New Soundkeeper Website Says Stratford Should Vote Yes on Sale of Long Beach to the Feds

The big question facing Stratford voters in two weeks is this:

Shall the Town of Stratford enter into an agreement in the form of the September 2, 2008 Option Agreement with the Trust for Public Land to sell Long Beach West to the United States Fish and Wildlife Service for a minimum of Ten Million ($10,000,000) Dollars with a full public access easement reserved for Stratford residents in perpetuity?

Soundkeeper Terry Backer says the right answer is "yes." Here's part of the reason:

Stratford’s Long Beach, together with Bridgeport’s Pleasure Beach, comprises a unique 2-mile long barrier beach that shelters the Great Meadows Marsh Unit of the Stewart B. McKinney National Wildlife Refuge. At 80 acres combined, Long Beach and Pleasure Beach represent 20% of Connecticut’s undeveloped barrier beaches and contain a rich set of sand dunes, tidal wetlands, and sand flats. The area – widely recognized as a haven for birds and wildlife – also provides invaluable access to Long Island Sound.

There's more here, at a new Long Beach West website the Soundkeeper has created. Click around the site and you'll find an op-ed tht Terry wrote in which his answer is, "Yes, if ..." but the conditions implicit in the "if" seem to have been met.

What other organizations are supporting this?

Power to the People in Stratford

Stratford residents will vote on Election Day on whether to sell the town's portion of Long Beach West to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. No matter which side you're on, you can't ask for more than that. Here's what the Connecticut Post reported
The referendum question — which will ask voters if the town should enter into an agreement with the nonprofit Trust For Public Land, which has acted as an intermediary, and would convey the property to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service — will be placed on the ballot.

The question will also include language that the land be sold for a "minimum of $10 million, with a full public access easement reserved for Stratford residents in perpetuity."

And Bridgeport wants to do the same (which I learned from Chris Zurcher's environmental headlines).

No Decision Last Night on Long Beach West Sale

More than 150 people showed up at Stratford Town Hall last night for a council meeting about the sale of Long Beach West to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The Town Council made the wise decision to not do anything until at least the public gets a chance to speak at a hearing on Thursday.

Stratford Might Kill Long Beach Deal Tonight

On balance I think the plan to sell Long Beach West in Stratford and Pleasure Beach in Bridgeport to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is a good idea. Although the beach -- it's one beach with two names, in two municipalities -- will never again be a place where thousands and thousands of people can go for the day to swim or visit an amusement park, or where dozens can live in beachside cottages, there will be plenty of room for people, restored wildlife habitat, and those cottages, which apparently are now a hazar, will be removed.

I am sure that a threat by the Stratford Town Council to kill the deal tonight is way too hasty and sounds more like a way for disgruntled council members to show the mayor who's boss rather than a rational decision.

The feds will pay $10 million for the beach. The state will help pay to remove the cottages. There's a public hearing scheduled for Thursday (which of course will be moot depending on what happens tonight.

Audubon Connecticut is trying to get proponents of the sale to show up in Stratford tonight, at 6:30, for the council meeting, which is in Town Hall. The Connecticut Coastal Access Guide has some information about the beach, here.

Bridgeport and Stratford Should Sell Their Beach to the Fish and Wildlife Service

Bridgeport Mayor Bill Finch spoke briefly at Saturday’s Long Island Sound Citizens Summit and asked the 150 or so people for their support in his effort to have Bridgeport (and Stratford) sell their barrier beach to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (it's called Long Beach in Stratford and Pleasure Beach in Bridgeport; there’s info from the Connecticut Coastal Access Guide, here).

Finch’s reason was simple and compelling: Bridgeport, always in trouble financially, needs the $10 million it would get from the feds, and if it doesn’t sell the beach, the beach will never be open to the public because Bridgeport can’t afford to open it and maintain it.

Support for the sale is by no means unanimous in either Bridgeport or Stratford. Each mayor wants it, environmentalists and conservationists want it but plenty of people don’t want to sell an asset to the federal government, for fear of losing control and access, which is extremely difficult now in any case. (The Town of Stratford has a poll on its website about the issue. As of this morning 702 of 854 people clicked “yes,” in favor of the sale. Of course when you open the webpage, “yes” is filled in for you, so if you happen to click “submit” by mistake, you vote yes automatically. In any case, a self-selected poll like that one has little validity.)

One of the reasons the Fish and Wildlife Service is interested is that the beach has been abandoned for so long, it has become wild again, and piping plovers, a threatened species, are nesting there. Piping plovers nest across the mouth of the Housatonic, on Milford Point, which the Fish and Wildlife service also owns, and parts of that beach are closed and fenced off from April through late summer to give the birds a chance to raise their young.

Some Stratford and Bridgeport residents are arguing that if the sale goes through, the feds will protect the birds to the detriment of local residents. There’s an interesting letter here laying out the argument against selling – namely, that Bridgeport needs a beach that is more of a park than a wildlife sanctuary (the first letter, hinting that the fire last week on Stratford’s part of the beach was somehow related to the town’s wish to sell, is conspiratorial to an idiotic degree).

But protecting the piping plovers would be the responsibility of whoever owned the beach. On Sandy Point, in West Haven, where piping plovers nest too, the town keeps the beach open but posts signs warning visitors not to interfere with the birds.

Milan Bull, the head of the Connecticut Audubon Society (not to be confused with Audubon Connecticut), had a piece in the Connecticut Post the other day in which he made the point about the landowner’s responsibility…

…it is the landowners themselves, private or municipal, who are liable for the protection of threatened or endangered species on their properties. So no matter who holds title to Pleasure Beach/Long Beach West, nesting piping plovers and other threatened bird species will require protection. If the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service can guarantee public access, maintenance and a range of meaningful public uses, then they may be the best long-term custodians of this coastal jewel.

I'm with Finch and the environmentalists, not surprisingly: sell the beach, protect the birds, and then work with the feds to increase public access and give people in Bridgeport and Stratford a place to swim and enjoy the Sound.