THE ECOLOGICAL IMPACT OF BEACH NOURISHMENT WITH DREDGED MATERIALS 
ON THE INTERTIDAL ZONE AT BOGUE BANKS, NORTH CAROLINA 
by 
Francis J. Reilly, Jr., and Vincent J. Bellts 
I. INTRODUCTION 
The National Shoreline Inventory (U.S. Army, Corps of Engineers, 1971) 
showed that more than 4350 kilometers of the nation's shorelines is "critically 
eroding."' Investment in beach property continues to rise. New developments are 
often forced to utilize more erosion-prone property, because most of the rela- 
tively stable shoreline has already been developed. For these reasons the 
priority given to stabilizing waterfront property and controlling beach erosion 
can be expected to increase markedly during the next decade. 
A variety of erosion control methods have already been developed and 
tested. Structural control methods including groins, seawalls, and bulkheads 
have frequently been found to be unsatisfactory due to hazards to beach users, 
lack of esthetic appeal, and high cost coupled with limited effectiveness. 
Because of these limitations, beach nourishment or replenishment (the addition 
of borrowed sediments to the beach) is fast becoming the preferred method for 
dealing with shoreline erosion. Major advantages of beach nourishment have 
been summarized by Walton and Purpura (1977). They include emphasis upon non- 
structural methods which approximate the shape and visual aspect of a natural 
beach, fast results at a cost competitive with other erosion control methods, 
and beneficial use of dredged materials obtained from activities that are under- 
taken to maintain navigation channels. 
An Army Corps of Engineers publication dealing with beach nourishment 
summarized its geological effect as follows: "It's hard to hurt an eroding 
area by adding material to it" (Richardson, 1976). This generalization may or 
may not apply to the sediment budget of an eroding beach and should not be 
extended to include effects on the beach biota. Since passage of the National 
Environmental Policy Act in 1969 and the Federal Water Pollution Control Act 
of 1972, it has become both a practical and a legal necessity to determine the 
ecological impact of proposed erosion control projects. 
Although the ecological consequences of dredge and fill projects are well 
documented for estuaries (Ingle, 1952; Hellier and Kornicker, 1962; Sykes, 1971; 
Rosenberg, 1977) and marshlands (Pomeroy, 1959; Odum, 1961; Clark, 1967), few 
studies have considered the ecological effects of beach construction or nour- 
ishment. Most studies on beach nourishment have dealt either with effects at 
the borrow site (Cronin, Gunter, and Hopkins, 1971; Courtenay, Hartig, and 
Loisel, 1980; Culter and Mahadevan, 1982; Saloman, Naughton, and Taylor, 1982; 
Turbeville and Marsh, 1982) or offshore effects (Holland, Chambers, and 
Blackman, 1972; Parr, Diener, and Lacy, 1978; Courtenay, Hartig, and Loisel, 
1980; Marsh, et al., 1980; Saloman, Naughton, and Taylor, 1982; Culter and 
Mahadevan, 1982). Only one previous study of beach nourishment was located 
that actually dealt with the ecological effects on the upper beach (Dolan, 1974; 
Hayden and Dolan, 1974). This study described the response to beach nourish- 
ment of a group of mature mole crabs, Hmertta talpoida (Say), occurring in 
the center of the swash zone at Cape Hatteras National Seashore. The study 
