THE BACK PACK 



"The Back Page" is an update 

 on Sea Grant activities — on re- 

 search, marine education and ad- 

 visory services. It's also a good 

 place to find out about meetings 

 and workshops and new publica- 

 tions. For more information on 

 any of the projects described, con- 

 tact the Sea Grant office in 

 Raleigh (919/737-2454). 



Spencer Rogers, Sea 

 Grant's coastal engineer, 

 spent September survey- 

 ing the damage from two 

 hurricanes, David and 

 Frederick. David, which 

 made landfall in South 

 Carolina, was downgraded to a tropical 

 storm before moving into North 

 Carolina with wind gusts up to 70 mph 

 and a storm surge two feet above nor- 

 mal. Rogers said some erosion occurred 

 at Wrightsville Beach, Topsail Beach, 

 Yaupon Beach and Ocean Isle, but 

 damage was no more severe than that 

 from a northeaster. 



Rogers and Sea Grant researcher 

 Jerry Machemehl found things much 

 different in Mobile Bay, Alabama, af- 

 ter Hurricane Frederick. Strong winds 

 toppled entire pine forests and mobile 

 homes were overturned. Machemehl 

 noted that beachfront homes with 

 load-bearing walls built parallel to the 

 beach were often destroyed because the 

 strong storm surge hit these walls 

 broadside and collapsed them. 



Rogers said that other homes were 

 destroyed because their pilings were 

 not deep enough. He said that in many 

 of these cases the piling depth would 

 have met North Carolina building 

 codes. 



After viewing the destruction from 

 Frederick, both men warned that 

 North Carolinians should not be lulled 

 into thinking all storms will be like 

 David. Rogers said even though North 

 Carolina codes for coastal construction 

 are more stringent than Alabama 

 codes, the state still isn't ready for the 

 type of hurricane that struck Alabama. 



Sea Grant researcher Bobby Carlile 

 came to the rescue of the Camden Mid- 

 dle School recently when Camden 

 County health officials found the 

 school's septic system was 

 malfunctioning. Health officials were 

 going to require the school to build its 

 own small treatment plant at a cost of 

 $50,000 to $70,000. But Carlile found 

 an area in the schoolyard suitable for a 

 modified version of his low-pressure 

 pipe system. The system can be built 

 at a cost of $5,000 to $10,000. The low- 

 pressure system is being used more and 

 more as an alternative to the conven- 

 tional septic tank system in eastern 

 North Carolina, where the water table 

 is high and soils do not allow good 

 filtration. 



Carlile expects to be working with 

 more school systems throughout the 

 state to improve their disposal 

 systems. He says about 600 schools 

 must upgrade their systems to meet 

 state and federal water quality 

 standards. 



The well-traveled 

 cownose ray, which has 

 been frozen into slabs 

 and shipped to Europe, 

 may take its next trip 

 abroad in cans. 



Technicians at the 

 NCSU Seafood Lab in Morehead City 

 are blending ray meat into a tomato 

 sauce and sealing the seafood into 7V2- 

 ounce cans. So far, the product is get- 

 ting high marks. 



After sampling ray canned in several 

 different liquids — including brine, oil 

 and sauces — technicians rated the 

 tomato-sauce version highest in 

 quality. They describe the product as 

 flavorful and attractive, with a firm 

 texture. It is similar, they say, to other 

 canned seafoods. 



One North Carolina businessman 

 plans to take samples to Taiwan, where 

 he will try to find markets for the ray. 



The work with canned ray is part of 

 an extended project the lab has con- 

 ducted to research and market some of 



the state's under-used seafoods. Skates 

 and rays have been considered "trash 

 fish" by most Americans, even though 

 the fish are delicacies in much of 

 Europe and the Orient. Marketing the 

 frozen ray in Europe has been difficult, 

 technicians say, because foreign dis- 

 tributors feel the reddish color of 

 North Carolina ray meat won't be as 

 popular with their customers as the 

 white meat of the European rays. 



Researchers know 

 that grasses planted 

 along the shores of 

 sounds and estuaries can 

 help prevent erosion. 

 But in some areas, strong 

 or frequent waves wipe 

 out plantings and continue to chew 

 away the soil. The question has been, 

 how can anyone predict when and 

 where the strong waves will occur? 



At least part of the answer is blowing 

 in the wind. Because wind rumples 

 water into waves, scientists have been 

 able to formulate ways to project, from 

 wind speed and direction, waves of a 

 certain size or frequency. Two Sea 

 Grant researchers, Ernie Knowles and 

 Bob Weisberg, have used these techni- 

 ques to predict waves in several North 

 Carolina sounds. The methods take 

 into account not only wind speeds, but 

 "fetch" (the distance wind blows over 

 water), water depth and other factors. 

 Using sophisticated wave-monitoring 

 gear, Knowles and Weisberg have 

 recorded thousands of waves, 

 correlated the data with wind records, 

 and compared the findings to their 

 predictions. 



After nine months of collecting and 

 comparing, Knowles reports that their 

 methods have very accurately predict- 

 ed the "period," or length of time be- 

 tween predominant waves in the 

 sounds. In fact, the predictions were so 

 close that most waves only missed their 

 projected timetables by a fraction of a 

 second. 



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