Suffolk’s coast will be bolstered under a plan announced last week by County Executive Ed Romaine. Phase 1 of a $1.3 million Coastal Resiliency Program aims to protect the mainland and improve water quality and wildlife habitat at three county-owned sites in Westhampton Beach and East Islip.
Romaine appeared at Scully Marsh in East Islip to discuss the effort with Deputy Presiding Officer Steve Flotteron, Legislator Trish Bergin, and environmental activists.
“This project serves to harden our coast by restoring these sensitive areas to their natural conditions, protecting neighboring communities, and safeguarding the area from erosion,” Romaine said. “It can’t come soon enough.”
Suffolk received a grant totaling $1.29 million for Phase I through a FEMA Hazard Mitigation Fund administered by the New York State Division of Homeland Security and Emergency Services. Phase II funding from the federal government will amount to $2.75 million for a total of $3.9 million from the federal government, Romaine noted. The entire project will cost $4.3 million.
Scully Marsh (25 acres), East Islip Preserve (35 acres), and Cupsogue Beach Marsh (80 acres) are each listed as high-priority wetland sites in the county’s recently finalized Coastal Resiliency Plan. County officials noted that past human interventions and weather have disrupted the area’s natural hydrology, decreasing the marsh’s natural ability to act as a buffer from flooding. “The program aims to restore the areas’ natural hydrology through the usage of coir logs and sediment redistribution,” Legislator Flotteron said.
Recreating the areas’ natural hydrology also favors indigenous plants and wildlife over invasive species, such as Phragmites. The nuisance plant has pushed out natural species such as bulrushes.
The Coastal Resiliency Plan, which studied Suffolk County’s nearly 1,000 miles of coastline, lists other potential sites where this method of integrated marsh management could be replicated.
“The marshlands are critical to our ecosystem, and we have to keep things balanced as we work on many related topics,” Flotteron continued. “We must bring back the health of the Great South Bay. This effort to save marshlands is a first step, but an important step, for our whole ecosystem.”
“We must recognize that we live on an island and a lot of our economic engine is driven by that fact -- heavy on tourism, the boating industry, restaurants – and we need clean water,” Legislator Bergin said at Scully Marsh. “Restoring these marshlands is so important to achieving our goals to add oxygen to the water, to help restore the shellfish which eat up the nitrogen. This is just such a valuable project," said Bergin.
Legislator Jim Mazzarella added, “Living on an Island, our water quality and our coastal resiliency is of the utmost importance. By working to restore tidal marshland we are not only protecting our delicate ecosystem, we are also protecting our residents, especially those in the low-lying coastal communities. The restoration of marshlands will help to create natural buffers and protect properties from flooding as a result of storm surge,” Mazzarella said.