This road block on Robert Moses Causeway is finally coming down now that the park is reopening.

Robert Moses State Park on Fire Island’s western tip is reopening Thursday, a week shy of the seven-month anniversary of Superstorm Sandy, which seriously damaged stretches of the beach.

Rose Harvey, commissioner of New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation, is holding a ribbon-cutting ceremony at the Robert Moses Traffic Circle to officially reopen the park a day before for Memorial Day weekend starts.

More than 500,000 cubic yards of sand dredged from Captree Marina was used to replenish Fields 4 and 5 and repair the south side of the traffic circle, which partly collapsed when sand beneath it was washed away.

The boardwalks at Robert Moses and Jones Beach State Park were partly rebuilt with Brazilian hardwood certified with a higher durability rating to withstand harsh oceanfront exposure.

The Fire Island Lighthouse will also reopen to the public with Robert Moses’ return.

The biggest change at Robert Moses this year will be that the nude beach has been shut down, as the Press has previously reported.

All New York State Parks will be reopened this weekend.

Sandy damaged houses across Long Island, such as this one in Atlantique on Fire Island.

Superstorm Sandy went down in history six months ago as one of the biggest natural disasters to hit Long Island, irreversibly changing its landscape and washing away many residents’ sense of security.

While the widespread blackouts, lengthy gas-shortage lines, catastrophic flooding and mountainous debris piles are mostly just a memory, recovery efforts are still most visible on LI’s Atlantic Ocean-facing barrier beaches that suffered the worst damage.

“Sandy to some people is gone, it’s passed,” said James Mallot, the mayor of Ocean Beach, Fire Island’s unofficial capital. “We live it out there every single minute of the day.”

The village, like the rest of LI’s Sandy-ravaged beachfront communities, is rushing to prepare for Memorial Day weekend, the kickoff to the summer beach and tourist season that pumps billions into the local economy.

Meanwhile, a breach that Sandy caused in Fire Island’s federal wilderness area to the east of the residential communities remains open, which has become a point of contention between those who blame the breach on flooding in communities near the Great South Bay and others who argue it’s cleaning out the polluted waterways.

The storm, a massive hybrid of a category 1 hurricane that merged with a nor’easter, is considered the worst to hit the region since the infamous “Long Island Express” in 1938.

Looking to Katrina for Perspective on Sandy Recovery Timeline

In the City of Long Beach on LI’s westernmost barrier island, officials held a groundbreaking ceremony Saturday to commemorate construction of the new boardwalk to replace the old one that Sandy destroyed—although the Long Beach Medical Center is still closed.

“We came together months ago to mourn the loss of our boardwalk,” Scott Mandel, president of the Long Beach City council, told hundreds of residents who gathered for the event. “Today we come together to celebrate the rebirth of it. Long Beach is coming back better than ever.”

A five-mile stretch of badly damaged Ocean Parkway on Jones Beach Island just reopened last week after contractors rebuilt the roadway’s protective dunes that were washed away. Parts of Jones Beach itself are already reopened, but Robert Moses State Park is still closed.

And in the Hamptons, some millionaires have sparked controversy by building seawalls—work that may be challenged in court—in the hopes of protecting their oceanfront mansions, The New York Times recently reported.

Signs of a comeback can be found on mainland LI as well. Camp Bulldog, a makeshift support network in Lindenhurst that was a lifeline for residents coping in Sandy’s aftermath, closed over the weekend. On the North Shore, the West Shore Road seawall is nearing completion. And East Rockaway Junior-High School reopened Monday just in time to mark the six-month mark of the Oct. 29 storm.

Also on Monday, the Federal Emergency Management Agency reported that its four remaining disaster recovery centers in Long Beach, Island Park, Seaford and Copiague will become Disaster Loan Outreach Centers on Wednesday, indicating another milestone in the recovery process.

“New York has made tremendous progress in the six months since Sandy,” said Michael F. Byrne, FEMA’s federal coordinating officer for Hurricane Sandy operations. “But the work is not done.”

The breach on Fire Island at Old Inlet opened by Superstorm Sandy is blamed by some for Long Island flooding and credited by others with improving Great South Bay water quality (FINS).

New York State and federal agencies have begun the process of preparing to close the breach on Fire Island caused by Sandy amid renewed debate over whether it’s caused flooding on the South Shore.

The New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) requested Thursday that the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers (ACE) take the preliminary steps to seek out a contractor to fill in the breach—but they haven’t officially OK’d its closure.

“If the breach does not close naturally, the closure process will be much further along,” DEC Commissioner Joe Martens said in a statement. He said the request will allow the state and feds “to act more quickly to close the breach if that is deemed necessary.”

The breach falls within the remote eastern half of the barrier island in part of the Otis Pike High Dune Wilderness Area—the only such federal preserve in the state—known as Old Inlet, which has opened and closed repeatedly throughout history.

The south-facing portion of the breach facing the Atlantic Ocean has widened by more than 1,000 feet since the Oct. 29 superstorm—108 feet on Nov. 3 to 1,171 feet on Feb. 28—and the side facing the Great South Bay more than doubled from 276 feet to 616 feet during the same time period, according to the Fire Island National Seashore (FINS).

“It’s not a final decision to close yet but having everything in place so that when a decision is made we have everything ready to go,” said FINS Superintendent Chris Soller, who believes the breach may still close on its own this spring.

“It will probably be months rather than weeks,” said Chris Gardner, an ACE spokesman, referring to the time it takes to procure and haul in the required heavy machinery. “There’s a variety of different factors at play. Most importantly there’s not dredges working in the area that we can draw upon.”

DEC, ACE and FINS, a unit of the National Park Service, together agreed to begin procuring a contractor under the Breach Contingency Plan, which was used for the first time after Sandy since being inked in 1996 following bungled breach repairs at Westhampton Beach.

The plan was used to close two other breaches—one at Cupsogue County Park in Westhampton Beach and the other at Smith Point County Park on the other side of the Moriches Inlet—shortly after Sandy. The third breach has been closely monitored but left to close on its own because it falls within the federal wilderness area.

A spokeswoman for Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone, who called a news conference this week blaming local flooding on the breach and demanding that it be closed immediately, did not respond to a request for comment on the DEC’s announcement.

Adrienne Esposito, executive director of the Farmingdale-based Citizens Campaign for the Environment, contends that there is no proven link that the breach is causing flooding along Suffolk’s bay front. But, it is proven to be flushing the polluted Great South Bay.

“We need to base decisions on fact, not fear,” she said. “I’m very frustrated that science somehow went out the window here … we shouldn’t substitute political science for good marine science.”

Looking southeast, the breach on Fire Island at Old Inlet opened by Superstorm Sandy is blamed by some for Long Island flooding and credited by others with improving Great South Bay water quality (FINS).

Suffolk County officials renewed calls Wednesday for New York State and federal agencies to close a breach on Fire Island formed during Sandy amid debate over whether it’s caused flooding on the South Shore.

The posturing follows a weekend in which extremely high tides flooded coastal Long Island communities closest to the Great South Bay as well as neighborhoods on Fire Island itself—a problem that has been on the rise since the October superstorm. But environmentalists contend that the breach has helped improve water quality in the bay.

“There are people here today who will say this breach isn’t the cause of the flooding; there are others who will say it is—I’m not concerned with that debate,” Suffolk County Executive Steve Bellone said at Shorefront Park in Patchogue. “We want that breach to be closed now.”

The breach, in a remote area of the barrier island known as Old Inlet, widened from 108 feet on Nov. 3 to 1,171 feet on Feb. 28 on the southern side facing the Atlantic Ocean, according to Fire Island National Seashore (FINS) data. The north side facing the bay widened to 616 feet from 276 feet during the same time period.

A spokesman for the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers said the agency is waiting for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) to send an official request for the breach to be closed before a company can be hired to fill the breach. Even if the OK were given tomorrow, it could take weeks or longer to dispatch the dredging equipment required.

“If the state is in agreement and wants to move forward…we would issue the necessary permits,” said FINS Superintendent Chris Soller, who initially took a wait-and-see approach in case the breach closed naturally. “It’s got to be a three-way agreement.”

Emily DeSantis, a spokeswoman for the DEC, said in a statement that the agency “is consulting with coastal experts about the breach to help to determine the best course of action based on science.”

A Breach Contingency Plan developed in the 1990s was first put to use after Sandy to close two other breaches on either side of Moriches Inlet—one at Cupsogue County Park in Westhampton Beach, the other at Smith Point County Park on Fire Island. But the third breach falls within the Otis Pike High Dune Wilderness Area, the only federal wilderness area in the state, where breaches are given time to close on their own before action is taken under the contingency plan.

Both the DEC and FINS said that there is no definitive link between the four-month-old breach and the increased flooding along Suffolk’s bay front from Brookhaven to Babylon towns.

Adrienne Esposito, executive director of Farmingdale-based Citizens Campaign for the Environment, has credited the breach with cleaning the polluted Great South Bay, which was designated by the state in 2010 as an impaired waterway. The bays shell-fisheries were once nationally renowned before brown tides in the 1980s wiped out most oyster and clam beds.

“While Mother Nature dealt a severe blow to our environment during Superstorm Sandy, she has also provided a precious opportunity to reverse years of declining water quality in the bay,” Esposito said in January. “New York must not squander this opportunity to help restore the bay and rebuild the local economy.”

MAIL - PARTIAL SCORE

The financially struggling U.S. Postal Service announces that it plans to end Saturday mail delivery starting in August to cut $2 billion in costs. Under the proposal, packages would still be delivered. The USPS also announces plans to launch “Rain, Heat & Snow,” a new line of all-weather, device-accommodating apparel and accessories in 2014. We doubt a clothing line will do much in the way of profits. Just ask Kim Kardashian! But a sex tape on the other hand…

TECH GIANTS - BULL’S EYE

Apple, Google, Facebook, Twitter and Microsoft, among hundreds of other companies, stand up for same-sex marriage by signing on to a brief filed with the U.S. Supreme Court, which calls the Defense of Marriage Act not only unconstitutional but “bad for business.” The brief will be part of the suits against DOMA, which defines marriage as only being between a man and a woman, that the Supreme Court will hear in March. So, Apple and Microsoft are on the same side in a lawsuit? That’s an historical moment in itself!

NASA BUDGET CUTS - OFF TARGET

The scientists at NASA makes major progress in the art of wastewater recycling, which turns urine back into water through forward osmosis. Sure, this will come in handy if we ever spend time on Mars, but the Obama Administration has already proposed big cuts to NASA’s 2013 Mars programs, including backing out of a joint mission with the European Space Agency that would have included the first direct search for life on Mars since the ’70s. Kanye West infamously said, “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.” Somewhere in space there’s an alien interrupting a broadcast saying, “Barack Obama doesn’t care about extraterrestrials.”

NUDE BEACH - PARTIAL SCORE

The days of all-over tanning at Fire Island’s famed nude beaches come to an end as officials announce they will start enforcing NYS laws against public nudity. The reasons given by officials: The Sandy-damaged boardwalk to the FI Lighthouse means visitors will have to walk through the area where nudists gather; a lack of lifeguards and restrooms; the negative effects of crowds on the environment; and an increase in criminal activity including public sex and prostitution. Violators who ignore the ban face up to six months in jail and a fine of up to $5,000. Unfortunately, Speedo bikini bottoms are still perfectly legal.

BLOOMBERG - BULL’S EYE

Following his bans on transfats and extra-large soft drinks in the city, NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg takes on Styrofoam in his final State of the City address, calling it, “One product that is virtually impossible to recycle and never biodegrades…Something that we know is environmentally destructive and that may be hazardous to our health, that is costing taxpayers money and that we can easily do without, and is something that should go the way of lead paint.” We can dig it.

HORSE MEAT - OFF TARGET

While horse meat continues to surface in Europe, most recently in IKEA’s famous Swedish meatballs, the U.S. Department of Agriculture tells Americans we have nothing to worry about because it is illegal to bring horse meat into the U.S. for human consumption, unlike in Europe. So you can go back to cursing IKEA for the miniature pieces and nonsensical directions involved in putting together its PAX Uggdal Closet Sliding Doors, but don’t take your anger out on the meatballs.

Fire Island’s nude beaches are no more (Lighthouse Beach Times).

Fire Island’s famed nude beaches have become the latest casualty of Superstorm Sandy.

Fire Island National Seashore officials announced in early February that they will start enforcing New York State laws against public nudity at Lighthouse Beach, a clothing-optional beach between Robert Moses State Park Field 5 and Kismet that drew up to 4,000 nudists on summer days.

“We have school groups and tour groups coming to that area and right next door there’s thousands of nude people,” said Lena Koschmann, chief FINS ranger, referring to the Fire Island Lighthouse, an adjacent tourist attraction. “That beach was never meant to be a heavily used beach.”

Koschmann said that the Sandy-damaged boardwalk to the Fire Island Lighthouse means visitors will have to walk down the beach through the area where the nudists gathered. She added that the decision was also based on an increase in criminal activity at the nude beach, the lack of lifeguards and restrooms and the impact the crowds are having on the environment. Violators who ignore the ban face up to six months in jail and a fine of up to $5,000.

Save Lighthouse Beach, a naturalist group, had tried to pre-empt the decision by starting a “Beach Ambassador” program to have volunteers remind the beach’s users to clean up after themselves and not break the law. But Koschmann said that despite such efforts, the nude beach increasingly became advertised online as a meeting place for public sex and prostitution.

Lighthouse Beach was technically a pair of clothing optional beaches separated by a patch of non-nude beach in the area closest to the lighthouse to separate tourists and nudists. But even if the boardwalks were repaired in time for the summer season, the fact that the dunes had been decimated by Sandy means the beach is now visible from the lighthouse.

Larry Jensen, who runs the nude beach website Lighthouse Beach Times, posted a farewell letter online suggesting he may leave New York and blaming the National Park Service that oversees FINS for the decision.

“Many of you may have seen the thousand or so photos I have captured in an attempt to record just how amazing it was to me,” he wrote. “But alas it is but a memory now as the National Park Service has decided that me and my people are no longer welcome here.”

The beach has been a destination for nudists since as early as the 1960s but it wasn’t formally recognized by FINS until 2005, according to Koschmann. New York State outlawed public nudity in 1984, but as a federal park, FINS had opted not to enforce that law.

The new no-nudity rules comes as Robert Moses State Park remains closed four months after the Oct. 29 superstorm that ravaged Long Island’s barrier islands—especially FI. The ban will also be enforced in other nude-friendly beaches along FI, such as Cherry Grove to the east.

“I’ve had a mixed response,” Koschmann said. “The majority of them are disappointed and asking us to rethink our decision, but I’ve also had some people calling in…who are supportive.”

Sandy destroyed homes across the region, like this one on Fire Island that was knocked off its stilts.

In a week that saw January temperatures on Long Island range from the single digits to an unseasonable 54 degrees, the causes and effects of extreme weather drew the chairman of the state Assembly’s standing committee on environmental conservation, Assemb. Robert Sweeney (D-Lindenhurst), to Babylon Town Hall on Wednesday, where he held a public hearing on what steps the government should take in the wake of the destruction left behind by Superstorm Sandy and the increasing likelihood that the future holds worse storms to come.

In public testimony, Ellen Mecray, regional climate services director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, cited a “statistically significant trend” in extreme weather patterns since the 1970s and said that “what we’re seeing is the atmosphere on steroids.”

After she recommended that our region get better prepared, Sweeney asked her, “Prepare for the worst and hope for the best, basically?” “Yes,” Mecray replied.

As Assemb. Fred Thiele (D-Sag Harbor) pointed out—mentioning that his Assembly district has more coastline than any other in the state—the resources are “finite,” especially at the local level, yet the need for them is only growing.

But the federal government, warned Dorian Dale, Suffolk County’s director of sustainability, may be in retreat on financing the necessary preparation and remediation efforts, so the market place may wind up imposing changes in public behavior that could mitigate the effects of the rising sea levels and the increasing frequency of flooding from bad storms. For example, Dale said, flood insurance rates could rise significantly—assuming the homeowner still qualifies—and coastal property values may sink, making it harder to get a mortgage, let alone refinance one.

So, in the long term, the question of whether to sink more funds into restoring the flood-damaged communities may become moot as residents move away, but in the short term, he sees his neighbors in West Gilgo Beach “in a frantic rush to rebuild in a bad way.” In other words, using sheetrock instead of Durock, which is waterproof and mold resistant, and putting their electrical outlets and fuse boxes in the same vulnerable place they were when Sandy’s surge came into their homes.

Referring to the Netherlands, which has had a history of keeping the ocean at bay, Dale said that in Europe there is a “collective effort” to share resources, whereas in the United States people tend to go it alone. “At this point in time, we are all first responders.” Unless, he said, people “change the mindset.”

Rezoning and upholding building codes were suggested at the hearing by R. Larry Swanson, associate dean of the school of marine and atmospheric sciences at Stony Brook University. “On Long Island variances are a dime a dozen,” he exclaimed.

Swanson disagreed with Jay Tanski, coastal processes and facilities specialist at New York Sea Grant, a state and federal funded agency that researches marine issues, on how fast nature may fill in the Fire Island breach and what effect the inlet created by Sandy may be having on the Great South Bay. Swanson thinks the breach could close in months or a year at most, and should be left alone because the influx of seawater is helping the bay flush out some of the pollution that has accumulated there. Tanski said he believes the inlet will “close by itself” but it could take a decade, and by then the salinity levels of the bay could irrevocably alter the ecosystem.

Both scientists reiterated the need for closer monitoring of Fire Island and the bay itself, given that present government-funded research is “running on fumes,” as Swanson told the Press after he spoke at the hearing.

Of equal concern is the issue of storm debris that may come back ashore in the spring when the wind changes direction, Swanson warned the Assembly committee, and it could contain nails, shingles, home heating oil tanks, and other toxic materials. He compared the situation to the discovery of medical waste, such as used syringes, that washed up on the Island’s beaches two decades ago and kept vacation crowds away for years after the mess was cleaned up. “Be vigilant,” he urged local communities.

Oil slicks in the water from storage tanks uprooted by the storm and ash from open-air incinerators of trees and other waste left from Sandy were among the many concerns raised by Adrienne Esposito, executive director of the Citizens Campaign for the Environment.

Among the recommendations she presented the committee, she proposed that the sewage treatment plants be raised above predicted tidal surge levels, that the state use FEMA money for that purpose, and that the state provide money to the Department of Environmental Conservation to monitor the quality of the water in the western bays where the raw and partially treated sewage was the worst after the storm struck.

On Long Island, she said, “People swim everywhere,” not just the beaches on the Ocean.

Rebuilding without thinking about the future means repeating the mistakes of the past, she said. “It sets us up for another disaster!” she exclaimed.

Sweeney nodded in appreciation. He’d held a previous hearing on this issue on Jan. 16 in Manhattan. No bill is planned at this time but that could change. Sweeney has been a prominent proponent of efforts in the state to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and promote clean energy. What will come of his committee’s efforts to stop the weather remains to be seen.