Baymen Demand Dredging
Several baymen insisted before the East Hampton Town Trustees on Monday, often loudly, that Accabonac Harbor must be dredged, and quickly, to allow them to maintain their livelihood.
A plan to widen the channel where it opens to Gardiner’s Bay — the fishermen said shoaling has narrowed it to a width of around 10 feet and will soon close it entirely — would take some time to develop, the trustees said. The next day, however, Bill Taylor, a trustee and the town’s waterways management supervisor, said that a valid State Department of Environmental Conservation permit has been found to be in hand, and dredging is planned for mid-March. The permit expires in January 2022.
The night before, however, the discussion was often contentious, touching on frustration with the pace of both the D.E.C.’s and Suffolk County’s dredging activity; the November 2016 referendum that allows up to 20 percent of the Peconic Bay Region Community Preservation Fund to be used for water quality initiatives, and the ecological health of many town waterways.
Dredging the harbor is on the county’s schedule, said Francis Bock, the trustees’ clerk, but would not happen until 2018. That wasn’t good enough, the baymen said. “Every time we get east wind,” said Mike Havens, “it’s filling the harbor in.”
“The water is so shoaled there now,” said Steve Gauger, “that for the last two years I’ve had to add rope to my mooring to get it farther out so that at low tide the boat’s not sitting on the bottom . . . It’s really turning into a safety issue at this point.”
Rachel Gruzen, an environmental planner, summarized the baymen’s position. “We have a very narrow entrance right now, 10 feet,” she said. “You can get through when there’s no wind. You get 15 knots of wind and you’re coming in with a boatload of fish and nets, etc., you’re up on the sand. So this has to happen now.”
The town had once planned to purchase a dredge, said Diane McNally, a trustee, but the idea was abandoned in the wake of the financial crisis that led to the 2009 resignation of Supervisor Bill McGintee. “I think at the time it was $600,000, and we would get reimbursement for at least half of that,” she said. “The town said we don’t have that much to put out of pocket. It was a no-go.”
“A number of people on this board still have an interest in a town-owned dredge,” Mr. Bock said. “I don’t think we have the support of the town board. You guys should be having this conversation with them also.”
Trustee Rick Drew told the baymen he is updating the trustees’ dredging plan and asked for their input. “We are trying to get real aggressive here, trying to get some of the C.P.F. money to be allocated for dredging,” he said. “There’s a lot of work that needs to be done, we realize it. We want to embrace you on this and do the right thing.”
Mr. Taylor said that community preservation fund money should be allocated to dredging projects, to improve water quality. “We’re surrounded by clean water,” he said. “If we dredge properly . . . it’s going to clean our water quickly.”
Mr. Bock told the baymen that the town board had convened a committee to decide how to use the 20 percent of C.P.F. money. “Bill [Taylor] is on that committee, so he’s going to be advocating for these type of projects,” he said.