About 170 student volunteers from an array of North Fork schools and service groups removed about 55 tons of trash, debris, equipment and scrap metal from the Greenport woods surrounding the Bay to Sound Trail in 2024, in an effort coordinated by Group for the East End and Southold Town.
The Bay to Sound Trail, in the works since 2007, is a network of trails that crosses a variety of ecosystems west of Greenport Village on lands preserved by a variety of entities. It includes trails on Arshamomaque Preserve, Skipper Horton Park and Pipes Cove Preserve, among other state, town and county-preserved properties.
The 2024 work involved the creation of about 1.8 new miles of trails through Pipes Cove Preserve, the former site of Sill’s Dairy Farm, where volunteers spent more than 1,620 hours taking down the remains of a defunct milk house and dairy barn, along with the buildings’ contents. They removed more than 50 wheels and tires, a broken plow, sickle bar mower, several engines, household appliances, multiple trailers, tons of cinder blocks and even a houseboat.
Volunteers included Boy and Girl Scouts, Southold ROTC students, Mattituck High School students, Southold Elementary School fifth graders, Peconic Community School students, and members of the Southold Peconic Civic Association, library groups, and the general public.
“There are still tons more that need to be pulled out,” said Taralynn Reynolds, the Outreach Director for Group for the East End, who is coordinating the volunteer effort with Southold Town GIS Coordinator John Sepenoski.
Many of the student groups have community service as part of their program, said Ms. Reynolds, and Mattituck High School has a huge volunteer expo each year at which many more students signed up to help.
She said it’s very rewarding to see the kids realize once they start working that they have the ability to make the ecosystem healthier and make it easier for their neighbors to spend time in nature.
“The whole point is to open up trails so we can get people out into these properties,” said Ms. Reynolds. “It has to be good for wildlife, ecosystems and people.”
Students from throughout the North Fork were among the volunteers donating more than 1,600 hours of work to clearing tons of debris out of the Bay-to-Sound trail properties in 2024. |. Taralynn Reynolds photos for Group for the East End.
The former dairy farm property, adjacent to the railroad, includes woods, a dry meadow and a marsh system. While invasive species are prevalent, “some areas are astoundingly beautiful, with a remnant, mostly native environment,” she said.
Ms. Reynolds said that, on one day in October, there were 60 students working on the trails, including Mattituck High School students and a group of fifth graders from Southold Elementary School.
“It’s interesting to see how they work together. I think being outside of a classroom is really important,” she said. “Some of the fifth graders want to take a leadership role, and it’s interesting to see how they work together.”
That funding comes from the New York State Department of State under Title 11 of the Environmental Protection Fund, which dedicated $258,750 to the Phase 5 work currently underway.
Southold Town GIS Coordinator John Sepenoski has been working on the project since 2007, working on a vision that includes purchasing the land and assembling the network of trails, and getting state grant funding — much of which requires substantial volunteer in-kind work.
“Volunteers are currently handling most of the work being done on Phase 5 and handled a lot of work on Phase 3 that was originally slated for contractors,” said Mr. Sepenoski. “Work can include trail creation, trail trimming, wood-chipping trails, trash cleanup, cleanup of old tumps, demolition debris removal, habitat restoration, invasive removal, native plantings and installing signage.”
He added that many construction tasks still remain, including building seven boardwalks, two footbridges and three parking areas with kiosks and signs. He is also awaiting state approval for habitat restoration.
Mr. Sepenoski says volunteers took over Phase 3 work — cleaning up the dairy farm buildings and trails connecting different phases of the project— that was originally slated to be done by contractors. The town is awaiting word from the state on whether it will approve an extension of that grant.
“If we get it, we will have to finish by the end of 2025,” he said. “Volunteers can still handle much of the work left, but not all of it. We will need contractors and probably highway (the Highway Department) to finish it.”
Work on Phase 4 of the project, which will include adding ADA compliant paths and parking areas, removing sections of abandoned road and infrastructure at Skipper Horton Park and habitat restoration at several parks — work that is slated to be done both by contractors and with matching volunteer hours.
Prospective volunteers can contact Mr. Sepenoski at johnsep@town.southold.ny.us or Ms. Reynolds at treynolds@eastendenvironment.org
Mr. Sepenoski said ideally, he’d like to train volunteers to be able to go out in the field and work on their own.
“He deserves a lot of credit for spearheading this and getting the funding, year after year,” said Ms. Reynolds of Mr. Sepenoski.
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