By Camryn Bowden
The sound of waves, the salty air and the warmth of the sun draw Long Island residents and non-residents alike to the beach experience every summer. Those sandy stretches, however, are slowly disappearing, worn away by the relentless tides.
Coastal erosion, as described by Dr. Jase Bernhardt, the director and an associate professor of sustainability studies at Hofstra University, is the natural process of waves surging in from the ocean and breaking down the shoreline, drawing sand, silt and debris into the ocean. Tides pulling the sand away from the coast naturally leads to a reduction in beachfront, often removing about a foot or more of shoreline every year.
That process has happened for millennia. Now, though, coastal erosion is increasing on Long Island owing to climate change, according to experts, as rising sea levels and more frequent devastating events like hurricanes contribute to the problem.
“Since we’ve been tracking sea level with pretty reasonable accuracy in the last 75 to 80 years …along Montauk … we’ve seen about a one-foot increase in sea level,” Bernhardt said. “So that means there’s just an extra foot of water … [and] with that extra foot of sea level rise over the past 75, 80 years, that’s even more coastal erosion now, because there’s more water that can come in.”
The Town of Babylon’s Overlook Beach is one of the sites that has been hit hard by coastal erosion. Between 2022 and 2024, Brian Zitani, Babylon’s waterways management supervisor, documented high tide at Overlook Beach, showing waves encircling a playground, reaching the town’s multimillion-dollar recreational facility and nearly reaching the parking lot.
“Nature is a rough task master. You can’t circumvent it. We’re trying to live with nature. We do a bad job at that,” Zitani said. The town has three multimillion-dollar facilities, such as the one at Overlook Beach, that are in “jeopardy” of being destroyed by the degrading coastline, he said.
Babylon Town officials are taking the threats seriously, adopting several measures to address the issue.
“We do several thousand miles of sand fencing every couple of years in the areas where it’s maintained … We will do beach grass plantings because the grass helps anchor the sand,” Zitani said, including other techniques like pumping sand on the beach.
These local mitigation efforts are supported by larger federal replenishment initiatives led by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, which brings millions of cubic yards of sand to dredge and replenish the beach. Between 2024 and 2025, 1.5 million cubic yards of sand is set to be utilized in the Shores Westerly of Fire Island Inlet dredging project. In 2025, the USACE plans to spend $1.6 million on Overlook Beach preservation projects, in addition to a $2 million grant from the State of New York.
Overlook Beach currently has ample space to roll out towels, put up umbrellas and relax under the sun without fear of the beach disappearing with the tide. That could change, though.
“Long Island is known for all these beaches,” said Kathy Montero, a Holbrook resident. She worries that the beaches could disappear if the coastal erosion is left unaddressed.
“I think that would be devastating, because we actually love the beach,” Montero said. Montero and her husband, Edgar, travel around Long Island to the various beaches. Like many Long Islanders, coastal erosion could eliminate their favorite spots.
Edgar Montero said he would be “sad” not to have the beaches, adding, “It is a nice living space that you can come out and … just rejuvenate.”
Joe McGowan, of Amityville, said he worries every year about the impact of hurricanes increasing erosion on Long Island’s beaches, spots that he loves to visit.
“With the erosion, we always have to worry about hurricanes removing the sand, everything like that,” McGowan said. “Every year we worry about the hurricanes, and we hear about these storms coming … We’ll say it’s a little erosion, but then we come back next year and it’s in great condition again.”
Because of residents like McGowan and the Monteros, the Town of Babylon continues to bolster resources to address coastal erosion. There is ongoing concern about what the future holds for these sandy safe havens.
“It’s constantly changing,” Zitani said. “We are adapting where we can, and it’s going to continue and most likely become a bigger issue as time goes on.”
