Town Prioritizes List Of Coastal Resilience Projects For Nantucket

Nantucket's Coastal Resilience Advisory Committee (CRAC) has issued an updated and prioritized list of coastal resilience priorities for Nantucket, which includes raising Madaket Road and overhauling the Steamboat Wharf.

The list of priorities, drawn from the town of Nantucket's Coastal Resilience Plan, is non-binding, but could influence which projects the town opts to pursue in the next year.

CRAC recommends that the town raise Madaket Road to improve its resilience to sea-level rise and flooding. It also recommends that the town work with the Steamship Authority to elevate its wharf, the primary transportation hub for vehicles, freight, and other goods arriving on the island.

A number of projects from CRAC’s 2024 list of priorities are now in progress, including Easy Street flood mitigation, Surfside Wastewater Treatment Facility dune restoration, development of an operational sand budget for recommended shoreline projects, and the creation of an island-wide retreat and relocation program for areas of priority coastal risk.

Other priorities on CRAC’s 2025 list include a stormwater management plan, a stormwater bylaw assessment, a numerical model of Coatue breaching, bridge conversion at Folger’s Marsh, improved resilience for the Department of Public Works and the Madaket landfill, a pilot program intended to combat erosion in Madaket, and stronger resilience for Ames Bridge in Madaket.

In a statement, CRAC wrote that the list contains the “most pressing coastal resilience goals and projects that the committee felt the Town needs to implement as soon as possible.”

The pricetag for implementing CRAC’s priorities is not known, but the full plan could cost nearly $1 billion.

The priority list also calls for revisions to Nantucket’s zoning bylaws to address coastal resilience. The Coastal Resilience Plan recommends a wide array of zoning changes, including requiring flood plans for all building projects submitted for approval to the town, excluding necessary flood protection structures from ground cover calculations, and changing the definition of building height to exclude uninhabited flood risk mitigation structures.