Homeowners, Environmentalists Square Off Over Nantucket Erosion
Normally, a story pitting the Nantucket’s swells against its hippies would lead to a lot of giggling on the mainland. This time, however, both sides make compelling arguments in a fight to save the island’s coastline, according to The Boston Globe.
On one side are the wealthy residents of Siasconset Beach, whose homes are precariously close to a bluff that’s been eroding at an average rate of three-and-a-half feet per year. To try and protect their homes, they’ve started installing mammoth sandbags, known as geotubes, along the base of the cliff. The bags will prevent the bluff from receding further and saving their homes.
Preservationists, meanwhile, believe the geotubes will starve other beaches of much-needed sand, and thus destroy other parts of Nantucket’s natural shoreline to save a few homes. Though the homeowners have offered to dump millions of pounds of sand into the water to recreate the natural erosion pattern to feed those beaches, conservationists worry that’s a stop-gap measure.
From the Globe:
[Nantucket Coastal Conservancy spokesperson D. Anne] Atherton and others question whether it is feasible for the homeowners to deliver roughly 200 million pounds of sand a year to the beach — the amount that would be required if the full project wins approval — and they argue that several shipments a year cannot replace the random forces of nature.
Click here to read the full Globe story.
The tension between wealthy beach property owners and conservation groups is not a new phenomenon. In 2013, Vanity Fair compared the efforts along Siasconset Beach with Malibu’s Broad Beach. In both cases, homeowners have offered to pay out small fortunes to try and forestall erosion in environmentally progressive ways, only to be told their plans didn’t pass muster with conservationists and governments.
The burning question among island residents—one that pits the determined, deep-pocketed summer people against the working folks who live here year-round and occupy most of the positions in local government—is whether the politicians will finally allow the homeowners to spend their own money to save their multi-million-dollar homes with the stupendous views. So far, the answer has been a resounding no.
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