Dan's Papers - May 23, 2008 - Public & Private Actions Green The Hamptons

In an area that has instituted strong land preservation reforms, wouldn't it be reasonable to expect more green initiatives from local governments? Suffolk County Legislator Jay Schneiderman thinks so. He believes that the East End, with its robust economy and highly scrutinized zoning regulations, should set the standard for energy conservation, environmental protection, reduction of pesticide use, improved water quality and keeping the carbon footprint small in general. The question of legislation and design standards may arise for new buildings and construction projects, although there is already one project in the Village of Southampton that strives to meet the vigorous new LEEDS (Leaders in Environmental and Educational Design Standards) specifications adopted by landscape architects and architects alike. Many of the Town and Village leaders have already begun to make changes within their administrations.

At a meeting in the Rogers Memorial Library last month, the Mayors of Sag Harbor, East Hampton and Southampton villages and the Town Supervisors of East Hampton and Southampton came together with Schneiderman to present the Greening of the East End, a forum that outlined what the villages and townships are already doing to achieve a greener East End, and what they'd like to see happen in the near future. Schneiderman threw out a challenge to all with his question "Can we reduce our energy use by 50-80% by the year 2020?"

Linda Kabot agreed that this is an important goal. She started her tenure as Town Supervisor by examining how many Town-owned vehicles were necessary and began to cut back on the number of vehicles given out. But she was also interested in retiring the typical Ford terms of energy consumption.

Sometimes the changes needed are simple. East Hampton Town has reorganized its heating and lighting systems to automatically cool down and darken when parts of the building are not in use. A simple measure perhaps, but the savings add up day after day, week after week.

One of the most reassuring and yet least trumpeted of all changes made by local governments is that the Village of Southampton now uses only organic practices on all its green spaces. Tom Rewinsky heads up this department in the Village and has learned a lot about the latest organic techniques by attending classes at the Lyceum, a not-for-profit seminar held in Westhampton that focuses on organic methods. It has produced numerous graduates, called Green Guerillas. "It's simple really," Rewinsky said. "Less is better as far as what you use. For maybe more than five years now we have had an organic program. Insecticides and chemicals are not used on schools and public properties."

Rewinsky has worked with the Suffolk County Water Authority, which has a stake in the issue, too. Because the SCWA is interested in minimizing irrigation and keeping chemicals and water-soluble nitrogen fertilizers from leaching into the ground water, it has provided guidelines for environmentally conscious lawn care.

All the fertilizers used on Village properties are organic, and Rewinsky finds that these types of lawn food are no more expensive than conventional fertilizers because less is needed. "Once you get a garden or lawn set up without chemicals your soil biology becomes more balanced. The Little League fields are all organic. Dandelion here, dandelion there, I have trained myself to like them."

Bob Gianos is a developer who agrees with the concept of creating healthy living environments. In the course of constructing his much discussed project at the intersection of Wyckapogue and Old Town roads in Southampton Village, he also instituted some of the cutting edge green concepts that Schneiderman and others would like to see more of here on the East End.

The magnificent trees that he has planted in homage to Wyandanch Lane, which itself was planted by the very Mr. Rogers the Library is named after, have all been top dressed with compost and fed with bio-dynamically treated compost teas to build up the soil life. They are matched for size, placed to create a canopy overhead that creates shade and allows views and breezes through. Eventually the watering system will be turned off.

The re-creation of a native meadow along Old Town Road is made up of local varieties of plants that were specified with the advice of local meadow specialist Brian Kluge. Gianos wants to use local sourcing to minimize shipping for this material. The plan calls for over 175 blueberry bushes whose fruit will actually be safe to eat - the proposed homeowners association, which will maintain the common grounds, will have an organic maintenance program. Over 40 landscape chemicals that are harmful to human health or the environment will be banned from use on the property. Landscape companies that will eventually service the homes to be built within the project will have to sign a contract stating that they agree to those terms.

The new homebuilders in Gianos's project will be given information booklets about drought-tolerant plants and options for long term environmentally friendly practices like siting homes to take advantage of shade and winds and the latest LEEDS specifications. Working with his landscape architecture firm, Hart Howerton of Manhattan, Gianos is trying to create a standard in new home construction. "Don't we want to live in a clean environment? The world of science has evolved where entire golf courses are taken care of bio-dynamically," he said recently.

Schneiderman is in there, too, with legislation to help keep the land and waters clean. He's working now on an amendment to regulate the use of fertilizers on the East End. No fertilizers will be used on Suffolk County properties and his proposal will prevent the use of fertilizers to turf on County or privately owned property within 100 feet of fresh water tidal or surface water or a wetland.

So far most people have responded well to Schneiderman's proposal, and the crowd gathered in Roger's Memorial Library were happily surprised to hear that in many ways, the East End is already en route to cleaning up its act.