In North Carolina, a company 

 began to manufacture and market 

 floating homes as alternative housing 

 along the Southeast coast. The 

 prospect of large communities of 

 floating homes prompted New 

 Hanover County officials to ask the 

 CRC, which manages coastal develop- 

 ment, to draw up regulations. 



6 i 



B 



ut before policies could be 

 made, we had to decide who 

 had the authority to do what," says 

 Dave Owens, director of the Office of 

 Coastal Management. "For example, 

 should a floating home's sewage dis- 

 posal be regulated by Coastal Manage- 

 ment, the county sanitarian, the state 

 Division of Health Services, DEM 

 (the Division of Environmental 

 Management) or the Coast Guard? 

 There were some definitional and 

 jurisdictional questions that had to be 

 decided." 



And some problems imposed by 

 floating homes needed to be addressed, 

 Owens says. Officials were concerned 

 about water quality impacts, infringe- 

 ments upon public trust waters (state 



waters owned collectively by every 

 citizen) and local problems with zoning 

 and the provision of city or county ser- 

 vices. 



Water quality headed the list as the 

 top concern. Since floating homes are 

 considered vessels by the federal 

 government, they must comply with 

 U.S. Coast Guard regulations that re- 

 quire all vessels operating within three 

 miles of shore to be equipped with 

 marine sanitation devices or onboard 

 holding tanks. 



A marine sanitation device treats 

 and grinds sewage before discharging it 

 into the water. A holding tank stores 

 the sewage until it can be emptied or 

 pumped out onshore. Neither method 

 treats or holds shower or galley ef- 

 fluent, called gray water, which is usu- 

 ally discharged directly overboard. 



But state and local officials said the 

 Coast Guard regulations were not 

 enough. In large congregations of 

 floating homes, treated effluent and 

 gray water could add up to water 

 quality problems. "Marine sanitation 

 devices were not designed or equipped 



to handle waste disposal on a perma- 

 nent basis," Owens says. 



And then there's the matter of 

 public trust rights. Every North 

 Carolina citizen has a stake in the state 

 waters, which they have a right to use, 

 says Walter Clark, UNC Sea Grant's 

 coastal law specialist. But do they 

 have a right to occupy the water per- 

 manently, excluding others from its 

 use? 



The CRC held public meetings 

 along the coast to develop a floating 

 structure policy. After much discus- 

 sion, the commission adopted a policy 

 that became effective July 1, 1983. 

 The policy establishes a definitional 

 distinction between floating structures 

 and boats and restricts the use of 

 floating structures to permitted 

 marinas, banning them from public 

 trust waters. 



The policy also prohibits floating 

 structures from discharging 

 sewage into state waters, requiring in- 

 stead, use of the city/county sewage 

 treatment system, an onshore septic 

 tank or any other means allowed by 

 local regulations. 



Officials are concerned about the effects of floating homes on water quality 



