The Inquirer & Mirror recently published an article echoing the SBPF’s claim that the Sankaty Bluff geotubes “did their job”. We wish the Inquirer & Mirror had done its job differently and published a balanced and more accurate article instead of quoting only one source, a spokesperson of the SBPF. As a result, the article featured a number of inaccuracies, half truths and fantasies. When it comes to an issue like the geotubes where the ultimate outcome could be that our beaches are lost or ruined and a beautiful natural resource is destroyed, our newspaper owes it to our community do a more thorough job, or not do it at all. When one reports on a volatile political issue and only uses one source, then one loses credibility. If the Inquirer and Mirror wants to come out in favor of hard-armoring Nantucket’s shoreline, in spite of overwhelming evidence of harm, it should do so on the editorial page and not present an unverified public relations release as news.
There is nothing like the Sankaty Bluff anywhere else on Nantucket. As it erodes, it reveals the geologic history of our island with fossils dating over 125,000 years old and it will be ruined by the fruitless machinations of the SBPF with the blessing of a few members of our Board of Selectmen and the Mass DEP.
This photo was taken in September of 2010. One can clearly see that the damage here is from runoff – not toe erosion.
This photo was taken in October of 2014, on top of the geotubes. It shows the same type of erosion – not from the toe, but from the top.
The above photo was taken in March of 2013. The face of the bluff falls away even when the jute tubes protect it from the waves.
This photo shows the bluff face near the end of the walk after it lost another round of planting in March 2014.
Here is the same area, planted months ago and starting to give. No toe erosion at this spot in the past year. This was taken in October of 2014
And the same spot taken in December of 2014. The plantings have slid down the face of the bluff. We have seen this happen repeatedly, even behind these jute bags. The beach grass has no chance to develop long roots in the bluff environment.
The post Doing Your Job – Journalism and the Geotubes appeared first on Photographing An Island™.