Eye Control Of Montauk Water: Olmsted Group Claims The Aquifer

A week before the East Hampton Town Board formally considered the extension of a Suffolk County Water Authority main from Napeague to Montauk, Robert Ficalora, a man who has a personal mission to return the management of Montauk to a select group of Montauk residents, laid claim to Montauk's water supply.

Mr. Ficalora filed a "resolution" with the County Clerk on Oct. 29 on behalf of Montauk Friends of Olmsted Parks, a corporation he founded "to administer rights held in common by and for the Proprietors of Montauk."

The Montauk Proprietors were a group of East Hampton settlers who bought the peninsula, and the right to hunt and pasture cattle there, from the Montauketts. Although the Town Trustees managed the affairs of Montauk until 1852, its ownership was in the hands of the proprietors until 1879, when the land was sold by court order.

In the document he filed, Mr. Ficalora states that the Friends have jurisdiction over Montauk's fresh water resources because they are the corporate inheritor of the proprietors' rights. His papers state that all other claims "by other corporations or municipal agencies [including the Suffolk County Water Authority] to determine the allocation of Montauk's fresh water resource are hereby extinguished."

Mr. Ficalora, who is the acting president of the Friends and whose recent lawsuit against the town and the owners of property on Old Montauk Highway in Montauk on a related issue was dismissed on Friday, said the action was taken because Montauk's water "has been inequitably administered by others in our absence," that is, the absence of active Montauk proprietors.

As for who will manage the Friends of Olmsted Parks, Mr. Ficalora has promised to hold elections for trustees of the corporation next spring.

Should Be Welcomed

He said his claim "should be welcomed by everyone who cares about Montauk. Montauk and East Hampton have reached the limit of expansive growth due to a very serious water supply constraint. This will effectively end the destructive influence of real estate development interests and looks to the protection of our property values and quality of life."

If upheld, Mr. Ficalora's claim would stop the Water Authority from extending a main between Napeague and Montauk.

"We're going to look at it," Michael LoGrande, chairman of the Water Authority, said yesterday. He said the reaction of a Water Authority attorney, after a cursory look, was that there was no basis for Mr. Ficalora's claim.

Southold Dropped It

Mr. LoGrande said that last year a similar claim to an aquifer under Southold was made by the Southold Town Trustees. "They decided not to follow up on it after they realized what was involved," Mr. LoGrande said. "Our jurisdiction is very clear."

Mr. LoGrande speculated that Mr. Ficalora had filed his resolution with the county under the mistaken impression that the Water Authority was part of county government. It is an independent authority created by the State Legislature.

A spokeswoman for County Clerk Edward P. Romaine said that office was not sure what to do with Mr. Ficalora's resolution.

Second Claim

Mr. Ficalora, who lives on Old Montauk Highway, shared in the victory earlier this month of a group of motel and property owners on the road. They saw their right to pass through the Benson Reservation, between Montauk Highway and the ocean beach, upheld when the State Court of Appeals refused to hear an appeal of the property's owner, Sunbeach Montauk II Corporation.

Nicola Biase, vice president of the corporation, had tested the right to keep the public off the property over a decade ago. The courts, however, have ruled that the common use of the land is guaranteed in deeds of local property owners that carry such a covenant. These covenants were acknowledged by Arthur Benson, who bought Montauk from the proprietors in 1879.

A little more than a year ago, the Friends of Olmsted Parks also laid claim to 272 acres of Culloden, a section of Montauk owned by 511 Equities, for which a 54-lot subdivision had been approved. No legal action has followed.