A creek runs through it; the overflow will hopefully be fixed

Bellport Village golf director Jimmy Van Essen pointed to a large metal ringed opening. “This is where the problem comes in,” Van Essen said after trampling through briars and vines to get closer. “That ring goes underground to South Country Road and was put in during the late ’70s, early ’80s by the county or the town.”

The ring serves as a conduit for stormwater that flooded the road. But the water has been backing up into Howells Creek for several years, the entirety of the ninth hole and beyond. He was standing on the east side of the village golf course, north of the 10th hole and bridge.

“Twenty-five years ago, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers used to dredge the end of the creek every two years. The end of the mouth by the bay filled up when they stopped the dredging because of loss of funding, so during major storms it would fill in here. We were losing land in 2015.”

He then drove a golf cart to specific areas on the green to illustrate the locations affected. Like the bridge connecting the 10th and 11th tee. Water would rise as far up as its footpath, he said.

Right now, the creek was a calm, easy flow, but prior to the dredging operation in late November, it filled up to the shoreline and beyond. “It encroached everything up to the 12th green and would overspill on the 13th fairway,” he said.

It was low tide by the creek’s mouth, and several swans were swimming nearby in The Great South Bay. “It’s now at the level of what it should be,” said Van Essen.

Some of the dredge materials were placed along the 13th hole.

It’s been a long slog getting the Bellport Howells Point Coastal Resiliency Project Phase 1 to the finish line, but progress is being made with the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development grant. The estimated total project cost is $4,440,000, and $800,000 of the $3,330,000 Community Project Funding Award (from the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2024) was used for the first phase of the project.

“We received a HUD $3.3 million grant in 2024 earmarked for four things: to dredge Howells Creek and put in native plantings to mitigate erosion, and to mitigate flooding on three roads, at Otis Lane, South Howells Point and Thorn Hedge roads,” said Bellport mayor Maureen Veitch. “When you get a HUD grant, the first thing you’re required to get reimbursement is conduct an environmental review. What HUD allowed us to do was to break the environmental review into two pieces and there are two ecology areas there. There was the window to dredge the mouth of the creek that was done. Now we’re working on the volume of native plants to be planted to ward off erosion. We are also in the process of planning the three road endings for Otis Lane, South Howells Point and Thorn Hedge roads and will have to do borings to sample the soil beneath. The roads end at sea level. We can’t change that, but we can utilize solutions that help the flooding dissipate more quickly there. It’s preliminary, but the thinking is to dig up the road and add material that will facilitate drainage and also add plantings. All the while, we’ll have access for public to the shoreline.

“We’ll probably go back to the DEC and ask to put materials along the creek to keep water out. Years ago, every two years, Army Corps used to dredge the mouth of the creek. That’s why we’re doing this.”

But extra funding is needed, Veitch said, to finish the project properly, which her office is pursuing. “Cost estimates were established in late 2023, and building materials and costs of labor alone because of medical expenses have skyrocketed since then,” she pointed out. “We’re working on an additional Community Funding Project request in conjunction with congressman Andrew Garbarino’s office.”