The closure of the Norton Point breach on Chappaquiddick after eight years will likely benefit oyster farms and shorebirds in one of the Island’s most pristine natural environments, several experts said this week.
As of early in the morning on April 2, Chappaquiddick was no longer an island completely separated from Martha’s Vineyard. Nearly eight years after a northeaster cut a breach in the three-mile barrier beach that connects Edgartown with the smaller island, the Norton Point breach had closed.
The blizzard of 2015 spared Norton Point, the long barrier beach that is about to reconnect Chappaquiddick to the rest of the Vineyard, from further breaching. Chris Kennedy, superintendent for The Trustees of Reservations, reported Thursday that the breach remained as it was before the storm.
The Norton Point breach has been part of an ongoing cycle of nature. The current breach began seven years ago, and as a result erosion on Chappaquiddick has intensified.
Fees are going up for over-sand vehicle permits, as the Trustees of Reservations work to enhance stewardship and generate more revenue for the fragile barrier beach. The county commission approved hikes to annual permits, but held off on approval for daily pass increases.
Dramatic changes are taking place again at Wasque where the Norton Point breach continues to have a mind of its own. The breach has retreated 800 feet since September, leaving one summer house at the brink.
On a misty, windy morning in April 2007 Chris Kennedy, Martha’s Vineyard superintendent for The Trustees of Reservations, had just returned from the part of South Beach in Edgartown known as Norton Point.
The night before Katama Bay had filled to overflowing by the flood of an astronomical high tide, topped off by the overwash and storm surge of a Patriots’ Day gale.
The breach at Norton Point, with its ever-shifting inlet, dramatic changes in currents and resulting severe erosion, has been billed as “one of the most dynamic coastal systems in Massachusetts.”
When George Santayana wrote “Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it” he was not envisioning people repeating their own mistakes. But that is what is transpiring at Wasque Point on Chappaquiddick this spring. In 2007 the Schifter family completed a large house about 300 feet from the bluff edge. Six years later, with the house poised to fall into the ocean, they are proposing to move it about 300 feet from the edge while damaging the environment and native artifacts and disrupting users of this magnificent landscape.
