Beach dredging project denied

US says plan harms fish stock

State conservation officials say they will appeal a federal decision denying them the ability to dredge 500,000 cubic yards of sand from the ocean bottom to help restore 37 acres of eroded shoreline at Winthrop Beach.

The decision from the Army Corps of Engineers was issued last week, marking another setback for area residents who blame the erosion for flooding problems, as well as for state Department of Conservation and Recreation officials, who have spent the better part of a decade trying to get the renourishment project going.

"We're very disappointed," said DCR spokeswoman Wendy Fox. "We're going to explore all our options."

The state-funded project has the support of Governor Deval L. Patrick, Winthrop state Representative Robert A. DeLeo, and US Representative Ed Markey, who all point to the necessity of the project based on public safety.

"This is obviously a significantly disappointing turn of events," DeLeo stated in a release. "The people of Winthrop have made the case time and time again that this project needs to get done to protect lives and property along the beach. We have also made the case time and time again that any negative environmental effects will be short-term and completely benign in the end."

In his decision, Brigadier General Todd T. Semonite, commander of the Corps' North Atlantic Division, said he relied on information provided by the National Marine Fisheries Service, which stated that the offshore area selected for dredging is an "aquatic resource of national importance and an essential fish habitat for cod and lobster that must be protected. The Fisheries Service's state counterpart, the Division of Marine Fisheries, has opposed the project from the start.

"The project would provide storm protection, which would benefit public safety in the area of Winthrop Beach. It would also provide the residents of Winthrop with a beach for limited recreational activities," Semonite wrote. But he concluded that "the adverse impacts to the cod fish resources and the associated industries of New England would be in contrast to the more limited local beneficial impacts that the residents of Winthrop have focused on. . . . I find that this project is contrary to the public interest and that a Department of the Army permit should be denied."

Cheryl Tobey of the Winthrop Beach Citizens Action Committee said it's "absolutely disgusting" that the state spent about $700,000 studying the area, but that the results weren't enough to persuade the Corps to allow the project. A one-year independent study of the dredging area from 2004 to 2005, commissioned by the Division of Marine Fisheries, concluded that there would be no permanent negative effect on sea life. Tobey also is critical of the corps' support of a dredging project proposed by the Massachusetts Port Authority to deepen the 40-foot shipping channel into Boston Harbor to accommodate larger cargo ships.

In a partnership with Massport, the Corps' New England district prepared a proposal to dredge about 12.1 million cubic yards of clay and mud and 1.2 million cubic yards of rock to deepen the shipping channel.

"What angers me is that we're back at square one," Tobey said. "Why is it OK for the corps to shout for Boston but not for Winthrop? It seems to me to be a little odd somehow to have an agency be in favor of one dredging project and not another."

Larry Rosenberg, chief of public affairs for the Corps' New England district, said he understands why Winthrop residents would try to compare that project with Boston Harbor but insisted they're very different. For one, he said, the dredging area for the Boston shipping channel "is not an essential fish habitat, not even close.

"The corps will permit [the Winthrop Beach] project provided that another source of sand can be used," Rosenberg said. "We're not approaching this haphazardly. What we need to do with the folks in Winthrop is to work out different alternatives - to mine the sand from another place or to truck the sand in."

In his decision, Semonite said the DCR failed to select the least environmentally damaging alternative available. Renourishing Winthrop Beach through the $11.7 million dredging option would adversely affect not just offshore species, but also those closer to the beach such as flounder and clams, he wrote. He also noted that while the DCR suggested that the dredging site would recover within two to three years, the National Marine Fisheries argues the recovery would take 10 years or more.

Semonite stated the DCR should have gone with its runner-up option - taking sand and gravel from an upland source, loading it onto ocean-going barges, towing them to a location off Winthrop Beach, off-loading on the beach, and spreading it appropriately. The DCR rejected this option based on its $30.5 million cost, complexity, and risks to the potential contractor, including working during high seas and major storms that could disrupt the "supply chain" performance.

"Although the upland alternative sources of material identified . . . would be more costly and logistically difficult than the applicant's preferred alternative, these alternatives would not include the myriad of adverse impacts both short term and long term that are expected to occur to the cod fisheries and the entire marine fisheries industry as a whole," Semonite wrote.

The project's renourishment site designer, John Ramsey, principal coastal engineer at Applied Coastal Research and Engineering in Mashpee, said the DCR was fully aware of the existence of cod, which are not exclusive to the proposed dredging area. He added that while lobsters migrate across in the spring and fall, the 50-acre area that would be dredged 8 miles off shore would be 85 feet deep, too deep for lobsters.

"My concern as a coastal engineer is that the state spent almost a million dollars for our study and the denial was not based on the study, it was based on [the National Marine Fisheries'] knowledge of regional fisheries," Ramsey said. "Why put us through all this when we started the process eight years ago, when [the corps was] going to say, 'No way, no how.' "

Katheleen Conti can be reached at kconti@globe.com.