Ricks Will Help Chatham Maintain Its Coastal Resilience

CHATHAM – The town is something of a poster child for coastal resilience. Surrounded by water on three sides, its 62 miles of coastline are uniquely susceptible to coastal storms and sea level rise.

 So it makes sense that the coastal resources position previously held by Ted Keon, who retired in April, has been retooled to focus more on coastal resilience. Last month, Catherine Ricks was named to the revamped post.

 “It’s more focused on the resilience of the shoreline,” Ricks said in a recent interview. It’s a balancing act, she noted, between preserving natural and man-made shorefront infrastructure without obstructing the coastal processes that, under the right conditions, can be extremely destructive.

Ricks, who joined the town last August as assistant conservation agent, will be carrying on many of the projects that Keon stewarded, including completing work at 90 Bridge St., which includes a new shellfish upweller as well as increased access to the water; finishing upgrades to the south jog of the fish pier; and improvements to public facilities at Ryder’s Cove and Little Mill Pond. 

“It’s a lot of access points to the water to protect, while keeping in mind the natural resources of these areas,” she said.

The Brewster resident has a wide range of experience working with coastal issues. Originally from Southborough, Ricks earned a civil engineering degree from Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pa., and worked in South Florida and for the Louisiana Coastal Protection and Restoration Authority, where she worked on permitting and planning on large-scale projects, such as rebuilding a barrier island. “There are some resemblances" in that work to Chatham’s infamously mobile barrier beaches, she commented.

For the past eight years, she worked for Coastal Engineering (later Tighe and Bond) in Orleans as a project manager doing engineering, design, permitting and construction oversight on private homeowner projects. 

 “Her experience in the private sector as a licensed professional engineer and coastal process manager makes her well qualified for this position,” Natural Resources Director Greg Berman told the select board May 20. Ricks’ experience with dredging, permitting and hazard planning are “all things that Ted Keon used to help us with, and she’ll be taking over most of those duties,” Berman said.

 Ricks maintains an active life when not working, raising her three children and participating in local sports. A longtime runner, she recently participated in the Ruck4Hit relay and enjoys trail running. She teaches skating and hockey at the Charles Moore Arena in Orleans, and helped run a lacrosse camp last summer. She also coaches lacrosse and plays on a hockey club team.

 Ricks said she looks forward to working with the natural resources department to continue the work already underway and develop projects to protect the town’s coastline.

“I really enjoy the dynamic part of the waterfront,” she said.