WELLFLEET — The draft of a federal plan to restore the 1,100-acre Herring River floodplain recommends allowing the highest tides possible, which would mean the Chequessett Yacht and Country Club would have to move or raise part of its golf course.
The river's estuary and floodplain is the largest on the Outer Cape and includes saltmarsh, mud flats and open water in Wellfleet and Truro, much of it within the boundaries of the Cape Cod National Seashore. The restoration is the largest ever in the Gulf of Maine region, according to Seashore Supt. George Price.
A 60-day review period begins today and ends Dec. 12.
The National Park Service will release a draft version of the project's environmental impact statement and report today, although the Times was provided with an executive summary earlier this week. A 60-day public comment period runs through Dec. 12 and a public hearing is scheduled for Nov. 8 at the Wellfleet Senior Center.
"It's an amazing opportunity," Price said Thursday. "We've all learned over the last several decades of the importance of wetlands. Here, in one project, we might be able to take care of a lot of acreage."
The large and complex waterway feeds into Wellfleet Harbor. It has been changed by human use for the last 150 years, most substantially in 1909 with construction of a dike at Chequessett Neck Road, at the mouth of the river, to reduce saltmarsh mosquitoes.
By the mid-1930s, the river had been channeled and straightened. About the same time, the country club built the nine-hole golf course in the adjoining Mill Creek floodplain. Several homes have also been built at low elevations in the floodplain.
Since at least the 1960s, trouble has been brewing in the marsh, according to the draft report. Rusted tide gates on the dike caused periodic flooding of the golf course and homes. There have also been die-offs of American eel and river herring due to poor water quality, fecal coliform contamination of shellfish beds, high concentrations of nitrogen, phosphorus and pesticides in sediment and the shrinking of wetlands due to lack of sediment.
In 2005, Wellfleet and the Seashore formally agreed to cooperate in restoring the river. Truro joined in 2007.
"We've been involved as long as its been going on," said Jack Whalen, a Chequessett Yacht and Country Club member who chairs the golf club's committee handling issues related to the restoration. "We've been very supportive and cooperative with them. They have assured us that we will have a playable golf course."
Club members are anxiously waiting to see what the draft recommendations are, Whalen said.
"We're all for the restoration as long as they protect the golf course," he said.
The Herring River Restoration Committee, which guided the development of the draft report, considered four alternatives under federal, state and county guidelines, focusing on what was economically and technically possible, and sensible, according to the executive summary. The committee includes representatives from Wellfleet, Truro, the Seashore and other state and federal agencies.
One option was "no action." There are no cost estimates yet for the other three, said Seashore restoration ecologist Timothy Smith, a member of the committee.
The plan recommended by the committee would rebuild the Chequessett Neck Road dike with a series of widened culverts with adjustable tide gates, allowing mean high water spring tides up to 5.6 feet and 100-year storm-driven tides up to 7.5 feet in the Lower Herring River, according to the report. A new dike at the mouth of Mill Creek would be built with an adjustable, two-way tide gate to partially restore tidal flow to that area. Low-lying golf holes on the adjacent course would be moved to higher ground or raised by filling and regrading.
The other two options vary in how high the tides would be allowed to reach and the effect on the golf course.
One would rebuild the Chequessett Neck Road dike but allow the lowest mean high spring tides, 4.8 feet, and a 100-year storm-driven tide of 6 feet in the Lower Herring River. That option would not require a new dike at the mouth of Mill Creek, but the golf course would be affected. Low-lying golf course holes would be moved or elevated.
The last option would also rebuild the Chequessett Neck Road dike. It would allow moderate mean high spring tides, up to 5.6 feet, and 100-year storm-driven tides up to 7.5 feet in the Lower Herring River. A new dike at the mouth of Mill Creek with a one-way, flapper-style gate would prevent tides from entering that area but allow freshwater to flow from the creek into the river. No flood protection measures would be needed for the golf course or other low-lying private properties.