Submitted photo Wright Park is located on Lake Front Boulevard, Dunkirk.

Chautauqua County is looking to partner with the city of Dunkirk to address some erosion taking place at one of its beaches.

The legislature’s Planning and Economic Development Committee approved a request to spend $20,000 regarding the continual state of erosion of the bluffs at Wright Park Beach.

Before the vote, Cassandra Pinkoski with the county’s Soil and Water Conservation District and Dave McCoy, county Watershed Coordinator, discussed the project.

According to Pinkoski, at Wright Park Beach, there’s a bluff that’s been constantly eroding. “In the 2019 storm, the surf actually got up to the bluff so it kind of accelerated it,” she said.

She said they have been studying the issue and think they have identified the problem. “This year it became more apparent that what might be causing that to fall off is the groundwater moving through it,” she said.

Pinkoski said the bluff is 500 feet in length and would be quite costly to repair. “To just treat it with rock or something like tha,t which is pretty much the go-to application, it would be hundreds of thousands of dollars,” she said.

Instead, they have a cheaper solution. “What we thought is if we can catch that groundwater before it gets to the bluff and saturates it, and have a safe place for that to discharge, we could treat that 500 feet for $20,000,” she said.

The money would be used to put in a trench and pipe, as well as plant some vegetation. “We plant the base of it, so if the surf ever did come up again, the would be plants there to intercept it,” she said.

Legislator Kevin Muldowney, R-Dunkirk, noted there’s a lot of flooding in that area of the First Ward. “They always have flooded basements,” he said.

Pinkoski said they’ve recently replaced a culvert on Wright Park Boulevard from one that was installed about 90 years ago. “The culvert that was in there was from the ’30s and it only had about 6 inches of clearance. Now our culvert is significantly bigger, so that should help,” she said.

The $20,000 is coming from the county’s 2% occupancy tax program. The committee unanimously

approved the request. The full legislature is expected to vote for final approval today.