National Park Service officials have settled on a plan to allow the breach in the Otis Pike Fire Island High Dune Wilderness to pretty much manage itself/NPS

A breach cut through the Otis Pike Fire Island High Dune Wilderness at Fire Island National Seashore in New York largely would be left to nature to manage under a plan adopted by the National Park Service.

Created by Hurricane Sandy back in 2012, the breach would ebb and flow with natural barrier island processes unless conditions threatened human life, led to flooding, or "other severe economic and physical damage to the Great South Bay and surrounding areas," said the seashore's final environmental impact statement on how to manage the breach going forward.

Breaches occur naturally on barrier islands. They can cause important environmental changes. An open breach can improve bay water quality by increasing the exchange of seawater and bay water. It can also alter the risk of flooding and affect nearby communities and infrastructure.

The wilderness breach, one of two formed on Fire Island during Hurricane Sandy, opened at the site of Old Inlet, a former gap in the barrier island that was open from 1763 to 1825. It followed the path of a boardwalk that was destroyed by Hurricane Sandy, and may have been influenced by the lack of vegetation to slow wave movement under the boardwalk, the study found.

According to the U.S. Geological Survey, the original opening of about 54 meters (177 feet) widened as seven Nor’easters struck the area over the following year, and eventually reached a maximum width of 573 meters (1,879 feet, or nearly one-third of a mile). That portion of the island was scoured out to a depth of 4 meters (13 feet) or more, and sediment formed a seaward delta and a complex of shoals north of the breach, on the bay side of the island. These natural features continue to shift with the strong storms that strike the area frequently, usually from autumn through early spring.

In most cases at the national seashore, breaches such as the one at Old Inset in the Otis Pike wilderness caused by Hurricane Sandy are filled in under the guidelines of the seashore's Breach Contingency Management Plan. That's how the breach at Smith Point County Park, which lies within the seashore's boundaries and also was created by Sandy, was quickly repaired. But the breach in the wilderness area has been allowed to manage itself, and now the Park Service is proposing to allow it to continue that way.