3 Long Island groups awarded funding for climate change resilience plans

Three Long Island groups received part of a $1.1 million award to plan climate change resilience projects, officials said Friday. 

The Long Island Sound Resilience Planning Support Program, created by the New York Sea Grant and the Connecticut Sea Grant, gave a total of $180,868 to the Village of Lattingtown, the Seatuck Environmental Association in Oyster Bay and St. John’s Episcopal Church in Laurel Hollow. The funding will be used to identify and come up with solutions for issues like at-risk waterways and flooding, according to officials.

The program, which is funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency through Long Island Sound Study, also awarded funding to 12 other projects across New York and Connecticut.

Enrico Nardone, executive director of the Seatuck Environmental Association, said the planning stage is often a barrier to getting local climate projects off the ground.

He said the Seatuck Environmental Association and other groups were looking for routes to secure funding to “take a big-picture, conceptual-level look at what kind of improvements can be made” in protecting Beaver Brook — a coastal stream that flows through Mill Neck and Locust Valley. The group received a $71,468 grant to study that effort.

The waterway is experiencing issues because of human-made infrastructure like dams and sea-level rise triggered by climate change, Nardone said.

“This is one of those waterways that has great potential for recreational value but also wildlife value and ecological value,” Nardone said. “But like most waterways, it is facing some challenges.”

In Lattingtown, similar concerns will be the focus of a study centered on local marshlands.

Deputy Mayor Carol Harrington said the village received $37,360 to retain an expert who will create a plan to preserve 22 acres of the marsh complex in the village-owned Kate Trubee Davison Preserve, which is adjacent to Frost Creek.

Harrington said the area is “one of the most vulnerable areas on the North Shore” and that the analysis will home in on natural and human-made structures within the complex that affect the flow of water. Phragmites, an invasive plant, and a series of roads and other structures are believed to be causing issues with the marshes draining during heavy storms, Harrington said.

The plan will “help us establish best management practices, to improve stormwater infiltration,” Harrington said. “It will help us when, like in August, there are large rainfall events. Hopefully we can hold some of that at bay.”

St. John's Episcopal Church in Laurel Hollow will use $72,040 to hire a contractor to develop a plan for the marsh and 14-acre pond at the base of Cold Spring Harbor, which is adjacent to the church.

A North American engineering and technical firm, said the analysis will look at the property, opportunities for restoration of the shorelines and pond, and conditions of an existing 850-foot-long dam.

“There’s been a little bit of flooding, and over time, some of those constructed areas, they just deteriorate on their own,” said Luke Gervase, a project ecologist for GEI Consultants.

The project will focus on “investigating and looking at what’s going on there to find out what potential issues might be, and things we might want to focus on for conservation and restoration moving forward,” he said.