Suffolk lawmakers renew effort to preserve county's fishing industry through proposed $9.5M program
Eric Koepele envisions a bright future for Long Island’s aquaculture industry.
In 2024, oyster farmers produced nearly 10 million oysters, a double-digit increase from the year prior, said Koepele, a partner in North Fork Big Oyster and president of the Long Island Oyster Growers Association. In another decade, the industry could be producing as many as 100 million oysters on Long Island, he said.
But that success, he said, depends on access to the waterfront — the docks, packhouses and ice houses — that allow the commercial fishing industry to operate. To help guard against the threat from developers and hedge fund groups eager to swoop up waterfront property, Suffolk County has unveiled a new waterfront protection program that officials described as “landmark” legislation.
“For us to survive and thrive, we absolutely need these working waterfront spaces,” Koepele said.
The proposed volunteer incentive program mirrors the county's decades-old farmland preservation program by allowing property owners to sell future development rights to the county through a conservation easement. The land in turn remains privately owned but cannot be developed beyond its current use. The value of the easement is determined through an Environmental Trust Review Board. The acquisition process is set by county code and is the same as farmland acquisition.
The program replaces an earlier effort that began last year to amend county code to add working waterfront into the current process to obtain easements for farmland. That legislation introduced last November was withdrawn three months later.
The current legislation creates a separate program with its own funding source through the capital budget. The 2026-28 capital budget allocates $2.5 million for 2026 and $9.5 million total over the three years.
The legislation creates a Working Waterfront Committee that would include 17 members, four of whom are appointed by the county executive and approved by the legislature. An additional 10 members would be designated by each town, two would be appointed by the presiding officer and the final member appointed by the minority caucus. The members would serve four-year terms, up to a maximum of 12 consecutive years.
The program aims to help protect not only commercial fishing, but recreational fishing and boating businesses like marinas.
Sarah Lansdale, commissioner of the Department of Economic Development and Planning, said during a presentation at a legislature committee meeting last week that the department created a survey that generated 164 responses from property owners and businesses who lease property on the waterfront to gain perspective on the industry.
More than half of the respondents who are property owners have been approached in the last five years about selling, the survey found.
“So it speaks to how timely this matter is,” Lansdale said.
Suffolk County Executive Edward P. Romaine — who is supportive of the proposed program — told Newsday the oyster growers and fishermen are part of a “heritage industry” along with farming.
“Working waterfront is becoming harder and harder to preserve,” he said. “For me, it’s very important that we do this.”
Lansdale noted that while the commercial fishing industry is largely centered on the East End at ports in Montauk and Shinnecock, waterfront commercial properties span the county with the highest number of parcels located in Babylon and Brookhaven, according to 2016 land use data she presented.
The “ocean economy” employs more than 38,000 people in Suffolk, largely in tourism and recreation,” according to 2021 data from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.
Legislation to create the program was subject to a public hearing Tuesday in Riverhead where several people in the industry spoke of its importance. The legislature could approve the bill at its September meeting.
If approved, the next steps are to form the committee, draft a model conservation easement and create the application for interested property owners, Lansdale said.
Similar programs have been implemented in Maine, Maryland and Rhode Island.
Mary Bess Phillips, an owner of Alice’s Fish Market in Greenport Village and village trustee who's lived in the community for decades, described to lawmakers during the public hearing how she’s seen the pressure facing the waterfront “whether from rising real estate values, shifting regulation or development that often favors short-term profits over long-term standing community needs.”
Her husband Mark is the last commercial fisherman operating out of Greenport aboard the Illusion.
“Preserving parcels of the land that are essential to marine trade is not only about economics, it is about protecting the way of life that has defined our region for generations,” she said.
Commercial fishermen in Montauk sounded the alarm last year amid reports of the pending sale of Gosman’s Dock, home to an ice house crucial to the port’s survival. The 11.6-acre waterfront Montauk property sold last year and East Hampton Councilman David Lys said the ice house remains operational through a lease.
“But when that runs out, who knows?” he said.
Newsday's Macy Egeland contributed to this story.
Joe Werkmeister joined Newsday in 2022 and covers Suffolk County government and politics. He is a graduate of St. Bonaventure University and previously worked as the editor of two North Fork community newspapers.
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