Inlets to be dredged, sand added to Fire Island, Montauk beaches
Sand clogging Fire Island’s Shinnecock and Moriches inlets again will be dredged and poured onto beaches to the east and west that erosion has thinned, the Army Corps of Engineers said Thursday.
It's part of a sweeping plan to shield Suffolk County’s southern coast that includes raising homes starting in 2024 or 2025.
The $1.7 billion Fire Island to Montauk Point project to safeguard 83 miles of shoreline languished for decades on the Army Corp.’s multibillion-dollar backlog list until Superstorm Sandy struck in 2012. Various components, including the lifting of homes in flood-prone areas, were delayed even after it was finally funded by the federal government.
“Awarding this contract allows our district to continue this vital project and provide additional coastal storm reduction for residents of these communities,” said Col. Matthew Luzzatto, New York District commander for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, in a statement.
Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), a longtime FIMP advocate, said in a statement, “This dredging will protect recreational and commercial boaters, and the placement of sand on nearby beaches will protect residents and communities from future storms.”
Fire Island is seen as a crucial barrier island, a bulwark between Long Island and the Atlantic. Critics say halting the near-constant sand replenishment would actually make it stronger but the resort’s hundreds of vacation homes might then be imperiled.
FIMP includes dredging and pouring sand on Fire Island’s eroded beaches and building a “feeder” beach to refill Montauk’s thinning beaches every four to five years for the next three decades, James D’Ambrosio, an Army Corps spokesman, said by telephone.
And groins and jetties in Ocean Beach, one of Fire Island’s resort communities, will be removed, though no date has been set yet. Those structures are thought to have worsened erosion.
A contract for the dredging of the Shinnecock and Moriches inlets for just under $25 million was recently won by Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Co., a Houston-based firm that calls itself the “largest provider of dredging services” in the nation. It was the second dredging contract awarded as part of the FIMP project.
The latest round of dredging should begin this November and finish in March, D’Ambrosio said.
This schedule avoids potentially harming various species, including piping plovers, which New York State lists as endangered and which start arriving to build nests on the coasts as soon as March.
The first contract, for $47 million, was awarded late last year to the same firm, which dredged 1.5 million cubic yards of sand, which was split between Gilgo Beach and Robert Moses State Park, the spokesman said.
One reason the lifting of homes is taking longer than initially anticipated is that it is both voluntary and highly individualized, D’Ambrosio explained.
“It’s labor-intensive, where we have to individually evaluate each home,” he said.
“It’s basically structural elevations and building retrofits for approximately 4,4000 structures within the 10-year flood plain, mostly in the areas of Mastic and Shirley.”
A bill to reimburse homeowners who have to move out during this construction work has yet to be finally approved, the spokesman said.
