CCB MEDIA PHOTO
Milton Berglund has lived near Stewart’s Creek for decades and makes suggestions on how the water flow in the estuary can be improved.
HYANNIS – People who have lived near Stewart’s Creek for decades remembering canoeing on the waterway and enjoying its natural beauty.
But last summer, after an US Army Corps of Engineers project to install a culvert, neighbors say the water flow has slowed and the smell at low tide is almost unbearable.
The culvert project, which was paid for using federal funds and town funds, was many years in the planning and cost over $1 million.
More than 40 neighbors turned out to a meeting about Stewarts Creek last night at the Steamship Authority conference room on School Street in Hyannis.
The town of Barnstable invited neighbors to the meeting to hear their concerns. The town has hired an environmental consultant to investigate the issue to see if something can be done to mitigate the odors.
Milton Berglund is among the neighbors who said that the waterway needs to be dredged.
“What to do about it. I’d like to have the consultants strongly analyze the feasibility and the effect of completing the dredging project,” he said.
Berglund said increasing the flow of water further up the creek is critical.
“Get salt water further up and reduce the noxious vegetation. It is in that area that we are getting the worst of the decaying smell, the sulphur,” Berglund said.
Berglund said decades ago he used to be able to take a canoe far up the creek.
“The key to it would be to dredge up to where the tidal flow used to be strong. I would call that the west embankment of Stewart’s Creek,” Berglund said.
Dredging was originally part of the Army Corps project but the federal agency apparently dropped the dredging portion of the project after running out of funds, according to town officials.
By LAURA M. RECKFORD, CapeCod.com News Editor
