Wait until next year: Board to extend irrigation moratorium

The moratorium on the moratorium looks like it will be extended.

At Tuesday’s work session, the Town Board agreed that the moratorium banning certain irrigation systems would be extended past its December 31 deadline.

The board has been reviewing a draft of a law regulating irrigation systems and water usage on the Island since the town’s appointed Irrigation Committee presented it several weeks ago.

But questions still remain and, as Town Attorney Laury Dowd pointed out, there are just three Town Board meetings left in 2014 to finalize a law and vote on it.

Councilman Paul Shepherd, who has been the most knowledgeable and vocal voice on the board on the issue, said it would be a mistake to hurry the process and come up with a “poorly crafted” law.

“I know you want to get it right, but let’s not beat it to death,” Councilwoman Chris Lewis said, urging her colleagues to speed the process. “It’s already gone on for a long time.”

“It seems like that, Christine, but sometimes that’s what it takes,” Mr. Shepherd said. “As a carpenter I can tell you, you have to be patient.”

“Oh, what an interesting piece of instruction,” Ms. Lewis responded.

A local law, passed in September 2003 when the town was in a water emergency, banned the installation of all inground sprinkler systems to protect the quantity and quality of water in Shelter Island’s aquifer. But the law allowed those already in use to remain for 10 years.

That sunset provision was coming due September 1, 2013 when the existing systems would be seriously restricted on water use.

After a public hearing in August 2013, a month before the law would take effect, the Town Board voted for a moratorium for further study until May 2014.

In February, Thom Milton, chairman of the town’s Irrigation Committee, went before the board to ask for, and was granted, an extension until the end of this year. He noted then that the committee’s report to the board would likely not be ready until late July at the earliest, since new testing was required to update information 20 or 30 years old on the quantity and quality of the Island’s water supply.

Tuesday Councilman Peter Reich suggested the issue be on work sessions’ agendas until all questions were resolved. Councilman Ed Brown agreed, and said the matter should be wrapped by the end of February.