The Army Corps of Engineers’ plan to replenish sand along a 1.6-mile stretch of beach at Hashamomuck Cove is fraught with financial risk. READ
Tag: Army Corps of Engineers
With no local government interested in being a project sponsor at this time, the creation of a Hashamomuck Cove taxing district to pay for work along a 1.6 mile stretch of Long Island Sound will be explored, officials said.
The idea of a taxing district came up after a Wednesday morning roundtable with local officials on the Army Corps of Engineers’ proposed $14.5 million plan to bolster the waterfront at the cove.
Considering what it would cost to build and maintain a beach replenishment project at Hashamomuck Cove, Southold Town Board members said they are not keen on signing on to using public money to bolster the shoreline.
The Southold Town Board is considering a roundtable to get closer to a firm decision on whether to sponsor a project to build a berm at Hashamomuck Cove and renourish the shorefront every five years. READ
A public hearing to discuss a plan to reinforce beachfront properties at Hashamomuck Cove will be held Monday night at Southold Town Hall.
Suffolk County lawmakers and local environmentalists are urging Gov. Andrew Cuomo to reject the U.S. Army of Corps of Engineers’ latest plan for disposing of dredged materials in Long Island Sound.
Suffolk County Legislator Al Krupski state and town officials and environmental advocates are calling for an end to the dumping of potentially toxic materials from dredging operations into Long Island Sound. READ
Work was completed March 27 on the Mattituck Inlet dredging project. (Credit: Carrie Miller)
Most anytime a civic endeavor requires cooperation from the federal government, there will be plenty of bumps in the road to completion.
It’s only after a project is finished that it can be called a success. We’ve seen too many examples of situations in which the public was promised one result, but was forced to settle for another — often something far less than ideal. (more…)
BETH YOUNG FILE PHOTO | Mattituck Inlet dredging work is expected to last about a month.
After receiving approval from the state Department of Environmental Conservation, dredging at Mattituck Inlet is scheduled to start early next week.
Village Dock Contracting Inc. of Port Jefferson, which was contracted in mid-December to dredge the inlet, will begin what’s expected to be a month-long project on Tuesday, Jan. 21, said Southold Town attorney Martin Finnegan. Work on the $2.2 million project will proceed “24/7,” he said, and is expected to continue until Feb. 28.
State Department of Environmental Conservation regulations require waterway dredging to be completed by Jan. 15 to protect aquatic life, leaving U.S. Army Corps of Engineers officials in need of an exemption from that dredge window.
The federal government last year agreed to dredge Mattituck Inlet, for which the Army Corps is responsible — a project 15 years in the making — and to use the dredged material to rebuild the heavily eroded beach east of the stone jetties. The jetties, built in 1906, extend out into the Sound, interrupting the natural west-to-east movement of sand, known as the littoral drift. As a result, a large amount of sand has collected against the west side of the west jetty, leaving the beach to the east starved of sand.
The dredging work, during which close to 100,000 cubic yards of material will be removed from the inlet, will both widen and deepen the inlet channel to 11 feet below mean low tide, improving navigability. The dredged sand will be placed on the beach to the east in a 20-foot-wide strip about 4,500 feet long, starting at the eastern jetty, according to Congressman Tim Bishop’s office.
Ron McGreevy, a resident who helped in lobbying the federal government to undertake the project, said some sand will also be removed from the western side of the jetty and placed on the beach to the east, which, he noted, disappointed some residents on the western side.
According to a 2010 Army Corps study of the inlet, about 12,000 cubic yards of sand move along the beach from the west every year, collecting around different areas of the inlet — meaning additional dredging will be needed in the future as sand builds up over time.
The study found that each year, about 7,000 cubic yards builds up on the western side of the jetty; about 3,000 cubic yards moves into a shoal in front of the inlet’s entrance, essentially blocking part of it; and the remaining 2,000 cubic yards goes inside the inlet itself, building up and hindering vessels from safely navigating the waterway.
Mr. Bishop (D-Southampton), who has called on the federal government to take responsibility for the situation, and do something about, it since his start in Congress, said, “Recreational and commercial fishing is a big part of our heritage and we have an obligation to maintain navigable waterways that are also safe.
“It’s one of the four inlets in my district that the Corps is responsible for,” he said. “Mattituck is perhaps the least active, but that doesn’t make it any less important.”
