Posted on December 17, 2018
The long-awaited gift of sand from Bourne to Sandwich will be delivered on Monday morning, December 17—just in time for the holidays.
“Christmas is coming early to Town Neck Beach,” said David J. DeConto, director of natural resources, who is coordinating the delivery.
Town Neck Beach’s parking lot will be closed for about a week to accommodate the heavy earth-moving equipment: dump trucks, a front-end loader and a bulldozer, Mr. DeConto said.
The sand will be transported from Bourne via dump truck, deposited at the Town Neck Beach parking lot, scooped up, carried to the beach and deposited by the front-end loader, and then graded by the bulldozer, Mr. DeConto said.
The work will be done by Sandwich-based asphalt and gravel supplier PA Landers, Inc., the lowest of nine bidders at $49,000, according to Town Manager George H. (Bud) Dunham.
Mr. DeConto said he and scientists from Woods Hole Group, the town’s beach consultant, will also be on-site Monday to determine the best area to place the load along the sand-starved beach.
Although there have been conflicting estimates of how much sand will be arriving—varying from 3,500 to 5,000 cubic yards—it will be welcome, Mr. DeConto said.
“It’s not a huge amount of sand, but it will definitely help,” Mr. DeConto said, adding that he believes it is most needed on the western end of the beach, where last year’s storms swallowed up a home and took a huge chunk out of the dune there.
The sand delivery will not affect an ongoing stormwater drainage project that will help clean up the waters of the harbor and the creek, Assistant Town Engineer Samuel Jensen said.
Bourne has sand to spare, thanks to a dredging project at Barlows Landing Beach in October of last year, Bourne Department of Natural Resources Director Timothy W. Mullen has said.
More than 7,000 cubic yards of sand were dredged from the bottom of the boating channel during that project and deposited on town-owned property along Shore Road, near the Singing Bridge, across from the Pocasset River marina.
Bourne used some of it for its own beaches, but still has plenty left over.
The sand is clean and has been tested for pathogens by an independent laboratory, Mr. Mullen said, adding that Bourne could send more cubic yards of sand to Town Neck in the future.
Mr. DeConto said this week that Sandwich is grateful to its neighbor, especially since town officials are very concerned about upcoming winter storms further eroding the fragile dune.
Sandwich spent more than $3 million in 2016 to renourish Town Neck Beach. Last winter, the succession of severe storms destroyed the beach stairs, ripped up the Boardwalk and sucked up most of that sand.
Sandwich needs about 400,000 cubic yards of sand to restore the beach, the town’s beach consultant has said.
The town is awaiting permits from the state to take about 220,000 cubic yards of sand from a 23-acre site offshore at Scusset Beach.
The sand would be scooped up using a hydraulic dredge and deposited on Town Neck Beach—the same re-nourishing process used for the 2016 project.
Officials are also awaiting the outcome of an ongoing study by the US Army Corps of Engineers and will show that the Army Corps itself has contributed to the Town Neck Beach erosion problem.
Town officials are also hoping the Army Corps study will result in regular replenishment from Scusset Beach and the Cape Cod Canal.
The town contends the jetty, which was built in the early 1900s and expanded in the early 1970s to help keep the canal entrance free of sediment, is to blame for effectively starving Town Neck Beach of sand.
Source: Cape News
