Storm erosion has been changing the geography of Nantucket for 18,000 years - ever since the end of the Ice Age when it was connected to Long Island via a long winding peninsula stretching northeastward from Montauk Point. Hurricanes, nor'easters, and other oceanic storms have for 18 millenia wrought their wrath on the peninsula's beaches and cliffs; and have succeeded in eroding away most of them except for Nantucket, Martha's Vineyard, and a few other smaller island vestiges.

Nantucket is a fragile remnant - made up of similar easily-eroded loose glacial deposits as had existed on the disappeared peninsula. However, the same beach and cliff erosion-protection techniques that help protect Long Island's coasts would also help on Nantucket.

Many wealthy people have summer homes on Nantucket. They've been shocked by recent increases in frequency and severity of storm erosion that is correlated with global warming. They're determined to maintain their pleasant summer lifestyle and to save Nantucket's eroding beaches, undercut cliffs, and houses that slide down the eroding cliffs. No governmental funds are available to slow Nantucket's erosion, so summer residents have put up $25 million in private funds to fight coastal erosion. They're ready to double that amount to avoid losing their idyllic Nantucket summers.

Two major erosion-protection methods recommended by their expensive coastal experts involve dredging sand from several miles offshore and pumping it through underwater pipes up to the beaches to replace the natural sand eroded by powerful storm-waves; and using sand bags piled atop each other at the base of cliffs to act as buffers to absorb the energy of giant storm-waves that pound and scour out loose glacial sediments along the cliff-base and undercuts the upper cliff sediments and summer homes above them.

These 2007 methods are identical to ones I suggested in the 1970s (along with removal of rock groins) to mitigate storm erosion on Westhampton Island beaches --- where the Corps of Engineers had planned to pump sand from dredge pits located only half-mile offshore, onto storm-eroded beaches. I told the corps that dredge-pits so close to the shore would cause sand from the beaches to slide into the water and back down into nearshore dredge pits-creating a Sisyphus situation where the corps pumps sand up to a beach, and gravity slides sand back into the pit. I recommended dredging from more than 2 miles offshore; and the corps acquiesced. This was the only time the corps ever accepted a suggestion from me.

When a huge 1970's storm removed 20 feet of a cliff-base in Mattituck, I told friends with summer homes atop a cliff that they should pile sand bags at the base of the cliff and cover them with loose sand and beach grass, and leave them buried until a storm occurred that could erode the replaceable sandbags instead of the glacial sediments at the base of the cliff. Rather than follow the free advice they had requested, one couple lost their house when it tumbled down after the next big storm undercut its foundation; another couple spent thousands unnecessarily to move their house hundreds of feet back from the cliff, and a third couple divorced and moved away after they couldn't agree on whether to follow my suggestions. Sic transit free advice.