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Age: 54
Hometown: East Quogue
Occupation: retired from FDNY Fire Patrol
Political experience: Southampton Town Conservation Board, Southampton Town Planning Board, current Town Trustee
1. Do you think stormwater runoff is a problem the Trustees should be involved in trying to fix? Why or how?
We have to stop the heavy metals and toxins from getting into the bay. We’re encouraging people to plant buffers. Anytime a bulkhead comes in for replacement we don’t allow any fertilized vegetation. We’ve been encouraging people, I don’t know if we can start taking them to court, but we’re whittling away at it slowly with low-sil bulkheads and the planting of native vegetation.
2. Do you think the Trustees can or should be doing more to help the local commercial fishing industry? Why?
We just got done re-doing all the bulkheads at the Trustee basin. There’s two commercial draggers there. We’re encouraging the aquaculture program so that it’s workable for everyone. We’re putting out breeder sanctuaries to increase the number of clams in the bay—we just did a transplant from the Peconic River. And we’ve worked with the Army Corps to finalize plans for dredging of the inlet.
3. How should the Trustees be involved in improving water quality in the town’s freshwater ponds?
In Agawam we have a project to put in a rain garden. Planting vegetation to intercept runoff. Working with Dr. Chris Gobler of Stony Brook Southampton’s marine science program on a study of Mill Pond and I’ve been working on Wildwood Lake. Put some new algae eaters species in Silverbrook Pond in Flanders to improve the water quality.
on Oct 30, 2009