Ward Melville (now 4-0) traveled to Miller Place (0-4) for a girls tennis match Sept. 17. The Patriots beat the Miller Place Panthers 7-0.
Ward Melville defeats Miller Place in girls tennis
Yearly Archives: 2018
Book review: ‘Inside Mommy’s Tummy’
Reviewed by Sabrina Petroski
Have you ever wondered what it was like inside the womb before you were born? In Beth Rosiello’s first children’s book, “Inside Mommy’s Tummy” (Dorrance Publishing), you can find out! With fun anecdotes from the point of view of the baby, and colorful photographs and animations, this book is a wonderfully creative way to get the inside scoop.
“Inside Mommy’s Tummy,” meant for children ages 3 to 8, transports the reader into the world of the baby before they are born; what they hear and who talks to them. Since the story is based on her family, Rosiello includes pictures of the parents, siblings, grandparents and even the family dog! We follow the pregnancy from start to finish, finding out the gender of the baby, what the nursery looks like and the experience of birth.
In a recent interview, the Centereach author gave some insight on how the book came about and the process of getting it published.
Tell me about yourself.
I’ve been married to my husband Frank for 32 years. We have two boys, Matt and Steven, and two grandchildren, Sean and Brianna. I’m into a lot of different things creatively speaking — crocheting, crafting, sewing, reading and writing and I love spending time with my family and friends. Currently I am semiretired.
What were your favorite books growing up?
I would sit for hours reading all kinds of books but my favorite were the Nancy Drew mystery series.
Why did you write this children’s book?
I have always wanted to write children’s books but just never had the time. I wanted to do something special for my granddaughter and that’s how this came about.
How did your family react when you told them you had an idea for a book?
My family was very supportive of my book. I actually wrote it first and then told them about it. They all loved the idea and were very proud of me.
Why did you choose to write a story from the point of view of a baby ?
I didn’t so much choose this as it just came to me. I woke up in the middle of the night with the idea and thought it would make a great book from the baby’s point of view.
Are the people in the story based on real people?
Yes, it was written around my granddaughter, Brianna, but it incorporates my whole family.
How did you go about getting the book published?
I sent the book to a couple of different publishers — I never realized there were self-publishers as well as regular book publishers. I should have done more research. I apparently went with a self-publisher, so it did cost me a lot to get it published, but I’m still glad it’s out there.
What was it like working with a publisher?
The process was easy; they helped me every step of the way, answered my questions and were there if I needed them.
How did you come up with idea to use real pictures?
The drawings just weren’t working out. I even tried using an app to convert the pictures to drawings, but they weren’t working.
What was it like receiving your first copy of the book?
It was totally amazing. I was in heaven and so proud of the book.
Where is the book available?
The book is available online at Amazon and Barnes & Noble.
What advice would you give to someone who wants to write a book?
I would say go for it if you have a bucket list and writing is on it. I did and I couldn’t be happier. It is very satisfying to do something like this even if you only do it once. At least you can say you did it and got it published. Not everyone can say that.
Smithtown releases draft study into building organic waste facility
Town officials trying to plan for Brookhaven landfill’s closure, evaluate potential odor issue and site locations
The Town of Smithtown is hoping to find a fertile concept for budding plans to build an organic waste processing facility, one that town officials hope might mitigate a potential Long Island trash crisis.
“We are looking in that direction as well as a number of other directions because there will come a point, not just in Smithtown but on Long Island, where municipalities are going to have to deal with solid waste once the Brookhaven landfill closes,” Supervisor Ed Wehrheim (R) said.
“…[T]here will come a point, not just in Smithtown but on Long Island, where municipalities are going to have to deal with solid waste once the Brookhaven landfill closes.
— Ed Wehrheim
The town received $187,000 from the New York State Energy Research and Development Agency to undertake a study starting in 2015 on the impacts of indoor organic waste processing facilities, one that takes items like food waste and grass clippings and turns it into compost. Wehrheim said many Suffolk County municipalities are creating contingency plans should the Town of Brookhaven’s plans to close its landfill come to fruition. Brookhaven Supervisor Ed Romaine (R) has said it could close in less than a decade.
Suffern-based SCS Engineers partnered with Smithtown officials to release the draft study Sept. 13 with the intention to draft a zoning ordinance that would allow for its construction. Town code does not currently allow for any composting or organic waste facility.
“This is a scoping meeting to look at all the aspects of it and, at some point, the town board will make a decision whether or not we want to have the use of a facility like that put into the town code,” Wehrheim said. “We’re just trying to get out in front of it now so that eight or nine years down the road we will have a remedy for it to take care of our solid waste.”
Wehrheim said one location the town is considering using is Power Crush Inc. gravel supplier on Old Northport Road in Kings Park. The property’s owner, Toby Carlson, presentedthe town board with a conceptual plan for constructing such a facility in 2014.
The 280-page report suggests a number of sites for the plant. These include: the northwestern corner of Commack and southwestern corner of Kings Park, adjacent to Sunken Meadow State Parkway; the east side of Commack along Route 25/Jericho Turnpike; the southern side of Kings Park; and the southwestern corner of St. James.
There are a number of potential environmental and quality-of-life hazards stemming from indoor organic waste processing facilities, according to the draft study, including odor, groundwater impacts, air emissions, traffic and dust.
“These facilities are part of their particular community, they try to take the material that’s out there and recycle it into products that most of us use.”
— Gregory McCarron
In an internet-based survey of 28 facilities as part of the town’s study, half of the plants had received odor complaints, 11 percent noise complaints, 7 percent cited dust objections and 4 percent alleged traffic grievances. Yet, a nearly equal number of facilities said they had not received any such complaints from the local populace. Another 11 percent refused to provide any details about any complaints.
“All these facilities don’t want these problems, they don’t want unexpected events,” Gregory McCarron, the vice president of SCS Engineers, said. “These facilities are part of their particular community, they try to take the material that’s out there and recycle it into products that most of us use.”
To try to mitigate complaints and accidents, organic waste facilities have a number of management practices they employ. These may include building and maintaining vegetable buffers to allay dust issues or scheduling deliveries to lessen traffic issues.
Nearly half of the indoor organic waste processing facilities that responded to Smithtown’s survey said they use some type of air treatment system. In addition, 81 percent reported they have specific facility design-related methods to reduce odor.
“The [best management practices] are certainly effective in mitigating, at least to some extent, those impacts,” Allyson Murray, an environmental planner for Smithtown, said.
In the course of the study, Murray visited three organic waste processing facilities in North America. The most modern facility she visited was in Toronto, Canada, which operated as an anaerobic digester. Typical composting is aerobic, meaning it uses bacteria that require air to help break down the organic waste. Modern anaerobic composting uses airless containers in both wet and dry environments. Murray said she smelled very little odor on location and the noise was kept to a minimum.
“We always do things patchwork on Long Island. I think we need a more holistic approach.”
— Adrienne Esposito
“It’s a different kind of technology — the kinds of impacts are of a different kind,” Murray said.
Linda Henninger, the president of the Kings Park Civic Organization, attended a Sept. 13 meeting held at Smithtown Town Hall to inform local civic groups about the potential organic waste facility. She said that because the idea is still in its early stages she will keep Kings Park residents up to date on any potential hazards.
“Our mission is to look out for the people in our community,” Henninger said. “We’re continuing to educate ourselves on the issue.”
Adrienne Esposito, the executive director of the environmental advocacy group Citizens Campaign for the Environment, questioned why there are not larger conversations happening on the county or state level to determine just how many facilities Long Island requires and where would be the best location for one.
“In the next few years, every person on Long Island will have to know where our garbage goes,” she said. “We always do things patchwork on Long Island. I think we need a more holistic approach.”
Murray said the town plans to release the final version of the survey by the end of 2018.
WMHO hosts annual Scarecrow Competition
Time to make a scarecrow
The Ward Melville Heritage Organization is currently accepting submissions for its annual Scarecrow Competition. This will be the 28th year the spooky, silly, scary six-foot creations will adorn the pathways of picturesque Stony Brook Village Center for visitors to enjoy and vote for their favorite.
Official entry forms will be available in most Stony Brook Village Center shops, at the offices of WMHO at 111 Main St., second floor, in Stony Brook or online at www.stonybrookvillage.com. Categories are divided into Previous 1st place winner/Professional, Adult/Family and Children’s. Registration deadline is Sept. 28 and there is an entry fee of $15. Winners will be announced at WMHO’s annual Halloween Festival on Oct. 31.
Visitors to the Stony Brook Village Center shops have the opportunity to cast their vote for their favorite scarecrow during the month of October. Voting ballots will be available in all Village Center shops and eateries or at the WMHO office. For full information on this and other Stony Brook Village events, call 631-751-2244.
Life Lines: A little-known phylum is full of surprises
By Elof Axel Carlson
Biologists classify living things using a system that Carl Linnaeus (1707–1778) introduced in the 18th century and that has grown in detail over the decades as new forms of life are found and studied. Humans are familiar with being vertebrates (a class of the phylum Chordata). Chordates are animals with a spinal cord, spine or an embryonic structure called a notochord. There are 55,000 chordate species. So far there are 109 phyla covering plants, animals, protozoa, fungi, bacteria and archaea, which are less precisely organized into kingdoms and domains.
One phylum, first discovered in 1883, consisted of just one species until recently. These are the Placozoa (placo = flat and zoa = animal). They are small (about an eighth of an inch or 1 mm) and are roughly disc shaped with three layers. The top layer has cells with a hairlike thread called a cilium. The bottom layer is also ciliated but has additional cells that take in food from the ocean muck on which the placozoa live. The middle layer has amebalike cells and fiber-bearing cells that contract, making the placozoa lumpy in appearance.
They reproduce by forming a bud that enlarges and eventually pinches off to produce identical twins. In laboratories, some of the placozoa produce sex cells (sperm and eggs), but these rarely survive the embryonic stage with about 150 cells at the time they die. No such embryos are found in samples of ocean sediments where placozoa dwell. Their DNA has been analyzed and it shows they have a past history of doubling their gene number and rearranging the sequences of their genes as they have moved about the oceans for more than 500 million years.
Today three species are recognized from samplings around the world. They have about 12,000 genes and portions of these they share with sponges (the phylum Porifera) and comb jellies (the phylum Ctenophora).
Note that the placozoa do not have organized tissues (we have epithelial, muscular, connective and nervous tissues), a basic symmetry (we have a bilateral or left and right sides that are roughly mirror images) or body organs (we have kidneys, lungs, internal bones and eyes, ears, a nose and mouth). They have no nerve cells, muscle cells, bony structure, intestines or sense organs.
What makes the placozoa interesting to biologists in this molecular era is the opportunity to compare the genomes of related phyla and see what genes they have to work out a molecular tree similar to the trees of life that have been worked out by comparative anatomists since Darwin’s theory of evolution provided a model of how to organize life. They represent the launching state of life before the familiar phyla of sponges, worms and more complex phyla appear in the fossil records.
Most of the familiar phyla appear in the Cambrian era about 500 million years ago, and the placozoa are first seen in rocks designated as Ediacaran, which existed 100 million years earlier. Rocks can be dated by isotopes present in atoms that have decayed over the millennia.
Of future interest will be identifying genes in later phyla and genes in placozoa and how they function in these different organizations of life. Also, it will be interesting to follow the genes in placozoa and in their ancestors back to protozoa in the animal kingdom. As interesting as placozoa are, they are too small to be adopted as pets in saltwater aquariums and hard to differentiate without a lens from the muck that accumulates in a fish tank.
Elof Axel Carlson is a distinguished teaching professor emeritus in the Department of Biochemistry and Cell Biology at Stony Brook University.
Vanderbilt Museum notes 75th anniversary of the sinking of the Alva
William K. Vanderbilt II (1878–1944) spent years dreaming of and designing his 264-foot yacht Alva. The luxurious ship, named after his mother, Alva Vanderbilt Belmont, was custom built at the Krupp-Germaniawerft shipyard in Kiel, Germany, on a design by Cox & Stephens. It was powered by two diesel engines with an auxiliary electric motor. Top speed was 16 knots.
On Aug. 5, the Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum marked the 75th anniversary of the yacht’s wartime service and recalled its tragic sinking on Aug. 5, 1943.
Aboard the Alva, steaming out of Kiel on March 5, 1931, William and Rosamond Vanderbilt began the ship’s inaugural voyage from Europe to Miami and then New York. The trip was preparation for their epic seven-month circumnavigation of the globe that began in July of that year. During the voyage, Vanderbilt collected marine life, invertebrates and cultural artifacts for his Centerport museum.
Ten years, later, just before the United States entered World War II, President Franklin D. Roosevelt asked yacht owners to donate their boats to the U.S. Navy. Vanderbilt answered the call.
Photo from Vanderbilt Museum
On Nov. 4, 1941, a month before the attack on Pearl Harbor, he gave the Alva to the Navy, which converted it to a patrol gunboat. The ship was renamed the USS Plymouth (PG 57).
The Vanderbilt family had served in every major conflict since the War of 1812. In 1917, William Vanderbilt was commissioned as a lieutenant commander in the U.S. Naval Reserve. From May 9 to Oct. 1, 1917, he patrolled U.S. coastal waters in his ship Tarantula II.
The following details of the Alva’s life as the USS Plymouth are from the Vanderbilt Museum archives and from Uboat.net, a history website based in Iceland with contributing writers from Germany, the United States, Canada and Europe:
On April 20, 1942, the Plymouth was commissioned and based in Norfolk, Virginia. Assigned to the Inshore Patrol Squadron in the 5th Naval District, she made several convoy escort voyages between New York, Key West and Guantanamo, Cuba, during 1942-43.
On the evening of Aug. 5, 1943, the Plymouth was escorting a ship convoy 120 miles southeast of Cape Henry, Virginia. The ship’s sonar gear alerted the captain and crew of underwater movement in the vicinity. Moments later, the Plymouth was spotted in the periscope of U-566, a German submarine. The sub launched a torpedo at 9:37 p.m.
“The gunboat had made an underwater sound contact while escorting a coastal convoy,” the Uboat.net entry reported. “Just as the ship swung left to bear on the target, she was struck just abaft the bridge. The ship rolled first to starboard, then took a heavy list to port with the entire port side forward of amidships in flames and sank within two minutes.”
Of the Plymouth’s 179 officers and men, only 84 survived. They were picked up in heavy seas by the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Calypso and arrived in Norfolk on Aug. 6.
The commander, Lt. Ormsby M. Mitchel Jr., was thrown violently against a bulkhead by the explosion. He sustained serious injuries, which later required amputation of his left leg. Despite his own condition, he directed abandon-ship operations and remained at his post until the ship went down. Mitchel was awarded the Navy Cross for extraordinary heroism.
Learn more about the Alva and William K. Vanderbilt’s other yachts by visiting the mansion’s Ship Model Room at the Suffolk County Vanderbilt Museum, 180 Little Neck Road in Centerport. Fall hours through Nov. 4 are Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Tuesday from noon to 5 p.m. For more information, call 631-854-5579.
Miller Place school district completes solar energy system installation
Miller Place school district is trying to do its part to reduce its carbon footprint by embracing renewable energy sources.
The district announced Sept. 17 it had completed the installation of solar panels in each of its four school buildings, which are capable of supplying the district with 1.3 megawatts of solar energy, according to a district press release. The initiative was part of the district’s ongoing energy conservation plan, which was announced in 2014 as part of an energy performance contract approved by the board of education. The system was fully operational as of the start of the 2018-19 school year earlier this month. The system is expected to save the district about $240,000 annually in energy costs, which the district plans to reallocate to other expenses and capital improvements, according to the release.
“This investment is a testament to the district’s forward-thinking financial philosophy and will help reduce the community’s carbon footprint,” Superintendent Marianne Cartisano said in a statement. “This is something to be celebrated and we are incredibly excited that this initiative has now come to fruition.”
To quantify the energy and cost savings and to add an educational component to the system, the district has installed monitors in the front lobby of each building that will show the amount of energy the solar panels are producing at any given time, the release said. In addition to depicting the number of kilowatt-hours the system has generated, the monitors will also display the system’s environmental benefits — including the amount of electricity no longer needed to power the building and the amount of carbon monoxide no longer emitted into the environment.
“Implementing solar panels was part of the board of education’s long-term strategy to reduce costs, make the district’s facilities more eco-friendly and do our part to enhance the Miller Place community,” board President Johanna Testa said in a statement. “The board of education is committed to facilitating and organizing opportunities that will improve our district’s facilities and our students’ educational experiences. The solar energy system is one that we are thrilled to announce, and we look forward to experiencing the many benefits that this energy program will provide our district and our community.”
The project will cost about $5.4 million including interest over the 18-year span of the lease agreement with Johnson Controls.
Port Jeff brainstorming options for power plant post-LIPA settlement
The Village of Port Jefferson is soon putting a lengthy legal battle with Long Island Power Authority in its rearview mirror, though the future of the property that houses Port Jefferson Power Station is still on the road ahead.
Bob Foxen, chief executive officer of Global Common LLC, a company dedicated to establishing energy partnerships and projects beneficial to its clients, was contracted by the village to study alternative future uses for the site. He presented options to the village board of trustees during a brainstorming session at a public meeting Sept. 17.
“I guess the goal is to try, to the degree possible, to make the people of Port Jefferson whole, or close to whole, assuming they lose some tax revenue,” Foxen said during his presentation.
Village Mayor Margot Garant expressed an interest for the village to formulate a plan of action for the site.
“Once we have our tax grievance settlement behind us, or we know that we’re at kind of a pause, the next question is ‘Now what?’” she said. “We want to advocate for a repurposing of the site to keep us viable on the grid.”
The village is among the municipalities preparing to imminently announce settlement terms with LIPA to resolve near-decade-long litigation regarding the property tax assessment of the plant, which the utility has argued is too high based on decreasing energy demand. Port Jeff has advocated for the refurbishment and repowering of its baseload plant to update its decades-old technology and to justify the property’s tax assessment.
By 2027, the power purchase agreement between LIPA and National Grid expires, and to resolve the tax certiorari challenges, LIPA negotiated with the village a nine-year “glide path” for tax revenue reductions to coincide with the agreement expiration, according to village attorney Brian Egan. The glide path includes gradual percentage reductions in assessed valuation on the property, deeming baseload repowering an unlikely future outcome. In addition, Caithness Energy LLC’s 2014 plans to construct a new 600-megawatt plant in Yaphank were revived temporarily by Town of Brookhaven’s town board this past summer, though the expiration of the company’s special-use permit for the site has put the plans back in doubt. If constructed, the Yaphank plant would further cloud the future of the Port Jeff plant.
Foxen admitted the options he brought ready to present during the meeting were dependent on Caithness II never getting off the ground, an outcome that is very much in doubt. The options also consider New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s (D) stated goal from 2016 that 50 percent of the state’s power come from renewable sources by 2030.
The consultant suggested turning the site into a 200- to 300-megawatt plant powered by peaking units or smaller energy generation systems capable of firing up only in times of high demand, as its best option. The units operate using gas or liquid fuel, though they are viewed as efficient supplements to renewable energy sources like wind and solar, which can’t handle demand on their own.
“I think it does help support renewables,” Foxen said of peaking unit plants, adding that financing the work needed to repurpose the site in this way would be hard to establish without a new power purchasing agreement with LIPA. Village officials are set to meet Sept. 20 with representatives from private Finnish company Wartsila to discuss the feasibility of installing peaking unit technology at the Port Jeff plant.
Foxen’s other brainstormed options included establishing the village as a municipal electrical utility, meaning it would assume control of energy distribution from the plant to customers to power homes, though he called the option costly and time consuming; and taking over energy distribution and limiting it to private customers at a reduced rate for businesses in specific industries that have high-energy demand, like data storage centers, for example, which could even be housed on the vacant site.
“It would be kind of an interesting magnet for a data center or somebody like that — saving money on energy might be a draw,” Foxen said.
Royals drop close game to Wyandanch
Wyandanch traveled to Earl L. Vandermeulen High School Sept. 15 and defeated Port Jefferson on the football field 26-23. The Royals have opened the young season with two straight losses. They’ll look to get in the win column Sept. 21 at 6 p.m. at Mount Sinai.
Local college students lend a hand to those impacted by Puerto Rico hurricane
As Puerto Rico continues to recover a year after Hurricane Maria left devastation in its wake, some college students reflected on lasting memories of their missions to the island to offer help and support.
This past summer more than 650 State University of New York and City University of New York students along with skilled labor volunteers helped to repair homes on the island through Gov. Andrew Cuomo’s (D) New York Stands with Puerto Rico Recovery and Rebuilding Initiative, according to the governor’s website. During a 10-week span, five deployments of volunteers worked on the island with the goal of repairing the roofs of 150 homes. By the end of the summer, the volunteers fixed the roofs of 178.
Peter Velz, SUNY assistant vice chancellor for external affairs, said since October 2017 the university system was working on engagement with Puerto Rico. On March 16 students from SUNY Alfred State and Geneseo went down for a week.
He said he believes the interaction with the homeowners was probably the most impactful for the students, and the residents they met in Puerto Rico tried to pay them back the best they could.
“It wasn’t paying them back financially,” Velz said. “Kids would make them bracelets or kids would make them pictures or the families would make them lunch. I really think that was probably the most lasting impact for the students, was working in the homes with the homeowners and providing them shelter.”
Rebecca Mueller, one of 21 Stony Brook University students who volunteered, traveled to the island in July, as did Joseph VanderWaag, who attends Suffolk County Community College’s Ammerman Campus.
“I wish there was more that we could do. But I think that the main goal for the organization, while we were there, was to make it livable at that point.”
— Rebecca Mueller
Mueller, 23, of Coram, a graduate student working toward her master’s in social work, said when she received an email from SBU looking for students to travel to Puerto Rico she knew she had to help.
“I knew things there still weren’t that great from hearing different stories, and I felt like not as much help was given to them as it should have been,” she said. “So, when I saw an opportunity where I could actually help to do something, I knew I couldn’t pass it up.”
VanderWaag, 20, of Smithtown, who is in his last semester at SCCC, echoed those sentiments.
“It was so devastating to see that these were our citizens not really getting any help,” he said.
Traveling to Catano and surrounding towns where her group was working, Mueller said she saw houses with no roofs, windows or doors. She worked on three homes during her stay, and said the students would climb to the top of roofs and roofers with the nonprofit NECHAMA — Jewish Response to Disaster showed them what to do.
Two of the buildings she worked on had second stories before Hurricane Maria, but the upper levels were destroyed by the storm, and the volunteers had to turn what was left into roofs by scraping up tiles, finding cracks, grinding them to open them up and then sealing with cement. The volunteers then primed and sealed the new roofs to make them waterproof.
“I wish there was more that we could do,” Mueller said “But I think that the main goal for the organization, while we were there, was to make it livable at that point. Because they couldn’t even live in the houses because every time it rained water was pouring through the ceiling.”
Mueller said she also helped to clean out one man’s bedroom that was unlivable after water damage from the storm. The room had mold and bugs, and his bed, clothes and other items needed to be thrown out.
VanderWaag said the homeowners he met didn’t have a lot of money so whenever there was a leak they would go to the hardware store for a quick fix to patch the roof. When the students weren’t working, he said they would talk to community members about the hurricane’s devastation and the response from the U.S.
“They are a mixture of upset, angry and feeling just almost betrayed,” he said.
VanderWaag said he’ll always remember how appreciative the homeowners were and how one woman cried after they were done. Her husband who was in his 70s would try his best to fix the leaks by carrying bags of concrete up a ladder and patching the leaks.
“It was a huge burden lifted off their shoulders,” VanderWaag said.
“They are a mixture of upset, angry and feeling just almost betrayed.”
— Joseph VanderWaag
Mueller said one family cooked lunch for her group and others working on the house next door every day. She said the students had time to sightsee, and when one tour guide heard what they were doing, he offered to take them on a free tour of the south side of the island. Both she and VanderWaag also visited Old San Juan and saw historic military forts during their trips.
“It really was a life-changing experience,” Mueller said. “Even the people I met from the other SUNY schools, we became so close so quick.”
Pascale Jones, SBU international programs coordinator, joined students for a week to help out. She said when she saw the students in action, she was amazed at how much they already knew about construction and found the whole experience to be humbling.
Originally from Port-au-Prince, Haiti, Jones said she is used to seeing a certain level of devastation but was surprised to see the state of some of the homes.
“It’s Puerto Rico and these are U.S. citizens,” Jones said. “So, I did not expect this devastation so long after the hurricane’s passing. To think, U.S. citizens are living in a way that I would almost equate to a third world country.”
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