Coastal Erosion

As sea level rises, coastal erosion is a major problem on the East End. 

Water front property owners have been battling with town trustees over their attempt to protect their property by building bulkheads or other hardened structures.

The structures usually result in significant loss of sand in front of the structure and also down stream along the shoreline, exposing neighbors’beachfront and public beaches to severe erosion as well. 

The authority of the trustees – based on a colonial era English law  — has been challenged in the courts after disputes with homeowners.

In May 2012, a state judge ruled that the Southampton Town Trustees do not have the authority to regulate homeowners’ placement of structures on or under the ocean beach to protect their homes in the event of severe erosion during major storms, at least within village boundaries.

Again in February 2014, as reported in the Southampton Press, a New York State Justice ruled against the Trustees, first ordering them to turn over their books to the town — an order that was refused — and then declaring that their authority to regulate constructionactivity along the oceanfront did not extend into the incorporated villages, asthe Trustees have claimed.  

And  a group of homeowners along Southampton town’s oceanfront in Water Mill, Bridgehampton and Sagaponack, combined to fund a multi-million dollar beach replenishment project in 2013 after severe loss of beach sand washed out dunesand threatened homes.

Marine biologist Douglas Hardy has been studying the devastating effects of hardened structures on Southold town’s coast line on the north fork of Long Island — effects like severe erosion and reduced coastal resilience in the era of climate change. 

Hardy wrote a paper The Starvation of Southold Beaches  for the Conservation Advisory Council to The Southold Town Trustees.  

Hardy identifies the problem and considers the legal aspects of fixing it as property owners battle with local government.  He notes in the paper that as sea level rises and storms become more extreme, storm surges will overwhelm and undermine hardened structures — and those structures will also magnify storm surge damage to adjacent beaches. He proposes ways to encourage homeowners to plan for sea level rise in a way that better protects coastal resilience.

The paper was submitted in January at a town board meeting, but was not enthusiastically received, according to EastEndBeacon.com, a news blog.

Sustainable East End's Francesca Rheannon talked with Doug Hardy last week. 

listen here   

Coastal Erosion

As sea level rises, coastal erosion is a major problem on the East End. 

Water front property owners have been battling with town trustees over their attempt to protect their property by building bulkheads or other hardened structures.

The structures usually result in significant loss of sand in front of the structure and also down stream along the shoreline, exposing neighbors’beachfront and public beaches to severe erosion as well. 

The authority of the trustees – based on a colonial era English law  — has been challenged in the courts after disputes with homeowners.

In May 2012, a state judge ruled that the Southampton Town Trustees do not have the authority to regulate homeowners’ placement of structures on or under the ocean beach to protect their homes in the event of severe erosion during major storms, at least within village boundaries.

Again in February 2014, as reported in the Southampton Press, a New York State Justice ruled against the Trustees, first ordering them to turn over their books to the town — an order that was refused — and then declaring that their authority to regulate constructionactivity along the oceanfront did not extend into the incorporated villages, asthe Trustees have claimed.  

And  a group of homeowners along Southampton town’s oceanfront in Water Mill, Bridgehampton and Sagaponack, combined to fund a multi-million dollar beach replenishment project in 2013 after severe loss of beach sand washed out dunesand threatened homes.

Marine biologist Douglas Hardy has been studying the devastating effects of hardened structures on Southold town’s coast line on the north fork of Long Island — effects like severe erosion and reduced coastal resilience in the era of climate change. 

Hardy wrote a paper The Starvation of Southold Beaches  for the Conservation Advisory Council to The Southold Town Trustees.  

Hardy identifies the problem and considers the legal aspects of fixing it as property owners battle with local government.  He notes in the paper that as sea level rises and storms become more extreme, storm surges will overwhelm and undermine hardened structures — and those structures will also magnify storm surge damage to adjacent beaches. He proposes ways to encourage homeowners to plan for sea level rise in a way that better protects coastal resilience.

The paper was submitted in January at a town board meeting, but was not enthusiastically received, according to EastEndBeacon.com, a news blog.

Sustainable East End's Francesca Rheannon talked with Doug Hardy last week. 

listen here   

Tip Brolin - Citizens Climate Lobby

As the UN Climate Conference winds down in Paris, advocates for cutting the use of fossil fuels world-wide are still looking for action from the earth’s major polluters.

Climate scientists say we are already experiencing climate change — more extreme weather, longer droughts, worse flooding, warmer average ocean and surface temperatures.  

With this comes disappearing glaciers, melting ice caps, expanding deserts, rising sea levels, ocean acidification, and the mass extinction of animal species. 

Scientists warn us, we need to bring CO2 levels in our atmosphere back down to 350 parts per million. We are currently at 400 — and rising by 2-3 parts per million annually. It makes an insulating blanket on our atmosphere that forces the climate to warm. And because oceans absorb a large amount of this CO2, they are becoming more acidic. That threatens seafood stocks and, indeed, a collapse of marine ecosystems.

Will the world’s leaders get serious in time to avert climate catastrophe? Climate scientist James Hansen told Amy Goodman of Democracy Now last week that “as long as fuels are dirt cheap, people will keep burning them.” 

The Citizens Climate Lobby is a nation-wide organization that has a plan they say will fix the problem and they have proposed legislation to address it.

Tony Ernst spoke with power generation engineer Tip Brolin, a local member of Citizens Climate Lobby and the Southampton Town Sustainability Committee at his home in Water Mill last month. 

Brolin, trained at Tufts University and George Washington University.

As a Navy officer and later as a civilian he worked in Washington DC on nuclear propulsion with Admiral Hyman Rickover. 

Brolin worked in industry designing both coal and nuclear power generation systems and he helped manage the Department of Energy’s nuclear power and nuclear fusion programs. 

Listen here

More information about the Citizens Climate Lobby here

Tip Brolin - Citizens Climate Lobby

As the UN Climate Conference winds down in Paris, advocates for cutting the use of fossil fuels world-wide are still looking for action from the earth’s major polluters.

Climate scientists say we are already experiencing climate change — more extreme weather, longer droughts, worse flooding, warmer average ocean and surface temperatures.  

With this comes disappearing glaciers, melting ice caps, expanding deserts, rising sea levels, ocean acidification, and the mass extinction of animal species. 

Scientists warn us, we need to bring CO2 levels in our atmosphere back down to 350 parts per million. We are currently at 400 — and rising by 2-3 parts per million annually. It makes an insulating blanket on our atmosphere that forces the climate to warm. And because oceans absorb a large amount of this CO2, they are becoming more acidic. That threatens seafood stocks and, indeed, a collapse of marine ecosystems.

Will the world’s leaders get serious in time to avert climate catastrophe? Climate scientist James Hansen told Amy Goodman of Democracy Now last week that “as long as fuels are dirt cheap, people will keep burning them.” 

The Citizens Climate Lobby is a nation-wide organization that has a plan they say will fix the problem and they have proposed legislation to address it.

Tony Ernst spoke with power generation engineer Tip Brolin, a local member of Citizens Climate Lobby and the Southampton Town Sustainability Committee at his home in Water Mill last month. 

Brolin, trained at Tufts University and George Washington University.

As a Navy officer and later as a civilian he worked in Washington DC on nuclear propulsion with Admiral Hyman Rickover. 

Brolin worked in industry designing both coal and nuclear power generation systems and he helped manage the Department of Energy’s nuclear power and nuclear fusion programs. 

Listen here

More information about the Citizens Climate Lobby here