Residents Eye Other Beach Communities’ Replenishment Efforts

* This is the second article of a two part series.

As some Long Beach residents demand immediate short-term beach protection after Hurricane Sandy wiped away the dunes and forced millions of cubic yards of sand off the beach, they are keeping an eye on beach restoration projects in nearby beach communities, such as the Rockaways and Gilgo Beach.  

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During meetings at City Hall last week, John Bendo, president of West End Neighbors Civic Association, and Jim Moriarty, a West Beech Street resident, noted that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the nation’s public engineering agency, met with residents of the Rockaways at a Feb. 12 public forum to discuss the peninsula’s short- and long-term beach restoration plans.

“Where they will be, within a year, they are going from nothing to starting to do beach barrier protections,” said Bendo, who opposes the city’s decision to decouple the beach and boardwalk rebuilding projects, at a meeting about the boardwalk Feb. 20. “So, there are ways to do this but there are those of us who believe it should be as a part of this boardwalk.”  

Moriarty referred to an article about the Rockaways’ meeting in that area’s local newspaper, The Wave. “The message is that they would have a short term measure, a rehabilitation stage, involving sand replenishment now, or as soon now as possible for the Army Corps,” Moriarty summarized. “Which is separate from their reformulation plan. Which would be the plan that we’re all talking about and waiting for.”

At the Rockaways’ meeting, Dan Falt, an Army Corps project manager, said the rehabilitation plan would involve pumping sand from inlets and offshore areas onto a beach that would be built 10 feet above sea level and 100 feet wide, based on a 1994 revised Congressional plan from 1974. This short-term plan would exclude certain areas, including Breezy Point, and wouldn’t address shoreline erosion, according to The Wave. Falt said the project is slated to start in June and could take as many as six months to complete, but he couldn’t guarantee the early summer start because contractors would have to be selected before a schedule is determined. Said Falt:

“I wish I could say this could start tomorrow. This is not business as usual.”

Meanwhile, the Rockaway’s longer-term reformation study could start as the rehabilitation project proceeded and would address erosion, inundation, wave attacks on beachfront structures from Breezy Point to Howard Beach, as well as alternative measure such as jetties, dunes, raised roads, seawalls and bulkheads. Construction on the plan, though, wouldn’t begin for at least a year, Falt said.

In addition, the timelines for both plans depend on the Army Corps’ need to collaborate with various entities, including New York City Parks Department, New York Department of State, and the state Department of Environmental Control (DEC), Falt said. Some Rockaway residents demanded a more immediate start date than June for the short-term plan and temporary jetties, but he explained that the law doesn’t permit interim measures, other than beach replenishment, without approval from Congress.

Long Beach City Manager Jack Schnirman and Jim LaCarrubba, the city’s commissioner of public works, noted that the Rockaways are only taking their first steps toward rebuilding their beaches and are years behind Long Beach.

“As far as short-term measures with the Army Corps go, they were tasked by FEMA to look at short term solutions for all of the vulnerable areas, including this barrier island,” LaCarrubba told Patch about the Rockaways’ project. “ … We’ve had plenty of discussion with the Army Corps relating to both a short-term and a long-term.”

In 2006, the city worked with the Armys Corp on a $98 million beach restoration project for Long Beach that would have included erecting dunes and elevating beaches, but the council at the time voted against the plan, in part because it failed to address flooding on Reynolds Channel. The city has renewed talks with the Army Corps about the storm reduction project in Long Beach, which has a three to five year time horizon, Schnirman estimated.

In Babylon, officials are reportedly working feverishly to replenish the storm-damaged Cedar, Gilgo and Overlook beaches by Memorial Day weekend, but Deputy Supervisor Tony Martinez said the town hasn’t found a source of sand for replenishment, which may prevent the beaches from being fully restored until the fall, according to Babylon Village Patch. Martinez said 200,000 cubic yards of sand must be restored to the storm-battered beaches, and town officials look to use sand dredged from the Fire Island Inlet, at a cost of about $10,000, which could be covered by federal funds.

At the Feb. 19 City Council meeting, Morris Kramer, a self-described “independent environmentalist” from Atlantic Beach, said that even after the Army Corps contracts with a private company to perform the dredging, those dredges wouldn’t arrive soon enough.  

“They have to be able to find a company that has dredges available that will get here,” he said. “They have to sail here from South Carolina. It’s going to take time.”

Kramer urged city officials to work quickly because the city has a history of nor’easter storms that have struck in March and because hurricane season starts in June. “Let’s just do it before it becomes too late,” he said.

LaCarrubba said availability of equipment such as dredge boats is a potential problem for short-term projects. Municipalities have the option to do such projects solo, in which case they would have to obtain a DEC permit to take sand from an approved area, which would take months, the commissioner explained, or they can collaborate with the Army Corps, which already has access to all the approved areas and can move much more quickly. “So working with the Army Corps on these solutions is a much more prudent approach,” he said.  

The damage from Hurricane Sandy is projected to cost Long Beach about $250 million. LaCarrubba said it would cost about $20 million to replace the 400,000 cubic yards of sand on the beaches.

“So it’s not a simple, cheap thing to do, and making sure you work with all those entities that have the funding is critical,” he said.

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