In a confrontational matter that began the day after Memorial Day, a number of East Hampton Village’s female lifeguards have accused village beach managers of sexual harassment and the creation of a hostile work environment.

The allegations stem from incidents in which managers asked the women to model the bikinis they had collectively chosen as their new uniforms, and in at least one instance to pose for a photo that the lifeguards believed would be sent to the village board so that it could determine whether the suits were too skimpy.  

Becky Molinaro Hansen, the village administrator, who interviewed nine employees during a six-week investigation into the matter, said there was insufficient evidence to conclude that anyone’s conduct had risen to the level of sexual harassment. On Monday, she said that the village board had never asked to see a photo of a female lifeguard modeling a swimsuit. That image has been deleted from the cellphone it was on, she added.

In a report to the board on Aug. 17, however, she said the swimsuit selection process “should have been handled better” by the beach administration, including Newt Mott, manager; Robert Barber, Ed McDonald, and James Nicoletti, assistant managers, and Rose Lawler, the office manager. 

Christina Cangiolosi, a lieutenant lifeguard, was one of the women asked to pose in the new bikini. She said she felt coerced, even after she had informed management that neither she nor her colleagues were comfortable with doing so.

“They made me want to cry,” she said. “Throughout the summer, I’m there on red-hot days, pulling kids out of the water — we all are, as a team — and all any of the managers seemed to care about was the bathing suit that I’m wearing.”

In her report, Ms. Molinaro said that on May 29, the village board notified her that it wanted to change the uniform for female lifeguards. “Specifically, the board wanted uniforms that provided more coverage,” she said. 

That news, Ms. Cangiolosi said, was relayed to the lifeguards by Mr. Mott. “All the girls got together and decided on the bathing suits that we wanted,” she said, and Mr. Mott, after being shown an image of the suits on a website, had approved them. 

When the suits arrived, Ms. Cangiolosi said, members of the management team asked two female lifeguards to model them, and one was photographed with a personal cellphone. “She was asked to have her butt photographed in the bikini because they said the board had to either approve or not approve the suits,” Ms. Cangiolosi said. 

In an interview this week, Ms. Hansen confirmed that such a photograph had been taken and that a female manager, presumably Ms. Lawler, had been the photographer. She stated that there was no “intent to humiliate, degrade, or embarrass” the lifeguard. 

Ms. Hansen said she did not personally interview the lifeguard in the photograph, but had determined there was enough evidence, based on discussions with other employees who were in the office at the time, to conclude in her report that the “employee volunteered to be photographed, and that it was done in a light-hearted, comical manner.” 

Before the village board got a chance to weigh in on the new uniform, however, beach managers decided among themselves that it was too revealing, and a different one was ordered. 

This time, “they didn’t ask us for our opinions,” Ms. Cangiolosi said.

No other guards wanted to say anything publicly, she said, but “I’m the oldest female guard there, I’ve been there the longest, and that’s why I’ve taken on more of a leading role speaking out.”

When the next batch of suits arrived, she said, managers asked a secretary to call the lifeguards over the radio to ask, “Does anybody want to come up and model them for the managers?” 

“I asked the girls on my stand, I asked the girls on the other stand, and they were uncomfortable. They didn’t want to do it.” Later that day, she said, she was called into the managers’ office to meet with Mr. Mott, Mr. Nicoletti, and Ms. Lawler. “They were like, ‘You need to put this suit on now, we have to see what it looks like.’ ”

She recalled responding that she was “ ‘not comfortable doing this, and I’m especially not comfortable if you want to take a photo of me.’ Newt said, ‘What’s the big deal? We see you in your bikini all the time.’ And I said, ‘That’s not the point. I’m on the beach in my bikini because that’s what we do. It doesn’t mean that you can take a picture and be creepy about it.’ ” 

Mr. Mott declined to comment and referred any questions to Ms. Hansen.

Ultimately, Ms. Cangiolosi said, she felt pressured to cooperate, and agreed to put on the suit in the women’s locker room and allow Ms. Lawler to look at it, but not photograph it.

Mr. Nicoletti confirmed that Ms. Cangiolosi tried on the suit for Ms. Lawler, but said she had not been pressured. “The instance that you’re talking about was a full-coverage bathing suit,” he said. “That’s where I’m, like, where is the pressure? She tried on a suit with a lot more material than the one she was wearing.” 

Ms. Cangiolosi said the experience made her feel “horrible.”

“Of course, I felt uncomfortable with Rose looking at me, but I felt stuck,” she said. “I felt like that was my only option without having these men staring at my butt. Meanwhile, the suit that I’m wearing is comfortable, and it’s not falling off. It’s not like I’m wearing this slutty bathing suit. It works as an ocean lifeguard suit. And, I’m doing my job.”

The replacement suits were approved, but the female lifeguards were not fans of the choice. “They’re uncomfortable, they’re not supportive for bigger-chested women, and sand gets in them,” Ms. Cangiolosi said. The women wore the suits for a couple of days to be “respectful” to their bosses, she said, but soon went back to wearing the suits that were deemed too revealing.

She claimed that Mr. Mott had repeatedly threatened to fire anyone who didn’t wear the new suits. He never followed through, but “morale was just awful,” she said. 

Ms. Hansen, the village administrator, said the policy is that “employees are required to wear village-issued uniforms.”

Hoping to improve matters, the female lifeguards set up a meeting with the beach managers. The group also presented them with a letter, jointly written and addressed to the members of the village board, stating that two of their number had been photographed “modeling bikinis for the managers in their office.” The incidents, they wrote, “left many of the guards feeling degraded, embarrassed, and confused.” The letter said that they wanted to register a formal complaint about the “odd process to view and approve the suits.” 

The managers refused to accept the letter as written, Ms. Cangiolosi said. When they read it, she alleged, “They were totally defensive and never apologized for anything. They started attacking me and said, ‘Are you sure you remember that correctly? You know, sometimes when you get flustered you might not recall correctly.’ ” 

Village officials did finally receive a version of the letter, which was released to The Star following a Freedom of Information Law request. “Although I never received a signed copy of the complaint, it is my understanding that certain beach employees authored the complaint,” Ms. Hansen said in her report. There was “no evidence to suggest that any employee intended to intimidate anyone,” she said. 

Ms. Hansen had a meeting with the managers on Aug. 8, at which, she said in her report, she pointed out certain errors in handling the selection-of-suits process. “There was a lack of judgment and failure to timely advise me of what had transpired,” she said. 

Later that day, she met with Ms. Cangiolosi and at least one other lifeguard, who she believed to have coauthored the complaint letter. She apologized to them for how the process was handled, and informed them that supplemental training for the managers would take place. 

Ms. Cangiolosi, who attended the meeting with her parents, was not satisfied with Ms. Hansen’s response. “So you’re not going to apologize for the way the managers have spoken to us? The things I’ve had to deal with this summer? Why you even made us put full-coverage suits on in the first place? The threats to be fired or sent home? I’ve felt uncomfortable this whole summer and I wanted to quit like three times, which is just awful because I love my job.” 

She was particularly put off, the lifeguard lieutenant said, because Mr. Mott had been invited to sit in on the discussion. Asked Tuesday to explain his presence, Ms. Hansen said she would not discuss who was in attendance.

In a way, history repeated itself on Saturday as a magic night unfolded at Montauk Point. The musician Paul Simon, who more than 30 years ago built a house on the bluff overlooking the Atlantic Ocean not too far away, performed four songs before an ecstatic crowd at Montauk Music Festival Rocks the Lighthouse, a late-summer fund-raiser for the 222-year-old structure and its devoted owner and caretaker, the Montauk Historical Society. 

As a nearly full moon set the stage, the surprise appearance by Mr. Simon, whose “Homeward Bound — The Farewell Tour” will conclude at Flushing Meadows-Corona Park in Queens on Sept. 22, made for “a pretty epic night” in the words of Jasper Conroy, drummer with the Montauk Project, which backed Mr. Simon. 

The musician, spry at 76, was clearly enjoying himself, surrounded by the Montauk Project’s Josh LeClerc, Leander Drake, and Mr. Conroy, along with other musicians appearing at the one-day festival. The group performed his classics “Late in the Evening,” “50 Ways to Leave Your Lover,” “Me and Julio Down by the Schoolyard,” and “You Can Call Me Al.” 

The evening recalled the historical August 1990 concert at Deep Hollow Ranch, a fund-raiser to keep the lighthouse from falling victim to erosion and toppling into the sea. He would go on to perform several more Back at the Ranch fund-raisers through the 1990s to benefit the lighthouse and other causes, helping to bring A-list stars to the lineup, including Billy Joel, the Allman Brothers Band, James Brown, Ray Charles, Willie Nelson, and Jimmy Buffett. On the stage on Saturday, with the ocean as a backdrop and ticketholders sitting on chairs and blankets in a natural amphitheater on the north side of the lighthouse, Mr. Simon remembered those concerts of years ago.

Mr. Conroy said that early this month, he and Mr. Simon, whom he has known for a few years, were “talking about music and retirement, the small, intimate nature of Montauk, how special a place it is.” Mr. Simon volunteered to make a guest appearance at the fund-raiser, he said.

The plan was kept under wraps until Friday. “If the secret had gotten out,” Mr. Conroy said, “it would have been, who knows how many thousand people there.”

By last Thursday night, “Jasper had rehearsed with him and said it’s okay to leak it by word of mouth,” said Kenny Giustino, the founder of the annual Montauk Music Festival, which happens in May. Anyone let in on the secret was given strict instructions, he said: no Facebook, no social media. Through word of mouth alone, “we doubled the sales, went from 500 to 1,000 tickets. It worked out perfectly for what we were able to handle.” In the end, around 1,200 people were on hand, he said. 

“It kept it intimate, personal, very much about the community,” Mr. Conroy added. “I think that was a beautiful thing.” 

On Tuesday, Mr. Giustino was awaiting receipts from food and beverage sales from the Montauk Friends of Erin and the John’s Drive-inG ice cream truck, but predicted that the event would raise around $20,000. 

In April, Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s office announced that the roughly 1,000-foot-long rock revetment protecting the lighthouse would be reconstructed to withstand ongoing erosion and extreme weather events. The federal Army Corps of Engineers will oversee its reconstruction, funded by a Hurricane Sandy relief bill approved by Congress in 2013 and by the state. 

“They’ll build it, but the Montauk Historical Society has the task of maintaining it,” Mr. Giustino said of the revetment and lighthouse. “You can imagine what would be needed,” he said, to maintain the lighthouse, a national historic landmark, as well as to decorate it with holiday lights, an annual event that was scuttled by a budgetary shortfall in 2016, but returned last year. 

The historical society welcomes some 100,000 visitors to the lighthouse every year, Joe Gaviola, the new keeper of the light, told the East Hampton Town Board last week. Maintaining the structure, offering tours, acquiring artifacts, and paying docents are among the expenses in an annual budget that exceeds $1.5 million, he said. 

The concert “was a lot of work,” Mr. Giustino said, “but once we hit Saturday the whole thing was such a delight. It couldn’t have gone any better.” Performing in addition to Mr. Simon and the Montauk Project were Kate Usher and the Sturdy Souls, Tuatha Dea, and Jessica Lynn, a country singer who was to be the headliner.

“Everybody was happy, it was a pretty spectacular night,” Mr. Conroy said. “The Montauk Project, a local band, getting to back Paul Simon at the lighthouse — it doesn’t get any better than that.”

If you introduce yourself as a writer or an artist, people assume it’s not just a hobby, but your profession. Lots of people have sex, for example, but until you’ve gotten paid for it, you’d be lying if you answered “prostitute” next time someone asked, “What do you do?” 

Having whored my own talents to some fairly estimable publishing houses and magazines over the years, writer is a title I feel I’ve earned. And though I also draw cartoons, sleep, defecate, and even once played softball — last weekend, in fact — it would be misleading to call myself a cartoonist, somniac, shit manufacturer, or ball player. 

I was thinking about this at last week’s Artists and Writers Celebrity Softball Game, as there seemed to be very few artists and writers present. While the tradition began 70 years ago with fine artists such as Willem de Kooning and Jackson Pollock and grew to include novelists such as Saul Bellow and Joseph Heller, the artists’ team, headed now by Leif Hope, this year included a TV weatherman, Lonnie Quinn, and CBS2’s “News This Morning” co-anchor Chris Wragge (a former sports reporter), while the Writers, co-captained by the journalist Ken Auletta and the Daily News sportswriter Mike Lupica, included the sports commentators Marc Ernay and Mike Breen. I was the only novelist.

The word is that over the years, competition between the team captains, dueling Ahabs Auletta and Lupica of the Writers and Leif Hope of the Artists, grew so intense that they began stacking the roster with “ringers” they’d ship in solely to help them win, edging out the local and perhaps less athletic artists and writers on both sides. With the influx of fit lawyers whose writing credits included “legal briefs” and pro athletes who supposedly dabble in watercolors, the actual writers and artists all but abandoned the no longer fun but now fiercely competitive game. The audience, too, seems to have lost interest in the spectacle; few turned out last Saturday. 

The term “celebrity” was also being used rather loosely, as the most famous among us, the actress Lori Singer, who threw out the first pitch for the Artists, was introduced by the announcers as having played Kevin Bacon’s love interest in 1984’s “Footloose.” An accomplishment, however notable, that pales next to an alumni list for a game that even in its decline once included Bill Clinton and Christie Brinkley — which was the artist and which was the writer?

The last vestige of the game as it was once played, foolishly if festively, with drinks amid an afternoon picnic, is a turnip painted to resemble a softball, which every year is pitched to an unwitting batter.

In it to win it — Ken Auletta, the Writers' co-coach, and David Baer, a onetime East Hampton Star intern.

Unaware of the game’s decline, I arrived at the field nervous and excited (like a tourist might arrive to modern-day Greece hoping to meet Socrates), ready to join the literary luminaries, artists, and even stars who would upstage them, but found instead a field full of hulking giants the likes of which I’d never seen at a literary party, a gallery opening, a movie premiere, or even, if we’re slumming, an inauguration. 

Cindy Barshop, the former Real Housewife and vajazzling impresario, was the most recognizable face present, and she was only a spectator, there to support her boyfriend, a Writer (he penned “Bodyweight Strength Training”). The first and last time I’d seen both of them, I was waving goodbye from the back of a race car.

“Are you playing also?” I asked the tall man next to me, as I checked in.

“Billy Strong,” he said, not to me, but to the woman manning the T-shirt booth, where we were picking up our team shirts. “Artist.”

“I’m a writer,” I continued to Billy, smiling. “I guess that means we’re enemies!”

Billy, a sculptor, rolled his eyes. “It’s just a game,” he said, and walked away.

When I asked for my shirt, she came up empty-handed. “You had to order it in advance if you wanted your name on it,” she explained, handing me a blank one. Thus begins my favorite book: “Call me something-or-other.”

I didn’t know where to go next, so I wandered over toward the batting cage and addressed Leif Hope. “I’m here to play for the Writers,” I said cheerfully, holding back tears.

“What makes you think you’re on the team?” 

“Ken Auletta said so in an email.”

Leif nodded, then studied me. “Well, you’ve got nice legs. A nice body. A good build for softball, I mean.”

“Thank you,” I said gratefully, for I’ve always depended on the kindness of strangers.

Leif turned his attention elsewhere, and I was left again to fend for myself. I caught sight of Ken Auletta by the batters and ran over. “It’s so nice to meet you!” I said, which was the beginning and end of our conversation. This preceded an even shorter exchange with the journalist Carl Bernstein, best known for bringing down Nixon and cheating on Nora Ephron — he wrote “All the President’s Men” and she wrote “Heartburn” — whom I recognized as a teammate by his blue shirt. “Hello!” I said to the side of his face. 

I introduced myself to a few more important cheeks, then headed out into the parking lot, where I ran into my editor, who asked me what was wrong. 

“I don’t have a name,” I said, kicking at the ground. I told him about the shirt debacle.

“Easily fixed,” he answered, and led me to Khanh Graphics, where they personalize shirts on the spot in the shopping center behind the ball field. 

“Everyone’s so unfriendly,” I confessed as we walked over, trying not to let my voice shake.

“They’re probably nervous just like you,” he said, as if I were a child facing the first day of summer camp. 

“They don’t seem nervous. They just don’t want to be my friend.” I told him about all the cheeks. “I was just standing there like an idiot.”

“Don’t think about everyone. Just focus on individuals. You only have to make one friend.”

Alex Dunham at Khanh tried to help me approximate the font of the names printed on the team shirts. “What color are the letters?” she asked.

She stood up and showed me their color diagram, which featured sparkly golds and pinks and reds and silvers. She pointed to the blue and black at the bottom. “Which of these looks closest?”

“Gold!” I said, forgetting about blending in, but hooking instead into a tried-and-true mantra: If you can’t join ’em, beat ’em. “They’re gonna wish they had my shirt!”

Alex negotiated a dark blue font (for the sake of visibility) with a gold shadow (for the sake of style). 

Hot off the presses, I put it on and looked in the mirror, thinking about the journalists. “Gentlemen, you won’t have Iris Smyles to kick around anymore!”

My confidence restored, I headed back out, ready to befriend the shit out them. “Fuck those hacks!” 

“You think there’s more sciatica on the Writers side?” I opened. I’d lined up for batting practice behind a middle-aged Writer who told me he invented social media. The founder of MeWe, the next gen social network, was friendly as he told me he’d flown in for the game, which he’s been playing for at least 15 years, though he doubted Ken would put him in. “He mostly plays his friends,” another Writer added. 

I met Erika Katz, a TV personality and parenting expert who wrote “Coach Parenting,” who told me and Gabrielle Bluestone, a writer and editor for Vice News, not to bother. Erika had played (not played) in last year’s game as well, and “they never let the girls play.” 

“Ken thinks we’re the same blond,” Gabby added, motioning to her and Erika’s matching hair.

“But I’m good! I’ve been told I’m a ball magnet.” I told Erika, before she raised her eyebrows, making me doubt the nature of the compliment.

“You think he meant something else?”

“The Women’s Movement hasn’t arrived here yet,” Erika continued, referring to the Writers team. “The Artists are a little better, but only a little,” she explained, before Leif approached both of us and complimented Erika on her make-up.

He looked at Erika’s TV-ready face, then at mine, naked, and pointed to his own eyes. “You don’t have any mascara,” he said, as if I’d left my mitt at home. 

I shrugged. “Neither do you.” 

A few minutes later, Dan Rattiner of Dan’s Papers, in white fedora, white shirt, and white short pants, like a kid’s version of Tom Wolfe, was out in the field being thanked for his design of the program. I’d just picked up one of his books the previous week — collected columns from his paper about local personalities — and dipping in had read an article about the feminist Betty Friedan, whose primary contribution, so far as he could see, was inciting a lot of divorces.

The sportswriter Mike Lupica spoke to The Star's Jack Graves.

Things began to happen quickly after that, as rain clouds flirted with the briefly blue sky. Auletta read out who was playing what, leaving most of us writers and Writers to play spectator. Lupica gathered the Writers for a pregame huddle. Putting our right hands in, we counted quietly to three, then everyone coughed, as if all together they were being checked for hernias. 

“What’d we just say?” I asked the guy next to me. 

“Writers.”

The Choral Society of the Hamptons was on hand to sing "The Star-Spangled Banner" but at the last minute was bumped to make room for the recorded voice of the recently deceased Aretha Franklin, who never lived here.

I stayed close to the sidelines as the game progressed, trying to catch Auletta's eye, hoping he might put me in. But standing around is more tiring than running, so I retreated a few steps and dug into my stash of Big League Chew, figuring to try for some new friends in the meantime.

How many times in grade school had I given gum in exchange for the promise "I'll be your best friend"? Eagerly, I tried to work the formula in reverse, but nobody wanted my gum. I stuck a fat wad into my cheek and blew a bubble.

"You've got some schmutz," said Zach O'Malley Greenburg, a former child actor (Lorenzo in "Lorenzo's Oil") and current editor at Forbes who's written books about Dr. Dre, Michael Jackson, and Jay-Z. He pointed to green gum residue on my lips.

I thought of a conversation that appeared in the literary magazine Hampton Shorts between Kurt Vonnegut (a former Writer) and Robert Caro, in which Vonnegut said, "I've never written a biography . . . and you have never written a novel. Are we in the same trade?"

"It's Big League Chew, watermelon flavor. Want some?"

Greenburg not only accepted my gum, but also opted in when I suggested we put eye black on each other to block the glare of the lightning that was now threatening the sky. The Writers were ahead at this point, so if it rained, they'd call it in our favor, my new friend explained, as I noticed a small tattoo on his arm. "Probably not a good idea to keep running around an open field holding a metal stick," continued Queequeg, looking at the batter.

The one moment I stepped away was the one moment Auletta decided to run a token girl. Given the Writers’ sufficient lead, Gabby was not permitted to hit, but was given the chance to run some bases. I should have worn makeup.

"Towards thee I roll, thou all-destroying but unconquering softball; to the last I grapple with thee; from hell's heart I stab at thee; for hate's sake I spit my last breath at thee," said Lupica, right before he hit the turnip. Or maybe he just said, "Turnip," or maybe he said nothing at all. It smashed into little bits.

I watched Bill Collage, a screenwriter who penned the Olson twins' vehicle "New York Minute," run the bases.

When the Writers won, Lupica brought us all in for a final huddle. "This is the third year in a row the Writers have won!" he said, with Ahab's mad gleam. "Do you know how hard it is to win three years in a row?"

"Sorry I didn't put you in," Auletta said when I caught his eye one last time, before we began to disband and, in clusters, headed out across the field to the after-party at Dopo. I walked alone most of the way, like Ishmael floating among the wreckage.

There will be no Independence Party candidate for a seat on the East Hampton Town Board in the Nov. 6 election, following a State Supreme Court judge's ruling on Friday that voided the party's nominating petitions for David Gruber.

Judge Carol MacKenzie agreed with the East Hampton Town Republican Committee, which had challenged the petitions, when she ruled on Friday that "many of the signatures were not personally signed by the persons whose names appear upon the said petitions, but their names were signed without their authority and without their knowledge." The nominating petitions, which had been gathered by Pat Mansir, the Independence Party's vice chairwoman, were "replete with fraudulent dates and forged signatures and/or initials of signatories and/or subscribing witnesses," the judge wrote.

After Judge MacKenzie invalidated multiple signatures, Mr. Gruber, who will face Councilman David Lys in a Democratic Party primary on Sept. 13, was left short of the required number to appear on the ballot. "I'm disappointed," he said on Monday. "Had it been handled properly, I'm sure that I would be on the ballot. I'm sorry that it wasn't something I was in a position to organize myself. . . . I certainly didn't have any reason to think matters would go awry, but that's what happened. An opportunity is missed."

Judge MacKenzie compared voters' signatures on the nominating petitions to those on file at the Suffolk County Board of Elections, said Amos Goodman, the Republican Committee's chairman. One after another was invalidated, he said, until the total was below the minimum required to certify Mr. Gruber's nomination. "The judge granted our motion to invalidate the petitions," he said on Monday. "We didn't push for a formal finding of fraud. . . . It's time to move on.

Elaine Jones, chairwoman of the East Hampton Independence Party, is not ready to move on, however. She acknowledged defeat on Friday, but reiterated her assertion that in fact the Republican Party's nominating petitions for its candidate, Manny Vilar, are riddled with fraudulent signatures. She has repeatedly accused Mr. Goodman of submitting forged signatures, and although the deadline to file a complaint with the Board of Elections has passed, the issue is not over, she said. "All I know is that Amos Goodman has forged signatures, and I'm going to the [district attorney]," she said. "I'm going to get affidavits from the people who said they didn't sign Manny's petitions, and go to the D.A."

The Republicans' challenge cane after their unsuccessful effort to force a primary election giving Mr. Vilar an opportunity to appear on the Independence Party line. The quarrel between the parties precedes that skirmish: Last year, Mr. Vilar, then a candidate for supervisor, and his running mates, Gerard Larsen and Paul Giardina, sought but did not receive the Independence Party's nomination for supervisor and councilmen. Later, a state appellate court overturned an earlier decision, disallowing Mr. Larsen's plan to run in an Independence Party primary over a minor flaw in the wording of his petitions.

Mr. Goodman, who took over the committee's chairmanship from Reg Cornelia following Republicans' poor showing in elections last year, had vowed a more aggressive stance. "I believe that we have to do things differently as a Republican Party if we're going to have different results," he told The Star last month. "Part of that is applying strict scrutiny the way it applies to us. So when you see Jerry Larsen bounced off" the 2017 Independence Party primary bid, "you're damn right I'm going to look at the petitions."

He adopted a more conciliatory tone on Monday. "We just wanted the lines cleared and the integrity of the process upheld," he said. "We can put this behind us. There's some relationship mopping up I will have to do with members of the Independence Party. But this is not something we wanted to do." Members of the Independence Party "should have had a democratic choice in terms of who their candidate would be," he said.

A plan to reconstruct the roughly 1,000-foot-long rock revetment protecting the Montauk Lighthouse will ensure that the historic structure is still standing 100 years from now despite ongoing erosion and extreme weather events, the East Hampton Town Board was told on Tuesday. 

Brian Frank, the chief environmental analyst with the town’s Planning Department, told the board that the federal Army Corps of Engineers’ 2005 evaluation to rebuild the revetment, which is around 30 years old, never came to fruition, but an environmental impact statement prepared at the time was updated in April. 

That update corresponded with an announcement by Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s office that reconstruction of the revetment would proceed, funded by a Hurricane Sandy relief bill approved by Congress in 2013, as well as state funding. The Army Corps, which will oversee the project, said that it was necessary to keep the 222-year-old lighthouse and associated structures from toppling into the Atlantic Ocean. 

Fifteen-ton armor stones will be delivered by truck, barge, or both, Mr. Frank said, depending on a determination by the contractor. A contract for the work has yet to be awarded. The project will increase the revetment’s size by almost 4,000 square feet, according to the Army Corps, he said.

Two staging areas for the project, one in Turtle Cove to the south, the other to the north, will impede access by surfers, fishermen, and others for the duration of the project, which the Army Corps has indicated could commence before year’s end. 

“Now that the town has an adopted local waterfront revitalization plan,” Mr. Frank said, “the corps is soliciting the town’s opinion that the revetment reconstruction project is consistent with the [plan],” which was adopted in 2007. While the local plan prohibits new erosion control structures, the revetment is mostly located in a coastal erosion zone that allows for the repair of existing structures, as well as for new structures, he said. “The environmental review that the corps did looked at a variety of alternatives, including nonstructural and even relocating the lighthouse. There’s an existing substantial stone revetment there, and assessing the impacts of re working an existing structure are obviously far less than the construction of a brand-new erosion control structure.” 

Consistency with the waterfront revitalization plan largely relates to public access to the lighthouse and shoreline, Mr. Frank said. “This is obviously an iconic resource of the state, one of the most recognizable features. . . . It receives a tremendous amount of visitation from the public, from schools, from residents, from transient visitors. The access to the shoreline is a portion of that.”

Members of the board asked for details as to what areas would be off-limits to the public. The contractor will determine those details, Mr. Frank said, but said that access to a cleared area above Turtle Cove will have to be prohibited. 

The Montauk Historical Society owns the lighthouse. The revetment, Mr. Frank said, extends onto parcels owned by entities including New York State Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation, the Long Island State Park Commission, and the town.

Gregory Donohue, who is the historical society’s erosion control director, told the board that the timing of funding and engineering represent “the last time we will ever see this opportunity for the lighthouse.” The new revetment will feature proper slope angles to buttress the shoreline against the ocean, as well as a flat promenade, or bench. “When the next 50-year storm comes,” he said, “we won’t get overtopped.”

I was 6 when Victor, who was 11, offered to teach me how to bat. I stood behind him in Ibsen Court, where we lived, watching as instructed, as he swung through and all the way back to my eye. My brothers led me home as I cried, and I had to start first grade with a shiner. Usually when I got hurt, it was scraped knees and elbows from running like hell during hide-and-seek. If the blood was really gushing, I’d go home for a Band-Aid and come right out after to play some more. My knees were covered in scabs most of the time, and I loved my cuts and scars, wearing them like badges of honor.

My various scrapes made me look tough, I thought, and that was everything to me in those days. I’d roll the sleeves up on my T-shirts and walk with my arms puffed out at my sides, thinking this made me look stronger. It was a glorious age of Kool-Aid mustaches and fireflies, chasing the ice cream man in summer, and in fall running from house to house with the other trick-or-treaters, and you never had to make a playdate, you just went outside with a ball, and pretty soon all the other kids would be there with you.

By middle school, there was almost no one left in Ibsen Court. Everyone was inside doing homework or at a school game, playing baseball in a uniform, taking it all very seriously. I joined the swim team, and got more involved in dancing school, all of which was so stressful I still occasionally have nightmares in which I can’t remember the choreography, or I’m moving through the water, but it’s thick and viscous and holding me back, and those long blissful afternoons playing baseball in the court with our motley crew of neighborhood kids faded along with my scar.

When I heard about the annual Artists and Writers Game in East Hampton, how it started with a crew of local artists like Jackson Pollock and Willem de Kooning at a picnic in 1948, just some friends in the neighborhood getting drunk and screwing around with a ball, how it grew to include writers like Terry Southern and George Plimpton, something old and lost in me stirred, and I asked my editor to sign me up. Ken Auletta, the writers’ captain, responded within minutes that I was on the team.

I was excited but also nervous. I hadn’t played any team sports since those days in the street, and I didn’t know anyone else on the team, though I sure as hell recognized the names of former players, a roster of writers I worshipped growing up. With the Nobel Prize winner Saul Bellow and the “Catch-22” author Joseph Heller, it seemed to me like the gods (my gods) organized a softball break on Mount Olympus. Not wanting to join a team of my heroes as the weakest link — what if Kurt Vonnegut passed me the ball and I didn’t catch it? What if the writers lost because of me? Would Norman Mailer stab me in the chest with a penknife? Would I have had it coming? Not knowing who would be on the team this year, my imagination filled in the images of former players now deceased. 

“Do you even know the rules?” my editor asked, interrupting my reverie. 

A few days later I was at a ribbon-cutting ceremony for the new baseball field in Springs, where the East Hampton Little League was about to play a scrimmage. I’d spent the previous half-hour with their coach, Tim Garneau, who’d agreed to lend me a mitt and give me a quick lesson in catching grounders, throwing, and hitting. “If they ask what position you play, tell them first. You’re good at catching,” Tim told me before Peter Van Scoyoc threw the opening pitch. I watched the kids and studied their confidence, and a few minutes later Tim put me on first base. I left with a bag of balls, a batting practice stick, a bat, and a pair of mitts to practice.

That night, I watched “Rocky” to prepare and called my best friend and mentor, the novelist Frederic Tuten, to be my Mickey (played to perfection by Burgess Meredith). Yes, “Rocky” is a boxing movie, but it’s also my favorite. “I have a great arm,” Fred said, referring to his days playing stickball in the post-Depression Bronx. “Come over.”

In his driveway a few hours later, he held the batting stick for me to take swipes at, but not before I emailed Almond Zigmund, the artist, and Jason Weiner, the chef, who own Almond restaurant in Bridgehampton:

“When Rocky trains for the big fight with Apollo, he goes to a butcher shop and punches the meat. I’m playing in the 70th Annual Artists and Writers Softball Game this Saturday and was wondering if you had any meat in your kitchen that I might strike with my bat.”

It was dinnertime and Almond was packed when I showed up with my bat on Tuesday. “I’m here to beat the meat,” I told the maître’d, Nick Maracz, before introducing Fred, leaning on his fluorescent cane. “This is my manager, the Bronx Brisket.” 

Nick ushered us past the dining room, through the kitchen, into the basement, and into the meat locker offering a choice of toothsome cuts. “Take your pick.”

I began with a shell steak that was on day 30 of a 35-day aging process and went to work as the Brisket remarked on my form. Fearing my blows, a sous chef called G-Unit left the room. I was beating up a salami when G-Unit returned with a smile and a plate of shrimp cocktail. Famished, the Brisket made swift work of the sauce. Appetized, we headed upstairs to talk strategy over dinner next to the window looking out into the rain. 

The next day, the Brisket and I headed over to the Iacono chicken farm in East Hampton. I left my bat in the car, not wanting to scare anyone, and introduced myself to the owner, Eileen. “I’m playing in the Artists and Writers Softball Game,” I said proudly, “and was wondering if I could chase one of your chickens. In ‘Rocky II,’ Mickey has Rocky chase a chicken to increase his speed.”

“You can’t chase a chicken.” 

“Why not?”

“In this heat? It’ll drop dead.”

“What if I come back at night?”

“You can’t chase a chicken,” said a young woman passing behind her.

“Why not?”

“It stresses them out,” she said, as a man behind both of them lay two plucked chickens with dangling necks on a slab and raised an ax.

“But you’re going to slaughter them anyway,” I whispered. The ax went down on both.

“Yeah, but they’re happy till the day they die. How would you like it if someone chased you?” 

I thought about this.

“What if I buy a chicken?”

Frederic: “Where would you put it? In the car with you?”

“Do you sell chicken cages?”

“We don’t sell live chickens,” the young woman said sternly, as Fred ran into an old friend who just picked up “two beautiful butterflied chickens,” which sounded much more monstrous to me.

Changing tacks, I bought a bright orange Iacono Farm baseball cap for the Brisket and invited everyone to Saturday’s game. Our training session thwarted, Fred and I stopped into the Candy Kitchen in Bridgehampton to talk strategy over ice cream sundaes.

The next day the Brisket was busy, so I decided to go to the Amagansett playground alone. The sun had already set as I set up near the batting cage. I had a bag of balls Tim had lent me, which I practiced throwing to no one as the sky grew dark. 

“I like your outfit!” Jordan Smith of the Eric Firestone Gallery said Friday morning, when he opened his front door. When I’d stopped into the gallery for their “Montauk Highway II: Postwar Abstraction in the Hamptons” show (featuring works by many former softball players!), I’d told him and Eric about the impending game, and Jordan, who’d played in camp, invited me over for some catch. Jordan surveyed my knee-high athletic socks, my NASA baseball cap with the Shuttle on it, my T-shirt sleeves rolled up, and then I followed him through the house to the backyard, puffing my arms a little at my sides.

The morning of game day, I headed over to Plaza Surf & Sports in Montauk, worried, because it was raining. What if the game was rained out! And also worried because if it wasn’t, I’d forgotten to buy eye black (that black paint the professionals put under their eyes to block the glare). After I got the under-eye stuff, I hit Dylan’s Candy Bar in East Hampton for a healthy supply of Big League Chew bubble gum and felt ready.

At 2 p.m., I walked to batting practice in Herrick Park, my heart pounding with worry. The storm clouds had cleared and the sun baked the asphalt as I made my way across the parking lot alone, hearing the announcer in the distance and the voice of Alec Baldwin, who’d stopped by to wish luck to the entrants in the home run challenge.

Remember, this is fun, I told myself, not for the first time. This is a lesson I always have to relearn, as my fears can sometimes get the better of me, tempting me to sit this one out, whether “this” is a party, a first date, a softball game, the prospect of beginning a new novel, or even this column. Remember, this is fun, I tell myself. This, being life.

Iris Smyles is the author of the novels “Iris Has Free Time” and “Dating Tips for the Unemployed.” Read more “Sheets to the Wind” at easthamtonstar.com/iris.

The Suffolk County District Attorney was working this week to indict members of an alleged drug ring that had hundreds of buyers and moved “kilogram quantities of cocaine and thousands of pills” in the Montauk area during a months-long investigation by the D.A.’s East End Drug Task Force and other agencies.

The arrests of 17 people on Aug. 15 “struck at the heart of the drug supply in Montauk,” Suffolk County District Attorney Timothy D. Sini said during a press conference last Thursday. “There are going to be a lot of people very upset this weekend.”

The defendants, most of whom worked as barbacks and line cooks at Montauk establishments, sold cocaine and pills, such as oxycodone, to patrons and others, all while living in housing provided by the restaurants and bars that employed them. Establishments specifically mentioned by the D.A.’s office were Swallow East, 668 the Gig Shack, Shagwong Tavern, Liar’s Saloon, and O’Murphy’s Pub and Restaurant, though defendants said in open court last Thursday that they also worked at the Surf Lodge and Sloppy Tuna, among others.

“In some cases they would literally be selling drugs out the back door of the kitchen,” Mr. Sini said.

“What this drug crew did was take advantage of the tourism and the commercial activity that was going on in the Montauk area. We all know that the population of the East End, particularly Montauk, increases dramatically in the summer months,” Mr. Sini said.

The defendants sold drugs at twice the market value or more, he said, selling a gram of cocaine for $100 and a single oxycodone pill for $40. “You can probably score a bag, a gram of cocaine, in Babylon for $40; Washington Heights for $30. We’re talking about a significant mark-up.”

They had “a very lucrative business,” profiting $150,000 per kilo of cocaine, Mr. Sini said. All the while, they continued to work in the restaurants, grow their clientele, and keep the housing that was provided to them.

The investigation, which began in March, included a wiretap more recently. The defendants received packages by mail containing drugs sent from other parts of the country and outside the United States, according to the district attorney.

The United States Postal Inspection ervice intercepted one package with $17,400 in cash inside. Another package with oxycodone, Roxicodone, and Xanax pills — addressed to one of the locations the defendants were living at in Montauk — was also seized. The federal Drug Enforcement Administration was also involved. 

The investigation culminated on the morning of Aug. 15 when police executed search warrants at five locations in Montauk connected to the alleged distribution ring. The raids led to the seizure of $100,000 in cash and 650 grams of cocaine, Mr. Sini said. Police also found assorted pills, a kilo presser, cutting agents, cellphones, and packaging materials, as well as a drug ledger outlining monies received and the identities of the sellers.

Five alleged ringleaders are being held at the Suffolk County jail in Riverside pending a full indictment. 

Three of them, Geraldo Vargas-Munoz, a 37-year-old known as Chelo, Elvin Silva-Ruiz, 40, who goes by Pito, and William Crespo-Duran, 35, whose nickname is Flaco, are all being held without bail because they are charged with top-level felonies for alleged drug possession. Mr. Vargas-Munoz and Mr. Silva-Ruiz were charged with criminal possession of a controlled substance in the first degree, the highest drug charge there is, and Mr. Crespo-Duran was charged with criminal possession of a controlled substance in the second degree. Mr. Sini said they would also be charged with conspiracy once indicted.

According to the D.A., Mr. Vargas-Munoz’s part in the drug conspiracy was to arrange for the transportation of narcotics into Suffolk County, sell drugs, and supply other drug dealers over the course of years. He said drugs were sold at the restaurants and motels where the defendants worked and lived.

Mr. Vargas-Munoz and Mr. Silva-Ruiz were arrested in Queens County, the D.A. said. Mr. Ruiz was taken into custody at Kennedy Airport, as he was readying to board an international flight. Mr. Sini declined to say where he was headed, but noted he had $10,000 in cash on him and another $7,000 in his luggage. 

At his arraignment in East Hampton Town Justice Court last Thursday, his attorney, Robert Coyle, said he was in his second season working as a cook at Swallow East on the Montauk Docks. In the off-season, he said he went back and forth between New York and Puerto Rico. 

Mr. Silva-Ruiz, who worked at O’Murphy’s Pub in Montauk, also had $10,000 when apprehended; he was allegedly meeting another person to transport the money out of state, the D.A. said. He was missing from the group brought into court last Thursday; he had been taken to Stony Brook Southampton Hospital with chest pains earlier that day. He was arraigned at his bedside later by Southampton Village Justice Barbara Wilson, and held without bail. He was still hospitalized as of yesterday. 

During the Thursday afternoon arraignments in East Hampton Town Justice Court, Brad Magill, an assistant district attorney, referred to Antonio Ramirez-Gonzalez as the “gatekeeper of the ill-gotten proceeds of the largest narcotics distribution ring in and around Montauk.” At his residence on West Lake Drive, investigators allegedly found $26,000 in cash, clearly marked and bundled in different denominations, as well as narcotics. He was charged with conspiracy in the second degree. 

The 30-year-old, also known as Tete, told Justice Lisa R. Rana, who presided over the arraignments, that he worked in the kitchen at the Surf Lodge hotel and restaurant as a dishwasher.

The D.A.’s office requested $500,000 cash bail and $1 million bond, claiming Mr. Ramirez-Gonzalez was a flight risk. Justice Rana said the figure seemed a bit excessive, and set bail at $100,000 cash or $200,000 bond. 

The fifth man in the custody of the Suffolk County Sheriff’s office is Gilberto Quintana-Crespo, whom Mr. Magill called a “key member” of the narcotics distribution ring who had a role in securing postal packages containing narcotics. The 32-year-old, known as Jimmy, was also charged with conspiracy in the second degree. 

His Legal Aid attorney, Matthew D’Amato, told the court that he was working as a cook at Swallow East, but had worked elsewhere in East Hampton and Montauk for six previous summers. 

The district attorney’s office asked for $250,000 cash or $500,000 bond, which Mr. D’Amato called “outrageous.” “The people are using terms like ‘key member of an organization.’ However, he doesn’t even have enough money for an attorney,” he told the court. Bail was set at $100,000 cash or $200,000 bond. 

“This has been an extremely in-depth and multi-faceted investigation into a major narcotics distribution ring, which originated from very professional and industrious patrol and detective work by members of the East Hampton Town Police Department,” Chief Michael Sarlo said yesterday. He thanked all of the outside agencies that brought the case together. “The community of Montauk and Town of East Hampton are a safer place today,” he said.

While those arrested on Aug. 15 may have taken advantage of the summer season, Mr. Sini said it was evident that “the illicit activity plagued the year-round residents.”

“This is not a new problem,” he said, noting that year-round residents have been voicing concerns about drug dealing in the community for years.

During the investigation, when their cash was seized and the accused were unable to purchase drugs to sell in Montauk, “the phones lit up,” Mr. Sini said. Customers were getting “dope sick” because they couldn’t get their supply, he claimed. “So there is no doubt that part of this is selling cocaine to party-goers, but with that, is the sale of opioids to people who suffer from severe addictions.”

Buyers were not the target of this investigation, and none were arrested, the D.A. said.

Asked if the arrests could be tied to any overdoses in the area, Mr. Sini said they could not, but did not rule that out.

The D.A. said that between 2013 and 2018 the number of arrests for criminal possession of a controlled substance in Montauk increased 337 percent. He attributed the dramatic increase to excellent police work by the East Hampton Town Police Department, but also to the increased drug dealing going on.

“The tourism industry, and by extension the service industry, are certainly critical to Suffolk County’s economy,” he said. “We will not tolerate individuals who traffic drugs into our communities, target the tourists and residents in these world-class destinations, and use the guise of customer service to flood our communities with drugs. We will certainly not tolerate any commercial establishments that facilitate or even condone those activities by their employees.”

All the defendants have Montauk addresses and are U.S. citizens, according to the D.A.’s office. None are prior felons, he said. Some have had minimal contact with the criminal justice system, with some exceptions.

John DeMelio, 32, was charged with conspiracy in the second degree. He was already facing drug charges in East Hampton Town Justice Court. Just three days before the drug bust, on Aug. 12, he was arrested on two counts of criminal possession of a controlled substance in the seventh degree, a misdemeanor. 

He allegedly had eight small bags containing a white powder that later tested positive for cocaine. Police said he also had six round blue pills marked “K9,” later identified as oxycodone. The drugs were reportedly found in a 2014 Volkswagen on Flamingo Avenue, near Fleming Road, in Montauk at about 4 p.m. 

When Mr. DeMelio was brought into court last Thursday, he was arraigned on the charges from both Aug. 12 and Aug. 15. Rita Boniccelli, who represented him for arraignment, pointed out that he had no criminal history. After reviewing court documents from the D.A.’s office, she questioned how her client — who she said was a mate on a fishing boat — was connected to the overall conspiracy. She said there had been no arrest or search warrants and that officers were not given consent to come into his house, which is owned by his parents. 

Justice Rana set bail at $10,000 cash and $20,000 bond on the latest charges, and $1,000 cash or $2,000 bond on the Aug. 12 charges. His parents posted his bail, and he is due back in court on Sept. 27. 

Others arrested Wednesday were:

• Bryan Ruiz-Sanchez, 22, was charged with conspiracy in the second degree. Mr. Ruiz-Sanchez said he arrived in Montauk in late July from Puerto Rico and that he did a handful of jobs for Gurney’s Resort in Montauk. He was released on $10,000 cash or $20,000 bond. 

• Kevin Becker, 30, charged with conspiracy in the second degree. His attorney, Edward Burke Jr., said he works for his family’s business, and needed to get into a rehabilitation program at the Dunes in East Hampton. Bail was set at $10,000 cash or $20,000 bond. 

• Eric Mendez, 38, charged with conspiracy in the second degree, described by the D.A.’s office as a “mid-level conspirator.” He told the court he worked at the Sloppy Tuna restaurant and bar in Montauk as a chef this year. He posted $10,000 cash bail. 

• Louis Madariaga-Medina, 31, was charged with two counts of criminal possession of a controlled substance in the seventh degree. At arraignment, he said he lives in Spain the rest of the year and that he was working this summer at 668 the Gig Shack restaurant in Montauk. He was released on $500 bail.

• Israel Padilla-Rosas, 33, was charged with criminal possession of marijuana in the fourth degree, a misdemeanor. He said he worked as a dishwasher at the Gig Shack restaurant and bar in Montauk, and lives and works elsewhere in the winter, sometimes Puerto Rico. He posted $500 bail. 

• Thomas Harwood, 25, and Nawar Qanbar, 32, were each charged with criminal possession of a controlled substance in the seventh degree. Mr. Qanbar, who is from Colorado, said he worked at the Gig Shack as a cook, and was released on $250 bail. Mr. Harwood was released on an appearance ticket. 

• Alex Joel Tirado-Rivera, 32, and Bracklie Vargas-Gonzalez, 24, were charged with criminal possession of a controlled substance in the seventh degree and unlawful possession of marijuana. Both said they worked at the Surf Lodge. Both were released on $500 bail. 

• Gilbert Rodriguez-Mendez, 41, was charged with unlawful possession of marijuana. He was released on an appearance ticket.

Also, the D.A.’s office said John Doherty Valentin, 29, was arrested last Thursday. He is charged with seven counts of criminal sale of a controlled substance in the third degree, a felony.

With Reporting by Carissa Katz

Kenneth Bernard Faried Lewis, who was recently traded to the Brooklyn Nets, was arrested on a misdemeanor marijuana charge in Bridgehampton Sunday night.

Southampton Town police said that the 29-year-old, who goes by Kenneth Faried on the basketball court, was one of three people in a Cadillac Escalade that drove through a sobriety checkpoint on Main Street. Police noticed a strong odor of marijuana coming from inside the vehicle, according to Lt. Susan Ralph.

All three people were arrested, and the marijuana was located, but police did not say where.

Mr. Faried, who gave police an address in Denver, as he played with the Denver Nuggets during the 2107-18 N.B.A. season, was found to be in possession of more than two ounces of marijuana, Lieutenant Ralph said. He was charged with unlawful possession of marijuana in the fourth degree, a misdemeanor, at 9:56 p.m.

The other two in the vehicle, Taurean Knuckles and Atar Hajali, were charged with unlawful possession of marijuana, a violation. They were released with appearance tickets. Ms. Hajali and Mr. Faried have a 6-month-old child together.

The couple attended a summer benefit for U.N.C.F., which supports African-American enrollment in higher education, in East Hampton over the weekend.

Mr. Faried's attorney, Edward Burke Jr. of Sag Harbor, had no comment.

A man whose yacht was found discharging waste into Lake Montauk late last month is facing a number of charges brought by federal, state, and local authorities.

Charles Vaccaro of Sunny Isles Beach, Fla., was wanted in Florida at the time for theft of government services, though that matter has since been cleared up.

An anonymous tipster alerted East Hampton Town Marine Patrol officers that a yacht at Gurney’s Montauk Yacht Club was illegally discharging sewage into the water.

Two people were living aboard the 74-foot yacht, the C-Weed, which was docked at the yacht club for about three weeks, Chief Harbormaster Ed Michels said. It was pumped out when the boat left Port Washington three weeks earlier, but not since, he said. The tanks were full and overflowed into Lake Montauk. 

“You could certainly smell it,” Chief Michels said.

Mr. Vaccaro, the president and co-founder of Velez Capital Management in Port Washington, who has a house in Montauk, was not living aboard, but was issued tickets because it was his boat, Chief Michels said. The harbormaster’s office tried on several occasions to get Mr. Vaccaro to assist them in the situation, but he did not immediately respond.

Chief Michels called in the State Department of Environmental Conservation and the Coast Guard to assist. The Coast Guard boarded the boat on July 26 for an inspection.

The Italian-made 2001 yacht, which Mr. Vaccaro recently purchased, has four heads, Chief Michels said, adding that no one on board knew how to use the pumpout system. Ultimately, the yacht club had to shut off the power being supplied to the boat. The chief said the club owner and staff were “very cooperative.”

Coast Guard Petty Officer Ryan O’Hare, second in command at Coast Guard Station Montauk, said the boarding officer could see the discharge coming from the boat. Even so, a dye test on the vessel’s toilets was conducted. Officials said it confirmed that sewage from the C-Weed was entering Lake Montauk.

D.E.C. officers issued three misdemeanor tickets, for discharge of sewage in a no-discharge zone, which carries up to a $1,000 fine, for discharging without a New York State Pollutant Discharge Elimination System permit, and for pollution of waters of a marine district. The latter two carry fines of $3,750 to $37,500 and/or up to one year in jail per day of the violation.

For the federal charges, the Coast Guard cited Mr. Vaccaro for not having closed a valve that would have prevented the sewage from discharging into the water once the tanks were full, and for discharging in a no-discharge zone. A hearing office in Virginia will make a determination with regard to prosecution, Officer O’Hare said.

He described the charges as very serious. “It’s not going to go unanswered by the Coast Guard,” he said. “The Coast Guard will, one way or another, take action.” The Town of East Hampton cited Mr. Vaccaro for violation of a town ordinance.

“Protection of our natural resources, including water quality, is a top priority,” Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc said. “All harbors in the town are designated no-discharge zones, where waste must be contained and properly pumped out in order to prevent pollution.”

While running Mr. Vaccaro’s license, environmental conservation officers discovered an outstanding warrant in Florida on the theft of government services charge. The warrant, related to taxes in Florida, has been cleared and dismissed, according to Mr. Vaccaro’s Sag Harbor attorney, Edward Burke Jr.

The yacht owner was taken into custody on July 27 and arraigned on the D.E.C. charges on July 30 in East Hampton Town Justice Court.

“We will vigorously defend Mr. Vaccaro and clear his name from these charges,” Mr. Burke said in a statement.

Mr. Vaccaro is due back in Justice Court today.

Fifteen people were arrested in Montauk Wednesday in connection with an alleged narcotics distribution ring, Suffolk County District Attorney Timothy D. Sini's office announced Thursday morning. 

"The alleged conspiracy to sell narcotics involved several seasonal employees in local bars and restaurants who were receiving packages of illicit substances through the mail," a press release from the D.A.'s office said.

The district attorney, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, and members of the district attorney’s East End Drug Task Force will hold a press conference Thursday afternoon at 2 at the D.A.'s office in Hauppauge to release more information.