counties 



H'hile CAMA has been hailed as model environ- 

 tal legislation, opposition to the act remains 

 1. A bill to repeal CAMA was introduced in 

 N.C. General Assembly this spring by Sen. 



Kingston Stallings of New Bern and Rep. Howard 



jpin of Washington, N.C. 



n some coastal counties opposition to CAMA 

 been loud. To date four law suits have been 

 i against the CRC. Three of the suits are being 

 tight by citizens' groups in Hyde, Carteret and 

 low Counties. A fourth suit has been filed by 

 Carteret County Commissioners. None of the 

 Its have yet come to trial, but preliminary hear- 

 on the Onslow and Carteret citizens' suits are 

 cted late this summer. Members of two groups, 

 th called Citizens to Save Our Land, are behind 

 suits, according to Wendell Ott. Ott is an at- 

 ey with the Greensboro firm Turner, Enoch, 

 liter and Burnley, which is handling the cases. 

 The two organizations are loosely-knit and sepa- 

 , but they share major objections to CAMA. 

 suits claim that CAMA is unconstitutional as 

 written and as it may be applied, said Ott. A 

 ijor bone of contention for some of the plaintiffs 

 the issue of local versus state and federal control 

 I use. 



lients see the creation of a new govern- 

 mt bureaucracy to handle what has been a local 

 said Ott. 



Other opponents of CAMA have charged that, as 

 local act, CAMA discriminates against coastal 

 irth Carolina and is therefore unconstitutional, 

 a] acts are those passed by the legislature which 

 lot apply to all areas of the state. According to 

 hoenbaum, state law provides that the legislature 

 make local laws if there is "reasonable" jus- 

 ition for treating a certain section of the state 

 ferently. Opponents contend that CAMA does 

 provide that justification. 

 According to Ott, the suits also claim that 

 Kcessive legislative power has been delegated to 

 ' gislative body, the CRC" and that the 

 ocess for appealing a denial of permit to develop 



' ngthy and expensive. 

 Another argument commonly used against 

 AMA concerns the legal issue of "taking" of 

 loperty without due compensation. 



The University of North Carolina Sea Grant 

 College Newsletter is published monthly by the 

 University of North Carolina Sea Grant College 

 Program, 1235 Burlington Laboratories, Yarbor- 

 «»gh Drive, North Carolina State University, 

 Raleigh, N.C. 27607. Vol. 4, No. 5, May, 1977. 

 Dr. B. J. Oopeland, director. Written and edited 

 Karen Jurgensen and Mary Day Mordecai. 

 Second-class postage paid at Raleigh. N.C. 27611. 



What are the AECs? 



The areas of environmental concern that have 

 been proposed by the Coastal Resources Commis- 

 sion (CRC) fall into four major categories: the 

 estuarine system, ocean hazard areas, public water 

 supply and fragile natural resource areas. 



The estuarine system covers an estimated 85 

 percent of the total AEC area and includes coastal 

 wetlands, estuarine waters, public trust waters 

 and the estuarine shoreline. The estuarine shore- 

 line is defined as the area extending to 75 feet land- 

 ward from the mean high water level or normal 

 water level along estuaries, sounds, bays and 

 brackish waters. These shorelines are considered 

 to be especially vulnerable to erosion, flooding 

 and other adverse effects of wind and water. Public 

 trust areas include all navigable coastal waters, 

 the part of the Atlantic Ocean that is covered by 

 state jurisdiction (to three miles from shore) and 

 the land under those waters. 



Beaches, frontal dunes, excessive erosion areas 

 and inlet lands make up the ocean hazard category. 

 Inlet lands are erosion-prone areas located adjacent 

 to inlets. The CRC has defined excessive erosion 

 areas as extremely dynamic lands susceptible to 

 becoming completely displaced by water due to 

 periodic storm surges. The following areas (mea- 

 sured landward from the toe of the frontal dune) 

 would be designated as part of the AEC in the eight 

 ocean -fronting counties : 



Dare, Currituck and Hyde 61 feet 

 Carteret 72 feet 



Onslow 133 feet 



Pender 112 feet 



New Hanover 156 feet 



Brunswick 144 feet 



The public water supply category takes in small 

 surface water, supply watersheds and public water 

 supply well fields. Regulations would be aimed 

 mainly at coordinating development which would 

 affect a few coastal community water supplies, 

 according to CRC staff member Mike Black. 



A final category, the fragile natural resource 

 area, is designed to include specific sites that 

 would be nominated by the public. Nominations 

 would be submitted next year to local governments, 

 which would make comments and forward recom- 

 mendations to the CRC. The CRC would make 

 final designations. Complex natural areas, places 

 that sustain remnant species and unique geologic 

 formations fall into this category. 



There are to date no regulations to control de- 

 velopment in this type of AEC. Development in all 

 other groups of AECs is already controlled by a 

 number of state and federal regulations, including 

 state dredge and fill statutes, state septic tank 

 regulations and dune ordinances. 



Two sides to the issue 



Pro: 



As chairman of the Coastal Resources Commis- 

 sion (CRC), David Stick is an official spokesman 

 for the Coastal Area Management Act (CAMA). 

 Bom in New Jersey, he moved to the Outer Banks 

 in 1929 and now lives in Kitty Hawk. An author 

 and historian, he has written several books on 

 North Carolina. Among his many former occupa- 

 tions, he lists real estate, contracting, map pub- 

 lishing and journalism. Following are excerpts 

 from an April interview with Stick in which he 

 explained his position on CAMA. 



Do you think CAMA is necessary? Why or why 

 not? 



Definitely. The main reason for retaining CAMA 

 is that for the last decade or so there has been 

 continually increasing involvement of state and 

 federal government in environmental and land use 

 matters — especially in the regulatory phases — to 

 the exclusion of local governments. CAMA offers 

 the only opportunity I have seen for years for a 

 reversal of this trend and for the active involve- 

 ment of local governments in many matters which 

 have become the exclusive domain of bureaucrats 

 out of Raleigh and Washington. 



The key to this is federal Office of Coastal Zone 

 Management approval of a coastal zone manage- 

 ment program for North Carolina. That means 

 that when we get it [an approved plan] the federal 

 agencies will have to consult the state and local 

 plans. There is also a strong implication that some 

 of the authority of federal agencies will actually 

 be turned over to the local or state governments. 



Another key reason is that though most of the 

 (See "CAMA: Key,"p.5) 



Con: 



Sen. Livingston Stalling* of New Bern is an out- 

 spoken opponent of the Coastal Area Managemen t 

 Act ( CAMA). Now serving his third term as a state 

 senator, he co-sponsored a bill to repeal CAMA 

 during the current session of the General As- 

 sembly. He is a native of Craven County and a 

 former county commissioner. Stallings has an in- 

 surance and real estate business in New Bern. 

 Following are excerpts from an April interview in 

 which he explained his position on CAMA. 



Do you think CAMA is necessary? Why or Why 

 not? 



I think an act similar to CAMA that would be 

 altered so that the act would apply to all of North 

 Carolina would be very helpful to the state. Cer- 

 tainly we need to plan direction so that we can 

 conserve our natural resources, so that the es- 

 sential features of our coastline and our mountains 

 and our piedmont that have a bearing on life in 

 North Carolina should be looked upon and should 

 be [treated] in a way that will preserve our natural 



What is your major criticism of CAMA? 



My criticism is two- or three-fold. First [is] 

 the fact that this act only applies to 20 counties in 

 North Carolina. Nothing was done to work in the 

 same direction in the other 80 counties. . . . Even 

 though some parts of it (CAMA) would not be ap- 

 plicable to the other counties, much of it would. 

 And I say it's not constitutional applying to only 

 20 counties. That's one concern. 



Secondly, this act does affect property rights. It 

 does limit to a degree the use that one can make of 

 his property and there is no provision made for 

 remuneration in the event of a take-over of property 

 rights or a curtailment of property rights. And 

 (See "It goes,"p. 6) 



