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Aiming to create community bonds
Hewlett High grads don’t forget
Shaar lev program restarts
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Vol. 98 No. 42
october 14 - 20, 2021
Cleaning up the duckweed Village overcomes decade-long problem on Willow Pond duckweed dies and falls to the bottom of the pond, creating layers of mucky decaying matter. After over a decade of trial The muck adds more nitrogen, and error, Hewlett Harbor has phosphorus and carbon to the succeeded in keeping Willow water, which feeds har mful Pond clear by targeting early- algae. Layers of the sediment summer blooms of duckweed build up, causing water displacewith herbicide treatment. ment and dissolving It’s natural for a most of the resultpond to fill in over ing dead matter with time, but the village bacterial, muck-eathas been proactive ing pellets. to keep that from The 4½-acre Wilhappening. In the low Pond, on Everit summer of 2011, the Avenue, has had north end of Willow many cosmetic and Pond, called environmental probSchenks Circle, was lems. Since 2010, the dredged — cleared pond has been rich leoNArd of sediment and in nutrients due to e b r i s — wh i ch oppeNHeIMer dincreased stormwater runoff the depth but low in oxygen, Deputy mayor, of oxygenated water resulting in dense Hewlett Harbor and the chance that g rowth of pesky aquatic life could plants like ducksurvive. Pond aeraweed as well as algae, which tors were also installed to break caused fish in the pond to die. down pollutants and the nutrient In spring and summer, duck- load that caused the plant weed multiplies especially fast. growth. “You can start with the size of a After Hurricane Sandy in quarter and in a matter of two 2012, sewage and stormwater weeks it’s going to cover the runoff from Nassau County and entire pond,” said Hewlett Har- Town of Hempstead drains bor Deputy Mayor Leonard made the pond overflow, which, Oppenheimer. During the cold months, the Continued on page 18
by lISA MArGArIA lmargaria@liherald.com
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Courtesy Jeff Weiss
ForMer lAwreNce woodMere Academy basketball coach Jeff Weiss was inducted into the Nassau County Athletics Hall of Fame last month. From left were Long Beach Athletic Director Arnie Epstein and his wife, Randi, Andrea and Jeff Weiss, John Schandler, and Ryan and Riley Weiss.
Teacher, mentor and friend
Former LWA basketball coach Jeff Weiss is inducted into Nassau Athletics Hall of Fame by JeFFreY beSSeN jbessen@liherald.com
If you listed all of Jeff Weiss’s achievements in the 32 years he coached boys’ varsity basketball at Lawrence Woodmere Academy, it would read exactly like the resume you would expect from someone inducted into the Nassau
County High School Athletics Hall of Fame, as Weiss was on Sept. 29. The accomplishments are staggering (see box, Page 3). But the true measure of Weiss’s success are the enduring relationships he formed with players and the positive impact he had on their young lives.
“He’s always a Coach with a capital C,” said Keith Cacciola, who was a senior co-captain and the starting point guard on Weiss’s first league championship team in 199495. “To this day, his opinion of me matters. Every single day I try to lead a life that Coach would be proud of. What he Continued on page 3
e have a saying: The solution to pollution is dilution.