Members of the Montauk Citizens Advisory Committee grappled at their meeting Monday night with the fact that the long-planned dredging of the Montauk Inlet will in all likelihood be delayed still longer.
“I am disappointed that they sort of punted it to another year,” East Hampton Town Councilman David Lys said of the Army Corps delay. “We might be able to draw it back, but I don’t think it’s going to happen in this window of November to December this year.”
The dredging window in any given year is Nov. 1 to Dec. 31 in order to cause the least interference with protected marine species.
The Army Corps did provide the town with a notice to proceed; however, with a very condensed window in which to do the work, the timetable makes it difficult to move the project forward in the fall dredging season. “That window is very short and is also very tight,” Mr. Lys said, “to be able to get all the final engineering and also go out to bid to get it started and mobilized by October of this year.”
A year and a half ago, the town was told that the dredging of the navigational channel into Montauk Harbor was on track to be completed in the fall of 2023 but was warned that a delay to this fall was possible.
The plan is to both widen and deepen the channel, which is used by as many as 500 boats a day in the summer months and is the entry point to the state’s largest commercial fishing fleet and to Coast Guard Station Montauk. The dredging, when finally complete, will increase its depth from 12 to 17 feet and its width from 150 to 250 feet. Dredged sand is to be placed on the beach to the shoreline west of the inlet’s west jetty and will bolster the beach there.
Mr. Lys assured the members of the citizens advisory committee that the issue is “being discussed weekly with Army Corps of Engineers.” Additionally it is not the only course of action the town can take. “I will be contacting the Coast Guard,” Mr. Lys said, “to see how they are doing with boats actually getting in and out of the harbor, and see if maybe we could do it through an emergency permit.”
With Reporting by Carissa Katz
