then the water tower belongs to the 

 future ..." 



Dare County responded to the 

 summertime cry for water with a 

 reverse-osmosis plant that can make 

 the brackish groundwater from wells 

 drinkable. 



Sewer is another challenge on the 

 coast, where most communities rely 

 on septic systems and mini-treatment 

 plants. Water quality is on ongoing 

 concern. 



Atlantic Beach is pursuing a plan 



The Outer Banks 

 especially are a magnet 

 for travelers from the 

 North, who consider 

 these beaches a 

 mecca for fishing, 

 surfing, windsurfing and 

 hang gliding. 



to treat its sewage and pipe it 25 miles 

 inland to Open Grounds Farm, where 

 it would be used to irrigate crops. The 

 idea is not without controversy, but 

 it's preferable to ocean dumping, 

 Miller says. 



Garbage disposal poses some 

 difficulty because the high coastal 

 water table makes landfill sites hard 

 to locate. Many coastal counties are 

 discussing regional compacts for 

 future sites. 



Efforts to get visitors to recycle 

 have met with some success because 

 tourists from the North are accus- 

 tomed to recycling, says White, Dare 

 County spokeswoman. Many are 

 required to recycle at home. 



And Dare County is beefing up its 

 emergency response system with an 

 enhanced 91 1 system that will 

 automatically identify the address of a 

 caller. The county has found that 

 tourists in trouble call for help 



without knowing their address, White 

 says. 



"When tourists come here, to them 

 the whole beach strand is Nags Head," 

 she says. "They don't realize they 

 may be in Duck or someplace else. 

 They don't know where they are. 

 They just have a beach cottage 

 number." 



lot of plastic things going on. No high- 

 rises. So people can come and walk on 

 the beach and enjoy themselves." 



Dollard moved from Fairfax, Va., 

 to Southern Shores in 1972 after 

 decades of vacationing along the Outer 

 Banks. She and her husband had 

 originally planned to retire in Florida, 

 but it was "too plastic" there, she says. 



Offshore racing with spinnakers aloft. 



The bottom line in each commu- 

 nity is striking that fragile balance 

 between economy and ecology, 

 Ballance says. North Carolina 

 residents and visitors need to practice 

 control and sacrifice. 



"The history of the world is that 

 man has destroyed the things that he 

 loved," he says. 



To Dollard, Dare County commis- 

 sioner, the answer lies in holding fast 

 to the simple, family-oriented atmo- 

 sphere of the Outer Banks. It means 

 limiting construction and shopping 

 centers to protect the environment and 

 the small businessman who already 

 struggles against a cyclical season. 



"I think there's more of the nature 

 preserved down here," says Dollard, a 

 transplant from Virginia. "We don't 

 have boardwalks, and we don't have a 



Scott Taylor 



North Carolinians don't have to 

 look as far south as Florida, or as far 

 north as the New Jersey shores, to find 

 examples of tourism-based growth 

 gone in a direction they may not want 

 to follow, Miller says. 



Just south of the border, high-rise 

 condos and hotels lining the Myrtle 

 Beach "Grand Strand" invite compari- 

 sons to the Miami-to-Ft. Lauderdale 

 corridor in south Florida, according to 

 the national beach survey. 



And even Hilton Head, S.C., has 

 too much of a country club feel to suit 

 folks like Miller. Most South Carolina 

 islands now sport major golf courses. 



"I saw a guy there walking down 

 the beach carrying a golf club instead 

 of a fishing rod," Miller says. "You 

 still see people on North Carolina 

 shores carrying fishing rods." □ 



COASTWATCH 7 



