Piney Point Lighthouse Receives Grant
By Sue Clark on Aug 2, 2008 in News, Opinion 
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Will Be Used For Dock Replacement
A federal grant of $43,500 has been awarded to the Piney Point Lighthouse, Museum and Historic Park to replace a deteriorated pier, and add a 6’x10’ floating step-down platform for launching and retrieving kayaks. The matching funds were awarded through the National Park Service’s Chesapeake Bay Gateways and Water Trails Network grant program. Last year, Maryland’s Congressional delegation helped to secure $1.65 million for the funding program, using the moneys awarded to improve signage, enhance trails and create maps.
Piney Point is the oldest (1826) of the lighthouses along the Potomac River, and is known as the “Lighthouse of Presidents” because several presidents, beginning with James Madison and continuing through Teddy Roosevelt, spent their summers there.
During World War II Piney Point was used by the Navy to test torpedoes. At the end of the war, the U.S. captured an experimental German submarine which had been coated with rubber in an attempt to make it invisible to sonar. In 1949, after a few years of study, the submarine was used to test a new type of depth charge and was intentionally sunk off the Point.
Piney Point, MD. Undated Coast Guard photo
A Wise Use of Funds?
The lighthouse and museum are obviously well taken care of, but it seems the grant could be put to a different use. Or at least at a lesser cost. If these are matching grants, then the total cost of the small pier and float will be $88,000. I must be in the wrong business. I think it could be done a lot less expensive than is proposed. Like consulting fees, this seems inordinately high for the work to be done. Although the photo by C.W. Bash was taken in 2006, it is apparent by looking closely that the house could stand some work. There are areas that need painting, and the roof doesn’t look all that great, either. If these have been repaired, someone please correct me. But a quick look through some photos on Flickr shows that not to be the case, in fact the areas have gotten worse. While it’s great that funding is alive and well it would certainly be better to see the money used to enhance the lighthouse and museum, rather than cater to a few kayakers. And at such a huge cost. What do you think?
Photo credit: Piney Point Lighthouse by CWBash. Some rights reserved.
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