Earlier this year, I wrote an editorial highlighting some of the problems our town is currently facing with its marine ecosystem. For residents who have lived here over the past 30 years, you have seen the decline firsthand: the disappearance of cordgrass in our creeks, the loss of bogs, ribbed mussel beds and marsh islands, and in some cases, even the vanishing of upper beach wetlands. The same can be said for our bays, where much of the life is disappearing or dying off. While the bays are not exclusively under the trustees’ purview, what flows from the creeks — where the trustees do have oversight — directly impacts the health of our bays.
If elected trustee, I believe there are many ways we can begin to mitigate these issues and work to restore our marine environment, with the help of both the community and the township.
As a trustee, I would work closely with state and county officials, institutions, environmental programs, and foundations to secure grant funding for habitat restoration projects. These could include strengthening and rebuilding certain creek areas before reintroducing marine grasses, as well as implementing clean water, sewage, and drainage projects, shellfish restoration initiatives, and coastal erosion control efforts.
I would also push for and be a voice for the town to allocate more funding for shellfish restoration and ask that the town use some of the funds from the community preservation tax to be used for clean water projects. For example, a simple cost-effective fast way for one type of project would be building oyster reefs in some of the local creeks closing an area off so that there would be no harvesting from it — and building the reef using spat on shell that can be easily and quickly produced at Cornell Cooperative, and you periodically add to it over time and the reef acts as a filtration system helping to clean the waters in our creeks.
We also face multiple coastal erosion issues, many of which have been neglected for decades. Addressing these must become a priority, and it is something I will take on if elected town trustee.
Finally — and most importantly — I will be a strong voice for the more than 2,000 acres of underwater lands and the 100 feet of shoreline that fall under the trustees’ stewardship. This includes monitoring and opposing practices that may cause harm, such as the use of pesticides or lawn care products near creeks, bays, and wetlands. There is a reason why our once-productive waters are now largely devoid of shellfish and why so much wetland and saltwater vegetation is disappearing.
I believe I am a candidate with both the knowledge and the courage to begin solving these problems. For these reasons, I respectfully ask for your vote on Nov. 4.
Nathan Andruski is running as a conservative on the Republican ticket for Southold Town Trustee this fall.
