EIS Alert

     A Residential Site Plan Application is pending before Southold Town Planning Board. The application was determined to have potential for significant negative impacts, and therefore to require an Environmental Impact Statement!

NEWEST Links: *•* 1st Draft EIS Review (LARGE file) and *•* SCWA Water Quality Info

The scoping hearing was August 20, 2007. The Planning Board had until September 29th, 2007 to prepare a Final Written Scope. At the planning board meeting on September 10th the *.* Final Scope was delivered to the applicant.

Based on the Final Scope the developer’s consultants Greenman Pedersen www.gpinet.com prepared a Draft Environmental Impact Statement (DEIS). The DEIS was delivered to the Planning Board on December 24, 2007. A few pages from the DEIS are on *.* picasaweb.google.com/cutchogroup/EIS The majority of the document can be downloaded from www.eastcreekwebs.com/savecutchogue/DEIS.pdf Please be patient it is a 30Mb file!

The *.* Final Scope should guide the DEIS, so far that does not seem to be happening.

There will be a public comment period and possibly a public hearing. Meanwhile, although the SEQRA public comment period did not yet begin, the Group for Cutchogue asked and the Planning Board agreed to let the public view the DEIS.

Is this DEIS for real? To eliminate a field of an alleged “major regional invasive plant seed bank” (the owner has planted nothing for over 25 years) the owner proposes to plant condos. What a way to kill weeds! According to the DEIS, residential development is more environmentally friendly than farming. I guess they never heard of organic farming. Why didn’t someone tell them Southold is trying to preserve farming? The DEIS states that building 139 houses, plus a big clubhouse and accessory facilities will only insignificantly induce growth in Southold Town. Despite that the proposed development would consume 20% of all land available for new residential development in Cutchogue, no impact Cutchogue is mentioned.

The 1st Draft EIS was reviewed by a consultant for the Planning Board for consistency with the Scope and sufficiency. The DEIS review is online here on www.SaveCutchogue.com *|* click here to view in a printable and searchable pdf file (please allow time to download depending on the speed on your internet connection; ie. 20 minutes over a 56 Kb Modem, 2 minutes over DLS or Cable). The Planning Board's consultant concluded:

“the DEIS as discussed in the above analysis ... is not ready for public review and is deficient in a number of areas. The identified additional information, data, analyses, or discussions are of such a magnitude that they should have full public review at a draft stage. The Planning Board is advised to review our findings and advise the applicant of the changes that will be required. If (the planning board sic.) has any questions concerning our comments or wishes to discuss them further, we would be pleased to meet with you at work session to discuss.”

UNFORTUNATELY Southold Town Planning Board decided not to question or discuss the consultant's comments and refused to allow the public to do so on record.

PLEASE SHARE YOUR COMMENTS on the DEIS and the consultant's review of the DEIS with the Planning Board, and with Group for Cutchogue. As lead agency the Planning Board is legally required to consider all comments. Group for Cutchogue is inviting comments, and will try to consider and respond to all comments. Your comment(s) may just be an emotional reaction, even emotional reactions may be effective and valid ways to describe impacts on the natural or cultural environments!

The DEIS should guide the FEIS. After the DEIS has been reviewed and commented on by all interested persons, the applicant will prepare the Final Environmental Impact Statement (FEIS). When that is done, all involved agencies may comment and the Planning Board will decide whether to approve the Site Plan Application or not.

One of the scientific issues is water supply. For some in depth analysis of where Long Island’s drinking water comes from see *•* SCWA vs The Truth! and see *•* Save Cutchogue SCWA documents For some in depth analysis of what may be in the Public water supplied on Long Island’s North Fork see *.* SCWA Water Quality

NYS DEC Regulations Section 617: State Environmental Quality Review Act
Click here for the full Section