This Morning’s Bulletin — 6.24.14

Good Morning!

• Suffolk County Legislator Jay Schneiderman has filed legislation asking the county attorney to explore legal action against the federal government on behalf of Suffolk’s commercial fishermen, who are facing quotas that are twice as strict as in neighboring states. Mr. Schneiderman says the quota system is based on a faulty method that punishes New York’s fishermen for the record keeping practices of a generation ago, when federal regulation of New York’s commercial fishing fleet began shortly after the Magnuson Stevens Act of 1976. The method used in New York, which is different from the method used in neighboring states, has led to a major undercount of the actual fish landings in New York State and in some cases has credited other states with fish caught by New York fisherman. Commercial fishermen have long called on New York State to sue the National Marine Fisheries Service, but the state has not taken legal action. Legislator Schneiderman believes that, since most of New York’s commercial fishing fleet is located in Suffolk County, the county may have a legal right to sue on behalf of the fisherman.

• Today is Republican primary day in the first congressional district. Third District State Senator Lee Zeldin, who ran against Congressman Tim Bishop in 2008, has the backing of establishment Republicans, while George Demos, a former prosecutor at the Securities and Exchange Commission, is making his third attempt at an upset in a Republican primary for the seat. The Beacon’s report on their recent debate is online here.

• The Southampton Town Board is scheduled to vote on the Flanders hamlet heritage area and on funding the repair the Bridge Lane bridge in Sagaponack at their 6 p.m. meeting tonight. Their full agenda is online here.

• The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation has confirmed there is now a blue-green algae bloom in Mill Pond in Southampton.  Suffolk County health officials are asking residents not to use or swim or wade in these waters and to keep their pets and children away from the area. Mill Pond faces frequent algae blooms, but this year the bloom started several weeks later than at three other East End lakes and ponds, all of which are now listed by the DEC as “widespread” blooms.

•  The public had their say June 19 on the Indian Wells and Atlantic Avenue beach booze restrictions under consideration in East Hampton, and most who spoke said that drunken revelry is out of hand at Indian Wells. But what to do about it, well, an awful lot of people had different opinions about that. The Beacon’s full story is online here.

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