If this author may be permitted to paraphrase a line from “The Godfather,” our environmental future sleeps with the fishes.

This summer has seen the recurring crisis of nitrogen-rich warm waters creating rust tide algae that are suffocating fish and shellfish along the Great South Bay, Peconic Bay, and the Long Island Sound. The maritime murders of tens of thousands of fish, oysters and clams were particularly evident recently in Old Fort Pond in Southampton, although the North Shore isn’t being spared from the assault caused, in large measure, by our hand.