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Village Times Herald

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Incumbent Brookhaven Highway Superintendent Dan Losquadro, left, debates challenger Michael Kaplan. Photos by Raymond Janis

By Aidan Johnson

As Election Day nears, residents will decide between two candidates for Town of Brookhaven highway superintendent.

Current highway superintendent, Dan Losquadro (R), and Michael Kaplan (D) took part in an exclusive debate at the TBR office Friday, Oct. 27, tackling issues such as response times, paving schedules and the impact of storms on roads.

Introductions

Losquadro has served as highway superintendent for almost 11 years but has held public office for roughly two decades.

He started out after winning a special election in 2003 for Suffolk County’s 6th Legislative District. After serving two years in the Legislature, his colleagues elected him to be the Republican Conference Leader at age 33. He gave the rebuttals to Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy’s (D) State of the County address at that time.

He moved on to serve in the New York State Assembly but preferred staying home with his family. After people started lobbying him to replace former Highway Superintendent John Rouse (D), Losquadro decided to do so, citing his past work in his father’s body shop and as a laborer with Local 66 as what trained him for the job.

Kaplan has had 30 years of experience in municipal highway departments, serving 20 years in Islip and 10 years in Huntington. During that time, he served as a laborer, road inspector and worked directly for the superintendent of highways in Huntington. Additionally, he has served as a union leader and is a U.S. Army veteran.

While Kaplan indicated he did not want to speak negatively about Losquadro, he said that he has differing opinions on how to run the department and that there have been “a lot of residents” who have told him that they wish to see the superintendent more often.

Functions of the office

Losquadro said that the “umbrella of the Highway Department is much larger than people realize.” It is not just about the care of the roads but includes areas such as the traffic safety division for the town, engineering where all highway work permits go through, stormwater management and street lighting.

Losquadro runs a budget of more than $110 million, has nearly 300 employees, oversees 3,500 lane miles of roads and believes in innovation for moving the department forward, citing his digitizing of the work order system along with the conversion of all of Brookhaven’s street lights to LEDs, with Brookhaven’s energy savings being up to $1.2 million a year. 

He has also brought in over $150 million from the state and federal grant funding to the town, including a $16 million grant to replace the Sheep Pasture Road bridge in Port Jefferson Station earlier this year.

Kaplan stated that Losquadro touched on a lot of the functions. However, he said that after knocking on thousands of doors, he has a different perspective on how the Highway Department should be run daily.

Kaplan said that the workforce needs to be built back up, both in the sense that it is not enough and because it is demoralized. While he noted Losquadro has done a good job, Kaplan also stated that there are many residents who are frustrated with a perceived lack of accessibility and poor response time within the department, along with people not receiving an answer to their concerns.

As the head of the department, Kaplan said he would be talking to the employees and residents “every single day” and explain to them the answer to their problems, “whether they like my answer or not.” Kaplan also believes that he has to have a staff with the same vision of public service and that while the employees come first, “it’s really all about the residents.”

Losquadro rebutted this, saying he is “as hands-on as it gets” for a highway superintendent and that he and his staff deal with residents “day in, day out.” However, he said that one of the problems is that some people will call other local officials if they do not like the answer the Highway Department gives them, and claim that they did not get a response. However, the electronic work order system can show that the department has been in touch. While they sometimes miss the mark, he indicated, they still strive to contact every person promptly.

Climate change

With climate change increasing the threat of environmental disasters, including major snowfall events, Kaplan believes that it is imperative to build up private contractors.

Kaplan also said that road sweeping is a vital part of conserving the environment because if the road is not swept, everything washes down into the catch and recharge basins, polluting the aquifers. 

While there hasn’t been a big snowstorm in recent years, Kaplan said one big snowfall is enough to remind everyone that what the department does is vital. He also said that there is a science to snow plowing that he would teach every individual what to do behind the wheel of a truck.

Kaplan also said that, with a larger workforce, he would want to have a snow plowing operation that encompasses all of the roads, both main and side, at the same time. 

Losquadro noted that climate change has also caused issues such as roads that were once dry at high tide to now be underwater at normal tide. Because of this, Highways has worked with the Law Department and has abandoned a number of roads.

Due to rising sea levels, Losquadro has been “seeking grants anywhere I can get them.” Currently, the department is raising the roads along Mount Sinai Harbor and doing a massive drainage project there so that the roads remain passable at high tide when water gets impounded in the harbor along the southern shore.

Since there is no capacity for drainage along the southern shore, the department has been acquiring parcels and using them as bioretention areas to make the roads passable. 

Losquadro has also increased the rate paid to snow plow vendors by 25% this year. However, the department is facing a problem that the younger generation of contractors is not getting into the snow plowing business, so is trying to incentivize outside contractors.

Response times

Losquadro elaborated on the electric work order system he put in place, describing how a variant is used during severe weather events, containing “a simple dropdown menu” with which they can put information into quickly.

Additionally, a foreman can use iPads during a work order to take pictures and type in their notes to transmit the information instantly to a customer service representative, who can then relay it back to the resident in cases such as evaluations and inspections.

The department has also added the ability to track all of the road signs in its geographical information system and have added almost 200,000 drains. Losquadro said they “continue to add functionality to the system and build on it” to be more efficient.

While Kaplan said that he respects what Losquadro had to say, if elected, he would go back to the “old school way of doing things” by being a “boots on the ground” superintendent immediately.

If someone calls with a concern, including issues of potholes, Kaplan said he would institute a 72-hour correspondence policy, meaning that the person calling would receive correspondence, such as a callback or email, explaining that their issue has been recognized, and then a time to have it repaired will be scheduled.

Additionally, Kaplan said that potholes would be filled and repaired within 48 hours, and he would reteach his employees how to fill a pothole by his standards.

Politicization claim

In response to claims that Losquadro only begins to fix roads and potholes right before an election, Losquadro considered this notion “absurd.” He further said that the paving season runs from April to November, with someone being first and someone being last during the paving season.

According to the incumbent, they schedule the work based on how much concrete or drainage work has to be performed on a given project, with the jobs that require less work being done in the spring since they can get the prep work done sooner. Anything involving schools is done over the summer so as not to disrupt access to the schools, and the projects done in the fall require more extensive concrete or drainage work.

Losquadro also said that they spend nearly the same amount of money each year, exclusive of grant funding for individual projects, and do not spend more during an election year.

While Kaplan did state that he did make a comment about allegations that Losquadro only begins to fix potholes and roads around election time, he did not mean that as a disrespectful comment toward Losquadro. He had made the comment because residents have told him that they would repeatedly ask for an issue to be addressed, and it would only happen “three months before an election.”

Paving schedules

Kaplan said that he would have a delegation involved in assessing all of the roads in Brookhaven since the highway superintendent could not feasibly do it by themself. He would have the roads rated A through F, with the roads receiving “D” and “F” ratings being placed on the high-priority list.

Losquadro said that prioritizing a roadway isn’t just “necessarily a visual assessment” since there may be cases where the top layer of a road may appear to be in disrepair while the subsurface is still very strong, and vice versa.

If reelected, Losquadro pledged to avail himself of a program offered by the Cornell Cooperative Extension that uses optical sensors to evaluate the condition of the town’s roads to get what he referred to as a “heat map.” 

Losquadro added that he feels that they have gotten through the roads that were in very poor shape that he inherited from the last highway superintendent. He is planning two-to-three years out in the paving schedule, which is why the overall optical evaluation of the roadways would be helpful in how he looks forward at a possible three-to-eight years out from this point.

Brookhaven residents townwide will decide on the Highway Department’s future on Tuesday, Nov. 7.

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Photo by Lisa Mcgrath

A LOCAL TREASURE

Lisa Mcgrath of Stony Brook took this beautiful photograph of the historic Gamecock Cottage (built in 1876) at West Meadow Beach on October 2nd. 

She writes…”While walking on this glorious day at our local beach after so many days of rain, I realized what a constant and beautiful backdrop the cottage is throughout the changing seasons. There were people fishing and enjoying the sunshine as well. It reminded me what a special place we live in.”

Send your Photo of the Week to [email protected]

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Top row, from left, Wayne Hart, Kimberly Hart, Ed McNamara and Tim Adams; middle row, from left, Tom Comisky, Rob Pellegrino, George Overin and David Phyfe; front row, from left, Chris De Francis, Alle Wallace, Kathryn Comisky, Helen McCarthy, Aneka Carsten, George Fear, Stephanie Carsten, Stephanie Sakson, Bianca Dresch and Mort Rosen Photo by Kimberly Phyfe

By Kimberly Phyfe

On Saturday, October 21st, the Three Village Historical Society (TVHS) welcomed over 300 guests through their annual graveyard walk, the Spirits Tour, made possible through the help of 50 volunteers and staff.

Visitors met spirits from the Chicken Hill neighborhood in Setauket throughout the 100 years people lived there, between 1860 and 1960.

Chicken Hill was a one mile neighborhood located along Route 25A, where Stop & Shop is now, originally made up of Eastern European immigrants, Native Americans, and African Americans.

Today, the community of Chicken Hill is far from its original housing and cultural form. The people who lived there have lost their personal, cultural and social past. At present, they risk losing even that important and precious heritage: the memory and collective history of Chicken Hill. 

This 29th Annual Spirits Tour was an effort to preserve that memory and to establish Chicken Hill’s place in the evolution of the Three Village Area.

The tour began at the Setauket Presbyterian Church at dusk and continued into the clear, moonlit night. Inside the fellowship hall were cider & donuts, a pop-up gift shop, and live music from the wonderfully talented Long Island Youth Development Inc.

Scott Ferrara, Exhibits & Collections Coordinator at TVHS, assembled an incredible mobile display of artifacts from the award-winning Chicken Hill exhibit. Scott printed dozens of historical images and brought out treasured items from the archives such as the Ridgway Family Bible.            

Beverly and Barbara Tyler were on hand to speak about the Day Book on exhibit from the Tyler Brothers General Store circa 1908, mentioned by the first spirit Jacob Hart, portrayed by Wayne Hart. Both Beverly and Wayne shared about their family’s history in Chicken Hill with deep affection, and a desire for future preservation.

Nancy Scuri was a tour guide and remarked that “Having the family members tell their ancestors’ stories was an incredibly special touch. The group I led was interested and listening to all the actors, but when I told them they were watching direct descendants of the people they were portraying, it was all the more meaningful!”

Owen Murphy, a recipient of the Three Village Young Historian Award, also volunteered as a tour guide this year. “The fact that all the spirits were from the same place was amazing, as you were able to peer into the life of ordinary people in the 100 years of Chicken Hill’s existence,” he said.

There were four stops throughout the graveyard at Setauket Presbyterian, two more at the Village Green, and the last four were at Caroline Episcopal Church.

TVHS told humorous, honest, and heart-breaking stories of the actual people who lived, worked, and died here. Scripts were originally written by the TVHS Education Committee comprised of Donna Smith, Bev Tyler, Brian Bennett, Town of Brookhaven Historian Barbara Russell & Education Coordinator Lindsey Steward-Goldberg. 

They then went on to be edited by Development Coordinator Kimberly Phyfe and volunteer / spirit Stephanie Sakson.

George Fear portrayed Charles, a spirit tending to the fenced-in Searing plot in the far corner of Caroline Church. “I’d heard about Chicken Hill but hadn’t had an appreciation for the richness of its history in Three Village until being exposed to it this year. It’s not a time in history which is documented or discussed nearly to the extent of others in the Three Village area (i.e. George Washington and the Culper Spy Ring) but so relevant and relatable given the ties so many families have to Chicken Hill and its history.”

TVHS Director Mari Irizarry says that plans for the 30th Annual Spirits Tour are already in the works. “We have so many ideas inspired by the Three Village area, our actors and guides, and local lore. Bringing history to life for our community is an incredible honor and one that I am proud to share in year after year. It is no exaggeration to say that this was our best Spirits Tour to date!”

So what keeps family, friends, and neighbors coming back for more? George Fear says that “I have always loved history, there’s an abundance of it in Three Village, and you learn something new and interesting every year. Most importantly, it’s the opportunity to meet and collaborate with a terrific group of people who are passionate and enthusiastic about history and make it an absolute pleasure to volunteer. What could be better than that? Needless to say, count me in as a spirit for next year and I am looking forward to the 30th Spirits Tour!”

Special thanks to Setauket Presbyterian Church, Caroline Episcopal Church, and the sponsors of the 29th Annual Spirits Tour: Annmarie’s Farm Stand, Luigi’s Pizzeria, Starbucks, Stop & Shop, and Town of Brookhaven Councilmember Jonathan Kornreich.

Author Kimberly Phyfe is the Development Coordinator for the Three Village Historical Society in Setauket.

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Annual holiday event celebrates shipyards and shorelines
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A scene from a previous Candlelight House Tour. Photo courtesy of Lianna Kosch
A scene from a previous Candlelight House Tour. Photo courtesy of Lianna Kosch
A scene from a previous Candlelight House Tour. Photo courtesy of Lianna Kosch
A scene from a previous Candlelight House Tour. Photo courtesy of Lianna Kosch

By Rita J. Egan

With the holidays approaching, the Three Village Historical Society is preparing to light the way with a touch of history and seasonal decor.

The historical society will host its Candlelight House Tour on Friday, Dec. 1, and Saturday, Dec. 2. The event, titled Shipyards and Shorelines, will feature homes near the shores of Setauket Harbor, according to event co-chairs Patty Yantz and Patty Cain. Rounding out the house tour will be the Caroline Church of Setauket. The church celebrated its 300th anniversary this year.

Most of the four homes are on Shore Road, an area known as the Dyers Neck Historic District.

“There will be beautiful homes decorated in seasonal décor by our talented decorators,” Cain said.

The annual event allows visitors to visit the homes to see the designers’ work. 

“All of our events, no matter how glamorous, they are all rooted in education,” said Mari Irizarry, TVHS director. “The Candlelight House Tour, now in its 44th year, is our biggest fundraiser, with all proceeds going directly towards our operating costs. We welcome over 1,000 guests and over 100 volunteers to appreciate historic architecture of the Three Village community and learn about the people that helped build our community.”

Irizarry said the chosen homes are revealed to attendees when they pick up a booklet before their tour begins. This year’s choices include a mixture of historic homes and houses recognized for their aesthetic beauty.

“There is one grand house, down a hidden path behind gates that is ‘shore’ to be the belle of the ball,” Irizarry said.

As early as 1662, the area was once the center of shipbuilding. In the 19th century, the industry became a major commercial activity. According to Yantz and Cain, the tour will focus on shipbuilding, local architecture, oystering and whaling.

Irizarry added the 439-ton whaling ship Daisy was among the inspirations. The ship was built in 1871-72 at Nehemiah Hand’s shipyard, which was located along Shore Road in East Setauket.

According to Yantz, during the event, the society board members will share photos and documents from TVHS archives and little-known local history trivia.

In addition to the house tours, the historical society will host a reception Friday night at The Old Field Club from 9 p.m. to 11 p.m. and a breakfast Saturday at the club from 8:30 a.m. to 10:30 a.m. for additional fees. The breakfast and tour package allows attendees to visit the homes an hour before they are officially opened.

TVHS members presale begins today, Thursday, Nov. 2 and runs until Nov. 5. Tickets will be available for non-members starting Nov 6. The Friday, Dec. 1 tour runs from 6 p.m. to 9 p.m. Tickets for members are $75 and non-members $90. Friday night’s tour and reception package ticket is $145 for members and $175 for non-members. Saturday’s tour is $55 for members and $70 for nonmembers. Saturday’s tour and breakfast combo is $90 and $120.

For more information, visit www.tvhs.org/candlelight-house-tour.

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METRO photo

By Daniel Dunaief

Daniel Dunaief

My wife and I used to say “the recording is always on.”

It was our code words to each other to be careful about what we said and did in front of our children, particularly when, as many parents know, we might not want our children to act or speak in the same way we might be tempted to in the moment.

Our children have an incredible ability to monitor everything we do, even when they don’t appear to be paying any attention to us. Sometimes, they actively choose the opposite because our choices annoyed or frustrated them.

If, as many of us say and believe, we want our children to be better than we are, we wish them well, wait and watch, hoping their happiness, success and achievements far exceed our own.

Perhaps such reaction formation is what brings grandparents and grandchildren together, causing various characteristics to skip a generation, as two opposites create the same.

Aside from things like weekly routines, an emphasis (or not) on achievements like community service, or performance in sports or music, parents recognize that we are role models.

In the movie “42” about trailblazer Jackie Robinson, the first African-American man to play in Major League Baseball, a father shouts racial epithets at Robinson, leading his conflicted son to ponder how to behave. The son echoes what his father shouts.

In that moment, Peewee Reese puts his arm around Robinson, offering his public support and quieting the hostile crowd. Reese even suggests, as a nod to the realities of today, that “Maybe tomorrow we’ll all wear number 42. That way they won’t tell us apart.”

Films are great, but we don’t live in a world where supportive music and smiling heroes remind us who we are or how we should act.

It’s up to us to decide how to be better for ourselves and for our children.

A friend recently shared a story about his daughter. A college student, she was working at an ice cream store during a fall break. A few customers came in and a man in the group asked her where she attended college.

When she told him, the man suggested that there were Muslims who attended that college and it would be easy enough to take a few of them behind the shed and get rid of them.

The man who made a joke about murder at a time of violent conflict in the Middle East and ongoing and hostile disagreements among Americans probably wasn’t thinking about his children, about my friend’s daughter, or anyone else.

Maybe he was repeating the words his father or mother said at the dinner table, after an evening of drinking or within minutes of leaving a house of worship.

Is that the person he wants to be? Is that what he would encourage his own children to believe, that people who practice other religions or have other beliefs are somehow such enemies that it’s okay to make such a comment?

We have to be better than that. Maybe the guy didn’t mean it, but even saying it suggests that he not only thought it, but that he also likely shared that idea in some context in front of his children.

Killing and hatred won’t end if we don’t hold ourselves accountable for our actions and words.

We identify ourselves in particular ways, by such factors as nationality, religion, race, among many other labels.

Those identifiers, many of which we didn’t choose but are an accident of our birth, mean that others around us are on the outside, associating with a different group.

We owe it to our children to imagine and create a better world. That starts by serving as role models and not as reflexive perpetuators of anger, hatred, or prejudice towards those we consider others.

With the world echoing the conditions from the 20th century, we should speak and act in ways that bring people together and that would make us proud if and when we heard our children making those same, or perhaps better, remarks.

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By Leah S. Dunaief

Leah Dunaief

Inside this issue is a treasure trove of first-hand information about the candidates and the issues in the coming election. How do I know? Because we, the different members of the editorial board of Times Beacon Record Newspapers, personally interviewed 25 people running for office across the three towns that we serve: Brookhaven, Smithtown and Huntington. The offices the candidates are running for are all local, which means that these are the officials who will have the most direct effect on our lives. 

The positions range this year from county legislators to town supervisors, town council, and town clerk. We asked them questions without bias, seeking only to understand who they were, what they believed and what we could expect from each of them, should they be elected — or re-elected, as the case might be. The setting in our conference room was relaxed, and we hoped comfortable, with opponents for each office seated together around the table responding to questions put to them by our editors and reporters. 

Sometimes there were four candidates, sometimes only one who might be running unopposed or against a shadow opponent, but mostly there were two during each session. Most of the time, the hour goes by calmly, but occasionally the opponents get testy with each other — they may even become openly hostile.

At one such session some years ago, one of the candidates invited the other out to the back parking lot “to settle things.” When the other began to take off his jacket, we quickly intervened. But there were no such flare-ups this year. 

The answers were timed in an attempt to get to the main ideas without running on too long. There was ample time at the end for each visitor to tell us anything more that perhaps we hadn’t elicited with our questioning. 

We have written up the details of each interview in a separate article for the election section. And we discuss the candidates at the end of each hour and come to a conclusion for the endorsement. 

Most of the time, the editorial group was unanimous because the choices were fairly direct. But for a couple of races, we talked over the pros and cons of each candidate at length before making the selection. These endorsements are based on both the in-depth interviews and the considerable information we know about the incumbents since we have been covering them closely throughout their terms in office. Of course, after reading the stories, you may or may not agree with our conclusions. Our job is to get you thinking.

The many hours that are given to this task, throughout the month of October, are a service for our readers. We are privileged to enjoy an extended face-to-face time with those standing for election, and we feel an obligation to pass along whatever information, facts and impressions we gather during these sessions. We sincerely hope we help in the sometimes-difficult job of casting a responsible vote.

Each year we include in the election section a sample ballot that we are able to procure from the Suffolk County Board of Elections because readers have told us that it is a great advantage for them to receive the ballot at the voting poll already knowing how it is laid out.

Our editorial board is made up of staffers with different political leanings, but when we put our journalists’ hats on, we try to judge each race strictly on the merits of the opposing candidates. And while it is technically possible for me to be tyrannical about the final selections, that is almost never the case. We decide by majority rule.

Sincere thanks to the talented staff who join in this extra work each year. We truly believe that we are watchdogs for the people, and nowhere is that more necessary than in reporting about government and its office holders. We hope we have helped you, whether you read by newspaper and/or online. Now please vote.  

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The Jazz Loft. Photo by Heidi Sutton

Everyone knows that iconic bass riff at the beginning of the hit song “Stand by Me.” That’s the musical imprint of the late bassist Lloyd Trotman (May 25, 1923 – October 3, 2007) who was the house sideman for Atlantic Records. Trotman played with Duke Ellington and Billy Strayhorn and on many notable hits, including “Yakety Yak,” “The Lion Sleeps Tonight,” and Dinah Washington’s “What Diff’rence A Day Makes.” 

Lloyd Trotman

On November 3, The Jazz Loft, 275 Christian Ave., Stony Brook will join with the Long Island Music and Entertainment Hall of Fame to posthumously present Lloyd Trotman with the Sideman Award. The award ceremony will take place at intermission of the 7 p.m. Santi Debriano Septet show — Santi Debriano (Bass); Mamiko Watanabe (piano); Ray Scro (Bari); Andrea Brachfeld (flute); Tommy Morimoto (tenor); Joaquin Pozo (percussion);and Willie Martinez (drums) — which is part of the Jazz Loft’s Lloyd Trotman Bassist Series. At that time, members of the LIMEHoF Board and will induct Trotman, who was a Huntington resident, into the LIMEHoF. 

 “As a long-time friend and admirer of Lloyd Trotman, it’s very poignant to be honoring him with this award,” said Jazz Loft Founder Tom Manuel. “Side musicians are not always given the credit they deserve, and it pleases me to see Lloyd’s talent and signature sound be appreciated. It’s also a thrill to be working together with our neighbor the Long Island Music and Entertainment Hall to honor a legendary Jazz musician.”

”The Long Island Music and Entertainment’s mission is to celebrate the rich music and entertainment heritage of Long Island and support music and arts education for future generations,” said Jeffrey James, Board member of LIMEHoF. “That’s why we’re delighted to present a Sideman Award to Lloyd Trotman. In doing so, we’re celebrating his remarkable career of working with a who’s who of musicians and entertainers and helping to preserve his legacy for many years to come.”

The Jazz Loft’s Lloyd Trotman Bassist Series is sponsored through a gift from Trotman’s daughter, Linda, who sponsors the new concert series in honor of her late father. The series presents bassists of note at the Jazz Loft. Ms. Trotman will be accepting the award on behalf of her father. 

“I am so thankful that my father is being recognized with this award,” she said. “I know he is still here with me and I wish he could accept the award himself. I am honored be the one to accept it in his place as I honor his 100th birthday.” (Trotman would have been 100 this year.)

Ms. Trotman has established a website in honor of her father, who she calls the “Sideman to the Stars.” Visit https://lloydtrotman.com to learn more.

The Trotman funding is matched with the Robert Lion David Gardiner Foundation’s donation of $5,000, along with additionally pledged funds thanks to long standing Jazz Loft donors Dan Oliveri and Michael Ardolino of Realty Connect USA.

For more information and for tickets visit thejazzloft.org

 

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Scene from the 33rd annual WMHO Halloween Festival. Photo from WMHO
Scene from the 33rd annual WMHO Halloween Festival. Photo from WMHO
Scene from the 33rd annual WMHO Halloween Festival. Photo from WMHO
Scene from the 33rd annual WMHO Halloween Festival. Photo from WMHO
Scene from the 33rd annual WMHO Halloween Festival. Photo from WMHO
Scene from the 33rd annual WMHO Halloween Festival. Photo from WMHO
Scene from the 33rd annual WMHO Halloween Festival. Photo from WMHO

The Ward Melville Heritage Organization (WMHO) hosted their 33rd Annual Halloween Festival on Oct. 31 from 2 to 5 p.m. in Stony Brook Village. The festival was a huge success and brought more families than ever to the Village Center to celebrate Halloween.

Families enjoyed music from WALK 97.5, trick-or-treating throughout Stony Brook Village Center, dancing with Monster Merlin and games for children.

Nightmare Before Christmas

WMHO announced their 33rd Annual Scarecrow Competition winners during the festival. The winners are as follows:

Category A- Professional

1st Place – #310 Nightmare Before Christmas

2nd Place – #111 Grim

Category B – Adult and Family

1st Place – #305 Mr. Margaritaville

2nd Place – #301 Edgar Allen Scare-Poe

3rd Place – #102 On Wednesdays, We Wear Pink

Category C – Children

1st Place – #206 Barbie: You Can Be Anything

2nd Place – #303 Bubblegum Witch

3rd Place – #110 Barbie

This event was sponsored by Long Island Speech, Green Towers Group, News 12 Long Island, Goldfish Swim School, Dr. Robert Quilty, Ph.D and Dr. Rocco Morelli, DDS.

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Speakers at the October 31, press conference, from left to right, Adriene Esposito, Director of Citizens Campaign for the Environment, Chris Gobler, Professor at Stony Brook University, and Peter Scully, Deputy Executive of Suffolk County.

New 2023 Map Shows Record Number of Harmful Algal Blooms and Dead Zones Across Long Island

Scientists at Stony Brook University have completed their assessment of water quality in Long Island’s surface waters for 2023 and the news was not good –the announcement was made today at a press conference on the shores of Great South Bay. During the months of April through September, every major bay and estuary across Long Island was afflicted by harmful algal blooms (HABs), oxygen-starved, dead zones, and fish and turtles kills.  Excessive delivery of nitrogen from onsite wastewater has been cited as the root cause of these disturbing events.

“Some aspects of 2023 were the ‘new normal’ for Long Island, but there were disturbing, unexpected outcomes as well” said Dr. Christopher Gobler, Professor of Stony Brook University.  “This was the worse year for harmful algal blooms on Long Island, ever.”

Gobler explained that there was a record-setting five shellfish bed closures in five locations covering thousands of acres across Long Island due to the occurrence of blooms of the saxitoxin-synthesizing alga, Alexandrium. Saxitoxin causes the human health syndrome, paralytic shellfish poisoning.  These five closures in April and May were following by an additional closure that began in May and extended into the summer that was caused by a bloom of Dinophysis in Moriches Bay that reached record densities.Dinophysis contains okadaic acid, a gastrointestinal toxin and the 2023 bloom was record-setting.

“While a Dinophysis bloom in the Flanders Bay region in 2011 had been globally deemed the most intense Dinophysis HAB ever recorded at two million cells per liter, the event in Moriches Bay exceeded 100 million cells per liter, and sustained densities in the millions for over a month.”, commented Gobler.

On the heels of these spring events came something new for Long Island, namely a HAB called Pseudo-nitzschia that contains a neurotoxin known as domoic acid that causes amnesic shellfish poisoning.  The bloom covered south shore regions from Islip through Quogue across much of Great South Bay, all of Moriches Bay, and western Shinnecock Bay.  Beyond detecting tens of millions of cells per liter, this bloom was also producing the toxin domoic acid, representing a new public health threat.

“This algal toxin has never been seen in Long Island waters and has had significant mortality effects on marine mammal on the west coast.  Its high density in regions that had been previously flushed by the New Inlet that closed in 2023 suggests that, in addition, to excessive nitrogen loads, poor flushing contributed to this event.”, said Gobler.

And the HABs did not stop there.  In mid-July, a rust tide began on the east end of Long Island, starting in Shinnecock Bay and ultimately spreading through all of the Peconic Estuary.  Rust tide is caused by the alga, Cochlodinum, that is ichthyotoxic, meaning it can kill fish and has been responsible for fish and shellfish kills on Long Island.  The 2023 rust tide was the earliest start ever for a Rust Tide, and this was also the longest lasting rust tide as the event extended into early October.  In 2012, the Gobler lab published an article in an international, peer-reviewed journal identifying the ability of excessive nitrogen to intensify these HABs, and in a 2019 publication, they identified the increase in summer water temperatures since the 20th century as a factor allowing these blooms to occur all summer in NY waters.

The HABs also extended inland in 2023 as there were more than were two-dozen lakes and pind that experienced outbreaks of blue-green algal blooms, a serious concern for both human and animal health.  The south fork of Long Island was called out for hosting the ‘Dirty Baker’s Dozen’ as 13 water bodies in this region experienced these toxic blooms in 2023.   For the past seven years, Suffolk County has had more lakes with blue-green algal blooms than any other of the 64 counties in New York State, a distinction that is likely to be repeated in 2023.  Blue-green algae make toxins that can be harmful to humans and animals and have been linked to dog illnesses and dog deaths across the US and on Long Island.

The 2023 water quality impairment map also documented more than 30 distinct low oxygen ‘dead zones’ across the north shore, south shore, and east end of Long Island.  All life in the ocean outside of some bacteria require oxygen to persist, a fact motivating the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation to strive for all water bodies at all times to have no less than 3 milligrams of dissolved oxygen.  All 30 dead zones failed to meet this standard.  While fish kills were not widespread in 2023, a lack of oxygen did contributed fish kills in locations on the south shore.

Over the years, the occurrence of harmful algal blooms and dead zones has contributed to the collapse of critical marine habitats such as seagrass, major fisheries on Long Island such as bay scallops and hard clams, and coastal wetlands that help protect waterfront communities from the damaging impacts of storms.  Groups such as The Nature Conservancy have been working for more than a decade to revive and restore these habitats and shellfish but have been challenged by events such as those witnessed during the summer of 2023.

Excessive nitrogen coming from household sewage that seeps into groundwater and ultimately, into bays, harbors, and estuaries or, in some cases, is directly discharged into surface waters, is a root cause of the maladies of 2023. Excessive nitrogen stimulates algal blooms that can, in turn, remove oxygen from bottom waters as they decay.  Suffolk County and Nassau County recently completed ‘subwatershed studies’ that identified wastewater as the largest source of nitrogen to surface waters and set goals for reducing nitrogen loading from septic systems as a defense against these impairments.

Despite the gloomy news, there were some signs of hope in the data.

“In Long Island Sound, the western dead zone in 2023 was significantly smaller than it was 20 year ago thanks to sewage treatment plants removing 60% more nitrogen and reducing the flow of nitrogen into the western Sound”, said Gobler. “This proves that reductions in nitrogen loading does improve water quality.”

Counterbalancing this high note was the growth of a second dead zone in central Long Island Sound emanating from Smithtown Bay suggesting this region now needs significant reduction in nitrogen loading.

The report on the summer of 2023 was compiled by the Gobler Laboratory of Stony Brook University that has been monitoring and sampling Long Island’s waters on a weekly basis every summer since 2014.  Data was also generated by the Long Island Sound Study which is funded by US Environmental Protection Agency.  The data was reported weekly on News 12 and Newsday as part of their weekly Water Quality Index.

The study was supported by the Chicago Community Trust and an anonymous donor.

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Joseph Pierce, associate professor in the Department of Hispanic Languages and Literature and the inaugural director of Stony Brook University’s Native American and Indigenous Studies program. Photo courtesy Stony Brook University

Stony Brook University named Joseph Pierce, associate professor in the Department of Hispanic Languages and Literature, the inaugural director of a Native American and Indigenous Studies effort as the university plans to hire three new faculty in this nascent undertaking.

Next year, the southern flagship school of the State University of New York plans to add staff in the English Department, Women’s Gender and Sexuality Studies and Anthropology.

“I have been eager for this to start,” said Pierce, a member of the Cherokee Nation who has been at the university for a decade. “We have so much to contribute to broader discussions that are happening around the world. The university is better by including Native American studies.”

Andrew Newman, professor and chair of the Department of English at SBU. Photo courtesy Stony Brook University

Andrew Newman, professor and current chair of the Department of English, who is also chair of a committee advising Axel Drees, interim dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, described Pierce as having a “real national profile,” adding that he was the “right person to be the founding director.”

Starting next fall, students at the university can minor in Native American and Indigenous Studies, where they can study the history, art, social and political interests, languages and cultures of Indigenous peoples.

The focus on Native American Studies will emphasize transdisciplinary topics such as environmental justice and sustainability.

Earlier this year, Stony Brook won a competition to develop Governors Island as a climate solutions center [See story, “SBU will develop $700M climate center on Governors Island,” April 26, TBR News Media].

Indigenous scholars should have a “seat at the table,” said Newman, “as they are globally one of the demographics most impacted by climate change.”

Islands in the Pacific are disappearing, Guam is undergoing “significant environmental degradation,” and fires in the Pacific Northwest and leaking pipelines in the United States and Canada are “disproportionately affecting Indigenous peoples,” Pierce added.

Indigenous groups relate to the land in a way that’s different from others, approaching it as stewards and caretakers, Pierce said.

“We see land as a relative,” he noted. “We’re asking very different questions about what it means to care for a place and to care for the environment and to care for the life that sustains it.”

The New York City government proposed plans for flood relief on the lower East Side of Manhattan in the event of future storms like Hurricane Sandy. The proposals included building massive walls and raising elevated platforms, including clearing thousands of trees.

Numerous indigenous groups objected and protested against such plans, Pierce said.

In an email, Carl Lejuez, Stony Brook University’s provost, suggested that a significant piece of Governors Island is climate justice, so the link between the Governors Island effort and indigenous peoples “fits naturally with the goals of the New York Climate Exchange.”

Axel Drees, interim dean of the College of Arts and Sciences at SBU. Photo courtesy Stony Brook University

Lejuez credited Drees as a “driver of this in collaboration with Professor Pierce.” Lejuez added that his office is “definitely providing support to see it come to fruition.”

The most crucial component in the start of this effort is hiring faculty.

“If we build the core faculty across the university, we can definitely consider expanding research and curriculum opportunities,” Lejuez wrote.

Student interest

Students from the Anthropology Department recently invited Pierce to give a talk about some of his current research.

“It was evident that a lot of them have an interest in working toward understanding humanity, what it means to be human,” he said. They also have an understanding of how anthropology as a discipline has sometimes historically “adopted rather unscientific and proto-eugenic methods” in describing and analyzing Indigenous Peoples.

Students are eager for an alternative perspective on the acquisition and acceptance of knowledge.

Pierce believes students have considerable interest in Native American Studies. His courses about Latin American indigenous populations are full.

“There are numerous students who are interested in Native American and Indigenous studies but don’t quite have a cohesive plan of study that’s available to them,” Pierce said. “This is remedying that disconnection.”

Long Island students grow up in numerous towns and communities with Native American names, such as Sachem, Wyandanch, Montauk and Setauket.

Newman added that the staff hopes the new effort can do some “outreach to local schools and provide professional development with kindergarten through 12th-grade teachers. It would be an important mission for the university to educate Long Island as a whole about Native culture.”

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