Committees - Regular Meeting

Minutes.

There's an echo.

There's an echo. That's me. Okay.

It should be gone. Okay. Yeah. Okay. Is everybody good with the minutes? Oh, do we think that Joe is going to be joining us? Oh, yeah.

Yes, he's here today.

He's here. Okay. All right. Anybody have any issues with the minutes? I do not. No, I do not. um so i'll make a motion to approve all in favor all right we're there okay so fell levels what do we got well we got no good news yeah i saw that um i i think that uh you know the the

somewhat hesitancy of jumping in and and pushing forward in terms of the intensity of our reaction uh i think this this month you know with with the the changes uh or yeah with the with the increase in intensity by both the dues and also by the state dec we wouldn't be alone um so uh plus that, you know, the values that we're getting on especially the median results and the charts. I'll go through and just touch base.

Let me just ask a quick question. I haven't looked, but do we still have that weird like RAM looks good when other places, are we weirdly out of sync? I'm sorry. Well, last time we looked at the rainfall at specific well level, a big four-whale down, but Ram Island was at like 60% of its... That's correct.

That's, well, you know, that's tidal impact. That's what you think. The tidal impact. Both of the Ram wells, the Big Ram and Little Ram, they both have a very wide swing. And when we did the original evaluations on the data logger information, then you could just see it there. You'd watch it on a daily basis. It got tied up, level up, tied down. So it really bounced around with the tide.

Well, I appreciate this lot of noise. It's still 50% on big ground. This is amazing. It was interesting that they, you know, that they would not be showing, uh, and little rim as well as a 35%. Okay. Yeah. It's a, I mean, given how low everybody else is.

Yeah. Uh, so the, uh, So I've modified this slightly, the layout of the report, to put more information on the cover page here, which I think will help, depending how we may want to use this in the future. In other words, today, in terms of what is the status of the wells. What I note here is that We could increase the intensity category for us. Severe drought. On this data. And regardless to the change at Shelter Island, you know, the communications to the public, how do we amplify that? I did get a call from an organization, and they said, you know, we do a, what do they call this? They send out a newsletter. They sent out a newsletter and they said, you guys do want to put something in the. Put something in a newsletter and I said, well, you know, I should, you know, I'm going to be here. This was a couple of days ago that it was there. And. I think that we probably would want to, right? You may want to think that's a net way if you can get that out to the HOAs or the people that do newsletters and say, okay, please send this out to your respective, to their members. I mean, I think you get a bigger

What is the newsletter that's asking us?

Democratic Committee. Democratic Committee and they just like, is there anything you folks want to do with what does the WAC want to do? They would send out the information that we have. And they'd be aware. The HOA in Hay Beach, the HOAs throughout, you know, the Fresh Pond people, you know, all the different organizations, which I'm not, I don't know, there must be, what was it, like 15 or something like that? Right.

Actually, I'm going to the Shulter Island Association meeting right after this meeting.

Yeah.

Well, that would be, you know, if... Well, I mean, it's certainly going to be mentioned, but... I want Joe to come back and take a look at what we're looking at in this data. It's interesting, too. It seems like we have a long-term downtrend with four years. Over the four years, that's exactly correct. Right. It's a mild long-term downtrend with a lot of variation within it. Andrew, do you want to?

Look, I think there are two issues here, two decisions. One decision is whether we change our grading. And then the second issue is how do we get that message out? I agree with Greg, there's no good news here. Being at the sixth percentile is not good. I also understand that it tells us where we are relative to history. but it really doesn't give us a good sense as ultimate volume and so forth that's available to us in the aquifer. But it seems that the most important message for people is that the wells that would generally be understood to be under stress, particularly in the near shore areas are more likely to be stressed as a result of this condition. And we said that in the materials that we put on the website after the last meeting. So just to structure to the discussion, I would be in favor of increasing the overall What is it? We had a moderate drought now and going to severe. I can't remember. But whatever.

Right now, we're at D1 moderate drought. And the D2 is the severe.

OK. I would be of a mind to go to D2. And I don't know enough about the communication channels on the island to know what they are to make a suggestion. But somebody should. somebody who's been in this world more than I have in terms of how to get the message out. And I think coming up to Memorial Day weekend, we should get the message out.

I too was thinking about Memorial Day weekend as being sort of a unique opportunity to communicate.

I don't want to be alarmist about it, but I think we ought to repeat what we said last month, which is what this tells us is that wells susceptible to stress are more likely to experience that stress as a result of the current circumstances. So And then we had a message, use water wisely. And we gave a number of suggestions about how to do that. We just ought to get that message out. So we're not just preaching to the choir.

Right oh if if if if Peter is going to be at the shelter island association that's that's the association of all the homeowner does give us an opportunity to communicate to people in each of them in many in multiple and we would be asking them to do is to take a copy. uh take the report and you know update the uh uh the thing that uh andrew did back in february um and say listen what we'd like you to do is put this on your website you know on there an email from their presidents uh i think that that That would cover a lot of the of the residents, you know you're you're right visitors and things like that not so much maybe people that are weekenders that that haven't joined up in these things they know another an alternate. approach to that would be would be valuable. I, the only thing I would think would be is is that is that we would. Arrange a an interview with Julie lane or Ambrose and and Julie online Andrew perhaps and just say Okay, you know how is this something that they would they would be willing to do, and I would think that that they would make.

A suggestion. The process would be that you guys would create your message for the public being posted on the website, the social media wherever we normally get posted. And then we can also send out an email to all the HOAs. So I have an email listing of every HOA that includes the Shelter Island Association. And then they can choose to share the message that we created with their people.

Yeah, I do like having the message coming from Shelter Island as a whole.

It's the same message getting to everybody. It's the same message that's been on our website, on the social media. It's also then going to people's emails. Um, because I would post these things on the website usually goes out to notify me. So anybody who signed up for that would get the message. So, if they're not in an H away, and they signed up for notifications from the town, look at the message. And then we could just do an additional email to all the homeowners associations.

And I can kind of prepare, prepare the way for that rather than actually be the deliverer of bad news. So I think that that's better. The concern I have is also that, look, we've kind of been around this circle a few times. It's not like people are going to fix things. So Joe we're noting that we're at 6% that all that the state and the regional drought warning systems have both increased their intensity levels for our area. Our data is clearly showing a pattern of underperforming what we expect historically. So we're thinking of raising the intensity level from D1 moderate drought to D2 severe drought. And we're talking about wider communication. And in the context of wider communication, given that we know that people just can't solve the problem by not showering or not flushing the toilet, the other part of the message should be in those areas where people are vulnerable to a problem, test your water. it really should be matching the, you know, people that may be getting saltwater, high chlorides in their water, and they're not noticing it, not aware of it. So I would want to include that part into the message that you need to be aware. Is this impacting you?

Yes.

All right.

Well, I think, you know, I'll chime in when you're off the wells.

I mean, I'll do the In terms of the precept yeah I mean why don't we actually integrate these two parts of the discussion, so we know the wells are low, so why don't you pick up on the drought, because it will inform how we communicate.

On screen share.

you have it in front we have it but it's for other people yeah is it me through this yeah yeah just whether or not all right this is what they say

This is the using Riverhead research farm data, but it really comes through the National Data Service. I've taken the past five years of complete, what I consider, and most people in the field consider the recharge period, which is last October through March. I've taken the five years of history plus the current year,

And you can see where the box, the current arrow being the thick blue line, the thick blue line with the red box arrow pointing. Yeah.

And we were at 17 inches back at the end of March. And we should have been significantly higher at 20. Since the end of March, we haven't done much. And that's, I think, could be a concern for me in terms of precipitation. We haven't done much, meaning that the- We haven't gotten much. In the technical term, we got . This gives you the graphic picture of Shelter Island's deficit compared to the rest of the area. We're in the minus 5 to minus 6, at least. when this was done. What I've done, I took the history of Riverhead from 1939 going forward. This is only the second period where we've had two consecutive low rainfall recharge seasons. The other one was back in 85, 86. And I wasn't focusing on recharge back then. I don't know what it was like on the island back then. But this is a rare occurrence. It's an outlier. It's an outlier. So that's something to keep in mind. And this emphasizes how rare. You can see the distribution is skewed toward the higher averages, to the average and higher than that. There are very few periods when when we're below the average, so that there's perhaps more weight to be given to this current situation, which includes last year's low precipitation and this year's low precipitation. So we're in a strange situation. I did another chart, which is this one. Let me go to full screen. This puts Greg's well chart and my precipitation chart together. You can see the blue arrow is that big jump that we had a few years ago. And you can see where the precipitation is above average for the whole year. And last year in May, we got a bump of seven inches of rain. So that maybe saved us for that period. But so far through this May, we don't have the bump. So I'm not too optimistic at all about it. In fact, I'm pretty pessimistic that we're not going to put more water in. Going back to my chart, the reason I'm saying that is, see down the bottom, the two opposite facing arrows, You know when we're in recharge we're in the. Late. You know fall winter early spring recharge is very favorable best that period. evapotranspiration is taking over and so that's not going to have been a lot of water to filter down through the. soil into the aquifer. So unless we get a amount of rain that can overcome the evapotranspiration demands of the vegetation, the aquifer is not going to increase.

Yeah, and you distributed a comparative graph in terms of showing that the worst offender in terms of evapotranspiration is turf lawns. Yeah, if you want to get into it.

If you want to get into it. I'm ready to go on it, but yeah, I understand that you distributed that, you know, it was a discussion document, but yes, the standard for evapotranspiration is a turf lawn.

And that's that produces just to be the highest. That's the high. That's the highest degree.

Well, irrigate let me let me let me be clear on this. A well irrigated turf lawn is. Is the standard and it's also the highest user of rainfall. A unirrigated turf lawn is very favorable in terms of recharge because it's dormant. I have slides. If we want to get into detail on it, I can do that.

All right. Well, for now, though, we have clarity that we're in an exceptional situation.

And it doesn't look like it's going to get better.

In other words, no way for us to know the future.

Well, I mean, if you go back to my chart with the two down sloping arrows, last month's rain is this month's well. Right. We know what next month's well reading is going to look like, and it's not going to be better. Right.

All right. The one thing that if I just comment on, in our communication, there's going to be a certain population here that's going to say, what are you talking about? Everything is so green. And the reason it was so darn cold, you know, there was little spritzes, quarter inch here, quarter inch there. And it was always cool. So the requirements or the evapotransmission. That's the thing that we have to we have to make sure that we can communicate that effectively that yeah you're right that's you know we're in a D2 severe situation but everything's green well that's because everything was cold and not you know just starting to grow and all the water in the winter was just going right down into the aquifer and the roots of the of the grass and the trees they don't even get close to it you know they're in the top couple of feet so that water has already gone

don't pass the root system. So the green plants are living off the current precipitation. But they're not drawn from the aquifer.

All right. So first of all, do we need to just deal with the, are we in agreement as a whole group, including Joe as a consultant to us, that it makes sense to move from a D1 moderate drought to a D2 severe drought, given what we're seeing? Are we in agreement on that subject? You, your thumbs up, Andrew's got a thumbs up on the screen and I know you are. Joe, do you also feel that would make sense? So, I mean, we just did, but let's just a motion to make a motion that we transit.

We leave that he wanted to honor it and make it severe. With the, again, the comment that I said before, that it could be, people are going to see that it's green now. What do you mean we're in a drought? That's because of- Right.

This is the second topic, which is how to communicate. So all in favor. So we have a unanimous vote for going to level D2. The next thing would be then how we're communicating. And one of the things I was just trying to do is get back online, but the Wi-Fi has changed in here. TSI? Okay, let me go to that. I know that Sean had written a letter about testing your water, a potential letter to submit, and I want to pull that up. But just again, because of the dovetailing of communications streams, what does it mean that we're in a drought? What's the advisable steps? And so just wanting

Testing to be a part of that, but then also is there I might you know I might disagree with you I mean, I don't think we should and angiologist finger up pushing to inflate testing and drought There's two different you should always test right and what's the advice to people? Always test in a drought. I wouldn't have to do other things Mm-hmm. That's so I don't irrigate like Tony or so pretty testing it.

There's no limiting events You know the password yes, sir. Yeah, I

So after the last meeting, I

a request that people use water, but use it efficiently. And then there's a list of examples to that. And then it goes into the data, which was first Greg's graph showing the big four wells relative to their seasonally adjusted history. And then Dave Ruby's graph showing the cumulative precipitation year to date versus the last five years. What I suggest I do is I update that piece for our current decision and the current data, add a suggestion for testing to the list of action items, and then we repost that. We can then use that document for distribution to, that would go to the town, as Meg said, then it goes from the town to the neighborhood associations and so forth. So I suggest that my homework coming out of this meeting is updating that document and then we use it.

Well, and then who uses it? So if we want to act between meetings, right, it's updating the document and then pulling an extract for, to deliver to the town as like the water advisory committee suggests that we communicate the following.

Well, it's written in traditional journalistic inverse pyramid style so that the town can take either just the first paragraph or two, which is like, here's the summary of the data and this is what we want you to do. Or they can also take it with the graphs or all of it. They can use as much of it as they want for distribution to the neighborhood associations.

And it'll be on the WAC site and can be referenced. Correct. So you're suggesting that you would take that on like in this week coming?

I will do it when this meeting's over.

Okay. All right, so everybody's good with that, but the action item here is that Andrew will synthesize it into the top of our general document explaining our data and then forward it as a recommendation to communicate to the HOAs and to the community. Is there a desire to go further in terms of our Shelter Island guests? Are we thinking about something like a police sign at the town center on Memorial Day weekend? Does that affect or the fire department sign, whatever that is.

Does that matter? I mean, I think, sure. It could be as simple as very dry.

Very dry, used water-wise.

Correct. Something just that. But it's got to say very dry.

Do you think that's something that we could get in place for Memorial Day weekend?

You have to talk to Chief because I don't know if the sign has already been reserved by someone else, but if it hasn't been, he's the one who...

I'm willing to write to Chief Reed after our meeting and ask the question. Okay. Okay. All right. So does that allow us to then say to kind of move off of these three and four, the well levels and cumulative precipitation? With action items already assigned and go on to the next agenda item. Everybody's good. Anything any yeah, you're good. All right. Anybody else? All right.

So, yeah, a recommendation that you double check the drought recommendations that are on the website and make sure they're all correct and make sure that it's the latest version of the policy that's on the website.

So, Andrew, that that would be for you. I would think given that you're now looking at the document, just make sure that everything on. Are you clear about what Meg is asking?

Well, is Jessica there?

The September 2025 drought policy is what is on the website, and I believe that that is the most recent. If I'm incorrect, then yeah. No, I think it is too. I guess since Benjamin's not here, I can talk as a guest liaison today. I was looking at the drought policy, and if the well heights are less than the 10th percentile, which is what I thought I saw in your report here, then shouldn't we be in extreme drought and not severe drought?

Well, we're at 6%, which is less than the 10th percentile. So you're correct about that.

It's kind of like you're going from moderate to severe, but our guidance says .

That's correct. You're right. Thank you.

Well, are we ready to take it straight to the extreme? Is that is that. Or do we want to adjust our guidance? Why would you want to hedge it? Why would you want to hedge it? I'm not.

Why would you want to hedge the recommendation?

So it's not to be an extremist.

I mean, the data is showing what we've been shown. I'm not questioning what you're saying. It's going to hell in a handbasket.

Let's follow our own rules.

OK. Extreme. Extreme. Yes, so we did vote on this before. Do we want to just revote that that extreme is? We're in agreement on that? Joe, are you? Well, you're not voting, but I still would ask your opinion. Is it, are we being too alarmist if we go to extreme or is there, I mean, it is following the rules, which is kind of what we always prefer.

Yeah. Following the rules is very, it's very appropriate. I think at extreme, though, we have some mandatory. That's correct requirements that the town board would have. Amber does that mean we have to declare like a state of emergency to these mandatory.

Starting to require us.

You're refreshing on what are the mandatory measures.

I find myself thinking that going up to the severe drought is a satisfactory increase in the level of... And I'd prefer to stay with severe at this point myself.

Prefer to stay with severe based on just caution that... Well, again, it's...

You don't know what's going to happen in a month. If what happens next month means that we have to accelerate the issue, we're not going down to exceptional drought emergency.

The policy says that the town board may implement some or all of the following restrictions at its discretion, based on the severity of the drought so.

So you have the opportunity to moderate the impact.

Yes, the board can choose from the list what is most appropriate at this point.

If you would. As a board member request a list of recommendations from the committee on what policies.

And they are, you know, the recommendations are on the screen right now. They're kind of, you know, to to Greg's point, though, if if we had a significant brainstorm.

Within the past week, I'd say probably what that's probably a good thing. it doesn't look like you know we haven't had a significant rainstorm in fact i'm we see that we're below yeah we're going right yeah record your point from before that this this this this gives us next month's level so i don't think i don't think the wells are going to go up between now and next month that's because we haven't gotten the water so you know also let's bite the bullet and say it's extreme okay well we have

difference of, you know, let's bring Andrew back onto the screen if we can, Jessica. Let me make sure he's there as well. Yeah, Andrew, I thought you might be having a thought.

I need to, I'd like to know if we go to extreme, what I'm hearing from, I believe it was Amber, was we so advise the town board and the town board's recommended actions are basically discretionary, right? That's what Meg was saying. That was what Meg was saying, sorry. I would be of a mind to follow the rule in that we go to extreme extremes We recommend in terms of actions, we take the list from the last month. We just repeat those. So we're not recommending mandatory restrictions at this point. And we see where we are in a month. And then we may revise our recommendations to the town board. That's what I do. Those are the steps. That's how I do it kind of incrementally.

So I'm good with either of these approaches. Greg, are you good with going to extreme but allowing the town board to use its discretion not to put in place mandatory restrictions yet? In between now and then will be Memorial Day and sort of the kickoff of seeing people around a lot more. So by putting us into the extreme category, we're not tying the board's hands, but we're sort of preparing the way for if it's even more extreme in a month.

If the rest of the group thinks exceptional is right, I'm fine with it.

All right. So I think if that's the case, then I'm going to assume that we can update the vote because everybody has spoken to the topic. So the vote is for extreme drought, which we are in, by the numbers, we are in an extreme drought. Okay. So we're ready to move on then. Sounds like it. So then we have the two studies that Joe's, we hope we get some more information about, but maybe we should just wait to see.

The 10-year baseline study, I had some communication with The folks from USGS about they. They are asking us about. Asking us to confirm our intention for the for the work and they noted that in our subsequent conversations or earlier conversations, I should say about an interest in tracking new constituents and. trying to correlate our findings of the well samples with perhaps wastewater influences. They wanted to confirm through this discussion about pricing whether we wanted to gear this effort more towards a wastewater influence study and the associated analysis with that, or if we wanted to exclusively repeat the 10 year baseline studies as a way to add another data point and continue to track the aquifer makeup as we have done in the past. And so I thought about this for a bit and they're all offering of this was a way to control cost perhaps we don't need to do all of the things we did before we if there's something that we want to see more specifically maybe that's what we should focus on and um so i thought about this and i actually replied back to say that no i think very much the intention of this is to add the other data points and keep consistency the value even if it comes out of a higher price tag at this point the value is in stacking this data over time Right. We have another having exactly and and reflecting on our past efforts for this 10 year study. We have changed the. Constituents that we tested for, but not because they didn't exist in the past. It's really because we were just. looking at what was available to us 10 years later and saying, yes, this is very relevant. We want to add this. And that's the lens that we're looking at this next approach with. Maybe there are some new things that we want to add, but they weren't available to us last time. So it's not us necessarily changing the analysis. It's just updating it with, you know, modern approaches. So I've asked them to go back and provide that cost breakdown for us the best mirror what we've done in the past and make sure that this effort most closely aligns with our sampling protocols and constituents this last time because I believe the value here is in continuing to study the trends and to not get I don't want to say distract because they're all important efforts, but to not get sidetracked with singular efforts that are looking at something like specific wastewater constituents. Because we have other efforts underway to do that, like our homeowner testing program now. I think that's a great secondary analysis for wastewater influence. We're talking about the saltwater intrusion study. That's another segment of, you know, water testing that we're able to tackle through another effort.

When you say repeat, which feels right to me, but plus PFAS and yeah, I mean, are we adding to it in any of the, you know?

We can. I think there Their line of thinking was there are a lot of basic things that we're tracking in this 10 year baseline study that perhaps we don't need to do any. You're not so interested in any more as a way to cut as the way to cut costs. But I think that's the wrong approach is pretty much what I'm what I'm saying.

As far as those go, the PFAS and I guess the oxygen. Do we have the ability to find out what happened with the West Neck Waters supply is going to be filtered?

There was a notification that they had to add a separate filtration at GDC for...

Do we know what level they found? I guess we could get that if we just wanted to have a benchmark. What can we anticipate seeing?

Yeah. Their numbers are quite low and under the state limit for 10.

They are. Yeah. Okay. Under the 10. Under the 10, yeah. I know they had had flirting with the four at some point. It did, yeah. That seemed to get fixed in a local way.

It did. It seems there's generally some low-level test results across the well network there. At the time that we had our original, I'll call it a hot test, it wasn't off the charts. It was just elevated. It was unclear what the cause was. We never really identified it if it was a base level of the groundwater or some sort of introduction through the system. The equipment itself, yeah. At the levels that we were examining them, they're so low that they're within the margin of errors for some of these tests. Tests have gotten much more refined now. Um, so they can go a little bit lower, but in no circumstances that they ever, I don't even think we had 1 above. You know, 7 or something like that. So we've always been on the on the low. Now, elsewhere on the island, we've seen elevated numbers in private wells, well into the double digits.

Well, Grumman, I guess with the plumes that happen, I guess it's a local phenomenon. That was all the fire department testing, I think.

In Quag? That was in Quag, I guess. I'm saying on Shelter Island. On Shelter Island in the center. Some of the numbers that we've gotten from that are oriented.

Okay, going back to the 10-year baseline study, I think where we're landing is comparable data collection and methodology to the tests that were done 10 years ago, plus PFAS, plus the PFAS family, whatever those analytes are, plus dioxane.

Yes, those were – dioxane was in the last effort.

All right. The other thing that threw us off in all this was really understanding what the costs were the last time.

Yes.

And so before – so that's the requested scope to the USGS. But before we get the answer back from them, let's have an analytically robust – cost statement of what we spent last time so we have something to compare it to yes okay because it was spread over different budget years and so forth and it looked like it was an eight to ten times increase in the cost when i don't think it is that because our bait because because our understanding of the cost was wrong that's correct yeah so let's get that right

Yes.

OK. All right.

So the USGS's assignment is to come back to us with a new proposal based on continuity. Your task is to come up with the previous budgeting or?

Both. Well, they're a resource for asking how much we paid. OK. How much we paid them. OK. And they tell us. Yeah.

Right.

So both. I'll try it from both. Try to follow angles. Yeah. OK.

All right, so then, you know, to be continued, unless... No, it's fine. To be continued, so therefore the saltwater intrusion study.

Yeah, it's lumped together with some of these conversations still, but I do have... The gentleman who coordinated the well installations scheduled to talk with me next week about the data they've gotten so far and how we might lump that into a subsequent investigation. So that's forthcoming also. Yeah.

All right. And that project, as I understand it, is paid for by the USGS, relevant to us, But is not a budget item that we have to worry about. Correct.

That's right.

Okay, good.

Oh, there is yeah, that's 10 year baseline. We were going to find a WP line. Yes, this is what we rolled over 23,000 dollars from last year. Oh, okay.

Are you hearing that Andrew? Yes, Andrew. There's 23,000 dollars in the budget for the salt water intrusion study and we had discussed. Allocating some funds to supplement. The, uh, the 2 wells with the, uh, with the magnetic residents imaging to fill in some blank spots. So I wasn't aware that we had that in the committee budget. So that's a good.

a tool to have for that discussion with usgs okay and going back to the 10-year baseline the third question is because we went back and forth on the budget with this um what's the funding plan for the 10-year baseline Is it the water? Is it the WQI or is Amber is nodding.

You can't see her, but Amber's nodding yes on that one.

Okay. So I'm just going to say the third question with that is confirm that funding plan.

So Andrew, that would be an application by the committee, which probably means you as fair to the WQI.

Correct. I have been down that road, and it is long but worthwhile.

All right. So are we ready to move on to the center private well testing update?

Yes. I have to depart, though, for another meeting. Is there anything else that I don't see anything else on the agenda for me?

I would very much like to know the number of people who have signed up at this point for the center triangle.

Yes. I have no updates since the last one I shared with you directly, Andrew, and it's quite low. It's in the low 20s, I believe. 26. 26? Yeah. 28, high 20s. So our return rate is significantly less than the previous effort we had done for the whole center. I don't know why that might be. It's all speculative. But we are way under in terms of response rates. So if the committee has any suggestions on how we might bolster participation, then that would be great. would be welcome where we've come up to the deadline i think we asked people to reply by last week so that's one thing we can do is extend the deadline extend the deadline we don't really have direct messaging capability with these people uh who are within the in the center triangle area yeah we did it all by direct mail so it's not uh i tried to get email addresses but we don't have a we don't have a mechanism to do that

Okay. Is there any value in reprinting the written materials and this weekend, Memorial Day weekend, going around and knocking on doors?

I would think so. That's an effort, you know, that's a substantial effort for the committee to do as a volunteer basis. I think that has been most effective in the past is trying to engage people directly. But that's, you know, that's a decision for you guys to make.

I'm here over the weekend.

I mean, yeah, let's God bless the Long Island Railroad, but I will be too. So I'm, I'm willing to do that this weekend. This is really important and we need to get statistically valid results and 26 out of one 91 isn't enough. So we need to get it up over a hundred. That was our, that was our goal, Joe.

Yeah. And, um, The emphasis, my recommendation is the emphasis is on trying to get more people within these zones. Yes, we have an available budget, but the benefit here is to having enough samples in the right space. So we could conceivably open the additional zones to testing if we wanted to use more of the budget and try and collect samples elsewhere. But at this point, we have such a shortfall within our targeted zones that we really should try and enhanced participation in those established zones already. 100 is quite a lot. 100 is excellent, but I think we could consider this statistically significant at less than 100 if we got to probably 50 or 60 within these ranges would be sufficient.

Is there any way that you can or where we can have a list of targeted people to hit with knock on doors. In other words, the people who are in the area who received a letter and who haven't responded.

Some of that, yes. People who haven't responded, certainly. But I have no way to tell whether they reside here or here for this weekend.

No, no, we'll just have to, we'll just have to know the address of course.

Yes, exactly. Yep.

Yeah. Can it, is that something that you could give us, get a list by the end of the week? So those of us who are here over the weekend can do that.

Yeah. Okay. I'll distribute that to the committee. Yep.

When we sent out letters to the areas, did we send it out to everybody or half the people in the zone? Everyone. We sent it to everyone in the zone? Yeah. That's what I thought. For some reason in my head, I had that we only sent to half the people.

We discussed doing half, but when I made the zones and counted the parcels, which felt like we should just get straight to the point.

In the zones in question, how many of the residents did that round? This is a second request, basically, for the data.

Are you referring to the original center test?

Yeah, from two or three years ago.

That's a good question. I have not correlated those two, but that test was not the same as this test. That was only for nitrates and one or two other things. I don't think someone would say, oh, I already had this done.

Having the ability to say, yeah, you had it done. Three years ago, two years ago, but you know that test was like this, we want to do a big you know we we want a lot of material so that. Presumably they'd say oh okay stuff that I didn't something I may think is everything is cop aesthetic but it actually. It actually will will provide more information.

Oh yeah yeah yeah we you know the last approach in the Center was. was for the indicator constituent. And this test is to find out what it was indicating. Now it's everything. So if you had an elevated nitrates, you'd expect to see something else. And we're trying to find out what that other stuff is.

OK. So Joe, we mailed 191. We got 26. What's that, 165, I'm just guessing on the math. Is that right? 165 haven't answered. Can you get us 165 stapled packs and a list of doors to knock on for the people who haven't answered?

Oh, enrollment forms, you mean?

Yeah, enrollment forms. In other words, the letter and the enrollment form and the envelope. Maybe we don't need the envelope because that means stamping and so forth. and so that a couple of us can go around and put those 161 packages on all those doors over the weekend.

Yeah, do you want to include a stamp for those folks, or let's just give them the paperwork, ask them to mail it?

Give them the paperwork. If I can get a roll of stamps, maybe I'll put the stamps on. It's my gift.

Okay, yeah, I'll put together, I'll work with Jessica to put together a package of something that makes sense for you to carry, a walking, you know, a walking package.

All right. And I need to get it by, Peter, we need to get it by Friday afternoon when town hall closes. Okay.

Here, I can come in and get things.

Yeah, maybe if you could open on Saturday for beach passes.

Yeah, we can leave these documents with the clerk's office because they're open on Saturday also for beach pass purchases and things. Just in the morning. And nonetheless, we'll coordinate all that with you before the end of the week.

Great. Okay.

That doesn't work. Why don't you do it like Publishers Clearinghouse? Check for $10,000 in it. You might win this. If you got the money in the budget. All right. So we just win the check, not actual money. If you have the money budgeted and you're not going to spend it, give it out. A raffle? Yeah.

Okay, so if we have some clarity now on next steps of the Center Triangle testing. Sean's not here, but there were a couple of things for Know Your Water Weekend that we wanted to share. I've got to go.

And thank you, Joe.

Yeah, Joe. And this all dovetails with Center testing, but it's widening out the testing so Sean and I had drafted a possible letter. Actually, before I go to the letter. Jessica on five one Sean sends sends an email that says the posters are a go. If we can throw that picture up. See the picture associated with that one. Yeah, Friday, May 1st.

I don't know if I... Let's see, maybe you're not.

So if you were to... Oh, you're not logged in. I'm not logged in. I could forward to you just real quickly. Is it on the email system? I think that it was emailed to me and Andrew. Let me send it to Jessica and she can at least show us what's been produced. So you should have that in just a second.

And in this quiet time, I'll go to some houses in the center as well.

Oh, thank you. We can each spend a few hours on it and get back to our company. Yes. I might actually get my son to join me. He has joined us at the committee. He did an analysis of the covariance of the wells across the island at some point. I'm sorry. My son Gabriel did a correlation analysis between the different wells, showing that there was zero correlation between the Ram Island wells and the center wells, for example. All right, and that's because of the impact of tidal water. Probably. Do the big ones? The big ones do coordinate with each other strongly. Yes. All right, Jessica. OK, so yeah. Just not sharing. Not sharing? We're seeing it on the screen up here. If you zoom in just a little bit more to these images, basically, Sean has had these images made up and he's proposing or we're proposing a letter to the editor that would read, the Shelter Island Water Advisory Committee is launching a Know Your Water initiative to encourage residents to test their well water. Every homeowner should be aware of the quality of the water in their home. The QR code you will notice on signs around town will take you to an explanatory document with a link to the Suffolk County well water testing application. Suffolk County will come and test your water each year for a $100 fee. Even if you have some filtration in your home, it may or may not address all the contaminants that might currently be present. Most of the water in Shelter Island is potable. Nevertheless, what we put on our land fertilizers, herbicides, and pesticides, and what we put down our drains and septic systems, household chemicals, and residual pharmaceuticals from our bodies make their way to the aquifer and our drinking water creeks and bays. This is not theoretical. A range of harmful compounds has been detected in our wells to varying degrees and may be a problem for you depending on your location. Near the center, the density of homes and short distances between septic tanks and wells increases risks to drinking water. Meanwhile, in low-lying near shore areas, in addition to septic contaminants, there is risk of saltwater intrusion due to drought, sea level rise, and excessive pumping. If you have not already, use this opportunity to arrange for your well water to be tested. So this is a draft of a letter to the reporter. uh a suggestion from sean for how we should handle this and posters he's ordering sets of eight of each of them i believe so that is report back on know your well your water weekend your know your water weekend uh any thoughts about the strategy here the poster and or the strategy i support it it wasn't the date july 25 or something Yep. And then with the first weekend in August being a fallback.

Yep.

So we'll continue down this path. When is this going? Sorry? When are you sending this? Well, the question, first of all, there'll be distribution to all of you so that we can kind of get approval on it. But yeah, I mean, yes, exactly. And then what's the word count? So that's an edit down from 285, so it's under the 300 limit. Yeah. So, again, we'll do a little further drafting together online, and then by next meeting, I think, be ready to publish and put signs out. All right. A pharmaceutical disposal update. So I also did my arts and crafts work. Actually, Lisa Shaw did her work and then I took it to the printer. So we now have beautiful new pharmaceutical posters. And they're all laminated. We have three of these. We can get more at any point, but these were $150. and with the QR code taking you to more information about the home disposal kits. Who did? Actually, this was Ink Spot who printed the printing, and Lisa Shaw just revised the poster based on what we had. So I'm hoping we can get one of these into the town hall today, and then I can take one. Presumably, I can just take it to the recycling center and find a place where, I mean, I could talk to some... Yeah, you can talk to Ken. Talk to Ken first. Yeah. OK. OK. So, yeah. So we have progress on that on that particular front. OK. So unless there's anything else about pharmaceutical posters. then moving on to the irrigation update that was also on Sean but he wasn't at the last irrigation meeting Meg and I were at the last meeting Meg do you want to say anything about where we stand at this point I thought we had a very productive meeting we did I think we had a very good meeting um currently wrapping up the changes that we made so there were so many notes on the document I had to redo the whole

that's going to go out this week to the subcommittee and then we're going to see if everybody agrees on the draft then we're going to talk to the stakeholders and share it with them and get their feedback and then once we're all on the same page we'll submit it to the town board for review yeah true andrew had a question about whether subcommittee was right i think is that right andrew i did um

This initiative is actually not coming to the Water Advisory Committee for a recommendation. So I don't mind there being an irrigation committee, but it's really not a subcommittee of this, unless you wanna bring it to the Water Advisory Committee and have us approve it and then recommend it forward to governance point.

Karen Hollweg, You know it's not a subcommittee of the water advisory committee it's I guess technically it's not a separate it's a working group put together by the town board pulling together people from different days.

John Potter, i'm fine with that okay. John Potter, i'm fine with that clarification.

John Potter, Okay, and you know, in terms of the direction of the committee, it seemed like what we were also attempting to achieve is you know light hand light touch. regulation while at the same time doing the things necessary to get data that Validates whether, you know, do homes in the near shore area have salt water intrusion? Is there a problem with drip irrigate their drip irrigation or not? Is there no problem at all? So, anyway, it involves.

Again, testing, testing, testing as the map that that the high school kids on the salt test that is that is that on the. Has that been released at this point? I don't think so. I never got a hard copy of it. OK. I guess that would roll into the irrigation update, right?

Well, we did the study with the anonymity. We said, we're not going to disclose your locations. So people were smart. This is where I don't know. It's a good question.

Yeah. I mean, if you ask them to say instead of instead of the dime sized hole or You know, maybe a quarter of it. And that way there would be, okay, well, there's 12 houses in that circle. One of them has salt. That would be a way to handle that.

I was looking at Haight Beach, and I can kind of... There were two houses that had saltwater intrusion out of the seven. I can kind of get an idea of whose house it might be. So that's the kind of... Yeah, I know Haight Beach will be... I don't know you know it's a good question.

I mean if you if you expand yeah. That we got fuzzy. yeah. useful.

Well, as. Sam whether whether it's okay to incorporate with we can release his map his mouth.

Okay, so yeah sure you should ask yeah. Okay.

So I know Amber had... Andrew, you put the microplastics on today's agenda. I know Amber had forwarded a couple of notifications that we've gotten on the microplastics topic. Sean and I had forwarded stuff from Tim as well on that.

Well, when I read that piece that Amber sent around, I said to myself, whoa, do we need to be doing something about this? Because... It indicated that, no, these microplastics are not necessarily going down through the soil into the aquifer, but the microplastics are used to affect the slow release characteristic of both seeds, seeding, and fertilizer. And then it ends up getting blown around and it's in the environment. And do we... do we, how do we want to handle this? Because it seems like a pretty, it seems like a significant, potentially significant and unnecessary hazard and pollutant.

And so the thought was- In theory, slow release had been an advantage, environmental advantage.

Yeah.

Preventing too much fertilizer from being released and going into the aquifer.

Yeah, but now we understand that there's a characteristic of it that actually could be damaging. And so if we want to reduce the amount of nitrates out there, it's like, let's control the nitrates, the amount of the nitrates in the product, but not necessarily use the slow release characteristic because that has a microplastic component to it. So if that's the direction we want to go in, how do we want to affect that? Do we want to... basically described the issue and the suggested solution to the landscaper community and also to the hardware store, which has a, and because somebody, and I can't remember where I read it, it was in our email somewhere, Sean, maybe Peter, maybe you, I can't remember.

There was a document with a list of products that- Products that are not, don't have the microplastics, correct? Yes.

Yeah, so do we want to get that information to the landscaper community and also to the hardware store?

And I believe that Sean did send something to the landscaper community.

I was going to say, I think Sean already sent an email with the list of products that don't have it. And just a little educational info blurb about what it was, about microplastics and fertilizers.

do we know uh i think that the microplastics is is it's environmentally it's a it's around the planet right is that the the penguins have have microplastics well pfos microplastics these things are everywhere yeah is there do we know in terms of of focusing attention at this point on what we're doing here, is that like one, is that some percentage? Is it 50% of the environmental issue that we have, or is it?

Sorry, you're asking the question, are microplastics in fertilizers, how significant are they? Yeah, how significant? So you're saying that it's worth it for us to be doing more, continuing to do research in terms of

Yeah, I would think it would be a question that you'll get from people. So you ought to know before we're telling you.

By the way, on April 29th, Sean said he did send out a letter to all the landscapers via email. It's a list of Shulter Island landscapers. It does strike me that continuing to develop some expertise in what is the significance of these. On the other hand, you have to deal with pharmaceuticals is a very small percentage of dominance that we're dealing with, but you have to deal with what you can deal with. That's true. So, anyway, I mean, I think this is a worthwhile topic of discussion, of continued discussion. I can go back and, I mean, there was a couple of, there was some video, produced videos on the topic as well. I'll resend them to everybody. Yeah, that'd be good because it has some further, like, detail of how significant the problems are or not. Okay. Andrew, did you have something you wanted to add to that? at all to that? Okay. Other business? All right. Is there anything from the people at home? Everybody's good. I don't see any hands. Okay, so I think we're ready for a... Andrew has a stand-up. Yeah, Peter. Andrew, yes.

Peter, I want to thank you for chairing, and I'll be back, assuming that the Long Island Railroad gets going again.

Yeah.

But thank you very much for stepping in to chair this on very short notice.

Not a problem. Thank you. Okay, so motion to adjourn? Oh, we are adjourned.

Goodbye.