A boardwalk that crosses a salt marsh and tidal channel across town-owned land near the Menemsha Inn sparked heated discussion at the Chilmark selectmen’s meeting Tuesday.

On June 28, the conservation commission sent a letter to the selectmen noting that the boardwalk was not properly permitted and does not meet best design practices for a raised walkway over sensitive marshland.

On Tuesday selectman Warren Doty bristled over the letter. “Why is this an issue at all?” he said. “We’ve walked on this path for years and years and years, we could continue to walk on this path for years and years and years, and it certainly has not damaged the marsh, it hasn’t hurt anything. It’s a wide open area. Why can’t we just leave well enough alone?”

Board chairman Bill Rossi asked: “So what’s going to happen if we don’t do anything?”

Conservation agent Chuck Hodgkinson, who attended the meeting, replied that it’s up to the commission. “I can’t speak for them, but they have several avenues that they can take,” he said. “They can issue an enforcement order to the town, they can call the Department of Environmental Protection, but I don’t know if they would do that, but there are several options.”

The letter says the current walkway violates both the town and state wetland protection laws.

The commission has offered two possibilities to remedy the problem: remove the boardwalk, redirecting pedestrians to a right of way on an abutting parcel which is also town-owned land, or replace the boardwalk with a raised walkway that complies with regulations.

Mr. Hodgkinson estimated that a new walkway would cost about $78,000.

Mr. Rossi said any project would need town meeting approval.

“I think we need a plan that’s going to make sense to the taxpayers of Chilmark to make this work, because you’re asking for this to be done with taxpayer dollars,” he said.

The selectmen took no action on the issue.

In other business the selectmen backed the beach committee’s decision to ban drones at Lucy Vincent Beach and expanded the prohibition to include Squibnocket. Clarissa Allen, representing the committee, said there had been three incidents with drones at Lucy Vincent.

The selectmen decided not to ban drones at Menemsha Beach. Executive secretary Timothy Carroll said Menemsha is popular for drones. “There are a lot of drones flying around Menemsha, including people who live there, one guy is mapping the neighborhood, so you’d be in conflict with an existing practice. Whereas Lucy Vincent is purely a prurient interest,” he said.

Mr. Rossi noted the ban would be hard to enforce, as drones could approach any town beach from private property. Mr. Doty said the policy is intended to discourage that and also gives guards the ability to regulate any drone activity originating at the beach.

The selectmen also:

• Sent letters to legislators in support of the Community Empowerment Act and against the proposed Eversource rate changes.

• Denied Dolores Borza’s request for a street license to operate a midsize bus offering tours to Menemsha.

• Renewed memorandums of agreement with Aquinnah and the Wampanoag tribe for the use of sand as beach renourishment from Menemsha Channel dredging.

• Approved of the use of the Chilmark Community Center for a Vipassana meditation retreat offered by the Island Insight Meditation group this November.

• Approved plans to replace the tennis shack at the Chilmark Community Center with a new structure.