By J eannie Faris 



Keith Smalley has charted his life on 

 Hewletts Creek. He grew up on its banks 

 and its waters, the third generation of his 

 family to live here. Now 32, he knows the 

 creek's every blind turn through the marsh 

 and saw grass. 



He knows the trees — sweet gums, 

 hickories and pines — that grow straight 

 and tall on its banks. And he knows the 

 treetop roost of an osprey that steers over- 

 head on a westward wind. This is practi- 

 cally his back yard, where blue herons and 

 egrets lift out of low marshy hideaways, 

 kingfishers clip the tops of cattails and 

 red-winged blackbirds sail in formation. 



On a mid-fall afternoon, Smalley 

 guides his johnboat through the sights of 

 this small New Hanover County tidal 

 creek, reminiscing about his years here. He 

 motors to a remote circular clearing in the 

 marsh he calls "the lollipop," only to find 

 his old haunt bogged with plants. 



"Things on the creek are changing," 

 he says. 



Perhaps more than he wants to admit. 



The creek is changing under the 

 weight of construction on its banks and its 

 2,415-acre watershed. Trees cut back from 

 the creekside expose the edge of develop- 

 ment that has been fueled in recent years 

 by a new central sewer system and a stam- 

 pede to build near the water. 



Changes of this kind are hard to over- 

 look. But the environmental strain on the 

 creek's waters has been less evident. 



Gradually, Hewletts Creek has been 

 polluted by runoff and spills from a nearby 

 sewage pump station that serves the beach 

 area. Years of invisible abuse have slowly 

 weakened the creek to the point that it is 

 illegal to oyster or clam its entire length. 

 The creek is closed from the narrow fin- 

 gers that wind through head-high grass to 

 the mouth where marsh fades to open 

 water. 



"I seldom see a fisherman out there 

 anymore with the pollution signs up," says 

 Dorothy Reid, Keith's grandmother and a 

 47-year resident of Hewletts Creek. "And I 

 haven't eaten an oyster out of there in 10 

 years." 



The green no-shellfishing signs near 

 Reid's home are posted on creeks and 

 sounds that fail to meet strict bacterial 



standards protecting oysters and clams for 

 human consumption. But not all creeks are 

 held to these standards — only shellfish 

 areas, one of three designated uses that the 

 state Division of Environmental Manage- 

 ment (DEM) stamps on coastal waters. 



Like other closed shellfish waters, 

 Hewletts Creek has been found to exceed 

 the bacterial standards through sampling 

 by the Shellfish Sanitation Branch of the 

 N.C. Division of Environmental Health. 



Like other dosed shellfish waters, 

 Hewletts Creek has been found to 

 exceed the bacterial standards 

 through sampling by the Shellfish 

 Sanitation Branch of the N.C. 



Division of Environmental Health. 

 This information is passed on to 



the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries 

 (DMF), which closes the areas to 

 harvesting. Months or even years 



may pass before sampling shows that 

 closed areas are ready to reopen. 

 Some shellfish waters around 

 marinas are closed permanently 

 to protect against illegal sewage 



discharges from boats. 

 Other areas are closed for a few 



days or weeks by rain that 

 washes bacteria into the water. 



This information is passed on to the N.C. 

 Division of Marine Fisheries (DMF), 

 which closes the areas to harvesting. 



Months or even years may pass be- 

 fore sampling shows that closed areas are 

 ready to reopen. Some shellfish waters 

 around marinas are closed permanently to 

 protect against illegal sewage discharges 

 from boats. Other areas are closed for a 

 few days or weeks by rain that washes 

 bacteria into the water. 



Weather patterns — wet or dry — 



usually drive this revolving door of open- 

 ings and closings. This is expected. But 

 weather alone doesn't account for shellfish 

 waters that are closed to harvesting more 

 often than opened. 



Over the past 12 years, pollution has 

 claimed an additional 6,600 acres of shell- 

 fish waters from Carteret County's Cedar 

 Island to the South Carolina line in 

 Brunswick County. About 43,500 acres in 

 this region are off-limits to harvesters, a 

 status known as prohibited. Add to that 

 about 45,000 acres that are closed tempo- 

 rarily, and the area beyond the reach of 

 shellfishermen more than doubles. 



Richard Barber, a professor of bio- 

 logical oceanography at the Duke Univer- 

 sity Marine Laboratory, has searched for 

 trends in shellfish openings and closings. 

 He used data collected by Shellfish Sanita- 

 tion to examine the 303,575 acres of pro- 

 ductive shellfish waters between Cedar 

 Island and the South Carolina line from 

 1980 to 1992. 



The numbers bode poorly for North 

 Carolina, Barber says. 



At first glance, however, the trends 

 might appear encouraging and even sug- 

 gest that the state has been on the right 

 track with its pollution management strate- 

 gies, he says. In 1992, nearly 260,100 acres 

 of shellfishing waters were open, compared 

 to 259,700 acres in 1980. But this modest 

 400-acre net gain can be traced back to two 

 large openings in 1983 and 1984 on the 

 New and Cape Fear rivers. These one-time 

 openings of about 7,000 acres were made 

 possible by improvements in point source 

 discharges from industry and wastewater 

 treatment plants. 



North Carolina cannot count on open- 

 ings of this size again. Barber says. 



Meanwhile, the region's other shell- 

 fish areas have been slowly eroded away 

 by polluted runoff — called nonpoint 

 source pollution — from development, 

 septic tanks, marinas, agricultural opera- 

 tions and homeowners' lawns. An average 

 of 550 acres each year are added to the list 

 of closed waters, although the trend has 

 been obscured by the two large openings, 

 Barber says. 



"The most recent losses are most 

 rapid," he says. 



Continued 



COASTWATCH 3 



