Port Jefferson trustees to hear update on eroding East Beach bluff

VILLAGE HALL NOTES |

Port Jefferson village trustees will hear from engineers Monday, Nov. 9, about efforts to stabilize the eroding bluff below the Port Jefferson Country Club clubhouse.

GEI Consultants will give the presentation at a special meeting at 6:30 p.m. at Village Hall, 121 W. Broadway, according to the village’s meeting notice.

The next phase of the project calls for a retaining wall near the top of the bluff to protect the clubhouse.

Port Jeff Mayor Lauren Sheprow said in September that the estimated cost had risen to about $5.5 million as the scope expanded to include drainage improvements and a structural assessment of the clubhouse, according to TBR News Media.

She told the outlet that construction could begin in late 2027 if the village secures the necessary approvals and funding.

East Beach closed temporarily in August 2022 for the first phase of the project, which was expected to take about nine months. The work included a wall at the base of the bluff and terraces planted with native vegetation.

At the time, GEI Consultants estimated the bluff had lost about 30,700 cubic yards of material from 2017 to 2021, according to prior GLI coverage.

During a tour of East Beach in 2019, then-Mayor Margot Garant showed Greater Port Jefferson where sand and rocks had washed out beneath the seawall sidewalk and where trees were tilting downslope. At the top of the bluff, erosion had already forced the village to adjust lighting at the country club’s tennis courts, according to Greater Port Jefferson’s report at the time.

“The challenge is that the more time you wait the more the topography changes,” Garant said.

Top: Boulders line the seawall at Port Jefferson’s East Beach in this file photo published in 2019. Storms had damaged the eastern end of the beach parking lot near Mount Sinai Harbor. (GLI/Lon Cohen, file)