Half Worse Than None

Just when we thought the plan to bolster the Montauk oceanfront with thousands of sandbags could not get any worse, it got worse. Time and the desire of town officials not to have the work take place during the summer have conspired, prompting the United States Army Corps of Engineers to go ahead with only half the job.

The corps is now to start in March on a 1,200-foot-long section of beach on the eastern side of Montauk’s downtown with work ending by Memorial Day weekend — just in time for the start of hurricane season. This is an incredibly irresponsible plan that could expose the more precariously situated properties to the west to even greater risk than they now face.

The phenomena known as downdrift scouring appears well understood to everyone who knows anything about coastal processes, except, it seems, East Hampton Town officials and the Army Corps. Despite arguments that the sandbags are a “soft solution” to erosion or merely temporary, they will actually function as a hardened seawall for the duration that they remain on the beach. This means that in the case of a storm with a strong easterly ocean surge, the section of the row of motels and condominiums already hanging nearly at the brink will be rapidly undermined. The risk is simply too high and, apparently, not fully understood.