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School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences

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The Atlantic horseshoe crab. Public domain photo

From the shore, they can look like odd-shaped shadows with tails, moving in and out of the surf or approaching the shoreline.

Up close, they can have a collection of barnacles attached to their shells, particularly as they age.

Horseshoe crabs, who have been roaming the oceans for over 450 million years, have attracted the admiration of researchers and the dedication of volunteers around Long Island, who not only want to ensure they continue to survive, but also would like to know more about creatures that are more related to spiders and scorpions than to the crabs their names suggest.

“One of the things we’re trying to do is look at spawning in a more comprehensive way,” said Robert Cerrato, a professor in the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University. “We’re trying to figure out if there are specific things that [horseshoe crabs] are responding to” when they come up on the beach to lay their eggs.

A closeup of two horseshoe crabs. Photo courtesy Matthew Sclafani

Horseshoe crabs have had a steady decline in their population over the last 20 years overall. In the last three to five years, however, not much has changed in the Long Island area, scientists explained.

The population is “still very similar to where it was,” said Matthew Sclafani, senior resource educator at Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County and assistant adjunct faculty member at SBU.

Scalafani and Cerrato have worked together for well over a decade and are hoping to address a wide range of questions related to these unusual creatures that have nine eyes and blue blood.

Apart from the fascination of scientists and volunteers, the horseshoe crab provides a critical food source for shore birds like the Red Knot, which depends on these eggs during their migration.

At the same time, horseshoe crabs and their blue blood provide a key ingredient in tests of pharmaceuticals. When exposed to endotoxins, horseshoe crab blood forms clots.

The use of horseshoe crab blood to test drugs does not occur in New York, however, as companies don’t catch these creatures in the Empire State for this specific test.

Cerrato and Scalafani explained that numerous towns have also limited or banned the harvesting of horseshoe crabs to maintain their local populations.

Areas around West Meadow Beach in Old Field, for example, are closed to hand harvesting, as is Jamaica Bay and Gateway National Recreation Area.

Such policies “theoretically will allow for more eggs on the beach to hatch and for shore birds dependent on them” to find food, Sclafani said. Such closures, including some during the last two weeks in May and the first two weeks in June during the peak spawn were “significant steps for conservation,” Sclafani added.

An aerial photograph taken by a drone during a horseshoe crab survey at Pike’s Beach, Westhampton. Photo by Rory MacNish/Cornell Cooperative Extension of Suffolk County

Ongoing questions

By labeling and tracking horseshoe crabs, these researchers and a team of volunteers hope to understand whether crabs, which are capable of reproducing when they are between 8 and 10 years old, return to the same sites each year to lay their eggs.

Cerrato and Scalafani are hoping to get satellite tags they can attach to adults, so that when they come out of the water to spawn, researchers know their location.

The researchers submitted a proposal to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation to do a pilot study with these satellite tags.

Juvenile horseshoe crabs also present unknowns, as they have a different diet and migrate at a much lower rate.

“We started to look at” crabs that are 3 to 10 years old, said Cerrato. Moriches Bay is an “important habitat” for them.

Volunteer passion

Volunteers who help count the horseshoe crabs count these creatures often until well after midnight.

Frank Chin has been wandering beaches, counting crabs for 15 years. When he was young, Chin wanted to be a forest ranger.

“I realized that forest rangers don’t make that much money, so I went to school for engineering, got a degree and worked as an engineer,” he said.

Chin found himself at a Friends of Flax Pond meeting, where Scalafani asked for help from the community.

“I foolishly raised my hand and they made me a coordinator,” joked Chin, who counts horseshoe crabs with his wife Phyllis.

Every year presents something new to Chin.

This year, he has run into people who fish late at night. Chin said the fishermen, who have permits, are cordial, but that he’s concerned they might be scaring crabs away from their usual spawning spots.

In addition to counting the crabs, Chin, who is the director of the lab in the Physics Department at SBU, also tags them. He once caught a crab seven years after he initially tagged it.

Chin, who will count crabs in the rain but not in thunderstorms, appreciates the dedication of his fellow volunteers, who not only count the crabs but will pick up garbage and bottles along the beach.

Chin plans to continue to “do it as long as I can walk down the beach.” Some day, he “hopes someone else will take over.”

Volunteers can sign up to join the effort at nyhorseshoecrab.org.

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Charles F. Wurster. Photo by Malcolm J. Bowman
Prepared by Malcolm J. Bowman

Charles F. Wurster, professor emeritus of environmental science, School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, Stony Brook University, last surviving founding trustee of the Environmental Defense Fund, died on July 6 at the age of 92.

Wurster came to prominence on the issue of the toxic effects of the persistent pesticide DDT on nontarget organisms. During the 1950s and 60s, DDT was used in the mosquito-infested swamps of Vietnam during the war, sprayed on farmer’s crops and impregnated in household fly traps.

A world-class birder, Wurster was concerned with the effects of DDT on birds, ranging from the colorful species of the tropics to the penguins of Antarctica. While a postdoctoral fellow at Dartmouth College in the early 1960s, he gathered robins that had fallen from Dutch elm trees on the campus. In his biochemistry lab, he found their bodies riddled with DDT. The trees had been sprayed to kill the Dutch elm disease.

Of particular concern to Wurster was the concentration of DDT found in birds of prey, including pelicans and raptors, such as the osprey and bald eagle. DDT caused a thinning of eggshells, which led to a catastrophic decline in the osprey reproductive success rate to 2%. The bald eagle was heading toward extinction in the lower 48 states.

In the fall of 1965, Wurster began his academic career as an assistant professor of biological sciences at the newly opened Stony Brook University Marine Sciences Research Center. He gathered 11 colleagues from the university and Brookhaven National Laboratory. In October 1967, for the sum of $37, the group incorporated as a nongovernmental organization in New York State and called it EDF — the Environmental Defense Fund. 

Departing from other environmental organization’s approaches, the EDF used the law to ensure environmental justice. The EDF sought the court’s help in halting the application of toxic and lethal chemicals, with a focus on DDT.

After the EDF filed a petition in New York State Supreme Court in Riverhead to halt the spraying of DDT on South Shore wetlands by the Suffolk County Mosquito Commission, a judge in Suffolk County issued a temporary restraining order. Although EDF was later thrown out of court for lack of legal standing, the injunction held.

Under Wurster’s leadership, EDF set up its first headquarters in the attic of the Stony Brook Post Office. This was followed by moving to a 100-year-old farmhouse and barn on Old Town Road in Setauket.

Lacking funding, EDF nonetheless made a bold public step, taking out a half-page ad in The New York Times on March 29, 1970, picturing a lactating Stony Brook mother nursing her baby. Highlighting the concentration of DDT in humans, the text read “that if the mother’s milk was in any other container, it would be banned from crossing state lines!” Funds poured in.

In 1972, following six months of hearings, founding administrator William Ruckelshaus of the Environmental Protection Agency banned the use of DDT nationwide.  

EDF rapidly grew into a national organization. Its purview spread into new areas, including litigating against the U.S. Army’s Corps of Engineers dream of completing a cross-Florida sea level shipping canal (1969), removing lead from gasoline and paint (1970-1987) and eliminating polystyrene from fast-food packaging. 

Today EDF boasts 12 offices throughout the U.S. and in China, the Netherlands, United Kingdom, Indonesia and Mexico and has three million members and an annual budget of about $300 million. It focuses on environmental justice, protecting oceans and fisheries, sustainable energy and climate change.

In 1995, at Charles Wurster’s retirement from Stony Brook University, Ruckelshaus traveled from Seattle at his own expense to address the campus celebration.

In 2009, Wurster was awarded an honorary degree from Stony Brook University for his seminal contributions to environmental science and advocacy.

Wurster’s enduring leadership and tenacity helped put SBU firmly on the world stage for environmental science, education and advocacy.

Wurster is survived by his two sons Steve and Erik, daughter Nina and his longtime partner Marie Gladwish.

 

Malcolm J. Bowman is a distinguished service professor emeritus of the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University. He joined the faculty in 1971 and closely followed the development of EDF for over 50 years, becoming a close associate and personal friend of Charles Wurster.

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The sand tiger shark, pictured above, is one of several shark species that inhabit the surrounding waters of Long Island. Photo by Christopher Mark from Wikimedia Commons

Last week’s Fourth of July celebrations brought fireworks, family gatherings, barbecues and interactions between people and sharks.

Independence Day has increased the number of brushes between these apex predators and humans over the last two years, particularly as people head to the beach in larger numbers around the holiday.

Christoper Paparo, Southampton Marine Science Center manager at Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences. File photo

Sharks go “wherever there’s salt water” and they often follow bunker fish, which can come closer to shore, said Christoper Paparo, Southampton Marine Science Center manager at Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences. People encounter sharks around Independence Day because “there are more people around state parks on the Fourth of July weekend.”

Despite potential hysteria and concern about the dangers posed by sharks, most of the encounters around Long Island are “minor” and “not life threatening,” Paparo added.

The waters in the area are a nursery for many species of fish, including sharks. Young sea turtles, dolphins and whales also live along the more protected shoreline.

In recent weeks, five people have reported shark bites along the South Shore. In one incident, a shark bit a 15-year-old boy on the heel and toes. He was hospitalized with non-life-threatening injuries. Also last week, a 15-year-old girl was injured with puncture wounds from an unknown source at Robert State Moses Park.

Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone, at podium, urged residents to take protective measures to minimize the risk of shark encounters. Photo from Bellone’s Flickr page

Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone (D) recently announced that the county would step up its surveillance efforts, adding two high-tech drones at the ocean beaches.

“Shark bites and shark incidents are something that we’re going to have to be addressing on a more regular basis,” Bellone said at a press conference at Smith Point County Beach announcing the new measures. “It’s simply going to be a part of the routine of what we do out here every day in terms of the monitoring that our ocean lifeguards do.”

Surveillance teams go out on wave runners and paddle boards, while lifeguards also use binoculars to watch over swimming areas.

The county will train lifeguards as drone operators.

“This is not a simple thing,” Bellone said. “This is something that requires skill and expertise.”

As county beaches await the arrival of these new drones, the beaches have area fire and rescue available to respond to any needs.

“Our goal here is first and foremost to keep residents safe,” Bellone added, “and to provide a sense of reassurance and comfort, knowing that when you come to the beaches, we have every tool at our disposal ready to assist.”

New surveillance drones, pictured above, will help the county government monitor shark activity along its beaches. Photo from Steve Bellone’s Flickr page

Protective measures

Bellone urged the public to take measures to minimize the risk of shark encounters.

The county executive advised people not to swim at dawn or dusk when sharks might be feeding. He also cautioned against swimming toward schools of fish, which might attract sharks who can’t differentiate between a fish and a person swimming.

“Always swim in a lifeguard-protected area,” he added. “Don’t swim when lifeguards are not on duty.”

People who paddle board, kayak or surf should go out in groups.

The sharks in the area are a reflection of a healthy ecosystem, Paparo indicated.

“You need everything below [a shark] to support it,” he said. “If there are no fish or the water is polluted, you won’t see sharks.”

Sharks rely on other senses besides eyesight to find their prey. A swimmer in murky waters can send the same type of electromagnetic signal a shark picks up from a school of fish on the surface of the water.

The sharks “hone in” on the similar sounds, Paparo added.

Paparo also suggested people should avoid swimming near seals, which are prey for great white sharks. That’s not often a problem around Long Island as seals are more prevalent in Massachusetts.

Taking measures like avoiding swimming in murky waters will “increase the odds of not encountering them,” Paparo said.

A range of sharks swim around the waters of Long Island and can include sand tigers, dusky and sandbar sharks.

“We do have mako, blue, thresher, southern, black tip, spinner, scalloped hammerhead and smooth hammerhead,” Paparo said.

Paparo added that the numbers of bites this year — five so far — are still infrequent, especially compared with injuries people sustain in car accidents or other activities.

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Canadian wildfire smoke reduced the amount of sunlight reaching the ground over Long Island. Photo by Terry Ballard from Wikimedia Commons

Brian Colle saw it coming, but the word didn’t get out quickly enough to capture the extent of the incoming smoke.

Dr. Jeffrey Wheeler, director of the emergency room at St. Charles Hospital in Port Jefferson. File photo from St. Charles Hospital

The smoke from raging wildfires in Quebec, Canada, last week looked like a “blob out of a movie” coming down from the north, said Colle, head of the atmospheric sciences division at Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences. As the morning progressed, Colle estimated the chance of the smoke arriving in New York and Long Island was “80 to 90 percent.”

Colle, among other scientists, saw the event unfolding and was disappointed at the speed with which the public learned information about the smoke, which contained particulate matter that could affect human health.

“There’s a false expectation in my personal view that social media is the savior in all this,” Colle said. The Stony Brook scientist urged developing a faster and more effective mechanism to create a more aggressive communication channel for air quality threats.

Scientists and doctors suggested smoke from wildfires, which could become more commonplace amid a warming climate, could create physical and mental health problems.

Physical risks

People in “some of the extremes of ages” are at risk when smoke filled with particulates enters an area, said Dr. Jeffrey Wheeler, director of the emergency room at St. Charles Hospital in Port Jefferson. People with cardiac conditions or chronic or advanced lung disease are “very much at risk.”

Dr. Robert Schwaner, medical director of the Department of Emergency Medicine and chief of the Division of Toxicology at Stony Brook University Hospital. Photo from Stony Brook University

Dr. Robert Schwaner, medical director of the Department of Emergency Medicine and chief of the Division of Toxicology at Stony Brook University Hospital, believed the health effects of wildfire smoke could “trickle down for about a week” after the smoke was so thick that it reduced the amount of sunlight reaching the ground.

Amid smoky conditions, people who take medicine for their heart or lungs need to be “very adherent to their medication regimen,” Schwaner said.

Physical symptoms that can crop up after such an event could include wheezing, coughing, chest tightness or breathing difficulties, particularly for people who struggle with asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease.

When patients come to Schwaner with these breathing problems, he asks them if what they are experiencing is “typical of previous exacerbations.” He follows up with questions about what has helped them in the past.

Schwaner is concerned about patients who have had lung damage from COVID-related illness.

The level of vulnerability of those patients, particularly amid future wildfires or air quality events, will “play out over the next couple of years,” he said. Should those who had lung damage from COVID develop symptoms, that population might “need to stay in contact with their physicians.”

It’s unclear whether vulnerabilities from COVID could cause problems for a few years or longer, doctors suggested, although it was worth monitoring to protect the population’s health amid threats from wildfire smoke.

Local doctors were also concerned about symptoms related to eye irritations.

Schwaner doesn’t believe HEPA filters or other air cleansing measures are necessary for the entire population.

People with chronic respiratory illness, however, would benefit from removing particulates from the air, he added.

Wildfire particulates

Dr. Mahdieh Danesh Yazdi, an air pollution expert and environmental epidemiologist from Stony Brook University’s Program in Public Health. Photo from Stony Brook University

Area physicians suggested the particulates from wildfires could be even more problematic than those generated from industrial sources.

Burning biomass releases a range of toxic species into the air, said Dr. Mahdieh Danesh Yazdi, an air pollution expert and environmental epidemiologist from Stony Brook University’s Program in Public Health.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has done a “fairly decent job” of regulating industrial pollution over the last few decades “whereas wildfires have been increasing” amid drier conditions, Yazdi added.

In her research, Yazdi studies the specific particulate matter and gaseous pollutants that constitute air pollution, looking at the rates of cardiovascular and respiratory disease in response to these pollutants.

Mental health effects

Local health care providers recognized that a sudden and lasting orange glow, which blocked the sun and brought an acrid and unpleasant smell of fire, can lead to anxiety, which patients likely dealt with in interactions with therapists.

As for activity in the hospital, Dr. Poonam Gill, director of the Comprehensive Psychiatric Emergency Program at Stony Brook Hospital, said smoke from the wildfires did not cause any change or increase in the inpatient psychiatric patient population.

In addition to the eerie scene, which some suggested appeared apocalyptic, people contended with canceled outdoor events and, for some, the return of masks they thought they had jettisoned at the end of the pandemic.

“We had masks leftover” from the pandemic, and “we made the decision” to use them for an event for his son, said Schwaner.

When Schwaner contracted the delta variant of COVID-19, he was coughing for three to four months, which encouraged him to err on the side of caution with potential exposure to smoke and the suspended particulates that could irritate his lungs.

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Floating humpback whale offshore of Delaware. Photo courtesy the Marine Education, Research & Rehabilitation Institute

This year has been tough for the population of humpback whales, as eight of them from Maine to Florida have had so-called unusual mortality events as at Feb. 7.

Indeed, a 41-foot humpback whale was discovered washed up Jan. 30 at Lido Beach on the South Shore. The whale likely died after a vessel strike, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Officials said.

Threats to whales in the area include getting hit by boats, becoming entangled in fishing lines and ocean noise.

The last of these potential dangers to humpbacks has received considerable attention from some members of the popular press, who have suggested that the process of installing wind farms along the coastline has or may create the kind of noises that can cause trauma to whale ears and that might throw a whale off course in its search for food.

To provide a broader context, unusual mortality events have been occurring for humpback whales since 2016, as 180 have been stranded along East Coast states since that time, according to NOAA data.

Scientists were able to study about half of the total humpback whale strandings from 2016 and attributed about 40% to ship strike or entanglements. The rest either died from starvation, parasites, inconclusive causes, or were in places where it would have been difficult to study and analyze them. 

The combination of whales distracted by feeding and boat traffic has led to some of the deaths.

“Our waterways are one of the busiest on Earth,” said Nomi Dayan, executive director of The Whaling Museum & Education Center of Cold Spring Harbor. “During busy eating months, when they are gorging, it’s harder to pay attention” to what’s around them.

Many of these humpback whale deaths occurred during periods when wind farm activity was low along the Eastern Seaboard.

“What we’re seeing right now [in terms of whale strandings] is something that has been going on for years,” said Lesley Thorne, associate professor in the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University. 

In a press conference last month, officials suggested that the wind farms, which are designed to reduce the reliance on fossil fuels, cut down on carbon emissions and slow global warming, are not likely to make what is already a challenging period for humpbacks even worse.

“At this point, based on the information that we do have, we do not believe the evidence supports that those planned construction activities would exacerbate or compound these ongoing unusual mortality events,” Ben Laws, biologist with NOAA Fisheries Office of Protected Resources, said during a Jan. 18 conference call with reporters.

‘What we’re seeing right now [in terms of whale strandings] is something that has been going on for years.’

— Lesley Thorne

As part of the investigation process, NOAA has brought together an independent team of scientists to coordinate with the Working Group on Marine Mammal Unusual Mortality Events to review data, sample stranded whales and determine the next steps for this investigation.

The scientists include marine mammal stranding network members, academics and veterinarians with local state and federal biologists.

At this point, most of the surveys off the coasts of New York and New Jersey are “characterizing the seafloor and the sub-bottom for engineering purposes for the foundation of offshore wind facilities as well as looking at cable burial risks along that route,” Brian Hooker, marine biologist in the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, said on the press call.

Slower boat speeds

Reducing boat speeds in areas where whales are likely hunting for food or migrating can reduce the likelihood of vessel strikes and, in the event of contact, can improve the outcome for whales.

“What’s been demonstrated in the past is that, with faster vessels, collisions are more likely to occur and it’s more likely for that collision to be fatal,” Thorne said. The specific speeds or thresholds that are more likely to cause fatal collisions vary depending on the whale species.

The whales around Long Island include sei whales, North Atlantic right whales, finback whales, minke whales and, rarely, blue whales, according to Dayan.

Some management strategies for a host of whales such as the North Atlantic right whale include seasonal management areas, in which boats around a particular area during a specific season are required to travel more slowly.

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Pending approval from the village's Board of Trustees, the East Beach bluff, pictured above, could soon undergo significant transformation. File photo by Raymond Janis

As the clubhouse facility at Port Jefferson Country Club dangles precariously upon the edge of the East Beach bluff, coastal engineers are discussing a proper course of action.

Coastal erosion has encroached dangerously near the clubhouse facility which, without intervention, could fall off the cliff within years. The Village of Port Jefferson Board of Trustees is working to curtail the issue in a two-phased effort. Construction of a toe wall at the bottom of the slope began in August and is ongoing [See video, below].

Now the village board is considering its upland options, deciding whether to preserve the clubhouse or retreat inland. One such option is a steel wall, estimated at $3 million, to be installed between the clubhouse and the bluff. [See story, “Port Jeff mayor estimates $3M for upper wall, trustees debate erosion mitigation strategy at village country club.”]

GEI Consultants is a Huntington Station-based consultancy firm that produced the engineering drawings for the upper wall. In a detailed email statement, Rachel Sa, GEI’s director of communications, summarized the plans for the project.

“The proposed wall at the top of the bluff will be effective at preventing further erosion and providing protection around the country club building,” Sa said. “The proposed wall consists of a new anchored steel sheet pile that is greater than 50 feet in vertical length and has been designed for an exposed height of up to 15 feet. The new steel sheet pile will be reinforced with new drilled soil anchors and a continuous wale system.” She added, “The proposed wall at the top of the bluff is, at minimum, designed to wrap around the perimeter of the country club building.”

If approved, the upper wall would be part of an integrated system, designed to work with the lower wall currently under construction at the toe. While critics have cited the limited shelf life of the upper wall, Sa contends the plan represents a long-term solution, even if the bluff erosion continues.

“The proposed Phase I and Phase II stabilization systems have been designed and are being constructed as a long-term solution to the observed erosion of the East Beach bluff,” she said. “If any further erosion does occur, the proposed wall system has the structural and geotechnical capacity to support and protect the country club building.”

But these plans are not without criticism. Ali Farhadzadeh is an assistant professor in the civil engineering department at Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences. He became familiar with the erosion issue near PJCC about a year ago when he and a team of colleagues met with village officials.

Over the last half decade, the East Beach bluff has lost considerable vegetation. Now coastal engineers are evaluating the village’s revegatation plans and how those plantings will work with the proposed upper wall. File photos from the Suffolk County Department of Information Technology, GIS Division

Farhadzadeh said the village is engaged in a two-front effort, with waves striking at the toe as precipitation upland generates substantial surface and internal runoff. While both forms of runoff contribute to the bluff’s erosion, his concerns center on the internal runoff, or water penetrating the soil and exiting through the bluff face. 

“My engineering judgment was that [the bluff erosion at East Beach] is most likely because of the runoff water from the parking lot and the tennis court going to the bluff soil,” he said. “Based on what we see, there is a large parking lot on top, which will generate a lot of runoff. There might be some evidence of erosion from the toe, but based on the pictures of the failure, my engineering judgment tells me that this is happening from the top.”

Sa says GEI’s proposed stabilization initiative adequately addresses these runoff concerns.

“The proposed Phase II project (upper wall) also involves a significant landscaping scope,” she said, adding, “This proposed work involves removing most of the tennis courts and replacing them with soil, native grasses, wildflowers and shrubs. This will significantly reduce the amount of impermeable surface, improve site drainage, and therefore help reduce runoff over the top edge of the bluff.”

Farhadzadeh acknowledges that the revegetation work will slow the erosion of the slope. However, the internal runoff penetrating through the bluff face will likely continue, leading to continued loosening of the soil and further failure of the cliff.

“These are going to extensively improve the situation,” the SBU assistant professor said, referring to the proposed plantings. “If you do that implementation, if you take care of the surface erosion, the toe erosion and also the internal erosion, that steel structure could stabilize the soil — basically stopping the soil underneath the structure from moving naturally. But if the failure continues, then the wall itself is going to fail.”

‘The proposed steel sheet pile walls will address potentially detrimental permeability conditions at the locations where they are installed.’

— Rachel Sa

Responding to this argument, Sa believes that the vegetation work will be sufficient to prevent further erosion, citing this approach as standard industry practice. 

“The proposed steel sheet pile walls will address potentially detrimental permeability conditions at the locations where they are installed,” she said. “It is common practice to use steel sheet pile structures to address these types of conditions — for example, constructing cofferdams to facilitate the dry construction of normally submerged structures/repairs. The remainder of the bluff slope will be protected against permeability conditions with the proposed vegetation and stabilization measures noted above.”

Given how close the clubhouse has come to the bluff’s edge, the village government is working with a sense of urgency. Mayor Margot Garant has stated that if the Board of Trustees favors the upper wall option, she would like to move forward quickly with a vote.

Farhadzadeh prefers a trial-and-error approach over rapid intervention. According to him, it would be wise for the village to install the vegetation and other mitigation measures, evaluate their efficacy in conjunction with the toe wall, and reassess the upper wall plans at a later time.

“From an engineering perspective, it doesn’t make sense to be rushing to the wall and building without making sure the recession [of the bluff] is reduced,” he said. “The wall is not going to stop the recession. The recession is going to be stopped by removing the water from the soil.”

On the other hand, Sa considers the upper wall a necessary measure that would act as a buffer to shield the clubhouse from further erosion. “In the event of areas of further erosion at the top of the bluff, the proposed wall will retain the soils beneath and around the country club building and protect this structure from the potential effects of this erosion,” she said.

‘The fact is you should stay away from the edge of the bluff.’ — Ali Farhadzadeh

In contrast to the upper wall plan, the village board is also contemplating whether to demolish the clubhouse and relocate the facility inland. Farhadzadeh prefers retreating away from the bluff.

“The fact is you should stay away from the edge of the bluff,” he said. “Based on what I’ve seen, it is probably too risky to maintain the existing facility.”

Sa disagrees with this assessment. Citing the village’s internal cost projections, she views the upper wall proposal as a cost-sensitive, viable alternative to managed retreat.

“The village is considering retreat/removal and replacement of the country club building at another inland location,” she said. “Rough initial estimates indicate that this may not be economically feasible. Therefore, GEI’s geotechnical engineers conducted bluff slope stability analyses and developed the double wall system as the best alternative given the site constraints.”

The village board will reconvene for a morning meeting on Monday, Oct. 17, at 9 a.m. Further discussion on the upper wall is anticipated during that meeting.

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Photo courtesy of Chris Ryon

A flag once flown outside of the post office in the former Echo area of Upper Port has been returned to Port Jefferson and now resides at the Village Center.

The flag is unique in that it contains only 46 stars. It had flown outside the Echo post office between 1908 and 1912. Chris Ryon, village historian, charted the timeline of the 46-star flag. 

“The 46-star flag came about when Oklahoma became a state in 1907,” Ryon said. “The following July Fourth in 1908 produced the 46-star flag, as stars are always added to the flag on July Fourth. In 1912, it jumped from 46 to 48 stars because two more states were added, Arizona and New Mexico. That flag lasted until Hawaii and Alaska were added in the late ‘50s.”

Before the present boundaries, “the post office was right up against the railroad tracks in Upper Port Jefferson,” Ryon said. “That area was called Echo — Echo was a racehorse and that’s what it was named after. The post office was the building on the right when you crossed over the railroad tracks into Port Jefferson Station. That building is still there, but it’s an empty building right now.”

On April 10, Lee Squires Sussman and her son Grayson Sussman Squires met with Ryon to exchange the flag. “This has been in the family and has been passed down through the generations,” Ryon said. “She decided it belonged back in Port Jefferson.” 

A journey through time

Last week, TBR News Media reached out to Lee Squires Sussman for an exclusive interview. Through our correspondence with her, which included a phone interview and an email exchange, she detailed her genealogical background and her family’s place in the local history of Port Jefferson.

“I grew up outside of Washington D.C.,” she said. “My father, Donald Fleming Squires, was the deputy director of the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History when I was a child. When I was 12, we moved back to Long Island, to Stony Brook, because my dad had decided that he really wanted to get back to his roots, and back to science, not administration.” She added that by returning to Long Island, her father sought “to give back to his home community, so he went to work for Stony Brook University.”

In 1965 Donald Squires helped found SBU’s Marine Sciences Research Center, the predecessor of today’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences. A renowned marine biologist, he wrote several books investigating the waters outside of New York City and Long Island. “Interestingly enough, as a sidenote, when we moved back to Stony Brook, we moved into a rental house while we looked for a place to permanently live,” Sussman said. “That house was a house that my other great-grandfather, Harry Fleming, built in Stony Brook.” She added, “We really were going back to our roots.”

Village historian Chris Ryon, left, with Lee Squires Sussman, right, and her son Grayson Sussman Squires, middle. Photo courtesy of Chris Ryon

A family keepsake

“My great-grandfather was Charles A. Squires and he was the original owner of the flag,” Sussman said. “It flew outside the post office at Echo, New York. Following his retirement, my granduncle, Dwight Squires, took over as postmaster. When he retired, my understanding is that my great-grandfather had left it with my Uncle Dwight.” 

At some point in time, Dwight had given the flag to Sussman’s grandfather, Charles W. Squires. Charles W. held onto the flag into his mid-90s and passed it along to her father, Donald. When Donald moved to Tasmania, he gave the family artifacts to her.

“All of the pictures, the certificates, the family Bible, the flag and all of that came to me when my dad moved overseas,” Sussman said. “I’ve had [the flag] stored in my living room in a sea chest that has also been passed down through the family.” 

After years of storing the flag, she started considering what to do with this family memento. During the COVID-19 pandemic, a high school friend had referred her to Ryon. The two got in touch and agreed to meet in Port Jefferson to exchange the flag. 

“I have five Squires-related children,” Sussman said. “I discussed with the kids what to do with some of these possessions. We all agreed that the flag would be best back home where it could be viewed. It really was just a matter of finding the right time to get out to Long Island and get it to Chris so that he can display it for Port Jefferson.”

Squires legacy

At around the time when Sussman began having children, she and her father took up a deep interest in the Squires family history. Her father contacted Tiger Gardiner, author of “The South Fork Squires, Long Island, New York.”

“I would say her life’s work was the genealogy of the Squires family,” Sussman said. “She documents the Squires from really early on in Long Island. When my dad left me all of the photographs and items when he went overseas, that’s when I started getting involved in the Squires family research. It was very easy because I had all of the stuff.”

Sussman described the pride of continuing this Squires tradition, documenting and sharing her genealogy for future generations. When asked how she would like the Squires to be remembered, she said for their hard work, altruism and outlook on education, which she said were central to their system of values.

“The values that the Squires family brought to me were that public service and hard work are the foundations for success,” she said. “There were times when members of my family had money and there were times when members of my family lost all their money. When money was tight, they offered help and shelter to people who were less fortunate.”

Sussman also recalled the renovations made to her grandfather’s house to accommodate and shelter the needy, adding, “During the Depression, the attic had been made into two apartments and the basement had been made into two other apartments where people who were less fortunate lived. Those values really sunk in for all of us and they’re very clearly part of what made my family members click.”

Civic engagement and public service also mattered deeply. “They were very involved in their community and they also never quit exploring,” she said. “Those are things that are a gift to any community, beyond philanthropic gifts — a sense of pride in your local surroundings and a willingness to help.”

Sussman said her family members were acutely aware of the significance of education and passed down this value to their offspring.

“History is so much bigger than us all. It doesn’t do anyone any good to leave it in a box in the house.” — Lee Squires Sussman

Photo courtesy of Chris Ryon

“There was a sign that was printed in my great-grandfather’s printing shop in Echo that we had a copy of in our house,” she said. “I gave one to Chris. It says ‘We study to please,’ which was an old-fashioned way of saying the more modern ‘we aim to please.’” Interpreting the meaning of this sign to her, she said, “To me this was always an indicator of how important study was to my family.”

Today, the Squires family flag hangs inside the Village Center. Reflecting upon her joy in seeing the flag once again on display for the residents of Port Jefferson, Sussman said, “History is so much bigger than us all. It doesn’t do anyone any good to leave it in a box in the house. This makes me incredibly happy. I’ve shed more tears over the pictures of that flag hanging in the Village Center than I can believe. It makes me incredibly happy to see it back home.”

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The Thompson House sustained flooding in East Setauket. Photo from WMHO

With Hurricane Ida taking lives and causing destruction from Louisiana to New York, New Jersey and Connecticut, some scientists see longer term patterns reflected in the power and destruction of this storm.

Kevin Reed, associate professor at the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University, said a group of experts on the topic are working on research related to the climate impacts on Ida. No specific timeline is set for such an analysis, which would be similar to what the World Weather Attribution initiative is doing.

“It’s more and more clear that there’s some connection” between a warmer climate and more severe storms,” Reed said. The sooner scientists can make that link, the “more impactful and useful” any such statements or determinations could be.

While Reed hasn’t done any formal research yet on Ida, he has considered some of the specific aspects of this storm.

Rainfall rates of over 3 inches per hour, which set a record in Central Park, are “what you would expect in terms of climate impact.”

Previous modeling work indicates that increasing global temperatures raise the likelihood of extreme rainfall.

Reed hopes researchers can build methodologies and refine their approaches to apply what they know about climate to severe weather events like Ida, which command attention as they approach, once they make landfall and, in their aftermath, as cities and states rebuild.

What’s clear from some of the work he’s done is that “climate change is not a long-off problem, it’s already changing storms” in terms of the amount and intensity of rainfall.

The recent Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report emphasized that climate change is increasing the rainfall from storms.

Reed suggested it would help in terms of prevention and planning to develop ways to refine the understanding of the link between climate change and storms.

Researchers should “produce this type of information, almost at the same frequency as weather forecasts.”

Larger storms have become a topic on people’s minds in part because disruptive weather events like hurricanes Ida (2021), Laura (2020), Dorian (2019), Florence (2018), Harvey (2017) and Matthew (2016) seem to happen so much more frequently.

Scientists are continuing to try to “quantify the impact” of how the characteristics of an event might have changed because of a warmer climate, Reed said.

Research has been evolving to address society’s most pressing and urgent questions.

Indeed, climate change can and likely has contributed to heavier snowfall events, despite the broader trend towards warmer temperatures.

Some scientists have linked the melting of Arctic ice to the weakening of the polar vortex, enabling colder air to come south toward the continental United States and, in particular, the Eastern Seaboard.

The impacts from climate change are “going to get larger and more significant,” Reed said. “We have an opportunity to mitigate that. If we reduce our emissions the world will warm by half a degree to a degree. That still is offsetting potentially disastrous impacts of going beyond that.”

Recognizing the impact of climate change is a necessary step in reducing the likelihood of future extreme and variable weather events.

The kind of changes necessary for a sustainable future “takes leadership at the national and international level,” Reed said.

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Scientists, like those who work out of the Stony Brook University School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences’ Marine Sciences Center, are constantly asking questions, as the desire grows to find links between correlation and causation. File photo

Researchers often desire more data to help make the distinction between correlation — it rained the last three Tuesdays — and causation — dumping nitrogen into the lake caused the growth of algae that robbed the lake of oxygen.

Scientists don’t like to get ahead of their information, preferring to take the painstaking steps of going that extra mile to control for as many mitigating or confounding variables as they can.

Researchers are often “reluctant to say with certainty that they are correct,” Larry Swanson, the interim dean of the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University said.

This hesitation to indicate a certain conclusion can raise challenges for politicians, who would like to rely on scientific proof in developing plans for their constituents.

“Policy people want to create a law or regulation that is definitive and will have the desired outcome,” Swanson added.

File photo.

Since he began working in and around Long Island waters in 1960, he started his work collecting data at wetlands around New Haven, and has since studied hypoxia — the process through which oxygen levels are depleted in waterways.

Swanson urges a more extensive collection of data around Long Island.

“I believe we need to monitor the physical environment for changes not just for time series data, such as temperature, but in order to understand how ecological processes are being altered as a consequence of warming,” Swanson said.

Henry Bokuniewicz, a distinguished service professor of oceanography at Stony Brook, said there was a coastline monitoring program in place in 1995 after nor’easters and hurricanes in 1992, but that the effort petered out.

“This should be re-established if [New York State is] serious about coastal impact of shoreline changes,” he said.

Bokuniewicz also suggests measuring and recording waves that are close to shore, and water levels at the ocean coast and interior bays.

Stony Brook had an initiative for additional hires in a cluster for coastal engineering and management, but never completed the hires for budgetary reasons, Bokuniewicz said. “We could do much better with a new generation of scientists dedicated to the Long Island shore,” he said.

Scientists acknowledge that the study of climate change rarely involves establishing the kind of linear connection between action and reaction that turning up the thermostat in a house would provide.

Scientists distinguish between the weather — is it raining today, tomorrow or next week — and the climate — how does March in New York compare to March in North Carolina?

File photo

The climate, generally, remains consistent with a long-term outlook, even if Long Island might experience an unseasonably hot July, an unusually cool September and a heavier-than-normal snowfall in December.

With climate change, scientists collect as much data as they can to determine how the climate is shifting. That presents significant challenges: how do researchers pick data to feed into their models and the patterns to explore?

The broader trend in March could be that spring starts earlier, extending the growing season and creating opportunities for insects, plants or animals to affect the habitat. That could be slightly different this year, amid a cold snap that lasts more than a few days, or in the wake of an unexpected blizzard days before spring.

Indeed, until, and even after there is a scientific consensus, researchers debate long into the night about their interpretations, conclusions and simulation models.

More often than not, scientists crave more information to help them interpret evolving conditions.

“While we know in general why hypoxia will be bad, we can’t really predict it,” Swanson said. “When will it start? How long will it last? This is because we do not understand all the processes — things like the role of bacteria, phytoplankton and the blooming processes and water circulation.”

Science, as it turns out, is often more about collecting more information to ask better questions and developing more precise theories.

As researchers often point out, they can be wrong for the right reasons and right for the wrong ones, all of which, they hope, helps them understand more about the inevitable next set of questions. And, as scientists have offered, it’s a never-ending discussion, as the best answers lead to more questions.

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Daniel Madigan with a yellowfin tuna. Photo by Maile Madigan

When Daniel Madigan is out working, he sometimes has no access to a computer, an iPhone or email and that’s just fine by him. Instead of searching for parking spaces, waiting for traffic lights and standing in line at a grocery store, he rocks back and forth on the ocean, seeking answers to questions deep below the surface.

An NSF postdoctoral fellow at the School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences at Stony Brook University, Madigan said the typical month he has spent over the last four years on the Pacific Ocean has given him a “sense that this is where I want to be. You see something you’ve never seen before, every time.”

He’s watched a killer whale feeding on tuna and has witnessed a school of yellowtail jack beating with their tails on a blue shark. Fin whales, killer whales and blue whales have dotted the landscape on his research trips.

Recently, Madigan completed work on a study of tuna. Knowing that the bluefin tuna has a metabolism that enables it to remain warmer in colder waters than the albacore and yellowfin tuna, Madigan explored whether the bluefin’s greater range gave it a more varied diet.

It turns out that the bluefin is more selective than its more temperature-limited tuna cousins. “We expected a broader habitat use would lead to more access to more food,” Madigan said. “That would be a straightforward benefit to the expansion they get” from being warm-bodied.

In a way, this finding also “makes sense,” he said, because fish that can “access more space can also pick the best thing to specialize in.” The bluefin can not only dive deeper but it can also travel further north to colder waters.

Bluefin tuna face considerable competition for sardines, a primary food source. Humans also consume this fish, and it is a staple of aquaculture-raised fish. Competition for sardines leads to questions about ecosystem-based management.

“When people form policies, they want to know things like, ‘If we limit the sardines in the ocean, how many metric tons of bluefin tuna will that save us?” Madigan asked. “If you can’t give those answers, it becomes more difficult to make concrete estimates.”

At this point, Madigan and other scientists are still in the recognition rather than the implementation stage, which means researchers are developing a greater awareness of the dynamic between the preferred foods for bluefin and measures such as the fish’s fertility and growth rates.

To be sure, Madigan said the population of these warmer-bodied tuna were unlikely to go into deep decline amid a drop in the number of sardines because the bluefin can feed on whatever is abundant to survive.

Still, understanding the life history of these fish with different habitat ranges can enable scientists and policy makers to recognize the complexity of interactions in the marine ecosystem, as well as any possible effect of fisheries policies.

Sardines, anchovy and herring are considered forage fish, which are used in aquaculture and are also popular with sharks, seabirds and marine mammals.

To track the fish in the study, Madigan and his colleagues collected all three types of tuna, put tags on them, sent them back in the ocean and retrieved and downloaded the information from the tags.

Heidi Dewar, a fisheries research biologist at NOAA’s Southwest Fisheries Science Center in California who has worked with Madigan for six years, described her colleague as an “innovator.” She praised Madigan’s work with chemical tracers to understand large-scale migrations. Madigan has used the nuclear accident in Fukushima, Japan, to quantify the migration of bluefin tuna from west to east. His work can have a “long-term application,” she added.

Dewar agreed that working on and in the ocean provides opportunities to make new discoveries. “There is nothing like getting up close and personal with sharks, giant bluefin tuna, manta rays or opah,” Dewar described. “Unlocking the mysteries of their various adaptations either using electronic tags or by examining their physiology and morphology makes me feel like an early explorer mapping new territory.”

Madigan, who grew up in Garden City, lives in Port Jefferson with his wife Maile, who is a school administrator for a charter school in Riverhead.

Madigan said the broader goal for his research is that “these animals will still be here in 100, 200 years” and will be in “even greater numbers and surviving to even greater sizes.”

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