Posted on January 30, 2018
By Ryan Fitzgerald, Wicked Local Eastham
Dredging the Nauset Estuary, from Town Cove to just shy of the entrance to the inlet, is two years off – if all permitting is approved – but an update meeting where people can learn about the project is set for Wednesday, Jan. 31, 6 to 8 p.m. at the Eastham library.
Commercial fishermen along with the Eastham Shellfish and Waterways Advisory Committee support the plan, which was researched by Woods Hole Group, an environmental consulting firm that also is working with Orleans.
The meeting will be the first specifically for Eastham residents.
“We want people to get behind this and understand the project,” Woods Hole Group project manager Leslie Fields told The Cape Codder. “This is about safer navigation and public safety inside the harbor,” Fields said.
She added that cutting down the time it takes for commercial fishermen to travel through the cove and inlet is another factor. The estuary is filling in with sand and has become too shallow in some places to navigate safely, even at high tide.
The meeting will review a feasibility report associated with the project, update residents on where the project stands now, and inform them on why it is important. Woods Hole Group finished the project’s feasibility report in 2015; it had been funded by Orleans.
Orleans accepted the report and issued a contract certification with Woods Hole Group to eventually try and permit the project. Fields said the contract is at the end of its first year and Woods Hole Group has collected some additional data.
Fields explained that both mechanical and hydraulic dredging would be utilized. She said the inner portion of the channel would be mechanically dredged and the group is hoping to get permits for that before hydraulically dredging the outer portion of the channel.
A slurry of water and sand would be hydraulically dredged from the outer portion, pumped out and discharged into a disposal site, according to Fields. It could be deposited at Nauset Beach.
A portion of the proposed project lies within the National Seashore so federal permitting and a National Environmental Policy Act review process are necessary. The project would also need permitting from both Eastham and Orleans.
If the project were fully permitted, Fields said the estimated construction date to dredge the inner portion of the channel is winter 2019/2020 and construction date for the outer channel is winter 2021/2022.
Source: Wicked Local Eastham
