Posted on August 17, 2017
By Mary McKenzie, Wicked Local
Selectmen said Monday they plan to continue talking over beach maintenance ideas and dredging of navigational channels and hope to find a grant to help the town address both.
Chairman Peter Teitelbaum said he sees the integral relationship of the town with its beaches “as too important to not keep going over this until we find a way to get it done. That’s why it’s on the agenda.”
Selectman Alan Slavin, who also serves as a liaison on the Marine Resources Commission and recently attended Gov. Charlie Baker’s “Dredging Listening Session – South Shore” in Plymouth on Aug. 2, said maintaining the beaches and proposed dredging projects are “really entwined. We need both.”
Noting that the navigation channels were crucial to getting boats in and out of Wareham “and we have so much silt and muck taking up space in the channels, making water fan out and wash away our beaches and leaving the navigation channels with too little flow,” Slavin said. He added that much of Wareham’s economic viability “lies in the coastline. We need our beaches to be maintained because that’s what brings people here, and we need ships to be able to get through for the same reason. We are a tourist community.”
Selectman Patrick Tropeano agreed. “This used to happen without question,” said the selectman. “Dredging used to happen with regularity. It makes total sense to do this and we need to keep talking about it.”
Slavin said he is glad the state is “paying attention to the problem. So that’s one step, we recognize there is a problem. Now there is the matter of figuring out how to pay for it.”
Source: Wicked Local
