Events
Nantucket Meetings with Climate Topics
Coastal Resilience Advisory Committee
The Coastal Resilience Advisory Committee works with the Coastal Resiliency Coordinator in the development, oversight, and implementation of a Coastal Resiliency Plan for the Town of Nantucket to address the impact of climate change and sea level rise. CRAC meets twice a month on the second and fourth Tuesdays every month at 10 AM Eastern.
Conservation Commission
The Massachusetts Wetlands Protection Act requires that no person shall remove, dredge, or alter any bank, freshwater or coastal wetlands, beach, dunes, flat, marsh, meadow or swamp bordering on any resource area as defined in the Act without filing written notice of the intention to perform such work with the Conservation Commission of the Town in which the land is located and receiving a permit from the Commission to perform the work.The Conservation Commission meets remotely every other Thursday at 5:00 pm.
Nantucket Historical Commission
The Nantucket Historical Commission serves the public by protecting the National Historic Landmark of Nantucket. Nantucket’s important historic resources include structures as well as their setting and context, the American and Native American artifacts, and the island’s special visual quality, as expressed in the natural and built environment.
Current Resilience Initiatives
Resilient Nantucket: Designed for Adaptation
Start Date: July 2019 | End Date: June 2021
Owner: Town of Nantucket
Funding Source: State MVP Grant
Resilient Nantucket: Designed for Adaptation, is developing a public awareness toolkit incorporating information on flooding adaptation strategies for private property owners in the Nantucket National Historical Landmark District, developing Design Guidelines for the Town of Nantucket’s locally-designated historic districts, and hosting Resilient Nantucket workshop to address flood risk, public awareness strategies and design guidance for adapting historic districts to a future of flooding. This project addresses several priority implementation actions identified and documented in the Town’s recently completed documents: the MVP Community Resilience Workshop Report (2019) and the Hazard Mitigation Plan (2019). Click the logo to visit the initiative’s website.
Envision Resilience Nantucket Callenge
Start Date: July 2020 | End Date: December 2021
Owner: ReMain Nantucket
Funding Source: ReMain Nantucket
With the goal of inspiring Nantucket and other coastal communities around the world to envision innovative adaptations to sea level rise, the Envision Resilience Nantucket Challenge brings together graduate students from five universities to collaboratively re-imagine the Nantucket waterfront. During a spring 2021 design studio, interdisciplinary teams of students will identify threats, research possible solutions and consider ways the community can adapt to sea level rise. They will also be considering the unique Nantucket ecologies, culture, history and ways of life. The studio and resulting design proposals are not to be prescriptive, but rather an exercise in academic thinking. Students will have access to 24 local advisors as well as weekly virtual lectures from experts in the field, which will be recorded and available to the public each week. Final proposals will be presented to the community at an event this summer, virtually or in-person—restrictions considering. Student proposals will be on exhibit at the Thomas Macy Warehouse through December 2021. Click the logo to visit the initiative’s website.
Coastal Resilience Plan
Start Date: September 2020 | End Date: September 2021
Owner: Town of Nantucket
Funding Source: Town Funding
The Coastal Resilience Plan aims to reduce the impacts of coastal flooding, erosion and sea level rise. Climate change presents an urgent and pressing crisis for Nantucket. Developing a Coastal Resilience Plan is a critical step in the Town and County of Nantucket’s process of preparing for and adapting to the effects of climate change, which include increasingly intense and frequent coastal flooding, erosion, and future sea level rise. The plan will analyze risks to the island’s homes and businesses, public infrastructure, economy, civic spaces, and historic and natural resources, and propose location-specific interventions for reducing long-term risks and increasing resilience, as well as provide a recommended implementation roadmap. The process will build on prior and ongoing studies led by the Town, including the Hazard Mitigation Plan (2019). Click the logo to visit the initiative’s website.
PAST EVENTS
The students of Nantucket High School, partnering with Mass Audubon, are hosting a panel to learn more about addressing major pieces of sustainability including energy generation and conservation within the school, food sourcing, and waste disposal, and also how to work climate education into the existing curriculum. More information to come.
Protecting your family, home, or business from damage caused by flooding is essential. Resources available from the Town of Nantucket and its state and federal partners can help you with that task as a property or business owner. Understanding the unique needs of adapting properties in a National Historic Landmark community takes people with specialized knowledge. The Town of Nantucket is pleased to have such expertise available for our community members through an Action Grant obtained from the Massachusetts Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness (MVP) program.
The Nantucket Preservation Trust is shifting the focus from raising awareness about the need for resiliency through the lens of historic preservation in the face of sea-level rise (which was explored during the Keeping History Above Water conference in 2019) to looking at real-world strategies for adaptation that are being developed and implemented both nationally and on Nantucket.
During Climate Change Awareness Month, join Dr. Jen Karberg and Neil Foley on a walk to explore how sea level rise and climate change is already impacting natural areas on our island. Using the salt marshes, wetlands, barrier beaches and uplands at the UMASS Field Station, they will guide you through the current stressors of climate and as well as the benefits these natural areas provide to buffer Nantucket from sea level rise.
Graeme Durovich talks on the research that the Town DPW and UMASS Amherst began in 2019. They investigated the presence of coastal plastics on our beaches and nearshore environment. She will also talk about the Nantucket Plastics Ban and how we can get involved in protecting our oceans.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MolYLL1bVishttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iTO6ynthEHU&t=12s
Project focued on the South Washington Street area and Maria Mitchell Association properties in that area. The research focus was on the holistic adaptation plan for the architecture and unique ecological relationships.
Resilient Nantucket
Join the Nantucket Land Council Associates for an island-wide (and beyond) #NantucketTrashTag (socially-distanced) beach cleanup!
Dr. Andrea Dutton, a MacArthur Fellow and Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, presented on threats sea level rise and climate change pose to transportation, economics, and public health.
Kimberly Rose, ACKlimate Coordinator, and her mother, Janet Beck, completed the 5K race from their home in Hermitage, Tennessee in support of the Nantucket Conservation Foundation, a Partner of ACKlimate.
https://www.nantucketconservation.org/events/race-for-open-space/
Dr. Jennifer Karberg, Research Program Supervisor at the Nantucket Conservation Foundation, presented on Nantucket as the forefront of climate change and how the island is benefiting from the extensive research focus and innovative natural opportunities.
Jack Ahern spoke on ecological landscaping for the Nantucket Land Council Topics on Tap Series.
Join the 2nd Annual Nantucket Litter Derby in a socially distanced and COVID conscious effort to clean up out Island! Trash collection drop off is at the Nantucket Waste Facility, Sunday, after 1 PM. Followed by a virtual awards ceremony!
Nantucket is a National Historic Landmark community with an increasing number of properties vulnerable to the impacts of climate change and sea-level rise. The Commonwealth of Massachusetts sees Nantucket as a model for cultural resource-based resilience planning, sustainability, and coastal adaptation. This final virtual forum of the 2020 – 2021 Resilient Nantucket series will bring in experts from around the world to talk about the future conditions of sea level rise and erosion on cultural heritage and coastal communities globally and what steps can be taken to address this natural disaster locally, in Nantucket.
