https://www.longislandpress.com/2020/02/24/fire-island-dune-rebuilding-crew-diverted-to-fix-beach-near-mar-a-lago/

Fire Island dredging halted for ‘emergency’
beach project near Mar-a-Lago

By Jon Levine

February 22, 2020 | 4:07pm | Updated

Fire Island houses are in trouble due to recent erosion.Doug Kuntz

A federal beach-replenishment project near Mar-a-Lago is dredging up some bad feelings on Fire Island.

Two post-Sandy beach-replacement projects are being halted so crews and dredges can be moved to a so-called “emergency” beach project less than a mile from President Trump’s Palm Beach resort.

“Our houses will wash away,” fumed Karen Kee, president of the Ocean Bay Park Association, which has been begging for the sand replenishment since the 2012 hurricane washed away much of the Fire Island neighborhood’s dunes and beach.

“It came out of nowhere,” Kee said of the Army Corps announcement, which came in a Feb. 13 conference call.

Kee said she also happens to have a home in Palm Beach, “20 minutes from the southern White House.”

“I know that there is erosion there, but there is also a sea wall,” said Kee. “They have a sea wall. We don’t have a sea wall. We have houses that are washing away.”

Sen. Chuck Schumer blasted the feds for suddenly and mysteriously shifting priorities.

“Army Corps Florida has some real explaining to do on why and how they pulled a dredge we desperately needed here on Long Island to Palm Beach,” Schumer told The Post. “The Army Corps should complete the storm protection work on Long Island before heading to Mar-a-Lago. In the spirit of the Sunshine State, we need to shine a bright light on who made the call to suddenly pluck New York’s dredge ship out of Long Island waters.”

The Army Corps of Engineers told local officials its contractor Weeks Marine would be back with its two hopper dredges in time to finish the beach-fill project in Fire Island’s Point O’ Woods and Ocean Bay Park neighborhoods by the contracted June 19 completion date, according to a document obtained by The Post.

But the Army Corps of Engineers admitted to The Post this week that the Palm Beach project was not an “emergency” — despite the phrasing in its own document, and that its proximity to President Trump’s southern White House was merely a coincidence.