Progress Report
PR #6a - April 1999

This is a status report of the major accomplishments of Three Bays Preservation over the winter.

Channel Dredging and Dead Neck Rebuilding

When you return to the Cape, you will notice a change in the Cotuit Channels widths and depths and a rebuilt Dead Neck Island.

Cotuit Bay Dredging

Dredging started Nov 27, 1998 and was completed Jan 09, 1999.

Channels Excavated:

Cotuit Main Channel

• 3,500 ft Long
• 200 ft Wide
• -12 ft MLW

Cotuit Channel to Seapuit River

• 1,700 ft Long
• 60 ft Wide
• -8 ft MLW

Dead Neck Island Rebuilt

• 2,200 ft Long
• 150 Wide Top + 10 ft MLW Elevation
• 10:1 Slopes
• 350 ft wide at 0 MLW

The top 150 ft width has had beach grass planted in order to cut down on wind erosion and create habitat (This is not shown in the pictures).

A snow fence has been installed in order to minimize wind erosion and prevent beach goers from using the area above mean high water.

It has been reported from visual observations that the Cotuit bay flushing action has improved since the main channel was dredged. This is very good news! We intend to verify this with a monitoring program.

The material excavated from the Cotuit Bay was generally medium to coarse sand with a trace of stones and gravel, this material made an excellent beach fill; this is also good news.

West Bay Dredging

The plan was to dredge approximately 30,000 - 40,000 cy of sand out of West Bay and place the material on the eastern end of Dead Neck. This was started on January 10, 1999, but was halted immediately because of complaints from the shellfish grants owners, which caused the town to stop any further dredging and beach building operations. Tests performed by the Woods Hole Group subsequently proved that no damage had occurred to the shellfish in West Bay from the dredging project.

Three Bays Management

Credit must be given to our manager Lindsey Counsell for the overall success of this project. The project entailed a complex dredging operation that was executed in a very sensitive environmental area. Lindsey has worked hard to make sure that all parties that could be effected in any way by the dredging operation were well satisfied.

Water Quality Monitoring

In order to learn more about how the Three Bays system works and the status of the health of the system we are planning to implement an on going water quality-monitoring program starting this Spring.