From: Adrienne Esposito [mailto:aesposito@citizenscampaign.org]
Subject: Brookhaven Community Coalition Prevails in Long Island Compost Negotiations
At Brookhaven Town Hall: Brookhaven Community Coalition (BCC) and Brookhaven Town Officials:
Brookhaven Community Coalition organizations representatives:
From: Adrienne Esposito [mailto:aesposito@citizenscampaign.org]
Subject: Brookhaven Community Coalition Prevails in Long Island Compost Negotiations
All BCC Coalition Members and Supporters
As many of you may know, the BCC Executive Board has worked tirelessly and aggressively for 2 years to resolve the many concerns at the Long Island Compost. We are delighted to provide you with the significant end results that we are very hopeful will address the concerns and improve our quality of life for all Brookhaven residents.
On Monday, a critical announcement will be made - a stipulation agreement to settle the DEC action rescinding the variance allowing Long island Compost to operate an open air transfer station has been agreed upon. Normally this process would happened in private between Long Island Compost (LIC) and the DEC with the assistance of an Administrative Law Judge. An agreement would be worked out or a judgment would be imposed by the Administrative Law Judge. Due to BCC efforts, this time things went dramatically different.
Since the DEC announced they were rescinding LIC’s variance, in October 2011, the BCC executive board has been very busy. We have traveled twice to Albany to meet with DEC officials, department heads, and our state representatives. We put together a huge packet of information, community testimonies, maps and letters written by adversely impacted residents and sent it to the administrative law judge handling the case. We had countless meetings with, DEC Region One Director, Peter Scully and his staff. We had a number of meetings with Charles Vigliotta.
We toured the LIC facility with DEC and elected officials and their staff members. We have spent hundreds of hours studying every law, regulation and judgment, from DEC permits to the clean air act. We have spent even more time researching everything from anaerobic digesters, other technologies and to how manganese gets into the ground water from composting processes. We have met with numerous elected officials from Supervisor Ed Romaine to Charles Schumers chief of staff. Citizens Campaign for the Environment allocated a great deal of resources to this campaign.
We even, traveled with Charles Vigliotti to see a compost facility in Massachusetts, in an effort to gain on the ground information for odor control measures. While on this trip. we met a very knowledgeable consultant who was utilized by the Massachusetts facility. We advised DEC that this national consultant should be hired by LIC to figure out the best way to deal with all the issues. Peter Scully agreed and LIC hired him. He conducted an extensive odor and dust study which culminated in a presentation to BCC executive board, DEC, town officials, and representatives from our elected officials.
Based on those findings, input from BCC, CCE, and directives from DEC, a stipulation agreement was drawn up and in an unprecedented move LIC allowed BCC to review the agreement and make recommendations which we did.
On Monday June 24 the stipulation will be made public. We view the dramatic changes that will take place over the next two years as a huge victory because a number of issues that are not associated with the transfer station are being addressed and the way compost is processed on LI may be changed for the better by this agreement. Please understand, we don't anticipate that all odors will be gone however, we do believe our quality of life will be dramatically improved. We are hopeful for the future. Thank you to everyone who stuck with us and supported the BCC is these efforts.
Please feel free to join us Monday at 10:00 am at town hall for the announcement. (outside on the lawn!)
GOOD NEWS
Yaphank composter agrees to waste management pact
By June 23, 2013
Years of complaints about odors, dust and noise at a compost and mulch facility in Yaphank are set to be addressed by an unprecedented agreement Monday that would enclose and seal off large portions of the operation.
Long Island Compost has reached an agreement with the state Department of Environmental Conservation and citizens groups to invest tens of millions of dollars in the new facility.
The plan includes construction of an anaerobic digester on Long Island Compost's 62-acre facility to seal off the dust, odors and noise of the composting operation that neighbors have complained about for more than a decade.
Trucks coming and going at the Horseblock Road facility would be air-locked to prevent odors and material from escaping. The facility also would have an enclosed tipping operation and bagging facility, and roads will be paved to eliminate dust.
The agreement includes new limits on the amount of mulch stored at the facility, a major source of odor complaints. Mulch on site would be limited to 15,000 cubic yards, down from totals that have risen to as high as 150,000 cubic yards.
"It's a landmark agreement that will change the way organic waste is managed on Long Island," said Adrienne Esposito, executive director of Citizens Campaign for the Environment, an environmental group, who helped broker the agreement. "It sets a new precedent for community involvement and managing compost and mulch."
She worked with the Brookhaven Community Coalition, a group of 30 family members and local activists, on the push for changes. The process was "challenging, emotional and grueling," Esposito said.
Kathleen Lacey, an executive board member of the Brookhaven Community Coalition, who lives about a mile from the facility, said, "I have very high hopes that it will work this time. We've been extremely diligent for over two years on this project. This agreement forces them to actually change the way they're doing things."
DEC Region One director Peter A. Scully called the agreement historic. "Recycling of organic materials is a critically important part of successful efforts to manage solid waste on Long Island, and sound operating practices will ensure that these activities can take place without significant impacts to the community," he said.
Since it moved to Yaphank from a facility in East Moriches more than a decade ago, Long Island Compost has won plaudits for its ability to turn leaves, grass and other organic waste into compost and mulch -- and sell it at a profit. But almost from the beginning it has elicited complaints from neighbors.
The new agreement would settle a filing by the DEC in October of 2011 that sought to revoke Long Island Compost's variance to operate a yard-waste facility without a structure, based on years of odor complaints.
For Long Island Compost, the agreement comes with another benefit: methane gas produced from the new digester will be used to fuel Long Island Compost trucks and other mechanical operations. Producing its own energy not only will mean big cost savings, but will allow the facility to sharply cut back on noise and greenhouse gases.
Charles Vigliotti, president and CEO of Long Island Compost, called the changes a "complete re-engineering of the company's process, looking with fresh eyes at how organic waste is handled."
The company will spend upward of $50 million on the modernization of its operations, he said, but will save money on fuel, power and other efficiencies while reducing its carbon footprint.
"It's a game changer for how waste is handled for Long Island," Vigliotti said.
The state DEC in 2009 launched an investigation of Long Island Compost's Horseblock Road facility after elevated levels of heavy metals and radionuclides were found in ground water samples in and around it. Manganese levels also far exceeded drinking water levels.
The department, with the Suffolk County Department of Health Services, undertook tests of scores of wells at 12 ground water sample dozen organic waste and related facilities in Suffolk -- from Islip to Southampton. Others, including a mulching facility on Main Street in Yaphank, also showed elevated levels.
A report on the Horseblock Road investigation is due this summer.
Ed Warner, the manager of Long Island Compost in Yaphank, stands on top of a large pile of compost.
http://www.newsday.com/long-island/suffolk/suffolk-closes-on-land-sale-for-rail-hub-1.5362461
Originally published: May 29, 2013 2:33 PM
Updated: May 29, 2013 2:53 PM
By rick.brand@newsday.com
Photo credit: Joseph D. Sullivan | Brookhaven Railroad Terminal in Yaphank, which opened in September 2011, has two diesel trains, and one railcar alone can carry four truckloads’ worth of freight. (June 22, 2012)
Suffolk County has closed on the $19.4 million sale of 230 surplus acres in Yaphank for a rail hub even though a lawsuit seeking to block the deal is pending in State Supreme Court.
The county filed the sale to Oakland Transportation Holdings LLC on May 20 after several delays since late last year. The deal closed less than two weeks after county Comptroller Joseph Sawicki cited the delayed sale as part of the reason the county ended 2012 with a deficit of $155.5 million, which was higher than expected.
"We gave it several months, but we were at a point if we waited much longer we would put the deal into jeopardy," said Deputy County Executive Jon Schneider. The deal was approved by the county Legislature last summer and will put the property back on the tax rolls, generating $3.1 million in new revenue annually, Schneider said. Much of the money will go to the South County andLongwood School Districts.
But Reggie Seltzer, the attorney representing the four local residents seeking to block the sale, sale the county's action showed "total disrespect for the court and the judge hearing the case." The case is pending before Justice Martin Smith in Riverhead.
County Attorney Dennis Brown said there was nothing to prevent the county from moving ahead because the plaintiffs never sought a temporary stay. Brown said the county is "very confident" it complied with county and state law.
In their suit filed last September, the Yaphank residents claimed the county did not undergo a public bidding process to get the highest price for the land. They said the rail hub would jam local roads and threaten the Carmans River waters, and that the buyers have failed to disclose their plans for the tract.
The hub started in 2011 with 30 acres and expanded to another 88 acres where construction has begun on a 60,000 square foot warehouse to store building products for Home Depot. Officials say the hub so far has brought 1,400 rail cars carrying materials including flour, building supplies, stone aggregate for roadwork, biodiesel fuel and bentonite used for landfill liners, removing the equivalent of 5,600 tractor trailer trucks from the highways.
Daniel Miller, chief executive of Oakland Transportation Holdings, said, "I'm pleased to have completed the land purchase with Suffolk County and we look forward to further development of the railroad."
A Brief History of Squassux Landing
© Marty VanLith, Brookhaven Village Association Historian, and Chair of the Fire Place History Club
This history was originally published in the Brookhaven Village Association Spring 2013 Newsletter. Used by permission.
For more on Squassux Landing, visit http://brookhavensouthhaven.org/history/HNDistrictsInventoryForm.aspx?InventoryCode=Br16
Perhaps the most beautiful place on all of Long Island is Squassux Landing, the Brookhaven Village Association’s 13-acre site along the longest and most ecologically productive river on Long Island, the Carmans River. Surrounded by the 2,600-acre Wertheim National Wildlife Refuge, it has been owned and operated by the BVA for the enjoyment of the community since 1945.
The history of Squassux Landing goes back thousands of years to a time when the Delaware Algonquins moved northward following the retreating glacier. The Carmans River is unique among all the rivers on Long Island in that it starts in the middle of the island and flows through the Ronkonkoma Moraine. This is because it was a tunnel valley created while the glacier was still here and the ice melt ran under the glacier.
The name “Squassux” is said to originate from an Indian potter named Wessquassucks, who lived here when the first Anglo settlers arrived in the late 1600s. Squassux Landing and all the land that includes today’s South Haven, Brookhaven and Bellport was purchased from the Unkechaugs in 1664.
As the first bit of high ground encountered when entering the Carmans River from the Great South Bay, Squassux Landing has been a port of entry for both Indians and Anglo settlers for centuries. The local band of the Long Island Algonquins were known as Unkechaugs, their main village located along Unkechaug Creek just east of Smith’s Point. Archeological digs indicate human habitation along Carmans River for thousands of years.
The Brookhaven/South Haven area was originally settled by residents of Setauket and known as Fire Place. It is said that this was the Indian name because fires were made near the kettle hole along Beaver Dam Road to signal a gathering for the surrounding villages for cultural events. The settlement continued using the name Fire Place until 1871.
Initially the main interest of the Setauket settlement in purchasing land along the south shore was its meadowlands and salt hay. They didn’t have to clear natural meadowland for their cattle and other livestock, and they used the salt hay for insulation as well as bedding and feed. Fire Place Road, remnants of which are now Old Town Road, led directly from Setauket to Squassux Landing and the meadows.
Many also came from Setauket for clamming, oystering, eeling, fishing and whaling. Squassux Landing was a protected area near the bay, a perfect place to launch their boats.
In 1780, Samuel Carman Sr. bought the mills along the lower Carmans River and later opened a store, tavern and Inn. Over the course of the next century the Carman family became quite wealthy and influential, and, by the mid-1800s, owned much of the land on the west side of Carmans River. Sam Carman Jr. had 12 children; in the 1840s, one of them, Joseph Henry, was given about 30-acres that included Squassux Landing.
Throughout most of the first 250-years of settlement, people who lived in Fire Place were farmers and fishermen and Squassux Landing was one of few places available to launch and moor a boat. There weren’t many residents and Joseph Carman didn’t mind people using his property along the river. Joseph Carman died in 1894 and passed the land to his two sons, who also let local residents use the property for their boats.
With the arrival of the railroad in 1880 came major changes in the hamlet and at Squassux Landing. Beginning around the turn of the century many residents built extensions to convert their homes to boarding houses, and ferries began to run from the end of Beaver Dam Road to Fire Island.
In 1907, the Carman estate, including Squassux Landing, was sold to Carman Lush, who had retired there from Hempstead. He was not as accommodating to the community as the Carman family had been. James Post, whose family was here since before the Revolution and who was vice president of the Brookhaven Village Association at the time, quietly bought the 13-acre Squassux Landing site from Mr. Lush and let the community use it freely again.
James Post and his wife Elizabeth had three children – Jessie Wells Post, Helen Post Hubert and Elisabeth Post Morrow. After their father’s death, they officially donated Squassux Landing to the BVA on April 23, 1945.
The BVA board created a Squassux Committee composed of several directors, chief among them Bob Lyons Jr, who developed and ran the landing until 1954, when they hired William Engelhardt Sr. as their first dockmaster.
From about 1900 to WWII, ferries and boaters leaving from Squassux Landing had a place to go on Fire Island, the Smith Point House located next to the Coast Guard Station. It was a hotel, restaurant and bar, which had a nice dock and boardwalk to the ocean. It washed away in the Hurricane of ’38, then was rebuilt but burned down shortly afterward.
After WWII another beach house and hotel, called Paradise Beach, opened about a quarter mile west of the former Smith Point House, which lasted until about 1958. In 1959, then BVA president Bob Starke resigned to form a separate corporation to sell stocks and bonds to buy land on Fire Island for Brookhaven hamlet residents, which became the Fire Place Beach Club. This 5-acre parcel was located just west of Bellport’s Old Inlet Club and most Squassux boaters were members.
In 1964, legislation creating Fire Island National Seashore was enacted and both the Old Inlet and Fire Place Beach Club properties were condemned and purchased by FINS. However, two 5-year lease -back agreements were signed and the Fire Place Beach Club remained open until 1974. FINS then decided that they would demolish the Fire Place Club but leave the Old Inlet Club dock, boardwalk and buildings for public use until nature claimed more than 50% of it, at which time it would become part of the Otis Pike Wilderness Area. That event occurred last year on October 29, with Hurricane Sandy.
This will be the first boating season since the 1950s where Squassux boaters will again be challenged to find a way over to the ocean beach, but I’m sure they’ll figure it out.
Marty Van Lith
BVA Historian
In the 45 years we’ve gone to the Memorial Day Parade and Ceremony in Brookhaven Hamlet, little has changed. In looking back over photographs we’ve taken, it is often hard to distinguish them year-to-year, except the some people get noticeably older or no longer appear, some new facing gradually fill in, and plaques for new wars are placed in the small hamlet Memorial Park. Yet each year is still meaningful, as Brookhaven in the tradition of small towns across the country, pauses to honor and remember those men and women who have sacrificed themselves for their country.
From: Martin VanLith [mailto:vanlith@optonline.net]
Sent: Saturday, April 13, 2013 11:40 AM
Subject: Aerial photos of New Inlet
Dear All,
Tuesday morning I left MacArthur Airport on a Southwest Airline flight headed for North Carolina, flight has a traditional flight path of turning south over Carmans River. I was waiting by the window with my camera:
Here's the above picture with some text:
Welcome to Fire Place, four rivers run through it:
--Marty
