Opinion: Montauk Passion; Locals To Fight For Ocean Floor

What makes Montauk special is that it's the end of a peninsula surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean, the Block Island Sound and a touch of Gardiner's Bay. What makes Montauk locals special is they live there all year round, not just during the three prime summer vacation months a year.

When you live in Montauk you become a different person. You become tougher, stubborn, but most of all you feel responsible to prevent outsiders from coming in and changing Montauk in order to make some "fast money." There are no McDonalds, Burger Kings, KFCs or Domino's Pizzas. The locals won't have it.

"Fossil fuels, carbon footprint" is a main concept in fighting global warming. Using solar energy and other alternative methods to reduce the release of the burn of carbon fuels into the atmosphere is a path the world is on. No one, anywhere, is trying to build less efficient power plants, car engines, appliances and homes. Not even the global warning opponents go that far.

So with this background we come to the Deepwater Wind Project. A plan to reportedly attempt to harness the power of the Atlantic Ocean's strong breezes 30 miles off East Hampton starting at Montauk and within a 212,000 acre are. The plan is to start by building 17 huge state of the art wind turbines with perhaps some sort of power line coming ashore in Amagansett but not near any of the main beaches. They hope eventually if successful to expand.

While the project has a sea of proponents and a wide support base, there are others that remain hesitant, including longtime local fishermen.

For an okay to a project that the East Hampton Town Trustees may or may not have the authority to deny, Deepwater is offering a one time total payment of around $1M to various East Hampton trustee funds to help protect and monitor the environment.

Yesterday while in Montauk someone, actually Anthony Sosinski joked, "That's about the cost of a house in Culloden, a section of Montauk. They are selling the rights for a company to build multiple structures on the ocean floor for about the price of one Culloden house. That's one Montauk house for the right to build windmills and then run a power line through the beach. Is that really such a generous deal?"

Amazingly enough, in reports some Deepwater officials claim they don't have to pay the East Hampton trustees anything because New York State is the controlling authority on what may become a reportedly proposed $740 million project.

The sword cuts both ways: To get something you have to give up something. The deal here is, cleaner, more efficient energy in terms of carbon footprint by building structures and leasing out sections of the ocean floor. I point out, perhaps also creating a precedent for the oil companies to use when its their turn to say its Albany's jurisdiction to set the price and terms for offshore drilling for natural gas or cleaner oil.

For people like Anthony Sosinski, who is a noted fisherman/author, this issue isn't about only wondering what the short term and long term effects will be on fishing, because no one knows. What he knows is building on the ocean floor off Montauk is like putting in traffic lights, once you put in one at one intersection it is easier to okay to put in others in other intersections. Precedents, he said, are set. Sosinski pointed out that he, ". . . and the rest of the commercial fisherman in Montauk, live in the ocean a large part of their life."

For the longest of known time on earth the ocean, the bay and the Sound have surrounded Montauk. My opinion is, "Let's not sell away a piece of the sanctity of the ocean floor off Montauk and East Hampton Town for the cost of one summer home in Culloden." Think about this. Call someone. Talk about it.

For the folks with homes in Colloden, the sunsets you see from your homes every night are amazing, such as the photo I took last night, featured above.

Patch photo by T.J. Clemente.

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