Posted on January 26, 2021
PLUM ISLAND — The federal budget for the coming fiscal year includes $19 million for dredging sand from the Merrimack and Piscataqua rivers, with thousands of cubic yards of that sand targeted to help stem erosion at the beach along Reservation Terrace.
Plum Island Foundation President Marc Sarkady said more than 220,000 cubic yards of sand from the Merrimack River is expected to be used to rebuild the beach at Reservation Terrace.
The project – which is in the federal fiscal 2021 budget and awaits a local funding component of $250,000 to $1.8 million — would move between 200,000 and 300,000 cubic yards of sand from the Piscataqua River for placement near shore to protect the area from continuing erosion from major storms and waves.
“People are going to see between eight and 15 feet of additional beach right in front of their homes,” Sarkady said. “I know there is a lot of work ahead of us and we all have to work together.”
The Piscataqua River sand is not all beach grade and will be placed at disposal sites not far off of Newbury and Salisbury, where the current is expected to carry the material to the beaches in Salisbury, Newburyport and Newbury, according to state Sen. Bruce Tarr, R-Gloucester.
“There is an element of natural selection here,” Tarr said. “Nature will sort out the grain size and carry the appropriate sediment to the beach. There is some glacial till in this and you wouldn’t want to put that on the beach. The right way to do it is to put it in these two areas and, over time, let it nourish the beaches.”
The funding includes $7.3 million for the Newburyport Harbor dredging project to improve navigation, according to a joint statement from Rep. Seth Moulton and the state’s two U.S. senators, Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey. This would be the first dredging in the channel under a federal project since 2010.
Sarkady’s nonprofit organization was founded in the late 2000s and was able to work with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to place 120,000 cubic yards of sand on Center Beach in the early 2010s.
“We reclaimed Center Beach and got the jetties built,” Sarkady said. “That was a massive and amazing operation. Now, we are dealing with the resulting problem of the jetties, which is this erosion that is happening in the area of Reservation Terrace.”
He said the Merrimack River portion of the new dredging project is estimated to cost $7 million and would require roughly $250,000 from another source to fund the transportation.
The Piscataqua River portion of the project is estimated to cost $12 million, but would still require an additional $1.2 million to $1.6 million from another source for transportation, such as state or local money or private fundraising.
“We had the (state) Department of Conservation & Recreation pay for the majority of the nonfederal costs of the last project and municipalities paid for some of it,” Tarr said. “We can have a partnership but it has to be anything but the federal government.”
The Army Corps of Engineers is expected to arrive on the island sometime this year, Sarkady said.
“It will be a lot like the same kind of operation we did on Center Beach,” Sarkady said. “They will come and check out the whole island at first. Then, they will show up in barges. They will build tubing that comes off of the barges and flushes the sand up onto the beach.”
Sarkady thanked the Merrimack River Beach Alliance as well as state Sen. Diana DiZoglio, state Reps. Jim Kelcourse, R-Amesbury, and Lenny Mirra, R-Georgetown, Newburyport Mayor Donna Holaday and Newbury Selectman Geoff Walker for their help making the project a reality.
“This is great,” Sarkady said. “When you work on something like this for five or six years, you always wonder if it will happen. Now, it has happened. This is democracy in action. It has been a true bipartisan effort.”
Kelcourse said he was proud to be a part of the team, adding, “Protecting the coastline has been something that we have been working on for a while now.”
Tarr thanked Moulton, Warren and Markey for their work as well.
“There’s absolutely no way that we would be in the position that we are in now if we weren’t absolutely unified and collaborative across the board regardless of party,” Tarr said. “These projects are essentially in a national competition with other projects across the country.”
In an emailed statement Thursday, Moulton said, “Dredging protects thousands of people’s homes and land from flooding. It determines where fishermen can make a living, where people can vacation, and how well the Coast Guard can respond when things don’t go according to plan. That’s why, for the last several years, we have worked hard to make sure this money comes home to us, not to the other coastal states fighting over a small supply of funding.”
Holaday noted in the statement the concern for many island residents, particularly in the Reservation Terrace area, “where erosion patterns have destroyed the primary dune and left the homes without any protection from storms and high tide cycles.”
The mayor said she was pleased the New Hampshire and Merrimack River projects have been funded.
“Dredge spoils will help Newburyport, Salisbury and Newbury by direct sand placement or offshore placement to feed into the littoral system,” she said. “Additionally, the Merrimack River is a major waterway for the region and the currents result in significant silt deposits and new sandbars making passage for boaters dangerous.”
Staff writer Jim Sullivan covers Amesbury and Salisbury for The Daily News. He can be reached via email at jsullivan@newburyportnews.com or by phone at 978-961-3145. Follow him on Twitter @ndnsully.
Source: newburyportnews
