David Roby 85 Squam Road

Editor's note: This week, The Nantucket Independent presents the final installment of Voices Away from the Bluff, examining the ramifications of the Siasconset Beach Preservation Fund's beach nourishment proposal. We encourage letters sent to the editor: don@nantucketindependent.com or to 15 North Beach St., Nantucket, Mass., 02554.

Tell us about yourself - line of work, connection to Nantucket.

My name is David Roby. I'm 70 years old and recently retired. I practiced law for seven years and then established a company that invests in forestland and has developed a number of sizeable, complex commercial real estate projects.

I first came to Nantucket in the 1960s to advise a Nantucket landowner on a variety of tax, business and real estate matters. At that time my family and I began to vacation on the island. We acquired an oceanfront building lot in Squam in the early 1980s and built a home on the property five years ago. We have since spent a good deal of time on island, including time in the off-season walking the Squam beach.

David Roby

In general, what are your thoughts about the erosion control methods employed by SBPF?

The erosion control methods employed by SBPF in the past have failed. My wife and I walked the beach following the April storm that devastated the terracing work at 'Sconset Bluff and were amazed to see the large numbers of four-by-four timbers in the surf and washed ashore. The proponents have said the terracing was designed to fail partially, but the actual failure went far beyond design. This failure highlights a fundamental fact about the proposed project: it is founded on the assumption that the "experts" can know enough about an extraordinarily complex natural system to manipulate it to achieve predictable outcomes and to achieve those outcomes without causing irreparable damage.

This assumption is unfounded and not credible.

From your perspective, what are the pros and cons of dredging sand offshore and pumping it onto a beach to rebuild it (beach nourishment) in relation to the SBPF proposal?

In my view, there can be no meaningful net benefit from mining 1.9 million cubic yards of sedimentary material from the ocean adjacent to Bass Rip Shoal and dumping it on the 'Sconset Beach. The proponents speak of taking sand and sediment from a "borrow" site and using it to "nourish" a beach. These are wonderfully comforting words, but the material is not borrowed, it is taken, and the beach is not nourished, it is covered with the mammoth quantity of material from the excavation. To put this in perspective, the current proposal is to mine and dump 1.9 million cubic yards of material. This is the equivalent of 51.3 million cubic feet - enough sand and sediment to cover the town from Straight Wharf up Main Street to Pleasant Street to a depth of 50 feet and a width of 500 feet.

Should the Board of Selectmen approve the use of town-owned land, necessary for the project to go forward?

The Board of Selectmen should not approve the use of town land for this project. The project poses unacceptable risk to one of Nantucket's most important and productive ecosystems.

The proponents tell us that the project is solidly supported by expert advice based on careful, comprehensive data collection and highly sophisticated computer modeling. But in my business and professional career I've seen enough of paid experts to be skeptical of their assurances, particularly when generated in the context of a complex and controversial permitting process.

Where do you draw the line between preservation of public and private property and protection and conservation of natural resources?

This question has to be answered in context. Of course it's important to protect public and private property, but not at the cost of high risk to an extraordinarily complex and highly productive ecosystem. Nantucket, in large measure, is its natural resources, including, not least, the resources that would be directly threatened by the proposed SBPF project.

How should SBPF modify its proposal to address the projected negative impacts of the beach rebuilding project?

I see no reasonable basis for modifying the project.

If this proposal is approved and harmful effects occur, what should SBPF be prepared to do to remedy the negative impacts?

If, or rather, when the harm is done, it will be too late. The destruction of the complex ecosystem that is at stake here cannot be reversed. The damage cannot be remedied; it cannot be mitigated. The proponents have said that SBPF will "provide financial guarantees should adverse impacts occur." But what kind of "financial" guarantee [is there for an] ecosystem such as that at risk from the SBPF project?

If rebuilding the beach with offshore dredged sand is not the answer, what should the residents of Baxter Road do to protect their property from erosion?

Available measures are limited to the relocation of the threatened buildings. This has already been done to some extent and it is clear that more could be done. The recent successful relocation of Sankaty Light points the way.

Ultimately, however, the owners of the 'Sconset Bluff properties, like all of us who are fortunate enough to own oceanfront property on Nantucket, have to realize and accept the fact that we hold our properties at sufferance and, in time, may well lose them to the sea. We should not seek to avoid this outcome by massive disruption of the natural processes that make Nantucket what it is.

Alternately, if the project and its environmental mitigation slows the rate of erosion, creates shorebird habitat, successfully replaces the cobble areas offshore with artificial cobble areas and does not harm the ocean bottom, would you recommend other island shorelines for this erosion control method. Why or why not?

This question shows the project for what it is: an enormous, far-reaching, extraordinarily complex experiment with Nantucket as the guinea pig. The premise of the question is not realistic and so cannot be extrapolated to other island shorelines. It is clear that all the engineers and all the scientists and all the computer models assembled by SBPF, acting individually and in combination and to the best of their ability, cannot possibly succeed in replacing naturally occurring and functioning cobble areas with artificial cobble areas nor dredge 1.9 million cubic yards from Nantucket's offshore waters without harm.

Is there anything you want to say that I haven't asked regarding SBPF's offshore sand dredging and beach rebuilding proposal?

The proponents and their experts have referred to experiments, to tests, to "pushing the state of the art." The 'Sconset shore, the offshore cobble areas, the area just westerly of Bass Rip Shoal, Sesachacha Pond, the Quidnet/Squam/Wauwinet beach should not be the subject of an experiment. The stakes are far too high. The consequences of failure are far too grave.

The project should be terminated now. I