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Perfectly acceptable for homeowners to spend their own money to save their houses. But it’s the last sentence in the story that makes me boil over: “Now, the

Perfectly acceptable for homeowners to spend their own money to save their houses. But it’s the last sentence in the story that makes me boil over: “Now, the homeowners have asked the state to step in and provide assistance.”

rat9988 3y ago
Well, it's government regulation that keeps them from building a more rigid structure. I'm not sure it's that unacceptable to ask it to help, after they did their best within the regulated framework.
- pixl97 3y ago
  Yea, it's like the government knows the problems induced by rigid structures near the ocean and most people have no clue because they "want what they want" and have never picked up a textbook to even begin understanding the damage they are causing.
BlarfMcFlarf 3y ago
I was more interested in the comment that more permanent sea wall structures are prohibited. Maybe the residents feel like if their hands are tied then the government doing the tying should help? I don’t really know the local politics or reasoning though.
- ViewTrick1002 3y ago
  Changing the erosion pattern in one place. What if the change causes higher levels of erosion in a natural reserve or less affluent area?
nonrandomstring 3y ago
> Property owners dumped 15,000 tons of sand in a Massachusetts town to fend off dangerous tides, but it was swept away in 72 hours The assistance they could benefit from most is not financial but a short educational course on basic construction science. Sand is not a great building material. It even mentions that in the bible (Matthew 7:24-27).
- arbuge 3y ago
  If you read the article, it was pretty much the only thing the government allowed them to do.
  - aimonster2 3y ago
    I really despise the EPA. They have moved beyond their original charter of protecting the environment to protecting the property of some rich people at the expense of others--including poor people. I bet there's places in Massachussets that has similar properties but are the 'right kind' of rich people so they get variances. And by right kind, I mean people who have generational wealth and not just wealth that was earned by years of hard work like most shore town home owners.
  - nonrandomstring 3y ago
    I did read the article and it was still a stupid thing to do. It was stupid with or without government approval and it was stupid whether or not I read the article. What was your point?
awestley 3y ago
I agree, but to be fair it was also the state that limited them such a silly option. They can't do anything more permanent than sand. Which, I understand has an environmental impact, but the beaches are going to keep eroding so why not "draw a line in the sand" so to speak and help protect the beaches more permanently. Regardless of how lives there now. * I live in the state but no where near the water. So I'm sure my taxes will be paying for this.
- avidphantasm 3y ago
  Geomorphology doesn’t see lines in the sand. Development on sand dunes should simply not be allowed (as much as I like visiting the beach too).
  - awestley 3y ago
    I didn't mean it literally. a "line in the sand" is an idiom.
- pixl97 3y ago
  >help protect the beaches more permanently. Then you get rid of the houses.... The shape of the shore is an equation. In it you have have a massive pool of energy that is the water and its currents. You have a second smaller, yet still massive in human terms, pool of energy in the wind. Then you have the slope of the land from a few miles on shore to many (maybe even hundreds of miles) offshore. This is the lever of the machine. It weighs billions of tons and is miles long. What exactly does permanent mean when you stick something between an anvil and hammer that grinds down mountains. And in specific, you stick it where it becomes the focal point for that energy?
  - awestley 3y ago
    That is why I said more permanently. 10 years is better than 72 hours. To say "get rid of the houses" as a solution to beach erosion without considering legal, social, and economic implications is a classic case of oversimplifying a complex problem.
blagie 3y ago
Things which make sense to me: 1. Deregulate / reregulate to where residents are allowed to build a seawall instead of sacrificial dunes. 2. Bring in the Army Corp of Engineers to help with design, planning, and evaluation. Things which don't make sense to me: 1. Blocking people from doing the work. 2. Funding the actual construction with state or federal dollars. This is not an isolated problem. The Army Corp of Engineers should have the knowledge, skills, and abilities to plan this well. Assisting in projects like this is how you develop that skill set.
- detourdog 3y ago
  The problem with diverting water is that it goes somewhere else. The issue is that Salisbury is in the way of the ocean. Trying to build your way out of that is not going to work. They could establish an annual sand budget and treat it just like snow removal.
  - blagie 3y ago
    I'm not sure water needs to be diverted, per se. The problem isn't baseline water level but waves, and especially large waves, and sand washing away. It seems like the solutions would involve some combination of: * Breakwaters, to equalize the water levels and reduce the waves * A few meters inland, some kind of wall (firmer than sand) which doesn't wash away, so a bigger wave doesn't impact homes * Perhaps some kind of reinforcement underneath the sand It might reduce littoral drift a little bit, but as I understand, this would be done the length of a rather long coastline, so that's not really an issue. I have very mixed feelings about just dumping tons of sand into the ocean each year. That's going to have its own impacts.
    - pixl97 3y ago
      You seemingly don't understand the costs and long term effects of what you're asking. Just dumping sand on the beach is positively cheap compared to the hundreds of millions you're asking for. Also, building a wall near the ocean is possibly the worst idea you could ever do. Please research the interaction between air, water, and sand to learn this is how you make a massive hole that swallows everything. The same is true with breakwaters. Constant refurbishment is needed, and it changes sand flows that affect other people.
onionisafruit 3y ago
I agree with your sentiment, but you missed half the article if that was the last sentence you read. You quoted the last sentence before an ad. The article continues below the ad.
seszett 3y ago
I don't know, in my place (the West coast of France) it's the government's job to protect citizens property. There used to be a dike built in 1856 but it eroded away and in the 90s when I was young the broken sections were replaced with just big rocks[0]. It works quite fine, I believe they wouldn't count as a "hard structure" which is forbidden in this case, and they don't wash away like sand. Beaches form, naturally or with wave breakers, at the foot of the dike like they did before. But I really don't understand why individual homeowners would be expected to conduct public works themselves like building dikes. [0]https://as2.ftcdn.net/v2/jpg/01/78/00/19/1000_F_178001923_PwzegQo2m0kC7Br4QdZmHDQRZlGzY8Wo.jpg https://as2.ftcdn.net/v2/jpg/01/78/00/19/1000_F_178001923_Pw...
- LunaSea 3y ago
  Because they built houses in place they shouldn't have
  - seszett 3y ago
    Were they illegally built without a permit? Then they should be demolished. Were they built with a permit? Then either it wasn't obvious they shouldn't have been built (and then why would the homeowners be responsible for these kind of works?) or there was corruption (and then the relevant persons should be condemned). But privately built seawalls to protect the coast? That seems out of proportion, and unlikely to produce positive results on the long term. In the same area I'm talking about, people died in flooding during cyclone Xynthia, in 2010. It wasn't because of a particular weakness in the seawall, it was found that these homes should never have been built in the first place. But they had been built legally, with permits obtained from the town, so 700 of these homes were bought (by the state, not sure exactly which levels the funds came from but France is a unitary state so it doesn't matter much) and demolished. And the mayor who granted the obviously bogus permits was sentenced to prison for the 29 deaths he caused.
    - sp332 3y ago
      The houses were built 100 years ago, when the ocean was hundreds of feet further away. If you asked the builders, I'm sure they would have told you that this would happen in a century or so. Erosion of sandy beaches isn't a surprise.
Ekaros 3y ago
I'm fine with government providing assistance, as long as property tax collected matches the expenditure.

rat9988 3y ago

Well, it's government regulation that keeps them from building a more rigid structure. I'm not sure it's that unacceptable to ask it to help, after they did their best within the regulated framework.

pixl97 3y ago
Yea, it's like the government knows the problems induced by rigid structures near the ocean and most people have no clue because they "want what they want" and have never picked up a textbook to even begin understanding the damage they are causing.

BlarfMcFlarf 3y ago

I was more interested in the comment that more permanent sea wall structures are prohibited. Maybe the residents feel like if their hands are tied then the government doing the tying should help? I don’t really know the local politics or reasoning though.

ViewTrick1002 3y ago
Changing the erosion pattern in one place. What if the change causes higher levels of erosion in a natural reserve or less affluent area?

nonrandomstring 3y ago

> Property owners dumped 15,000 tons of sand in a Massachusetts town to fend off dangerous tides, but it was swept away in 72 hours The assistance they could benefit from most is not financial but a short educational course on basic construction science. Sand is not a great building material. It even mentions that in the bible (Matthew 7:24-27).

arbuge 3y ago
If you read the article, it was pretty much the only thing the government allowed them to do.
- aimonster2 3y ago
  I really despise the EPA. They have moved beyond their original charter of protecting the environment to protecting the property of some rich people at the expense of others--including poor people. I bet there's places in Massachussets that has similar properties but are the 'right kind' of rich people so they get variances. And by right kind, I mean people who have generational wealth and not just wealth that was earned by years of hard work like most shore town home owners.
- nonrandomstring 3y ago
  I did read the article and it was still a stupid thing to do. It was stupid with or without government approval and it was stupid whether or not I read the article. What was your point?

awestley 3y ago

I agree, but to be fair it was also the state that limited them such a silly option. They can't do anything more permanent than sand. Which, I understand has an environmental impact, but the beaches are going to keep eroding so why not "draw a line in the sand" so to speak and help protect the beaches more permanently. Regardless of how lives there now. * I live in the state but no where near the water. So I'm sure my taxes will be paying for this.

avidphantasm 3y ago
Geomorphology doesn’t see lines in the sand. Development on sand dunes should simply not be allowed (as much as I like visiting the beach too).
- awestley 3y ago
  I didn't mean it literally. a "line in the sand" is an idiom.
pixl97 3y ago
>help protect the beaches more permanently. Then you get rid of the houses.... The shape of the shore is an equation. In it you have have a massive pool of energy that is the water and its currents. You have a second smaller, yet still massive in human terms, pool of energy in the wind. Then you have the slope of the land from a few miles on shore to many (maybe even hundreds of miles) offshore. This is the lever of the machine. It weighs billions of tons and is miles long. What exactly does permanent mean when you stick something between an anvil and hammer that grinds down mountains. And in specific, you stick it where it becomes the focal point for that energy?
- awestley 3y ago
  That is why I said more permanently. 10 years is better than 72 hours. To say "get rid of the houses" as a solution to beach erosion without considering legal, social, and economic implications is a classic case of oversimplifying a complex problem.

blagie 3y ago

Things which make sense to me: 1. Deregulate / reregulate to where residents are allowed to build a seawall instead of sacrificial dunes. 2. Bring in the Army Corp of Engineers to help with design, planning, and evaluation. Things which don't make sense to me: 1. Blocking people from doing the work. 2. Funding the actual construction with state or federal dollars. This is not an isolated problem. The Army Corp of Engineers should have the knowledge, skills, and abilities to plan this well. Assisting in projects like this is how you develop that skill set.

detourdog 3y ago
The problem with diverting water is that it goes somewhere else. The issue is that Salisbury is in the way of the ocean. Trying to build your way out of that is not going to work. They could establish an annual sand budget and treat it just like snow removal.
- blagie 3y ago
  I'm not sure water needs to be diverted, per se. The problem isn't baseline water level but waves, and especially large waves, and sand washing away. It seems like the solutions would involve some combination of: * Breakwaters, to equalize the water levels and reduce the waves * A few meters inland, some kind of wall (firmer than sand) which doesn't wash away, so a bigger wave doesn't impact homes * Perhaps some kind of reinforcement underneath the sand It might reduce littoral drift a little bit, but as I understand, this would be done the length of a rather long coastline, so that's not really an issue. I have very mixed feelings about just dumping tons of sand into the ocean each year. That's going to have its own impacts.
  - pixl97 3y ago
    You seemingly don't understand the costs and long term effects of what you're asking. Just dumping sand on the beach is positively cheap compared to the hundreds of millions you're asking for. Also, building a wall near the ocean is possibly the worst idea you could ever do. Please research the interaction between air, water, and sand to learn this is how you make a massive hole that swallows everything. The same is true with breakwaters. Constant refurbishment is needed, and it changes sand flows that affect other people.

onionisafruit 3y ago

I agree with your sentiment, but you missed half the article if that was the last sentence you read. You quoted the last sentence before an ad. The article continues below the ad.

seszett 3y ago

I don't know, in my place (the West coast of France) it's the government's job to protect citizens property. There used to be a dike built in 1856 but it eroded away and in the 90s when I was young the broken sections were replaced with just big rocks[0]. It works quite fine, I believe they wouldn't count as a "hard structure" which is forbidden in this case, and they don't wash away like sand. Beaches form, naturally or with wave breakers, at the foot of the dike like they did before. But I really don't understand why individual homeowners would be expected to conduct public works themselves like building dikes. [0]https://as2.ftcdn.net/v2/jpg/01/78/00/19/1000_F_178001923_PwzegQo2m0kC7Br4QdZmHDQRZlGzY8Wo.jpg https://as2.ftcdn.net/v2/jpg/01/78/00/19/1000_F_178001923_Pw...

LunaSea 3y ago
Because they built houses in place they shouldn't have
- seszett 3y ago
  Were they illegally built without a permit? Then they should be demolished. Were they built with a permit? Then either it wasn't obvious they shouldn't have been built (and then why would the homeowners be responsible for these kind of works?) or there was corruption (and then the relevant persons should be condemned). But privately built seawalls to protect the coast? That seems out of proportion, and unlikely to produce positive results on the long term. In the same area I'm talking about, people died in flooding during cyclone Xynthia, in 2010. It wasn't because of a particular weakness in the seawall, it was found that these homes should never have been built in the first place. But they had been built legally, with permits obtained from the town, so 700 of these homes were bought (by the state, not sure exactly which levels the funds came from but France is a unitary state so it doesn't matter much) and demolished. And the mayor who granted the obviously bogus permits was sentenced to prison for the 29 deaths he caused.
  - sp332 3y ago
    The houses were built 100 years ago, when the ocean was hundreds of feet further away. If you asked the builders, I'm sure they would have told you that this would happen in a century or so. Erosion of sandy beaches isn't a surprise.

Ekaros 3y ago

I'm fine with government providing assistance, as long as property tax collected matches the expenditure.