Havens Beach Cleanup Planned

   After a decade of attempts at remediating the often-polluted Havens Beach off Bay Street, the Sag Harbor Village Board has allocated $295,000 toward the project and entered into a grant agreement with Suffolk County to get it done.

   The cleanup plan involves the reconfiguring of a 24,000-square-foot drainage ditch and system, which storm waters run through before entering Shelter Island Sound.

   If the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation approves the plan, a grant from the Suffolk County Water Quality Protection and Restoration Program will provide $147,500, which requires a match by the village.

   The project will involve a costly Smart Sponge Plus filter to remove pollutants such as fecal coliform bacteria, found repeatedly in the water over years of testing.

The contamination of the beach water, and the ditch that children enjoy playing in, has regularly resulted in the beach’s closure after two inches of rainfall, and has been called a grave problem by Kevin McAllister, the Peconic Baykeeper.