SUFFOLK CLOSEUP - Investing In Water Quality County Offers Grants To Homeowners

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP
By Karl Grossman

The Suffolk Legislature last week approved what can be a game-changing program for this county where 70 percent of homes use cesspools. Cesspools are nothing but holes in the ground in which waste is sent untreated with nitrogen a major component of what leaches out. The nitrogen impacts on groundwater and raises havoc in our surface waters causing brown and red tides and otherwise setting off eutrophication.

Passed unanimously last Tuesday was “A Local Law To Establish A Grant Assistance Program For The Installation Of Innovative And Alternative Onsite Wastewater Treatment Systems.”

There are a variety of such hi-tech septic systems that dramatically limit nitrogen discharge. But they are expensive—between $14,500 and $17,500 (twice the cost of purchase and installation of a cesspool). They’ve been approved and are used elsewhere in the U.S.

Big credit for getting Suffolk County to, at long last, embrace these advanced  systems goes to Kevin McAllister of the organization Defend H20. A Center Moriches native, he was Peconic Baykeeper for 16 years before launching and becoming founding president of Defend H20 in 2014 based in Sag Harbor. In both positions he vigorously and ceaselessly tried to get Suffolk County government to accept these systems—and what opposition he met!

For example, in 2011 Mr. McAllister along with then Suffolk Legislator Edward Romaine (now Brookhaven Town supervisor) and Islip Town Councilwoman Trish Bergin-Weichbrodt organized a forum on the advanced treatment systems held in the county legislature’s meeting room in Hauppauge—but no member of the then administration of County Executive Steve Levy attended. There was no official or staffers either from the county agency with responsibility for waste issues, the Suffolk Department of Health Services.  Mr. McAllister says his understanding is “they were ordered not to attend.”

That was then—and what a change now!

“I’m pleasantly surprised because I think there is real progress in accepting these alternative systems and putting them to use in Suffolk County now,” Mr. McAllister was saying the other day. “I have been beating the drum for a long time,” said Mr. McAllister, who has degrees in natural resources conservation, marine biology and coastal zone management. “I’ve written reports and spoken out. And now the county is embracing this technology, as it should. I’ve been out there continuously talking about this and I feel now, with it having gotten traction, a bit like Johnny Appleseed.”

Other groups have been involved such as The Nature Conservancy, he notes, in “causing a “groundswell of public support” for the advanced systems. Indeed, as Kevin McDonald of The Nature Conservancy of Long Island has said, “reliance” on cesspools is “an outdated practice that allows nitrogen from human waste to flow into our groundwater and surface waters with adverse impacts. Harmful algal blooms, dead fish, loss of shellfish have all been attributed to nitrogen pollution from sewage.”

The current Suffolk County executive, Steve Bellone, has been traveling the county in recent weeks, as a press release from his communications director Jason Elan stated, to “promote” the “first-ever septic improvement program in Suffolk.” He has been giving presentations at town halls. Mr. Bellone is quoted in a statement as saying, “most residents of this county had been left with no choice other than to inject untreated wastewater from their homes directly into the ground. The good news is that we have made more progress to reverse this unacceptable practice in the past four years than Suffolk had seen in a half-century.”

Last year the Department of Health Services changed the county’s sanitary code to approve the installation of the advanced systems. 

A key issue, of course, is how folks with cesspools and those involved in new construction can afford to pay for them. That’s what the measure which passed the legislature 18-to-0 last week is about: providing $2 million in grants annually. And there’s a companion program offering low-interest loans. Meanwhile, some Suffolk towns have been moving on their own financial support programs. And the new state budget provides $75 million that can be tapped.

The county will be taking applications starting July 1 for those seeking to get involved in the program. The legislature last week also approved the hiring of four new county employees to process applications. Preference will be given to homes in low-lying areas.

Says Mr. McAllister: “While nitrogen pollution from antiquated household septic systems is fouling our waters, County Executive Bellone’s ‘Reclaim Our Waters’ initiative is reason for optimism.”

It’s so nice these days to be optimistic about something government is doing.

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.

THEATER REVIEW - "Saturday Night Fever, the Musical"

THEATER REVIEW

“Saturday Night Fever, the Musical” - Produced by: Theatre Three – Port Jefferson

Reviewed by: Jeb Ladouceur

According to Nik Cohn’s 1975 New York Magazine article titled, ‘The Tribal Rites of the New Saturday Night,’ and the Norman Wexler screenplay that it inspired two years later (when the film gave us John Travolta), “Wanting to be like someone else is a waste of the person you are.” This pithy observation (generally attributed to Kurt Kobain) is the sort of forceful reflection that runs through ‘Saturday Night Fever, the Musical’ being performed at Port Jefferson’s Theatre Three thru June 24^th.

The story revolves around Tony Manero, a teenaged paint store employee (played by the multi-talented Bobby Peterson) and poor Manero’s humdrum occupation, like those of his bored-to-death peers in Brooklyn, is getting him nowhere. Tony’s one claim to fame is reflected in the adoration of his dance-absorbed neighbors who admire the young hoofer’s unquestioned expertise on the dance floor, and where Manero luxuriates in their idolizing him at the ‘2001 Odyssey Disco’ every weekend.

In a society where the Bay Ridge Neighborhood is akin to a medieval Dukedom in the shadow of the Verrazano Bridge (and just as treacherous, as one violent scene proves to be), all that the reigning Tony lacks is an appropriate Duchess. It’s not until the middle of Act I that Stephanie (expertly interpreted by Rachel Greenblatt) comes along, and predictably knocks him for a loop without even trying.

As things progress, both Tony and Manhattanite wannabe Stephanie are perfectly at home singing and dancing to the score of ‘Saturday Night Fever, the Musical,’ whose featured numbers consist primarily of songs written by The Bee Gees (‘Stayin’ Alive’ – ‘How Deep is Your Love’ – ‘More Than a Woman’ – etc.) Worthy of special note is Beth Whitford (playing Annette) whose rendition of ‘If I Can’t Have You’ is an absolute show-stopper.

But there’s more to this musical than singing and dancing … the plot is a silky-smooth combination of bleakness and brightness … love and loathing … tenderness and tragedy. So effortlessly do the principal characters play off of one another during the dialogue of the production that the near-capacity evening audience last weekend seemed not even to breathe during the more intimate conversations of the key players. The pacing and volume of such colloquies, more than anything else, reveal the actors’ competence, and they also speak to the proficiency of the director (Jeffrey Sanzel).

In this regard, it was refreshing to sit back in the comfortable 100-year-old playhouse in Port Jefferson and hear the theatrically articulate Rachel Greenblatt deliver her spoken lines with perfect modulation and inflection. Every stage production is spearheaded by one actor whose cadence and tone seem to inspire the entire company, and in ‘Fever’ it’s Greenblatt. The young woman has blossomed into a performer of the first rank.

Kudos, too, are due the twenty other members of the large featured cast. There isn’t a disappointment in the enthusiastic lot. As for Jeffrey Hoffman’s seven-piece orchestra, it’s likely that The Bee Gees themselves would have cheered the talented musicians lustily at the final curtain. Lighting (Robert W. Henderson, Jr.), Scenery (Randall Parsons), Costumes (Ronald Green III), and Choreography (Whitney Stone) are all first-rate. Accordingly everyone who avails themselves of the opportunity, is sure to enjoy a magnificent experience at ‘Broadway on Main Street’ in Port Jeff … no matter what day or night they choose to catch ‘The Fever.’

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Award-winning writer, Jeb Ladouceur is the author of a dozen novels, and his theater and book reviews appear in several major L.I. publications. His recent hit, THE GHOSTWRITERS, explores the bizarre relationship between the late Harper Lee and Truman Capote. Ladouceur’s newly completed thriller, THE SOUTHWICK INCIDENT, debuted this month, and was introduced at the Smithtown Library on May 21st. The book involves a radicalized Yale student and his CIA pursuers. Mr. Ladouceur’s revealing website is www.JebsBooks.com

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP - Is Atlantic Oil Drilling In Our Future?

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

Nearly 50 years ago I broke the story of the oil industry’s interest in drilling in the offshore Atlantic. Largely because of moratoria enacted by Congress, it didn’t happen in the U.S. Atlantic in the decades since. But now with President Donald Trump’s having just signed an executive order on offshore drilling in the Atlantic, Arctic Ocean and Gulf of Mexico, it could.        

Here in Suffolk, John V. N. Klein of Smithtown was a leader in the opposition to offshore Atlantic drilling—first as presiding officer of the Suffolk County Legislature and then when he became Suffolk County executive. Earlier, Mr. Klein, a Republican, was Smithtown Town supervisor.

“We’re opening it up,” said Mr. Trump adding that “offshore energy production will reduce the cost of energy, create countless new jobs, and make America more secure and far more energy independent.”

It was in 1970 that a Montauk fisherman told me that east of Long Island he saw the same kind of ship he observed searching for oil when he was a shrimper in the Gulf of Mexico. As an investigative reporter for the daily Long Island Press, I spent a day calling oil companies to be told by PR people from each that their companies were not involved in searching in the Atlantic. As the day ended and I was leaving the office, there was a return call from a Gulf PR man who said, yes, Gulf was out there looking for oil and gas as part of a “consortium” of 32 oil companies. These included the companies which all day had issued denials. It was an initial experience in oil industry honesty, an oxymoron.

I pursued the story up and down the Atlantic. In 1971, I visited the first drilling rig set up, off Nova Scotia.  On the rig were capsules designed to eject workers. A rescue boat went round and round “We treat every foot of hole like a potential disaster,” explained the Shell Canada executive. It was obvious on the rig that offshore drilling is fraught with danger.

As to the booms proclaimed by the oil industry then and now as capable of cleaning up spills, the Shell Canada man said they “just don’t work in over five foot-foot seas.” In Nova Scotia or in the Atlantic off the U.S., five foot seas are common. So the oil could be expected in many, if not most, circumstances to hit shore. 

U.S. Department of Interior records I examined acknowledged spillage being chronic in offshore oil drilling. And, it was admitted by the federal government that the Atlantic is a far more problematic place to drill. The President’s Council on Environmental Quality declared:
“The Atlantic is a hostile environment for oil and gas operations. Storm and seismic conditions may be more severe than in either the North Sea or the Gulf of Mexico.”

The 2010 blowout and massive spill from BP Deepwater Horizon rig in the Gulf provided an exclamation point to the accident-prone, indeed disaster-prone process. It’s drill, baby, spill.

In the wake of Mr. Trump’s order, 16 U.S. senators put forth the Clean Ocean and Safe Tourism (COAST) Anti-Drilling Act which would ban oil and gas drilling in the Atlantic. They include: Kirsten Gillibrand of New York; Bob Menendez and Cory Booker of New Jersey; 

Edward Markey and Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts; Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut; Dianne Feinstein of California; Ben Cardin and  Chris Van Hollen of Maryland; Bill Nelson of Florida; all Democrats; and Independent Bernie Sanders of Vermont. 

From the House of Representatives, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, a Republican from Miami, declared: “The potential damage to our world-renowned coral reefs, robust fisheries, pristine beaches and tourism-supported small businesses should far outweigh any short-term benefit anticipated in the administration’s plan. Tourism is the driving force behind our state’s economy and offshore drilling threatens the very resources that these visitors come to Florida to enjoy.” .” Congressman Charlie Christ, a former Florida governor, a Democrat, asked Mr. Trump to reverse course and put “the well-being of our coastal communities above oil industry profits.”

In South Carolina, Frank Knapp, president of the Business Alliance for Protecting the Atlantic, said: “President Trump referred to offshore drilling creating good jobs and showed no concern for those who will lose their jobs due to oil spills and leaks,” 

A coalition of environmental groups has filed a lawsuit challenging it. These include the League of Conservation Voters—its first lawsuit in its 50 years, Sierra Club, Natural Resources Defense Council, Greenpeace, Center for Biological Diversity, Wilderness Society and Defenders of Wildlife. Defenders of Wildlife President Jamie Rappaport Clark said: “We do not need and cannot use the oil that may lie under these waters if we ever hope to meet our nation’s commitment to addressing climate change.”

In fact, the order comes while there is a glut of petroleum in the world—why the price of gasoline at the pump here in Suffolk these days has dropped to $2.45 a gallon and less.  

And why spend many millions for exploration and test-drilling for unneeded oil instead of advancing the further implementation of solar and wind energy? These clean, green, renewable sources are the fastest-growing energy sources worldwide.  

The only part of the Atlantic off North America where there’s been drilling has been off Nova Scotia, the site of my visit to a rig decades ago. A report from the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation earlier this year was headed: “Nova Scotia offshore oil and gas ‘doesn’t look good’ after Shell seals two wells.” It began: “Shell’s decision to seal two exploration wells off Nova Scotia has set back the province’s dream of offshore riches.”

Turns out the dream of a barrel of oil “gold” in the Atlantic could be an illusion. 

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.

Smithtown Fire Fighters Respond To Mother's Day Fire In Village Of The Branch

 Info and photos available at Smithtown FD website 

photo Jeff BresslerThe Smithtown Fire Department responded to a structure fire  at 5:56 pm on Mother’s Day Sunday, May 14, 2017, with the location of 9 Branch Drive in the Village of the Branch.  

Several reports of flames coming out of the front of the ranch home were reported by neighbors. Residents were able to extricate themselves from the property when the fire started. Fire fighters arriving on scene began attacking the fire. A roof crew started venting operations.

The fire was brought under control at 6:31 pm.  The fire caused severe damage to the interior of the ranch.

photo Jeff BresslerThree of the residents of the home were transported to both St. Catherine of Siena Medical Center and Stony Brook University Hospital. No current reports on the extent of injuries.

The cause of the fire is unknown at this time. The fire is being investigated by The Smithtown Fire Marshal.

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP - New Interest In Democratic Party Linked To Donald Trump

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

The presidency of Donald Trump has resulted in a “huge increase” in interest and involvement in Democratic Party activities in Suffolk, says the county’s Democratic chairman, Rich Schaffer. “People have been reaching out to town [Democratic] committees through the county and to us,” said Mr. Schaffer other day.

Since the election, the Suffolk Democratic Party has received thousands of telephone calls and emails “from people who want to get involved—and do something,” said the party leader.

Meanwhile, anti-Trump “resistance” groups have sprung up in Suffolk and with the Suffolk Democratic Party are committed to opposing Mr. Trump and defeating officeholders backing him. 

Mr. Schaffer has sought to coordinate with these groups. He held a meeting recently with 50 people from the groups at Suffolk Democratic Party headquarters in Bohemia. “We all have the same goals—defeat of [Lee] Zeldin and [Peter] King.” Republican Zeldin is an avid supporter of  Mr. Trump with ties to him that go back to 2014 when Mr. Zeldin first ran for Congress and Mr. Trump contributed to his campaign and made a robocall describing Mr. Zeldin as “a terrific guy” and “very conservative.” 

GOPer King initially held Mr. Trump was “not fit to be president,” but after Mr. Trump clinched the GOP nomination, endorsed him with reluctance—“I don’t agree with Donald Trump on everything,” he said. The third congressman representing Suffolk is Democrat Tom Suozzi.

The district of Mr. Zeldin of Shirley, the lst C.D., includes most of Smithtown, a slice of Islip, all of Brookhaven Town and all five East End towns. The district of Mr. King, the 2^nd C.D., includes Babylon and Islip Towns and extends west into Nassau County where he resides, in Seaford. Mr. Suozzi’s district, the 3^rd C.D., takes in Huntington and also extends into Nassau where Mr. Suozzi lives, in Glen Cove, and goes further west into Queens.

All seats in the House of Representatives will be up for election next year.

“It’s important that we supplement each other to achieve our goals,” said Mr. Schaffer of the anti-Trump “resistance” groups. The Democratic chairman, a former Suffolk County legislator and now Babylon Town supervisor, spoke about how “every day the actions of Trump and his cast of characters—on health care, the environment, on issue after issue” provides added momentum to the opposition to the Trump presidency here.

The situation in Suffolk mirrors the national picture.

The Washington Post published an article last month headlined, “Democrats partner with political newcomers aiming to create anti-Trump wave in 2018 midterms.” It began: “A wave of first-time candidates eager to fight President Trump and his young administration plan to challenge House Republican incumbents, giving Democratic Party leaders hope that they can capitalize on the anger and intensity of grass-roots protests and town hall meetings across the country this year….Democratic strategists are trying to take advantage of the groundswell of engagement.”

One of the anti-Trump “resistance” groups in Suffolk is IndivisibleNY01 in the lst C.D. of Mr. Zeldin. As it says on its website https://medic3569.wixsite.com/patchogueindivisible under “Mission”—“To share knowledge of our political process and performance of our elected officials so that we can inspire our community to contribute to their and their family’s future, by persuading our representatives to represent US.” Under “Our Principles,” it states—“The current administration and elected officials will take America backwards and MUST BE STOPPED! Any elected officials that don’t represent us properly MUST BE STOPPED!….Whenever one of our representatives acts, whether sponsoring or co-sponsoring a bill, makes a speech, votes on legislation, etc. that doesn’t consider our concerns,” that representative “must be told, loudly.” An early action of the group was a demonstration at an event involving Mr. Zeldin.

A recent meeting of IndivisibleNY01 was addressed by Bryan Erwin of Riverhead whose background in government includes being an aide to former Senator Tom Daschle of South Dakota. He discussed political strategy.

John A. Smith of Patchogue, founder of InvisibleNY01, says: “We see that there are a lot of angry and scared people in our communities. We want to direct that anger and fear into something constructive. We want to educate and register those people in our communities to vote and get involved. We want them to realize they have a voice and that we need their voice to change the racist, authoritarian and corrupt agenda being carried out by the president and the party in control of the county.” 

Anti-Trump energies in Suffolk are also being channeled through social media. In a recent Facebook posting, psychotherapist Michael Z. Jody of East Hampton cited various “monstrous” appointments by Mr. Trump, among them Department of Energy Secretary Rick Perry who has said he wanted “to shut down” DOE; Scott Pruitt as head of the EPA which “Pruitt has been battling for years;” Betty DeVos as head of the Department of Education although she “does not believe in public education…. And on and on it goes…We need resistance like our lives depend on it,” said Mr. Jody, because they “just might.”