Letters to the Editor: MTK Army Corps 11.26.15

The Correct Decision

East Hampton

November 20, 2015

To the Editor,

    Having grown up on Beach 25th Street in Far Rockaway (25 years) and worked my way through college at the Atlantic Beach Motel, and for the past 26 years having been fortunate enough to live directly on Gardiner’s Bay, as well as being an ardent and habitual boater and surf fisherman, I can say that I know the sea.

I am now 75. I have witnessed firsthand the horrible devastation and suffering caused by at least 10 hurricanes.

The East Hampton Town Board’s decision not to stop the Montauk dune restoration was the correct decision at this time. Several members of the board also have a close and long knowledgeable relationship with the beach and sea. You can say they know the sea and the potential the ocean has to destroy as well as bring joy.

Had the board made the decision to halt the project, the heart of Montauk would have been left in a weakened, vulnerable state.

Had the board made the decision to halt the project and a hurricane were to hit Montauk before the Fire Island to Montauk restoration plan were implemented, there is the very real possibility that we could wake up one morning to view the unimaginable, the witnessing of the total devastation of Montauk. Montauk would cease to exist. Don’t think the Hurricane of 1938 couldn’t happen again.

We should all thank and applaud our town board for its factual courage and resolve.

The Fire Island to Montauk restoration plan will happen. In the meantime, this board has made a courageous decision, which will enable all of us, especially Montauk residents, to sleep well during the next few hurricane seasons.

Sincerely,

DAVE WAGNER

A Montauk Cut in Half

Montauk

November 6, 2015

Dear Editor, 

In the early 1950s, I was home from school in the midst of Hurricane Carol. I was young then, but old enough to remember seeing a stormy wave push through the dunes and break where the Montauk I.G.A. sits today.

The present beach fortification project designed to protect downtown Montauk from catastrophic ocean intrusion is not about saving motels on the dune line. Rather, there is the very real possibility that a Category 3 hurricane (not seen since 1938) will bring the ocean over the dunes and across Montauk Highway, where it then joins Fort Pond and Fort Pond Bay. The end result: a Montauk cut in half, with no electricity and vital supplies for days if not weeks.

We are very fortunate that our town board is looking beyond the immediate concerns of beach appearance to the much larger issue of public safety. Much of downtown Montauk is at or below sea level, and simply “letting nature take its course” has dire if not ruinous consequences.

The town has committed to a contract to fortify the dune line. Montauk is too vulnerable to waste this opportunity. The time to act is now.

PERRY DURYEA III

To Protect the Beach

East Hampton

November 19, 2015

To the Editor,

A careful reading of your coverage of the controversies surrounding the Army Corps’s work on the beach in downtown Montauk is revealing.

The Army Corps and the town officials are “calling it short-term protectionor Montauk’s downtown motels and other buildings,” to quote from your page 1 article. The protesting residents of Montauk, on the other hand, are trying to protect the beach. 

I doubt that anyone opposing the project relishes the thought of being able to say “I told you so.”

FRED KOLO

Destruction of the Dune

Montauk

November 18, 2015

Dear Editor,

Doug Kuntz’s photo on the cover of your Nov. 12 issue is horrifying. A picture really is worth a thousand words. Looking at the photo, it is obvious that our tax dollars are being used to protect the privately owned hotels that were improperly built on the dune, at the expense of the public beach.

Instead of condemning the hotel and moving it, the town agreed to further destroy the dune surrounding the hotel to put hard structures in place to save the hotel instead of working to save the beach and the town. There isn’t any proof that this plan is even going to save the hotel. But now our dune is destroyed and most likely the beach too. It is truly shocking to hear the supervisor’s recent comments; i.e., they didn’t know the plan, destruction of the dune was not part of the plan, etc.

I understand that in Fire Island, several houses that were built on the beach in harm’s way have been condemned and the property owners will be compensated, as the houses must be taken down. In other parts of the East End, sand replenishment is the order of the day. Why is this happening in Montauk?

We don’t want pylons and a boardwalk on the beach. Can the town sue the Army Corps for the destruction of the dune? The natural dune should be replaced, and this project stopped immediately.

Thank you,

CHRIS SESSA

Realistic Sea Rise

East Hampton

November 20, 2015

Dear David,

Well, David, here we go once again. Semi-hysterical warnings about Long Island being inundated by the ocean coming up multiple feet by the end of the century. The realistic estimate is about 1.8 millimeters annually, or less. You can read it at thegwpf.org. Put in perspective, that rise is about 0.02 inches a year. Less than a quarter-inch in 12 years. Not something worthy of panic. 

As most know, 18,000 years ago we were at the southerly end of a glacier that covered the Northern Hemisphere and extended to New York City, covering that area in glacial ice. The weight has pushed the surface down into the mantle, sinking the land. Now the land is rebounding, very slowly. This isostatic rebound may actually exceed any rise in sea level that may or may not occur. All in all, Long Island is unlikely to be affected in any way by any realistic sea rise. 

I agree with those opposed to the sandbagging in the Montauk village. It has been known since the 1930s that such a structure will, when a storm surge reaches it, reflect some of the wave’s energy, carrying seaward the sand that normally returns to the beach naturally, to deep water where it will not return. We should replenish the sand with glacial sand from Wisconsin. They actively want to sell it, and it is very similar to the sand we have here now. It will enter into the natural set along the beach and slow or stop the erosion year to year, for as long as the sand is placed on the beach. 

If anyone has a less destructive plan, I’d be pleased to hear it.

PETER C. OSBORNE