Work on the East Chop bulkhead and jetties to prevent further erosion of the sightly cliff and drive, began on Tuesday when a gang of workmen in charge of superintendent H. L. Curtis of C. W.
Three days ago, The Trustees of Reservations staff removed the last of the big old telephone poles delineating the parking lot at Wasque Point on Chappaquiddick, lest they lose them to the sea.
A week or so from now, the remaining half of the parking lot will probably be gone; the shoreline at Wasque has retreated almost 100 feet since early November, and continues to erode at a rate of about one foot per day.
How long might this go on?
Shoreline change is a dynamic process, especially at Wasque, the southern part of Chappaquiddick, owned and managed by The Trustees of Reservations. This shoreline is very dynamic, sometimes accreting rapidly and sometimes eroding rapidly. Wasque is now eroding rapidly — parking lots have eroded away this winter, leaving an almost unrecognizable beach. What is going on? Why is it eroding so much now? There are several factors that explain this change.
As the Atlantic Ocean continues its assault on the south-facing shoreline of the Vineyard, Lucy Vincent Beach in Chilmark has been turned into a hazard zone, its once-broad sweep of sand now chewed away by ocean waves and littered with pieces of collapsed cliff.
“The conditions are extremely dangerous, even for an experienced person like myself,” said Chilmark beach superintendent Martina Mastromonaco yesterday. “I think my biggest concern right now is keeping people away from the area.”
Oak Bluffs town officials have entered negotiations with the East Chop Association to take ownership of the coastal bluff on scenic East Chop Drive, following a report which concluded the slope is in danger of imminent failure.
The takeover plan is still in the very early stages, but those on both sides of the negotiations believe transferring ownership of the East Chop bluff to the town is the only way to secure state and federal funding for repairs of the fragile coastal bank.
An engineering report examining the stability of scenic East Chop Drive in Oak Bluffs concludes the fragile coastal slope is extremely unstable and showing signs of distress and imminent failure.
The eight-page draft report from the firm of Stearns and Wheler recommends that the town repair the bluff as quickly as possible by both reshaping the coastal bank and installing stabilizing materials such as a concrete block system, heavy riprap, sheet piling or a specially designed mechanically stabilized earth wall.
For Martina Mastromonaco, Chilmark beach superintendent, the horseshoe she found recently on a dune at the west end of Lucy Vincent Beach is no lucky charm.
On the contrary, she thinks the ancient-looking piece of metal is a bearer of bad tidings. The game of throwing horseshoes at the beach has not been popular for many years, she reasons, so the fact that the ocean has uncovered this artifact now is a stark illustration of how fast her beach is disappearing.
