Refuge Visitors Center To Be Razed In April

CHATHAM – The last building standing at the Monomoy National Wildlife Refuge headquarters property on Morris Island won’t be standing much longer.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is finalizing plans to demolish the visitors center and office building at 30 Wikis Way in April. The move comes as erosion continues to claw away at the refuge headquarters bluff, the edge of which is now about 90 feet from the building.

However, the building’s septic system is closer, about 70 feet from the top of the bluff.

“That’s the first thing that would be compromised,” said Refuge Manager Rick Nye.

Although Nye and other Fish and Wildlife Service officials have been searching for a new site for the refuge offices and visitors center, none has yet been identified.

“We’re looking at leasing options,” he said.

Erosion has carved away more than 100 feet from the bluff in the past several years and continues to hammer at it, with recent storms contributing to the loss of several more feet, according to Nye.

The land on which the refuge headquarters is located was originally about four acres out of the 40-acre section of the refuge located on Morris Island (the remaining 7,900 acres are located offshore on North and South Monomoy Islands). Erosion has cut the headquarters portion back to about two acres; the remaining land to the west consists of trails and beaches accessible from a right-of-way off Tisquantum Road.

As the land has been cut back, so too have the facilities on the headquarters property. A boardwalk through a wooded area and stairs to the beach were removed in 2020, and dozens of trees were taken out in 2021 to prevent them from falling over the bluff. That April the National Weather Service weather balloon launching building on the site was demolished, and in November 2022 a garage and dorm used by the agency to house summer interns was torn down. A former Coast Guard boathouse, it had stood at the site for a century.

Rest rooms were moved off site late last year, and a shed used as a makeshift visitors center by the Friends of the Monomoy Refuge was relocated farther away from the cliff in December. Once the office and visitors center building is razed, that and a few other storage sheds will be the only structures on the property.

Even though the visitors center building is not in imminent danger of tumbling down the bluff, the septic system’s proximity to the cliff as well as scheduling is dictating the timing of the demolition. A two- to three-week period in April is when crews will be available to do the work, Nye said.

“If we don’t do it [then], there’s not going to be anybody available to do it until October,” he said. By then, given the rate of erosion, it could be difficult to get the heavy equipment necessary to do the work onto the site.

According to assessing records, the visitors center and office building dates back to 1971. It was originally used by the National Weather Service, which had a radar station at the site that was eventually scaled back to the weather balloons facility.

While the search continues for a new office and visitors center site to either lease or purchase, the work of the refuge — monitoring shorebirds, seals and other denizens of the refuge’s offshore islands — will continue, said Nye. By April refuge personnel will be spending most of their time on the islands, limiting the need for the office space during that time. Early this week, office equipment, files and other items remaining inside the building were being packed up for storage.

The public will continue to have access to the headquarters property until April, Nye said, but it will be closed during the demolition. The remaining pavement will be taken out to allow removal of a storm drainage system that is close to the bluff. Eventually the pavement will be replaced by crushed shells, he said, to allow limited parking, but in the meantime, visitors will have to park along the causeway on Morris Island Road.

“We’ll maintain public access as long as we can,” he said.