Town Completes Broadway Beach Project in Rocky Point
Last week, the Town of Brookhaven highway department announced it had completed the $1.165 million stormwater treatment and shoreline stabilization project at the northern end of Broadway in Rocky Point, finishing a slate of over $6 million projects since Hurricane Sandy ravaged Long Island’s coastline eight years ago.
Town officials said the Broadway Beach sustained extensive damage including substantial sand, beach grass and vegetation erosion, as well as the destruction of the gabion-basket wall system, the beach access stairway and the concrete walkway after Sandy in 2012.
At the end of last year, the town voted to enter into an agreement with the North Shore Beach Property Owners Association to start the project, which was set to start in early 2020 and finish by Memorial Day, May 25.
In order to reduce risk of damage from future storm events, the gabion-basket walls were completely removed and replaced with steel bulkhead for toe of slope stability and an armor stone revetment wall. Highway officials said the bulkhead — which now protects areas of the bluff that have experienced significant levels of erosion in the past — has a much longer life span than the gabion-basket walls and will better protect the drainage infrastructure and shoreline from high storm surges, nor’easters and hurricanes. A new drainage system and stormwater treatment unit were also designed and incorporated into this project, ensuring that polluted stormwater is not directly discharged into the Long Island Sound.
“The completion of this project will ensure that we are less vulnerable to damage from future storms,” said Highway Superintendent Dan Losquadro (R) in a release.
The U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency Hazard Mitigation Program has approved for 90 percent reimbursement of the total project cost of $1,165,000. U.S. Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY1) helped secure a total of $4.5 million in FEMA grants. The last 10 percent, or $116,500, comes from the town’s highway budget as a capital project.
In the release, Zeldin said the project is “bolstering our area’s storm resiliency,” and is “preventing future water damage.”
This project is the last of a $6 million total Hurricane Sandy response for nearly a decade. This includes:
• Gully Landing Road, Miller Place — Total Cost: $1.4 million; 90 percent funded by FEMA
• Shore Road and Amagansett Drive, Sound Beach — Total Cost: $1.3 million; $233,651 FEMA funded
• Friendship Beach, Rocky Point — Total Cost: $1,045,648; 90 percent FEMA funded
• Hallock Landing Road, Rocky Point — Total Cost: $996,829; 90 percent funded by FEMA
• Sills Gully Beach, Shoreham — Total Cost: $875,000; 90 percent FEMA funded
• Riverhead Drive, Sound Beach — Total Cost: $239,210; 90 percent FEMA funded
• Landing Road, Miller Place — Total Cost: $145,845; 90 percent FEMA funded
• Woodhull Landing Beach, Sound Beach — Total Cost: $70,000
• Hagerman Landing Road, Rocky Point — Total Cost: $43,572
