Town’s View Is Sought on Montauk Erosion Options

A long-awaited project to bolster much of the downtown Montauk shoreline could be completed in two phases, with the first starting in the spring and the second perhaps delayed until 2016.

The United States Army Corps of Engineers is seeking the East Hampton Town Board’s views on which part of the job to tackle first. The options are to either start with about 1,200 linear feet of sandbags at the eastern side of the eroded downtown section and work west to South Emerson Avenue or to protect the most vulnerable central area first and return to complete the east and west ends of the project later.

“This is going to be a work zone,” Kim Shaw, the town’s director of natural resources, told the town board during a meeting at the Montauk Firehouse on Tuesday. “There is a lot we have to work out if we are going to do a phased project,” she said.

The Army Corps plans to solicit bids for the work on March 1, with the contracts being awarded two weeks later, Ms. Shaw said.

Work on the Montauk beach would end by May 22 in time for the Memorial Day holiday, a town requirement that forced the project to be planned in stages.

The total budget for the 3,100-foot-long undertaking is now $8.9 million. East Hampton Town and Suffolk County would be responsible for maintainance costs, though Ms. Shaw said that just what that would entail has not been spelled out.

On Tuesday, Town Councilwoman Sylvia Overby expressed doubts about the Army Corps’s request. “Why aren’t they recommending? They said that they had the best coastal geologists they could have. I want to hear the recommendation from their coastal engineers,” she said.

Ms. Overby asked whether estimates of the town and county’s expected costs to keep the sandbags buried might rise. “What risk do we have of it going away or to our taxpayers?”

“This is a big decision, and it’s a lot of money. Is the money going to change? Are we in for more money?” Ms. Overby asked.

Councilman Fred Overton said he could see a slight advantage to starting with the eastern side of the project first, as beaches tend to rebuild in the spring and summer. However he said he was conflicted and unable to make a recommendation.

In the end, the board did not offer an opinion on the options Ms. Shaw presented.

After a November storm, the Army Corps’s estimates for the scale of the work increased. While the 3,100-footspan did not grow, the volume of sand that would be needed did, rising to 76,000 cubic yards purchased at an upland mine to fill 14,000 plastic fabric bags and another 26,000 cubic yards stockpiled from an on-site excavation that would be used to cover the sandbags.

The Army Corps has estimated that the annual cost to the town and county would be $157,000 once the entire project is complete.

The corps characterized that yearly cost as relatively high because the sandbags would have to remain covered to protect them from degradation from sunlight, vandalism, and debris impact that could tear the fabric. In addition, it said in a project document, “Unlike typical beachfill projects, the dune is not protected by a wide design berm. As a result the dune is vulnerable to erosion during storm events.”

According to the Army Corps, the cost for mined sand is about $35 a cubic yard. If the town and county had to pay to replace all of the 26,000 yards of sand to keep the bags covered, the material bill would be about $910,000 alone.

More costs could come later, because the town and county would be responsible for removing the sandbags and disposing them without releasing the roughly 71,000 cubic yards of fill within into the environment, according to an Army Corps project description. No estimate for this has been publicly discussed, however, the effort has been characterized as temporary, pending the beginning of work on the far larger Fire Island to Montauk Point Reformulation Project.

A Suffolk legislator, Al Krupski, who represents the North Fork, has expressed his opposition to the cost-sharing plan. In a Dec. 29 letter to the Suffolk Department of Public Works he called for specifics about the project from the Army Corps. He was the sole legislator to vote against the arrangement when it was authorized in October.

“This is not a financial liability the county needs to attach itself to because the future costs are immeasurable,” Mr. Krupski wrote.

Mr. Krupski also expressed opposition to the characterization of the sandbag project as a benign “soft” solution to the erosion problem there. “I believe Suffolk County should not endorse a project that hardens the shoreline. This is a project that one, is sure to fail and cause accelerated erosion to adjacent properties, and two, puts the maintenance on the shoulders of the taxpayers of the entire county,” he wrote.

A key easement agreement with a private condominium owner that is required for the beach project to move forward has yet to be finalized, said Alex Walter, East Hampton Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell’s assistant. He expected that the documents could be completed by a Feb. 1 deadline.