Letters to the Editor: MTK, Army Corps 11.12.15

Community Has Risen

Amagansett

November 9, 2015

Dear David,

The movement to derail the Army Corps armoring project in Montauk has the potential to change the course of coastal policy on Long Island. Supervisor Larry Cantwell’s position that there is no turning back is presumptuous, given our legal challenge has not been decided and the preliminary injunction is still pending. More important, the great greater community has risen and is denouncing the project in a unified voice.

The science is absolute: Shoreline hardening structures (i.e., seawalls, rock revetments, and geotextile containers) adversely impact beaches. East Hampton knows this, and that’s why hardening structures are prohibited on ocean shorelines.

In our efforts to prevent this calamity from happening, we have repeatedly imparted science and history on how this geobag revetment will transform the beach forever. Our elected officials, all of them, were fully informed of the inevitable loss of the beach from this structure.

Regrettably, town officials made a conscious decision to sacrifice a public beach in favor of private business interests. And, shame on the so-called environmentalists who stood down; worse yet, provided elected officials with political cover and sought to deflect from the core issue with bogus concerns.

We must never allow our beaches to be sacrificed because of ignorance, arrogance, or greed. The post-Sandy conversation should have started with sand replenishment in conjunction with retreat. The motels need to move back, and we don’t need a resiliency plan to tell us that. When the Army Corps balked at the sand-only approach, the conversation should have ended there.

A groundswell like no other continues to build in Montauk. We feel very confident about the outcome. The monster isn’t assembled yet, the court hasn’t ruled, and maybe, just maybe, the town board will muster up the courage to say no mas.

KEVIN McALLISTER

Defend H2O

May Be Hope

East Quogue

November 6, 2015

To the Editors:

Back in the 1970s, when the first battle to save the coast was fought and lost (Westhampton Dunes), I was one of a tiny few who realized the vast and destructive scope of the Army Corps’s south shore beach “stabilization” project, or at least one of the few who bothered to stand up and oppose it as regional representative of Friends of the Earth.

Thanks mainly to some internal pressure from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, the corps put the south shore plan on the back burner, and many of us thought that this was the end of the ill-conceived plan. We were wrong. Since then “nickel and dime” piecemeal projects involving less violent measures than those used in Westhampton Dunes have been on the drawing boards.

The corps figured, presciently, that it would wait around for storms and hurricanes, natural erosion, tides, and, more recently, sea level rise from climate change, to spur local towns and the county themselves to propose, nay, demand, the same drastic useless measures to protect private property (not the beach or barrier island, please note), and in the case of Montauk, the tourist and hotel industry that is now the leader in demanding taxpayer money to protect private commercial property.

Protecting valuable (tax-wise if nothing else) beachfront property has always been the main objective of those who purported to save the barrier beach for public purposes but who, in fact, were in collusion with real estate developers’ interests. Ecosystem protection and the compelling science of beach and dune functions have never been in their sights. Nor did the Army Corps deign to take advantage of the known science of barrier beaches and dunes. It preferred to use scare tactics, warning that failure to repair new inlets created by storms would result in a plague of starfish that would devour the hard clam population. It also raised the alarm about what would happen if these new inlets were not filled in: Homes on the far side of the bays would be flooded.

This was all utter nonsense, although sea level rise has been happening for decades and is only now accelerating because of climate change. What the public never learned — or rather what it was never told explicitly — is this simple fact: You cannot protect both private beachfront houses and the barrier island.

Why? Because the method used to protect one is at odds with that needed to protect the other. The barrier beach and island protect themselves if not obstructed by hard structures such as homes, jetties, sea walls, etc. They not only accrete sand, which needs dune vegetation to hold fast, but they move. Left to their own devices, the dunes and barrier island will persist — providing they are not impeded by structures.

But beachfront properties are not compatible with natural barrier island systems and functions. They are in the way of the winds, waves, and tides that hammer at the beach and dunes, which protect themselves by moving. In order to protect houses, the very integrity of the barrier island system must be destroyed.

Most of the East End community has been asleep at the wheel while the Army Corps waits patiently for our money to step in at the beck and call of local government, whose palms are figuratively greased by the desire to protect beachfront private property. It should have been no surprise to Montauk residents that the Army Corps showed up with heavy machinery to start yet another project that not only will not work but which will actively undermine, literally, the beach-dune system.

All of this has been shored up by the other major taxpayer bailout: federal flood insurance at below-market rates, which allows houses damaged in a storm to be rebuilt in exactly the same place with our money, and that allows this to happen over and over. The capitulation of former Congressman Otis Pike to the real estate business, in which he deleted the whole barrier island from Moriches to Shinnecock Inlets from the original Fire Island National Seashore plan, was the first and arguably the toughest nail in the coffin of our coast.

It may not be too late if the populace rises up against the town board and rejects the insistence that the plan is “signed, sealed, and delivered.” My experience with government is that there is no such thing, provided the public is ready and willing to go to the mat.

If the Montauk Corps project can be stopped, then there may be hope of shoving the Army Corps off the Long Island shore once and for all.

Sincerely,

LORNA SALZMAN

Delay the Inevitable

Montauk

December 9, 2015

Dear David,

Sea levels are rising, and erosion along the shores of Montauk will only increase in the coming years. What is happening in Montauk this week is no less than the many raising their voices against a project that does no more than delay the inevitable — managed retreat from the dunes.

This is a project that some experts believe could both fail in protecting the commercial properties it is meant to protect and risk accelerating the destruction of the protective beach at downtown Montauk. Supervisor Larry Cantwell and the town board may not have considered the opposition to the proposed project, but the opposition was there, and recorded by The East Hampton Star and others.

Sincerely,

CAROLYN CARSON

Change Direction

Montauk

November 9, 2015

To the Editor,

Larry Cantwell and the East Hampton Town Board should halt the Army Corps beach destruction immediately! They should recognize the huge public outcry and have the courage to respond and change direction.

The project is not a short-term fix as they say, but rather long-term environmental destruction that will destroy our beach and the primary dune that has always been our best protection.

The project has been railroaded from the start and never given due environmental review. We will be spending endless tax dollars covering 14,000 sandbags with quarry sand that will be washed away again and again. This, paid for by all East Hampton taxpayers.

The heart of Montauk is at stake — our precious public asset — our beach.

SARAH CONWAY

Managed Retreat

East Hampton

November 9, 2015

Dear David:

Your editorial in last Thursday’s Star regarding the handling of coastal erosion is spot on. Clearly the current “solution” of sandbags along the beach is short-sighted and woefully inadequate. As you pointed out, we need long-term solutions that are not influenced by political pressures.

Managed retreat may be unpopular to those who own waterfront property but it is likely the only way to protect against the ravages of Mother Nature. The time has come to “bite the bullet” and move forward with realistic planning to address this difficult problem for now and for the future.

SUE AVEDON

Will They Take a Stand?

Montauk

November 8, 2015

Dear Editor:

On your website, you report that our supervisor, Larry Cantwell, and other board members were surprised by the Army Corp’s removal of a dune in Montauk. You quote Mr. Cantwell as saying that he was “shocked, actually,” and that he doesn’t think “any of the board members anticipated . . . visually, or otherwise . . . That’s troubling; seriously troubling.”

If it is true that our town board was not fully informed of the full extent of the project (a troubling admission in and of itself), then this provides Mr. Cantwell and his fellow board members with the perfect opportunity to call for a pause to the project until they have a complete understanding of the proposed work plan, and get answers to the many questions being raised by the community.

The question is, will they take a stand? For the sake of our beach and the future of Montauk, let’s hope they do.

Best,

TONIA RIES

The Natural Beach

Sag Harbor

November 8, 2015

Dear Editor,

Just a few of the reasons I want the East Hampton Town Board to listen to the residents of Montauk:

I want to protect the natural beach, halt the Army Corps beach destruction, and not spend endless tax dollars covering and recovering 14,000 sandbags with quarry sand, as the ocean waves expose the sandbags over and over.

Should Suffolk County taxpayers end up having to pay for this mistake, then I’ll have a financial stake in this too — one I don’t want! Right now, it’s a personal stake: I love the beach, I love Montauk, I believe in Mother Nature and the wisdom of letting nature take its course. Should that mean businesses at the water’s edge have to get out of the way, retreat, reconfigure, rethink it — so be it. They knew the risks when they flirted with being so close to the dunes. Caveat emptor.

Here are some more concise words on the matter. Real beach. Real sand. Real simple.

ELLEN DIOGUARDI

Senseless and Expensive

Saratoga Springs, N.Y.

November 7, 2015

To the Editor,

Please do not let this silly human project get in the way of nature’s course.

As a 30-year visitor to Montauk, I am saddened and distraught by the shortsightedness of this senseless and expensive attempt to interfere with this most beautiful and treasured gem of New York State.

Stop the Army Corps. Now.

Sarah Hart