It’s pretty easy to see why Norman Courtemanche loves enjoying Salisbury Reservation Beach with his family.
During a recent sunny, 90-degree day, Courtemanche sat in a chair and admired the coastal scenery.
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“It’s a beautiful area to be in,” he said. “Especially on a day like this. You can’t beat it.”
But over the years, the Lowell resident told us it keeps getting tougher to make it to the pristine spot along the North Shore.
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That’s because on the walkway to the beach, the handrails are either barely visible or buried under several feet of sand.
“It’s a real struggle,” Courtemanche told me. “You get to top of the ramp where it’s flat and you’re huffing and puffing.
Courtemanche said it’s not just a challenge for senior citizens like himself. It also presents an obstacle for people with disabilities, or folks lugging kids and arms filled with beach gear back to the parking lot.
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Courtemanche said he and his wife have submitted complaints about clearing the walkway to the Department of Conservation and Recreation web site to no avail. Instead, they have watched the sand pile up over the years.
“It’s very frustrating because we love coming here,” he expressed. “It’s here for a reason: that everyone can come down here without any problems. Somebody is falling asleep at the wheel from what I can see.
To give you an idea of what it normally looks like, on a nearby walkway, the top handrail comes up to my hip level. But over at the ramp covered in sand, the top handrail only reaches my ankle.
Tom Murphy is supervising attorney with the Disability Law Center. Last year, he reviewed utility poles that were placed right in the middle of new sidewalks in Dedham, explaining how they presented accessibility barriers for people in wheelchairs.
We asked Murphy about the beach ramp and he said the lack of maintenance appeared to violate the federal ADA law that requires equal access for everybody.
“They need to clear the ramp,” Murphy said. “Just like the roof on your house, these access features need to be looked at to make sure they’re still in operable, safe working condition and they’re usable.”
We reached out to the DCR spokesperson, who said the sand on the walkway is the result of accretion, the process by which dunes rebuild and grow over time. According to the DCR, removing sand from the walkway, which was installed in the late 1990s, would be detrimental to the dune system.
“DCR is currently evaluating both short-term and long-term solutions to strike a balance between dune management and safe public access,” the DCR spokesperson wrote.
Courtemanche said a better balance would be regular maintenance instead of letting sand accumulate for years.
“I would love to see this get cleaned up,” he said. “It shouldn’t be a struggle to enjoy this beach.”
Ryan Kath can be reached at ryan.kath@nbcuni.com. You can follow him on Twitter or connect on Facebook.
