The Carmans Three -- they wouldn't save the river

If the Carmans River ever dies, choked by pollution emanating from development in its watershed, the perpetrators of the rivercide won't be hard to find.

Three members of the Brookhaven Town Board led an effort to block a plan to save the river. It was a plan forged over many months, with more than 30 public meetings, and cooperative work by planners, developers and environmentalists.

That plan served two big goals: saving the river and creating more rental housing, which Long Island desperately needs, especially for young people starting out. The core idea was to transfer development rights from the watershed to blighted, densely populated areas in town. That would let developers take the rights they have to build near the river and use them to construct multifamily rental housing, mostly in downtowns.

But three main opponents -- Steve Fiore-Rosenfeld, Daniel Panico and Connie Kepert -- raised multiple objections, particularly about the areas in their council districts where the rental housing could be built. Rather than join Supervisor Mark Lesko to save a regional resource and meet a regional need, they argued that the plan was bad for their constituents -- based in part on the long-disproven idea that rentals add large numbers of students to school districts.

Lesko had to withdraw the carefully crafted plan. Now, the Carmans Three have offered a "plan" of their own -- a hastily concocted un-plan, not worth the cocktail napkin it's written on.

So, lamentably, an effort to keep a clean river clean lies dead in the water.