Originally posted on The Long Island Advance by PEGGY SPELLMAN HOEY

08 October 2014

Two-dozen Mastic Beach residents — some carrying ‘Save our sand’ signs and photos of flooded roadways — protested a temporary restraining order blocking beach replenishment at Smith Point County Park, where the dune system was seriously damaged in Superstorm Sandy, on the steps of the federal courthouse in Central Islip Wednesday, though without success.

Judge Sandra Feuerstein granted a temporary restraining order sought by the National Audubon Society last month over concerns piping plover nesting areas at the park would be compromised by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ plans to rebuild the dunes and restore the beach’s structure. The rally coincided with a court conference in which Judge Feuerstein was to hear oral arguments throughout the day from all the parties to the case — both for and against — but the order was not lifted, officials said. All parties are scheduled to appear in court in December, officials said.

Attorneys on the case were not immediately available for comment by deadline.

The Audubon Society’s lawsuit opposes construction on two uninhabitable portions of Fire Island slated for dune replenishment, including the stretch of beach along Smith Point and another one near the Fire Island Lighthouse. Smith Point’s dune system was scheduled for reconstruction — to 13 feet in some areas and 15 feet in others — including sloped areas consistent with plovers’ habitat this month.

Mayor Bill Biondi said the rally was organized because residents wanted the Audubon Society to see their faces, in hopes it would humanize them and their plight in that the residents should have protection from the barrier beach and be able to live a normal life without the fear of another storm destroying the post-Sandy reconstruction on the mainland. “They have the fear that the storm can happen again,” he said. “They put all their money back into their houses, and once we get the sand back on the barrier beach, there’s a little comfort there. You got a barrier beach, you got a wall that will block the ocean from intruding into the bay.”

Trustee Maura Spery, who organized the rally, said the Audubon Society had plenty of time over the past two years to vet any of their concerns and to come in with a “12th-hour stay” for the five piping plovers is unfair. She also took issue with the group for challenging the project on the basis that leaving the dunes flat would not harm the people and property on the other side of the bay.

“There are washovers; it floods our community to the point where I keep waders in my car and I have to wade through knee-high floodwater to get home when it is freezing cold in the winter,” she said. “Whenever the full moon or a nor’easter comes and the ocean washes into the bay, this negatively impacts the homeowners and the humans who live there.”

Resident Michele Palmer, one of a group of people holding a ‘Save our sand’ sign, said she turned out to the rally because Superstorm Sandy affected her home. “It is now two years later and my home is still in turmoil,” she said. “I never want to go through this again. I am seeing our roads being more and more in the situation where we are having more floods and it does not even have to be the case where it rains.”

Resident Sharen Sturek said she showed up to the rally to protest “the piping plovers being more important human beings. Because without sand on the beach, we are going to keep flooding and we need time to figure out what we are going to do,” she said.

The rally also drew support from local elected officials.

Suffolk Legis. Kate Browning, whose district includes Mastic Beach, said that people do not realize that there were only five piping plover nests at Smith Point over the summer and that they have since fledged and flown away. Browning said she believes that the Fish and Wildlife Service should develop a plan because for the “sake of the five piping plover [nests] the entire Mastic Beach community is jeopardized, and that is basically what it is,” she said. “And, it is not about being against the piping plover,” she said.

Brookhaven Town Councilman Dan Panico, who grew up in on the waterfront in Mastic Beach and now represents the 6th Council District, said he turned out to show his support for the residents and village officials because the beach replenishment project should be underway by now.

“This is — unfortunately — two years now,” he said. “We are here at the federal courthouse and this should have been done a very long time ago.”

Last Tuesday, village officials had attorney Brian Egan file papers with the court requesting the village, whose residents live directly across from Smith Point, many of whom sustained heavy damage to their homes in Sandy, be included as a defendant in the case along with the Army Corps and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, which issued a ‘no jeopardy’ opinion of the project in the spring. Suffolk County, the largest stakeholder on Fire Island National Seashore, has also asked to be included in the suit. As of deadline, Mastic Beach and the county had not been included as defendants in the case.