A bitter feud has broken out between Nantucket residents over so–called 'geotubes' installed to protect mansions along the scenic summer paradise, as other push back on the project and argue it is actually worsening erosion on the entire island.
Homeowners along Baxter Road on Sconset's Sconset Bluff, right on the eastern tip of Nantucket, have backed the 947–foot structure of sand–filled tubes as a way to protect their luxurious properties from falling into the quickly–moving ocean.
Supporters from the Sconset Beach Preservation Fund (SBPF) say the geotubes have helped avoid an expensive relocation of 80 homes in the scenic enclave, according to the Wall Street Journal.
Homeowners backing the geotubes have said the coastline erodes by about four feet per year and that at least 20 homes have already been moved or demolished because of the erosion.
Opponents have argued that the geotubes are actually accelerating erosion on other parts of the island, partly because the group backing the geotubes have repeatedly failed to follow regulations.
Tensions came to a boiling point in January when the wealthy tube backers claimed that the geotubes had been slashed by a vandal, which prompted them to launch their own independent investigation into the event.
Despite the tube pushback, the homeowners are hoping to add even more geotubes, with a vote scheduled in May during a town meeting.
'I see this as a small number of very wealthy, really influential people who will not take no for an answer,' D. Anne Atherton, who lives on the island, told the WSJ.
Baxter Road homeowners on Sconset's Sconset Bluff want sand-filled geotubes to be installed as a way to prevent erosion on their part of Nantucket (Credit to the Town of Nantucket)
Opponents of the geotubes, which are damaged (pictured), argue that the technology is actually accelerating erosion elsewhere on the island
The median home sale price in Nantucket last year was $3.3 million. Supporters of the geotubes have said that the island's coastline erodes about four feet each year
Last year, the median home sale price in Nantucket was $3.3 million, according to Realtor.
Members of the Hearst and Soros families are among the A–listers who own property on the island's Sconset Bluff.
About $18 million have already been spent on installing the geotubes, which could cost an additional $2 million to repair, according to the WSJ.
The SBPF shared images of damaged geotubes in late January, claiming the destruction to be evidence of vandalism.
The wealthy group of backers then hired former Boston police commissioner Ed Davis to investigate the collected evidence.
'The clean, linear cuts are consistent with a premeditated and willful act of vandalism,' Davis said in February. 'This was in no way an accident or the result of natural forces.'
But shortly afterwards, the geotubes suffered a second failure after another part of the project collapsed, the Nantucket Current reported.
The group of homeowners admitted that specific incident appeared to have happened naturally.
The Nantucket Conservation Commission's chair, Seth Engelbourg, later warned that the geotubes could be nearing 'complete failure,' with more than half of the system effectively unusable.
'I don't even know if the geotubes could be rebuilt in the area where they are now,' Engelbourg said, according to the Journal.
The future of the geotubes was further questioned by the Nantucket Conservation Commission after more failures were reported, which were said to have been natural
Baxter Road homeowners acknowledged that they stopped being compliant with regards to the sand in 2021 after a previous expansion plan was rejected
Critics of the geotubes contend that while the project might benefit homeowners on the Sconset Bluff, the tubes would hurt the rest of the island.
They say the homeowners needed to cover the geotubes with sand, which would have then fed into other beaches.
However, that stopped happening in 2021, two years after the town had rejected an expansion of the geotubes project.
Conservation agent Will Dell'Erba directly pointed to that compliance failure as a motivator for the feud.
'They have been told to cover them with sand before,' Dell'Erba said to the Nantucket Current.
'I feel that at some point, somebody has to say that if they were covered in sand, this might not have been possible to happen,' Dell'Erba added.
Still, backers of the project insist that they are saving the road and its homes, which have allegedly lost millions of dollars in home value because of the erosion.
Locals who are opposed to the geotubes say that residents who support them have failed to comply with regulations that required sand to be placed over them
Former Boston police commissioner Ed Davis was hired by supporters of the geotubes to investigate an alleged vandalism in January
'It is absolutely crazy that the town has resisted an effort by individual homeowners to protect their property and the road and public utilities with a technology that is now proven,' Helmut Weymar, an economist who owns a home on the bluff, told the WSJ.
Weymar, 89, spends most of his time in Princeton, New Jersey, according to the outlet.
Weymar suggested that opponents of geotubes may be motivated by 'a bit of class warfare going on.'
'Those are fat cats in some people's view, and they should not be helped,' Weymar said.
The president of the SBPF, Josh Posner, added that the tensions over the geotubes were 'shocking.'
The Daily Mail has reached out to the Sconset Beach Preservation Fund, the Nantucket Conservation Commission and the Nantucket Police Department for updated comment on the feud and the alleged vandalism of the geotubes.
