THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, January 26, 1995 TAG: 9501260352
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY ANNE SAITA
STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: SWAN BEACH LENGTH: Medium: 75 lines
Ernie Bowden had been driving along this northern Outer Banks beach for only a few minutes when he spotted dozens of tires, sliced in half, washed ashore on a storm-racked stretch of sand.
The black rubber tires have been showing up on North Carolina and Virginia beaches for a couple of years now. But in the past couple of weeks, the litter has multiplied rapidly. By last Sunday, more than 1,200 tires had been hauled from the shores of Currituck County's Outer Banks - the area which appears to have been hit the hardest by the tidal wave of tires.
``Those things are just becoming a terrible problem for us who live up here,'' said Bowden, a Carova rancher and chairman of the Currituck County Board of Commissioners.
On Wednesday, cleanup crews with the Virginia agency in charge of the artificial reef, from which these tires originated, began working the shoreline from the Virginia border to Oregon Inlet.
``We're going to be picking up every tire, whether it's a Virginia tire or not,'' said Wilford Kale, a spokesman for the Virginia Marine Resources Commission in Newport News. ``We aren't going to be picky.''
The tires, split around the circumference so they won't float, are part of The Chesapeake Light Reef established in the late 1960s about 12 miles off the Virginia Beach coast. Built by a private group of sport fisherman, the reef was taken over by the state in the 1970s, Kale said Tuesday.
The tires, some adorned with barnacles, had been bundled together in 4-foot square stacks and bound by weighted lines.
Nor'easters in recent years have loosened the tires from the deteriorating cables and swept the steel-banded radials onto beaches, where they have settled among scattered shells and driftwood.
``It seems like our beaches have wound up being a target site for them to wash ashore,'' said Donnie Beacham, director of emergency services for Currituck County.
Dozens of tires also have moved off the ocean floor and hit beaches from Sandbridge to Nags Head. But the problem is not as intense in these areas as it is between Corolla and the Virginia line.
``Dare County is not experiencing the kind of problem that has surfaced in Currituck County,'' said Charles Hartig, a Dare County spokesman.
Virginia marine officials, with the help of their North Carolina counterparts, have had to clear the tires from the beach at least twice before.
But this trip is different. The litter is much worse. And officials with the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries have been unable to assist with clean-up efforts, as they have in the past.
``We are having a similar problem of a much greater magnitude from Morehead City south to the South Carolina border,'' said Mike Marshall, resource enhancement chief for the state fisheries agency in Morehead City.
Brunswick County beaches and nearby Topsail Beach have been swamped with hundreds of tires released from four artificial reef sites similar to the one off Virginia Beach, Marshall said. ``The beach towns in Brunswick County feel like it hurts their tourism if the people come down and see these tires on the beach,'' he said.
Bowden agrees the tires are an eyesore. But he also believes they are dangerous, especially when covered with loose sand.
Running his fingers over the exposed steel belting in the tires, Bowden explained, ``They're like straight pins in the sand, waiting for people to step on them.''
Commercial fishermen, particularly shrimp- and crab-operators who work their boats off the southeast coast, also have their own tire troubles.
``(North Carolina) tires are whole,'' Marshall said, ``slit to vent air.'' These tires have been known to become entangled in nets, clogging special turtle-excluder devices and tying up the entire catch, he said.
Kale said a marine resource team and private contractors began clearing the tires during low tide Wednesday morning. by CNB