A Few Thoughts on Erosion in the Hamptons
This year, erosion, like every other year, is worrying a lot of people. For the last couple of years, Georgica Beach in East Hampton has been in the spotlight. The erosion there has been bad, and it has even caused the beach to close. Over near Lazy Point, the East Hampton Town Trustees have taken the East Hampton Town Zoning Board of Appeals to court over erosion related issues.
Let me just say this about erosion in the Hamptons. It’s ALWAYS been an issue. Throughout my life I’ve seen erosion that is scary. Really scary. Like where the hell is the beach scary. I can remember seeing nearly all of the jetti at Main Beach on the east side completely wiped out from erosion. That was over 20 years ago. I can remember when Ditch Plains was nothing but a bunch of rocks from erosion twenty years ago. Today it’s THE BEACH to go to in Montauk because sand has come back.
The beaches come and go in the Hamptons. The ocean brings sand from one place, and pushes it to another place and vice a versa. It’s a process that will go on forever. I’m not going to say that I know the science behind it, but I know for sure that nobody truly understand it. Some people might have a better understanding of it and can be regarded as experts, but they don’t know everything about what’s going on. If they did, then there would be no beach, because when I was ten years old twenty years ago, that’s what those people said to me.
People have been predicting the end of the beaches in the Hamptons before I was even born. I can remember my Dad once telling me that he saw some of the worst erosion he’s ever seen while he was growing up in Montauk. That was over fifty years ago.
So let’s just keep this in perspective. If people have homes that are built on stilts and are very close to the water, you can expect a storm to damage those homes at some point. If you have an ocean front home that is up really close to the beach, you can expect at some point to have to repair something from a surge of water during a big storm.
Global Warming will certainly make this type of thing worse and worse as time goes on, but everything is getting worse and worse. All you can do is to personally take it upon yourself to conserve what you can while living your life and make better choices about the environment. I think that people voluntarily are doing this today more so than at any other time in history in America. And I think that’s great.
Anyway, so yes, there is erosion, but no, I do not think we are going to all be underwater any time soon, and all that has to happen is people just have to deal with the changes of the land. You have to go with the flow and if it’s possible to refurbish the beach, then you should do that.
But if you think that this is something new to the Hamptons, don’t think that. Keep in mind, those big rock jetties that you see that run along the coast line were built a long freaking time ago. In other words, erosion has been an issue for a long time and it will continue to be an issue.
Let’s all stop acting like we are shocked every time we see erosion when it rains outside.