Bulkhead Battles Continue
A steel bulkhead erected by Ronald and Isobel Konecky without a permit to help keep their Dune Road house in Bridgehampton from collapsing into the ocean will stay in place at least another month.
On Feb. 10, the Appellate Division of the New York State Supreme Court in Brooklyn quashed the town's attempt to have the bulkhead removed.
Lisa Kombrink, the town attorney, said the court allowed the Koneckys to keep the structure in place until March 23, a month later than expected, until both sides can return to State Supreme Court in Riverhead.
Court Permit
The Koneckys obtained permission from Supreme Court Justice Peter F. Cohalan to erect the temporary bulkhead on Jan. 23. They argued that a massive subsurface dune restoration system built by their neighbor, William Rudin, had caused scouring that threatened their house. A week later, the Rudin device collapsed in a heavy storm.
Both the town and the State Department of Environmental Conservation appealed that decision and argued unsuccessfully in court that their action should have constituted a stay.
Separately, on Friday, the Town Board passed two resolutions providing funding for attorneys and expert witnesses for legal battles involving erosion control structures.
The town hired the New York environmental law firm Sive, Paget & Reisel to help it fight a lawsuit by a group of nine neighbors on Dune Road who sued the town over its decision to require an environmental impact statement before allowing them build a line of steel bulkheads.
The town will pay the firm up to $50,000 and allotted another $7,000 to cover the expenses of hiring expert witnesses. Until now, the town attorney has handled the case.
Mr. Rudin settled with the town individually when the board allowed him to build his subsurface dune restoration system. Both a steel cofferdam erected during construction and the sandbag system blocked the beach, causing a public outcry. Critics charged the structure exacerbated erosion in front of the Koneckys' and other houses as well as along the public F. Scott Cameron Beach to the west.
Another System
A smaller version of the ill-fated dune restoration system that Mr. Rudin constructed has now appeared in front of his neighbors' house. Jay Goldberg and Mary Cirillo have had a roughly 80-foot-long structure put in consisting of two fiber tubes six to eight feet in diameter that are filled with sand.
Unlike Mr. Rudin's structure, which blocked the beach before collapsing during a Jan. 29 storm, the project in front of the Goldberg-Cirillo home is closer to the dune.
Joe Edgar of the Hydraulitall Company based in Jamesport, who constructed the system, said it was a first step to rebuild the dune in front of the couple's house. The couple plans to add sand and plant beach grass on top of the system after moving the house back, he said.
Sand piled by town workers to protect the exposed parking lot at F. Scott Cameron Beach remained in place this week. The surf, which has lashed oceanfront houses along Dune Road in recent weeks, was rough, but allowed beach passage.
Trustees, Too
The town also agreed to hire the Mineola law firm of Meyer, Suozzi, English & Klein and pay it up to $25,000 to represent the Town Trustees in any legal actions it may take to keep the beaches passable and protect Mecox Bay.
Although the Trustees also granted a permit to Mr. Rudin, Scott Strough, the board's president, said the structure extended too far out in the water. At a special meeting with the Town Board on Feb. 2, the Trustees pledged to fight for the public's right to cross the beaches.
The Town Board will also hold a public hearing on March 10 to consider a six-month moratorium on applications for shore-hardening structures.