When the Long Island Rail Road was first planned in 1859, it ran through the land then occupied by the Shinnecock Nation, a seafaring people who had settled along Peconic Bay and Shinnecock Bay on the south shore of what is now Suffolk County. In a deal that the Shinnecock later claimed was secured with faked signatures, Southampton businessmen bought more than 3,000 acres of Shinnecock land for a bargain price of just $2 an acre, paving the way for well-to-do Manhattanites creating summer homes in what they called The Hamptons.
The Shinnecock—or “people of the stony shore”—were at least able to remain nearby, on a 350-acre peninsula jutting into Shinnecock Bay just west of Southampton, where they now number about 700 members. But this remnant of their original home is now under threat from a more modern danger: sea-level rise.
Shinnecock Reservation land in the past vs. now.
In recent years, the Shinnecock reservation has been shrinking due to tides in Shinnecock Bay causing land erosion and the flooding of marshland. Erosion has occurred so far inland that it has toppled trees bordering marshland 20 to 30 feet from the shore. An analysis by Climate Central projects that by 2050, the area including the Shinnecock Reservation has a 100 percent chance of seeing at least one storm surge of four feet, which would inundate much of the Shinnecock land.
According to Climate Central, the risk of a five-foot flood hitting the South Shore at least once by 2050 is 72 percent, with a 100 percent chance of at least one four-foot flood event.
According to Scott Mandia, a professor and co-chair of physical sciences at Suffolk County Community College, sea level on Long Island’s South Shore has already risen eight to 10 inches in the past century, mostly since the 1970s. Montauk has already seen a sea level rise of four inches just since 2000, according to Elizabeth Hornstein, a coordinator for the NY Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC).
“Every year we get more and more sea level rise,” said Mandia. “In this area by the end of this century, the eight to 10 inches we have now is probably going to be like three or four feet. And one inch up can be many feet inland.”
As the seas rise, more and more coastal communities are beginning to reckon with strategies for adapting to climate change. The question of at what point to retreat is a consideration for some, yet a difficult, emotional, and complex decision to make, especially if a whole community is affected.
The Shinnecock have always fought to reclaim their land on high ground in Shinnecock Hills, part of which is now the location of a luxury golf course. But with 60 percent of the reservation’s residents below the poverty line and limitations on economic development despite their status as an independent nation, some Shinnecock have claimed that local officials prefer to keep them poor and powerless.
“I don’t think people along the South Shore are taking precautions and planning as much as they can,” said Mandia, who urges anyone in low-lying areas to elevate their homes and have an evacuation plan in place. And, most important, “make sure their elected officials are on board with the increased risks of rising sea levels and be willing to spend the money required to protect their property where possible. We cannot keep kicking the can down the road.”
For the Shinnecock, there are few good options. The protection of their shore and adjacent ancestral burial ground is vital to maintaining their identity. The possibility of retreating to land without the sea is hard to imagine.
“You just come to expect to be able to come here. So if you couldn’t just come to the water, I think you’d lose a part of yourself,” said Shavonne Smith, Shinnecock tribal member and director of the Shinneock Nation Environmental Department.
Shavonne Smith on the shore of the Shinnecock Reservation.
Because sea level rise will affect each locality differently, the DEC is currently working with the Shinnecock Nation to complete a vulnerability assessment and support initiatives that have already been underway.
In 2016, the Shinnecock Nation Environmental Department received a grant to work with the Cornell Cooperative Extension Marine Program, the USGS and others including many volunteers to restore the reservation’s shoreline by using nature itself: A drone-shot video shows how boulders were placed adjacent to the shoreline to prevent erosion.
“We knew from the beginning that anything that we did to help the shoreline, we wanted to do it in a way that basically put back what was already there,” Smith said.
With sand from the bay, native grasses, oyster reefs, stones, and the boulders lining the shore, the impact of waves may be more distributed and hopefully lessen the amount of land being pulled out with the tide, protecting marshland.
“What they’re doing is smart because it does hold the soil and sand with the grasses, and when you put the boulders it does break up the wave action,” said Mandia. “It’s an effective strategy for gradual short-term sea level rise.”
Illya Azaroff, an architect, founder of +LAB for experimentation, and professor at the NYC College of Technology explained that short-term solutions can give communities an extended window of time while they figure out the best long-term solution.
“We're not going to be able to hold the water back,” said Azaroff. “This is a short-term solution, but these kinds of actions buy time for the larger, more comprehensive planning efforts that need to take place such as managed retreat, major infrastructure retrofit, or relocation. You're looking at a 20 to 30 year benefit.”
Azaroff noted that there are additional benefits to preserving marshlands: “They can handle water and be to the benefit of those areas by creating new fisheries, a place for birds, and things like oyster reefs can support a circular economy or microindustry in the community.”
Restored shoreline of the Shinnecock Reservation with planted grasses, duned up sand, and boulders.
“When you have a big storm that comes through, marshes help to absorb some of that energy,” said Hornstein.
Using nature itself to adapt to change is an idea that appeals to Smith.
“By helping to keep the plants in place we can help keep ourselves in place,” said Smith. “Humans are in the position to help other humans, but they're also in the position to help the plant life and the animal life. And that's what you have to do to create a safe space for everyone. That's how you adapt, not fight it.”
Smith said she sees the Coastal Habitat Restoration Project as ongoing and tirelessly works to maintain it. The department is currently seeking additional funding to protect marshland beyond the beach, which will consist of more planting of grasses, shrubs, and trees.
Staff from the Shinneock Nation Environmental Department and Cornell Cooperative Extension Marine Program planting beach grass, part of multiple layers of habitat restoration and erosion control in a 3,000 foot section of the Shinnecock Reservation.
About 700 tribal members live on the reservation, with hundreds more visiting regularly.
“You always know where home is, you always know you can come back to being here on Shinnecock. And when you're here, you know there's that tremendous sense of belonging. You know your mother, your grandmother, your grandfather, their parents, their parents all walked in this area,” said Smith.
“There's a lot of involvement from other tribes across the country, but in the Northeast we're very much left out of the equation when it comes to [climate adaptation] initiatives,” added Chenae Bullock, a Shinnecock and Montaukett tribal member who lives in Atlanta but returns regularly to lead mishoon, canoe journeys in the waterways of the reservation up through the Long Island Sound.
But could climate change cause the Shinnecock to eventually retreat permanently?
“The relocation of a whole community,” mused Smith. “A whole nation. You'd have to have a comparable land base, you'd have to have access to land. It's always in the back of everybody's mind so it's not something that we are blind to.”
The discussion of what might eventually happen in an uncertain number of years from now is a difficult topic, and an emotional one involving the displacement of past and future generations.
“It may not be me and it may not be my children, but it very well could be my grandchildren,” said Smith. “And what are the things that you begin to say are important, to hold on to, and you want to make sure that no matter where the tribe lives, they still have these things that go with them, that remind them of what once was.”
This story is part of the Covering Climate Now initiative by the Columbia Journalism Review.
Clarisa Diaz is a designer and reporter for Gothamist / WNYC. You can follow her on Twitter @Clarii_D.
