Meetings Ahead
Meetings in Truro are often held remotely. Go to Truro-ma.gov and click on the meeting you are interested in for an agenda and details on how to join.
Thursday, Dec. 5
- Select Board special meeting, 11:15 a.m., Town Hall and online
Monday, Dec. 9
- Recreation Advisory Committee work session, 3:30 p.m., Truro Central School
- Commission on Disabilities, 4:30 p.m., Council on Aging
Tuesday, Dec. 10
- Budget Task Force with Finance Committee, 8:30 a.m., Town Hall
- Select Board, 5 p.m., Town Hall and online
Wednesday, Dec. 11
- Council on Aging Board, 8 a.m., Council on Aging
- Housing Authority, 5 p.m. Town Hall
Conversation Starter
Longnook Revisited
When extreme erosion closed Longnook Beach again in July after a brief reopening, the town engaged the Center for Coastal Studies and the Woods Hole Group to assess the dune and devise alternative access options. DPW Director Jarrod Cabral and project manager Mitchell Buck presented them to the select board on Nov. 19.
Buck discussed five possible routes built on data collected during seven weeks of drone surveys to monitor erosion, a topographic survey, and mapping. “We wanted to look at a more natural, easy-to-maintain solution that the town could implement themselves,” Buck said.
Four options involve creating a path straight down the dune. The fifth would build on the existing path running north and extend onto Cape Cod National Seashore property. That’s the one Cabral said he liked. “The best bet is to reshape some of what we already have now,” he said.
Buck agreed: “We think that it’s the lowest impact and most feasible solution.”
This approach will require a special permit from the National Park Service, however, and Cabral said he did not know how long that would take. If the work is to be done this spring, he said, it will have to be completed before April 1 when piping plovers start nesting.
Select board chair Sue Areson asked whether the material between the shed and the parking lot at Longnook would be removed, how wide the path would be, and how it would be maintained.
Buck said that debris removal would require permission from NPS, and that additional public input would be required to determine other specifics for the final design. —Aden Choate
