A 



10m the Haiboi 



By C aria B . Burgess 

 When the U.S. Army Corps of 



Engineers offered the people of Atlantic 



Beach about 5 million cubic yards of free 



sand, who were they to look a gift horse in 



the mouth? The Morehead City harbor 



needed deepening and a nearby dredge 



disposal 



island 



would soon 



be filled up. 



The corps 



needed to 



get rid of 



the sand, 



and the 



town didn't 



mind 



having it. 

 True, 



the annual 



rate of 



erosion 



along this 



portion of 



Bogue 



Banks is 



below the state average of 2 to 3 feet per 

 year. But with an estimated 90 percent of 

 U.S. shorelines characterized as eroding, 

 how could an additional buffer of storm 

 protection and a wider beach hurt? 



The project began in mid-October, 

 over eleventh-hour objections by the N.C. 

 Marine Fisheries Commission. Local 

 fishermen were alarmed by a university 

 researcher's warning that the material piled 

 onto the intertidal beach would bury mole 

 crabs and coquina clams, which are food 

 for such commercial and recreational 

 species as pompano, sea mullet and 

 juvenile flounder. The commission asked 

 that the project be delayed until December 

 to lessen the impact on fall fishing and to 

 keep from interfering with a study it was 



conducting on the impacts of commercial 

 stop-net mullet fishing on recreational 

 catches. 



But with the contracts let with private 

 dredging companies and the mechanical 

 equipment set to begin, the cost of 

 postponing the project would have 



Dredge spoil disposal setup at The Circle. 



exceeded $190,000 a day, says Atlantic 

 Beach Town Planner Bruce Payne. The 

 corps had a small window of opportunity 

 in which to work, says Payne, having to 

 dance around fall fishing season and still 

 be done before spring turtle nesting and 

 tourist season. And regardless of the 

 timing, Payne says the benefits of the 

 beach fill — which would have cost the 

 town about $20 million to initiate on its 

 own — outweighed any cost to fishermen. 



After all, the southern coastal 

 communities of Wrightsville and Carolina 

 beaches must spend millions of dollars 

 every few years for ongoing beach 

 nourishment. Beach nourishment — often 

 called renourishment because of its 

 required commitment to follow-up 



maintenance — is a process in which 

 compatible material such as sand from 

 navigational channels or inland or offshore 

 sources is used to rebuild a beach. 



Beach nourishment is preferred over 

 hard protective structures such as sea 

 walls, which protect property at the 



expense of 

 the beach 

 face, and 

 groins and 

 jetties, 

 structures 

 built 



perpendicu- 

 lar to the 

 shoreline that 

 trap sand but 

 interfere with 

 the supply of 

 sediment to 

 downdrift 

 beaches. But 

 beach 



nourishment 

 costs 

 millions in 

 local, state and federal tax dollars, and it is 

 a short-lived treatment for erosion, not a 

 cure (see story, page 19). Still, it appears 

 to be a more environmentally sound way 

 to keep erosion at bay. 



Whether or not a community pursues 

 and pays for a beach nourishment project 

 or gets a windfall of sand through 

 dredging activities, there are tradeoffs. It is 

 important to note that although nourish- 

 ment and disposal both supply a beach, 

 they must be evaluated by different 

 criteria. 



Beach nourishment is carefully 

 planned and implemented as a 50-year 

 project, requiring intervals of renourish- 

 ment every two to four years. Dredging is 

 a regular part of inlet and navigational 



16 JANUARY/FEBRUARY 1994 



