"In my opinion, Currituck Sound is 

 paying the price of the failure over the 

 years to adequately monitor North 

 Carolina's coastal waters," Barber says. 

 "The few existing records have been 

 collected recently through the 

 Albemarle-Pamlico Estuarine Study. 

 Had adequate monitoring been in place 

 long before, a baseline would have ex- 

 isted to detect changes as they began to 

 occur. Investigations and corrective 

 actions could have followed." 



Without data, the sound has no 

 compass for directing repairs, but 

 some efforts have been undertaken 

 nonetheless. 



For example, the U.S. Soil Conser- 

 vation Service has tried to restore fresh- 

 water inflows. It has been working 

 with a large farm near Elizabeth City to 

 install flashboard riser systems, which 

 imitate natural drainage conditions. 



There have also been discussions 

 about diking a nearby spoil area to re- 

 duce turbidity, another obstruction to the 

 recovery of sound plants. The dredged 

 material is generated by maintenance of 

 the Intracoastal Waterway along the 

 Virginia portion of the North Landing 

 River. It's possible that the wakes of 

 passing tugboats, barges and other large 

 vessels continually resuspend these fine 

 materials. Consequently, water clarity 

 and light penetration are reduced to only 

 a few inches in most areas. 



For now, the sound endures fluctu- 

 ating salinities that are not fresh enough 

 for bass and not salty enough for an 

 estuarine-type ecology. Without efforts 

 to understand and correct the problem, 

 Currituck Sound will never recover to 

 the productive state of past generations, 

 Barber says. The exact sources and 

 amounts of salt water delivered to the 

 sound must be determined, and active 

 measures must be taken to cut off the 

 salt and restore freshwater inflows. Ac- 

 tivities that increase turbidity should 

 also be minimized. 



"Currituck Sound has been 

 brought to its lowest point in history," 

 Barber says. "It may take years to 

 recover." 



Jeannie Faris 



CHESAPEAKE BAY 



AROUND 

 CURRITUCK 

 SOUND 



ATLANTIC 

 OCEAN 



Corolla 

 Lighthouse 



ALBEMARLE 

 SOUND 



COASTWATCH 23 



