Here is where two of the Chapter's biggest initiatives collide; the ongoing Blue Water Task Force water quality monitoring program, and the campaign to save the beach in downtown Montauk from an Army
Corps project that destroyed the natural dunes, trucked in orange sand and laid giant sandbags under the beach.
The Chapter has been testing the water at the creek trickling off Surfside Place near the Atlantic Terrace Hotel. Many tests have shown high levels of bacteria in the creek, but not in the surf there. See what the creek looked like before the project in the photo. But now the water flows through a pipe due to the sandbag beach project. It does not flow through vegetation and over rocks and sand for much of its journey, and now it lands on the sand much closer to the water.
The Chapter is wondering if the creek had a filtering effect on the water that ultimately reached the ocean. We continue to find high readings in the discharge. We will closely monitor the levels in the surf for your protection. Stay tuned!
Thanks to Lisa Spellman for the recent pictures, to our water quality monitoring partner CCOM who houses the equipment and shares the cost with us, and to the The Kate W. Cassidy Foundation for continued support of the program.