Down and Dirty on Nantucket

An aerial view of Sconset Beach, and Baxter Road above it, where the coast has been particularly affected by erosion. The alleged vandalizing of geotubes installed to prevent beach erosion is exposing fault lines between the island’s affluent summer residents and year-round locals By William D. Cohan B urton Balkind, known to many as just “Spruce,” is the president of the Nantucket Coastal Conservancy, a highfalutin name for a grassroots, volunteer nonprofit on the island that has given itself the task of monitoring the mostly pristine beaches that surround it. Nantucket, of course, has become a premier summer playground for many of America’s richest and most powerful, from Stephen Schwarzman to Eric Schmidt to David Rubenstein. “We have great arts and culture, and we have amazing restaurants and a beautiful harbor,” Balkind, who has called Nantucket his home for the past 25 years, tells me. “But, really, the draw to Nantucket is our beaches, and I feel like one of the most important things we can do as a community is protect our beaches.” READ ON