Beach update

According to the Daily News, the sand is being moved off the center parking lot per an order from the DEP.

But the Department of Environmental Protection also wants a large pile of sand in the Center parking lot returned to an Olga Way storage area from which it came, a DEP spokesman said yesterday.

Police Chief Michael Reilly and Highway Superintendent Tim Leonard met Tuesday with a DEP representative to get the agency's approval to build up enough sand to create a rough incline from the Center parking lot to the beach, DEP spokesman Joe Ferson said. The dune had been scoured out by tidal action so that there was a precipitous drop to the beach.

The ramp was constructed, and as of yesterday, about half the remaining sand had been moved back to Olga Way. Front-end loaders were parked next to the pile at Plum Island Center, presumably to move the rest of the sand ...

(Newbury Selectman Vincent) Russo said Leonard had asked to be allowed to leave the extra sand at the Center, to avoid the fuel expense of transporting it back to Olga Way, but had been turned down by DEP representative Ron Stelline. (Hey, they must have read this post.)

Funny I don't see anyone squawking about moving sand that has been sitting on an asphalt parking lot for weeks back to Olga Way (also on the island). I seem to recall a local developer being criticized for dumping on his property in Newbury snow plowed from an asphalt parking lot in Newburyport ... must have been a bad dream.