Sound The Retreat

“And so castles made of sand/fall in the sea/eventually.”

So wrote Jimi Hendrix, speaking metaphorically — but it’s true of castles built on sand as well. The colossal, imposing structures along the beach might seem impervious, but the sea eventually will take them. It’s only a matter of when. Mother Nature is in no hurry, but she is relentless, and man’s impact on climate has caused her to pick up the pace.

Evidence is everywhere these days, where rising waters are waging war against the land on the South Fork: in Montauk, Hampton Bays, East Quogue, even on the bay side of North Sea and Sag Harbor. Beach erosion has always been an issue, but it’s now worsened by the steady increase in water level, and stronger, more intense and more frequent storms, both the result of climate change. In a generation, the natural give-and-take nature of the beaches will be a memory — there will only be losses, and they will mount.

Now is the time for some straight talk, and to embrace a bitter reality: The ocean will always win — and the only realistic strategy in this war is retreat.

East Hampton Town is developing a Coastal Assessment and Resiliency Plan, and it seems ready to accept that, though an assortment of tools can be used to help different vulnerable parts of the town, the most effective solution in most cases is to accept the inevitable and move structures back from the edge — or abandon them.

“Retreat” has been a concept discussed in passing over the past decade or so, but never all that seriously. It seems fatalistic to suggest that residents throw in the towel and accept that some structures built close to the oceanfront were folly. The astronomical cost of moving structures back, where that’s even possible, makes it seem a nonsensical solution, completely out of reach.

And there are, without question, other options: putting houses up on pilings, say, or nourishing the beaches with sand dredged offshore and dumped on dry land. Some will argue that the temporary deployment of sandbag structures — as is being pitched to save the Round Dune condominium complex in East Quogue — can win some battles.

But a closer look at the options in the Round Dune case is telling. If the Southampton Town Trustees agree to the temporary use of geocubes to stave off the encroaching ocean waves, along a beach that has long been an erosion hotspot, it likely will save the buildings. But it also will erase the beach in front of the geocubes, as is typical of any hard structure on the beach. And so the Town Trustees — whose duty is to preserve the town’s beaches, which are owned communally by its residents — would be doing just the opposite, all to save a building.

And about that “temporary use” notion: It’s likely that the waters will reach the geocubes. At which point it will never be safe to remove them. Set any timeframe you like — six weeks, six months, six years — there is no “temporary” use, so long as the building remains where it is.

It’s time. Both Southampton and East Hampton towns, and all the coastal villages affected by erosion, must conclude, decisively, that retreat is not inconceivable as a policy. It will be contentious, complicated and expensive. There are serious questions about property owners’ rights and logistics. But it is the only reasonable solution in the long term, and the time to begin drafting a plan is now.

Hard structures destroy beaches while protecting buildings. Beach nourishment is a method for buying time, expensively. The former should only be used to actively hold back an imminent threat as a building is in transit to safer ground. Perhaps beach nourishment remains an option for some oceanfront property owners as an alternative: The town might point to the privately funded $26 million project along the Bridgehampton and Sagaponack waterfront, completed back in 2014, and put it on the table for homeowners who can’t, or aren’t willing, to relocate their structures. But it must be an imperative. One or the other — choose.

The towns likely will need a war chest to buy out some property owners who are unwilling to face reality. They will need to construct reasonable but firm guidelines to make clear what oceanfront homeowners can and must do. The new rules should be gradually applied to give people a chance to prepare, and accept. It will take time to develop such a plan.

But it’s time. Retreat is the only plausible answer to the coming generations of encroaching water. Castles and sand alike are no match for fearsome Mother Nature and her patient annihilation.