Letters

One of the campaign promises was to form a citizens advisory committee to the Southampton Town Trustees that would help advise the Trustees on things they might have missed, and to interest and give experience to citizens who may be interested in running for election as a Trustee. This has not happened as of yet. I know we are all “busy,” yet this is important — and a promise is a promise, eh?

On another note, the damage that the Highway Department is doing to our waterways by ignorantly diverting road runoff directly into our embayments is beyond stupidity; it is more along the lines of evil. And words to describe the Trustees’ inaction on this escape me (hard to believe, isn’t it?).

I reached out to Chris Gobler, and he wholeheartedly agreed with me that diverting this water into vegetation is the way to go, as it is much better than spending $20,000 on the hardware for drainage rings that just clog with silt and grow mosquitoes (Water Mill has several of those). Diverting this road runoff into phragmites is the perfect use for this plant.

I find it fascinating that the Dongan Patent was written so long ago and gives the Board of Trustees domain over the “bottom lands of the water-ways.” It is, in fact, the health of the “benthos” — the bottom of any water body — that determines water quality.

I find it fascinating, as well, that the Highway Department can at will divert this runoff into our waters without any conference with the Trustees or the conservation and environment departments. I brought this to their attention months ago and have watched as every rain event has poured polluted surface road runoff into our waters all fall and winter.

I wonder about the exercise of the town writing and signing up for the “Sustainability Plan” under the corrupt administration of Anna Throne-Holst. What was the point, when the most basic tenets of ecology are ignored?

I saw the article where Eric Shultz proclaimed that the Trustees were one lawsuit away from being disbanded [“Q&A: Town Trustee Eric Shultz: ‘We’re One Court Case Away From Losing Everything Out Here,’” 27east.com, February 10]. Well, let me point out that you are making the bed for your irrelevancy by not dealing with these very real issues of water quality and continuing to lubricate “the economic engine of the town,” which is a term that I have heard used many times, and I suppose that is just the rubber-stamping of permits for houses, docks, pools and tennis courts on our once-beautiful lands.

Stephen Storch

Water Mill