Federal judge allows offshore work to resume at Sunrise Wind farm off coast of Montauk

Mountains of snow have sprung up across Long Island after a major winter storm hit two weekends ago. Municipal and state highway workers made the mounds after moving snow from downtown business districts and highway areas like bridges and ramps. While New York City is using mechanical “hot tubs” to melt some of its snow, common practice on Long Island is to let the snow melt naturally – even if it takes weeks.

For example, piles of snow stand in the Hampton Bays fire department parking lot nine days after a foot fell on the east end. Nicholas Spangler and Nicholas Grasso report in NEWSDAY that there are more mountains alongside some state highways, where about 380 highway maintenance workers used loaders and dump trucks to haul "tons" of snow from shoulders, bridges and ramps, according to Stephen Canzoneri, a state Department of Transportation spokesman.

There are mountains in Southold, where crews removed a few hundreds truckloads of snow from Love Lane in Mattituck and Main Road in Cutchogue "just to get passable sidewalks and on-street parking reestablished" Highway Superintendent Dan Goodwin said. The mounds went up at Strawberry Fields fair grounds in Mattituck and on Highway Department land in Peconic.

In East Hampton, the mountains occupy parking lots that will be used in warmer months by surfers and swimmers at Atlantic Avenue and Ditch Plains beaches. Stephen Lynch, East Hampton’s highway superintendent, said town workers will use road sweepers to clear snow treatments or gravel after the snow melts.

In Southampton, aside from the piles at Hampton Bays depot, most snow is simply pushed into the 10- or 15-foot strip of right of way on each side of the road, Highway Superintendent Charles McArdle said. Eventually, as in East Hampton, workers will use street sweepers to clean whatever sediment they can collect from the melted snow, the key word being melted.

"That’ll be when?" McArdle said. "July?"

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U.S. Congressman Nick LaLota…the Republican from Amityville who represents the east end in the U.S. House of Representatives…has announced a pair of initiatives that will see a total of $440 million in federal investments make their way to Suffolk County to support clean water, coastal resilience and public safety.

Jack Motz reports on 27east.com that the first initiative is $429 million for research institutions, strengthening coastal protection and water-quality programs, and expanding support for law enforcement and public safety. After Congress passed three appropriations bills on January 8, President Donald Trump signed the funding package into law on January 23.

Meanwhile, the second, also signed into law on January 23, will provide more than $11 million for 10 community projects throughout the 1st Congressional District, including $782,100 for upgrades to the technology in the Southampton Town Police Department mobile command center. This will see the Southampton Town Police Department’s 23-year-old mobile command unit be modernized with dual-band radios, computers, cameras, dispatch equipment and monitors.

“The money is focused on public safety; it's focused on infrastructure; it's focused on water quality, all three of which are important to my constituents and me,” LaLota told The Express News Group.

Included in the measures is $40 million for the National Estuary Program — of which the Peconic Estuary Partnership is a part — which will go toward water quality preservation.

Another $40 million will ensure critical dredging projects remain in place across the East Coast, like the one that has been ongoing for the past two months or so at Lake Montauk.

Congressman LaLota also highlighted the $155 million that will go toward Brookhaven National Laboratory.

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A federal judge has allowed offshore work to resume at Sunrise Wind’s offshore wind farm about 30 miles off the coast of