On a misty, windy morning in April 2007 Chris Kennedy, Martha’s Vineyard superintendent for The Trustees of Reservations, had just returned from the part of South Beach in Edgartown known as Norton Point.
The night before Katama Bay had filled to overflowing by the flood of an astronomical high tide, topped off by the overwash and storm surge of a Patriots’ Day gale.
When George Santayana wrote “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” he was not envisioning people repeating their own mistakes. But that is what is transpiring at Wasque Point on Chappaquiddick this spring. In 2007 the Schifter family completed a large house about 300 feet from the bluff edge. Six years later, with the house poised to fall into the ocean, they are proposing to move it about 300 feet from the edge while damaging the environment and native artifacts and disrupting users of this magnificent landscape.
Plans to move a Chappaquiddick home threatened by erosion became more urgent this week, after last week’s nearly-three-day storm brought the coastal bank 11 feet closer to Richard and Jennifer Schifter’s Wasque Point home. But as waves continue to eat away at the waterfront property, the drama of the house move has extended into now weekly meetings at Edgartown town hall, where the house faces regulatory, logistical, and environmental concerns from town officials and neighbors.
While elaborate plans continue to unfold for moving a large Chappaquiddick house, the Edgartown conservation commission is grappling with a new issue: whether actions taken to stem the erosion can continue after the house is moved.
For months, the situation unfolding at Wasque Point where a rapidly eroding coastal bluff is swiftly approaching an 8,800-square-foot house, has captivated the Island.
Shifting sand at both Wasque and Lucy Vincent Beach has uncovered what may be parts of two shipwrecks.
Last Sunday afternoon, Andrew Orcutt of Edgartown and Albany was out walking the shoreline near Wasque and the Norton Point breach. He discovered remnants of what appeared to be a ship in the wash.
With the failure of a previous plan to try to stem the erosion that threatens a Chappaquiddick house and a severe tropical storm headed up the East Coast early next week, the Edgartown conservation commission Wednesday approved a new emergency plan of action for the property.
High seas and gusting winds over the weekend prevented the safe
removal of a 71-foot fishing boat that washed onto Norton Point Beach
Saturday morning.
The bluefish are in. For at least one fisherman, the arrival was
like an old-fashioned Wasque bluefish blitz.
On Monday, Ed Amaral drove to Chappaquiddick to get his line wet and
perhaps catch the first bluefish of the season. While he didn't
get the first one, he certainly got more than he expected.
The Trustees of Reservations may be forced to close Wasque Reservation this summer if the erosion which has ravaged the southeastern corner of the Chappaquiddick reservation continues at the current rate, superintendent Chris Kennedy told the Edgartown conservation commission on Wednesday night.
Mr. Kennedy said there is a very real possibility that the parking lot at Wasque used by visitors for beach access will be gone by summer.
Shoreline change is a dynamic process, especially at Wasque, the southern part of Chappaquiddick, owned and managed by The Trustees of Reservations. This shoreline is very dynamic, sometimes accreting rapidly and sometimes eroding rapidly. Wasque is now eroding rapidly — parking lots have eroded away this winter, leaving an almost unrecognizable beach. What is going on? Why is it eroding so much now? There are several factors that explain this change.
