Local Federal Beach Projects Pushed Back Again, To 2024

Beaches in Montauk, Quogue and East Quogue will have to weather at least two more hurricane seasons, with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers now forecasting that long-awaited beach rebuilding will not begin until at least early 2024.

Chronically eroded beaches on the South Fork had initially been the top priority for the Army Corps as it mobilized a $1.7 billion effort to rebuild beaches and gird shorelines against severe storms known as Fire Island to Montauk Point Reformulation, or FIMP.

Work was supposed to begin earlier this year, but the Army Corps bumped the local projects to third in line, behind the restoration of some Fire Island beaches and the dredging of three inlets — including Shinnecock and Moriches inlets — with an anticipated start date of early 2023.

But in meetings with local officials this week, the Army Corps said that it now does not expect to mobilize the South Fork projects until November 2023, meaning work would likely not begin in earnest until 2024 at whichever of the beaches the contractor determines should be the starting point.

“We’re not enthused about the timeline. We’d like to see it happen a lot sooner,” East Hampton Town Supervisor Peter Van Scoyoc said on Tuesday. “When we signed on to the emergency stabilization project, they said FIMP will be coming right behind. Well, it’s nearly a decade now.”

The town agreed to an Army Corps proposal to construct a 3,000-foot-long sandbag revetment across the oceanfront of downtown Montauk to protect against a severe storm destroying oceanfront business and threatening the low-lying business district.

But part in parcel with the $9.5 million revetment was the understanding that the beach would be restored with sand dredged from natural offshore stockpiles, to provide more stalwart long-term protection from storms.

The FIMP work plan calls for 450,000 cubic yards of sand to be pumped onto the Montauk beaches and 1.7 million cubic yards to be pumped onto a nearly four-mile stretch of beach in East Quogue and Quogue. Other areas of Hampton Bays and West Hampton Dunes are due for nourishment in later phases of the work plan.

The work is being paid for from $1.7 billion earmarked for the project from the $50 billion Superstorm Sandy recovery aid package approved by the federal government.

When the work does begin, the Army Corps contractors will be pressed for time, with only a little more than three months in which to conduct the work before a March 31 blackout of dredging activities in the ocean begins, to protect migrating fish species.

The Army Corps last week gave the town the wording of the easement agreements they will be required to have signed by every property owner that fronts on the stretches of beach that will be rebuilt — which is only about 20 in Montauk but more than 80 in East Quogue and Quogue, not counting municipally-owned beaches.

Consultant Aram Terchunian said that the towns will have to muster oceanfront homeowners to sign the easements, but said that doing so conveys no new rights of public access.

“The easements are what’s called a perpetual storm damage reduction easement — it allows the Army Corps of Engineers to initially place sand onto the beach and to come back and nourish it later,” Terchunian said. “That’s the only right that’s conveyed. There is no north-south access over private property conveyed with this.”

At last week’s meetings with the federal agency, Van Scoyoc said that East Hampton asked that the engineers consider expanding the Montauk project eastward as far as Shadmoor, either as part of the project or as a “betterment” that the town would have to pay for separately from the federally funded work.

“We’re asking them to extend the scope slightly,” the East Hampton supervisor said. “Shadmoor makes better sense as a transition point. It’s not a large additional distance, but it could be meaningful in terms of longevity for the effectiveness of the project.”

He said that engineering the additional reach into the project should not delay the work beginning, especially now that it has been pushed back yet again.

The federal engineers are to dredge Shinneock Inlet and Moriches Inlets this fall and winter, placing the sand on the beaches to the west of the respective inlets where jetties have caused erosion shadows.