Funding for a project on the East Hampton Town Board’s wish list was not among the nearly $7.7 million in New York State economic development money earmarked for the South Fork last month, but officials insist that the relocation of the town’s shellfish hatchery from Montauk to Gann Road in Springs is still the goal.
The plan to move the hatchery, which its director, Barley Dunne, told the board and town trustees last year would significantly reduce shellfish mortality and save fuel and labor costs, began in 2018, when the town authorized the purchase of 36 Gann Road with $2.1 million from the community preservation fund. Last year preliminary plans to move the hatchery, now housed in a World War II-era warehouse on Fort Pond Bay, to an approximately 5,500-square-foot building to be constructed on the Gann Road site were unveiled. An existing building is also to be converted to an environmental education center.
The town submitted an application for a $2 million grant for construction last year, following the receipt of a $400,000 Empire State Development grant, which was allocated toward design, permitting, and preliminary construction costs for the new facility, which has an estimated total cost of $2.65 million.
The plan drew opposition, however. Residential and commercial property owners on Gann Road, neighbors on Babe’s Lane, and Councilman Jeff Bragman objected to the proposed project, criticizing what they characterized as a headlong rush to execute the plan without full environmental review and a project driven more by grant funding than need.
In an October email responding to a constituent opposed to the project, Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. wrote that “regardless of whether a municipal project is legally subject to zoning regulations, it is my opinion that such a project should be subject to the same planning and zoning process as anyone else,” and that “further state funding for construction of this project should not be considered until such a complete review has occurred.”
But remarks in August by John Aldred of the trustees to one critic, Mark Mendelman, an owner of several marinas and a vessel and repair business on Three Mile Harbor, as well as the Gann Road building housing Bostwick’s on the Harbor restaurant, proved prescient. The state had appropriated grant money and “it’s going somewhere,” he said. “If not this project, something in Brookhaven or Riverhead.”
Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc said last month that the effort to obtain funding to relocate the hatchery would continue. “We’re going to keep moving forward on it,” he said. “We don’t plan on abandoning it just because we didn’t get something in this round of funding. The process will continue.”
Councilman David Lys said he was disappointed. “I believe our application was just as strong” as projects chosen by the state, which included an overhaul of Long Wharf in Sag Harbor Village, land acquisition by the Peconic Land Trust, and restoration of the Montauk Lighthouse, “specifically in light of the scallop die-off recently.” Bay scallops throughout the Peconic Estuary experienced a die-off of 90 to 100 percent this year.
A debriefing meeting with the Department of State will be scheduled “to discuss the strengths and weaknesses of this application,” Mr. Lys said. “After that, it will be discussed to see how to move forward.” Design will continue, with neighbors’ concerns taken into account, he said.
