The Fire Island Association’s Summer Meeting will be held on Saturday, July 31, at the Community House in Ocean Beach, starting at 11 am. The main speaker will be Congressman Steve Israel (D., NY-2nd), whose district includes most Fire Island communities. Mr. Israel is a member of the House Appropriations Sub-Committee on Energy and Water Development, the committee that will be responsible for recommending appropriation of funds for the Fire Island Inlet to Montauk Point beach nourishment program. Other speakers will include FINS Superintendent Chris Soller, Suffolk County Police Department Marine Bureau Commander Hal Jantzen and several other public figures.

FIA will arrange free water taxi service for communities east of Point O’Woods and West of Atlantique. A schedule will be posted here and sent to community websites when it is made final. Reserve in the usual way by phoning 665-8885 about an hour before the scheduled departure and mention you are going the FIA meeting in Ocean Beach, and there will be no charge. When embarking, advise the captain and/or crew to the same effect.

Anyone reading the Times weather page in the ten days leading up to Sunday, October 18 had an excuse for being anxious. The maritime forecast consistently reported winds from the northeast anywhere between 10 and 30 mph, “with higher gusts,” for more than a week straight.  Those winds not only pummeled the newly restored beaches, it made Fire Island Inlet, already far from efficient at draining Great South Bay because of sand clogging the channel, even more of a problem: the tides flow in but don’t completely drain, so the next tide piles up behind the first, and so on. Television news showed places like Freeport and Bayville on the bay’s north side coping with serious street flooding as a result.

But tides piling up in the bay pose another threat as well: if there is a low, flat area (and Fire Island has several of them) once there is enough water in the bay it won’t wait around for the tide to go out, it will seek the quickest way to the ocean, and that means through the island. It didn’t happen this time but it sure pointed up the need for the Corps of Engineers and New York State to get together on an emergency program for maintenance dredging at the inlets, especially the Fire Island Inlet.

As for the ocean side, Fire Island did not escape unscathed; and one shudders to think of what might have happened but for the 2009 community nourishment projects. From east to west, Bob Spencer (Davis Park) reported very high tides and mainland flooding. On the ocean side, he reports severe scarping in the persistent “erosion hot spot” that afflicts about 500 feet toward the western part of that community. Unless a period of westerly winds rebuilds the area, more nor’easters “could be real nasty,” Bob says.

Fire Island Pines experienced severe erosion at the eastern end, according to Jay Pagano. One set of stairs was lost. In another context, Steve Keehn, the ’09 project engineer, noted that the eastern ends of all of the projects are exposed to northeast winds, and the experience at the Pines seems to bear this out.

Ocean Bay Park came through “in pretty good shape”, according to Steven Jaffee. Stairs and fencing are all still standing, although a lot of sand was lost, he added.  He noted that Seaview (which adjoins Ocean Bay Park to the west) seems to have lost several hundred feet of sand fencing.

Ocean Beach had flooding up as far as Midway, Love the Plumber reports. There was a foot or more of water near the water tower, but the area near the court house was dry by comparison.

Robbins Rest, to the west of Ocean Beach, was very pleased with the performance of its new bulkhead. Still, water came up from the bay about 100 yards, the Association reported.  

If you have further information, please add it in a comment to this post.

Patchogue, New York— On September 17, 2009, Fire Island National Seashore

began another season of a long-standing deer immunocontraceptive research

project on Fire Island, to help determine if deer populations on the island

can be kept in check by injecting female deer (does) with a birth control

vaccine. 
read more from "Fall Deer Darting Program in Progress"

    

The following post is by courtesy of the Ocean Beach Association’s “Notes From the Beach”:

Vision Fire Island: Photo Scavenger Hunt [the deadline for submitting photos has been extended to October 16]

Get Involved: New General Management Plan for Fire Island

The National Park Service has begun working on a new General Management Plan (GMP) for Fire Island National Seashore. The current Plan, adopted in 1977, is at best, outdated.  Public scoping meetings were conducted in 2006, and foundation workshops have begun. You can sign up for the park’s E-Newsletter to get periodic updates of GMP progress and other current park news.  You also can share your ideas and opinions about the future management of the park and its programs as GMP planning continues. 

As part of this planning, FINS has created a public participation process called Vision Planning.  This process includes a Photo Scavenger Hunt, which is described below.  No one knows the joys of Fire Island better than its residents; therefore, we urge you to snap your favorite Fire Island sites, those that you feel show the Fire Island you most cherish and submit them for inclusion in the Scavenger Hunt.  Complete directions are posted at: www.visionfireislandd.com

The following NEWSDAY story appeared on July 8.

The new $4.6-million Fire Island ferry terminal will open in Patchogue by Jan. 1, federal officials announced yesterday.

The long-awaited terminal, which has been in the planning stage for years and for which ground was broken in the fall, will replace the old station off West Avenue, officials said. The terminal could open in time for Patchogue’s holiday boat parade, held around Thanksgiving, if all goes well, National Park Service officials said.
read more from "FINS Gets a New Patchogue Terminal"

.To FIA Directors, Members and Friends

There will be much to discuss at this year’s Summer Meeting at Fire Island Pines on July 18 – and we expect to have the right people doing the talking. I have spoken with County Executive Levy and he is trying to clear his schedule so that he can be with us.
read more from "FIA Summer Meeting at the Pines"

Fire Island Homeowners Present Certificates to

Jeffrey Kassner, Marie Michel and Barbara Wiplush

The Fire Island Association (FIA) and a delegation of homeowners presented certificates of appreciation to three Brookhaven town employees at a meeting in Brookhaven Supervisor Mark Lesko’s office on June 12.

From left; Councilman Mazzei, Barbara Wiplush, Jerry Stoddard, Marie Michel, Deputy Supervisor Walsh, Supervisor Lesko. 
read more from "Fire Island Homeowners Present Certificates"

The following is from Fire Island National Seashore.

For more information go to the Links page and click on Fire Island

National Seashore/newsreleases.

Beach Nourishment Projects To Begin on Fire Island;
      Work Expected to be Completed by the end of March 2009
      Several beach nourishment projects on Fire Island are scheduled to

      begin by late December or early January.  The projects, which are

      being undertaken by Suffolk County and eleven Fire Island

      communities, are expected to be completed by March 31, 2009.   
read more from "News From FINS on Community Beach Protection Projects"
    

Note: When reporters write about shore protection projects for the first time, or the article seems biased, FIA sometrimes sends comments to public officials as well as to the reporter. The following is an example:

To: Interested Public Officials

The following comments expand on points made in the article, “A Creeping Sensation For Fire Island Owners” NY Times, Long Island Section, Sunday, October 14, 2001.

1.               “Holes along Fire Island” Holes were in the sand bar offshore, not in the island itself. “Holes in the bar” allow wave energy to be focused, unblunted, on particular sections of the shoreline. If there are no holes (i.e., discontinuities) in the bar, it serves to remove most of the energy from waves by causing them to break well offshore.
read more from "October 2001 A Times article gets it wrong"

The NPCA press release concerning the Fire Island National Seashore being one of the ten most endangered parks has several serious errors:

1. The Corps of Engineers is not “proposing” anything. At a cost of several million dollars and several years of study, the Corps responded to a request by Members of Congress and the State of New York to survey the south shore of Long Island and recommend methods of reducing storm damage. The Corps’ EIS was the subject of a public hearing in January 2000 where it was broadly supported by residents in the project area and in areas of the Long Island mainland that would be benefited by a stronger barrier island. In November 1999, the State indicated it expected to support the project if no new information arose either at the hearing or in the 30-day comment period. Nothing new arose, but the state has yet even to comment officially.
read more from "FINS Named Among America’s Ten Most Endangered Parks!??"