Consider the money to be made by converting 100,00 acres of pristine Suffolk County woodlands into housing, shopping malls and roads to serve residents and visitors. It would be a financial windfall of hurricane proportions, with the added consequences of paved-over forests and meadows and the probable pollution of a single-source aquifer that serves the county.
Forty years ago, some stood up to stop that looming catastrophe. Three college students — John Turner, John Cryan and Robert McGrath — decided to act, forming the Long Island Pine Barrens Society, which began as an information outlet to let citizens know about the area and the threats to it, and then added advocacy to their mission. These young, hard-working idealists needed something more, however — a fierce, indefatigable person who had a voice loud and compelling enough to make developers and politicians, eager to destroy the Pine Barrens and an ecosystem, listen to calls for protection. It would also be a bonus if that person was an attorney familiar with no-quarter lawsuits and courtroom battles.
Enter Richard “Dick” Amper, the face and voice of the Pine Barrens Society, who in1989 steered the largest environmental lawsuit in state history against development and spurred the birth of the Long Island Pine Barrens Protection Act, which protects its nearly 100,00 acres.
Fierce and indefatigable are accurate descriptions of Mr. Amper, who died last month at age 81. A Times Review reporter once asked him, as he was about to go before a town board to address the fact that some members were considering weakening a local ordinance on development, what he would say at the public hearing. “I’m not going to say anything to them,” he answered. “I’m going in there and tell them what we as citizens demand they do.”
As Ana Borruto wrote in her April 2 tribute to Mr. Amper: “He also understood public life as ‘theater,’ said Bob DeLuca, president of the Group for the East End … while his style could be confrontational, he was widely respected as a ‘titan of Long Island’s environmental movement.’”
Mr. Amper, along with other outspoken, smart and dedicated environmentalists, have protected the natural world of the East End that we all share. We’re thinking of former assemblyman Fred Thiele, former assemblyman, who authored the Peconic Bay Community Preservation Fund, which has preserved over 10,000 acres in East End towns.
We mourn the loss of Dick Amper, but remember the words of the labor activist Joe Hill (which we’re sure he’d agree with), who said as he was nearing death: “Don’t mourn: Organize.”
Source: The Suffolk Times
