On the World's Largest Sand Castle

A couple of years ago Point Sebago was in the news for the sponsoring a wold's largest sand castle fundraising project for their Camp Sunshine, a resort for kids with cancer. This was a well publicized charity. Governor Baldacci is an honorary Board of Director of Camp Sunshine. 44 truck loads of sand as reported in the Portland Press Herald were brought in and dumped on the beach as material for the project. FOSL was curious as to what happened to the sand after the project was finished so we contacted DEP. We asked if they had a permit to dump this large volume of sand and what happened to the sand after the event was finished . A few days later we were told that Point Sebago did not need a permit because "this project was not a permanent structure". "The sand was removed and placed on the volleyball court", said DEP. Our comment is that one would need a ladder to climb up to the volleyball court now if that was true. Point Sebago's beach desperately needs that sand. Their beach is filled material on top of a marsh lake fringing wetland. Wave beach building action does not occur. The beach becomes compacted and road like. They may need occassional sand castle contests to keep a beach. Point Sebago its owner and management in FOSL's opinion are a key political power behind the present lake level management plan(LLMP) which is harming Sebago Lakes shorelines, ruining what was the world's finest inland beaches, and greatly responsible for the present significant degradation in water quality. Compared to hundreds of thousands of cubic yards of soil, clay and silt that has been eroded from shorelines into the lake by the LLMP the sand castle sand is harmless. The power of Point Sebago it represents is not.