As most of you know, Nassau County voters recently passed a $100 million Environmental Bond Act to, among other things, acquire environmentally important land and open space.  How this money is used is critical to the residents of Bayville and other communities surrounding the entire Oyster Bay/Cold Spring Harbor Estuary and, more specifically, Mill Neck Bay (The Creek).

The following release was put out by the North Shore Land Alliance and forwarded to me by Friends of the Bay: 

In 2007, Nassau County residents have the opportunity to be involved with
the expenditure of the $100 Million Bond for open space acquisition, parks
improvement and expansion, storm water runoff remediation and brown field
redevelopment.

To learn more about the process Nassau County will be hosting 3 public
meetings, one in each of the Towns.  They are:

Tuesday, Jan. 23, 7 p.m., West Hempstead High School, 400 Nassau Blvd., West
Hempstead

Thursday, Jan. 25, 7 p.m., Jericho High School, 99 Cedar Swamp Rd., Jericho

Thursday, Feb. 1, 7 p.m., Herricks High School, 100 Shelter Rock Rd., New
Hyde Park

Please come and learn more about the program.  Nomination forms will be
available at these meetings as well as on the Nassau County website
www.nassaucountyny.gov and North Shore Land Alliance website at
www.northshorelandalliance.org (beginning January 23rd).  Deadline for
nominations is March 15, 2007.

We need your help in making sure these funds are spent on our most important
places!

Over recent weeks I have quietly observed the dialog being exchanged on this blog and have found it disturbing.  I am starting to feel like Igor to Jeff’s Dr. Frankenstein and hope that our community doesn’t end up like the little girl picking flowers by the lake – killed by good intentions.   I fully understand that the kinds of issues addressed will lead to opposing views, debates and even arguments, and many posters have done this with intelligence and restraint.  Others have substituted well thought out points of view with personal attacks on their own neighbors.  Most do this while hiding behind anonymous identities. 

It is my hope that I can steer the focus of the Bayville Blog to issues that are less divisive and more constructive.  There are so many issues facing this community that, in my opinion, can be universally agreed upon by the entire community.  One of these is the acquisition and clean up of the Mill Neck Bay Marina Property (MNBM), a New York State Superfund site, and another is the end to raw sewage being continually discharged into the Creek.

Surely we can all agree that having a property that is contaminated with thirteen different metals (arsenic, barium, cadmium, calcium, chromium, copper, iron, lead, magnesium, mercury, nickel, selenium and zinc), as well as several semi-volatile organic compounds, located directly adjacent to the bay, is not a good thing.  Particularly when you add the fact that not only does the rainwater that falls onto the property run directly into the bay, but, there is groundwater that continually flows up from the contaminated ground and directly into the bay.  To believe that this water does not carry with it many of these contaminants, introducing them to the eco-system of the bay, as well as the food chain, would be naïve.  Please take the time to read or re-read my prior entry regarding this at http://bayvilleblog.com/2006/11/23/mill-neck-bay-marina.aspx.

Surely we can all agree that having a large portion of the houses in the Birches/Continental Villa development flushing their toilets directly into our bay for the last 35 years is not a good thing.  This blatant violation of the Clean Water Act has been given nothing but lip service for 35 years by Nassau County, Town of Oyster Bay, The DEC, U.S Fish and Wildlife and most recently the New York State Attorney General’s office who, having issued a mandate to have a treatment plant up and running before September 2005, has failed to take a single step to enforce this mandate.  Surely we can all agree that having human feces flowing into the creek, resulting in the closing of our beaches and shell-fishing beds and possibly the contamination of our seafood is something we can all rally against.  (http://bayvilleblog.com/2006/11/12/raw-sewerage-still-flowing-into-the-creek.aspx)

If everyone who reads this entry were to write a letter nominating the MNBM property for acquisition and brown fields remediation, maybe our elected officials would begin to take notice. If these letters also expressed outrage over the Birches situation and inquired whether funds available for storm water runoff remediation could apply to correcting it, then perhaps Nassau County and the Town of Oyster Bay would stop bickering over cost sharing details and actually work together towards fixing the problem. 

The January 25^th meeting at the Jericho High School is designed to show the public how to nominate properties and to inform them of how the process works.  If I recall last year’s meeting, they also accepted many nominations right at the meeting but requested that they also be re-submitted with Nassau County’s nomination forms attached.  If you do not feel you can have the letter written before the meeting, you will have plenty of time before the submittal deadline.

Letters should mention the incomprehensible transaction in which the developer originally acquired the property from Nassau County for approximately $114,000 and should encourage or, even demand that the County exercise their power of eminent domain to regain title for the purpose of remediation and dedication as open space.  Each letter should be mailed to the Environmental Program Advisory Committee and then be copied to the list of officials below.  A copy of one of my prior nomination letters is in my previous entry on the MNBM (link above) and I will see if Jeff can create a link to some of the letters that the various agencies have generated over the years regarding these issues.

Address and mail the nomination letters to:

Environmental Program Advisory Committee

One West Street

Mineola, NY 11501

Cc the letters to:

The Honorable Thomas Souzzi

Nassau Count Executive Director

One West Street

Mineola, NY 11501

The Honorable Judith Jacobs

Presiding Officer,

Nassau County Legislature

One West Street

Mineola, NY 11501

The Honorable Diane Yatauro

County Legislator

Nassau County Legislature

One West Street

Mineola, NY 11501

Tom Maher

Nassau County Environmental Coordinator

One West Street

Mineola, NY 11501

Additional cc’s to consider:

Commissioner Denise M. Sheehan

New York State Department of Environmetal Conservation

625 Broadway

Albany, NY 12233-1010

Gregory L. Capobianco

New York State Department of State

Division of Coastal Resources

41 State Street

Albany, NY 12231-0001

The Honorable John Venditto

Town of Oyster Bay Supervisor

Town Hall

54 Audrey Avenue

Oyster Bay, NY 11771

It is my hope that a healthy response to this issue will help to restore the BayvilleBlog to the positive, constructive and credible tool that it was created to be.  To that end, I would request that those of you who choose to be a part of the solution, post a comment to let us know what steps you have taken.  If you write a letter, make a phone call, send an e-mail or plan to attend the meeting, please let us know.  If you have a question please don't hesitate to ask and if you would like to contact me personally please do so by e-mailing me at the link in the “contact us” box in the sidebar.

Barry E. Lamb