Fiddling as coast erodes
This is the kind of standoff politicians specialize in: Everyone has agreed for close to a decade that the battered coastline in Winthrop is in desperate need of repair.
But that's where the consensus ends. Two state agencies have waged a fight over what to do about it that has lasted through at least three administrations. Meanwhile, the 1.5-mile coastline continues to erode, season after season.
The erosion is more than a recreational problem for Winthrop residents. The beach is, or was, a natural barrier against surging tides. But it becomes less effective all the time.
The combatants include the Department of Conservation and Recreation and the Division of Marine Fisheries.
The DCR would like to transport 500,000 cubic feet of sand from the sea off Hull and use it to repair the beach in Winthrop. The Division of Marine Fisheries believes that could damage spawning grounds for cod and lobster. Area lobstermen, using the division's studies as ammunition, have successfully slowed the project to a crawl.
"It's ridiculous that this has been going on for so long," said Bruce Berman of Save the Harbor/Save the Bay, an environmental group. "Someone should take the lead in figuring this out."
Berman believes that the problem of erosion is likely to become more acute in coming years, if the consensus on climate change proves accurate. "We're going to see more coastal erosion at the same time we see more people who want to live near the coast," he said. "If we're going to solve the problem, we're going to have to find a way to stop just saying no to things and find a way to say yes."
Berman's group has monitored the dispute since its early days. "A 70-year-old grandmother told me her grandchildren used to visit her, and now they visit their grandmother in Swampscott because there's no beach in Winthrop."
The dueling agencies have produced dueling studies about the propriety of dredging off Hull. The fisheries people say it is a critical habitat that would suffer serious damage; the DCR study says any effect would be minor and would probably be negated in a couple of years.
Marine Fisheries Director Paul J . Diodati denied that his agency has stood in the way of fixing the beach. He said there is no way to quantify the damage to habitat that the project would pose, but that harm is inevitable.
There is no real Plan B for fixing the beach. Access to Winthrop is mostly limited to Route 145, which makes trucking in tons of sand impractical. The solution will come by barge via Massachusetts Bay or probably not at all.
The dispute has fallen into the lap of Environmental Affairs Secretary Ian Bowles, who seems as baffled about how to bring the sides together as his predecessors have been. "They've both got very legitimate points of view," he said yesterday. "The cod fishery has had a very difficult decade."
One person who has had his fill of the dispute is Representative Robert A . DeLeo of Winthrop. DeLeo chairs the House Ways and Means Committee and has not hesitated to use his budget- writing pen to try to force a resolution. The budget that passed the House included a 20 percent cut for the Division of Marine Fisheries, a clear shot across its bow. DeLeo would like to see the dredging start tomorrow.
"People want to see their beach refurbished," he said. "It's not going to get better with time; it's going to get worse. Our patience has worn thin. We've jumped every hurdle. The project has to begin, and the dilatory tactics have to stop."
It may not be so simple. Opponents of the dredging have one card left to play: The Army Corps of Engineers must approve the project and has yet to do so.
Meanwhile, another summer seems likely to pass without any progress on fixing the beach. All parties are operating with the best of intentions, or so they say. Yet doing nothing is tantamount to letting the coastline wash away.
As Berman, the environmentalist, told me yesterday, "What's happening there is just a tragedy."
Adrian Walker is a Globe columnist. He can be reached at walker@globe.com. 
