Montauk Army Corps Project Put Off to Fall

With time running out before the busy summer season, an $8.4 million sandbag project planned for the Montauk oceanfront has been postponed. East Hampton Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell said on Thursday that the United States Army Corps told him that work could begin in October.

The Army Corps awarded the job in March to a Bay Shore company. It is intended to protect about 10 privately owned parcels, most of them motels and condominium residences. The work would involve as many as 14,560 plastic-fabric bags, each filled with about a ton of sand trucked in from an inland mine.

Money for building the seawall-like structure comes from a Congressional authorization bill passed following 2012's Hurricane Sandy. The cost of maintaining the completed structure and keeping it covered with sand would be shared by the Town of East Hampton and Suffolk County.

Defend H20, an environmental group, has been joined by several individuals challenging the legality of the project in court. They say that town and state law prohibits the use of sandbags for an indefinite period, as proposed by the Army Corps. Their action could put an October start in doubt.

Before the latest delay was announced, the town and Army Corps had planned to undertake the 3,100-foot-long project in two phases. An initial eastern portion was to have started in the spring and be finished by May 21, with the balance completed in the fall.

According to Army Corps project specifications, the sandbags would be placed in a sloped configuration, rising to about 16 feet above sea level and requiring elevated walkways for access to the beach. Sand mostly trucked in from elsewhere would be used to cover the bags and extend into what is presently water at high tide.