To the Editor:

I am writing this on Monday April 10th. Tomorrow night is the W.T town meeting. Warrant article #25 asks the town to approve $30,000 to “manually” lower the dune to provide easier access to Lambert’s cove beach. Every year, during the winter, the natural forces push sand up and fill in the path. This makes it difficult for many people to traverse it. It really is pretty steep. The Parks & recreation committee rolls out a removeable walkway, but the grade has to be lowered to make it safe.

It’s all a noble cause and should be done. It does no permanent damage to the dune, kills no animals, and disturbs minimal amounts or no vegetation. 

So about that $30,000. The word “manually” is what I am writing about. 

For decades, this lowering of the path on the dune has been accomplished by someone with a small “Bobcat.” It usually took about 3 hours and cost the town under $1,000. Then someone somewhere got the whacko idea that a Bobcat shouldn’t do it. I can’t find any laws about it, although apparently there is something to this effect.

So back to  that $30,000, and the word “manually.” To put that cost into perspective; If people were hired at an hourly rate of $40 an hour, it would take 750 hours of labor to reach that

$30,000. So if the town could actually hire 4 laborers at that rate (insurance taxes, etc included) it would take them 4 weeks and 3 1/2 days to get it done. That’s assuming a 40 hour work week, as anything over that would incur additional expenses in the form of “time and a half” overtime pay. If this project could be fast tracked and started by May 1, Those workers would still be there on June 1.

I don’t know why the bobcat would be prohibited from doing this. The town of W.T does, after all, allows a large excavator onto the beach to open the Tisbury great pond at least twice a year.

But there is one thing I can say. I think this “law,” or whatever it is, forbidding the Bobcat is likely the result of well intentioned environmentalists. But it hurts the environmental cause, as it gives those who could care less about running over plovers, much less destroying sand dunes, the opportunity to mock the environmental movement. And rightly so. 

I would suggest the town find out the consequence of violating this law. Let’s say it’s a $10,000 fine. Ok, take the fine. Don’t spend money on lawyers to contest it. Just pay it. As an environmentalist, I have no problem with that. Sometimes, “stupid is as stupid does.”

Don Keller

Tisbury