SOS: Save our Shoreline
by Sarah Carr, edited by Dennis Barbour, NCBIWA Board of Directors

Pleasure Island Citizens are taking an active role in making sure that our coastal town preserves it’s number one resource. Read on to learn what elements are threatening our pride and joy, what programs are working to save it, and how you can get involved.

Step out onto your patio these days and it is clear that Carolina winter is now upon us, but even with the cheek biting wind it is impossible to ignore the beauty of this unique area. The soothing quality of the sand that spatters your shins during a winter walk on the beach reminds coastal residents that we are here for a reason: we love the beach and are drawn to it in an inexplicable way. For members of Kure Beach’s Citizen’s Beach Protection Committee this love translates into a nurturing and protective fierceness that the members are channeling into ensuring the beach receives the proper care and maintenance it needs and deserves. Tom Barber, beach renourishment coordinator for the committee, along with the seven committee members, stays on top of the projects going on to protect Kure Beach, one of which is coming up almost immediately.
 

The Norfolk Dredging Company has been contracted to complete beach renourishment for Carolina, Kure, and Ocean Isle Beaches this winter, sometime between November and March. To protect the safety of the Sea Turtles and their nesting habits, dredging is only permitted during these winter months. According to Senior Project Manager Glenn McIntosh, of the US Army Corps of Engineers, “renourishing Carolina Beach will take about two months, and Kure beach will take a little over one month.” The dredging will be occurring 24 hours a day, seven days a week for its duration. The project will cost $8,205,724, a dollar amount that will cover the dredging for all three towns.
 

Through a joint effort between the towns of Carolina and Kure Beach and Congressman Mike McIntyre and his staff, 3 million dollars in emergency federal funds were secured for the 2006-7 project. The two towns requested the funding from the federal government, and Congressman McIntyre and his staff did a lot of hard work to attain the funds. This money was secured for hurricane repair (Ophelia), which means it was not allotted for general and timely beach renourishment.
 

The contract with the federal government says that the Army Corps of Engineers will be there to execute a renourishment project if there is money available for the project. It is up to Congress to appropriate funds and decide the budget, which is where the hard work of Congressman McIntyre and his staff comes into play. “Getting the money is very iffy,” US Army Corps of Engineers Senior Project Manager Glenn McIntosh says, “this year’s funds were not a part of the normal budget, they were emergency funds for hurricane Ophelia.” Of the entire sum needed for the renourishment, 65% of the funds were provided by the federal government. The other 35% came from the state government and NHC. The NHC funds were specifically drawn from the ROT collected in the towns that will be receiving renourishment. More specifically, 3/4 of that 35% came from the state of North Carolina. The other 1/4 of that 35% came from the Room Occupancy Taxes collected in Carolina and Kure Beaches.
 

The last time Carolina and Kure Beaches were renourished through dredging (a process in which healthy sand is pumped from a borrow area onto the coastline to fill the gap that has been created by natural erosion, nor’easters, hurricanes, and other types of damaging environmental factors) was in 2004. The borrow area in Carolina Beach is primarily the Carolina Beach Inlet, and in Kure Beach it is located off shore. It is impossible to predict, due to the erratic nature of coastal weather, how long a beach renourishment project will last, but in general renourishment has a staying power of less than five years anywhere on the Atlantic coast. “Both Carolina and Kure beaches have contracts with the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers allotting funds for beach renourishment every three years, provided that the congressional budget allocates money for it,” says Dennis Barbour, a member of the Board of Directors for the North Carolina Beach, Waterway, and Inlet Association. “The hard part is making sure Congress continues to put money in their yearly budget towards the cause.”
 

The funding to complete this years beach renourishment project was incredibly hard to get this year. “The line items are there in the federal budget, but they are not covered for the future,” Barbour says. Beginning in the Clinton administration and continuing with the current Bush administration, the federal government has dropped beach renourishment to the absolute bottom of their list of priorities. “The Federal Government needs to be supplying the money it committed to, but it doesn’t look like that is happening,” Barbour says.
 

According to the federal contract, our shorelines will be ready for some TLC again in 2010. This may seem far off, but considering the trouble it took to get the money this year, the date is already rapidly approaching. “We are very fortunate that in the fiscal year 2006 congress delegated emergency funds of 3 million dollars for [renourishment after] hurricane Ophelia,” said McIntosh. The federal budget for 2010, which will reveal whether the line items regarding beach renourishment are filled with dollar amounts or not will not be released till February of 2009. Until then, the Citizens Beach Protection Committee will not be sitting around waiting to find out the fate of the beach. The proactive committee currently has a letter writing and email campaign in the works, among other actions they are taking now to prepare for the future.
 

The Citizens Beach Protection Committee of Kure Beach is currently planning a Dunes Day in Spring 2007. While dredging is the most expensive and most effective part of beach renourishment, there are other ways to maintain a healthy beach. “It will require a lot of manpower,” Tom Barber said with a smile, “and will probably be more like a Dunes Weekend.” Volunteers will be needed to help plant sea oats to fertilize the dunes post-dredging. During dredging, a hole is created when the sand is taken from offshore. With that sand, a new dune is created on the shore, and the hole that was created serves in part to protect this new dune. However, to ensure that the dune is stable and grows rather than diminishes, dune-building plants like sea oats need to be replanted. (See sidebar on dune building plants and battling Beach Vitex).
 

The Committee in Kure Beach invites anyone who would like to help to join the effort, and looks forward to working together with a Carolina Beach Citizens Protection Committee as soon as one is formed. Barber also encourages out-of-town property owners to take part in caring for the NC coast. “The property owner that lives in Virginia needs to be involved as well, getting their Virginia congressmen to vote for what’s going on down in North Carolina,” Barber says, “or else they will lose their investment.”
 

On the state level, there are a number of committees with active and passionate members, like Former Carolina Beach Mayor Dennis Barbour, that are doing everything in their power to make sure our beaches and inlets retain their longevity. The North Carolina Beach, Inlet, and Waterway Association (NCBIWA) “is looking at all alternatives,” to funding beach renourishment, said Dennis Barbour. In August, the association secured the services of Marlowe & Company, a governmental affairs consulting firm that specializes in water resource projects for local governments. The hope is that by having a voice in Washington on an everyday basis, Congress will see the importance of taking care of our beaches, waterways and inlets, and will continue to fund projects like beach renourishment in the future.
 

In 2005, the NC department of tourism reported that NHC tourism revenues were $350,420,000. We can only assume that tourists come to this area mainly or in part because of the draw of the seashore. Feeling the pull of the coast, just like full and part time residents, tourists come to Pleasure Island to experience the salty smell of the sea and the warm sand under their feet. And like us, they need a place to stay. In order to continue to see these tourism revenues, we must be able to offer visitors a coast to enjoy. The beachfront that lies seaward of the dune line in front of individually owned properties is public, and is there for both residents and visitors to enjoy. What will threaten these public beaches is the continuing erosion on the coast. If we do not continue to ward off shoreline loss through renourishment and other projects, the beaches will disappear quickly, and eventually there will be no beach in front of the privately owned property for the public to enjoy.


SIDEBAR:

Eradicating Beach Vitex: Killing the Kudzu of the Coast

One key to keeping our shoreline strong and healthy is promoting the growth of good dune-building plants and eliminating the more obnoxious plants that strangle our coast. Beach Vitex is an aggressive plant with a high salt tolerance and an ability to flourish in sand. It is not native to this area, it made it’s way here via landscapers who liked its resilience and pretty purple flowers, but did not know about the plant’s detrimental effects. “This is not a plant we want at the beach,” says David Nash, of the North Carolina Cooperative Extension. “Beach Vitex crowds out good dune building plants that are native to our beach, such as seashore elder and silver-leaf croton.” Currently, Pleasure Island has little Beach Vitex, but if we do not address the issue now, the problem could grow to the point where the plant would be impossible to eradicate, like kudzu. If you have Beach Vitex on your property or know someone that does, contact the NC Cooperative Extension Office in Wilmington at (910) 798-7660 for tips on identification and eradication.
 

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