The East Hampton Town Board has scheduled a public hearing next Thursday at which comment for or against an amendment to the town code that would require residents to obtain new permit stickers for parking and driving on beaches will be heard. The hearing will be held during the board’s meeting that starts at 6:30 p.m. in the meeting room at Town Hall. 

Current stickers issued for parking and driving on beaches do not expire. Members of the board, mindful that more than 30,000 such permits have been issued — a number that exceeds the population of the town — have voiced the concern that many vehicles bearing current permits were subsequently sold to nonresidents, who would not be authorized to use them. 

The town trustees, who manage common lands, including beaches, on behalf of the public, support the board’s plan to implement a new permit scheme. 

Should the board vote to enact the amendment, new, color-coded beach vehicle permits would expire on Dec. 31 in years ending in 5 or 0. They would still be free to residents, while nonresidents, whose permits would expire at the end of every year, would be assessed $375. 

Permits would become available sometime this year, become mandatory in 2020, and expire in 2025, Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc said in December. Permits for 2025 to 2030 would become available in 2024, he said. 

Another change would require that those operating a vehicle on the beach be equipped with a fire extinguisher, along with the tow rope or chain, jack, and spare tire required at present. 

Councilman David Lys voted against scheduling the public hearing. His concern, he told his colleagues at a previous meeting, is that an amendment to the code at this time could have an unintended effect on a dispute over driving at a section of ocean beach on Napeague. Property owners adjacent to what is sometimes called Truck Beach filed a lawsuit seeking to enact restrictions on driving there. They were unsuccessful but have appealed the decision.

A sluggish East End real estate market in January produced less than $5.5 million in revenues for the Peconic Bay Region Community Preservation Fund, a nearly 45-percent decline from the same period last year, Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. announced on Monday. It was the lowest monthly total in almost six years. 

The preservation fund, which provides money for land preservation and water quality improvement, receives the proceeds of a 2-percent real estate transfer tax imposed by the five East End towns: East Hampton, Southampton, Shelter Island, Southold, and Riverhead. East Hampton posted the largest decline in C.P.F. tax revenues last month, raising less than $1.5 million, compared to more than $3 million in January 2018. Riverhead was the only town in which the tax revenue increased — by $60,000 — over the previous year. Southampton’s C.P.F. revenues were down nearly 47 percent, Shelter Island’s almost 29 percent, and Southold’s nearly 26 percent. 

Mr. Thiele cited the plunging stock market as one of the main reasons for the real estate downturn. In a prepared statement about the decrease in C.P.F. money, he pointed out that the stock market in 2018 “experienced its worst year since 2008, the beginning of the Great Recession, and its worst December since the Great Depression in 1931.” So far this year, however, the market has rebounded, he said. 

He also cautioned against using the numbers from January to predict how the real estate market will fare during the rest of the year. “At least a quarter of a year of data is required to determine whether the revenue drop . . . is an aberration or a significant change,” Mr. Thiele said.

With the enthusiastic endorsement of their lessees, many of whom crowded the meeting room at Town Hall on Monday, the East Hampton Town Trustees took a step closer to codifying a significant change in the terms for the lots at Lazy Point, Amagansett, where residents own their houses but lease the underlying land. 

As they had suggested last spring and again two weeks ago, the trustees are preparing to extend leases in the bucolic neighborhood on Gardiner’s Bay, which one resident described on Monday as “a throwback to simpler times,” from the present one-year term to 35 years.

On the South Fork, home to some of the most expensive real estate in the country, rent at Lazy Point remains as modest as the small lots on which the mostly unassuming houses sit. When the trustees raised the annual rent by 50 percent in 2013, the new figure was just $1,500. 

Subsequent increases spurred lengthy negotiations and tenants’ calls to modify lease terms in a way that would allow them to obtain mortgages. The trustees, who derive around half their annual revenue from the leases and the 4-percent transfer fee on house sales they initiated in 2015, have warmed to their tenants’ point of view over the last year. 

The latest draft of a new 35-year lease has been circulated among the trustees, they said on Monday, and they called a special meeting for Wednesday evening to discuss it. 

Lazy Point leases historically lasted one year and were renewed on a year-to-year basis. This, residents have told the trustees, rendered them and prospective homebuyers unable to obtain a mortgage or other long-term loans with which to make improvements and repairs. 

On Monday, Joan Priore, secretary of the Lazy Point Neighborhood Association, read a statement on her neighbors’ behalf in which she asserted that a 35-year lease represents a win not just for the neighborhood but also for the trustees and all of the town’s residents. “Lazy Point homeowners, especially those of us who are senior citizens, need to feel a sense of certainty that our homes will be here for us and our families in the future,” she said. “A year-to-year lease does not provide that assurance. A 35-year lease will.”

The selling price of well-maintained, updated, and improved houses would benefit the trustees, who will reap higher transfer fees, Ms. Priore said. Other residents of the town should favor 35-year leases at Lazy Point, too, “because it will make mortgage financing a possibility and open up a path for more of them to contemplate buying a house at Lazy Point.” 

The South Fork’s stratospheric real estate prices coupled with the year-to-year lease terms restrict the pool of homebuyers to those with cash to put down, Ms. Priore said, echoing remarks by Jim Grimes, a deputy clerk of the trustees, earlier this month. “These are important things to consider in your review of this proposal.” 

The neighborhood’s residents are always there for one another, “and we are always there for Lazy Point,” Ms. Priore said, describing an annual spring cleanup and efforts to install snow fencing to prevent erosion. “Lazy Point has a certain charm and character. It’s an out-of-the-way, ‘unHamptons’ enclave, a throwback to simpler times.” 

Preservation of the neighborhood’s unique character is a goal the trustees and tenants share, she said. “When you are ready to vote, we ask you to vote yes for 35-year leases, confident in knowing it will benefit everyone and won’t change anything about what makes Lazy Point Lazy Point.” 

The version before the trustees is “close to a final draft” of the new lease, said Christopher Carillo, the trustees’ attorney. He and the trustees will work toward a finished product at next week’s special meeting, he said, which the trustees will then present for public comment.

Jay Schneiderman is the supervisor of the Town of Southampton, but when he took the microphone last week at Stories From Suffolk, a policy discussion forum featuring local and state officials and experts involved in New York’s fight against opioid abuse, the scenario he described was familiar to everyone in the room.

He spoke about the rapid onset of the opioid epidemic, the ways it defies easy solutions, the heartbreaks that seemed to come along almost unabated — especially at first.

“We cherish our small-town life here, and the big issues we face here are typically traffic or weather or beach erosion, loud parties, things like that,” Mr. Schneiderman told the crowd of more than 300 at the Greek Orthodox Church of the Hamptons in Southampton. “But then, suddenly, 19 members of your community in one year [2017] died very preventable deaths in a small town of 60,000 people — 19 lives just whisked away, many of them really young people. And suddenly as a town supervisor and town board you’re faced with grappling with an issue that’s life or death.”

Many of the panelists acknowledged that knowing how to respond to the opioid epidemic can feel daunting, given the gravity, extent, and urgency of the problem. As Mr. Schneiderman noted, even progress like the Town of Southampton’s 70-percent reduction to six deaths by overdose in 2018 seems like only a qualified success because “it’s still six deaths too many.”

“The opioid crisis is unlike anything I’ve seen in my 32-year career,” Suffolk County Police Chief Stuart Cameron said.

Still, a general consensus about some effective policy measures did emerge during the four-hour forum, which was organized by Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone.

The three panel discussions featured medical providers and community advocates, policymakers and school officials, local law enforcement officers and criminal justice experts, who addressed prevention methods and treatment and recovery options. They also discussed how the legislative and executive branches are tackling the problem locally and across the state.

Everyone agreed that unrelenting, multipronged strategies are necessary.

Another strongly voiced theme was the need for evidence-based policymaking — a hard-won insight learned from what Dr. Jim Malatras, president of the Rockefeller Institute of Government think tank, called “the spaghetti-against-the-wall approach” of years past, which led to resources being poured into programs such as the Just Say No abstinence campaign.

“Ten years later, we found out after tens of millions of dollars it didn’t work,” said Dr. Leslie Marino of Columbia University, a psychiatrist who specializes in substance abuse disorders. “Good policy is informed by good science, which is informed by good data.”

“Let’s find what works, let’s fund what works,” agreed State Senator Peter Harckham of Westchester County, the chairman of the State Senate’s committee on alcoholism and drug abuse.

Many of the experts also expressed strong support for Medically Assisted Treatment programs that involve the use of pharmacotherapy drugs such as methadone, buprenorphine, and Vivitrol to help substance abusers in treatment. “This saves lives,” said Robert A. Kent, chief counsel for the state’s Office of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Services. 

Reducing barriers to getting treatment is also vital, the panelists said. Some advocated rewriting insurance rules to give patients quicker access to treatment and lower co-pays. They cited the need to set up more hospital beds and facilities for inpatient and outpatient treatment. They spoke about providing more support services such as peer counseling, Recovery High Schools for teens, and transportation to keep people in treatment.

On the South Fork, “To get to a methadone clinic now, a person has to drive to Riverhead every day,” said Dr. Gregson H. Pigott, director of the county’s Office of Minority Health.

Lack of child care help is another problem. “We know the number-one reason women don’t seek treatment is lack of child care,” said Dr. Jeffrey L. Reynolds, who runs the Family and Children’s Association, a 134-year-old organization that cares for Long Island’s most vulnerable people. “We currently have a system designed primarily for men.”

Some panelists emphasized the role that mental illness plays in addiction, saying that too often individuals are treated only for substance abuse disorders, not underlying problems such as depression, anxiety, or bipolar disorder that may have driven them to addiction. “What brings somebody to the point they throw away their lives? Mental illness is, I believe, at the forefront of this,” said Dr. Tomrul Tuzel, a psychiatrist and mental health administrator who has worked extensively in community and prison treatment settings.

Education and prevention efforts (again, preferably with a data-based approach) were also touted as a crucial piece that should include everyone — parents and children, teachers and law enforcement, doctors and other service providers. Dr. Marino lamented how she graduated from medical school within only the last 10 years and yet “I learned nothing about pain management, opioid addiction, or how to treat addiction in general.”

Suffolk County District Attorney Timothy D. Sini drew spirited applause during his keynote address when he said, “We need to keep pushing for evidence-based programs in our schools, K through 12. It’s never too early to start.” 

Anthony Ferrandino, a substance-abuse counselor in the Northport-East Northport School District and chairman of the district’s drug and alcohol task force, agreed but noted that “most school districts don’t have a person assigned to deal with drug and alcohol” problems. He also said that too often “students don’t have a seat at the table” when policy is discussed.

Lars Clemensen, superintendent of the Hampton Bays School District, suggested that vigilance about substance abuse could be modeled on how school shooting awareness has been heightened. “What we’ve learned in school shootings is at least one person knew what was going to happen before it happened,” he said. “Apply that to this epidemic if you see someone you know that needs help. Minimize the bystander effect. Don’t assume someone else is going to try to get a person help.”

Mr. Sini described how the arc of drug use — and therefore the fight against it — has changed over the years, moving from predominately a “pill problem” driven by overprescribed prescription drugs to the increased popularity of heroin use by the start of this decade to, now, the use of heroin and other street drugs (including marijuana) that are often laced with fentanyl, a deadly and highly addictive add-in that users often don’t know they’re ingesting until it’s too late.

One of the many efforts Suffolk County is undertaking is a campaign called One Try and You Could Die to highlight that it’s not only addicts who are perishing from such drug use. Even experimenting with a single dose can be lethal.

“These drugs can take you like this,” Lt. Gov. Kathy Hochul told the crowd, snapping her fingers. She described how she lost a nephew to heroin use 10 years ago.

Mr. Sini also detailed how law enforcement officials and the criminal justice system are approaching the opioid and substance abuse fight. He said the use of tracking technology, wiretapping, and search warrants has been beefed up exponentially since 2016. He detailed how his office has prosecuted dealers for manslaughter when possible, and told a story about a wiretap that caught a drug dealer bragging that the potent drugs he was dealing were causing “mad” casualties. 

Mr. Sini also spoke about intervention efforts designed to get people help at various points of their passage through the criminal justice system, with an emphasis on getting them into treatment rather than incarceration when possible.

Mr. Bellone noted that fatal overdoses declined last year in Nassau and Suffolk Counties for the first time in years. But far more progress is needed.

“We will not stop until the job is done,” he said.

The East Hampton Town Trustees voted unanimously to expand the town’s community oyster garden program to Napeague Harbor at their meeting on Feb. 11. 

Under the program, launched in Three Mile Harbor in 2016, individuals and families can grow up to 1,000 oysters and keep half of them. The program expanded from 15 to 40 plots in Three Mile Harbor in its second year, and a second site at Hog Creek was added. It expanded again last year, with 11 growers in Accabonac Harbor. 

The trustees designated a 100-by-50-foot area of bottomland in Napeague Harbor for the new oyster garden site. It is near the end of Crassen Boulevard on Napeague, where a community preservation fund purchase of a parcel will provide access, John Barley Dunne, the director of the town’s shellfish hatchery, told the trustees last month. It is to house as many as 20 plots, each exclusively leased to one or more individuals working in concert. The area will be closed to the public for the taking of shellfish. 

Mr. Dunne told the trustees that the water is very shallow there, so the garden site would be “a wading spot.” 

Known as the East Hampton Shellfish Education Enhancement Directive, or EHSEED, the program is modeled on Cornell Cooperative Extension’s Southold Projects in Aquaculture Training, or SPAT, on the North Fork.

Residents of the town are given priority to take part. The cost, $250 per individual or family and $150 each year thereafter, includes oysters, gear, and instruction. Last year, residents who own a dock also became eligible for the program, with one waterfront resident at Accabonac Harbor and two at Hog Creek taking part, for a first-year fee of $350. 

The program encourages residents to be stewards of the environment while enhancing shellfish stocks. A single adult oyster can filter up to 50 gallons of water a day, while the gear provides habitat for crabs, nursery fish, and other marine life.

By a 3-to-2 vote that was marked by sharp disagreement, the East Hampton Town Board authorized an agreement with Orsted U.S. Offshore Wind last Thursday that will allow it to conduct archaeological and soil tests along a proposed cable route in Wainscott.

The company, which until its November acquisition by the Danish energy company Orsted was known as Deepwater Wind, plans to construct the 15-turbine South Fork Wind Farm approximately 35 miles east of Montauk. 

Separately, Eversource, New England’s largest energy company, announced on Friday that it had purchased a 50-percent stake in the South Fork Wind Farm and Orsted’s Revolution Wind as well. The $225 million deal also included a federal lease area south of Massachusetts and Rhode Island. Orsted took over all three assets in November as part of its acquisition of Deepwater Wind, the Rhode Island company that first developed the projects. Deepwater Wind is now called Orsted U.S. Offshore Wind.

The South Fork Wind Farm was originally proposed as a 90-megawatt installation; Orsted U.S. Offshore Wind officials say now that improvements in turbine technology will allow generation of up to 130 megawatts. According to the company’s timeline, it could be operational in late 2022.

On eastern Long Island, Deepwater identified the oceanfront end of Beach Lane in Wainscott as the preferred site to land the wind farm’s transmission cable. From there, the cable would run underground to the Long Island Power Authority substation in East Hampton. 

Archaeological test pits are to be excavated by hand to depths of up to 4 feet and approximately 18 inches in diameter, at 50 to 100-foot intervals. The pits are to be filled upon completion. The work is planned along Beach Lane, Wainscott Main Street, Sayre’s Path, Wainscott Stone Road, and Wainscott Northwest Road, where it will continue to the intersection with the Long Island Rail Road right of way. Soil samples will come from two test borings and there will be a drainage test within the town-owned right of way at Beach Lane. 

The New York State Public Service Commission requires the archaeological study. The P.S.C. and the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management are among the agencies that must approve the project for it to move forward. 

Many Wainscott residents oppose the plan to land the cable at Beach Lane and have urged the town board to insist on another site, such as state-owned land at Hither Hills. 

Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc said last Thursday that the Wainscott Citizens Advisory Committee had sent a letter to the board asking that Orsted U.S. Offshore Wind acknowledge whether or not it would also conduct such sampling at Hither Hills. 

“I do have a letter, received late today, confirming that the Hither Hills route is being tested in a similar way,” he said. 

Clint Plummer, Orsted U.S. Offshore Wind’s head of market strategies and new projects, said on Monday that the company is indeed “going forward with investigations” on both the Beach Lane and Hither Hills routes. “The data we’re trying to collect would be identical,” he said. “The scope would be different, because they are in different geographies with different constraints, different existing usage.” 

Councilman Jeff Bragman, who is the board’s liaison to the Wainscott Citizens Advisory Committee, was one of two votes against authorizing the sampling in Wainscott, joining Councilman David Lys. He was skeptical of Orsted’s intentions. “The fact that Deepwater is telling us in a letter that this coming summer they’re going to do some work in Hither Hills is hardly reassuring about the message that this work [in Wainscott] is sending, which is being done months earlier,” he said. “I can’t see any reason that the Town of East Hampton should be jump-starting the work” in Wainscott, “particularly when the Article VII review hasn’t even begun.”

Wainscott residents do not want the transmission cable running through their hamlet, he said, “and a lot of questions about this project remain unanswered.” The Article VII review will consider the viability of alternative sites, he told his colleagues. “They may . . . say, ‘We want archaeological tests,’ or ‘We want soil-boring tests,’ but you don’t just willy-nilly go and okay it.” 

“I’m going to differ with your characterization of willy-nilly,” Mr. Van Scoyoc said. “It’s pretty clear that the work could be done in the summertime in Hither Hills,” where land is undeveloped. “It’s certainly not going to be done in the summertime in Wainscott. . . . I think more information is good. It’s certainly part of the Article VII process. It does not mean it cannot occur prior to that Article VII process being completed.” 

Councilwoman Sylvia Overby agreed. “Part of the information we’d get from this would inform the Article VII,” she said. Sampling in Wainscott could reveal “that this is exactly the wrong location. . . . It may take it off the table completely.” 

Mr. Bragman was unmoved. “Authorizing this prematurely and giving a jump-start to a route in Wainscott is improper, and I don’t think we have the authority to do it,” he said. “So I’m voting no.” 

The town board, and possibly the town trustees, would have to grant an easement or lease for Orsted U.S. Offshore Wind to land the cable at Beach Lane and bury it along its route to the LIPA substation. “We believe the town is moving forward in good faith,” Mr. Plummer said, “but until we have that deal finalized, we are doing everything as quickly as possible to advance the Hither Hills route so in the event things do not proceed with Beach Lane, the project is moving forward.” 

Though he said that a Beach Lane landing is “on many objective levels better,” the company would land the cable at Hither Hills if the town does not grant an easement at its preferred site. 

Eversource Buys In

According to a statement issued on Friday, Eversource will pay approximately $225 million for a 50-percent stake in Orsted’s South Fork Wind Farm and Revolution Wind projects, the latter to deliver power to Connecticut and Rhode Island, as well as the 257-square-mile federal lease area off the coasts of Massachusetts and Rhode Island in which they are to be situated. 

The deal builds upon Bay State Wind, the companies’ existing partnership in a separate 300-square-mile tract adjacent to the federal lease area originally won by Deepwater Wind. Together, the companies say that the lease sites they jointly own could generate 4,000 megawatts of electricity. 

The two companies will mutually manage permit requirements for their projects and have pledged to honor planned local investments and agreements entered prior to the partnership.  

Revolution Wind is a planned 700-megawatt wind farm to be sited approximately 15 miles south of Rhode Island. Orsted and Eversource aim for it to go online in 2023. 

Additionally, the Orsted-Eversource partnership is participating in New York State’s first offshore wind energy solicitation, through which the State Energy Research and Development Authority plans to procure 800 megawatts of offshore wind. Bids are due today, with awards expected in the spring. 

“Over the last several years, the two teams have worked together very closely, and have established a joint project development team,” Mr. Plummer said of the Orsted-Eversource partnership. “When Orsted acquired Deepwater Wind, it was logical to expand those resources and capabilities to the rest of the New England portfolio.” Eversource, he said, is “another strong American energy company that wants to make investments in assets like these.”

Mr. Plummer said that along with himself, Deepwater Wind officials including Jeff Grybowski, its chief executive; Aileen Kenney, a vice president; Julia Prince, Montauk manager and fisheries liaison, and Jennifer Garvey, Long Island development manager, remain in important positions within the Orsted organization. “The thing that has changed is we are now executing this project with a larger group of people, which gives us more capability, and with companies with significant balance sheets, which gives us significant resources,” he said. 

While the American offshore wind industry is experiencing a growth spurt, there are just five turbines in the nation’s waters, those of the Block Island Wind Farm, which Deepwater Wind commissioned in December 2016. 

“Our challenge now,” Mr. Plummer said, “is less about how you construct these. It’s around the type of work we are doing now in East Hampton: making a big global business, like offshore wind, fit into an American context and — in many ways more importantly — making it fit into the context of the local communities it’s going to serve.”

Though members of the East Hampton Town Board and a consultant engaged to conduct hamlet studies emphasized that no businesses will be compelled to relocate away from Montauk’s ocean shoreline, nor is any action at all imminent, several residents insisted on Tuesday that the board pause further planning for the hamlet’s future until there is additional discussion and study.

The hamlet studies started in 2015, with public input beginning the following year. The consultants, including Lisa Liquori of Fine Arts and Sciences, a former town planning director, have presented updates since then based on public comment from individuals, the hamlets’ citizens advisory committees, chambers of commerce, and East Hampton Village. The goal is to adopt recommendations for each hamlet to be incorporated into the town’s comprehensive plan.

One far-reaching recommendation to emerge from the Montauk study is a planned retreat from the ocean shoreline, with its motels relocated to less developed areas downtown. That recommendation “does not envision buying all the oceanfront properties,” Ms. Liquori said, but rather a transfer of development rights arrangement, providing business owners an option to re-establish their facilities landward.

With Ms. Liquori scheduled to review comments at the board’s meeting on Tuesday, an email from the Montauk Chamber of Commerce went out to members on Monday. “For Montauk it is important you attend this meeting, before such a major decision to have . . . Montauk’s Downtown Reformulation strategy put into the COMP plan,” it said. “There is much more work needed and further examination and study to be completed to determine its real impact on the community and the local economy. That has not been done yet!”

More than a dozen Montauk residents, some of them business owners or managers, spoke to the board, most criticizing what they characterized as a rush to codify unworkable or, at minimum, undesirable plans.

“Premature adoption of this extreme retreat strategy,” absent a thorough review, “will be devastating to Montauk’s economy,” affecting jobs, property values, and quality of life, said Laraine Creegan, the executive director of the Montauk Chamber of Commerce. In fact, she said, there is no urgency to

dopt the study’s recommendations in their current form. Rather than adoption, recommendations should be “assigned to a newly formed committee to analyze the idea and understand all options available to protect our downtown in the future.”

Ms. Creegan said that a “thoughtful, well-planned strategy of resilience,” starting with the rebuilding of the beaches, is needed to maintain Montauk’s reputation as a first-rate summer destination. If warranted, “certain elements” of the recommendations, such as beach renourishment, wastewater treatment, and a sidewalk extending from the Long Island Rail Road station to downtown could be adopted and implemented.

Steve Kalimnios, who owns the oceanfront Royal Atlantic Beach Resort, predicted a near 50-percent loss of rooms at motels relocated from the shoreline. To accept the recommendations of a study that he called incomplete and lacking an examination of its feasibility “would be reckless and irresponsible,” he said, and “have dire consequences to the entire community.”

Citing his own study, he said that Montauk’s motels directly and indirectly represent up to $400 million of annual revenue in the town. But rather than a methodical approach to solving Montauk’s problems, “we’ve gone from defining the problem” to “running for the hills.” He too asked for further study.

Paul Monte, the Chamber of Commerce’s president, spoke of widespread support for beach preservation, wastewater treatment, and seasonal housing. But with respect to a retreat from the shoreline, “it’s really not ready for prime time.” To “reformulate and reconfigure the downtown of Montauk” will have a huge impact on the community, he said. “We’ve been told it’s only a vision,” he said of the study’s recommendations. “I beg to differ.” Once incorporated into the comprehensive plan, “every application before planning or zoning is going to be viewed a lot differently than it is currently.” That should concern all stakeholders, not just beachfront motels, he said. Such a move would have “vast impacts on property values” and property owners’ rights.

Moving quickly “may hurt the very constituents you’re trying to help,” Mr. Monte said. There is “too much at stake, too much unknown, to prematurely adopt that portion of the hamlet study and make it part of the comprehensive plan.”

Kirby Marcantonio called a planned relocation of structures from the shoreline “by far the most radical look at how planning can transform a community,” and complained of a “somewhat academic approach to relocating properties, as if they belong on a Monopoly board.”

But Lou Cortese, representing the Ditch Plains Association, said that concerns delineated in the 2005 comprehensive plan and the hamlet study “differ only in the intensification that’s occurred since 2005, and the amped-up sense of urgency that now exists.” He said the board should not postpone adoption of the plan, but rather confront the “significant problems we face with projects, not more deliberations. We’ve had enough freakin’ deliberations,” he said. “Let’s move forward with getting things done.”

Mr. Kalimnios disagreed, and told the board that “the division in the community tells you where we are.”

After an hour of public comment, Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc drew a distinction between identifying a long-term vision for Montauk and its implementation. The town is engaging all stakeholders to determine impacts of any individual proposal, he said, whether a traffic circle at the intersection of Flamingo Avenue and West Lake Drive — a broadly popular idea — or a retreat from rising sea level.

Montauk’s downtown areas, particularly those lying between Fort Pond and the ocean, “are at risk of inundation from any major hurricane, or sea level rise over time,” he said. “We need to be proactive and start thinking about how we keep that economic engine of Montauk safe and intact, and make that transition. I don’t think we disagree about any of those basic principles. We’re really getting hung up on what the process is to achieve that.”

Though the process that is underway, he said later in the meeting, the comprehensive plan “becomes a living, active document that will require interaction with the public to determine what is implemented, how that vision is formed.” That vision, he said, “can evolve through that process.”

Councilwoman Sylvia Overby said after the meeting that relocating a business would happen only when a business owner was willing, and that the town board does not want to reduce the number of hotel rooms or other commercial entities in the hamlet. “We just want in the code some opportunity for them to reply to sea level rise. We see this happening,” she said. “We see it right now.”

The board will hold more work sessions to refine the hamlet studies based on residents’ feedback, possibly with input from consulting engineers, Ms. Overby said. Environmental review would follow before submission to the Suffolk County Planning Commission. Depending on its response, “at that point, we could adopt some or all of the hamlet studies.” That would not happen before the summer, she said.

Another announcement of interest to Montauk’s business community came when Jeanne Carrozza, the town’s senior purchasing agent, told the board that Bistrian Materials was the apparent low bidder for a downtown beach replenishment ahead of the upcoming tourist season. Its bid of $1.099 million for 34,000 cubic yards of sand delivered in place is comparable to last year’s bid, she said.

A joint venture of Orsted, the Danish energy company that last year acquired Deepwater Wind, and the Connecticut company Eversource, with which it has partnered on multiple offshore wind proposals in Northeastern ocean waters, including the South Fork Wind Farm, was among four respondents submitting 18 proposals to New York State’s first offshore wind energy solicitation, through which the State Energy Research and Development Authority, or NYSERDA, plans to procure renewable energy.

NYSERDA issued its first solicitation, in November, for 800 megawatts or more of offshore wind energy pursuant to the State Public Service Commission’s order adopting the Offshore Wind Standard, a framework for an initial phase of offshore wind energy solicitations. Bids were due last Thursday, with awards expected in the spring and contracts awarded in the summer.

Under the Clean Energy Standard, the state has mandated that 50 percent of its electricity come from renewable sources by 2030, with up to 2,400 megawatts of offshore wind installed in that time frame. A stated goal calls for 9,000 megawatts of wind power by 2035. The first phase of 800 mega- watts or more is intended to stimulate development of a domestic offshore wind industry.

Last Thursday, Bay State Wind L.L.C., an Orsted-Eversource joint venture that predates the $225 million deal announced earlier this month giving the latter a 50-percent stake in the South Fork and Revolution wind farms, announced its Sunrise Wind proposal, which would be situated more than 30 miles east of Montauk in a federal lease area won by Deepwater Wind and now controlled by the two companies.

A spokeswoman for Orsted U.S. Offshore Wind, as Deepwater Wind was rebranded, said that the company had bid a range of project sizes, the smallest a 400-megawatt installation. The proposed wind farm’s precise location, number of turbines, and generating capacity will be finalized depending on the outcome of the solicitation and its construction plans, she said.

An adjacent lease area is controlled by Vineyard Wind L.L.C., a joint venture of the Danish fund management company Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners and Avangrid Renewables, the latter based in Portland, Ore. Vineyard Wind’s proposal to NYSERDA is called Liberty Wind, which includes 400, 800, and 1,200-megawatt installations 85 miles from the nearest New York shore. In a statement issued last Thursday, the company described the latter option as one of the largest offshore wind projects in the world, generating energy to power more than 750,000 residences. 

Equinor Wind Energy L.L.C., formerly Statoil and part of a Norwegian energy company, also responded to NYSERDA’s solicitation. Its Empire Wind, which the company says could power one million residences, is planned for an area east of the Rockaways, an average of 20 miles south of Long Island. The company operates three wind farms off the coast of the United Kingdom. 

Atlantic Shores Offshore Wind L.L.C., a joint venture of EDF Renewables North America and Shell New Energies U.S., also responded to NYSERDA’s solicitation.

The Cable Landing

In a separate development, Orsted and Eversource have applied to the State Public Service Commission for a Certificate of Environmental Compatibility and Public Need to construct the export cable that would transport electricity from the South Fork Wind Farm, proposed approximately 35 miles east of Montauk, to “the South Shore of the Town of East Hampton” and underground to the Long Island Power Authority substation near Cove Hollow Road in East Hampton.

Orsted U.S. Offshore Wind has identified the ocean beach at the end of Beach Lane in Wainscott as its preferred landfall for the transmission cable, a plan that many of the hamlet’s residents oppose. They argue that the cable should make landfall elsewhere, such as at state-owned land at Hither Hills.

A divided East Hampton Town Board voted on Feb. 7 to allow Orsted and Eversource to conduct archaeological and soil tests along the companies’ preferred cable route, in Wainscott. An Orsted U.S. Offshore Wind official subsequently said that the Hither Hills site would also be sampled.

The Public Service Commission grants a Certificate of Environmental Compatibility and Public Need under its Article VII review process. Permitting of the South Fork Wind Farm is on schedule, the Orsted U.S. Offshore Wind spokeswoman said, and the company expects to have all permits, including the certificate, in hand by late next year.

Fishermen Mistrustful

Along with many Wainscott residents, commercial fishermen are resolutely opposed to the South Fork Wind Farm, fearing a detrimental impact on their livelihood. But interviews with fishermen and others in Montauk on Saturday demonstrated varying levels of resignation to a belief that hundreds or even thousands of massive turbines will soon be driven into the North Atlantic’s ocean floor.

Fishermen on the town dock and gathered at Liars’ Saloon on West Lake Drive pointed to government regulations that they say needlessly restrict their catch and aren’t based on sound science. Mistrustful of government, some did not want to give their names or even speak with The Star. “The more people you talk to, the more regulations you get,” said a man at Liars’ Saloon. “The possibility exists that you are the enemy.”

“The fishermen are against it,” a man working on a boat at the town dock said, “because there are too many unknowns.” These, he said, include the impact of driving massive pilings into the sea floor and the electromagnetic frequency that will emanate from the transmission cable. The turbines, he said, “are going to be a hazard to navigation. . . . And we’re afraid we’re not going to be able to fish near the windmills once they put them in. Just because they say they’re going to let us, it doesn’t mean they will. When you’re steaming in from offshore and you’ve been out four or five days and you’ve been deprived of sleep. . . .”

Another fisherman on the town dock picked up on that theme. “I know people are going to lose their lives because there’s going to be that many more obstructions out in the middle of the ocean,” he said. “Who knows who’s going to be the first one to run into those things? Somebody’s going to. There’s either going to be somebody asleep at the wheel or a boat broke down and drifted into them.”

He was critical of D.E. Shaw, the hedge fund company that owned Deepwater Wind until Orsted acquired it for $510 million. “It’s amazing to me that they already cashed in and sold the company to a foreign company, and they didn’t even build the thing,” he said. “That’s just hedge fund people who don’t care about the environment; they don’t care about nothing. . . . Do you think they care about us?”

Dan Gasby, the husband and business partner of B. Smith, the former restaurateur who has Alzheimer’s disease and has a history of going missing, sought permission from the East Hampton Town planning board on Feb. 13 to allow the couple’s property to remain overcleared of vegetation so Ms. Smith could have open space to walk outside while remaining in sight of those in the house. “I wanted to create a park-like setting so she wouldn’t get discombobulated or lost,” Mr. Gasby said.

The property of nearly 11 acres in Northwest Woods is located in a water recharge overlay district, an area the town code subjects to regulation to protect the purity of rainwater that replenishes the underground aquifer. More than 68,000 square feet of vegetation were cleared from the site, where only 45,000 square feet is permitted.

The owner of a property in a water recharge overlay district can receive a special permit for excess clearing if the parcel exceeds 300,000 square feet in size, if no more than 15 percent of the lot is cleared, and if the clearing would not negatively impact underground drinking water, wetlands, wildlife habitats, rare vegetation, or a view from public land.

Madeleine Narvilas, a lawyer representing Mr. Gasby, said that her client’s property meets each of those requirements. Board members were not convinced, and asked Richard Whalen, another member of Mr. Gasby’s legal team, to prepare a memo explaining why the clearing does not put the water supply at risk. 

 Ms. Narvilas noted that the planning board, in 1995, had granted the property’s previous owner a special permit to clear 50,500 square feet to install a tennis court, and had not cited any concerns about water then. She then invited Mr. Gasby to share his reasons for clearing even more of the land.

 Before he did that, Mr. Gasby explained why he and his wife had bought the property in 2017. The couple had previously lived in a waterfront home in Sag Harbor Hills, he said, but he soon realized that, because of her diagnosis with Alzheimer’s, “living on the beach, by the water, was a dangerous situation — she was constantly escaping.”

She would wander on Route 114 or Hampton Road, he said, and the Sag Harbor police would frequently pick her up and bring her home. Sometimes, however, “if she saw someone who looked like me, she would get in the car with them,” he said.

During his search for a safer home for his wife, Mr. Gasby said, he was drawn to their current residence because nearly four acres of the property are fenced.

After buying the house, he cleared part of the property, he said, to install a fenced run for their five dogs. “My wife and I never had children, so the dogs became like surrogate kids,” he said. “She walks back and forth to the dogs, and  I wanted to have a clear sightline to see her, and for her to see the dogs.”

Board members were clearly moved by the presentation. Eric Schantz, a senior planner in the planning department, said he, too, sympathized with Mr. Gasby’s reasons for overclearing, but reminded the board that a special permit would apply to all future owners of the property. The dog run, he said, might eventually become a lawn requiring upkeep that would be harmful to the environment. Marguerite Wolffsohn, the planning director, also warned against the whittling away of water protection measures.

Randy Parsons, a board member who was attending his first meeting since being rescued from a fall into the icy waters of Napeague Harbor on Feb. 3, also had reservations about granting the permit. “We’re being asked to ratify over- clearing after the fact,” said Mr. Parsons, who recommended that Mr. Gasby attempt to revegetate the property to the 50,500-square-foot clearing allowance granted in 1995. He also suggested adding a provision to a special permit that would make the clearing permissible only for the duration of Ms. Smith’s life. 

Samuel Kramer, the board’s chairman, said he was not sure that such a provision would be legal, and was wary about creating a new loophole for those seeking to overclear land. Mr. Kramer said he sensed his colleagues’ “strong desire . . . to do something that allows this situation to be addressed in a humane way.” Still, he urged members “not to open up a door that we might not be able to close.”

Elected officials and environmental groups criticized a federal Environmental Protection Agency action plan that postponed the setting of drinking water standards for a group of synthetic chemicals including those that contaminated residential wells in Wainscott and are thought to have originated in and around East Hampton Airport.

The Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances Action Plan, issued last Thursday, said that the E.P.A. “heard clearly the public’s desire for immediate action to address potential human health and economic impacts from PFAS in the environment,” according to the document. Yet the agency will delay setting drinking water standards for a year or more.

Most people in the United States have been exposed to PFAS, the action plan states, given the chemicals’ widespread use in consumer and industrial products including firefighting foam, stain and water-resistant coatings, food packaging, and cleaners, as well as their persistence in the environment. The chemicals have been linked to cancers, thyroid problems, and serious complications of pregnancy.

In October 2017, Suffolk County Health Department officials testing water from private wells in the area around East Hampton Airport found perfluorooctane sulfonate, or PFOS, and perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA, in more than 150 residential wells. The discovery led the town board to declare a state of emergency, and then to the establishment of a water supply district. That action paved the way for the installation of approximately 45,000 feet of water main in Wainscott to provide public water to an area including more than 500 residential properties.

The town also commenced litigation against more than a dozen manufacturers of firefighting foam and other products, as well as East Hampton Village and the Bridgehampton Fire District to help offset the costs incurred to clean up the contamination.

In 2016, President Obama’s E.P.A. issued a lifetime health advisory of 70 parts per trillion for individual and combined PFOS and PFOA in drinking water. Last year, the online magazine Politico reported that the E.P.A. and the Trump administration sought to block publication of a federal health study on water contamination after an official warned of a public relations nightmare.” The study, Politico reported, would show that PFAS endanger human health starting at a far lower level than the E.P.A.’s 2016 advisory.

Councilman Jeff Bragman, the town board’s liaison to the Wainscott Citizens Advisory Committee, called the E.P.A.’s action plan “an inaction plan.” Also disheartening, he said yesterday, was the fact that “they’re shocked — shocked! — to find that this is a national problem.”

The chemicals have been in use for decades, he said, “and E.P.A. and other states have long records of going after 3M and DuPont,” manufacturers of products containing the chemicals, “over this. It really calls for immediate action. I have no confidence that in this administration they will act as quickly as, probably, the career E.P.A. people would like.”

The hazard posed by PFOS and PFOA, Mr. Bragman said, is why he pressed the town board to assist Wainscott property owners in the installation of home filtration systems. “These chemicals are serious,” he said. “They present a serious health threat. We had to take every step possible to prevent exposure.”

Councilwoman Sylvia Overby agreed that the E.P.A. action plan is indicative of the present federal government. “Regulation is not something this particular leadership wants to do,” she said on Tuesday. “In fact, they tout the fact that for every regulation they have, they’ve taken 20 away. . . . This is very concerning, that they’re not considering our health.”

Elsewhere, condemnation of the E.P.A.’s action plan was swift. Liz Moran, the environmental policy director for the New York Public Interest Research Group, said in a statement last Thursday that “Yet again, E.P.A. has shown that the agency is no longer serious about protecting public health. E.P.A. already has everything it needs to begin a rulemaking to set an enforceable drinking water standard for PFOA and PFOS, but still won’t commit to taking action.”

Maureen Cunningham, senior director for clean water for Environmental Advocates of New York, also issued a statement last Thursday. “Today, E.P.A. could have protected people’s health by announcing a plan to strongly and swiftly regulate PFOA and PFOS,” it said. “Instead, they chose a path that will lead to years of bureaucratic red tape, leaving our most vulnerable populations exposed to these dangerous chemicals.”

She and Ms. Moran encouraged Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and the State Department of Health to immediately regulate the chemicals in drinking water.

State Senator Kenneth P. LaValle was also among elected officials critical of the E.P.A., calling on the state health commissioner, Dr. Howard Zucker, to “immediately implement strict limits on PFOA and PFOS levels in drinking water,” according to a statement issued by Senate Republicans.

“There have been detections of PFOA and PFOS in multiple locations on the East End of Long Island,” Mr. LaValle said. “It is time that New York State takes the lead role in protecting our residents’ drinking water.”