Group protecting Niantic Bay Beach

Conservationists seek to preserve site, educate the visitors who use it

East Lyme — The East Lyme conservation group that developed the Niantic boardwalk is trying to preserve the manmade Niantic Bay Beach, overseeing the planting of beach plants and distributing educational pamphlets with information about the species of plants and shells that can be found there.

The project began in 2015 when the East Lyme Public Trust Foundation worked with the town’s parks and recreation department to hire a surveyor to measure the distribution of the sand, which was deposited there in 2009 to create the beach alongside the reconstruction of the Amtrak railroad bridge.

The firm, Gerwick-Mereen Co., has surveyed the beach each October for the past three years, work which foundation member Jim Gallagher, a retired oceanographer at the Navy Underwater Systems Center in New London, said will help track how the beach sand is affected by storms and tides.

“We’re hoping ... to be able to accrue enough information to understand where and how the sand is moving, and at what rate,” Gallagher said.

Scientists at the University of Connecticut’s Avery Point campus and Connecticut Sea Grant advised foundation members to plant American beach grass and beach pea plants that will take root and stabilize the dunes that abut the boardwalk, and students from East Lyme High School and UConn Avery Point helped plant seedlings purchased by the foundation in 2016 and this April.

“They’ve taken root, they’re doing quite well,” Gallagher said.

But the plantings are in danger from uneducated — or uncaring — walkers and ATV riders who drive, walk or sit over them. At a presentation Monday night in the East Lyme Public Library, Gallagher showed photos of the ATV tracks over the plantings and said he has seen people sitting on them.

He said bamboo stalks he installed to protect the plantings were later found discarded in the sand and charred.

“People used it to start a fire,” he said.

The foundation is also using a grant from Connecticut Sea Grant to print pamphlets that include information about the plants, seaweed and seashells that appear on the beach to help beachgoers understand the ecology of the beach.

The pamphlets, produced with

help from Juliana Barrett, a coastal habitat specialist with Connecticut Sea Grant, are available at public buildings in East Lyme and the information is available on the foundation’s website.

Gallagher said he hopes to inform people about the value of the beach — “it’s not just a place to put a chair or umbrella,” he said — and inform them about the risk of erosion that could change the shape of the beach.

“If the sand is lost, who is going to replace it?” he said.