The Mast-Head: On Everyone’s Mind

A funny thing happened on the way to the Concerned Citizens of Montauk forum. I had been invited to take part by its president, Jeremy Samuelson, and had expected the subject for Saturday’s discussion might include summertime crowds, water quality, and short-term rentals. But as it turned out, the nearly two-hour meeting centered on only one thing: the United States Army Corps of Engineers sandbag seawall.

One of the problems with off-season policy discussions is how soon we forget. The South Fork, and Montauk in particular, is overcrowded in the summer, and one would think that how to regain a degree of control might be taken up. However, with Montauk’s main commercial district jeopardized by the immediate threat of storms and the long-term certainty of sea level rise, thoughts of what to do about it tend to dominate.

Much of downtown Montauk is simply in the wrong place. Few, if any, of the 90-plus people, as well as those of us on the panel, seemed to disagree with that observation. There was less unanimity about what to do.

During the forum, I said that the Army Corps’s offer to place hundreds of thousands of cubic yards of sand on the ocean beach will only put off the day of reckoning. Human nature being what it is, I said, once the immediate threat of the front row of motels falling into the sea is gone, attention will shift to other issues.

Paul Monte, the president of the Montauk Chamber of Commerce, spoke for many when he said he favored an ongoing program of sand replenishment to buy time until a long-term answer is found. For that, he received a round of applause.

My comment that the Army Corps should be removed from the coastal management business in favor of a different, more natural resource-focused federal agency was well taken. The corps is all about protecting structures and private property. Tellingly, I think, its symbol is a tower-like, immovable stone fortress — wholly at odds with the dynamics of shifting shorelines and climate change.

Over all, I was impressed both by the size of the audience at the forum and by the crowd’s sharp attention. It is difficult to imagine as large a group with as intense a focus anywhere else on the East End.