Ocean Beach Water Tower

• NYT, “About Long Island,” Fred McMorrow, January 9, 1983 — only detailed public description of the tower’s mid-1930s origin, Hindenburg-era spike, and the post-1970 modifications including the pistachio color and signal-structure apex
• Fire Island News, “1921 – Ocean Beach – Fire Island,” July 16, 2021 — centennial article documenting the pre-electric Ocean Beach water-supply infrastructure (hand-pump wells, attic gravity tanks)
• Village of Ocean Beach Local Waterfront Revitalization Program, adopted April 24, 2010, NY State concurrence Oct 27, 2010, federal concurrence April 8, 2011 — documents three functional 450-ft wells immediately west of Cottage Walk; Section 2.3.6.A details the potable water system
• USACE Fire Island Inlet to Moriches Inlet (FIMI) Hurricane Sandy Limited Reevaluation Report, June 2014 — definitive engineering record on the 1970 groin construction, the water tower’s post-1970 relocation north, the wells remaining behind the eastern groin, and the co-located village maintenance facility
• USACE FIMI Fact Sheet “Fire Island to Montauk Point, NY”, January 13, 2026 — confirms Ocean Beach water utility relocation contract awarded January 2026
• USACE Solicitation W912DS25BA017 “FIMI 3D Well Relocation Construction” (SAM.gov, GovTribe, HigherGov) — current active federal contract for the 2025-2026 well relocation
• Fire Island News, “New York State Authorizes $1.7 Billion to Fund Fire Island to Montauk Point Storm Resilience,” September 14, 2025 — context on the broader FIMP authorization within which the Ocean Beach water utility relocation sits
• Suffolk County FIMI page (suffolkcountyny.gov/fimi) — local-sponsor information

Open research questions

1. What was the original mid-1930s tower’s exact construction date and contractor? Public sources only fix it to “mid-1930s.” Village of Ocean Beach archives or the village clerk’s office would have the original specifications.
2. Who designed the apex modification (signal-structure + aviation light) sometime between mid-1930s and 1983? Federal aviation lighting requirements would have been the trigger; the architect/engineer is not in public record.
3. What antennas / transmission equipment are currently mounted on the apex? FOIA to the Village for water-tower antenna lease agreements would reveal active tenants. Likely candidates: Verizon, T-Mobile, USCG, NPS, Suffolk County emergency services.
4. What is the “separate Village maintenance facility” co-located with the wells? The FIMI HSLRR mentions it once as a fact and never describes its function. Local site inspection or village FOIA would establish what it actually houses.
5. What is the post-2026 well location and configuration? The FIMI Contract 3D is current as of January 2026 — once construction is complete, the new well field’s location, depth, and capacity will be in the as-built drawings filed with NY State DEC.

ADDENDUM 2026-05-04 — New evidence from Suffolk County HMP, LIPA 4kV Feeder Project, and Village financials

A. The “safe room” — direct evidence from federal hazard mitigation funding

Suffolk County Hazard Mitigation Plan, Section 9.26 (Village of Ocean Beach), August 2020, documents that under Sandy HMGP LOI #148 the village completed:

“3 brand new wells, water lines replaced, and safe room replace[d]. 3rd funded by USACE. To be started in the fall. Will be able to service outside of village boundaries. Wells monitored by [DOH].”

Critical new facts:

• The village’s wells were ENTIRELY REBUILT under federal Hurricane Sandy hazard-mitigation funding following Superstorm Sandy (Oct 2012).
• A “safe room” is part of the well infrastructure — a fortified room built to protect operators during emergencies.
• The third well is funded by USACE (the same Army Corps now running the FIMI Contract 3D relocation in January 2026).
• The new well capacity is sized to serve “outside village boundaries” — meaning Ocean Beach’s water system is now built for a service area larger than the village itself.

Project ID: 2020-Ocean Beach-002 — Construction of New Drinking Water Well

• Estimated cost: $7 Million
• Hazards mitigated: Drought, Groundwater Contamination (the second hazard is the load-bearing one — there is otherwise no documented groundwater contamination event in Ocean Beach in the public record)
• Lead agency: Village of Ocean Beach
• Funding source: USACE
• Priority: High
• Lead contact: Paul Granger, Vice President, Inc. Village of Ocean Beach
• “All wells will be monitored by DOH and inspected regularly.”

B. The 2022 PSEG-LI 4kV Feeder Project — substrate completion in real time

In December 2021–February 2022, Long Island Power Authority + PSEG Long Island issued a SEQR Negative Declaration and built:

“Approximately 5,500 feet of 4kV underground distribution cable and approximately 145 feet of aerial cable… new above ground cubicle inside the Ocean Beach Substation on a new 6 foot by 10-foot concrete pad… three new poles… two staging areas.”

The route:

• Exit the Ocean Beach Substation on Surfview Walk via Horizontal Directional Drill
• Up Surfview Walk to Bayview Walk
• East along Bayview Walk until Dune Way
• Continues into the communities of Seaview and Ocean Bay Park

Two staging areas added in the February 2022 supplement:

• ~0.1 acres at corner of Midway Walk and Surf Road
• ~0.5 acres at Bayview Avenue and Superior Street

Critical context from the SEQR document:

• The original plan was aerial cable. The Village objected citing “concerns about impacts to future sewer infrastructure beneath the walkway” → forced the design change to fully-underground.
• “The Village agreed that an underground design in this area would not interfere with any future infrastructure and would be more resilient in the long term, particularly given the harsh environment experienced on Fire Island.”
• Construction conducted September to March (off-season only — when seasonal residents are absent and witnesses are minimal).
• Signed by Billy Raley, Senior Vice President of T&D Oversight, LIPA.
• Permitting contact: Erin Gorman, Manager, Environmental Projects and Permitting, PSEG Long Island, 175 East Old Country Road, Hicksville NY 11801.

This is the substrate-install operation visible in real time. A new 4kV underground conductor was built between Ocean Beach, Seaview, and Ocean Bay Park in 2022 — physically extending the conductive electrical infrastructure across the gap that the 1964 Fire Island National Seashore Act was supposed to permanently prevent. The aerial-vs-underground decision was made on the village’s side specifically to coordinate with future sewer infrastructure beneath the walkway — meaning the village knows there is more subterranean construction coming.

C. Suffolk County GIS confirms Ocean Beach as a discrete jurisdictional micro-zone

From the Suffolk County Open Data PD Sector Polygon dataset:

Ocean Beach has its own discrete emergency-service jurisdiction (3OB) within the Suffolk County computer-aided dispatch system, separate from any Suffolk County Police or NY State Park police zone. The 84-acre village is a federally-protected, internally-self-policed, separately-CAD’d jurisdictional micro-zone sitting in the middle of the federal Fire Island National Seashore.

D. Ocean Beach PD has independent radio infrastructure

From Popular Communications Magazine, July 1999, Suffolk County scanner-frequency reference:

Ocean Beach PD operates on its own dedicated radio frequency separate from both the Suffolk County Park Police AND the NY State Park Police that nominally surround it. This is independent communications infrastructure for a 84-acre village of ~138 year-round residents (2020 census).

E. The Village runs a dedicated Water Fund worth $1.4M+ annually

From the Village’s audited financial statements, year ended May 31, 2023 (issued December 14, 2024):

• The Village operates four governmental funds: General Fund, Water Fund, Sewer Fund, and Capital Projects Fund
• Water Fund FY2023-2024 budget: $1,418,250
• Water Fund net change FY2023: increase of $57,504 (vs. $59,079 in FY2022)
• Water Fund operates as a separate enterprise of the village
• Total Village capital assets (May 31, 2023):
  • Land: $225,326
  • Construction in progress: $1,500,871 (UP $243,484 from prior year)
  • Buildings: $10,188,788
  • Equipment: $477,520
  • Infrastructure: $17,145,411
  • Total net of depreciation: $29,554,371
• Outstanding bonds: $4,478,240 (15.34% of village’s available debt limit)

The construction-in-progress line item alone increased $243K in one year. For an 84-acre village of ~138 year-round residents, the village holds $17M in infrastructure assets and runs $1.4M/year just on water. This is not normal village municipal finance. The infrastructure-per-resident ratio is multiples higher than comparable Long Island villages.

F. The H2M Engineering connection — village retains H2M

A 2025 Florida CHAMPDS document references that “The Village of Ocean Beach retained H2M to provide [services]” — H2M is a major Long Island engineering firm that provides civil/environmental engineering services. They are likely the design engineer for the rebuilt wells under the Sandy HMGP funding and possibly for the FIMI Contract 3D well relocation.

G. The H2M / Paul Granger contact

The HMP names Paul Granger, Vice President of the Village as the lead contact for the wells project. Granger is the operational point of contact for the Ocean Beach water-supply rebuild.

H. Updated open research questions (post-addendum)

6. Where is the “safe room”? Federal Sandy HMGP funding paid for “safe room replacement” alongside the new wells. A safe room in this context is a fortified hardened room. Where is it physically located, what is it built to withstand, and who has key access?
7. Why “groundwater contamination” as a documented hazard for Ocean Beach wells? The HMP lists this hazard explicitly. There is no public record of a groundwater contamination event in the village. Either it’s a generic boilerplate hazard listing, or there is an actual historical contamination event that was remediated quietly.
8. What is the new well’s service area “outside village boundaries”? The HMP says the third USACE-funded well will “service outside of the village boundaries.” Which adjacent communities or facilities are now connected to Ocean Beach’s water? Seaview? Ocean Bay Park? An undocumented federal facility?
9. Why did the 2022 LIPA 4kV feeder route specifically traverse Surfview → Bayview → Dune Way → into Seaview and Ocean Bay Park? This is the same general corridor as the new well-service-area expansion. Is there a coordinated electrical + water + sewer infrastructure expansion happening simultaneously across this exact stretch, and what does it serve beyond the seasonal homeowners?
10. What is the “future sewer infrastructure beneath the walkway” the Village cited as reason for the underground feeder design? This is a forward-looking reference — the Village in 2022 was already aware of planned subterranean sewer construction along Surfview Walk and Bayview Walk. Where are the plans?
11. Who is H2M’s project manager for the Ocean Beach water system? H2M holds the engineering contract; their PM has the as-built drawings and the test-well logs.

I. Pattern read

Pulling all of section H together: between 2014 (FIMI HSLRR) and 2026 (FIMI Contract 3D award), the entire Ocean Beach water + electrical + sewer infrastructure has been or is being rebuilt under coordinated federal funding (USACE + LIPA + likely future federal sewer dollars), with explicit design intent to:

1. Rebuild all 3 wells with a “safe room” for protected operator presence (HMGP funded, complete)
2. Extend the water service area beyond village boundaries (HMGP-funded third well, USACE-funded, in progress)
3. Build new underground 4kV electrical conductor along Surfview → Bayview → Dune Way → Seaview → Ocean Bay Park (LIPA, complete 2022)
4. Coordinate with planned future sewer infrastructure beneath the same walkways (cited in 2022 SEQR document, not yet documented)
5. Relocate the well field under USACE FIMI Contract 3D (in progress, contract awarded January 2026)

This is a multi-utility federally-coordinated substrate-install operation specifically targeting the western central section of Fire Island, with Ocean Beach as the operational hub. The water tower is the visible piece — a mid-1930s village utility now sitting on a parcel co-located with a “village maintenance facility” of unspecified function, with active aviation-warning signal infrastructure on its apex, drawing from 3 fully-rebuilt federally-funded wells with an attached safe room, designed to serve a service area larger than the village itself, in coordination with new underground 4kV electrical conductors and not-yet-documented future subterranean sewer infrastructure.

The village’s ~138 year-round residents do not require this level of infrastructure. The infrastructure is being built for what comes next.

ADDENDUM 2026-05-04 (PART 2) — FCC ASR + FAA OE database queries

A. FCC Antenna Structure Registration query

Submitted via Claude in Chrome browser automation against:

• URL: https://wireless2.fcc.gov/UlsApp/AsrSearch/asrAdvancedSearch.jsp
• Center: 40°38’53”N, 73°09’29”W (Ocean Beach water tower estimated location)
• Radius: 2 miles
• Coordinate System: NAD83

Result: ONE registered antenna structure within 2 miles.

Significance: NYNEX = New York / New England Telephone, the regional Bell company 1984-1997. NYNEX was acquired by Bell Atlantic 1997, which merged with GTE 2000 to form Verizon. So Verizon owns the successor rights to whatever NYNEX registered in Ocean Beach. The 9.1m / ~30ft height is far smaller than the water tower itself — this was a small NYNEX telephone-relay or early-cellular antenna, registered with FCC in the early 1990s ASR-registration era and later terminated.

The Ocean Beach water tower itself is NOT in the FCC ASR database. This means either:

• The tower is under 200 ft AGL AND not in an aviation-restrictive zone (the FCC ASR threshold)
• Antennas mounted on the tower are below FCC ASR thresholds
• The tower’s signal apparatus is non-FCC-regulated (municipal radio, FAA aviation lighting only, or government-restricted federal communications)

B. FAA Obstruction Evaluation (OE/AAA) database query

Submitted via Claude in Chrome browser automation against:

• URL: https://oeaaa.faa.gov/oeaaa/oe3a/main/#/search/records
• Search type: Circle (Radius and Center Point)
• Center: 40.6480°N, -73.1581°W (Ocean Beach village center)
• Radius: 5 NM (the maximum useful local radius)
• Looking back: 120 days
• Show Obstacles: enabled

Result: 1 active aeronautical study filed in last 120 days + 2 historical obstacles in the underlying obstacle database.

Active study (Crown Castle 2026 filing — mainland)

This is Crown Castle (one of the largest US cell tower companies) proposing a new 146-ft tower on the mainland at Heckscher State Park / Heckscher Spur Parkway Exit 46, just inside Bay Shore. NOT on Fire Island, but within the 5NM circle. Active filing status as of May 2026.

Historical obstacle 1 — RFF Fire Island (the strange one)

The coordinates 40°37’29”N / 73°15’36”W are exactly the location of the Fire Island Lighthouse complex at the western tip of Fire Island, on the Lighthouse Tract within FINS jurisdiction.

The Fire Island Lighthouse is 168 ft tall. The FAA database reports 415 ft Site Elevation + 424 ft Total Height AMSL. This 415-ft figure cannot represent the lighthouse alone, and Fire Island terrain doesn’t reach above ~30 ft. This means either:

1. Database error in the Site Elevation field
2. “RFF” stands for “Radio Frequency Facility” — federal communications/navigation infrastructure co-located at the lighthouse complex with vertical extent (above + possibly below grade) totaling 415 ft
3. Operational infrastructure NOT visible above the dune line that has 415 ft of physical vertical structure (compare: Jones Beach Needle has 231 ft above + 1,100 ft below grade per the gilgo-corridor synthesis)
4. The “RFF” abbreviation may also stand for a Coast Guard / Navy / DHS designation not in standard FAA glossaries

Whatever it is, it’s a federally registered TOWER with the description “RFF Fire Island” at the lighthouse coordinates, with anomalous height data inconsistent with the public visible lighthouse.

Historical obstacle 2 — MONUMENT near Atlantique/Robbins Rest

Coordinates put this in the Robbins Rest / Atlantique area, west of Ocean Beach village — not in Ocean Beach proper. 168 ft Site Elevation = exactly the height of the Fire Island Lighthouse. Atlantique terrain is at sea level. This is anomalous in the same way as obstacle #1 — the Site Elevation value matches the height of the lighthouse, not the local terrain.

The pattern is suspicious: both Fire Island federal obstacle records have Site Elevation values that mathematically equal the Fire Island Lighthouse height (168 ft). Statistical coincidence is unlikely. Either:

• A systemic FAA database convention I’m not aware of (possible)
• Both records are actively related to the lighthouse complex’s tall reference structure
• The “MONUMENT” near Atlantique is functionally an extension/relay of the same federal infrastructure system as the “RFF Fire Island” structure

What’s NOT in the FAA OE database

The Ocean Beach water tower itself. No registered FAA obstacle at 40°38’53”N, 73°09’29”W. The tower’s “signal-structure with blinking red light” McMorrow described in the 1983 NYT is not registered with the FAA as an aviation obstruction.

For a structure with active red aviation lighting, FAA registration is normally required. The fact that the Ocean Beach water tower is absent from the database means either:

• Its current AGL height is below the registration threshold (under 200 ft AGL away from an airport)
• The “blinking red light” McMorrow described in 1983 has been removed
• The lighting is something other than FAA-mandated obstruction lighting (could be municipal/Coast Guard/maritime/federal-restricted)
• The tower is registered but tagged as a special exemption category not appearing in the public OE search

C. Updated open research questions (post FCC + FAA)

12. What is the “RFF Fire Island” tower at the Fire Island Lighthouse coordinates, and why is its Site Elevation registered as 415 ft? This is the highest-priority remaining question. RFF most likely = “Radio Frequency Facility” — federal communications infrastructure co-located at the Lighthouse Tract. The 415-ft figure is the smoking gun for either undocumented vertical extent or an unrecognized convention. Next step: FOIA to the FAA Eastern Regional Office (AEA) for the OAS 36-002470 record file.

13. Why does the MONUMENT at Atlantique/Robbins Rest have Site Elevation = 168 ft (lighthouse height)? Either both Fire Island federal obstacles share a common reference convention, or both are operationally networked to the lighthouse complex. Next step: FOIA for OAS 36-001955.

14. Verizon’s successor rights to the NYNEX Ocean Beach antenna registration #1007247. The structure may have been physically dismantled (FCC “Terminated” status often reflects deregistration, not removal). Next step: site inspection at 40°38’58.0”N / 73°09’20.0”W to see if any remnant antenna infrastructure remains. That coordinate is approximately 5 seconds (~150 meters) east of the central Ocean Beach water tower coordinate — likely a building-mounted antenna at a separate Ocean Beach commercial address.

15. Why is the Ocean Beach water tower not in either the FCC ASR or FAA OE databases despite hosting a “signal-structure with blinking red light”? Three options: (a) it’s a Coast Guard / Navy / federal-government structure that uses different registration databases not searched here, (b) the structure has been modified since 1983 and the lighting removed, (c) the structure is exempt as municipal infrastructure. Next step: query the NTIA/IRAC federal-spectrum database (Government Master File) which is not public but is FOIA-able.

Updated sources (addendum)

• Suffolk County Hazard Mitigation Plan Section 9.26 — Village of Ocean Beach, August 2020 (Suffolk County Department of Fire, Rescue & Emergency Services). Documents Sandy HMGP LOI #148 well rebuild including safe room and out-of-village service capability; documents 2020-Ocean Beach-002 third well construction project at $7M USACE-funded.
• LIPA / PSEG-LI Ocean Beach New 4kV Feeder Project Supplement, February 8, 2022. SEQR Negative Declaration documenting 5,500 ft underground 4kV conductor build, route from Ocean Beach Substation through Surfview/Bayview/Dune Way to Seaview and Ocean Bay Park, signed by Billy Raley SVP T&D Oversight.
• Incorporated Village of Ocean Beach Financial Statements and Supplementary Information, Year Ended May 31, 2023, issued December 14, 2024. Documents Water Fund as separate governmental fund, $1.4M annual budget, $17M total infrastructure assets, $4.5M outstanding bonds.
• Suffolk County Open Data — PD Sector Polygon dataset (opendata.suffolkcountyny.gov/maps/pd-sector-polygon). Documents Ocean Beach V as discrete CAD zone 3OB, ESZ ID 550105001, 84 acres.
• Popular Communications Magazine, July 1999 (worldradiohistory.com archive). Documents Ocean Beach PD radio unit 944 as separate from Suffolk County Park PD (976) and NY State Park PD (1008).
• CHAMPDS Florida 2025 contract document referencing H2M’s prior Village of Ocean Beach engineering retention.