Letters

Should the Town of Southampton become the dumping ground for waste materials from all of Long Island, and the trucking that goes with it, for the next 20 years?

Wake up, Westhampton. The old pit is situated in the Pine Barrens Core Area, where development is prohibited by law in order to safeguard the sole-source aquifer for drinking water that we all depend on. What is the incentive for out-of-town businessmen to remove 26,000 cubic yards of dredge spoils and replace it with 800,000 cubic yards of recycled material in an abandoned 47-acre sand pit at Westhampton? Do they want to fill a hole 35 feet deep to give it a pastoral appearance?

Or are they demolition and debris removal contractors who have made Application No. 1-4736-00057/00001 to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation for a 360 permit to allow the pit to become a construction and demolition debris handling and recovery facility to process materials while filling in the pit over the next five to eight years?

By contractors’ estimate, if they haul 40 loads a day from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m., Monday through Saturday, it will take five to eight years to fill in the pit. Since each truck that delivers has to leave, many of which will be filled with recycled material to be used or sold off site, the truck traffic doubles to 80 per day, or one truck every 7½ minutes to pass through Westhampton.

The trucks will shake the ground, emit diesel exhaust in the air, followed by a cloud of dirty dust and cause a traffic hazard. Would you drink water that passes through a 35-foot layer of recycled material?

Joseph Frederick Gazza

Quogue