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In my previous update, I detailed the recent steps we have taken to secure repairs to our beach that are desperately needed. After Hurricane Lee and Tropical Storm Ophelia wreaked havoc on our beach, we coordinated with Suffolk County and the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC), which submitted to the Amy Corps of Engineers (ACE) a request for emergency repairs covering the east end of Fire Island. Earlier this week, I had a call with a senior New York State ACE official.
Despite the overwhelming wreckage of our beach, ACE has denied our application. The agency concluded that the severity of the September storms did not meet its criteria for emergency repairs. The agency is also currently short of funds for projects such as these. The Army Corps is a slow-moving entity; The official pointed out that it will have taken them four years to begin the emergency repairs on the west end of the island that are scheduled for this fall.
This is not a fight we can lose – the threat to our community is too serious. Since that phone call we have held numerous conversations with our local and DC representatives; This week, aides to Senator Kirsten Gillibrand visited the Pines and surveyed the damage, thanks to the efforts of Joe Conforti, Kevin Call and others. We have also been speaking with aides to Senator Charles Schumer, as well as Brookhaven officials.
While it is now unrealistic to expect that the ACE will restore our beach to its original condition anytime soon, we continue to believe it is reasonable to demand restoration of the most precarious areas of damage, such as the beach in front of the co-ops and other areas to the west. But we are now also studying the feasibility of FIPPOA undertaking its own restoration project, at a minimum to address the most damaged areas, until the ACE provides the periodic renewal that is part of a 25-year guarantee in the original project.
ACE is sending a team to conduct surveys of the beach this month; their expectation is that those surveys will indicate that routine maintenance is warranted. The required framework for government sponsorship and funding is not yet in place, however, and the timing does not meet the urgency of the beach's current condition.
We are in the process of determining what self-help is realistically achievable, and at what cost. Self-funding a project has its own bureaucratic hurdles. But we have no choice but to move with urgency on every possible front.
I can assure you we are committed to both an immediate and longer-term solution, whatever obstacles the government throws in our way.
Henry
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