Cars make their way trough a snowy downtown Riverhead Thursday afternoon. (Credit: Tim Gannon)
Riverhead Town Supervisor Sean Walter declared a winter storm emergency beginning at 9 a.m. Thursday as snow that began in the early morning hours continued to fall steadily.
Though there’s been concern about dwindling supplies, Riverhead Town received 85 tons of salt yesterday, Mr. Walter said.
“That will get us through this storm,” he said, adding the town has 700 additional tons of salt on the way.
Shoreham-Wading River junior Kaitlyn Ohrtman, who has recovered from a breathing condition she suffered in 2013, will run the 1,500 meters in Saturday’s state meet. (Credit: Robert O’Rourk, file)
Kaitlyn Ohrtman is not easily deterred. It would take a lot to prevent the Shoreham-Wading River High School junior from running.
That sort of approach got Ohrtman into some trouble during the cross-country season in the fall of 2013. She believes that by running while she had a chest cold at the time, she had developed a condition in which her vocal chords closed when she breathed in instead of opening up like they should. Sometimes, she said, she felt as if she was breathing through a straw.
Ohrtman’s breathing condition has since been corrected, and she said she has been feeling fine. Her times don’t lie. They have been good. (more…)
A Third Street home in Riverhead was torn down last Wednesday. (Credit: Courtesy photo)
After years of neglect, a derelict Third Street home that was considered an eyesore and sometimes attracted squatters was demolished by Riverhead Town last Wednesday. (more…)
Thomas Campanaro, president of the Riverhead Town Fire Chiefs Council and the Manorville fire commissioner, claims the town’s fire marshals can’t keep up.
There are too many inspections to complete and too many calls to respond to, he said.
Mr. Campanaro said he’s concerned for the safety of his fellow volunteer firefighters and emergency personnel, as well as the public as a whole. And he said the Fire Council — which has called for Riverhead Town to hire more full-time fire marshals several times — is ready to make some noise about the issue.
“We don’t want to be an angel up there looking down saying we didn’t do enough to shake the tree,” he said. “We’re not going to let it go.” (more…)
A helicopter at East Hampton Airport. (Credit: Kyril Bromley/The East Hampton Press, file)
Update: Thursday’s snow storm has postponed the meeting reported on below. Click here for more.
The East Hampton Town Board is expecting a big crowd Thursday for a public hearing on proposed aircraft restrictions at the town’s airport.
The venue for the meeting on low-flying and noisy aircraft — especially helicopters — is a TV studio, rather than the regular board meeting room. The need for more space is due to an issue that has united residents in opposition not only from the Hamptons, but from the North Fork and Shelter Island as well. (more…)
A Riverside man was arrested Monday after fleeing from police and charged with damaging cars at a Riverhead automotive shop last month, according to a Southampton Town police press release.
Kirk Alfaro, 46, was found speeding on Old Quogue Road at around 9 p.m. and fled with his lights off after police attempted to pull him over, officials said.
Town board members review material that came from EPCAL at last week’s work session. (Credit: Tim Gannon)
A day after finding out that material dumped at Enterprise Park at Calverton without state approval tested positive for traces of several chemicals including DDT, town officials found out today that one more hazardous material was found in it: asbestos.
According to Supervisor Sean Walter, the town was informed by phone by Maximum Environmental Management on Tuesday about the positive results.
Highway Superintendent George Woodson took the blame on Thursday for allowing the material, about 200 cubic yards, to be dumped on site prematurely. Mostly soil and crushed concrete, the material — which was given to the town for free — was meant to be used as a base for a recreational path around Enterprise Park at Calverton.
It remains dumped near the eastern runway at the former Grumman site.
On Monday, the town received information that the material had been tested and those results showed that it exceeded the allowable residential use standards for lead, zinc, and three pesticides (dieldrin, DDD, and DDT), according to Maximum Environmental Management, which did the testing.
However the testing did not include some particular objects in the material. According to the results, ”the focus at this point in time regarding laboratory analysis was the soils rather than the small items/objects.”
News that the material could be a liability to the town broke after it was discussed at last Thursday’s work session.
Some of it was placed on a table in front of the town board, and Councilman George Gabrielsen said, “This looks like an asbestos shingle.”
That piece was sent separately to be tested and the result came back positive, Mr. Walter said.
Asked why asbestos wouldn’t have been detected in the original test results, Mr. Walter said the asbestos wouldn’t likely be found unless it was in a chunck, as opposed to dispersed.
Councilwoman Jodi Giglio — a political adversary of Mr. Walter’s who was called a liar by him at last week’s work session over a dispute about the material — said it seemed strange that the asbestos wasn’t detected in the first tests but was in a subsequent test.
