The project to restore Bend in the Road Beach with dredge spoils from Sengekontacket is now complete. Charlie Blair, town harbor master and overseer of the $200,000 project, said this week that the 10,000 cubic yard project was completed under budget and on time. Next spring the beach, which is well piled with soft sand sucked from the bottom of the pond, will be shaped and planted with beach grass.
The project began in mid-October and involved more than a mile of plastic dredge pipe that ran from a sandbar near the Big Bridge known as the burrow.
From the floating dredge the sand was pumped 1,500 feet by pipe to a booster pump, parked off the road, on the opposite side of the bridge. Then the sand-filled water was pumped another 4,500 feet down the Joseph Sylvia Beach to the Bend in the Road.
Now the dredge crew shifts its attention to an even larger project, nourishing the Cow Bay beach. That project is permitted for the transport of 27,000 cubic yards of sand and could take as much as three months to complete.
When the Bend in the Road project was completed prior to Thanksgiving, the rented booster pump was removed and a newer one was installed. Norman Rankow, chairman of the dredge advisory committee, said: “The first pump was tired and it got us through the town project. But we knew to finalize the Cow Bay project we wanted a better piece of equipment.”
The project began two years ago. Originally the town had sought to dig a channel in Sengekontacket Pond from the Big Bridge to the entrance to Trapp’s Pond. But Mr. Rankow said an analysis of the sand on the bottom showed it contained too much organic material.
Dredge Edgartown, as the dredge is called, is in perfect order, according to Mr. Rankow. The floating barge with a huge pump has a new 370-horsepower diesel engine, installed in the past year. And Mr. Rankow said dredging fees have helped the town cover the cost of maintenance and improvements to the dredge.
Comments
Comment policy »