Repairs begin on sinking Amity Harbor road

Residents will keep their view, and a piece of Amity Harbor roadway will stay out of the Great South Bay, now that Babylon Town has begun repairing a sinking dead-end street.

The bulkheads where town-owned Western Concourse dead-ends into the bay had been deteriorating for decades, residents said. But they complained in 2009 when the town began proceedings to sell the end of the road to Frank Martorana, who bought the adjacent property. They said they feared Martorana would close off the land and take away a panoramic view of the bay.

The town at first questioned if it actually owned the land. But after residents produced documents proving the town took ownership in the 1990s, Babylon applied to the state Department of Environmental Conservation for permits to perform shoreline stabilization, said town chief of staff Ron Kluesener.

On Friday the town brought in four 40-yard truckloads of large boulders to hold off the water. Granite slabs are being placed between the boulders and the asphalt. Kluesener said the granite, which comes from cemetery headstones that contained misspellings or other imperfections, is less likely to deteriorate than concrete.

Kluesener said the work is being done in-house. The town estimates the cost of materials and labor to be about $25,000, paid from the highway budget.

This method of shoreline stabilization is preferred because it is more natural than traditional bulkheading, said state DEC natural resources supervisor Robert Marsh. It can also be less expensive, he said. With bulkheading, the town would have had to subcontract out the work, he said. "So it wound up being cheaper for them and better for the environment."

The town said some boulders weigh more than 1,000 pounds. "It will take a heck of a storm to move this around," Kluesener said.

Marsh said the stones may need to be reset eventually, but otherwise should "last a lifetime." Wood and steel bulkheads do not last more than 20 to 40 years, he said.

Kluesener said the "compromise" benefits everyone: "Mr. Martorana gets a stabilized piece of property and the residents get to continue to use this place for their enjoyment."

Martorana said he is "happy they're making an effort to protect the property down there."

Will Clark, a resident who fought to keep the land in town hands, said he is glad Babylon has taken responsibility for the street but said long-term durability is still unknown.

"Still, even in the worst-case scenario, it's better than what was down there," he said. "Even if it doesn't fix it, it will slow [the erosion] down an awful lot."