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Alliance: Research Needed Before Weighing Pleasant Bay Dredging
by Alan Pollock CHATHAM — Under questioning from the board of selectmen, the coordinator of the Pleasant Bay Resource Management Alliance is holding fast on the issue of dredging in the bay’s Area of Critical Environmental Concern (ACEC). In a letter to board Chairman David Whitcomb last week, Carole Ridley said she knows the importance of the dredging issue to Chatham officials, but said the alliance won’t take a position on the matter until a bay-wide sediment study is complete. On April 1, Ridley visited with selectmen to ask them to endorse a warrant article renewing the town’s membership in the alliance. The board made the endorsement, but not before Whitcomb raised the issue of dredging. With the new inlet in North Beach causing severe shoaling, and with other areas of Pleasant Bay likely to need dredging in the future, Whitcomb asked Ridley what position the alliance might take on new dredge projects in the area. “Can you reassure me that being in the alliance might help to accomplish that?” Whitcomb asked. Ridley said that, by state law, most new dredging projects—known as improvement dredging—are prohibited from the ACEC, though maintenance dredging of previously-dredged waterways is allowed. The new inlet lies just outside the ACEC boundary, but other potential dredge sites, like the entrance to Ryder’s Cove and the area between Strong Island and Minister’s Point, are inside the restricted area. The alliance is undertaking a bay-wide sediment management study to examine where improvement dredging might be warranted, and where the dredged material might be utilized to nourish beaches, Ridley said. That study will provide the alliance the information it needs to take a position on the matter. On April 17, Ridley sent a follow-up letter to Whitcomb reiterating that point. “An important objective of the resource management plan is maintaining safe boating access in concert with resource sustainability. We recognize and support the time-honored value of boating in the bay for recreation and commercial purposes,” Ridley wrote. “In light of the dynamic changes that are occurring [near the new inlet], the Alliance has begun to seek additional information regarding the costs and benefits of improvement dredging, and the regulatory issues involved,” Ridley wrote. Selectman Sean Summers said he appreciates the alliance’s willingness to discuss the issue, though he’d like to see a firm position on the issue of improvement dredging. He said he hoped his comments at the April 1 board meeting might serve as “a cannonball shot across the bow that Chatham’s participation in the agreement is going to depend on reasonable cooperation when it comes to navigation issues.” Dredging around the new inlet will probably not be an issue this season, “and it might never be an issue,” Summers said. “The nice thing is, they’ve obviously talked about it, and they view it as a serious issue,” he said. Harbormaster Stuart Smith said he, too, is concerned that shoaling threatens the viability of the fishing fleet. Instead of staying silent on the issue of dredging, Smith said he would have preferred that the alliance issue a statement supporting dredging in historically navigated waterways, when doing so is legally and environmentally allowable. “I would prefer if the alliance put themselves in a position of supporting that kind of thing, instead of being silent on it or delaying it,” he said. Smith said the alliance has a history of doing excellent work, but it should act in the best interest of its member towns, not the state law that created the ACEC. “The ACEC in Pleasant Bay did not predict that there would be an inlet that would choke off navigation,” Smith said. Smith acknowledged that, should the bay-wide sediment management study support the exploration of improvement dredging in Pleasant Bay, the alliance would be a powerful ally to the town of Chatham. For his part, Town Manager William Hinchey said he is not surprised by the alliance’s decision to withhold judgment on improvement dredging, pending additional information. Hinchey said he is confident in the alliance’s ability to make a decision that’s in the best interest of the resource and of its four member towns. Meanwhile, erosion continues on North Beach. A powerful ocean storm last week buffeted the barrier beach with surf and easterly winds. Though the northward migration of the beach appears to have slowed or stalled, the east-facing outer beach continues to erode in some places, Chatham Police Lt. John Cauble said Tuesday. The small camp remaining on the Kelly property is now only four or five feet away from the water at high tide, and the gap narrows with each passing tide. Cauble said he is unaware of any plans to remove the building from the beach, but any such effort would need to take place immediately, since the structure is likely to wash away in the next few days. At the Hammatt camp, where four other First Village camps have been temporarily relocated, erosion of the outer beach is now at the edge of the dune, preventing any vehicle access on the front beach at high tide, Cauble said.
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