Published in the Newburyport Daily News

PI beach project speeds up

By Victor Tine
Staff writer

October 18, 2008 12:15 am

PLUM ISLAND — A plan to build up the beach at Plum Island Center is picking up speed, with reinforcements for the eroded and vulnerable beach center potentially arriving within two weeks.

The town this week obtained a waiver of state bidding rules for public projects and obtained three price quotes for constructing a multi-layer system of 27-foot-long sandbags on the beach to try to slow down erosion from the center northward for about 500 feet.

Netco, a Lexington-based construction management company that specializes in erosion control, is the apparent low bidder for the work at $129,464, Newbury Finance Director Chuck Kostro said.

Kostro said the state Department of Conservation and Recreation hasn't yet formally allowed the town to use a previously awarded grant to pay for the work, but he has talked to DCR officials and they appear willing.

"I think at this point we're headed in the right direction," Kostro said.

He said if Netco is awarded the contract for the work, the company could mobilize next week and start work the following week. Netco representatives have told the town's consulting coastal engineer, David Vine of Newburyport-based Vine Associates, that the job would take about 28 days to complete.

The town was able to skirt the normal bidding procedures because officials successfully argued the Plum Island Center situation constitutes an emergency — especially with the advent of the winter storm season.

As designed by Vine, the project will take the form of a number of long sandbags made of a burlap-like material, filled with sand, stitched together and covered with more sand.

The bags will be stacked up, with the top row flush against the escarpment of the eroding dune.

The work is intended to provide temporary relief to the homeowners along the beachfront north of the center and to protect the infrastructure of the newly installed Plum Island water and sewer systems.

It is also aimed at preventing an ocean breach at the center, which is at the junction of Northern and Southern boulevards and the only road on or off the island, Plum Island Boulevard.

The state Department of Environmental Protection has approved the sandbag system.

DCR's approval is needed because the grant was originally awarded for a different project. Plum Island Taxpayers and Associates won a $450,000 grant in 2006 for restrooms at the Plum Island Point parking lot in Newburyport and to design and construct a building on part of the parking lot at Plum Island Center.

The building would have housed equipment for the lifeguards and would have provided an observation terrace for wheelchair-bound beachgoers.

In converting the grant to the beach nourishment project, the town has argued it is pointless to construct a building with Plum Island Center eroding.

The other two bidders, Kostro said, were SumCo Eco-Contracting of Salem at $173,520 and J.D. Hartnett & Son of Newbury at $205,044.

The area from the center northward has been eroding badly for several months. Observers believe that a damaged portion of the south jetty at the northern tip of the island is channeling water toward the center in a scouring action, which is aggravating the problem.

Local and state officials and private nonprofit group the Plum Island Foundation have been trying to get federal funds to pay for the dredging of the Merrimack River channel, with the dredged sand deposited on the beach.

The channel runs between the south jetty on Plum Island and the north jetty at Salisbury Beach. It has not been dredged since 1999. Until recently, it was routinely dredged every three to five years.

Long-range, the local communities are seeking to have both jetties repaired, something that hasn't occurred since 1970.

Plum Island Foundation, Inc., P.O. Box 226, Newburyport, MA 01950

The Plum Island Foundation was formed in 2008 and tax-exempt under Section 501(c)(3)of the Internal Revenue Code. All contributions, grants and bequests to the Plum Island Foundation are tax deductible.