Practicality, legality, safety cited as Marshfield voters nix walking trail in Brant Rock

MARSHFIELD – A proposed $126,000 walking trail in Brant Rock that would have skirted the dredge spoils area to east of Harbor Park has been rejected by Marshfield voters.

The trail, which was approved by the conservation committee in June 2021, was nixed by town meeting voters Oct. 17. It would have followed a berm near the park and involved pruning back vegetation and dead limbs along the berm and bringing in compacted stone dust for the path, committee Chairman Kevin Cantwell said.

Residents raised concerns about the project’s practicality, legality, safety and impact on the environment. Brant Rock Village Association President Diane Jordan presented a slideshow of the site, saying that the berm is too narrow and steep in places to support foot traffic. The project, Jordan said, would require massive earth-moving.

Marshfield resident Pam Keith said town officials did not obtain necessary permitting to build on an area zoned as coastal wetlands. She urged those assembled for the special town meeting to reject the proposal, which she described as a “blank check to bulldoze” state conservation land. Other residents raised concerns about possible health hazards from materials in the dredge spoils.

Green Harbor periodically requires dredging of its outer channel and inner harbor to maintain economic vitality. The harbor consistently ranks toward the top in the state for tuna and lobster exports.

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Marshfield Harbormaster Mike DiMeo said he received permits from the Marshfield Conservation Committee and the state  Department of Environmental Protection before the project was presented.

“We spent some $37,000 to have those prior dredge spoils tested,” DiMeo said. “It’s suitable for a kids’ playground; that’s how clean the material is.”

The analysis of samplings drawn from the area, which is posted on the town’s website, found metals and other chemicals at or below “natural” levels.

Marshfield resident Kathleen Tenero raised suspicions that the trail, if approved, would make way for a bigger project not fully disclosed by the project’s backers. In June 2021, a plan to extend a parking lot into the dredge spoils area was approved by the conservation committee along with the walking trail.

The plan raised some controversy at the time, when Board of Public Works member John Cusick criticized the project on social media as "a thin excuse for the destruction of a 'Salt Marsh' the size of two football fields for a mud pit."

Cusick’s statement received a sharp rebuke from then Board of Selectmen Chair Chris Rohland.

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“We’re not looking for a Walmart parking lot,” DiMeo said. “There are some weekends when the bigger boat trailers create congestion on the pier.”

DiMeo denied any connection between the trail and plans to expand the parking lot.

In defending the trail, he pointed to success with the harbor walk, Harbor Park and the harbormaster building.

“They’ve boosted home values and made the area safer, made the area more aesthetically pleasing,” DiMeo said. “And that’s all that (the proposed walking trail) was, a great beneficial reuse of the dredge spoils area, which is an underutilized piece of land that the town owns.”

DiMeo said he hasn’t given up on his vision for the dredge spoils area.

“It’s still an approved project, so could we go in there and reestablish the trail with volunteers? Yeah, we could, and we just might," he said. "We’ll see what happens, but there are other, bigger projects on the horizon.”

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This article originally appeared on The Patriot Ledger: Marshfield residents block plans for walking trail in Brant Rock