This is an appeal for help. As you know, along with protecting water quality, protecting our beaches and beach access are the main goals of Surfrider Foundation.
Over the past summer, after several years of fighting the proposal to construct a more than half-mile-long sandbag seawall on a public beach in Montauk, several of our members joined Kevin McAllister of Defend H2O in filing a lawsuit to halt the project. To ensure that our case is given a fair hearing before any work is started, we had to file an injunction earlier this month.
The project is being portrayed by the Army Corps and our local politicians as a "reinforced dune." However, the coastal geologists who have weighed in on the project (Jay Tanski of Sea Grant and Dr. Rob Young) concur that the sandbags act no differently than rocks and other hard structures when placed in the intertidal zone. This is yet another example of coastal policy being made by politicians pressured by private interests and ignoring the science and the facts.
We are not opposed to projects whose goal is to protect private property. Our argument has been that any project designed to protect private property on our ocean beaches must not harm or compromise our public beach. This project proposes to place a 50 foot-wide sandbag seawall on our public beach, essentially destroying that public resource.
We have accrued over $10,000 in legal bills so far, a small price to protect a priceless public asset.
If you are so inclined and in a position to help out financially, we would appreciate any donation you can make.
To make an online donation, please visit our donation page here.
Or you can make a check out to:
Surfrider Foundation: Eastern LI Chapter
and mail it to us at:
Surfrider ELI Chapter
P.O. Box 2681
Amagansett, NY 11930
Below are links to more info about this issue, including a recent update published this week.
Thanks and best wishes,
Mike Bottini
Chair, Eastern L.I. Chapter of Surfrider Foundation
http://easthamptonstar.com/Columnists/2015325/Connections-Fighting-Father-Neptune
http://www.27east.com/news/article.cfm/East-End/125226/Our-Priceless-Beaches
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