Work on stabilizing the island around New Point Comfort Lighthouse with riprap is now underway, and the project is expected to take about five months.

Members of the New Point Comfort Lighthouse Preservation Task Force took a trip out to the island on July 19 to get a last look at the site before the work began. Construction was scheduled to get underway the following day.

On the boat trip out, task force member Steve Whiteway shared engineering drawings of the project with the group, explaining that the riprap revetment will be built up higher than the island itself, and that visitors will have to step up a walkway to the top of the revetment and step down to a flat surface that will be built to accommodate the equipment needed for construction.

That flat surface will be built about three feet higher than the existing land area, said Whiteway, which will put it three feet up the side of the lighthouse. The door to the building will then appear to be ...