Letters to the Editor: 11.21.96
Junk Politics
Amagansett
November 18, 1996
Dear Mrs. Rattray:
The middle of the story -
Peter Garnham is out of a job as of Jan. 1, 1997. The Republican-controlled Town Board voted to eliminate his position as public information officer for the town recycling center at a board meeting on Friday, Nov. 15.
Mr. Garnham, whose position calls for a salary of $39,400 in addition to benefits totalling around $5,000, has been utilized as a political football in Town Board affairs for the better part of nine months. His story may be interesting in that it reveals how much of the junk politics being played of late on the Town Board is literally about garbage.
The town recycling facility was the pet project of Supervisor Tony Bullock's administration and began actual operation in 1993. The goal was to reduce the amount of nonrecyclable waste that East Hampton must haul away each year, an amount that averages around 17,000 tons per year at a cost of $54 per ton. East Hampton's garbage goes to locations as nearby as Huntington and Hempstead and as far away as Pennsylvania and Virginia for incineration or burial.
Within the town itself, 65 percent of residents are "self-haulers," that is they convey their garbage to the dump themselves. Of these self-haulers, less than half separate their garbage. Garbage could be separated at the dump itself with a system known as a materials recovery facility, or M.R.F. (rhymes with surf). Hemp stead has what is known as a "dirty M.R.F.," which removes the most basic recyclables such as glass, metal, cardboard, and plastics, but East Hampton's facility has no such system, so the garbage that arrives at the facility unseparated leaves the facility unseparated at a cost of roughly $1 million a year.
Restaurants often separate their garbage into the category of "compostables," or organic material, which is naturally made into compost. Restaurants such as Gurney's Inn, the Shagwong, and the Quiet Clam self-haul their compostables to the dump. Gurney's went so far as to buy its own compactor truck. A&P reportedly spent $35,000 for a divided compactor to haul separated compostables in its self-hauling operation.
The compost created by the operation is unique among the garbage delivered to the facility. Professional and home gardeners, landscapers, and nurseries have all created a demand that greatly outpaces supply. Reportedly, there is a waiting list for the 98-percent-pure compost material. A screening system that the facility is applying for would remove the remaining 2 percent of impurities such as nontoxic bits of glass and plastic.
Commercial haulers in East Hamp ton are obligated to convey the separated garbage of their customers as separated, recyclable garbage, according to Chapter 117 of the Town Code. But such laws are extremely unpopular with some waste-haulers, many of whom ignore the law completely. Enforcement of it has all but died since the town launched a blizzard of citations against recalcitrant carters back in 1993 in an effort to urge compliance.
The recycling facility receives a number of calls from homeowners who go to the trouble of separating their garbage only to have their own collectors throw it all together in the back of a compactor.
With the exception of a few, most restaurants cannot afford the time and expense of self-hauling. Yet a large number of area restaurants are eager to provide the recycling facility with compostable material. They face only the intransigence of waste haulers (one name in particular is mentioned repeatedly) who will not convey separated material.
When talking to Mr. Garnham about his efforts at the facility he speaks of the town "surrendering its independence" by reducing its re cycl ing-composting efforts. Mr. Garnham's faith in the system led him to don kitchen whites and work in restaurant kitchens alongside their staffs to educate them about the practicality and benefits of composting. Mr. Garnham believes most restaurants in town want the program.
He stated in a telephone conversation that noncompliance by commercial haulers rendered the facility "like a 747 with only 10 passengers on board." The $3.5 million facility is operating at only 30 percent of capacity. When receiving up to 40 tons per day of separated materials, as was designed, the town could save $700,000 annually.
Mr. Garnham said that East Hampton's system is designed for separation and that the success of the program hinges on the unique combination of recycling and composting. Facilities such as ours, he said, are envied here in the U.S. and abroad and the commercial haulers in neighboring townships that do collect separated materials wonder "what's with" those in East Hampton who won't.
The town, however, is considerably further away from finding an answer to that question now that Mr. Garnham, who is considered by many Republicans and Democrats alike to be a competent, passionate, decent fellow, has been voted out. Mr. Garn ham's "defunding" also raises questions about what the current Town Board majority values most in the way that it allocates taxpayer money, chooses to conduct its business, and wields power on behalf of its friends. I'll try to separate the garbage in that pile in my next letter.
ALEC BALDWIN
Remarkable Trees
Amagansett
November 1996
Dear Helen:
Russell Drumm's excellent article on a timber that may or may not have been from H.M.S. Culloden (Nov. 7) brought to memory history related to both its topic and time.
In the early 1770s, the British built a frigate and anchored the unrigged hull in the Thames. Months later, when the rigging crew went aboard, they found her rotten beyond repair.
Particularly alarming was the discovery that the "tree nails" ("trunnels," I think, in American usage), the fastenings that held together all the key frame members and the planking, had rotted as readily as the timber they fastened. This was ominous news, as these dowels were delivered in kegs of brine and should have outlasted the timbers they fastened.
Botanists were the rocket scientists of that age and many of the best were English. One of their number had heard tales about a tree native to Long Island whose timber would last 100 years. At the Admiralty's expense, he spent months on eastern Long Island and learned a very great deal about both the black locust and its cousin, the honey or sweet locust.
Alas, politics triumphed over science, the colonies were at war with England, and the locals suggested returning whence he came was a better option than tar and feathers.
He knew he was onto something, his time's equivalent of the double helix of D.N.A. He wrote a book on these remarkable trees which was eventually translated into all the major languages of the Continent.
Not only did he dwell on the rot-resistant characteristic of the black locust, but he touted the sweet locust as the premier tree of formal gardens. His legacy was that every formal garden in Europe, from the Treaty of Vienna (about 1914) until World War I, had honey locusts.
Most people on the East End then and now know both varieties are shallow rooted and produce pods in the fall that are a mess. They also know that the black locust has large vascular bundles that readily pick up quartz and other minerals that, when the wood's dry, will ruin a chain saw's edge in about six seconds.
At 70, a memory is a sometime thing and I can't recall the source of this tale. Kindly convey our regards to Chris and thank him for the photos of the John Collins.
Regards,
R. RANDOLPH RICHARDSON
Kiss It Goodbye
East Hampton
November 18, 1996
To The Editor:
In 1943 when my parents rented the house on Gallatin Lane in Maidstone Park I was 3 years old. Gallatin Lane was a narrow dirt road like so many roads in Maidstone years ago. We used kerosene lamps and an outhouse. A hand pump in the kitchen supplied our water; ice was delivered for the "ice box."
When we bought the same house years later only Gallatin Lane had stood still in time. East Hampton has lost so much of its original character over the years that our lane was a nostalgic tie with the past, a faint resonance from memory's innocent earlier days.
When house construction began on Gallatin Lane last spring, the town activated an ordinance requiring road improvement. All the residents of Gallatin Lane attended a Town Board meeting and said, "No thanks. Leave it alone."
The board told us we had been heard and assured us that it was sensitive to the will of the people. We were smiled upon, admired for our solidarity. Jokes relaxed us; sweetness and light filled the meeting.
Last Thursday, without any announcement or discussion, the lane was widened and graded.
Half of Gallatin Lane is still the way it was. The ordinance reached only as far as the new construction. Come and see it. It is a ludicrous picture of rural life become suburban overnight, of the people's will ignored, and government's creeping minutiae triumphant.
If you have anything of the old East Hampton that you treasure - a rural road, farmland, a life on the water, common courtesy - you may as well kiss it goodbye.
BARRY McCALLION
Worth The Wait
New York
November 14, 1996
Dear Editor,
It may take me a little time to get around to reading things, but your July 4 issue was sure worth the wait! I am so glad I saved that issue and refer in particular to your fiction by Barbara Goldowsky titled "Fourth of July."
I thoroughly enjoyed Ms. Goldowsky's story - what a delightful treasure to find in the midst of a local newspaper. It was, yes, a story of resignation, but also of life affirmation. The emotions, sentiment, and feelings of an elderly woman ready to give herself over along with the fireworks was a tremendously poignant concept.
I re-read the ending several times trying to determine if, indeed, Mrs. Meadows decided to go through with her plan, or, perhaps, that a postponement was in order. I suspect the latter because of her wonderful and unselfish and well-described love for her grandson, Steven.
As it happens, my grandmother died on July 4 in 1978. On her tombstone, my grandfather inscribed, "A Lady of Valor." I always felt that I was never able to express the significance of her dying on that day, the Day of Independence, with the sky lit up, in the way that Ms. Goldowsky so adeptly describes.
I wish to congratulate the powers that be at The East Hampton Star for providing a forum for such fine fiction.
Sincerely,
PAT GALLANT
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