Mistakes made in a restoration project at Bend in the Road Beach have resulted in pulled beach grass, a run of complaints about unpleasant sand and a smaller beach, according to Edgartown town administrator Pamela M. Dolby.
Speaking at a selectmen’s meeting Monday, Mrs. Dolby said a number of people have criticized the project including one man who had come to her office with video footage of the beach.
“There have been a number of complaints about sand quality and the loss of beach,” she said.
Original plans prepared by the dredge committee show a 50-foot wide beach, according to Edgartown conservation agent Jane Varkonda. The current beach width is approximately 20 feet.
“We need to deal with this a little bit differently,” said selectman Margaret Serpa. “We need to have better oversight.”
Mrs. Dolby alluded to a lack of communication between the dredge committee and Mrs. Varkonda.
“Jane told them back in February that the dirt was not good,” said Mrs. Dolby. “The words went unheeded. It needs more open communication and selectmen, unfortunately, need to know the details.”
The parks department will go before the finance committee to request another $5,000 to $8,000 to build a series of boardwalks. The walks were not included in original plans or budgeted for.
“There are a number of issues up there. There is fencing and railing sticking out. This is a beach for children,” said Mrs. Dolby.
“Isn’t this where lifeguards train and give lessons?” added Mrs. Serpa.
“Maybe next year we’ll have what we were originally going to have,” concluded the town administrator.
Edgartown dredge administrator Lynne Fraker acknowledged yesterday that communication had been a problem.
“There were communication issues, and that will not happen again,” she told the Gazette, adding that the dredge association will appoint a full-time foreman in response.
The Bend in the Road dredging project is a private-public partnership between the town of Edgartown and the Cow Bay beach residents association.
The association has kicked in $150,000 of approximately $250,000 for the project to date, according to Ms. Fraker, in return for 17,000 cubic yards of spoils from the dredging of Sengekontacket Pond for its beach.
As part of the deal the association leased an additional 180 yards of beach to the town, on a 500-year lease of $1 per year. The lease brings the total public beach to 640 linear feet.
The original project for the two beaches was far larger, calling for 80,000 cubic yards of sand to be dredged from an area of Trapps Pond by the entrance to Sengekontacket. But dredge operators found large amounts of peat and fine sand, unsuitable for the beach, said Ms. Fraker. So the committee decided to dredge for just 40,000 cubic yards from another area near the Big Bridge, where dredging permits were still valid from a 1997 project.
The plan was to transfer 30,000 cubic yards to Cow Bay and 10,000 cubic yards to the Bend in the Road. In the end, Cow Bay got 17,000 cubic yards and the Bend in Road received 6,000.
Because of the reduced amount of available sand the beach association has been forced to approach its project in phases, focusing first on dune restoration. This in turn limited the scope of the Bend in the Road project. If a buffer of new sand was not provided by the longer Cow Bay beach, any extension to shoreline of the Bend in the Road would simply wash out.
“Cow Bay simply ran out of time,” said Ms. Fraker. The association began its work late, on Dec. 9, due to permitting delays, and though the dredge committee successfully applied to the state for two extensions to the dredging season, work was halted on Feb. 15.
Due to timetable concerns, the association ended up importing some sand from off-Island, said Ms. Fraker.
A second phase to widen the beach is planned, using spoils from Eel Pond, though Ms. Fraker underscored that the town will have to clear a laborious permitting process involving multiple state agencies and the town conservation commission.
Nevertheless, she said that overall the public-private partnership setup has worked well.
“We all learned a lot, some things we would have done a little different. Both sides learned a lot and in the end it will go much smoother, we’ll go in much smarter. But it’s a good set-up,” she said. “It makes sense because dredging projects need to happen and towns just don’t have the money,”
She said despite the location change, unsuitable fine sand was still dredged and deposited on the beach.
“It was material that wasn’t good for the beach,” she said, “but it’s not as bad as it looks. They panicked, but once the summer comes it will look fine.”
Mrs. Varkonda agreed.
“In a month or two with good sunlight, the fines will be gone,” she said this week, adding: “The beach will look good.”
She said the dune was originally planted too wide and has been adjusted; beach grass was removed to make room for beach-goers to sit.
“It’s a work in progress. Mother Nature has to play her role,” Mrs. Varkonda said. “It’s a big shock because it’s a big change but once the profile settles down and the plants grow — we’ll have a good beach out there come hell or high water.”
This article appears in April 3, 2009.
asleep at the wheel its a shame that the rare opportunity to rebuild the town beach at bend in the road was sacrificed existing dunes were destroyed so that cow bay could have a bigger beach what about our beach
It sounds like the public/private partnership worked out just fine for Cow Bay residents. Who was watching out for the public? My guess is it wasn’t the Cow Bay residents.
I learned to swim at Bend in the Road Beach, my children learned to swim there, and I continue to walk or ride my bike to The Bend every day during the summer.
I have been following the progress of this gigantic earth-moving project with a combination of fascination and horror. Fascinated with the engineering involved; horrified by the mountains of earth that have lined Bend in the Road and Cow Bay beaches all winter, wondering how this will ever be a beach again, but hoping that somehow all would be restored eventually.
I am very disappointed. What was once a broad, open beach has been transformed into a narrow strip bordered by a wide, high dune. The old beach was a wide expanse of casually arranged visitors, a happy configuration of strangers-become-friends-for-the-day, with room for picnic tables and ample space for children to wander, but still remain under their parents’ watchful eye. The new beach is predominantly beach grass. Yes, the beach is longer, but is not much compensation considering what has been taken in terms of width. The shape of the new beach consigns us to sitting in rows, staring out to sea.
The old beach, without the high dune, allowed the prevailing southwest summer wind to whip across Anthier’s and over the beach every afternoon, refreshing us even on the hottest days of summer. The new dune will block this wind and turn the beach into a stifling oven.
The old beach allowed cars to pull right up to beach’s edge for a great view of beach activities, and of Nantucket Sound and beyond. I am thinking of the islander who has been at work all day and simply wants to drive out to the Bend in the Road and sit, catch a breeze and look at the water, or perhaps sit at one of the picnic tables with a pizza; or the senior citizen who simply wants to sit in the car and watch. There has always been a delightful late-afternoon/evening sub-culture of picnickers and after-work bathers at Bend in the Road with the interface between the parking lot and the beach as its nexus. The new beach puts an end to this scenario, one more nail in the coffin of community and neighborliness in a town that can’t afford to give any more of this away, in my opinion.
We have lost something very precious here. Please give us back our beach.