Fire I. ‘sandbagged’
Mar-a-Lago area ‘steals’ storm crews
A federal beach-replenish-hment project near Mar-a-Lagogo is dredging up some bad feel-lings on Fire Island.
Two post-Sandy beach-re-placement projects are being halted so crews and dredges can be moved to a so-calledd “emergency” beach projectt less than a mile from Presidentnt Trump’s Palm Beach resort.
“Our houses will wash away,”y,” fumed Karen Kee, president of the Ocean Bay Park Associa-ation, which has been beggingng for sand replenishment sincece the 2012 hurricane.
The Army Corps’ Feb. 13 announcement “came out of nowhere,” said Kee, who also has a home in Palm Beach “20 minutes from the southern White House.”
“I know that there is erosion there, but there is also a sea wall,” said Kee. “We don’t have a sea wall. We have houses that are washing away.”
The southern end of the work area for the Palm Beach project is about 5,000 feet from the Mar-a-Lago property line.
Sen. Chuck Schumer blasted the feds for suddenly and mysteriously shifting priorities.
“Army Corps Florida has some real explaining to do on why and how they pulled a dredge we desperately needed here on Long Island to Palm Beach,” he told The Post. “The Army Corps should complete the storm protection work on Long Island before heading to Mar-a-Lago.”
The Army Corps of Engineers told local officials its contractor Weeks Marine would be back with its two hopper dredges in time to finish the beach-fill project in Fire Island’s Point O’ Woods and Ocean Bay Park neighborhoods by the June 19 completion date, according to a document obtained by The Post.
It admitted this week that the Palm Beach project was not an “emergency” — despite the phrasing in its own document.
But “it has absolutely nothing to do with the fact that Mr. Trump happens to live down the beach from where this is happening,” David Ruderman, a spokesman for the Corps’ Jacksonville district, told The Post. “There is no connection whatsoever.”
Ruderman said the call to relocate the dredges was a decision by the contractor over which the Army Corps had no control.
But a federal government source said Army Corps officials would have had to approve any contractor request to switch jobs. Weeks Marine did not respond to requests for comment.