At the Middlesex County Board of Supervisors (MCBS) meeting on Tuesday, July 8, the board directed County Administrator Matt Walker to work with local marine contractors to remove the sand from the county owned spoil site.
County Engineer Chip England said the board needed to create a Request for Proposal (RFP) for contractors and to coordinate the removal of the sand with the United States Army Corps of Engineers and Middle Peninsula Planning District Commission, who partnered with the county in the dredge project.
At the June 3 regular monthly meeting, Chairman Don Harris addressed what he thought the county should do with the sandy spoils (dredge materials) from the dredging of Broad Creek.
He encouraged county staff to “if possible,” have the sand from the Broad Creek dredge be used in the Deltaville area to replenish county shoreline in lower Middlesex.
Leonard H. Powell of Hyattsville, Md., who owns property in the Stingray Point area, wrote a letter requesting that the sand in the spoil site be used to replenish shoreline that he lost during Hurricane Sandy in 2007.
“Over the past few years, I’ve expressed my interest in obtaining sand from the dredging of Broad Creek . . . and again I request that the sand be allocated to replenish my beach, which is in close proximity to your sand pit,” he wrote in a letter to County Administrator Matt Walker and Chairman Don Harris.
“My property is experiencing what MMPDC (Middle Peninsula Planning District Commission) describes as coastal cancer, having lost nearly 50-feet to erosion since Hurricane Sandy in 2007,” he wrote.
“I am aware that the dredge will produce two grades of sand, and I can use both,” wrote Powell.
At the board meeting on June 3, Don Harris encouraged the board to communicate with Powell and work on an agreement to allow him to be able to obtain sand for his replenishment project or that the sand be used in the Deltaville area for other shoreline replenishment projects.
The sand should be used to replenish local shorelines in Middlesex and preferably in the Deltaville community, he said.
Walker indicated he would address the removal of sand from the spoil site in that direction.
