Army Corps presents plan to public

Another Hurricane Sandy would likely breach a system of dunes and berms called for in an Army Corps of Engineers coastal protection project for the barrier island, but corps officials said that those barriers would have minimized the damage from Sandy’s 17½-foot storm surge.

Representatives of the corps held a public meeting at City Hall on March 6, and presented details of a revised coastal protection plan that encompasses 6.4 miles of Long Beach, Town of Hempstead and Nassau County shoreline. The meeting marked roughly two decades of debate about the project, and while corps officials did not take residents’ questions, they did invite their written input and spoke to residents individually.

The presentation was a stark contrast to heated discussions in 2006, when the City Council shot down an earlier plan that had been approved by Congress in the 1990s, after trustees and residents said that it did not address potential flooding in Reynolds Channel and amid concerns about the city’s share of the project’s cost. At the time, a number of residents also said that it would ruin ocean views and expressed concern about sand levels and quality, while surfers said that dredging and beach replenishment could have a negative impact on wave conditions and rip currents.

“I think … most of the people who were against it in ’96 are now for it,” said West End Civic Association President John Bendo. “This is something we obviously need.”

The new project is designed to withstand the equivalent of a 100-year storm — a storm that has a 1 percent chance of occurring in any given year, the corps said. Sandy, which caused $200 million in damage in Long Beach, was a 180-year storm, officials said, explaining that although the barriers in the current proposal would have been “overtopped,” they would have dramatically reduced the damage.

“This project that we’re proposing would significantly reduce the impact from Sandy, but … there would have been some significant residual damages,” said Donald Cresitello, the Army Corps’ project planner.