FIA Pres. Optimistic Despite Complexities
By Nicole Pressly
Gerard Stoddard is a public affairs/communications specialist active in coastal issues since 1981, and president of the Fire Island Association (FIA) since February 1987. FIA represents the interests of 3,850 property owners and businesses in the communities within the Fire Island National Seashore. In 1989, he founded the Long Island Coastal Alliance (LICA), a nonprofit forum for research and discussion of national and Long Island coastal policy issues. LICA will hold its twelfth annual coastal conference in May 2006. Stoddard is also a vice president of the American Shore and Beach Preservation Association and a director of the Fire Island Lighthouse Preservation Society. He served as a member of Governor Cuomo’s Coastal Erosion Task Force in 1993-94, and on the Citizens Advisory Committee of the South Shore Estuary Reserve Council. Stoddard was Vice President of Corporate Communications for SC Corporation from 1973 to 1986, heading the public and government relations activities of what was then a Fortune 200 company. A native Long Islander, he is a graduate of Cornell University and NYU Law School. He first came to Fire Island in the 50s, to Davis Park, and fell in love with the beach. He resides with his family in Ocean Bay Park and Manhattan.
What do you see as the biggest change in the years since you first became active in FIA?
It has to be the greatly increased complexity of the public policy problems the Association is faced with. As one example, I worked with Chet Weber [of Summer Club] and others after the storms of 1987 on getting permits from the state DEC to allow beach scraping. Although it took three years to get standards worked out with DEC, the process was relatively straightforward. As I recall, FINS deferred to DEC at the time as the scraping affected state, not FINS, land. Bob Spencer recalls that the approach first used by Davis Park’s contractor is now in use in all communities, and DEC applies the standards elsewhere as well. Fifteen years later, when communities wanted to scrape (and some to pay for their own fill projects) in 2003, the park needed a full environmental assessment, followed by an official Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI), and the standards are essentially the same. Virtually everything the Association needs to do is immensely more complicated. What used to be simple now requires hours and hours of Fire Islanders’ time and often entails hiring lawyers and consultants.
What is the possible impact of Hurricane Katrina on Fire Island/Montauk Point funding?
The President requested funding for our principal project, the reformulation of the Fire Island Inland to Montauk Point (FIMP) project, so we can rest easy on that score. While Katrina will certainly strain the nation’s ability to meet the cost of natural disasters, it also points up the far greater cost of not taking the steps needed in advance of storms. Beaches that were restored before Katrina hit (except those directly in the eye of the storm) provided many times more protection than did beaches that had been permitted to erode. Katrina showed how valuable our national coastline is, and also that it must be actively managed and protected, just like other water infrastructure.
Many in the Corps of Engineers believe Katrina points up the need for larger and more comprehensive projects, and that could work to Fire Island’s advantage. The key issue is whether government decision makers at all levels will move to assure that the FIMP will authorize a sand project big enough to protect the barrier island from breaching, and the South Shore mainland from disastrous flooding. In light of current hurricane predictions for the northeast, this is indispensable to preventing huge property damages, and more important, to protecting the lives of the hundreds of thousands of people living in the flood plain whose ability to evacuate may be hampered by Long Island’s restricted evacuation routes.
Governor George E. Pataki announced in 2001 the adoption of the final Comprehensive Management Plan (CMP) for Long Island’s South Shore Estuary and $2.1 million in Clean Water/Clean Air Bond Act grants for water quality improvement projects in the South Shore Estuary. The grants will fund five projects in Suffolk and Nassau counties. The plan calls for local, state and federal governments and nongovernmental organizations to commit at least $98 million over the next five years to implement actions vital to the longterm health of the Estuary and the economic and cultural benefits that the Reserve draws from the Estuary. The South Shore Estuary’s shallow, interconnected bays and tidal tributaries provide highly productive habitat and support the largest concentration of water dependent businesses in the state. One and a half million people live in the Reserve, and millions of people visit the Estuary each year.
Why did the Council refuse to include the Association and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in its deliberations in the SSER Comprehensive Management Plan’s planning stages this past year?
The South Shore Estuary Reserve was to study the Estuary’s principally the Great South Bay’s problems and see what could be done to solve them. This is obviously of great importance to Fire Islanders and FIA tried hard to get a seat at the study table. Unfortunately, it was decided by the New York Department of State’s Coastal Management Division that the boundary line for the study area was to be the toe of the dunes on the ocean side of Fire Island. The theory was that Governor Cuomo’s Coastal Erosion Task Force had already made recommendations for what should be done with ocean beaches, so SSER could look at only bayside issues. This seems artificial, in that the governor’s recommendations were not fully implemented, and it’s hard to escape the conclusion that the folks setting up the study thought that FIA’s contributions to the discussions would be less important than the degree to which we would waste their time by talking about things like shore protection. Anyway, our offer to sit on the study group was rejected. The study results turned out pretty much as expected: control nonpoint source runoff from the northerly bay shoreline, more pump-out boats for the many thousands of recreational vessels on the bay, try to restore clam beds and other natural filtration systems and so on a tall order, to be sure. But the fact remains that the Estuary itself exists because the barrier island exists, and the health of the barrier island should not be taken for granted.
FINS’ policy change update states that no new bulkheading will be allowed on Fire Island. In Ocean Bay Park there is a bayfront property that is not bulkheaded like the surrounding properties and the owners have been trying unsuccessfully to bulkhead it for years. Can you comment on this?
The lot in question is 50 feet of shoreline between the owners’ lots on each side, both of which were bulkheaded many years ago. The lot is several hundred feet west of the nearest “natural” bay shoreline, about 200 feet of shoreline between the OBP Fire House and Ocean Bay Boulevard. The dispute is complicated, to say the least, and is another example of a problem where in the past a solution might have been found fairly easily. For example, assume (as I do) that bayside habitat is critically important to the ecosystem of the bay for a variety of reasons. Before regulations were adopted that recognize this fact and made construction of new bulkheads subject to permitting, 90 percent of Ocean Bay Park, like many other Fire Island communities, had already been bulkheaded. The 50-foot lot in question had not been bulkheaded because, as I understand it, all of three joint owners could not agree to do so. Now the remaining two owners would like to install a bulkhead, simply because the lot, which has eroded all the way to the southerly property line, is a worthless eyesore if they are not allowed to. (I understand the owners have agreed not to develop the lot except perhaps with a garden.) Often in such cases, owners can purchase a similar parcel in an undeveloped area and place a deed restriction on it so that it can never be bulkheaded. In effect this would “trade” the protectable lot for one currently without protection. This has not been deemed sufficient by the DEC, and the DEC rules are what have been appealed from. The FINS policy update basically says that, regardless of what DEC may do or say, for its part, the park agrees there should be no new bulkheading, that a new permit issued for replacement bulkheading should not be assumed to be automatically renewable in the future and, if better ways can be found to protect both the owner’s property and the resource values associated with the bay shoreline, the park might require their use.
The Water Resources Development Act contains priority language for a Regional Sediment Management Plan for the Fire Island Inlet. What is the significance for Fire Island?
The Corps of Engineers Regional Sediment Management Study(is this a different thing from the Plan listed above?) could be a great significance for Fire Island and we are grateful that Senator Hillary Clinton and Congressman Tim Bishop worked hard to get it in this year’s Water Resources Development Act. Sediment (sand) is a valuable resource. It’s been estimated that 40 million cubic yards of it is tied up in Fire Island Inlet and that’s why it has been designated a critical Corps study area in the bill. The National Park Service has shown at Gateway National Recreation Area ( Sandy Hook) that it is possible to recapture sand and pump part of it back some miles in order to reuse it to nourish beaches a second or third time. There is no way of knowing (without a study) if this will work, but it seems worth a careful look.
FIMP Project funding Water Resources Development Acts (called WRDAs) are usually passed every two years as Congress deals with the water resource needs of the country. They set out what the Corps of Engineers has to do to keep the ports and harbors functioning, river barge traffic moving and dams and levees in reasonable shape. Shore protection is part of the Corps’ responsibility in this area, although recently the President’s budget office has seen fit to focus on this area as a good place to shift federal spending to localities and regions. In the past two cycles, Congress has strongly resisted this effort, believing that shore protection spending has national economic benefits that should be maximized. The Gulf Coast storms have brought this debate into sharp focus, along with the related issue of hurricane evacuation and the optimum project size.
As the Senate continues discussing WRDA [it still hasn’t acted, by the way] especially regarding Gulf Coast reconstruction, are you looking for any independent legislation for this?
WRDAs indicate where Congress wants to spend money on water related projects in the future. The other part of the picture is when Congress, through the Energy and Water Appropriations Committees of the Senate and House, actually appropriate funds to be spent in the current budget cycle on specific construction projects. Our Washington representative, Marlowe and Co., keeps close track of both. Generally, if a project is in the President’s budget and is supported by the local Congressional delegation, it will receive funding in the appropriations measure when the time comes for actual construction.
At this point, the FIMP requires funding to complete studies rather than build something. Although the Corps of Engineers requested $1.7 million, last November’s Energy and Water Appropriations bill listed just $1.075 million for the FIMP, $650,000 less than was needed for that year’s work. That meant some Corps consultants and scientists could not be paid to complete their analyses and write their reports. This is what drags projects out.
This year, thanks to hard work by Congressman Bishop and others, the Corps’ request for the final $1.7 million installment was approved in full. That means the FIMP report should be completed and, by November of 2006, public comment will be sought on the findings. A draft Environmental Impact Statement is expected in April 2007
Why is FIA often seen at odds with environment groups, such as the National Wildlife Federation?
FIA exists because it is supported by Fire Island property owners. When another group seems to threaten those owners’ interests, FIA becomes vocal and may seem opposed to whatever that group represents. If an environmental group attacks FIA publicly, saying things like “their houses are bad for the beach and dunes,” they can expect a vigorous response, and have gotten it on more than one occasion. Does that make FIA “antienvironment”? Of course not. After all, back in the 50s, when FIA was known as the Fire Island Voters Association, the organization kept a road from being built on Fire Island and ruining it with overdevelopment. As a result of those efforts, fully 80 percent of the upland and 100 percent of 32 miles of spectacular Atlantic Ocean beaches are open to the public. Not many environmental groups can point to an accomplishment like that. Our members can expect us to be strong stewards of the Fire Island environment. But they can also expect us to protect their rights to enjoy their Fire Island property in all lawful ways.
With the large number of Fire Island homes changing hands in the last few years, just how large is FIA and has it grown over the years?
Thanks to tireless work by Bob Spencer, our membership and fundraising chair, FIA has seen more than 2,000 individuals sign up as FIA members over the past six years. Not all of them renew every year, however, and houses are bought and sold, so the paidup membership number fluctuates at around 1,400 at any given time. Bob believes there are only about 3,800 residential owners of the 4,000-4,150 residential and business structures on Fire Island, as a fair number of individuals own more than one Fire Island house. Some have said to me, “Why do you think you speak for Fire Island property owners if fewer than half even pay dues?” The answer is that virtually every FIA household is also active in a community association, each of which is represented on the FIA board, with the community association president serving as a director of FIA. We’ve always had great support from the Villages of Ocean Beach and Saltaire and the Year Round Residents Association also is with us on most issues. I think individuals become members of FIA because their community association leaders know we help them with what needs to be done at the town, county, state and federal government levels. Do we need more members? Absolutely, because each adds weight and significance in our discussions with public and political leaders. And we could use more support from the island’s businesses, too.
What do you see as the key issue facing Fire Island and FIA?
Shore protection was the key issue in 1998, is the key issue today and will be the key issue in the future. Property owners are the ones with the most to lose if the Fire Island shoreline is mismanaged. Some communities already do a superb job in this respect, but we need an island wide ability to monitor and make recommendations for assuring the entire barrier island is in the best shape possible to deal with future storm events and to cope with a rising sea level over the coming decades. Our erosion control tax district bill will provide funding to do this work with full community input.
In 2005 Department of the Interior appointed a new superintendent to head the Fire Island National Seashore. What do you think of Mike Reynolds?
Mike has shown that he is aware of the problems of running an efficient and effective National Seashore that has an active and involved property owner constituency. He is not going to be anyone’s pushover, but he will be fair and consistent and will consider the needs of the neighbors as he tries to make this unique National Seashore work as its founders intended.
With all the work that you do on and for Fire Island, what for you is a perfect island day? My friend the late David Ash once said he thought I would rather go to a meeting than have a warm meal. That is not true. I much prefer to be sailing. I have an old Flying Scot that has given me enormous pleasure poking around the bay. There is nothing better than to bring a bunch of young kids down to Sailors Haven and walk through Sunken Forest.
I know your children are also very civic minded. Please play proud papa for a moment.
Abby, my older daughter, works at NYU on humanitarian relief issues, specifically on the role nongovernmental organizations play in disasters. She’s been all over the place, but we get to see a lot of her and her kids, Sonia, who is 8 and Miles, who is 5. I intend to teach Miles how to sail, if I can learn it myself. My younger daughter, Kate (Kathryn, she insists lately) has been teaching Greek and Latin at Florida State for the past six years. We don’t see enough of her but she usually manages a few weeks with us on the island each summer.
Disclaimer: None of the following is the “official” position of the Fire Island Association. The material reflects the views of a Fire Islander who has been active in the affairs of the Association for 25 years and who has served as its president for almost 20.
For further information:
The Fire Island Association, Inc.
P.O. Box 424 · Ocean Beach, NY 11770
212.929.6415 · 212.929.3746 · info@fireislandassn.org
