Page 40: of Marine Technology Magazine (March 2022)

DREDGING LONG ISLAND

USACE

Westhampton

Beach Breach

By JoAnne Castagna, Ed.D.

n 1992, Joseph Vietri, then a coastal engineer with the agencies and communities revitalized a stalled project – The

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, New York District, was Fire Island Inlet to Montauk Point, New York, Coastal Storm walking with a colleague and a coastal researcher around Risk Management Project.

Westhampton Beach, a barrier island located on the south The comprehensive project will manage the risks of coastal

Ishore of Long Island, New York. “The island was recently storm damage and sea level rise for barrier islands and back beaten up by a Nor’easter. We were walking in ankle-deep bay communities on Long Island’s south shore while at the water and started to wade into peat that must off broken off same time preserve natural resources. After years of research- of a wetland. We looked at each other and said, ‘If something ing for the best measures for doing this, the project has begun. is not done immediately, this whole island is going to unravel Long Island extends out east into the Atlantic Ocean from within a week.’” New York City. Along the south shore of the island there are

In a matter of days this is exactly what happened. Water barrier island chains from Long Beach to Shinnecock Inlet. from the ocean side of the barrier island washed over and into In between Long Island’s mainland and the barrier islands the bay side, splitting the barrier island, creating a breach or is bay water that includes the Great South Bay, Moriches Bay gap that quickly turned into a full-blown major inlet that swal- and Shinnecock Bay. lowed up dozens of houses. The project encompasses 83-miles of the south shore of the

Today Vietri is the Director of Coastal Storm Risk Manage- island - from Fire Island Inlet to Montauk Point and extends ment National Center of Expertise, North Atlantic Division, inland two miles. The area covers the Suffolk County por-

U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. To prevent this from happen- tion of the island that includes the Towns of Babylon, Islip, ing again, the Army Corps in collaboration with numerous Brookhaven, Southampton, and East Hampton, 12 incorpo- 40 March/April 2022

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