Winthrop Beach restoration could begin by summer

Restoration of the severely eroded Winthrop Beach shoreline could begin this summer, after 13 years of frustrating delays for area residents.

A modified proposal filed last week by the state’s top conservation agency calls for trucking in sand and gravel from an abandoned highway embankment in Saugus, as well as dredging natural sediment that has accumulated for more than 50 years behind the breakwaters known as the Five Sisters.

The option to dredge the sediment accumulation, known as a tombolo, changes the plan presented by the Department of Conservation and Recreation last year that proposed the use of sand and gravel from the Revere and Saugus portions of the abandoned highway embankment.

DCR officials estimate that eliminating the Revere portion would reduce the total number of truck trips to Winthrop by 6,000 to 8,000, or by about 20 percent. Cutting the number of deliveries was the primary reason listed by DCR in its application for seeking an alternative source of materials to replenish the eroded beach.

The total estimated new cost of the project is $31.2 million, about $6 million less than last year’s proposal. Funding is expected to come from the state’s Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs fiscal year 2013 capital budget.

Winthrop Town Manager James M. McKenna said he is glad the project received “renewed attention on Beacon Hill. I think everyone recognized that the project needs to be done,’’ he said.

House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo, who has been pushing for the restoration of the eroded beach since his time as a Winthrop selectman in the 1970s, said he is confident this latest proposal will receive all the necessary permits to move forward.

DeLeo, alongside state Senator Anthony Petruccelli of East Boston, attended a recent Winthrop Town Council meeting to inform town officials personally that the project was advancing.

“As I stated to the elected officials the other night, in my 22 years as a state representative and before that as a selectman, we’ve had wonderful victories, but this has been probably the most frustrating issue I’ve dealt with in all my years,’’ DeLeo said.

State conservation officials settled on this latest proposal after unsuccessfully spending more than a decade trying to obtain federal permits to dredge 500,000 cubic yards of ocean sand to replenish the 37 acres of eroded shoreline that have made the area susceptible to storm damage and coastal flooding.

Conservation officials pursued that option for Winthrop in the late 1990s as part of the state’s $30 million Back to the Beaches program, which was initiated in 1993 to restore and renovate public beaches. Using ocean-bottom sand was DCR’s preferred option because it was the least expensive, it would have been the best match to the shore sand, and it would have had the least negative impact on Winthrop and surrounding communities.

“This is the last part of the Back to the Beaches program that never got done,’’ DeLeo said. “It’s not just about aesthetics but safety, and issues of possible flooding and other catastrophes if this project wasn’t done. . . . I’m confident that we’ll get through that [permitting] process, and this summer start the renourishment.’’

The new plan calls for the use of 440,000 to 520,000 cubic yards of sand and gravel from the abandoned highway embankment in Saugus and the tombolo. The material in Saugus, located west of Route 107, was placed there in the 1960s, as part of a plan to extend Interstate 95 through Boston over the Tobin Bridge, ultimately reaching Lynn and Peabody. That plan was abandoned, and control of the embankment was given to the DCR. Although the material there is a finer grade than what is currently at Winthrop Beach, it is the same material used 20 years ago for the successful renourishment of Revere Beach.

To compensate for its fine texture and inevitable losses because of wave action during the transportation and placement period, the DCR is proposing to truck in 420,000 cubic yards from Saugus to nourish the northern part of the beach. A temporary haul road connecting to Route 107 will be constructed from a discontinued portion of Bristow Street in Saugus, so as to minimize traffic impacts, according to the proposal. Dump trucks with a capacity of 20 cubic yards, the largest road-legal truck available, will carry an average of 17 cubic yards of material by way of a route that would pass through Bell Circle from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. for eight months.

The proposal estimates that reaching the delivery goal would require an average of 120 to 140 truck trips per day, for a total of approximately 20,600 to 24,700 truck trips from Saugus.

About 90,000 to 100,000 cubic yards of material from the Five Sisters tombolo is proposed to be excavated and transported by off-road dump trucks to nourish the southern portion of the beach. To protect the endangered piping plover and least tern populations using the tombolo as habitat, the DCR is proposing limiting excavation for 30 to 45 days between Oct. 1 and March 1, depending on tides and weather.

Various federal and state permits are required for the project to move forward, as well as permits from the Winthrop and Saugus conservation commissions.

Public comments on the revised proposal, which is available for review at the Winthrop Public Library, are due to the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act office by May 15.

Because of how things have turned out over the past decade, Cheryl Tobey, a Winthrop Beach area resident and a lead organizer of the Winthrop Beach Citizens Action Committee, remains skeptical.

“I’m glad, but I just don’t see any result. For 10 years there’s been no result . . . except for denial, denial, denial, delay, delay, delay,’’ Tobey said. “I won’t feel better until I see the sand being dumped on the beach.’’