PREFACE 



The North Carolina Office of Coastal Management and the 

 North Carolina Natural Heritage Program, both units of the 

 Department of Natural Resources and Community Development, have 

 commissioned a series of natural areas inventories for ten 

 counties in the coastal zone of this state. The Washington 

 County inventory was conducted in 1982 and was financed by a 

 Coastal Energy Impact Program (CEIP) grant. CEIP funded the 

 Washington County survey because of the potential environmental 

 impacts of peat mining and other energy-related development. 



The recommendations made in this report by J. Merrill Lynch 

 and S. Lance Peacock are advisory. Their inventory and recom- 

 mendations are designed to help state and federal agencies, 

 county officials, resource managers, landowners and developers 

 work out effective land management and preservation mechanisms 

 to protect the six outstanding or exemplary natural areas 

 described in this report. Agencies such as the N.C. Division 

 of Environmental Management, Division of Land Resources, 

 Division of Marine Fisheries, Wildlife Resources Commission, 

 the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, 

 National Marine Fisheries Service, and Environmental Protection 

 Agency should find this report useful, as may university re- 

 searchers, private consultants, and private conservation groups. 

 The Office of Coastal Management will use the report in assessing 

 permit applications and for federal and state consistency reviews. 



Merrill Lynch and Lance Peacock are experienced field bio- 

 logists, who have previously been employed with the N.C. Natural 

 Heritage Program and are most familiar with natural habitats 

 throughout the North Carolina coastal plain region. The investi- 

 gators were exceptionally well qualified to identify, describe, 

 and evaluate the most outstanding natural areas of the project 

 region. 



Project investigators were instructed to identify those 

 natural areas that contain highly unique, endangered, or rare 

 natural features, or highest quality representations of rela- 

 tively undisturbed natural habitats, and which may be vulnerable 

 to threats and damage from land use changes. The investigators 

 were advised not to report on Lake Phelps or Lake Pungo, which 

 are both in protected status. 



(1) Pungo Lake . The 10,000-acre Pungo National Wildlife Refuge 

 includes the 2,800-acre lake. The lake hosts a large wintering 

 population of waterfowl. The lake is bordered on the northern 

 shore by a band of mature swamp tupelo forest and on the east 

 by a disturbed area of pocosin. The lake and portions of 

 swamp forest and pocosin is recognized on the State Registry 

 of Natural Heritage Areas. 



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