Five years after Hurricane Sandy ravaged Squibnocket, work began this week on a 300-foot raised causeway that will provide access to homes near the beach.
A project to re-engineer the eroding shoreline at Squibnocket Beach has hit a new potential roadblock with a group of residents asking the state for further review.
The Chilmark conservation commission has approved two long-debated projects to restore Squibnocket Beach and build a new access road to the homes at Squibnocket Farm. Barring appeals, the projects could begin as soon as mid-September.
Chilmark voters early this week unanimously backed a plan for restoring Squibnocket Beach, ending a seven-month public review. It was a striking departure from the contentious annual town meeting last April when an earlier plan was rejected.
The controversial improvement project for Squibnocket beach is the talk of the town and comes to a vote Monday night in the Chilmark Community Center. Moderator Everett Poole said he will give a free rein to debate.
The lead sentence in the April 14 story in the Gazette said it best: public discussion over the Squibnocket Beach and access project has grown “increasingly complicated.”
A plan to reconfigure the town beachfront at Squibnocket could be a model for future coastal restoration projects, concludes a report by Greg Berman, a coastal scientist with the Woods Hole Sea Grant Cooperative Extension. But he advised a go-slow approach and said more study is needed.
