Monday, December 14, 2015

Coastal Erosion Commission Report Released

In the state budget for fiscal year 2014, I authored and sponsored legislation to create a Coastal Erosion Commission to research the issues surrounding erosion, and develop strategies to address these issues. Specifically, this effort was intended to move the Commonwealth to a proactive posture toward storms and erosion, and away from a reactive approach that has all too often resulted in decisions and actions being made and taken in the crisis environment of coastal storms, the impending loss of public and private property, and threats to public safety.

Often these decisions and actions have been less effective than they could have been, because of the absence of proper planning, engineering, and research. Hence, the importance of the report and changes in approaching issues of erosion.

Worthy of note is that the communities of Salisbury, Newburyport and Newbury have successfully been building and implementing a proactive model for addressing erosion issues since 2008 through the Merrimack River Beach Alliance. My experience with MRBA inspired the legislation which created the Commission, and its membership has worked hard to inform the process undertaken by the Coastal Erosion Task Force.

Recently the Commission released its report, and while there remains a great of work to do, let’s hope it begins a new era of dealing with erosion in Massachusetts.

You can read the report by clicking the link below.

Coastal Erosion Commission Report December 2015