Meetings Ahead
Most meetings in Eastham are in-person, typically with an online-attendance option. Go to eastham-ma.gov and click on the meeting you are interested in for details. All meetings are at Town Hall unless otherwise indicated.
Thursday, Oct. 19
- Elementary School Improvement Council, 2:15 p.m., school conference room
Monday, Oct. 23
- Visitors Tourism and Services Board, 5 p.m.
Tuesday, Oct. 24
- Conservation Commission onsite, 8:15 a.m. to 10 a.m.
- Conservation Commission, 6 p.m.
Thursday, Oct. 26
- Council on Aging Board, 9 a.m.
- Board of Health, 3 p.m.
Conversation Starter
Water Resources Protection
The select board voted on Oct. 16 to approve the filing of the Targeted Watershed Management Plan to the Mass. Environmental Policy Act Office (MEPA). Consulting firm GHD will submit the final plan to the board prior to the Oct. 31 filing.
GHD representatives presented a project update that targets the May 2025 town meeting for a construction funding request for Phase 1, covering the Salt Pond subwatershed, the Route 6 corridor between the Salt Pond Visitor Center and T-Time, and the visitor center itself, with a potential of extending to town hall. It includes proposals for a wastewater treatment facility at the DPW site on Old Orchard Road and sewering.
An engineer’s opinion of probable construction costs projected Phase 1 at $130,650,000 in 2023 dollars. The opinion on probable costs adjusted for inflation at the estimated 2027 midpoint of construction was just over $160 million.
Although Phase 2 costs of over $139 million were included in the presentation, board members and Town Manager Jacqui Beebe were adamant that those costs should not be considered now.
“It’s not part of our estimate, and it’s not part of our communication to our community,” said board member Jamie Demetri. “Down the road, there may be more to this project,” she said, but “probably not in our lifetimes.”
Board chair Art Autorino disagreed, saying people should hear that “another shoe is going to drop.”
“We’re planning on another shoe,” said Beebe, “but we don’t know what size it is, what it looks like, what color it is, whether a baby’s going to wear it or a really large-footed person.”
Phase 2 includes the Town Cove and Nauset Stream subwatersheds. —Linda Culhane
