THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, January 19, 1995 TAG: 9501190381
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY BETTY MITCHELL GRAY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: RALEIGH LENGTH: Long : 162 lines
Weeks after the end of a yearlong review of the state's policies for protecting its coast from the ravages of pollution, the fragile waterfront environment may be in more danger than at any time in the recent past.
The November state and national elections, state coastal regulators say, may mean budget cuts and changes in state and federal regulations that could make it even more difficult to protect the coast.
``The expectation that the environmental groups had was high'' last fall, said Roger Schecter, director of the Division of Coastal Management. Gov. James B. Hunt Jr. had made an impassioned speech about the future in accepting a report from the Coastal Futures Committee, a panel he appointed to review state coastal regulations. ``The ice water came after the elections,'' Schecter said.
Now, he said, it ``will be questionable'' as to whether the state Division of Coastal Management, the agency whose staff enforces coastal environmental policies and regulations, can carry out its duties if programs and staff are cut.
``If we're cut back, we're going to be in serious trouble in terms of monetary resources and coastal resources,'' Schecter said last week.
At the state Sierra Club, the Coastal Federation, the Clean Water Fund and elsewhere, battles are expected over many issues affecting the environment.
North Carolina conservationists from the coast to the mountains are worried about the Republican majority arriving in Raleigh next week and already in place in Washington, D.C., with their national and state voter contracts and their determination to rein in government regulations.
Others are worried that momentum generated by Hunt's Year of the Coast - a 12-month review of the coastal environment and the regulations under the 20-year-old Coastal Area Management Act to protect it - will be squandered.
The administration's environmental wish list, which contains proposed legislation to implement the Coastal Futures Committee recommendations and the Albemarle-Pamlico Estuarine Study proposals, is scheduled to be unveiled at a meeting Friday of a legislative environmental review panel.
But it's expected to be a diluted version of the wish list originally anticipated by state environmental regulators.
Todd Miller, executive director of the N.C. Coastal Federation, a Carteret County environmental group that coordinated the Year of the Coast study, said that rather than seek General Assembly approval for new programs and new spending, coastal regulators will emphasize steps that can be taken by the Division of Coastal Management without additional authority and with the various commissions that oversee environmental rules and regulations.
``The place to start is with the existing authorities of the Coastal Resources Commission,'' he said. ``A lot of recommendations reflect that potential.''
In its 106-page report presented to Hunt, the Coastal Futures Committee made about 200 recommendations for changes in the state's coastal policy. About two-thirds of these can be approved by divisionstaff or Coastal Resources Commission, Marine Fisheries Commission or other appointed commissions that oversee state environmental regulations, Miller said.
Schecter says coastal regulators are still committed to the report's top priority: urging local governments to improve planning for land and water use.
Under current CAMA regulations, each county is required to create a detailed growth plan, which must be updated every five years and approved by the Coastal Resources Commission. The plan analyzes local economic and environmental issues. Besides the 20 coastal counties, more than 60 municipalities have voluntarily developed land-use plans.
But under current law, local governments are not required to follow the plans they develop.
A recommendation seeking legislation to require governments to follow through with those plans has been abandoned by coastal regulators. Instead, they are requesting additional aid from the state in the form of technical assistance or grants to encourage local governments to adopt zoning and subdivision ordinances.
``We are still committed to the goal of improving local land use planning, but our emphasis is different,'' Schecter said. ``We can still do that but it's going to be at a slower pace and over a longer period of time.''
Schecter also hopes Hunt's environmental agenda will concentrate the state's capital expenses on acquiring some of the coast's natural areas that are under pressure from developers.
Some hope for a request of about $10 million for acquisition of these areas - a figure that's down more than 50 percent from an original request of about $25 million made to one budget panel in August. But others speculate Hunt's request for land purchases will drop to $5 million - one-fifth the original request.
Even as they are preparing to ask for the money, however, state environmental agencies are preparing an alternate agenda for natural areas.
If no new money is available, Schecter said, the state will concentrate its efforts on preparing an inventory of natural areas along the coast that can be purchased when money is available.
Many observers also wonder how much the Division of Coastal Management and other environmental agencies will be able to pursue even a pared-down agenda if their funds and staff positions are cut.
And some staff members are already bracing for the worst.
The state's top environmental official, Jonathan Howes, notified the 4,000 employees in the Department of Environment, Health and Natural Resources in a recent memo that his agency has no choice but to eliminate almost 100 jobs.
``The fact is that our final proposal will include cutting some positions that are currently filled,'' Howes wrote in a two-page memo dated Jan. 6, according to a report in the Winston-Salem Journal. ``We plan to do this in the most humane way possible.''
The memo was reportedly written to head off rumors of even more dire consequences as the agency tries to find ways to reduce its budget by $4.2 million.
When the General Assembly convenes next week, Republicans will represent more of North Carolina's coastal region than they did last year, holding six of 18 seats in the House and Senate that represent oceanfront counties and seven of 20 seats representing counties covered by the Coastal Area Management Act.
Sierra Club lobbyist Bill Holman said that watching the results of the Nov. 8 election seemed as if he were watching the Exxon Valdez run aground in his living room.
In those elections, voters rejected 21 of 30 candidates that the environmental group had endorsed in contested races. That list of rejected candidates includes longtime environmental advocate Rep. Karen Gottovi of Wilmington and freshman Rep. Brad Miller of Raleigh.
``Some of our old friends aren't there any more,'' said Miller. ``It's going to mean finding new champions. We've got to reach out and find new allies.''
Most agree it's going to be tougher to find new friends among Republicans shy of government regulation.
At least one Republican coastal legislator - Rep. Zeno Edwards - said at a recent gathering of eastern legislators in New Bern that he would like to do away with the Coastal Area Management Act altogether.
Other Republicans now chafe at accepting reports from the predominantly Democratic committees that have studied state coastal issues over the last two years.
After years of neglect, the Division of Marine Fisheries, the agency that oversees the state's coastal fish populations and the industries that depend on it, had gained the attention of many state lawmakers.
Many lawmakers vowed to help the agency fix its problems through appropriations for more law enforcement officers, updated boats and other equipment. And a proposal to institute a coastal fishing license and charge sports anglers fees ranging from $5 a week to $15 a year to fish promised to generate about $6 million a year for efforts to improve the stocks of marine fisheries.
But both Republican lawmakers on a legislative committee studying seafood and aquaculture issues for the last two years voiced strong opposition to the new license and predicted the committee's report recommending a $2.7 million increase in fisheries budget requests is doomed.
``I think the report will disappear like a rock thrown off a pier,'' Rep. Robert Grady, R-Onslow, a committee member and the senior Republican member of the state's coastal legislative delegation, told the Jacksonville Daily News.
Meanwhile, in Washington, the outlook for federal environmental legislation is equally dim, according to state environmental groups.
``We're looking at a potential rollback of every major pollution law in the books,'' Gene Karpinski, executive director of the U.S. Public Interest Research Group, which focuses on a broad range of environmental issues, told the Associated Press last week.
National GOP lawmakers say they're merely trying to curb the federal government's zeal to manage people's lives and businesses. They argue that too often the cost of environmental protection is not adequately measured against the risks.
Much of the recent federal legislation left stranded in Congress last year is likely to emerge, but with a more pro-business, anti-regulatory tone, lawmakers say. by CNB