Officials Dial Up Pressure on Army Corps to Dredge Montauk Inlet

Federal, state, and local officials gathered at on Friday to announce some progress in addressing the sand build-up in the Montauk inlet and getting it dredged in 2011, two years earlier than has been planned. They said that while the emergency project will cost the federal government millions, it is imperative to ensure the economic well being of the area, as well as the safety of fisherman and boaters.

“The economic ripple effect of the fishing industry is quite significant,” said East Hampton Town Supervisor Bill Wilkinson. Earlier, he, Councilwoman Julia Prince, State Assemblyman Fred Thiele, I-Sag Harbor, and Rep. Tim Bishop, D-Southampton, toured the harbor aboard a Coast Guard cutter to view the conditions. “We have people coming out here eating at our restaurants, people buying our t-shirts, and people staying at our motels so that they can fish. So, it’s incredibly important to keep this harbor viable.”

On the urging of the representatives, including Sen. Charles Schumer, the Army Corps of Engineers has completed a survey of the inlet in the past few weeks that shows nearly 20,000 cubic yards of sands should be dredged. Fishing boats and even a Coast Guard cutter .

Bill Grimms, who owns commercial fishing vessels in Montauk, said that his boats have had to wait outside the breakwater 7 to 12 hours. Boats have been offloading in Rhode Island and New Jersey instead.

Bishop said the Coast Guard had shown him the waters, a different color in areas where the shoaling has accelerated. “We are going to have work very closely with the Army Corps to reallocate funds from what, I’m sure would have been another worthy project, to this project, which I would categorize this as an emergency.”

When asked about the cost, Bishop said, "I would say substantially north of seven figures."

“We have put enough obstacles as it is in the way of the well-being of both the commercial fishing industry and the recreational fishing industry,” he said, “and to place yet another one is unthinkable and so we simply have to contend with this and get it done. “

Thiele said the State Legislature has produced a resolution to urge that the dredging project be moved up in light of recent storms.

“The key word in any project we seek funds for now is jobs and the economy. If you can make a connection between governmental expenditure and something that relates to saving jobs or creating jobs for protecting the economy, we have a good chance of being able to secure those funds. “

He said the state has typically played a role in the maintenance dredging by supplying additional funding so that the dredging could be done a foot or two deeper than the federal government would authorize, and that he would like that to happen again.

“I think that’s important for two reasons,” he said. “One is that it based on the dynamics of the storms and the weather you never know, deeper in the channel, the longer it lasts. Second of all, the more sand we are able to take out of the inlet and hopefully put to the west into the Soundview area, is additional protection we’ll be able to provide for them.”

Property owners to the west have been , threatening their waterfront homes. The jetties at the inlet have been blamed for stopping a flow of sand to their beaches.

Joe Olha, a project manager with the Corps, said placing the dredged material at those beaches is still being discussed. If the sands are placed anymore than 1,000 feet of the west jetty, he said, there would be an incremental cost to the state.

 Prince said that on the local level the town board was committed to seeing the project through. “I know in the past, we’ve dropped the ball and we don’t want to have that happen again with different permitting issues.”

The representatives said they will work together in the coming weeks to secure the funding and put a dredging schedule in place.