“I love Montauk and don’t want to see it ruined,” said an advertisement in the July 16, 1970, issue of the East Hampton Star. The ad included a mail-in coupon for donations to the Concerned Citizens of Montauk, a group that had recently formed to resist a proposed 1,500- home development of Indian Field.
April 22 of the same year was the first Earth Day, established in response to rising concerns about the harm people were inflicting on the natural environment and their own health. Rachel Carson’s seismic Silent Spring was fresh on people’s minds, young people were energized in protesting the Vietnam War and advocating for equal rights, and a massively destructive oil spill had sullied the California coast the previous year.
The first Earth Day drew millions of people to protests, teach-ins, and the like, according to the earthday.org website, and by the end of 1970, the site says, “led to the creation of the United States Environmental Protection Agency and the passage of other first-of-their-kind environmental laws, including the National Environmental Education Act, the Occupational Safety and Health Act, and the Clean Air Act.” Two years later, Congress passed the Clean Water Act.
Back at the local level, the Concerned Citizens went on in the 1970s not only to help persuade the Suffolk County Legislature to preserve Indian Field as a county park, but also, among other efforts, to file suit against the Interior Department when it proposed to open offshore lands for oil drilling near Montauk.
“CCOM vs. the United States Department of Interior can only be described as a contemporary tale of David and Goliath,” Joan Porco wrote in Holding Back the Tide, her book about the organization. She quoted an editorial in the Star that credited CCOM for its dedication and persistence in fighting the project, which was ultimately dropped.
Over more than half a century and through generations, the Concerned Citizens have mounted or contributed to a long list of successful campaigns, including working to prevent the auctioning off of hundreds of acres at Camp Hero, which is now a state park, and to preserve more than a thousand acres at Hither Woods, hundreds of acres at Culloden Point, as well as the Sanctuary, now Amsterdam Beach State Park, and Shadmoor, which is also a state park today.
Most recently the organization has been focusing on water quality, for example by launching a pilot program using “floating wetlands” to clean up Fort Pond, deploying an oyster reef program in Lake Montauk, and promoting septic system upgrades, including with a panel presentation about them on from 2:30 to 4:30 pm on Friday, April 17, at the Montauk Library.
At the same time, the group has regularly been working in tandem with other groups like the Group for the East End and Stony Brook University as well as local schools and Montauk Youth. Historically the group has organized or collaborated on organizing a Field Day each fall for Montauk’s young people as well as recruiting them for annual Earth Day cleanups, a longstanding Montauk tradition.
“All sorts of interesting stuff was brought back to a temporary base at Kirk Park, where a picnic was served to volunteers,” reported a brief story in the Star of May 1, 2003, as one installment of what became annual coverage of the event.
“A blue upholstered chair was found, as were two gas tanks, lounge chairs, spirals of black rubber, and enough empty beer and soda bottles to quench the thirst of an entire village,” went that year’s report.
This year Earth Day will be observed on Wednesday, April 22; click here if you’d like to celebrate by planting a free tree or shrub courtesy of the Friends of the Montauk Library. You can also volunteer for the Great Montauk Cleanup, sponsored once again by the Concerned Citizens of Montauk, by meeting at their office at 6 South Elmwood Avenue from 10 am to 1 pm on Saturday, April 18, to pick up gloves and a reusable trash bag as well as signing up for a raffle of goods from local businesses like Balsam Farms and Montauk Brewing Company. The rain date is April 25.
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