EPCAL

A food waste-to-energy facility is not permitted by the zoning code at the Calverton Enterprise Park, the Riverhead Zoning Board of Appeals ruled on Thursday. But the ZBA urged the town board to to consider adding the use to the industrial park zoning code.

The clock is ticking as an important deadline looms in the $40 million land deal with a Triple Five affiliate at the Calverton Enterprise Park. The company must have a complete application for benefits filed and accepted by the Riverhead Industrial Development Agency by Sept. 24.

The town board will schedule public hearings on new proposals from the two drag racing promoters that held events in Calverton last year. Plans call for four racing series over a total of 13 weekends.

More drag racing could be coming to Riverhead next year, as “Race Track, Not Street” promoter Peter Scalzo has submitted event applications for 12 weekends, each featuring two drag racing events at the Enterprise Park in Calverton.

"The explosion and ensuing fire that consumed five cars being stored on a runway at EPCAL Wednesday night demonstrates exactly what residents were worried about when we objected to the town’s plan to allow hundreds, if not thousands, of storm-damaged vehicles to be stored at the EPCAL site."- Guest column by Kelly McClinchy

The auto fire at the EPCAL runway late Wednesday night is something some residents feared might happen when they expressed opposition to a contract with an auto salvage company to store flood-damaged vehicles on the runway.

A Tesla among the storm-damaged vehicles on a runway leased by the town to an auction company was fully engulfed upon police arrival late last night. The fire was deemed "not suspicious" police said, but the investigation is ongoing.

The Scrambul Runway Challenge drag racing event scheduled for this weekend at the Calverton Enterprise Park will go forward despite last-minute safety concerns raised by Supervisor Yvette Aguiar.

An auto auction company that stored flood-damaged vehicles at EPCAL after Superstorm Sandy in 2012 has signed a new runway use agreement for the same purpose in the wake of Tropical Storm Ida. The deal could be worth more than $600,000 to the Riverhead Community Development Agency.

More than 200 cars raced on one of the Calverton Enterprise Park runways Saturday afternoon in the first installment of "Race Track, Not Street" series of drag racing events in Calverton. Photo slideshow.