An image taken of Town Neck Beach on Wednesday by the webcam set up by the U.S. Geological Survey Coastal and Marine Science Center.
SANDWICH – Residents in Sandwich will be able to follow the progress of the Town Neck Beach re-nourishment project from the comfort of their own homes this winter.
A webcam has been set up by the U.S. Geological Survey Coastal and Marine Science Center.
Click here to view the webcam.
The project, which will cost the town $1.8 million, will use sand dredged from the Cape Cod Canal to replenish the beach.
The beach, its parking lot and Wood Avenue Extension will all be closed beginning Christmas Day until the work is completed.
Sandwich police said nobody will be allowed in the area due to the dangerousness of the project.
“It needs to be finished by the end of March because of some environmental windows that the dredging company needs to work in,” said Sandwich Town Manager Bud Dunham.
Dunham said the end of March deadline shouldn’t be an issue.
“The actual work itself, provided they get decent weather, really doesn’t take all that long – six to eight weeks,” he said.
Dunham said the only worry is if “we get a string of bad weather some point this winter.”
Town meeting voters approved an additional $600,000 in Community Preservation Funds towards the project earlier this month after bids for the work came in higher than expected.
Previous funds of $1.2 million were approved in September.
Dunham said he hopes the weather cooperates and the project can be finished.
“The way the project has gone I’m not holding my breath because it has been a long fight,” he said.
The project has been plagued by delays. Earlier this year, private property owners along the beach refused to grant the Army Corps of Engineers permanent easements over their land. The Army Corps said for the project to move forward the easements were necessary.
Town officials continued to discuss a solution to get the sand after the deadline for the permanent easements had passed.
A Land Court judge ruled against a group of neighbors seeking to block the re-nourishment project in October.
The neighbors filed a preliminary injunction stating that the town was acting in spite by choosing to place 150,000 cubic yards of sand dredged from the Cape Cod Canal solely on Town Neck Beach instead of in front of the neighbors’ properties. They claimed that the permanent easements were not necessary and would devalue their properties.
Dunham said getting the dredged material for the Beach was a necessity.
“Our environmental consultants have done a lot of studies in terms of rates of erosion loss and it’s fair to say that in the last decade Sandwich has lost more than in the last 150 years based on their studies,” he said. “It’s really important for us to do something to protect things as best we can.”
By BRIAN MERCHANT, CapeCod.com NewsCenter
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