Pesticide Bans, Pear Trees
Work toward a better future and remembrance of the past were on the agenda when the East Hampton Village Board met on Friday.
Edwina von Gal of the Perfect Earth Project, a Springs organization that promotes toxin-free landscaping, addressed the board and proposed a partnership in which Perfect Earth would cite the village as a toxin-free municipality. She asked that the village designate a liaison to the organization, suggesting Billy Hajek, the village planner, and post its commitment to toxin-free landscapes on its website.
In return, Ms. von Gal pledged to develop a strategy for maintaining village properties without synthetic pesticides and fertilizers, while also extending those practices into commercial and private properties that are part of the village’s watershed. The Perfect Earth Project would also collaborate with the Ladies Village Improvement Society and the Garden Club of East Hampton to ensure a consistent approach and community engagement, and would incorporate the village into its educational events, promote the village’s commitment to toxin-free landscaping, and use it as a model to share with other municipalities across the country.
In the United States, 255 million pounds of lawn chemicals enter waterways every year, Ms. von Gal said. “If we all got together, we could make a big difference,” she said.
The village adopted a policy in 2002 requiring organic maintenance of public parks, greens, and lawns, and prohibiting the use of pesticides and herbicides on village-owned property, which Ms. von Gal called “a remarkably visionary commitment.”
The partnership she proposed would foster “a more comprehensive and conscious project” in which residents “recognize the spaces that are safe for themselves, their family, and their children, and also to encourage them to participate and help with the amount of fertilizer and pesticides that are running off into your waterways, which I know is of tremendous concern.”
The village is presently constructing bioswales to trap pollutants at two locations. That project is covered elsewhere on this page.
Mayor Paul F. Rickenbach Jr. called Perfect Earth Project’s work “a magnanimous undertaking” and pledged the board’s support.
In other business, the mayor presented a certificate of appreciation to David McMaster of Bartlett Tree Experts, a tree and shrub care company with an office in Southampton, for the donation and care of a Callery pear tree that was planted at the North End Common last summer.
Known as a “survivor tree,” the pear tree was grown from a seedling harvested from one that endured the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attack that destroyed the World Trade Center in Manhattan. It was discovered, badly damaged but standing, at the World Trade Center site, removed from the rubble, and turned over to the New York City Department of Parks and Recreation for rehabilitation. In 2010, it was returned to the site, now the September 11 Memorial and Museum, and serves as a living reminder of resilience, survival, and rebirth.
Bartlett Tree Experts, in partnership with the memorial and museum, donated it to the village. A dedication ceremony was held in July.
“It is hoped that this gifting of this magnificent tree to our village will bring people together and create a living, lasting memorial for all the victims of 9/11, their families, communities, and our country,” the mayor said.
Mr. McMaster, a longtime resident of East Hampton, said that the tree was the most significant of the many he has donated to memorials. His company, he said, will submit renderings depicting additional landscaping around the survivor tree to the village as well as to the L.V.I.S. and the Garden Club, the intention being to “memorialize the area in a special way” that will adhere to the area’s character. “I’m very pleased to be here today and very humbled by this recognition,” he said.
Mayor Rickenbach’s daughter, Karen Rickenbach Mesiha, was one of the last to exit the north tower of the World Trade Center before its collapse. Soon afterward, she began experiencing medical issues. Ms. Mesiha died in December.
“This is a humbling moment for us,” the mayor said on Friday. He asked those attending to take advantage of the memorial “for a little bit of meditation and reflection on our lives.”
In other news from the meeting, the board voted unanimously to amend the village code so that annual license fees for services such as taxi and livery cabs, garbage removal, and cesspool maintenance will be fixed by resolution of the board rather than by amendments to village law. The current fee for licenses under this code is $100 per year, which is unchanged since 1994.