Committees - Regular Meeting

Okay, so we're, I'm going to call the meeting to order since the water advisory committee, we're all in attendance. Thank you very much. Uh, 1st up is a minutes or June 15th any comments on those minutes. Anyone want to make a recommendation to approve those minutes?

I do. And I just want to again, say, Jessica, just like.

really good yes always really great i agree they're too far in that because i'm sure that you could make a lot more money working for a lawyer's office okay well yes what do they call their legal assistance paralegal yeah somebody has a pay upgrade she likes us too much okay uh minutes approved uh well levels great okay so um This is a couple of interesting things I thought that we have here. The drought intensity from the DEWS and from the DEC, the DEC left it at the highest level before before emergency. But the dues released the center of the island, of Long Island. It allowed that to drop down one notch. us you know the east end and the west end which i guess is nassau county they are both uh they're both in what we were before this severe which is what we are now so uh it was interesting that before it even even rained they had come to that conclusion so i don't know how they came about it um

So uptick in the rainfall. Well, Dave will, I guess, go over his graph later.

Okay. Yes. If you go to the section number two, which is the raw aquifer readings, you can see they're starting. The summertime drawdown is beginning. It doesn't look any stronger than normal. if you will, or what we typically see. In some cases, it may almost be that it's slower, but it may be because there's just not that much water up there. The hydraulic pressure pushing down on the salt water is less than perhaps normal. The Section 3, which is the percent rank, backward for height over mean sea level. This got worse. And this may be from what we recognize that you know we're we're typically working with a a half week a half month or a a week or two weeks of where you're scoring this versus July although this year was only half of the of July was in it so I I think that uh again there's no no change in the big four uh actually trying to dip down but I think that

What I'm trying to say is jumping out here is that the big four, you know, no change and really dire. And all the others are up in the 80s and 90s. OK, that's the next page. Yeah, this is. Yeah. All right.

So, you know, I think that you probably would say that in terms of the severity of the feeder wells that we call. uh the big four uh it looks like it dipped down and probably did but it may also just be the variability of of how long it takes to uh where where the the studies are going uh does the measurement time of the big four is it after the rain that we had in July

Yes. Yes. But before any of that, if any of that got through, before any of it reached the... I'll speak to that. Yeah.

Okay. So let's take that question and hold it and come forward. And then, you know, section four, which really illustrates when we have discussed and said, OK, when you get a rain, you wind up getting a quick turnaround of a response to the shallow or aquifers. And if you look at all of the shallow ones are above the medium of line, and all of the big fours are near as low as they go. That's what that's the reality of what we have here is that, you know, that. The. Yeah.

And what I think for what's really interesting, what I quickly what I commented in, which become especially in. These types of situations where we're looking at it so closely is it should become normal course for us to look at what the time of day and what the tide was, because it's very possible that the last readings were all at low tide, these were all at high tide, the tide doesn't affect the big four as much and it's raising the reference point for all the lower wells. We just don't know, so like we should

Yeah, that's one way to interpret it.

We should make sure that we're not thinking we're seeing something we're not, right? You know, that isn't reality. Greg and I talked about that one.

Yes. Measurement time versus. Well, is it possible for us to, is it possible?

They have a, they have a, because we went and visited quickly the thing. They do mark the time when they check it and you can find that time and then reference where the tide tables, you know, see.

That actually would be a great thing to do. It can be done. Yes. It would be a great thing to do.

a quick insert here is one when we were when we were with uh Marie and looking at what what I was when we were at the tennis court I mean I think I think you made the comment about wow you know Southwest Wind uh was just pushing against the side there and and it was rolling up the uh the street because the the it was the it's a pretty wide street and I guess it uh that there's that there's There may be a buildup of water. When you have a windy day, you could get a slightly higher, which might translate into a push.

But this is consistent. All the shallow wells are high. All the deep wells are low. And one interpretation is the one that you just made. The other interpretation is they're more responsive.

It got the water faster.

And you would know the difference if you knew that these were not at a...

it could be both yeah if you had it and that's uh um that that's what that'll be an action step yeah that's really what we talked about the other day which is which i didn't i didn't write it up yet and i may never write up anything again it's it's very provocative it's very it's really interesting you know i mean looking at these you know month after month year after year you know something eventually emerges I never, you know, it's never looked that way so dramatically. I can remember where, you know, okay, you got eight above medium and well above medium. I mean, a couple of them were as high as they've ever, you know, the highest that we've had. And they're specific ones.

They're very much the ones we targeted as. Yep.

So, you know, I... i guess we can uh that's that's where i will take a look at water in a moment i i think that um i guess there's a question on the table is and maybe we should do it after we talk about rainfall is is there any change that we would want to do and and i think we are going to be talking about the Your evaluations, so that'll be a helpful thing that we can work on.

My thought is that this isn't necessarily just a future action. We could find out the answer for this July reading as to whether that timing coincides with high, low, or medium tide.

Yeah, at least certainly the tennis court and maybe we grab, Sherwood wouldn't be bad because that's way pushed out down.

All you need to do is look at one because they're all being done within probably an hour, two hour period.

And if it's as interesting as it could be, then let's say it were low type, which would really mitigate against the, then you might want to just check them all anyway.

it couldn't it you know in terms of of how much we spend on uh on getting the values from the USGS you know if if we more if I came away and said you know if if we if we look at the Silver Beach and Sherwood and and during Harbor or whatever um and and did those on a uh a uh It's the data logger version. It might cost the same amount. I don't know.

Did you have notes of minute-by-minute real-time variability with the variability? That's another way of examining the exact same thing. So I was just going to say, you could even push some of this work to the USGS. Couldn't we ask them to record the tide level at the moment they do a reading? I did not try that. Yes, we may be able to. We might just add it as a data point to what we get. It's a relevant data point and they should think of it as a relevant data point too. It's not a lot of work.

Okay. So who is going to figure out what the tide was at the time that the shallow wells were measured?

You want to talk to USGS also? Ask them. Ask them if it's communicating. It's a friendly question and it is totally reasonable. And not a lot of it. It's not a big request. It shouldn't cost anything. And it tells them that you're trying to get value out of what they're doing for us.

I guess it wouldn't be, I don't know, I guess maybe it wouldn't be bad to do it for all the wells.

Well, at least spot check it now.

Don't drive yourself crazy. A couple of them. It's really interesting. So I know. And then I guess I'm done.

So OK, David, you're on. All right. Just do several screenshare me, which I've already allowed it.

So you should be able to.

Do I have to re-request it?

Uh, no, you should just be able to share.

Oh, well, if I might just on that last item, Greg, the other thing just to ask is. From any of the data logger data, do we know that what Sean said, whether this is true or not that the near sure wells are more variable based on type than the center than the big 4. Do we know, is that maybe something that we know from data logger work that's been done?

You know, certainly from when, you know, 10 years ago, when we first started to look at these, I should be able to find that.

Yeah, you should be, yeah, because it gives you that long graph of it, and you just can see it, you know. Yes. Yeah.

Okay.

Okay, David. So rainfall... We've had two events so far in July. We had June, which came in at a measly 0.98. Two rainfall events, one in the beginning of July, really between like the 6th, 7th and 8th, we got 3.46, nice. Then recently this weekend, 1.48. So we've had decent rain. it's still 10 inches below our prior five-year average. So that's depending on how you want to look at it, where it's 75%, maybe. And Greg, I did this on Greg's chart just to emphasize the numbers. He put them in two places, but I just wanted to bring them up. If you look at the change from the previous month, We're down 9%. And that's including the June deficit rain plus the three-inch early July rain. So we're not moving the needle, basically. We're down 9%, which is a significant drop from the previous month in the big four.

Just so that I understand the numerator and denominator of that fraction. What is the numeric, the 9%? I'll have to refigure it.

But it's 9% of what? Probably of the median. No, the previous month's number. Greg has it on his chart.

So in other words, just so that I understand.

It's at the top of his page three.

Got it. So this is feet over mean sea level.

Yeah, from the previous month to the current. Got it. All I'm doing is highlighting the stuff that's on the top. Got it. Right. OK. And here's the point. Looking at what happened with Go-Till, Go-Till had a small bump in the middle of July due to that three inch rainfall and look at the scale it's it's in between point 5.15 and 5.20 feet so it's a very small change in go-till right well you're it's a small change in a very in a low number and so therefore a larger percentage but well i wouldn't have expected go-till to pop up more at say if it was in winter but the summer the poultry, then you have the vegetation growing and thirsty. So I'm not surprised to see this. I just wanted to bring this up to say this is the effect of ET on summer rain.

Well, I think that you're right, but it's speculative, right? So if it's a function of it's a very deep way, it's a long way down, we should see some responsiveness in the following reading. If it's not, if it's ET, you won't.

It's a 30-foot soil over the well. So, I mean, 10 feet a day, that's not a bad movement of water.

feed a day would be good and that's that's pretty much what we're seeing the where the bump comes in yeah and after the bump it i mean it i think the slope of the line is reasonably close it looks like it's dropped a little bit but yeah the slope was here then you had the bump and then you for a period of time you maintained it then it dropped down i think the slope here and here They're pretty close.

I just love Goat Hill because it's got this real time stuff. Yeah.

I wish we could do it on all the peaks. All right. So wait a second. So the rains you're saying are three days before those peaks? Yeah. I just did this this morning.

I didn't polish it up. It starts on July 1.

That's the first data point. I can't. Yeah, I think it was like, so you are, you are seeing the time to trickle down to a little bit, but you're not, you're not getting much.

You're not getting that much. I get that. That's the point.

Okay. And also let's just, just so that I understand this in practical terms, the Y axis is feet above mean sea level. So the entire y-axis shown on the chart is 0.3 feet, 5.0 to 5.3, which is roughly 4 inches. So you've got a 4-inch drop over the month. Or no, sorry, not for the whole month, just month to date. And the bump is basically 0.05. 0.1 would be an inch, roughly. So you're talking about less than half an inch. Yeah.

On a, what is that, the three-inch rain? Yeah. Yeah. Six of the water is getting to the.

Is that the way to look at it?

And it's three inches of rain fell, the well level rose by something.

Right. I just want to understand it in these terms.

That's the fact. That's the facts that we know. I want to understand how those turn out.

And that was the point I was making the previous meeting. We're not going to rain our way out of this situation during the summer. During the summer, yeah. That's basically the bottom line.

Boring a tornado or boring a hurricane.

Yeah, yeah. There was one month, May of 2025, got seven inches. I think I didn't go back, but I did see a reaction in the wells. Yeah, some of it gets in there. in your handout, kind of the four different stages that we have here. And I think this kind of speaks to what Greg was saying before, is that you can look at, I think the warning levels kind of stop at soil moisture. i'm not sure that they go down to the hydraulics they certainly don't they the state warning levels probably look more at the stream flows and lake levels and things like that and not our aquifer levels i don't know but yeah that's my impression is that if you look statewide very few communities have our problem of drinking the rainfall

And they also have the benefit of being able to look at a stick in a reservoir and say, we got 6.7 billion gallons, whatever. Whereas we, you know, you can't put a stick in the ground and say, there's how much water we got. That's potable. So lucky people.

I know it would, it would be interesting. Maybe at the end of the summer end of September is you not seeing chart that you've done and plotting where the rainfall was in the time gaps. And try to look and get a sense of so out of those rainfalls how much made it down like what was the bump that you saw over what period of time and then what was. you know, it's all back of the envelope, but what was the usage drawdown, right, that we see for those periods of months? Because they become then, in some sense, what the benchmark is, right? We can kind of say, you know, we expect us to lose a foot, you know, every month or, you know, or half a foot every month from, you know, X, Y, Z well, you know. Barring, you know.

We know we lose a fixed percentage out to the ocean.

Yeah.

Ultimately, 50%.

yeah that's okay so. let's go to.

Know you about drought can you discuss the drug cascade or not. Pretty much self explanatory.

I think it's a good way to look at it and it's also you know the decision that we have to make is whether we. whether we stay at severe in terms of the declaration, and then do we make additional recommendations to the town board with regard to water use? So thoughts on the, it's hard to separate those two topics. So thoughts on those two topics.

My general bias sitting here is not to change the reading and not to make any further restrictions. But you're just saying in terms of whether we should have a different... Yes. Which is, you know, we're extreme or... Basically stay where we are. Right. And stay with the existing, you know, restrictions, whatever.

But are you asking a slightly different question or 2 different questions?

There are 2 questions.

They're not just opening the floor on the 2 different questions, but 1 of them is how to think about these different. Uh, kinds of responses that we wind up getting salinity response versus, you know. Are we not meteorological trial?

Well, we're certainly in a meteorological trial with 10 inches low.

No, I'm not questioning facts. I'm asking how to think about these things. Because the one thing that part of what I am, you know, pondering, and I'm sure Walter has thoughts about this too, is do we establish drought restrictions near shore based on what's going on in Big Four in the center, or do we respond to the fact that there's more water showing up in the near shore area than there was before, so things are in some sense less dire for those folks? I am and one is more forward looking, you know the big four is theory predicting more of a problem for the near shore that because they're going to lose their water fairly quickly yeah. And the other is sort of more present-oriented.

I think Dave's chart there, which showed what happened, the little bump we had. In a deep one. This is where we wish that we could have the same information. In other words, the data logger. uh the near shore because if and if you were if you had both of those values you would be able you would be in a position where everyone would understand this and say hey look there's more water than than there was before now we've got more water we're okay now and you could say well yeah but you know just take a look at what what's happening in there and it's it don't get fooled by the fact that that amount of water is up there because it could what an extreme low tide you're allowed to wind up with most of that water going out and you know or another week all right yeah it would be it would

Yeah, that would tell us a lot more about whether we're working with real numbers or not, or how... Because we have three-foot tides.

Right. And look at the... What's the variation in the height?

We're getting very close to... We're closing in on this.

Once you factor in the tidal stuff... Half a foot between the median and the top on big ram.

All right, so I'm going to stick my neck out here and suggest something that's a little bit more. It's different than what Sean's put on the table based on having reflected over this for the last day or two since I got the data. And I tend to rely more on the levels in big four wells, deeper wells, than I do in the shallower wells. Shallower wells strike me as a bit more flashy, subject to tide influence, which we need to bottom down. And also in terms of the absolute Amounts of the swings of the levels smaller. So. I would be inclined to stay and when you read our policy. We're really supposed to focus on these well levels. It doesn't distinguish our policy does not distinguish between the. The big 4 and the other wells, but so I, but I tend to put more weight on the on the big 4. And we're not seeing any improvement in the percentile numbers. So I would be inclined to then go to the matrix that David sent during the month, the matrix of possible actions. This looks like this. Jessica, could you put this up? That's it? And I would start at the bottom. And I would basically say, I'll put three things on the table. I would eliminate or prohibit the cosmetic and luxury category, which is basically washing your driveway, washing your car with a hose, and so forth. I would also prohibit the next category up, which is ornamental turf irrigation. And with pool top-offs, I would prohibit those. And I would, as to turf irrigation, I would say it's every other day at maximum. So if your street number is odd, You can water on an odd day, and if street number is even, you can water on an even day. And I would keep going with the prohibition on watering. Sorry, my whole thing's for a second.

Just give me a second.

Anybody want to? Well, part of this is message value, because I'm concerned if we don't do something, We're potentially sending the message that things are stable. And yes, we've had some rain. But for the discussion we've just had, that rain is really not getting into basically the resource bank. It's getting all the plants, which we know and love, are basically intervening into getting it. So it's not going into our resource. I'll just put those on the table as suggestions. And any thoughts?

I would say, can we really, I mean, this matrix was taken from somewhere else, I don't think ours. Can we really distinguish between ornamental turf irrigation and the other? To me, it's all one category. know whether you say then you can't be watering at night you know so we're extending the hours or what have you i completely understand that and that's probably not unreasonable um the cosmetics too there's a lot of people that you know you'll hear the backlash of that but it's completely reasonable i don't think we're in a position that you can however we would love to restrict pool top-offs because there's pools will become unable to be used. There is no way now, as I think I stated this a month or more ago, I talked to a bunch of, one of the water providers, purveyors, and the nice thing is that they engaged me and they said, They would never they wouldn't rule out the idea of making multiple drop offs to fill like, you know, people. It would be costly because it have to include both time. So if it was only one truck, but it was really two trucks worth of time, you know, you're going to pay and they'd have to take into account how long they're moving hoses with multiple levels. That infrastructure doesn't exist. We don't know if they would even do it. So, you know, You'd have to be able to organize homeowners associations to work together to create groupings to do that. So I think all of that is forward looking. I don't think you can do that today. I think it would be very reasonable. Again, it's not an easy enforcement thing, but it's also messaging of saying you can't top off a pool more than an inch every three days or something of that sort. Now, is that really hard to monitor? Yes. But hopefully, the pool companies, to the extent that they are saying, hey, your pool's low, I'm dropping a hose in, turn it off at the end of the day. Hopefully, they can say, take it out, put it again tomorrow. So it's the draw factor. I think that's completely reasonable and just messaging. And it's more, to me, that's in reality, that's more about the consistency of draw that is potential for upconing rather than really changing the overall quantity of order that you're going to wind up taking out.

It is a complex communication. It's something that we've gotten.

Yeah. OK, so you would take You're okay with the cosmetic luxury driveway washing, all that. You'd stay away from the turf irrigation at this point, other than stay with the band.

I think you could say that 10 a.m. Before I think you could, you could say there's just none at all, or you could just leave it the way it's same. You know, kind of. I don't know how many, thankfully, at least in my area, I'm not seeing a lot of people trying to escape the, which is the, what's good about the messaging. Like not trying to say like, Oh, it's five o'clock. Great. You know, they're kind of getting it, you know, in some context and we've had some rain. So it's, you know, been a leaving, uh, leaving it. I think we do have to be mindful of when you're talking about the luxury, there are detailing businesses on the, uh, you know, Island, uh, there is, you know, saw you know whatever removing roll you know mold and cleaning your deck you know with power washing surfaces and the like and so you know while i'm supportive i think you'd have to give them an exception because we haven't been able to think through like well gee we can't just kill their business um so personal yes it's i think it's a little weird to draw the distinction it's like no you can't do it yourself but you can hire somebody who might be coming to do it but i think it's still value added in the broader messaging But we'd have to be clear about that distinction because you're not you don't want to put these guys out of business that are making.

Just as far as the pool top off you, you look at the footnote an area pool takes about the same amount as an area of turf and terminology.

they're the same guy. You can just restrict the pools about how much they over a period of time. So it's not a, like you said, it's not a quantity. It's a, don't draw more than X amount.

It's 80 gallons a day. So it's not going to kill you well.

I don't have a pool, so I'm... Well, okay. But are you recommending that you're allowing turf irrigation at night? Or are you recommending we restrict?

Yes, if we allow turf irrigation, then allow the pool.

But are you saying, do you feel that we should restrict further? Yeah, you haven't said. But that is the question on the table. Is there some further restriction that the Water Advisory Committee should be advising the town to consider?

Let me say it in the... I hear what you're saying, I think. I don't think it is realistic to place an outright restriction on pool topping. except for the amount over, you know, given periods of time. Like, you just can't. There's no way. You're putting pools out of use for the rest of the summer. We have to give that more thought and think about, like, options, which is why I made those phone calls early on. We just never... If everything was worse... A month ago, those conversations might have progressed to be able to do that. I think what he's saying, if you're allowing people to do that for the pool, doing it at night for turf irrigation, banning that would be inconsistent with allowing. So if you just keep them on an even- Vice versa.

If you're going to allow turf irrigation, allow the pool top walls.

But you cannot allow the tool top off so you back yourself into that you might as well allow nighttime irrigation if you're trying to make them consistent.

All right. But I think that Andrew is proposing perhaps recommending not allowing turf irrigation. Correct. Even considering whether we should.

The first, where am I coming from? Which is tightening this up a bit because the situation is not improving. All right. So I'm fumbling around with how to tighten it up. So the first question is, does everybody agree that we ought to tighten it up? That we ought to have from a messaging standpoint, coming out of here, coming out of this meeting and going to the town board. Look, things are not getting better. Therefore we recommend X and Y, because we foreshadowed that in the last town board meeting and the resolution passed by the town board. foreshadows that as well. So do we want to actually act on that based on the data that we're hearing, that we're seeing today? I'm proposing, yes, we do want to act on that. I'm fumbling a bit about how to act on that. So my first question is, do people want to act on that? Sam, Meg?

are we treating all irrigation the same? So if it's cistern-drawn irrigation, are we treating it the same as well-drawn irrigation?

No, I think it's well-drawn. It's well-drawn is the concern, and that probably should have been clarified early on. But I think most people know that, but maybe not. Maybe that's why you're here in this confusion.

I assume people don't. Oh, sorry.

Is that Stella? Go ahead. That is Stella.

Hi, is it okay that I just ask a question now rather than the end? Sure, sure. Okay, thanks. So it has to do with the pool top-offs and I think I may have mentioned something like this at your last meeting. The average pool, so going back to the town code, you're allowed to top off using island water up to two feet. And if you look at the average size pool, two feet of top off is somewhere in the vicinity of six to 7,000 gallons. That's a ton of water. And if you go by your footnote, which is, and this rationale may not make sense, but if you go by the fact that you're 80 gallons a day to evaporation, to get to the full two feet of water, you're somewhere in the vicinity of two and a half months. where you'd be using on-island water. I mean, could we perhaps think about telling people no top-offs and then when they aggregate to get to that two feet worth that they could maybe get trucked in water? Because at that point it should be worth their while, they being the top-off water purveyors.

I'm not part of any pool lobby, but I do have a pool. Thank you, Stella, because you're connecting two different ideas. But one is we do, in response to that conversation last month, I did circulate around to the members of this committee clarifying, I think, the way those definitions in the code existed that allow you to back into that you can have two feet. And I was surprised of that. at least as far as I'm concerned, there needs to be a recommended changing code from this committee sometime in the coming months of changing that to a much shallower distance. You can't reasonably allow your pool to go down to full feet so that it sits below the skimmers for, weeks because you'll just have algae and whatever, you need the circulation for it to function properly. So it needs to be as high as the skimmers. At least that's my understanding and I'm not in the business, but I have a pool. Could you back into, because we are so concerned that someone says, I need to fix three tiles on my pool and I'm going to draw it down two feet and fix it next week. and then fill it with two feet of water because i'm allowed to that's a very fair concern i think you could we could make a recommendation to the town board that for the and next end part of the season it's not more than six inches so or something like that so if somebody really wants to take it down to fix something then they got to bring in the truck water to get it back up you know in this period of time They don't get that leeway, you know, in the next month. But functionally, you can't reduce, you can't say you can't top it all without a lot more serious thought about the infrastructure to allow people to use the items that they put so much money into already.

Typically, when someone's starting up their pool for the season, that's when they may need the larger top off. After that, most of the automatic pools, like the automatic fillers, don't allow for it to drop that low. So it's actually a smaller top-off maybe a little bit more frequently, but that's less draw.

There's a lot of historical pools that don't have the automatic filling, but so that, but why, as I said, the only thing you're going to catch is that if somebody has a fix that, that one of the pool guys says, you know, look, you're going to be in the city for the next week. I can draw it down, fix it and stick your hose in your pool. And it's all fixed. Cause I know that, you know, you want your August to have beautiful pool and the tiles are falling off or, you know, or something like that. You can hit that. You can say, Nope, like, there's no you're not going to use well water for that you're going to use you know you know you got to bring trucked water in so the two feet is not permissible anymore until it's you know the droughts are over you can get four inches or six inches you examined the code and still brought it up but two feet over what period of time it doesn't say

Yeah, I think it just needs a little bit, a lot more.

Which is why I say it's about draw. It's about draw. But like, yeah, but you would be able to back in and say two feet at any one period of time, right? That's probably what a court, you took them to court. So it's like, you know, you could do... Two feet continuously. Two feet continuously, in theory, right? Because it doesn't address it, so you're going to wind up getting pushed to the most flexible interpretation of that.

As well as 120 gallons an hour. So 1,200 gallons, you're going to run for 10 hours.

For 1,200 gallons, not for the- I put on the table, tightening up the restrictions. Right. Now exactly do we feel that that's appropriate? Yes or no? And if so, how? The only thing I've gotten back so far is generally the situation hasn't improved. We're in our period of maximum withdrawal. We're in a groundwater drought. and a meteorological drought. In other words, the meteorological drought's gone on for long enough that it's become a groundwater drought. So it's a serious situation. OK. The cosmetic and luxury, with the exception suggested by Sean that, look, if you're in the business of doing this thing, doing this, we're not shutting you down. Anything else? And bear in mind, when you answer that question, everything's difficult, and everything will precipitate a reaction by someone.

So Grant has a number of responses to as you were speaking.

I'm not sure. You talked about how the actions that we take how to how to play how you know if if people that have said well it rained like hell there that day and they ran like hell these guys now want to make think that it's worse I I think I think you might you might start getting that boy or girl called Wolf concern reaction from people uh so I'm not sure that it we that if he said okay We have the existing risk, and that for the next month, we're going to continue that. However, we have discussed the potential that we may need to go to the other things that you're talking about.

So I'm not actually too concerned about people thinking that everything's fine because it rained twice. Because I look at his graph of Goat Hill, and actually, it didn't make a dent in the groundwater yet.

Yeah.

It's been nine or ten days.

It might have helped prevent it from getting worse than what you're seeing.

Okay, but I'm not seeing like that graph come down and then have that rain and that level flatten out. It kept going down. Yes. So that's my response to somebody saying, hey, it rained. I'll say it's not getting to the aquifer because the plants are trapping it. And that's why it's so green. So I'm not really too concerned about, frankly, an uneducated reaction, because it's up to us to communicate what's going on. What's advisable. What's advisable, because we're the people who are actually tracking this data. So as a matter of substance, when we look at the data, do we believe the situation has gotten better? Does anybody believe it's gotten better over the last month?

We're clear we're still in the problem and it might be worse.

Okay, so it hasn't gotten. All right, so if anything, it's gotten worse. It hasn't gotten better. It's either the same or worse. Right. So, do we want to respond to that with additional restrictions? Right now on the table, all we've got is you can't water your lawn between 10 a.m. and 4 p.m. With foreshadowing that we can go further. Do we want to go further? Bear in mind, it's July. And if we don't go further today, it's going to be close to the end of August by the time we get to.

This is the time to do it if we're going to do it. Right. And what it seems listening to this discussion and listening to Stella and listening to Sean, listen to everybody. It seems like what Sean was proposing is the next step, which is. You can fill your pool as needed, but do it in smaller increments over a longer period of time.

Okay.

I mean, I think you could just say something like, you know, more than a resolution. No. Yeah. No, I think, you know, which could it kind of leans into the idea that we think the pool, it's something that we're looking at and topping off more generally, which is, you know, you cannot fill your pool more than two inches in any given five day period and no more than six inches, you know, over a two week period or something like that.

That's micromanaging. You got to set it right.

We know that you should restrict pool filling.

So the question, because you're going to allow turf irrigation to continue. With some restrictions. Alternate days of the week on pool filler. You know if we're going to do on even turf irrigation, but the question is, so it's the same quality, the same quantity on the surface, the question is, is that we're not.

we're not restricting the overall quantity. We're we're restricted for the most part. It's the timing. So you're going to restrict that. You're stretching it out and you're going to prevent pool company from doing a repair and using well water. Right. And like a two feet, you know, thing small. But then, yeah. And, you know, Agreed. I mean, I think you could restrict all irrigation. I think, you know, an easy way to do is just expand the hours because we were being quite, from my point of view, lax because there's still so much evaporation on the two hours of each end surrounding that. Make it longer. Say that there's no kind of, you know, I mean, I don't even know how you define luxury, so you have to think about that. Like, are you going to, is it, you know, are you, you know... It's a difficult one. I think if we give it a little thought for the next five minutes, you could, but like, you know, are you allowed, am I allowed to wash my boat down with salt water at the yacht club for maintenance? Salt water? Sure. But when you're washing salt water off, right? So how is that different than washing your car in your driveway? But it might be a little bit of a luxury to wash your car in your driveway. It's a maintenance thing when you have your boat and you need to get the salt water off of it, even if it takes three minutes or something like that. So I think that's a more difficult one. The boat.

the luxury item i was waiting for walter yeah walter i was waiting i was waiting yeah yeah you've got the most experience i think maybe i don't have a problem with any restrictions or anything anybody does as far as what this could decide that i respect at all but my question is if if human consumption is less than one percent of the usage how much is the I know we're just saying this so we feel better about ourselves conserving water. We all want to conserve water. I want to conserve water. the swimming pool question you know there's under a hundred when you're talking about the irrigation versus swimming pool there's under a hundred irrigation systems now grandfathered so you know i'm talking 100 people how many pools when i was on the uh irrigation committee originally i think there were 600 there has to be 700 even this is so i don't know i just i'm not trying to track the conversation and all i'm saying is I think it's a great message. We should continue to conserve water. I'll bring in the enforcement point after the last go around with the resolution. I saw quite a few violations. So again, how much are we making a difference? I think it's worth bringing up and it's worth doing what you're doing. So I support that 100%. My main concern, the reason I came here today is From the business end of it, Sean brought up the power washing and these other businesses. I didn't even think about that. But from the landscaping perspective, come the end of August, September, that's when most planting and that's when most reseeding happens. And to me, that's a fairly big blow to the businesses. Right now, not as much. But when that season hits, it is nice to be able to use water to try to propagate. And I think that's a fair. So if you put them on today, let's say we just ban them all today, we might not have time by September to lift them.

Well, we would because we'll meet in August. But I think that's fair that that's a very active conversation about we're approaching planting season and everything else. and not trying to unreasonably restrict that. It may be that, you know, look, you're in the business, but like starting to throw seed down the third week in August is stupid. In my most opinions, usually you got to wait till you get in December. It's a little cooler, you get more rain, but people will still do it. Right. And same thing with planting. They'll try to front run it, you know, a little bit. So I think we have a little more room and still be supportive of business. You know, I've seen people planning turf in the third week in June and then plant, you know, putting the pods out there and planning to water all day long. And, and I appreciate that the businesses here are trying to serve their customers and what their customers desires. But when I see that on a normal course, it's like, that's just bad practice. Like, you know, you don't plant like mature stuff or whatever at that time of year, you're going to be fighting it no matter what, but some customers will say, I want to try it anyway. Like, you know, do it. Um, I think that we can be very mindful of that in August, regardless of what we do today, and give time to run from the beginning of September to mid-October, when that's a very active season, would be my guess. So we'd expect you back in the end of the month.

I'm preparing for that time.

I know that time is going to come.

I think that's very fair. And if we are able in the longer course of what we do to try to make people more mindful of what the natural season is and not push planting stuff next week, you know, because something died, like, you know, that in itself would be... John Holman, Cornell was here.

We've had seminars. I mean, I think everybody's starting to do a pretty decent job of that. And you reiterating that at the town level on television now with social media, I think this is great um uh one other quick antidote to tie not the same everywhere in relation to your wells we got to keep that in mind you're gonna buy by the green point table i know if i want to go play i mean west bank it's not gonna work yeah quick quick questions a couple of quick questions first of all i wanted to just uh stick with

your good point that human use is a very small percentage of the loss of water loss that we're having, but then that pool filling is a larger percentage. Then so, so, and the irrigation can and keeping in mind Dave's attempt to be fair between irrigation and pool use. Would it be problem? Would it would it be less problematic if we went more in the direction of that? Andrew is suggesting since we're trying to slow the rate of usage. To say pool topping and irrigation use should be on odd or even days, depending on your street number.

You already have the code as far as the irrigation when you're allowed to use it.

It's not very much. So it doesn't correlate to

It correlates to days per week, so I don't think you're going to do anything if you say that. If you say that even it's not going to do anything other than actually maybe allow more water.

Given the amount of evaporation that happens still in the bright sunlight early morning and bright sunlight afternoon. I think people were trying to be mindful of both you and homeowners. If we say the irrigation restriction on sprinkling on your lawn is now 8 to 6, is that really going to blow you out?

It's already in the town code, 9 to 5, right? 9 to 5 now.

But that's in the turf, whatever, not the everyday person that uses sprinkler. That's what we're trying to get at.

So the everyday person who uses the sprinkler right now is unregulated use for one portable sprinkler?

No, but we put in the restriction that said...

So you put that in that...

So what I'm saying, if we say for that same, don't use it for an extra two hours on either end because there's still so much evaporation happening at that point in time, do you see that as particularly problematic? No. So so I would say you're particularly impactful. Yeah, correct.

Well, but it is both of you.

But because of the event, because of the because of the evaporation, you are creating people to move towards efficiency. So I think you could change the hours of the the irrigation usage prohibition. and put in what I said about the pool topping in some manner. Forget the luxury. You know, that's why, quite honestly, I don't mean to like, you know, pound the table three months ago. I said, if we're thinking about like restrictions, we need to bang through like all the permutations so that we're ready to go. And we didn't. So we're struggling now. So it gives us reason to then let's have more conversations even when we don't have the drought, because saltwater and a boat versus a car versus or whatever it's complicated you're going to have to be very specific and in even handed so we're not in a position to do that, because we didn't do our homework before and even and we know that those are more messaging than anything else, and unless we're really clear it's too confusing messages so let's not go there.

Do you have a motion.

I will make a motion to expand the use of well-drawn irrigation between the hours of 8 and 6 p.m.

Okay.

Together with a restriction on pool topping to no more than two inches in any five-day period and no more. I mean, you could probably just leave it at that for now. Six inches a week. Well, that's no, cause well, you'd four, you'd only be up. You keep it at two inches every five days. You could only get to four in a month, maybe you could say, but I think it's irrelevant. Keep it simple, no more than two inches and whatever. And I think if the pool companies actually want to do work, they'll say like, well, I can't have the guys pool ready in time by taking it out quickly and put it back inside. So you, you, you kind of hit that wait for the work. Yeah.

Or pay for water.

Okay, so we have a motion on the table.

Right. And let's just read it back, though, because I don't know what we got out of it.

Okay. No well-drawn pool toppings shall be limited to no more than two inches in any five-day period. No sprinkler use.

Well drawn.

Well drawn sprinkler use between the hours of 8 a.m. and 6 p.m. Correct. That's the motion.

Yeah.

Okay. Do we have a second to that motion?

Is there any more comments I would just ask?

Well, we'll ask for public comment, but we need a second before we...

We need a second. OK. Nobody's raising their hand with comments. I second.

I'm going to ask for comments.

OK. But I would second this.

OK. We have a second. Comments. Balanced.

I just don't think the pool topping off one is enforceable. But we can put it out there to help raise awareness.

That's fine. That's always the question of enforcement. But hopefully, the pool companies that are here aren't going to just totally ignore it. They might, but well, but they might, they might, but then hopefully then they know they're ignoring it. And if somebody sees somebody doing work on the pool, they're going to get scrutiny. Right. So, but we know that that's the case with a lot of it. Same thing with sprinkling, you know, you live on a dead end street. Nobody sees that you have a sprinkler on the middle of it.

Other comments. I have, I have a comment on the phone. I live in Hay Beach, and I'm trying to decide how much to use my sprinkler. That's why I dialed into this. My comment is that right now electricity costs me more between 3 and 7 p.m., whereas in the morning it's at a lower rate, and I'm wondering whether we could adjust the blockout period to be, say, nine to basically shift it later so that I can... Nine to seven rather than eight to six? Yeah, exactly.

What is the use of electricity for your pump, I guess?

Yeah, for my pump.

Yeah, it seems like it's not that consequential, but I hear your comment.

I mean, your evaporation is actually lower. Your evaporation is lower in the morning than at 7 o'clock as well. It's much cooler there.

I mean, I'm indifferent for hitting it from eight hours to expanding the number of hours in general.

I also have some general questions, but is there going to be a time at the end of the meeting for that?

Yes. We're only taking comments on this resolution.

All right. I'll shut up now.

no no no thank you thank you yeah and and i you know the shift i mean you could also one could accommodate that in a more minor way you could say 8 30 to 6 30. but we just have to establish a all right so one of the options under robert's rules of order is to add alternate motions before we vote on the motion on the table so there is a motion on the table that's been seconded i want to put an alternate on the table No car washing, boat washing, driveway washing, except if you're running a business to do that.

It's not part of my motion, right? You're just saying it's an alternative.

So now I'm going to ask, is there a second to that alternate?

I would second.

Okay, so we have a second to the alternate. Now we vote on the alternate, and then we go back and vote on the original motion so that your motion lives and dies on its own as opposed to getting tagged with the alternate.

On the alternate, did you want to also, are you including his motion in your alternate?

No, separate.

It's just that as a completely separate motion.

Separate motion. Uh-huh. OK. So I'll call for votes on the alternate.

With those being Robert's rules, that's no wonder the Congress can't do anything.

That's the way it works. So I'm calling for a vote on the alternate.

I vote no. I don't believe he has sufficient clarity on how to implement that.

All I asked for was a vote, not the explanation. Boat on the alternate. You and I are yes, because we presumably put it in second. Could you give me the... No car washing, boat washing, driveway washing, except if you're in a business doing that.

No, I'm going to say no. OK. I'm going to hire myself to wash my car. Right. So it's a no.

No. OK. So the alternate fails. So now we're back to Sean's motion.

Right. And are we?

And that is, I'll read it again. No well-drawn pool top, sorry, well-drawn pool top box limited to two inches in any five-day period. well-drawn sprinkler use between the hours of 8 AM and 6 PM of Sorry, I'm going to pull that back off the table. We've had a public comment to move those hours from 9 to 7. Is there anybody who wants to make that as an alternate motion?

Yeah, I would. OK. You would, and you just comment really quickly. You all agree that that's an electricity issue, or you agree that it's greater about the transportation? No, thermodynamics. It's hotter in the evening. So you're saying it's wise from that point of view anyway. Retained heat in the Earth and all that stuff, yes. That's why.

okay so we have a motion do we have a second for that alternate motion i'll second that one all right so now i'm calling for votes on the alternate motion i support that okay unanimous yeah so now sean's motion is pool top i'm going to read it again uh no well well drawn pool top box should be limited to two inches in any five day period and well drawn sprinkler use shall be limited to 9 a.m. should be prohibited from 9 a.m. to 7 p.m.

Wait, isn't that the one we just voted on? Yeah, because we just, the alternate passed. Okay. That just modified the time. Right. I see. Okay. So that's what the ultimate thing we're voting on is that.

All those in favor?

Aye. Aye. Fine. Okay. Fine. We've passed a recommendation to the WIC. Does Jessica have it? Okay.

I would like to thank the gentleman from Hay Beach for offering that comment. Okay. All right. Now moving on in the agenda.

A lot of the end of the agenda we're not going to be able to get to.

We're going to get there.

Well, we're not going to be able to get there because Joe's not here.

He gave some there.

Know your water weekend. It's this weekend.

Yep, hopefully we can save some time. We are on track. Weather looks cooperative to be out there. Signs are all ready. We have 14 to 16 volunteers. A little shy of maybe being out in as full force as would be ideal, but I think between the signage and having people around, in particular those highly trafficked Morning hours, we're in good shape. Messaging going out to the volunteers tomorrow for all their assignments, including the gentleman at this table. We will get the signs up and get the handouts to people and we're a go. So the police sign will be out as well with a message in town center. So as far as I know, everything is lined up and ready to roll. Okay, so and the shelter on reporter, I believe, you know, you have a letter is gonna cover it. I have also, you know, shared our letter to the editor with them, which hopefully will get published rolling into the weekend. So I think we've hit about as many, you know, be in your face ways as we can. And we'll and to be clear, we gave, we are giving talking points to some of the, to all the volunteers. Most of it is intuitive. You know, it's not trying to be overly scripted, but the beginning of that messaging says, if someone doesn't want to engage, don't chase them. We're not trying to be, you know, confrontational. We don't want to be disruptive. We want whatever we want. friendly. Here's your information. We're trying to help you. If you want, you interested, you want to lean in a little bit. Here you go. You don't, you know, it's your choice.

All right. So as part of the messaging, uh, and I'm connecting this to item seven, the central triangle private well testing up is part of the messaging. And Hey, look, if you live in the center, absolutely. You may be able to get this for free.

It's part of the talking points. Yes, it is.

Okay. Um, So thank you, and thank you for organizing this.

Sean really has been doing heavy lifting around this.

Thank you in advance for my instruction.

Thank you, Walter.

OK. And both Meg and Amber would be kind enough to say that they'll put their boots on the ground, and that representation from the board is greatly appreciated.

Great. OK. That's all good. Sticks. and i'm sorry i need to go back to 5a uh which is my mistake uh in terms of the actions with regard to the resolution we we passed on recommending further restrictions meg can you summarize the efforts that the town has undertaken to publicize that the resolution that we did

It's on the website as a banner on the top with public announcements. It went out as a notify me and non-emergency update, notify me to everybody. And it had the key points about the drug and also links to your flyer, the draft report. We also did social media. And I think that's all of it. The website, social media, the notify me. And the banner.

So, yeah. Can we get some time on the electric sign in town?

Yeah, we just have to ask Chief. It's just been in use for the fireworks and everything else.

And clearly not up in this weekend. We'll be using it this weekend.

Because it's being used for knowing the water. Fine.

Okay. But the intention, I guess, and if you're going to send them a recommendation based on what we pass, would be, again,

wash rinse repeat messaging you know in all forms of communication right okay given the recommendation we just passed uh do you want me to come to the town board again and if so when well appreciate you getting it in that's great that's great i can come tomorrow um great that there's no delay so great thank you okay okay when

I have you after discussing irrigation legislation.

OK. So 10? I don't know when you mean. 9.30. 9.30. OK. See you at 9.30. Thank you. All right. Going back to now item number seven, the center triangle, private well testing. We are at 51 wells have been sampled. It will be another eight weeks before we start to get results. I understand that the town will be processing the reimbursement checks to the 51 that have had their wells tested. According to Joe, that'll be happening in August. We had mailed about 190 letters. We were hoping for 50%. We got half that. Joe's email to me, I didn't speak with him. Joe's email to me is that that still should give us some indication of a reasonable indication of what's going on in terms of potability and what contaminants we're seeing, what concentrations, whether these wells are potable, what percentages and so forth. So The guy is going to be processing the data who's sitting to my left.

Looking at the ways to represent that data. Let's take a look at the data first.

Right. So that's where that sits. Item number 7C is the whole issue of rental properties. I just want to put the facts on the table. When our initial response results were pretty disappointing, Peter and I basically canvassed the whole area between the two of us.

With a little help, yeah.

And I found at least that there were 10 or so of the properties that were permanently occupied by tenants. In other words, not vacation rentals, but permanent residents. that where the landlord, because I was knocking on the door, I was only knocking on doors where people had not responded. The landlord who had received the messaging, the property owner who had received the invitation to participate, didn't respond to it. So I found tenants there. So you have a situation, at least in those properties, where The tenants didn't know anything about the water quality. The property owner wasn't taking steps to even have the water quality tested for free. So you had people basically consuming the drinking water and not knowing what was in it. And the question is, whether we should recommend to the town board that as a condition for renting property, and as I understand it, to rent property in Shelter Island, you've got to pass. You've got to register, you've got to have smoke alarms, various things like that as a condition for renting property in Shelter Island that you have to have your water tested.

And it has to be potable.

Uh, or you just have to tell the tenants of the result. The next step is you got to do what it takes for it to be portable.

So just to be clear, to go back, unless I'm missing something, but I shared with all of you post that conversation, as I understand it, New York state requirement. And it, you back into that as a, and I don't have the language in front of me. It basically is that, you know, you're. providing a healthy environment, you know, kind of language for your tenant. And that has been interpreted to mean that you must provide potable water. So as far as I understand the law to be, it is your state current requirement. The question is, Do we want, if that is the case, which I think we can validate, if that is the case, should it be part of our application? It can't be a just tell them it's good or bad because that's not conforming to the law. So what it would be is that the local government here is choosing to enforce an existing law because they are aware that there is the potential for health issues. I completely support that. I think that, you know, if we have a I don't know that we need I mean, maybe we can do an informal vote now if we support that. I think the question then would be validating that law with our attorney. I don't know, Meg, if you've looked that up of that requirement and then drafting something that is very specific to courting the law and quoting, I would say something like every two years someone is renting has to have, you know, a test that proves okay or have a filtration system installed in order to prove that they have potable water. Doesn't need to cycle with when your leases are. If they're two week leases or one year, you just say like every two years, you got to tell us that you're keeping on top of it in good water. That would be my suggestion if we have a general believe that that is worthy. Once I get through Know Your Water, I'm happy to draw up a recommendation for consideration and vote that is kind of along those lines.

So my thought as I listen, I've certainly seen this as a whole. I agree that this should be addressed. Rentals should be addressed. I think that the two issues are separable, though, and it's easier to say you have to you have to once every two years or something like that. Have you water tested if you're going to rent your, you're renting your property, if you have your water tested and it's not potable, you're already violating the law. And the question is only whether you're violating the law and the municipality and the state level, or just the state level. So it's potential. It's 1, an easier option for us might simply be to take on the 1st step 1st, which is you have to know whether you're violating the law or not. You have to test. If you're going to rent and never show up once every 2 years that you've tested your water. No, but that's I mean, I'm.

I don't mean to be rude. I think that's ridiculous because then the town is going to say. great, you told us you tested your water, but we're still giving you, you know, you can still registering and we're allowing you to remit your home, even though we know now you're violating the law. I mean, that would be advocating their responsibility once they come into that information.

So do we, you said, you properly cited this code section and you said it has been interpreted to include the provision of potable water. Correct. Is that,

It is not explicit in the code, it is based on, you know, again, I'm not a lawyer, we can ask the town attorney to look into it, but it is, I think, based on case law and, you know, precedents and, you know, whatever.

Can we ask the town attorney that question?

Just because I don't want to make... No, because we shouldn't be interpreting, the town attorney should be interpreting the law. Correct. Let's ask that we need to ask him or you will ask him on our behalf.

If you want, you can put together an email. Okay.

Okay. You have that. Okay. Is there is there a point to the legislation? Does it say you have to have the. These are all these other items tested on oxide and all that it doesn't say, and you have to turn that over to the town.

No, it's, it's simply, like I said, and I don't, I sent it in an email to all of you, the, the, it has more general language of, you know, providing a healthy environment and this and that. And then, so then, which often, you know, laws or codes at that level does. And then it's either based on when you hire an attorney and they're guiding you through renting a property, they're like, your obligations are going to include all these things because that's what that means. And that's been, as I understand it, what the common practice understanding of both the intent of the law and the interpretation of the law. And it doesn't say so then, you know, yes, we would have to be specific about that you're testing for. And I put it in my note as well. There's like three different areas of like pathogen, this chemical bubble, whatever, like cancer say test your water. You got to say like Skip some specifics so that they're catching a reasonable amount of contaminants so that you could make a judgment that it's portable.

I guess my thinking is the DEC, Suffolk County, for restaurants and other public, you know, they just put those numbers, those numbers are available in their public records. So would it be a public record if you've got somebody that tested that water every two years? Could you say, well, this is really a public record?

If they're renting.

Yeah.

Well, again, they'd be required to mitigate anything that is not so they could have to be required to be put in a filter. Now, would it be public that their water wasn't good and they were put in and they put it in a filtration system because they're clearly still registered as or whatever? I don't know what FOIA and your registration, you know, for your whatever very possibly, but I don't see that as problematic necessarily. I don't.

health issue yeah kind of when you're when you're renting to the public you put yourself in that right right okay um okay so you're going to write an email to the town attorney asking whether that law means that you have to provide potable water and how potable water is defined it strikes me as it's easy to find potable water um so and

then we then that comes back to this committee we decide what to do yep or do we want to say right now if you're renting your house why don't we let's find that out go through the process make sure we're interpreting it right and then we can craft up what a reasonable recommendation might be if we are actually interpreting it all right and then we can vote from there okay all right but it does seem that we have strong interest in in that rentals should be... I've heard from people that have watched replays of this and they were, oh my God, that's ridiculous. Of course, rentals aren't that reportable.

That's my reaction. Jerry, I haven't heard any reaction to it. In the last meeting, I wanted to get the issue on the table publicly to see if there was going to be a reaction. So, I guess I did. All right, next item on the agenda is eight. And let's take eight and nine together. Bear in mind, it's been since like January that we've been having this discussion with the USGS about scope. And what we hear back from Joe is that they've had personnel changes and that they're going to be in a position to re-engage on the baseline study proposal and the USGS saltwater monitoring program. at the August meeting. So watch this space, but don't hold your breath. So that's nine and 10. And now we're to any other business?

I will just mention that as we speak, the short-term cleanup process is going on with harvesters in the water. We've done sampling for water toxicity testing prior to this work on Sunday. And we'll be doing it immediately following the work and a week later for laboratory analysis. We'll have a characterization as to whether any toxicity was stirred up, dispersed, et cetera. And the testing is in the center of the pond and at the public access area.

OK.

Thank you. Dave? Two things. One, I was going to, I guess you've got enough samples for your center of triangle, but I'll bring this up because this is all of the USGS holes that have been drilled around the place, which are in addition to the ones that they actively sample. I didn't bring enough composite. But there are any number of, any large number of wells It's in the Leggett report. There are any number of holes all around the place. But I was going to say, for the center, if you wanted to see about opening those up, that's a possibility. But this might be something to consider for the future in using these holes as static resources to test. Right, and I haven't I just wanted to see what the what the reaction is because I I think Suffolk county can, in addition to going residential else they will do static works. For an additional an additional cost because they have to pump and all that kind of stuff but anyway that's that there's this resource that I just wanted to additional everybody require sticking persuade a homeowner exactly yeah so.

That there's a thank you for that part of the work, I think we need to do when we get all this data. Is to is to FOIA tests in these zones that. Suffolk County has already done. So, like, for commercial buildings and so forth that have to test every month at some point to get all that data. Into the, into the database, so we might be able to get more than 50. we should also see if they've tested any of those.

I'm sure they don't because these are, these are sealed up usually, you know, there's a cap on them. Unless we tell them go test that.

And we've previously FOIAed the tests by street. I'm not sure it necessarily gets you right into the center triangle.

You're talking for like contamination testing?

Correct.

Correct me if I'm wrong. Isn't there a distinction between like a test well, just well, and a well that was drilled specific for drinking water. And so you may not be able to use one to test for contamination if it wasn't designed to be.

Well, The drinking was going to have a pump the test was just going to be an empty hole, so I mean you can.

Go down a little bucket yeah pretty much. Up for a while you certainly the water to get them well well water for you know sample from the sort of anyway it's a possibility yeah look at you know.

Okay.

The other thing was the fellow on Westmoreland who communicated his concern about saltwater. I don't know if you want to share Westmoreland. I didn't bring a copy, but if you look at it, they're not very wide. It's pretty narrow. And it presents a very interesting case of you know, there's going to be no stream flow from other aquifers or anything like that. It's pretty much just how much it's going to fall down and how much they use and saltwater intrusion as a result of over, you know, over, it's just, it's just an idea. Maybe you have other ideas to do that. It's almost like you, you could make a test case out of the, and he volunteered to say, hey, can you, you want to test for our chloride? And, uh, That might be something which the neighborhood there would be interested if we can get the resources.

And that was at least my response in that it sounded like the guy had talked to a lot of his neighbors and was familiar with other problems and the like and so kind of put the onus back on them and say, we would love to engage you, but can you find a group of your neighbors who have either said they have issues are willing to test for issues, you know, all of it, and like, give us some information so that we're not just kind of going on hearsay, like, give us six people that said, Yes, I have like, you know, my I'm over there, and I'm over there, and I'm over there. And I've had saltwater intrusion issues, I've drilled a new well, I've done this, or, you know, or do whatever.

So that's something tangible, because we can, as the school show, we can do chloride tests pretty easily. And order, order another batch of kids, I don't think it's rocket science. If we have a neighborhood that wants to get engaged, we can give them the tools to understand what's going on.

Not that I know it, but I know that we've talked about Westmoreland and there's at least one or two houses that or publicly people know have issues, you know, whether it's Meg knows, oh, I know those people, and they say whatever, but sounds like there's more chatter, but ask them, like, as a community, bring it to the surface together, and then come with us, like, a bunch of hearsay is not as helpful, but, you know. Indicate our willingness.

I had that conversation with another resident of Westmoreland who's having trouble, and he has been speaking to his neighbors, trying to get them to come together and come to a conversation in town.

So maybe you could, whoever got that original email, just respond.

It was here. Is that what you're talking about?

No, but there was an email. Didn't someone forward around an email that was from...

I think I sent... I may have sent out the note, the WQI minutes. Because he came in and talked to the... He came to WQI, yeah.

Should we invite him to our meeting?

Yeah. Or, yeah.

And other neighbors. See if we can reach out to him generally. I mean, it's more helpful, like, go do your due diligence and gather some data, then come back and come whatever. I mean, I'm sure we can have him any time. But that's when it's going to be most helpful.

Gather volunteers, and we'll get the data, and we'll give them the collection stuff.

So it was suggested to him to come to this meeting, or any of them, or reach out. I did give him my card with my email and we did not hear anything since that meeting, but it was suggested that this would be the form.

Do you know his name that we could.

Yeah, we do have his name and his address.

If you would send that to, you can send it to me and I'll see if I can find a way.

I think Greg included it in the email. Yeah, but I can resend that.

A way to contact him and pass that message along that we're happy to help. Can you do some more due diligence and community gathering?

Could they be squeezed? The clock is finished running on the other test for the center trial. Could they be? They're not in the center trial, certainly. No, I don't want to put into that.

um i think because we have a particular you're also talking about a very different strata of you know you know both aquifer and typically saltwater it's not all good ideas but i don't guarantee that yeah two lots that's it right whatever right whatever you can it's not coming from you're not going to float it might flow okay um that's what any other

uh any comments from the public either no one's here in the meeting but on zoom i have i have several questions i would like to ask about the report that went out is this time that i could do that the water advisory committee report that you do every month yeah

The report we have in front of us. Yeah.

Well, levels of precipitation. Yeah, exactly.

Yes. I mean, my first question is, I just want to make sure I understand the metric that you have that you're using. I feel like you're measuring the distance to the top of the aquifer. Is that accurate?

Yes, yes.

What you might call the water table, in other words? Correct. Right. So then my second question is, do you have a notion of the depth of the equator? Where is the bottom? Are you measuring that?

There is a general sense, but there is not a lot of hard data that we can map and say we know what the aquifer looks like across the island. I think we know, I think, general depth in town center, you know, which is 80 feet or, you know, or something. I don't know why that sticks in my brain. We know that when you get out to, I'm in Silver Beach, so, you know, that it can get to kind of 10 feet. And when you get way out, way out on the peninsula on Silver Beach, you can get as like to four or five feet. So we know some of that, but, you know, we don't know. It depends on how how an individual homeowner's well was drilled, how far, you know, when it was drilled, how far it went down. And so, you know, there's not a lot of perfectly hard data. And lastly, sorry, I don't mean to be wordy, is the natural next part of your question, which is the video is like, yeah, so do, can you tell me how much water is around? And we don't know perfectly, which is why we just have 10, 15 years of this median of where the top of that water is. And that's giving us a sense of we've been living in this world for 20, 30 years or whatever, where if we've been in this median range, we haven't had too much trouble. And that's kind of just been the overall guide, but we learn as we go. And we've said in, in, extreme droughts, we may find that the median of the well levels continues to drop and we're actually not seeing significant issues, except maybe only around the margins in very low lying areas. We just don't know.

Well, but there have been quite a few studies that are in our databases that establish a general sense of thickness of the aquifer at various points. And so we have that mapped. to the degree of accuracy that was possible at each given period of time. But we can pull up those maps.

What I remember is that the work was done that the guy's name started with an H. And that is either confined, which is whether there's heavy clay or whatever, or whether or not it's soft. And there's a value. Okay, you're up a foot and a half here. We count that as five feet down. Those aren't the exact numbers, but as an example. And that's what we find in all of the reports that have been done. If you have copious time, you could go into the WAC website. website and the reports, if you go into those reports that go back to the, you know, probably to the 80s and earlier, and you'll see that they talk about a very complicated scientific measurement method to analyze for it. And once you get to zero, if the lens shrinks down to that point, you no longer get the outpush of the fresh water. And what you do is the salt continues to move in.

So that was your first question, but then you got three answers. Your next question?

All right. So I just want to restate what I think I heard just to make sure I got it right. So what you're saying is that you've been measuring the top of the aquifer for maybe 40 years. It's been trending downward, and so you're concerned about the finiteness of that resource. There's nothing in that that seems dire to me. The reason I say that is because my well is 50 foot into the aquifer. So the fact that you've dropped a couple of foot doesn't bother me in the least. Although, I mean, I'm not saying that you shouldn't consider these things, but I don't get a sense of direness out of the numbers as you've presented them. I mean, is this really a dire situation?

Depends where you are.

Like I said, if you're out in Silver Beach and the lens of your aquifer is four feet, it very significantly will make a difference. And as well, you know, there are so many, I mean, we're happy that you're leaning in, I think we love when people lean in, but there are so many different dynamics of you get a storm, you can actually have the saltwater intrude sideways into a near shore area and salt your well. So, you know, if you're far away from the shoreline, great for you, but not great for other people. So, there's, and as Greg said, the thickness of the water helps you know kind of uh keep things in balance as you get less uh fresh water it you know the salt water has more power to intrude there's a lot of scientific Dynamics going on okay okay all right I get that it's a complex problem uh so in the center there's a very thick lens

Yeah, I'm near the shore, so that doesn't help me.

Near shore, where are you actually?

I'm on Gardner's Bay Drive, but on the inside of it. So I'm like 30 foot above sea level. And my well is very good so far.

Yeah, you may have a thick lens in your area.

They do. Okay. So here's my third question. I'm going to ask two more questions because I'm kind of responding to an answer, and I do want to respect your time. My third question is I just want to confirm that I think I can find some of the reports that you've alluded to on your website. Is that true?

Yes.

Yeah. So I would suggest looking at the original Sorensen report and the Leggett report, Leggett-Breshears.

And they are what, under discussion documents? So if you look over there, yeah, there is a... a number of tabs that say you know i think like 2026 well level report 2025 well level report so there will be a couple of other tabs under there that i think discussion documents and others and if you go back enough in time scroll down you'll find some of the studies legate report is 2014. related documents on the right hand side related documents on the right hand side the legged report reprints the sarns reprints the sarnson information right so legged is probably

That's where I'd start.

I'll do that. I won't waste any more of y'all's time on that one. The other thing is, is there something that tells me where these wells are so I can know which one to pay attention to from a selfish perspective?

The 20 wells that we track?

Yeah. They have street names on them. The healthy... generally get you close by.

I think that's also in the Liggett report. It shows both the active monitoring wells as well as the report of the inactive ones we were just talking about. But yes, you'll find that in the Liggett report. It's called Hydrogeologic Data Review and Evaluation. I don't have the page number, but it's toward the appendix.

Okay. All right. I'm going to look at that stuff.

We do have a Hay Beach labeled well in one of our wells.

Yeah. I can't tell where it is, though. I mean, Hay Beach is a big area. It's at the corner of Westview and Crescent. Oh, well, that helps.

If you look on, if you're heading over towards, if you're on Crescent and you head over toward the shore, looking down Westview, you'll see it. It's right on the right. It's a manhole cover.

Okay. Oh, I mean, that's right around the corner, so I can find that.

Yeah.

Okay. Okay, well, thanks.

I'm at 7A Beach. I'll show you. Just knock on my door.

Oh, who are you?

I'm Dave Ruby.

Oh, yeah, Dave. I've heard your name many times. Maybe I've even met you. Yeah.

Always in a good noise and a very good positive comment. Yeah.

Oh, absolutely. Seven. Hey, beach. Okay, so I'll do that. And I mean, I do applaud y'all do. I'm really glad that y'all are doing this. And I'm glad that you're using data because I mean, data is what it's all about. So keep up the good work.

Thank you. Okay, anything else for the good of the order?

Just we touched on it early and it'll just be part of future conversations that I think we've leaned into the pool topping and our suggestions, but the code needs to change at some point. So if we want to slowly look at what we could do on pool topping, it might be as easy a suggestion as incorporating what we said, like no more than two inches every hour.

Can you actually take that? Because you own a pool. Yeah.

I'll continue to bring it up. I just have to get through New York Water before I bring power to many other things. Soon enough. All right.

Okay. Motion to adjourn.

So moved. We're done. Thank you. Thank you.