all right welcome everybody my name is Kevin ham from sered 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 recorded in this meeting uh if you guys miss 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 raiseed hand feature or you can use 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 star 9 to raise your hand we'll be look we'll be watching in 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 again if you 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 southerly 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 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 sered 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 hle 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 with Sam Haynes Rebecca Haney supporting us throughout this project the municipal vulnerability preparedness program is another fun 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 Woods Hole group point of view we have Britney hoffnagle 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 S as well on the call all 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 but feel free to put those in the chat and serpent will um feed them to me thank you all 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 nuble 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 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 how they can manage those roadways in the future as conditions are changing because you'll notice you know pretty blatantly horck 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 G the nuble and East Beach Road for that reason what are barrier beaches barrier
beaches are made up of uncon Consolidated 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 on Shore 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 back 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 current so during the summertime for instance when there's less storms Le less significant storms um you know barring no 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 Trin and in them up and up and down the coast in the case of the nuble 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 horse neck 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 certain approach to manage so again this is our Pro these are our
project areas and to be a bit more specific about Atlantic a the nuble 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 suring
topography um taking some sediment samples mapping the Wetland extents and these are the extents that would 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 too someone just had to ask if there was any update on the Buzzards Bay gbay Island cos 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 the
same question yeah thanks so the context on on that question um there is this independent study being led by be and Buzzard's 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 dovetails 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 collabor collaborative interpretation of that result together so a quick re overview of of
each of these beaches Atlantic AV 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 crossed over the road and Spilled into the adjacent Pond um and the Elephant bit Rock Beach Club along with the town of Westport and CCM worked to restore Coastal Dune in this area 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 noble um this is 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 beach
a roadway behind that Dune or more kind of by icting 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 Beach furthest to the east um this is a very unique site the way that the parcels 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 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 postal plants
American Beach Grass um benic habitats there is even um boy blinking on oh muscles go blanking on the word there um muscle habitat at the nuble pictured here on the right hand side and then lastly 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 Conor 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 field work 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 recognized that this has been done and um to some extent along both East Beach
Road and even the nuble 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 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 repaired even all the way back into the 90s this was a major concern of the state um the town
of Westport has various you know drafts and and forms of beach plan 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 Sur bid 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 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 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 thought out emergency response plan
all of these are are you know low hanging 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 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 your picture 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 nurishment 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 to going to have a um we're going to take a look at the present Beach management practices pictured here on the left are the MIM mats the Ada access that is provided by the town to the nuble and
the town's um parcel there on the nuble 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 settlement 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 i' that I've mentioned here put together recommendations for balancing
conservation with human uses identify ways to Red reduce storm damage and increase increase resiliency um but again it is going to be a draft and it's 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 longterm Prospect of these beaches and can we do anything about that you know we're going to try to assess the value of large
scale 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 nuble there is the ongoing Buu
study and Buzzard 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 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 the sitting in draft too long you know
for the next steps and then once you've answer 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 the beaches haven't changed significantly but for the purposes of getting a project through the push through um to construction data might be considered outdated but we're not looking to build anything at the end of this project and
um so as a result the data that that's here is not going into a permanent document that will 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 further comment then the other question is is a simple uh what is Beach nourishment you 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 five 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 a question came in while you were talking uh John asked uh there there's a lot of
studies out there about Ste future stear rise what kind of value or datum is what so 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 our 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 fouth so that is kind of set our Baseline for for sea level rise what has occurred in the past as 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 be open to hearing it you know in some cases um towns will plan for a year 2070
a very highrisk aversion scenario of sea sea level rise something on the order of four feet of sea Lev 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 zero feet to four feet it's a
gradual gradiation from zero 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 the one one more question and then anyone else will probably kick it into breakout rooms I think um 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 each
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 cpid 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 Murray Jones I'm
the senior Communications planner for sured 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 tabling 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 of informational 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 going to hit the button here in a second you guys should be dropped 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 we get 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 Bri ARB 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 surad and woodel group I will uh push you guys into the rooms that we we assign for all of our folks so they 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'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