Filed Under: Local | Long Island | Nassau

Long Island Beaches

City of Long Beach
1 West Chester Street
Long Beach, NY 11561
(516) 431-1000
www.longbeachny.org

The City of Long Beach is situated on a densely populated Barrier Island at the southern edge of Nassau County on the Atlantic Ocean.  It is governed by a City Manager and a City Council composed of five Council members representing the city, serving either four or two year terms.  Every two years there is an election with three candidates elected.  The candidates who come in first and second serve four-year terms and the candidate who comes in third serves a two-year term.

Long Beach Issues

Solid Waste

Most of the town’s waste is burned in the Long Beach Resource Recovery Plant, which is managed by Environmental Resources and Disposal.  The plant’s capacity is 200 tons.  The City provides 80 tons; the rest is trucked in, primarily from JFK International Airport.  The ash from the incinerator is trucked to a Long Island landfill.  Monitoring of the facility is the responsibility of NYS DEC and its reports are referred to the City.  The incinerator has been in compliance with air emission state laws.

Some 13 percent of the City’s waste is recycled.  The recyclables are trucked to a transfer station in Brooklyn.  The City Council voted down a household hazardous waste program because they believed it would not be cost effective. 

Involved Agencies: NYS DEC, Long Beach Sanitation Department

Open Space

The city of Long Beach enjoys one continuous beach on the ocean side, as well as six parks and playgrounds and one pool. 

Involved Agencies: Long Beach Office of Parks

Toxic Waste Sites

The only Superfund site in the City of Long Beach is an old landfill that has been remediated satisfactorily.

Water Quality

A water purification plant is located on Park Place.  Its well retrieves water from the Lloyd Aquifer, a deep recharge basin.  Saltwater intrusion, however, is a major concern.  The town’s wastewater treatment plant is operated by Nassau County at a secondary treatment level and has been in compliance with state water discharge laws.

Involved Agencies: Long Beach Water Pollution and Water Purification Departments.

Planning

With the 2004 election of a Republican-controlled Council for the first time in 32 years, promises were made to overhaul the City Zoning Board. Members of the Board are to be approved by the Council, rather than solely appointed by the Manager. In addition, the City hopes to implement a new master plan, replacing the current document adopted in the mid-1980s.  An Architectural Review Board is concerned with the revitalization of the historic district of Long Beach.

Long Beach is an extremely densely developed area. Slated for development is the City’s largest parcel of open land on the waterfront, known as the “Superblock.” Proposals for this 6-acre site include a hotel, shopping, and condominium towers.

Involved Agencies: Department of Community Development

Long Beach Views Coastal Preservation Issues

Long Beach is a barrier beach with an elevation of 10 feet.  It is set further into the ocean than the mainland and protects the mainland from the forces of the water, high tides, and erosion.  Maintaining a viable dune system is critical, not only for the approximately 35,000 residents of Long Beach, but also for the mainlanders.  If Long Beach is breached, then other coastal hamlets will be threatened. Long Beach has already instituted a dune barrier program that saved one area from flooding in the 1992 storm.  A second row of dunes has been built and grasses planted successfully by the Department of Public Works.

In 2003, the City agreed to an $85.2 million Army Corps of Engineers storm protection project. The 50-year plan calls for the construction of dunes and groins, all in an effort to stave off the heightening problem of beach erosion. Under the plan, the City would be responsible for $5.7 million of the cost, the rest of which would be covered by the federal government. Federal funding for the project, however, remains stalled due to the City’s failure to provide enough public access to the beach. In 2003 the Corps of Engineers replenished the beach with sand dredged from Barnegat Inlet, although officials describe this as merely a short-term fix. The original project must continue if the beach is to be fully restored.

Critics of extensive Corps of Engineers shoreline projects contend that the Army has become overly involved in managing the nation’s beaches and that much of the shoreline should be permitted to change with nature.

Long Beach is included as part of the South Shore Estuary Reserve, a program to bring the South Shore waters to a health standard for recreation and fisheries.

Involved Agencies: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Long Beach Department of Public Works