All right, welcome everybody. My name is Kevin Ham from Serbed. Just going to give you a quick overview on Zoom and how things are going to run tonight and then I'll turn it over to the town to get us started. So, we are recording this meeting. Uh if you guys missed part of it, we'll be posting it on on our web
page uh once we get it once we're done here. Uh close captioning is available. There should be a button down at the bottom. Uh please remain muted with your video off during the presentation. Uh you can use the raise hand feature or you can use the type your message to the chat window if you have a question or
you need to say something. Um if you're on the phone you can use star six to mute and unmute and star 9 to raise your hand. We'll be look we'll be watching the chat keeping an eye on things so hopefully we won't miss anybody. Uh if there's anybody that is disruptive or displays inappropriate behavior we'll just quickly quietly remove them. And if
you have any technical issues, you can always rejoin the meeting with the same link or get if you can if you can get to the chat, type in chat and we'll troubleshoot with with you guys. Uh Michael, on to you. >> Thanks Kevin and thanks everyone who taken the time out of their evening to
join this call. Um uh just some background on this this project. So, as you uh all can remember from last year, there were some southerntherly storms that caused a lot of damage to the town's barrier beaches. And so, that's
where this project is coming from is on the heels of that. Um, in particular, what the one area that received substantial damages was East Beach Road. Um, so following that storm, the select board had asked the planning board to see what grant resources were out there
to help improve the resilience of the town's barrier beaches. And so we had uh applied to a couple of different grants, the coastal zone management grant and the municipal vulnerability preparedness grant to support the development of the
uh barrier beach management plans. And we were awarded these funds. Um, so we're here today. Um, and we put out an RFP for this. Um, and we contracted with Woods Hole Group and the Southeastern Regional Planning and Economic
Development District. It's mouthful or serpented as we like to refer to them. Um, and they're going to be helping us to develop these plans. Um, so with that, I'll turn it over to Connor. Um, this is going to be our kickoff meeting
so he can get us started. Thanks so much, Michael. Hi, everybody. Can you all see my shared screen here, the presentation? All right, great. Um, so my name is Connor Austin. I'm a coastal scientist with Woods Hole Group. I'll be leading
the um bulk of this presentation. Um, but we are a large team here working on the Westport beat barrier beach management plan. From the town of Westport, we have Michael, as he just introduced himself. We also have Chris Capone and Dia Wheeler on the um from
the town. Funding comes from Coastal Zone Management Office of Massachusetts uh with Sam Haynes and Rebecca Haney supporting us throughout this project. The municipal vulnerability preparedness program is another funer of uh the outreach work in particular. Courtney
Roa who is a resident of Westport is here representing them. So thank you. Uh I'm uh the project manager from the Woodshole group point of view. We have Britney Hoffagel on the call as well who uh is a GIS specialist also helping us lead alternatives analysis and outreach.
Justine Rooney's on the call who's coastal resilience planner um who's leading our beach management planning. We have a whole slew of uh members assisting us as well on the um field uh fieldwork portion of things doing site survey, sediment sampling, etc. And then
we have Serpent. I'm sorry, Joseph, I left your name off of this, but we have Kevin Ham, Maria Jones, Joseph Monet, and Laura Sang as well on the call. all beam serpent and they will be leading the uh outreach as they are facilitating this call today.
So what our agenda is um I'll probably be speaking for about 30 minutes. Uh we're going to walk through barrier beaches, what are they? How do they form? Why they matter? Why are they kind of the unifier for this project? And then we'll talk a bit about beach
management planning and what that's looked like in the past. what might that look like uh today and what could that look like in the future. I'll give you a rundown of this project timeline because it is a fairly rapid project starting um technically starting in February, first
outreach meeting here in March um and wrapping up in July and then from there we'll move into some of the outreach component. There is a survey that you all will uh be given the opportunity to take. It's okay if you don't take it right away. it will be live um for a longer time and we'll have
breakout rooms. So you'll have uh the option to select the beach of interest for yourself. There are three big beaches um that are the subject of this this project and we will have um smaller breakout room discussions where you can
voice your experience and ask questions. So I ask you if you can uh if you have questions we are definitely here to answer them and that is actually you know a major part of this. So um you know we can take some questions through this piece of the presentation if there's a few that that trickle in. If
everybody has a ton of questions then we'll start to save those for the discussion period at the end. Um but feel free to put those in the chat and Serpent will um feed them to me. Thank you. All right. Right. So, the first piece is barrier beaches and kind of what are we
looking at as a whole. This project area covers three barrier beaches in the town. Westport is a very unique town. Barrier beaches really make up the majority of its coastline. Uh, and there's these three barrier beaches. Atlantic AB to the west, the Nubble at
the mouth of Westport River, and then East Beach, East Beach Road to the east are the three that we'll be looking at. And the reason um these three are selected is well one they are barrier beaches and barrier beaches all behave in a similar manner. The sediments that
form them uh the way they respond to waves, the way they respond to storms and sea level rise, the resource areas and habitats that they support, the recreation they support. These are all parallels that can be drawn across these. And also these three beaches uh
contain public roads behind them. So the town has an interest in these public roads and understanding how that they how they can manage those roadways in the future as conditions are changing because you'll notice you know pretty blatantly Horseneck Beach is the largest
barrier beach in Westport but that is not part of this study. Um primarily the reason is that that is a DCR property. Um it is really outside of the the town's ability to manage. Um so we are looking at you know Atlantic AS the
Nebble and East Beach Road for that reason. What are barrier beaches? Barrier beaches are made up of unconsolidated sediment sands, gravels, cobbles that are washed into the coastal zone. They come down our rivers. They're washed out
of eroding bluffs and banks. They're even washed onshore by wave action um from the south and it builds up these beaches in front of either a bay or a salt marsh or an estuary or a pond. So they're always backed by wetlands or
water bodies. In the case at uh this picture here, we're looking at East Beach Road. On the right hand side, we have the ocean on the bottom of the page leading to the beach, which then trans um converts to a dune as we go upland
and inland. And on the back side, we have salt marsh backed by harbor. barrier beaches form and are always forming, always in an active uh state of of change um by the currents and the
waves uh that interact with them. The beaches are in a dynamic equilibrium with the with the waves and the currents. So during the summertime, for instance, when there's less storms, less less significant storms, um you know, barring no hurricane occurs, uh there
tend to be milder wave climates. These are kind of beach building conditions and you might see the beaches become a bit sandier, a bit wider towards the end of the summer. Whereas during the winter time when wave energy is a bit a bit larger when um more frequently we see we
see winter storms um the wave conditions can be increased and they can start to pull sand off of the beaches and they pull sand off the beaches create nearshore bars. We start to see cobble form. We also have currents which move
along the shore across the shore and they're lifting up this sediment and carrying the sediment that the waves and train and pushing them up and up and down the coast. In the case of the Nubble, um that is a large ledge rock
feature that sand has slowly built its way out to over time as sand moves down the coastline. So that is where that kind of barrier is formed. Um, in some cases, harbors might be um slowly closed in over time as a barrier continues to
move and move and and I'm sure many of you have personal experiences watching the point of Horsenneck Beach shift back and into the harbor or see the overwash of Atlantic A and Elephant Rock Beach uh
occur and see that that beach start to migrate upland and inland. And these are all some of the processes that make barrier beaches personally very interesting but also uh make them unique and require a certain approach to
manage. So again this is our pro these are our project areas and to be a bit more specific about Atlantic able and east beach road these yellow polygons here represent really the full extent. So, we've been out in the month of March, in the month of February and a little bit
in March, doing surveys, surveying topography, um taking some sediment samples, mapping the wetland extents, and these are the extents that that we're um containing ourselves to. And essentially, they are defined by where is the barrier beach um
and where does the barrier beach end? Okay, that's where our project our project area ends. I'm moving a bit faster than I thought, so I'll pause there. Kevin, have we gotten any questions so far?
>> The only question that popped up, Michael Burus gave an excellent answer to someone who just had asked if there was any update on the Buzzards Bay Grease Island Causeway study, which is a a little out of scope for here, but those results are delayed and looking like the end of May now. for anyone else
who had that uh that same question. >> Yeah, thanks. So, the context on on that question um there is independent study being led by BEu and Buzzards Bay Coalition um looking at the Gooseberry Island Causeway and its impacts on
sediment transport in these um barrier beach processes that that I'm talking about here. Um so, like Michael said, that is a bit beyond the scope of this project. We're looking at really okay well these processes have put us in the position that we are in right now. How
do we respond to that in real time what is our daily response to storms etc. Um while that project is looking at really like fundamental oceanographic geologic processes on a on a large scale. So it definitely
dovetales well with this project and the timing timing is good. Um, I'm excited to hear that that results of that could come out in May and we can, you know, hopefully have a good collaborative collaborative interpretation of that result together.
So, a quick re overview of of each of these beaches. Atlantic A um is essentially Elephant Rock Beach Club. Um, we have a fairly wide sandy beach in this area. There are patches of gravel. Um the high tide line comes up the beach, but it's not lapping at the toe
of the dune. In this case, there was overwash in that January 2024 storm. Um that frosted over the road and spilled into the adjacent pond. Um and the Elephant Good Rock Beach Club along with the town of Westport and CZM worked to
restore coastal dune in this area. And you can see those um that dune over here on the right hand side with the plantings of American beach grass. And so that is a great example of beach management in action. There was a major storm. Um the town responded. Elephant
Rock Beach Club. They were all motivated to restore their beaches, restore their dunes. Dunes provide a great value um for many reasons that that I'll talk about soon. Um and so that's just a good example of of the the town and and you
all um taking action in a positive way. along the Neville. Um, this is a very unique um site and I'm sure you are all well aware of how how unique it is and how beautiful it is. It's um has this
ledge rock outcrop at the at the point um that sediment has transported from west to east and kind of latched on to as kind of a tow hold for sediment. It's right at the mouth of the harbor and it's kind of a hinge point for the harbor mouth as a result. Um here we
also have dune um and we have the beach uh beach a roadway behind that dune or more kind of bicting that dune because there is dune on the other sides that that as well. So um current maintenance practices there are one thing that we're going to be looking into um and how we
can you know preserve this beach into the future as as long as possible is what we'll be looking into. Lastly is East Beach Road, the beach furthest to the east. Um, this is a very unique site. The way that the parcels, it's really heavily privately owned
beach. There is a a stretch of town beach to the south, right where the the road starts to curve a bit inland. You can see that here at the bottom of the pavement changes color. Um, and this reach, as Michael has said at the beginning, has really been battered by
storms. Um, and we have development right on the edge of that beach which is being battered. So there are utilities, there's the roadway. Um, over the summertimes there are RVs and campers and more. Um, the beach itself has changed character over time. There's
been, you know, a slew of hurricanes in the past century that have led to the change in character of this site. and we're really looking to to hear from folks who who use this area and tell us their experience.
So, summing up all of those three barrier beaches, they're all important to the town of Westport for many reasons. You know, one, barrier beaches are a natural storm buffer to the inland shores. They protect and shelter the harbor. They absorb wave energy. They're
a buffer to storm surge. Um, they help reduce flooding and erosion. As a result, they're also a significant wildlife habitat. They support several shore birds, um, you know, uh, coastal
plants, American beach grass, um, benthic habitats. There is even, um, boy, blanking on the oh, muscles. Gosh, blanking on the word there. um muscle habitat at the Nubble pictured here on the right hand side.
And then lastly, uh they're an economic and recreational benefit. So there are beach clubs all up and down Westport because Westport recognizes the value of their beaches and folks are traveling seasonally to to East Beach Road to
spend as much time as possible that they can there because of how important it is to be able to get to your coastline. All right. I'll pause one more time, Kevin. Is there are there any questions in the chat to get to?
>> Uh, nothing new, Connor. >> All right. Thanks, Kevin. So, a quick rundown of beach management planning. You know, today I'm just going to tell you what this project is about. We don't have any answers for you. It'll be hard to say that we have answers answers to all questions really at the end of the
project. We are really working through what are the problems at these beaches? how can we start to think about them? How can we start to address them? What is the long-term prospect of these beaches and um really get a handle on our our issues? So, the ways that in
which we're going to do that are number one, understand the existing conditions and that's you know what I've talked about with our uh our fieldwork which you may have seen us out there for. So topography, parcels, utilities, wetland resources, sediment types, these are all
just really fundamental to um the condition of the beach and how we might respond to changing conditions of the beach. We're also going to examine vulnerabilities to erosion and flooding and storms. And we recognize that this has been done and um to some extent
along both East Beach Road and even the Nubble back in 2014. So we will leverage that existing data. We don't want to redo anything that um doesn't need to be redone. We're looking to yeah leverage existing and past work to accelerate us
into the future planning process. We're also collating several different planning documents. The state has a barrier beach management plan of its own, you know, recommending how to manage barrier beaches prepared even all the way back into the 90s. was a major
concern of the state. Um the town of Westport has various, you know, drafts and and forms of of beach planning and there are various um select board decisions on how to manage barrier beaches and how to respond to storms and
all of these kinds of um either established practices or just standard practices. Um we want to get a hold of and we want to start to understand from there. we can evaluate a range of of management and adaptation strategies to
enhance resilience. So we want to look both on the near-term and the long term. Um the near-term will be really the the primary product of this of this project is looking at okay what should we be doing today? Um while the long term is
um starting to inform the town and prepare um you know capital funds or you know motivate a search for grants or you know just just decide how folks should be responding to our changing conditions of the beach. And then lastly of course
what this meeting for is really for is to hear from you all. So we want to incorporate community feedback into our planning mechanisms with the town. There is a survey. There will be breakout discussions. Serpid will jump in at the end of my presentation to give you a
quick rundown of all the things that will be uh occurring. We really hope to be out in the community a lot, especially closer to the summer. So, I mentioned one word there, which is resilience. And I just want to, you know, lay it out. What is coastal
resilience? Because it can sometimes be interpreted many different ways. And that's uh that's fine. But for the cases of the for the purposes of this project, we are talking about resilience as the ability to adapt to changing conditions and withstand and rapidly recover from
disruption due to emergencies. We might achieve this through adapting infrastructure um enhancing ecosystem ecosystems through restoration and coordinating with the community. um imp
improved communication um a logical and like a well thoughtout emergency response plan. All of these are are you know lowhanging fruit that we want to start to identify and set the town on the right course at the end
goal. You know, this isn't this is a planning project. This isn't an engineering project. We aren't going to physically reduce vulnerability to erosion by the end of June, but we want to get the PL process underway towards us reducing our our vulnerability to
storms. When we talk about beach management planning in the past, we're going to try to get a hand handle on several different factors. One is the natural condition of the beach and how that has changed. Pictured on the right is the post 1938 hurricane at East Beach. That
hurricane wiped out several many many structures and you all can tell me way more about that than than I can. Um but that was devastating to that beach and and the folks who used that beach. Similarly was 1991 Hurricane Bomb um
wiped out houses and um those were prohibited to be rebuilt. So those natural events are are something we want to categorize and just recognize and you know understand that they could happen again in the future and what would we do if they did happen
again in the future. We also want to understand human impacts and how this has led to um potentially greater vulnerability. What are our land uses? Where is the tourism focused? Um how are people getting to the beach? Where do people need to continue to get access to
the beach? where is access being lost uh and why are these things happening and we also want to start to take hold of uh what measures to manage um concerns have been taken in the past. Have there been large-scale beach
nourishment projects or dune restoration projects? Are we really putting band-aids on the problem? Is there a methodical response to storms? Again, you all know this better than me at this point. Um so I I don't want to talk at
you about those pro those those activities. Beach management is then go going to have a um we're going to take a look at the present beach management practices and pictured here on the left are the MOI mats the uh ADA access that is
provided by the town to the Nubble and the the town's um parcel there on the Nubble. Um and that's one of the existing conditions and existing practices that we want to inventory and understand and you know see if that's something to prioritize for the future.
Is that something that should be changed for whatever reason? Um really we are open to uh to any result. We're also interested in public interests. What are the different concerns and priorities of Westport residences of businesses environmental
organiz organizations etc. So the outcomes of this project are going to be one the establishment of ex existing conditions and that piece has already begun. Um and we're going to have some real concrete data that the
public can utilize at the end of this. There will be maps of wetland resources. There will be sediment data. Um there will be a topography survey. two is going to be a draft near-term beach management plan. And a beach
management plan is um kind of a formal document. It's something that at the end of the day needs to be authorized by um through the permits by the town and the state. So we aren't expecting to get to final. We are expecting to um you know
look at all of this different data that that I've mentioned here, put together recommendations for balancing conservation with human uses, identify ways to reduce reduce storm damage and increase increase resiliency. Um but again, it is going to be a draft and is
going to be something that I think the town will need to chew on for a significant amount of time. And then lastly, appending to that beach management plan, we're going to start to look at the mid and long-term view of these beaches. You know, where are they
going in the future? These storms are continuing to happen. Um the sediment that is coming into the into the coastline is relatively limited and sea level rise is only going in one direction. Um, so what is the long-term
prospect of these beaches and can we do anything about that? You know, we're going to try to assess the value of largecale beach nourishment. Um, is that something that's feasible? What does that cost? How long does that last? We'll start to get our arms around
problems like that. So, our project timeline, we technically kicked off on January 31st. Um, and through the month of February, we're working in the field gathering that data that I that I've mentioned already. This month, we've been doing a literature review. Again, there's a lot of
information already out there. The 2020 study about East Speech, the 2014 study of the Nubble, there's the ongoing BEu study and Buzzard's Bay Coalition study. We want to start to digest all of that data and make sure that we aren't, you know, bringing anything to the table
that hasn't already been thought of. In May, we'll be doing our drafting of our barrier beach management plans. We'll be doing some modeling about those long-term um prospects and alternatives. And we'll be doing continued stakeholder and public engagement throughout.
We'll have a final by final I mean a draft report. I should have not used the word final because it is technically draft. Nothing is being you know cemented in stone at the end of this project. Um but that will come by the end of June 30th and then through the month of July, especially that month is
going to be a big outreach um month because that's when most seasonal residents will be present. Um so we want to make sure we get out and we just discuss what we've learned through this project and how that can be used in the future uh with the with the public.
All right, I will pause one more time, Kevin, if there's any direct questions we can answer. >> Yeah, we got two in the chat. Um, one is is, uh, Nathan's just, you know, worried that the data gathered here might become outdated quickly, you know, is there a
worry about this sitting in draft too long, you know, for the next steps? And then once you've answered that, I'll give you the next question. >> All right. Thanks. Yeah, that's a great question. That is an unfortunate process that does happen all the time is that data becomes you know outdated even not
physically outdated. Maybe the sediment and the wetlands of the beaches haven't changed significantly but for the purposes of getting a project through the pushed through um to construction data might be considered outdated. But we're not looking to build anything at
the end of this project. Um so as a result the data that's that's here is not going into a permitting document that will that has to meet a certain deadline that has to give us the lead time to get into construction. So um really this is just establishing existing conditions for greater
understanding and it's setting a you know a baseline of understanding for anything that occurs in the future. Hopefully that answers it. But I happy to take that question again if there's a further comment. But >> then the other question is is a simple
uh what is beach nourishment? You can explain that a little bit. >> Oh, I love that question. Thank you. I need to slow down sometimes because I talk about this all day. Beach nourishment is essentially bringing sand and placing it on the beach. It can take
place on almost any scale. If you filled up your pickup truck with sand and you placed it on your parcel, that is beach nourishment. If you dredged the harbor and you pumped that material across the beaches and tried to widen the beaches by hundreds of feet, that's that's also
beach nourishment. Um, beach nourishment is an important component to beach resilience in areas that are eroding. It is often employed, but it's not always the the answer to everything. Um, you
know, in some cases, beach nourishment, if done perpetually to try to stabilize the position of a shoreline, it needs to be done every 5 years, every 10 years. Um, and it's very costly as a result. So, you know, I talk about beach
nourishment here and I I that's something that we will talk about um increasingly when we talk about the long-term alternatives. Um, so it's the placement of sediment on the beach. Thank you. >> We had one one other question came in
while you were talking. Uh John asked uh is there's a lot of studies out there about SE future steel rise. What kind of value or datam is wood going to use for that sort of analysis for future conditions? >> Yeah, great question. So we are really
primarily looking at today's condition and you know as I hope to emphasize you know the beach management and the near-term management is what we want to address today and that's going to be looking at their historical and our present day conditions. So, um, you
know, when I talk about sea level rise that has already occurred, we'll be looking at data um that has just been um measured uh by Noah's tide stations, especially the one in in the Woods Hole um station in Falmouth. So, that is
going to set our baseline for for sea level rise, what has occurred in the past. As we look into the future, we might incorporate certain levels of sea level rise. I we haven't determined what rates we will use. Um and that is you know if you have a comment on that we'd
be open to hearing it. You know in some cases um towns will plan for a year 2070 a very high risk aversion scenario of sea sea level rise something on the order of 4t of sea level rise. Um which honestly
if plan if we're looking at that for these these beaches is going to be devastating to these beaches. Um, and it's almost worthless to look at because it's jumping so far ahead um that we're like, "Okay, put our hands up. The
problem is too big." Um, but it takes you don't jump from 0 feet to 4 feet. It's a gradual gradation from 0 to four. So, what is happening? What is happening along the way? I think those are the the questions that we want to answer.
And uh one one more question then anyone else will probably kick it into breakout rooms. I think um yeah somebody just asked uh besides beach nourishment, you know, what what what other options might be available uh other than standard vegetation to help restore the shoreline
to to to provide resilience and things? Yeah. >> Yeah. Thank you. That's another great question and that is you know something that we need to explore I think first before we really come to you with with any any thoughts and answers but um we are going to start to develop
recommendations on the individual level things that you know if you own one of those properties on each beach east beach what can you do we'll start to bring um ideas to the table there on a slightly larger scale we're going to work with the town and decide you know
what can the town do to improve the resilience of their beaches And then we'll look at the kind of more regional scale and think about okay in the long term if we wanted to really preserve these for indefinitely what would that take and and we'll try to think about what what that would be. Um
so I'm sorry I don't have an answer for you exactly on those but know that um that's a discussion we're excited to have as we go forward. And I will pass it now to to Serpentid just to go over a little bit of the engagement plan and then lead us to the
breakout rooms. Thanks. Hi everybody. Um thanks again for being here. My name was Marie Jones. I'm the senior communications planner for SERD. Uh just a brief overview of what our kind of plan of um action is for community engagement. But we hope that
again just as you're adding comments and asking questions, you guys can kind of give us input which um are like the best ways to reach you all um or other folks in those communities because we want to make sure we're targeting as many people as possible. So our kind of approach
again is to do engagement throughout. We plan on having more community meetings and workshops delving into specific topics. Um so again this is kind of a preview of that this um workshop here. Uh and then we hope to have other
opportunities again whether they're at community places or in in person tableling at beaches. We really want to make sure we leverage that. Our point again towards the end is to uh sorry is to um
leverage as many community contacts as we can. We want to uh sorry, let me regroup. We want to make sure that we're getting in touch with as many people who are there on time. We know that a lot of folks get there later in July or June.
So, we want to make sure that we're hosting events then. Um we also plan to create a lot offormational materials and flyers for folks to have to kind of get informed if they're not able to come to our community events. Um, we're also,
like Connor said, going to distribute a survey. Um, and I'm going to just pop in the registration link in our pop in our project website. So, this is so everybody can or if I think let me try and do the links once again after I'm done talking so that folks can stay up
to date with what kind of events um we plan on having in the future. And yeah, there's the public. Yeah, of course, everybody who registered will receive a follow-up email obviously because you registered with your email with all the information we're providing today. Um, and Connor has this survey
link live here. Uh, we'll also be sure to upload the link on our website as well. I'll hand it over to Kevin to discuss the breakout room. >> Yeah. So, I'm gonna hit the button here in a second. You guys should be dropped in into these breakout rooms. Um, if you have if you have any problems, you
should be able to come back to the the main room, the outside, the waiting room, and I'll I'll help you troubleshoot it. Um, again, if you have any real issues, you can always leave and rejoin just sorted out. Hope you guys have a pretty robust discussion. So, I'm going to open all the rooms here.
And folks should get uh should get should get a little option to get uh dropped into the sorry. So you should see on the on the the breaker room side of the screen you can click on the beach that you're most interested in and and join that one. And
uh for all of us from Serpad and Woodsel Group I will uh put push you guys into the rooms that we we assign for all of our folks. So this should be open. you should be able to just click on them and join. Uh, and if you're if you're interested in every beach, just, you know, pick pick
one for now and then follow up on the uh you you'll see a lot of follow-up info in your email and the project web page and future engagement events. You you get a chance to to uh to engage with us on a lot of different ways.