After a months-long dispute between the Trustees and local landowners on Chappaquiddick, the opposing sides now agree on one thing: Neither is happy with the Edgartown conservation commission’s decision to allow limited over-sand vehicle access on Leland Beach and Cape Poge Wildlife Refuge.
The Trustees filed two appeals Friday with the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, asking it to overrule the commission’s May 15 decision, saying it sought to
“inappropriately usurp and supplant” the Trustees’ “role and rights as a property owner” of the Chappaquiddick properties.
A group of abutters also filed two appeals, arguing that the Trustees had failed to provide the state with sufficient information about how over-sand vehicles would impact the environment and wildlife at the two beaches, which are popular for fishing and beachgoing.
In its ruling, the commission decided that 200 over-sand vehicles, or OSVs, could drive each day onto Leland Beach, which is near the Dike Bridge, and another 30 vehicles could use Cape Poge, which is at the island’s northern tip.
The conservation commission said Monday it is confident the state Environmental Protection department will uphold its decision. It said the conditions for OSV access allow for “responsible management and conservation” of the beaches.
“The commission looks forward to refuting the Trustees’ individual arguments at the appropriate time,” it said in a statement.
Rachel Self, an abutter who said she represents “65 residents, abutters, and concerned citizens,” said the Trustees had provided “no scientific studies or data” to support OSV use on the two beaches, such as a study on the OSV capacity at the beaches or a site survey.
In their appeals, the Trustees, a statewide conservation group, said the commission had overstepped its authority.
It argued that many of the conditions it imposed, such as how to regulate the use of trails and OSV access to beaches, are outside of the commission’s jurisdiction under the state Wetlands Protection Act.
Those restrictions, the Trustees said, could be done voluntarily or after further discussion with the town, but are not appropriate as requirements.
The Trustees pushed, in particular, against being required to install a “code-controlled gate” at their own expense, if signs do not dissuade visitors from restricted areas. And it called the commission’s requirement that they provide monthly reports to the commission “burdensome.”
“Perhaps most egregiously, in [Cape Poge] the commission has categorically excluded the public from traveling by OSV to 30 acres of previously accessible Trustees property on the Cape Poge Elbow and at the Gut, not because of wetlands concerns, but solely to placate the demands of summer residents owning private property there,” the Trustees wrote.
The Trustees urged the state to allow an increase of the number of daily over-sand vehicles to 300 for both beaches combined, but said the figure could be lowered if necessary.
In its statement Monday, the commission said it “rejects” the Trustees’ allegations that the conditions were imposed to please summer residents. They said they had conducted a lengthy public review process that produced “hundreds of submissions from interested parties.”
The commission said the beaches are sometimes unsuitable for OSV access, such as Cape Poge beaches, between areas past the lighthouse known as the Elbow and the Gut, that are flooded twice a day.
The abutters’ appeals, filed on May 23, said it was unclear how the commission calculated the number of OSVs, writing that it appeared based on the length of the beach and the number of vehicles that accessed it in the past. The abutters also sought more details on how the Trustees will manage the two properties.
“There aren’t appropriate guardrails in place,” Self told The Times.
The abutters want the Trustees to be required to have a special permit for allowing OSV access on the properties, separate from the order of conditions granted by the conservation commission.
Additionally, abutters asked how OSV access can be allowed when Leland Beach and Cape Poge both fall under priority habitat under the state’s Natural Heritage and Endangered Species Program.
Edmund Coletta, a Department of Environmental Protection spokesperson, said OSV travel is prohibited during the appeal process. He didn’t give a timeline, but said DEP staff will go to Chappy for a site visit of the beaches before officials make a decision.
