Letters

Mayor Jesse Warren helped to put Lake Agawam closer to the top of Southampton Village’s list of priorities. Through decades of neglect and mismanagement, Lake Agawam, once known as the jewel of Southampton, was allowed to become an unsafe toxic cesspool, threatening the health of residents and the very future of the village.

With the assistance of the Lake Agawam Conservancy, Mr. Warren helped to secure the $10 million in funding for the algae harvester, which will clean 3 million gallons of polluted lake water every day. This harvester will become operational next year if town residents approve the referendum this November authorizing the land swap needed to place the harvester temporarily in part of Doscher Park.

Given his history, it was very disappointing to see that Mr. Warren, now out of office, is playing politics with Lake Agawam. In his September 2 letter to the editor [“Path To Progress”], he suggested that Dr. Chris Gobler, at the behest of the conservancy, was now painting an unduly rosy picture of the state of the lake. Nothing could be further from the truth.

Dr. Gobler has spent years studying Lake Agawam. He is a renowned scientist who is data-driven. He has been sounding the alarm on the health of Lake Agawam for years. The conservancy continues to believe that the lake presents a danger to all village residents. We have only begun the process of cleaning up the lake. This process will take years and require the village to commit substantially more resources to the lake.

Regrettably, without reaching out to the conservancy or Dr. Gobler, Mr. Warren misstated the facts about the lake. Since 2020, the conservancy has funded a monitoring buoy that provides real time data, available to the public at lakeagawam.org, about the health of the Lake.

Thanks to the efforts of many, including the conservancy, Mayor Bill Manger, Mr. Warren, and other past and present village officials, Lake Agawam now has the lowest levels of blue-green algae in more than five years.

The lake is not the most polluted lake in New York or on the East End, but it remains very polluted. The most healthy ponds on the East End are Hook and Georgica Ponds. Lake Agawam is the second worst after Wainscott Pond.

This summer, Lake Agawam suffered from a blue-green algae bloom in late July. At that point, Dr. Gobler accurately stated that the lake presents a “clear and present danger.” Fortunately, this bloom collapsed days later, and the health of the lake improved during August and into September.

Lake Agawam remains an unhealthy lake. It is getting better, but much more needs to be done.

Robert J. Giuffra Jr.

President, Lake Agawam Conservancy