Monitors Replace Lighthouse Beach Patrol

CHATHAM – Since the summer of 2009, lifeguard-trained beach patrol members have kept watch over Lighthouse Beach, where shifting currents and sands can pose dangers to swimmers. 

 A lack of qualified applicants, however, means there will be no beach patrol this summer at Lighthouse Beach, where at least two people have drowned since 2005. 

 Instead, the town has hired beach monitors to educate beachgoers on conditions and to keep watch over the town’s most popular east-facing beach. 

 “They’ll really be kind of ambassadors to Lighthouse Beach so that we can still hopefully prevent any incidents from happening,” said Amie Howell, community services deputy director in charge of recreation and beaches.

 Four monitors will be stationed at the beach daily: one at the base of the stairs, another roaming alongside the main swimming area, a third at a problematic sand spit to the south of the main beach, and a supervisor. Seven monitors have been hired to staff the beach daily through Labor Day.

 After the 2008 drowning, the town established the beach patrol, which put lifeguard-trained personnel on ATVs with support from the harbor patrol and EMTs. The monitor plan was developed after no one applied for the beach patrol positions, Howell said.

 The beach patrol members had to be lifeguard-certified and meet swimming and other qualifications. There are no such requirements for the monitors, whose responsibilities, according to the job posting, are to “engage with the public to provide education about beach conditions, including swimming in the non-swim areas, collect and record data and maintain daily communications with the harbormaster division.”

 Signs warning “Swim at your own risk” have been posted at Lighthouse Beach for years, and swimming is prohibited in certain areas. At its June 24 meeting, select board members suggested the signs be made larger.

 The monitors are not lifeguards and will not go into the water, Howell said. They will be equipped with communications equipment and, at the sign of trouble, will contact the harbormaster to get a boat to Lighthouse Beach as soon as possible. They will also be in contact with the town’s fire and rescue department. The parks and recreation commission, which has jurisdiction over Lighthouse Beach, approved the plan in May.

 Select board member Stuart Smith, the town’s former harbormaster who worked with the beach patrol for many years, said the plan won’t improve public safety at Lighthouse Beach.

 “This is taking away a longstanding plan that did provide some degree of public safety at Lighthouse Beach,” he said at the June 24 session. “They were trained to go into the water, they had boards, and now we don’t have that.”

 Conditions at Lighthouse Beach are not as dangerous as in the past, although there are still hazards to swimmers from sudden drop-offs, shifting sand and rip currents, which are especially problematic at the spit south of the main beach. At low tide, beachgoers sometimes try to swim from the spit to North Beach Island and have to be rescued by the harbor patrol.

 “We understand the concern, because they cannot make water rescues, but our options are limited,” said Howell.

 Smith suggested the town isn’t paying enough to attract qualified people to the beach patrol or lifeguard positions. Howell said $20 per hour is budgeted for experienced lifeguards, but Smith said other towns, including Orleans, Nantucket and the Cape Cod National Seashore, pay more and also provide access to housing. While Chatham doesn’t have housing to offer seasonal beach employees, it has the resources to pay competitively, he said, “and we’re not there.”

Howell said the department surveys what other towns are paying and officials believe the town’s rates are competitive.

 “We kind of all have the same goal in mind on the Cape,” she said, “and that’s the safety of the beaches.”

 “I think it puts the people on the beach, those monitors, in a bad position,” Smith said. “I think we’re here simply because we didn’t offer enough money and we didn’t do an aggressive enough recruitment to get qualified people.”

 The parks and recreation commission was not happy with having to pivot to the beach monitor plan, said Chair Meredith Fry. 

 “Having people with eyes out there is better than nothing,” she said. Efforts are still underway to recruit qualified people for the Lighthouse Beach patrol, she added. The commission is also looking ahead at next year, including whether the town needs to pay more to attract qualified personnel.

 The beach monitor plan is “a Band-Aid at best,” said select board Vice Chair Jeff Dykens. “But something’s better than nothing.”