The South Haven Church was established near the end
of the 17th century to serve the Presbyterian community "at the
South." The old church was moved from its original site beside the
Carmans River to its present location in Brookhaven Hamlet in 1960.
George Borthwicks history is an amazingly rich chronicle of the
individuals and events that have defined this south shore community
over the course of three centuries.
Today there is still much to remind us of that early, primeval
Brookhaven. The natural wetlands and open space that originally attracted
settlers to this area still characterize our community.
The preservation of the areas open spaces, wetlands, waterways and
natural resources is is a key part of this communitys vision for its
future, and the highest priority among the recommendations of this Hamlet
study.
Sadly, over the past decade, new fires have appeared in the night,
visible to sailors navigating the waters of Fire Place these are the gas
flares that burn atop the Town landfill, the mountain of garbage that has
loomed up along the one-time route of Old Town Road and signals alarm for
the future of this 300-year-old community.
The centuries that have ensued since the early days of Revolutionary
fervor have not dimmed the penchant for Brookhaven area residents to take
the lead in far-reaching causes. In the 1960s, a few local
environmentalists, including BVA member, Dennis Puleston and long-time
Bellport High School science teacher Art Cooley, founded the Environmental
Defense Fund and took on the massive destruction of the environment being
caused by the pesticide DDT. They took the manufacturers to court, and
ultimately changed the nations policy on environmental issues. The EDF,
now one of the most powerful environmental lobbying organizations in the
country, is in the headlines again. This time it is for initiating
lawsuits that are challenging the conduct of waste management in the
nations municipalities. One result has been the recent Supreme Court
decision against the dumping of toxic incinerator ash in municipal
landfills. Brookhaven/South Haven residents (with the support of the EDF,
and other organizations) have been active in these issues at the local
level. A focus of this activity has been a concerted opposition to the
expansion and continued operation of the Brookhaven Town Landfill as a
regional ashfill. The landfill, whose site is adjacent to the headwaters
of the Beaver Dam Creek, and which lies just north of the Hamlet boundary,
has had measurable and severe effects on local air and groundwater
quality, and represents an approach to waste management that is widely
regarded in this community as environmentally and economically unsound.
The health of our community in the long term depends critically on
the implementation of sound sound environmental and waste-management
policies for Brookhaven Town and for Long Island as a whole. In this
document we will outline some specific waste- management practices that
can be implemented in our community and beyond, to facilitate the New York
State-mandated hierarchy to reduce, reuse, recycle the components
of our waste streams. A major concern is the continued expansion of the
Town landfill as a regional repository for repository toxic incinerator
ash.
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