Trustees to Trade Sand for Mill Pond Remediation

In anticipation of the Southampton Town Board eventually budgeting for the remediation of ailing Mill Pond in Water Mill, the site of a massive fish kill in 2008, the Town Trustees have resolved to give the Parks & Recreation Department $50,000 worth of sand to renourish Mecox Beach in Bridgehampton.

The project aims to reverse damage to the Mecox Beach dune, which was devastated by January storms, and to make the beach less susceptable to the next big weather event. The Trustees' move will cut the cost of the beach renourishment by about half.

The Town Board met with the Trustees on Feb. 3 and requested they provide the sand for free, but the Trustees insisted that the town provide a service in-kind.

The Trustees sell the surplus sand from Mecox Bay — which the Trustees own on behalf of all town residents under their Colonial Era governing document, the Dognan Patent — to private companies for $7.50 per cubic yard. Since the sand has monetary value, the Trustess said it would be fiscally irresponsible of them to give it away for free. Eric Shultz, the president of the Trustees, pointed out that town departments subject each other to charge-backs when they provide interdepartmental services, and said the Trustees should be no different.

With remediation efforts for Mill Pond coming sooner or later, the Trustees saw it as an appropriate trade. Trustee Fred Havemeyer said the plan is to remove phosphorus from the water using Phoslock, an earth-and-clay product designed in Australia. Excessive amounts of nutrients such as phosphorus can cause an algal bloom, which rapidly removes oxygen from a waterbody and is suspected in the Mill Pond fish kill.

The Trustees started a pilot project with Phoslock in Mill Pond in October. According to the resolution they adopted Feb. 6 to trade the sand, the Trustees expect the Town Board will eventually fund a full remediation project.

Havemeyer said that nothing the Trustees have done has contributed to nutrient pollution in Mill Pond. He noted that the Trustees only own the area of the pond up the the high water mark. The runoff and nutrients that entered the pond all came from upland sources in the Town Board's jurisdiction, he said.