JJNC Sea Grant 

 J 1/3 



f 



NORTH CAlfDLJ4A STATE LIBRARY 

 -EIGH 



March, 1980 



SEP 1 8 1980 



N. C. 

 Doc 



4WATCII 



A fisherman harvests oysters from an uncovered bed 



Sorry we're late 



On its way to publication, the material we'd originally planned for the March 

 and April issues of Coastwach hit a snag and had to be abandoned. Fortunately, 

 there's plenty more to report, and we'll catch up with the calendar as quickly as 

 we can. 



— The editors 



When 'progress' 

 Is a dirty word 



Alton Phillips remembers a time 

 when oyster fishermen could tong a 

 skiff full of oysters from one oyster bed 

 in Queen's Creek without ever having 

 to pull up anchor to change locations. 

 The oysters are still bedding in the 

 creek, but now fishermen can't harvest 

 the shellfish because they have been 

 contaminated by pollutants. 



"Pollution is taking over," says 

 Phillips, a 56-year-old Swansboro 

 fishermen who depends now on clam- 

 ming to make a living. "People call it 

 progress and progress is supposed to be 

 good. In a way it may be, but in a way 

 it's not." 



Phillips says that state and local 

 health officials first told him and other 

 fishermen the creek's pollution was 

 coming from a nearby trailer park. Af- 

 ter the trailer park was shut down and 

 the pollution persisted, Phillips says 

 officials decided effluent from a nearby 

 sewage treatment plant was polluting 

 the lower part of the creek. 



"They fixed the sewage treatment 

 plant, but now they tell us the pollu- 

 tion is coming from developments and 

 run-off upstream," Phillips says. "You 

 can't win. There seems no way it will 

 ever be cleaned up now. There's too 

 much going on." 



Phillips claims motorboats churning 

 up the water, and run-off from farms 

 and development cloud the water with 

 silt. "I was born and raised right here 

 on the creek," Phillips says. "And 

 when I was a boy it was seldom that 

 the water wasn't clear enough to see 

 the bottom. But this winter, the water 



Continued on next page 



