Town Board: Treated wood gets treatment from town
Andrew Gitlin and his small waterfront lot in Silver Beach were back in the news this week.
His marine contractor, David Whelan of Sag Harbor, asked the Town Board on Friday for permission to use toxic CCA-treated lumber instead of vinyl to rebuild part of a bulkhead that was blown out in August by Tropical Storm Irene, as were those of nearby properties on Peconic Avenue.
Mr. Gitlin wants to use CCA-treated wood because it is cheaper than non-toxic alternatives, Mr. Whelan said.
The Town Board resisted the request but referred it to the Waterways Management Advisory Council for a recommendation. “There’s a strong feeling up here vinyl is the way to go,” Supervisor Jim Dougherty told Mr. Whelan.
The WMAC voted Monday night to recommend that the Town Board disapprove the use of treated wood. At its work session on Tuesday, the Town Board appeared headed toward requiring vinyl or any other non-toxic material.
Mr. Gitlin’s controversial proposal to build a two-story house on the one-third-acre parcel at 70 Peconic Avenue — for which he obtained a Town Board wetlands permit in 2008 but failed to ask for an extension before its December 31, 2010 expiration — has neighbors in an uproar. They say the proposed house would be too big for the lot.
Mr. Dougherty has opposed issuing a new permit, saying the community understands better now that residential septic systems are a major threat to the health of the Peconic Bay estuary. Other Town Board members have said they can’t reverse their 2008 decision because the proposal is no different than the one they approved in a 5-0 vote then.
Presented at a hearing in August, Mr. Gitlin’s wetlands permit application for the house is on hold while he waits for permits to repair his wrecked bulkhead and refill his gouged waterfront in the wake of Tropical Storm Irene, which hit on August 28.
Although lumber treated with chromated copper arsenate is not outlawed on Shelter Island, as it is in East Hampton, Southold and Southampton towns, the Town Board here has insisted on vinyl for many years for docks and bulkheads. Studies have shown that CCA-lumber leaches toxins into the water that kill marine life.
Councilman Peter Reich told Mr. Whelan at the Friday, December 2 Town Board hearing on the application that the town’s Waterways Management Advisory Council would be proposing code revisions early next year that would include a formal ban on CCA-treated wood.
The Town Board on Friday granted permits for bulkhead repairs at the nearby properties of Julia and Edward Brennan at 72 Peconic Avenue and George DeRedon at 74 Peconic Avenue using non-toxic materials.
TRYING TO SAVE MONEY
According to Mr. Whelan, Mr. Gitlin wants to limit the cost of the job so has insisted on CCA-lumber, the cheapest material available. He’s also hoping he can replace only 20 feet of the bulkhead, not its full 100-foot length. Councilman Reich said at Tuesday’s board work session the application really should be “for a new bulkhead not a repair” because the entire structure is likely to fail within a few years.
When board members indicated on Friday they were not inclined to grant a permit, Mr. Whelan commented from the back of the room, where he stood throughout the hearing, “What you’re saying is you’re making CCA with sheathing illegal,” even though the code currently does not bar it. He added later, “This is one case somebody wants to exercise their right to use it and there are good reasons for it,” he said, even though he admitted he had no desire to work with the toxic material and hadn’t built a structure out of CCA-treated lumber in 10 years.
Mr. Whelan told the board that, because of the damage to Mr. Gitlin’s dock and waterfront, the vinyl sheathing that would be required over the CCA-wood wouldn’t hold. Although he said that 20 feet of bulkhead would be replaced with CCA-lumber, and that the plan was to repair the remaining 100-foot structure, he acknowledged that he really wouldn’t know how much new bulkheading would be required until he fully excavated and exposed the existing structure.
George Costello of Costello Marine Contracting in Greenport, who was in the audience for dock and catwalk applications pending for his clients, told the Town Board that he had presented proposals to win the Gitlin job but Mr. Gitlin found every alternative too expensive. “I went round and round with him for six months,” he said.
“He’s going to end up rebuilding the rest of it,” Mr. Costello said of Mr. Gitlin’s entire bulkhead.
At Tuesday’s work session, Councilman Ed Brown commented, “We don’t want that bulkhead good for maybe five years to be a detriment to the house” Mr. Gitlin will build there “or to neighboring properties. We might be in a spot if in a year or two later a storm comes down and we lose those bulkheads.” He said he was “fine” with granting a permit to replace the entire bulkhead using non-toxic materials.
Town Attorney Laury Dowd said that, under the town code, the board had the authority to require an adequate bulkhead using non-toxic materials “in the furtherance of the public interest.”
Councilwoman Chris Lewis said, “If he doesn’t repair it then the wetlands permit” he needs for his proposed house “isn’t right either.”
AMBULANCE APPOINTEES
The Town Board on Friday appointed Joyce Bausman as director of the town’s Emergency Medical Service, which will officially come into existence on January 1 when the town takes over the Red Cross ambulance corps. Town Police Det.-Sgt. Jack Thilberg was named assistant director. Ms. Bausman is currently the unpaid CEO of the squad and Det.-Sgt. Thilberg is the unpaid COO. The Town Board also formally established an EMS Advisory Board to oversee day-to-day operations and make policy suggestions to the Town Board. It appointed to the panel current members of ambulance board Marian M. Brownlie, Peter McCracken, Art Williams, Charles Ihlenfeld, M.D. and Doug Matz. Also named to the board were Councilwoman Chris Lewis and Councilman Ed Brown.
Ms. Bausman and Det.-Sgt. Thilberg will not be paid for their services. Asked about their roles, Mr. Dougherty wrote in an email, “Yes Joy and Jack will continue as dedicated and very able volunteers with the continuing gratitude of the town and all its citizens. In due course, we will do some strategic planning on all phases of the future of our ambulance service but our initial challenge is to get ourselves familiar with the operation as it is currently being conducted so that our decisions regarding the future are well grounded.
LEGION ROOF
The board accepted the bid of R. W. Mulligan Co. to install a new roof on the American Legion Hall-Town Youth Center. The bid was $28,200; the only other bid, submitted by Olinkiewicz Contracting, was for $31,850. The board also accepted the bid of Flanders Heating and Air Conditioning to install a new boiler system at a cost of $23,920. It was the only bid.
Also on Friday, the board held off on accepting a bid of $35,303 from Heritage Building Systems for a structure that will provide a roof over the recycling area at the landfill and protect the town’s new paper baler. Councilman Peter Reich asked that the town attorney review the fine print in the contract first.”
NEAR SHORE DRIVEWAYS
• Conducted a hearing on a long-pending proposal to allow paved driveways in the Near Shore Overlay Protection District if runoff is directed into the aquifer. There were no public comments but Councilman-elect Paul Shepherd sent an email containing several recommendations to board members. “This is like ‘The Bride of Frankenstein’; it’s changed so many times and had so much input. It’s bizarre,” Councilman Glenn Waddington commented.
“It’s getting beat up,” agreed Ian MacDonald from the audience. He’s the Planning Board member who is pushing the proposal because current regulations encourage the use of recycled concrete aggregate driveways, which over time become packed with solidified silt and as impermeable as a paved driveway, Mr. McDonald has argued.
Mr. Shepherd has expressed concern that the Near Shore Overlay Protection District covers most of the residential properties on the Island and that many residents will be affected by the proposal if it is adopted. A couple of board members told him there was no requirement for people to have paved driveways with engineered drainage and drywell systems; they can have dirt driveways under the proposal and if they want gravel, the rule would require that it be double-washed stone to reduce silting.
