THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, March 24, 1995 TAG: 9503240469
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B3 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS
DATELINE: WILMINGTON LENGTH: Medium: 60 lines
If a proposed sand-tube jetty at Bald Head Island succeeds in halting or slowing beach erosion, it could be a valuable precedent for other coastal communities, according to one state coastal official.
``It's a win-win situation,'' said Eugene Tomlinson Jr., chairman of the state Coastal Resources Commission.
The panel voted 10-2 on Thursday to let Bald Head Island officials install 16 tubes, each 300 feet long and filled with sand, to slow erosion on the island's South Beach.
While similar structures are in use in Florida, the project will be the first of its kind in North Carolina.
``If it works, this could be precedent-setting technology,'' Tomlinson said after the meeting. ``This is technology that could be used up and down the coast.''
Bald Head's victory isn't a carte blanche for action, however. The island must persuade Brunswick County to change its land use plan to allow the groin project. Tomlinson said the commission wouldn't try to influence the county decision.
State coastal rules prohibit construction of jetties, groins, bulkheads and the like that protect private properties from the ocean's waves at the expense of public beaches.
But proponents of the Bald Head Island project said the sand tubes should be allowed because they will be easy to remove if they hurt the environment.
``We do this very reluctantly,'' Bald Head Village Mayor Tom Bradshaw told the commission before the 10-2 vote approving the variance.
``It is the only way we can protect our infrastructure. The lifeblood of our community is that road,'' he said, referring to the main road along the South Beach.
There have been other variances, but they are rare. Notable exceptions were rule changes allowing a seawall at Fort Fisher and a set of jetties at Oregon Inlet. The commission in the past granted a variance to allow a wall at the Bald Head Island marina.
Bald Head Island, a resort community at the mouth of the Cape Fear River, has lost more than 400 feet of land on the western end of South Beach because of erosion since 1984. That loss has forced relocation of nine oceanfront homes and seven more will be moved, Bradshaw said.
At high tide, the ocean comes to sand bags protecting the main road along the South Beach, where most of the island's oceanfront development is located, Bradshaw said.
The island has 100 permanent residents and about 1,300 part-time residents.
A critic of the variance said the island is built on an inlet just as other islands along the coast and that the hardened structure rule served a good purpose.
``This is in no way a unique situation,'' said Kathie Dixon, a researcher at the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines at Duke University. ``The rules were set up to say that we don't want these structures, the same old thing. It's a groin. It's just like groins everywhere.'' by CNB