THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, January 26, 1995 TAG: 9501260382
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B2 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY BETTY MITCHELL GRAY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: ATLANTIC BEACH LENGTH: Short : 48 lines
North Carolina's 10-year-old ban on bulkheads, jetties and other structures designed to protect beachfront homes and businesses was defended this month by supporters along the state's coast and from as far away as Colorado.
The state's Coastal Resources Commission is scheduled today to debate a rewording of its ban on hardened structures along North Carolina beaches.
The proposed change is supposed to clarify that replenishing beaches with sand is an acceptable response to erosion. But the proposal also includes a provision that says hardened structures would be allowed if there is an ``overriding need to protect the public interest.''
About 50 opponents of that change, such as Clay Grubb of Charlotte, have written state officials, saying that the wording is too ambiguous and could allow politics to play to heavy a hand in coastal regulation.
``My family owns four oceanfront lots on Figure 8 Island and is presently battling erosion,'' Grubb wrote in a letter to the Division of Coastal Management and the Coastal Resources Commission. ``However . . . we would prefer not to have a coastline like New Jersey's.''
Elaine Wilcox of Pittsboro agreed. ``I am an owner of (ocean) front property on Emerald Isle and feel strongly that everyone take their chances with the shifting sand,'' Wilcox wrote.
Also opposing the rule change were the N.C. chapter of the Sierra Club, the Southern Environmental Law Center, the N.C. Wildlife Federation, the N.C. Coastal Federation, the Coast Alliance and the Conservation Council of North Carolina.
Allison Davis, spokesperson for the Division of Coastal Management, said the commission did not intend to weaken the state's ban on hardened structures when it proposed the change.
Only four people - beachfront property owners in Long Beach and Bald Head Island and one New Bern lawyer - wrote in favor of the proposed change.
``My question is: Suppose the innovative measures later prove that some type of hardened or semi-hardened structure will slow the effects of erosion without impacting the public beach,'' wrote Zachary Taylor, a lawyer from New Bern. ``Your wording . . . will preclude the use of any innovative permanent erosion control . . . structures even if they do not cause adverse impacts.'' by CNB