Katrina Plays Key Role in Monies For Beach
By David Crohn

The tragic aftermath of last year’s Hurricane Katrina had ripple effects that extended into local waters, highlighting the necessity for beach replenishment and storm preparedness on Fire Island that Washington is only starting to see, said officials who spoke at the annual Fire Island Association meeting Saturday, July 22.

While beach replenishment efforts have been enhanced along coastlines and near gulfs across the country since the disaster, two major components of local beach protection and replenishment—the Army Corps of Engineers’ plan and congressional funding for it—have seen significant headway recently.

“Because of Hurricane Katrina there is a different mindset out there,” said Assemblywoman Ginny Fields at the Ocean Beach Community House meeting. “It’s a much easier sell now when you can say ‘Did you see the disaster in Louisiana?’”

Army Corps Plan Moving Ahead

About twenty years ago, the Army Corps was asked by congress and the state to develop a comprehensive, long-term plan to protect the 83 miles of flood-prone shorelines from Fire Island Inlet to Montauk Point. After years of studies, setbacks and often contentious wrangling among state and federal bureaucracies, a draft of the Fire Island to Montauk Point Reformulation (FIMP) study will be presented to the NYDEC in November, said Frank Santomauro, the Corps’ planning division chief of the New York District.

Santomauro called the move an important step forward but said the Corps was far from having a finished plan.

“In November we will have not the final plan but a bunch of alternatives,” Santomauro said. In April 2007, a draft Environmental Impact Statement will be presented to the public, and in this stage of development a cost-versus-benefit analysis is underway.

He said last summer’s disaster in Louisiana played a key role in altering people’s attitudes and has helped generate progress. “Katrina has changed the philosophy of a lot of people. Now people realize that living next to a gulf can be very dangerous.”

The total cost of the study is expected to reach about $24 million, and more than $21 million has already been spent on the project.

The Fire Island Association (FIA) has made extensive input into the FIMP plan since its inception. The FIA believes that dunes from Watch Hill to Kismet should be made three to six feet higher and that they should be periodically replenished. This would replace numerous uncoordinated measures that protect individual properties and communities along the coast.

But part of what has allowed the study to progress is the fact that the Corps has closed discussion. Santomauro said his office had to finally “stop talking and start writing. It’s been a long time since we started this project. We need to start getting something out so people can look at it.”

New York State plays “a very important role” in the process, he said, since taxpayers will bear 35 percent of the cost of the plan when it is implemented—which he estimated will happen in 2010. “[State officials] have to see all the alternatives so they can see what all the issues are.”

And while focusing on the issue as it relates to Fire Island vacationers was on everyone’s minds Saturday, Santomauro stressed that the FIMP study affects “quite a big area. It impacts a lot of people, not the quote ‘rich people’ who live on FI. There are very many people who are not so rich and some who are rich who live on the mainland who will also be impacted.” Fire Island is a barrier beach that some say protects not just Long Island but state shorelines from flooding.

FIMP Funding

As the Corps concocts the FIMP plan for shore protection, elected officials—from the county to the state—have been pushing to obtain funding from the federal government for it.

As Suffolk County Executive Steve Levy said at the meeting, “So we have a study—but so what if all we have is a study, and even if you do a study. The endgame here is to get the major resources.”

Levy, Fields and Representative Tim Bishop praised the Senate Appropriations Committee for including $2.5 million in the 2007 Energy and Water Appropriations bill to complete the FIMP plan

During the last two fiscal years, the Bush Administration failed to include money for the reformulation study in its budget.

Said Bishop, “Unless something untoward happens in the conference, we will have $2.5 million available to us come October 2006 to carry forward the incredibly important work of that study.”