Suffolk County Police Marine Bureau officers freed a trapped bird in Northport. Photo from SCPD
A bird has got new wind beneath its wings, thanks to rescue efforts by the Suffolk County Police Department’s Marine Bureau, whose officers freed the creature on Sunday after it became entangled on an offshore fuel platform in Northport.
Officers Charles Marchiselli and Michael O’Leary were aboard Marine Bravo when they observed the bird tangled in string along the railing of the platform, about two miles north of National Grid’s Northport power plant, at approximately 11:15 a.m. O’Leary distracted the bird with a wildlife pole while Marchiselli covered it with a blanket and cut the entangling lines.
The bird appeared uninjured and swam away after being freed, police said.
The officers saw the bird while they were conducting a homeland security check of the platform, which is used to offload fuel for the power plant.
National Grid owns and operates the plant, and sells its produced energy to utility PSEG Long Island, which distributes the power to Long Island residents.
Patrick Scali hoists a tunny caught from the waters of the Long Island Sound. Photo from Angelo Peluso
By Angelo Peluso
What connection does the Latin phrase dies caniculares have with summer fishing on the North Shore of Long Island? Literally translated the idiom means dog days. The Romans linked hot summer weather to Sirius, the brightest star in the constellation Canis Major, or large dog. Contemporary humans link “canicule” to dogs sleeping in the shade on hot days, beach and pool time, barbecues and a period of stagnation in the fishing season, but the dog days of July actually bring some great fishing throughout the Long Island Sound and the North Shore of Long Island.
Anglers may lament during mid to late summer that they can’t wait for the fall run to begin in the Long Island Sound, but while those anglers are looking to the future for quality fishing, others are cashing in on the summer bounty that the North Shore of Long Island provides.
If you give up on fishing in the Sound when the mercury rises, you may miss out on some of the largest bass and bluefish, which has said to have been caught in July and can continue to hang around into the late summer months. I once even enjoyed a very special fly and light tackle surprise: an advance guard of early Atlantic bonito. And the best part was that I had that fabulous fishing all to myself for almost a week.
There can be a lot of fishing variety to appeal to even the most ardent anglers.
July entertained, and August continues to host open seasons for fluke, striped bass, bluefish, sea bass, scup and the occasional weakfish. There was a time when sizeable tiderunner weaks could be found mixed in with hordes of July bluefish and bass.
While the extreme western areas of the North Shore of Long Island that heated up first in the spring may experience somewhat of a daytime slowdown in fishing activity, changing tactics to early morning and evening tides can prove to be the key to unlocking the secrets of summer bass fishing.
As one moves farther east along the North Shore toward the central and eastern regions of the Sound, you will begin to encounter some unique hydrodynamics that are favorable for supporting good fishing throughout the summer months. Deeper, cooler water combined with a solid dispersing of oxygen throughout the water works to keep these central and eastern areas of the Sound suitable for sustaining baitfish and game fish. As a matter of fact, some of the areas within this part of the Sound are so oxygen-rich that clams are transplanted from lower water quality areas farther west so that the filter feeding bivalves can cleanse themselves before being shipped off to market.
So far, the 2015 season has shaped up as a decent one.
Striped bass settled in late, but have maintained an extended presence in the Sound. While the peak of early season fishing has passed, and August will continue to see summer feeding and behavioral patterns emerge in full swing. Daytime fishing will have its share of rewarding surprises as will the magical times around dawn and dusk. If your bass fishing is being done from a boat, make sure to spend some time prowling the deeper water off rock promontories, the drop-offs around shoals and around the depths of the offshore lobster pots.
Most all the areas around the navigation buoys from Eatons Neck out to Rocky Point will hold fish during periods of the tide cycles, as will most areas in between. Light tackle jigging and bucktailing these areas will yield fine results.
Town and state officials oppose plans to continue dumping dredge waste into the Long Island Sound. File photo
Town and state officials gathered at Cedar Beach on Monday in opposition to the plan by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to continue dumping dredge waste into the Long Island Sound.
The organizations were dumping dredge spoils into the Connecticut River, which spills into the Sound. According to Sen. Ken LaValle spokesman Greg Blower, town and state officials are not sure what chemicals or sediments were disposed of in the river, especially with the variety of manufacturing facilities around that area.
Ten years ago, the organizations were asked to create a plan that would propose an alternative area where they could dump the waste. Officials including Brookhaven Town Supervisor Ed Romaine (R), Councilwoman Jane Bonner (C-Rocky Point), Assemblyman Steve Englebright (D-Setauket) and LaValle (R-Port Jefferson) received the plan at 8:30 a.m. Tuesday morning, according to Anthony Graves, the town’s chief environmental analyst.
Originally, the officials only had seven days to make public comment on the 1,300-page plan, but after Romaine brought this into question, the date was altered, allowing people to make their comments until Oct. 5.
Graves said the Army Corps of Engineers and the EPA were told in 2005 to create this report, which didn’t address the concerns of town and state officials. According to Bonner, those organizations recommended continuing to deposit the waste in the Sound.
Bonner said, “We have better technology now and we know dredge spoils can be repurposed for capping landfills.”
While there are alternative dumping sites, such as abandoned mines and landfills, Romaine said the organizations opted for a cheaper way.
“The only reason why the Army Corps of Engineers is recommending it is because it’s the cheapest method,” Romaine said. “Shame on them.”
Romaine said the spoils have compromised marine life, including a decline in the fish and shellfish population. He added that the spoils are most heavily contributing to the lobster die-off in the water. Even though the dumping of the waste is from Connecticut, Romaine said, “water bodies like the Sound don’t respect state boundary lines.”
According to Graves, around $1.7 million was spent cleaning the Sound. LaValle said these efforts were a waste of money because the Army Corps of Engineers and the EPA continued to dump dredge waste in the water during the cleanup.
“The two measures really don’t make sense and we have spent 10 years and all that money,” LaValle said. “[It] shows lack of common sense. I think the only thing it did was keep some researchers occupied for 10 years.”
There are two local public hearings, one on Monday, Aug. 24, in Port Jefferson’s Village Center and the other on Tuesday, Aug. 25, at the Long Island Marriott in Uniondale. There will also be hearings in Connecticut.
Registration is required to attend the meetings, and comments can be forwarded no later than Oct. 5.
“We live on an island,” Romaine said. “Many of the waterways on our island are already impacted. We don’t need any more impaired waterways. We need to start improving the Long Island Sound.”
Sea bass will continue to remain on the North Shore in August. Above, Angelo Peluso and Adrian Mason show off their catches. Photo from Angelo Peluso
By Angelo Peluso
As we move into late summer, fishing has hit peak strides throughout the entirety of the Long Island Sound. Despite the sweltering heat that often accompanies August, the eighth month of the year contains National Smile Week, and if you play your fishing cards right you just might smile broadly while finding some of the best local fish of the year.
August brings many surprises along the North Shore of Long Island. Many anglers take time off during the often scorching days of late summer, relenting to the call of the beach and BBQs. But succumbing to the myth of the dog days is a big mistake. August brings with it numerous and exciting fishing opportunities. The cool depths of the Long Island Sound and abundant bait can keep fishing vibrant and at times hectic. This is especially true of the central regions of the Sound where, striped bass, bluefish, fluke, porgies and seas bass can be caught with a high degree of regularity.
Water quality in the Long Island Sound is at its finest along the central portions of the North Shore. The month, named in honor of Augustus Caesar, also brings with it the strong possibility of visitations by some highly anticipated pelagic species: Atlantic bonito, little tunny and Spanish mackerel. With conducive bait and water conditions, those highly coveted light tackle gamesters should show in numbers sufficient to warrant expanded time on the water. All significant recreational species are in season and several ocean-roaming species visit local waters.
Summer flounder, also called fluke, have been in abundance and will continue to be caught through to the season’s end on Sept. 21. Although it appears at times that anglers need to weed through dozens upon dozens of undersized fluke and sea robins to be rewarded with a limit of keeper summer flounder, bigger fish are still around and patience pays dividends. August usually also witnesses some of the largest striped bass catches of the season. Nighttime moon tides and drifted eels will typically relinquish some of the finer specimens of bass. While some of the largest bass will succumb to large natural baits, casting artificial lures early and late in the day will yield bass.
All the other popular summer game fish species will also continue to remain along the North Shore: bluefish, scup and sea bass. Bluefish have been prolific, but beginning in July, larger pods of marauding “choppers” began moving inshore to feast on snappers. That predation pattern should continue through August and into the fall. This is a great time to cast large top-water plugs to snag what just might be the largest bluefish of the year. Porgy, aka scup, fishing is now as hot as the weather. There are lots of these tasty scup around, but finding the jumbo porgies will take some searching in deeper water. At this time of year, smaller scup can be found well inshore and often well within reach of shore anglers fishing around jetties, rock groins, boulders and other structures. Porgies are the most democratic fish that swim in the Sound, and they can be caught by just about anyone who fishes for them. If you’d like a little different kind of fun with porgies, try feeding them small artificial baits. Scent-infused plastic lures work wonders on porgies, as do small flies. Sea bass will also present themselves this month. To date, there have been some impressive catches of quality sea bass, and those results should continue for the remainder of the season. Deep water structure is the key to this form of bass fishing. So get out there and have a great, safe month on the water. The fish will be waiting.
Young bathers dive into the waters of a newly reopened beach at the Centerport Yacht Club. Photo by Rohma Abbas
The county health department warned locals on Friday against bathing at 25 Huntington area beaches, the morning after heavy rainfall drenched the North Shore.
According to the Suffolk County Department of Health Services, it issued the advisory because the rain could have led to bacteria levels in the water that exceed state standards.
“The beaches covered by the advisory are located in areas that are heavily influenced by stormwater runoff from the surrounding watersheds and/or adjacent tributaries,” the department said in a press release, “and, because of their location in an enclosed embayment, experience limited tidal flushing.”
Affected beaches include Eagle Dock Community Beach, Cold Spring Harbor Beach Club beach, West Neck Beach, Lloyd Neck Bath Club beach, Lloyd Harbor Village Park beach, Gold Star Battalion Park beach, Head of the Bay Club beach, Nathan Hale Beach Club beach, Baycrest Association beach, Bay Hills Beach Association beach, Crescent Beach, Knollwood Beach Association beach, Fleets Cove Beach, Centerport Beach, Huntington Beach Community Association beach, Centerport Yacht Club beach, Steers Beach, Asharoken Beach, Hobart Beach (both the Long Island Sound and cove sides), Crab Meadow Beach, Wincoma Association beach, Valley Grove Beach, Prices Bend Beach and Callahans Beach.
The advisory was scheduled to be lifted at 9 p.m. on Friday, to give enough time for two tidal cycles to clear out the water. However, the health department said the advisory would not be lifted if water samples from the affected beaches showed continued high levels of bacteria.
For up-to-date information on the affected beaches, call the health department’s bathing beach hotline at 631-852-5822 or visit the beach monitoring webpage.
Asharoken Village beach. File photo by Victoria Espinoza
Asharoken Village residents will soon have to decide if they want support a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers-backed proposal to replenish the community’s eroding beaches.
The $30 million idea involves building the beach back up with more sand to fight erosion. The issue concerning many residents is that in order for the plan to go into effect, public access must be granted to private properties that have new sand put down on their beaches.
Currently, the public is only afforded access of a private beach property below the water line. However, if the village board approves this proposal, the public would have access above the mean high water line to certain private properties.
Some trustees on the village board have said they will not approve a plan that residents don’t agree with.
According to Village Trustee Mel Ettinger, five public access points need to be established for this pitch to go through. He said currently the public can access private beaches from two different areas, and are not trespassing as long as they are below the mean high water line.
Since the Army Corps of Engineers is largely funding the project, public access is a must in order for the proposal to go through. The Army Corps would pay for 89.5 percent of the $30 million costs to help fight beach erosion, and the village would have to pay 10.5 percent, or about $3 million dollars.
“The board of trustees and the mayor are doing our due diligence in exploring the issues associated with putting sand on the beaches and making sure residents are being heard,” Ettinger said in a recent phone interview.
At the end of June, the Army Corps presented the board with five different versions of the proposal, all varying in costs and methods.
On June 30, the Army Corps met with the village board and recommended a plan that consists of a berm and a dune system with groins on the northwestern end of the project area. This area includes the properties on the side of Asharoken Avenue that touches the Long Island Sound.
Berms are wedges of sand that face the sea. They are composed of sand from offshore, and help indicate that the beach has been gaining sand in recent weeks or months. Dunes are hills of sand that have either accumulated over time or have been bulldozed in. Artificial dunes help to hold an eroding shoreline in place.
“Groins in combination with new sand would reduce the erosional effect of existing groins and reduce the frequency of re-nourishments needed,” James D’Ambrosio, public affairs spokesperson for the Army Corps of Engineers said.
According to D’Ambrosio, if the residents of Asharoken do not approve this idea, then the Hurricane Sandy funds that were allocated this project would be used elsewhere.
Ettinger said once the board decides on a plan, it is required to write a letter to the Army Corps requesting which plan they want to go ahead with. Then, assuming the Army Corps approves the decision, the board will prepare a presentation to the village residents that explain all aspects of what it would mean to move forward with the plan.
“The best decision is to come up with a plan that the residents are in agreement with,” Mayor Greg Letica said in a recent phone interview.
Letica also mentioned that there are other options to ensure the safety and longevity of the beaches in Asharoken while still maintaining private access. If residents themselves entirely footed the bill, then there would be no need for the Army Corps financial assistance, and thus no obligation to make private beaches public.
“We need to protect the beaches, I understand the residents that don’t want to give access to their private property, but I think this is something we need to do,” Christine Peterson, an Asharoken resident said in a recent interview. “It’s not like we’re opening up a new beach and expect many new visitors to come and use it.”
Setauket Harbor’s closest friend circle just got a lot bigger.
The newly formed Setauket Harbor Task Force has been appointed to the Long Island Sound Study Citizens Advisory Committee, bulking up the group’s ability to preserve water quality across the North Shore and beyond. George Hoffman, a board member with the Setauket Harbor Task Force, said his group’s new spot on the advisory committee should provide them with greater resources to achieve their goals of protecting the waters of Three Village.
“We are pleased to be named to the bi-state commission,” he said. “Being a member of the CAC will benefit Setauket Harbor and provide us an opportunity to collaborate with other harbor protection committees on both sides of the Long Island Sound.”
From left, Sean Mahar of NY Audubon, George Hoffman of the Setauket Harbor Task Force, Curt Johnson of the LI Sound Study CAC and state Assemblyman Steve Englebright meet at a recent meeting of LISS. Photo from George Hoffman
The Long Island Sound Study was established in 1985 under the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s efforts to restore the health of the Sound and coordinate water quality activities among the various entities. Since 2005, the study has utilized collaborative funding to distribute more than $11.7 million to regional municipalities, environmental organizations and research institutions to improve the Long Island Sound’s water quality and coastal resiliency.
“The LISS CAC welcomes the Setauket Harbor Task Force as a member and is happy to
have new representation from New York and the central basin,” said Nancy Seligson, co-chair of the CAC and supervisor of the Town of Mamaroneck in Westchester County, “We look forward to working together to restore Long Island Sound.”
Since it was formed last year, the task force has been expanding in size and reach with help from volunteers across the North Shore, including Port Jefferson and Setauket. Hoffman and the task force attended a press conference alongside U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) late last month to announce the Long Island Sound Restoration and Stewardship Act, a congressional bill that would allocate up to $65 million each year for Long Island Sound initiatives that include various water quality projects, cleanup projects, waste water treatment improvements and nitrogen monitoring programs.
Hoffman also said the group recently took some comfort in a Long Island Sound Founders Collaborative report, which found some improvement in the Sound’s harbors and bays, but also exposed what he called concerning levels of hypoxia — the lack of dissolved oxygen in the water — that threatens fish and shellfish. The same symptom found itself at the forefront of Long Island media over the month of June after several hundreds of dead fish surfaced in waters surrounding the Island.
The Setauket Harbor Task Force most recently met with Brookhaven Town officials to discuss the maintenance of the town’s major stormwater basin that drains directly into the harbor. They also met with marine scientists from Stony Brook University to call for greater restrictions on the removal of horseshoe crabs from town beaches.
Activists, politicians, volunteers taking closer look at declining population of Long Island’s ocean life
Horseshoe crabs have been on Earth for almost 500 million years, but their future is uncertain. Researchers like Matt Sclafani, a marine educator from the Cornell Cooperative Extension in Riverhead, said he believes that the species is in an alarming decline.
“It’s a very important issue for a lot of reasons,” Sclafani said during a horseshoe crab monitoring session at West Meadow beach in Stony Brook on Monday night.
Horseshoe crabs are a valuable species to human life, Sclafani said. Their blue blood is used for pharmaceutical purposes. Fishermen use them as one of the most effective sources of bait that exists.
Sclafani called Delaware Bay the epicenter for horseshoe crab spawning activity, with Long Island coming in as a close second as one of the most important areas to the species on the East Coast, he said.
Sclafani and his team of volunteers take to the local shores when the tides are low, usually in the middle of the night, to count and tag horseshoe crabs that come up to the shore to spawn. On Monday, Sclafani was joined by Frank Chin, the regular site coordinator for West Meadow beach, along with Grace Scalzo, a volunteer, and Karen Papa and her sons — 12-year-old Zachary and 8-year-old Jonah.
North Shore activists take to the waters to learn more about the area horseshoe crabs. Photo by Alex Petroski
“We get a lot of volunteers for this program,” Sclafani said. “That’s the part I think is really great, too. We get people involved in their backyards. There’s not a lot of marine life that you can get involved with and handle this directly — that comes right out onto the beach for you without a net or fishing pole.”
In all, the team tagged 55 horseshoe crabs over the course of the night, though that is nothing compared to the night on the South Shore when Sclafani said he and a team of about 35 volunteers tagged about 800 crabs. The process requires measurement, drilling a small hole into the shell, and then applying a round tag that has tracking information on it which is recorded.
“I think the entire population up and down the East Coast is in trouble,” Larry Swanson, associate dean of the Stony Brook University School of Marine and Atmospheric Sciences, said of the horseshoe crab population in an interview last week. “It’s in trouble for a variety of reasons including people overfishing the population, but also certain birds, including the red knot, are particularly prone to using them as a food source.”
Sclafani said the consequences could be dire, if the crabs are not saved.
“Their eggs are really important to the ecosystem,” Sclafani said. “A lot of animals feed on them, including migratory shore birds.”
Town of Brookhaven Supervisor Ed Romaine (R) divulged plans to urge the Department of Environmental Conservation to expand restrictions on harvesting horseshoe crabs in May, to the chagrin of fishermen. Those plans have since been tabled.
“I’m just a man, but I’m a vital part of the food chain and I think I’m at the top,” Ron Bellucci Jr. of Sound Beach said in an interview last month.
Horseshoe crab harvesting is a vital part of his income, he said. Local fishermen have also questioned the validity of claims about the declining population.
North Shore activists take to the waters to learn more about the area horseshoe crabs. Photo by Alex Petroski
The idea that the species may not be declining is not an encouraging sign to Malcolm Bowman, professor of physical oceanography and distinguished service professor at SoMAS, Stony Brook. He is also the president of Stony Brook Environmental Conservancy and the Friends of Flax Pond, two environmental advocacy groups.
“We know in nature that things go up and down, and up and down, but you have to look at long-term trends; 10 years, 20 years,” Bowman said in an interview last week. “I’ve worked with fishermen a lot. They have to make a living, I understand that, but it’s important to keep communications between the scientists and say the fishermen with mutual respect, and that way we can learn a lot from them. We scientists are trained to have a long-term view. It’s not just this season, this summer, this breeding season. It’s a long-term view. I think that’s so important.”
More restricted areas, which Romaine is pushing for, could simply result in overharvesting in areas without restrictions, both Bowman and Sclafani said.
There has also been some experimentation with extracting the blue blood while the animal is still alive, then rereleasing them into the water. This process is called biomedical harvesting.
“That’s becoming a more and more controversial topic,” Sclafani said. “The biomedical companies have maintained that it’s a low mortality rate — about 10 percent … they might even be as high as 40 or 50 percent.”
He also mentioned that there are concerns about the horseshoe crabs’ spawning activity after this process is completed.
Bowman stopped short of saying that the extinction of the horseshoe crab would have a drastic impact on human life, but it’s not a good sign.
“I was reading some very important news that’s coming out about the extinction of species on the planet,” Bowman said. “Species are going extinct at a huge rate. The cumulative effect is going to have a very bad effect on human civilization, far greater than we can imagine. We only see a little piece of it.”
Overview of the slave trade out of Africa. Photo from Yale University Press
By Beverly C. Tyler
A book titled “The Logbooks: Connecticut’s Slave Ships and Human Memory,” by Anne Farrow, uses a log of three voyages over a period of 20 months in the first half of the 18th century, recorded by a young Connecticut man who went on to captain slave ships and privateers, to tell a much wider and disturbing story.
Farrow’s book connects Dudley Saltonstall, the Connecticut man who kept the log books, to the unknown slaves who were transported from Africa, then to the men in Africa who first enslaved them, to the ships that transported them across the Atlantic, and finally to the men who purchased them to work to death in the Caribbean sugar plantations and in the rice plantations of America’s southern colonies.
Farrow, a former Connecticut newspaper reporter, said the story of African-American people must be told over and over, from the beginning. She said she believes that it has not yet been absorbed into the family of stories told and retold about America and that the story of injustice and suffering still has not made its way into the national narrative.
Unknown to most Americans is the fact that colonial Connecticut had been a major hotbed of British West Indies plantations where slaves were growing and processing sugar in a monoculture that yielded huge profits to England. In addition, Rhode Island men were at the helm of 90 percent of the ships that brought the captives to the American south, an estimated 900 ships.
Farrow noted that over the course of two centuries an estimated three million Africans were carried to islands in the Caribbean to grow sugar.
Farrow’s book, compact enough to be read in just a few days, is an engaging, local and personal history. The story of the Connecticut and Long Island Sound men who took part in the slave trade is disturbingly real.
It brings into focus the way many of our own prosperous and influential Long Island families made their fortunes. It doesn’t change who they were or who we are, but it provides us with a clearer understanding of the pain and suffering caused by their actions.
Farrow emphasizes that we should acknowledge what was done and keep it as a reminder of man’s inhumanity to man and how we are continually striving, often unsuccessfully, to make our lives better for all.
The book is also the story of her mother’s declining memory due to dementia, the memories her mother would never recover, and the log books, the story she did recover.
Farrow wrote, “I couldn’t avoid the contrast between what was happening to my mother’s memory and the historical memory I was studying, which seemed so fractured and incomplete.”
It is again and again evident from Farrow’s research and gripping prose that slavery was not just a southern problem. Slavery served white people in the north and in the south. Farrow notes that the killing uncertainties of life as a captive were linked to the state of bondage not geography.
In spite of the federal law prohibiting the importation of slaves from Africa, slaves were still being transported from Africa across the Atlantic until at least the beginning of the American Civil War. The story of one of our own East Setauket slave ships, Wanderer, was detailed in my column two weeks ago. I must apologize that the name of the primary author of that article, William B. Minuse, was omitted from the opening credits.
Beverly Tyler is the Three Village Historical Society historian.
Marine Bureau officers rescued two teens from an overturned boat and brought them and the boat back to shore. Photo from SCPD
Police and a good Samaritan had to step in when a boat overturned in the Long Island Sound on Saturday, leaving two teens floating on the upside-down craft for more than an hour.
The good Samaritan located the 19-year-olds at about 11:30 a.m., when they had already been floating on the boat’s hull for roughly 90 minutes, the Suffolk County Police Department said. The person used a VHF radio to contact the department’s Marine Bureau and provide the boat’s location.
According to police, Smithtown residents Douglas Botto and Eric Damn were wearing life jackets after the 16-foot Hobie Cat catamaran they were sailing overturned on the Long Island Sound, between 2.5 to 3 miles north of the Nissequogue River. The waves in that area were 3 to 5 feet high, preventing the teens from righting the boat.
Police said Marine Bureau officers David Goldstein and Michael Cappiello aboard Marine Delta and officers Keith Walters and Paul Carnival aboard Marine Bravo responded to the scene and rescued the adrift pair, bringing them back to Long Beach in Smithtown and towing in the boat.
U.S. Coast Guard personnel were also on the scene, police said.
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