Chris Dixon: Rob, there's been a lot of talk about various beach renourishment issues up along the Atlantic coast of New York. What are the places Surfrider is most concerned about?

Rob Bailey: We have three different campaigns. The one I'm least involved in is Montauk because the Long Island Chapter has been very focused on that. We're very focused on Southhampton though. That one revolves around development in the event of a disaster and what happens to the actual beach.

CD: I went through Hurricane Hugo in South Carolina, and afterwards the property owners there rushed to throw up buildings before the zoning folks could even get a handle of what was going on. Now there are places where the ocean regularly washes in under the houses.

Rob: I was out on Edisto island, South Carolina, and parts of that place are underwater. People have the ocean coming in under their garages.

But Southampton has actually been reasonably assertive about this sort of thing. A few people on the council are encouraging people to pull back off the beach, which is a sensible move. And they're really sharply discouraging beach hardening, though it does exist.

CD: Does New York have set laws like North and South Carolina that completely forbid seawalls?

Rob: Not general laws, but there are influences on it. The strongest is with the New York DEC, that's the equivalent of the EPA. They oversee what's going on with the Army Corps and their different beach projects.

CD: What's the third area you're looking at?

Epic Day in Long Beach. Photo:Carlos Zapelli
Courtesy: Surfrider/Long Island

Rob: The third major area we're working on is Long Beach. There's been a lot of cross talk and a lot of uninformed talk here about Long Beach -- between City Hall, developers and other politicians.

Here, you've got different authorities over the beaches, and they're vying for control of a situation. But it's often unclear what the cause is, what the threat is, and what the opportunity is for preventing damage or protecting the beach.

CD: There's not really any undeveloped land left in Long Beach is there?

Rob: Well, there's a great deal of interest in new development there.

And there is a beautiful break in Long Beach that's threatened -- several in fact. And there is a new proposed project called the Superblock. And there are two developers vying for control of it.

CD: How badly under the gun are the beaches here? Are there any beaches in the Long Beach area that are heavily threatened with erosion right now?