Highlights
Congressman Bishop at
Summer Meeting
Senators Clinton and Schumer send greetings
FIMP Funding Restored in
Energy and Water Bill
Congressional Delegation fighting hard to assure
Reformulation study is concluded.
Beach Scraping Permits
Issued
Is there enough sand to scrape? And what about next year?
Bill Introduced to Allow
Creation of FI Erosion Control Taxing District
Existing ECDs would be represented.
Corps Assesses FIMP
Progress
FIA attends two-day session in Hauppauge.
A Busy Year Shaping Up –
For Hurricanes
When the order is given, just go.
Ocean Beach Hosts Summer
Meeting
Between last September’s 40th Anniversary celebration for the 1964
founding of the Fire Island National Seashore and this year’s summer
membership meeting of the Fire Island Association on June 25, the
venerable Ocean Beach Community House underwent a full renovation.
Regulars at the meeting were almost startled at the capacious, bright
and airy appearance of the meeting room.
One thing about the Community House that did not change, happily, was
the advance work by Village Clerk Mary Anne Minerva and Kevin Schelling,
Superintendent of Public Works. When OBA vice president Judy Steinman
called the meeting to order, everything was ready, just as promised.
This year’s array of public officials was impressive. Congressman Tim
Bishop (D. Southampton) pledged in person to continue the effort to see
the Fire Island to Montauk Reformulation (FIMP) project through to
completion. He was supported by letters of greeting to the Association
from Senators Schumer and Clinton that also promised continued support.
Recent visits to those offices in Washington, as well as to those of
Congressmen Israel and King, may have helped (see following story).
Closer to home, elected officials at the meeting included Assemblywoman
Ginny Fields, Suffolk County Legislator Angie Carpenter and Ocean Beach
and Saltaire Mayors Natalie Katz Rogers and Scott Rosenblum.
Also speaking at the meeting were Joseph R. Vietri, Chief of Policy and
Planning for the North Atlantic Division of the U.S. Army Corps of
Engineers, Fire Island National Seashore Superintendent Mike Reynolds
and Deputy Inspector Harold Jantzen. Attorney Irving Like discussed the
pending petition for certiorari in the NYCP lawsuit (see previous
newsletters).
Mayor Rosenblum spoke briefly about the importance of supporting FIA,
and backed up his remarks by delivering checks on behalf of the Saltaire
Citizens Advisory Association totaling $3,400. The Ocean Beach
Association has since made what has become its annual donation to FIA,
this year of $1,000. So far this fiscal year, community contributions to
FIA have totaled more than $18,000, about half of the goal for the year,
says Membership/Fundraising chair Bob Spencer (Davis Park). An
increasing number of community associations are providing a check-off
box on dues forms for members to make a voluntary gift to FIA, usually
$10. This mounts up rapidly; we encourage other communities to try it.
One other point about the summer meeting: we are very grateful to Fire
Island Ferries and Sayville Ferry for their cooperation in getting
members to the meeting free of charge. Still, the crowd on June 25 was
disappointing. It will be harder to get the commitment of public
officials to the things that are important to Fire Islanders if more do
not show up to thank them for their efforts on our behalf. Please try to
ensure that your community has a good delegation next year. Our thanks,
of course, to those who made the trek in 2005.
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FIMP Funding Restored
The restoration of funding to complete the reformulation of the Fire
Island Inlet to Montauk Point storm damage reduction and hurricane
protection project was a major topic of discussion at the summer
meeting. The amount in question was not large-- $1.7 million is all that
is needed for 2006 – but the smallness of the amount did not make
getting it into the Water Resources Appropriation Bill any easier. The
bill has passed both houses but the FIMP is in the Senate version only.
That version seems likely to survive in the conference committee version
expected in September.
The funding, like that for virtually all federal beach nourishment
projects, had been eliminated from the Corps of Engineers Civil Works
funding request by the Office of Management and Budget, the president’s
budgetary watchdog. This was the fifth consecutive year that the Corps’
budget request was rejected, but each year Congress acted to restore the
cuts.
Shore protection projects have neither a stable funding source (consider
the highway bill and gasoline taxes) nor an aggressive, single-purpose
lobby that secures funding or preferred treatment for a special interest
(choose one). That is what makes the effort by the American Shore and
Beach Preservation Association so important. ASBPA declared June 8 “Yes
to Beaches Day” in Washington. Coastal community representatives fanned
out on Capitol Hill to make sure that Congressional staffers understood
the issue and what action Members should take.
FIA president Jerry Stoddard (a vice president of ASBPA) joined the
effort. He met with Stephen Hedger, of Rep. Israel’s office; Allison
Koles, Dayle Lewis and Kevin Riley (Sen. Schumer); Ryan Travis, Rep.
King; Nick Holder (Rep. Bishop); and Dan Utech (Sen. Clinton). In some
of these visits he was joined by Marlowe associates. In the meeting with
Senator Schumer’s staff, Harry Simmons, ABPA president also
participated. Simmons is Mayor of Caswell Beach, N.C. The point was made
that Long Island shore protection problems are similar to those of other
coastal states.
Many other staff visits were made by coastal community representatives
in the course of the day. The message was the same in all cases, but
with variations depending on local issues: pass the Energy and Water
Development Appropriations Bill with at least $5 billion for Water
Resources (and up to 150 million for beach nourishment projects) and
enact a Water Resources Development Act for 2005. While there is no way
of knowing the impact, the Appropriations Bill did pass both houses and
WRDA will be the subject of a conference committee hearing (the last
step before passage) in September.
As for reformulation, all of the Long Island delegation staff visited
got the message and were in position to deliver it to their colleagues
on the staff of the appropriate committees. Basically, the message was:
“completing the funding of FIMP reformulation is very important to my
boss.” As noted in the previous story, both Senators and Rep. Bishop
advised the FIA summer meeting that the message had been received.
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Last winter several FIA board members traveled to Patchogue to meet with Superintendent Reynolds on a variety of topics, but principally on the subject of beach scraping (see previous Newsletters). The meeting was successful in outlining what is possible under the 2002 Environmental Assessment that was hammered out by FIA and its consultants and the Seashore. Bottom line, it appears that scraping, at local expense by community erosion control districts, will be permitted, at least for this summer.
Indeed, both the National Seashore and the New York Department of Environmental Conservation have indicated that scraping will be permitted this summer where “conditions permit;” that is, beach elevation be at least 9 feet above NGVD at the base of the dune, an average beach berm elevation of at least 7 feet in the general beach, including 100 feet of “dry” beach (above mean high water). Where these conditions obtain, a 60’ wide swath may be scraped to a depth of 12 inches and the accumulated sand placed on the dune to be augmented.
Marsha Hunter, who oversees beach scraping projects for the residents of the Islip hamlet of Kismet, is hopeful that a scraping project will be possible in that community this summer. Ms. Hunter advises she will be working with Charles W. Bowman of Land Use Environmental Corporation, who has supervised numerous Fire Island community scraping projects.
Scraping was included in
the same Environmental Assessment approved by the Park in July 2002 that
allowed several communities to enter into dredge and fill projects that
have since been completed. In fill projects, sand is taken from approved
offshore borrow sites and pumped onto the beach where it is used to
raise and widen the beach and dune system to approved design
specifications.
This year is the last in which either fill or scraping projects will be
permitted under the 2002 EA. The theory behind the cut-off date was that
FIMP reformulation was to have been concluded by the end of 2005 and,
presumably, whatever new island-wide approach was agreed to by the
parties to that process would supplant the community projects.
Unfortunately, the completion date for FIMP Reformulation has now
slipped to November 2006, with no project possible until the following
summer, at the earliest.
Thus it would seem that communities that have beach conditions capable
of sustaining a beach scrape should consider doing it this summer. From
all accounts, most beaches will be able to scrape, but all projects have
to be concluded by August 15, according to permit terms.
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Bill Introduced to Allow Creation of
Island-Wide Erosion District
FIA board members are mulling the terms of a bill introduced in the
state legislature that calls for creation of an island-wide erosion
control taxing district (ECD). Introduced by Senator Owen H. Johnson
(R.-Babylon), and, we hope, by Ginny Fields (D.-Sayville) in the
Assembly, the bill would allow islanders to tax ourselves to pay a
portion of the local cost of a federal-state-local erosion control
project, and to monitor erosion and other beach conditions.
The bill calls for a twenty-person board to represent the communities in
beach matters. One representative each from the communities would join
four government employees (two named by the County Executive and one
each by the ► Town Supervisors). Each village or community ECD would put
forward a name for appointment by the mainland governments. Once
established, the board would name a manager whose duties and authority
remain to be worked out.
The bill would amend Article 5-B of the County Law, passed in 1971
largely at the instance of FIA. Its primary purpose is to allow beach
property owners to participate in decision-making about beach
management. In the “Justification” section of the Senate introduction,
it is noted that the bill “would allow the district to work with federal
government and the state of New York to help fund and promote the
restoration of the beaches to conditions existing at the time the Fire
Island National Seashore was created and to remediate past erosion
damage. In addition, the district costs would be paid for by those
persons who own property directly threatened by the erosion through a
real property taxing mechanism. The money spent by the district for
erosion control would help defray the cost to the county to participate
in any shared federal/state/local shore protection projects.”
Much work needs to be done by the FIA board before the legislation
answers everyone’s questions. For example, the question of how costs
should be allocated between and among communities with different sand
needs and different histories of self-help needs to be addressed.
Communities also differ in numbers of houses and length of shoreline.
As discussed in previous Newsletters, some years ago FIA got the support
of the owners of almost two-thirds of the assessed value of all island
properties in a similar effort in support of the ill-fated Interim
Project. In both projects the idea is to place a small surcharge on real
property taxes, island-wide, in return for being able to have a say in
beach management matters.
FIA hopes all of the problems can be ironed out, the Senate bill amended
appropriately and a companion measure introduced in the Assembly in
January. For those interested, the Senate Bill, S. 5912, is available on
the internet though the State Senate webpage.
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Corps
Reviews Status of FIMP Studies
FIA president Jerry Stoddard and first vice president Bob Spencer
attended a two-day review of progress in the Reformulation of the Fire
Island to Montauk Project (FIMP) in late July. In April, the two had met
with the District Engineer, Col. Richard J. Polo, Jr., to stress the
importance to Fire Islanders of prompt completion of the project and to
request being allowed to participate in Corps meetings on the subject.
The July meeting was of the Intergovernmental Research Group, senior
officials of the agencies concerned with the integrity of the many
scientific studies being conducted as part of the project. Attending the
meeting, held in the media Room of the H. Lee Denison Building in
Hauppauge, were all of the agencies most directly involved with the FIMP:
From the Department of the Interior came Chief Scientist Mary Foley,
Northeast Regional Science Advisor Andy Raddant and Counsel Robin Lepore.
National Seashore Superintendent Mike Reynolds attended, along with his
deputy, Sean McGuinness, Diane Abell and Paula Valentine.
Rosemary Gnam and other staff from the Long Island Field Office of the
U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service were present as were Fred Anders and Steve
Resler from the Department of State Coastal Resources program.
Representatives of the Department of Environmental Conservation and
Suffolk County Planning also joined the Corps at the meeting.
Several consultants to the Corps also attended, including Michael Cannon
of URS Corporation and Judy Fischer of Omni Consulting, a public affairs
specialist.
Cliff Jones, Project Manager for the Corps, introduced the topics and
the speakers. (Others from the Corps included Steve Couch and Roselle
Henn of the Planning Department, and Joseph R. Vietri, Chief of Policy
and Planning for the Corps’ North Atlantic Division.)
Mr. Jones began by pointing out that FIA and the Nature Conservancy had
been invited to attend the meeting, marking a broader participation.
As it happened, TNC was unable to send a representative, even though
they have been active in FIMP reformulation to date. Mr. Jones said
other groups may join future meetings. He believes it is important that
the public be involved as early as possible in the process.
He provided a brief review of the history of the FIMP since the storms
of 1992-93 including the failed effort to get approval for the Interim
Project, and discussed cost projections through completion of the
studies. He termed the completion date of November 2006 a “commitment”
of the Corps.
The first presentation was by Senior Engineer Lynn Bocamazo who updated
the audience on sediment budget studies, physical models of coastal
processes, and inlet management problems. She began by noting that the
budget (i.e., the amount of sand that flows to Fire Island from updrift
and offshore sources and then departs to the west) has changed
significantly in recent years as measurement tools have improved. She
stressed that all the sand that reaches Moriches Inlet from the east is
by-passed to Fire Island, not in a continuous manner but in “pulses,”
that are created by natural events, such as storms, as well as by
mechanical dredging operations.
Another key topic explored by Ms. Bocamazo was that of possible inlet
modifications as part of the reformulation process. This stems from the
need of some inlets to be made safer and more reliable for commercial
fishermen and boaters, as well as to better protect upland
infrastructure, such as the fishing cooperative at Shinnecock. Ms.
Bocamazo reviewed bypassing techniques recommended for Shinnecock as
well as alternative structures to the existing inlet jetties at that
location. The discussion revealed a strong bias in some circles against
any kind of hard structure that is not essential to safe inlet
management.
Among other points, Ms. Bocamazo acknowledged that erosion might have
been worse on western Fire Island had it not been for two series of
community-sponsored fill projects following the 1992-93 storms, and that
Fire Island “functions” differently east and west of Watch Hill.
To illustrate the kind of back and forth discussion that took place, at
one point Ms. Bocamazo noted that there can be an accretion of sand in
bayside locations in storm events as a result of sand being moved into
the bay by washovers or by storm-induced inlet processes. Joe Vietri
observed that if inlets and the beaches and dunes are not both protected
from storm events, the positive benefit of sand reaching the bay (to
create and nourish habitats) can be offset by damage to beaches, dunes,
homes and other infrastructure. He reasoned that the project selected
must balance the needs of inlets against those of adjacent beaches; that
one cannot be addressed without impacting the other. It was also noted
that if there is a fill project recommended for the area, sand can be
pumped to the bay, where desirable, without compromising dunes or
inlets.
The Corps’ Bob Kurtz, a biologist, reported that piping plover colonies
benefit greatly from placement of sand. He noted that feral cats are the
main predator of piping plovers in West Hampton Dunes, just as house
cats in general are major destroyers of avian wildlife of all
descriptions. Illegal beach driving also takes a toll, which accounts
for the sometimes controversial “symbolic fencing” to keep vehicles away
from nesting areas.
Steve Couch began the second day with a comprehensive review of the
“alternative” approaches to a possible FIMP project. They are: 1) take
no action, 2) management (respond to perceived needs of inlets and
respond to breaches), 3) create and implement plans for breach
contingency and post-storm actions, 4) apply non-structural measures
(elevate and/or relocate structures in advance of storms and 5) do all
of the above and also provide protection for the barrier island. Mr.
Couch’s analysis of these alternatives entailed an extensive review of
all aspects of the general problem, from Corps procedures to funding
needs and schedules.
Other presentations were made on economics, borrow sites, habitat
protection, and biological and physical modeling of the shore line. We
are told all of the papers will be posted on the FIMP website:
www.nan.usace.army.mil/fimp/index.htm
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All Signs Point to Big Year
for Hurricanes
The National Hurricane Center, part of the National Oceanographic and
Atmospheric Agency (http://www.nhc.noaa.gov/), is predicting that 2005 will have
more than its share of hurricanes. The month of July featured five named
tropical storms, including two of the most intense ever to be recorded
in that month. Dennis, which slammed the Florida panhandle, was the
earliest Category 4 storm (winds of more than 131 mph) ever seen in
July. Category 4 is the second highest category of hurricane.
The Center predicts another 11 to 14 named storms between now and
November. Seven to nine of them will reach hurricane status (winds of 76
mph or higher). Counting the ones already experienced, that will bring
the total this year to 18-21 named storms, 9-11 of them hurricanes, of
which 5-7 will be “major” (winds of 111 mph, Category 3). An “average”
year has 10 storms and six hurricanes, two of them major. Already this
year on Fire Island, Hurricane Franklin, though far offshore, kicked up
a pretty good surf in mid-July.
Fire Island is not
immune to hurricanes, as any survivor of the 1938 monster can attest.
Ocean Beach was largely spared but a huge number of Saltaire homes wound
up in the bay, and there was loss of life as well. That “50-year storm.”
happened almost 70 years ago.
Preparation is all. On Fire Island, the best advice is to leave as soon
as evacuation is ordered ty the County: don’t wait for the “last” boat;
it may have been the one you didn’t take. Ferries must be safely put
away well before the high winds hit.
The last evacuation call was in 1985, for Hurricane Gloria. As it
happened, this Category 2 storm hit at dead low tide and moved up the
eastcoast fast enough to trip over Fire Island and do most of its
damaging work on the mainland where winds blew trees onto houses.
Please do not think that Gloria’s mild impact will be repeated. When the
order is given, just secure anything that might blow away, gather your
family and pets and go.