(Credit: Chris Francescani/Sunset Beach Films)
The Greenport Village Board voted last week to cover nearly one third of the cost of dredging the mouth of Stirling Harbor before year’s end, following pleas from commercial marina and other area business owners that the harbor entrance has grown too narrow and needs immediate attention.
Led by Safe Harbor Marinas, business owners within the harbor basin urged the village to take action before Jan. 1, when the New York Department of Environmental Conservation bars dredging until at least June to protect winter flounder and piping plovers.
The village will pay up to 29% of the costs of the dredge — a one-to-two-day project job that began Monday and is expected to cost roughly $24,000.
The decision followed a work session presentation last week by trustee and Waterfront Advisory Committee chair Patrick Brennan, who said the limited width of the harbor entrance was a “kind of bottleneck” that “may be creating a hazard” for commercial and recreational boats, especially during the peak summer season. The passageway is bordered by Sandy Beach on one side and the eastern end of Sterling Avenue on the other.
Mr. Brennan said he measured the inlet at high and low tide and found that the mouth of the harbor is about 105 feet wide at high tide and about 75 feet at low tide, though he said the “usable width of the channel is about 50 feet, when you account for the fact that you can’t navigate near Sandy Beach.
“It is getting to a point where it may be creating a hazard, because we have two-way traffic there,” he said. “In the summertime, we have a lot of recreational boaters — who are not necessarily the best navigators — so we have an intense amount of use in the summer.
“A lot of those power boats don’t need the depth, but we also have sailors and they have to avoid the Sandy Beach side. Year-round, we have commercial traffic that goes through there, and the commercial traffic is really a whole variety of boat types — from wide, shallow barges that the marine contractors use to wide and deep commercial fishing vessels like trustee [Mary Bess] Phillips has in her operation.
“So the width and the depth there is really critical for maintaining the commercial operators, marine contractors, aquaculture operators and fishing boats.”
Both Mr. Brennan and Deputy Mayor Mary Bess Phillips own businesses in the basin, and they each abstained from the vote last Thursday night to appropriate the money, which was passed unanimously by the remaining three board members.
Village Mayor Kevin Stuessi and Trustee Lily Dougherty-Johnson expressed concerns about the process, but ultimately supported the measure.
Trustee Julia Robins said she supports village funding of the project, and urged her fellow board members to act.
“I came here prepared tonight to vote yes. Let’s fund this … we have 12 days left.”
Ms. Phillips also supports village funding of the project.
Ms. Dougherty-Johnson said she felt rushed to make a decision.
“I would love to hear from the public,” she said.
“I understand what everyone is saying about ‘this has to get done,’ and it should be regularly done, but to me, if feels like it would be a push to do in 12 days,” Ms. Dougherty-Johnson said. “Without getting public comment doesn’t feel right to me.”
Mr. Brennan said former longtime village administrator Paul Pallas told him that previous village officials didn’t feel the need to apply for a permit or hold public hearings, “because they were acting as both the permitter and the permittee.” The village has an open harbor maintenance permit that expires in 2029.
Mr. Stuessi also expressed concern.
“There is a fear from a lot of folks of our marinas changing dramatically and seeing locals get kicked out … I would not be comfortable if I didn’t bring that up as an issue.”
Citing an 1894 report from the Army Corps of Engineers report, Mr. Brennan said the federal government built and maintained the harbor channel through most of the 20th century, dredging it at least three times: in 1959, 1963 and 1976 — and possibly more.
“So the U.S. Corps of Engineers is supposed to be responsible for maintaining the federal channel into the basin.”
Nevertheless, in the absence of immediate federal assistance, Mr. Brennan said the village should begin budgeting for bi-annual dredging of the channel.
“The short-term solution is probably this periodic dredging,” he said. “Long-term, we need to make sure that our channel and our anchors are maintained at the proper depth. This is really an important issue for the village. The Stirling basin has a whole variety of commercial interests and residential homeowners there, and it’s an important economic engine for our village.”
He said that keeping the harbor mouth as wide as possible is a benefit to everyone involved.
“As far as enterprises go, we’ve got private, small marinas, we’ve got fishing and aquaculture business, boatyards, marine railways, a hotel, a resort, a yacht club. We have an acute care community hospital with seven beds that also has a dock for emergencies. We have fish processing and wholesale fish. And the village itself … also operates several amenities in there.
“I think we need to find a way to budget this.”
Sean Gilligan, regional vice president of Safe Harbor Marinas, told the board his contractor was “willing and able to get the work done before the New Year, within the permit” at a total cost of about $24,000 — though it would be “substantially less” for future dredges if a bi-annual dredge schedule is implemented.
Safe Harbor’s marinas includes a total of about 400 boat slips and nearly 600 boats, he said, with lengths of up to 92 feet.
Mr. Gilligan had asked the village to fund the dredge, then suggested a 50/50 split of costs, though he maintained his position that the village is ultimately responsible for the management of the harbor channel.
“This can’t be argued as anything other than a public works project, something that would benefit the public,” Mr. Gilligan said at the work session. “I draw a parallel if the road down to the parking lot of Claudios was down to the single lane because the asphalt was crumbling, nobody would expect the businesses down there to contribute.”
Safe Harbor and another harbor business fully funded the last dredge in 2020.