The Westport Conservation Commission unanimously approved access road work at Horseneck Beach last fall, but filed a cease and desist order Wednesday afternoon after discovering that the scope of the work was beyond what they expected.

“I don’t think we realized what the magnitude of the removal was,” Chris Capone, the town’s conservation agent, said. Department of Environmental Protection officials he and others corresponded with this week agreed with the town, he said.

“DEP said, ‘No, this is more than what we would consider allowing them to do,’” Capone said.

The genesis of the work dates back more than eight months.

Last September, about three weeks before the Conservation Commission approved the state’s plans, a DCR official wrote a letter to Capone outlining the scope of the work proposed.

Under the beach’s Operations and Maintenance Plan (OMP), Catherine Lampiasi, section head of DCR maintenance construction wrote, DCR proposed a slate of improvements at Horseneck including parking lot work, the removal of some impervious surfaces, habitat restoration and a widening of the access road to 20 feet. That widening had been requested by the Westport Fire Department, she wrote.

Three weeks later, on Tuesday, Oct. 10, DCR senior coastal geologist Jorge Ayoub, DCR civil engineer Tom Valton and Horseneck forest and park supervisor Jeff McGee appeared before the commission for a discussion referred to in minutes as “DCR — Resurfacing access road Horseneck Beach State Reservation.”

Though there is no video of that meeting, brief minutes (see photo) show that officials provided an update on the road’s use for emergency vehicles, and noted that the road had narrowed to eight feet in some areas and that “repaving is necessary.”

Commission member Jason Powell motioned to accept DCR’s plans, and was seconded by Thomas Merchant, before the full commission voted unanimously to approve the motion.

Though Lampiasi wrote in the September letter that the widening of the road had been requested in writing by the fire department, fire chief Daniel Baldwin said Wednesday that he wasn’t aware of the project, though he said there was some interest from the department on improving emergency access prior to his being named chief.

Meanwhile, work has halted along the path, and the large piles of fill removed from the access road are not likely to move from the easternmost parking lot any time soon.

According to Lampiasi’s letter last September, trucking the fill to the east lot will “achieve a net benefit for conservation by restoring back to natural conditions approximately (four) acres of existing impervious surface ... that could be utilized as a nesting site for listed shorebird species.”

“Revegetation of the restored area would happen through a natural succession of native species,” she wrote.

DCR spokespeople could not be reached for comment Wednesday or Thursday.