News
Apr 07 2008
Canal spoils pledged to Sandwich
SANDWICH — The town has an e-mail promise from the Army Corps of Engineers to dump 150,000 to 200,000 cubic yards of dredged sand on Town Neck Beach to help restore rapidly fading dunes.
Just two days before a story on the erosion problems was published March 30 in the Cape Cod Times, Town Manager George "Bud" Dunham said he received a message from the Corps indicating they had accepted the town's request for spoils from the next dredging of the Cape Cod Canal.
The town will have to get the proper permits in place so it can accept the sand, Dunham told the selectmen Thursday night.
"The hoops we have to jump through are higher, but we'll do it," he said.
Dunham requested the sand in a letter sent in 2006, but had not received a response from Corps officials. On March 28, John Kennelly, chief of the Corps planning branch, said his agency owed the town a response.
Under the federal program, the Corps would pay for 65 percent of the cost to move the sand from barges to the beach and the town would pay 35 percent.
"It's our one bite of the apple for the next 10 to 15 years," Dunham said.
The town would bear the full cost of spreading the sand on the beach, he said.
The town is working with Kirk Bosma, an environmental engineer with the Woods Hole Group, to develop a beach restoration plan.
The Army Corps does not have a specific date for the dredging plan, but hopes to get it funded next year, a spokesman said recently.
"That's a plus. I think it's exciting that there was a response to the article," said Sandwich resident Paul Schrader, an environmental activist who sounded the alarm about the 60- to 90-foot gaps in the Town Neck Beach dunes.
The plan has to go beyond where to put the sand, Selectman Randy Hunt said, so that it doesn't wash away with the first big storm.
Assistant Town Manager Douglas Lapp said the additional sand won't fix the erosion problems permanently, but the town should have a better plan than it has had in the past, with the help of Bosma.
Environmental experts say natural erosion on the beach is exacerbated by the jetties built at the east end of the Cape Cod Canal, a judgment backed up by a 1959 report by the Army Corps of Engineers.
The man-made structures block the natural flow of sediment from Plymouth that would replenish the sand at Town Neck, according to experts and the report.
Schrader said he fears that if Town Neck Beach is breached the ocean could overtake the marshland and make the Sandwich business district vulnerable to flooding.
"It's a temporary solution," Schrader said of the plan to restore the beach. "I'm pleased that ... people are taking notice that there's a problem there. The question is, can we continue that interest and can we do something more permanent?"
George Brennan can be reached at gbrennan@capecodonline.com.
Just two days before a story on the erosion problems was published March 30 in the Cape Cod Times, Town Manager George "Bud" Dunham said he received a message from the Corps indicating they had accepted the town's request for spoils from the next dredging of the Cape Cod Canal.
The town will have to get the proper permits in place so it can accept the sand, Dunham told the selectmen Thursday night.
"The hoops we have to jump through are higher, but we'll do it," he said.
Dunham requested the sand in a letter sent in 2006, but had not received a response from Corps officials. On March 28, John Kennelly, chief of the Corps planning branch, said his agency owed the town a response.
Under the federal program, the Corps would pay for 65 percent of the cost to move the sand from barges to the beach and the town would pay 35 percent.
"It's our one bite of the apple for the next 10 to 15 years," Dunham said.
The town would bear the full cost of spreading the sand on the beach, he said.
The town is working with Kirk Bosma, an environmental engineer with the Woods Hole Group, to develop a beach restoration plan.
The Army Corps does not have a specific date for the dredging plan, but hopes to get it funded next year, a spokesman said recently.
"That's a plus. I think it's exciting that there was a response to the article," said Sandwich resident Paul Schrader, an environmental activist who sounded the alarm about the 60- to 90-foot gaps in the Town Neck Beach dunes.
The plan has to go beyond where to put the sand, Selectman Randy Hunt said, so that it doesn't wash away with the first big storm.
Assistant Town Manager Douglas Lapp said the additional sand won't fix the erosion problems permanently, but the town should have a better plan than it has had in the past, with the help of Bosma.
Environmental experts say natural erosion on the beach is exacerbated by the jetties built at the east end of the Cape Cod Canal, a judgment backed up by a 1959 report by the Army Corps of Engineers.
The man-made structures block the natural flow of sediment from Plymouth that would replenish the sand at Town Neck, according to experts and the report.
Schrader said he fears that if Town Neck Beach is breached the ocean could overtake the marshland and make the Sandwich business district vulnerable to flooding.
"It's a temporary solution," Schrader said of the plan to restore the beach. "I'm pleased that ... people are taking notice that there's a problem there. The question is, can we continue that interest and can we do something more permanent?"
George Brennan can be reached at gbrennan@capecodonline.com.
