The Press of Manorville & the Moriches Online Edition

For the roughly 50 years that Karin and Charles Storer have lived in East Moriches, the couple have enjoyed walks down to the small beach at the end of their street, Moriches Island Road, where boaters have easy access to Moriches Bay and people can lounge on the beach’s white sands.

The area also featured quaint wooden walkways through lush native vegetation that led from a parking lot down to the beach. The Storers have spent many leisurely summer afternoons at the beach, first with their children and now with their grandchildren.

But getting to their treasured piece of beach has become something of a challenge in recent months. In November, the State Department of Environmental Conservation began a renovation project of the Moriches Waterway Access site, where the roadway leading to a boat ramp and the walkway to the beach have suffered severe erosion.

The DEC received $200,000 in state capital parks funds for the project, which included the cost of all construction materials, labor, and any contractor services needed for the completion of the restoration.

However, the work suddenly stopped soon after it began, according to Ms. Storer, and the beach is now nearly inaccessible because of a lack of walkways, steel gates and fences blocking access to the beach, and a row of huge granite boulders, weighing roughly 1,000 pounds each, that were placed along the edge of the roadway leading to the boat ramp to deter further erosion.

While Ms. Storer applauds the DEC’s efforts to keep the road from being chewed away by high tides and storm surges, she points out that the massive rocks have made it impossible for all but the nimblest of visitors to the site to get to the beach.

“Now you cannot get to the beach unless it’s very low tide, and then you have to walk down the ramp and around the rocks,” Ms. Storer said. “I’ve seen children trying to scramble over those rocks, and I believe it’s just a matter of time before someone is seriously hurt.”

Ms. Storer is also upset by the defoliation of what was once lush vegetation lining the beach. “In November, bulldozers arrived, and except for a few trees, all the bushes, trees and undergrowth were cut down,” she noted. “This is where the birds, squirrels, rabbits and even deer had their homes. And this was done by the Department of Environmental what?”

DEC spokeswoman Aphrodite Montalvo said work at the site came to an abrupt halt because the state had to freeze funds due to financial shortfalls across New York. She noted that the $200,000 allocated for the restoration of the site has not been removed from the state’s budget, but said that the remainder of the funds for the project has simply been frozen until the State Legislature can hammer out financial shortfalls facing the state.

“We had built stabilization walls for erosion control at the site, and the site is currently open for boat launches,” Ms. Montalvo said. “However, for the remainder of the site, which includes the boardwalk and the planting of new vegetation, it’s currently on hold due to the state’s fiscal situation, and funds are currently frozen.”

The Moriches Waterway Access Site is surplus land owned by the federal government and has been managed by the state since 1992 through a program called the Federal Lands to Parks Program, administered by the National Parks Service.

East Moriches resident Lenny Kalmar, who was at the small beach on Tuesday with his dog, Kiah, said that he also has concerns for women, children and the elderly trying to cross the hefty boulders to get to the shoreline.

He noted that people tend to park at the end of Moriches Island Road, rather than the parking lot at the access site, because of the boulders. Mr. Kalmar said it is easier for people to access the beach from the dead end, which features several park benches.

“I really miss the walkway—it was nice when it was new,” Mr. Kalmar said. “But then it just got overgrown, because no one took care of it, and they actually had a monument for some guy who used to watch this park—a young guy that died—but I don’t even know if it’s here anymore because it’s so overgrown. But it was nice.”

Ms. Montalvo said the DEC is anxious to finish the project but is at the mercy of the state budget process. She noted that any parts of the lush area surrounding the beach that have been disturbed by the reconstruction would eventually be replanted with native vegetation, which include beachgrass and seaside goldenrod. She said that the walkways would also be reconstructed, and several shrub islands would be created, which will feature native fruit bearing bushes such as blueberry and bayberry.

As to what has already been completed at the site, DEC workers did employ erosion fighting techniques with not only the large boulders, but also by installing geotextile fabric between the boulders and the roadway. Geotextile fabric is woven out of super-strong plastic, which allows resistance against extremely high tensile loads. Used in construction of roadways and airfields, geotextile fabric permits water to pass through, while still creating a barrier between the soft ground and the granular material of the road.

In addition to repairing the access road to the ramp, the ramp itself has been reinforced. The roadway and the parking lot have also been re-graded and given a new layer of bluestone.

“The money is still allocated for this project,” Ms. Montalvo added. “But we just don’t have control over when that money will be unfrozen.”

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