pumpouts, a measure designed to help 

 ensure that tanks' contents were dis- 

 posed of properly. But as Pate points 

 out, so few boaters have complied with 

 the Coast Guard's rule that the pump- 

 out stations often go unused. 



"We didn't want to get into the 

 position of closing somebody's marina 

 down because he didn't have a pump- 

 out station, since they weren't being 

 used anyway," Pate says. 



Instead of the pumpout rule, 

 Coastal Management is proposing a 

 standard that would require marinas 

 to display, on a sign, the location of the 

 nearest pumpout station. 



(Spencer Rogers has also been work- 

 ing on the waste-disposal problems of 

 boats and marinas. His design for a 

 low-cost holding tank for boats is 

 aimed at helping boaters comply with 

 Coast Guard regulations. The tank is 

 portable, and can be emptied into most 



Photo by Neil Caudle 



any sewerage system. For details 

 about Rogers' design, write for Sea 

 Grant's free Blueprint, The $10 

 Holding Tank, and ask for publica- 

 tion number UNC-SG-BP-80-1. 

 Rogers is also designing a portable, 

 hand-operated pumpout unit that 

 could be rolled along the dock and cost 

 less than a pumpout station.) 



But despite the rough sledding dur- 

 ing the July Coastal Resources Com- 

 mission meeting, both Pate and the 

 marina operators seem to believe the 

 two sides can reach agreement. 



"The main concern we have," Floyd 

 says, "is for us to be able to work 

 together, so that we can help in the 

 regulation of our marinas." 



And Pate adds that the proposed 

 standards are not hard-and-fast rules. 

 Most are written to express preferred 

 conditions, not absolute criteria. They 

 are also written to give coastal com- 



Keith Wolfenbarger on his pile driver 



munities a framework for their own 

 marina policies. 



"One thing we're trying to en- 

 courage is communities taking a closer 

 look at marina development," Pate 

 says. "If a marina is proposed, and it is 

 compatible with a community's land- 

 use plan, then that provides some 

 justification for marina development 

 there." 



Susan Schmidt, a research scientist 

 with Coastal Management, has con- 

 ducted much of the study necessary for 

 preparing the new standards, and she 

 thinks her agency actually supports 

 marina growth in the state. "Marinas 

 are needed," she says. "They do a ser- 

 vice, they provide access to the water. 

 As a matter of fact, we give preference 

 to marinas over other businesses that 

 could just as well be built somewhere 

 other than on the shoreline." 



—Neil Caudle 



Three marinas, 

 Minus one 



For those who love boats, the job 

 might seem made to order: days spent 

 among sails and outboards, chatting 

 with fishermen. But there's more going 

 on at a marina than atmosphere, and 

 perhaps the closest parallel to the job 

 is farming: long days, risks, and bone- 

 tiring labor. 



Here are the stories of three North 

 Carolina marinas: a new one catering to 

 sailboats and surviving its growing 

 pains, another for the motorboaters, 

 thriving in a busy beach town, and a 

 third that never made it off the draw- 

 ing board. 



Keith Wolfenbarger rocks back on 

 the lever. With a deafening clang, his 

 pile driver hammers a new piling into 

 the harbor. It's not the sort of gear you 

 see doctors using every day; but this 

 doctor is weaning himself away from 

 medicine. He's building a marina. 



"We're having fun, doing this on our 

 own," Wolfenbarger says, "although 

 I'd have to say it's not very profitable, 

 yet. But we have filled up our marina, 

 and we're building on." 



For now, the story of Keith and 

 Judy Wolfenbarger's marina near 

 Minnesott Beach seems destined for a 



