SUFFOLK CLOSEUP : Robert Vasiluth Crusading To Save A Miracle Plant

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

The inventive Robert (Rob) Vasiluth is moving ahead in his crusade to restore eelgrass in area waters. 

Eelgrass (Photo National Parks)“Eelgrass is the miracle plant,” says Vasiluth. “It’s vital as fish habitat. It’s a nursery ground for juvenile fish. Where it grows, scallops thrive. It slows down erosion. It neutralizes acidification. It produces oxygen. It sequesters carbon 35 times faster than a terrestrial rain forest. It is the foundation of the shallow sea.”

But the amount of eelgrass in New York waters is now “two or three percent” of what it was in the 1930s, he says. “Pollution, dredging, algae blooms, disease, commercial fishing practices and in the last decade the rising heat in bodies of water from climate change are among the causes.”

The 9/11 attack was a turning point for Vasiluth. An operating engineer from Commack, he was in Manhattan hoisting a section of a sign high up on the Renaissance Times Square Hotel, when he saw the World Trade Center a few miles to the south being struck. 

As a result, he committed himself to “saving life.”

There have been efforts to restore eelgrass by “broadcasting” eelgrass seeds on water, but that has failed, says Vasiluth. He came up with a new way. 

His idea: using a glue to affix eelgrass seeds to clams. The clams would bury themselves in the sea bottom and the seeds could far better germinate, he thought. The concept has worked well.

The glue is cyanoacrylate—the ingredient that is the basis for Super Glue and Krazy Glue. It’s strong but “it’s biodegradable,” he emphasizes.

In using clams affixed with eelgrass seeds in Smithtown Bay, Great South Bay, Shinnecock Bay and Sterling Harbor off Greenport, Vasiluth has been involved with Cornell Cooperative Extension, Save the Sound, The Nature Conservancy, Seatuck Environmental Association and Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences.

Last year, he worked with the East Hampton Town Trustees applying his method in Napeague Harbor, considered a prime area for eelgrass restoration. He joined with John Dunne, director of East Hampton’s shellfish hatchery, and youngsters in East Hampton High School’s Environmental Awareness Club. The students glued eel grass seeds onto 1,907 clams, relates Vasiluth.

This year, he is seeking to expand the project in Napeague Harbor working with the town shellfish hatchery and Cornell Cooperative Extension, Peconic Baykeeper and Save the Sound.

Being used to spread the clams is a “machine I built” able to distribute large numbers of eelgrass seed-affixed clams from a boat.

To help in gathering eelgrass seeds, Vasiluth recently spoke about his work before the The Divers Club, and members of the West Islip-based diving group volunteered to assist.

Vasiluth says that in his eelgrass work an especially fertile site for collecting eelgrass seed has been off Fishers Island, the little island just off Connecticut that’s part of Suffolk County. He describes it as “the home of the last best eelgrass habitat in the Long Island Sound due to the work of the Fishers Island Conservancy Eelgrass Management Program.”

As to financing, Vasiluth says he has funded much of the work through the years “out of my own pocket” through an organization he has set up, SAVE Environmental.

Vasiluth has been meeting with New York State Senators Monica Martinez of Brentwood and Alexis Weik of Sayville about getting what is called a “blue carbon” credit program, such as one now in Virginia, created in New York.

About the Virginia program, the website USNature4Climate refers to it as “an exciting partnership between The Nature Conservancy, the Virginia Institute of Marine Science and the University of Virginia” that “has restored nearly 9,000 acres of eelgrass on the Virginia Coast Reserve. This partnership is part of TNC’s broader efforts to advance ‘blue carbon’ programs in the U.S. and worldwide. Blue carbon is the carbon sequestered in coastal wetlands like seagrass meadows, tidal grasslands and mangrove forests. In addition to restoring marine habitat, UVA research has shown that blue carbon projects like this present a significant opportunity to mitigate climate change.”

Vasiluth told me last week: “The public doesn’t realize how devastating the loss of eelgrass has been. It’s a crisis. It’s an emergency.”

Doing something about this is his life’s crusade that, he says, “we all should be focused upon because it is the habitat that saves us in so many ways.” Rob can be reached at rvasiluth@gmail.com

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 : "13 Magic Words" In Water Quality Restoration Act

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

Environmentalist John Turner calls them “13 magic words.”

They are 13 words that have been added to a measure likely to be voted on in a countywide referendum in November that would amend the Suffolk County Water Quality Restoration Act. The words are in a section of state legislation on what the fund for the act would finance. 

The 13 words are: “and projects for the reuse of treated effluent from such wastewater treatment facilities.”

Turner has long worked to have wastewater purified and returned to Long Island’s underground water table rather than being discharged into surrounding bays, the Atlantic Ocean and Long Island Sound.

Long Island is dependent on its underground water table, what the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency in 1978 designated as the “sole source aquifer” for potable water for people here.

In Nassau County, the water table has lowered because 85 percent of the county is sewered and all its sewage treatment plants send wastewater into surrounding waterways. In Nassau, lakes, ponds, and streams that are the “uppermost expression of the aquifer system, have dropped considerably,” says Turner, former legislative director of the New York Legislative Commission on Water Resource Needs of New York State and Long Island and director of Brookhaven Town’s Division of Environmental Protection. He is senior conservation policy advocate at Seatuck Environmental Association based in Islip. 

Hempstead Lake now “is Hempstead Pond,” says Turner.

Suffolk is 25 percent sewered with—until recent years—all its larger sewage treatment plants sending wastewater into surrounding waterways. The biggest, the Southwest Sewer District’s Bergen Point Sewage Treatment Plant in West Babylon, was built to send up to 30 million gallons a day of wastewater through an outfall pipe into the Atlantic.

However, in 2016, providing a model for change, the Riverhead Sewage Treatment Plant began sending treated effluent to the county’s adjoining Indian Island Golf Course. This has provided irrigation and fertilization for the golf course and an alternative to the discharging of wastewater into Flanders Bay.

A revised Suffolk County Water Quality Restoration Act was first advanced last year with a referendum proposed for Election Day 2023. But the Republican majority on the Suffolk Legislature voted against it because the enabling state legislation then earmarked 25 percent of the funding for sewers and 75 percent for high-tech nitrogen-reducing “innovative/advanced” septic systems. The GOP majority sought a larger percentage for sewers.

In the new revision the split is 50 percent for sewers and 50 percent for “innovative/advanced” septic systems. It now will go before the Suffolk Legislature and State Legislature, where its sponsor in the Assembly is Fred W. Thiele, Jr. of Sag Harbor and sponsor in the Senate Monica Martinez of Brentwood, and, if approved, be subject to a referendum in Suffolk on Election Day 2024.

Other than for the change to a 50-50 division and those “13 magic words,” the measure remains otherwise as it had been last year. The funding for the Suffolk County Water Quality Restoration Act would, as proposed last year, increase the current 8.625 percent sales tax in the county to 8.75 percent, or l/8^th of a penny on each dollar spent on purchases.

If the new revised act gets legislative and voter approval, funds for projects for reuse of treated effluent could be used to implement the “Long Island Water Reuse Road Map & Action Plan” issued last year. The plan was created by Seatuck, the Greentree Foundation, Cameron Engineering & Associates and a Water Reuse Technical Working Group of 28 members. It proposes that treated wastewater to be utilized for a variety of purposes, notably on golf courses, but also on sod farms, lawns and fields at educational and commercial sites. It lists treatment facilities and sites that could be used including in Smithtown. 

It declares: “The benefits of water reuse have long been recognized and embraced in other parts of the world,” and currently in the U.S. “approximately 2.6 billion gallons of water is reused daily.” But, it says, in New York “large-scale water reuse projects have been limited. There are a few projects in upstate New York and one on Long Island,” the “Riverhead reuse project.”

At a press conference last month announcing the new revision, Suffolk’s new county executive, Ed Romaine, repeated what he had emphasized as Brookhaven Town supervisor and a county legislator, that in building sewers in Suffolk “let’s not pump the effluent out to the ocean or the Sound.” Romaine, like Turner and other environmentalists, stresses a need for not only water quality but quantity. 

The sales tax increase is expected to raise in its first year $26.5 million for sewers and $26.5 million for “innovative/advanced” septic systems, said the legislature’s presiding officer, Kevin McCaffrey, at the press conference. The I/A systems have an average cost of $22,000 and, as of 2021, have been required by Suffolk County for new construction of a house in a non-sewered area or major expansion of an existing house. 

SUFFFOLK CLOSEUP: NYS Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

 Allow me to add my voice to the chorus in high praise of State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele, Jr. upon his decision not to run for re-election to the Assembly after nearly 30 years. Thiele, as a village, town, county, and state official over a 45-year span, has been, in a word, superlative. 

In covering thousands of government officials in Suffolk County as a journalist here for more than 60 years, Thiele has been at the top.

He began as a Republican, then as Southampton Town supervisor ran at the head of the environmental Southampton Party ticket, then joined the Independence Party and finally was a Democrat.

As another highly independent figure, to our west, New York City Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, would often say, “I could run on a laundry ticket”—and win. 

So could Fred Thiele.

“It’s been a great honor and I’ve loved every day of it,” commented Thiele. But the commute to and from Albany and “living out of a suitcase six months a year doesn’t have the same appeal when you’re 70 years old.”

As he related in his poignant statement announcing his leaving the State Assembly: “Government service was my dream from my days as a student in elementary school in Sag Harbor when I heard the call of President John F. Kennedy to ‘ask not what your country can do for you, but what you can do for your country.’ Being chosen by my neighbors to be their representative has truly been the greatest honor in my professional life,”

“I have successfully run for public office 19 times and have served the East End in the State Assembly longer than any other person in the history of New York State. I now look forward to other opportunities to serve the community that has been home to my family for almost 200 years.”

“I will always be indebted to my predecessor, the late John Behan who gave me the chance to come home and begin my professional life,” continued Thiele, who first entered government as an aide to the Assemblyman Behan. “A true American hero, John’s life was an example to all on what it means to be a leader.”

“I had a chance to serve with former State Senator Ken LaValle in Albany for 25 years. He is the definition of a ‘statesman.’ I cherish the special bond we developed through the years that transcended government and politics.”

“There are many victories and achievements that come from a lengthy career in public office, most notably the Community Preservation Fund,” said Thiele. “There have been many successes that have kept eastern Long Island a special place. It has been a privilege to have the opportunity to shape the future of our community and to work with others to achieve goals that are larger than ourselves. That has been one of the rewards of public service.”

“At the end of this year, I will close this chapter of my life,” he said. “I look forward to new beginnings. There will be new challenges and new ways of serving. Endings and beginnings are bittersweet. I am guided by the advice of Dr. Seuss: ‘Don’t cry because it’s over, smile because it happened.’”

The Community Preservation Fund, begun in 1999, was an especially outstanding achievement of Thiele. Through a 2% transfer tax paid by purchasers on higher priced real estate transactions, it has generated about $2 billion so far, for open space acquisitions, historic preservation and water quality initiatives in the five eastern Suffolk towns.

It has been a key in keeping much of Suffolk County green.

There’s been so, so much more done by the enormously active Thiele.

Most recently, as co-chair of the Legislative Commission on the Future of the Long Island Power Authority, he has been central in the effort to have LIPA itself operate the electric grid on Long Island, not having it done by a third-party. As the commission’s final report concluded, having LIPA run the grid rather than contracting it out “to a private, for-profit utility will save ratepayers at least a half billion dollars over ten years, improve efficiency and accountability, and increase local control and community output.” 

It would be another big victory of Thiele’s—and of great benefit to ratepayers here—if the State Legislature and Governor Kathy Hochul this year support the change.

Said Bob DeLuca, president of the Group for the East End, of Thiele: “Without question, he was a once-in-a-generation leader. He has been a consistent, rational and strategic voice for change. He was able to bring people together when it was not always easy. I don’t know anyone who works harder.”

Suffolk Democratic Chairman Rich Schaffer, with whom Thiele worked closely with as members of the Suffolk Legislature, and is a good friend, describes his departure from the State Assembly as “a big loss to us all.” Schaffer, now Babylon Town supervisor, speaks of how Thiele “will be remembered as one of the most significant public officials on his environmental record that will help generations to come.”

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.  

SUFFFOLK CLOSEUP: Suozzi Was An Exceptionally Strong Candidate

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

What might be learned from the special election last week in a congressional district that had for years included Suffolk County? In it, Democrat Tom Suozzi handily (by 54% to 46% of the vote) defeated Mazi Pilip running on the Republican line.

The district, New York’s 3^rd C.D., now covers 80% of Nassau County and the remainder Queens. For decades, this district of the House of Representatives also included Huntington and much of Smithtown and was represented by Suffolk figures including former Huntington Town Supervisor Jerry Ambro, ex-Suffolk Legislator Bob Mrazek of Centerport, and Steve Israel, previously a member of the Huntington Town Board. 

Then came a messy bout of reapportionment in which state Democrats overreached in constructing a plan and there was a court-directed revision cutting Suffolk County out of the 3^rd C.D. 

And George Santos running on the Republican line won the seat in 2022 but was expelled last year by an overwhelming vote of House members, only the sixth member in its history to ever be kicked out. That followed an investigation by the House Ethics Committee which concluded, among other things, that Santos broke federal laws, stole from his campaign and delivered a “constant series of lies” to voters and donors. He is to face trial in U.S. District Court in Central Islip in September on a 23-count indictment.

Governor Kathy Hochul ordered a special election for his replacement. 

CBS News in its account of the contest said that with “Democrats hoping to take back the House in November,” the Democratic win, considering the district’s “moderate leanings, could be a bellwether for their chances. Democrats and Republicans alike have poured millions into the race to bombard the airwaves with TV ads. Suozzi and affiliated Democratic groups have spent $13.8 million on advertising, with nearly $6 million from the House Majority PAC. Pilip and affiliated Republican groups have spent $8.1 million on ads.”

One couldn’t turn on television for weeks in this area without being bombarded by dueling Suozzi-Pilip ads. Direct mailing in the district was massive.

As to what might be learned, “Republicans were hoping concerns over immigration would put them over the top Tuesday in a closely watched special election in New York to replace the disgraced former Representative George Santos,” noted National Public Radio. “Instead, Democrats parried the attacks and flipped the seat.” NPR said “it’s understandable that Republicans would want to try to use” immigration. “But Democrats showed they can defend themselves on this issue—by tacking to the middle. Suozzi said the border needed to be secured, called for a bipartisan compromise and supported the bipartisan congressional deal that was scuttled by Trump and the hard right. Pilip came out against the bill.”

Also, the abortion issue was a factor. Political analysts have been pointing to a vulnerability for GOP candidates on it. Suozzi TV ads emphasized that Pilip was “running on a platform to ban abortions” and used her photo with a line: “Too Extreme For New York.”

And there was experience. Newsday declared in endorsing Suozzi that he is “a tested public servant who can start the job on Day One” while Pilip “who has barely served one term in the Nassau County Legislature does not have the breadth of experience or essential knowledge of how government operates….On issue after issue, she failed to show any grasp of what’s needed to represent the district effectively.”

But the main factor, I’d say, was Suozzi being an exceptionally strong nominee. 

That’s always the greatest asset for any political candidate. 

He started in government in 1994 becoming the youngest person elected mayor of his hometown of Glen Cove. In 2002, he became the first Democrat elected Nassau County executive since Eugene Nickerson left office in 1971. As county executive to 2009, he went after wasteful Nassau government contracts and cast his reform gaze, too, to the north and stagnancy and lack of accountability in the New York State Legislature, and led, while county executive, a “Fix Albany” campaign. He was then elected three times to Congress from the 3^rd C.D. He only left to challenge Hochul for the Democratic nomination to run for governor.

Post-victory remarks by Suozzi, known as a moderate working for bipartisan cooperation, pointed to his now seeking a “Fix Washington” approach. “The way to make our country a better place is to try and find common ground,” he said, adding: “It is not easy to do. It is hard to do.”

The special election only covers this year. The post will be on the general election ballot in November. And former President Donald Trump after the election dismissed Mazi running again, writing in all caps on the Truth Social internet platform he founded: “Give us a real candidate in the district for November.” This, although Pilip supported Trump in her run.

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. 

SUFFFOLK CLOSEUP: "Priced Out...Unable To Buy Homes"

SUFFOLK CLOSEUP

By Karl Grossman

Suffolk County isn’t alone in facing an affordable housing crisis.

Last month, The New York Times ran an article that included in its headline: “Ireland’s Housing Crisis.” It began by relating how a teacher in Dublin needs to live with family an hour-and-a-half from work because, she says, “There’s very little housing available, and what is available is way out of my reach. I’m never going to afford a house or an apartment on my own up in Dublin.”

The article reported how so many are “priced out…unable to buy homes.”

Sound familiar?

“While a major issue across Ireland, the housing shortage is felt most acutely in the Dublin region, home to around a quarter of the country’s population of just over five million,” The Times piece said. “Two-thirds of Irish people 18 to 34 still live with their parents…” 

It said “recent…riots in Dublin capitalized on the grievances of people struggling to cover their housing costs and exposed to the world the deep fractures that the crisis has created. But the issue is decades in the making, experts say, and has become the driving force in Irish politics.” 

There have been no riots in Suffolk County involving housing costs. But here—and elsewhere in the U.S.—the affordable housing crisis is terribly severe. 

That’s why New York Governor Kathy Hochul has put a focus on expanding affordable housing. In 2023, in her “State of the State” address, she announced a “New York Housing Compact” requiring cities, towns and villages in the state to add housing every three years by 3% downstate and 1% upstate with the state able to override local zoning decisions if localities didn’t meet targets. However, the program, supported by housing advocates, faced strong opposition from some local government officials and state representatives—including from Suffolk—as an infringement on “home rule” and was shelved by the governor.

At the start of 2024 in her “State of the State” address, Hochul was focusing on incentives and a variety of other strategies to increase affordable housing in the state.

A key Hochul strategy involves “Accessory Dwelling Units” or ADUs. She is earmarking $85 million for the initiative. In her “Plus One ADU Program” state grants would be offered local governments and non-profit organizations to develop community-specific programs in which single-family homeowners would be able to construct “a new ADU on their property or upgrading existing units to comply with local and state code requirements,” said the governor. ADUs could range from basement apartments and garage conversions to standalone units like cottages. Participating homeowners could receive up to $125,000 in a “forgivable” loan.  

The incoming Brookhaven Town supervisor, Dan Panico, in his inaugural address, announced he wants to streamline ADUs in the town by eliminating its Accessory Apartment Review Board in favor of the town Building Department making decisions.

New programs also proposed by Hochul would be a tax incentive on conversion of commercial buildings or offices for affordable housing and use of state-owned land for housing. And the governor also wants to set aside $650 million from “discretionary” state funds to go to “pro-housing communities” developing affordable housing programs.  

The obstacle for affordable housing in Ireland as described in The Times piece has been a lack of government action. An obstacle to government action notably here and in much of the U.S. has been the single-family house as the standard dwelling unit and zoning which enforces that. 

Michael Daly, founder of the group East End YIMBY (Yes In My Backyard) points to the Community Housing Fund, passed by referendum in Southold, Shelter Island, East Hampton and Southampton towns in 2022—adding a half-percent to the existing real estate transfer fee to go for affordable housing—and how in those towns “the advisory boards and town boards are searching for effective ways to use the funds to preserve and create more community housing. But the stubborn issue of restrictive, single-family-only zoning continues to be a blockade to many of the best solutions.”

 “Now that we have figured out how to create sustainable, environmentally sound, and attractive multi-family properties…it’s restrictive zoning and the minority of loud and vocal opponents who are the only ones standing in the way,” said Daly last week.

“The good news is that village, town, county, and state officials all throughout the nation are figuring out that the loud and vocal minority is just that—a minority in our communities,” said Daly of Sag Harbor. “Studies on Long Island and across the nation consistently show that 60-75% of community members see the need for more community housing and support zoning changes to accomplish that. The Housing Compact, put forth by New York State last year, would have done the ‘hard part’ for local officials, but they rejected it. Now they’re going to have to do that ‘hard part’ themselves.”

A motto of those crusading for affordable housing is: “Housing Is A Human Right.” 

That’s right. 

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.