A handful of new parking-by-permit-only signs posted in two public lots in Montauk have some cheering and at least one business owner scratching his head and asking why.

    The signs are part of an East Hampton Town project that added some 40 parking spaces to the hamlet by reconfiguring a number of spaces from parallel parking to head-on early last summer.

    The signs have been installed to mark off 16 residents-only spaces plus one for handicapped access in the back row south of the larger lot behind Plaza Sports, Wok and Roll, the Corner Store, and Atlantic Beach Realty. Five more spaces are to the north in the lot behind Chase Bank near the police annex and the Hampton Jitney stop.

    Hy Brodsky, a member of the Montauk Citizens Advisory Committee who often rides the Jitney, is cheering the new signs, which he’s been lobbying for since 2009 at town board meetings and at advisory committee meetings.

    “Finally an administration that is supposed to be looking out for its community is doing their job,” he said, giving kudos specifically to East Hampton Town Councilwoman Julia Prince, who headed up the project.

    His frequent trips on the Jitney, Mr. Brodsky explained, led him to realize that there was no place in the downtown area of the hamlet designated only for residents to park. He said he studied the situation and learned that people were parking in the lot behind Chase Bank near the Jitney stop and leaving their vehicles there overnight, monopolizing the spaces.

    “Residents should have a place to park in all of the lots. There’s plenty of parking spaces on the streets now for out-of-towners to park their cars,” Mr. Brodsky said.

    “I think it’s great,” said Lynden Restrepo of Atlantic Beach Realty. “It’s the best thing they ever did.” Employees who work downtown are often ticketed because they can’t find a place to park that isn’t restricted to a two-hour limit, she said. Most signs there limit parking to two hours between 9 a.m. and 5 p.m. “It seems the locals always get screwed. We come to work and we can’t find a place to park,” she said.

    Ms. Prince, who is not running for re-election, said the spaces were marked for the convenience of people who work in the area. The project, one she’s been working on with others in the community and that is now complete, also included adding a two-hour limit in front of businesses to the east so cars wouldn’t clog up parking spaces while people go to the beach for the day, she said.

    Peter Ferraro of Plaza Sports said he called the Montauk Chamber of Commerce to complain. The public lots, he said, were supposed to be used by customers looking to spend time in local stores, restaurants, and other businesses. “I just don’t understand why they did it,” he said.

    Laraine Creegan, the chamber’s executive director, said she was still researching the situation following Mr. Ferraro’s phone call. “I’d like to meet with the town about it,” she said, adding that she thinks the town overdid it. “I’m not opposed to the town adding, say, five [permit-designated] spaces in each lot. I understand that,” she said.

    Mr. Brodsky said he would fight as hard as he could to keep the spaces. “As far as I’m concerned, I applaud this move. Julia did a wonderful job with this,” he said.

     Elias Van Sickle, a junior at East Hampton High School, and Julian Verglas, a junior high school student in New York City, kite-surfed from Montauk to Block Island on Sunday to raise money for and awareness of the East Hampton Ocean Rescue Squad, a volunteer group.

     The crossing took one hour and 45 minutes in winds that averaged 30 miles an hour with 36-miles-an-hour gusts. The feat raised $3,000 for the rescue squad. 

    Kite-surfing is akin to sailing, but with participants on surfboards or smaller kite boards rather than in boats.

    The pair, who are each 16, launched from Gin Beach in Montauk, accompanied by three members of the ocean rescue team: Rich Kalbacher, in a 24-foot boat, and John Ryan Jr. and Rob Lambert, on Jet Skis. The kiters were sponsored by the Best Kites and Cabrinha Kite companies.

    Seas generated by the strong westerly winds measured 7 to 10 feet with some bigger swells. As the kite surfers passed Montauk Point and entered the blue water between Montauk and Block Island, they met large ocean swells. Traveling straight downwind in the direction of the waves, the kiters often disappeared in the waves’ troughs.

    Although Verglas used a kiteboard, which has foot straps, Van Sickle rode a surfboard without that benefit. Each was tossed into the sea a few times, but quickly recovered and continued in the company of the chase boats to Block Island. Because the Montauk to Block Island ferry had ended its service the previous week, The pair flew back to Montauk on a chartered plane.

    What did it sound like waking up in a big city before the internal combustion engine was invented, when horsepower was just that? What did old Fitzgerald’s saloon, harborside in Montauk, smell like when fishermen came in out of the rain before synthetic fabrics replaced wool, and brass spitoons still served a purpose?

    And, what did you see standing beneath the Montauk Lighthouse on any clear night between 1857, the year the Light’s grand old Fresnel lens was installed, and June of 1987, when it was removed?

    Horse-drawn cities and bars smelling of wet wool and tobacco spittle are gone for good, but if the Montauk Point Lighthouse Museum can convince the United States Coast Guard there is no downside to bringing back an exact replica of the Fresnel, you will see a more powerful light sweeping its helpful beam far out to sea and across the hills of the Montauk Moorlands.

    And, as you fish, or smooch, or simply stargaze, you will do so within a magical revolving shower of smaller beams sent forth by the Fresnel’s many glass prisms. 

    The prisms of a replica 3.5-order bivalve Fresnel lens will be made of highly polished acrylic instead of glass, and  is much lighter. But, like the original, which is on permanent display in the ground-floor museum of the Lighthouse, the lens’s frame will be solid brass. While the rotation of the old Fresnel was oiled by a bath of dangerous liquid mercury, the new lens is designed to ride on state-of-the-art ball bearings.

    The replica’s manufacturer, Art Works Florida, has been contacted, and Dan Spinella, its lens designer and preservationist, has visited the Montauk Light to take measurements. The replica would cost about $75,000.

    The Coast Guard replaced the old Fresnel with a utilitarian, fully automated light that turns itself on and off using sensors. Even the Lighthouse foghorn is told to blow by a humidity-sniffing robot. Mr. Spinella said the replica, also sensor-automated, would rotate at all times — “It glistens in the sunlight” — which keeps the bearings running smoothly.

    The beam cast by the replica Fresnel, powered by a thousand-watt incandescent bulb, “is more powerful than what’s in there now,” Mr. Spinella said. If the bulb blows, it is automatically replaced by another, and there is a third, battery-powered backup if the Lighthouse loses electricity.

    Art Works Florida has outfitted a dozen lighthouses around the country with replica Fresnels. All were once maintained by the Coast Guard. Once they were no longer considered federal aids to navigation, however, because of great strides in navigation technology, they could be privatized.

    So far, the Coast Guard has resisted allowing lighthouses still considered part of the federal government’s system of aids to navigation to go private. Dick White, the Lighthouse committee’s chairman, hopes to convince the agency to relax this policy.

    “We have redundancy. We will duplicate all the safeguards that the Coast Guard has so that nothing can go through the cracks,” Mr. White said.

    The Montauk Historical Society owns the land on which sits the tower that George Washington authorized, and it owns the Lighthouse itself. The Coast Guard maintains the Light, an arrangement Mr. White said could continue if the agency wanted.

    The committee has filed a formal request to make the Lighthouse a private aid to navigation. A three-month required survey of mariners, in order to discover any objections to the Light’s change of status, was completed in June.

    Henry Osmers, the Montauk Lighthouse’s historian, whose latest book, “American Gibraltar — Montauk and the Wars of America,” was just published, talked about the Light’s connection with the Fresnel, a history that includes an intriguing mystery.

    A lens comprised of an array of prisms that focused light from a single source was developed by Augustin-Jean Fresnel in the early-19th century. It became a standard in lighthouses.

    The Montauk Lighthouse has had two Fresnels, Mr. Osmers said. The original, installed in 1857, might well have been fueled by whale oil. “When it was installed, the lantern in which the lens sat was not the right size. The dome on the top of the Lighthouse blocked a third of the light. In 1860 they reconstructed the top of tower to where it is today.”

    The original Fresnel, 12 feet tall and weighing 10,000 pounds, was called a first-order lens. Mr. Osmers said Fresnel made six sizes (orders) of lenses. “The first order was in the tower from 1860 to 1903. It was removed when a clockwork mechanism, which controlled a flash panel that revolved around the lens, broke. The flash was the Montauk Light’s signature.”

    The first lens was swapped out for a 3.5-order Fresnel, half the weight and half the size. But what happened to the original?

    Mr. Osmers said records indicate it was taken apart and put in wooden crates. The crates were put on a boat bound for New York City and eventually for a repair depot on Staten Island. The lens “sailed off into the mist,” Mr. Osmers said. It never arrived at its destination, and was never seen again. 

    The 3.5-order Fresnel served for 83 years until the light was replaced by a fully-automated Vega VRB-25 with a range of 18 nautical miles. Soon after it was installed, local fishermen complained that its beam was weak. The replica Fresnel would cast a brighter beam, at least two nautical miles farther out to sea. The Vega is rated at 293,700 candlepower. The replica is rated at 2.5 million.

    The Coast Guard is considering the Lighthouse committee’s request.

    “Just because plastic is disposable, that doesn’t mean it goes away,” says Jeb Berrier in the award-winning documentary “Bag It: Is Your Life Too Plastic?” which will be screened for free at the Rogers Memorial Library in Southampton on Monday. “And where is away?” According to the movie, “away” is overflowing landfills, mountainous islands of trash in the oceans, and even our own toxic bodies.

    In the past six months, Southampton Village has enacted a ban on plastic grocery bags, the Ross School hosted a forum focusing on plastic bottle use and abuse, East Hampton Village has followed in Southampton’s footsteps, the Amagansett I.G.A. has discontinued the use of plastic bags, and more attention is being drawn to the effect of plastic in coastline communities across the Atlantic seaboard.

    It seems that the time is ripe for the Southampton environmental group S.A.V.E. (Southampton Advocates for the Village Environment) to arrange for the showing of “Bag It,” which follows Mr. Berrier, a regular guy and a host on Plum TV in Colorado, who tries to understand the American dependence on plastic bags. His journey leads him from his own small Colorado town to the worldwide issues of landfills, oceans, rivers, and plastic’s consequences to human health.

    According to facts unearthed by Mr. Berrier and the filmmakers, the average American uses about 500 plastic bags a year for around 12 minutes apiece — a total of approximately 150 billion plastic bags annually. And that’s just in the United States. The single-use mentality in this country and many others has led to islands of plastic debris in the ocean; one of which is more than twice the size of Texas. Although the plastic photo-degrades eventually, it doesn’t go away, it just gets smaller, small enough to be mistaken for plankton and eaten by fish, which are eventually eaten by us.

    The film, produced by Reel Thing Productions in association with the Telluride Institute, has bagged honors and awards at film festivals from Princeton, N.J., to Hawaii. Louie Psihoyos, director of “The Cove,” stated in a release about the film, “I didn’t expect a movie about plastic bags to change my life in such a deep and profound way. Gripping, funny, intelligent, and sure to change your life.”     

    The screening at the library is a celebration of Southampton’s recent landmark ordinance banning single-use plastic bags in village stores. Mackie Finnerty, a S.A.V.E. member, said, “We thought it was important to implement a plastic-bag ban in the seaside towns because plastic bags are frequently found in ponds, on the dunes, and along beaches. Plastic bags not only end up as litter, but they also kill birds and sea creatures, compromising our already fragile ecosystems.”

    Although the 5 p.m. event is free, filmgoers have been asked to call the library to reserve a spot. The number is 283-0774.

    Chaps may have their place in the world of fashion, but when it comes to using a chain saw, they are a definite must.

    Michael Gaines, founder and president of CW Arborists in East Hampton, held a free chain-saw safety class on Sept. 15 at his place of business on Three Mile Harbor Road. Seven people listened intently as he instructed them about the intricacies of chain-saw techniques.

    “Personal protective equipment is the most important part,” said Mr. Gaines. He discussed how a helmet made to federal standards is of better quality, and the strong webbing inside helps to absorb shock. While a good helmet may be expensive — around $130 — it is well worth it, he said. Wraparound goggles, earmuffs, steel-toed boots, and leg protection complete the ensemble. Chaps, which cost about $100, protect the femoral artery and veins on the legs. “One strike and it’s over pretty fast, folks,” warned Mr. Gaines.

    Nick Dilollo, a CW Arborists employee, was cutting down a pine tree two years ago sans chaps, and he learned their value the hard way. “After I cut the tree through, the chain saw hit my shin. It didn’t hurt until the stitches went in,” said Mr. Dilollo. (He received 30 of them.)

    Mr. Gaines explained the parts of a chain saw, talked about when injuries commonly occur, and discussed various ways to start it. “Many injuries happen from touching the mufflers,” he explained. “That’s a burning injury. Also, one out of five chain-saw injuries are from a kickback,” he said. This happens when the front or the tip of the chain saw touches something, causing the chain saw to rotate back toward its user. “Never cut with the quadrant in the front. It idles and flips up, and the blade can hit you in the face,” said Mr. Gaines.

    According to the International Society of Arboriculture, a kickback takes place at a rate seven times faster than a person can react. On average, Mr. Gaines said, chain-saw injuries are statistically more prevalent when it comes to hands, legs, and knees. “If you miss the brake, you can hit the blade with your hand,” he cautioned. At full speed, a chain saw can operate at 68 miles per hour. Most injuries occur when it is in idle.

    Mr. Gaines talked about how to sharpen a chain saw and demonstrated different kinds of cuts. To prove his point about the importance of chaps, he took a large saw to a pair, and showed how the fabric got stuck in the blade. This layer of safety greatly decreases the chance of a mishap.

    The arborist concluded the evening by cutting into a large piece of meat. Unprotected, the meat was sliced to the bone in a matter of seconds. Safety awareness and a calm demeanor are absolutely necessary when using a chain saw, said Mr. Gaines, adding that “things go wrong in our world when we’re frustrated.”

    A week before Tropical Storm Irene ravaged the East Coast, David Ryan, the owner and founder of Sailing Montauk, was left with a lightning-charred Catalina 38, damaged beyond repair in a serious thunderstorm. But in the wake of that storm he turned his attention toward plans for a new and bigger boat — a 30-person catamaran that, when completed, will be the East End’s only United States Coast Guard-inspected sailing vessel legally allowed to carry more than six passengers, according to Mr. Ryan.

    He and his wife, Amelia Ryan, along with their two daughters, have been making passages together to the Caribbean and ports up and down the East Coast for years. They decided that this summer, they would take Mr. Ryan’s master captain license and lifelong love affair with the ocean and try to make a business of it. In June they launched the charter sailing business Sailing Montauk, outfitting his sloop, S/V Intemperance, as a family-friendly cruiser. By the end of the season, the S/V Intemperance had made almost 100 trips and carried 500 passengers.

    “It’s a return to something from my youth,” said Mr. Ryan. “But you can’t support a family on a six-pack charter boat. This summer was an exploratory season to see if there was business to support it, and there is. I get so high from how good it makes people feel, they’re so enraptured with it.”

    The reception was so good, in fact, that in mid-July Mr. Ryan started looking into building a bigger boat — he was tired of having to turn large groups of people down. When he discovered the storm-induced damage to the S/V Intemperance on that fateful morning, it only solidified his determination to get serious about what he is calling the Mon Tiki Catamaran Project.

    “I had had a full day with three trips and the next day we had two trips, one in the afternoon and then a sunset cruise — I was looking forward to sleeping in,” Mr. Ryan said laughing. “But the phone rang in the morning and my wife asked me if I wanted to do a trip. I thought to myself, ‘This is what we do in the summer. If you don’t do it now, you’ll regret it in February.’ ”

    Mr. Ryan agreed to take a woman with her two teenage children out, but they had to pick him up — his car had died that morning. Driving down to the water with her, he said, “The wind was coming out of the north. It was one of those beautiful days, so crisp and dry and clear, but suddenly there was a smell of burned plastic. I thought there must have been a fire over in the harbor area.”

    The night before, Mr. Ryan and his daughter had shut down the boat, closing hatches and through-holes with deliberate care. They knew a powerful storm was brewing.

    “We started motoring out slowly, and the smell was getting stronger and stronger and stronger,” he said. “Then I noticed a weird shadow on the companionway — it wasn’t coming from the right angle from where the sun was located. Then I realized the ‘shadow’ was blackened boards. My boat was the source of the smell!”

    After taking his clients back to shore, he dashed down the companionway and sprayed it heavily with a fire extinguisher.

    Mr. Ryan isn’t exactly sure what happened, but believes that there was a flash ignition caused by the lightning’s electricity entering the wiring system of the boat, as there was no damage to the mast whatsoever.

    “I think it lit one of the breakers on fire. It looked as though it burned slowly and made a canopy of combustible gas, but everything was closed up so tightly it extinguished itself,” Mr. Ryan explained. “That burst put soot everywhere and the whole cabin roof, liner, and wiring is destroyed. And all the windows were melted.”

    The adjuster declared it a total loss, as the cost to bring the boat back far exceeds its own value.

    “Her financial ashes will be the fertilizer for a new project,” Mr. Ryan said, adding that the Mon Tiki Eco Catamaran will be a boon to the local economy.

    “Our sailing trips bring people out into the community and drive dollars into the community,” he said. “Sailing Montauk guests book hotel rooms and dine in Montauk restaurants. Having the bigger boat will only bolster this. This is a part of the tourism infrastructure that we are lacking.”

    The new boat will be a James Wharram-designed Tiki 38, a schooner-rigged 38-foot open bridge-deck catamaran capable of transoceanic passages, but well suited for day sailing trips. Mr. Ryan, a boat builder himself, but not on this scale, explained that because of the ship’s twin-hull design, the Tiki 38 could offer high-speed sailing with virtually no heeling, reducing the prospect of seasickness. The Wharram catamaran “is a very forward-thinking hybrid of traditional and cutting-edge technology that gives the craft capacities and passenger comfort that nothing available ready-made offers,” Mr. Ryan wrote in an e-mail. “No Wharram has ever been put through U.S.C.G. Marine Safety Center certification before, and once that’s done we’ll have an absolutely unique vessel, the only one of its kind anywhere on Long Island, anywhere in the U.S., in fact. We don’t just want to build this boat, we have to!”

    Financing has been secured and the full building plans are under review by John Marples, an expert in the construction of boats that can pass the U.S. Coast Guard Inspected Passenger Vessel Certification. Mr. Ryan anticipates a final approval at the end of October, with the four-month construction slated to begin in December.

    He is looking for a construction site for the Tiki, hoping to have it built on the East End by local craftsmen using low-impact materials. He believes the boat will serve as a “working testament” to the skills and ingenuity of the local community.

    “If we can’t find something on the East End, we’ll have to pivot and try to find some space in Brooklyn. But how wonderful it would be to say, ‘This boat was built here.’ ”

    Years ago, Bob Valenti got in the habit of sleeping at his Multi-Aquaculture Systems facility on Napeague when major storms threatened. He was there to weather Tropical Storm Irene along with the thousands of striped bass he farms in a series of tanks.

    The aquaculture facility’s water circulation and oxygen are supplied by electrically-powered equipment, and therein lay the rub, first when the system lost power, and second when Dr. Valenti sought help, in vain, from the Long Island Power Authority.

    What happened at the fish farm surely highlighted frustration with LIPA, but it also clarified the roles of the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Small Business Administration in the wake of castastophic storms. 

    While Napeague, the sandy stretch between Amagansett and Montauk, kept its power for the most part during Irene, the lights and machinery went out at the fish farm. In the 40 minutes it took Dr. Valenti and crew to fire up the backup generator, $9,000 worth of striped bass died.

    “Three of us were sleeping here. At 4 a.m. the power goes off. By the time the generator was going the pump had lost its prime. We lost about 1,000 11/2-year-old bass. The waste of a lot of effort.”

    The marine biologist and fish farmer said his frustration with the Long Island Power Authority got to the point of painting “S.O.S. LIPA” on a sign and placing it on Cranberry Hole Road in an attempt to get the utility’s attention. The power was not restored for five days.

    “You can’t talk to them. I even called the supervisor of Islip for help. I don’t want a handout, but their business is selling power. This storm was nothing. What the hell are we going to do if a real hurricane comes?”

    Dr. Valenti said he contacted the Federal Emergency Management Agency to see about assistance and was told the agency did not administer grants to commercial enterprises and recommended he contact the Small Business Administration for a low-interest loan.

    Mike McCormick, a FEMA spokesman, said the agency’s disaster assistance focused on residential needs and losses. “We don’t deal with businesses at all. We deal with grants having to do with shelter, also government-to-government money, and nonprofits that have to do with public service such as day care, hospitals, and public assistance.”

    Jelani Miller of the S.B.A. confirmed that businesses damaged in disasters were eligible for low-interest loans at 4 percent for up to 30 years. The money can be used to replace machinery and other equipment, as well as real estate, and “economic recovery,” meaning working capital, Mr. Miller said. S.B.A. involvement was triggered by Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s emergency declaration.

    He added that low-interest loans were also available for homeowners and renters whose property was damaged in a disaster. In this case, homeowners and renters can get loans up to $200,000 at 2.5 percent interest for primary real estate repair or replacement, and up to $40,000 for personal property loss.

    S.B.A. offices in Suffolk County can be found in the Lee Dennison Building, Veterans Highway in Haupauge, and in the Riverhead Fire Headquarters, 540 Roanoke Avenue in Riverhead.

    As a huge American flag fluttered in the wind from the top of a ladder truck, the Montauk Fire Department dedicated a Sept. 11 monument on the department grounds on Sunday. A crowd that included fire department officers, volunteers, Ladies Auxiliary members, Scouts, and others stood solemnly as a Coast Guard color guard approached the monument and began the dedication.

    First Assistant Chief John McDonald led the service, which began with a prayer from the Rev. Bill Hoffmann of the Montauk Community Church. Richard Schoen, the fire department chief, said, “I’d like to welcome you all here, but quite frankly I wish we weren’t here.”

    “This monument signifies that we will never forget,” he later added.

    Joe Dryer, a fire commissioner, told the crowd that today America is fighting a different type of enemy, one who will not go away. “We all have to fight this battle,” he said.

    Dennis O’Reilly, a retired New York City firefighter who was stationed in the South Bronx, was credited with getting the monument built. When he spoke, he wouldn’t take credit but did call himself the point man on the project.

    After the ceremony he said the monument was built to replace another one that was eroding in the Montauk elements. He was able to secure a piece of steel from the World Trade Center. It came from the New York Fire Department’s training facility on Randalls Island and was from the same steel beam that was made into a plaque for the U.S.S. New York, Mr. O’Reilly said.

He had help obtaining it from another former fireman, Lee Ielpi, who runs the September 11th Families Association and directs the distribution of the steel.

Carl Scheetz, an artisan who cuts and fabricates steel from Ground Zero, fashioned the piece into a Maltese cross — the shape of a firefighter’s badge and a symbol of protection. It is on the main section of the monument surrounding the number 343, the number of firefighters who lost their lives that day.

Two granite pillars resembling the silhouette of the Twin Towers are on either side, and the names of the firefighters are listed on plaques attached to them.

During the ceremony a plane flew over, leaving a plume of smoke. Mr. O’Reilly said it was intentional that the plane flew from north to south to signify that the future is before us. The ceremony ended with 411 moments of silence for the number of firefighters, police officers, and emergency service workers who died on Sept. 11, 2001. Mr. O’Reilly said he hopes the monument becomes a place of solace for others. “Where else can you go and be able to touch a piece of Ground Zero?” he asked.

     After Tropical Storm Irene finished chewing up the South Shore, Molly Zweig, the owner of property that backs onto Georgica Beach, began installing an array of steel pipes to mark the southernmost boundaries of her land as they appear on her deed. Before the storm, an area of about 3,000 square feet contained a dune. After Irene, a flat stretch of beach was all that remained.

    Surfers and others who frequent the beach at Georgica were outraged by the apparent attempt to usurp a portion of public beach. Protest signs were placed, the fence was vandalized, and a civil-disobedience protest was talked about.

    Since then, the shifting sands of time and place have put what seemed an attempt to claim public beach in a more faceted light. 

    On Friday, Ms. Zweig and her contractor, Bob Sullivan, were given stop-work orders from the State Department of Environmental Conservation and from East Hampton Village. Both agencies issued summonses charging construction on a beach without a permit.

    In addition, Larry Cantwell, East Hampton Village Administrator, said Tuesday that Ms. Zweig had been told that she must apply for permits from three sources, the village, the East Hampton Town Trustees, and the state Department of Environmental Conservation, before she can restore her lost dune.

    However, what first appeared to be yet another case of a private interest claiming public beach (there are already two lawsuits claiming proprietary interest in beaches long believed to be public, one on Napeague and the other in East Hampton Village) has a few twists and surprises, including a stone revetment that was constructed over 30 years ago on the section of beach in question and revealed by Irene’s eroding waves.

    Mr. Cantwell said he had formed no opinion as to whether the existence of the exposed revetment would influence the private-public debate. The rocks have been covered over with sand in the days since the storm. The revetment was approved by both the village and the D.E.C. in 1977.

    On Monday, Tom Lawrence, the village code enforcement officer, met with the homeowner and her lawyer, Stephen Angel of the Riverhead firm of Esseks, Hefter, and Angel, which also represents beachfront property owners in a suit filed against the town to prevent vehicular access to a section of Napeague Beach. That case is now before the State Supreme Court.

    “This one is an interesting case,” Mr. Lawrence said of the Georgica dustup. “My first call was to John Courtney,” the attorney for the East Hampton Town Trustees. “We have maintained a positive relationship with the trustees. Those dunes are between the ocean and the big pond,” Mr. Lawrence said, referring to Georgica Pond.

    According to Mr. Lawrence, Mr. Courtney noted that case law differentiated between “evulsion” — loss of land due to a “castastrophic,” one-time event — and long-term erosion. While long-term erosion may result in a transformation from private to public property — in this case, private dune to public beach — private property rights could prevail after a catastrophic event, Mr. Courtney said.

    During the trustees’ regular September meeting on Tuesday night, Diane McNally, the nine-member board’s presiding officer, said that given the circumstances it was not clear if the trustees had jurisdiction over the area that Ms. Zweig had fenced off even though it had reverted to beach. Mr. Courtney declined to shed more light on the trustees’ position, saying it was a matter for an executive session of the board.

    Nonetheless, Ms. McNally said she believed she spoke for the board in thanking Tim Taylor of Citizens for Access Rights for the group’s efforts to help defend the public’s right to beach access, and for helping communicate the issue “to constituents who don’t know how to get to us.”

    Mr. Taylor attended the meeting to ask trustees to review a proposed resolution he hoped would be adopted by  the East Hampton Town Board in support of the trustees’ efforts to “vigorously defend legal challenges to the traditional right of the public to vehicular and non-vehicular access to, and use of, our beaches.” 

    Ms. McNally noted that the trustees had already spent $40,000 defending the public’s right to drive on Napeague Beach in that lawsuit, which was filed by a number of beachfront property owners. 

    The question of who owns geography that was once private land after it has eroded to form a beach is one that the trustees have visited in the past, usually coming down on the side of public ownership. This case may be different.

    The question is not one the village will entertain, said Mr. Cantwell. “We don’t doubt where the property lines were,” he said. “The issue with us is that the village does not allow the building of structures on any kind of beach. It’s in our coastal protection laws. Ownership is not an issue. We’re not getting to the issue of when land is eroded or who owns it. The D.E.C. and the village are on the same page, nothing can be constructed without a permit in a regulated area.”

    Once a year, the staff at the Montauk Lighthouse presents Lighthouse Weekend, which offers an opportunity to take a step back in time and learn the ways of colonial people. The event will take place on Saturday from 10:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. and on Sunday from 10:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m.

There will be old-fashioned games with Shari Crawford, basket weaving with Camille Meade, and leather crafting with Steve Crawford. Stuart Vorpahl will demonstrate how to trap fish, and the Kings of the Coast Pirates, a scary-looking lot, will recreate a pirate battle complete with “Arrs!” and “Blimeys!” and a shout of “Fire in the hole!” before a very loud cannon is blasted. They may even dance the hempen jig. The pirates will perform twice a day each day, at 12:30 p.m. and 3:30 p.m. Some of them will mingle with the crowd afterward.

There will also be face painting, book signings, artwork, and boat-safety tips offered by the Coast Guard Auxiliary. Admission is $9 for adults, $7 for those over 65, and $4 for children 12 and under. The fee to park, which is charged until 4 p.m., is $8.