Dan's Papers - May 1, 2009 - Hoot Owl Defense

Every year, the New York State EPA reviews which property in its jurisdiction would be on its "wish list" of properties it would like to purchase if it had the money. Such properties usually include pastures or wetlands or beaches or woodland. Now, this past week, the EPA once again reviewed eastern Long Island.

Riverhead wants it to promise not to add a vast 3,000-acre patch of land the Town owns in Calverton to the list. The reason is that it doesn't want the Town Supervisor Phil Cardinale to have a heart attack.

Last summer, as the Town of Riverhead was negotiating with a developer to bring a $500 million theme park the size of Six Flags to a large abandoned airport where jet planes were tested years ago, a bunch of endangered hoot owls landed in the grass and gave every indication they might hang out there for awhile.

This parcel consists of flat land, concrete runways, broken down buildings and weeds. No endangered animal life of any kind is in there. And that included hoot owls. When environmentalists spotted the hoot owls, however, they pounced. It was true that the hoot owls were not indigenous to the area. But there they were. They had appeared from the sky one day, on their migratory route between Canada and North Carolina, and, apparently hungry and noting some rodents or berries or bugs in the weeds below, had swooped down for a bit of lunch. And they stayed.

The development being discussed includes an artificial ski mountain, an equestrian facility, a lake with ferry boats to take you across, a convention center, a safari park, a water park and a rejuvination resort. Immediately, a halt was called to the negotiations. Cardinale, who sees this development as the key to the revival of this historic old town, almost had a heart attack when told about the hoot owls.

How long would they stay? It was two weeks of hell. You couldn't go in there and shoo them away. If you did, you'd get arrested and could serve jail time. God forbid that the hoot owls would settle in or make nests. Everybody held their breath.

And then, finally, after two weeks, the hoot owls took off and flapped down the coast to somewhere else. And the negotiations resumed.

As I said, this land, known now as the "Enterprise Zone" has been repeatedly combed and found free of endangered species. But who knows what other endangered things could one day soon come down from the sky?

To keep Cardinale healthy, the request was made: Make Enterprise Park off limits to endangered species. Please agree not to put it on your wish list.

After a bit of grumbling, the EPA announced this year's list and Enterprise Park is not on it. And maybe it would not be on the list next year. But that's a maybe.