Cemetery maintenance - Update (from the Town)

The following was posted with Carol Bissonette's permission:

Good Afternoon Everyone,
I just wanted to provide all of you with a quick update on the on-going cemetery project.  It is as follows:
1.  The Parks team assigned to visit, locate and photograph ALL recorded cemeteries in the town have gone through the complete list, Parks list.  There are quite a few that have NOT yet been located and a second go round will be done after collating all the data they brought back, cross-referencing against the Town Historian's List and the Town Assessors list.
2.  Inventory forms will be entered and photo's with maps (refer to sample provided to you previously) will be the next inventory phase of the project.
3.  On those located, we will pull together a maintenance needs/requirements list and begin addressing them as quickly as possible.  As a matter of fact, routine maintenance is already underway at some of the cemeteries as we have crews available in the districts to do them.
4. Upon completion of the data entry, photo and map entry and secondary check to find those we can't locate, you will receive copies of the survey forms along with a summary listing of maintenance issues to be addressed such as fence replacement, tree/shrub pruning, headstones that need to be reset, etc.
I hope you will find the above information helpful and we are working as quickly as possible to pull the entire package together with accuracy.
I would like to extend large thanks to Ed Gregory and his team for following through so diligently on physically locating the cemeteries, documenting and photographing them.  This has never been done before and they did a really fine job.
If you have any questions or if I can be of further assistance regarding the above, please let me know.
Thank you and regards,
Carol

Carol A. Bissonette
Deputy Commissioner, Parks, Recreation & Sports & Cultural Resources
Office#:  631-451-6112
Cell #:    631-831-3291
cbissonette@brookhaven.org 

Another round for Beaver Dam Creek

New York Department of Environmental Conservation finally attends a meeting

From the Long Island Advance. November 5, 2009 

Story By: LINDA LEUZZI, Staff Writer

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) was finally at the table on Jan. 23, a first since the Beaver Dam Creek Water Quality group has been meeting with Brookhaven Town and county officials to address the leachate plume emanating from the town landfill. The town’s search for monitoring wells had also been tackled. This is the group’s fourth meeting since it first gathered to grapple with solutions in September.

“Chart Guthrie, New York state DEC fisheries manager for Region 1, reported that an invertebrate study was done in Beaver Dam Creek in both 2003 and 2008 but did not have the results with him,” said Marty Van Lith, who represents the Open Space Council.

Of the 51 people identified within the path of the plume, 21 were residing southeast of the landfill and 30 others were south of Beaver Dam Road. Van Lith said the town reported that currently well over 20 of the people contacted within the plume’s path were already using water from the Suffolk County Water Authority. The remainder of those in its path are getting notices by Suffolk County Department of Health, which is sending representatives door-to-door to test the wells. Those not receiving SCWA water will be given the chance to switch for free if they are on well water within the area.

Of the six wells SCDH tested, none showed contamination of leachate indicators, Van Lith said.

“The town agreed to put in a new well for the HOG (Hamlet Organic Garden) Farm and the question is where to put it,” said Tom Williams, vice president of the Post-Morrow Foundation. “They also found 70 percent of the monitoring wells, more than they thought.”

In an e-mail, Ed Hubbard, Brookhaven’s commissioner of waste management, said that the town was willing to help with the installation of a new well for the HOG farm. “I understand that the HOG farm has hired a hydrogeologist to work towards locating the proper placement of a new well and the proper depth,” he said. “Once we do a sample round or two in that area, we will have data that could be useful to begin relocation of the well.”

Hubbard confirmed about 60 or so wells had been found and looked to be in good shape. “Within the next two months our consultants will go out and redevelop the wells and begin taking groundwater samples,” Hubbard said. “Redevelopment involves making sure the well casing is secure and at the proper height and purging the water that is in the well to get clean samples.”

Claire Goad, president of Friends of Wertheim, said that the surface waters of Little Neck Run, Beaver Dam and Yaphank creeks had been tested in November. “But it takes three months to get the results,” she said. “(The town) agreed to test these surface waters every three months and the monitoring wells will be tested every six months.”

Another hopeful sign was the town’s recommendation that the current working group, chaired by Councilwoman Connie Kepert (4th District), is to be formalized by town resolution. Currently, Williams, Van Lith, Goad and Mary Jane Cullen, president of the Brookhaven Village Association, are the Brookhaven hamlet contingency. While Van Lith said they weren’t euphoric, the cooperative mood since they first met had improved and was more constructive and they cited some of Hubbard’s efforts.

Hubbard said additional gas collection piping and the installation of additional clean out chambers to jet out and clean the older leachate lines had been undertaken under his watch over the last few years. Two brand new leachate collection tanks that can hold about 50 percent more leachate than the old tanks and have a leachate aeration system built in were also added. “The current tanks are getting old and are on the future footprint of the landfill and would need to be replaced some time in the future,” he said. “I accelerated this part of the project in order to get additional capacity and to be able to clean out the old tanks and segregate the leachate by cells.”

George Costa, president of the Art Flick Chapter of Trout Unlimited, commented there still was no concrete solution proposed. “Our question is what (is the town) going to do about the plume?” he said. “Are you going to continue doing studies? Chart Guthrie (DEC) said the ammonia levels were a thousand percent above what they should be and that it is affecting the insect life and the fish and plant life. It’s not just fish. It’s all intertwined.”

Hubbard cited the DEC requirements to cap cells 1-4 to cut off leachate over time, which was done, as well as town funds for public water and the HOG Farm and increased frequency and locations of surface water sampling. “Any remediation effort would be problematic and most likely not very successful,” he said. “However, we are exploring options. We may install groundwater wells at one point but right now we will be installing geoprobes instead. Currently we are installing between 10 to 13 geoprobes at various locations.” 

Beaver Dam Creek Water Quality group

The Beaver Dam Creek Water Quality group consists of Tom Williams, Post-Morrow Foundation; Marty Van Lith, Open Space Council; Claire Goad, Friends of Wertheim; Mary Jane Cullen, Brookhaven Village Association; George Costa, Trout Unlimited; Adrienne Esposito, Citizens Campaign for the Environment; Sean Pilger, Hamlet Organic Garden; David Tonjes, Stony Brook University; Suffolk County Legislator Kate Browning; Ed Hubbard, Brookhaven commissioner of waste management; John Turner, Brookhaven director of environmental protection; Wertheim National Wildlife Preserve; South Shore Estuary Preserve; Suffolk County Department of Health; NYSDEC; consultants David Tonges, Stony Brook University; and Dvirka and Bartilucci

More Caithness money awarded

Citizens Advisory Committee doles out $110,400

Fire Place History Club and Brookhaven Village Association receive grants.

The Fire Place History Club in Brookhaven Hamlet has been awarded $11,000 for the restoration of seven historic cemeteries.  Professional stonemasons will replace and fix damaged and broken stones in the cemeteries.  In addition, the Brookhaven Village Association has received $5,000 to continue their program of replacing dying and damaged trees throughout Brookhav3n Hamlet in public spaces and along roadways.

The grants were among those approved by the Broohaven Town board to disburse $110,400 of the Caithness Host Community Benefits Package. 

The Fire Place History Club is an informal association of community members interested in preserving the cultural heritage of the Brookhaven and South Haven Hamlets.  One of their principal projects has been conserving and restoring some 20 family burying grounds within the two hamlets, some dating to the Colonial era.  See Cemeteries for additional information.

The grant requests were presented by the Post-Morrow Foundation on behalf of the history club.

More information on these grants may be found at the Long Island Advance, February 5, 2009.  Other stories on the activities of the Fire Place History Club may be found in this blog.

Bring Back Wild Dogs or maybe wolves

From today's L.I. Advance, From the Archives of the Long Island Advance, 75 Years Ago:

" While motoring along South Country Road near Yaphank Avenue a short time ago, Norman F. Nelson Jr. saw a young deer emerge from the woods followed by two dogs, one of which was attacking the deer's haunches. Mr. Nelson left his car and advanced toward the dogs with a stick. To his surprise, the deer rushed towards him, to within 10 feet, apparently fearing him less than the dogs. Then it bounded across the road and escaped its pursuers. Deer used to be a common sight in the Southaven woods, but few have been reported recently."

There are two items of modern (2009) interest — deer are now plentiful and a nuisance; dogs running wild are rare. My contention is that one of the reasons for the proliferation of deer is that dogs are no longer allowed to run wild. 

A neighbor has suggested "It's wolves, not wild dogs, you want to bring back. They've been successfully reintroduced many places out west. Can you imagine the howling (from the public) if you suggested that for Wertheim [Wildlife Refuge]? "

1983 Brookhaven History Talk Rediscovered

Thanks again to Marty van Lith, a 1983 talk given by Janet Reddall and Alfred Nelson to the Brookhaven Free Library Association has been rediscovered and posted on the Brookhaven/South Haven web site.  In the talk, Janet and Al recall the community they knew in the early 20th century.  Their remembrances provide human faces to many of the families, residences and events of the time.

Janet Ewing Reddall was 82 at the time of the talk.  She died in 1995.  Alfred Nelson was 80; he died in 1988.

I have annotated the text with hyperlinks to pages about individuals and buildings where additional information may be found.

We are fortunate that the talk was transcribed for the Library Association by Regina David, a Library trustee and my neighbor.

Composition by Irene Hawkins dated January 20, 1880

Marty Van Lith found an interesting composition by then 15-year Irene Hawkins at the Post Morrow Foundation.  Neat handwriting, bright kid.  The last sentence of the composition on the second page is on top of the page.

Legend reads:

"Composition by Irene Hawkins dated January 20, 1880.  Gift of Mr. and Mrs. Cherrington to the Brookhaven Free Library in 1983.  They received it from Ernest Hawkins, nephew to Irene Hawkins.

"Irene Hawkins was born in 1865, became a teacher in the Brookhaven School, later married the principal, Jesse Johnson, and resided in her family home (now #311 Beaver Dam Road)."

The link is to Irene's data sheet in the site Hamlet People Database, where a link to the essay may be found.

Union Dime Club, Brookhaven, NY

Thanks to a collection of historic memorbelia from Barbara Kresse, we learn of the social life in Brookhaven Hamlet in the 1880s.  An article from the Patchogue Advance, February 7, 1952, reveals activities of a community social group called the Union Dime Club which held dances and other socials widely attended by community members.  Hyperlinks are provided within the article to people and residences mentioned.