Faded Beauty

It’s true that visitors still rightly exclaim over the beauty of the Gay Head Cliffs, but nowadays it’s more the shape of the headland than the color of its clay that is eye-catching. As long ago as 1930, geologists were urging the federal government, which owns the land on which the lighthouse stands, and the town and the county to make efforts to preserve the renowned headland. That was when Cong. Charles L. Gifford filed a bill that would have authorized a geological survey to look into ways of preventing further erosion. Although the south shore cliffs extend for miles, the then-colorful section was about three-quarters of a mile long. Now it has diminished even further.

Over the years, it has been proposed that riprap be put around the base of the cliffs to slow down the wave action at the base, but that’s never happened. In the 1950s and again in the 1970s, Clifford A. Kaye, a geologist with the U.S. Geological Survey, pointed out once again — as had also been pointed out decades earlier by Congressman Gifford — that it wasn’t just the ocean that was washing away the clay. Small ponds inland from the cliffs, he said, were seeping through and causing the clay to slide. He proposed digging ditches and installing a few concrete pipes to divert this water away from the cliffs, but nobody did anything about that either. He suggested that the simple diversion he was proposing could probably be done over a few Saturdays “by a few guys with picks and shovels.” That proposal, too, fell on deaf ears.

And so the cliffs of clay that, once viewed from the top, were red and black and gray and white and nationally heralded for their stunning color, today have lost their red and most of their black and are largely beige and gray and white. Viewed from the shore, they are a bit brighter. But it’s too bad that over the years, neither the United States government nor the town nor the county has heeded the warnings of the experts and made at least an effort to keep our famous headland from sliding into the sea.