WHAT DOES IT TAKE to shut down a mine?

Court decisions, a restraining order, legal violation notices, and a stop work order apparently aren’t enough. Sand Land, a sand mine in the Hamptons, has faced each of these this year — and ignored them all.

The latest notice came earlier this month, when the Department of Environmental Conservation (dec) sent Sand Land a letter citing its repeated legal violations and threatening thousands of dollars in fines. Still, the mining has continued.