Bulkhead Moratorium?

It will be easier to find a parking space at the beach on the hottest day this summer than it was to find a seat at Southampton Town Hall on Tuesday, when the Town Board held a public hearing on a proposed six-month moratorium on the construction of bulkheads and other erosion-control structures.

The board is considering the moratorium to give a team of consultants time to finish an environmental impact statement that will help it develop a policy for handling future applications from homeowners. The board closed the hearing but agreed to accept written comments for 20 days.

The standing-room-only crowd that filled every seat, lined the walls, and spilled into the hallway and Supervisor Vincent Cannuscio's office next to the hearing room offered sharply different opinions on the moratorium, with supporters arguing it is necessary to help save the town's beaches and detractors claiming it will only hurt property owners whose homes are in danger.

Make It Permanent

"We don't need a six-month moratorium, we need a permanent moratorium," said John White, a Saga ponack farmer.

The beach erodes "at a rate that surprises me, and I've been standing there watching it for 40 years," he said. "Don't build anything you can't afford to lose."

"There will always be a beautiful sandy beach if we don't build on it," said Richard Hendrickson, a Bridge hampton farmer and longtime weather observer. "There's been no manmade structure since 1640 that has done anything but ruin our coast."

Not A Safe Place

Mr. Hendrickson pointed out that Long Island is made of sand, "and it will move." Problems are exacerbated, he added, because the island sits at a right angle to the coast "in the middle of hurricane alley."

Scientists agree, he said, that the sea level is rising and in the future more hurricanes and gales will hit the coast

Mr. Hendrickson said that we can expect storms similar to one that wiped out a beach pavilion at W. Scott Cameron Beach on March 10, 1938, and another hurricane in 1815, "which flattened every dune on Long Island."

"Use the beach for the day only," he cautioned. "It's not a safe place for a home."

But Marjorie Appleman of Daniels Lane in Sagaponack, whose house has been jeopardized by this winter's storms, said the moratorium would be a "death sentence" that would "foreclose on the future."

A Pile Of Rocks

The only thing protecting her house from the surf is a pile of rocks, she said. "With a moratorium we couldn't get that protection and we couldn't even ask for it."

However, Councilman Patrick (Skip) Heaney, who called for the moratorium, said emergency permits would still be processed while it is in effect.

Ms. Appleman said she and her husband, Philip, retired teachers, sacrificed to buy their land 20 years ago and build their retirement house. "There's a piece of my heart in every board, wall, and window," she said.

"Not All Arrogant"

January storms "erased the last 110 feet of dune in front of our home," said Mr. Appleman. He said he understood that "if you built on the dunes, you get what's coming, but we didn't build on the dunes. We built on farmland."

When other natural disasters strike, governments render aid and "victims are treated with sympathy," he added.

That theme was repeated by Denis Kelleher, whose house on Potato Road in Sagaponack collapsed into the surf during a Feb. 5 storm, and who said he overhead people in the hall who "seem overjoyed" that "our house is gone."

"We are not all arrogant," he said. "Can we drop this level of acrimony?"

Mr. Kelleher urged the town to work with homeowners, not fight them.

"Socialism For The Rich"

Roy Scheider, the actor, who has lived in Sagaponack for four years, took a defiant stance. He said his property has lost "300 feet of sand" and that he has no place to move his house. If it is threatened by a storm, "no moratorium is going to stop me" from protecting it, he said. "I'll take my chances."

But Lorna Salzman of the Long Island Shoreline Defense Committee said "there is a very good reason for this hostility" on the part of the public. The costs of "privatizing" the coast are "substantial" and borne by taxpayers, she said. "It is socialism for the rich." She called on the town to order the removal of all bulkheads or other hard structures on its coast.

Face The Situation

After the 1938 hurricane devastated Long Island "they couldn't get at it fast enough to help people that were hurt," said Ann LaWall of the Southampton Business Alliance, which opposes the moratorium.

"Don't run away from the situation. Face it," she said. "We will just have extension after extension that goes on forever."

While the Business Alliance does not "endorse bulkheads or any hard structures," it wants the town to devise a short-term solution "that we can all live with," she said.

"It's not a choice between homeowners and the beach," said William Berkoski of the Southampton Town Business Advisory Council. "We need both."

"The moratorium is not an attempt to do nothing, it is an attempt to do something," countered Robert DeLuca, the president of the Group for the South Fork. "We don't think we have it completely figured out, and we don't think the proponents of steel walls have it figured out either."

"It looks like some people are going to lose their homes, and it looks like I'm going to lose my job," said Charles Guilloz, a partner in James H. Rambo Inc. of Southampton, whose company builds bulkheads and other erosion-control structures.

"A Hired Gun"

"Don't tell me it's going to be six months and then say another six months," he said. The town already has a de facto moratorium in place, he added, because it has not approved any hard structures in over five years.

His partner, Tom Samuels, agreed. "Can you believe that a document like this is going to take 18 months?" he asked. "It will take four years."

He charged that Dr. Stephen Leatherman, a coastal geologist with Florida International University, who has been hired by the town to work on the environmental impact statement, is "a hired gun" who has already determined that no structures should be allowed.

Beach Stays In Flux

Dr. Leatherman has submitted an affidavit on behalf of the Group for the South Fork in support of the town, which was sued by a group of property owners on Dune Road in Bridgehampton who want to build a string of connected bulkheads.

Aram Terchunian of First Coastal Corporation, which built a massive subsurface dune restoration system for William Rudin of Dune Road, also spoke against the moratorium. Mr. Rudin's structure, protected by a steel cofferdam during construction, touched off a storm of protests when it blocked beach access before collapsing in a storm on Jan 28.

He submitted aerial photographs dating to the 1930s, which proved, he said, that the beach comes and goes. The moratorium is not based on scientific evidence showing manmade structures harm the beach, he said.

"Plain Common Sense"

Mr. Terchunian agreed, however, that the beaches, particularly in Bridgehampton and Sagaponack, are in danger for now, and he called on the town to implement a long-term plan, perhaps with aid from the Federal Government to renourish them with sand.

But Carolyn Zenk, the attorney for the Group for the South Fork, said the moratorium is needed. "It makes plain common sense to study shore-hardening structures before you allow them," she said.

Bulkheads and other structures rob the beach and take away the public's right to use them, she said. "That easement has been in place since 1640," she said. "And it should be there until the end of time."

Complete The Study

The town should complete the environmental study as soon as possible and keep the moratorium in effect until it is finished, she said.

A Dune Road homeowner who did move his house - three times - Edward Padula, also spoke for the moratorium and a future ban on hard structures.

Some Advice

He said his house, an old fisherman's shack that he has lived in for over 40 years, was damaged when his neighbors, Mr. Rudin and Ronald and Isobel Konecky, tried to protect their own homes.

During the late January storm, Mr. Padula said he watched the ocean take his front and side deck before he heard water rushing under his house.

Briefly, he turned suicidal. "I decided the sea is my lover and it's come to get me," he said. "Let it come. I wanted to go with it." He said he was pulled out of his "madness" by friends who rescued him.

Describing himself as an "old beachcomber, not a geologist," Mr. Padula offered some advice. "Today is the day we should arrive at the studious decision that nothing is to be done on our beaches," he said.