SUFFOLK CLOSEUP
By Karl Grossman
Kevin McAllister had just spoken before the Village of Nissequogue Board of Trustees earlier this month opposing an application by owners of a house on the Long Island Sound to reconstruct a bulkhead.
Mr. McAllister is founding president of the organization Defend H20. He takes the position that the “armoring” of the shoreline—whether along the Long Island Sound, the Atlantic or the many bays of Long Island—is wrong. He says the placement of “hard structures” on the coast results in damage to the beach in front of where the armoring takes place and also “downdrift,” resulting in erosion and loss of public access.
This was his second appearance in Nissequogue in recent times to oppose bulkhead projects. He says “what’s happening in Nissequogue is happening all over Long Island. Bulkheads and other forms of armoring, hard structures, are coming in everywhere.”
Mr. McAllister believes the choice for Long Island, particularly in a time of climate change and rise in sea level, is between “forever beaches or sand-be-gone seawalls. It should be crystal clear which one. It’s time for collective foresight. Our environment, economy and lifestyle depend on it.”
In sounding this message via email recently, he included a photo of what in recent times has become a big controversy in coastal armoring on Long Island, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ $8.4 million project involving the placement in 2016 of “geotextile” sandbags on 3.100 feet of beach in Montauk. Since then, there have been two substantial wash-outs costing $700,000 each for repairs. And major wash-outs from the nor’easters this winter are anticipated to cost $1.05 million for repairs. “Downtown Montauk” is the title of the stark and ugly picture of the sandbag revetment.
Is this a model for the future of Long Island? Hopefully not!
“These hardening structures—these sandbags—have destroyed the beachfront at Montauk,” said Mr. McAllister. There are only a few sections through which people can now get access to this half-mile of Montauk beach, he points out.”
“We need to implement coastal retreat,” emphasizes Mr. McAllister. “We have to relocate structures and restore the primary dune in this area—and in many other locations.”
“The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation last year issued a “medium projection” of sea level rise for Long Island of 16 inches by the 2050s and a ‘’high projection” by then of 30 inches, Mr. McCallister points out. He has a master’s of science degree in coastal management from Nova Southeastern University in Florida. A Center Moriches native, he worked as a marine scientist in Florida for 12 years before returning to Long Island. He was the founder and leader of Peconic Baykeeper for 16 years before establishing Defend H20 in Sag Harbor.
“There will be monumental change along the Long Island coast,” says Mr. McAllister. “There will be a higher groundwater table and what is termed coastal inundation or, in other words, persistent flooding. The groundwater will be rising from below. And, the shoreline will be migrating. So we’d have to be spend exorbitant amounts of money to pump sand all the time—“sand folly or perpetual beach nourishment, which is economically and environmentally unsustainable,” or take the option of “armoring the coast” in versions of the Montauk mess, and the third option, which I am advocating, is for retreat in the more vulnerable areas.”
For examples of locations of significant Long Island sea level rise necessitating retreat, he cites Dune Road in Southampton Town; Hashamomuck Cove in Southold on the North Fork; Gerard Drive in The Springs in East Hampton Town; along the bay front in Mastic Beach; “and what I refer to as the ‘front row’ of motels in downtown Montauk. These are clear examples of where relocation or coastal retreat is critical.”
“But every coastal area will be impacted—the oceanfront the worst, but even Shelter Island’s sheltered waters will rise—as well as all the harbors of Long Island,” he continues. The Fire Island barrier beach “will be especially vulnerable.’
“Properties need to be appraised and receiving areas—where these structures can be moved—identified. For instance, if there is a vacant lot across the street from a motel, it might go there or be rebuilt elsewhere.”
The “larger, worldly issue” involves the main cause of climate change and sea-level rise—the burning of fossil fuels. “The result is the production of greenhouse gases, melting of glaciers, thermal expansion of the oceans and elevation of the seas,” he says.
Climate change denial and refusal by the Trump administration to address climate change and take steps to mitigate global warming is a “political tragedy,” says Mr. McAllister.
What can we do? We must act politically, he says, and even though President Trump has decided to pull the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Accord, people must press for a reversal. “The planet is being threatened,” says Mr. McAllister. And the threat isn’t necessary. A transition to green, renewable energy—led by solar and wind—to replace fossil fuel can reverse this enormous and insoluble problem in the long run if the way things are going now continue.
“We are talking about sea level rise into the 2050s. What will happen beyond that? It gets very dire! There are islands in the Pacific already requiring evacuation. What will the impact be on New York City and other U.S. coastal cities? Already, Miami is flooding with every high tide.”
The headline of a piece in New Scientist magazine last year: “Future New York will be flooded.” It also noted how “climate change will make hurricanes more likely to hit the northeast U.S.”
The climate change horror is unnecessary, avoidable.
“With a rising sea and moving shorelines the rush to armor the coast is intensifying.
Montauk, Orient, Fire Island and the Peconic bays shoreline hardening structures are infiltrating the coast everywhere,” says Mr. McAllister. “But nowhere is the structural response more intense than the North Shore” with “the Village of Nissequogue being central to the public discourse concerning the protection and functionality of the beaches and bluffs.”
“Regretfully, the Village of Nissequogue is succumbing to the pressure from private interests, and allowing the proliferation of hardening structures,” says Mr. McAllister. “These approvals are in conflict with the well-founded coastal policy described in the Town of Smithtown Local, Waterfront Revitalization Policy, which the village had agreed to uphold. A more profound concern is the complacency of the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation. The agency is routinely rubber-stamping permits to the detriment of coastal resources which they are charged with protecting.”.
Karl Grossman is a veteran investigative reporter and columnist, the winner of numerous awards for his work and a member of the L.I. Journalism Hall of Fame. He is a professor of journalism at SUNY/College at Old Westbury and the author of six books.