Going Down The Drain – we need your help
The Town is starting to address some “impaired water bodies”, namely Richmond Creek, Goose Creek and some Mattituck Creek road ends, potentially using porous pavement at specific road ends. It is now over three years since SoutholdVOICE initiated our “Only Rain in the Drain” campaign to help mitigate problems caused by stormwater runoff.
Going Down The Drain – we need your help
The Town is starting to address some “impaired water bodies”, namely Richmond Creek, Goose Creek and some Mattituck Creek road ends, potentially using porous pavement at specific road ends. It is now over three years since SoutholdVOICE initiated our “Only Rain in the Drain” campaign to help mitigate problems caused by stormwater runoff.
Pain in the Dock
By Joanna Lane
A beautiful waterfront home on Goose Creek, complete with floating dock and beautiful private beach, is rented short term to visitors. Showing the latest arrivals around one Sunday this summer, I was surprised to find an extra floating dock had mysteriously appeared and was now tied up to the permanent dock. Somebody around here has lost one. My first thought was to take a quick cellphone photo and upload to my Facebook page, asking my friends to pass the word around. I just love social media for the speed in which it’s possible to reach the wider community and get the word out, especially in a crisis, which this was. The tenants have rented the dock. My photo was uploaded to Facebook less than a minute later, together with a quick note, only I hadn’t factored in the text auto-correct feature.
Southold Town Trustee Dredging Priority List 2010
At the July 21 Town Trustees meeting, Dave Bergen reported the following wish list for Suffolk County dredging. Note that neither Wickham or West Creek has permits in place so it is doubtful that they will have permits in time for the dredging window. Also remember that Southold is only one of 5 towns submitting wish lists to the County so in all likelihood only a few of the 10 will get dredged this year.
Dredging – the video
Get your popcorn, turn off the lights, and watch SoutholdVOICE’s first full length (5 minute) feature video.
Action at Goose Creek
Goose Creek public beach December 29th
More Dredge Permits Released
I am pleased to report that the Army Corp released permits for Jockey Creek Spur, Corey, Goose and James this week. This leaves us only School House Creek which is lacking a permit. Once the rig gets done in Southampton, SCDPW and I will confer with regards to which Southold creek they go to next. Corey Creek has a window limit of December 15 while the others have a limit of January 15. I passed this information onto both Senator Clinton and Congressman Bishops’s office, thanking them once again for their assistance.
I will keep you posted.
Dave Bergen
Dredging Progress Despite Bureaucratic Snarls
It appears that about 15 projects will be able to be completed in the approaching dredging season – Oct. 1 to Jan. 15 – but not the 20 to 25 the county used to do annually.
The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service recommended in April that the county submit one application for all the projects around Peconic Bay rather than individual ones as in the past.
The Army Corps of Engineers sent a letter to Fish and Wildlife rejecting its suggestion, but Fish and Wildlife’s regional office never forwarded the letter to the local office that was dealing with the permit applications. That was not known until a conference call last Tuesday, said Bill Hillman, chief engineer for the Suffolk Department of Public Works.
The Corps now hopes to begin issuing permits by the end of this month. That should allow 15 projects – selected on a basis of need and proximity to other projects – to go forward this fall and winter.These projects were provided to SoutholdVOICE readers by Southold Trustee David Bergen. See his post on these pages for the background on how they were selected.
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Army Corps Response to Congressional Letter
David Bergen, Southold Town Trustee, writes:
The Army Corp responded last week in writing to the [congressional] letter. They included two items in their response. First, they provided a response to US Fish and Wildlife to their required Endangered Species Habitat report. We now are waiting for a response from USF&W to this letter. Second, they provided an updated flow chart on the AC permit process for the creeks in Southold, East Hampton, Southampton and Riverhead with pending permit applications. This information was very helpful.
Testing the water in Goose Creek
Two or three days ago, Mike Keely spotted a boat marked “Survey” near his property on Goose Creek. Further investigation revealed the gentlemen on board were from Suffolk County and told him they were testing the water quality as part of an application for dredging. Does this imply progress is being made on the situation? Can anybody else throw some light on this development?