Officials Present Montauk Storm Damage Reduction Plan Thursday

The public will have a chance to hear about and comment on plans for coastal storm damage mitigation in Montauk during a presentation at the on Thursday. 

The New York district office of the Army Corps of Engineers, the state Department of Environmental Conservation, and the Town of East Hampton have developed tentative recommendations to address navigation needs in and out of Montauk Harbor, as well as coastal erosion damage reduction west of the jetties.

However, a group of against the Army Corps, state, county and town agencies last week, said the plan offers no immediate protection for their homes and the long-term solution seems unrealistic. 

Terry Bienstock, an attorney who has owned a home in Montauk for 30 years, said he and eight others decided to move forward with a federal suit after meeting with federal, state and town representatives a few weeks ago to hear the plan. "We held off for six months filing in federal court with the Army Corps," he said. When they found out the plan, they decided to move forward.

The government agencies will present the two plans, as well as a "No Action Plan" alternative to the public Thursday.

"The first plan is a Navigation Plan, addressing the commercial navigation inefficiencies at Lake Montauk Harbor," the statement reads. "The second plan is a Navigation and Coastal Storm Damage Reduction Plan which includes a solution for the navigational concerns and a means to address the erosion and coastal storm damage to roads, commercial and residential structures for the area west of the inlet."

A spokesman for the Army Corps said further information on the proposal before the meeting was not immediately available. 

One of the plans calls for the placement of temporary groins that would limit the movement of replenished sand on shore while it takes hold. Three or four would be constructed, despite the East Hampton Town code that currently makes them illegal. 

Groins become necessary under the proposal, Bienstock said, because there isn't enough sand available through dredging the harbor's channel or from , where it naturally accumulates on the east side of the jetties, to take hold once it's moved over to the eroded-away beach on the west side of the harbor. "That's only one-third of the sand they need," Bienstock said, explaining that even the Army Corps agrees it will merely wash away. 

Bienstock and the other homeowners who have sued the town hired coastal enginnering expert Mark Burns, who has done work for the Army Corps in the past. He estimated 700,000 to 1 million cubic yards of sand are required on the shoreline to create enough momentum that the sand will stick.

He would like to see sand brought in from off-shore, as has been done in Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina and other parts of New York. If enough sand were placed, groins wouldn't be necessary, he said.

However, in the Army Corps' proposal to install the temporary groins, they first want the property owners, whose houses the groins would be placed in front of, to deed over the rights, Bienstock said. The groins would go past the mean high water mark, which is the private property boundary line.

The structures would not be placed in front of Bienstock's house, which is on Soundview Drive — he said they would be at the end of Culloden Point, in front of the beach at Culloden Shores Association, of which he is a member, and at either end of Captain Kidd's Path.

"Why in their right minds would they deed you — irrevocably, permanently — their property, for nothing, for a temporary groin?" Bienstock said. 

Bill Horner, the president of the Culloden Shores Association, said the association is recommending that the homeowners not deed over their properties.

On behalf of the association, he plans to voice his concern over the Army Corps' groin proposal: "We intend to tell them that all that experts say that it will only make matters worse over time, plus it’s unsightly," he said, adding that it also goes against the DEC's recommendation to ban all shore hardening structures.

What the association would rather have happen is for the Army Corps to build a sand transportation tunnel from Gin Beach, under the inlet, to west of the jetties. It's a permanent solution, Horner said, to keep the flow of sand along Culloden. The price tag is between $8 million and $10 million. But, he said, "It won't take that many years for the thing to pay for itself," he said, estimating that dredging the harbor cost $2 million each time.  

Bienstock said he was given a time frame of five to six years, at the earliest, for all the pieces to fall into place for such a project to start. "What are we going to do in the interim? Like for next winter? We got lucky this winter," he said. 

Emergency dredging of the harbor's entrance was undertaken last fall as commercial fishing boats were getting stuck or prevented at low tide to re-enter the harbor. More dredging has become necessary. Meanwhile, homeowners to the west struggle to repair sea walls during severe weather. In the Christmas storm of 2010, the . 

The Concerned Citizens of Montauk, an environmental advocacy agency, will have a representative at the meeting. "CCOM looks forward to reviewing the details when they are released," said Jeremy Samuelson, the executive director, on Tuesday. 

The meeting will take place from 5:30 to 8:30 p.m., with a breakdown as follows:

• 5:30 to 6:30 p.m. – Poster Board Session and Information Exchange
• 6:30 to 7:30 p.m. – Presentations and Q&A Session
• 7:30 to 8:30 p.m. – Poster Board Session and Information Exchange

Those unable to attend the meeting can send their comments to or request more information from any of the following:

• Brian Frank, Town of East Hampton, bfrank@EHamptonNY.gov
• John Beldin-Quinones, Army Corps project manager, John.A.Beldin-Quinones@usace.army.mil
• Sue McCormick, DEC project manager, sdmccorm@gw.dec.state.ny.us

The East Hampton Town Board meeting will still take place at on Thursday at 7 p.m.