Why not build half the house you can afford to build, then if it is destroyed, you still have the other half of your money to rebuild. I am tired of the poor, poor pitiful me, attitude of people who build on the oceans’s edge. Gimme a break!

Highlighted as pertinent to this discussion is what follows:

“As a barrier island, Plum Island has always been vulnerable to erosion. There are references from earliest times to the ocean breaching the foredunes during severe storms. For many years, however, the shifting sands was of little consequence because few structures existed other than the lighthouse buildings and the hotel at the Center. When the first cottages were built along the ocean front in the 1880′s, most of them enjoyed a comfortable expanse of beach and dune between the house and ocean.
“…wave action began to undermine property by the turn of the century; a message on a 1910 postcard describes the moving back of a family cottage threatened by erosion. This protective action was possible for many years because there was sufficient land behind the buildings to move them. However, as ocean front sand continued to wash away, there was no further safety net.
“By 1950 erosion had endangered a number of cottages, and two viscious storms that occured in that year took a tremendous toll…”

And it goes on. Remember, what is now The Basin is the old mouth of the Merrimack which was reconfigured in the 1800′s by hurricane force winds and surge.

“Sometime in the period between 1840 and the mid-1850′s [the owner of the northern end] received an unexpected dividend from the sea. Prior to that time the Basin and all the land between it and the ocean were non-existent. In December of 1839 three very destructive storms served as catalysts for dramatic changes…these storms cut a channel through a sizeable portion of Salisbury Beach at the mouth of the Merrimack, thereby creating an island in the middle of the River. For a brief period, there were two channels into the harbor. Eventually the mouth of the south channel, which had previously been the single point of entry, filled with silt and sand. As this reef expanded northward, it formed the cove we now call the Basin…and was called New Point.
“New Point became the subject of a fascinating lawsuit several decades after it became affixed to Plum Island. In 1883, E.Moody Boynton sued the Pettingil heirs, claiming that the new point of land was the same piece of property that had been violently severed from Salisbury Beach during the winter storms of 1839-1840 and that he, E. Moody Boynton, had acquired title to it from the Salisbury Proprietors and was thus the rightful owner.” (See page 7)

My point being that the erosion of Plum Island is nothing new.
Plum Island is a barrier island and the nature of barrier islands is that they change, and this nature is what helps them protect the land that they “guard.” With increased global warming, this will only increase. Neither the Army Corps, sand bags, fill, or anything else is going to alter this course.

Additionally, during the more enlightened times of the late 60′s and early 70′s, regulations were established against building on foredunes or primary dunes.

These have been laughed off and ignored by the Newbury selectmen, not only the present ones but those who came before. Try getting minutes of any of their meetings and you will find that they don’t exist. They keep no records. Try getting a straight answer and you will hear a litany of excuses. They are a group of men who have long thought they should not be held accountable for any of their actions. Their “yea’s” have gone to friends, while the “nay’s” have gone to others. When things go wrong they always point the finger at someone else.

Former property owner and resident of Plum Island.