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Residents of Salisbury Beach, Massachusetts spent more than $500,000 in a last-ditch effort to protect their homes from flooding. But after just three days, most of the Hail Mary was swept out to sea.
This project is sponsored by a community nonprofit organization. Salisbury Beach residents want change, built artificial dunes along the coast to prevent floodwaters from reaching homeowners’ properties. Construction took four weeks, used 15,000 tons of sand, and cost residents $600,000 out of their own pocket.
The initiative was prompted by a series of “king tides” that have hit Salisbury Beach since January, SBCFC President Tom Saab told Business Insider. According to Saab, a king tide is an exceptional storm surge that reaches heights of 10 feet or more.
Two consecutive storms in January caused tides to exceed 14 feet and significantly eroded the coast. “Property was destroyed,” Saab said. The homeowner suffered damage to the deck and stairs, and water even entered the living room.
To make matters worse, the storm washed away the natural sand dunes that protected the coastal land, leaving it even more vulnerable to the next inevitable big tide.
The total value of the Salisbury Beach homes is about $2 billion, Saab said. And the beach itself is a popular tourist destination, visited by around 1 million people each year.
Overall, he said, this square mile of beach pays 45 percent of Salisbury’s taxes. If we lose it, the town will go bankrupt. And in that case, Massachusetts would have to bail them out.
“That’s why this is so important, and it’s incumbent on the Commonwealth of Massachusetts to continue to help protect Salisbury Beach,” Saab said.
In the wake of January’s storms, the SBCFC asked the state for help, but officials made no commitment to invest in coastal protection for Salisbury Beach. So nonprofit organizations and local residents filed an emergency lawsuit to build their own man-made barrier dunes.
The group raised more than $500,000 in donations from residents and trucked in enough sand to fill 3.75 Olympic-sized swimming pools to replenish the beach. They completed the project on March 7th.
But then the tide came in again.
This video posted on SBCFC Facebook page Showing the final stages of construction of the artificial dunes at Salisbury Beach.
On March 10th, the Nor’easter pushed a 13.5-foot tide onto the beach. By the time the water receded, half of the dunes had been washed away. “The $600,000 we put there was stolen,” Saab said. “We lost $300,000 in sand.”
But thanks to the dunes, their home was protected. Jens Figles, a coastal engineer and associate professor at Texas A&M University, told BI that while its rapid collapse means a significant financial loss for homeowners, it doesn’t mean the project was a failure. .
In fact, he believes the dunes did exactly what they were supposed to do. If it hadn’t been for that, homeowners likely would have been picking up the remains of their damaged homes. The dunes saved them.
How man-made dunes protect coastal areas
Beachfront homes face increasing risks as climate change causes sea levels to rise and storms to become more frequent. Coastal engineers like Figles are tasked with finding ways to protect our coasts.
Artificial dunes are one solution. “They’re basically trying to mimic the natural features found on many beaches,” Figles explained.
Dunes act as a buffer between land-based infrastructure and the ocean. When the coast erodes, coastal homes lose this natural protection. That’s where the man-made dunes are buried. Dunes replace what has been lost, lessen the blow from rising sea levels, and prevent homes from being built.
“Dunes are sacrificial structures,” Figles said. He explained that when a storm comes and the tide comes in, it erodes the dunes rather than destroying the front deck or foundation of the house.
That means all man-made dunes, like this one at Salisbury Beach, wash away over time. In that sense, “the dunes that eroded under these storms played a role, because without the dunes, it was a home,” Figles said.
How quickly that happens is another matter.
Figles acknowledged the fact that the severe storm occurred just three days after Salisbury Dunes was built was “tragic”, but was completely out of residents’ control. Even if this recent storm did not destroy the dunes, another storm would eventually have.
Is it worth investing $600,000 in water protection that could disappear in a matter of days? That’s for the community to decide, Figles said. “You get to a point where it might not be economically practical to put millions of dollars in front of a few houses and watch it go by.”
But he still believes man-made dunes are the best defense against rising sea levels for coastal homeowners. “They’re basically buying time,” he says. “That remains our best option.”
Saab agreed. But he believes the money should come from the state, not the pockets of coastal homeowners. Nevertheless, he has repeatedly appealed to Massachusetts to fund the Salisbury Beach coastal adaptation project, but has received no response.
“Our problem is that the state of Massachusetts refuses to help us. The state refuses to provide any funding and would rather see the coast collapse,” he said. said.
Instead of funding beach restoration projects, the state is addressing the problem through beach closures and communication with Salisbury residents, according to the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation.
“Due to damage from recent storms, DCR has closed access points 9 and 10 at Salisbury Beach to ensure public safety,” a DCR spokesperson told BI. “The Healey-Driscoll Administration remains in regular contact with the town, legislative delegation, and community representatives and will continue to work together to address the impacts of erosion on our beaches.”
Salisbury Beach Preservation
This week, Salisbury Beach residents met with environmentalists and members of the Massachusetts Department of Conservation and Recreation to develop next steps.
About 170 people gathered at the virtual meeting to plead with state officials to fund coastal protection for Salisbury Beach, Saab said.
In addition to funding future dune projects, they also discussed the possibility of allowing dredging (taking sand from the ocean floor and using it to replenish the beach) along Salisbury Beach. But Massachusetts is now one of the few states on the East Coast where dredging is illegal.
Among other solutions suggested by Salisbury Beach residents was the use of “sand trap bags.” This is essentially a large plastic bag filled with sand that can be used to build protective barriers along beaches.
But Saab said state officials had not committed to moving forward with either proposal. Now, SBCFC and local residents are pursuing another solution: planting dune grass. According to , using grass anchors to seed dunes locks the sand in place and strengthens the dunes against erosion by waves and wind. amherst college.
“We have purchased hundreds of bundles of dune grass and will begin planting grass on the remaining portions of the dunes,” Saab said. Funding and labor for this new project will be provided by Salisbury Beach residents.
However, not all of them will actively participate this time as well. Saab said some residents are simply reluctant to invest more personal funds in beach protection efforts. But he doesn’t plan on throwing in the towel anytime soon.
“I will never give up. We will continue to fight. We must continue to protect our beaches no matter what,” he said.