Brookhaven salt marsh restoration aims to protect inland properties

A pair of bald eagles circled over Narrow Bay in Mastic Beach on a recent day, the placid water below glistening in the late-morning sun.

In spring's pastoral charm, you would never know these calm waters could unleash destructive waves. But often during a torrential rainstorm — and sometimes on sunny days — the bay waters lap the shores and creep toward homes on Riviera Drive and Violet Road.

And in Superstorm Sandy in 2012, the neighborhood of single-family houses and summer homes was deluged with a surge of saltwater that flooded the area for days.

"During Superstorm Sandy, where we're standing now was 5 feet under water," said Alan Duckworth, a Brookhaven Town senior environmental analyst, as he stood on a town dock along Riviera Drive.

Sandy's devastation — and the subsequent willingness of longtime homeowners to divest themselves of their shoreline properties — prompted Brookhaven to launch an ambitious effort to restore a salt marsh that had existed for centuries along Mastic Beach's southern shores before suburbanization paved the way for human habitation.

After more than a dozen years of planning, Brookhaven has acquired enough land — hundreds of properties, including vacant parcels and houses either destroyed by Sandy or abandoned by their owners after the storm — to begin laying out a vast field of tidal channels and wooded wetlands stretching from William Floyd Parkway east to the Osprey Park peninsula on the Forge River.

The marsh, covering up to 147 acres, is expected to act like an enormous natural sponge, protecting inland properties by absorbing flooding from hurricanes and tropical storms.

"Nobody can stop the floodwater," Duckworth said in an interview. "But we can better control it."

The marsh also is expected to help restore habitat for diamondback terrapins and saltmarsh sparrows, said Luke Ormand, also a Brookhaven senior environmental analyst.

The $20 million project remains in the early planning stages, town officials said, adding there is no timeline for completion.

Natural beauty, risky living

The southern shore of Mastic Beach is a confluence of bays, ponds, streams and wetlands.

Fire Island and Pattersquash Island sit less than 2 miles from shore. Smith Point County Park is visible from Riviera Drive.

For all of its natural beauty, living there is hazardous for the hardy souls who have become accustomed to bailing out basements and driveways after so-called "sunny day" floods, when roads become drenched by normal high tides or for no apparent reason.

Since Sandy, Brookhaven has acquired more than 300 Mastic Beach parcels, including 70 occupied by houses, bungalows, summer cottages and other abodes, to remove houses and discourage future development. Many of the postage-stamp-sized properties were deemed uninhabitable by town officials.

Brookhaven paid more than $2 million toward land purchases; about 80 parcels were transferred to the town by Suffolk County, which also purchased dozens of Mastic Beach properties, Ormand said.

He said 59 parcels were donated to the town from the state's NY Rising program, which helped thousands of Sandy victims across Long Island rehabilitate or elevate their homes. In Mastic Beach, NY Rising bought and demolished some homes to preserve the properties as open space, Ormand said.

Ormand and Duckworth said they are in the early stages of planning marsh restoration. 

Plans include removing mosquito ditches and invasive species such as phragmites, a type of reed. In their place would go sinuous tidal creeks to help disperse floodwaters, and a maritime hammock — a hardwood forest that would slow the incursion of storm surges — Duckworth and Ormand said.

The plans also call for boardwalks to allow public access to recreation while discouraging the use of cars, Duckworth and Ormand said. Permanent road closures are possible but not finalized, they added.

Longtime resident Janice Schaefer said she mostly supports the town initiative and hopes it works. But she has doubts.

Schaefer, 79, and her husband, Bill, raised their Riviera Drive house 3 feet about 20 years ago — "way before it was the thing to do," she said. Waters from Sandy rose only to her front porch while she and her husband sheltered inside the house, she said.

She understands the salt marsh concept, "but I question when it gets flooded, how it's not going to be inundated," Schaefer said. "How does it hold the water when it's got another 10 or 12 inches on top of it?"

Protective powers of salt marshes

But scientists and coastal researchers say salt marshes are critical to a healthy ecosystem, with benefits for nature and humans alike.

"Absolutely," Gregg Moore, associate professor of biological sciences at the University of New Hampshire, said last week in a phone interview. “They are incredible storm buffers that allow a slowing of, say, storm surge or runoff events or inland floods. All these tiny grasses — you say, 'Grass, who cares?' — it actually slows the water down.

"Any efforts that look to expand the acreage of salt marsh just have enormous benefits aesthetically and economically,” he said.

Some houses still in the area may be elevated as part of the $1.8 billion federal Fire Island to Montauk Point dune restoration and erosion control project known as FIMP. Army Corps of Engineers spokesman James D'Ambrosio said in an email the agency is "developing plans" for house elevation on the South Shore.

"If the town completes plans to expand the surrounding marsh, we will consider how [the marsh expansion] could beneficially impact the FIMP project at Mastic Beach," D'Ambrosio said.

Ormand and Duckworth said the town plans more property purchases — if homeowners are willing to sell. Ormand noted a homeowner sold his house to the town after it was flooded three times in 18 months.

"The flooding is just going to get worse," Duckworth said. "It doesn't make sense if you encourage people to build. ... We buy houses when we can, we buy lots when we can."

Schaefer, the Riviera Drive resident, said she is reluctant to leave the house that her husband's family bought as a summer bungalow in 1932. Her daughter and son-in-law live next door.

The family survived Sandy, and Schaefer knows future storms could be worse. But she is willing to take the risk.

"Where else do you get that view?" Schaefer said, looking out toward Fire Island and the Atlantic Ocean beyond. "Million-dollar view."

By Carl MacGowan

carl.macgowan@newsday.comCarlMacGowan

Carl MacGowan is a Long Island native who covers Brookhaven Town after having previously covered Smithtown, Suffolk County courts and numerous spot news and feature stories over his 20-plus year career at Newsday.