North Carolina State Library 

 Raleigh 



N. C. 



Doc. 



University of North Carolina 

 Sea Grant Program 



NEWSLETTER 



MAY, 1975 



1235 Burlington Laboratories 

 NCSU, Raleigh, N. C. 27607 Tel: (919) 737-2U5U 



The ocean: 



Our 

 next 



dumping 

 grounds? 



The island community of Wrightsville Beach lies nestled between 

 the mighty Atlantic and North Carolina's port city of Wilmington. 

 Glittering waters, an easy-going, family atmosphere and clean, sandy 

 beaches lined with handsome beach cottages — all make the island 

 one of North Carolina's most popular beach resorts. 



Popularity has made Wrightsville Beach a prosperous place to 

 live and work. But for the town's governing officials, growth has 

 created problems, real puzzlers that require more complex solutions 

 than coastal communities have relied on in the past. 



Perhaps the most urgent problem Wrightsville officials find them- 

 selves confronting is that of disposing of increasing quantities of 

 human wastes. They and officials in other fast-growing beach areas 

 are finding that the old ways of disposing of waste — individual septic 

 tanks and municipal sewage treatment plants — just aren't capable of 

 handling the large amounts of sewage generated in coastal com- 

 munities today. 



The waste problem is further complicated by the huge influx of 

 people during summer months. Disposal systems must be able to 

 handle the increased quantities of waste generated. In Dare County, 

 for instance, the population climbs from 3,500 in winter to some 

 35,000 in the summer. 



One proposed solution to the problem, now receiving serious exami- 

 nation by North Carolina state and local officials, is to use the ocean 

 as dumping grounds. Several states on both the east and west coasts 

 are already pumping wastes collected in coastal areas through large 

 pipelines into the ocean. Some have found ocean outfalls, as the 

 (See "Ocean," page 3) 



