Orleans Watchdog
Kent's Point:
Scapegoating
Proposal to impose a year-round sticker at Kent’s Point...
Reducing traffic won’t mitigate erosion, which is caused by the Town, not by the people and animals they are trying to scapegoat


A major narrative supporting the Town’s proposal is that they have to stop erosion, especially at the cliff at the point. Back in March of 2024, the narrative was that this erosion was caused by dogs. Judith Bruce of the Conservation Commission (OCC) pushed this fantasy especially hard in the first OCC meeting on the January 2024 petition which started this whole process. I will pay special attention to the area she was talking about in a moment, but first, here is a picture of the cliff area from March, 2024, after the huge shearing event caused by especially high tides. Note the debris in front of it, which it would have been wise to leave there if people and dogs were important causes of erosion:

Note also that this area was too steep for anyone or any dog to climb. Below is a picture of the same area very recently:
Look closely, and you’ll see a pile of sand on the left which has been brought down by runoff. You can see from the overhanging material at the very top that the material comes from under there. The unbroken condition of that overhang makes it clear that people aren’t clambering up there (or re-enacting the D-Day landings by using grappling hooks). For more evidence that runoff is the culprit (consistent with practically the first thing out of the expert’s mouth at the public hearing when he started talking about problems – he referred to it as “scouring erosion”), see the next pictures, taken just a bit to the left:
This, I would say, is catastrophic. There are cubic yards of displaced sand here. That protruding bit in the center of both pictures is unquestionably water-driven. We can see that from its shape, but also, it happened during the torrential rains we had in mid-July. In case you think I’m overestimating the amount of sand, here’s a picture that will help you understand what you’re looking at. (Of course, you could also just go out there and see for yourself).
That’s the hole I made by sticking my right hand into the middle of that protruding plume of sand from the previous picture. It was at least four inches before I started running into the seaweed below.

In case you’re thinking, “okay, that’s bad, but won’t access restrictions mitigate that?” the answer is, no, they won’t. This erosion results from the compaction of the trails, which makes them non-porous. Once a trail is compacted, just reducing the amount of traffic over it won’t “un-compact” it. That’s why the expert recommended water bars, back in February. And yet there are no water bars protecting this critical site, only fencing to ward off Brewsterites and canines. This is what we need to be looking at carefully and critically, not the false solution of access restrictions.

So let’s move on to another area. These next two pictures are opposite angles of the banks where Judith Bruce insisted that erosion is being caused by dogs, echoing the battle cry of Meff Runyon in 2019, when he spearheaded the closing of Wildflower Beach to dogs. If you feel like I’m picking on these individuals, let me say rather that I’m calling them out. I think they are important players in feeding Orleans a false narrative about why they’re pushing closure of the area to nonresidents, and why they initially tried to whip up support for a leash law or the exclusion of dogs. That’s my sincere analysis. I would happily debate either one of them, or both of them together, in a public forum to help other citizens decide if I’m being fair.
In the first picture, if you follow the line of the ground surface right under the fence, you can see how much material has been lost. You can also see that this is happening where the water flows during rainstorms. The second picture shows how the water flows down the embankment, gradually dislodging some little boulders along the way. It’s not dogs, Judith and Meff. It’s the Town’s failure to divert water. In other words, IT'S YOU. Regarding that, see these next two pictures:
Above is a picture of a water bar that has been there for maybe 20 years. The trail has spread out around it, and in the middle, it is so covered with material that it no longer serves any functional purpose. This tells us two things: (1) The Town (Select Board, OCC, Conservation Department) has known about the need to divert water for a very long time, and (2) it hasn’t done so.
Judging by the blonde color, this one (above) looks like a brand new water bar, and by the way, the only new water bar added since the February expert’s report. Take a good look, though. Is it slowing water so as to promote absorption, as water bars are meant to? No. Instead, it’s sending the water along a path that causes it to collect into a narrower, more forceful stream, and then it’s coming down so hard from there that it’s making a hole. Here’s a closeup of that:
See that hole on the right? That’s just going to get bigger and bigger.
Having said all that, I have to mention one more person from whom we ought to hear about this: John Jannell. I don’t know what kinds of complications John has to deal with in our highly politicized environment, so I don’t want to just lay these failures on him. However, it does seem that something is wrong, and I think it’s time for him to speak up about it. Do you have the people you need? Do you have the money you need? Are people forcing you to change your priorities for their political purposes? What’s going on, good sir? I’d like the Town Manager to create some safety for John, so he can report to us honestly without fear that he’s going to be punished if he doesn’t stick to a script.


So what’s the bottom line?
Simply this: The whole dog and pony show of the past year and a half has been designed to blame these egregious failures by the Town to manage these important lands on dogs, their owners, and nonresidents (basically, “others” “outsiders” “invaders”). Are we going to let the Select Board and OCC keep controlling the narrative, or are we going to insist on dealing with the reality of the situation? Also, Ms. Newman (the Town Manager), I was impressed when you shut down the Governor Prence process. How long are you going to let this nonsense continue?