Sherman steps down from Water Advisory Committee

After more than 20 years of service to Shelter Island, Hoot Sherman has called it quits from the Water Advisory Committee.

Mr. Sherman, who had recently served as temporary chairman of the committee following John Hallman’s resignation, has submitted a letter of resignation to fellow committee members.

“It’s time for some new blood,” Mr. Sherman said in his letter, which member Ken Pysher read aloud at Monday’s meeting.

Mr. Pysher will assume the role of chairman until after the Town Board appoints a successor to Mr. Sherman. He has been the numbers cruncher for the WAC gathering information on water quantity from test-well readings performed by the United States Geological Survey That’s something he’s willing to continue to do, he said, but a prolonged chairmanship does not interest him.

WATER TESTING
WAC members who might have expected to breath a sigh of relief when the Town Board preliminary budget provided $37,500 for water quality testing, learned Monday night that money troubles still loom.

The usual quantity testing of wells that takes place monthly is being held up because the contract expires this month and the USGS, despite years of service to the town, won’t conduct the tests this month until it receives $14,460 to pay for the new contract.

That money is provided in the budget that kicks in January 1, but if the USGS is unwilling to wait for payment, money would have to be found in what’s left in other budget lines for the rest of this year.
Supervisor Jim Dougherty said he would speak to USGS representatives this week to see what can be done so the quantity testing can continue uninterrupted.

There’s also a question of how much the town owes the USGS for testing next year. The full cost of testing for 2016 is expected to be $43,320, about $5,800 than was anticipated when the town prepared the preliminary budget. Mr. Dougherty said that’s because the town did not receive the 20 percent discount it usually gets for the testing.

The committee will invite USGS representatives to the December 14 meeting to set up plans for water quality testing next year.

FRAGILE ZONE
While the Planning Board previously took a stand against establishing a new “fragile zone” that would parallel some of the current Near Shore Overlay District, the WAC spent time Monday night trying to simplify the draft.

The areas listed in the draft are Silver Beach, south of West Neck and Bootleggers Alley; Menantic Peninsula, south of Hagar Road and Margarets Drive; Tarkettle Peninsula, south of South Midway; Shorewood, south of Heron Lane up to Mabels Creek; all properties in the Causeway zone; and Little Ram Island south of Ram Island Drive. They were identified because they have limited water availability.

Some of the Near Shore Overlay District isn’t fragile because it has a higher elevation, member Barbara Jean Ianfolla said.
The fragile zone deals with height and the availability of water, Mr. Pysher said, rejecting a suggestion from member Greg Toner that instead of creating another special district, the Near Shore Overlay District should be amended.

One element important to the WAC was to suggest a limit on building where foundations for houses or pools couldn’t be any deeper than a foot above the aquifer. Members also want to require test holes be used to check for depth before any excavation could be done.

They would tighten up pool restrictions not only requiring that they initially be filled with trucked in water from off Island,
but that trucked-in water would also have to be used to top off pools.

Many of the suggestions the WAC made would require inspections, presumably by the Building Department, which has maintained it’s understaffed to do what’s already required.

Planning Board members focused on requirements its members thought would be too expensive for many homeowners to meet and what they thought would be limits on Zoning Board of Appeals variances they believed couldn’t be upheld by courts.

Town attorney Laury Dowd will be adapting comments from the various boards before the Town Board sees another draft for consideration.