Greens Blast City for Tropical Wood Boardwalk

The director of a New York City-based environmental group is threatening to sue the City of Long Beach, saying the municipality violates one of its own ordinances by using a tropical hardwood to rebuild the 2.2-mile boardwalk, and he is considering filing an injunction to halt construction unless the city switches to using a different material such as recycled plastic or domestic wood.

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Tim Keating of Rainforest Relief told the City Council at last week’s regular meeting that in 1998 then City Manager Ed Eaton contacted the organization to help research the use of tropical hardwood in rebuilding the city’s boardwalk, and that in 2001 the city adopted an ordinance that prohibits it from purchasing tropical hardwood unless it is “sustainably harvested.”

The City’s Code of Ordinances Section 18-48 states: “The city will not purchase products containing in whole or in part, wood from tropical or temperate rainforests excepting those woods which are proven to have been harvested in an environmentally sound manner.”

Keating told the Council during the Good and Welfare portion of the July 2 meeting: “I’ve always considered Long Beach a major victory. It’s just shocking to me that they’re doing this.”

The particular wood the city is using to rebuild the boardwalk is made of ipe, a tree found in the Amazon Basin, and according to Keating the trees that are used are typically between 250 to 1,000 years old and the only way potential way to log them “sustainably” is to cut down no more than two trees per century by hand, without modern technologies, according to the Long Beach Herald.

But city officials said Keating’s allegations are toothless since the wood being used fits the sustainability guidelines of the ordinance, and that the law is not binding and can be changed at the council’s recommendation. At Tuesday’s meeting, Corporation Counsel Corey Klein told Keating:  

“I wrote that law — there’s nothing this city has done in violation of that law. In 2001, this piece was put in as, in essence, a fluff piece, and it really has no teeth in it. It has no legal merit on the city whatsoever.”

The city and Sustainable Long Island held a series of community meetings and surveys in February, which revealed that the most important quality of a new boardwalk is its durability to storms. Citing various recommendations from various sources, including the Department of Public Works and the engineering firm overseeing the project, the city opted to use the ipe hardwood as the stronger and more sustainable wood to rebuild the walkway. Keating, who lives in New Jersey, said he only learned of the project recently.

Grace Industries, the Plainview firm hired by the city to rebuild the boardwalk, is constructing an area between Long Beach and Laurelton boulevards that is scheduled for completion by July 23, the 100-day milestone set for that section. The full structure is expected to be completed by November.