There once was, and may still be, a coastal resilience project on Nantucket!

Over a year ago, a Massachusetts Superior Court Judge ordered the Sconset Beach Preservation Fund to comply with an order by the Nantucket Conservation Commission by removing the “soft” coastal bank stabilization project which everyone agreed was the only thing keeping their homes, a public street and various public utilities from tumbling into the ocean.  

This past January the Sconset Beach Preservation Fund said it would comply with the Court's order and remove the sand filled tubes stabilizing the Sconset Bluff at considerable expense, not to mention the certain loss of property.

Though hope is not a strategy, I've never given up hope that the Sconset Beach Preservation Fund and the Board of Selectmen, which has always supported the project, and the Conservation Commission would find a way to put the past behind them to avoid the certain catastrophic consequences of their failure to do so.  The Sconset Beach Preservation Fund was wrong to agree to conditions on the installation of the project that it could not comply with, but the Conservation Commission was far too willing to cut off Sconset's nose to spite its face.

Yesterday, the Inquirer and Mirror reported that the Board of Selectmen had unanimously voted to apply to the Conservation Commission to not only maintain the existing coastal bank stabilization project, but to expand it.  Earlier this year the Board of Selectmen had replaced the Conservation Commission Chair who had led the charge against the Sconset Beach Preservation Fund.

Whether or not this détente should have occurred sooner (and it most certainly should have), and not at all meaning to minimize what the Sconset property owners have been through, I was disappointed to read the attorney for the Sconset Beach Preservation Fund seeming to be less than enthusiastic about meeting the Board of Selectmen and the newly reformed Conservation Commission halfway.  Given how far all of the stakeholders have travelled, now is not the time for posturing.

Even though the future of Sconset seems brighter than it has for quite some time, we can't lose sight of the fact that it remains way too hard to implement nature based coastal resilience solutions in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.  Legislative or regulatory action is needed immediately to facilitate such solutions to the havoc our GHG supercharged climate is causing on our coastline.  Regulations drafted in the 1980s era of "let nature take its course" make no sense in the face of our 21st century climate emergency.  The revisions needed to those regulations are not many, but they are significant.  How do I know that?  Because I've actually gone to the effort to identify what is needed.  I know the Healey-Driscoll Administration appreciates the magnitude of the challenge we face, and I trust its promise to meet our coastal resilience challenge head on.   But the resilience measures announced by the Administration last week don't include the legislative or regulatory reform we need.  I hope to see those revisions soon but, again, hope is not a strategy.