DATE: Sunday, October 26, 1997              TAG: 9710260058

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B1   EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA 

SOURCE: BY JEFFREY S. HAMPTON, STAFF WRITER 

DATELINE: CURRITUCK                         LENGTH:  119 lines

SOUND'S ECOSYSTEMS ARE IN DECLINE OFFICIALS HOPEFUL STUDY WILL YIELD ANSWERS, REMEDIES

Where has all the wild celery gone?

State and federal agencies hope the answer to that question and others will come in a multiyear study of the ailing Currituck Sound.

Ducks and geese by the millions used to swarm to the Currituck Sound to feed on wild celery and other aquatic vegetation such as pond weed and widgeon grass. Largemouth bass hid in the underwater foliage and fed on smaller fish.

For more than 100 years, the bounty of wildlife attracted hordes of outdoorsmen who spent millions in the local economy. But since 1980, the natural resource and the revenue have dwindled to a level that has alarmed everybody from elected officials to commercial fishermen.

``The Currituck Sound is a very complex body of water, and resource agencies need new tools to try and understand it and plan to restore it,'' said Mark Broadwell, an environmental engineer with the North Carolina Division of Water Resources.

Officials must first get federal funding through the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for a preliminary study to determine how extensive and expensive the principal study will be. The principal study will last about three years and include a combination of federal and state agencies, Broadwell said.

``We're very, very hopeful we'll get the endorsement from Congress,'' said Yates Barber, who retired from the National Marine Fisheries Service in 1982.

Barber was a waterfowl biologist during the 1950s, working extensively on the Currituck Sound. Now, as a volunteer, he monitors water systems in the region, especially the Currituck Sound.

``We know we need answers, and they're not all in the books,'' Barber said.

The Currituck Sound covers 100,000 acres and is part of the 2-million-acre Albemarle-Pamlico estuarine system, the second largest in the nation next to the Chesapeake Bay.

It once ranked fourth in the nation for the number of pounds of largemouth bass caught, according to records of the Bass Anglers Sportsmen Society.

A 1980 report by the North Carolina Department of Environmental Health and Natural Resources said hunting and fishing in the Currituck Sound had an annual value of $5 million. Between 1977 and 1989, state studies show, the bass population declined by 60 percent.

``There's a fair amount of people who believe it's the hunting pressure and boat traffic,'' said Billy Rose, a longtime hunter on the Sound and a member of the Currituck Game Board. ``I believe habitat is the problem.''

Pollution is not to blame, experts say. They believe the sound has become too salty and it may have too many particles of soil floating in the water to allow in sunlight, a condition called turbidity. The combination of the two has killed much of the submerged aquatic vegetation and is harmful to many freshwater fish species.

The questions are: Where do the salt and turbidity come from and how? Gauges to measure salinity and water flow will be placed at the mouths of several of the rivers, canals and creeks that connect to the Currituck Sound. Data gathered from the gauges will be entered into a computer and a model will be made. The model should help create a management plan to rejuvenate the sound, Barber said.

``It will take a while, but from the first day, we'll be learning,'' he said.

The sound's salinity level is ideally about two parts per thousand. Measurements taken in the past seven years show a mean salinity level of 3.2 to 3.8, according to the funding proposal sent to U.S. Rep. Walter B. Jones Jr. by the Division of Water Resources. Anything above three parts per thousand will kill bass eggs, Barber said.

The proposal acknowledges at least four reasons for the rise in salinity:

A severe drought between 1983 and 1989, reducing the flow of freshwater.

10 million gallons of saltwater per day pumped into Back Bay during the 1980s (Back Bay, in Virginia Beach, connects to the Currituck Sound).

Withdrawal of 10 million gallons a day of freshwater from the Northwest River, a main tributary of the Currituck Sound.

Increased intrusion of saltwater from the Albemarle Sound that was once held back by thick masses of an aquatic plant called Eurasian water milfoil.

Currituck County Commissioners approved a resolution this week in favor of the study. Board Chairman Paul O'Neal, who fished and swam in the Currituck Sound as a boy, offered his advice.

``I would emphasize some action be taken this time,'' he said. ``If they would talk to some of these old-time hunters and fishermen, they would learn as much as they could from a study.''

The Currituck Sound has undergone studies before. Philanthropist Joseph P. Knapp financed a study in the 1920s when the channels were deepened to 12 feet, Barber said.

``The dredging created so much turbidity,'' Barber said, ``it settled on the vegetation and just about destroyed it.''

In 1932, Knapp loaned the government $250,000 to build locks at Great Bridge, which stopped the tide and the suspended river soil from flowing into the Currituck Sound, Barber said. The sound was soon healthy again.

After World War II, farmers switched from horses to tractors and began digging deeper ditches to drain more farmland. Topsoil in some places drained from the fields to the ditches to the creeks to the sounds within a day, Barber said.

``The creeks looked like strong coffee with a lot of cream in it,'' Barber said.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service conducted a three-year study in the 1960s.

``They gathered great volumes of data then, but they never published a report,'' Barber said. ``The data is still there and could be useful.''

Then, from 1987 to 1992, several agencies joined in the Albemarle-Pamlico Estuarine Study, which included the Currituck Sound. A 3-inch-thick report was published in 1992. Some of the management recommendations are just now being implemented, Broadwell said.

Broadwell and Barber both say the APES report is not specific enough to the Currituck Sound and does not cover how water flows in and out.

Barber often fishes and explores around the shore of his property at Bells Island, a place nearly surrounded by the Currituck Sound. Recently, he noticed the tip of some aquatic vegetation bouncing in the waves near the shore. Given the right circumstances, the little piece of plant life will take root and grow into more plants, he said. The water quality is not allowing that to happen much anymore.

``The Currituck Sound can still be the best,'' Barber said. ``But it may never reach what it was before.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo

DREW WILSON/The Virginian-Pilot

Cattails line the shore of Currituck Sound...

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CURRITUCK SOUND

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