Suffolk Closeup -Suffolk County Has 560 Farms Generating $5.7 Billion In Revenue

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

Farming on Long Island deserves to be greatly appreciated.

Among public officials from Long Island who very much do appreciate agriculture here—and throughout the state—is New York State Comptroller Thomas P. DiNapoli. The former state assemblyman from Great Neck Plaza last year issued a laudatory report on agriculture. 

Mr. DiNapoli noted in it that Suffolk County remains a top agricultural county in the state, Number Four, with $225.6 million in annual total sales in 2017. (It was only led by the upstate counties of Wyoming with $307.5 million; Cayuga with $287.5 million; and Genesee with $234.9 million.)

His report lists 560 farms in Suffolk County out of 35,537 in New York and state farm produce generating $5.7 billion in revenue in 2017.

“Agriculture is an essential part of New York’s economy,” DiNapoli said in comments accompanying the report that’s available online. It’s titled “A Profile in Agriculture in New York State” and is at  https://www.osc.state.ny.us/reports/economic/agriculture-report-2019.pdf

The report declares: “While the total number of farms and acreage declined from 2007 to 2017, their overall economic impact increased as net farm income grew by more than 20 percent. In addition, the number of certified organic farms increased by over 60 percent from 2012 to 2017. New York ranks as a national leader for a variety of agricultural commodities….New York is the [nation’s] third largest producer of wine…The state has created a variety of policy initiatives to address challenges facing New York farmers, including efforts to limit state and local taxes on agricultural land, farmland protection initiatives, capital investment funds for new farmers, and financial incentives for schools that use locally sourced food.”

Suffolk for many years was the top agricultural county in New York State in value of its annual produce. But being Number Four is still very good.

And considering the development pressures that have existed on Long Island, the continuation of a thriving agricultural industry is especially notable. It is a testament to the actions of people.

First of all, there are the hardworking farmers of Long Island, the men and women who are committed to doing the tough, essential work. 

Then there’s the county’s Farmland Preservation Program, launched in 1974 by Suffolk County Executive John V. N. Klein, a former Smithtown Town supervisor, a first-in-the-nation program based on the brilliant concept of saving farms through the sale of development rights. Farmers are given the monetary difference between what their land is valued in agriculture and what they could get for it if they sold it off for a housing subdivision. In return, the land remains in agriculture in perpetuity.

Then there’s been the ingenuity of those in agriculture and especially of Louisa and Alex Hargrave who started a vineyard in Cutchogue in 1973 leading to now scores of vineyards and wineries, a prosperous Long Island wine industry and a world-class product, and a leap in diversifying agriculture here.

Then there’s the Community Preservation Fund, brilliant, too, started in 1998, spearheaded by State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele, Jr. of Sag Harbor, and covering the East End towns. It is based on a real estate transfer tax of 2% on most transactions.

And there’s the “public appreciation” of Long Island farmers, as notes Rob Carpenter, director of the Long Island Farm Bureau. Important has been people purchasing local produce from farm stands, the beginning over the last decade of a “farm-to-to-table” program of restaurants emphasizing the serving of local farm produce, and stores including supermarkets stressing the sale of local produce.

It’s not just produce that farms generate. As the Farm Bureau’s website notes: “Today’s farming activities also help to preserve wildlife habitats and the natural aesthetic beauty of our fair island. Long Island farmland provides an important buffer against urban sprawl, protects the water supply and helps maintain the traditional rural character of the wonderful East End of Long Island.” As an “economic force,” agriculture employs “well over 10,000 people in the region, with a multiplier effect that generates jobs for tens of thousands more. Long Island agriculture is a billion-dollar-a-year industry and generates billions of dollars more for the Island’s largest industry, tourism, travel and hospitality….Long Island agriculture provides the scenic vistas desired by our visitors and close proximity to farm markets, where visitors and year ‘round residents enjoy the advantage of locally produced fruits, vegetables, poultry, fish, flowers, herbs, specialty products, ornamental horticultural products, and the best varieties of wine from local wineries.”

Karl Grossman is a veteran investigative reporter and columnist, the winner of numerous awards for his work and a member of the L.I. Journalism Hall of Fame. He is a professor of journalism at SUNY/College at Old Westbury and the author of six books. 

Trotta Is Calling For Oversight In County Government

Legislator Trotta wants his colleagues to support the creation of a Suffolk County Office Of Inspector General.

A seemingly frustrated but hopeful Rob Trotta, Suffolk County legislator 13th LD,  called a press conference on Tuesday, Feb 11th, to make public his proposal to create an Office Of Inspector General for Suffolk County. Trotta was joined by Anthony Piccirillo, 8th LD co-sponsor of the legislation.Legislator Rob Trotta

Trotta, a fiscal conservative with a background in law enforcement said, “The bill is in response to the ongoing incidents of misconduct and abuse involving Suffolk County Government.”

Suffolk County has a population larger than eleven states and provides a range of services which, according to Trotta, “are often opportunities for fraud, waste, misconduct and mismanagement.”

Trotta points to recent cases and convictions of former Chief of Police James Burke, DA Thomas Spota, Chief of DA’s Corruption Bureau Christopher McPartland as evidence of corruption in Suffolk County Government and the horrifying death of 8 year-old Thomas Valva with the “…possible misconduct or mismanagement” by County Departments as justification for creating a department that has investigative and oversight responsibility. 

According to the legislation “ An Independent Office of Inspector General at the County level would provide critical accountability and oversight to County government and would be able to identify, investigate and deter fraud, waste, mismanagement, misconduct and abuse.”

When questioned about cost and likelihood of the legislature supporting this legislation, he opined that the costs, while not determined at this time, will be affordable. He emphasized the need for a non-partisan person who has investigative skills. Legislators will appoint the nominee.

The Nassau County Office of the Inspector General (OIG) was created on December 18, 2017 by a unanimous vote of the Nassau County Legislature.  Nassau’s Inspector General is Jodi Franzese, a former senior assistant DA for Suffolk County District Attorney’s office.  According to the Nassau County OIG’s website “The mission of the OIG is to foster accountability, efficiency, integrity and restore trust in County government.” When the office was created, according to Newsday, the OIG salary was in the $150,000 range and the budget for staff was $550,000. 

As far as the likelihood of passing the legislation, Trotta is hopeful, “This is the same, legislation with minor changes, that Legislator Calarco and Legislator Hahn have submitted .” Trotta is hoping that there will be bi-partisan support. 

A public hearing on this legislation “1099 - A Charter Law to Establish an Independent Office of Inspector General for Suffolk County” has been scheduled for March 3, 2020 at 2 pm, Maxine Postal Auditorium, Riverhead.

Suffolk Closeup -LI's Native American's Burial Sites Unprotected

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

Indigenous people the world over have been—and still are—victims of persecution.

Flying to South Dakota several years ago to meet American Indian Movement leader Russell Means, I couldn’t believe what I was hearing from people in the seats behind me on the plane: nasty talk about Indians. On the ground in Rapid City, it was clear that far more than words were involved. The U.S. government “is still at war” with Native Americans, said Mr. Means. My visit included traveling around the Black Hills, stolen, he said, from the Lakota people. 

On the other side of the world, in Australia, where I went to give a presentation, I found the treatment of its Aboriginal people comparably terrible. It began with Captain James Cook landing in Australia in 1770 and in the name of Great Britain declaring the continent terra nullius—nobody’s land, although Aboriginal people lived there for more than 65,000 years.

A UN report, “The State of the World’s Indigenous People,” details the situation in South America, the Pacific, Africa, and on and on, including in the U.S. “The situation of indigenous peoples in many parts of the world continues to be critical: indigenous peoples face systemic discrimination,” it states. “Indigenous peoples are dispossessed of their ancestral lands and deprived of their resources for survival, both physical and cultural; they are even robbed of their very right to life.”

 In recent times, they’ve been subject to new forms of victimization. I wrote an article a while back on environmental racism that included how Sequoyah Fuel Corporation set up a facility to produce nuclear plant fuel in a Native American area of Oklahoma. A result: many “unusual cancers,” said Lance Hughes, director of Native Americans for a Clean Environment. “It’s pretty sad—babies born without eyes, with brain cancers…The name of the game has been changed, but I would call it the same—genocide.”

Suffolk County was established in 1683. For thousands of years before, indigenous people lived here. The land-grabbing from them was relatively easy as Native Americans haven’t considered land a commodity. “We Are The Land: Native American Views of Nature,” a chapter in “Nature Across Culture,” speaks of Native Americans regarding land as “a part of our being, dynamic, significant…It is our self.”

The situation involving the Shinnecock people—for whom once a large part of Long Island was home—reflects the victimization here of indigenous people, as shown in the brilliant video documentary, “Conscience Point,” aired in the U.S. last year on PBS. 

In the documentary, Lance Gumbs, a Shinnecock Nation trustee, tells of a turning point in the tribe’s history when in 1859 New York City investors sought to build a railroad line through 3,500 acres of Shinnecock land to develop the South Fork as a place for wealthy New Yorkers. A phony petition—it featured the names of dead Shinnecocks—was submitted in support. The New York State Legislature, despite tribal members protesting the petition as a fraud, approved. The rail line was built. The Shinnecock land was “stolen,” says Mr. Gumbs. Also built on the land was the Shinnecock Hills Golf Club despite it being the site of Shinnecock burial grounds. The Shinnecocks were consigned to a 750-acre territory on which somewhat over 500 live on today, humbly. 

The burial ground issue has long been intense because the Shinnecocks, like other Native Americans, especially revere the memory of their ancestors. 

It’s again front-and-center because of a push underway by a builder to develop land on several acres in Southampton in which Shinnecocks are believed buried. There have been significant protests. And at a hearing before the Southampton Town Board last month, Thomas Oleszczuk of Noyac, a former university political science professor, said: “I wouldn’t want a cemetery where my grandparents are buried to be destroyed, much less intentionally destroyed.” Earlier in the day, he noted, he was at a demonstration with “a sign I made that read ‘Defend the sacred.’”

Tela Troge, a Shinnecock and attorney for the Nation, told me last week: “It’s horrible. It’s an extension of Shinnecock Hills being stolen from us in 1859.” The Shinnecock Nation was not informed of this new construction. And, “We can’t go to court and sue—the Shinnecock Nation is not allowed to sue the Town of Southampton or the State of New York.” There’s an effort by the town, she noted, to preserve three of the lots through its Community Preservation Fund. But the builder has “no intention” of having the lot on which he is now working saved.  She said that New York State is one of only four states in the U.S. that doesn’t protect Native American burial sites, and that there’s a bill in the state legislature which would change this. 

That’s if, of course, it passes.

Karl Grossman is a veteran investigative reporter and columnist, the winner of numerous awards for his work and a member of the L.I. Journalism Hall of Fame. He is a professor of journalism at SUNY/College at Old Westbury and the author of six books. 

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP - LI Site For Nuclear-Tipped Missiles A Possible Superfund Site

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

A former U.S. Air Force missile base in Westhampton—set up to use nuclear-tipped missiles to shoot out of the sky Soviet bombers feared to be flying over or near Long Island to bomb New York City and other targets—may be designated a high-pollution state Superfund site.

Suffolk Health Commissioner Dr. James Tomarken last month said his agency “was informed…by the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation that the former BOMARC Missile Base is being considered as a potentially inactive hazardous waste disposal site.” It “will be listed” as a state “Superfund site”—a designation which includes a provision for clean-up—“if it is determined that  hazardous waste disposed on the property poses a significant threat to public health or the environment.”

 “The BOMARC site, which comprises approximately 186 acres, is being investigated as the result of the detection” of several now banned or phased-out chemicals “in samples from both private wells and on-site groundwater monitoring wells,” declared the statement.

If there is chemical contamination at the site it would be far better than what would have happened if the nuclear-tipped missiles had actually been launched from the BOMARC base and exploded—this was the plan—very close by.

In the 1950s, the U.S. feared Soviet bombers might strike major U.S. cities and other targets. The U.S. hatched a scheme to use nuclear-tipped antiaircraft missiles to fire at the Soviet bombers but these were early antiaircraft missiles unable to score direct hits. So, the plan was to have the nuclear warheads on the BOMARC and also Army nuclear-tipped Nike Hercules missiles detonate when the missiles reached a formation of Soviet bombers, blowing the formation apart—although also raining radioactivity down below.

In Suffolk, along with the Air Force BOMARC base in Westhampton, there was an Army nuclear-tipped missile base in Rocky Point at which Nikes Hercules missiles were deployed.

Other BOMARC and Nike Hercules bases were set up all over the U.S.

The nuclear warheads on the BOMARC (BOMARC for Boeing Michigan Aeronautical Research Center) and Nike Hercules missiles had massive power. The nuclear warheads on the BOMARCs had the equivalent of 10 kilotons of TNT. The atomic bomb dropped on Hiroshima had the power of 13 kilotons. The Nike Hercules warheads ranged up to 30 kilotons. 

How much radioactive fall-out would have descended on the areas where BOMARC and Nike Hercules bases were located depended on the winds and where the detonations of their nuclear warheads happened. The detonations would have occurred not far away for the BOMARC had a range of 250 miles, the Nike Hercules only 100 miles. 

At the BOMARC base on Old Country Road Westhampton there were 56 missiles, each in its own building. The roofs of the buildings would open and the missiles launched. The base was operational “from 1959 until it was decommissioned in 1964,” noted the health department statement, and the site and its buildings “turned over to Suffolk County.” On it today are a “law enforcement shooting range” and “a vehicle training course for emergency responders.” And some of the missile buildings are used by Suffolk government for storage of records.

The former three-missile Nike Hercules base in Rocky Point is on Route 25A just east of William Floyd Parkway. It’s now the site of an Army Reserve Center but the remnants of the missile base remain—a variety of structures and missile silos. The Nike Hercules missiles were positioned underground in the silos. It was operational from 1957 to 1974

The nuclear-tipped missiles are gone at the sites.

I wrote and presented a television program in 2010 for WVVH-TV on the two nuclear-tipped missile bases in Suffolk. I titled it: “Avoiding Nuclear Destruction: By The Skin Of Our Teeth.” You can see the program on YouTube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TLb_8FuH-8M

I did my “stand-up” in the TV program standing on top of one of the missile silos in Rocky Point. The Army OK’d my exploring and filming at the site. In Westhampton, I was accompanied by the Suffolk public works commissioner. The experience at both was eerie, chilling.  

Last week, the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists moved its “Doomsday Clock” from “two minutes to 100 seconds to midnight.” Said the Bulletin: “The iconic Doomsday Clock symbolizing the gravest perils facing humankind is now closer to midnight than at any point since its creation in 1947….Humanity continues to face two simultaneous dangers—nuclear war and climate change”

Will again apocalyptic destruction be barely avoided—or will it not?

Karl Grossman is a veteran investigative reporter and columnist, the winner of numerous awards for his work and a member of the L.I. Journalism Hall of Fame. He is a professor of journalism at SUNY/College at Old Westbury and the author of six books.    

St. James Man Arrested Charged With Murder

Michael Owen, 27, of St. James, was arrested for the murder of his wife Kelly Owen, 27, South Farmingdale.  Defendant Owen is charged with Murder 2nd Degree.  He will be arraigned on Wednesday, January 29, 2020 at First District Court, Hempstead.

According to police, the homicide occurred at approximately 3:41pm on Wednesday, January 15, 2020 in South Farmingdale.

According to Detectives, Police responded to 14 1st Avenue for a twenty-seven-year-old female not breathing. Upon arrival, Officers located the body and it was determined that the body had expired at the scene and was pronounced by an Ambulance Technician at 3:50pm.  The Medical Examiners Office has determined the cause of death to be asphyxiation.  The victim was identified as Kelly Owen, 27, of South Farmingdale.