Saving the N.C. coastline by letting it wash away
BY PHILLIP MANNING - Correspondent
The Battle for North Carolina's Coast:
Past History, Present Crisis, & Future Vision
Stanley R. Riggs, Dorothea V. Ames, Stephen J. Culver and David J. Mallinson
University of North Carolina Press, 160 pages.
In late August, Hurricane Irene crumbled parts of N.C. 12, the highway that links the Outer Banks. This scene is in Rodanthe. The authors say N.C. 12 should be abandoned and replaced with a fast, high-tech ferry system.
In late August, Hurricane Irene crumbled parts of N.C. 12, the highway that links the Outer Banks. This scene is in Rodanthe. The authors say N.C. 12 should be abandoned and replaced with a fast, high-tech ferry system.
battlefornccoast.jpeg COURTESY OF UNC PRESS
“The Battle for North Carolina's Coast” is really two short books masquerading as one. The first is a scholarly examination of the evolution and human history of the N.C. coast. The authors know the territory well. They appear to be familiar with every bay and bridge, every island and beach. This is not surprising. They are all geologists who live and work at East Carolina University.
Their language is the language of academic geologists, which is a bit dense for a lie-in-the-hammock, beach-reading book. Sentences such as, “Composition of the shallow coastal sediments and geometry of these paleo-drainage systems dictate the shape of the modern coastal system+” do not exactly roll off the tongue. But the authors are not trying to entertain; their goal is to educate. And readers will walk away with a deep understanding of the forces that created and continue to rework North Carolina's unsettled coast. “Change,” they write, “is the only constant within this system.”
The most important change these days is rising sea levels. This is nothing new. Sea levels have been rising along the state's coastline for the last 18,000 years. When the process began, the ocean was 410 feet lower than it is now, and the shoreline was 15 to 60 miles east of today's beaches. For most of those years, the encroaching ocean presented no problems for barrier islands or beaches. They simply migrated westward.
The trouble started when we began to build stationary structures - vacation homes, lighthouses, hotels and such - on those beaches. To keep our buildings safe and dry, we had to stop the natural migration of the coast. And this, the authors contend, has caused big problems. Man-made structures on or near our beaches, they point out, are “as fragile as a sand castle” in a rising tide. As a consequence, “Our coasts are eroding, roads and bridges are threatened, water quality is compromised, and the tourist economy is at risk.”
This alarm has been sounded before, most notably and persistently by Duke University geologist Orrin Pilkey. But by confining themselves to the N.C. coast, the authors can include details that broader surveys often overlook. For example, one of more than 70 informative illustrations shows how sea-level rise has changed the shoreline at Cape Hatteras National Seashore. Since 1852, the beaches have moved well over a quarter of a mile landward, substantially narrowing the island. The original N.C. 12, the main artery connecting the Outer Banks, “went to sea” years ago and was relocated west. This illustration (and similar ones) will give any beachfront landowner the chills.
Which brings us to the second book within this book. What should North Carolina do about its moving beaches and shrinking islands?
The authors propose an ambitious, long-term plan that would dramatically change the lives of residents and the access of tourists to the southern Outer Banks. Two key elements are to abandon the Oregon Inlet bridge and quit maintaining parts of N.C. 12. The result would be eight Ocracoke-like villages served by fast, high-tech ferries. This approach, they claim, would “save billions of dollars of road and bridge construction and maintenance over the next few decades …”
To implement such a plan would require big money and strong leadership from state government, which seems unlikely in the current political climate. That is unfortunate, the authors warn, because the “alternative is to ignore the reality of change and allow our natural resource-based coastal economy to be destroyed by the inevitable sea-level rise and catastrophic storm impacts.”