Committees - Regular Meeting

All right. Any discussion, Greg?

I thought they were fine.

Yeah.

All right. All in favor? Aye.

All right. So now we have to we will take us through in short order. Very short order. The Davidson application.

Yes. So on 9 West Thomas Street, I'm recommending that we approve this project in the amount of 16,000, which includes 12,000 base grant. 4000 set aside, although they're not planning on doing the well, so that we probably won't spend that. um the nitrate reduction if i did the sheet correctly is 25.4 kilograms annually that's a lot isn't it well it's five full-time residents whoa so yes so that's that's like one of the higher numbers that we've had yeah i know and it's in the center it's in the center and so how many bedrooms in that house I think it's four.

Okay. And what Fuji did they put in?

Can I interject here at this time? Yep. I believe that they received a variance from the CBA, put an AB in their basement, if I'm not mistaken.

Wow. Wow, that's kind of... Did they tell you that? No. I mean, maybe

Something in the docket that the great committee has to answer. Oh, all right. Well, I mean, we'll continue and we can approve it pending the discovery of that.

it's 146 000 gallons of effluent treated annually an roi cost rate result ratio cost per kilogram is 0.02 cents it's like one of the better ones ever home construction 1962 voluntary um Their existing system, they describe it as being 8x8 precast.

Yeah.

Which is pretty shallow.

Exactly.

Last time they pumped it was about a year ago. And everything else is good. Shelter Island Sand and Gravel is doing the installation.

Is it a SEND 5?

It is a SEND 5.

Well, then if it's a SEND 5, they can't really... They couldn't put another bedroom in there. Exactly.

So...

let's let's i will get to the bottom of that um all right any uh a motion then to uh prove that no i motion to a pending or exactly right no we're gonna we're gonna we can vote on it pending assuming there's no agency there's no other bedroom i mean what seems to be if it's if it's already a four bedroom house and they're getting a four bedroom system It would lead me to believe that they are not going to do that plan, putting the ADU in the basement, because they won't have enough capacity. That'll knock them out.

Well, I mean, they'll just have to put in a better system.

But then we will, at the moment, not be able to fund them. If they're doing the ADU. If they're doing the ADU.

Will they have to reapply if they put us, they change it to us? That would be weird.

Why don't you investigate first before you approve it?

Yeah.

I mean, I think that would be the .

So it's, well, we'll be at our next meeting, or?

I mean, it's just a simple phone call, so. Right.

Yeah.

We can wait. I mean, I'm OK. Either way. You know, if it's a yes, then... Well, it wouldn't be a yes if there's no ADU, so... I mean, if they say, yes, we're putting in an ADU, then you inform them that we can't give them a grant. Right.

Well, not only that, they need to go to the building department.

Well, they would have to do that, right. Well, maybe they, you know, there's a lot of unanswered questions. I mean, we can wait. Let's wait and wait. Okay. All right.

I think that's probably the better way to do it. Things happen in a sequence and we'll be following that sequence.

And the same held true with that application that I was assigned Dores. You know, he had put on there, you know, that there was a possibility of construction. So I called the building department and they In fact, we're putting a two-story addition on. I don't know if Meg knew that or what. I don't know that the building department was fully plugged into the fact that they needed to put an IA system in. I said it would have been mandated, and Jeff, who I spoke to, was a little unclear and then then he said oh yeah right it's mandated you know like so i'm what i'm wondering if if possibly you know because he might not have known that you know i mean i said well it's it's not he said well the suffolk county was had given them the red stamp but i said well it doesn't have anything really to do suffolk county in this case it's just us it's us um you know it's the tanisha riley on the code that says that you know if it's 25 square footage or an additional bedroom or both uh then then it's mandated so that you know he called the guy you know he was appreciative of the information and you know he was he still can get the state grant uh i guess the county is going slow because there's nothing really wrong with his system

So he's in the line.

So he's in the line for that. I said, well, if you wait to put that until the end of the project, maybe you'll get your approval and you'll be funded. Right. But the estimate was 25,000 anyway. So if the state gave him that grant, then he'd be covered. So he was appreciated anyway. So we'll table that. the infamous committee uh any any action with it iconic regional committee no no meeting sometime this month july 11th something like that any day now friday whatever friday it is at least nobody's on life support waiting for an answer um government at its finest uh so commercial ia grants um i had spoken to melissa yep um and her work schedule is such that she would really only be available during business hours So we could do, as I said, in my, that thing I sent to you guys, um, we could either, uh, formulate some questions amongst ourselves.

I had given some thoughts about it, but, um, I'd like to hear her run through the process and then their grant system.

And well, then do we want to try and arrange a zoom meeting like during business hours at some point in the, whatever works for her. I mean, it would be good to just pick her brain.

Yeah, absolutely.

You know, because we might not even know the questions to ask. All right. So I will I will say that that's what the committee has decided. You know, we would love to work with her schedule and try and come up with a zoom time to to meet her.

OK, I believe it or not, give us a little bit of thought. And I. So that. they have this grant cycle, right? So, and the reason that may actually work for us as opposed to on the fly is A, it has, whatever happens has to go to public hearing. But more than that, we can set aside a specific amount of money for the year, just picking a random number, $300,000, 400,000, doesn't matter what the number is. And then we ask people to apply for the grant up to, Somebody may come in, just say, I don't know what, Quinnipiac comes in and says, we'd like, and it's going to cost $250,000 and nobody else applies. There you go.

Assuming it all. I mean, I, I think all these ideas are great. You know, I think, you know, you know, and we'll see why, why they do the grant cycle, you know, maybe for those same reasons, you know? Um, and I, I think that would be, you know, it would help crystallize our process. You know, we, you know, let's learn from people already did it. Yes. And, and see how it goes and why they did it. And, and, and I think having the face to face will help us. So I will reach out to her and get a date and we'll do it. Sound good?

Sounds like a plan.

Okay. New board member search. I went and buttonholed Susie.

I texted her also. She's, I think, watching up sale with her son tonight as a surprise for him. All right.

So, I mean, she seems interested. Unless John jumps on the bandwagon. You know, he might. We're not sure. Anyway, she seems like maybe this next month she might be able to hopefully dress.

Who's that?

Susie Dempsey. She's, you know, Chris... Chris Carey's... daughter. No.

Susie Dempsey's daughter.

Right, right. Anyway, so... She'd be right. And she's been here all the time. She grew up here. So that's that. And the financial, anything updated with the waters?

Last week, so they're working on the financial statements.

$200 billion that we've got. No, wait, that's the wrong one. All right. Old business. Old business is really nothing to speak about, but perhaps we have some new business. Perhaps. And I would turn the floor over to Mr. Cadwallader.

Do I need to stand up?

You can stand up and just say who you are. Because you're on Candy Camera.

Hi, I'm John . I live at 11 Westmoreland Drive. I'm a year-round resident. And maybe I'm in the wrong place. It sounds like the focus for you guys really has to do with septic, nitrates, et cetera?

No, I mean, we deal with everything to do with improving water quality, but our, you know, Our niche is sort of to facilitate funding, you know, familiar with the IA grants and all that stuff, and then there are other bigger projects that we do as well.

I don't want to waste your time, but since I'm here.

We might be able to direct you.

Yes, that's kind of what I'm hoping. I had a really nice discussion, talk with Joe Finora recently.

He's very knowledgeable.

That was a good place to go, and he advised me to keep going the path I was on, but he I participated in the WAC high school chloride testing program.

Okay.

But in the early days, I think as you know, with Dave Ruby over it. So eventually I got numbers back. The site still wasn't working properly. So I was one of the first ones in that the numbers didn't make any sense to me. So I started going out of pocket to get my own little database going with Goldman testing. So you might be interested in some of the numbers I have starting in 23. Now let's go back. I moved from Deering Harbor to Westmoreland in December of 2017. So in the early years, I noticed I was drinking the water, a little salty tinge, come August, go away. At that time, we were going away to work about three months a year. Things got to sit idle, et cetera. How soon did I move into the place that I'm replacing hot water heaters? Just went through another boiler, boiler system, the pump, the collateral damage. I'm jumping ahead. So in 23, when I decided to see what's going on here, I got a reading of 471 fluorides. And that was May of 23. we were away and thought okay winter recharge etc now i know there's problems with uh you know or drug conditions etc all these variables in place um uh 222 uh 226 26 i've been i started doing both we have a little garage accessory and and even though they come from the same pump and only one pressure tank in the main house, so there's a lot.

What's the number of your house?

11. Main house, 1520. The garage, 1170. Oh, wait a minute, I got ahead of myself. January, January of that year, 26. Main house, 941. Garage, 673. February, 1520 and 1170. June 2420 and 1420. So it's clearly going in the wrong direction. There was that one in 23 and January where periods, I guess we went away for March and April. So again, sitting idle, came back, got those elevated readings. Coincidentally, we have a new neighbor We started talking water with the new guy and he thought he had a handle on it until he got his numbers back and I think he said it was like 12 something. He wasn't sure about his well. Recently people across the street got word that I was kind of

Yeah, it turns diagonal across the street.

Right.

So, hey, right. But it's the same deal, I mean. That's one of the little casa grandes, four doors up now, that, you know, that mega house is going up, houses. Right. You know, again, so I have, Lisa Shaw knows I wanted to reach out to her to find because I was following their story and knows it goes as far as high level. That seemed to be possibly a sane solution, but also kind of onerous. My understanding is you need 40% of the households to want to get on board, et cetera. I've been talking to Gregor, the well guy. He's waiting for me to call back to come out and look things over, because he was saying, Put another well up by the road? Yeah, wells up by the road.

I mean, imagine everybody's wells up by the road. Yes.

So the neighbor across the street was saying that they used to get a little tinge in August. They had done a reconstruction two years ago. But now they're noticing it. So it's getting worse, clearly, in the neighborhood. I know some people are irrigating, and I'm not here to, you know, Just sharing that we all use the water somehow. Point is, back to Gregor. Hold it. Jump around. Greg Nissen, I've been talking to him. Mermaid. So it just so happened he had a database that unfortunately Joe did not have access to, which showed some of the wells in the area. So there's a question. Because I know a few years ago, John Cronin was the engineer. They had an intern that was mapping that stuff. So is there an accessible database of wells in my neighborhood? I don't have to answer it. According to Greg, we have the deepest well around of the few that he could access at 37 feet. When we got our new pump put in a year and a half ago, fortunately, I was away. So it was all done before I got back. But there was a problem because it slipped the pitless adapter. So I got a chance to, when they were redoing it, find out that it was about 14 feet to the water at that point. Gregory would like to have 14 feet of column in the well. There's 28. So I have nine feet to play with. But I'm not sure what my neighbor told me. I didn't know you guys were meeting this weekend, though. I saw I wanted to take advantage of it. So I'm still in the middle of my own little data collection. So yeah, I'm trying to get a sense of the wells around us, how deep they are, because I'm talking to Walter Richards. He goes along. He still cares about the water. He was thinking maybe our lens is only... 5 feet? Is that possible? I don't know. That's one of the reasons I wanted to talk to Joe was, you know, are there any test wells in the area? Can a test well, you know, is there a device that can go down and incrementally check resistance, conductivity, whatever, until you hit the salt water? One of our problems, according to Gregor, is our pump is too big for what he would recommend.

You should probably have a half-horse pump or something like that.

It's one and a half horses. Yeah, that's way too much. And sadly, because I was away and they came to redo it, no one could get a hold of me to discuss it or didn't want to bother. So they replaced what was in kind. So that could be a problem. part of the problem. But again, after months of sitting idle, one, I wondered also that that winter number elevated is some of this road salt working its way into the aquifer. That's a plausible explanation. I know it's happened in other areas. See, I'm dancing around here, but you get the idea. Because I thought, well, cistern, West neck water new well, and I was ready to roll the dice and go with a new well. Well, it's going to be about 15 grand, but. But when I started getting hearing the other neighbors and problems with shower wells of mine, then it's like, well, what, what do we have? What? So. That's why I'm looking for, can somebody tell me how thick that lens is?

I mean, there may be some data already available, you know, via the WAC. I mean, obviously, it's a peninsula, you know, so it's like, you know, and it's very, it's not wide, you know.

No. So, anyway, that's why I'm here, because I'm just, I'm on a quest, honestly, and I'm just looking for any information that could be

Well, Greg serves on the WAC.

The WAC meeting, I think, is the 20th of this Friday.

I mean, do you, Bob Hand, have any thoughts about what John is asking?

I mean, I think from the description of what you're saying here is that, you know, getting an RO system for your drinking water. It's a reverse osmosis.

I've installed them. The problem, as I told my wife, is I didn't want to put the money into it. We're buying bottled water. That's fine. I've been doing that for quite a while. It's really about, now that I've spent, I don't mind saying, $22,000 for a whole new boiler system, that I can hear those ions just munching away at it all the time. It's really about fixing

yeah so that's i mean you know like this is not the only area of shelter island that is you know dealing with this problem you know i understand you know you have so many other fragile areas that you know what is the answer the answer the answer might be eventually some kind of public i come from being fiercely independent to understand that i'm ready to So, I mean it's the reality, people have been reticent to embrace this, you know, for years because of, you know, the scepter of development and this that and the other thing. But it may be that that's where certain areas are headed.

According to Joe, it's the Coastal Geodetic Survey or somebody that does the best wells. So they pick what they want. And apparently there is nothing in our neighborhood. I was going to volunteer. Hey, put one in our yard. I understand it could not be converted to a usable well, but I'm sort of thinking if I go the new well route, then I'm going to have this old well to play with in some way. I'm trying to figure out if I can devise a way of getting my own little strata of water samples and just get a sense of where that is.

The tests that are done on a monthly basis by the USGS, that's really just a depth evaluation at this point. We're not looking at...

So how's that been going lately? In other words, I got a measurement of 14 feet almost a year and a half ago.

in these wells well i i you know we're we're seeing we we are traditionally we see uh the winter recharge and and that's sort of how many feet roughly uh eric's i'm sure yeah i mean you were to plot it somehow i mean i think this was a not a good winter for that no you know it was hardly any room and you would have thought just know that maybe a snow belt would help but yeah i mean that you know where we've been at very low compared to history for about 16 18 months or so yeah so as that goes on i would certainly would think that the amount of fresh water is is going to shrink and that brings the salt up and that you talked about you know upconing um and large houses yeah large houses yeah i mean it's not getting any better over there you know i mean it's interesting there's there's on both both sides of the peninsula it's getting yeah it's it's a it's it's a near near shore you know it's surrounded you know it's it is the near shore zone there I know that was the meeting that the WAC meeting that I went to back a year and a half two years ago I'm sorry the WAC meeting I had attended a year and a half or so ago um

There was a woman there from, I think, Silver Beach. Yeah, Silver Beach has problems. She had a low point that she was able to successfully lift up and get some relief. I've heard various opinions. Well, Guy says he can't do it without lifting up. Well, scratch.

I would encourage, you know, you know, get your name, you know, do some legwork, get your neighbors to all get on board with getting the Suffolk County Health Department to do a test. That's the cheapest option. you know, wide, you know, ranging tests that you can get in the best deal ever, you know, it was a hundred bucks. I mean, for us, it kept saying, I was going to do it, but you know, I mean, you could, you could, you know, just say, Hey, you know, you know, you go online, you fill out the thing, you know, it's not bang. They come usually in about two or three weeks, do the, do the thing. And then you get the results in about a month and a half.

That was didn't get around to it but I'm really not worried about particularly the other stuff even though it could be there right I know we have water treatment from Mermaid for mostly magnesium and calcium but we agreed to shut it off because it was it does elevate your salt level a little bit but it was and all of that but it was really about you're saying that maybe there is access to some of this data of information on the wells how deep they are yes a lot of water is in there yes we do we certainly have that information for the 11 wells that we test on a monthly basis yeah okay are there any in his area though i don't believe so no because when i came i i was

I think the information that you've developed here that I'm sure Dave Ruby would probably love to sink his teeth into that information.

So maybe I'll give him a shout out.

The way we might get involved would be if the WAC requested that we help fund a monitoring well in your area.

There is a well. Maybe it's not close enough, but in the West Neck Preserve, there was a cottage that got knocked down. There was a well for that, and it should still be there. We didn't pull the well out, to the best of my knowledge.

Yeah. I mean, it's not in that peninsula, though.

Well, it's true. And you're saying that typically government is just looking for water level. Yeah.

Yeah.

With the exception, I guess, are they doing the PFAS and PFOS in the center? Do they care about that? Or is that just the town? If you get the county test, if you get the county test, it does a thousand points. I understand. I'm just.

town itself goes the town itself is embarked on a program to test 100 properties in the the land where the lens is the greatest to you know and they they did this targeted thing that you know they've they're maybe 50 successful right now with how many people have responded i didn't follow i follow all this stuff i don't

I used to carry water from the spring. I did that for many, many, many years with an outhouse. So I fully appreciate running water. And I had a friend over in that center that was asked about the original ground testing. And once she wondered what she should do, I encouraged her to do it. And then quickly there was another follow-up. And now there's this more detailed test that comes. I think it's a good idea that we all get on board with that.

Is there a possibility of extending the West Neck Order to to us.

I mean, I mean, there's a possibility of doing that in a number of areas. I mean, that's what it is. It's a possibility. You know, we're sort of a long way from it, but I mean, the reality here, you got, you know, 20 something properties there that. may share the same problem, maybe more. And then across the creek, you got another little peninsula. So you're just looking at those fragile areas of Shelter Island. You can kind of see where the problems might jump up.

I remember reading in the paper a number of years ago, sort of at the beginning of this odyssey. So I know about Deering Harbor. I know about the Heights. I know about West Lake water supply. Was there, did it say something, there was actually like six or so different water delivery entities?

Well, I mean, it was, you know, certainly the Heights, Deering Harbor, and then Billy Payne, which was the infant of what is now the Westnake Water System.

that i'm not aware of another so those are the ones anyway okay i know you wanted to leave early so i'm sorry you know we're still pretty uh almost record time here so i would make this comment also about salt so i live on hudson avenue basically in a heavy rain north cartwright drains down into the street i'm on the dip in the road that means my yard floods every time there's a rainstorm I have had my water tested by the county twice now, once they asked me to do it again. And Greg, I sent the results to Greg and he goes, you have the most perfect water I've ever seen. So even though essentially Cartwright runs down and comes into my yard, there's no salt and salts from that. So, and I'm one lot off of Cockles Harbor, so.

Whereas we are surrounded by saltwater. OK. Well, thank you very much. I appreciate it.

Well, I'm sorry we couldn't be more explicit about what you could do.

It's all part of my process.

I mean, let me get your name and phone number, or if you could send it in to Jessica. And that way, you know, one of the other guys, like Dave, could well, you know, I'm sure he'd be happy to chew into that.

That does remind me of one thing, because I did recently go back, and I was able to access my phone. Those samples from the school were 200, but I thought he said they didn't bother beyond 200. Yeah, it was 200 to 2,000.

The ability to differentiate the salt level when it got up above 200 or 250, it doesn't measure that additional salt.

Happy Fourth of July.

Anything else that anybody would like to discuss?

I think the word would be big trouble. Big trouble?

You mean in general?

Well, you know, the wells that we have continuous data coming out is is Goat Hill. And from the winter recharge, very little was happening. And then I think when we had the warm spell, the aquifer got kicked off, picked up. And now it's going down and it seems like it's, I just started to look at the numbers, it looks like the change per week is accelerating right now. And that's at Goat Hill. That's at Goat Hill, yeah, which is our most stable well that we test. We have continuous data.

Do you have anything in St. Tim's Woods? I do not, no.

Nothing's ever planted there. That'd be interesting to do, though, wouldn't it? You would think there might be a good place to put one.

I know there's a well behind my house, but I don't know if that belongs to the... Actually, he lives in Conroy. He owns that lot.

Jack Conway?

Conway, yes. I don't know if that well is theirs or...

The test well?

So George Schulteis- On Osprey, Osprey you're talking about? No, no, no. Off of North Midway.

Oh, okay.

My house backs up to Station Woods there. You know where the Amazon warehouse is being put in? Behind my house, there's a well right there. I don't know, I never found out or never asked anybody whether that's a test well or if that belongs to Conway. His son's gonna build on that one.

How do you get to it?

So George Schulteis gave a right-of-way on... You mean through the farmhouse? No, it's right on the side of it. It's between the blue house that's there. Is that Relic's house? I don't know who owns the blue house. And then Schulteis' house. There's a dirt road that goes down to there.

Okay.

Well, anyway, I mean, but I mean, what that will is, I don't think that.

Say, some good place to have 1, I believe that the USGS is doing something is part of a bigger study on the Eastern level on island because last year we have it.

Wait to be.

I thought there's also going to be 1 up on. It's as well, just to monitor. bigger thing that they're trying to have those weights each I thought stations foot well I will spend there for a while because he would know okay yeah you know I don't know if they'll share because it's a different project it's not a town project but he's your guy okay all right well to you ready to go

I make a motion. Will we return the meeting?

Yes.

All right.

Seconds. All in favor? Aye.

And a happy birthday to our wonderful.