Water For Lazy Point Apt To Turn The Tide
The demand for public water at Lazy Point in Amagansett has officials scratching their heads about how to insure that a water main from the hills of Devon eastward will not encourage development or increase the demand for water.
At the same time, local officials are eyeing neighborhoods elsewhere in town whose residents could someday make the same demand. Sammy's Beach in East Hampton, Gerard Drive and Louse Point in Springs, East Lake Drive in Montauk, and Napeague Meadow Road in Amagansett, which leads to Lazy Point, have similar problems with their water - shallow private wells which often have high iron content and can be expected to draw saltwater or become contaminated when houses put a strain on the natural water supply.
The areas consist of low-lying dunelands or tidal wetlands at the edge of bays or harbors.
Warn Against Growth
East Hampton Town, the Suffolk Water Authority, and the County Health Department agree that bringing in public water is the obvious and immediate solution where there is a shortage of potable water. They also warn, however, that these neighborhoods cannot sustain further growth.
Deep water recharge areas in parts of East Hampton Town already are being tapped to supply water to the Napeague stretch and to parts of Sag Harbor, Noyac, and North Haven. But the quantity is limited.
"It is a well-known, undisputed planning fact that . . . infrastructure extensions, including but not limited to the extension of public water, cause an increase in growth. It is one of the few points on which the town and the Water Authority have agreed," said Lisa Liquori, the town planning director.
Ways To Go
Restrictions prohibiting swimming pools and limiting the size of houses or number of bathrooms in water-poor areas, and a ban on further subdivision of vacant land are among the ways the town could control development after public water is put in, suggested Larry Penny, director of the Town Natural Resources Department.
But government has rarely been able to fend off the demand for residences in these areas, which are on or near the water.
Ms. Liquori said a water main to Lazy Point, like any water main extension in town, would go through extensive environmental review before being constructed. And, she said, recent meetings with authority officials had resulted in a consensus on the concept of controlling development.
Landfall Precedent
She and Mr. Penny also agreed that the town should soon update its water resource management plan, a part of the Comprehensive Plan that is more than 10 years old. It does not recommend water mains through Promised Land to Lazy Point.
With the swift extension of a water main to the Landfall subdivision in Northwest Woods, East Hampton, earlier this year and the extension of mains along Napeague as precedent, the Lazy Point peninsula is starting to look like the third domino in a line that runs from one end of town to the other.
Although groundwater contamination at Landfall was chemical, the apparent result of an illegal cocaine operation, Mr. Penny said it "begged the question for Lazy Point. Because the town responded so quickly at Landfall and a water main was the only real solution that was considered seriously, well, that may have encouraged the residents of Lazy Point to come forward."
Signing Up
It took less than two years for public water to reach Landfall after the county went public with the news that its groundwater contained toxic chemicals. Two months later the homeowners' association on Mulford Lane at Lazy Point began circulating petitions for a main there as well.
More than 100 residents of the area between Cranberry Hole Road and Shore Road at the tip of Lazy Point have signed petitions asking the town to help them replace individual wells with water from the Suffolk Water Authority.
Mr. Penny predicted the owners of houses at Sammy's Beach, a barrier beach at the mouth of Three Mile Harbor, or at Gerard Drive and Louse Point, on either side of the mouth of Accabonac Harbor, would be next.
Critical Problem
"We weren't saying that they got theirs, so now we want ours. We feel we have a critical problem. . . . The older people cannot afford to keep buying bottled water any more, and why should they compromise their health anyway?" asked Maureen Veprek, the Mulford Lane resident who led the petition drive.
Year-Rounders
Ms. Veprek, who works at the State University at Stony Brook, is among a growing number of year-round residents at Lazy Point.
In addition, substantial second homes have cropped up in recent years along Cranberry Hole Road, especially on the south side abutting Napeague State Park, and many of the owners of what once were fishing shanties on Town Trustee land at Lazy Point have made considerable investments in improvements.
Deep Wells Needed
In those places where potable water is scant, most of the wells are driven no more than 50 feet below grade. In comparison the prime aquifers at the Town Airport in East Hampton and in Hither Woods in Montauk, for example, which are tapped by the Water Authority, are 400 feet deep.
"One of our concerns is that we have spots all over town that ultimately will need public water, including much of Springs. These places will need water as much as Montauk and maybe more so; we're eager for the Water Authority to develop those wells in Hither Woods," said Mr. Penny.
An environmental study of the authority's plan to sink three new wells in Hither Woods and to link its Napeague water main to Montauk is nearing completion. The project was prompted by Montauk's water problems, including a deteriorating public water system and a supply that is overtaxed by heavy summertime demand.
Montauk Warning
Two years ago, Michael LoGrande, the authority chairman, warned the town against any further development on Montauk and for each of the two summers since the authority has put the entire isthmus on a water alert, threatening stronger measures if home and motel owners continued to use water indiscriminately.
The County Health Department, which has the responsibility of assessing the safety of the water that would come from every private well being installed, does not consider the future effect of these wells. It now confirms that the situation at Lazy Point is hopeless, that saltwater from too much demand on the supply and coliform from sewage and animal wastes make the water undrinkable.
In addition, the Amagansett Fire Department has joined the call for public water, warning that low pressure of water that comes from the fire wells it has installed makes the job of firefighting difficult.
House Tally
Among those who will be asked to determine the best route for a pipe line, counting along the way the number of taxpayers who will pay for it and trying to assess the long-term consequences, are Mr. Penny, Ms. Liquori, Town Councilman Thomas Knobel, and Vincent Gaudiello Jr., the town engineer.
Mr. Gaudiello had counted 336 houses and 22 vacant lots, some of them eligible under zoning to be divided, along the route of the Landfall main and estimated that as many as 675 houses could hook up to it eventually. He said he would come up with a similar tally for the area from Ocean View Lane in the Devon Colony, through Promised Land, to Lazy Point.
Although the Town Trustees, who own a lot of land at Lazy Point and lease some of it to private homeowners, voted in November for a ban on new houses, many of the existing ones already have been turned into multi-bathroom year-round residences. Councilman Knobel, a former fisherman, owns a small house, and has asked for a legal opinion on his own "possible conflict of interest."
Lot Subdivisions?
Mulford Lane is a narrow road that leads to the bay from Lazy Point Road. It is bordered by modest houses which are becoming year-round residences, although most of the lots, which predate zoning, are tiny.
Ms. Veprek noted that the older lots are only 50 by 128 feet, but added that there are vacant tracts that are privately owned in the vicinty whose owners are eyeing subdivision.
"At Cranberry Hole Road, the question [of what will happen to large undivided tracts of land] is even more pertinent," said Councilman Knobel, observing that public water ends at the corner of Ocean View Lane.