Trying to keep Plum Island from the sea

Officials, residents look for anti-erosion plan

Workers shored up a sand wall in front of a house owned by David Rardon on Northern Boulevard on Plum Island yesterday. (John Bohn/Globe Staff)

NEWBURY - A foot-wide patch of dune grass and a flimsy plastic fence are all that separate Donita and David Rardon's backyard from the hungry ocean.

In the past year and a half, the couple said the ocean has swallowed more than 45 feet of sandy beach and dunes behind their house. And if the past week is any indication, the sea will return for second and third helpings.

When a northeaster struck Tuesday, local officials condemned a neighbor's beachfront house and demolished it before it could topple into the sea.

"Our house shakes with big waves," David Rardon said with a strained smile yesterday afternoon. "Everyone's praying for us, but really, it's in God's hands."

Erosion along the Plum Island coast has many homeowners in this seaside community in near panic and has raised questions about the island's very existence. Clusters of beachfront homes on Northern Boulevard with expansive ocean views now sit on a sand precipice, precariously close to the crashing waves. Residents and local officials say it is only a matter of time before a storm floods portions of the narrow barrier island, destroying homes and stranding hundreds of others.

State officials said yesterday they were working on long- and short-term solutions to the problem. A long-delayed project to use money from a beach house construction project was in full tilt yesterday afternoon, with workers constructing sand and burlap blockades along 500 feet of beach to stop the immediate threat.

Long-term solutions were less clear, and that has upset many residents who say the process has been mired in bureaucratic red tape. Last year, when Jeanne's restaurant, just doors away from the Rardons, appeared to be in imminent danger, local officials declared a town emergency and the restaurant's owner hauled in sand to buffer the erosion's effects. DEP officials, however, were critical of the effort, saying the restaurant was not in "imminent danger."

Joe Ferson, a spokesman for the state Department of Environmental Protection, said yesterday that local officials needed to get approval from the DEP because of wetland rules.

"You don't want to take action on the issue and create other problems," he said, adding that approvals were granted last May.

Ferson said the DEP, area legislators, and other agencies, including the Massachusetts Emergency Management Association and the Army Corps of Engineers, formed a consortium after this week's storm to consider other fixes.

"It's a tough issue," said "There are no easy solutions."

The problem clearly hit a breaking point this week. On Wednesday, a 79-year-old widow lost the oceanfront home on property she and her husband had bought 43 years ago and nearly all her possessions when it was condemned and demolished by the town with very little warning. The owner, Geri Buzzotta left the house, wearing a nightgown and carrying only her dog and medications.

Mark Sarkady, who owns a home along Northern Boulevard and is president of the Plum Island Foundation, which works to control erosion, blamed poor upkeep of jetties created by the Army Corps of Engineers decades ago. They have fallen into disrepair, he said, allowing strong currents from the ocean and a nearby river to sweep along the coast and wash away sand more quickly.

"There was a federal promise to take care of those jetties," he said. "I don't know why they stopped."

He said residents had wanted the sand bag project to begin in the fall, instead of earlier this month.

Wendy Fox, a spokeswoman for the State Department of Conservation and Recreation, said money for that project came from a Seaport Advisory Council grant of $300,000 that was going to be used for bathhouses. Instead, $230,000 of the grant was diverted to the sand bagging. She said the council is a multiagency group chaired by Lieutenant Governor Timothy P. Murray.

Fox said that in June, DCR gave the nearby city of Newburyport's planning department an additional $475,000. The money was a regional grant that could be used for emergency erosion control measures.

"They can use that now," Fox said.

Yet it remained unclear yesterday how the money was being used or why it hadn't been used sooner. No one was available at the Newburyport Planning & Development Office yesterday, and the city's website said the director's position was currently unfilled.

Many area residents visited the Plum Island coastline yesterday, driving along Northern Boulevard trying to see the houses sitting perilously close to the water. A police officer stopped most people from walking onto the beach, due to safety concerns and the debris from Buzzotta's house.

Per Courtney and his mother, Liz, came out in the wind and rain hoping to catch a glimpse of the damage. Lifelong local residents, Courtney said they had spread the ashes of his father and sister on the island's beaches and worried about Plum Island's future.

"For us, it's an important place," he said. "It's so sad to see this happening."

Donita and David Rardon said many people have asked them, in nice and not so nice ways, why they bought their beachfront home on the fast-disappearing Plum Island coast. She said it wasn't a major problem a year and a half ago. Historically, she said, the coast had eroded a foot or less each year.

Donita Rardon and her husband, a patent lawyer who lived near New Hampshire's White Mountains, said they had always dreamed of a life by the ocean.

"Just not this close," she said.

Megan Woolhouse can be reached at mwoolhouse@globe.com.