In Friday’s Wall Street Journal there was article about the erosion of the shoreline in Siasconsett on the Eastern side of Nantucket Island. Basically, the shore is eroding rapidly in that part of the island and many wealthy people have large nice homes overlooking the Atlantic Ocean which they wish to protect. I am sure there are also some less wealthy people who have had homes there for some time, but these points are relatively minor in the grand scheme of things. Anyway, the rich have set up a fund and they want to rebuild the beach.
Of course controversy is brewing here, and rightly so. In this case I side with the fishermen. I hope they win.
I personally have nothing against rich people building houses wherever they wish to build houses. I like ocean views as well, or mountaintop views. But they have to learn to accept that money doesn’t buy everything and they might just loose that home.
There is evidence that rebuilding the beach may protect the homes for some time, and it will certainly protect property values. But there is no evidence that rebuilding the beach actually stops erosion, in fact evidence is mounting that the efforts made to restructure and resurface areas of the ocean have often made the situation worse in the long run. All you have to do is google beach erosion to find tons of references.
Then there is the issue of disturbing the natural environment and the striped bass habitat. The statement made by one of the landowner’s that he would pay the families of fishermen the lost revenue that would be incurred by the loss of fishing grounds is incredibly arrogant. Yes that may help one family, but what about the future generations? What about future generations of all of us? We don’t really understand the longer term impacts that some of these changes might foment. I think this idea that we can try to configure the earth to fit the pleasures of some wealthy humans and the long-term fate of the rest of the human race and the planet itself be damned is an incredibly bad idea.
I am surprised that they are even getting permission to do this, but then money and power talk. And governments are run by and intrinsically connected to people who have money, and projects that don’t cost the public anything in dollars up front are easily approved. The short term goals are met and the idea of looking at the long term seems to be a foreign concept.
I have been to Siasconsett. The old houses were beautiful. Some of the new ones are simply grandiose. The place itself, looking out at the ocean is beautiful, but part of that beauty is its very danger, the pounding of the surf, the thought that it could all be washed away in a moment. There are places in the world where you can have a fabulous view of the ocean and where there is a smaller risk that your house will be washed away. Do the research. If you can’t stand the risk, don’t buy the house. .