Extend Georgica Crab Ban

Georgica Pond will remain closed to crabbing until further notice, the East Hampton Town Trustees decided at their meeting on Tuesday, because of the persistent bloom of cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, which appeared last month. Meanwhile, cochlodinium, or rust tide, which is toxic to shellfish and finfish but is not harmful to humans, has appeared in Three Mile Harbor.

The cyanobacteria bloom “has only intensified,” Diane McNally, the trustees’ clerk, told her colleagues, and microcystin, a class of toxins that can cause serious damage to the liver, was also present at low levels. The bloom, she said, would dissipate when the pond is opened to the Atlantic Ocean, which typically happens in the fall and spring.

Christopher Gobler of Stony Brook University, who has led a monitoring program of waterways under trustee jurisdiction for the past three years, had detected patches of rust tide in Three Mile Harbor, Ms. McNally said, and has increased his sampling to occur weekly. He will deliver an update when he has more information, she said.