Firefighters battle massive barn fires in Riverhead

The bay scallop harvest on the South Fork opened in Southampton and East Hampton waters this month to expectedly dark prospects in the wake of a seventh straight summer in which the vast majority of adult scallops died in most local bays. Michael Wright reports on 27east.com that East Hampton Town baymen say that they have found only the barest few scallops, and many said they have not bothered to even go in search after Monday’s opening day in East Hampton waters. Southampton Town baymen, who started fishing town waters on November 3, have found only marginally more uplifting results, in a stash of the famously delicious but notoriously unstable bivalves that survived the summer on the edge of a navigation channel in eastern Shinnecock Bay off the shoreline of Hampton Bays.

Hampton Bays bayman Edward Warner Jr., who is a Southampton Town Trustee, said that the area of the bay south of Cormorant Point has seen the return of dense eelgrass, the aquatic grass that once carpeted most of the region’s bay bottoms and was seen as critical habitat for scallops and many other marine species, and that has helped support the collection of scallops in the area this year.

The brightest ray of hope for the scallop fishery, and perhaps the stock as a whole itself, has been the waters of western Moriches Bay, which have again produced a relative bounty of bay scallops for Brookhaven Town baymen — who have been keeping many of the seafood cases at East End shops stocked with the glistening beige morsels.

Even with that resource, however, local seafood shops reported only taking in a few bushels every couple of days and they’re charging over-the-counter prices of $55 per pound, or higher.

Harrison Tobi, an aquaculture specialist for the Cornell Cooperative Extension, said his surveys last month of more than two dozen scallop survival test sites revealed only a handful of live adult scallops. “We only had three live adults — so we thought it was going to be another really bad year,” Tobi said. “So it’s encouraging to hear that some are being caught.”

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The South Country school district which includes Bellport High School, has suspended all discretionary spending for the remainder of the fiscal year, just weeks after officials acknowledged that the district overspent last school year's approved budget by $3.49 million. Darwin Yanes reports in NEWSDAY that in a Nov. 6 letter sent to South Country staff members, John Belmonte, the district’s newly-appointed acting assistant superintendent for finance and management services, said that due to "significant fiscal challenges," the district must prioritize "available resources" to pay for operational costs. He said the spending freeze will apply to all "nonessential purchases, travel, conferences and new initiatives."

He added, "Moving forward, only essential items absolutely necessary to operate your programs and buildings through the end of this fiscal year will be considered for approval. All purchase orders and expense requests must clearly demonstrate how they meet this critical need."

The spending freeze went into effect yesterday. School officials said programming, including fields trips, related to the core curriculum of a class will not be impacted, but other elective field trips will be approved on a case to case to basis.

Belmonte previously said that last school year's overspending was in part caused by treasurer's reports submitted to the school board two to three months late, which lead the board having to cover "unanticipated expenses." The acting assistant superintendent said he did not believe "that there was any fraud or there was any theft."

Belmonte was hired by the district last month.

The South Country Central School District is located on the south shore of Long Island, within the Town of Brookhaven in Suffolk County. The district includes the Village of Bellport and...