SAVE THE GREAT SOUTH BAY
The rest of the nation learned from Long Island’s mistakes. We were the nation’s first suburb, after all. They learned from us that, when starting out, building wastewater treatment systems and burying your telephone lines underground are worth the upfront investment. While the adverse impacts of cutting corners were imperceptible, now we know. But what of Long Island’s future? It’s in good hands, thanks to the inspirational (and practical!) leadership of the Village of Patchogue.
Sea level is on the rise
As sea levels rise and storms erode Fire Island beaches and flood our shorelines, not to mention our homes, few mistakes will prove as costly as bulkheads. Natural shorelines do a better job of preventing storm damage and flooding than bulkheads. Waves bounce off bulkhead surfaces and scour sand at their base. The process results in marine shoreline armoring, whose effects over time (i.e., loss of sand, deposit of rocks, loss of wildlife habitat) weaken bulkhead footings, making them an ineffective check on erosion. It turns out the plants we removed to build bulkheads do a better job of protecting the land. Yet, there is redemption.
Patchogue Village offers a solution
Save the Great South Bay is proud to report on the living shoreline completed this September by the Village of Patchogue, under the capable leadership of mayor Paul Pontieri. It’s the first living shoreline on the Great South Bay. Mayor Pontieri spoke about the site’s recreational and environmental appeal. “People come down here all the time to walk their dogs, ride bicycles,” Pontieri noted. “More importantly, this will provide protection against storms like Sandy and major rainstorms.”
As the pictures suggest, living shorelines use natural elements to replicate nature. The goal is to prevent erosion and the ensuing property damage. Climate change makes mitigation against rising sea tides and storm damage a necessity. Had we not built on marshes, living shorelines would not be as necessary. Indeed, the Department of Environmental Conservation notes that between 1974 and 2008, Long Island lost 2,758 acres of shoreline marshes, a 13.1 percent decrease. That is the problem. Patchogue Village offered part of the solution.
Patchogue isn’t the first on Long Island to create a living shoreline. There are about a dozen others on Long Island, including in Riverhead and on both forks. And living shorelines have been used for decades near the Chesapeake Bay and along the Gulf of Mexico. But this is the first living shoreline on the Great South Bay. Hence, the reason why Save the Great South Bay is celebrating this important accomplishment.
More to come
There promises to be more on the way, thanks to Gov. Hochul’s September passage of a bill sponsored by State Sen. Shelley Mayer (D-Westchester). Hochul is requiring the DEC to adopt policies and regulations to establish the approach as the “preferred alternative” for stabilizing shorelines. For her part, Mayer was responding to her constituents’ demands. Storms like Sandy and Ida displaced residents; future storms, left unchecked, could result in the retreat of entire coastal communities. “In the communities I represent along the Sound,” Mayer noted, “there’s a strong sense that we need to do everything we can to deal with flooding.”
Land and property are protected. 15 ft of marsh can absorb 50 percent of incoming wave energy.
The benefits of living shorelines
Just in time for rising sea levels, shorelines increase in elevation. That is thanks to the growth of plants on sediments trapped by marshes. Over time this growth makes a difference.
One mile of marsh stores 76,000 gallons of greenhouse gases annually.
Improved water quality leads to improved habitat and biodiversity thereby promoting recreation.
1/3 of U.S. shorelines are on track to be hardened by 2100; such hardening worsens water quality, which results in poor wildlife habitat, less biodiversity, and less recreation.
Patchogue Village knew it was time to safeguard their future. Last Christmas, heavy rains cut Lombardi’s on the Bay off from the land; water froze rather than return to the bay, making the location impossible to reach until employees carved a path. That set the village on the path of this $6 to $7 million project, much of it funded by New York State grants.
According to Carlos Vargas, who directed the project for VHB Engineering, the project required elevating an upland grassland and planting 57,041 plugs of sea grass and seven varieties and 5,810 shrubs and other plants in the basin. The effects were noticed immediately, especially wildlife. During the construction stage alone, Vargas pointed out that shore birds were moving in, and he observed schools of fish, a blue crab, and an American eel.
A feat of engineering
Those were the biological elements. This project was also a feat of engineering. Sixteen trucks a day hauled 11,040 cubic yards of sand for months. Three thousand-two hundred tons of granite were also trucked over. They were graded into a bluff and fastened with mesh; then they were topped with 27,050 more plugs of sea grass, whose roots protect the integrity of the bluff. Rocks between 100 to 300 pounds and larger ones between 800 to 1200 pounds then interlocked. All of this was done to ensure the site could withstand decades of wave and tidal action.
Projects of such vision are no longer whimsical. Overdevelopment (i.e., building on marshes, bulkheading) combined with rising sea tides and storms make them a necessity. Hats off, again, to the Village of Patchogue and mayor Paul Pontieri for having the vision and will to show us the future.
Our thanks to contributors
Save the Great South Bay offers special thanks to our director, photographer, drone pilot and naturalist, Stephen Borghardt. A local, Borghardt’s drone photography—here and throughout Long Island—carefully documented the nature and scope of Patchogue’s living shoreline project. Nearly all of the photographs from this piece were taken by Borghardt. We offer special thanks as well to Newsday’s Nicholas Spangler. The research he completed in writing “Living shorelines help guard Long Island coast against ravages of storms”
It is very important for Save the Great South Bay to recognize the Long Island Advance’s editor-in-chief, Nicole Fuentes. Fuentes manages the Advance’s sister papers as well, the Suffolk County News and the Islip Bulletin (weekly papers) and the Moriches Tide, which is a monthly. Fuentes’s coverage of Patchogue’s living shoreline (https://longislandadvance.net/stories/shorefront-parks-living-shoreline-project-completed,93062) was an important source for our coverage; the Advance’s photographs are labeled, too. Fuentes’s support of Save the Great South Bay and her consistent coverage of environmental matters have done much to awaken our local environmental consciousness. Such awareness will be the first step in leaving a better world to our children.
Get Involved: Jan. 25 Community Social
You are invited to Save the Great South Bay’s volunteer rally at Blue Point Brewery at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Jan. 25. It’ll be a night of revelry, music, and tasty refreshments. You’ll meet Save the Great South Bay’s Creek Defenders from throughout the South Shore. Defenders are volunteers who accept responsibility to care for the creeks in their towns. Also on hand will be Save Environmental’s eelgrass pioneer, Rob Vasiluth.
