Riverhead must not allow auto drifting on Scott’s Pointe track without in-depth environmental review

Riverhead Town should not remove the recorded covenant barring automobiles from the track at Scott’s Pointe.

The reason is simple. The town already decided that this track could avoid a full environmental impact statement on the condition that it be used for go-karts only. Now, less than a year after approving that site plan on the condition that the track be used only for go-karts, the town, at the park’s request, is considering removing the restriction, so that the park can have drifting events on the track.

That is not a minor amendment. It goes to the heart of the environmental bargain the Town Board made in 2025.

The town’s own record is clear.

The track, which was built illegally without review or approvals, is located on a peninsula jutting into a man-made lake dug into the drinking water aquifer in the pine barrens. It was granted retroactive approval last year on the condition that no autos are allowed on the track.

Senior Planner Greg Bergman warned during the 2024 review that automobile use on the track posed a contamination risk to the groundwater, and DEC separately warned about possible spillage from the track entering surface waters.

That should have been enough to settle the question.

Instead, project manager Ken Myers told the Town Board on Nov. 14, 2024 that the track was meant for go-karts, not cars. Videos posted online showing an auto drifting on the track were “really obviously unfortunate,” Myers said. “But it was for a social media thing,” he said. 

“It’s going to be a go-kart track,” Myers assured the board. 

“It’s really tiny for anything else,” he said. “It’s big for a go kart track, but it certainly isn’t a race track, right?”

That representation mattered. On March 4, 2025, the Town Board issued a conditioned negative declaration under the State Environmental Quality Review Act, deciding no environmental impact statement was required. But it did so only with conditions — including one that could not have been clearer: “The use of the track shall be limited to go-karts,” and use of the track by “any other type of vehicle shall be prohibited.” The board required that restriction to be recorded as a covenant against the property.  

Even with that limitation, the town required safeguards to keep stormwater out of the pond, as well as spill protection measures, a spill response kit and a spill response plan.  Those were not random bureaucratic add-ons. They were imposed because the risk was obvious: fuels, oils and other contaminants do not belong next to a lake dug into the aquifer.

DEC said as much too. In comments incorporated into the March 2025 resolution, DEC warned about the possibility of spillage from the track entering surface waters and urged best management practices to reduce the risk of runoff into the water.  

Then, when the Town Board granted final site plan approval on June 17, 2025, it, too, conditioned the approval on a covenant restricting the track to go-karts and prohibiting any other vehicles.  

Now the owner wants that restriction lifted.

Why should the town agree?

Especially when there is evidence that automobile use was the goal all along.

A video posted in May 2024 by drift racer Grant Anderson shows Anderson drifting his supercharged BMW on the new track during a visit to his “buddy” Cody Scott’s place in Calverton while a film crew was there producing a promotional video about the track being made for the park owner. The promotional video was posted to Scott’s Pointe social media on June 2, 2024.

As of today, both videos remain online.

The conversations captured in Anderson’s video make clear what the intent for that track was, no matter what was later said to the town in order to secure after-the-fact approval without the expense and headache of an environmental impact statement.

As soon as he sees the track, Anderson says, “This place is massive.” He tells Cody Scott, “That’s a full racetrack. This is not a go kart track. This is insane, dude.” Anderson tells him, “Cody, you need to let us run drift events here.”

Anderson records video as he’s drifting on the track, which he calls “nice and wide and fast.”

Park owner Eric Scott and Claudia Scott, Cody’s parents, are there. Eric Scott is seen in the video talking with Anderson. Cody Scott’s mother is seen riding shotgun as Anderson drifts on the track. 

Later, recounting a conversation with Eric Scott about his plan to add another two inches of asphalt to the track surface, Anderson says, “And then we’re gonna really be able to drift here.” 

So much for the idea that this was just a go-kart track. 

Yet months later, Myers was telling the town the track was for go-karts only and that social media videos of drifting on the track were a “mistake.” The Town Board then relied on those representations when it decided the project did not require a full environmental impact statement — so long as the track was limited to go-karts.

That was the deal.

If the owner now wants to turn the track into a venue for drifting cars, the town must do the right thing and conduct a full environmental review.

What the town should not do is pretend this is just housekeeping.

Removing the go-kart-only covenant would mean undoing a condition the Town Board relied on to avoid a full EIS in the first place. If that condition can simply be discarded as soon as it becomes inconvenient, then the town’s prior SEQRA review was not environmental protection. It was paperwork.

This should not be hard. A track built beside a man-made lake dug into the drinking water aquifer is not the place for Riverhead to shrug and hope for the best.

The covenant should stay exactly where it is.

If Island Water Park wants drifting on that track, the town must require the real environmental scrutiny it waived last year. 

Drinking water protection must not be negotiable.