PLUM ISLAND — The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has notified nine homeowners they may have violated federal law last month by bulldozing sand up the beach.
Army Corps Regulatory Division Chief Jennifer McCarthy sent the letter to owners of properties that were the subject of a practice called beach scraping during the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday weekend.
Beach scraping involves pushing sand from the low waterline up the beach and adding to the volume of the primary dune. The work is usually done with a bulldozer, which was the case Jan. 15 through 17 on Plum Island.
The scraping took place on the beach in front of homes on Annapolis Way and Southern Boulevard. Army Corps spokesman Tim Dugan declined to disclose the names of people who have received McCarthy's letter, citing an "ongoing investigation."
A "jurisdiction fact sheet" accompanying the letter indicates that maximum penalties could include fines of up to $25,000 or $50,000, depending on the nature of the violation as determined by the Army Corps.
Any area seaward of the mean high waterline in navigable waters is in the jurisdiction of the Army Corps. Work below the high-tide line requires a permit from the agency and from the state Department of Environmental Protection.
In her letter, McCarthy said her agency is disappointed the scraping was done without approval, and she specifically warns the recipients not to do additional work without an Army Corps permit.
"Future unauthorized work within our jurisdiction may be considered a willful violation," she wrote.
The work done in mid-January had neither an Army Corps permit nor approval from the DEP. It was done under an emergency certification issued Jan. 7 by Newbury conservation agent Doug Packer.
The state DEP revoked the emergency certification on Jan. 18, the first workday after the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday. By then, the work was already completed.
The Army Corps is seeking specific information from the letter recipients to determine whether to grant after-the-fact permits or impose sanctions.
Homeowners have 30 days — roughly until the end of this month — to respond, Dugan said. The deadline is dependent on when they received the letter.
Thomas Nee, a homeowner at 37 Annapolis Way, said the recipients would probably respond collectively, although he said he was not aware of any neighborhood meeting planned to discuss the letter.
"We'll work it," he said. "We've got to protect our property. They've had ample time to respond to us, and they've been dragging their feet."
The letter is dated Jan. 24 and sent out return-receipt-requested, so the corps can track when each letter reached its intended recipient.
The scraping on Jan. 15 to 17 was done mainly in an area that was identified last year as the first of four priority areas of erosion, from just south of Plum Island Center to about 41 Annapolis Way.
Individual owners paid for the bulldozer work in front of their own properties, but the operation was organized by Robert Connors of 39 Annapolis Way, director of the nonprofit advocacy group Plum Island Foundation. A call to Connors' cell phone seeking comment yesterday was not immediately returned.
On Jan. 7, the same day Packer issued the emergency certification allowing the beach scraping, the Army Corps sent Plum Island Foundation President Mark Sarkady a reminder that the practice requires a federal permit, "and we have no record that you have received or applied for such permits from the corps."
A hastily convened meeting and conference call on Jan. 11 apparently clarified what needed to be done to apply for an Army Corps permit.
"An incomplete permit application for beach scraping was received by the Corps of Engineers from the Plum Island Foundation on Friday afternoon, Jan. 14," McCarthy wrote in her letter to homeowners. "Subsequently, on Tuesday morning (Jan. 18), we learned that the area shown in the application as the proposed first priority area of beach scraping had been done over the weekend without a corps permit."
"This disappoints us," she added.
Connors at the time said the application contained all the information the Army Corps needed to make a decision.
He and Packer said the DEP had a seven-day period beginning Jan. 7 in which to modify or cancel the emergency certification, which expired Jan. 14. DEP officials said the clock actually started ticking on Jan. 10 and that weekends and holidays don't count toward the seven-day deadline. They argued that they actually had until Jan. 19 to review the certification.
The letter asks recipients to provide the Army Corps with several pieces of information, including the following:
The name of the individual or firm that determined the limit of the waters, along with to-scale drawings showing the property before and after the work;
The exact purpose of the work and the reasons for performing or allowing it within Army Corps jurisdiction without a permit;
The person who authorized the work to proceed and who had responsibility for obtaining authorization;
The person or firm that actually performed the work;
Any contracts for the work;
The specific dates and times the work occurred.
"If you do not respond within this time frame, we will assume you do not intend to resolve this matter, and we will take action as required by statute," McCarthy wrote.
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