In a win for advocates for continued beach access on Chappaquiddick properties, the state has deemed that a beach management plan for several properties on Chappaquiddick Island will not require an environmental impact report — eliminating a step in the conservation organization’s efforts to preserve access.
The Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs’ Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act Office, in a nine-page decision finalized on Friday, ruled on an application from the Trustees of Reservations that appealed a town decision restricting the number of vehicles allowed to access its Chappy beaches. The decision wasn’t public until Monday evening.
The Trustee’s properties are at Cape Poge, Leland Beach, and Wasque Beach, popular recreational areas where disagreements have stewed for years over the use of oversand vehicles, or OSV. Proponents of the Trustee’s proposal have argued for the preservation of historic access to these Chappaquiddick beaches while property owners claimed OSVs and visitors have been damaging to the pristine environment.
Over 1,000 pages of correspondence from public beach access advocates, Chappaquiddick land owners, and other agencies including the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection accompanied the decision.
Some comments expressed support for maintaining public access while others highlighted concerns of the project’s potential impacts, “primarily resulting from OSV use, association with alteration of wetland resources and rare species habitat in light of changing climate conditions,” the decision reads.
Both for different reasons, the Trustees and protesting abutters both appealed conditions placed in May by the Edgartown conservation commission that limited the number of oversand vehicles to 200 at Leland/Wasque and 30 at Cape Poge. The Trustees claimed the commission’s decision was an overreach, while the abutters argued the Trustees failed to provide sufficient information about how OSVs would impact the environment and wildlife at the beaches.
Friday’s state decision dealt with the Trustees’ appeal. Based on the Trustees’ environmental notification form and public comments, the state encouraged project proponents to work with “local, state, and federal stakeholders to consider further options to reduce overall wetland impacts and to identify opportunities to incorporate restoration and resilience measures into the Beach Management Plan, particularly in light of the the anticipated effects of climate change, which are already felt on Martha’s Vineyard.”
However, the decision also notes that the issuance of the certificate is not a complete win for the Trustees as their appeal is still ongoing. The public engagement process for the project is still open.
“The [superseding order of conditions] process includes additional opportunities for public review and comment, and MassDEP has sufficient regulatory authority to address outstanding issues during permitting,” the decision reads.
According to Fabienne Alexis, MassDEP deputy press secretary, her department “will proceed with its review of the appeal once the Secretary’s Certificate has been issued.”
While this is just one hurdle in the process, the Trustees were pleased at the MEPA review result that may have saved them up to a year of state processes.
“We understand that [Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs Secretary Rebecca Tepper’s] decision concludes that DEP is the only state agency requiring action under the Massachusetts Wetlands Protection Act, rather than all the state agencies through MEPA,” Darci Schofield, the Trustees’ director for the Islands, told the Times in an email. “We look forward to moving to the next phase with DEP and the requests for the Superseding Orders of Conditions.”
Peter Sliwkowski, president of Martha’s Vineyard Beachgoers Access Group and advocate for public access, said he’s still working with Schofield on what the state’s most recent decision means in the “short and long term.” However, he said it represents “great accomplishments” for the Trustees.
“In other words, a really great day but [we] still have work to do,” Sliwkowski said, calling the MEPA decision a “major positive step in the journey.”
Rachel Self, who represents the citizens’ appeal, said despite the decision it “does not diminish the serious nature of the possible impact of this project on the environment.”
She pointed to how the certificate requests the Trustees to look into an alternative, “less impactful” plan than what was presented since it could have “the most environmental impacts” among options that were considered. Self also raised a point that the secretary asks for trail restoration options rather than just maintenance.
Additionally, Self said that the decision showed MEPA was taking the Trustees “at its word.” She said the conservation organization had demonstrated years of mismanagement on the Vineyard, like with the troubles that surrounded Dike Bridge between the Trustees and Edgartown.
“The environment will continue to suffer for it, until someone finally demands that instead of making mealy-mouthed promises to implement unspecified ‘adaptive management’ techniques, and instead of making bald assertions that it follows and enforces all its own policies, TTOR actually show that it is doing what needs to be done,” Self said in an email. “Saying something doesn’t make it so. TTOR has been paying lip service to what this land needs for a decade. We are hopeful that eventually, someone will make them back it up with action.”
