After the recent blizzard finally left Duxbury’s shores, residents turned to dealing with extensive cleanup and restoration. Some of the most serious damage was at Duxbury Beach.

The beach sustained major damage from the Blizzard of 2013 and now the beach’s owners want to raise the price the town pays to lease the beach by an additional $200,000 in the hopes of offsetting repair costs.

The Duxbury Beach Reservation, Inc., President Margaret Kearney addressed the Board of Selectmen last week about the lease price hike and the damage to the beach. The Reservation owns most of the six-mile long barrier beach and leases it to the town for the public’s use. Kearney said the storm wreaked havoc on the beach and it will be costly to repair.

“Unfortunately, the beach took a very bad hit,” she said. “It was shockingly severe. We have extensive repairs to make at the beach.”

Kearney estimates the repairs to cost $500,000 or even more.

“We may be looking at as much as one million dollars in damage,” she said.

The storm severely damaged the “sacrificial dune” in the middle of the beach, eroding it so badly that the ocean washed over the beach in areas between High Pines and Plum Hill, said Kearney.

“The sacrificial dune saved our beach from being breached,” she said. “We know it works and we know it’s worth the money to fix and preserve it.”

Repairing the sacrificial dune involves bringing in quarry sand to raise the level of the dune to 16 feet and maybe as high as 18 feet, Kearney said. Also, the Reservation will need to plant beach grass on the dune and will be calling for volunteers for this job in the coming weeks.

“We hope to start this work as soon as possible,” said Kearney. The goal is to begin the dune work in the spring and, if it is not completed, finish it in the fall.

Kearney said the Reservation’s first priority was to reopen the road out to Gurnet/Saquish, which was heavily damaged. Currently, it is being rebuilt with truckloads of crushed rock and gravel, Kearney said.

All three vehicle crossovers from the access road to the front beach were damaged and must be rebuilt and all the snow fencing and much of the post-and-cable fence at the beach was destroyed and must be replaced.

Kearney said that the Reservation had planned to ask the town for a lease increase from $400,000 to $600,000 next year. However, because of the storm damage, Kearney said the Reservation wants the increase this year to help offset the costs of repairs.

The lease stipulates that the town will pay the Reservation more than the cost of the lease if the Reservation needs to spend more than this amount to maintain the beach. Currently, Kearney said, the town owes the Reservation an additional $200,000. This is due to repairs from previous storms.

Kearney said she does not anticipate there will be any federal funds forthcoming due to the money being spent on coastal repairs after Hurricane Sandy. The Reservation does not currently have the money to fix the beach so it must borrow the funds, according to Kearney. Finance Director John Madden said he was unaware that the Reservation was going to ask for the $200,000 increase this year and that taking that money from the 2014 operating budget would mean cuts elsewhere.

“I’m not sure how we can fund that,” Madden said. “We get $1.7 million in sticker revenues from the beach and we budget it all.”

He said he expects that if the town does contribute additional funds to the Reservation this year it will have to be classified as a capital item and come from the town’s free cash account.

Shawn Dahlen, vice president and a director of Duxbury Beach Reservation, said the Reservation’s strategy is to prioritize repairs in order to expedite the reconstruction process. Last week, crews worked to re-open one lane of the road so public safety vehicles and the public could get back and forth.

After the road has been opened, the next priority is to rebuild crossovers to open access to the front beach. Once that is accomplished, five miles of snow fencing and most of the post and cable posting will be replaced. The most important thing to keep in mind, Dahlen said, is to get the work done before the piping plovers arrive.

“We are working under deadline right now because the nesting season starts around April first,” Dahlen said. “We have to get the repair and reconstruction work done in the habitat area before that.”

At this point, Dahlen said he estimates the Reservation will spend at least half a million dollars, but may see repairs costing as much as a million dollars. The repairs are paid for by the Reservation and are handled by a private contractor.

“The biggest number is going to be the reconstruction of dunes,” he said. “Until we determine how many lineal feet of dune and calculate the cost, we won’t know exactly how much the repairs will cost, but the roadways, fencing and pole repairs will come close to half a million dollars.”

Interim Town Manager Richard MacDonald said he has asked the town’s Beach Committee to look at the beach sticker pricing structure. Beach sticker prices rose last year to help fund the costs of repairs to the Powder Point Bridge that connects mainland Duxbury to the beach. The selectmen plan to discuss the Reservation’s request at an upcoming meeting.