Hello!

Thank you to those who were able to join us this month at our Annual Family Picnic at Fort Pond House! It’s always a wonderful opportunity to gather at such a meaningful and beautiful venue to celebrate the conclusion of the busy summer season and look forward to our on-the-ground work this fall. Click to view our picnic video with music from CCOM's own Bob Stern on violin and David Rodriguez on bass!

October is a busy month for us. Please join us at the MightyMan Triathlon on October 2nd, the Fall Festival on October 8th, a CCOM Coastal Resilience Webinar on October 13th, or roll up your sleeves and volunteer to help us remove our floating wetlands from Fort Pond on October 22.

I look forward to seeing you all this fall.

Since 2013 CCOM has been leading the effort to address the impact of climate change on our coastline and community, and we are thrilled to report that the Coastal Assessment and Resiliency Plan (CARP) for Montauk and East Hampton has now been adopted into the Town of East Hampton’s Comprehensive Plan. This ensures all future planning must address the key issues contained within the plan.

The CARP assesses key coastal risks that our Montauk community currently faces and points to the expected drastic increase in the severity of these risks over time, including an anticipated 12 to 30 inches in sea-level rise projected for Montauk over the next 30 years. It assesses the relative merits of “protect, accommodate, or retreat” strategies needed to respond to flooding, shoreline erosion, and sea-level rise threats and calls for urgent implementation of resilience projects and policies.

Initiatives in the CARP include the formation of a Managed Retreat Committee of impacted and relevant stakeholders, Transfer of Development Rights programs, updates in infrastructure, and the elevation of roads or railways. These are complex multi-year projects, but it is imperative that we start now on proactive strategies to address the hazards we currently face, in addition to long-term plans to reduce the severity of future impacts from climate change. Please see CCOM's 5-Point Call to Action for further information.

This is an exciting opportunity to find out more about our Montauk Coastal Resiliency work. Please join us on Thursday Oct 13th from 4 to 5pm with guest speakers, Laura Tooman, CCOM President, Samantha Klein, Environmental Analyst, Town of East Hampton, and Jeremy Samuelson, Director of Planning, Town of East Hampton.

Pre-registration is required to attend this webinar. Please CLICK HERE to register.

This webinar will cover:

CCOM, in partnership with the Gobler Lab at Stony Brook Southampton, monitors blue-green algae levels in Fort Pond weekly during the summer and early fall. Blue-green algae, or cyanobacteria, are microscopic organisms that naturally occur in lakes and streams.

In slow-moving waters, blue-green algae can multiply and “bloom” rapidly in response to sunlight, warming temperatures, and excess nutrients (phosphorus and nitrogen). These blooms can produce cyanotoxins that have been linked to acute poisoning of humans, pets, and wildlife. Exposure to cyanotoxins occurs most frequently through the ingestion of water inadvertently during recreational activities.

A bloom was detected in our Fort Pond samples in August, but the bloom has now dissipated as daylight hours and air temperatures decrease. This is important news because swimmers will be entering Fort Pond on October 2 for the Mightyman Montauk Triathlon. Every year the event organizer, EventPower, works closely with CCOM to ensure that the water in Fort Pond will be safe for the competition, which allows them to make informed decisions for the benefit of the health and safety of their participants.

We will continue to share our harmful algal bloom monitoring results from Fort Pond and other water bodies on our social media and website.

To see our past and present harmful algal bloom monitoring data, check out our weekly press releases HERE.

You can also learn more about what we are doing to decrease harmful algal blooms by visiting our water quality page concerning the Fort Pond Floating Wetlands Project HERE.

Stop by the CCOM Tent to learn more about our environmental programming, sign up to receive our newsletter, and purchase CCOM merchandise!

October 13th | 4-5 PM | Pre-Register HERE

For more information, visit our events page.

Check out our website's SHOP PAGE or save on shipping and stop by the office at 6 Elmwood Ave.!