Friday, September 25, 2009

Status of the beach project

I got this via email yesterday, from the Army Corps of Engineers:

Project Status - Next Steps: The Project Partnership Agreement (PPA) must be approved by both Corps Headquarters and the Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works before it can be executed by DCR and the Corps. The PPA is just one of the remaining outstanding items that must be in-hand before Plans and Specifications can be issued to Solicit Bids. The other items include all remaining easements, and the Coastal Zone Management Consistency Determination Concurrence (CZMC). The CZMC awaits the Chapter 91 license, which itself awaits the easements. The two Towns' shares of the construction cost must also be provided to DCR so that DCR may provide the Corps with the Non-Federal cost-share for the project. So, while we are getting much closer, there are several steps yet to complete.


I'm trying to determine if indeed the projects can be put off until next year, should the easements not be granted by essentially next week.

The dredging project is being funded partly through ARRA (aka stimulus bill), and it was my impression that those projects using stimulus funds have strict deadlines, at least for start dates (I think some have 2 yrs. to complete).

That's why the sewer plant project has been split into two parts - they only had 60% of it designed by the deadline to submit design specs. That was Aug. 3.

But going by the deadlines provided at the update meeting for the WWTF, construction bids for eligible projects must be submitted by Dec. 1.

So it does not look to me like anything can be put off here. And thus, the potential threat of taking properties by eminent domain appears to be an empty one.

The Beach Alliance is meeting on Monday morning, so I can get an answer then.

3 comments:

Bubba said...

So I heard it through the plum bush that one of the hold-out homes in one where the dune was bulldozed away years ago to improve an ocean view. Nice huh ?

Gillian Swart said...

It's also where PITA and the town have vehicular access to the beach. What a debacle.

Bubba said...

It's my understanding that the beach access is via a paper st/right-of-way that is adjacent to the bulldozing.