[scott00]

I was curious on some of the details, so I did a little digging.

The town in question (Salisbury, MA) is built on a narrow strip of land between a marsh and the ocean. Mostly between 2 and 5 houses wide. Doesn't seem like you need a geology PhD to determine you're going to have some erosion problems here.

As best I could determine, the beach replenishment in question was from access points 5 - 11, which covers 1.6 miles and about 150 homes. If I'm right on that, they put down enough sand to extend the beach 3-7 feet[0]. So the first thing to note is that this was a very small beach replenishment project. The senator is probably right that they should go bigger next time.

The cost per home for that would have come out to about $3333.33. Honestly, even if you triple it and do it every year, I don't find that to be an unreasonable expense to impose on owners of $1-5 million houses built on a sand dune. These guys need to quit whining and raise their _local_ taxes the relatively modest amount necessary to preserve their town. Something like $5k/year for beachfront and $1k/year for the rest would get the job done.

[0] This is assuming a constant slope to the beach. The low end is extending at 3 feet above sea level, the high end is extending at 6 feet above sea level.

[sp332]

I don't have evidence for this, but my suspicion is that the sand was not supposed to be long-term, but just to look impressive for suckers while the owners dump their now worthless real estate.