Posted on September 18, 2018
Shellfishermen and business owners pleaded for rapid action on dredging Nauset inlet, and the selectmen took action, but dredging may still be years away, with permits awarded by the winter of 2021 at the earliest, and perhaps not until 2022, according to consultant Leslie Fields of the Woods Hole Group.
“This schedule does not work, 2022 is too far out,” Selectman Kevin Galligan said.
“If this is not a viable estuary I think we could have an economic disaster that’s unfathomable,” added Selectman Mark Mathison.
Orleans needs permits and sign-offs from the NEPA, MEPA, DEP, Cape Cod Commission, Army Corps of Engineers, Coastal Zone Management and local boards.
“I don’t know how we’ll hold out for four more years,” lamented shellfisherman Steve Smith. “There is not room out there. We would like to get to an area nearer to Tern Island if we can’t get all the way in.”
While it was suggested the town seek an emergency dredging permit, as Chatham has, Fields was skeptical it could be approved for the entire project.
“Chatham is not a long channel like this,” she said. “And they already have permits for dredging.”
But at the meeting’s end she didn’t rule out an earlier timeline.
“We’ll try to push dredging forward with creative thinking,” she promised. “Not this winter, maybe next winter. I don’t know.”
The inlet and Town Cove were last dredged in 1924. Silting has filled in the channels and commercial boats can no longer reliably get out of the inlet from Town Cove.
Boats are now moored close to the inlet’s mouth, just behind Nauset Beach, in an ever-shrinking spot of deeper water. Shellfishermen originally brought the proposed dredging project before the town three years ago. Engineering and study funds were approved at Town Meeting but the plan, which requires quite a few permits, has been slow.
There are questions about where to de-water the spoils, the logistics of handling it and whether the work could spread the red tide that exists in parts of the estuary. Much of the work is within the National Seashore.
Recreational boaters are also having a hard time navigating the inlet, with only a 45-minute window to get in or out, according to Phil Howarth, owner of Goose Hummock.
“We rent 40 moorings from Orleans. We originally let 27 of them. We rented four this year,” Howarth said. “The recreational fishing fleet has moved. People are moving to Ryder’s Cove. I’ve lost $20,000 to $30,000 a year.”
“People are not putting boats in because they can’t get anywhere,” said Ron Deschamps, owner of Nauset Marine, “so they give up and move on. We’re starting to see a decline of business.”
That testimony could provoke an emergency permit, for at least part of work.
“If the project is too big maybe we should limit the scale to make it work because it is an emergency,” fisherman Mike Naughton suggested.
The original plan was to remove 80,600 cubic yards of sand with the Barnstable County dredge — that would provide five feet of water at low tide, and use some of the sand to supplement Nauset Beach.
“The inner part of the channel is too far (over14,000 feet) for the county dredge to pump to the beach, so we would have to use a mechanical dredge,” Fields said. “It would’ve been de-water at Goose Hummock, then transfer to Nauset Beach.”
But the Seashore has issues with the proposed de-watering sites on its land, and it objected to using the spoils at Nauset Beach because red tide cysts could possibly slip into Pleasant Bay.
“We don’t have a viable option to de-water the material from Town Cove,” Fields said. “We could rent another booster pump and use that all the way to Nauset Beach.”
But there is another option, which Orleans will pursue: Prove to the Seahore that the sand is safe.
The selectmen voted for a pilot study to pull sand out of the channel, store it on Orleans land, and demonstrate that the cysts can’t survive a winter out of water.
“We’re told by researchers the cysts put into a dune will desiccate and die,” Fields said. “We need to prove it to the Seashore before we pump to Nauset Beach. I’d like to get [a pilot] going ASAP.”
The selectmen approved starting work on that. Fields said it could be done by February. The town has $233,000 left from the original approval for engineering to fund the pilot study.
“We don’t want to lose the fishing fleet. Fishing and farming created Cape Cod,” Naughton declared. “And in Orleans we want to remember our heritage and protect it.”
The selectmen also voted to create a dredging committee, similar to the shellfish and waterways advisory committee, to work on dredging and also to discuss whether the town should buy a dredge in 2021.
Source: Wicked Local
