The big dig begins. Early this week a tug and barge dropped off the heavy equipment.
Today before pulling the Tashmoo for the winter I took a ride out to Sampson’s Island to check out the Dredging project. Two backhoes and a porta- potty are parked by the dune left over from the spoil pile deposited in the late 60s.
I don’t think this round of dredging will be that extensive, a pole in the shallows near a small excavator looks like the line — maybe 100 feet or so from the inner point.
So far the excavator has started chewing up the beach grass near the very end. I guess the idea is to get to bare sand before sending in the dredge and setting up the pipeline to pump the sand east towards the Wianno Cut where it’s needed to build up the eroding beach.
This has taken a few years, delayed by some opposition here in town, but supported enough to finally get the blessing from the state for work to commence. I agree with those who argued a win-win solution would have been a dredging of the Cotuit channel which is need of it, and could have supplied a lot of clean sand for the beach nourishment. But I also support cutting the point of Sampson’s way back towards the east the way it was in the 50s and 60s. Navigation is getting tough in the gut between Riley’s beach and the point, the short distance is all too inviting to people who think it is cool to swim across, and any widening that improves the tidal flow should do something to improve the quality of the water inside the harbor.