CCB MEDIA PHOTO
Sandwich Town Manager Bud Dunham used this slide to present the revised plan for putting sand dredged from the Cape Cod Canal onto Town Neck Beach. The yellow arrow shows where the sand would go in the new plan. The sand would no longer go on private property closer to the canal.
SANDWICH – The Sandwich Community Preservation Committee voted unanimously last night to support using $1.25 million in Community Preservation funds to place 150,000 cubic yards of sand from the Cape Cod Canal onto Town Neck Beach.
CPC Chairman Stephen P. Hayes said he was not surprised that the project received approval.
“I expected it to have pretty widespread support and I expect the same thing will happen at Town Meeting. I think it will pass overwhelming there. I haven’t heard of any organized or any real serious opposition to the project at this point,” he said.
Community Preservation funds come from a three percent surtax that property owners in town pay on their tax bills. The funds are required to be used for projects under the categories of open space, affordable housing, historic preservation and recreation.
The beach nourishment project is being categorized under open space and recreation.
The town funds are needed for the project because of a last minute plan to save the sand from being dumped into Cape Cod Bay. The total project cost to be paid entirely by the town is now estimated at $1.7 million.
The original plan was for the town to pay 35 percent of the cost to put the sand on the town’s shoreline.
CCB MEDIA PHOTO
Chairman of the Sandwich Board of Selectmen Frank Pannorfi talks to the members of the Community Preservation Committee about the importance of the beach nourishment project as Town Manager Bud Dunham listens.
The federal Army Corps of Engineers, which is dredging the canal, would have paid the remaining two-thirds of the cost of the project. But that deal went by the wayside when owners of properties along the shore refused to agree to provide permanent easements that the Army Corps said it needed in order to put the sand in front of those properties.
In the new plan, the town must pay the entire amount and all the sand will go on town-owned Town Neck Beach property west of Mill Creek.
Community Preservation funds are being used because the Army Corps will need a cash payment by mid-September and the town did not want to depleted its reserve funds for the project.
As explained by Sandwich Town Manager George “Bud” Dunham, the CPC funding option was the only option that would allow the funds to get to the Army Corps in time.
“It really is the only realistic way to fund this project,” Dunham said.
Hayes was among those who said the original project where the sand was spread out over a larger area and closer to the canal would have been better, but, he said, the new solution is better than no solution at all.
“I think it would have been a better project if it was placed where it was originally supposed to be placed on the area of Town Neck in front of the houses. However that can’t happen. So I’d rather see it placed on the public beach section of Town Neck than the bottom of Cape Cod Bay,” he said.
Approval by the Community Preservation Committee was just one step in moving the new plan forward. The plan also needs two-thirds approval at Town Meeting.
There were a few comments at last night’s meeting that Community Preservation funds spent on this project would take funds away from other projects, particularly ones involving historic preservation of town-owned buildings.
Hayes was among those who said the beach nourishment project also has a historic preservation angle.
“The whole area we’re in now, Town Hall, Town Hall Square, Javesville, the whole Glass Museum area, is all at risk from flooding if the area beach were to go away. So it absolutely does protect the historic center of the town,” he said.
The Special Town Meeting with a one-article warrant for the beach nourishment plan has been scheduled for August 31 for Sandwich residents to have the final say on the plan.
The total project cost of $1.7 million includes $600,000 in town funds that have already been set aside for beach nourishment. An additional almost $150,000 is also needed for the project to lengthen the town’s boardwalk so that it extends over the new dunes created by the sand if the project goes forward.
By LAURA M. RECKFORD, CapeCod.com News Editor
“owners of properties along the shore refused to agree to provide permanent easements”
Why did the ACE request a permanent easement vs a temporary easement?
Who can trust the Army Corps at all after how badly they screwed up the Nola levy system? There is no legal reason to have requested permanent easements; I feel badly for the landowners who are doubtless going to be reviled by fellow citizens.