| Dear Fire Islander, Welcome to this first issue of FIA Update. From time to time, we receive important information from FINS, New York State, Suffolk County, our two Towns, or our three ferry companies. These updates could relate to anything from emergency alerts, storm warnings, or news articles concerning Fire Island that appear in the media. We think you should be informed about issues that matter to all of us. In this Update we are sharing FIA’s response to a factually incorrect piece in a recent issue of The New York Times. Sincerely, Suzy Goldhirsch |
| RESPONSE TO THE NEW YORK TIMES I am sure that many of you have read (or at least heard about) the recent article published in The New York Times about restoring FI beaches, with specific focus on Fire Island Pines. (See a link to the article below). The Fire Island Association is circulating these notes to help keep you informed and to point out the misleading information in the article. The inaccurate statements include: Article headline stated that: “It Took $1.7 Billion to Fix Fire Island’s Beaches. One Storm Wrecked Them” ** Response: This is an inaccurate statement of the cost of repairing Fire Island beaches after Sandy. The $1.7 billion referenced here is the estimated cost of multiple proposed storm mitigation and resiliency projects scheduled for the 50 year FIMP program for 82 miles of Suffolk County shoreline. It includes road and home elevations on the mainland, several bayside projects, inlet dredging, and shoreline restoration in the Hamptons and Montauk.The price tag of the expedited restoration project for Fire Island alone was approximately $220-260 million – a cost that included beach and berm restoration for all 17 communities, mobilization costs for dredges, obtaining 400+ easements, moving houses back from the dune line, condemnation awards, the County’s legal fees, etc. ** After FIA requested a correction from the Times, the headline was changed the next day to “Millions Were Spent to Fix Fire Island Beaches. Some Have Completely Eroded.” Article stated that: “Most of the damage was done in the wake of a single winter storm last December that triggered rapid erosion on Fire Island and appeared to undo large parts of that decade-long restoration project in a matter of months.” Response: Since the completion of the FIMI project in early spring 2020, several winter storms and hurricanes have carried sand off our beaches. For the most part, however, the shoreline has repeatedly healed itself during the calmer summer months. Last year’s Christmas storm did indeed cause a lot of erosion up and down the island, but most of our shoreline—with the unfortunate exception of The Pines—has been rebuilding nicely this summer. Article stated that: Repairs for Fire Island beaches are “hamstrung” by Army Corp rules, a change from the more “flexible” earlier repair projects. Response: Yes, the USACE rules about repair and renourishment include negotiated and signed agreements between the Federal, State and Local partners. Yes, Congress must authorize the required federal funds. Before Sandy, however, our renourishment projects were “no day at the beach!” Funding through FEMA must be coordinated at the Federal, State and local levels, and the projects were complex, time-consuming, and frustrating. They did not move forward that quickly, and required relentless advocacy by FIA and our Fire Island communities. The clear advantage of the current USACE management of our dunes and beaches is that we are now part of a regional approach to storm mitigation, and we will be eligible for USACE/State/Local renourishment projects every 5-8 years for 30 years. Article stated that: Repairs on the island’s western beaches are scheduled to begin in the fall. But the Army Corps denied a request to expand the scope of the project to include the island’s eastern side, including Fire Island Pines and Cherry Grove. Response: The repairs that are set to begin this fall on the west end of the island (Kismet to Seaview) are a response to Suffolk County’s emergency request to the NYSDEC and USACE for repair after a series of vicious nor-easters back in 2019. At that time, the west end was more severely damaged than our communities to the east. When the 2022 Christmas storms badly eroded the east end beaches, Suffolk County agreed (at the FIA’s request) to amend their original 2019 request to include emergency repair on the east end as well. Although the east end request was originally turned down, the DEC and Corps have invited the County to submit additional evidence about length of time of the Christmas storm conditions, wave heights, wind velocity, etc. We are hoping that the additional data will trigger a positive response for East End repair this time around. These inaccuracies and distortions demonstrate an unfortunate lack of fact checking and little understanding of federal, state and local coastal policies and programs. The community leaders in the Pines welcomed the opportunity to speak to a sympathetic visiting Times reporter about this summer’s erosion that kept the Pines Party from being held on the beach. However, the reporter (and/or his editors) reframed that specific Pines Party story and generalized the Pines damage to the entire island, then quoted outlandish cost figures, which in turn fed into the oft-heard narrative that taxpayer money should not be spent protecting our nation’s coastlines. The complex problems of sea level rise and climate change require a national dialogue about the critically important need to adapt, mitigate and possibly retreat from high risk residential locales where logistically possible. However, any evolving national policies must also take into account the importance of barrier islands (such as FI) that protect millions of dollars’ worth of key infrastructure on the mainland.FIA works very hard on these complex shore management issues with many government officials and agencies who have expressed their dismay over the Times piece. It is extremely frustrating when ‘the paper of record” gets it wrong, and confuses the public with misleading information. Regards, Suzy Goldhirsch President, Fire Island Association Click the link below to see the NY Times article It Took $1.7 Billion to Fix Fire Island’s Beaches. One Storm Wrecked Them. |