Letters

Your article “Superstorm Sandy’s Hard Lessons” [October 27] highlights the vulnerability of eastern Long Island even before we see the worst of global warming.

The article includes photographs showing serious flooding on Bridge and Rose streets, where Adam Potter proposes the huge retail/affordable housing development.

But it doesn’t take a superstorm to flood that area. Twenty years ago, my wife and I lived on nearby Garden Street; the area floods whenever there is a nor’easter or a heavy rainstorm, such as in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian in early October.

Yet Potter proposes affordable units in a federally designated flood zone, the most floodprone area in the village. Will future residents be provided with rowboats when their homes are flooded?

But that isn’t the worst.

The gasworks that produced gas from coal from the 1860s was located on an adjacent lot. Remember the “big blue ball”? It is no surprise that site is contaminated, nor that the contamination has spread.

In 2014, the State Department of Environmental Conservation issued a 486-page study of the gasworks and nearby sites that concluded that “contamination was left” after completion of remedial work and laid out a plan to manage “remaining contamination … in perpetuity.”

Identified contaminants include carcinogens, as well as compounds that could release cyanide — yes, cyanide — if disturbed.

Addressing 11 Bridge Street, the study states: “[t]he Composite Cover System … is a permanent control that must remain intact above the remaining contamination …” Even with the cover intact, the DEC prohibits vegetable gardens, use of groundwater, and requires air monitoring in nearby buildings.

No large-scale development can leave the cover intact. Yet changes to the village code to enable large-scale construction were fast-tracked without thorough consideration of the environmental impact or remediation needed.

Instead of condemning those who need affordable housing to live in a toxic flood zone with no outdoor space and nowhere to park, wouldn’t it be better to build affordable housing at a higher elevation, where most village residents live?

The debate must include the environment and the risks to the health of future residents.

East Hampton’s current Three Mile Harbor development demonstrates that affordable housing can be a pleasant, healthy environment, and much less expensive than Potter’s plan.

The village should heed its own recent update to the 2008 Planning Strategies report, which recognized that affordable housing needs to be addressed in conjunction with Southampton and East Hampton towns, and advised: “An effective Comprehensive Plan should … include a strong public participation process to develop a vision for the future through community visioning, public meetings and workshops …”

There is a vision for affordable housing that is sustainable, healthy and pleasant. The Potter plan would be none of those.

Douglas Newby

Sag Harbor