Attention Long Island Kiteboarders! See these emails below regarding the east end

Hi All – just a heads up that there is an important 10 year review of the aquaculture program that leases parts of Peconic and Gardiner’s bay to oyster farmers. The issue is some or many of the farmers use floating cages and the lease areas are huge and many are placed in high traffic areas for surface water recreational uses. One set of leases is right off Goff point outside Napeague directly in the lane where we kite.

If you can’t make it you could write a letter. I’ll try to go to the meeting on April 10^th and could bring letters but you could send directly to them I am sure. the people to send to would be:

Filipowich, Susan <susan.filipowich@suffolkcountyny.gov>;

DelGiudice, Barbara <Barbara.Delgiudice@suffolkcountyny.gov

Lansdale, Sarah <Sarah.Lansdale@suffolkcountyny.gov

My 2c is there should be zero conflict between oystering and recreational uses of the surface waters because every oyster I have ever met lives on the bottom not the top of the water.

Here is the map of lease areas. Notice the line blocking the lane where we kite off Goff point:

https://www.suffolkcountyny.gov/Portals/0/formsdocs/planning/EnvPlanning/Aquaculture/LeaseGridMap_28x40.pdf

Here are talking points:

We all love oysters
They are good for the ecosystem and water quality
However, there is no need for oyster farming to block the use of the surface waters by dozens of different types of recreational uses
Floating oyster beds are a hazard to navigation and could be dangerous
If floating bed are used at all they should be carefully placed away from any recreational zones so they don’t cause accidents and injury and do not prevent the public use the surface waters in our area to which the public
Nothing should take away the right of the public to use surface waters

See maps I created to indicate siting where recreational use is intensive (red) active (orange) moderate (yellow) and infrequent (green). If you have any thoughts or questions about those maps let me know.

Thanks,

Krae Van Sickle

Thanks, Krae! Great maps!

Citizens of Gardiner’s Bay has produced a website that is informative and contains a petition that people can sign and share with others if they choose. Over 1800 people have signed the petition so far.

www.citizensofgardinersbay.org

Here is the petition link:

http://tinyurl.com/ycu9y6u9

Here's my take:

Virtually every local government except the Town Trustees (NY State, Suffolk County, and East Hampton Town) is violating the Public trust Doctrine and public navigation and shore access rights in out area, to our detriment. The County is doing it by allowing floating industrial systems that violate surface navigation rights. The State is violating the public trust access right to the Hicks I. foreshore. The Town is violating the public access right to the foreshore of Cartwright I. and Gardiner’s I. We are prevented from accessing waters, shores and nature in our own town.

Worse, these governments are essentially colluding, turning a blind eye to the violations by each other. No government is defending our public navigation and shore access rights in any of these cases. No established NGO has stepped in to defend the pubic. So we need to stand up, speak up. We need to exercise and defend our rights for ourselves.

We can’t let bureaucrats and political wheeler-dealers privatize, industrialize, or criminalize access to nature. We can’t let them endanger public safety. We can’t let plastic, steel and threats of police enforcement make nature an ugly, threatening experience for our children, or they will never learn to value nature and protect it in their turn.

So thanks, Krae,

Rod

For everyone who received this notice, I want to provide a little background. While speaking to the County and Greg Greene at Cashin & Associates about arranging this meeting, we discussed ways to make the meeting as productive and efficient as possible.

In addition to the feedback that is requested in the meeting notice, the County would like to obtain as much specific input as possible from everyone on this email chain regarding the lease sites and gear type that present navigational conflicts.

One of the goals of the meeting is to identify:

Lease sites that are appropriate for aquaculture using equipment that rests on the bottom with a limited number of marker buoys.
Lease sites where floating gear does not present a conflict for navigation, recreational boating etc.
Lease sites that are problematic for surface based gear

Cashin & Associates intends to mail hard copy lease site maps to everyone who signed up for distribution so that you can mark these up and bring them with you to the meeting.

Hopefully this, combined with input from the other focus groups, will allow the Ten Year Review Advisory committee to come up with a revised lease site map that allows the aquaculture program to continue to grow while minimizing conflicts with other user groups.

Greg, let me know if I have stated this accurately and if there is anything you want to add.

Curt

Attention Long Island Kiteboarders! See these emails below regarding the east end

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