An international scam promising the electronic transfer of millions from the Central Bank of Nigeria roosted in East Hampton Village recently, when three local businesses received the bogus offerings.

Law enforcement agencies around the world have known of the scam for years, and the Nigerian bank periodically runs ads in major metropolitan papers warning people not to be taken in.

The 1770 House, Family Fun House, and I'm Puzzled all received letters last week offering them a percentage of an eight-figure fund if the business owners faxed back their bank account numbers and other information. None of the three was fooled but immediately handed the letters over to police.

Overseas Partner Sought

"Oh, yes. I might send them my bank account number," laughed Wendy Van Deusen, an owner of the 1770 House. She received a letter signed by a Dr. Marcus Adele of Lagos, the Nigerian capital, offering 30 percent of $21.5 million in return for becoming his overseas partner.

The writer said a former Nigerian Government had awarded contracts that were "grossly over-invoiced." Certain officials, including himself, he said, had found the slush funds in the Central Bank of Nigeria and wanted to use the money to import goods.

However, he wrote, the money was "trapped" inside Nigeria by a law that prohibits civil servants from handling it. The letter offered 30 percent of the fund as payment for the use of an overseas account to launder it through.

Same Deal, Different Details

Ms. Van Deusen said the letter bore a Nigerian stamp and was addressed to "House" at "143 East Main Street," an incorrect address.

The letters received by the owners of I'm Puzzled and Family Fun House offered essentially the same deal but with the details changed slightly.

John Brugger, a spokesman for the United States Postal Service in Washington, D.C., said all three letters were consistent with others handed over to postal inspectors.

Village Police Det. Lieut. Randall Sarris said his office had sent the letters to local postal inspectors.

Invitation To Nigeria

"A number of people have taken the bait and lost quite a bit of money," said Mr. Brugger. "There have even been a couple of million-dollar losers. Some have gone over to Nigeria and been strong-armed, and a few were sent scurrying for the border in their underwear."

Typically, a recipient who replies to a letter is invited to Nigeria to meet his "partners, including the Government officials who need to be bribed. Then they start squeezing you for a few bucks here and a few bucks there," said Mr. Brugger.

The Department of Justice has broached the subject with the Nigerian Government, but officials there have been indifferent, saying anyone who would buy into such a scheme "does not have clean hands themselves," said Mr. Brugger.

Hundreds of thousands of similar letters are thought to have been sent around the world - "a sort of cottage industry," he said.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation was called upon in 1995 when a virtually identical offer - again allegedly from the Nigerian Government - brought hundreds of similar letters to East Hampton.

If he could turn back the clock, there is one thing Anthony Lake, President Clinton's national security adviser, would handle differently during his time in the Clinton White House - Rwanda.

During a talk last Thursday on Rwanda, the Darfur region of Sudan, and the H.I.V./AIDS crisis in Africa, Mr. Lake reflected on America's response, or lack of response, to the 1994 genocide in Rwanda. The director Terry George, who lives in Noyac, opened the discussion, held at the Jewish Center of the Hamptons, by showing excerpts from his film, "Hotel Rwanda."

Mr. Lake, who was introduced as a new member of the community and a new member of the congregation, remembered visiting a church in Rwanda shortly after the spring 1994 genocide. The bodies of women and children had been left where they were slain and the courtyard was filled with still more bodies. "It was worse than anything I ever saw in Vietnam," Mr. Lake said.

More than 10 years later, he still asks himself, he said, "how anybody could have allowed this to happen. . . how I, because I loved Africa, could have allowed this to happen." At the time, he said, senior administration officials were absorbed with Bosnia and Haiti, and Rwanda was "even less than, horribly, a sideshow, it was a no-show."

There were no senior administration level meetings on the situation in Rwanda. "While I try to explain it, there can be no justification for what any of us did or did not do," Mr. Lake said. "I never asked him [Clinton] to make a meeting to intervene or not intervene, and that was wrong."

During that spring in Rwanda, nearly one million people were killed, mostly by machete-wielding Hutu extremists, as the United Nations and all the world's superpowers stood by.

"There was a national silence on this. . . . It all adds up to a horrible, horrible failure to act," Mr. Lake said, but added, "We earn the right to mourn our past mistakes by working to prevent future catastrophes like this."

Mr. Lake, who now chairs the United States fund for UNICEF, pointed to the ongoing violence in the Darfur region of Sudan, where some 400,000 people and counting have died in the past two years due to violence, hunger, or disease.

The international community is paying more attention to Darfur than it did to Rwanda, in part because of the lessons learned from Rwanda. "Nonetheless, this is a genocide that is going on," Mr. Lake said.

Citing figures from the Web site www.beawitness.org, Mr. Lake said that in the month of June only one of every 950 hours of television news was devoted to the genocide in Darfur. During the same period, there were 50 times as many news stories about Michael Jackson and 12 times as many stories about Tom Cruise.

One way to fight atrocities such as the one going on in Darfur now is "by bringing more attention to them and by providing money and support for the people out there working on them," Mr. Lake said.

As terrible as the genocide is, the greatest crisis of all in Africa is that of H.I.V./AIDS. Fifteen million of the 20 million people who have died worldwide from AIDS have been in Africa. "In Swaziland, you have an almost unimaginable situation, a Rwanda without machetes," Mr. Lake said. Half of the women in that country are infected with H.I.V./AIDS.

"When you see constant pictures of people starving in Ethiopia, people killing each other in Darfur, that becomes a caricature," he said. "That is not Africa. There are terrible things that are happening in Africa, but that is not Africa. Most Africans are not killing each other, not starving, not holding their hands out asking for help."

Still, there are many ways the international community can help in Africa, he said, because the Africans "want to help the situation as well."

There is a moral imperative to act, Mr. George said, but people should remember that their issues are our issues, too. Unrest, poverty, and disease in one area of the world always affects other areas of the world.

Mr. Lake spoke of the "banality of evil." It is sometimes hard to imagine, he said, that someone you can sit across the table from and get to know is capable of acting on the worst in their nature.

"Evil is a word I'm very frightened of, and not for the obvious reasons, because it's a two-edged sword," Mr. George said. "They're saying the same thing about us and what they do. . . most times more effectively, is demonize the opposition. You have to start from the premise that they don't start out as evil," so that you can get at the roots of violence and hatred. He pointed to last month's London bombers. "It's no use getting to the point where they get on the bus. . . you've got to stop them before they get on the bus."

"When people turn to evil, they must be opposed," Mr. Lake said. He says the United Nations needs to change its rules of engagement in Darfur to deal with the situation not as a civil war, but as a genocide, so it can protect the potential victims of violence before Darfur becomes another Rwanda.

With all the unrest and anger and poverty teeming in so many countries in Africa, it is an important region to watch, to be involved in, and to foster democracy in, Mr. George said. "Africa is up for grabs."

East Hampton baymen, fresh from yet another disappointment in their crusade to resurrect striped bass haul-seining, are accusing state officials of saying one thing in private and the opposite once the cameras begin rolling.

Accompanied by their high-profile spokesman, Billy Joel, baymen met privately in Quogue last week with state officials to discuss the current haul-seine policy, and apparently thought they had made some progress.

However, at a press conference that followed the meeting, State Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner John Cahill said his agency would probably not change its policy. The statement was seconded by Gordon Colvin, director of the D.E.C.'s Division of Marine Resources.

Just Set Nets?

Arnold Leo, secretary of the East Hampton Town Baymen's Association, warned Monday that the impasse could result in a new protest, meaning baymen might simply launch haul-seine dories and set nets for striped bass in defiance of the state.

Bradley Loewen, a director of the Baymen's Association, concurred. "There's been talk, frustration-type talk, about just going" seining, he said.

The use of haul seines for catching striped bass has been outlawed in New York State since 1990. The official reason for banning the centuries-old fishing technique was that it captured too many undersized bass.

Baymen, however, have always contended it was pressure from sportfishing groups and not environmental concerns that prompted the ban.

Baymen's Proposal

In their meeting with Commissioner Cahill, Mr. Joel and the baymen presented a proposal for a modified haul-seine fishery that would include shortened nets, a quick-release mechanism to free undersized fish, and a neutral observer present each time a net is set.

The baymen pointed out that the method is essentially the same as the one used by state scientists to collect bass for their annual survey.

Baymen also reiterated their belief that haul-seining is being kept at bay for political reasons.

"None of them has the spine to stand up to the sport lobbies," Mr. Loewen said Tuesday. "It's a numbers game. It has nothing to do with science, or conservation, or fairness to the individual."

Surprise

Last year, according to Mr. Leo, after meetings that included both baymen and sportfishermen, Mr. Colvin had agreed that "commercial fishermen could deploy ocean haul seines to harvest striped bass while maintaining release mortality rates at or below the hook-and-line rate of 8 percent" - that is, the rate at which bass caught on a hook die after being released.

Mr. Colvin repeated this position during an earlier meeting with baymen this month, specifically called, Mr. Leo said, "to confirm the D.E.C.'s position. I asked him four times during that [Nov. 10] meeting."

It came as a surprise then, he said, when the D.E.C.'s top officials declared the agency's haul-seine policy unchanged last week.

Political Issues

"Talk about a greased pig. How can we work with these people?" asked Mr. Leo. He said he had fired off a letter to the Commissioner telling him of the apparent contradiction.

But Gary Sheffer, a spokesman for Mr. Cahill who was at the meeting in Quogue, said the baymen had been told not to expect much.

"We said going in that we were not going to change our minds," Mr. Sheffer asserted on Monday. "This is a hot-button issue on Long Island, and no one is denying the political issues. There is more than one user [of the bass resource]. It's as simple as that. There's nothing else here."

"We will take the baymen's wishes along as we move through the allocation process," Mr. Sheffer said.

Formula

He was referring to the complex formula used by the D.E.C. in cooperation with the Atlantic States Marine Fisheries Commission, which sets bass-fishing limits coastwide.

Larry Cantwell, the East Hampton Village Administrator and a state delegate to the Fisheries Commission, said the D.E.C. was stuck between two realities, one technical, one political.

Technically speaking, said Mr. Cantwell, a modified haul seine would not endanger the bass supply. "There is no reason why the baymen should not have a limited haul-seine fishery - period."

He added, however, that "there are other realities, including political. It's unfortunate that a handful of men have to be penalized because sportfishing groups have made haul-seining unpopular."

"It's the most frustrating of developments," Mr. Leo repeated of Commissioner Cahill's post-meeting statement. "If we are unable to discuss and negotiate, we will have no course but civil disobedience."

"They've backed us into a corner."

As they have in the past, the supporters and opponents of Brookhaven National Laboratory will hold dueling forums next week.

Next Thursday, a Nobel prizewinning physicist will give a lecture to celebrate the lab's 50th anniversary and the following day the founders of Standing for Truth about Radiation and others will address the soil and groundwater contamination around the lab.

T.D. Lee won the 1957 Nobel prize in physics for research he did at the lab the year before. His talk, at 4 p.m. in the lab's Breckner Hall, will include his "impressions of Brookhaven Lab from the 1950s to the present, and provide a personal view of its role in the 21st century," according to a press release.

Guild Hall Discussion

This year, Dr. Lee was appointed a director of the RIKEN-B.N.L. Research Center, a collaboration between American and Japanese theoretical physicists. The center will include studies done at the lab's relativistic heavy ion collider, a new accelerator now under construction.

At 8 p.m. on Dec. 5, the STAR founders will host a panel discussion at Guild Hall on the chemical and radioactive contamination traced to the lab.

Jan Schlichtmann, a Massachusetts lawyer and anti-pollution activist, will moderate. His successful lawsuit on behalf of eight families in Woburn City, where the water supply was polluted, is the subject of a bestselling book, "A Civil Action," and a film in the making.

Four Panelists

The panelists will include Dr. Helen Caldicott, the Australian pediatrician and anti-nuclear power activist who founded Physicians for Social Responsibility, Dr. Jay Gould, who is studying the level of strontium-90 in baby teeth collected on Long Island and across the country, Mary Olson of the Nuclear Information and Resource Service, a national advocacy group, and Dr. William Weida, an economics professor studying the conversion of nuclear facilities for the Global Resource Action Center.

Both the panel discussion and Dr. Lee's lecture are free and open to the public.

According to Ed Cashin, one of its founders, the idea for an 18-mile Miracle Paddle from Montauk to Block Island to raise money for charity started like an oft-repeated joke: a man walked into a bar . . .

"Like all good ideas, it came at a bar," he said on Saturday at a fund-raising party at Susan Kirshenbaum's house in Amagansett. The event raised money for Miracle House, which provides a place to stay for relatives of people receiving medical care in New York City.

Sometime between Saturday and Aug. 20, Cashin, David Lys, a co-founder of Miracle Paddle, and 17 other paddlers will head out from North Bar off Montauk on paddle boards and in kayaks toward Block Island. They hope to raise $100,000 for Miracle House, and have already lined up $60,000 in pledges.

The idea stemmed from a convergence of two factors. Cashin and Lys, who run Weekend Warrior Tours in East Hampton, had been helping to raise money for Miracle House, of which Cashin has been a board member since May. They sponsored a family weekend of outdoor adventures last year.

"But there was a lot of overhead, and a lot of waste. We had to throw out 50 lobsters," said Cashin. The pair wanted a more efficient way of finding donations.

The second factor was Cashin's individual Montauk-to-Block-Island paddle, completed last year with his father following in the support boat. "He caught 19 bluefish that day," Cashin said.

"When we got there," to Block Island, Cashin said, "we had some beers with a few guys, and I thought, if we could get some local guys who would paddle from Montauk to Block Island, that would be a good way of raising money, and raising the awareness of Miracle House."

He sat down and wrote a list of goals: eight paddlers, $20,000, and one support boat. Those numbers have almost tripled since then, with 19 paddlers and over $60,000. But Cashin had a secondary figure in mind.

"My goal was to support Miracle House for one month. That is about $80,000. If we could support one-twelfth of its costs, we could get some pressure off of it."

Miracle House provided shelter and at least one good meal for 947 families last year at $40 a day. But the organization had to turn away 165 for lack of funding and facilities. The hope is that, with another three-bedroom apartment, it won't have to turn anyone away. The apartment and its maintenance would cost $147,200.

In the spring, Cashin and Lys, who are no strangers to the East End bays, called upon fellow paddlers to join in the trip.

"So many endurance athletes have type-A personalities and can be very selfish, and these guys have just joined in. You couldn't ask for a better bunch," Cashin said. "These guys would paddle to China if they could to raise money for Miracle House."

One of the paddlers, Mike Asselin, has even built his own paddle board to inaugurate the event. He applied fiberglass to it on Tuesday.

Marilyn Suder, the only female paddler planning to take part, who divides her time between Manhattan and Amagansett, got a call from Cashin in the spring.

"I've been kayaking for a few summers with Ed Cashin. He called me up and asked me if I wanted to do the paddle," she said. "Then he said I have to raise $5,000."

Each of the paddlers has been asked to find sponsors. They have been training together since the spring to prepare for the trip, which is the longest paddle and the first in ocean waters for many of them. The journey is expected to last over seven hours.

The paddlers also have to be prepared to leave at any time between Saturday and Aug. 20. They are all watching the weather and listening to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration radio to find the most opportune time to leave. Perfect conditions, Cashin said, would be a southwest wind of 5 to 10 knots. They will shove off at 7 a.m. to take advantage of an outgoing tide.

Jim Arnold, the paddler pictured on the posters and fliers publicizing the event, said that he can arrange his work schedule at Corcoran, where he is a real estate agent, to participate in the paddle. Arnold, a paddle-boarder who had raised $1,000 as of Saturday, has competed in long-distance paddles in the ocean.

"It is still going to be a challenge," he said. "We're all going to finish together; we're going to be safe and go at a steady pace. Usually we would try to beat each other."

The support for the paddle grew slowly, but Cashin said that a buzz has been growing locally and nationally. As of Saturday, Cashin said he had turned down 47 paddlers, from all over the East Coast, who wanted to participate. It wasn't logistically possible for the group to expand due to insurance and liability issues.

However, it bodes well for next year's Miracle Paddle, which Cashin said he will begin planning as soon as he returns from Block Island.

The Federal Aviation Administration has agreed to cancel a $2.5 million grant for work on the main runway at the East Hampton Town Airport and allow the town to reapply for funding after the project has undergone more stringent environmental and public review.

Town Supervisor Cathy Lester announced the F.A.A. decision following a meeting with Federal officials last Thursday. She said the F.A.A. would reimburse the town for the $197,000 already spent on design and engineering, but would not fund the rest of the project until the review is completed.

Calls to the New York regional manager of the F.A.A. were not returned by press time.

Called For A Hearing

The town will add the repaving and "widening" of runway 10-28 to an environmental assessment already under way for other projects in the 1994 airport layout plan.

"I think it went very well," the Supervisor the day after last Thursday's meeting.

Throughout her campaign for re-election Supervisor Lester had been calling for a public hearing on the entire airport layout plan, of which the runway improvement is a part. Such a hearing had never been held and the layout plan was never formally adopted.

"I do know [the State Environmental Quality Review Act] and I do know when a plan has been officially adopted," she said. When the new Town Board convenes in January, it will move forward on both, she said.

Contractor To Sue

"The process could take two or three years and the runway certainly isn't going to improve with age," Pat Ryan, the manager of the East Hampton Airport, said Tuesday.

He said there now are five cracks on runway 10-28 that need to be saw-cut and milled, and 19 others that can be fixed without cutting the pavement out, but after a winter or two they could get worse. While the town can reapply for F.A.A. funding in the future, there's no guarantee the town will get it.

"Frustrated" is a mild word to describe how many of the pilots feel about the change of plans, Mr. Ryan said.

The firm chosen to do the work on the runway is also less than pleased with the turn of events since the Supervisor's re-election earlier this month. It is going to court to force Ms. Lester or another member of the Town Board to sign a construction contract.

Without a signed contract, the company, Hendrickson Brothers of Farmingdale, apparently cannot ask the town for compensation or reimbursement for any work already done in preparation for the runway project.

Reimbursement Issue

The attorney for Hendrickson Brothers is John P. Bracken of the Islandia firm of Bracken & Margolis.

The town solicited bids this summer for the runway work and in September the Town Board's Republican majority passed a resolution authorizing the Supervisor to enter into a contract with Hendrickson. Supervisor Lester and Councilman Peter Hammerle, Democrats, voted against the resolution because, they said, the project needed more comprehensive review.

Wouldn't Rescind

Charges that the project was tantamount to the airport's expansion fueled the fall election campaaign. The Supervisor did not sign the contract nor did she send the firm an award letter announcing the decision of the Town Board.

Hendrickson's suit claims "Supervisor Lester is simply refusing to perform her ministerial duty . . . and has abused her discretion."

The Town Board has retained an attorney, Gary Weintraub of Huntington, in the matter.

Given the results of her meeting with the F.A.A. last week, the Supervisor asked the Town Board last Thursday night to rescind the September resolution authorizing her to sign the contract with Hendrickson Brothers. The Republican majority refused to do so.

Crowd Expected

The public meeting the board called for Friday, Dec. 5, at 10:30 a.m. with representatives of the F.A.A. and the town's airport consulting engineer to discuss the runway will move forward as planned, even if the runway itself doesn't.

The hearing is expected to draw a crowd on both sides of the issue. The Pilots Association reportedly has been rallying airport users to speak at the hearing.

Though Ms. Lester said representatives of the F.A.A. are now reluctant to attend next Friday's forum, Mr. Ryan believes the meeting will alleviate a lot of fears people have about the proposed improvements.

Other Hearings

There are a number of other hearings scheduled for Dec. 5 during the regular board meeting, which begins at 10 a.m. The town will hear comments on a new tax extension for seniors, giving them an additional five days to pay their property taxes without penalties or interest, and proposed changes to the Zoning Code to allow storage garages in commercial-industrial districts and by special permit in central business districts.

The Town Board also has scheduled a special meeting for Wednesday at 9 a.m. at which it expects to go into executive session to hear an update on the Robert Cooper litigation from the town's special counsel, Vincent Fontana. Mr. Cooper is a former Councilman who accused the Town Police Department of biased practices.

Southampton Hospital's medical director and nearly a third of the physicians on its staff have lost their patience.

As members of a newly formed national ad hoc Committee to Defend Health Care, they will join thousands of doctors, as well as nurses, nurse-practitioners, and other medical professionals to dramatize their opposition next week to what they call "market-driven," or profit-oriented, medicine.

Dr. Elaine Fox, a Southampton internist and geriatrician, is leading the local effort. The public has been invited to learn more about it at Parrish Hall in Southampton Tuesday at 7 p.m., when Dr. Fox will speak.

In Boston Harbor

The meeting will coincide with a public forum in Boston, the committee's national headquarters, broadcast by satellite to some of the more than 20 states, including New York, where groups have formed.

The broadcast will follow a 3 p.m. "re-enactment of the historic Boston Tea Party," when, dressed in hospital whites, doctors and nurses will board a ship and toss overboard into Boston Harbor paper bags filled with ersatz money and other symbols of for-profit hospitals and managed-care companies.

"I think it's great," said Dr. Steven Sigler, Southampton Hospital's medical director. "The same people are still running things - Tories, kings, American patricians, Hancocks."

Annual Reports Overboard

Sensitive to the environment, the demonstrators will recover what they throw into the harbor, said Sarah Bennett, the national group's executive director - including 11 crates containing annual reports of 200 managed-care and for-profit hospital corporations.

"We are disturbed about the trends of market-driven medicine invading all areas of health care," Dr. Fox told The Star this week.

She said the case of an East Hampton infant at risk for sudden infant death syndrome, described in these pages last week, was "a good example of the problem." Oxford Health Plans, a managed care company, had threatened to cut off the child's nursing care until ordered by a State Supreme Court Justice to continue it.

2,300 Authors

The national committee's position will be outlined in the December issue of the Journal of the American Medical Association in what it calls an "unprecedented" article, signed by the largest authorship in the journal's history - more than 2,300 Massachusetts doctors and nurses and students at Harvard and Boston University Medical Schools.

The names alone, in tiny type, take up four and a half pages.

The magazine embargoed reprints of the article until it is published, on Wednesday. It reportedly calls for an immediate moratorium on corporate takeovers of health institutions, as well as a return to "a caring vision."

Local Support

The national group's founders include Dr. Bernard Lown, a noted Harvard cardiologist who in 1985 accepted the Nobel Peace Prize on behalf of International Physicians for the Prevention of Nuclear War.

The committee is an offshoot of an older Chicago-based organization called Physicians for a National Health Program.

Nearly 30 local doctors and 28 nurses, including some who work for the Dominican Sisters Health Service, East End Hospice, and the East End H.I.V./AIDS Clinic, have signeda petition being circulated by Dr. Fox, in support of the JAMA article and the Boston protest.

Dr. Fox does not participate in any health plan.

Universal Medicare?

Dr. Sigler, a longtime member of Physicians for a National Health Program, said American medical care could be "outstanding" if the 12 to 14 percent of national resources that now go into the partially for-profit system were allocated to a "single-payer universal Medicare"-type approach.

He predicted such a shift would occur "within five years."

"A lot of doctors are getting creamed," said Dr. Sigler. "So are the hospitals, and the patients."

More information on the national effort is available on the committee's Web site: www.defendhealthcare.org .

"For Our Patients, Not for Profit: A Call to Action" is the title of Dr. Fox's talk on Tuesday.

Gov. George E. Pataki has signed a bill that will delay the start of the annual scallop season in state waters until the first Monday in November, a month later than the traditional opening.

The East Hampton, Southampton, and Southold Town Trustees have agreed to follow the state's lead in their own regulations. Some baymen see a disadvantage, however.

The bill was sponsored by State Assemblymen Fred W. Thiele Jr. and Thomas DiNapoli. Kenneth P. LaValle championed the measure in the Senate. The monthlong delay will restrict the harvest of so-called "legal bugs," that is, immature scallops, and it gives the State Department of Environmental Conservation unspecified "additional authority" to manage the bay scallop until Dec. 31, 2007.

The special authority extends to sea scallops as well. The Legislature voted to give the D.E.C. similar authority over the management of oysters in June. State shellfishing laws require townships to maintain regulations in their waters that are at least as restrictive as the state's.

The scallop legislation was written with the help of the Nature Conservancy, which has been active in the effort to resurrect the Peconic scallop population after brown algae blooms decimated the resource beginning in the mid-1980s. In recent years, the harvest in the Peconic system has been less than 2 percent of historic levels.

Greg Rivara, a shellfish specialist with the Cornell Cooperative Extension, said delay of the season opening would give scallops a chance to spawn more than once before they die.

"You see animals in shucking houses with ripe gonads," he said. "The question is, will the [late-occurring] spawn survive in the fall and over winter? With such a low resource, it makes sense to give them a chance."

Mr. Rivara explained that language in the revised regulations requires harvesters to look for a growth ring, a line that appears on a scallop's shell parallel to the bill, or opening edge. The law used to require scallopers to harvest only those scallops that either measured at least two and a quarter inches from bill to hinge, or those with had a growth ring.

Most scallops measuring two and a quarter inches have spawned. However, if a scallop is the product of an early spawn, or if it experienced extraordinary growth, it might attain its two-and-a-quarter-inch width by December and be harvested before it has spawned.

Mr. Rivara said that the scallop's growth ring, which is caused by a cessation of growth during the winter months, does not prove that the scallop has spawned, but does indicate that it will spawn in the spring. The new regulation requires both the minimum size and a growth ring. The average life span of a scallop is only 24 months.

The later season opening could also result in better yields. "October will put on abductor weight," Mr. Rivara said, referring to the abductor muscle, the edible meat in a scallop. A bushel that yields six or seven pounds of meats in October could yield over eight pounds a month later.

The downside in the marketplace, in the minds of some scallopers, lies in the fact that a November opening means they won't get the usual jump over competitors in Nantucket, where harvesters have dealt with a November season opening for some time.

Within the borders of East Hampton, a scallop spawning sanctuary has been created in Northwest Harbor, a cooperative effort of the Town Shellfish Hatchery, Southampton College, the Cornell Cooperative Extension, the Nature Conservancy, and the state wildlife grants program. It is hoped that bug scallops placed close to each other on the bottom will more readily trigger healthy spawns. The sanctuary will be off limits to scallopers.

Tom Knobel, an East Hampton Town trustee, said it was conceivable that his nine-member board would one day disagree with the new regulations. For instance, should a section of the town's bottomland suddenly have a bumper crop, a November opening would mean that a portion of the resource would be wasted, given the scallop's short life span.

At the same time, he said that while his board maintained the right to regulate shellfish in town waters, it was reticent to resist state fishing regulations, because "we would not be doing our freeholders a favor by putting them in violation of state law."

He said the trustees planned to inform the East Hampton Town Board of the season change.

With the fall surfcasting season only weeks away, East Hampton has been ordered by the federal government to block access to Turtle Cove in Montauk by all vehicles except those driven by the disabled.

A plan meant to placate the National Park Service over management of the popular cove has been deemed a "skeleton document" by the federal government - inadequate, despite the fact it cost the town $100,000 to have prepared. The plan would have allowed use of the narrow, dirt road that leads to the cove and its prime surfcasting during the three-month fall run of striped bass.

"I can't believe they did this to us again. We spent $100,000 on a law firm to comply with NEPA" - the National Environmental Protection Act - "and this is what they come back with," said a frustrated Councilman Peter Hammerle during a town board work session on Tuesday.

Turtle Cove, just west of the Montauk Lighthouse and popular among surf fishermen, surfers, and birders, was deeded to the town in 1985 as part of the National Park Service's federal lands-to-parks program. The federal agency is charged with keeping an eye on its relinquished land, however, and maintains the right to take it back if it is not properly cared for.

According to the Park Service, the "use" plan agreed upon at the time of the transfer banned the use of the road by all but emergency vehicles.

In 2003, the town was threatened with just such a take-back after the town board failed in its attempt to broker a compromise with surfcasting advocates demanding vehicular access to the cove. At issue then, and now, is the use of a dirt road that leads to a small patch of land beside the beach.

In 1998 the road was widened to accommodate machinery used to buttress the bluffs on which the Lighthouse sits. Once widened, the road was used more and more by surfcasters and surfers until environmental advocates reported its overuse to federal officials.

As a result, the road was ordered closed by the federal lands-to-parks office in Boston. A gate was erected but vandals tore it down, and again the road received unacceptably heavy use, according to Elyse LaForest, manager of the lands-to-parks program, and despite efforts by the town to restrict the use of the road and of the small parking lot in the cove itself.

The plot thickened last year when disabled residents sued the town, claiming that any plan that would block their access to the cove violated the Americans With Disabilities Act.

After paying $74,171 to O'Connor and Hannon, a Washington, D.C., law firm, to defend it against the suit, the town settled with two disabled residents for an undisclosed sum. The Park Service approved the settlement and halted the process of taking the land back pending review of a new, long-term management plan which the town was asked to prepare. An earlier environmental assessment of the 17 scenic acres undertaken by the town was deemed unacceptable.

In June, the town announced its new "utilization plan." It calls for a parking lot adjacent to the cove's beach with between 10 and 12 spaces, three of which were to be reserved for the handicapped. For nine months, vehicular access to the cove would be reserved for the disabled only. The road would be gated. Keys, or the code to a combination lock, would be provided to "qualified persons with disabilities." The road would then be opened for the months of September, October, and November to accommodate surfcasters.

In an Aug. 12 letter to Mr. McGintee, Ms. LaForest informed the supervisor that the town's plan "does not fully meet the National Park Service requirements," and would need to be revised. In that a revision cannot be accomplished in time for the fall fishing season, Ms. LaForest informed the town that it must provide reasonable accommodations to enable the disabled to participate in fishing activities at the site this year. She then presented town officials with alternatives.

The town can erect and maintain a gate at the top of the access road with signs directing the disabled to a convenient facility to obtain a key or combination to the lock. Or, it can erect signs at the top of the access road announcing that it is to be used by vehicles operated by, or carrying, the disabled. She also insisted that enforcement of either option was essential.

During Tuesday's informal town board meeting, Supervisor McGintee said, "We should turn around and say, 'We've had enough of your nonsense. We'll comply with the original site plan and put a parking lot up top. If not, take it over yourself and see what a disaster you'll have.' "

Board members agreed to alert the Washington firm that prepared the plan's environmental assessment at great expense. And they agreed to go forward with the plan. "The bottom line is, in three weeks we're going to open it and we're going to manage it the way we're proposing," Councilman Hammerle said.

A sculptor whose dream is to bring art to the people will sell his five-acre "sculpture garden" off Town Lane in Amagansett to East Hampton Town for just over $1 million, according to a proposal that will be the subject of a public hearing before the town board tonight.

Sasson Soffer, who bought the property 19 years ago and lives off Red Dirt Road in Amagansett and in Manhattan, has placed close to 30 of his steel, glass, and stone pieces on the land, which is crisscrossed by trails. The largest sculptures are up to 30 feet tall and loom above the uncleared meadows and peek out from sections of woodland.

According to the terms of the agreement, which would be paid for with money from the Community Preservation Fund, six of Mr. Soffer's large sculptures would be left in perpetuity on the site, which would be named Grandeland. Mr. Soffer's art studio is on Grand Street in Manhattan, and, he said yesterday, his Sasson Soffer Foundation is to be renamed the Grandeland Foundation. The foundation will be responsible for maintaining the sculptures.

A plaque affixed to a boulder will contain a quote from the artist: "Nothing is more important than enjoying art. My sculptures belong to the public. The goal is to have art come to the people - to be part of their lives." It will also contain the names of those involved in making Grandeland a reality.

Mr. Soffer began his art career as a painter, and studied with Mark Rothko, Ad Reinhardt, and other Abstract Expressionists. His work was exhibited in solo shows at the Betty Parsons Gallery, and in the Portland (Me.), Corpus Christi, and Indianapolis Museums of Art, and in the Whitney Museum of Art Biennial exhibits. His sculptures have been installed in public spaces throughout the United States, including, in Manhattan, at the Whitney, at Battery Park, and at Lincoln Center.

He is working on a sculpture called "Amal" ("Hope" in Arabic) that will be placed in front of the United Nations and reproduced for placement at Grandeland.

Mr. Soffer was born in 1925 in Baghdad. He said yesterday that he had "been given quite a lot throughout my life. Giving back, for me, is a great pleasure. This is a great gift, I think, to the people of East Hampton."

Ms. Foster said this week that Mr. Soffer "wants to give back to this country because of the freedom to be creative." Several of his works on paper from the 1990s include the shapes of the continental United States and of the 50 states, as an homage to his adopted country.

Ms. Foster said the land, which would become a nature preserve site for passive recreation, is "the quintessential example" of the "neighborhood park" concept - preserving land "where year-round people live."

Youngsters from the Accabonac Apartments on Accabonac Road, which abuts the back of the Soffer property, can use the trails across it to get to the Abraham's Path youth park, Ms. Foster said. She pictured a "9-year-old with a hockey stick" cutting through and learning a little art appreciation along the way.

There are several large beech trees, a large holly bush and a mature cherry tree, and numerous berry bushes and wildflowers on the property.

Because of safety concerns, the town has asked Mr. Soffer to remove all of the small sculptures. According to the agreement, he would have two years from the purchase date to choose and install the permanent pieces.

"Amen," a sculpture already on the Town Lane land, would be recast in bronze for permanent placement there. It would weigh three tons and be 18 feet high. Mr. Soffer said he would also like to fabricate a version of "Miss Pie in the Sky," a 32-foot piece in steel and bronze, and place "Eastgate-Westgate," a circular stainless steel sculpture he made in 1973, and "Hello America," a 1980 one of stainless steel pipe, on the land.

He said yesterday that he is also considering making a sculpture inscribed in Braille for Grandeland. The artist said he intends to keep the installation "as natural as possible," and "hide pieces in the bushes so that people can discover them."

Mr. Soffer had gone to the town planning board in 1988 with plans for a sculpture garden that would be open to the public, but did not pursue a formal plan when the board suggested that he install a 15-space parking lot. He said yesterday that he preferred to leave the land as undeveloped as possible.

His dream, which he had nurtured since the 1970s, he said, stayed in his mind, and he contacted the town about a possible purchase last fall. "A good concept never dies," he said. "It just waits until it germinates."

The public can weigh in on the proposed purchase at the hearing beginning at 7:30 tonight at Town Hall.