HomeMy WebLinkAbout20130701-Kellner email re NYT article_201404071208280138From:Libby Gibson
To:Bob DeCosta; Bruce D. Miller (midasack1@comcast.net); Rick Atherton (rickatherton@comcast.net);snatural@nantucket.net; Tobias Glidden (integrity11@gmail.com)
Cc:"George Pucci"; Erika Mooney
Subject:FW: "Sconset Bluff
Date:Tuesday, July 02, 2013 10:07:37 AM
Importance:High
Fyi
ERIKA: please scan for the e-file and print for the public file thanks
C. Elizabeth Gibson
Town Manager
Town of Nantucket
(508) 228-7255
From: Peter L Kellner [mailto:peter@peterlkellner.com] Sent: Monday, July 01, 2013 4:40 PMTo: Libby GibsonSubject: "Sconset BluffImportance: High
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/28/nyregion/as-a-beach-erodes-in-the-hamptons-community-
tensions-swell.html?pagewanted=all
C. Elizabeth Gibson
Town Manager
Town of Nantucket
4 Fairgrounds Road
Nantucket, MA 02554
Dear Libby,
I believe that the attached link to an article that appeared in the June 27th issue of The New
York Times (although apparently not in all editions) is directly relevant to the Town's
deliberations regarding the "Sconset Bluff.
Therefore I would appreciate it if you could print out the article from the above link and distribute
copies to all member of the Board of Selectmen.
Could you please confirm receipt of this message ?
Thank you for your assistance.
Regards,
Peter
Peter L. Kellner
39 Quidnet Road
Nantucket, MA 02554
1 508 228 3898
peter@peterlkellner.com
Tensions Swelling as Beach Erodes - NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/...rodes-in-the-hamptons-community-tensions-swell.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0&pagewanted=print[7/2/2013 12:18:26 PM]
June 27, 2013
Tensions Swelling as Beach Erodes
By JIM RUTENBERG
MONTAUK, N.Y. — Perched at the edge of the Atlantic with cliff neighbors including Paul Simon and Dick
Cavett, Montauk Shores shares a distinction with Bohemia Cove in Malibu — it is one of the most desirable
trailer parks in the United States. Its stationary mobile homes have water views that are no less sweeping
than those of Andy Warhol’s former estate, Eothen, just a few miles to the east.
The cost of that view is vulnerability. Hurricane Sandy breached the rocky dune barrier that had protected
the park for years. So its managers built a mighty, new and bigger sea wall of large rocks that promises to
fend off the next such super storm.
But as is often the case along the fragile shore, what’s good for one community may have unintended effects
elsewhere. The wall is being identified as a possible culprit in the drastic erosion of sand at Ditch Plains,
just to the west, a beach so renowned for its cliffs and surf that fashion and magazine photo shoots take
place there with increasing regularity; an apparel company is even seeking to trademark its name.
And so the trailer park — where mobile homes are sold as condominiums, priced as high as $650,000 —
and its sea wall have found themselves at the center of a man-versus-nature dispute in this exposed Long
Island hamlet on the ocean.
The deterioration of Ditch Plains’s beach and its possible causes have strained the cooperative abilities of
the five-member board of the Town of East Hampton, which includes Montauk; partisan fault lines there
already rival those of Washington (they are just more personal).
It is only now, on the eve of the Fourth of July holiday week, that the town is moving forward with a
temporary solution, spending approximately $85,000 to dump more than 4,000 cubic yards of sand on the
beach. The town fully knows that much of the sand may eventually be washed away.
William J. Wilkinson, the town supervisor of East Hampton, called it “temporary relief to try to see if we
can even have a beach this summer at Ditch.”
The idea that a barrier at the trailer park could have a negative effect at Ditch Plains was not new.
East Hampton’s own water revitalization plan of 1999 — which serves as a binding code — concluded that
the trailer park’s existing protective rocks “may influence erosion at Ditch Plains” and that more extensive
work there could “aggravate this situation.”
After the storm, East Hampton officials did grant the park a permit to restore its dune “with sand and
relocation of existing rocks,” $2,000 worth of work all told.
Tensions Swelling as Beach Erodes - NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/...rodes-in-the-hamptons-community-tensions-swell.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0&pagewanted=print[7/2/2013 12:18:26 PM]
But the park trucked in large new rocks, building the wall so it appears to jut farther into the sea —
covering a narrow beach that was once exposed at low tide — and higher into the air.
Through the spring, the storm-ravaged beach at Ditch Plains stood like an open wound at the heart of the
hamlet; once vast and sandy, it was worn down to dark and ugly hardpan — and at high tide parts
disappeared entirely.
Ditch Plains often suffers some erosion in the off-season from hurricanes and winter nor’easters; it is
usually restored naturally by summer.
But that did not happen this year.
As Memorial Day approached and the town had to close the beach to bathing, tensions rose, and the search
for reasons began.
The major environmental group here, Concerned Citizens of Montauk — which often finds itself at odds
with Mr. Wilkinson, a Republican and former Disney executive — identified one thing that existed near
Ditch Plains now that did not exist before: the newly rebuilt sea wall at the trailer park.
The group’s executive director, Jeremy Samuelson, blamed the wall in a tense exchange with Mr. Wilkinson
at a public meeting in May.
Mr. Samuelson cried out, in a mostly empty meeting room during a board discussion of the beach, that the
rebuilding of the sea wall had devastated Ditch Plains.
Mr. Wilkinson declared that, as far as he was concerned, the hurricane had been strong enough to cause
such lasting damage and that the trailer park sea wall “had nothing to do with the scouring at that beach.”
(This exchange ended in an accusation by Mr. Samuelson that Mr. Wilkinson was in the pocket of major
landowners and Mr. Wilkinson’s dismissal of the accusations as “snotty” commentary from “Mr. Lobbyist.”)
There was a bigger issue underlying the back-and-forth: How far should government go in allowing
landowners to protect their beachfront properties, given that many solutions, like building hard beach
barricades, can in some cases cause worse erosion nearby?
Mr. Wilkinson is on the record generally supporting the idea of a hardened sea wall that would protect all
of Montauk’s beaches and its vital downtown hotel area, even though the town coastal plan effectively bans
them.
Mr. Samuelson argues that “hard structures beget hard structures.” He has indicated he will fight any such
move.
That larger issue could be forced in the next year, when the Army Corps of Engineers is expected to release
a plan for protecting the area along with the full federal financing that would pay for it. So-called rock
revetments could be part of it.
Tensions Swelling as Beach Erodes - NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/...rodes-in-the-hamptons-community-tensions-swell.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0&pagewanted=print[7/2/2013 12:18:26 PM]
In an interview at his offices in the wood-shingled East Hampton Town Hall, Mr. Wilkinson accused
environmentalists of dishonestly blaming the trailer park for problems at Ditch Plains to serve a knee-jerk,
longer-term goal of blocking any moves by the Army Corps or others to build hard beach-protective
structures.
“There’s intentional fibbing going on,” Mr. Wilkinson said.
Interviews with several coastal specialists found a range of opinions on how much the wall might have
affected Ditch Plains.
Mr. Samuelson has said the town should, at the very least, hire a coastal expert who can study it more
closely and provide a scientific basis for this kind of debate — and to help it review whatever the Army
Corps proposes.
“Our response to Hurricane Sandy cannot be to build an 885-foot sea wall without consulting an engineer,”
Mr. Samuelson said. “That is the surest way to ensure we are a beach town with no beach.”
The board’s two Democrats, Sylvia Overby and Peter Von Scoyoc, and Dominick J. Stanzione, a Republican,
made a move to enlist a coastal expert during a working session in the spring.
But Mr. Wilkinson, a Republican, and his steadfast party ally, Deputy Supervisor Theresa K. Quigley, were
absent.
Mr. Wilkinson said he feared the town would chase away the Army Corps with its own coastal expert. And,
during a later, contentious meeting of the full board, he and Ms. Quigley forced a reversal of that move in
favor of a local consulting engineer. (Ms. Quigley angrily accused her Democratic rivals of trying to sneak it
in when she was visiting her daughter in the hospital.)
As Memorial Day came and went with no resolution — and no lifeguard at the beach — pleas for help from
local business leaders and residents grew louder. “Montauk Residents Demand That Ditch Plains Beach Be
Replenished!” read a full-page newspaper ad that a group called Montauk Citizens Voice took out in early
June.
But Mr. Wilkinson then appeared to have found a way to stop the argument: he said he could provide new
sand only if he could pay for it with money specifically earmarked for damage caused by the hurricane, and
only the hurricane.
With that, the opponents stood down, for the time being, as the town began trucking in the sand this week
and lifeguards reappeared.
Still, the town filed charges that Montauk Shores had violated its permit last week. On Thursday, officials
at the State Department of Environmental Conservation said they had determined that the sea wall was
“significantly wider and higher than authorized,” and filed charges as well.
Tensions Swelling as Beach Erodes - NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/...rodes-in-the-hamptons-community-tensions-swell.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0&pagewanted=print[7/2/2013 12:18:26 PM]
Speaking at an arraignment on the local charges last week, a lawyer for the trailer park, Richard E. Whalen,
said that the rocks had been installed properly and that the charges were “politically motivated.”