Park in Hamptons Where the Birds Feed Out of Your Hand
Once Part of Westhampton, Now a Home for Birds and Animals
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August 8, 1993
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MANY species of wildlife are discovering a new island west of Pike's Inlet, where a breach created by the storms of last winter washed away the barrier beach. The storms cut across Dune Road in Westhampton Beach, leaving no access by land to Cupsogue Beach County Park and dozens of houses.
Looking like any suburban community after a winter's snowfall, sand instead of snow is piled in drifts along the new island's roads, houses, shrubbery and mailboxes. Telephone poles are tilted, and large flocks of swallows gather on the lines. The silence is broken only by the sounds of crashing surf and the putt-putt of boat engines in the bay. By the dozens, houses that were not blown off their foundations into Moriches Bay by last winter's storms stand lifeless, their electricity and water cut off until their futures are decided by the courts.
Access to the island is restricted to people with permission from the town and county and can be gained only by boat. With only an occasional human visitor landing on its shores, the island has become a magnet for wildlife.
Several species of shore birds, some protected by the Federal Government and the state, as well as more common waterfowl, raccoons, foxes and a cat are living on the beaches, in the dunes and in the houses. The new island, about half a mile from the land mass and south of Eastport, is probably about 1,000 acres.
Not only do the animals regard the Cupsogue island as a community of their own. Humans do, also. "We're incorporating a village out there," said Gary Vegliante, a former resident of the area and now president of the Barrier Beach Preservation Association. "We filed with the Town of Southampton last Tuesday. We're calling it West Hampton Dunes."
The new community's eastern boundary would be 500 feet east of the last jetty. The western boundary would be Cupsogue Park. Comprised of the four to six homeowners whose structures are still standing east of the breach, more than half of the new village's residents would be the 130 homeowners whose houses were washed away. The rest of the new community's population would come from the 90 to 100 homeowners whose houses still stand on the Cupsogue island.
The desire to incorporate, according to Mr. Vegliante, grew out of a sense of injustice. "We're the only area left on Long Island that has not been paid by the National Flood Insurance Program," he said."We have 40 claims outstanding for $6 million to $8 million. And there was no reason given."
Bill Zellars of the Federal Emergency Management Agency said the legal process used to assess damage does not cover the houses on Dune Road. The claims on Dune Road are being reviewed on a case-by-case basis. In that procedure, a 60-day proof of loss is required. But many homeowners cannot provide an exact date of loss.
"The problem is," Mr. Zellars said, "when were the houses damaged by flooding? That is, by a general condition of flooding, and not by wave damage from tidal action."
In the meantime, the United States Army Corps of Engineers has halted dredging to fill in the breach until the piping plovers have finished nesting.
Mr. Vegliante viewed that decision as a mixed blessing: "On the one hand, as an environmentalist, I'm glad they're protecting the birds. On the other hand, as a human, I'm concerned about the other humans who live on Mecox Bay and are exposed to flooding now that hurricane season is near."
"They were building the berm five feet higher than the elevation of the houses that remain," Mr. Vegliante said. "When there's a storm, the water will be directed at the houses that are still there. What are they trying to do to us? Wipe us out?"
Residents blame the severe flooding on Dune Road on the Army Corps of Engineers, which in the 1960's started to build groins along the barrier beach. The corps abandoned the project before it was finished. A resumption of the work has been tied up in jurisdictional and monetary disputes.
"What I observed was truly astounding," said Larry Penny, natural resources director of East Hampton after a recent visit. More than 800 pairs of least terns are believed to be nesting on the island. Hundreds of the birds could be seen flying low crisscross patterns. Many carried baitfish in their beaks, presumably to feed fledglings.
An official of the State Environmental Conservation Department said the rebuilding of the barrier beach to provide access to the houses and park would proceed without disturbing the birds. "It's the state's intention to maintain that productivity," said a deputy commissioner, Robert Bendick. "We're in the process of filling in the breachway. We're taking great care to protect the natural character of the area. There will be sheet piling put across the inlet, and sand will cover it. The sand flats and overwash area will remain. The intention is not to rebuild the road."
Mr. Bendick said the breach, opened in December and widened by the blizzard on March 13, should be closed by the middle of the month, before the hurricane season begins in earnest.
Some naturalists fear that disturbance could harm the birds. The least terns, an endangered species protected by the state government, once were plentiful on Long Island. But along with piping plovers and other species of shore birds, they became scarce as the coastline changed with development.
"I don't think anything should be done until those birds are finished breeding," Mr. Penny said. The birds usually finish breeding by mid-August. "We've had a pretty bad year as far as the terns are concerned. There are fewer least terns, and they keep moving from spot to spot."
In East Hampton there are 150 pairs breeding. "In Southampton," Mr. Penny added, "they were doing badly because of overwash west of the jetty. The only spot we know of that's doing well in Southampton is about 150 to 100 pairs at Mecox."
Piping plovers also had few new birds this year, Mr. Penny said, because of erosion on the beaches where the birds usually breed, raccoon and dog predators and recreational vehicles that ran over nests on the beaches.
Describing it as "one of the biggest least tern colonies around," David Duffy, a biologist with the Seatuck Research Foundation, said the western part of the island had been surveyed. A graduate student on an internship at the foundation counted more than 300 pairs of least terns in one area and four pairs of piping plovers.
Along with the absence of human activity along the shoreline has come an increase in large wading birds like dowagers, yellow legs and different types of herons. The birds could be seen poking about in the flats on the bay side. An oystercatcher, easily spotted because of its bright orange beak, landed on a rock. Scores of cormorants dived for fish.To Stabilize Moriches Inlet
On the ocean side of the island, near a wreck that was exposed by the shift in tide, a school of striped bass was in hot pursuit of baitfish swimming near the wreck. The bass occasionally jumped from the water, while terns tried to snare some baitfish. A half-dozen boaters watched the show.
The park was acquired in March 1965 from private landowners through a Suffolk County resolution. The purpose of the acquisition of the 296-acre park was to stabilize Moriches Inlet on the western end of the island created by the storms last winter, said a spokesman for the County Parks, Recreation and ConservationDepartment, Bud Corwin. The Moriches Inlet was created by the hurricane of 1938.
The county opened Cupsogue Beach in 1969 but closed it from 1987 to 1990 after storms had washed out the access road. The beach reopened in 1991 and closed after one season. It has been closed ever since. Parks Commissioner Edward E. Wankel said there were no immediate plans for work on the park.
"There's plenty of evidence of raccoons," a biologist in the state's environmental department, Mike Scheibel, said. "In fact there are raccoon tracks in every one of those houses. Foxes, too. And we saw a cat there yesterday. We don't know how it got there. There are no dogs yet."
One house, open completely to the ocean, looked like a large dollhouse on stilts. All the rooms could be seen with their furnishings in place, except for the kitchen. The refrigerator was open, and its contents had spilled on the floor. One naturalist said it looked like raccoons had had a party.
Other residents are deer, said Richard LaRocca, a fisherman, duck hunter and caretaker for several houses. "They probably swam there," said Mr. LaRocca, who added that he had seen deer around the houses as well as feeding on scrub pine amid the dunes. Seabeach Amaranth
A species of rare flora recently added to the state's endangered list may be growing, too. The plant, the seabeach amaranth, which looks like dense curly spinach with a pink or purple stem, first reappeared on Long Island when seeds believed to have been deposited by a hurricane in August 1990 took root. Once believed to have been plentiful on Long Island, the amaranth also is known as pigweed. It is used in South America to feed pigs and cows, said Rick Van Schoik, a biologist with the Nature Conservancy at Upland Farm in Cold Spring Harbor.
"In some ways we could think of it as an indicator species," said Mr. Van Schoik, who will be heading up an amaranth survey late this month to determine where on Long Island's beaches the plant is growing. So far, one of the most fertile areas is the east side of Pike's Inlet.
"If there were lots of amaranths, we could conclude that environmental processes were allowed to continue in a natural way, but when species do disappear it indicates to us that there were obstructions or changes to natural systems," Mr. Van Schoik said.
"It's a truly magnificent park," said Joe Feder, a garment industry salesman who has spent the last 10 summers at a house on Dune Road that is now out of reach. "For years and years I went there. It's a pity people don't have access to it."
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/1993/08/08/nyregion/once-part-of-westhampton-now-a-home-for-birds-and-animals.html
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