Beach access, erosion and other local environmental issues emerged as highlights of the discussion when the Fire Island Association met for its annual meeting in Ocean Beach on June 25.
About 50 Islanders filed into the newly renovated community house at 11 a.m. to listen to speeches from Assemblywoman Ginny Fields (D-Oakdale), Suffolk County Treasurer Angie Carpenter, U.S. Rep. Timothy Bishop (D-Southampton) and FINS Superintendent Michael Reynolds.
Association president Gerard Stoddard kicked off the proceedings, thanking Senators Charles Schumer and Hillary Clinton for their recent efforts in the restoration of $2.5 million in federal funding for the completion of the Fire Island Inlet to Montauk Point Reformulation Study (FIMP).
“I must mention the hard work of the Senate offices: Senator Schumer, and especially Senator Clinton. With the help of [lobbying firm] Marlowe and Co., our Washington representative, we helped provide those offices with the information and grassroots support they needed to assure that FIMP would be safely funded through its completion,” Stoddard said.
Twenty million dollars has been spent on the project—initiated in 1978 to protect 83 miles of coastline—but the Bush Administration had eliminated its funding for next year. Of the $2.5 million allotted the FIMP by the Senate in the Energy and Water Resources Appropriations Bill, $800,000 is going directly to Westhampton’s dunes, with the rest to be spent on Long Island’s other sand-starved and storm-battered areas.
Schumer voiced his support for the project in an e-mail to Stoddard, who read from it at the meeting.
“I want to thank you and the entire Fire Island Association for your effort and dedication. This study is of extreme importance to Long Island and I will continue to give it my strong support,” Schumer wrote.
House and Senate appropriations staff met this week to reconcile their respective versions of the bill that includes FIMP funding.
A parallel endeavor on the environmental front is being led by the New York Coastal Partnership, Inc. (NYCP), which is suing the U.S. Department of the Interior to enact federally mandated environmental initiatives in the area.
NYCP’s attorney, Dunewood resident Irving Like, spoke about the lawsuit.
“[The FIA and NYCP] agree on the profound importance of protecting our beaches and preventing erosion. The issue is working its way through the courts and legislature and, when it is resolved, we will have a secure beach that is replenished from time to time,” he said.
After having their case thrown out by the Second U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in 2003, the NYCP filed a petition on May 31 to have the case heard by the U.S. Supreme Court; there has been no response as of June 27.
“We thought the Fire Island story should reach the highest level, so everyone will know there is a story,” Like said.
Bishop, after arriving about 45 minutes into the meeting, took the podium to voice similar concerns. He criticized the Bush Administration for eliminating FIMP’s funding and said it was the president’s view that the federal government’s role in erosion prevention is only for initial funding—not ongoing replenishment.
Projects like FIMP, he said, should always be a priority of the federal government.
“The study will provide a blueprint, a science-based document for the Department of Environmental Conservation,” and other decision makers, which “exist at every level.”
Also touched upon, briefly, was the status of a New York State Senate bill that would provide for the creation of a Fire Island beach tax district to fund erosion control.
“The tax would not be imposed unless and until there is a project that meets with the approval of all the involved agencies,” Stoddard said.
Introduced by state Sen. Owen Johnson (R-West Babylon) on June 23, the bill doesn’t have a sponsor yet, but Stoddard is optimistic that it will pass and said information about it will appear in the next FIA newsletter.