Letters to the Editor: 07.10.97

Headlights And Fumes

East Hampton

July 7, 1997

Dear Mrs. Rattray,

I have had the pleasure of summering in your community since 1974. With the vast changes that have taken place over the years, I came across one this past weekend that is particularly troubling.

I took my family to the beach at the end of Old Beach Lane to watch the fireworks display. We were appalled to find the beach had become a giant parking lot! Vehicles drove back and forth most of the night. One actually honked at my husband to move out of the way as he stood watching the surf with our daughters. A little boy tripped over the deep tracks and was almost crushed by a truck moving at quite a clip. The police tried their best to keep order, but many motorists were quite belligerent in their sanctioned right to tear up the beach and block the scenery.

The next night was not much different. Although there were far fewer cars, our romantic moonlit walk was plagued by headlights and exhaust fumes.

Every summer community must struggle with the opposing needs of tourists versus what's best for the community as a whole. I can tell you I'm not alone in feeling that allowing any vehicles on the beach at any time destroys the last pristine landscape you have. Not to mention nesting birds and other creatures that call the beach their home.

I urge the citizens of East Hampton to reconsider banning motor traffic from the beaches. After all, the quiet, untouched beauty of the coastline is why people come to East Hampton in the first place.

Sincerely,

CATHERINE WACHS

Life Of Freedom

Deering, N.H.

June 29, 1997

To The Editor:

My life of freedom this summer has taken me to a small shack on Deering Reservoir. I have no running water, an outhouse to be reached via underbrush with poison ivy, and a very eccentric, dear landlady. She arrives on her motorcycle with a clove of garlic in her cheek to combat an infected tooth ("I may have to pull it myself," she says), ready to borrow my glasses and to rewire the shack. For reinforcement, she brought a veteran Air Force man of many wars with an eye missing and a bullet making its way out of his back. They gave it a try, but gave up. Daddy, who died last winter at 84 (in a fire in his house), once again is quoted for what he would have done.

The shack has no dock. So I wade through the mud - hurriedly to escape mosquito swarms - to water deep enough to swim. To be safe from young children let loose in motorboats, I swim close to the shore and attempt to chat with taciturn New Englanders. We exchange opinions on the weather.

A house is for sale. I've adopted the rickety dock to reminisce about days when I owned a lakeside house in Connecticut, and my children were young and we had a canoe and a sailfish. . . .

This was back in 1967. Even then I already wondered: Should waterfront be privately owned? Shouldn't houses be set back from all water - last not least because such proximity to water isn't even healthy.

Driving my ancient, uninsured (legal in New Hampshire) gas guzzler into town, I heard on public radio a report on the environmental conference. I believe our 2 percent of the world's population consumes 25 percent or more of "energy" . . . the "world" is demanding we cut back . . . this would send us into an economic tailspin.

In the course of my long walks, my long swims, nights without telephone, without TV, and inadequate light to read, I will have much time to ponder my own life and the state of the universe. I am grateful to have such freedom!

MARIANNE

LANDRE GOLDSCHEIDER

Dune Protection

Stony Brook

June 27, 1997

Dear Mrs. Rattray,

Not too long ago, The Star gave comprehensive coverage to a study of East End beaches by a graduate student at Duke University. I would urge caution in attempting to apply the conclusions of this study to policy concerning the East Hampton Village beaches since conditions at East Hampton Village beaches are not necessarily applicable to other beaches whether they be in North Carolina or farther along the Long Island shore. I am writing to emphasize these conditions.

As you know, the student study was commissioned by the Southampton Town Trustees and done under the supervision of Dr. Orrin Pilkey, well-known for his advocacy to retreat from the shoreline. The student's study was done over three summer months last year. East Hampton Village comprised only about 10 percent of the study area, and some 22 stations there were visited apparently once.

The Marine Sciences Research Center of the State University at Stony Brook has monitored the East Hampton Village beach and dunes for 18 consecutive years. More than 1,200 beach measurements have been made following a regular one-to-two-month schedule. This study has documented multiyear trends in the beach that could not be detected in short-term observations. Some of the generalizations in the student report are not applicable to the conditions at the East Hampton Village beach.

A principal point of the student study seemed to be that generally shore-parallel structures (revetments and bulkheads) at the base of the oceanfront dunes degrade the beach in the face of long-term shoreline recession. While the average shoreline may retreat due to rising sea level over thousands of years, such chronic behavior over human time scales is not a foregone conclusion. Other more powerful influences are at work in the human time frame. Comparison of historical data at East Hampton Village over some 160 years to the measurements over the past two decades show that the village shoreline position has remained relatively stable here.

Long-term, chronic erosion is not the current and foreseeable problem along the East Hampton Village beach. Episodic, severe storm erosion can be, however, and it has been effectively ameliorated by shore-parallel protective structures here. During severe storms, structures are exposed and prevent the migration of the beach landward and the erosion of the dune. While the beach here recovers quickly after a storm, whether or not protective structures are present, losses to the unprotected dune take many years to recover naturally, leaving storm-damaged dune sections more vulnerable to breaching, overwash, and flooding. In the absence of long-term recession at the East Hampton Village beach, this dune protection has been achieved without adverse impact on the beach. The revetments are generally covered with sand, but this does not mean they are useless; they have no impact on the beach in this condition and only exert an influence on dune protection when exposed during storms when they are needed.

Care must be exercised in particular erosion with an existing structure because it is likely that the structure was placed there because of a pre-existing erosional condition. Along the East Hampton Village beach, there was no evidence of an adverse impact upon neighboring dunes and beaches which are not revetted or bulkheaded. Both sections are restored naturally after storms to the same continuous line. The impact of the state and Federal groins on the village beach seems to be limited. The buildup of sand due to the groins seems to be limited to a region of about 1,000 feet east of the structures or only a few percent of the entire length of the village beach.

The differences between the East Hampton Village beach and others stem from the relatively stable condition of the shoreline and the absence of progressive, chronic recession at the village for many years. Further studies of this beach and others are needed, but long-term studies, rather than short-term excursion, are more appropriate for better understanding our ocean beaches.

Respectfully submitted,

HENRY BOKUNIEWICZ

Professor of Oceanography

Environmental Suicide

Amagansett

July 7, 997

Dear Mrs. Rattray,

The recent public discussion of the Brookhaven National Laboratory, some of it in the columns of The Star, has given readers a good perspective about the harmful contamination that B.N.L. has acknowledged as a fact Long Islanders will have to contend with for some time to come. While suggestions as to what should or should not be done to deal with tritiated water supplies are debated, one concept stands alone as the best possible action Long Islanders must demand in order to protect the health and safety of our loved ones and our environment: Shut down B.N.L.'s reactors immediately.

The work of B.N.L.'s reactors will continue to do environmental damage long after this step is taken, yet few government policy makers are seriously calling for an end to the leaching of tritium, strontium, cesium-137, and other deadly elements moving into Long Island's groundwater every day. Common sense demands that, before success can be remotely achieved in cleaning up this burdensome nightmare, the poisoning must be stopped. B.N.L. has done little to nothing in recent years to engender the confidence of Long Islanders to the point where it should be left to its own devices and continue operating the reactors while speaking of "safe levels" of contamination.

Long Islanders are not positioning themselves for the Toxicity Hall of Fame here in the United States. Breast cancer rates in our area are phenomenally higher than the national average, if not the highest in the U.S. A linkage to groundwater contamination is suspected by concerned groups, with B.N.L.'s contamination on that list of suspects. The linkage between B.N.L. and the area cancer rates is not the only connection Long Islanders need be mindful of in discussing this issue. There is a more powerful linkage we as Long Islanders have with shutting down B.N.L. by way of Shoreham.

The Long Island Lighting Company has hammered Long Island ratepayers with the highest rates, the poorest services, and the worst excuses for so long that the State of New York is putting it out of business, seemingly for its stupidity and arrogance alone. However, this did not occur until negotiators found a way to stick it to Long Islanders one more time by handing us the multibillion-dollar bill for the Shoreham fiasco. Now that a LILCO takeover is moving along, Pataki will merely shuffle the deck, sell bonds, and spread the cost of the unconscionable disaster that is LILCO around the entire state.

The enormous investment Long Islanders have made toward a safe environment by throwing out LILCO and assuming its massive debt burden will be for nothing if B.N.L. is allowed to continue operating its reactors. B.N.L.'s policies and ineptitudes make a mockery out of the hard-fought, stupendously expensive LILCO settlement. The fact is that Long Islanders, out of an innocent and necessary concern for public health and safety, have gone more than the extra mile to rid themselves of potential nuclear contamination. Why stop now? Why take on the unimaginable challenge and subsequent debt of closing Shoreham only to allow B.N.L. to chug along, slowly and surely, on the same road to environmental suicide?

Close B.N.L.'s reactors now. This is what Long Islanders must demand. It is the next great step in the assertion of our right to live free from a reckless toxifying government energy policy.

ALEC BALDWIN

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