Climate Change & Nantucket Part 2: Coastal Resiliency And The Lessons Learned Along The 'Sconset Bluff

Standing on the Sconset Bluff, hands jammed into the pockets of his faded blue jeans, Josh Posner reminisces about a simpler time.

“Back in the day, rational thinking was kind of in vogue, and there was a thing called the scientific method where you had to look at the data on both sides and objectively assess the truth,” he says. “We’re nowhere near that.”

He looks out over the water, where waves wash against the geotubes the Sconset Beach Preservation Fund (SBPF) installed in the bluff 10 years ago.

“We used to say seeing is believing,” he says. “That’s no longer the case. Now it’s believing is seeing. First, you believe, and then that’s what you see.”

To those only passingly familiar with the fight surrounding the geotubes below him, this may seem an odd argument for Posner, the president of SBPF, to make. His primary opponent, after all, is the Conservation Commission, which relies on the scientific method more than perhaps any other regulatory board on-island.

But, as he explained in the living room of his Baxter Road beach house, Posner believes some members of the Conservation Commission are blinded by an irrational, single-minded opposition to any intervention against the course of nature. Intervention that, he claims, is a necessary part of what has recently been termed ‘coastal resilience’—a broad name for all efforts meant to prepare communities for rising sea levels.

“If Nantucket is going to exist, why would you start by letting perhaps the area that is the highest above sea level wash away?” He asked. “Those passionate don’t-mess-with-mother-nature folks don’t want anything.”

Of course, it isn’t so simple. With coastal resilience, it rarely is. There is simply too much money involved, too much land at stake, too many unpredictable natural factors to predict, for anything related to protecting Nantucket’s shoreline to ever be simple.

A decade ago, after a series of brutal storms ripped away huge amounts of sand from the Sconset beach, the Conservation Commission approved the SBPF’s proposed 947-foot installation of sand-filled geotubes along the bluff to protect Baxter Road and ensure that the houses on the bluff would not fall into the ocean. As part of the permit, SBPF was required to dump 22,000 cubic yards of sand per linear foot of bluff on the geotubes every year. When waves strike the shore, they drag sand with them “down-drift” and deposit it along the coast. The requirement ensured there was still sand for the waves to take, preventing increased erosion down-drift, which is often one of the primary criticisms of geotube installations.

In 2021, SBPF stopped dumping sand on the tubes. Soon after, the Conservation Commission approved and enforcement order, requiring the tubes removed. It was this violation, they argue, and not a general opposition to all interference, that motivated the removal order.

“The issue with SBPF really was that they were not following their permit on many occasions,” said Ashley Erisman, former Conservation Commission chair during much of the SBPF’s contentious hearings on the removal order.. “If you have any sort of hardened structure that is not covered in sediment, you are causing impacts on downdrift structures.”

The SBPF fought the removal order, arguing it was unreasonable, and that the amount of sand they had to use was twice as high as necessary, an arbitrary decision from the Conservation Commission that made the project financially unsustainable without significant expansion. No scientific studies, they argued, have ever proven negative downdrift impacts from the geotubes.

“We are behind on the permit, but we are not behind on the amount that the permit should be,” Posner said. “When the project was initially permitted for a short interim period, it was with the expectation that it would be expanded to cover all homes along the bluff, and when that expansion happened, the project would become self-sustaining and cost-effective.”

That understanding, however, if it existed at all, was tacit and not written into the permit SBPF agreed to and later violated.

“You can’t predicate coming into compliance with expanding a project,” Erisman said. “At that point, you have to move forward with enforcement.”

Erisman also doesn’t see the sand requirement as arbitrary at all.

“That’s completely false. The sand numbers that were set for that project came through the Massachusetts Department of the Environment,” Erisman said. “That wasn’t something arbitrary in any way. And SBPF, like any permit holder, would have been able to amend their permit. So, if they felt like they had scientific evidence to say they only needed to put half as much sand there, they could have done that through the Conservation Commission process.”

Though no one has conclusively proven negative down-drift impacts, Erisman feels confident they exist.

“The science is out there. Someone with a logical mind would understand that,” she said. “Is it hard scientific data? No, because you can’t track every sand grain, but there were individuals who I think rightfully had these concerns and at least could show there were changes.”

At the very least, though correlation does not necessarily mean causation, there is clear evidence that as erosion has slowed along the length of the geotube installation, it has increased in the downdrift area.

Of course, the geotubes haven’t been removed yet, and Posner was careful to specify that SBPF is still open to a solution that doesn’t involve their removal. Recently, a new front has opened in the dispute: there is a chance that if and when the geotubes are removed, two houses near the bluff will collapse almost immediately, posing a safety threat to the workers involved with the removal and the residents of the homes.

“We’re not removing those geotubes with the houses there,” Posner said.

To some on the Conservation Commission, it’s just another stalling tactic.

Despite stating in January 2023 that it was waving the white flag and giving up its fight against erosion, the SBPF is now working with the Town on a new permit to finally gain approval for the expansion it has long wanted. Instead of removing the tubes, they say, why not expand them?

"Although the maintenance of the geotubes has posed challenges, up to this point the structure has served its purpose of mitigating erosion along the bluff," said the town’s sustainability programs manager Vince Murphy when the notice of intent was filed. "However, the issue now is that the nearly 1,000 feet of current geotubes in place only covers that area leaving the northern and southern areas vulnerable to erosion with lesser or no protection measures...this joint planning effort not only aims to protect properties in the area, but also plays an important role in serving the current location of the public road. the entire project will be funded with no financial burden to the town or taxpayers."

But SBPF can’t help but clash with local regulatory bodies, even when the non-profit has the support of the Select Board: eight months into the Conservation Commission hearing process for the new notice of intent filed by SBPF and the town, SBPF suddenly tried to change the order of the expansion’s phases, against the town’s wishes. The new conflict is all about money. SBPF wants a certain portion of the expansion, dubbed “Reach Three,” to go first because they already have the money for it. The town wants another portion, “Reach One,” to go first because it is the most important from a coastal resilience perspective—but SBPF says they don’t have the funds to put geotubes along that stretch of the beach yet. It’s unclear how the two co-applicants will move forward, or how the Conservation Commission will respond to the discord.

The clash over the geotubes has made national news, sparked multi-year lawsuits, and cost millions of dollars. Debates about the project encompass everything from the shockingly high price of Nantucket’s near-ubiquitous sand to the ethics of offshore dredging to philosophical debates about the purpose of law itself. Erisman even says it is one of the main reasons she wasn’t re-appointed to the Conservation Commission. The man who replaced her as chair, Ian Golding, was removed from his position a year later, a decision he has also attributed in part to SBPF and one that led to the resignation of fellow Conservation Commission member and SBPF opponent Mark Beale. If the commissioners are right, one geotube installation has been the downfall of nearly half the Commission. But the truth is that it is just one small—if emblematic—piece in a massive puzzle.

Nantucket, after all, is sinking.

It’s a slow process, and no one is suggesting that the island will vanish beneath the waves tomorrow, or even in a hundred years, but the data is irrefutable. As climate change accelerates and sea levels rise, more and more of the island will wash away.

Recently, the town has begun to take steps to address the problem, though some worry it may be too little too late. The Conservation Commission itself is playing a role, rewriting local wetland regulations to incorporate coastal resilience. The changes, however, restrict the rights of homeowners to develop their properties by increasing buffer zones for wetlands and restricting pools in flood zones, proposals that initially caused some concern among local builders, although they did not challenge the final version of the revisions. The new wetland regulations finally passed last month, but not before years of delays and heated debates between members of the commission.

Erisman, who played a key role in drafting the proposed new regulations, thinks they also contributed to her ouster. As she described the vote that ended her time on the Conservation Commission, a note of exasperation crept into Erisman’s voice: whether she supported or opposed coastal resilience projects hardly seemed to matter. Either way, someone was going to have a problem with her position.

The Conservation Commission isn’t the primary town board responsible for coastal resilience, however. That would be the Coastal Resilience Advisory Committee (CRAC), formed in 2019, which helped design the town’s coastal resilience strategy. At the center of the strategy is the Coastal Resiliency Plan (CRP), a dense, 286-page document designed by CRAC and the town’s sustainability programs manager Vince Murphy that outlines dozens of recommendations spanning the entire island and nearly every regulatory board, some of which will take decades to complete—if they are completed at all.

“We are a leader in this area,” said Mary Longacre, who chaired CRAC for four years. “We’re being copied, we’re being contacted with ‘how did you do it?’ questions.”

Some of the recommendations in the CRP are simple: the town should take sea level rise into account when designing new projects, town departments should coordinate more, and there should be more public education about flooding risks. Many have already been implemented.

But others are years away—and expensive.

“The cost of the recommendations was compared to the cost of not doing anything. It’s going to cost a lot to implement them, but it’s going to cost a lot more to not implement them,” Longacre said. “As for the absolute cost and where we are going to get the money, that’s a really good question.”

Some of the more ambitious suggestions in the CRP include a series of flood barriers spanning downtown Nantucket, raising many roads near the ocean, and a dramatic overhaul of local zoning regulations.

The cost may be unavoidable if the goal is to preserve Nantucket. The CRP already accepts that a significant amount of erosion is all but inevitable.

“We looked at it from a pretty risk-averse standpoint. We know we can’t save everything, but our highest priority was saving the downtown area,” Longacre said. “It’s not designed to save single houses. It’s designed to preserve essential infrastructure…when we talk about road access, we’re talking about roads like Madaket Road that provide access to a whole community. We’re not talking about roads that access the homes that are on the coast.”

The implication is that Baxter Road and the houses on it are not exactly a high priority. Decisions about what to sacrifice and what to save are never easy, but there is simply not enough money to fight every battle. Sometimes, there is no choice but to retreat.

“You have a house on the coast, erosion is going to come and get you,” Longacre said.

Of course, retreat implies that there is somewhere to retreat to.

“We’re an island,” said Jen Karberg, director of research and partnerships at the Nantucket Conservation Foundation (NCF). “We don’t have anywhere to go.”

When it comes to adaptation, there’s nothing Longacre won’t at least consider. She even suggested the possibility of water-based transport in downtown Nantucket, perhaps something akin to the gondola system in Venice.

“Look at what people are already doing. We already have water on the streets and there are already people running canoes down them,” she said.

This is an idea that Murphy, who served as the coastal resilience coordinator while the CRP was being drafted, has also floated in the past. That position is now held by Leah Hill, who was profiled in a recent issue of N Magazine.

The Town has been extremely supportive of CRAC’s efforts, Longacre said, though the complicated permitting process for projects can often slow progress. And voters aren’t always as supportive as the administration. At the 2024 Annual Town Meeting, voters endorsed the creation of coastal resilience districts on the island but shot down a proposal aimed at allowing the town to assess betterment fees to properties protected by coastal resilience efforts in an effort to fund the expensive projects.

In the end, though, the cost of implementing CRAC’s proposals goes far beyond anything the town can afford, leading Longacre to emphasize the role of individual responsibility and preparedness.

There are grants from the state that can help fund coastal resilience projects, and many local nonprofits have made it a priority, but that won’t pay for everything.

Especially when the lawsuits begin.

Neil Paterson, chair of the Nantucket Land Bank Commission, is almost certain they will. He has seen too many Land Bank proposals mired down in the courts, some enmeshed in decades-long legal battles, not to be.

The United States is a litigious nation, and Nantucket’s wealthy homeowners, Paterson says, often have the funds for seemingly endless lawsuits and appeals when they fear projects may reduce the value of their land, limit their property rights, or even just obscure their view. Patterson also worries the Conservation Commission might balk at some of the Land Bank’s own proposals.

“You've got a lot of people who aren't very interested in armoring the coastline,” he said.

In some ways, every coastal resilience project is a mirror of the ‘Sconset Bluff geotube installation, just a decade behind. Rich homeowners, town committees, complicated permitting requirements, endangered properties, the looming threat of lawsuits, and a lack of money: the pieces change sides, but the board is the same.

Even without lawsuits, Paterson suggested the costs of the Land Bank’s coastal resilience plans along Washington Street, which follow recommendations in the CRP, could be almost $1 billion. That’s more than six times larger than the town’s entire budget for 2024. In fact, it’s comparable to the budget of the 270,000-person city of Toledo, or the entire country of Liechtenstein.

“I think the Land Bank has the plans,” he said. “We're just venturing down a path that's probably miles long and we're trying to figure out how you do this in a feasible, cost-effective manner.”

One estimate from the CRP puts the total cost of inaction at $3.4 billion in the next 50 years. That’s over 4 percent of Nantucket’s entire GDP annually, every year, for the entire 50 years.

The Land Bank is not the only local conservation group that has made coastal resilience a priority. NCF is also working on several projects, including the first artificial oyster reef in Massachusetts, installed to buffer the salt marshes from the waves.

“It seems to be doing really well,” Karberg said. “This might be an area where a salt marsh could actually move out a little bit and migrate into the harbor.”

NCF is also concerned with the Coskata-Coatue refuge, the subject of a recent documentary screened at last year’s Nantucket Film Festival. Every year, the ocean comes a little closer to slicing through the narrow beach and spilling into the harbor.

“[A breach] could potentially change the chemistry of the harbor, could change the ability of eelgrass to grow, for scallops to grow, for oysters,” Karberg said. “It would change a lot of the ways we interact with the harbor.”

Preventing a breach, though, is hard. Like a child building sand castles along the shore, coastal resilience efforts often only postpone the inevitable.

One thing everyone agrees on is that change is coming. No matter how much money is spent to fight it, no matter how many projects are permitted, nothing can stop the ocean. Not completely.