This Morning’s Bulletin — 9.5.17
Good Morning, and happy Tumbleweed Tuesday!
• We haven’t put summer back in the box yet. Today will be sunny, with a high near 80 degrees and a south wind 14 to 17 miles per hour. We’re expecting a 40 percent of overnight showers and thunderstorms, mainly after 2 a.m., with a low around 67. There’s a 70 precent chance of showers, along with a possible thunderstorm, on Wednesday, with a high near 76 degrees. There’s a 50 percent chance of showers Thursday, with a high near 72 degrees.
• Work on the Riverside traffic circle at the intersection of Routes 24, 104, 51 and Peconic Avenue is expected to begin in earnest today. Drivers are being asked to expect lane shifts and delays as the work gets underway. The $5.2 million project isn’t expected to be complete until late 2018.
• Studies have shown that, over a big break such as summer vacation, kids can loose up to 2.6 months worth of knowledge learned behind the desk. Kids throughout the East End are going back to school today or tomorrow, and our 11-year-old correspondent from East Marion is offering tips to help combat summer learning loss. You can read her contribution to the September issue online here.
• The Suffolk County Department of Health Services is concluding a series of public forums on the dangers of tick-borne diseases with a forum at Southold Town’s Recreation Center at 1170 Peconic Lane this evening, Sept. 5 from 5 to 7 p.m. All are welcome to attend. For more information, contact the Suffolk County Department of Health Services Public Health Hotline at 631-787-2200 or Tick.Prevention@suffolkcountyny.gov.
• The East Hampton Town Board gets back to work today, discussing Historic Landmark legislation, bids, the town’s new Moody’s rating and ICLEI – Local Governments for Sustainability at their 10 a.m. work session this morning. Their full agenda is online here.
• Greenport’s Mitchell Park will play host this Thursday, Sept. 7, to a celebration of love and community, in an attempt to counter the national climate of racial tension and anti-immigrant sentiment, from 5 to 6:30 p.m. All are welcome to attend this celebration.
The high tides on the East End for the next two days are as follows:
Sept. 5
Plum Gut Harbor: 10 a.m., 10:14 p.m.
Montauk Harbor: 9:08 a.m., 9:22 p.m.
Greenport: 10:37 a.m., 10:51 p.m.
Mattituck Inlet: 11:28 a.m., 11:44 p.m.
Sag Harbor: 10:32 a.m., 10:46 p.m.
New Suffolk: 11:59 a.m.
South Jamesport: 12:06 p.m.
Shinn. Inlet: 7:12 a.m., 7:27 p.m.
Sept. 6
Plum Gut Harbor: 10:39 a.m., 10:53 p.m.
Montauk Harbor: 9:47 a.m., 10:01 p.m.
Greenport: 11:16 a.m., 11:30 p.m.
Mattituck Inlet: 12:08 p.m.
Sag Harbor: 11:11 a.m., 11:25 p.m.
New Suffolk: 12:13 a.m., 12:38 p.m.
South Jamesport: 12:20 a.m., 12:45 p.m.
Shinn. Inlet: 7:50 a.m., 8:06 p.m.
And that’s the way things look at dawn’s light here today.
In NY state the public beach ends at the high water mark. But in Riverhead the Town allows people to drive over the private property which lies above the mean high water mark. The result is a moonscape of ruts, erosion, damage to wildlife, pollution, noise, trash, danger and of course ongoing theft. I suggest a compromise: the Town enforces the laws against driving over private property, and the private property owners allow the public to walk, safely, quietly and even romantically, over their clean, flat sandy beach, except on Christmas day.
The biggest problem we’ve found, on the bay side, is that property owners place these misleading signs perpendicular to the shore at the edge of the town rights-of-way, just landward of the high water mark, making it appear to would-be walkers that the entire beach is private, not just the portion landward of the high water mark. Many, many people are fooled by these signs. Don’t know of anyone who drives on the bay beaches…they wouldn’t get very far with all the groins and bulkheads.
There are 2 opposite problems here (to some extent, Bay v. Sound): as you say, the misleading nature of the signs, and the illegality of and damage by driving above the high water mark (HWM). The solution to both is simple: action by the Town. The Town should require that all such beach signs include information about the HWM: no driving or walking above the HWM (except by owner permission). The Town will argue that the actual, visible, HWM is a shifting line (although the invisible mean HWM isn’t). True, but this problem is minor compared to the ones we are discussing. Most beach property owners don’t have a problem with people walking over their property – the problem is when people hang out there, making noise and leaving litter (or worse). As the local media have recently documented, this problem has become much worse recently, especially with the influx of out of Towners (and even out of County and out of Staters). People just don’t have the old levels of civility and we now need more forceful regulations and actions.