Highway Super: Overzealous Residents Slowed Storm Cleanup

Though piles of brush left over from still litter the western portion of the North Fork landscape, Southold Town Highway Superintendent Peter Harris said that all storm debris will soon be cleared.

But not everything that his crews have picked up since the storm hit two months ago has been storm debris, he said.

“I hate to say it, but a lot of what we’ve been picking up has had nothing to do with Irene,” he said. “Southold Town has not done a fall brush pickup in three years, so some residents have taken full advantage of the storm cleanup."

Southold Town sent out a informing residents that town workers would help with the storm debris cleanup and that residents should place brush and branches in the front of their homes on the side of the road and the Highway Department personnel would pick it up as soon as possible. The is also still accepting storm debris free of charge.

A Mattituck resident named Liz commented on a that “debris in the Breakwater neighborhood was dragged to Breakwater by cleanup crews and left there as if the town were going to remove it.”

“I can't speak for everyone, but the tree that fell in our backyard was removed privately,” she said. “This isn't taking advantage, it's asking for a job to be finished. Breakwater has piles of debris from every street lining it.

Joanna Lane of Cutchogue said her brush was picked up on Wednesday, and the cleanup couldn’t have come sooner.

“I couldn't see oncoming traffic to get out of the end of my road, but had reconciled to waiting for next April's spring clean up,” she said.

Harris maintains that his crews have been working diligently during regular weekday hours (no overtime hours for storm cleanup were allocated into his department’s budget, he said) to remove storm debris, and a few code violations were issued for those trying to get rid of regular fall cleanup debris.

The removal process started in Orient Point and moved west. Harris said that cleanup crews have about two-thirds of Mattituck left to clean up and all of Laurel to go. Then it’s on to rushing to put up snow fencing before

“No matter at which end of town you start, someone won’t be happy,” Harris said. “But crews working yesterday took in 79 tons of debris to the compost facility when Riverhead didn’t even have 79 tons for their entire pickup. That’s the magnitude of how much we’ve been picking up on a daily basis since Sept. 5.”