Crane coming off North Beach
By Susan Milton
smilton@capecodonline.com
July 22, 2009ORLEANS — A crane, stuck on North Beach for days, is due home this morning after a change of heart by selectmen and state officials.
Early today, owner Mike Winkler is set to move his crane and excavator, under the watchful eye of an escort, past nesting least terns and piping plover chicks in Orleans.
Selectmen last week forbade Winkler from moving his $800,000 crane and an excavator until after the protected shorebirds had finished nesting and flown away. In late June, Winkler got emergency approval from Chatham and Orleans officials to take his equipment out on the beach to demolish and move several cottages left in peril because of erosion linked to recent storms.
After Winkler missed a July 1 deadline to remove the equipment, Orleans selectmen refused let him trek back over the barrier beach. The beach has been closed for weeks to traffic because of the shorebirds.
Influenced by two developments, selectmen changed their mind in a special meeting Monday afternoon.
Winkler filed a lawsuit Friday that asked Judge Regina Quinlan in Barnstable Superior Court to block the selectmen's order, according to Winkler's attorney, William Riley of Chatham.
Also Friday, the state Division of Fisheries and Wildlife absolved Orleans of responsibility even if the equipment's emergency move scares away nesting birds and dooms the eggs. If something were to happen to the protected birds, the state would "consider this an unpredicted outcome and no particular person or group's fault," assistant division director Thomas French wrote in an e-mail.
The language was key for Orleans selectmen, who worried that the state would close the town-owned beach or levy fines if a bird or egg died during the move.
After getting selectmen's consent Monday afternoon, a happy Winkler left from Ryder's Cove in Chatham at 11:30 p.m. to find the full moon tide washing over the beach, he said yesterday.
Seven hours later, his equipment was parked near Trail 1 in Orleans, poised for today's careful creep by the shorebirds. "We finally got everybody to agree," he said. "At least we're safe and sound."
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