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Brian Lehrer: Brian Lehrer on WNYC. For our last 15 minutes or so today sunbathers, [unintelligible 00:00:17], swimmers, who spent one of the red-hot days this weekend at the Rockaways? Who's ready to go to the part of the Rockaways with no lifeguards this summer? Wait, what? No lifeguards at a major public beach? Well, here's the deal. The New York City Parks Department revealed a plan to close one and a half miles of the shore for the construction of stone jetties, which are supposed to prevent the coastline from further erosion.

The original plan included 30 blocks of shoreline until community members and local officials protested. The community and city officials reached a compromise to ban swimming until at least mid-July along a certain stretch. Expect dump trucks and noise at this part of the beach, and maybe no lifeguards on that stretch. People who defy the no-swimming rule would do so at their own risk.

Gothamist's Jake Offenhartz has been looking into this and has an article called Rockaway lifeguards sound alarm on deadly potential of city's beach closure plan. Jake is with us now along with one of those lifeguards, Janet Fash, a lifeguard at the Parks Department. Welcome back on the show, Jake and Janet. Welcome back to WNYC.

Jake: Thanks, Brian.

Janet: Thank you.

Brian Lehrer: Jake, how long will the project last and how will the closures affect the Rockaways?

Jake: Through July 15th. Right now you are not supposed to swim between Beach 86th Street and Beach 116th Street. There will be people who try to swim, no doubt, and they may encounter Parks Department workers on ATVs telling them to get out of the water. What they're not going to see are lifeguards. The city is not staffing lifeguards along that stretch. I think that's really surprising to a lot of people. This is some of the most heavily used section of beach. If you take a ferry to Rockaway, you get off at Beach 97th Street, you're on the Bayside. You walk over to the beach and 20 blocks on one side of you and 11 blocks on the other side of you, there are no lifeguards at all.

You're also going to see some heavy construction equipment. I was there on Saturday. I don't know how much this is going to change as we get into the official summer season, but there's essentially a lane on the beach for construction equipment. This is because the US Army Corps is doing some of their staging at Beach 116th street, and they're continuing to build these stone structures that are supposed to stop beach erosion. In order to do that they need to access a really popular section of beach. If you're tanning on Beach 97th Street with your arepa from the nearby boardwalk stand, you got to watch out for dump trucks carrying 30,000-pound boulders.

Brian Lehrer: Well, it doesn't sound like an appealing place to go to the beach right now because of that; lifeguards or no. Janet, did you happen to be out there this weekend on these 90-degree days? Did people go anyway?

Janet: Actually I was not out there this weekend. I'm celebrating my son's birthday for this weekend, but I did get photographs sent to me from my neighbor in the Rockaways, my long-term friend, and she lives right on 92nd Street. There is a lot of sand being distributed and the rock jetties are there. It is going to be a constant this summer. As a chief lifeguard who has worked that area for at least over 20 years, and then I've also worked in the far Rockaway area where there's also erosion, you need to have lifeguards close by because people aren't going to follow the direction of the Park Enforcement Patrol as much as they try.

The USLA standards, which is the national group of beach lifeguards, they would be recommending, of course with the tools of the trade, that the lifeguards could manage to look at that water because people are going to go in. There was a drowning last year in August. It was a day where the people were on the sand and the beach was closed there, and an 18-year-old drowned. We want to prevent drownings as lifeguards, and so my position is at least to have some lifeguard eyes there.

Brian Lehrer: People with connection to the Rockaways, we have time for one or two phone calls on this. Anybody want to weigh in? 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692, or tweet @BrianLehrer.

Janet, let me stay with you for a second because you told Jake for the article, "When they open up the sand in a busy area, people are going to try to take their swim." Did they consider just closing off this whole portion of the beach entirely for this period until I guess around July 15th? Because it sounds like what you're describing is the beach is open, just not the water.

Janet: Right. I think it's going on now since probably 2018, this on-again, off-again area. Concessions, which the Parks Department contracts with, they have all these great foody places, so that has attracted a lot of people. The people will be on the sand and visiting the concessions as they should. My contention is that they probably wanted to close the sand. I was not in on those meetings so I'm not really sure what the decision-making was for them, but I just know that the public sometimes has a disregard for safety.

Brian Lehrer: A disregard for things that say they're closed? People go there anyway? I'm shocked to hear New Yorkers would do such a thing.

Janet: Sure.

Brian: Jake, you wrote, "The ocean ban is being touted as a compromise." Touted by whom? I guess by using the word touted you're implying that not everybody sees it as a compromise?

Jake: Yes. It's what you were just bringing up where there was-- I spoke with some vendors who were in meetings with the Parks Department, and they were initially told that there was a possibility that this whole stretch of beach would be fenced off. Which part of it is right now actually, but more expansive closures. That would have really hurt the boardwalk concessions, who have time and time again in the last few years dealt with last-minute changes in the run-up to Memorial Day.

There was 2020, there was de Blasio closed the beaches for the first month and a half or so because of COVID. The year before that there were some erosion concerns. The vendors are frustrated. There was a sort of compromise struck where they're going to leave the sand open for recreational access, which means a lot more people are going to hang out there and frequent these vendors, and they're going to be told that they can't swim.

One thing I wanted to bring up from the story, and Janet mentioned this and another lifeguard I spoke with mentioned this, there's a feeling that in the Parks Department's view, by not stationing lifeguards there they're avoiding some sort of liability. It's at this point that the Parks Department will tell you that they haven't had a drowning death during lifeguard beach operating hours in nearly a decade.

In reality, there's been a significant amount of drownings on Rockaway. They're frequently either after hours or when you have these beach closures where there's no lifeguards. There's been eight drownings since 2019 on all city beaches. Five of those have been on Rockaway either after guarded hours or when the beaches were closed to swimming. What we've been hearing from lifeguards is that this is not a sensible safety-first policy. This is liability and responsibility that are dictating it.

Brian Lehrer: let me get a couple of callers in here. Here's John, who says he's from the group Friends of the Rockaways. John, you're on WNYC. Hello.

John: How's it going? This is John Cori. I just wanted to say one important thing. I'm on the Community Board and I run a group called Friends of Rockaway Beach. We've been involved in community stakeholder meetings all winter long. They were supposed to do four groins. They decided to do five. This project's delay is because of ineptitude, and someone should be answering the question, or somebody asking the question, why is this project delay to go into the summer season when it was promised that it would not happen? The Army Corps, the Parks promised they would not go into the beach season. This will be the fourth year in 10, so we've had this problem.

The groins should have been done in 2014 when they originally said they were going to do them. This is a big problem. The delays that keep going on because of pure mismanagement, and the question needs to be asked, who's doing the mismanagement?

Brian Lehrer: Do you have an answer? A theory? You don't?

John: Do I have an answer, you're asking me?

Brian: Yes.

John: Yes, I have an answer. The Parks and the Army Corps are making poor decisions, and someone should be answering the question why would you do a fifth groin when you said you'd only do four groins in a season? They were supposed to do four groins over the winter. They decided to do five. Who decided to make that happen?

Brian Lehrer: What's a groin?

John: A groin is a jetty; the scientific name for a jetty. My group has been fighting for these. We fought to get them on the beach for the past 10 years. We've held the rally. The people protesting was me and my group. The issue is that we have the closures. It doesn't just affect the concessions. It affects the whole community. People do Airbnb. People who rent for the summer. There's many bungalows still. It affects everybody. People are losing rentals. People are losing their lifestyle. Again, 4 summers in 10. Why is this still going on to this day? Someone needs to ask this question. It's not rocket science to put a groin on the beach. Not at all.

Brian Lehrer: John, thank you for your call. All right, Jake. There's your marching orders for your follow-up story. Luz in Woodhaven, you're on WNYC. Hi, Luz.

Luz: Hi. I was there on Rockaway yesterday. We were parked at [unintelligible 00:10:26]. No lifeguard. Of course the kids wants to go in there. Why they couldn't have planned this to be done by sections? Why close a beach that is so popular? People from Woodhaven, Rego Park, Howard Beach, we all go there. We don't want the traffic going to Long Island. On Saturday I went to Jones Beach. It was horrible, so I decided to go Sunday to Rockaway. No lifeguard, it's closed. It's ridiculous. This is unrealistic, besides parking. It's a nightmare. Why they cannot do something for these people, for us?

Brian Lehrer: Luz, thank you for that report from the front. Janet, there were a lot of people like Luz out there, she reports.

Janet: Yes, I agree. I wanted to mention the New York State standard of 50 yards, or a fraction thereof, that you would have lifeguards positioned. New York City has not done a good job using that progressive law that's in New York State to put lifeguards on. They tend to close sections without minimizing where the people could swim. Long Beach to the east of us uses green flags and red flags. In New York City it's only red flags for closed beaches. If they could somehow compromise in New York City to have more beaches open and have the rock jetty area closed as far as the yardage, it would go a long way to have all the beach open in the Rockaways eventually, but the rock jetties are important.

Brian Lehrer: Jake, you want to say something?

Jake: Well, I think to Luz's point, people are going to be really frustrated this summer by conditions along this stretch of beach, I've no doubt. I don't want to ignore the fact that there's a lot of people in the community who have spent nearly a decade calling for these jetties. This is a post-Sandy resiliency project. It's part of a $336 million effort. I think there's a lot of people who would say that this is enormously necessary, and also it's going to be a headache for a lot of people.

Brian Lehrer: Is it just till July 15th, Jake, or likely all summer?

Jake: There's going to be some additional closures after July 15th. Those are a little bit more staggered than this the huge swath of beach that we're going to see closed through July 15th. I also think that this is a fluid situation where there may be updates.

Brian Lehrer: Gothamist's Jake Offenhartz, and Janet Fash, lifeguard with the Parks Department. Thanks, both, for explaining the situation.

Jake: Thanks, Brian.

Janet: Thank you.

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