Montauk Beach Project Sparks Ire, Supervisor Says Work Needed to Prevent Disaster

As work has commenced on beach replenishment in Montauk, many who’d protested the project for months have expressed outrage to see it unfold.

In November, the East Hampton Town Board announced that it would continue to monitor the Downtown Montauk Stabilization Project, but said that the controversial project would not be stopped.

The board said in a press release that it has “listened carefully to the numerous, passionate concerns raised in response to the commencement of construction activity” and “sees no basis upon which to halt this project.”

The town board says it “fully supports completion of this interim protective measure until the completion of the Fire Island to Montauk Point Reformulation Study (FIMP).”

The commencement of work on the project has led to numerous protests and arrests in recent months.

The project, conducted by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, involves burying a total of 14,000 large geotextile sandbags weighing approximately 1.7 tons each,along 3,100 feet of Montauk beach to make artificial dunes over 15 feet high.

The project costs a total of $8.4 million and was started in order to protect downtown Montauk after Superstorm Sandy hit the area back in 2012.

And now that the work has started, environmental advocates are seeing red.

“The sandbag revetment, or seawall, will inevitably interact with storm-driven waves,” said Kevin McAllister of Defend H2O this week. “Because it’s a hardened structure, it will inevitably destroy the fronting beach by reflecting wave energy and accelerating erosion. This is scientific fact.”

Because of the narrow winter profile, McAllister said, the contractor has been trucking in a ”massive volume of orange-colored fill from a nearby sand mine to build an artificial beach in order to work and have the area needed to install the seawall.”

He added, “The orange material is not only an aesthetic issue, but will cause water quality impacts when the sediments are put into suspension from wave action. Moreover, is incompatible to native sediments and is very likely to disappear in short order. Once the wall regularly interacts with wave energy, there very little chance that the dry beach will recover.”

That orange material, he said, was only supposed to be used to fill the bags, but because of the narrow beach, it’s been used as fill material.

Ultimately the practices employed will destroy beaches and wreak economic havoc on the area, McAllister said.

McAllister also charged that the project was green-lighted to protect private property owners with “at-risk structures, the seasonal hotels, that should have been relocated, instead of sacrificing a highly used recreational beach.”

His primary concerns, McAllister said, are the “disappearance of the community beach and setting a precedent for additional armoring projects throughout East Hampton’s oceanfront. East Hampton ignored their own law, the Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan, that prohibits hard structures. How can they possibly say ‘no’ to a private property owner seeking to do the same? A very slippery slope the town has embarked on.”

Hardened structures, seawalls, rock revetments, sandbag revetments, and geotubes all lead to the accelerated loss of the fronting beach, McAllister said. “Once exposed and fully interacting with wave energy and storm surge, structures impede the ability of the shoreline to recover. The beach reaches a point of no return,” McAllister said. “This a huge mistake in so many ways.”

East Hampton Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell responded this week: As to complaints about “orange” material, Cantwel said the is being covered by natural sand excavated on beaches that is being trucked in during the construction period.

“The bottom line here is the town was presented with this alternative by the Army Corp of Engineers, who are spending money to do the project. The choice of the town board was to do nothing or accept the project as designed by the Army Corp,” he said.

Choosing to do nothing would have left downtown Montauk unprotected, Cantwell said. The other option was to accept ”a project that certainly isn’t ideal.”

It’s imperative to remember that the current work is only Stage 1 of a two-step project, Cantwell said.

The second step, Cantwell said, is the second step is the Fire Island to Montauk Point Reformulation Study, which proposes a 100-foot natural sand beach, on the ocean side, in front of the sandbag-reinforced sand dunes.

Without action, Cantwell said, “The entire downtown Montauk Village is threatened by erosion and potential storms that could devastate that entire downtown area. When you look at both steps of the plan together, it makes sense, rather than leaving Montauk totally unprotected.”

He added, in November. “It can’t be emphasized enough that the current project is an interim protective measure until FIMP can finally be completed and the long-term stabilization solutions can be implemented. We will do everything in our power to cooperate with our federal, state, and county partners and strongly advocate that the preferred sand-only stabilization project be authorized, funded, and implemented as soon as possible.”

Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc added: “The town board is charged with the responsibility of protecting the health, safety, and welfare of the people of the Town of East Hampton. The town board cannot ignore the specific findings made in the Corps’ environmental review, nor can it ignore the Federal Court’s rationale in protecting the public’s interest by undertaking this project,”

The federal court has recognized the real risks that a future significant storm poses to downtown Montauk, Cantwell said.

In its decision, the Court set forth: “There can be no question but that Long Islanders, including all those who live, work or visit the area sought to be protected by the project, have suffered catastrophic property and personal loss as a result of past hurricanes and other storms. New York’s latest tragic flooding took place almost three years to the date of this opinion in the form of Hurricane Sandy. It was that event that finally led the Federal government to fully fund disaster relief aimed at protecting coastal communities and citizens from future storms. ...It is clear that any order delaying the project, for even a short period of time, will put the shoreline in danger, and expose Montauk’s population to unnecessary risk.”

Opponents of the project have said that the project will destroy the natural dunes and ruin the look of the beach, and have protested on the beach, resulting in several arrests for disorderly conduct.

One of the people arrested, Lisa Spellman, of both Manhattan and Montauk, said she was upset to see healthy dunes bulldozed.

The town board previously voted unanimously to approve the project, but after protests, considered putting the brakes on the plan.

“The calls to cancel this project are well meaning, but simply not in the interest of public safety. We recognize a ’sand-only’ project is the preferred option, but it was rejected by the Army Corps for this interim project and won’t be an option until FIMP is implemented,” Councilman Fred Overton said. “We will closely observe and track the construction activity of the contractors to ensure compliance with the significant environmental safeguards built into the project’s design that were developed over the past three years of design and environmental review to ensure the protection of both our coastline and downtown areas.”

According to State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr., after Hurricane Sandy, “doing nothing” was not an option and leaving downtown Montuak vulnerable would be “irresponsible. Moving forward, we need to focus on working with all partners to ensure that under FIMP, an appropriate long-term coastal erosion management plan and soft, large-scale beach re-nourishment project are fully realized.”

Photos courtesy of Kevin McAllister.