SUFFOLK CLOSEUP : The Balloon Issue

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman  

Suffolk County’s challenge to helium-filled balloons as an environmental menace began in 2005—and has continued and expanded since. Initially, the focus was on the release of more than 25 or more balloons. Then, two years ago, the Suffolk Legislature enacted a law barring the “intentional release” of even one balloon. 

Two years ago, a shift began to also consider a ban on the sale and distribution of helium-filled and other gas-filled lighter-than-air balloons. The Town of Southampton passed a law on this last month, to take effect next year. The Town of East Hampton is now drafting a comparable statute.

Meanwhile, a leading force in Suffolk in recent times in taking on balloons, East Hampton Town Trustee Susan McGraw-Keber, has been endeavoring to get a law prohibiting the release of such balloons passed on the New York State level. State lawmakers she has been working with include Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele, Jr. and Senator Anthony Palumbo who have drawn up legislation.

Ms. McGraw-Keber intends to move on—following the balloon trajectory in Suffolk—to seeking a state ban on sale and distribution.

All along, there’s been resistance to the drive in Suffolk by an entity representing the balloon business, The Balloon Council, based in New Jersey. As Southampton Town considered its sale and distribution ban, Lorna O’Hara, public information director of The Balloon Council was there (on Zoom due to the pandemic) asserting that the proposed law was “misguided” and “will cause economic harm to Southampton businesses.”

Ms. McGraw-Keber’s rebuttal: “This is a pro-environment and marine and wildlife and fisheries effort.” Also, she cited the claim by bar and restaurant owners decades ago that bans on smoking in bars and restaurants would devastate their businesses. “That never happened,” she noted, “and people can eat and drink in clean air.”

The initiative started in 2005 after Suffolk Legislator Lynne Nowick of St. James received a letter from a group of elementary school students about helium-filled balloons falling into waterways and being mistaken for jellyfish by sea animals, especially turtles, that ingested them and died. The students cited a law in Connecticut banning the mass release of balloons. Ms. Nowick (now a Smithtown councilperson) introduced a bill in Suffolk to prohibit that here. The Balloon Council tried to defeat the measure. However, public officials here stood up to The Balloon Council and her bill barring the release of 25 or more balloons was passed.

In 2019, that number was reduced to zero. “One balloon released is one too many,” said the author of the new measure, Suffolk Legislator Sarah Anker of Mount Sinai, whom Ms. McGraw-Keber had met with and gotten into the issue. 

Ms. McGraw-Keber was inspired herself to get involved in the balloon issue in 2018 when Colleen Henn, then coordinator of the Eastern Long Island Chapter of the Surfrider Foundation, came to a meeting of the East Hampton Trustees “and asked if we would be interested in supporting a ban on the intentional release of balloons in East Hampton. I’m a PADI certified Rescue Scuba Diver and First Responder and I see what goes on in the ocean. I immediately jumped on board. It’s a common sense effort to help eliminate balloon debris in our waterways and overall environment.”

As a member of the Education Committee on the Trustees she visits schools. She 

relates going to a science fair at the Montauk School and giving a presentation about damage caused by balloons. Students and teachers at the school sent a petition to the East Hampton Town Board calling for action. “Children understand the balloon problem well,” says Ms. McGraw-Keber. “They are the future leaders and stewards of our communities and our environment.”

Meanwhile, like the tobacco industry years ago pushing certain filter cigarettes as “safer,” The Balloon Council is now touting latex balloons over those of the plastic mylar. “Latex balloons are produced from the sap of the rubber tree. It is collected” on a “process similar to that used for collecting the sap from maple trees for syrup,” thus “a latex balloon is…100 percent biodegradable,” its website claims. https://www.theballooncouncil.org/

“That’s not true,” says Ms. McGraw-Keber. “While latex is a natural product, once it is made into a commercial product it’s not biodegradable. It’s as bad as mylar which is made from petroleum, a fossil fuel.”

Florida-based Balloons Blow declares: “Latex balloons are not ‘biodegradable’…This is just a marketing gimmick.” It cites the addition of “chemicals, plasticizers and artificial dyes” in latex balloons. On its website—http://www.balloonsblow.org—it shows photos of latex balloons not having broken down after years. Indeed, it notes: “Latex balloons are the type most commonly found in the stomachs of dead animals.”

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. 

Golf News: President's Cup At Smithtown Landing Quarterfinals

By Jerry Gentile

-

President’s Cup at Smithtown Landing (Quarterfinals) July 10 - July 11 2021

-

On a 70 degree, calm, overcast Sunday morning, the semi-finals of the prestigious President’s Cup was decided.  Two of SLMGA finest golfers Brian Egan and Robert Robedee defeated Pat DiClemente and Tony Mauro (5 & 3) to move into the semi-finals. 

-

The ageless, super golfer and former caddie at Huntington Crescent Club :) Rob Robedee shot a sweet (79). Richard Glasheen and  single digit, excellent golfer Ed Haliasz (77) defeated Paul Gobbi and Tom Menchini to move on to next week. 

-

Mark (Shoe-in) Hirshan and Tim (Too Tall) Mulcahy defeated David Casillas and Chris Shannon (3 & 1) with Tim shooting a nice (84). David Casillas shot a very fine (79) in defeat.

-

In a tension filled, tight match, Mel Vizzini parred the 18th hole with a shot for the team of Mel (Carmelo) Vizzini and Bob (Pogie) Pogoloff  to defeat Mike Pepa and Scott Weber (1up). Scott shot a fine (82) in defeat. Next weekend will decide the Champions. 

-

Also contested this past weekend was the Two-Man Nassau Tournament (results go to our web-site at slmga.com.)

-

Hope to see you all on the links. JG, PR board member for SLMGA. 

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP : Behind Closed Doors LIPA And PSEG Reach Deal

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

The Long Island Power Authority (LIPA) and Public Service Enterprise Group (PSEG) quietly, behind closed doors and with the involvement of a top state energy official—the chief executive of the state’s Department of Public Service—agreed on a settlement last week allowing PSEG to continue to operate Long Island’s electric grid to 2025.

This happened despite a contingent of state lawmakers from Long Island signing a letter to Governor Andrew Cuomo calling on LIPA to “terminate its contract with PSEG LI as soon as possible and become a true public power company.” The 15 called on LIPA to operate the Long Island’s electric grid itself, not contract out the responsibility. They included State Senator Anthony H. Palumbo of New Suffolk and, from the Assembly, Fred W. Thiele, Jr of Sag Harbor; Steve Englebright of Setauket; Phil Ramos of Brentwood; Steve Stern of Dix Hills; and Kimberly Jean-Pierre of Wheatley Heights. “Across the country, publicly owned utilities have proven more affordable and reliable…are more responsive to customer needs,” they said. 

It happened despite a $70 million “breach-of-contract” lawsuit LIPA brought against PSEG in December charging the Newark, New Jersey-based private company with “grossly negligent performance” in dealing with Tropical Storm Isaias last year. Some 535,000 LIPA customers were left without electricity, some for more than a week. The LIPA suit accused PSEG of “corporate mismanagement, misfeasance, incompetence and indifference, rising well beyond the level of simple negligence.”

It happened despite the overwhelming percentage of people speaking at public hearings held recently by LIPA on its future testifying that that it should operate the Long Island electric grid itself and not continue with PSEG. “We need to revamp the entire structure,” said Laura McKellar of Greenlawn. Indeed, at that May hearing LIPA CEO Tom Falcone spoke of PSEG’s “sub-par” performance in Isaias and went on to say that that deeper “management failures” at PSEG had since been discovered. Mr. Falcone said: “It’s time for a course correction.”  

The new LIPA contract agreement with PSEG came about without transparency. As Mark Harrington wrote in Newsday last week, it was “reached early Sunday morning.” And, he reported, “The settlement terms were reached by officials at the highest levels of Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo’s Department of Public Service, including DPS chief executive John Howard.” 

 Mr. Howard was appointed to that post by Governor Cuomo in February and, at the same time, designated by the governor to be chair of the New York State Public Service Commission. Mr. Howard praised the new contract as an “historic agreement.”

Mr. Thiele is calling on LIPA’s trustees to reject the deal. A key problem, however, is that Governor Cuomo appoints five of LIPA’s nine trustees. Mr. Thiele emphasized how for months there has been analyses and hearings about the future of LIPA and it seemed “we were headed toward a favorable decision in regard to public power’—for LIPA to itself run the Long Island electric grid. “And then the governor injected himself and the process was short-circuited—and this contract falls out of the sky.”

“The legislature needs to get involved with this—how this deal came about,” declared Mr. Thiele. And he said he and Mr. Englebright, who is also chair of the Assembly’s Environmental Conservation Committee, are discussing, for starters, legislative hearings. 

“The agreement between LIPA and PSEG-LI reached behind closed doors this past Sunday marks still another betrayal of LIPA’s ratepayers,” he said in a written statement. The “original vision” for LIPA under the Long Island Power Act of 1985 was for “a full public power company accountable directly to the people of Long Island.” It “is clear that the third-party service contract model is a failure. It lacks oversight, transparency, and accountability. No other utility in the nation even has such a convoluted management structure.” 

In Newsday, Mr. Englebright, referring to the governor, spoke of “the apparent manipulation of this issue from an invisible puppet master.” Also, it was reported that the governor’s office didn’t “provide a comment to criticism of the deal.”

Organizations led by the Long Island Progressive Coalition, in the forefront in seeking that LIPA get rid of PSEG and becoming a full public utility, issued a statement declaring: “It seems that Gov. Andrew Cuomo has made a deliberate choice to ignore the stated preferences of Long Island ratepayers and elected officials, and instead decided to exert his influence in this moment on behalf of PSEG.”

Also, simultaneous with extending the PSEG contract, LIPA last week agreed to settle its $70 million breach-of-contract lawsuit against PSEG for $30 million.

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. 

Golf News: The President's Qualifier

By Jerry Gentile

Played on a beautiful June weekend on Long Island, the President’s Qualifier was completed.

Mel Vizzini who partnered with Bob Pogoloff for an amazing net (26) on their first 9 holes.The President’s Cup, one of the most prestigious tournaments of the SLMGA season is decided by two man teams, who first have to qualify with 1 of 16 low net scores. The President’s Championship Cup is then determined by match play of the 16 teams at a later date in the season.

It is always a `nail biter` event with plenty of drama for the members.

The top three teams in the qualifier go to, Patrick (not Tony) DiClemente and Tony Mauro, net (60), Dick (Quiet) Stevens and Emmett (Congenial) Cassidy, net (62), Mel (Carmelo) Vizzini and Robert (Pogie) Pogoloff net (62). `Tip of the Cap` goes to Mel and Pogie, they had a `mind boggling` (26) on the front 9. Honorable mentions go out to David Capo with a 3 under (69), Derek Downing (72), Ed Haliasz and Jesse Kovacs both scored (76).

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP : Seaweed Farming Is Here On LI

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

“Kelp Help” is the title of an article in this summer’s issue of Sierra magazine, the publication of the Sierra Club. Its subtitle: “Can farming seaweed put the brakes on climate change?” 

“Seaweed agriculture,” the academic publication Frontiers in Marine Science has reported, is “the fastest-growing component of global food production.”

Seaweed farming has come on strong worldwide, and it is being developed now in Suffolk County as a way to counter a number of severe environmental problems. 

Dr. Christopher Gobler, co-director of the Center for Clean Water Technology at Stony Brook University and a professor within the university’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, commented last month about how a small area of kelp can absorb as much nitrogen as several of the new Innovative/Advanced (I/A) septic systems being installed to reduce nitrogen emanating from cesspools. As to climate change, he notes how kelp soaks up carbon dioxide.

His team has been harvesting kelp from test “farms” in Moriches Bay, Great South Bay, Peconic Bay and in the Long Island Sound.

The kelp of choice—sugar kelp—is native to Long Island. A brown rubbery plant, it can grow underwater in fronds up to 15 feet long and astonishingly quickly.  Also, sugar kelp appears, said Dr. Gobler, to contain compounds lethal to the red algae that can infect shellfish and cause sickness, indeed death, in people. Kelp can be used as fertilizer.

And, moreover, it’s edible. Attending a “kelp-tasting” sponsored by the Cornell Cooperative Extension Marine Program at Noah’s restaurant in Greenport at which she received “a much-needed grounding in the current state of help farming,” Charity Robey, the food columnist at The Shelter Island Reporter, “learned a number of new ways to use kelp in cooking.”

“Toasted kelp,” Ms. Robey related, “is like a blue-corn-tortilla-chip-of-the-sea. It is full of umami, a taste that is also associated with meat and mushrooms…” Chef Noah Schwartz also, “For the starter…wrapped a tenderized strip of savory kelp around a chunk of seared yellow fin tuna. Definitely a crowd-pleaser.”

Frontiers in Marine Science declared that “seaweed agriculture…offers a slate of opportunities to mitigate” climate change.  The largest seaweed-producing nations are China, Indonesia and the Philippines. 

“The Upshot.” Sierra says: “Seaweed farming has promise. In addition to sequestering carbon, it can provide habitat for fish and mitigate local effects of ocean acidification.”

“Still,” declared the magazine, “the most effective way to sequester carbon is to not release it in the first place.”  Quite correct, but this and seaweed farming are not mutually exclusive. 

Meanwhile, in the realm of aquaculture, there’s the push underway in many parts of Suffolk for growing oysters—not only because they taste wonderful but for the environmental good they can do.

“Oysters eat murky water for lunch,” notes the website of the Save The Great South Bay Oyster Project. “If we bring them back in volume, they’ll clean the bay better and faster than any human can. Did you know that one oyster can filter up to 50 gallons of water a day. What could that mean for The Great South Bay? It’s been calculated that 5,000 acres of oyster farms in the bay would be enough to deal with 147% of the nitrogen problem. A clean bay AND 5,000 acres of oysters, with each acre producing $100,000+ in revenue. A revitalized bay AND a revitalized shellfishing industry. And the resurrection of a way of life that has seemingly vanished.”

To our west in New York City, the “Billion Oyster Project” is underway—and there’s a link to Suffolk. On little Fishers Island, northeast of Orient Point and part of Southold Town, what’s now the Fishers Island Oyster Farm was begun in 1981 by Sarah and Steve Malinowski. “We got our start during a time when only a few people were exploring the possibilities of modern aquaculture, and it took a lot of determination, collaboration, and a few serendipitous accidents for us to arrive at where we are now,” Steve explains. 

They started growing clams and put out a handbook on clam aquaculture. Then, in “the mid-1980s brown tide…decimated the Peconic Bay scallop industry.” And they began growing scallops “to restock scallops into Peconic Bay. Meanwhile, the hatchery where we were obtaining scallop seed mixed some oyster seed into a delivery. Thus, we began to grow oysters!”  

Soon the Fishers Island oysters were being served in restaurants far and wide. And not only were oysters being exported west, but their son, Suffolk native Peter Malinowski, co-founded and became executive director of the Billion Oyster Project. It has so far planted 45 million oysters many of which have been growing in a reef the project built, “the largest reef in New York Harbor history.” Declares the project: “It took less than 100 years for New Yorkers to wipe out the oyster population in New York Harbor. And, the Billion Oyster Project is rebuilding this natural resource and habitat.” 

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.