Controversy over Country Club’s irrigation plans is ongoing

The site plan review for Gardiner’s Bay Country Club’s application to install a cistern on its site continues to raise questions for the Town Board listened Monday night to proponents representing the club and neighbors who complain their questions go unanswered.

Representatives told Town Board members installation of the cistern will save water and prove environmentally improved from the current practice used to water greens.

Attorney John Dunn, representing the golf club, reiterate the request is a matter of right under exemptions granted to golf courses. Use of the cistern has environmental benefits by using less water than the system that has been in use. The existing system takes 16 hours of watering, use of the cistern would involve only six hours, Mr. Dunn said.

Hay Beach neighbors complain their questions have been ignored by the GBCC Board while their concerns mount about possible runoff, salt water intrusion, whether the water to fill the cistern is coming from the aquifer or is trucked in and placement of the cistern.

Bill Mastro, president of the Hay Beach Property Owners Association, said he has not taken a stand opposing the project, but has just been trying to get clear answer to questions his neighbors have about the project.

What is clear is there is a lot of mistrust of GBCC plans left from a proposal that surfaced a couple of years ago when the club’s Board was proposing doubling it’s 6 million gallon a year use of water to 12 million gallons.

Is the cistern a step toward that end and if not, why has that application not been pulled area resident Stephen Jacobs asked.

“They have distinctly not abandoned the application” to increase their water use to 12 million gallons a year, he said.

“We’re doing it with facts, not speculation,” Mr. Dunn said about the cistern plan and denied that it is tied to any other plans for water use on the site. “All we’re trying to do is make the system better,” he said.

Nonetheless, Mr. Mastro said, “It raises questions of trust” to be shut out from questions about the GBCC plans. “The cistern could be the greatest thing that ever happened,” Mr. Mastro said. But he asked for an inspection of the site by an independent consultant before action is taken.

Water Advisory Board member Dave Ruby, asking questions not on behalf of the WAC but as a Hay Beach neighbor said sought to visit the site and was refused Mr. Dunn said. Mr. Ruby  said the map and photos of the site that have been taken more recently seem to indicate additions to the system not accounted for since 2003.

Although GBCC representatives have responded to Town environmental consultants from P.W. Grosser, Mr. Dunn said they are environmental consultants, not lawyers, seeming to dismiss some of the concerns that have reached the golf club Board.

At Monday night’s hearing, he said the size of the cistern is 37 by 49 feet and would hold 116,300  gallons of water.

Councilman Benjamin Dyett aid he would like the town to sample for salt water intrusion. He further said the Town Board should be given access to the State Department of Environmental Conservation  reports issued annually to the club.

Supervisor Amber Brach-Williams said he want clearance from the P.W. Grosser team that nothing of environmental concern is going on at the site.

Councilman Albert Dickson, a strong voice for protecting and conserving Town water, said an inspection of the site is needed.

But Mr. Dyett, after at first being ignored when he requested to see the site, said he has since visited and Ms. Brach-Williams and Deputy Supervisor Meg Larsen have both visited the site.

Neighbor Virginia Walker said the GBCC has been “very insolent” toward its neighbors. The cistern is covered so there is no way to know what is going on, she said.