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John Turner

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North America has lost 3 billion birds or one-fourth of its continental population since 1970. Photo by Raina Angelier

By John L. Turner

John Turner

On Saturday, April 22nd, citizens of the world will have the opportunity to participate in the 54th celebration of Earth Day. An event beginning in 1970, Earth Day has helped to galvanize public awareness about environmental issues and the plight of our planetary home. 

So, in recognition of Earth Day 2023, here are 23 events, accomplishments, and issues to think about, reaching as far back as the first Earth Day more than five decades ago; some are good news, others bad. As these developments show, we’ve made great strides in living in greater harmony with the planet but at the same time, problems remain while new, highly significant ones have emerged. 

1. A green wave washes over the nation: Fueled by the same sentiment that led to the first Earth Day, Congress, in a flurry of activity, passes the National Wild and Scenic Rivers Act (1968), National Environmental Policy Act (1969), Clean Air Act (1970), Clean Water Act (1972), and Endangered Species Act (1973). Several other important environmental initiatives were adopted administratively including the creation of the Environmental Protection Agency (1970). Collectively, these actions form the foundation of the federal government’s framework to protecting the environment.

2. The Long Island Pine Barrens is protected: After a four year David vs. Goliath battle between the Long Island Pine Barrens Society and the Towns of Brookhaven, Riverhead, and Southampton, Governor Mario Cuomo, in 1993, signs the Pine Barrens Protection Act into law. The legislation preserves more than 55,000 acres of pine forest and tightly controls development in another 47,000 acres. 

3. Continental bird decline: Researchers publish a major paper in 2019 documenting that since the first Earth Day, North America has lost 3 billion birds or one-fourth of its continental population. Cat predation, window collisions, and habitat destruction are the leading causes. Loss of insects, affecting aerial insectivores like common nighthawks, swifts and swallows have led to additional declines. Many species have dropped by 50% or more in abundance during this time. 

4. Eagles and ospreys surge: With DDT  banned for use in 1972 in the United States birds that feed “higher on the food chain,” such as birds-of-prey and waterbirds, have rebounded. Hundreds of osprey nests dot Long Island’s coastal landscapes and bald eagles, which were extirpated as a breeding bird, have returned with the first nest found at The Nature Conservancy’s Mashomack Preserve on Shelter Island more than a decade ago.    

5. The emergence of “forever” chemicals: Over the past several years “forever” chemicals such as PFAS and PFOS  have emerged on the scene. A group of more than 3,000 chemicals, they are ubiquitous, having been used in non-stick pans, stain resistant fabrics, even fire-fighting foam. They have contaminated water supplies throughout the country and have affected public water supply wells on Long Island. These chemicals increase the risk of cancer and can damage human organs, notably the kidneys. One study documented PFAS in 97% of  the participants, suggesting  the chemical is widespread in the environment. 

6. Cleaner water in Long Island Sound: Due to a significant commitment of public funds expended to upgrade sewage treatment plants, conditions in Long Island Sound are improving. Hypoxic or low dissolved oxygen levels, stressful to lethal for bottom-dwelling marine animals such as lobsters, crabs, and shellfish have declined, both in terms of extent and duration.  Stressful conditions still exist in the western portion of the Sound due to sewage discharge from New York City’s large sewage treatment plants.     

7. Plastics pollution is a problem!: In the past two decades plastic use has exploded, resulting in massive pollution of land and ocean. Scientists estimate that about eight million tons of plastic enter the oceans every year.  When plastics fragment, they become micro-plastics and many marine species ingest it, thinking its food items,  often with fatal consequences. In an often referred to but highly alarming statistic, it’s estimated that by 2050 there will more plastic debris, by weight, in the ocean than fish biomass. 

8. Bag the plastic bag!: First in Suffolk County, and then in New York State, the use of single use plastic bags is banned and a fee is placed on the use of paper bags.  Reusable, multi-use bags have become the norm for shoppers. Our roadsides are now cleaner and are largely devoid of  windblown bags.    

9. Waste reduction takes hold: Waste reduction is the most effective but least used waste management strategy, better than recycling, burning, or burying garbage.  One great example of a waste reduction strategy was approved by the NYS Legislature last year which phases out small, single use, shampoo and hair conditioner bottles provided in hotel bathrooms. Soon, your hair needs will only be supplied by refillable, pump receptacles located in shower stalls. This legislation will result in tens of millions less plastic containers being burned or buried in New York annually.   

10. Bats are suffering: Over the past several decades many bat species, especially those roosting colonially, have been afflicted by a contagious virus called white-nosed syndrome or WNS. Some species have declined by more than 90%, resulting in a few once common species facing extinction.  Non-colonial roosting bats are doing better. 

11. Coastal waters are alive with menhaden: Due to a ban on the commercial harvest of menhaden in New York waters, this species has staged a remarkable comeback. Its remarkable abundance, with schools containing millions of fish, has fueled a resurgence in species that feed upon it — humpback whales and other cetaceans, tuna, sharks, marine birds, and birds-of-prey like bald eagles and osprey.  

12. Suffolk County’s Drinking Water Protection Program: Funded by a 1/4 cent fraction of county sales tax, this program, first adopted in 1987 and approved several times by Suffolk County voters, has allowed the County to buy thousands of acres of environmentally important properties and to advance water quality protection projects.  The program has been especially critical for Pine Barrens purchases. 

13. Global climate disruption: Climate change or climate disruption, as it is more aptly described, is having enormous impacts to human society and the natural world. An all encompassing threat caused by the manufacture and use of fossil fuels, countries still are adding climate-changing gases to the atmosphere at an alarming rate. We’re tossing the planetary dice and still collectively suffer too much from denial by a critical mass of society whose intellectual and emotional support is badly needed. 

14. Otters have returned, coyotes have arrived: River otters are slowly reestablishing themselves in Long Island waterways with sightings in many places.  Coyotes have begun to colonize Long Island, probably reaching here via a bridge or tunnel connecting the island to the Bronx and perhaps by island hopping the eastern island archipelago of Plum Island, Little and Great Gull Islands, and Fisher’s Island. Being hit by vehicles remains a critical concern to their recovery/colonization.  

15. The hole in the ozone layer isn’t closed (yet)!: First detected in the late 1970s, a “hole” in the Earth’s stratosphere over the planet’s two polar regions slowly has been  getting smaller. Caused by certain man-made chemicals that destroy ozone, these chemicals were phased out by an international agreement in 1986. 

16. Water reuse becomes a reality: In 2016 the first Water Reuse project on Long Island comes on-line involving the Riverhead Sewage Treatment Plant and Indian Island County Golf Course. Instead of dumping wastewater into the Peconic River/Flanders Bay the water is used to irrigate the grass on the golf course next door and by so doing keeps an estimated 1.2 tons of nitrogen from entering the estuary and g 63 million gallons of water in the ground. 

Because of reuses’s water quality and quantify benefits, the Seatuck Environmental Association in 2023 prepares an islandwide water reuse road map. If the top 17 reuse projects are funded 15 less tons of nitrogen will enter LI’s coastal waters and nearly 600 million gallons of water will be kept in the ground helping to maintain wetlands and preventing salt water intrusion.  

17. Terrapin excluder devices (TEDS) are required: In 2017 New York State Department of Environmental Conservation enacts a regulation requiring all commercial crab pots located in Long Island’s bays, harbors, and steam/creek/river mouths to be equipped with TEDS. Putting TEDS on the vents of crab pots can reduce diamondback terrapin drownings by 75% while having no discernible effect on crab harvest.  

18. Keeping the deer in Deer Park: In three separate stages — in 1983, 1984, and 1998 — New York State creates the 850-acre Oak Brush Plains Preserve in Deer Park from properties once used by the Edgewood and Pilgrim State Psychiatric facilities. This  westernmost forest of the Pine Barrens is home to fox, many songbirds, birds of prey, and even whip-poor-wills, and living up to its name given the community in which it is located — deer. Efforts are currently underway to add another 115 acres to the Preserve. 

19. Reconnecting nature: All throughout the country efforts are underway to mitigate, and in many cases eliminate, obstacles to the movement of wildlife such as those posed by roads and dams. Dozens of small dams have been removed and some that haven’t have been equipped with fish ladders. In areas with high roadkill under- and overpasses are being installed to allow for the safe movement of animals. The recently passed federal Infrastructure Act provides $400 million for such projects. 

20. SEQRA is adopted: SEQRA, the New York State version of the National Environmental Policy Act, passed in 1975. This law establishes a legal requirement for agencies and legislative bodies to “look before they leap” when it comes to approving projects that might have an adverse impact on the environment and to mitigate those impacts. This Act has been responsible for ensuring that the quality of the environment is a factor in decision making. 

21. West Meadow Beach is restored: After years of unfortunate divisiveness, dozens of privately owned cottages at the Town of Brookhaven’s West Meadow Beach are removed, opening the property to broad public use and enjoyment, allowing for this ecologically significant habitat to begin recovery. The action constituted one of the few “de-development” actions ever undertaken on Long Island. 

22. The Pebble Mine dies the death it deserves: The proposed Pebble Mine, situated in southwestern Alaska, would have resulted in a 12-square copper-gold-molybdenum mine sandwiched between globally important salmon rivers upon which Native Alaskans depend. These rivers flow into Bristol Bay which supports a $1.5 billion fishing industry. The mine would have been the largest in North America and there was great fear that a mine collapse (this happened at a different mine by the  company that wanted to operate the Pebble Mine) would have sent acid tailings and enormous amounts of sediments into the rivers destroying the environment for miles around the mine and the critically important fish runs.   

23. Wetlands, both freshwater and tidal, are better protected: A few years after the first Earth Day, New York State passes important laws to protect fresh- and tidal wetlands preventing their wholesale destruction through draining and filling. The law to protect freshwater wetlands was significantly strengthened in the 2022 state legislative session.  

This list, of course, is just a very small sample of the environmental challenges and problems we collectively confront. If we are ever to get ahead of the curve in protecting our planetary home, we’re going to have to do more than adopt one or a few actions each year that protect some aspect of the global environment, as meaningful as they are, which we then celebrate each Earth Day. Our survival requires much more than an annual Earth Day celebration. Rather, we need to realize that we have to act like Earth Day is every day, which it is, since we still depend upon the sustenance of the planet on those  other 364 days.

A resident of Setauket, John Turner is conservation chair of the Four Harbors Audubon Society, author of “Exploring the Other Island: A Seasonal Nature Guide to Long Island” and president of Alula Birding & Natural History Tours.

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Purple signs like this may become commonplace on Long Island in the near future. Photo by Grendelkhan/Wikimedia Commons

By John L. Turner

John Turner

Like all islands, Long Island is defined by water. Lapped on all sides — the Great South Bay on its southern flank, the thick finger of the Long Island Sound to the north, the bowl of the Peconic Bay filling between the forks, and one of the planet’s great oceans embracing all of this.  

And beneath us, in the pore spaces between the sand that make up Long Island (Long Island is basically a million-acre leaky sandbox) is a prolific aquifer system made up of several trillion gallons of freshwater that we depend upon, made available by scores of public water supply wells, for drinking and making coffee, washing cars, showering and brushing teeth, and from which water oozes to fill our ponds and lakes and makes our rivers and streams run — a freshwater groundwater system made up of three aquifers like layers in a sandwich, all resting on a basement of bedrock. 

It is OUR water supply — there are no other realistic possibilities to turn to: no ability to connect to New York City’s impressive surface water reservoirs and no river from New England that upwells into our sand under Long Island Sound (as one Long Island elected official once assured me, in explaining why we didn’t need to be concerned with the impacts of development). We are, hydrologically speaking, captains of our own fate.  

We may be captains but we haven’t been such good stewards of our groundwater supply as it is under stress like never before. More than two and one-half million Long Islanders live, work, and play above the water supply, and with gravity always at work, water, and whatever contaminants are dissolved in it, is always carried downward. 

The Upper Glacial Aquifer, the aquifer closest to the surface, has been rendered unusable in many places due to contamination.  In some areas this pollution has moved down into the thicker Magothy Aquifer below, the main source for drinking water today. And below the Magothy lies the Lloyd Aquifer, resting on a basement of bedrock, which has begun to feel the stresses of  over pumping and fingers of contamination.  

Some freshwater lakes and ponds are suffering quality issues too, the victims of “HAB’s” — harmful algal blooms. 

And in parts of Long Island we have a quantity problem, illustrated by lowered water table levels causing streams and ponds to shrink or dry out and allowing saltwater intrusion from salty water pushing in from sides of the groundwater supply. Hundreds of acres of wetlands have disappeared or been diminished by lowered water table levels, adversely affecting wetland dependent wildlife species.  

Nor have we been the stewards of the shallow coastal waters surrounding us that we should be. Driven by excessive nitrogen from sewage treatment plants (STP’s), home cesspools and septic tanks, and hundreds of thousands of fertilized lawns, the island’s coastal ecosystems are  showing significant stress. This stress is illustrated by numerous algae blooms or colored “tides,” perhaps made most visible by the green sheets of Ulva or sea lettuce which blankets the bottom of much of our tidal creek and bays. 

Some of these blooms involve algae species that are toxic to wildlife or are species that shellfish cannot eat to sustain themselves. Moreover, coastal waters containing excess nitrogen can weaken tidal marshes, a dangerous trend given their wildlife habitat, pollution control, and storm buffering value.

Photo by John Turner

The good news is that we have the means to address these problems and one of them involves water recycling or reuse. As the name suggests, water recycling involves the use of highly treated wastewater discharged from sewage treatment plants for some other worthwhile purpose. And the Riverhead Sewage Treatment Plant water reuse project serves as an excellent example.  Here, during the warmer months (April to October), highly treated wastewater is diverted from discharge into the Peconic River/Bay and, instead, is pumped next door to Suffolk County Parks’ Indian Island Golf Course. The water, containing low levels of nitrogen, is used to irrigate the golf course, the nitrogen being taken up by the turf grass. The water is subject to UV disinfection which kills 99.9% of the viruses and bacteria that might remain in the wastewater from initial treatment. 

What’s the benefits you might ask of this water reuse project? The engineering consultants to the project estimate it will divert more than one ton of ecosystem-changing nitrogen annually from entering coastal waters with the nitrogen serving as fertilizer for the golf course grass. And it gets better — approximately 63 million gallons of water which used to be pumped out of the aquifer can stay in the ground, reducing stress on the groundwater system.  An added benefit is that it may also save taxpayer dollars due to decreased energy and fertilizer costs.

Given these dual quality and quantity benefits it is not surprising water recycling is commonplace in some states and in many other countries.  California, Florida, and Arizona are among the leaders as are countries like Israel in the Middle East. (You may have seen evidence of water reuse projects while traveling in these or other states since the pipes conveying the water are painted purple — the universal color for water recycling. I saw them a few years ago while traveling through Clearwater, Florida north of St. Petersburg). 

Today, more than 2.6 billion gallons of water are reused daily in the United States. And the potential on Long Island is great with several dozen golf courses being within two miles of a sewage treatment plant. 

There are other reuse applications besides irrigation of golf courses though… irrigation of agricultural crops and municipal ballfields, industrial cooling, wetland restoration, washdown water at sewage plants, even potable reuse which is now happening in California. Anyone want a beer brewed using highly treated wastewater? There are half a dozen brands now available, in Canada, Germany, and California, if you so desire!

To better understand and quantify this potential, and to provide a framework for prioritizing potential projects, the Seatuck Environmental Association, with funding kindly provided by the Greentree Foundation, hired Cameron Engineering to help develop a Long Island Water Reuse Road Map or Blueprint. This road map lists nearly 100 projects in which an STP is coupled with a target of the reclaimed wastewater — most typically a golf course or agricultural operation — situated within a two mile radius. They are listed in priority fashion based on the amount of water potentially saved, amount of nitrogen potentially reduced, and estimated cost for improvements needed to implement.        

Closer  to home, what might be some potential water recycling projects? One that jumps out (ranked #10 in the prioritized matrix) is using treated wastewater generated from the sewage treatment plant located on the SUNY Stony Brook campus to irrigate St. George’s Golf Course situated in close proximity on the east side of Nicolls Road. A successful project here would keep hundreds of pounds of nitrogen from entering Port Jefferson Harbor (the effluent from the SUNY SBU STP is piped to the Port Jefferson plant first before discharge into the harbor) and keep an estimated 34 million gallons of water in the aquifer.  

It is clear that with political support and adequate public funding, water reuse can significantly contribute to intelligent management of the water upon which we depend for drinking and water that we enjoy swimming in. As the LI Water Reuse Road Map has shown, water recycling, implemented comprehensively, can prevent tons of nitrogen from entering Long Island’s groundwater supply and adjacent coastal waters while keeping billions of gallons of freshwater in the ground. To borrow from an often used phrase: “That there’s a win-win situation” for all Long Islanders.

A resident of Setauket, John Turner is conservation chair of the Four Harbors Audubon Society, author of “Exploring the Other Island: A Seasonal Nature Guide to Long Island” and president of Alula Birding & Natural History Tours.

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METRO photo
A Column Promoting a More Earth-friendly Lifestyle

By John L. Turner

METRO photo

You have undoubtedly learned about the value of recycling as it has become commonplace on Long Island, with every town and village here operating recycling programs. Recycling helps to reduce impacts to landfills, reduces air and water pollution, and results in less energy use.

Especially important is recycling aluminum. Why? Because unlike other materials such as paper, aluminum is infinitely recyclable and requires much less energy to make a new aluminum product from recycled aluminum than from virgin ore (bauxite). For example, it takes 20 times the amount of energy to make a can from virgin ore as it does from recycled aluminum. Said another way, creating new aluminum cans from recycled cans uses 95 percent less energy than making new cans from ore. Or how about: Tossing away an aluminum can wastes as much energy as pouring out half of that can’s volume of gasoline!!

To put this in a broader perspective, using an example from around your home: recycling one aluminum can save enough energy to keep a 100-watt bulb burning for almost four hours or run your television for three hours. This adds up as last year 54 billion cans were recycled saving energy equivalent to 15 million barrels of crude oil — America’s entire gas consumption for one day. These examples make it clear that recycling aluminum is a sure-fire way for you to combat climate change. So, please recycle those aluminum pie tins, take-out containers, and cans!

A resident of Setauket, John Turner is conservation chair of the Four Harbors Audubon Society, author of “Exploring the Other Island: A Seasonal Nature Guide to Long Island” and president of Alula Birding & Natural History Tours.

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For electric dryers only.
A Column Promoting a More Earth-friendly Lifestyle

By John L. Turner

Photo from John Turner

Most of us own an electric dryer to dry our clothes. In the summer you want the warm and damp air generated from dryers to be vented to the outside. But wouldn’t you want that warm, moisture- laden air to vent inside in the winter to help keep your home warm, perhaps resulting in less furnace activity?

Well, there’s a product available on-line or at local home  improvement stores that does just that. Called a Dryer Heat Saver or Dryer Heat Diverter, it’s a rectangular box fitted into your dryer vent hose and held in places by O-rings. It has a baffle or shunt to direct the hot air where you want it — in  the summer to the outside but in the winter into your house. A screen prevents lint (which needs to be occasionally  removed) from entering your house.

So why not take advantage of the energy your clothes dryer has produced to warm your home and in so doing, giving your furnace a little bit of a break?

A resident of Setauket, John Turner is conservation chair of the Four Harbors Audubon Society, author of “Exploring the Other Island: A Seasonal Nature Guide to Long Island” and president of Alula Birding & Natural History Tours.

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Striped Skunk. Photo by Dan Dzuirisn/Wikimedia Commons

By John L. Turner

John Turner

Although the hike was twenty-four years ago, I remember the experience as if it had happened last week. 

I was heading west along an old asphalt road, broken up by time and weather and flanked on both sides by an interwoven  fabric of dwarf pines and scrub oaks, vegetation typical to the globally rare Dwarf Pine Plains of Westhampton. Ahead and to my left I suddenly noticed several birds making a commotion. A pair of brown thrashers and a rufous-sided towhee were flitting up and down around a large clump of scrub oak, a clear signal that something had them agitated.  My interest piqued, I went to investigate. 

Coming around a rounded clump of scrub oak I saw the target of their concern — a striped skunk ten to twelve feet away, actively feeding on what I believe was a hatch of flying termites which formed a gauzy cloud above the skunk. (Several years earlier an intense wildfire roared through this area killing even the fire resistant scrub oaks — I surmised the termites were feeding on the decaying wood of the large, somewhat exposed rootstocks.) 

So excited was I by this first live sighting of a skunk on Long Island that I lost my common sense and got closer than I should have, trying to get a better idea of what it was eating. That I crossed the line became immediately clear when the skunk turned its back to me and stomped the ground with its front feet — a telltale sign a skunk is agitated and will likely spray. Obviously not wishing for this odoriferous outcome, I quickly (and comically) turned around and ran thirty or more feet, leaping over and around blueberry and huckleberry bushes and fallen logs to gain a safe distance, desperately hoping to avoid getting sprayed as I dashed away.  My hope became reality as the skunk didn’t spray.  

Several years later, this time in the southeast sector of the Dwarf Pine Plains, I had my second sighting of a skunk. It was early evening and I was with a friend birding a bit before nightfall at which time we were going to listen for whip-poor-wills.  We headed east on a wide sandy trail when a striped skunk suddenly broke out of the dwarf pines  and started to waddle toward us. It came within 25-30 feet of us before nonchalantly breaking back into the thicket.

The most recent (and shortest) sighting of a skunk occurred in October of 2021.  Driving west on Sound Avenue around dusk an animal ambled across the road about a mile west of Briermere Farms (famous for its pies). This sighting led me to think about the first several experiences I had with striped skunks on Long Island — individuals that unlike the experience above, unfortunately all involved roadkills and all in the Pine Barrens — along County Routes 111 in Manorville, 51 in western Southampton, and 94 (Nugent Drive) in Calverton.      

All of the sightings were exciting to me as they indicated that this distinctive mammal was still part of Long Island’s fauna and that it hadn’t disappeared. For several decades before naturalists weren’t sure of its status here as there were few if any reports of skunk sightings. Some feared it had been extirpated from Long Island. 

The striped skunk is a striking and beautiful animal, reminiscent of a negative photo image involving the stark contrast of black and white.  It has a black face with a white line running down the nose between the eyes.  The top of the head is white as if wearing a cap of cotton or snow with the white continuing down the back in two slightly separated racing stripes which sandwich a black back and rump. The bottom of the animal including its legs and feet is black. The rather fluffy tail is a mixture of black and white hairs. All in all, it is a most distinctive mammal!  

Three other skunk species occur in the United States ­— the spotted skunk, hog-nosed skunk, and hooded skunk. These are primarily western species.  Skunks were long grouped  with the “mustelid” mammals,  animals such as otters, badgers and weasels; they have since been broken out of this group and are now in their own mammalian family.  

Paul F. Connor, in his definitive 1971 New York State Museum publication “The Mammals of Long Island, New York,” had much to say about the species. He notes the skunk was once common on Long Island but became much less so in the twentieth century.  He ascribes two reasons for its decline. One is as roadkill victims in the ever increasing network of roads constructed on Long Island over the years (the home range of male skunks involves many hundreds of acres over which they wander in their search for food and mates) ensuring in most places here they will intersect a road.  The second reason for decline was due to poisoning from the widespread use on eastern Long Island of Paris Green, an arsenic based pesticide used to control the Colorado Potato beetle which skunks apparently ate with devastating results.  (Skunks readily eat insects — remember the episode above where I almost got sprayed?). 

During Connor’s survey he found only one skunk — in 1961, a road-killed animal near Sag Harbor, although he did find ample signs of skunk in the form of droppings, tracks, its tell-tale odor, even finding a den — in the pine barrens of Manorville. Connor notes several reports by other observers who saw skunks in the early 1960s in Montauk, Calverton, Napeague (Hither Hills State Park), and Yaphank, even as far west as the North Hills region of northwestern Nassau County.  

Connor mentions Daniel Denton’s earlier account (1670) of striped skunks on Long Island, stating they were once common and, surprisingly, were widely eaten by Indigenous people.  The famous naturalist Roy Latham backs this up by stating, in personal communication, to Connor: “the skunk was one of the more common mammals discovered in his Indian archeological excavations on eastern Long Island, found at most sites.” 

Remarkably, beaver and wolves, species long ago eradicated from Long Island, were also found at these sites. Latham also reported to Connor observing a pair of albino skunks in Montauk, in June of 1928. 

It is clear the striped skunk is hanging on here and, in fact, appears to be slowly rebounding. According to a Dec. 12, 2022, Newsday article written by Joan Gralla, recent skunk sightings have occurred in Smithtown, Commack, and Northport and a colleague, Dave Taft, recently mentioned to me in a phone conversation of a road-kill skunk he saw on the shoulder of the Cross Island Expressway in Queens. Tim Green, a manager in the Environmental Protection Division at Brookhaven National Laboratory, reports that skunks are “fairly common but low numbers” at the property and recently saw a road-killed skunk on Middle Country Road in Calverton.   

The acquisition of so much parkland, and thus wildlife habitat, throughout Long Island — especially the preservation of tens of thousands of contiguous acres of Pine Barrens throughout central Suffolk County — gives reason for optimism that Pepe Le Pew will long remain a distinctive and unique component of Long Island’s fauna.

The Seatuck Environmental Association is interested in better understanding the presence and distribution of striped skunk and other mammals native to Long Island. To this end, Seatuck has launched a 2022 version of Paul Connor’s seminal 1971 report through its Long Island Mammal Survey and you can contribute to it as a “Citizen Scientist.”  This initiative will involve the use of trail cams to detect mammals and experts will utilize live traps to confirm the presence of small mammal species like flying squirrels, shrews, moles, and mice. If you wish to contribute sightings you can do this through the iNaturalist website. 

An informative program entitled “Terrestrial Mammals of Long Island,” given by Mike Bottini as part of Seatuck’s Community Science Webinar series, is available at https://seatuck.org/community-science-webinars/.  Mike is a wildlife biologist at Seatuck who you may know through his important work in tracking the recovery of river otters on Long Island (a future “Nature Matters” column!) 

I hope you see a skunk during one of your hikes or journeys in the wilds of Long Island. If you do, just remember, unlike me, to keep your distance! 

A resident of Setauket, John Turner is conservation chair of the Four Harbors Audubon Society, author of “Exploring the Other Island: A Seasonal Nature Guide to Long Island” and president of Alula Birding & Natural History Tours.

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From left, Three Village Community Trust member Norma Watson looks on as Brookhaven Town Councilmember Jonathan Kornreich, New York State Assemblyman Steve Englebright and Suffolk County Legislator Kara Hahn unveil a new sign at Patriots Rock on Nov. 3. Photo by Rita J. Egan/TBR News Media

By John L. Turner

John Turner

Perhaps you remember the parable of the six blind men, standing alongside a road when an elephant passes by. They desire to know what an elephant feels like so they reach out, each man touching a different part of the animal — one strokes a tusk believing it’s a spear, another a stout leg proclaiming he’s touching a tree trunk, yet another the side of the elephant stating he’s touching a wall, while a fourth grabs the tail, thinking he’s grabbed a rope. The fifth touches an ear believing he’s made contact with a fan while the sixth man feels the trunk and announces he’s grabbed a snake. Based on their unique individual impressions, they argue vigorously about what the elephant looks like, each understandably, but firmly, convinced their own impression is correct and the others are wrong. 

Coming across this parable recently got me thinking about how it’s possible to have such differing, even disparate, impressions about the same subject. And it made me think of an individual: so let’s replace the elephant at the center of the discussion with New York State Assemblyman Steve Englebright, because just like the elephant being so many simultaneous things, Steve is too. 

If you’re familiar with his long standing involvement for preserving historic structures in the Three Villages, like the Roe Tavern or the Rubber Factory houses, or his interest and expertise regarding local history, you would say he’s a history buff, passionate about preserving historic structures. 

Get him over to the bluffs at McAllister County Park at the mouth of Port Jefferson Harbor and listen to him explain what he’s seeing in the wind-blasted rocks on the beach or the features of the bluff face itself and you’d know him to be a geologist, deeply informed about, and interested in, Long Island’s unique geology. 

Or if you were a student at Stony Brook University, perhaps your connection to Steve was as a professor through one of the courses he teaches, learning about contemporary environmental issues or the history of environmental politics learning about the influential role played by John Muir, Rachel Carson, and Aldo Leopold. 

Furthermore, if you’re a saltwater fisherman or general enthusiast of the marine waters surrounding Long Island, then your connection to Steve might be through the legislation he carried to stop the harvest of menhaden (also known as bunker) in New York water’s, thereby fueling a resurgence in the food chain as evidenced by the sharp increase seen in the numbers of humpback whales, tuna, sharks, and birds-of-prey. Breaching whales are now part of our ocean landscape. 

Or perhaps it might be through an earlier connection you have with Steve — when he was Director of the Museum of Long Island’s Natural Sciences. Situated on the Stony Brook University campus, the museum introduced the wonders of the natural world to countless students and visitors. Steve the educator was at work.   

But perhaps it is through his efforts to preserve land that most people know of Steve Englebright’s work. Following in the footsteps of one of the Three Village’s favorite sons — Robert Cushman Murphy — Steve amplified Murphy’s call for the preservation of the Long Island Pine Barrens, the extensive pine forests stretched over tens of thousands of acres of pine forest in Suffolk County; pine trees that knit together a rare ecosystem and which sits over much of the County’s drinking water supply. 

In honor of R.C. Murphy, Steve sponsored a resolution, while a Suffolk County Legislator, to rename Peconic River County Park to Robert Cushman Murphy County Park. As a county legislator he played a key role in shaping the County’s $70 million Open Space Bond Act that resulted in the preservation of about two dozen environmentally significant properties throughout the County. 

If that’s not enough, he also was critical to the success of the  Drinking Water Protection Program, funded by a tiny percentage of the county sales tax, still in force today. This program has made a huge difference in protecting Suffolk County’s open spaces and drinking water supplies. And closer to home Steve was an open space champion in successfully advocating for the preservation of Patriot’s Hollow and Rock.

So just like the elephant is a “tree,” a “fan,” a “wall,” a “spear,” a “snake,” and a “rope,” Steve Englebright is a professor,  geologist,  historian, hydrologist, an educator, a legislator for both Suffolk County and New York State, and a conservationist. But here’s where the parable and reality diverge; while with the parable different experiences led to radically different points of view, different experiences with Steve all point to the same thing … what a remarkable difference maker he has been in safeguarding what is special about the Three Village community and the Long Island environment. 

We all owe a huge debt of gratitude to Steve for what he’s accomplished on our behalf. Thank you Steve!! 

A resident of Setauket, John Turner is conservation chair of the Four Harbors Audubon Society, author of “Exploring the Other Island: A Seasonal Nature Guide to Long Island” and president of Alula Birding & Natural History Tours.

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An outlet gasket
A Column Promoting a More Earth-friendly Lifestyle

By John L. Turner

If your house is like most, the walls are insulated to keep the heat in. But I bet you’d be surprised to learn there are as many as a dozen or more places in your exterior walls where there is little to no insulation — the electric wall outlets! If you put your hand near one on a winter day you may feel the cold air seeping in (or hot air in the summer).

Fortunately, there’s an easy way to eliminate this drafty situation and to make  your house a little more energy efficient (and saving you a little bit of money  over time) — insulate the outlet by installing a foam rubber gasket under the plate cover. Installation is a snap — just remove the cover with a screwdriver,  place the gasket on the outlet, reinstall the cover and you’re done. It takes about 30 seconds!

The insulating gaskets are available online and at home improvement stores. They cost about 10 cents each.

You can help protect the planet one outlet at a time!

A resident of Setauket, John Turner is conservation chair of the Four Harbors Audubon Society, author of “Exploring the Other Island: A Seasonal Nature Guide to Long Island” and president of Alula Birding & Natural History Tours.

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Franklin the Bald Eagle at Sweetbriar Nature Center Photo by John Davis

By John L. Turner

“There are no passengers on Spaceship Earth. We are all crew.” 

— Marshall McLuhan, Canadian Philosopher and Media Expert 

John Turner

Walking through the backyard to add some coffee grounds and banana peels to the compost bin, I looked up to see, to my surprise, an adult Bald Eagle circling over a phalanx of maple trees. A splendid white head and tail shone brightly, sandwiching a massive dark body and wings. For each of the first several circles it became partially hidden by the maples halfway through its arc but soon broke out entirely into the sky of blue before slipping north. 

I was uplifted by this chance experience,  not only by the presence of the eagle itself, but for what the eagle represented — resilience. I knew full well that were I to have walked to the compost bin anytime from the 1960’s through the 1990’s I would have little to no chance of spotting an eagle because they were very few in number.    

Hammered by the widespread use of DDT, a persistent pesticide once viewed as a miracle chemical, Bald Eagle populations plummeted from the late 1950’s through the late 1970’s. There was a real fear this bird of prey would be extirpated in the lower 48 states and perhaps disappear entirely — yet another extinct species in the sad legacy of human impact to other inhabitants of the planet. 

Scientists soon determined that DDT interfered with the ability of eagles and other birds to make eggshells. In some cases they laid yolks with no shells at all; in most cases the shells were thinner, often cracking or breaking under the weight of the incubating adult. The species got a reprieve with the federal ban on the use of DDT by the Environmental Protection Agency, a campaign, by the way, that has its roots in Setauket, where the Environmental Defense Fund, which led the charge, was born. 

But half a century after DDT’s banning, we are witness to the result: Bald Eagle populations are surging, as evidenced by its 2007 demotion from the federal Endangered Species list. Today, there are more than a dozen active eagle nests on Long Island as this iconic species re-establishes its historic presence here. Other impacted species, like Peregrine Falcons and Ospreys also high on the food chain, have rebounded too and are more common than they were decades ago. As these species illustrate, bad environmental outcomes can be reversed (i.e. if they are reversible, unlike outcomes such as extinction).  

The reversibility of environmental problems and the resilience of natural systems is highlighted by two well-known examples that helped usher in the modern environmental movement: The blanketing haze of air pollution that choked the residents of Los Angeles during the 1960’s and Ohio’s Cuyahoga River catching on fire (yes a river catching on fire!) in 1969, fueled by copious amounts of oil dumped into it. Today, the air is much cleaner over Los Angeles as is the water in the Cuyahoga River, although there is, no doubt, still room for improvement in both places. 

With the passage of the Clean Air Act in 1970, the nation began on a path toward markedly better air quality. Factories and incinerators were required to install pollution control equipment as were mobile sources like trucks and cars. Cars were equipped with  catalytic converters which break down pollutants. Today, despite there being more stationary sources like factories and Americans driving considerably more miles and more vehicles on the road, concentrations of the top six pollutants such as particulate matter, volatile organic chemicals, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxide, ozone, and sulfur dioxide have decreased by more than 75%. 

Another metric highlighting the improvement in air quality is reflected by the reduction in the number of “unhealthy air days” tracked in 35 major American cities. In 2001 there were 2,155 such days collectively in these cities; by 2019 the number had dropped to 466 (it has jumped up slightly in the last two years due to the numerous western wildfires).  

And we can thank the federal Clean Water Act (passed in 1972 we celebrate its 50th anniversary this year), for marked improvements in the quality of the nation’s waters. Although more progress is needed, we have made great strides in meeting the Act’s goal to “restore and maintain the chemical, physical and biological integrity of the Nation’s waters,” or as its goal has been better understood to say: “to make the nation’s waters drinkable, swimmable, and fishable.”

And these briny waters surrounding Long Island that we like to swim in and boat on are clearly cleaner than they were decades ago due to sustained governmental efforts catalyzed by the Clean Water Act. For example, if we jump to the Island’s North Shore and focus on the Long Island Sound we find water quality and overall environmental conditions have significantly improved since the 1980’s when collective intervention by the federal and state governments began to reverse downward trends in water quality. Foremost among these troubling signs were low to non-existent levels of dissolved oxygen (DO) levels (referred to as hypoxia and anoxia, respectively) suffocating bottom-dwelling species such as crabs and lobsters. 

These conditions were caused by too much nitrogen entering the estuary, mostly from sewage treatment plant (STP) discharges. The nitrogen set off algae blooms, events which pull DO out of the water column when the algae decomposes. Today the duration and areal extent of hypoxic conditions in the Long Island Sound are markedly lower than several decades before because of the many operational upgrades made at STP’s that reduce nitrogen levels in wastewater.   

A school of menhaden. Photo by Stephen Borghardt

An example of ecological recovery is being played out in the coastal waters around Long Island, most notably in the Atlantic Ocean along Long Island’s south shore. This story involves an oily fish — the menhaden — that a lot of other fishes, birds, and marine mammals  like to eat. The fish, also known as bunker, has prospered ever since the state several years ago banned their commercial harvest in New York waters. Schools of fish ranging from tens of thousands to millions of fish frequent the nearshore waters of the South Shore (these schools are easily recorded from aerial drones and the videos posted on YouTube). 

This largess has attracted humpback whales that are regularly seen close to shore, with their characteristic feeding behavior of breaking to the surface with an open mouth in the middle of a large school of fish. Aerial videos captured by drones show large fish in the form of various shark and tuna species swimming through these schools. Eagles and ospreys feed on menhaden as they move into bays, harbors, and the mouths of Long Island’s countless rivers and streams. The passage of an important state law has fueled a resurgence of marine life in the briny waters around the island.    

Given the many environmental afflictions we currently face, what are the take away lessons from these examples? Some might conclude the lesson is a permission slip or a continued license to pollute since Nature often has the ability to restore itself, so what’s the harm? I prefer to think that the resiliency of Nature means, more profoundly, that we live in a world of second chances, that environmental problems need not be depressingly intractable and irreversible, but can be successfully ameliorated. In many cases, recent history has proven we can right environmental wrongs.

What are the ingredients necessary to achieve success in turning around an environmental problem? I think a person or individuals persuasively spotlight a problem and others in a position of power or authority to do something about it. 

People like Rachel Carson who revealed the dangers of widespread pesticide exposure to wildlife and EPA Administrator William Ruckelshaus in a position to do something about it through the national ban on the use of DDT. Or staff within organizations like The Nature Conservancy explaining the ecological value of menhaden in coastal ecosystems to key individuals like New York State Assemblyman Steve Englebright who introduced and secured passage of the legislation to shut down the commercial harvest of menhaden in New York waters.

 And here’s the really good news — the first ingredient of this formula lies even closer — in the latent power possessed by you and me, if we’re unwilling to accept a dying and unclean world, but, instead, demand a planet vibrant and alive, one filled with whales and menhaden, eagles, clean air and water, salamanders in woodland pools, bees in wildflower-filled meadows, and piping plovers sharing our beloved beaches, keeping all the while in the back of our mind a recognition from past experience the damage that has been done to this resilient planet and its inhabitants doesn’t have to be permanent — often it is in our power and ability to reverse it, and in fact, to paraphrase McLuhan: “it is our responsibility, all being part of the crew, to do so.”   

A resident of Setauket, John Turner is conservation chair of the Four Harbors Audubon Society, author of “Exploring the Other Island: A Seasonal Nature Guide to Long Island” and president of Alula Birding & Natural History Tours.

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Witch hazel flowers and last year’s seed capsules on the same branch, which is unusual. Photo by John Turner

By John L. Turner

John Turner

As the cooler days and nights of autumn take hold, the abundance of flowers diminishes with goldenrod and aster blossoms soon dominating the scene beginning in late August and blooming well into October. One might reasonably think that by the time Halloween comes around the year’s predictable procession of wildflowers, flowering shrubs, and trees has run its course. 

But while you’re making decisions as to what costume to wear for Halloween, there’s one more wildflower-producing plant to entice pollinating insects before the full cold of winter descends. That wild plant is a shrub, witch hazel (Hamamelis virginiana), which sometimes blooms after it has dropped its leaves. 

Widespread but uncommon throughout Long Island, witch hazel is a bit more common in the richer soils occurring in the northern half of Long Island where it grows as a multi-stemmed tall shrub or low stature tree. Witch hazel is scattered throughout the understory of the forest with groupings of plants; I know of no site where the species is abundant, although there are quite a few specimens growing on top of the wooded slope adjacent to Wading River marsh in the large Shoreham property that may soon become Long Island’s next large public space. 

It’s also fairly common in the morainal region of the South Fork. The famous naturalist from Orient, Roy Latham, reported in 1926 a witch hazel from Montauk with a six inch diameter. A very large, multi-stemmed specimen, accompanied by an informational sign, is in full view just north of the dirt parking lot at Prosser Pines County Park situated in Middle Island (on the east side of County Route 21). 

American Hazelnut leaves

Why the very late blooming season for witch hazel? We’re not sure but it may follow the strategy used by skunk cabbage in the Spring, that is, blooming at a time when plant competition for insect pollinators is reduced, thereby increasing the likelihood of reproductive success. The flowers are visited by wasps, gnats, and several types of flies. As insurance against a lack of pollinators due to early cold, the flowers can self-pollinate. 

Speaking of flowers, those of witch hazel are distinct and not likely to be confused with any other species. Growing on small branches below the leaves, the flowers are straw-yellow in color and have four narrow but long, ribbonlike petals that give the flowers the appearance of windblown confetti. There are several horticultural cultivars available, some of which have been developed adorned with bright orange petals. 

If you look closely you’ll see the flowers in close proximity to the woody capsules containing the seeds — last year’s flowers that were successfully pollinated having formed seeds. In the fall the seeds are forcefully ejected from the capsule and, remarkably, can travel 25 feet or more, leading to another colloquial name: snapping alder. It is uncommon for flowers and the product of last year’s flowers — seeds — to be on a plant at the same time. This trait of witch hazel gives rise to the plant’s generic name Hamamelis, a Greek word meaning “fruit at the same time.”  

The leaves are as distinctive as the flowers. The medium-sized leaves have scalloped, roundly toothed edges and prominent parallel veins that extend to the edge. Most notably, and for reasons unknown, the leaves are asymmetrical in that the base of the leaves attach at slightly different points along the main stem, or as one famous botanist noted, the leaves are: “inequilateral at the broadly rounded or subordinate base”.  

Witch hazel liniment, used for skin inflammation or irritation, is derived from the plant’s bark and twigs. Through the years the liniment, still available over-the-counter at local drug stores, has been touted as a cure for a bunch of health ailments including sore throats, rheumatism, insect bites, bruises, scrapes, burns, even “frozen limbs, lame back, and bleeding lungs.” 

Witch hazel has another magical property: use in divining rods to pinpoint water through the process of “water witching.” Indeed, the “witch” in witch hazel has nothing to do with human witches but is a derivation of the Anglo-Saxon word “wych” or “wicen” meaning “to bend,” a reference to the use of pliable witch hazel branches as divining rods.    

American Hazelnut flowers

American hazelnut (Corylus americana), a member of the Birch family, is not known to be used as a soothing liniment like witch hazel, but does share a history with the species as its branches are a tool in “water witching.” And like its commercially important European cousin, European hazelnut or filbert (which are twice as large), its nuts have value as a wildlife food. They are eaten by turkeys, quail, blue jays, pheasants, chipmunks, squirrels, white-footed mice and several other bird and mammal species. 

As suggested by the number of animals that eat them, the nuts are a superfood of sorts: they contain 25% protein and 60% fat, a high calorie food item wildlife love. The nuts don’t look like nuts when on the shrub since they are enveloped in a covering that looks like torn clothing. Deer, rabbits and not on Long Island — beavers browse upon the branches and twigs. 

The species is smaller than witch hazel, being a medium-sized shrub, often forming thickets, a habit which makes it valuable to nesting songbirds. Like witch hazel it is uncommon on Long Island but widespread. I have seen it in a number of locations including a population growing on the east side of the Long Island Greenbelt Trail in northern Islip Town.   

The leaves are pretty, being pointy and heart-shaped and are much larger than witch hazel’s. But unlike witch hazel’s flowers which, as previously mentioned are insect pollinated, the small, almost inconspicuous reddish female flowers of hazelnut are pollinated by the wind. They bloom in April. The male flowers, in the form of long, cigar-like catkins are more prominent. These are consumed by several species of game birds like ruffed grouse (feared to have been extirpated from Long Island).

I hope you make the acquaintance of both species, starting with Witch Hazel, perhaps on a trip to Prossers Pines County Park to walk off the extra Halloween candy you indulged in. Just watch out for those exploding witch hazel seeds!

A resident of Setauket, John Turner is conservation chair of the Four Harbors Audubon Society, author of “Exploring the Other Island: A Seasonal Nature Guide to Long Island” and president of Alula Birding & Natural History Tours.

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Stony Brook Harbor. Photo by Elyse Buchman

By John L. Turner

It was on a rising tide in mid-afternoon, on an 82-degree late summer day, that I slipped into the opening of the kayak, placed my feet on the rudder controls and pushed off the gently sloping bank in the southern reaches of Stony Brook Harbor, not too far from the famous Hercules Pavilion positioned along the harbor’s edge. 

Stony Brook Harbor. Photo by John Turner

Even in shallow, foot-deep water I was easily able to ply the kayak along the shoreline. The first view that drew my attention were nine bright white, long-necked wading birds. Egrets they were, both the larger American Egret and the more diminutive Snowy Egret feeding in the shallow water of the creek that spills from the Stony Brook Grist Mill. Their likely targets were small, two-inch long baitfish, schools of which I would repeatedly see in the hours ahead as I explored the harbor. 

Within a couple of minutes I had plied across a deeper channel running alongside Youngs Island and moments later alongside one of the many marsh islands found within the harbor.   

For the next four hours I explored the many gifts Stony Brook Harbor had to offer — red beard sponges, several species of floating seaweeds, fiddler crabs scuttling across sand flats, baby horseshoe crab molts, the aforementioned baitfish and their pursuers — baby bluefish known as snappers, snapping the placid tension of the water surface — countless shells, and, of course, the birds: Double-crested Cormorants (many, comically, with their wings outstretched, drying in the sun); more long-necked and long-legged wading birds; a small plover pulling on a long red worm; the plaintive, three part call of Greater Yellowlegs; the ubiquitous gulls; and an adult Bald Eagle, dominating the sky over the southern edge of the harbor. 

Like tiny sailboats, many bird feathers floated over the placid surface of the water during the visit, a tell-tale sign that late summer is a time for many birds to molt by replacing older worn out feathers with new ones.  

That small plover was not a Piping Plover but its darker colored cousin — the Semipalmated Plover, so named because its feet are partially webbed. A handsome bird the color of chocolate on the top of its head and back, a bright white belly, breast, and throat offset by a black chest band and line through the eye, and an orange bill and yellow-orange legs, the Semipalmated Plover breeds in the far north; this bird probably flew south from Labrador, Nova Scotia, or Northern Quebec, but perhaps even further north in its breeding range above the Arctic Circle, to make its way to Stony Brook Harbor on its much longer journey to the Caribbean or South America.

The same is true for the Greater Yellowlegs, a slightly larger shorebird with a salt-and-pepper plumage with, you guessed it! — bright yellow legs. The plover was feeding in a sand/mud flat and the three yellowlegs in very shallow water adjacent to the flat. Suddenly, the yellowlegs exploded into the air, winging away rapidly, apparently due to some danger they could (but I could not) perceive. Their emphatic calls rung out over the water, harkening to more desolate and windy places. 

This little shorebird vignette in the harbor illustrates and underscores the value it and countless other coastal embayments on the East Coast play as critical way stations for migrating shorebirds that stitch together the Northern and Southern  hemispheres. These are like the highway rest stops we use while traveling, providing opportunities for these long distance migrants to feed and rest.   

Ribbed mussels along the harbor. Photo by John Turner

As I turned south into the more open waters at the southern end of the harbor I slid by a long muddy embankment, the leading edge of a salt marsh, when two objects caught my eye — many clumps of Ribbed Mussels and dozens of Cordgrass or Spartina plants in full bloom.   

Ribbed mussels are less well-known and appreciated than the edible Blue Mussel since, unlike the latter species, they are not harvested for food. Nevertheless, they are very important to the healthy functioning of tidal wetlands. So named because of the numerous parallel ribbed lines that run the length of its shell, this species grows in bunches in the mud, often tangled in the roots of Cordgrass (Spartina alterniflora), with which they have a “mutualistic” or mutually beneficial relationship.  The mussels benefit from anchoring their shells, through the use of byssal threads, to the roots of Spartina and also benefit from the density of the plant shoots that makes it harder for predators, like crabs, to gain access.

The plant benefits by the waste products excreted from the mussel as it is high in nitrogen which acts as a plant fertilizer. The material also helps to build the marsh — filtering tiny organic particles out of the water column and depositing it on the marsh. Because of these important services the Ribbed mussel is referred to as an “ecosystem engineer.”   

Cordgrass in bloom along Stony Brook Harbor. Photo by John Turner

Cordgrass is the most recognizable plant of the marsh. It dominates the view of much of the harbor and along the lower elevations of the tidal marsh, with its sister species Salt Hay (Spartina patens), occurring in the higher portions. These are two of only a small number of plants that can tolerate the presence of salt and its desiccating qualities; they do this by extruding the salt from pores in the surface of the frond; take a close-up view and you can often see the salt crystals sparkling along the stems of the plant. 

Cordgrass is wind pollinated and not surprisingly, therefore, their interesting one-sided flowers aren’t showy nor do they exude nectar in an effort to lure pollinating insects. The winds care not for such things. Still, they are beautiful and arresting as the hundreds of flowers on each stalk move in the slightest breeze.  

Unfortunately, a storm cloud has appeared over the harbor that would likely compromise its beauty and ecological quality. This “cloud” is in the form of two large docks proposed on properties located in the harbor’s shallow southern end in the Village of Nissequogue. 

Despite the fact there are two commercial marinas in the northern reaches of the harbor at which a boat can be stored or the fact each property owner currently has access to launch kayaks or canoes from the shore, these residents are seeking approval to install monstrously long docks that would jut well out into the water. One is more than two hundred feet long.  

The proposed site for one of the docks. Photo by John Turner

Installing the dock pilings would be disruptive to the harbor bottom, cause turbidity and sedimentation problems, affecting wetland dependent wildlife such as diamondback terrapins (I saw a dozen terrapins floating and swimming in the southern portion of the bay on the kayak visit and fifteen from a vantage point onshore at Cordwood Park about a month earlier). 

Turbidity problems and disruption to the harbor bottom by “prop scouring” will occur each and every time boats are run out on low tide. Further, the docks will make it more difficult for you and I to walk along the shoreline as is our legal right “to pass and repass” along the shoreline as guaranteed by the Public Trust Doctrine and did I mention the ugliness and visual blight caused by the docks at a site landscape painters find inspiration? 

Perhaps of greater concern is the precedence that approval of these two docks could establish. If these are approved, what’s to stop the harbor’s “death-by-a-thousand-cuts” as several dozen other property owners ringing the harbor, through time, request the same? 

And is it reasonable to assume that, as the years roll by, these owners clamor for the very shallow southern reaches of the harbor to be dredged to ease navigation and better accommodate their boats?  Yes, it is. 

For the sake of this most special and unique place the request for these mega docks must be denied. The public interest in, and use of, Stony Brook Harbor and recognition of the significant ecological value of the harbor dictate against approval and must prevail. Will public officials heed the call?   

A resident of Setauket, John Turner is conservation chair of the Four Harbors Audubon Society, author of “Exploring the Other Island: A Seasonal Nature Guide to Long Island” and president of Alula Birding & Natural History Tours

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‘Beween Stony Brook Harbor Tides’

If you wish to learn more about the human and natural history of Stony Brook Harbor, I encourage you to read “Between Stony Brook Harbor Tides — The Natural History of a Long Island Pocket Bay” authored by Larry Swanson and Malcolm Bowman, two professors who taught at Stony Brook University’s School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences. The book provides an overview of the natural conditions that shape the harbor, the human imprint on the harbor, and the many species of wildlife that call it home. It is a most worthwhile read.  

— John Turner

 

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