New bridge location has Bourne campground wondering
BUZZARDS BAY ― The Bourne Recreation Authority will renew discussions with the Massachusetts Department of Transportation about impacts to the canal-side Scenic Park campground as planning for a new Bourne Bridge moves forward.
The authority manages the forested camping area off Scenic Highway north of the canal and about one-fourth of a mile from Belmont Circle. As now configured in initial planning, a new canal bridge would be built across the park entrance.
Authority General Manager Barry Johnson said he will contact MassDOT again after making the agency aware, through a recent state hearing, that the authority is not a town entity and has its own range of interests.
“I was waiting to re-contact them until after I watched the Tuesday night (Jan. 24) presentation,” Johnson said. “We’re aware of what they were previously discussing.
Initial bridge plans cut through campground
“The bridge will go right over our park entrance and maintenance area,” Johnson said. “The only different thing is that I heard the natural gas lines (feeding the Cape) will no longer be under either bridge. Currently the (gas) line here is to the top and right of our (park) entrance.”
The five-member authority says the next public session on new bridges will introduce roadway designs and property takings, following area surveys. Area road realignments may be included.
Johnson said the authority, which also manages Gallo Ice Arena along Sandwich Road south of the canal, includes “a five-acre parcel right where our parking lot is off of the entrance.”
The authority governs operations on federal land within the Corps of Engineers jurisdiction. Stretching back to the mid-1970s, Scenic Park revenue has helped underwrite ice rink operations that service at least three towns.
The park is a moneymaker, according to authority records. Officials are uncertain if new bridge construction will adversely affect the number of campsites and the facility’s revenue flow.
The current bridges date to the mid-1930s. They are owned and maintained by the Corps, which in partnership with the state is coordinating plans for bridges and trying to gain $1.8 billion to replace them.
In recent weeks, the authority renewed its efforts to persuade town sewer commissioners, to approve a Scenic Park wastewater connection to the village system with treatment at the new sewage facility off the Buzzards Bay Bypass.
Authority seeks sewer hookup for campground
Members in January said the Scenic Park is often overlooked and underappreciated as an economic engine for Main Street’s pit stop economy. Some said the park should be considered for a sewer hookup even as sewer commissioners set aside wastewater gallonage allocations to new commercial entities.
From the archivesHere's the latest on Bourne campground sewer connection
But Planning Board members on Jan. 26 considered the possibility that village sewerage allocations may be exhausted by year’s end. That would seem to blunt a Scenic Park wastewater tie-in possibility.
Authority members cannot act unilaterally. In most instances, they must abide by Corps regulations related to larger projects and bottom-line annual revenue reports. Such restraint may extend to a sewerage tie-in and campground operations during bridge construction, should those two developments ultimately intersect.
Town officials and authority members, in 2019, pressed MDOT and the Corps to include the town when discussing planning for new bridges and the impacts on municipal operations.
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This article originally appeared on Cape Cod Times: Bourne authority worries about bridge's impact on campground