Wow everything is more expensive in New York even beaches!
I will read just about anything by Mr. Leland.
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Are there any studies into where the eroded sand is being deposited? Any new spits, isles, shallowing etc down (tidal) stream? Is it being transported offshore?
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@Mat - look at "The Beaches Are Moving
The Drowning of America's Shoreline"
by Wallace Kaufman and Orrin H. Pilkey
https://www.dukeupress.edu/the-beaches-are-moving
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@Mat
the westward-drifting sand is steadily making the Rockaway Peninsula longer. Look at Breezy Point and see the sand wrap around the last jetty and follow the tide into Jamaica Bay.
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Ugh. A “groin” is the area between the lower abdomen and the thigh. A “groyne” is a breakwater and barrier to sediment migration. Philistines! :)
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@Mat - Groin shows up on the shores of Britannica
https://www.britannica.com/technology/groin
"Groin, in coastal engineering, a long, narrow structure built out into the water from a beach in order to prevent beach erosion or to trap and accumulate sand that would otherwise drift along the beach face and nearshore zone under the influence of waves approaching the beach at an angle. A groin can be successful in stabilizing a beach on the updrift side, but erosion tends to be aggravated on the downdrift side"
The remark about aggravating erosion on the other side illustrates the fact that sand travels with the flow, accumulates where flow is obstructed, and can be yanked back offshore by waves. In places where sand isn't actively stacking up into dunes, like at the south end of Lake Michigan, it's just traveling along the shore.
I mentioned them in another comment, but I recommend Duke University Press' series "Living with the Shore".
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How about some money for Far Rockaway? Never mind sand. Moonscape streets and flooded roads that take days to drain could use a few bucks.
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Since they're constantly pumping so much money into sand replenishment I'm not so sure we should continue to call it "sacrificial".
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Nobody had to make up money down the drain.
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$270 million for a local tourist attraction is nothing. Presumably this is mostly state tax dollars anyway. However, even if the full amount were billed to the federal budget, I wouldn't mind.
I live in a state with 5 national parks and over 10 national monuments depending on how you count them. The National Park Service is severely underfunded at $3 billion. I'm not going to begrudge Rockaway a $13 million beach so long as they are reclaiming the sand.
Besides, that money pays for itself in economic multipliers. The people who should be upset are Williamsburg residents. All that hipster business and tax revenue is going to Rockaway now. A $13 million local investment is going to create a serious wealth transfer between localities.
The planners in Roackaway are the smart ones.
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I am 65 and spent my first 26 years on the Rockaway PENINSULA.
Repeat after me, Rockaway PENINSULA.
The sand has been repeatedly replenished by the Army Corps of Engineers ever since I can remember. It’s simply the way it always was.
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Couldn't anyone think of anything better to spend the money on?
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As someone who has lived in both ends of the Rockaways -1964 to 1972 and 1976 to 1980 - I know that one important fact was left out of the article. That is that much of the beach erosion is due to the reclamation work done in the late 60's. The Corps of Engineers reworked the jetties and angled them in the wrong direction, resulting in increased erosion. Rather than changing the direction, it was decided that pumping sand from the Bay to the beach was cheaper. The result, time after time of work.
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@Allison- My parents have been in the western Rockaways for 30+ years. THIS ^^^^^^ is the honest truth.
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Jetties never work.
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As mentioned by the NYT on July 15, 1905:
"The indications, too, are that the sea takes from one place only to give to another. While Long Branch and Ocean Grove have been cut away by the fury of the surf, the area of Sandy Hook, five miles above Long Branch, is today four times what it was at the time of the first Colonial surveys in 1735. The Sandy Hook lighthouse, which was only 500 feet distant from the end of the point when it was erected, is now nearly a mile away from it. At Shark River, a mile below Ocean Grove, the sweep of the sea often chokes up the inlet so that natives have to dig a channel though it to keep the fish from perishing."
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A lot of sand winds up in Wildwood.
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"Why Giant Pipes (Intentionally) Spewed Water and Sand onto Rockaway Beach"
I don't think you mean that. How about:
"Why Giant Pipes (By Design) Spewed Water and Sand onto Rockaway Beach"
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@Mark The use of Sisyphus and groins in the same article is also questionable.
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Grew up spending summers at my Aunts rooming house on Beach 95th street, the Central House. I remember the sand pipe running up the middle of the street in the 70's. Pumping sand from Jamaica Bay to beach. The Beach in the 90's blocks never got the larger Stone jetties and washed out. Jumping off the (old) boardwalk into the water at high tide was fun. The old wooden jetties had rotted away by the early 80's.
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What’s that trite phrase which defines “insanity”? Repeating the same useless action again and again? The governmental stewards of Rockaway Beach surely have collected rocks in their craniums. But then again, they’re cavalierly playing with House Money.
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@John Grillo - one big problem is we're raising sea levels. So places like Rockaway Beach, NY and Edgewater, MD are going to be facing increasing flooding decade over decade.
That's why NJ has been buying and demolishing some properties in that state - because the ocean is taking those lowlying areas back.
Here's a 3-foot-flood risk map for Edgewater MD.
https://riskfinder.climatecentral.org/place/edgewater.md.us?comparisonType=place&forecastType=NOAA2017_int_p50&level=3&unit=ft
Note that Annapolis has been seeing ever increasing fair-weather flooding like many places up and down the Atlantic. The simple fact is beaches have always been slowly moving objects, but now they are also moving inland.
Of course, this is where the Commissioner of Cultural Affairs has his weekend house, demonizing Manhattanite’s park needs and funding his own.
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Jetties and groins bring their own problems. So, it seems, do artificial rock outcrops just outside the surf zone.
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Thank you so much Republicans and White Evangelicals for destroying the planet.
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Mr. Leland, why did you repeatedly refer to the Rockaways as a island? It's well known that it is a peninsula. Looking at a map might be helpful in the future.
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From the excellent Duke University Press series "Living with the Shore" is a book specific to the area.
https://www.dukeupress.edu/living-with-long-islands-south-shore
They list it as available and there are undoubtedly used copies out there. It was published in 1984, so would be a bit dated, but the one about the NJ shore was comprehensive in describing the various benefits AND harms that arise every time a locale tries to keep the sand from migrating away from their beach, after it has migrated from the beach next door.
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Have fun smelling the baking mud and walking on oyster shell fragments!
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This is only a very short term solution. Nature will remove it again and again.
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This story is a perfect example of a global phenomenon—climate change—contributing to a local problem that is costing taxpayers millions and threatening a coveted strip of beach. Too bad the editors chose not to make the connection, ducking instead behind “rising sea levels”—another result of human-caused climate change. New Yorkers won’t start taking this existential threat seriously if the Times doesn’t make these obvious connections in its local coverage.
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@AlNewman
Can you prove there's any additional beach erosion affecting the Rockaway Peninsula because of climate change? If so by how much? I mean there must be calculations on it somewhere. Or are you just saying it because you believe it is.
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If everyone brought their own sand, we wouldn't have this problem.
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Why are Rockaway beaches replenished more than any others? More people use them. These are the Premier beaches of the Premier city in the world (my opinion). There is zero chance that Rockaway will, or should be allowed to disappear.
As for the west end parking problem, consider that there are no bathrooms west of Beach 116th.
What happens when visitors are on the beach and need to use a bathroom? They use the beach and ocean instead.
I lived there for over 50 years, and have witnessed the above more times than I would like to remember.
Furthermore, I have also seen people block driveways (during the week in Belle Harbor when parking is legal) and threaten the homeowners if they complain to the police. (They know where we live, we don’t know their address).
At least it’s not like in Florida or California where homeowners can own the beach up to the high tide line.
And just to make it clear, all who come to Rockaway beach (any part of Rockaway Beach) are more than welcome, all shades, all religions. If you are friendly, so are we.
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Though my usual beach is Scott Cameron, from time to time I visit the Rockaways to see friends. What struck me the last time I was there was the ominous and intrusive police presence. At least 20 police officers plus lifeguards, park service people, etc. all watching over maybe 100 families, at most, whistles blowing, issuing orders...
It did not strike me as a fun. It seemed more like a field trip for low security inmates from Rikers Island.
Somehow Coney Island manages to have a less overwhelming police presence, I’m not sure why Rockaway is so hostile.
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"The Rockaways want to move westward"
And when the westward current hits the east side of the jetty it produces a rip current that will take you out to sea. So be aware even if you start off on the west side of the jetty the current will gradually move you west.
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Another pressing issue in the Rockaways is the woefully outdated and old-standing racist weekend parking regulations that run from May through September. These regulations ONLY exist on the peninsula (Rockaway is not an island!) from Beach 117th St to the western edge of Neponsit at 149th. In 2014 the N.Y. Times had an excellent article explaining the history of how towns/communities restricted beach access to their beaches through parking regulations, differential fee scales and other means. As new shore front building development has occurred in the Rockaways over the past 10 years (encouraged by NYC government through tax incentives) apartment dwellers who do not have front lawns to allow friends and family to park their cars on and other sections (lower income neighborhoods) of the peninsula that do not have the parking regulations absorb more of the traffic.
https://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/06/22/should-beach-privatization-be-allowed/beaches-are-an-american-right-and-environmental-necessity
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the link you gave is about restricting beach access, not parking. two different things. rockaway beaches are open to all. but even in hawaii, where all beaches are public including beaches by hotels and private houses, you can walk on the beach -- but you aren't guaranteed a parking spot for yourself and all your guests nearby.
B117 to B149 have parking rules because the houses are built close together, with many close driveways. even with the regulations people who live there often find themselves boxed in by day trippers who block the driveways and disappear for the day (and often leave piles of beer cans and dirty diapers on sidewalks when they pack up for the day). emergency vehicles can't get down narrow streets or near fire hydrants or the sea wall turnarounds if there are lots of parked cars; the streets just aren't big enough.
maybe the peninsula needs more municipal parking lots, especially whenever there is more new density housing being built. that and carpooling/ferry/bus lines (common sense) when you want to invite people over but don't know where they should park.
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@Kid
Racist parking regulations? Get in line.
We’ll get right to that after we solve the intersectional problem of colonialism and cauliflower.
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Yes, the sand replenishment has cost millions of dollars over the years. Yes, it may seem like a waste of taxpayer dollars. What is missing from this article is a report on the efforts made by many in Rockaway to build rock jetties at points along the shore to decrease the erosion, and put an end to the never ending sand pumps. Jetties located at beaches around 80th St have decreased erosion and, not coincidently, help to lessen damage from Sandy along those stretches of beach. I would love to see a follow up article reporting on practical ideas to help the beaches in Rockaway and perhaps motivate people-in-charge to try those solutions instead of efforts that really aren’t solutions at all. Rockaway is a gem, it’s my home, and it deserves more than a quick (non)fix.
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@Maria
indeed, why not jetties. many long island (nassau and suffolk counties) beaches have them, they work at slowing beach erosion, and they have other purposes, like walking on them, enhances the beach experience. Jetties, time for.
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Not a Rockaway native but have lived in Rock Park for 15+ years, pre-Sandy, raising my kid in this fabulous Queens’ outpost. We are transplants from far-flung East Village!
Super happy to see revival and renewed interest in the Rockaways from both the N.Y. Times (lots more articles as of late, curious) and new generations day-trippers from all boroughs and so many corners of the world (not just hipsters)!
The dilemma of balancing shoreline, coastline development as well as supporting long-standing communities (many economically insecure) is a knotty issue for which I do not have an answer. Guess we, or our child, will end up migrating to upstate N.Y. at some point in time.
7
The feds have renourished the beach at Rockaway at taxpayer expense. Meanwhile the rest of the coast sells bonds and goes into debt to protect their main source of revenue.
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As my born-and-raised-in-Rockaway fiancée would resolutely tell you, it is a peninsula, not an island! Its eastern edge abuts Nassau County. May seem like a minor technicality to some, but to hyper-proud locals such as her, it's an important detail.
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I grew up in the Rockaways, have experienced firsthand the economic and social collapse of most of the peninsula, and am both thrilled and amazed by the renaissance of much of it. But as beach season arrives, I ask why legal and normal on-street parking is prohibited during the summer west of Beach 116th St, throughout the wealthier (whiter) neighborhoods of Belle Harbor and Neponsit, precluding access to public beaches —your beaches — there. The answer is, of course, obvious.
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