Committees - Regular Meeting

Okay. Welcome to the Conservation Advisory Meeting, July 7th. Should have an interesting meeting. In fact, where's Liz Hanley?

She said she would be here, but... Yeah.

Okay. Well, we're going to... She can watch it. Okay, first thing we have to do is to order the meeting and we have five of us, so we're missing Dan.

Oh no, Chris.

Chris, yeah, Chris is usually here all the time.

Yeah, he is.

We thought he would be here, but I don't know. He got the minutes and he didn't make any changes, but we can start. We got a quorum. So first thing we want to do is review the minutes. Any comments on the minutes of June 2nd at all? They're with us here. OK. OK, so we accept the minutes of the meeting as drawn. yes everybody okay all right the next thing is the mission statement now i've been looking at it i haven't come to any real great conclusions yet because it really I think we have to work along with the town on the comprehensive plan. So what they want us to really do, you know, because the mission statement as it is, it's not, I think it's only like three or four years old and it's pretty straightforward. So I would just ask everybody to review it for the next meeting in August. So just take a look at the mission statement. It's on the site plan on our, Yeah. Take a look at. The next one is the nature preserve walkthroughs. I walked through all of them. I don't know if anybody has any more comments on them. I looked at saturn's woods there's you know a lot of the same stuff that was there last year, but I see people business and surrounding it's filling over their property lines into the saturn's woods, so I think. We're going to have the town talk to the owners, the business owners, to try to, you know, it's not the owner who's doing it, it's the workers. They just say that they probably don't realize what they're doing, so they're going out. But I think if the town talks to them, it'll be okay. It'll straighten it out. It's just that it's starting to run over on us, so. We had like Marcello's pipe and I think Binder's people on the other side next to the... But I think that they'll clean it up once they know we're watching them. And the town go after them, you know, talk to them. So that took care of Satan's Woods. Anybody here get a chance to walk through with the ticks or anything?

I shouldn't say it, but I haven't had a tick yet this year.

Yeah, good. I had one. Yes. I got them early, though. You know, I was there when I got in on the clothes and I got them all stuck. I didn't get on the skin, so. Good.

That's really great. Howard, I just want to ask with Sachem's Woods, when you made reference to the spillage and the workers and all of that, who is going to talk to the, what's the process for how they will be notified that they are infringing upon the preservation?

The town gets our report.

And then, who on the town will reach out?

Well, it should go to the building department. The building department? The building department has this service. The town will tell who they think would be the right person to go there and just mention it to the owners.

Okay.

Rene Valladares- Is this was just on new we're going to the reports and. Rene Valladares- A bit different preserve and thing I mentioned those that. Rene Valladares- Business properties surrounding sections that stuff is leaking into Satan. Rene Valladares- So we like to have the town, take a look at how. We're just advisory, so in the authority, but I don't know, I guess it would be the building department.

I think that we'd be building the department, I think you're right, or we'd start there. Yeah, start there. We'd start with the building department, and then depending on what it was, they would take it from there.

yeah because they would know the boundary lines you know it's the property lines that yeah they probably just make a phone call and they'll clean it up oh yeah yeah i don't see any you know it's not i just don't want it to keep going on actually right right that's why i asked about the specificity of who who is doing that so yeah okay good okay um that takes care of saturn's woods basically uh The ice pond is in good condition. I walked around that one. If anybody had a chance doing that. Garcia is still not marked. Like Ed Bausman before, just leave it the way it is. Don't get in there. Is it still kind of a dump ground? No, not really. It's pretty clean around there. The only thing is if... somebody starts working around there i go up every once in a while i take a look around adjacent properties shell beach that always now that that's where the soil sand gets washed over into the parking lot and now the highway department i'll have to clear that up a little and fix up the grasses there that you know everybody just walks through from their car they don't go down the path so it gets kind of beat down is there signage i can't remember no it's just like it's not it doesn't say walk through this way that's what i'm wondering do you think that would help well no this that was pretty pretty well taking care of, but it's always, you know, when we had the rough weather and stuff, it washed over and it opened up the grass. If you have to walk through the grasses, you're going to get ticks and stuff. I don't think people do that much. Let's see.

With shellfish, we had a major change since we walked to there. Yeah, I know. And that raised a lot of Questions? Yeah. I reached out to Tom Board. I haven't heard back. Well, Ken Lewis told you what he was doing there, right? Ken Lewis, right. I have two pieces of correspondence where he sort of provides an explanation. Probably not productive to go into to what extent those arguments hold.

So what was the problem?

They're about one-third into, so oak tree line, the regularly paved part ends at the bend. Then comes the Silver Beach property, Silver Beach Association property, and then the Shell Beach Nature Preserve, one of the pieces that we're supposed to take care of because it's so precious. the highway department decided that they had some excess recycled material from a paving job I assume it's the one back here and they thought it was prudent since it's financially, it saves money if you don't have to deposit that stuff somewhere. Is this stuff that's all ground up? They ground it up. They mix some bitumen based things when the sun shines. Right. And then it's not poured like asphalt. It's put down, temp down.

Right.

It requires a minimum of sort of grading before you do that. And then they dumped it in there. So now this is a black sort of runway to nowhere. Right. About one-third to the second parking lot. Right. The arguments provided was A, the cost savings. B, that is the volatile part of the point, which in the past, It was broken through and the rest was an island. Not for the past 20 some odd years. It's one of the most traveled dirt roads on the island that has to be substantiated. The immediate question was, A, it's wetlands. B, it's a preserved property that the CAC is supposed to look at. And you can't find a better place to dump your excess, whatever it is. This is in some places, it's an inch, three quarter. That's not going to hold this thing together. In some places, it's already come up. So you kick it and you have the things running around that you find on other beaches where you have tar pieces and you wonder where's the stuff coming from. So a lot of people in Silver Beach are sitting there scratching their head and said, was anybody, it was probably well-intentioned. I mean, the savings argument, I buy that, but it was not the right place to save. So I would say get rid of that crap. Without a permit, it's freaking illegal.

Well, yeah, but it's a town. I haven't talked to Ken in person.

So is it like 300 or 400 feet of it? I don't know what, I didn't walk the feet down, but it's about one-third of the whole thing.

There are probably more road jobs to do, so there's plenty of room to dump more shit out there.

Excuse my French.

It's outrageous. It really is. It is outrageous. And there's nothing... Well-intentioned, yes, I believe that. It's not the right place to do it. And more importantly, they didn't tell the Silver Beach Association. They didn't talk to us. According to Megan, the board didn't know about it. So the autonomy given to the highway department by the state is as to how you maintain roads. Those are the regulations. Not you pick a spot and you put tie down. No law gives that authority. So that kind of cavalier autonomy is as much concerning as the fact that that precious spot stinks like tar. Yeah. It invites additional traffic. Right. People are going to drive faster.

Yeah.

Oh, yeah.

All of them.

What's the point? Well, I don't know. It seems like... This is done by a lot of the towns around. They do this. They put that down. And my objection is that this is an asphalt product, the oil-based product going there into the wetlands. It's adjacent to that. i have like i said i haven't had a chance to talk to ken he's had problems with the roadways here and with the weather and stuff so i didn't get to see him he's probably got people complaining about the dust on the road he figured well that's one thing but you know something he thought he was doing good no he you know he's following probably the standards that they use around but we also do that at the uh goat hill golf course they put asphalt right and that's right above the aquifer you know and that's where gregory podak asked for that's this stuff i would say what they should do is probably analyze what they're taking up if it's a 25 year old road or something probably most of the asphalt is leached out already and going down and stuff like that so well it's it's what they have a grinder that comes in like where the uh the turnaround is by minigolf that's probably where it came from they ground all that down right to repave it

You know, to get it to the right elevation, and that's probably what they use.

Yeah. So you can do, what was it? You can, this is reclaimed asphalt pavement. So you can either do hot mix, that's what it wasn't. And otherwise, you just tamp it down. There's a little bit of stuff in there to hold it together. And then it's just a matter of time. No, tamping it down. And time will, since it's permeable, because when people ask the question, well, it's not permeable, then you're going to have runoff. No, it's permeable. So it's subject to the freeze and thaw cycle. It will last one winter. And then it's going to be a nice patchwork that slowly dissipates out into the sand. The argument that other people do it, that's like I shot someone, he shot someone, I can shoot someone. No. That's not how it works.

I think it's a highway standard that they do that, not that somebody else does it. I think that's the state of it.

Is the standard that they would do that in a location like this?

i mean that's the only concern here right yeah well the only other thing they can do is what they've been doing over the years is put gravel down and level it off why don't they leave it the way it was i'm i'm here for 20 some odd years right yeah i didn't have a problem to get to shell beach no my car gets a little dusty okay if you're concerned about your range over there leave it on the faith piece and walk walk

Yeah.

Get a car wash. What's the point?

And the worse the road gets, the slower people go, so. Right. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah, no. We are supposed to walk the tick pieces of land that we're supposed to. And this one, they can mess up without talking to anybody. It makes the whole show ridiculous.

Yeah. Are they going to leave it there? Are they going to pick it up?

Someone has to pay for picking it up, right?

Well, they just do it. The town would do it. Pick it back up. It would be us. Another road. But, you know, if it's a screw-up, it's probably a good idea to do it. Yeah, that's what they should do.

Yeah. Right. Like I said, I was going to talk to Ken, but because of the trees going down and the weather we've had, it's been so busy. Yeah.

You're not going to get anything done this summer, that's for sure.

No, but at least see, you know,

aware you could do or replace it and what the difference is i mean if it's economical how economical is it i mean whether you you know you're bringing gravel or something like that but it might be well like you said just leave it alone leave it alone like once a year they were just greater and yeah just level it off in the spring and it was good for the summer and then by the end of winter it was a mess again you hit it again in the spring get it ready for the summer but

yeah just not put anything down there you know probably the best thing yeah you know i i don't know what the full reason was for it but you know it just probably wasn't you know thinking he didn't think it through like yeah in terms of this angle right yeah i was thinking somebody might have said what are we going to do with this stuff we just took off the road, you know? Right, right. Are we going to take it off island? Where are we going to put it off island?

Well, no, the stuff actually works really good, just not there. You've got to put it like three or four inches and then you roll it down. I put that stuff down because I grind it up And from my entrance of my, you know, Bowditch Road down into my hole. And there's no dust. I mean, it really impacts. Just like the beauty of this stuff is actually it's better than asphalt because it's already broken up. And once you roll it smooth, there's nothing to crack. It's already cracked. So it's not like you've got to repay because it broke up because it just stays the way it is forever. Cliffy put it down at his... at the new barn. And it works great. And it's a lot cheaper. It gets hard as a rock. I mean, it doesn't really leach or anything. But where that spot is, is not the best spot. It's not ideal. I mean, are we beating around the bush here?

Chris, come on. It's not a good idea. Hi, Chris. There he is. Sorry.

But yeah, say that again.

This is a property that we are supposed to watch over and protect.

Correct.

And I think if you ask 9 out of 10 people who walk on Shell Beach prior to the landing strip that they created there, said this is just magical.

Right. Talk about the millings they put down on Shell Beach.

Yeah.

And this whole thing in wetlands, wetlands is one of our thing here.

I don't know what we're doing. I'd rather go for dinner.

That really sums it up, though, I think in very many ways. if we're looking through responsibilities that we have and we should take them seriously and we should at least we're not vilifying anyone who may have tried to make a good judgment call but in this case i think we all agree that wasn't an ideal or even reasonable judgment call given the fact that this is in the wetlands so we have to be clear about that right and make a recommendation about what needs to happen now and get some town backing because otherwise we're really not accomplishing anything.

I would advise the town to talk to Ken and see that.

So we just had a town board session today. So we did talk about it and I just kind of learned about all of this stuff over the last couple of days. So we kind of learned about it. I haven't talked to Ken, the supervisor has. We had Joe come in just to talk to us about what was going on. And, you know, we had some questions about, like, is this, you know, like, because people have asked, like, do they need a, you know, should they have done a permit? Turns out we didn't need a permit. Okay. What is the material that they used appropriate for, you know, like, It's a very sensitive area. So we said, well, it is approved for that area. So again, we just had some very preliminary conversations, just as some of the board members and myself were just learning about it because I don't live out there. So we were very aware of it. We're very aware of it. And I think all the board started to get calls about it so okay we didn't know we didn't know before it happened but we certainly know now we certainly know now um so we're just kind of trying to figure out like okay oh like you know i think like they said our first concern was getting joe in to just be like you know is it a danger to the area right you know i think that was like our very first concern What's the, what's next?

Right.

But I don't have an answer for you today, but just so you know, we are super aware. Okay. Yes.

So you're going to take some kind of action on this. I don't mean in a negative way. I just mean something will happen. You'll make a judgment call on the best thing that needs to be done. And he'll know what that is. And then, yeah, OK.

So I mean, like I said, we're all kind of very aware of it. So we all got to the same table today.

And like I said, we call in Joe if this were like Joe's comment that it doesn't require a permit, that that is based on what?

Just like the DEC requirements and like town code.

Town code 129. I don't have the exact number. 129. It's a wetland permit that they need. Road construction.

It's grading.

It's dumping. Some of the above or all of the above requires a permit. So if the town engineer says no, then already I'm wondering

Oh, that'd be, yeah, take a look at that. Yeah, absolutely.

I will just tell you, I've had 15 minutes. I'm hearing now. So I just want to let you know, I'm hearing all of these things. I don't have a sufficient answer, but I'm sharing what I know with you and I'm listening to what you guys are saying.

Thank you.

Okay. yeah that's great that is yeah for the next meeting you'll be able to inform us of something yeah absolutely okay so for august 4th okay i mean i'll probably come up at a telework session before then expectation that wasn't on the agenda today but i would i would be surprised

Right.

I'll bring it back.

Yeah, we're very concerned about that. And like I said, I go to, you know, they're putting down the past, they're putting asphalt down or sees coming in and has extra something puts it down. And that's, you know, our drinking water is going to seep into the stuff when you are when the sun shines on it.

Now, ultimately, it will dissipate. But right now, there are volatile components there. Otherwise, you won't smell anything. Yeah, you can smell oil.

It's jarring. It's jarring visually, the smell of it.

And the DAC's point of view, as far as I did a little bit of AI beyond what what sort of Google immediately gives you. And the DSC is very differentiated about where this is and where not. And with wetlands, it's certainly not a yes and no answer.

It's like any road next to the wetlands. Every road that we have on the island, the asphalt are right down to the town landings almost. It's not the proper thing to do. But, like, town board's aware of it.

That's great, yeah.

That's the main thing, you know. We just advise. We don't, we can't change things, you know. We advise.

No, but.

Yeah, this noise, it's excellent. Right. Oh, that's good. Okay. What else do we have here now? So that's the shell beach comments that we have a way speech. I said, like, the grass open and replace that is some sand washed into the parking lot. That's not a big job. They just clear that up. And because some park, we still have the old. garage there that's falling down. Each week it falls a little bit more. The grass comes through the roof and stuff. It's something that has to be on the agenda, has to be put into a budget that they can take that away. I mean, that's asphalt, not asphalt, asbestos. Yeah, that's what you said. And if that fractures and goes in there, you know, that gets into the water system, that's something.

So, Liz, that is one that we talked about before. So, yeah, I mean, Howard's really concerned about the materials. And he said he's watching it deteriorate. But the information he received thus far is that there's no budget to do anything with it.

yeah so you have to write it into the budget yeah do this right do you guys have a quote on how much it would cost to take it down no no i don't because that one time they were going to repair it was used by the garden club for a long time and then they were going to take it down but i i mean i guess i would say i mean if you could obviously you know if you could maybe just contact someone to get a quote for what it would you know what how much basically How much are we asking? Right? Because, you know, for to put it in the budget, we need, like. How many dollars it is so what basically what would it take to get it?

That's the highway department. That would be the public works. Yeah.

Public because they would probably do the actual work because they have to find out what to do with that material as a specific.

So, maybe I misunderstood. I thought you wanted. to have somebody private come in to deal with it because of the material.

If you get a remediator, it's like... Isn't that a question? Yeah, but you may need a remediator. It's a question of how many square feet, how many pounds, whatever it is. Even if one of the guys at the highway crew may be... Certified, you know what I mean? Because there's a lot of training. It comes with lead and asbestos and all the abatement. All right.

Situation so I guess my question is, have you talked to Ken about it?

No, I haven't.

Okay. I guess I guess what I would say, if you have time before the budget is to talk to Ken, because if it's. If it's just the highway department, and that's working into the schedule, if there is additional remediation and there's a cost, then we just need to know. Right, what the cost is, is it, you know, how many dollars is that? It has to. We have to think about how to afford that. So. It would be good if it's getting to a point where it's a priority to just understand.

But what is it? Is it just 10 teams time? Or is it 10 teams time?

Plus X dollars for remediation. So, you know, that would be something that you would be able to.

Well, I can talk to Ken about, but he's the 1 that knows you could get that information.

Yeah.

That's actually expenses are just that cement fiber. Let's see, you get now he's called mineral fiber siding. Right. But that was probably built in the 40s or probably suspect. Yeah. And it's not the actual siding itself. It's, it's the dust, right? So it goes fry. Well, when you break it, right?

Yeah.

And, uh. I've taken a few rooms off signing jobs and what ends up happening is when you take the actual shingle off, it may come out intact, but there's dust behind it. That's the product you want to avoid. Yeah. So there's probably not a lot of friable material there. But there's a, there's a way that they probably should handle it. So, you know, you put plastic on and break it and. All right, I'll keep it wet. So it doesn't stop. So sure. That's something. There's a way.

Property business on.

May I say that Liz's thinking is exactly what we need to actually get things done. Because I think the frustration that you're hearing is just we have a lot of these conversations and then it comes down to everybody is really lovely who's doing the work and they're busy. And so I think no one wants to put any more work on overburden the overburdened. And that's understandable. But then you get into this cyclical discussion. We get nowhere on issues. So your very clear way of saying, talk to Ken, find out if his folks could do it if they had sufficient budget. If not, what would it cost to have an outside remediator? I mean, then we actually get this accomplished right or at least we move the issue off the table and can go on to the next one so i just want to say i really appreciate your coming this kind of conversation is so helpful because when we have these sort of cyclical discussions i think everybody feels a little frustrated that we're not doing what you would like us to do can't you yes so thank you All right, so will you talk to Ken then and try to get that level? Okay.

The town board is- Right, no, I know, but I guess what I'm saying is I need you to talk, because I'll just be real. I don't totally understand what needs to happen, right? So what would be helpful for me is for you to talk to Ken, find out if they could, do they need additional resources to do it? Is that the issue? Because if it's, If it's additional resources, then that's a town board problem. If it's a scheduling thing, but then it's something that maybe the town board can talk to them about prioritizing right at this moment. I don't know which it is. Right? And so that's what that's that's the right that I think.

Yeah, I don't even know that we're talking about it.

Just at least, but yeah, it's been on his schedule since. I think the list since 2024.

Yeah, it's been on listing.

And so he doesn't need any other resources to deal with the asbestos?

Well, no one's ever, no one ever asks that question. I think what it is, is it's on his list since 2024.

Once we give it in, like I always do on the Nature Preserve, what happens to our comments?

Right. That's the other piece, because we're supposed to be looking at all of these properties, and we have, and we've written reports. But then when nothing happens with the report, people aren't necessarily thinking, we'll go out and do another one, come back loaded with ticks, and nothing happens again. So it's the process of how to act upon the information that really has never been defined. And I think you can make that happen somehow. So, at least you'll try, you'll try.

Thank you.

Yeah, exactly.

It might not be a bad idea to have the town engineer just look it over and he could probably get estimates. That would be a good way. Yeah, he'd be the probably, but he can figure this out with the DEC. How many squares there are there and stuff like that.

Yeah, that's easy enough to do. Right. Thank you.

A lot of a lot of times when it's like a homeowner doing stuff on his own property, they don't need to have a remediation company. Right. They're allowed to take care of themselves. Uh, same thing. So, there's a. Point where, you know, the town being the owner, maybe they can do more. In house, right? Right. Yeah. That would be a good question for Joe.

I mean, they are really so incredibly busy in the highway department. So for all of this stuff to land with them on top of what they already have is probably very unreasonable.

You get a container in there and a machine. Yeah, it's like any minute. It's gone. No foundation. It's just...

They have the 10K run. They're out clearing everything. I mean, they just have so much stuff and they don't have a lot of staff.

Used to be able to lift the party button and burn stuff like that. The training. Seriously.

I mean... Asbestos is a different world.

It's crazy. I have one job. We took a house down last year and they had to have an inspection. It turns out the only thing in the house was the windows were painted with lead paint.

guy some guy shows up in a van and takes all the windows out which anybody could have done you know and that was uh 23 000. he had the certification yeah yeah so i took a certification course for lead abatement right and if you ask me what i'm supposed to do or whatever i would say i don't remember it was 10 years ago yeah yeah i have the certification somewhere yeah

I couldn't be the guy.

I think it only cost about another $3,000 to do the rest of the whole house. It only took us about 10 windows out. Where's this lead? He goes, oh, it was painted with lead. Anything before 1970 was painted with lead. No matter what it is, the Heights, Deering Harbor, it's all been painted with lead. So if you want to do a Anything that's in the room renovation. Yeah, you're over there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, but it's just. You know, what are you going to do? And then it gets, I guess, into the county where they probably went through the dumpster, the same dumpster that we have the house in, but it's in a special plastic bag. Yeah, that's a special plastic bag.

Special guy, right?

It's in the woods in Manorville, somewhere off the side of the road.

who the hell knows i mean you know well that one is um brought up a lot of discussion yeah yeah that was good that was good though right yeah we got everybody involved we got our board we got uh building department highway department well now you know when you get a demolition permit for a house you have to have a survey done before they'll give you the demolition which is where that comes from yeah yeah so yeah

It's always a surprise. Well, because you give them an estimate, and then they go, well, is that part of your estimate? We go, absolutely not.

Right, right.

But meanwhile, it's like, they think that's, so it's another, it's like twice as much.

Yeah, well, you know. It's what it is. It's what it is. Yeah. I mean, we have a lot of asbestos on this island.

You drive all the way to that place.

Sure.

Yeah, it is. If you have a raccoon infested house that hasn't been taken care of, it's a very quick inspection.

You can friend raccoons. My three raccoons, let them in there for a week and they'll take care of it. Looking good. All right.

That was an interesting statement. So we have that taken care of. That's our nature preserve walk-through report. OK. And now, next item is our Know Your Water Weekend, which is July 25 and 26. And John Davey from the Water Advisory Commission is trying to ask for volunteers to go and sit at different booths that he's setting up. if you go so this is all about yeah it's all about what it comes from and where it's going okay Know your water.

So is he developing talking points?

Oh, yes, he is. And I would advise everybody to go call Sean and see what you can do. You know, if you want to spend a couple hours at one of these, he's going to put stations up throughout. He's going to give you the paperwork, what to discuss. It's really to have somebody to collect. Oh, is he looking at, like, a testing done, or is it just information? What is it? They don't know what he intends to do that weekend. Is this like a setup at the Legion or something? There and IGA maybe. He's going to have tables all over the place with information about it. I would ask that everybody maybe give Sean Davey a call at the

And you said it's July 25. Okay. Yeah.

So, you know, if you can spend a couple hours at one of these booths or something, it would be very helpful for the entire island.

It's very helpful.

Right. Yeah.

Considering, I mean, how many Airbnbs do we have? How many Airbnbs? When I look at sort of since it started now before July 4, you have those houses, there are four or six cars. It's a huge heap of garbage when they're done after the weekend. And you know, they all took showers, they all used water as they would use water in the city. How does that information get from the landlord might actually know that we have an act for Is that sort of part of obligatory information that they get handed? You're sitting on a limited water supply and you can't take a shower for an hour? At least we don't want you to, because we're going to live afterwards with the salt water while you're back home. That's, I think, a big challenge that we have. How do you get the information to the people who are actually opening the faucet?

We at our booth always used to give that to Know Our Island, which discusses that pamphlet. Yeah, but those are not the only people who give it to the homeowner who's renting and he can have that and hand it to the guests coming in.

But the question is whether they read it or not.

Or they don't even know what water they're drinking. They probably don't even ask. I mean, they're paying $10,000 a week.

They're going to do whatever they want. Yeah.

Shelter Island has rules that regulate Airbnb. Yes. Okay. So if we think that this is an important issue and we try to get something, some sort of a statement in there that when you Airbnb your house, that should be part of what the renters. I mean, I don't know what I'm saying yet to know if they have restrictions, but maybe there are times of year that they do.

I don't think, and I'm not positive, but I don't think our rentals, you know, people go in for rentals, renting their house for a month or for a week. It's always been done here on Shelter Island. They used to live on their boats and rent their house.

They don't always have Airbnb.

No, no. It can be personal. It can be anything. Right. Airbnb is just one room.

we know how that works here this is my yeah what do you think imperfect yeah sure here it goes right um is that you get a rental license it's good for two years and basically you have to get like a permit through the building department they come out and they like inspect it it's like some de minimis thing price and then that's kind of it is there a period of time like a

There's a duration that you can't do one. Oh, I'm sorry. I meant for the rental itself.

So two weeks minimum has to be okay for what you can do.

There's like, again, my potential.

So there's actually a short term license, I think that you can get that's different. But most people get that over two week one, because basically, that's everything from your house for two weeks or you could rent it for a whole year. There's no differentiation in them.

But you can't do night by night.

night there's something you do night by night but there's only so many days you can do it you can do 14 days in a year I'm not sure what the term maybe and I don't know okay so you can do overnights you know pretty liberal or weekends right okay some of the houses turn over but there's also hotels you get during over with all those condos co-ops how do you

I'm just cynical. You know what I mean? But I'm like, you have a long-term one that's supposed to be for two weeks, but like- How do you check- You know what I mean? This guy's building apartment, are they over there checking the Airbnb? How does that work?

Not going to. The nightly ones or the weekend ones are weddings. You'll have 150 people show up and there's no place to stay here. Even worse.

Yeah. I think there's a lot of leniency with that kind of thing. I have a house next to me that rented. They had 25 cars there one weekend.

Yeah. It's a four-bedroom house.

But, you know, they have all their friends and their guests and everything, and they're sleeping in there. I used to rent in the Hamptons a few years ago. That's what we used to do. Come out on the weekends, and you had your girlfriends and their friends and their friends. Share rentals.

Yeah, exactly.

And it's very hard to enforce.

Right. It's a lot of times it's, you know, the neighbors calling and saying, what's going on at the house next door? There's 400 different cars every week. And I took pictures of their license plates. I'm having people in my house this week. They're relatives. Yeah. Right. The last issue of Vogue, it has the Prydwen and then it talks about Shelter Island and the sleepy little gorges.

Yeah. Cover of Vogue. Recent. Yeah. So we're not helped by that because, yeah, Jay McLaughlin, I mean, they're all doing photo shoots at the Prydwen, so they must be obviously organizing it. But Vogue, yeah.

Interesting.

So it's going to obviously trigger a lot more of what you're talking about.

Yeah.

Yeah. There's a lot of things that We could complain about that.

No, it's not a matter of complaining. What do we do? What do you get that information to? Because the long-term effects, at some point, if we keep doing what we're doing, Vogue is not going to have us on their front page anymore. But the people who actually live here, they have to get their water someplace else. And then at that point, people are probably going to wake up, but then it's too late.

Yeah.

Right.

It is.

If you have to tank in your water and then put some powder in that you can drink it, it's probably no one's going to like that. Yeah.

Boy scouts. Then you'll get Suffolk County water here. Then you get up zoning where you can just have eight houses on an acre.

Yeah. Like Nassau County. Okay, public water, public sewage, smaller properties, more houses. And how, I mean, if people don't want to...

These things and people don't see it coming. No. Unfortunately, when you're banging that drum, people don't want to listen. They're like, oh, it'll never happen here.

And that's sort of something where a table at the IGA over the weekend is not going to move the needle. The comprehensive plan, aside from the fact that it will never come, but it doesn't have it either, really. That seems so... It does to me too. It's such an essential thing if we want to preserve this place. And we are constantly sort of scratching at the fringes. But some, yes, frankly.

Yeah, well, it's like everything. I mean, there's people who obey the law, stop at stop signs, and there's people that don't. My stop sign, they go right through it, everybody, you know. Unless you have a policeman there stopping the people, they're not going to stop.

Well, you know, even Suffolk County Water Authority, they say most of their water is used for watering lawns.

And it's like, I mean, really? Oh, yeah. And in the past two days, the rain's like hell and the sprinklers are gone.

But I mean, in reality, that's really where most of it's going. You think with the aquifer like it is, it's like, it's only for drinking. It's like, hell with the lawn. But that's not the case. So, you know.

Yeah. Yeah.

all filing anyway.

There's a lot of irrigation systems here. There was an opportunity to outlaw them.

They got a lot of pressure. If you're running the water, like remember Westmoreland? At the very end of that peninsula, you go all the way down, and the guy put sod down. This is a long time ago. This is probably 25 years ago, maybe 30. And the guy put sod down and then put sprinklers in. It was on the very end of that peninsula. And he came back and it just turned on the sprinklers. Left them on all week. Comes back next week and he's screaming because his sod is all dead. You know? So he went through all the fresh water. And then pop the salt, the salt kills. Okay, that's it. And he pretty much got ran out of there. You know, I mean, all the neighbors, they lost their wells. It took years for stuff to come really come back. You know, but that's just somebody doesn't know any different. He didn't know he was from New Jersey. You have no idea.

Well, and then that's sort of the social... If that happens, there is no remedy in place. There's this everybody for themselves need to figure out where to get the voter. Right. No one's going to help you.

Yeah. You're screwed. Pretty much. That's what happened out there. It was probably a year before anything even came back. It's kind of hard to sell a place with no water. It's like...

but like before this week when we had all this rain we were in a drought situation most of the rain we got ran off because the ground's so hard yeah so the first three inches of the five that we got right into the bay what's it down about a foot and a half from normal i guess because i got my water hole down the pit and i kind of watched that i could tell that's another problem you know the The USGS has not been testing all the wells.

Oh, they haven't?

No. So they haven't lived up to their contract. So they blame the government for cutting their manpower. It's just passing the buck all the time. That's what's going to happen. It's a shame. But something's going to happen. It's not just Shelter Island. It's the whole Long Island. We have...

water trucks coming over here filling the cisterns and and stuff like that you know but they're getting the water just right over in noyak yeah yeah well it's all from suffolk county water yeah i mean it's an expensive way to water your lawn but yeah yeah that's kind of how it works yeah yeah now it's how are they going to allow that to happen i was really surprised but i guess there's really no way to to regulate what people do with the water if they're paying for it but i was really surprised that suffolk county water

would allow people just to water lawns with it you know because i'm sure the bill's got to be up there right yeah i don't know what it costs yeah but the guy who fills his truck with it he's getting paid double from the homeowner no he doesn't pay anything he's not paying well i'm just saying he's he's if it costs him a thousand he's charging him two or three he doesn't care yeah the people like i want a green lawn they don't care

It really isn't. Nobody really cares.

They spray all the pesticides on to keep the bugs down. And that's running off. It used to be everybody, you know, this years, years ago, everybody's like, oh, great. So I guess I don't have to mow my lawn for a month. As soon as the rain comes, I'm like, I'm going to mow the lawn. Yeah, it's like, you know, it doesn't die. It just goes dormant. Oh, my God, my lawn's dying.

Here's the map of the near shore overlaid peninsula, which is supposed to be a restricted area for a lot of this. You'd think many people know about this. And a lot of people violate it. And they want to violate it. They say, well, how is that line drawn? And they're right about that. How is that line drawn?

Right. It's very arbitrary. It's an arbitrary based on any zoning back in the fifties.

It's an effort, you know, it's, it's a, it's a shot. It's a shot. I mean, right now, I think we should be increasing the issue. Why? Because our sea water. Arising, I mean, you see it all over surprising.

You know, the arbitrary figure is, is it 300 feet is good, or 500 feet, or 100 feet, or how many feet is good, and then what area, right? Well, and again, if you take your little map, and you show all the little kettle holes, and all the little ponds, and all the little, and you make a 300-foot circle around all those, everything would be near shore. I mean, I'm way up on top of a hill. I technically wouldn't be because there's no standing water around me. It's not. Better not.

You guys are all in trouble. That's enough for this meeting. No, but I'm just saying. No, you're right.

The near shore is important. It's very important. Now, the other thing is you deal a lot with people that are buying and selling houses and like that. And when people buy houses, they're A lot of times they're not really from here and they're buying a house and they're from another place. They're like, well, I have a sprinkler in my house and, you know, we hawking or, you know, wherever they're doing it and they'd want to put the same thing in here. And then, you know, even if they just put out hand sprinklers, you know, one or two sprinklers in the yard, they'll turn them on. And then, like you said, you drive by their house and it's raining and the sprinklers are on. There's not really a thought to it. So, you know, people that come here, don't really have an idea that we're treading on dangerous turf here.

Yes, we are.

Water's a finite resource.

Yeah. That Shelter Island, that book was pretty good, though. They told you a lot of stuff.

Is that still going around?

Yeah, we still have it.

It's over there, yeah. It's a handout. They gave a lot. And maybe if they give that to everybody who gets a rental permit.

Maybe we should give that to Vogue. Do you know someone? That would be a good sort of companion article. It would be.

A selfie in a toilet filled up to here, no water to flush.

Nice.

Well, when we have our Green Expo, which we have to ride, I hope that everybody will tell me who's going to man the booth for a couple of hours each day. Except that no one shows up. Excuse me? No one shows up. They walk by. They walk by. Well, what are you going to do? No, no, no. When you get a ferry pass, you're going to say you have to come here to come out? No, nobody cares.

When you're buying a timeshare, you have to sit for 90 minutes and listen to a lecture.

You know, there's one thing, you know, it's trouble. I mean, Like I said, my corner, that stop sign, they go right through it. Whether they own the property or they don't.

People come here, you know, and it's their week in their Airbnb or their two weeks and they want to kayak and they want to fish and they want to sail and they want to go to the beach.

And they don't really hike. They don't have any interest in it.

Because you know, if they're here, then they're gone.

I get that.

And you got to focus more on the homeowners and people that do rent and, you know, at least put the booklet on the counter in the kitchen.

So yeah, right.

You know, and it's something that may they may pick it up to be a real estate hand handout.

Same thing when they sell a house, maybe whatever London hotels used to have a water meter, you had to put in coins when you were taking a shower.

Oh, really?

Oh, yeah, you run out of your shower stop. You end that real quick. You have a six-gallon electric hot water heater. Very effective.

That was London.

Not long ago. I don't know. I've never had that.

But again, that's probably the water.

Right.

I might well, what you tell me, you know, that I can only take a 3 minute shower.

That's the thing. It's not your well, it's our that's the thinking of the people that own the property early and that's my water my well, you know, and this is not none of this is complaining. But if we know there is an issue, maybe we'd have to start beginning to think. How can we do something about it?

How can we make people aware of what we're doing?

Because what we have been doing, whether we sit in the glaring sun or during the rain on an umbrella for that fair, it's not going to do anything.

And that's really, I don't know if we ever, if anyone who is on these committees ever has a workshop to actually try to delve into these things. But like Know Your Water Weekend, we don't know exactly what they're trying to accomplish. We don't know if there's testing or if it's just information delivery. But it's a great idea because we know that there's something, somebody wants to do something positive. But once again, the likelihood that it's going to be well attended and will reach a lot of people is probably not very great. Same with Green Expo, a lot of people out there, but then we end up talking to each other, largely, because again, it's a very busy weekend, people are busy with other things. And the messaging is not really there at all. Yeah, but I guess what I'm thinking is if we were to look at, you know, we've talked about the homeowners associations getting information out to all of them, you know, consolidated, regularized, agreed upon information or friends of trees. Do you remember the library? you know when you used to park and there were all those trees there now they're gone where did the trees go where are friends of trees why did we take that now we have an open lot and and somebody didn't like thought one of them smelled or that something was dropping off the tree i mean that's what they said in the library whether that was a rumor mill or not but then they actually got angry with me for even asking you know it's so hot as hell because there's no trees just ridiculous but You know, we have all these groups that are genuinely interested in doing good. But if if it doesn't go beyond that group of, you know, that handful of people very much, we're just not we're not doing much. So maybe we need to be, you know, meeting with the newspaper people, but we have to know what it is we want them to get out. You know, what are the messages? How frequently? When are the good times? With a little bit of work, maybe a full time job. I really don't think so. I think in a workshop, a day, a couple of hours, you could figure out a plan for getting the word out. And then if every group were to come up with their talking points, what's important, even if it's just general information to start out, what information do we want everybody to know about the water on this island? Leaflet it. I mean, there's ways to do it. I don't know. It just, it seems so sad to have all these good initiatives and not to accomplish anything by them.

At least it does to me. Because they're not reaching the audience. They're not reaching the audience. It's a challenge. How do you reach them? You make water saving pool on Instagram. And then you solve the problem.

Correct. That's it. That's what I was thinking. When you said Vogue, I was thinking, you know, that's an audience, not Vogue, you know, but the young people are coming that want to look gorgeous or down at Sunset Beach. They also state that they care about the environment. I mean, whether or not that translates into action, I don't know. Probably not. But they also believe they believe in it. So I think there's, you know, there's ways to reach people. social media, I mean, there's there's ways to do it. And I don't think it's that hard. But well, it just require, I don't know, I get very confused with who's doing what, you know, if it's friends of trees, you go back to Tim, right? Of course, yes, because he does more than anyone.

And then he goes, like, he has the plants, the tree gets the town to plant the trees, maintains that tree. Right now I have a tree on my property. Tim came around. He's supposed to look at it because all the trucks going by are breaking the branches, you know, because they're high trucks. And whether it's the highway department or it's they hire a consultant to do it because highway department might not know how to trim a certain type of tree so it stays safe. yeah they have a specialist an arborist do something like that and that's where are we going to get raise the taxes that's the way to do it and you raise the taxes that's a slippery slippery very slippery spend your taxes differently okay

You've got union contracts, you've got insurance. Insurance kills you. That goes up 18% every year, come hell or high water. So your taxes are going to go up just to keep basics.

Forget adding trust and go trim trees. Probably most of our school taxes are going to all the fluff stuff, not even education. It's all the insurance and retirements, medical plans. Before you even get to teaching anybody anything, there's $6 million going, you know. Pension plans.

We all want that. I think that goes beyond this meeting.

We can discuss it, but we're not going to get any.

You have to realize about water, though, like you have an inch of rain on an acre of ground, that's like 40,000 gallons hitting that ground. So, I mean, if you can recharge that water, that makes way more difference to people. taking a 20 minute shower. I'm just saying that's the really important thing is try to get that water back in the ground, not let it run overboard.

So we don't have I guess I was wondering, this is an example of I think people get frustrated because we're out there and trying to spread the word about conservation and the things that happen. And we're really talking to about the 2 people who show up at our meetings regularly who also come to that. that's about it and we do talk to one another by and large but we know it's a really important thing to be doing so it's the idea of marketing i guess i'm just thinking with a comprehensive plan all of these categories are embedded within it right obviously so could there be if there hasn't already been some discussion about once we get some sort of a plan in place that is agreed upon and hopefully we're closed yeah yeah then you know are there ways to develop events around those are there ways to get the the reporter to regularly have a column about all of these things rotating them interview people yeah i mean i think it's just like you have to decide

I mean, this is just like my two cents. It's just like some of these events are, or some of this information, right? Because we're really talking about educating people. That's like kind of what I'm hearing. So like some of these initiatives are driven from the committees, right? You know what I mean? So like the Green Options Committee does the, Green Expo and the Water Committee does the Know Your Water Weekend, right? So some of them are taking it on themselves and saying, hey, this is the thing that I think is going to, or even that we as a group think is going to get the information out there. And then I think that there's part of the other education that is done on the town level. So I think probably the committees always have like kind of the autonomy to do what they think is best, right? Like reaching the thing, but there's probably a piece of it where maybe there's things that you could do through like the town channels, but it's just like kind of balancing that. I think on the town level, like that's often like just, you know, like either on the website or social media or, you know, if there was something like, I heard you guys discussing like, oh, like a waterwise pamphlet, you know, if somebody developed it, then the town can make sure that every time they got a rental permit that they That the building inspector, you know, if, if a group, you know, there's a water committee, or you guys, or whoever, or. In conjunction, put it together, then the town can make sure. That every time this building inspector, I don't even know, maybe we don't trust the lawyer, but the building inspector left 5 copies at the rental or something like that. So I think it's a lot about. Working together about, like, what is the best way to get that word out? And I mean, I think. I think none of us totally know exactly, right? Like that's where we've all started and we're like, is it social media, is it?

You know what, it's really all of those things. And I think that's why I think it needs to be coordinated. Because if we leave it to committees to say, well, do you feel like, do you want to, do you think it's a good idea to develop a brochure? And then you get a brochure and maybe it gets handed out sometimes and maybe it doesn't. Centrally, I think the town board has a little power. Now, granted, you're all elected and I understand all that. However, There is, you've got, you're the leaders. We're not. And how many times has Howard said, we don't decide anything, you know, we're making recommendations. We're just giving advice, that kind of stuff. Cause it's really true. So, um, I guess I, you know, I'm thinking if you take the time to really settle upon a plan, That we think this island, we have a plan for it. Why would we not try to also take time to figure out how are we going to make this plan happen? What are the action points that... You know what I'm saying? So if it's water, what do we really want to see so that we're not just... doing this for the next 20 years and watching all the problems worsen because they probably will. I mean, I think it's inevitable without an end and maybe it is anyway, but I'm an optimist. So it would just seem to me that Yeah, and also, I really appreciate your coming and interacting with us because it's been a long time since anybody's said anything to us. And we just have zero dialogue. We don't know what's going on at the town level. I mean, how it goes to meetings, but you know what I mean? So, yeah, it really helps. And, you know, so thank you for that. But anyway, yeah, that's just my thinking is. we we need a little central coordination too and then if you know i think we're all willing to do work that's why we're here but we'd like to be have some belief that some of that work might make a difference somewhere i mean i think part of it is is i mean one of the things i really hear you guys

saying, I don't want to talk too much, I'm just curious. But you know that I am listening.

I know you are.

Is like one of the things I heard was like coordination. And you know, I wonder if You know the the town board really does look to a lot of the committee's like especially myself as a new Council person for advice right because there's no it's like it feels impossible to get up to speed on all these issues right so I really like. I will say you know i'm getting a lot of advice from. folks who spend a lot of time on particular issues. And so what I heard was like the coordination. And so, you know, have you considered, there are so many groups, we have like our water committee, you know, we have so many other things of thinking about, you know, Is there a way to maybe do a joint meeting every once in a while so that you can get some joint recommendations? Because I think the other thing sometimes that I see is we have one committee who's like, hey, this is a great idea. You should really do that. And then the other committee is like, actually, you know what? This other thing is what I think you should do. And then you're like, OK, well, OK, well, they both sound good. And then the third committee comes in, and this new person says this other thing. And, you know, I'm not a water expert, but you know, I'm learning, you know, so then you're just like, well, I'm not, you know, so I think that that coordination piece, I just like, you know, because there are so many things around conservation and water. So I think just is to push an initiative forward. It would be great to like understand, okay, between, I'm just like off the top of my head, knowing what your guys is, priorities are and how those overlap with like the water committee that overlap with the green option so we can say okay if you only have a certain amount of time where is the most where you know where where should we put effort that everybody kind of broadly agrees on i think that i don't know

I'm sorry. It's a problem because like, I mean, you know, Liz, we're looking for affordable housing and that affects conservation, affects our water, affects a lot of items. So where can we put this affordable housing so that we, what can we do to have affordable housing that doesn't uh stress our infrastructure let's say you know i mean they're all they're everything's related yes yeah it's it's it's it's i don't know this is a hard thing to do i mean i mean i go to a lot of meetings and i watch a lot of meetings you know count boards i think

all the work I really yeah you know it's like the cut you were talking about the comprehensive plan my daughter worked on that for a long time but you need help there's nobody you know yeah no it's it's you can't do it by yourself because now that's your plan right you know what I'm saying you know the How much can you guys do? I mean, really?

And I think that's kind of where I was getting to with that coordination is because you can do everything. I'm sure each of you could write me a list of 30 things that need to happen, right? And I could probably write you a list of 30 things that need to happen too.

And then you always have the perpetual moaners that no matter what you do, they're going to complain about it.

But the truth of it is, is maybe you can really, let's say in a year, only get... four or five real big things done. Is that right? So you have to like prioritize. And so I think that's where it really comes in is if you can't do everything, but you can do anything, you know what I mean? Like, so it's, it's picky and like, okay, if you guys feel like, you know, figuring out how to communicate better about water conservation is like number one. then other things that maybe are less important might not happen. I'm just throwing something out here. The money that we might use for asbestos abatement for that thing, if you could only do one, which do you pick? I think that kind of thing of understanding what the priorities are from you guys would be really helpful because if I go back and I say, these 30 things for that you know so helping to like you know point out i mean obviously the town board has their own ideas about what our priorities are but also really looking to you guys for that advice um that's also difficult to actually figure out

what the priorities are. Because I think in all reality, 80% of the people on the island don't give a hoot. If I look at my own history here, the first 15 years, we just came here for the weekend. We didn't waste water because at the time initially we couldn't We didn't have a place to do it for. We were probably a little more reasonable than others. But overall, we were not involved. If I look at Silver Beach, we had, I think we currently have 134 members of the association. A lot more households in Silver Beach who live there. And the rest is just not interested. So whatever we think the priorities are, they've only become priorities if you actually have a meaningful majority in the population that cares about those priorities, otherwise it's a pamphlet. And how can we change that? Maybe we all want to reach out and say, who do we know in top influencers, really public relations specialists, advertising specialists, people who could tell us, how do you reach the kids on Instagram? How do you structure the information that you get to the point where yesterday they convinced everybody, white socks are now cool again. How do you convince them water on Shelter Island is a cool thing to preserve?

But, you know, you look at kind of the history of everything, too. Like the tot lot over there, right? What was that, like 30 years ago? Maybe more than that, maybe 40 years ago. Everybody got together, donated their time, bought the things. I think the whole thing was put together for $35,000. Now they want $450,000 to renovate the tot lot, you know? And it's like, it doesn't make any sense. It's like, well, why can't you just get... The same 25 chips. Yeah. The kids are the 25 people that did it the last time and just do it, buy a couple of things and throw it together and good enough.

but 450 grand like who's going to pay how's that ever going to fly i mean that doesn't make sense and why is that a priority over water but you know the other thing is you get all these you go to the mail every day you need a flyer some politician wants your vote somebody else wants to sell their necklace and blah blah right in the garbage so pamphlets are right but you know we still have the same 2500 people living here for the last

You know, 50 years. It hasn't really changed. Some people come in, but I'm talking about year-round residents. The names change.

Yeah, but the year-round residents are not the ones that are driving the economy on the island. I mean, without everybody else who comes here for weekends or for summer,

There's no school there wouldn't be.

There's no money. No, there isn't. There isn't. We have a three month window when everybody comes here and they utilize all the facilities and all of the resources and we got nine months to recharge. I don't think people are being really greedy. It's just the question of you're going from $2,500 to $15,000. Is that what it gets to $15,000? I don't even know. I think it's about $12,000-ish. As of last weekend, they're here and they're all flushing the toilet. They're putting a lot of stress on thank god it's not florida year-round you don't have singles yet but uh yeah you know it's like years ago we had a little volunteers it seemed i mean people i was a community you just bought a house for a million dollars you got to make the payment there's no there's no volunteer right yeah yeah yeah yeah you know the kids today they can't they can't even Find an apartment to rent. So yeah, the fire department's having a hard time. The ambulance corps is having a hard time. And years ago, you didn't have all of that. You already had a lot of... Well, you could work 40 hours and pay your bills. Now you gotta work 80, and your spouse, and your kids. It's a much bigger pot now. To find the time to volunteer, you're gonna find a niche that you're really, really interested in, and it may just be a hobby that you do in your basement. to take that time out of your day to afford to spend, it's tough. It comes back to, you know, you put some stuff maybe on the town website, because we have our own little page that has all of our little names and stuff in there, and we could put a little square in there that says preserve water. Preserve water, yeah. and that could that could maybe follow through every page on the town website have that little square in the bottom saying don't forget like then somebody's gonna say what do you mean you can serve water well then they'll ask the question and maybe then we can have the discussion they ask the question i got the main thing right click here you know whether you put those little those little square guys with the squiggles in it yeah yeah yeah right get your your card reader i don't know boom now you got 40 pages of stuff to look at yeah you know what i mean

well maybe we should try now maybe as a committee we should try to do that you know we're not getting word out as it is unfortunately so let's all think about what we could do in the next meeting it'll be interesting to see this uh water thing I don't know how you could sit at the table when you don't know what's going on though it's like what's this all about I don't know I don't know here take this pencil But Sean is going to, whoever volunteers to sit there, they'll be fine. He's very productive. The whole water advisory committee is very good. I mean, they do a tough job.

They're really well informed, aren't they? Yeah, and committed.

Yeah, well, they look at all the studies and have actual factual information. They depend on the USGS and the USGS cannot be dependent on. Our wells are not all tested. We don't know what the health department doing that too.

Do they even release the information?

I don't think the health department checks our wells. We pay, the town pays for USGS to

Suffolk County Department of Health came to my house, knocked on my door and asked if they could test my water. Oh, did they? And they took a sample of my water and they said, we'll talk to you in a month or whatever. And two days later, I got a call saying, oh my gosh, you got fecal coliform. I was like, what? And then another day they said, well, we retested it. Nevermind, you're fine. But then I get, you know, the 18 page of the whole ethos and all that stuff.

But when they test it out of the kitchen sink, everybody gets that. That's just the way it is. Yeah. I mean, it's in there.

Yeah. I know I have mine tested every year. They test that, the water when it comes in, and they test it at your kitchen sink. Right. Oh, they do?

Yeah. The raw water. Right.

The raw water coming into your house. See, they always used to, like, the water test, isn't it the building department? Remember when you go to get your CO and they do the water? They always do it at the kitchen sink. It's the worst place you could do it. But that's how they do it.

Didn't we have something going on a few months ago where you could have your water tested? I think the school was involved somehow.

Yeah, yeah. Fluoride.

Yeah, whatever it was. I mean, I know there was a water test.

I checked what they did with my County water tests and they were very accurate.

And we were okay. I presume. No, it was good.

I was fortunate. It was good. Really? You're in a bad spot. Yeah, that's a bad spot. nine foot down or something like that you know so we get a storm who knows what's going to happen you know and it takes a long time to get that salt water out of the aquifer we don't have a puddle down there we have soil yeah it holds whatever you put in it have you ever been there when there was a hurricane oh yeah did it affect your water did you get salt no well It might have, I didn't test it right afterwards, but every year I tested and it was cleared up by then. Or it could be, I was drinking, well, I would test it, I would probably taste it a little bit. But no, I don't test it after every storm or after any high tide, extreme high tide. I mean, at 100 bucks a shot, it's the most reasonable thing you can do. I mean, that is such a bargain to test your water. And anybody who doesn't do it at least once a year. And you want to know what's going on. Yeah. I mean, it's nothing. You just call them and they arrange it. Well, there's something they have. Do they test for... like pharmaceuticals and all that stuff too or not. They give like a three, four page report.

Yeah, it's a tremendous amount. Tremendous. And then they do it like a blood test where they show you you're within the parameters and if you're outside, it lights up.

Yeah, the MCO, you know. And it's an excellent test, and I don't know why everybody doesn't do it. People don't know. I've had one test in 30 years.

Really? Because they came to my house and asked me to. I didn't call them. They just came to my house, and they knocked on the door and said, I'm the Department of Health. We'd like to test your water. I was like, go ahead. I'm watching. They said, no, it's free. I was like, cool.

Right. A lot of times they'll come around.

They said it was $100. I'd say, the neighbor wants it.

heard he's looking for that you know if i've been drinking my water for 30 years i don't have a problem as far as i know but you know like what they do is if your neighbor has a problem they'll come to you and say test your water because your neighbor didn't share it so it's all the same pot yeah and you know i don't know how to explain what an aquifer is to me it's like a sponge know and it holds whatever it gets and if it gets salted it's going to leach that salt out anyway let's work on something something else by next meeting have some advice that we do to change something I think the WAC is trying, and we should try. We work in conjunction. I go to almost every WAC meeting there is. My concerns. We can go to the meetings, or we can Zoom them. They're very open to every YouTube. You can watch them anytime. You can watch them anytime. Anytime. They're on YouTube also, yeah.

That's what I call it.

you can see you know prior meetings too so you can sort of get a history if you're well it's going you can put the time in okay well that was interesting could we i i love liz's idea about um coordinating with the other the other groups that have involvement in conservation so maybe we could have a joint meeting sometime or something additional you know i don't know Just to, is there a way to coordinate or magnify or just overall promote our mutual efforts?

Years ago, we used to have a luncheon. All the committees got together. It was for the committees. And they got disappeared. I don't know. Everybody blames COVID because that's a good thing to blame for the disappearance of things. But we used to have committee meetings, and they were provided by Natal. It was a lot less a budget killer right there. Some heroes from the and sit down in the park or something.

Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. That's basically what it was. And we, well. You know, when we had the chicken barbecue or something, the volunteers that were there cooking and bringing stuff and the ladies bringing all the salads. It was a tremendous effort. You can't get... People are going to do that.

You could also, I mean, just do something. It doesn't have to be as formal as that. I know that, like, when I was on community housing board, sometimes we would just get two of the members to meet with two members from the other committee. Like, it doesn't have to be, like, formal. If it's not formal, sometimes it's better. Better, yes. Because also it's, like, it's a lot of people to organize.

Exactly.

It's a lot of people. But there's no reason that you couldn't.

you know talk like just make a time with a couple people if you think that's what you wanted to do you know like i said it wouldn't have to be everybody but i don't know like that's just something we did in housing right yeah it's like this thing we don't have anybody at this meeting from the community you know usually pam is here and she gives us very helpful use of

stuff like that but there's nobody on zooming there's nobody in the audience it's july and usually yeah it is july the print one in the bogan magazine right but usually the people who are people are usually interested in what we're reviewing they are they aren't just i'm sure they're still interested but they have a lot of things right right no i mean that's the reason i think a lot of times they have a personal interest though like the attorney is on or that

do you know what i'm saying yes as opposed to because i'm in a sensitive water area i go to the wac meetings and i actually ask what what's going on you know why we don't have this and they they respond you know we'll find out and as pam does it you can do it on zoom you can raise your hand and ask a question yeah right make a comment yeah sure there's plenty of that but you know These meetings are open to everybody, all the committee meetings, and we don't care. How do you get more people to Zoom or something like that, or even, you know, free donuts?

I will just say that I know that they're all open and they're available, but I really don't want to sit in on other people's meetings and discussions like this. If there were a purpose to getting together with people from selected committees and we were going to talk about something that was actionable, I would love to do that. But as for just going and talking, you said I'd rather have dinner? me too yeah there's just so much time that we have to allocate and i prefer to be involved in things where i know that my time results in something right yeah right yeah i think there's other people who think like me too so so if we want to attract uh folks beyond where we are I think just making sure that these groups do something.

You could always go to town work sessions and listen and be a part of that. You could. You don't see very many people there.

Right, right. Yeah, I know that. I probably should do that.

People don't care.

It's also gender driven. If it's something in their neighborhood, they're going to be a lot more interested. Water being a vague topic. Turn the faucet on, there's water. What's the problem? My neighbor's sprinkler's been running for 12 hours. It's sort of a difficult thing to get, like you say, to get people hooked up about. They want to spend time, effort.

That's why we have the Green Expo, try to put up a sign, try to get people here. The fire department has their luncheon and everything, which is, you know, you go over there and buy lunch and stuff like that. It's wonderful. And then the fire department gets some, try to get some volunteers, you know, to work in a volunteer fire department. Those things all help. That's why I think, let's get in touch with Sean Davey and say, what are you going to do? Give me what you're going to be handing out in a hand. And he's receptive, so I just hope people do that.

Where is this going to be at? Different places.

Oh, so there's going to be like IGA maybe around the island that people, maybe the whale's tail now that that's back, thank God, you know, something like that. Different locations. He's kind of pinned down pretty well. It sounds like he has. I haven't gone through what he has, but, you know, he's good, so that... I think he's from Silver Beach, so he's concerned over there. So with the water, he knows what's going on. All right. Well, hopefully we get something done. So that's that, Green Expo. Next meeting, I appreciate if people would say who had some hours to spend at our booth, we're going to have a booth there. Same as last year by the school, I think. I don't know who Tim has put in charge of it this year. He's sort of backing into so many things. They're hardworking men. Any old business besides what we've been discussing back and forth all the time? No, everything's a whole new business. Let's just get out there and try to spread to our neighbors what we're concerned about. You know, you talk to your neighbor, you say, do you think about the water here or something probably say i don't know i know the war because i had my bacteria you know you have to pour chlorine down there for weeks and start to clear out it's a pain in the neck equal matter somewhere most of it comes right out of your faucet

You know, most of it's not even really coming out of the well, just when it gets to the faucet, because everybody's washing their hands and, you know, everything goes on there. You're rinsing vegetables, you're doing whatever. That's the main place it comes out of. It's like to do a couple of water tests.

It's amazing how sophisticated the test is, though, for the little bit of sample of the day. Right. You know, pages and pages and pages. Yeah, yeah, yeah. All these compounds.

They are terrific with that lab. I mean, you can do it privately, but of course, you're like $600, $800. Yeah. Who used to do that for us? That's his name.

Probably the best thing you could do if he hasn't, you know, lined you up to get the free test. People would probably do that, you know, at this water, you know, thing. Oh, you mean for that? Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you know, people would probably do it. A lot of people don't want to publicly, you know, my water's really horrible, you know, but for their own use, you know, for their own good, they should know what's going on.

Well, a couple of months ago, it seems to me that the school was doing something with water that you, they wanted you to bring water to them.

You remember that?

Well, yeah, but frankly, I never heard a word, so. I brought my water and knew nothing.

You never got anything back? No. Because they listed on their site, you know, the WAC. You look up your thing and the results are there from the test. You have to follow through and see. What you should do is go to the WAC and ask them. You see what? The WAC, the Water Advisory Committee will tell you if you hadn't tested, They have those vials, they have the date and when it was tested. I never heard a word. I turned it in. They're not going to come to you. You have to go to them.

Then they should have done a better job.

Unless they've had very high, but even then I don't think they're going to. They listed off the site.

Then they should have made it clear that it's up to you to come back to them with it. There were no instructions.

It may just have been collecting samples for the data. You know what I mean? So we've got 400 samples and this is what we found. No, they have your address, they have your name. But again, they're not going to come and tell you that your water is this. They're collating the information for their own edification. No, but it's available.

It's available, but again, you have to go to that. We have to do some things.

to get results we can't depend on anybody or the government giving us well again like you say that when when when when they want to set that procedure up right they're going to have whatever their policy is and their budget allows for this this and this and they may not have the budget to reach out with a letter in the mail a 42 cent stamp and a phone call or manpower to contact those three hundred people so nothing like that happened with me frankly again you might have to

It's still currently posted on the website. You have to put in your phone number because the town did not get private results. You can get your own private results. Exactly.

But nobody told me that. Okay.

But just so you know, it is still there.

Yeah. Okay. I'm glad I brought it up. I haven't bothered to do it and it's like I haven't heard a word.

Well, we have to initiate a lot we have to do that you know we don't have people coming around we don't have enough people to go around to everybody even if we only have 2500 people in the winter here you know it takes people to go and do these you've got to use your own initiative yeah well i felt mine i was using it to bring my water to them i actually put it to them

very well yeah and i really think it's it's communication which you know really is because paulette she heard that you people wanted the water sample so she took the time to do it thinking it would be helpful and then she just didn't hear anything and she's and so she didn't really so if the purpose of it like it's aggregate data we're going to put i will provide that on a website or you can also get your personal results by going to this and handing her a little piece of paper she would have gone right back to her computer and done that But it'll be so, so much of this is not explaining things very well. Like, what's the purpose kind of like, what's the purpose of the green expo? You know, yeah, because I think if we, or what's the purpose of. I know your water weekend and we weren't even the purpose of committee.

I counsel being at that green expo. What is our purpose?

Right, exactly. Yeah.

Do we have anything to hand out or are we just going to sit here and talk?

Well, what we've done in the past, and I was thinking about that as we were talking, is what we've done in the past is talked about what our roles and responsibilities are and what they aren't, because I think a lot of times people get that confused by virtue of the term conservation. But what we didn't talk about before was our role, and I only thought of this because I read what was distributed, but our role with these town properties that are the preservation properties, that's something that we could do more with, just in terms of promoting what they are, maybe the history behind them, the fact that they're Like what's the rationale behind keeping them in the state that they're at? Because I don't think anybody knows any of that or even thinks about it. And they're not designed really for human use. They're designed to really preserve What's natural, correct? Although I know we have a couple.

It's a nature preserve, but...

It's preserving it for nature, not for people.

Well, no, no. Low-impact access. Yeah. To everything? Satan's woods is for the water.

Right.

That's protective. That's why that was put aside. And yet you go in there and you see what's going on. and then we report it.

But even that, just to take each one of them, what was the purpose? Why does this particular tract of land matter? Why does preserving it matter? So it's original intent. I just think people would be more respectful if they understood it and feel good about the fact that we do things like this. And maybe more people would donate Property that they didn't need to the town if they understood.

The mission, our mission, the last sentence, or close to the last sentence that most important is the education, right? It says that we have to do the education, right?

Correct. I was really pleased to see that. I never.

And that's our responsibility as being a member of this committee is to try to educate. Any way we can, let's get up and try to tell people something.

And if that is a predominant part of this committee's role and responsibility, then we ought to give that some bit of time on the agenda at each meeting.

Good idea. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah.

We'll do that. Okay. All right.

And it doesn't have to be complex. We could invite Julie Lane to come and write an article about something. Do you know what I'm saying? We just need to think about how do we get the word out? What are we educating people about?

Yeah. Okay. So everybody just come up with an idea and we'll put it on like new business. This is what we're going to do. Yeah.

All right. Okay. Okay. Before we close, 129. So is there still room to provide input? Because after reading through this, I'm not exactly sure what the reason is. Some definitions are a little better, but it has the same loopholes that 129 has now. There's some.

What I find difficult is that it's been years since this code has been looked at. And if we looked at the codes every year, every two years, and did little tweaks, it's much easier than when it's like the comprehensive plan in a quarter of a century. It's a big job now to do. If we did it every five years, it might be a lot easier job to do. We have to spend time doing these things. Now, you spend time reviewing it and, you know, if you give it to Jessica, she'll get a copy. And when I have the next meeting, we haven't had a meeting on 129 since last July. Okay. So, but they're still talking about it.

Whoever came up with this new draft now. Right.

Who did that was this small committee and what was there?

So what were their marching orders? They're not, they're not making it better.

A little bit.

Well, we, we, the definition is a little better. I think they read through it and then they see what each individual person thinks should be changed or modified or whatever and they sort of make a draft and they put it together and then revise it and revise it and revise it.

Who's the guy who's actually writing?

I'm not sure who's on that committee.

It's a board member. I'm on that committee. You know, two at each time.

Who was the board member? Do you remember? Who's Albert is on?

Is it Albert? He's on there. Albert's on there. But essentially, the committee drafted. You guys had an opportunity to look at it. You put in a number of companies. And that went to the planning board. And they did the same thing. plan for attorney is still or this has some of those changes he has to finalize from their uh the last meeting that they dealt with it so there's still another addition that is going to go back to the subcommittee before it goes to the town horn and there will be a public hearing right so the center and that's where we are in the case thank you i understand that this is this is sort of conservation we had a whole thing that we did i mean it took hours and hours and hours for our plans and so and it was lost all the comments that you guys made to the the very first draft right all were submitted all to the planning board that's what that's the very they worked on

We're on the ones that we just did. Yeah, I know you're talking about another iteration. I'm talking about a while ago.

Right, yeah. Filtering through all these. No, no. I understand how the concept is. It sounds like the next stop is planning work. I want to look at their minutes.

If this is what they're now working with, that's no better than our current 129. And I remember a vivid conversation with, and those are the paragraphs, what the board can do if the question, what's a reasonable alternative? I remember a life exchange with an architect we had here and who said, you know, it's all a game. where the argument, what's an alternative? There is no alternative because this is what the plans are. There's always an alternative. You can make your house smaller and it fits.

Oh, I see.

So that is still in. So we're getting, you know, spending a lot of time and we start with the same instrument that doesn't work now because every review I've been sitting in was a waste of time. Because it always the conk out at the end, give us a reason why this has to be. It's the plan.

Okay. If that's what you said, there's going to be a public hearing. So that would be a place to. At that time, we've already had the opportunity to comment as a board, but at the point of a public hearing.

I mean, I think that you're at the end of the process, really. And I guess if we haven't, if we've gotten this far and really haven't taken care of the core issues and we're not achieving much by this alteration of language, then we're wasting, again, we're wasting everybody's time and not- No, that there's a final arbiter of what actually makes it into the code.

We can make all the suggestions we want as a committee and as a private citizen. The ultimate arbiter is going to be the board.

That again seems to be the same people are driving the same loopholes that they found useful before. They're still all in here. Except now in the wetlands, alterations are based on footprint. Well, you should have to stay within the footprint. Okay.

And the footprint is defined as the foundation. That one section.

I'm thinking beautiful cantilevered house. I have a triple garage. That's my footprint. I put the right steel beams in there and then I put a beautiful cantilevered house. That's four times the floor space.

So how do you suggest to get around that?

Well, whoever is driving that, and I assume Ian is involved in this. Ian's not on the planning board. No?

No. No. He's not. He's been gone for years. He was the chairman for a long time. Not for years. Yeah, three or four years ago. Yeah. Julia... Julie Wiesenberg. Wiesenberg is the chairman.

She's the chairman. Okay. Ian's not on the board. Not anymore. No. It hasn't been. Several years.

That's a good thing. But there's still this thing doesn't do it.

You can never make a code that's going to cover every condition.

But you can make a code that doesn't leave obvious. I'm not a specialist. I'm just reading through this.

But again, we had an opportunity to comment. Your next opportunity would be as a private citizen at the at the forum meeting at the public hearing.

I'm just saying. You can write a letter. Mark it up.

Mark it up, give it to Jess, right?

We can give it to Jess, but I'm not sure they're going to want to hear it. Well, we're free to do whatever we want.

Right now, it stands.

It doesn't hurt to try.

We didn't have this version. That's right.

We hadn't seen this version. I agree with that.

When we gave our comments, it was based on the comments.

So they took the comments that we made, and they made whatever change they thought were a good thing to do.

Well, the fact that we have it back, are we able to provide commentary on this? I know that you have to come up with an ending to this.

Maybe we didn't. Hold it over to his old business and we could discuss among ourselves and I'm sure some really good ideas. They'd be foolish not to list.

Right? I mean, everyone has the same goal. We just didn't want to, we don't want to have a lot of something.

You'll see something, man. I didn't see that. That's going to happen. Right.

They were taken care of, I think.

Sure, yeah, yeah. Yeah, a couple of clarity things and all of that. Yes, exactly.

And then people didn't want to have the causeway portion into the code because it took up like four or five pages.

Yeah, the causeway is now very loosely regulated in what is it, 130? Yeah. 1.30 clearly refers to 1.29 so by taking another 1.29 there's nothing left you can do in the causeway a lot of stuff that before you couldn't do based on the changes yeah i agree the whole thing to me seems like we watered it down i'm doing that and we we're sitting with this here so we're going to go through permit applications And talk amongst ourselves.

There's a hearing on this. Nothing is approved there.

I know that, but assuming that it does. Because we know 129 right now doesn't work. Right.

And that was what we've talked about and talked about. And if we're not making any changes in that, we're really not attacking the meat of the issues that we deal with all the time. And the causeway, Pam was hysterical about that. I thought that was a real maneuver to take that out. I didn't like that either. We all talked about this. And now it's even more watered down. It's clearly an environmental issue. Why do we care if it has four pages allocated to it? We're not trying to get the number of letters or words down to a minimum, are we? There's an agenda somewhere.

There has to be.

We're looking at... Give it to Jessica and she'll hand it to our committee and we'll come back with it. Yeah, the next meeting, we'll call it old business. Old business. Yeah. Or new business. Look at the code again. New business or old business.

Right. Does anybody have a copy of the comprehensive plan? Because it was lost. My husband and I worked very hard on that with a lot of other people and it just disappeared. I didn't have a copy and

My understanding, there is a copy. Where is it? I don't know.

Jessica, I can show you what is there now, right? Okay, she can point maybe you could give her a URL and she can look at it later. Okay. Thank you, Jessica. All right. It's on the site.

So she, she said, she'll give you a call it out for a long time. Nobody could find it, which sounds ridiculous, but that's how it was. A lot of us have put a lot of effort into it.

I think they brought a lot of it back and updated it. I don't know about that. I hope so.

I hope so. I think it worked.

Yeah, I do too.

You know, it's an old saying, you know, engineers can write a code, but illegal people destroy it because you have to have loopholes. And the attorneys will look for ways that they can argue.

Business they do so anyway, there's always a situation that comes up that's not covered by the code or something, you know, they. There's new words come up every year that they, there's always something that comes up.

Well, we understand. Yeah, I think we all understand that.

They make it. Sort of a, so that there is a little wiggle room. You know, because you can't, you can't take it every. Instance of concern exactly because if you say that, you know, this is going to be.

That's why the legal people come in. That's where it was like, all the money. This is still okay. Hey, all right. So, yeah. You'll give that copy to Jessica. She'll make copies for the whole committee. She'll distribute it online. Hey, look at that next time. yeah i need to do this is handwriting so i need to put it in otherwise you can't read it yeah oh all right so you'll clear it up and then give it to jessica okay so we'll have distribution next meeting for that so let's put that down view 129 okay all right good it's uh close leading time to have ice cream I'll make a motion to close the meeting. Yes. All in favor? Thank you.