As many as 100 clam fishermen 

 marched a picket line around the 

 Marine Fisheries building in Morehead 

 City last month, demanding opening of 

 closed waters in Core Sound. 



Division Director William Hogarth 

 refused, agreeing that while some 

 areas had less grass than earlier 

 thought, grass beds have a tendency 

 to move from season to season. 



Peterson, of the UNC Institute of 

 Marine Sciences in Morehead City, 



Eelgrass 



puts it this way: 



"If we'd decided to dredge Core 

 Sound out one year because we'd said 

 it didn't have seagrass, we'd have been 

 wrong. 



"There's a lot we don't know," Peter- 

 son admits. 



But, he adds, the lifeblood of ocean 

 life is tied so closely with seagrass 

 habitats that, "if all the seagrass [sud- 

 denly] is missing, we'll know." ■ 



CURRITUCK 

 SOUND: 



LESSONS 

 LEARNED 

 THE HARD WAY 



By C.R. Edgerton 



Before the turn of the 

 century, fishermen on 

 North Carolina's Currituck 

 Sound would often lean 

 over the sides of their 

 boats and take long, cool 

 drinks from the sound. 



Outdoorsmen would 

 travel great distances to 

 camp under clear skies, 

 hunt the masses of water- 

 fowl and fish for large- 

 mouth bass. 



The shallow waters of 

 Currituck were clear then 

 and, because a hurricane 

 had closed the sound's 

 only link with the Atlantic 

 Ocean in 1828, they 

 were more fresh than 

 salt. Fish were abundant 

 and swam in playful 

 schools. Migratory birds 

 nested there by the 

 thousands. The sound was 

 pristine, untouched by the 

 ravages of civilization. 

 Native submerged seagrasses, tiny 

 but essential ingredients in the fragile 

 ecology of this Eden, flourished. Fish, 



shellfish and other coastal creatures 

 found shelter, food and protection here. 



Through the years, the fortunes of 

 Currituck have hinged on the ebb and 

 flow of the sound's seagrass beds. 

 Lessons learned here have prevented 

 similar situations in the state's other 

 sounds. 



In 1918, the residents of Currituck 

 Sound— the people as well as the flora 

 and fauna— witnessed an apparently 

 innocent event that would one day 

 mean disaster for the then tranquil, un- 

 polluted waterway. 



Construction was completed on a 

 series of canals and locks that linked 

 Currituck with Norfolk Harbor and the 

 Chesapeake Bay via North Landing 

 River. The canal connected the Carolina 

 sounds with Virginia's busiest water- 

 way, uniting the two states by inland 

 water and bringing progress and 

 growth. 



But the plan backfired. The new 

 waterway brought not only commerce 

 and trade, but allowed some of the 

 dirtiest water on the Eastern Seaboard 

 to flow unhindered from the polluted 

 Chesapeake Bay to Currituck. 



Raw sewage. Silt from continuous 



