Pilkey proposed five "solutions" to 

 beach erosion in From Currituck to 

 Calabash, a book he wrote with his 

 father and William Neal: 



/. Design to live with the flexi- 

 ble island environment . 

 Don't fight nature with a 

 "line of defense. " 



2. Consider all man-made 

 structures near the shoreline 

 temporary. 



3. Accept as a last resort any 

 engineering scheme for beach 

 preservation, and then, only 

 for metropolitan areas. 



4. Base decisions affecting 

 island development on the 

 welfare of the public rather 

 than the minority of 

 shorefront property owners. 



5. Let the lighthouse , beach 

 cottage, motel, or hot dog 

 stand fall when its time 

 comes. 



—Neil Caudle 



Photo by East Carolina News Bureau 



"One of the troubles 

 with predicting 

 erosion rates is that we 

 really do have no idea 

 how to predict what 

 the short-term erosion 

 is going to be like 

 during a major 

 storm." 



— Stan Riggs 



Holding the line against erosion 



It's called hardening the shoreline: 

 setting up a barrier between the sea 

 and the land. In North Carolina, most 

 of the methods for holding the line 

 against erosion require official permits; 

 others are forbidden. None of these 

 methods has escaped criticism, 

 although one — beach nourishment — is 

 favored for its flexibility. 



Here are some of the common ways 

 of fending off the sea: 



Beach Nourishment 



"Beach nourishment is the method 

 of choice because it has fewer adverse 

 effects, and it provides a recreational 

 beach," says Spencer Rogers. "But it 

 is expensive and it must be main- 

 tained. It's not a cure for an erosion 

 problem, it's just a treatment for one." 



Rogers says the success of such pro- 

 jects depends on reliable funding, 

 favorable wave and weather condi- 

 tions, a ready source of suitable sand, 

 and good engineering. 



Federal funds, which have in part 

 supported beach-nourishment projects 

 are becoming scarce, Rogers says. 

 Some towns have established a resort 



tax on rented rooms, with the revenues 

 dedicated to beach-nourishment pro- 

 jects. 



But Rogers says that some small 

 beach communities may not have an 

 economic base broad enough to ade- 

 quately maintain increasingly expen- 

 sive beach-nourishment projects. 



Rogers also says that some com- 

 munities, such as those on the Outer 

 Banks, where powerful waves and 

 currents keep great quantities of sand 

 "in transport," will find their expen- 

 sive sand disappearing at a greater rate 

 than at more protected sites. 



And, while some towns can replenish 

 their beaches with sand pumped from 

 shoaling inlets nearby, others cannot 

 always find good sand. 



Steve Benton, a geologist with the 

 Office of Coastal Management, says 

 that the biggest problem with beach 

 nourishment is "where you get the 

 material and when you put it on the 

 beach." 



Seawalls and Bulkheads 



Expensive, massive and forbidden 

 along much of North Carolina's coast, 



seawalls are the hardest of devices for 

 hardening a shoreline. Well engineered 

 seawalls are often made of steel-' 

 reinforced concrete, and are very 

 durable until they are undermined or 

 flanked. They are frequently the 

 choice when the goal is to protect a 

 flood-prone coastal city. Seawalls cost 

 about $1000 a linear foot. 



Bulkheads — retaining walls often 

 made of treated wood — are less expen- 

 sive (about $200 a foot), less durable, 

 and share the problem of seawalls: the 

 beach seaward of the wall almost in- 

 evitably disappears. Wave energy that 

 would normally be absorbed on the 

 ramp-like slope of the natural beach is 

 instead deflected, eroding sand from 

 the base of the wall and also from adja- 

 cent property. 



North Carolina regulations do not 

 permit either structure to protect 

 beachfront buildings begun after June 

 1, 1979, largely because the regula- 

 tions' goal is to preserve not only 

 property, but the beaches. 



Rogers says there is also an 

 economic reason for allowing the 



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