WELLFLEET – The town s Dredging Task Force is hoping a lobbyist will help open the doors for the dredging of the mooring field in Wellfleet Harbor next year.
Last month, the Select Board approved a $25,000, one-year contract with the lobbying firm FBB Federal Relations, which will represent the town in discussions with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the National Marine Fisheries Service.
The mooring field, also known as Area 2 in the harbor, includes intertidal mud flats that have been designated a special aquatic site by the Fisheries Service. As a result, the Fisheries Service wants the town to pay $13.5 million in mitigation
ORLEANS A bright red crane stood out against a nearly cloudless blue spring sky, hoisting blocks of scaffolding from the site’s access road into a massive concrete foundation.
The scaffolding was part of a temporary support system for the pouring of the slab of the first floor of Orleans’ new $38.1 million wastewater treatment plant, which is scheduled to be completed in the fall of 2022. For the past two years, Orleans streets also bustled with crews installing the pipes for the $21.4 million downtown sewer collection system.
This is a moment capping over two decades of contentious debate in Orleans, and one that Alan McClennen, a former longtime Orleans select board member, could scarcely have believed possible just a few years ago when the cost of the town’s wastewater cleanup plan seemed insurmountable.
Would purchase programs work on Cape?
Last week, Shannon Hulst, the Barnstable County Cooperative Extension Deputy Director and Floodplain Director, hosted a meeting with representatives of three federal agencies that have flood buyout programs.
These programs typically require a state or federal disaster declaration as well as participation by a town, county or state entity. They are more geared to groups of homes rather than individual homes, and the structures are either demolished or relocated. The vacant property then becomes open space.
“There’s no way we’ll get federal money to buy out our million-dollar waterfront homes,” Hulst said. She said only Chatham and Orleans have regulations restricting new construction and expansion of homes in flood zones.
Cape Cod Rail Trail: Shellfish farmer's driveway access at issue capecodtimes.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from capecodtimes.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Buyouts help those who can't afford to rebuild after flooding capecodtimes.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from capecodtimes.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.