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Trustees Fight Aerial Spray

By
Christopher Walsh

The East Hampton Town Trustees, who manage many of the town’s beaches, waterways, and bottomlands on behalf of the public, have asked the public to help fight aerial spraying of the mosquito larvicide methoprene on waters under their jurisdiction.

At a meeting on Tuesday night, just hours after the division of vector control of the Suffolk County Department of Public Works had applied the chemical  via helicopter flying at low altitude over parts of the salt marshes at Napeague in Amagansett and Accabonac Harbor in Springs, Deborah Klughers told her colleagues that it was the third instance of the spraying in two weeks.

 It is doing so, she said, despite the trustees’  opposition and the fact that the East Hampton Town Board had reiterated its opposition last year to the use of methoprene, stating that the insecticide “has not been adequately tested and found to be safe in aquatic and marine invertebrates, fish, and zooplankton.” Of general concern is methoprene’s effect on lobsters and crabs.

“We need action,” Ms. Klughers said. She said she had spoken with Dominick Ninivaggi, superintendent of the vector control division, and quoted him saying, “If there’s not mosquito larvae, I’m not going to spray.” “Let’s challenge him on that,” she said.

“I would like to ask the public to let us know . . . what they think about this plan of action by the county,” she said. “We really need to come together.” She asked that the public contact the trustees via their website, ehtrustees.com.

Ms. Klughers said she had asked County Legislator Jay Schneiderman to reintroduce a bill he presented unsuccessfully to the Legislature in 2013 that would have established strict guidelines for use of methoprene within estuaries, as several New England states have done. Mr. Schneiderman’s bill would have required that before methoprene was applied, one or more disease threats, such as West Nile virus or eastern equine encephalitis, be positively identified in a local mosquito population, or that bacterial larvicide treatments, such as Bacillus thuringiensis israelensis, known as Bti, have been unsuccessful in controlling mosquito numbers.

On Tuesday, Ms. Klughers asked John Courtney, the trustees’ attorney, whether such legislation could be enacted only in the towns of East Hampton and Southampton, “because we’re the most vocal opponents of the use of these chemicals.”

“I believe the Legislature can do it, but I don’t think they would, because it would engender lawsuits,” he said.

In other news from the meeting, Stephanie Forsberg, the assistant clerk, reported on the water-quality testing being done by researchers from Stony Brook University. The latest biweekly sampling, she said, showed that all of the 17 sites “are doing pretty well.” The cut that had opened Georgica Pond to the ocean, allowing tidal flushing for the last several months, has closed naturally, but levels of dissolved oxygen and micro algae remain healthy, she said. Last year, a bloom of cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, prompted the trustees to close the pond to the harvesting of crabs and other marine life for much of the summer.

In this, the third year of the program led by Christopher Gobler, the trustees have been able to develop a baseline of healthy ecosystems, Dr. Forsberg said, which in turn will help them develop a management plan for waterways under their jurisdiction. The program is costing the trustees just over $39,000 this year. No government agency requires this program, she said, “but in our eyes, now that we’ve started this I cannot imagine going backwards.”

“This is groundbreaking research,” Ms. Klughers said. “This isn’t happening elsewhere.”

The trustees also set Sept. 27 as the date of their annual largest clam contest. Each year, the trustees invite the public to the Donald Lamb Building in Amagansett to learn about the trustees’ efforts and enter contenders for the largest quahog. Clams and oysters on the half shell, as well as clam chowder, are served.

 

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