Montauk Dune Construction Set to Begin
Work is set to begin in three weeks on an $8.9 million artificial dune that will largely cover the width of the Montauk downtown beach between the dune and the ocean from South Emery Street at the western edge to the Atlantic Terrace motel near Surfside Place on the east.
The dune will, based on the normal, though fluctuating, width of the beach, extend from its landward edge across the entire stretch of sand right up to — or even into — the ocean, according to construction specifications.
With a core of geotextile bags filled with sand, the 105-foot wide dune will spread along 3,100 feet of shoreline. Pedestrian walkways on pilings above the 161/2-foot-high dune are planned.
The project was designed, and will be paid for, by the Army Corps of Engineers, and was developed in cooperation with the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and East Hampton Town officials.
Twenty-six thousand cubic yards of sand will be excavated from the Montauk beach and piled three feet deep on top of the filled sandbags and the dune face. The bags themselves will require about 50,000 cubic yards of sand to fill.
The plan calls for the town and Suffolk County to shoulder the costs of the dune’s annual maintenance, including replacing the sand atop the bags whenever it is depleted or washed away. The average annual maintenance cost has been estimated at $150,000, though questioned by some who believe it could well be significantly more.
Although preliminary work is to get under way on Oct. 1, the construction, which will entail closing the area, will not begin until after the Columbus Day weekend. The work is expected to be completed, barring weather delays, by the end of January 2016.
Defend H20, an environmental advocacy organization, and four individuals who have filed a lawsuit to stop the project, have now applied in federal court for permission to seek an injunction halting it.
Carl Irace, an East Hampton lawyer representing the plaintiffs, said yesterday that he would press for a judge’s ruling.
The lawsuit asserts that the reinforced dune conflicts with the policy against hard structures on the ocean beach in the town’s Local Waterfront Revitalization Plan and challenges the permits for the work.
“It appears that there will be no room to sit on the beach, no room for a lifeguard stand, no room for Marine Patrol to pass,” Mr. Irace said yesterday.
The artificial dune has been cast as an interim emergency measure to be in place only until the Army Corps begins more extensive beach reconstruction under its Fire Island to Montauk Point reformulation plan. This project has been in the works since 1960, and several upcoming administrative target dates for the project were recently extended.
The dune’s placement will vary along its length according to the existing dune line, with a landward buffer in some places as wide as 50 feet between it and road ends or shorefront properties, which are largely developed with hotels or condos.
Though the town has been informed of each step of the process and has participated in discussions about details, there is limited local involvement in many elements over which the federal agency holds sway, such as the type of sand that will be used in the sandbags.
Because the bags have a finite useful life and can be damaged, environmentalists have raised concerns about the aesthetic and environmental impacts of sand from upland quarries, with which they will be filled.
Town officials have been asking for samples of the sand for months, Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell said at a board meeting on Tuesday. “We’re still at issue with respect to the sand, the quality of the sand that’s going to go into the bags,” he said. The grain size of the sand is supposed to be similar to the natural beach sand in Montauk, Town Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc said.
“We have taken the position that both the sand that goes in the bags and the sand that goes on top of the bags should be indigenous sand,” Mr. Cantwell said. “We’ll continue to press for that.”
The Army Corps has not specified the color of the sand. Kim Shaw, the town’s natural resources director, said Tuesday that the D.E.C. has the ultimate authority for what sand will be used. The upland sand the corps reportedly intends to use has an orange color.
The corps has approved the installation of four 81/2-foot-wide walkways over the dune for the public, but town officials are to decide, after site inspection in the coming weeks, if all four are needed or desired. The approved locations are at the road ends at South Emery, South Embassy, and South Edgemere Streets and at Lowenstein Court.
Oceanfront property owners who have signed easements allowing the dune to be constructed on a portion of their properties have been guaranteed their own four-foot-wide sand paths over the dune. There will be 10 of them.
The dune will be surrounded by wood fencing along its length on both the landward and ocean sides, and more fencing will edge the private walkways. In addition, a cut in the dune for vehicular access to the beach will be created at South Edison Street, which also will be fenced. The roadway’s surface material has not yet been determined, but could be concrete, Ms. Shaw said.
The cut is also designed as a solution to flooding in downtown Montauk during heavy rains, when runoff typically flows out to the beach. The dune will prevent that, the engineers say, except in the access area at South Edison. However, because the dune is also designed to protect the downtown from flooding, the Army Corps will provide a stockpile of sand that could be used to plug the access should a surge be expected.
The town will be responsible for that work, and for replenishing the 250-cubic-yard stockpile if it is used.
Another drainage issue, at Lowenstein Court at the eastern end of the project, will be resolved, at town expense, with the installation of a 12-inch pipe through the dune, allowing runoff into the ocean.
However, questions have been raised by H2O members about whether that solution to flooding may be precluded by the federal Municipal Separate Storm Sewer Systems program, or MS4, under which the Environmental Protection Agency has required municipalities to prevent the discharge of untreated stormwater runoff into water bodies.
As of this week, county legislators had not approved the inter-municipal cost-sharing agreement. County Legislator Al Krupski, who opposes the Army Corps project and late last year called for a county Department of Public Works examination of it, said Tuesday that “the project should be reconsidered” because “hardening the shoreline on the Atlantic Ocean” is counterproductive and would ultimately be unsuccessful.
Legislator Krupski said he was unsure why the county had not inked the cost-sharing agreement, but that, while it remains unapproved, he has been seeking “everyone I can talk to [to] inform them that this is a bad idea. I think this is a tremendous financial obligation for the county.”
In addition, Mr. Krupski said he predicts “lawsuits galore” stemming from the dune construction and its impact. “You harden the shoreline, you lose your beach, you lose your public access,” he said.
Mr. Irace noted yesterday that while the county had agreed to shoulder future maintenance costs for a beach restoration project on Fire Island, it was unwilling to take those on entirely for the Montauk dune. “The funding of the operation and maintenance is a big issue for East Hampton taxpayers,” he said.
According to Alex Walter, Supervisor Cantwell’s assistant, who updated the town board on the status of the project Tuesday, an Army Corps coordinator will live in Montauk during the construction, and there will be weekly meetings among the involved agencies.
The contractor selected by the Army Corps, H & L Contracting of Bay Shore, will use the Kirk Park parking lot as a site for equipment and stockpiling some of the 50,000 cubic yards of sand that will be trucked in at an estimated five truckloads a day for the duration of the project. Sand will also be kept at the South Emerson Street road end. If the parking lot or road pavement is damaged by the large trucks, the contractor is to have it repaired.
Under its agreement with the Army Corps, the company may work seven days a week from 7 a.m. till 8:30 p.m. In a meeting last week, however, the contractor indicated a five-day-a-week schedule, beginning at 7 a.m. daily.
Pilings for the pedestrian accesses will go in first. Then, Mr. Walter said, sand will be excavated in 1,000-foot swaths, and 500-foot sections of the dune built, going from east to west.