Petition aims to save Saugus roadbed

SAUGUS – A new petition has been started to help save the old I-95 roadbed that, after being abandoned 40 years ago, has gone from would-be highway to hallowed ground in East Saugus.The “Save Rumney Marsh” petition can be found on causes.com and as of Thursday had more than 220 signatures.The petition is a response to the Department of Conservation and Recreation?s plan to remove 350,000 cubic yards of sand from the roadbed (also referred as “the sand pile”) to restore Winthrop Beach.?There?s nothing to suggest they?re going to leave this place better than the way they found it,” said Town Meeting member Peter Manoogian. “There will be less buffering to Route 107 and RESCO ? There is wildlife there ? There?s a whole habitat that?s grown here. I?m not convinced it will result in a better situation.”Residents from the neighborhood have been showing up en mass to recent Conservation Commission meeting to show their opposition to the project, and in response the DCR has scaled back the project from removing the entire roadbed to just the slope facing Eastern Avenue.Joe Orfant, the Chief of the Bureau of Planning and Resource Protection for the DCR, said the sand removal project is also “intimately tied” to a marsh restoration project.?You?re always looking for ways to tie things together to fund things,” said Orfant, in an interview at his Boston office earlier this week. “This is an opportunity to find some funding by piggybacking onto Winthrop. The two pieces are now intimately linked, which was our goal from the beginning.”Orfant said the DCR?s goal was “always to respond to the community and to do an environmentally-sound project,” noting he has “listened to the community and its concerns.”?We agreed to leave a much larger portion of the highway embankment behind than what most environmental folks would like to because it?s an amenity to the community both as a visual and as a sound barrier,” he said. “We do listen. I think it?s more than a middle ground. I think it?s a winning situation for everyone.”Orfant also noted he hopes to have a design for the marsh restoration “very soon.”However, Manoogian called restoring the marsh a “wing and a prayer,” and said a winning project would be dredging sand from the ocean as originally intended.?Saugus needs a much better plan and guarantee,” said Manoogian. “I see no evidence that what is going to be left will be an improvement. What constitutes evidence is a bona fide application with submitted plans seeking an order of conditions from the Conservation Commission.”The DCR was originally supposed to dredge sand eight miles out in the ocean for the project, however, that was shot down by the Army Corps of Engineers in 2008 for environmental reasons.Orfant said the current proposal is “not the way we should be doing Winthrop.”?There was a better way that we fought 10 years for,” said Orfant. “We lost that battle so here we are. When we came to this, to reluctantly having to truck material in, we saw this as an opportunity to win two things: to advance salt marsh restoration and also solve our problem for our source (for sand) for Winthrop.”Orfant said restoring the salt marsh in the area will increase flood storage by 30 percent and noted that the roadbed only offers a “small amount of additional flood protection” by holding back flood surge by about 30 minutes.?In terms of the hydrology and the health, it?s a greater gain to have maximum salt marsh restoration,” said Orfant. “Which means more habitat and a healthier marsh ? This for me is the culmination of 20 years of anticipation. When we?re gone from here at the end of this project that?s going to be it. That?s going to be the condition of the marsh going forward.”Orfant estimated the beach restoration will cost around $20 million with salt marsh restoration costing “a couple of million.”Orfant said he stood behind his 30-year “body of work,” saying he?s not going to give up on the project after 20 years.?Everything I?ve done has wo