CM Ariola Tackles the Wooden Jetties

By Katie McFadden

When are the death sticks going away? Since the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (USACE) announced their plans to safeguard the beach after Hurricane Sandy with rock jetties (or groins), a reinforced dune and more, locals have been asking when the hazardous remnants of the old wooden jetties would be removed. Councilwoman Joann Ariola has been hard at work to stay on top of this issue since she was elected in 2022, and even more so after initial removal plans seem to have been swept away by the tides.

The remaining pieces of the wooden jetties have caused great concern for more than a decade. Sometimes only visible during low tide, the vertical jagged wooden pieces can cause injury to unsuspecting swimmers. Signage indicating where these wooden jetties remain have come and gone. Last year, the dangers of such things became apparent as on the federal side, just after Beach 149th, a surfer drowned last year after his board leash got caught on a wooden jetty.

Yet even though there were promises of the wooden pieces being removed for years, something that was in the initial USACE contract, nearly 14 years after Hurricane Sandy, they still remain on the city shoreline.

“I was not in office the first time when USACE and NYC Parks made this contract and agreed upon it. There were so many vague points in the last contract that I don’t know how it was ever signed and agreed upon. Everyone just kept pushing this back. USACE would blame their contractor Michels and Michels would blame Parks and this game over who is responsible for removing these groins has been going on since before I was elected,” Councilwoman Ariola told The Rockaway Times.

But as frustrations grow and her office is inundated with calls from constituents asking when they’ll be removed, Councilwoman Ariola has been making moves to ensure the removal is finally complete. “These groins are a danger to our beachgoers and it’s a matter of time before someone else gets killed or injured. Every time we mentioned it, the Army Corps would kick the can down the road and say they’re going to take care of it after the beach was replenished, after the rock jetties were done, after the dunes, and it was never getting done. Every meeting, we’d bring it up and they kept pushing it and before you know it, there was no money left and the contract had run out.”

However, Councilwoman Ariola said progress is being made. “We meet with Parks regularly and because of those meetings, we were able to get more emphasis put on the groins. NYC Parks has committed to fund the project. A new Request for Proposals (RFP) will be put out that includes groin removal and it will be released after this budget is passed. Then the RFP will go out and we’ll be working closely with the Department of Parks and USACE to make sure everything is clearly defined in the contract,” she said.

The project will be part of the USACE RFP for a contract that will also include the installation of ADA crossovers uptown. When that RFP will be released, is still up in the air due to budget delays. “Everything will more clearly be defined after the budget. We’re delayed because the state is delayed and we had to extend our timeline for our budget negotiations, pushing further into June, however, we need to pass a budget by June 30. We don’t have an option of going further than that,” Ariola explained.

But Councilwoman Ariola will see it through. “These wooden groins are a great danger to our surfers, swimmers and beachgoers. They should’ve been removed at the very beginning. If I were in charge of the contract when it was first signed, that would’ve been one of the first requests. It made no sense to do all this other work before pulling out the groins. It was backwards. But with funding from Parks and a new RFP, we’re looking forward to these dangerous wooden sticks finally being removed.”