This Morning’s Bulletin — 5.16.16

Good Morning!

• Today will be sunny, with a high near 60 degrees and a west wind 17 to 25 miles per hour, with gusts as high as 36. Tonight will be mostly clear, with a low around 44. There’s a 40 percent chance of showers tomorrow, mostly in the afternoon, but otherwise it will be partly sunny, with a high near 65. There’s a 30 percent chance of rain Wednesday, but otherwise it will be mostly cloudy, with a high near 63.

• Congressman Lee Zeldin is expected to announce the date of the floor vote on his bill to stave off the sale of Plum Island in a press conference in Riverhead this morning. More tomorrow.

• Members of the Shinnecock Nation are rallying tomorrow over a case in Southampton Village Justice Court that may determine the rights of members of the tribe park at Southampton beaches without a beach parking sticker. More than 600 people have signed an online petition stating that this new interpretation of town and village policy “suddenly requires Shinnecock people to pay to access the same waters that have sustained our people since time immemorial only” and “serves as a form of economic discrimination and a further disruption to our cultural continuity as People of the Stony Shore, which in effect is a direct violation of our rights as Indigenous people.”

• The Peconic River is in the midst of an algae bloom, night-time dissolved oxygen levels in the river are creeping downward and the river is packed with large schools of bunker fish — the same conditions that last year set the stage for several fish kills that began on this date, May 16, 2015. The most massive of those fish kills occurred on May 27, 2015, when water temperature had increased and dissolved oxygen levels were near zero. As of 5:54 a.m. today, dissolved oxygen levels were at 5.2 milligrams per liter at the continuous sampling station at the Route 105 bridge — the New York State Acute Water Quality Standard for dissolved oxygen is 3 mg/L, while the EPA says the fish need concentrations of just over 2 mg/L to survive. We’ll be watching this situation closely over the next couple weeks.

• On this coming Saturday, May 21, Sag Harbor will celebrate itself with day filled with events designed to celebrate the village’s history, culture, music and community. The Beacon’s full story is online here.

• Also on May 21, The Parrish Art Museum is hosting a day-long symposium called “Tideland Sessions,” a series of illustrated talks, a performance, a workshop, and lunchtime conversations that unite artists, writers, scientists, historians, and the community in conversations about environmental stewardship, with a focus on the regional landscape. The Beacon’s full story is online here.

• The Peconic Estuary Program has announced that they will hold their next Citizens Advisory Committee meeting this Wednesday, May 18 at 6 p.m. at Sag Harbor Village Hall. Topics for discussion include the update to the Peconic Estuary Comprehensive Management Plan. More information is online here.

• The Beacon’s Week in Review was delivered piping hot to inboxes throughout the East End in the wee hours of Sunday morning. To get your own copy each week, sign up here:

And that’s the way things look at dawn’s light here today.