Deadline For Completion Of Oxford Beach Project Looms; Underwood Scrambles To Fulfill Compliance
April 17, 2025
The Strand Beach — Oxford, MD - YouTube
Above Video Courtesy of Scott Rensberger
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If you chose Thursday, April 17th, a beautiful, mild Spring Day, to walk down Oxford's Historic Strand, you saw the above scene as Underwood and Associates, the contractor for the Oxford Strand Beach Restoration, dug out the shoreline and placed large piles of a black substance on the beach. What's worse is that you probably smelled it; a disgusting smell of rotting material that permeated the air.
It's all part of Underwood fulfilling their contract on a project that was originally proclaimed finished last June by retiring Town Manager Cheryl Lewis. Except it really wasn't finished as we have outlined in two previous articles:
Oxford Strand Beach Project: Doomed To Fail From The Beginning - The Easton Gazette
In an attempt to finish, last minute plantings were done, a four-foot grass walkway was lined out and covered with some dirt and scattered grass seed, the islands in the project were "lowered" to the allowable height, and the shoreline was being sculptured to the original contractor "plan."
Everything has to be done by April 19th or the project will be out of compliance.
In the effort to sculpture the shoreline, the contractor brought up huge black piles of what was under that shoreline, a mix of old mulch and dirt dumped on the beach last year. That substance had become what is called "anaerobic bacteria." Some facts about anaerobic bacteria:
Grow in the absence of oxygen.
Do not have the ability to detoxify oxygen.
Use carbon dioxide, sulfur, fumarate, or ferric as the final electron acceptor.
Produce acetate-like substances, methane, nitrate, and sulfide.
Commonly found in the gastrointestinal tract in humans.
According to sources, these bacteria may or may not be harmful to humans. Regardless, they are not something people would want to have on a beach. The smell alone can make a person nauseous.
There are already so many questions about what is being done to the Strand Beach and this adds just one more. If the Beach had truly been finished to specifications, permits, etc. laid out in the original contract and plans, no more work would have to be done now.
A more pertinent question is, was the destruction of the once beautiful Strand Beach to "protect" it from flooding or erosion worth what is currently being done to this centuries old landmark?
That's a question the residents of Oxford will have to answer for decades.
SIDE NOTE: Maybe someone should test what is being dug up on the Shoreline.
