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Defend H20, a water quality advocacy organization headed by former Peconic Baykeeper Kevin McAllister, has filed a complaint with the federal National Oeanographic and Atmospheric Administration accusing New York State, East Hampton Town and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers of having violated federal policy in approving the sandbag revetment constructed by the Army Corps last year along the beachfront of downtown Montauk.
The group, which also filed a lawsuit last fall attempting to halt the construction of the revetment, claims that the approvals by the East Hampton Town Board and the state Department of Environmental Conservation violate the towns LWRP, which the group says prohibits shoreline hardening structures, and by extension the state Coastal Management Plan and the federal Coastal Zone Management Act.
The complaint asks NOAA administrators to review the town and state's approvals of the revetment and issue directives with regard to how to apply the respective planning guidelines in the future.
The filing of the complaint comes on the very day the Corps will host a public hearing on it's billion-dollar coastline management plan for eastern Long Island in Montauk.
The meeting will take place at the Montauk Playhouse, tonight, at 6 p.m. and will focus on the proposal by the Army Corps to bolster Montauk's beach with 150,000 tons of sand every few years, but not to do a broader beach reconstruction project as the town has said the Army Corps had pledged to do when the much-criticized sandbag revetment was approved.
on Sep 28, 2016