Long Beach Residents Demand Beach Protection — Now!

This is the first article in a two-part series.

It’s a sentiment a contingent of residents has voiced at various public meetings in Hurricane Sandy-battered Long Beach.

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“We’re talking about a new boardwalk; that’s not important,” Ray Ellmer, a former Long Beach zoning board trustee, said at a community input meeting on rebuilding the storm-destroyed seaside walkway. “What’s important is a seawall and a dune to protect life and property from natural disasters such as hurricanes.”

While City of Long Beach officials focus on rebuilding a new boardwalk, possibly by early summer, many residents have called immediate short-term beach restoration the city’s top priority. John Bendo, president of West End Neighbors Civic Association, said as much at the final boardwalk input meeting at City Hall Feb. 20.  

“And there are those that feel that this might be the opportunity to incorporate, at least in the short term, some form of protection, until a long-term plan, maybe through the Army Corps, could be instituted,” he said.

That opportunity includes about $5 billion the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, the nation’s public engineering agency, has to allocate to Sandy-ravaged municipalities looking to rebuild their devastated beach- and bay-fronts, including a long-term plan to build dunes in Long Beach, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-New York, announced at a press conference at National beach Monday.

Larry Moriarty, a West Beech Street resident representing a local Surfrider Foundation chapter, told the City Council that residents couldn’t rest without hardened protection for life and property in Long Beach.  

“We need emergency sand replenishment now,” Moriarty told council members at the Feb. 19 meeting. “We remain at risk with only window-dressing sand piles between us and what can be devastating to our fragile city.”  

But City Manager Jack Schnirman cites those makeshift sand barriers that stretch along the beach, as well dunes created with recycled Christmas trees at New York and Pacific beaches, as short-term measures the city has taken to hold back storms since Sandy. The city also seeks sand replenishment from FEMA as a short-term measure on the beach, where long-term 400,000 cubic yards of sand must be restored.

“We’re seeking additional sand on a short-term basis to bridge us until a long-term solution,” Schnirman told Patch on Tuesday, noting that the city understands that residents are “justifiably extremely concerned” that Sandy has left the city vulnerable and want to find solutions for future storms.

Jim LaCarrubba, the city’s commissioner of public works, said the city had discussed with the Army Corps short-term solutions, which could involve dredging offshore or near-shore or from an inlet to bring sand to the beach. “They have not come back to us with that determination,” the commissioner said. “They said before April 1 they should have something, as far as a plan goes.”

Said Schnirman: “We take the responsibility for storm protection extremely seriously and are moving aggressively to seek an effective long-term solution for our residents.”

Regarding a long-term plan, Chris Gardner, an Army Corps spokesman, said the agency still must deliver reports to Congress before the $5 billion in funds that come from a $60 billion Sandy aid package can be directed to municipalities for specific projects.

“Right now the people at our headquarters are interpreting the language before they can start distributing the funds for projects, because we have to make sure we’re adhering to the letter of the law,” Gardner said.

The Army Corps is putting together the Limited Reevaluation Report for Long Beach, an update on the agency’s prior storm damage reduction project with the city that would use the latest technology and design, Gardner said. “We don’t have a specific timeline for that report,” he added. “But it is contingent on funds and consensus approval from varying parties.”

At the Dec. 4 meeting, the City Council unanimously approved a resolution to move forward with the Army Corps storm damage reduction project that the council turned down in 2006, in part because it did not address flooding from Reynolds Channel. At that meeting, LaCarrubba said the Army Corps requested the resolution, which the city characterized as a first step to renewing talks and plans with the agency and public input on the project. The city has insistent, though, that beach reconstruction is a separate project from rebuilding the boardwalk.

Now, with the city in the midst of 10-step plan to rebuild the boardwalk with visions of an early summer opening, Bendo and other residents remain just as adamant that both projects are inseparable and must include plans to protect the city’s bayside.

“You have to take into account that down the line there needs to be a beach protection plan that needs to be incorporated with the boardwalk design now,” Bendo said.

The second part of this series will appear Friday.

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