Montauk Beach Project Is Still a Hot Topic

A request for an update on what one Montauk Citizens Advisory Committee member called “the big dig” — the Army Corps of Engineers’ downtown Montauk beach project — prompted a heated hourlong discussion that had tempers flaring at a committee meeting on Monday night.

East Hampton Town Councilman Peter Van Scoyoc reported that various roadblocks have delayed completion of the project until the end of March. (A separate story on the delays appears elsewhere on this page.)

Some members pushed for town officials to hire an independent coastal engineer to oversee the work, someone similar to a clerk of the works, said Bill Akin, the former president of the Concerned Citizens of Montauk. But others took issue with that, saying the Army Corps did not need someone constantly looking over its shoulders. The councilman said that the town’s Natural Resources Department is monitoring the project, which includes the placement of massive sandbags along a 3,100-foot stretch of shoreline.

Jay Fruin, a committee member who is one of the plaintiffs, along with the organization Defend H20, in a lawsuit seeking to stop the project, described the weight of the bags as similar to heavy carpeting, and said that would make it even harder to remove them if there is reason to do so in the future. He said he had walked the site the day before with Robert S. Young, a licensed geologist in North and South Carolina and Florida, and members of the Surfrider Foundation. He said Mr. Young, a professor of coastal geology at Western Carolina University and director of a program for the study of developed shorelines, had little faith in the project and believes it will make the beach more susceptible to erosion. According to Mr. Fruin, he predicted that a few good northeasters would easily uncover the sandbags.

Mr. Van Scoyoc reminded people at the meeting that the project is an interim one meant to protect the beach and downtown area until recommendations of the Army Corps of Engineers’ as-yet-unfinished Fire Island to Montauk study can be implemented. When the town approved the project, he said, it felt it had no other recourse, especially since sea level is rising faster than once expected. “Long term I don’t think that downtown Montauk could survive sea level rise,” he said. “We need a post-storm recovery plan put in place immediately prior to a catastrophe.”

Some in the room were frustrated by the discussion, saying the project had been talked about for the past two years already. Steve Kalimnios, the owner of the hardest hit oceanfront motel, the Royal Atlantic, said that he has spent thousands of dollars of his own money placing sand on the downtown beach. “I saved that beach; I saved downtown Montauk,” he said, and asked people to at least see the current project through to completion. If the community came together, without all the arguments, he said, it would be a better way to hold the Army Corps’s “feet to the fire” should something not work out.

Others agreed. “The money’s here now. Congress has approved this project, but it’s a temporary solution so let’s do it, and let’s get it done,” said Richard Valcich, a committee member. The town could hire 50 different coastal engineers and end up with 50 different opinions, he said.

Unity among the townspeople is key, said Mr. Van Scoyoc, who urged the audience of some 50 people to lobby the federal government for completion of the Fire Island to Montauk study. “If a politician sees a community united behind one goal they will act faster. If a politician sees a community divided it would be a detriment to the project,” he said.

Also on Monday, the committee set a new 6 p.m. start time for future meetings, which are held on the first Monday of the month. It also agreed that members must attend at least half of the year’s meetings or will be asked to step down.