TIMES HERALD THE VILLAGE
STONY BROOK • OLD FIELD • STRONG’S NECK • SETAUKET • EAST SETAUKET • SOUTH SETAUKET • POQUOT T May 7, 2015
Volume 40, No. 10
Stony Brook University rocks 26th Roth Regatta
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The ‘final’ stretch
BY PHIL CORSO
Remembering the Lusitania
Local resident honors ancestors lost in the historic event, 100 years ago this week
PAGE B13
It was sink or swim for scores of Stony Brook students as they broke from studying to blow off steam. Roth Pond, a 200-yard body of water in the middle of campus, is usually nothing more than a scenic spot to pass between classes. But on Friday, it became a hotbed of activity for the 26th annual Roth Pond Regatta, where students floated themselves along in makeshift boats constructed of nothing more than cardboard, duct tape and paint. The event started in 1989 on the campus as a means for the students to break from the stress of finals’ season. Each year since, students have built boats to float anywhere from one to four people across the pond in the highspirited and festive competition before exams engulf the campus. This year’s theme was mainstream fantasy, and the floats
Students race across Roth Pond at Stony Brook University on Friday afternoon.
reflected just that. The floating vessels were made of simple everyday products, but the end products ranged anywhere from nostalgic shout-outs to mock creatures plucked out of fantasy land. Students crafted boats like the Pirates of the Caribbean’s Black Pearl, the genie from Aladdin and even a Space Jam float
with a cardboard Michael Jordan reaching for a long dunk at the watercraft’s front side. Senior Kareem Ibrahem joined his classmates as he got ready to launch his own sleek ship — a mishmash of duct tape and cardboard with a giraffe’s head dangling atop a long cardboard neck. Friends were asking
Photo by Phil Corso
him the name of his vessel. “Don’t sink about it,” he said with an ear-to-ear grin. The event was hosted by the Undergraduate Student Government and included students from various student organizations, administrative departments and alumni. See more photos on page A9.
Civic opposes East Setauket development
BY PHIL CORSO
May LIFESTYLE Magazine INSIDE
A Setauket-based civic group is drawing a line in the sand as a North Shore developer looks to build three houses on an environmentally sensitive area. Brookhaven is home to two of Long Island’s nine special groundwater protection areas, designated by the state Department of Environmental Conservation. Charles Krohn of Windwood Homes Inc. has applied for variances to divide his land within one of them — in East Setauket near Franklin Avenue and John Adams Street — into three separate plots. But Shawn Nuzzo, president of the Civic Association of the Setaukets and Stony Brook, argued the town should adhere to existing zoning laws there to protect the area’s aquifer. The DEC’s special ground-
water protection area in question is a large, oddly shaped chunk of land on the North Shore that includes Stony Brook University, St. Georges Golf and Country Club, Ward Melville High School, wooded properties on the southern part of Setauket, pieces of Lake Grove and more. “[This area] is critical to ensuring the future potability of our underground water supply,” Nuzzo said in a statement read aloud at the April 22 Brookhaven Town Board of Zoning Appeals meeting. “Granting variances to allow for these substandard lots would serve to undermine not only the state environmental conservation law, but also … Brookhaven’s own adopted comprehensive land use plan.” The civic president said the town granted the area DEVELOPMENT continued on page A9
Photo by Phil Corso
This state Department of Environmental Conservation map highlights special groundwater protection property in yellow, which includes a lot in the center on which a North Shore developer hopes to build.