'Long Island's Central Park': Nearly 4,000 acres of pine barrens eyed for preservation
The Riverhead nonprofit charged with helping to preserve Long Island’s pine barrens — more than 100,000 acres of eastern Suffolk County woods and wetlands that officials say are home to hundreds of wildlife species — has embarked on a plan to add almost 4,000 acres to the state-protected forest.
The Long Island Pine Barrens Society in recent months launched its “The Best of the Rest” campaign — an effort to add more than a dozen properties in Shoreham, Hampton Bays, Manorville, Calverton and elsewhere to what the society calls “Long Island’s Central Park.”
The society’s wish list includes sites covering about 3,800 acres in Riverhead, Southampton and Brookhaven towns that previously had not been added to the pine barrens due to oversights or because of reluctance by private owners to sell or donate the land as open space.
“These are treasures,” Pine Barrens Society executive director Richard Amper told Newsday. “People would say this land should be protected because of its importance to the environment. Yet their very fact of being valuable makes them difficult to protect.”
The campaign is described in an 11-page brochure profiling each of the properties and the attributes that make them worthy of preservation.
About 106,000 acres in the three towns are protected from overdevelopment by the state Pine Barrens Protection Act, enacted in 1993. The land includes nature preserves, former cranberry bogs, parts of the Carmans and Peconic rivers, swamps, vernal pools and acres of forest featuring scrub oak, cedar, maple and pitch pine.
Roughly 57,817 acres — mostly public lands such as forests and open space — form a core preservation area, where development is prohibited. The remaining 48,665 acres, called compatible growth areas, allow development, but building is strictly limited by rules that go above and beyond standard municipal zoning rules.
The pine barrens society, citing estimates prepared by the U.S. Geological Survey, said preserving 3,000 acres would protect 1.7 billion gallons of drinking water. Land preservation would enhance the habitat of wildlife such as whip-poor-wills, society officials said.
There are several ways that land can be added to the pine barrens: Properties may be purchased by or donated to a town or Suffolk County, which agree to preserve the parcels; and the state Pine Barrens Commission, which oversees conservation efforts and enforces development rules, may use eminent domain to seize property, though it's unclear whether it has done so. Private owners also may relinquish their development rights to pine barrens land in exchange for permission to build elsewhere.
The campaign comes as officials battle illegal dumping in the pine barrens; seven people recently agreed to pay fines ranging from $200 to $2,000 for depositing construction and demolition debris in Hubbard County Park in Hampton Bays and other pine barrens areas, officials said.
Pine Barrens Commission executive director Judy Jakobsen said intrusions sometimes are caused by nearby homeowners.
“Often these people don’t know their boundary lines and will inadvertently place their shed or other structures on land they don’t own,” she said. “This is very common when subdivisions back to public land.”
Jakobsen said the commission is not involved in the society’s campaign but supports its goals.
“Any time there is a possibility of helping to protect land in the pine barrens, [that] is a positive,” she told Newsday. “In this case, not only are they proposing [adding to] core areas, but compatible growth areas.”
Society leaders are drumming up support by pitching the plan to town leaders and conservation groups. They said they feel close to completing their goal: preserving Suffolk’s most fragile forests for posterity.
“We’re at the opponents’ 10-yard line, and we’re ready to punch it into the end zone,” John Turner, a society board member, told Brookhaven Town Board members at a Sept. 26 meeting.
“Is it as dramatic as the Grand Canyon or Yellowstone?” Turner said. “No. But it’s pretty neat.”
Here's a look at some of the land the society hopes to add.
The largest of the properties is an 800-acre tract in Shoreham owned by National Grid. The power company had eyed the property for a massive solar array until several years ago, when it agreed to scrap the plan and preserve it as open space.
The land, near the site of the shuttered Shoreham nuclear power plant, features wooded tracts and tidal marshland that provide habitat to a variety of amphibians, society officials said.
National Grid spokeswoman Wendy Frigeria said in an email to Newsday that company and state Department of Environmental Conservation officials have been in talks for four years “to progress the sale of a majority of the Shoreham site to the State of New York for open space conservation and management to support passive outdoor recreation.” Frigeria said the site was added to the pine barrens' core preservation area in 2018, but the company owns the land until it is sold to the state. The company and state hope to close on the sale next year, she said.
The DEC lists the site as a “priority project” for open space preservation, said spokesman Jeff Wernick, adding negotiations with National Grid are “ongoing to finalize the structure of this complex land acquisition.”
Brookhaven Supervisor Edward P. Romaine said preserving properties such as the Shoreham site is crucial for protecting drinking water.
“If you don’t preserve what's underground, the water quality won't be as pure or as clean in the future,” Romaine said.
The society hopes to add hundreds of “undisturbed, ecologically significant” acres on the perimeter of the Enterprise Park at Calverton, or EPCAL. Plans to develop interior sections of the 2,900-acre property would not be affected, Amper said.
“The diversity of natural communities occurring on site provide habitat to hundreds of plant and animal species,” the society's brochure said. “Given the size of the EPCAL property, there is an opportunity to preserve significant portions of the property for conservation while simultaneously providing for desired development.”
The former Northrop Grumman aircraft testing site is owned by Riverhead Town, which has been in talks to sell or lease 1,600 acres for industrial development. Riverhead Supervisor Yvette Aguiar did not return calls seeking comment.
Also on the society’s list are 150 acres of federally owned grassland just north of EPCAL and east of Calverton National Cemetery.
About 40 acres near Artist Lake on Route 25 in Middle Island owned by Garden City developer Wilbur Breslin are highlighted in the Pine Barrens Society plan.
Suffolk County and Brookhaven officials, working with civic leaders, long have eyed the site for open space protection and development of a community park. A Kmart shopping center on the site was torn down in 2016.
Middle Island Civic Association president Gail Lynch-Bailey called the preservation plan “intriguing,” but cautioned that acquiring the land would be difficult. Breslin has resisted county efforts to buy the property, Suffolk officials have said.
“The front part still lends itself to some kind of commercial development,” Lynch-Bailey told Newsday. “The back end has [acreage] that should be preserved and I would be in favor of that. ... That’s a nice change to have some interest expressed by a legitimate group like the Pine Barrens Society.”
Breslin did not return a phone call and email seeking comment.
“We think it should be protected for all time,” Amper said. “It’s across from a beautiful pond. It’s a treasure trove. But it’s always been perceived as a factory and not as treasure.”
CLARIFICATION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly described the status of the 800-acre Shoreham parcel owned by National Grid due to incomplete information provided to Newsday. The parcel is in the pine barrens’ core preservation area.
The Riverhead nonprofit charged with helping to preserve Long Island’s pine barrens — more than 100,000 acres of eastern Suffolk County woods and wetlands that officials say are home to hundreds of wildlife species — has embarked on a plan to add almost 4,000 acres to the state-protected forest.
The Long Island Pine Barrens Society in recent months launched its “The Best of the Rest” campaign — an effort to add more than a dozen properties in Shoreham, Hampton Bays, Manorville, Calverton and elsewhere to what the society calls “Long Island’s Central Park.”
The society’s wish list includes sites covering about 3,800 acres in Riverhead, Southampton and Brookhaven towns that previously had not been added to the pine barrens due to oversights or because of reluctance by private owners to sell or donate the land as open space.
“These are treasures,” Pine Barrens Society executive director Richard Amper told Newsday. “People would say this land should be protected because of its importance to the environment. Yet their very fact of being valuable makes them difficult to protect.”
The campaign is described in an 11-page brochure profiling each of the properties and the attributes that make them worthy of preservation.
About 106,000 acres in the three towns are protected from overdevelopment by the state Pine Barrens Protection Act, enacted in 1993. The land includes nature preserves, former cranberry bogs, parts of the Carmans and Peconic rivers, swamps, vernal pools and acres of forest featuring scrub oak, cedar, maple and pitch pine.
Roughly 57,817 acres — mostly public lands such as forests and open space — form a core preservation area, where development is prohibited. The remaining 48,665 acres, called compatible growth areas, allow development, but building is strictly limited by rules that go above and beyond standard municipal zoning rules.
The pine barrens society, citing estimates prepared by the U.S. Geological Survey, said preserving 3,000 acres would protect 1.7 billion gallons of drinking water. Land preservation would enhance the habitat of wildlife such as whip-poor-wills, society officials said.
There are several ways that land can be added to the pine barrens: Properties may be purchased by or donated to a town or Suffolk County, which agree to preserve the parcels; and the state Pine Barrens Commission, which oversees conservation efforts and enforces development rules, may use eminent domain to seize property, though it's unclear whether it has done so. Private owners also may relinquish their development rights to pine barrens land in exchange for permission to build elsewhere.
The campaign comes as officials battle illegal dumping in the pine barrens; seven people recently agreed to pay fines ranging from $200 to $2,000 for depositing construction and demolition debris in Hubbard County Park in Hampton Bays and other pine barrens areas, officials said.
Pine Barrens Commission executive director Judy Jakobsen said intrusions sometimes are caused by nearby homeowners.
“Often these people don’t know their boundary lines and will inadvertently place their shed or other structures on land they don’t own,” she said. “This is very common when subdivisions back to public land.”
Jakobsen said the commission is not involved in the society’s campaign but supports its goals.
“Any time there is a possibility of helping to protect land in the pine barrens, [that] is a positive,” she told Newsday. “In this case, not only are they proposing [adding to] core areas, but compatible growth areas.”
Society leaders are drumming up support by pitching the plan to town leaders and conservation groups. They said they feel close to completing their goal: preserving Suffolk’s most fragile forests for posterity.
“We’re at the opponents’ 10-yard line, and we’re ready to punch it into the end zone,” John Turner, a society board member, told Brookhaven Town Board members at a Sept. 26 meeting.
“Is it as dramatic as the Grand Canyon or Yellowstone?” Turner said. “No. But it’s pretty neat.”
Here's a look at some of the land the society hopes to add.
Shoreham
The state Department of Environmental Conservation officials and National Grid have been in talks for four years to preserve the 800-acre tract in Shoreham. Credit: Long Island Pine Barrens Society/John Turner
The largest of the properties is an 800-acre tract in Shoreham owned by National Grid. The power company had eyed the property for a massive solar array until several years ago, when it agreed to scrap the plan and preserve it as open space.
The land, near the site of the shuttered Shoreham nuclear power plant, features wooded tracts and tidal marshland that provide habitat to a variety of amphibians, society officials said.
National Grid spokeswoman Wendy Frigeria said in an email to Newsday that company and state Department of Environmental Conservation officials have been in talks for four years “to progress the sale of a majority of the Shoreham site to the State of New York for open space conservation and management to support passive outdoor recreation.” Frigeria said the site was added to the pine barrens' core preservation area in 2018, but the company owns the land until it is sold to the state. The company and state hope to close on the sale next year, she said.
The DEC lists the site as a “priority project” for open space preservation, said spokesman Jeff Wernick, adding negotiations with National Grid are “ongoing to finalize the structure of this complex land acquisition.”
Brookhaven Supervisor Edward P. Romaine said preserving properties such as the Shoreham site is crucial for protecting drinking water.
“If you don’t preserve what's underground, the water quality won't be as pure or as clean in the future,” Romaine said.
Calverton
Grassland east of the Calverton National Cemetery on Route 25, seen on Thursday, is among land the Long Island Pine Barrens Society hopes to add to its list.
Credit: Chris Ware
The society hopes to add hundreds of “undisturbed, ecologically significant” acres on the perimeter of the Enterprise Park at Calverton, or EPCAL. Plans to develop interior sections of the 2,900-acre property would not be affected, Amper said.
“The diversity of natural communities occurring on site provide habitat to hundreds of plant and animal species,” the society's brochure said. “Given the size of the EPCAL property, there is an opportunity to preserve significant portions of the property for conservation while simultaneously providing for desired development.”
The former Northrop Grumman aircraft testing site is owned by Riverhead Town, which has been in talks to sell or lease 1,600 acres for industrial development. Riverhead Supervisor Yvette Aguiar did not return calls seeking comment.
Also on the society’s list are 150 acres of federally owned grassland just north of EPCAL and east of Calverton National Cemetery.
Middle Island
Suffolk County and Brookhaven officials long have eyed the site of the former Kmart shopping center for open space protection and development of a community park. Credit: Chris Ware
About 40 acres near Artist Lake on Route 25 in Middle Island owned by Garden City developer Wilbur Breslin are highlighted in the Pine Barrens Society plan.
Suffolk County and Brookhaven officials, working with civic leaders, long have eyed the site for open space protection and development of a community park. A Kmart shopping center on the site was torn down in 2016.
Middle Island Civic Association president Gail Lynch-Bailey called the preservation plan “intriguing,” but cautioned that acquiring the land would be difficult. Breslin has resisted county efforts to buy the property, Suffolk officials have said.
“The front part still lends itself to some kind of commercial development,” Lynch-Bailey told Newsday. “The back end has [acreage] that should be preserved and I would be in favor of that. ... That’s a nice change to have some interest expressed by a legitimate group like the Pine Barrens Society.”
Breslin did not return a phone call and email seeking comment.
“We think it should be protected for all time,” Amper said. “It’s across from a beautiful pond. It’s a treasure trove. But it’s always been perceived as a factory and not as treasure.”
CLARIFICATION: An earlier version of this story incorrectly described the status of the 800-acre Shoreham parcel owned by National Grid due to incomplete information provided to Newsday. The parcel is in the pine barrens’ core preservation area.
Long Island Pine Barrens Society’s wish list
Other properties listed by the Pine Barrens Society in its proposal to add 3,800 acres to the pine barrens:
Calverton: Two properties — 65 acres, the other 111 acres — adjacent to state Department of Environmental Conservation land
Hampton Bays: 100 acres adjacent to Sears Bellows County Park
Manorville: Swan Lake Golf Club, an approximately 130-acre site the society calls a “critically positioned parcel” within the Peconic River watershed; the club's PGA director, Peter Cowan, said club officials were not familiar with the society's plan
Shirley: 700 acres between Brookhaven Calabro Airport and the Long Island Expressway; owner Rose-Breslin Associates told Newsday the land already is in the compatible growth area and the company has no plans to develop it
SOURCE: Long Island Pine Barrens Society
Carl MacGowan is a Long Island native who covers Brookhaven Town after having previously covered Smithtown, Suffolk County courts and numerous spot news and feature stories over his 20-plus year career at Newsday.
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