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.
SANDWICH – Sandwich residents will vote tonight on an emergency solution to make sure the 150,000 cubic yards of sand dredged from the Cape Cod Canal will go on Town Neck Beach, and not be dumped out in Cape Cod Bay.
A one-article Special Town Meeting seeks approval for the town to pay the entire cost of the beach nourishment project with all the sand going on town property at Town Neck Beach.
The emergency solution was needed because some property owners would not agree to permanent easements on their properties.
The town will now have to pay for the entire project, which was originally priced at $1.5 million but, with this solution, is now priced at $1.7 million. The additional funding is needed to lengthen the Sandwich Boardwalk and other related costs because the beach will extend further if the project goes through.
With the original plan, the federal government was going to pay two-thirds of the project, leaving the town to pay only about $550,000 for the same amount of sand.
The majority of the money would come from Community Preservation Act funds. Those funds come from a surtax on property taxes. The money is required to be used for open space, affordable housing, historic preservation and recreation.
The Sandwich Community Preservation Committee voted unanimously earlier this month to support the effort.
The beach nourishment project is being categorized under open space and recreation.
The original plan was for the town to pay 35 percent of the cost to put the sand on the town’s shoreline.
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 deplete 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.
By LAURA M. RECKFORD, CapeCod.com News Editor
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