ALTAMONT — The Southern Poverty Law Center came out this month with its annual Hate Map, which shows active hate groups across the country. Altamont was no longer included on the map, even though the map indicates that hate is on the rise in the United States, with the total number of groups rising from 784 in 2014 to 892 for 2015.

On the map published in 2015, Altamont was listed as the only location in New York State to have an active chapter of a branch of the KKK known as the Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.

The new map shows that KKK branch as having, again, just one location in New York State, but in Hampton Bays. Other branches of the KKK, the map says, have chapters in Plattsburgh (Ku Klos Knights of the Ku Klux Klan) and New York City (Militant Knights of the Ku Klux Klan).

It lists the total number of active KKK groups in the country as 190. The  number of active KKK groups in the United States was up more than two-and-a-half times, from just 72 in 2014.

The site defines hate groups this way: “All hate groups have beliefs or practices that attack or malign an entire class of people, typically for their immutable characteristics.” The website says, “Hate group activities can include criminal acts, marches, rallies, speeches, meetings, leafleting, or publishing.”

The SPLC finds out about these groups, the website says, by using hate group publications and websites, citizen and law-enforcement reports, field sources, and news reports.

Last year Heidi Beirich, director of the SPLC’s Intelligence Project — which produces the map — told The Enterprise that Altamont was on the list because of a report from a law enforcement source who wanted to remain anonymous. These claims were investigated by the Albany County Sheriff’s Office, the Altamont Police, and other law enforcement agencies, who could find nothing to substantiate the SPLC’s claim.

Beirich told The Enterprise on Monday, “The reason we didn’t list that particular Klan group in Altamont this year was because there was no activity for the chapter. If we don’t see any activity, we don’t list the group. There was no activity, hence no group.”

She did not say that there was no group. She said that the group was not active.

“We did not have a chapter,” said Lieutenant Susan Ralph, Public Information Officer with the Southampton Town Police Department. “We had a subject that was leaving pamphlets in people’s driveways” in Hampton Bays.

That subject, Ralph said, was arrested in April 2015 when he left KKK flyers in the lobby of a local bank. He was charged, she said, with littering, which is a town code violation.