COMPROMISE
SBPF considers it
BY PETER B. BRACE INDEPENDENT WRITER
Cheryl Bartlett, Executive Director of the Siasconset Beach Preservation Fund said Monday that SBPF could be revising its beach rebuilding plan. The new plan would shrink the sand mining area, as well as reduce the amount of sand put on the beach.

Last week, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers denied the state a permit to dredge 500,000 cubic yards of sand from the ocean bottom to bolster 37 acres of the eroded Winthrop Beach shoreline.

In light of that decision, coupled

with the resounding local election 7See no-vote against the beach nourishment project, Bartlett is trying hard to work with the Board of Selectmen on a compromise.

"We have talked to individual selectmen who have expressed their interest that they would like to work out a solution that can work for everyone," said Bartlett, adding that SBPF must begin to aggressively find a site within their existing borrow site that does not disturb the mussels, surf clams and other marine life.

Commander of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers North Atlantic Division Brigadier General Todd T. Semonite's April 23 denial of Winthrop's Section 10 Rivers and Harbors Act and Section 404 Clean Waters Act permit could be foretelling a possible future for the SBPF's project, regardless of its current revision effort.

That plan included dredging 500,000 cubic yards of gravelly sand eight miles off Winthrop Beach in about 80 feet of water to rebuild 37 acres of beach. The imperiled road running along this beach, behind a crumbling seawall, separates houses from the ocean. It is the only road to Boston's Deer Island Sewage Treatment Plant.

In his denial announcement, Brig. Gen. Semonite cited the destruction of a protective offshore habitat within the 103-acre borrow site.

"…Our consensus is that the habitat in question is of sufficient rarity with adequate evidence of EFH (essential fish habitat) significance to justify a high threshold of protection, which is consistent with the position taken by the NMFS. We find that the DCR has done a very admirable effort in pursuit of the desired action. However, that effort does not remove the substantial uncertainties linked to potential impacts…," Brig. Gen. Semonite said in part of his conclusions.

The Army Corps'decision on Winthrop's borrow site relied on critical information from the National Marine Fisheries Service in Gloucester, Mass. and the New England Fisheries Council, both of which stressed the need to protect 100 acres of cod nursery and spawning habit in the proposed borrow site.

But DCR's coastal engineer for the Winthrop project, John S. Ramsey of Applied Coastal Research and Engineering, Inc., questioned the NMFS's motives, considering that it allows commercial fishing in this area 10 months a year.

"Although NMFS indicated that the borrow site area is essential to the survival of cod, they have not prohibited bottom dragging and/or scallop dredging within any area of Massachusetts Bay to protect this habitat (including the proposed borrow site)," said Ramsey this week on Coastal List, a moderated email list for coastal engineers at www.coastal.udel.edu.

"NMFS has indicated that both of these fishing-related activities cause similar impacts to the proposed sand/gravel mining."

The weight of this Army Corps decision is not lost on Nantucketers who oppose the Siasconset Beach Preservation Fund's own bid to dredge 1.9 million cubic yards of offshore sand to rebuild the beach from Sankaty Light lighthouse to Codfish Park.

Bam LaFarge, a member of the Shellfish & Harbor Advisory Board (SHAB), was pleased with the Army Corps'decision.

"I'm actually amazed that it was the Army Corps," said LaFarge, who has been following the Winthrop project since its beginnings in 1998. "This was for a public benefit. To me, SBPF won't have a leg to stand on. It's a much bigger project and a much richer habitat. I'm like bowled away by it. It's a very radical thing for the Army Corps of Engineers."

Outspoken Coalition for Responsible Coastal Management member and charter fishing boat captain Pete Kaizer said this ruling is a great inadvertent "thank you" for the 2,986 island voters who said "No" on Question Five to SBPF's beach nourishment project on the April 15 election ballot.

"It was a pleasure to see that," said Kaizer. "The voters should be happy to see that the Army Corps also look on these projects in the same way and [it's] a pat on the back for the voters of Nantucket that they did a good job.

"That was a wise decision for the Army Corps, and that should pretty much send a message to these people of what's to come."

SBPF has filed its own Section 404/10 Permit with the Army Corps for its proposed borrow site. The Army Corps will not rule on it until all the other permitting agencies make their decisions. Bartlett questioned the logic behind the Army Corps'decision.

"We're obviously disappointed to see that," said Bartlett. "It appears that Massachusetts isn't providing any relief for people dealing with erosion. Obviously, that is a more protected habitat. They are suggesting that there is an alternative, but they're not saying what that alternative is. So I'm not sure what people will do."

In Brig. Gen. Semonite's conclusions, he states that the most environmentally sensitive alternative would be to get the sand for the project from upland sources, an option that SBPF considered as well.

For its project, this would have meant 19,000 or 130,000 truck trips, depending on the use of larger or smaller trucks, respectively, to get the sand from Nantucket sources or the mainland to the site, or 3,250 barge trips from the mainland. For the DCR's Winthrop project, trucking in sand is not an option, as it required 33,000 truck trips, but the Army disagreed.

"…I conclude that the project as proposed is not the least environmentally damaging practicable alternative available to the applicant and further, the secondary impacts associated with the discharge activity will cause or contribute substantial degradation of waters of the U.S. including adverse effect on human health, life stages of organisms dependent on the aquatic ecosystem, ecosystem diversity, productivity and stability, and recreational, aesthetic and economic values," said Brig. Gen. Semonite in his

conclusions. I

Read the entire decision at www.nad.usace.army.mil/.