Cape Cod Canal Blamed For Erosion Of Sandwich Beaches

2/18/2013

The escalation of 10 to 25 years of Cape Cod beach erosion due to a single winter storm has increased the urgency of protecting the Cape shoreline.

While several Cape towns are dealing with similar destruction from the 2013 Blizzard, officials in Sandwich say nature isn't entirely at fault for the problems there. Environmentalists blame a jetty that was constructed to prevent the southerly flow of sand from filling in the nearby man-made Cape Cod Canal. Trouble is, that jetty is also blocking the flow of sand to Town Neck Beach in Sandwich, which sorely needs it. The result is a growing Scusset beach west of the canal, and a rapidly shrinking Sandwich beach to the east.

The Blizzard breached the already fragile dune system in eight places, flooding the marsh on the other side and imperiling buildings in the historic center of town.

According to the Cape Cod Times, the town is seeking federal disaster relief funds dating to Hurricane Sandy last fall. It also earmarked $150,000 from community preservation funds in 2011 for a beach management plan from the Woods Hole Group, which must balance the need of restoring the barrier beach with preserving the habitat of endangered shore birds like piping plovers and terns. After the further destruction of Town Neck Beach from the recent Blizzard, town officials are seeking federal assistance.

If the town is successful in convincing the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to fund and repair the beach, it could mean a federal contribution of as much as 75% of the total $20 million project cost.

The Trustees of Sandwich Beaches has taken the lead in advocating for restoration of the decimated dune system at Town Neck Beach. Their campaign slogan, "It's not the same without the 'sand' " is cleverly woven into their website with signs bearing the town name altered to eliminate the "Sand" in "Sandwich". It's very effective. .

A ten minute video describes the history and nature of the problem. As an aside, the narrator sounds exactly like the films we watched in high school classes in the 1970's. The juxtaposition of his old-school voice and the interview subjects of today is entertaining, but there is good content here.

3 Comments

Cheryl Jones Comeau

3/17/2013 04:12:54 am

This isn’t a simple thing like, mother nature, global warming or sea level rise. The reason there is massive erosion in front of my childhood home on Plum Island is man made. The Army Core of Engineers installed jetties at the mouth of the river. In the 60’s they extended the length by almost double so the sand that builds up in the river would be sent out to sea. The massive jetties are starving the Plum Island coast of its down drift sediment. This sediment should be continuously rejuvenating the beach and NOW IS NOT. This is a human interfering with mother nature and these humans work for the Army corps. The sand is supposed to flow from north to south and the jetty’s interrupts this natural flow. The dredged sand from the river is supposed to be deposited on Plum Island to compensate for what should be naturally deposited. Executive order 181 was written to insure dredged sand was properly deposited in the coastal areas that were being denied sand by the jetties they installed. The Army Core violated their own executive order 181, when they dredged the Merrimack River and sent the sand North to Salisbury 3 dredging’s in a row. This starved Plum Island of its down drift sediment. The reason the sand was sent north was because local politicians wanted to sure up Salisbury beach so that a casino could be built in the town. The politicians also owned property on the Salisbury beach area.
The Army Corps also aloud the jetties to fall into disrepair. The jetties had 4 breaches, large holes that changed the currents that travel along the coast. When the tide goes up and down millions of gallons of water flush in and out of the holes. These new and unnatural currents that run along the beach would hit the small groin jetty and spin like a toilet bowl. This flushed away all the sand at the center of the island. The Army Corps knew about the breaches, and the damage it was causing the Plum Island coast, 11 years ago and did nothing. The neglect of the Army Corps does not stop there. The 3 groin jetties are also in major disrepair. The Army Corps has been aware of this for 5 years. This issue has not even been addressed.
To add insult to injury, the CZM, Army Corps and DEP will not issue homeowners permits to take measures to save their homes AT THEIR OWN EXPENSE. All the home owners want to do is push the dune back up to its natural state by mining the sand from the low tide line and putting it back up to where it belongs. And the best thing is, residents are willing to pay for it. Because of human interference with the down drift sediment along the Plum Island coast, we need to develop a permanent short-term and long term plan that will allow restoration of the primary dune before an emergency situation occurs. This plan must have the ability to be activated with in 24 hours of acute primary dune erosion. Beach scraping and mining should be an important part of the “Emergency Dune Restoration Plan”.
This is not the only Massachusetts community suffering from the same problem check the video on this web page.
http://www.maureenonthecape.com/1/post/2013/02/cape-cod-canal-blamed-for-erosion-of-sandwich-beaches.html
The collaborated agenda of the CZM, Army Corps and DEP is to remove all homes and the infrastructure from all the coastal communities in the United States and return it to the birds. These agencies will use any means available legal or not to accomplish their goal, and at considerable taxpayer expense. Just think if the home owner were aloud to maintain the primary dune, no homes would be in danger and the police details, and national guard and the expense of government officials dealing with the disaster would not have been charged to you the taxpayer.
There is one thing that can be done to keep these agencies in check and would help the environment and the people that live in it. You see these agencies are under no obligation to PROVE the science they base their regulations upon. They develop a theory and create regulations based on those theories with out being required to actually proof their theories are correct. If we could change this we would not be subject to the whims of these government agencies.

By; Cheryl Jones Comeau
I may be in Amesbury but my hart will always live on Plum Island.
978-387-5425

Irene Davis link

3/17/2013 04:51:38 am

Maureen,

Thank you for highlighting this critical problem we have in Sandwich. Unfortunately, the state of our beach is significantly worse than what is portrayed in the video, which is now ~5 yrs old. The massive barrier dune system I grew up with has been decimated to nearly a sandbar now. To remain up to date on this issue, please have your readers join our facebook page, Trustees of Sandwich, MA. Beaches. We have a number of advocacy/awareness activities coming up in the next months. Also, if they go to our website www.trusteesofsandwichbeaches.org, they can join and/or donate to this important cause (we are a non-profit organization so any donations are tax-deductible).

To Cheryl - perhaps we should be joining forces as our situations are identical. Just as one example, the ACoE sent dredged sand to be sold to Boston as opposed to placing it on our beach. We will be in touch!

my best,

Irene Davis
President, Trustees of Sandwich Beaches

Sump Pump Installation Lehigh Acres link

9/28/2022 07:49:30 pm

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MaureenGreen.com