Camps Retreat, Or Surrender, Ahead Of Eroding Beach

by Alan Pollock

            CHATHAM — Churned by a weekend storm, erosion continues on the southern tip of North Beach.  Days after one camp was moved out of harm’s way, another is slated to be demolished before it can be claimed by the ocean.

            On March 12, contractors loaded the Fuller camp on wheels and towed it to temporary quarters on the Hammatt property.  Only days later, much of the Fuller property appears to have been claimed by the ocean, leaving the Fitzgerald camp the closest to the advancing inlet. 

A recent aerial photo shows two distinct channels in the new inlet.  The northerly channel (on the right) feeds and drains Pleasant Bay, while the southerly one feeds mostly Chatham Harbor.  KELSEY-KENNARD AIRVIEW

           The greatest danger now may be from the retreat of the east-facing beach, Jef Fitzgerald said Monday.  On Sunday, his camp was about 50 feet from the beach, having rapidly lost around 75 feet in recent weeks.  On Monday, his camp was 41 feet away from high tide. 

            “That’s nine feet [lost] since Sunday,” he said.

            Fitzgerald has already resigned himself to losing the camp, which was buried by more than three feet of sand in November by the remnants of Hurricane Noel, the same storm that destroyed the Broad family camp.  With sand covering the lower third of the cottage, it would be impractical to try to move or raise the building, Fitzgerald said.

            Last week, he obtained approvals to demolish the camp and have the debris trucked off the beach.  The window of opportunity to do so is rapidly closing, with the shorebird nesting season rapidly approaching, and with the erosion continuing unabated.  If possible, Fitzgerald said he would seek to have the camp torn down sometime this week.

            Originally owned by the Stearns family, the Fitzgerald camp was once located on Sand Pond in Harwich.  It was flaked and trucked to the beach, placed on land owned by the Starkweather family.  It was renovated in 1957, and sold four years later to George “Bub” Sears, who was known as the Mayor of North Beach.  In around 1970, the camp was sold to the Green family, and is now owned by Fitzgerald.  The camp has always been prone to flooding during the winter, and furnishings and the refrigerator were elevated for safety.  Details of the camp’s history are included in a 2004 book by Frances Higgins.

            On Monday, Fitzgerald filed an application for a building permit to rebuild his camp, though he admittedly doesn’t know whether he will have land on which to do so.

            Once the Fitzgerald camp is gone, the southernmost will be the camp owned by John Shea.  Shea said he has been told that, as of April 1, no more heavy equipment will be allowed on the beach. 

            “So we either need to go out there and tear it down, or we need to go and move it,” he said.  He is currently in the process of obtaining permits to move his camp north to the Hammatt property.  It will remain there until at least September, when heavy equipment is allowed to return to the beach, and it will be possible either to demolish it or place it on pilings.  The race to move the camp isn’t just against the April 1 deadline, it’s against the advancing ocean.

            “It’s the worst erosion that we’ve seen since the erosion started to attack,” Shea said Tuesday.  “We probably lost 60 feet of beach on the Atlantic face over Saturday night’s wind and tide,” he said.

            Shea said he has been renting the camp since the 1950s, and purchased it in the 1970s. 

            The next camp to the north is owned by veterinarian Dr. John Kelley, who said he doesn’t think his cottage can be relocated.

            “The problem with mine is, it’s old and made out of old pieces of shipwreck,” he said.  The Kelley camp is situated on pine stumps, with a large fireplace in the center of the house.  “I’m not sure it’s even moveable,” he said.  And he’s not convinced that it makes sense to spend tens of thousands of dollars to move the building, without a guarantee that it can eventually be moved back.  “Does it just wait there until next year, when you tear it down?” he said.

            If the Kelley camp goes, the southernmost camp will then be the Thayer camp, followed by the Hammatt camp and the relocated Fuller camp.  Once home to at least 15 camps, the First Village now has just six.

            Meanwhile, experts are scrutinizing a recent series of aerial photos of the new inlet which seem to suggest two nearly separate channels.  The most northerly channel appears to be accommodating strong flood and ebb tides, using the deep channel inside Pleasant Bay that parallels the southern end of North Beach.  The development of that channel is likely linked to the continued erosion of the tip of the beach, Chatham Coastal Resources Director Ted Keon said. 

            But the more southerly channel in the inlet appears to be more “flood dominant,” Keon said, with no significant amount of water from Chatham Harbor apparently flowing out of the inlet.  On an outgoing tide, most of the water from Chatham Harbor appears to be exiting through the main inlet by the lighthouse, he noted.

            Meanwhile, the photos show the continuing development of the “dogleg” on the northern end of North Beach Island, which threatens to make navigation difficult between Chatham Harbor and Pleasant Bay.  Experts have theorized that eventually, that sand spit might connect North Beach Island to the mainland.

3/20/08