Remove sea wall, panel suggests
State may rebuild; pros, cons debated
While the state and its consultants try to decide what to do about the crumbling Nantasket Beach sea wall, Hull's beach advisory committee has offered a not-so-modest proposal: Tear it down and build a sand dune in the parking lot behind it.
The nine-member Hull Beach Management Committee contends that the mile-long sea wall is a significant cause of the erosion that has swept away so much sand that the beach is under water at high tide.
With the sea wall gone and a portion of the state Department of Conservation and Recreation parking lot turned into a sand dune, a more natural flow of waves and sand would occur, according to the committee.
"Now the waves hit the sea wall and scour the sand under it and take it out to sea," said Rhoda Kanet, the committee's chairwoman. "You can watch it with your own eyes."
Removing the sea wall, however, would leave businesses on Nantasket Avenue closer to the water and more exposed in a major storm.
"I think you would lose Hull," said Rick Lawrence, owner of Dream Machine, an arcade across from the beach on Nantasket Avenue. "It's a very narrow strip of land."
Kanet said a sand dune and stone revetments could be installed in the area that is behind the sea wall now. That, she said, would protect beachfront businesses while easing erosion and allowing the beach to grow wider.
She also maintained that the parking spaces lost behind the sea wall could be replaced with a new parking lot on state-owned land behind the Horizons condominiums. "Yes, people would have to walk a little farther," she said. "They'd have to cross the street. It's not a major trek."
The state Department of Conservation and Recreation is studying alternatives to the sea wall, which is crumbling in places and in need of an overhaul. Removing it is one of the possibilities being considered, according to agency spokeswoman Wendy Fox. "Everything is still on the table," she said.
The agency has held public hearings on the sea wall and other matters at Nantasket Beach and is to announce its decision and action plan in the fall. Under strong consideration has been the option of rebuilding the sea wall and bringing in new sand to replenish the beach.
The wall was built in the 1920s, when Nantasket Beach was a major destination for tourists arriving on trains and steamships. Nantasket remains popular today, and is the most heavily used beach south of Boston, drawing about 20,000 people on hot summer days.
The Beach Management Committee, which is appointed by the Board of Selectmen, voted unanimously this summer to recommend removal of the sea wall. The selectmen, however, have been reluctant to act on the recommendation. The board has not taken a vote on the matter and none is scheduled.
"From a pragmatic standpoint, I don't see it as realistic," said Selectman Joan Meschino, who was a member of the state's Metropolitan Beaches Commission. "There is just not enough room there to get the dune back from the wave action."
Another problem is that the Mary Jeanette Murray Bathhouse would have to be removed if the sea wall were taken down, Meschino said.
Kanet said the bathhouse could stay where it is but a boardwalk area in front of it would have to be put on stilts.
Other officials are taking a cautious approach to the beach committee's proposal to dramatically change the beach.
State Senator Robert L. Hedlund, a Weymouth Republican who represents Hull, said he will stay out of the debate and leave it to the town to make a decision."The folks pushing this idea do have a following in town," Hedlund said.
Bruce Berman, spokesman for Save the Harbor/Save the Bay, a Boston-based organization that has studied Nantasket Beach, said: "This is sort of an internal discussion in the town. There needs to be a consensus-based planning process."
Nantasket Beach, as well as the entire town of Hull, sustained major damage in the Blizzard of 1978. The area was hit hard again in 1991 by Hurricane Bob and in another storm that year.
The sea wall's condition has been worsening in recent years. A portion on the south end of the beach was repaired two years ago, but large sections remain in poor condition.
The role of sea walls in beach erosion is a debated topic in coastal regions. Some experts state flatly that sea walls destroy beaches, while others argue that the issue is more complex.
"There is no unified consensus on what sea walls do," said David Hill, associate professor of civil engineering at the College of Engineering at Pennsylvania State University. "It is all location-specific."
Waves and tides continually move sand off of beaches, but they also replenish it by washing ashore sand from elsewhere. The biggest complaint about sea walls is that they block the natural flow of sand from one area to another.
Whether this happens, Hill said, depends on whether sand is naturally flowing parallel or perpendicularly to the beach.
Duncan FitzGerald, a coastal geologist and associate professor of earth sciences at Boston University, said there is no question that the sea wall at Nantasket is contributing to the loss of the beach.
"A sea wall protects the area behind the beach," FitzGerald said. "If you remove the sea wall, the beach is going to move backward, but there probably will be greater storm damage behind it."
The state and town face difficult choices, FitzGerald said. Repairing the sea wall and bringing in more sand, either by truck or pumping it in from offshore, would be costly and disruptive, he said.
Tearing down the sea wall would create another set of problems, he said. "It's a trade-off. Do you want to protect the area behind the sea wall or do you want to have more beach? There is never an easy solution."
Robert Preer can be reached at preer@globe.com. 