maintenance up and down the East Coast; 

 material is disposed of on estuarine spoil 

 islands, offshore dump sites or, when 

 appropriate, on beaches. When dredged 

 sediment is destined for beaches, the 

 activity is arguably 

 less discriminating 

 than beach nourish- 

 ment. There is often 

 less control over 

 timing, compatibility 

 of sediment and the 

 place where material 

 is dumped. 



"When we have 

 a disposal operation, 

 we don't really 

 provide a lot of 

 control; the quality of 

 the material is 

 relatively fine," says 

 Tom Jarrett, chief of 

 the Coastal Engineer- 

 ing Branch of the 

 Corps of Engineers' 

 Wilmington District. 

 "We're not really 

 trying to control or 

 build a certain beach 

 fill. In beach 

 nourishment, we're 

 actually trying to 

 build a certain 

 profile." 



Even though 

 many biologists 

 agree that the burial 

 of intertidal organ- 

 isms is devastating, 

 recovery appears to 

 occur within a few 

 months; these 

 creatures are adapted 

 to a harsh environ- 

 ment subject to 

 extreme weather and 

 conditions. The 



alternative, piling dredge spoil on poten- 

 tially more productive offshore areas, has 

 drawbacks too. 



"The point is the timing of the activity 

 could be adjusted so that people could have 

 both the renourishment and have substan- 

 tial recovery of organisms," says Charles 

 Peterson, a researcher with the University 



of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Institute 

 of Marine Science. 



But there are other potentially harmful 

 impacts — such as increased water 

 turbidity that clogs the gills of filter- 



Scoii D. Taylor 



The intertidal zone at Atlantic Beach. 



feeding animals — whose long-term 

 effects are unclear. 



"Maybe some of the criticisms that 

 have been leveled here are not unfounded," 

 says Payne. "I do have concerns about 

 what it does to fish populations here. But 

 you have to make a decision on one thing 

 outweighing something else. It's going to 



be an enormous loss if some of these 

 houses start falling into the ocean. 



"It's a municipality's job to protect 

 property," he says. "You can fall back, or 

 you can add beach, in our case, adding 

 beach at no cost. It 

 doesn't take a genius to 

 say, 'I think this is 

 what we'll do today.'" 



N.C. Sea Grant 

 coastal engineer 

 Spencer Rogers says 

 accepting relatively 

 compatible sand is 

 usually not a bad idea. 



"Erosion is a 

 normal process on 

 most beaches, and if 

 there are acceptable 

 sand supplies available 

 for whatever reason, at 

 low cost or no cost, 

 then I think in many 

 cases it's a good idea to 

 put it back on the 

 beach," says Rogers. 

 "In most cases, the 

 sand was lost from the 

 beach originally." 



But some experts 

 are wary of projects 

 such as the one at 

 Atlantic Beach. It's an 

 issue of quantity versus 

 quality, says the 

 director of the Labora- 

 tory for Coastal 

 Research at the 

 University of Mary- 

 land. 



"One thing to 

 consider is that Atlantic 

 Beach really doesn't 

 have that much of an 

 erosion problem," says 

 Stephen Leatherman. 

 "With all the erosion 

 problems you have in North Carolina, I 

 guess they (beach communities) always 

 think it's great to have more sand. But you 

 should always look for good quality sand." 



Leatherman says that Atlantic Beach 

 should have asked the corps to pay for 

 some follow-up monitoring of the project. 



Continued 



COASTWATCH 17 



