act for the minutes of meetings at which the structure was discussed.

Among Springs residents who spoke was Jonathan Coven, who went to the podium with his wife and three children. “My family lives inside the fall zone,” he said. “All this was done with no publicity.” He concluded by saying, “Please enforce the law.”

“The tower just happened over­night,” Ana Nunez said. She complained that even though she is a member of the volunteer Fire Department, she knew nothing about plans for the tower.

Carl Irace, an attorney representing the district, and Patrick Glennon, the Springs Fire District’s chief commissioner, also addressed the board.

Mr. Glennon described the need for the tower. “Back in 2013, we were experiencing a lot of dead spots,” he said. “There are multiple dead spots in Springs,” saying the tower is not yet in use and calling it a “hollow tower.” He denied that the tower’s approval had occurred secretly. “We are elected by the general public,” he said. “Our meetings are open to the public.”

Mr. Irace noted that the commissioners hold meetings every second Monday of the month. However, he admitted that mistakes were made, with the SEQRA study happening after the fact. He said that the district had performed its own Monroe test. “My client got some bad advice, and made a mistake.”

Mr. Irace said that the commission had discussed the tower with the East Hampton Town Planning Department and members of the planning board. Mr. Pasca challenged that assertion, saying “There’s no record of this.”

At the end of the almost three-hour hearing, the record was kept open for one week, to allow the commission to forward its minutes to the board.