Posted on August 24, 2020
The Sandwich Board of Selectmen learned Thursday, August 20, that obtaining sand for eroded Town Neck Beach continues to be a slippery slope.
A final draft of the US Army Corps of Engineers study into why Town Neck Beach has lost so much sand was expected to be finished and available this month, but it will not be released until next month at the earliest, Town Manager George H. (Bud) Dunham said last night.
“It will be early to mid-September,” Mr. Dunham said, adding that he has tentatively scheduled a presentation from Michael S. Riccio, project manager for the Army Corps’s New England District, for the September 17 selectmen’s meeting.
The Army Corps report, known as the 111 Study, is expected to show, specifically, that the large jetty on the Scusset Beach side of the east entrance of the Cape Cod Canal, which is federally owned, has contributed to Town Neck Beach’s erosion problem.
Although the information has not yet officially been released, Mr. Riccio has informally discussed in a recent interview with The Enterprise the report’s principal finding that the Army Corps bears much of the responsibility for the erosion at Town Neck Beach.
The Army Corps will be recommending that $12.5 million worth of sand be deposited on Town Neck Beach, Mr. Riccio said, adding that the amount is the maximum allowed by the federal agency for the Sandwich project.
About 388,000 cubic yards of sand would be dredged from a site just off Scusset Beach, Mr. Dunham has said. The “borrow” site was approved by the Army Corps late last year.
That amount of sand will just about replenish the dune at Town Neck, according to the Woods Hole Group, the town’s beach consultant.
When he meets with selectmen, Mr. Riccio is expected also to discuss how further erosion can be mitigated. He did not say whether the Army Corps would be willing to commit to depositing sand regularly on Town Neck Beach with sand dredged periodically from the Cape Cod Canal.
Mr. Dunham also issued bad news last night about another potential sand source.
The Woods Hole Group has been investigating whether it is feasible to dredge the sand currently choking Sandwich’s Old Harbor.
Mr. Dunham told selectmen most of the state and federal regulatory agencies that issue permits for such work said they would be amenable to the harbor dredging, but “a couple are being really difficult.”
The beach consultant is making one last push to see if those agencies would budge from their positions. If they refuse, Mr. Dunham said he will recommend that the selectmen abandon the effort.
“I don’t want to waste the town’s time and money if there’s no chance for success,” he said.
Such a project would disturb environmentally sensitive wildlife habitats, the town’s beach consultant has said. Woods Hole Group has also said it would cost the town another $95,000 to pursue those permits—for dredging less than 100,000 cubic yards of sand from the harbor—from more than 30 regulatory agencies.
The town hoped to dredge Old Harbor to clear excess sand that has drifted there over the years and to use that sand to help shore up Town Neck Beach.
Source: Cape News
