After many years, the Trustees agreed at the November 10th meeting to initiate the project to open the east channel.
Following years of discussion, the East Hampton Town Trustees, who have jurisdiction over most of the town’s waterways, bottomlands, and beaches outside of Montauk, have taken an initial step toward potentially opening the east channel of Napeague Harbor, which began to close early in this century and has been completely closed since 2012.
Following another long discussion at their Nov. 10 meeting, the trustees voted to allocate up to $25,000 to Drew Bennett of D.B. Bennett Engineering to prepare an application to the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation, which would have to sign off on the project.
The east inlet was historically located between Hicks Island and Goff Point. Through most of the town’s recorded history, it was the main boating entrance into Napeague Harbor, according to a history by Richard Whalen, who is at present the trustees’ attorney on an interim basis. The trustees have expressed interest in reopening it to promote water circulation within Napeague Harbor, which has seen a die-off of eelgrass and a collapse, as in other waterways on the East End, of the bay scallop population.
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