Erosion's New Phase Worsening, Waves are breaking where beach has vanished on Block Island Sound

On Sunday, Andy Schwanewede and his brother Bill stood on top of what looked like a cliff, where waves and current from October's northeast storms had eroded a stretch of tall dune after eating their way around the wooden bulkhead that protects their family's house from inevitable ruin.

Inevitable, that is, unless the town acts now to rebuild the beaches of Soundview in Montauk, the brothers said.

When northeasters tore past the east end of the South Fork last month, high tides and wind-driven currents sliced deep into dunes, carving away up to 50 feet in places as easily as the proverbial knife through butter. Especially hard hit was the Soundview community on Montauk's north shore.

It's an old story by this time, a classic example of how structures, in this case the Montauk Harbor jetties, cause beaches to be scoured downdrift of a prevailing current.

Throughout history, the predominant east-to-west currents, especially those generated by northeast storms, have carried sand and maintained beaches from Montauk Point west to Culloden Point and beyond. The process changed dramatically in the early 1970s when the Army Corps of Engineers extended jetties originally built when Carl Fisher, Montauk's would-be resort developer, opened Lake Montauk to Block Island Sound in 1927.

On the east side of the inlet's eastern jetty, Gin Beach grows wider and wider as sand is prevented from moving westward. The sand that does round the north end of the jetties has created a bar that runs from east to west over 100 yards offshore of the Soundview shoreline. As a result, long gone is the broad expanse of beach and dune that offered beachcombers and beach-driving fishermen an uninterrupted path to Culloden Point.

Instead, the beach has been replaced by a series of wooden bulkheads that protect the houses owned by members of the Save Our Beaches Association and the Culloden Beach Property Owners group, which make up the community to the west of the Montauk Harbor jetties. Residents of Soundview including the Schwanewedes and Bill Wilson, a longtime beachfront resident of Soundview, say they are no longer worried group, which make up the community to the west of the Montauk Harbor jetties. Residents of Soundview including the Schwanewedes and Bill Wilson, a longtime beachfront resident of Soundview, say they are no longer worried about beach erosion because there is no more beach to erode.

Mr. Wilson said on Tuesday that the erosion process had entered a new phase that was causing storm waves to break directly onto the bulkheads with ever-increasing force. Ironically, the cause of the refocused wave energy is the very sand that should have been depositing itself along the shore over the years, Mr. Wilson and Mr. Schwanewede agreed.

"There's a gigantic sandbar. They're fishing on it now. They never did that before," Mr. Wilson said. Andy Schwanewede agreed, adding that small draggers were even working the bar for fluke. "If there had been waves here, I would have been boogie-boarding when I was a kid. You can surf here now."

Both men said the bar was redirecting ocean swells, causing them to steepen and become more destructive. "Damage is done to all the bulkheads. Time has proven that any bulkhead will cave in, unless reinforced," Mr. Wilson said. The answer, the two Soundview residents said, was to rebuild Soundview's beaches, perhaps using the sand from the sandbar, the same sand that would have created the beaches if it were not for the jetties. Such a solution appears to be a long way off.

A $2.2 million study undertaken in 2002 by the Army Corps of Engineers to determine how to keep the harbor inlet from silting up is moving toward completion. Among the things it addresses is the feasibility of creating ways to let sand bypass the jetties and be deposited along the shore. The study is expected to be completed by next year.

Larry Penny, East Hampton's director of natural resources, said that in the meantime, the town would try again to transport sand, by truck, from the Gin Beach side of the jetties to Soundview. A pilot project was halted last spring when a group of Montauk residents opposed it because they felt that Gin Beach was not wide enough to take sand from.

If, and when, the project goes forward (it must be done between early April and mid-May, according to the State Department of Environmental Conservation permit), sand is expected to be deposited in front of what is known as the Gosman's parking lot. (The beach there is actually owned by the town.)

"I'd like to try again because the Army Corps project is not going to happen for five or six years. After the study, they will have to do a design, and get the okay from Congress," Mr. Penny said.

Mr. Schwanewede said he feared that placing sand in front of the Gosman's parking lot would do nothing for the beaches to the west. He said that whenever the Army Corps had dredged the inlet and placed the sand there, "it stays there for a month or so," and then joins the offshore bar. "It just hasn't worked."

Speaking of the offshore bar, Mr. Penny said that at least some of it was caused when sand was carried by backwash from the bulkheads. "If you look at photographs from back around 1983, you can see how the bar would move in and build the beach and dunes, and then move out again. But, in the last 15 years, there has been no building process."

Mr. Penny said the Army's plan seemed to be to make the harbor inlet deeper and to create a "deposition channel," a trench east of the jetties that will keep sand from moving into the harbor inlet and making navigation difficult for the harbor's larger boats.

"It catches sand before it gets to the channel," Mr. Penny said. "I think the project would generate over 100,000 cubic yards of sand" that could be used to rebuild Soundview's beaches. Such a fix is a long way off.

As for moving the sandbar shoreward, Mr. Schwanewede said he did not expect the town to take on such a big project. "That's more of an Army Corps project." Instead, he said he would like to see sand from Gin Beach brought farther west and placed directly in front of homeowners' bulkheads.

Mr. Penny said on Tuesday that such a plan was possible, although there was now no access from the land to the area seaward of the bulkheads. He added that the D.E.C. required that sand be placed above the high-water line, which would be difficult given that Block Island Sound reached the bottom of the bulkheads even at low tide.

Cas Foglia is president of the Culloden Shores association. He has lived on Tern Road since 1971. "I have never seen it so bad," he said yesterday. Mr. Foglia said he agreed with Mr. Penny's assessment. He said his group was going to be taking a hard look at the possibility of creating an access come spring. A staircase that had provided a way for association members to reach the beach was destroyed in the second October storm.

"I am concerned about how to get sand from the road 100 feet to the top of the dune. Then what? You can't just dump it. It has to be spread. You have to get down to beach level with machinery, like a Bobcat. How do you do that without compromising the dunes any farther?" On the other hand, Mr. Foglia said he did not think members of his association could afford to wait for the Army Corps.

"I advised the Culloden people to apply for emergency beach nourishment." Mr. Penny said.