b"C H A P T E R T E Nfor the Town. We had several Saturday- morning informational seminars, and wed bring in speakers . Our annual meetings were aimed toward some local problem current at the time.This series of expositions led up to the memorable Quality of Life conference in September 1998. More and more, people were coming to see that FCW could be expected to produce anThe 1987 northeaster made such an illuminating forumand sometimesimpression, literally and otherwise, that with very short notice. shore-side residents scrambled to erect stone revetments, many facing Chatham The LRP Passes In Review: In Harbor and Pleasant Bay.At $600 a foot three short weeks of October 1999,for an average wall, it was hardly an the Friends and Town Plannerinexpensive solution.Gordon ZellnerMargaret Swanson put together aWorking Session for Residents on the draft of Chathams Comprehensive Long Range Plan. About 100 residents and officials showed up for the all-morning exchange, stepping methodically through all seven sections of the draft.No plan in recent Chatham memory has taken longer to evolve. The final document went before voters at the 2003 Town Meeting (and passed with hardly a breath of dissent). That was about a decade after the first drafting began on a plan, responding to a mandate from theCape Cod Commission. Along the way,Cape Cod Chronicle, March 6,1992the Long Range Planning Committee tried repeatedly to get local citizens toBeach Expert Pilkey: assess the draft and suggest additions orWe WillRetreatBy David ReillyHdeletions, hoping to make the document Dr.OrrinPilkey,world- renownedexpertonbarrier beaches, calls Chathams coastal situation very exciting for geologists.Itskindofhowbiologists would feel if a mammoth frozen in ice was discovered, he said A specialist on developed shore Saturday following his presentalines, Dukes Dr. Orrin Pilkey wastionatChathamHighSchool.This is very big.brought to town at FCW expense toMorethan250residents jammed the high school auditoput on a seminar in March 1992.rium on a snowy, windy FebruMore than 250 heard him speak onary morning to hear Dr. Pilkey's thoughts on a variety of coastal the different measures that could beissues,includingtheenvironmental impact of sea walls.taken to hold back oceanic forces. On that subject, he made hisDr. Orrin Pilkeyviews very clear. Staff photo by David ReillySeawallsdegradebeaches,189"