Last Thursday, the East Hampton Town Board awarded Bistrian Materials the bid to provide sand for the Ditch Plain dune restoration project. The company’s bid of $1,215,000 was the lowest received.
Then, on Tuesday, the board accepted a $8,640 proposal from Walbridge Surveyors for additional survey work along 2,600 linear feet at Ditch Plain Beach in Montauk, including all property lines. Those surveys will help the town establish easements over a portion of the beachfront parcels, allowing construction of a Federal Emergency Management Agency-compliant 20-foot-high dune that could begin this fall.
The town received New York State Department of Environmental Conservation approval for the project this summer. Once complete, in the event of a federally declared disaster that destroys the dune, the town can apply for FEMA reimbursement.
The dune will require 20,000 cubic yards of sand and span 2,200 linear feet of shoreline. In June 2024, the town added 5,800 cubic yards of sand to the beach.
Both projects are dwarfed by another recent beach replenishment in Montauk: the Fire Island to Montauk Point Army Corps of Engineers project that added 450,000 cubic yards of sand to the downtown beaches, completed in February 2024.
