There's a mystery afoot in Nantucket. Did someone slice open parts of the 947 feet of sand-filled "geotubes" built to slow erosion on Sconset Bluff, or did Mother Nature somehow cause the damage? The Wall Street Journal's Kris Maher and Gretchen Tarrant Gulla zero in on the question and the much larger picture: a feud over whether the cliffside homes are worth saving. The owners of those homes spent $18 million to put the shoreline armor in place, and they hired former Boston police commissioner Ed Davis to investigate the damage.
He says it "was in no way an accident or the result of natural forces." A $10,000 reward is on the table. The vandalism drops into the middle of a long-running, high-stakes fight over how far the wealthy should be allowed to go to shield oceanfront homes from the sea—and whether that protection hurts everyone else. Opponents, including the Nantucket Coastal Conservancy, argue the tubes were supposed to be temporary and are worsening erosion farther north by changing the way sand naturally shifts around the island.
They also fault the homeowners for ceasing to provide mitigation sand that would cover the geotubes and find its way to other beaches as erosion occurred; the homeowners last supplied the agreed-upon amounts in 2021. On May 4, residents at Nantucket's annual Town Meeting will decide whether another 3,000 feet of geotubes can be laid, as the impacted homeowners want. They argue that the entire town would benefit—from the continued property taxes paid on the homes, and because it would help save the road that runs parallel to the homes and the sea. Read the full piece for much more.
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