Frigid winter damaged docks, marinas and left Long Island towns with costly repairs

The freezing winter has taken a harsh toll on Long Island's harbors, canals and marinas, leaving towns and villages with big bills to repair damaged docks and pilings.

This year's cold streak sent poles that support docks shooting out of canals and seabeds across the North and South shores, officials said. Saltwater exposed to weeks of extreme cold froze around the poles, gripped them and pulled them out of the seabed during high tide, sometimes by a dozen feet or more. The phenomenon, called ice jacking, has caused damage that could take weeks to assess and even more time to repair.

Dock wreckage has become so pervasive in Southampton Town that officials called an ice emergency. The declaration allows residents to more quickly secure permits to repair or rebuild damaged structures.

"We haven't seen an ice freeze like this in over a decade, maybe longer," said Jimmy Mack, president of the Southampton Town Trustees, which regulates dock and bulkhead construction on all of the town's waterways and shorelines. "It's a big problem."

Farther west, ejected pilings at Brookhaven’s Forge River Marina resemble telephone poles jutting from the water. In Babylon Town, officials have tallied roughly 40 uprooted pilings so far.

Damage to the Brightwaters Village canal will exceed $42,000, according to Mayor John Valdini, who said the village "just couldn’t keep up" with clearing the ice because of the vicious cycle of freezing. The village might have to reset up to half of the canal's 120 pilings.

"This could be a very costly thing for us," Valdini said. "This is a unique season — we're just getting hammered with the cold."

Ice jacking

Ice jacking happens when water freezes around pilings that are drilled into the seabed and support docks or boat parking, said Aram Terchunian, a coastal geologist based in Westhampton Beach. 

The ice grips, then dislodges the pilings when the tide rises.

"Then the process is repeated, because you get two tides a day," Terchunian said. "Even if it only moves it a couple of inches every time, over a span of several weeks, it'll jack it up many feet in the air."

On the North Shore, at least eight pilings in Huntington Town waterways have been displaced, town spokeswoman Christine Geed said. There could be additional damage beneath frozen surfaces, she said.

Huntington’s director of maritime services, Garrett Chelius, said this year's freeze was a once-in-a-decade event.

"The last time I saw a freeze this bad was probably 2015 or so. Before that, it was in the 1990s," he told Newsday.

The exact cost and full extent of the damage won’t be clear until the ice is melted, officials said.

Bubblers to the rescue

Seawater freezes at 28.4 degrees, less than the 32-degree threshold for freshwater, according to the National Ocean Service, a branch of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

During particularly cold streaks, the municipalities often rely on "bubblers" or "ice eaters" that warm the waters and prevent ice from setting. These techniques keep water moving, preventing it from freezing around the pilings, Terchunian said.

In Lindenhurst, Village Clerk Kathleen Schrader said bubblers spared her community from piling damage entirely.

In the Town of Islip, bubblers kept the damage to about 2% of the town's 1,450 boat slip pilings, officials said.

In the Fire Island village of Ocean Beach, which used bubblers, 10 of roughly 200 pilings were expelled. Village Administrator Joseph DiFrancisco said he expects repairs to cost up to $4,000.

"The bubbler system worked very well," he said. But he added that with the marinas still iced over, there could be more damage.

In Oyster Bay, the town uses plastic rings fitted around pilings to prevent ice from gripping the poles. Four pilings were ejected at the town’s Harry Tappen Beach in Glenwood Landing, which will cost the town about $7,260 to repair, according to spokeswoman Marissa Boccio.

Breakers overwhelmed

Each year, a boat plies the canal in Brightwaters Village to keep water moving and disrupt the freezing process, said Valdini, the village's mayor. But this year, the boat couldn't move up and down the canal fast enough to prevent freezes from setting in, Valdini said.

"Since it was such a deep freeze, the boat just couldn’t keep up with breaking the ice," he said.

In Huntington, "the ice was so thick in certain places, the bubble system didn’t even keep up with the freezing," Chelius said. Repairs could reach $15,000, he said.

The Fire Island village of Saltaire hasn’t purchased anti-freezing tools, village Administrator Mario Posillico said, noting it had been unusual for the village to experience severe damage from ice jacking.

But this year, 10 pilings in Saltaire were expelled, Posillico said.

In Babylon, the town also didn't use icebreaking technology. It hasn't made financial sense to purchase it in the past, said Artie Smith, the town's harbor master.

About 40 pilings have come loose in town waters so far this year, Smith said. Repairs are likely to run between $25,000 and $50,000, he said.

Babylon and Huntington expect to fix the uprooted pilings by Memorial Day, officials said.

Brookhaven experienced "extensive damage to pilings and buoys" on both its south and north shores, according to spokesman Drew Scott. The Forge River Marina and Quarry Creek were hit particularly hard, he said.

Wayward residential docks

Chelius, of Huntington, said private docks that came loose could present further problems later in the year.

"A lot of residents will have lost their poles completely, and they’re going to be floating in the bay and it’s going to be a real navigational hazard this spring," he said.

The cost of dock repairs can range from $1,000 to more than $10,000, according to Terchunian, who owns First Coastal Corp., a firm that designs and consults on dock construction. "It depends on the extent of the damage and how big the dock was," he said.

Similar concerns exist in Southampton. Mack, the trustees' president, said most docks are not labeled, so those that break off can drift and the town impounds the debris. He and the other trustees are expediting permits to repair and replace marine structures damaged by the icy conditions. That process will be expedited until April 15.

Mack and Terchunian said that in recent years, the warmer winters have caused some homeowners to forgo taking preventive measures.

Southampton Town Supervisor Maria Moore said docks damaged by freezing weather was one reason the town wants to ban private docks on the Great Peconic Bay and Little Peconic Bay.

"It's just showing that … our concern was accurate in light of the circumstances of the last week," she said.