State tells Long Beach to restore sand dunes

A state agency has directed the City of Long Beach to restore dunes damaged months ago when the city excavated them to build new walkways to the beach.

Under a plan mandated by the state Department of Environmental Conservation, the city must rebuild two dunes to their height before the construction, which was completed last summer. The plan also directs the city to reduce the width of ramps built at four beach entrances.

The DEC informed Long Beach officials of the required actions in a December letter, three months after the agency cited the city for violating the state Tidal Wetlands Act.

City Manager Charles Theofan said he planned to ask the DEC to waive the requirement to narrow the walkways because they undergo heavy use. The city has not set a start date for dune restoration, he said; the state set a May 15 deadline for compliance.

Environmental officials have said that the reduction of the 13- to 16-foot-high dunes probably increased the area's exposure to flooding. City workers used heavy equipment to expand existing passages through vegetated dunes at six sites.

The state plan calls for the city to add sand to two "disturbed areas of the dune" - at Illinois Avenue, and between Roosevelt and Neptune boulevards. It forbids the city from excavating the beach to get sand for the restoration and from using machinery on top of the dunes.

It also requires the city to reduce the width of the 7- and 8-foot-wide walkways to 6 feet at four sites: Connecticut Avenue, Illinois Avenue, Nevada Avenue and Ohio Avenue.

Theofan said narrower walkways aren't "practical because these [state] regulations were written with an eye towards . . . the typical walkway, which is out in Fire Island, out in the Hamptons, where you have maybe a handful of households that walk over."

But in Long Beach, he said, "you have the absolute, unique situation . . . where you have an ocean, a beach, a dune and thousands of people living on the other side of that dune. And the walkways have to be able to accommodate that population."

The dunes, built in the 1980s after Hurricane Gloria struck Long Island, are protected under state law because they help prevent storm flooding, absorb wave energy and delay erosion.