Posted on May 29, 2019
ORLEANS — The project to dredge Nauset Harbor is going forward, at least on the Orleans side.
Eastham decided at its town meeting to turn away from supporting most of the proposed initial work; specifically the board of selectmen objected to dredging the channel immediately behind the Nauset barrier beach, fearing that it will lead to more severe erosion.
At the May 6 town meeting Eastham voters indefinitely postponed a funding transfer article for $175,000 that was to be used for permitting and engineering efforts.
But Orleans selectmen have decided to move ahead with obtaining permits for the portion of the project not in Eastham waters, and they hope to persuade Eastham’s board to reconsider. That portion of the inner harbor includes a channel back to Town Cove from the barrier beach and over to Priscilla’s Landing, in Nauset Heights.
Orleans’ consultant Leslie Fields, of the Woods Hole Group, told the board last week that she has reduced the channel dredging to 50 feet wide, down from close to 100, which should trim erosion pressure.
She also revised the volume of sand that would need to be dredged with the more narrow 50 foot channel, slashing the amount removed from behind the beach to 71,000 cubic feet, from 127,000 cubic feet.
The total sand to be removed, including other channels, is 81,000 cubic feet. That sand could be dewatered, to desiccate red tide cysts, just north of the Nauset Beach parking lot.
Dredging out to the Nauset Inlet is important to commercial and recreational fishermen, who cannot safely navigate through the heavily silted channel outside of high tide. Orleans’ plan doesn’t appear to solve that problem, but it would improve navigation through the inner harbor.
Eastham’s conclusions about eroding the barrier beach were based on findings in a recent report it commissioned from the Center for Coastal Studies, in Provincetown, but Fields noted that the report didn’t include recent data or the new reduced amount of dredging.
The project’s budget for the next two years was $267,920. That includes: establishing the Massachusetts Environmental Protection Act review procedure ($17,130), field studies and agency coordination ($83,350) and reviews by the EPA, National Park Service and Cape Cod Commission ($62,060), all of which would be done in year one.
The second year would cover a series of permits and reviews including the already mentioned agencies, local conservation commissions, water quality, Coastal Zone Management, etc., at a total cost of $92,000. After that point work could begin.
“What can be done now, without signatures from the town of Eastham?” Selectman Meff Runyon asked.
“Both towns need to get together to hash it out or you need to decide to go ahead without financial input,” Fields said. “The first part of the project is to collect data and figure what the project should be.”
She said stakeholders still need to get together and the work would need a federal sponsor, i.e. the Seashore, to be on board to precipitate reviews. However, if Eastham won’t back dredging behind the barrier beach the project would have to be significantly reworked.
“The [Eastham] Board of Selectmen voted 5-0 not to support transferring the money but it is about not dredging behind the barrier beach,” Eastham Town Administrator Jacqueline Beebe told the Orleans board.
“We asked a primary question: What could be the impact of dredging a channel behind the barrier beach? Could that accelerate erosion by providing a deeper channel for sand to wash into? They feel it would be irresponsible and they don’t want these unintended consequences.”
She also noted that there have been dramatic changes in the inlet in the last few months.
“The hope is the system will work as it works now and we’ll have a healthy system with the barrier beach functioning as it should. The natural place the inlet should be is at the spit (opposite Nauset Heights). That’s the place we needed to breach and it should break,” Beebe said. “It’s not happening fast enough and I get that.”
The inlet currently is north of the Heights.
She said Eastham still had $30,000 allotted if Orleans just wanted to work on the inner harbor.
The Orleans selectmen asked Beebe to let her selectmen know that the dredging had been downsized and the channel narrowed.
“They do not want you to dredge behind Nauset beach,” she reiterated.
“I’m hopeful something can be worked out between the two towns and all this time and effort is not wasted and we can get a safe channel to the inlet,” said Bill Amaru of the Orleans Dredging Advisory Committee.
Selectman Kevin Galligan said he wanted to “keep this ball moving.”
Selectmen Mark Mathison and Dave Currier agreed.
The board voted to ask the Woods Hole Group to recast the budget without work behind the barrier beach, and to begin permitting for inner harbor dredging from Town Cove to Priscilla Landing.
Source: eastham.wickedlocal.com
