The following article is courtesy of Gareth McGrath Staff Writer for the Star News.

This story was of particular interest to me as I’ve been in contact with a man from Charlotte who is considering purchasing a unit at the Riggins. However, this story is about a lot more than Riggins woes. It’s about the role the beach plays in our life and how fragile this is. Beaches naturally wash away and change over time. In an area like Wilmington where we’ve built homes and lives around the coast, a change to that coastline means big changes for us.

“Wrightsville Beach, Carolina Beach and Kure Beach in New Hanover County are barrier island beaches, and those are accumulations of sand that have a natural tendency to move,” says environmental engineer Rick Catlin, past chairman of the North Carolina Beach, Inlet and Waterway Association (NCBIWA). “If they’re in a natural condition and are overwashed in a storm, then the sand moves toward the mainland, and the barrier island tends to migrate toward land. That’s the natural erosion process. The other thing that happens is that the current moves the sand along until it gets into an inlet system and gets deposited.”

Renourishment has been going on in most of New Hanover County for several decades with the help of federal, state and local governments. In Wrightsville Beach, the projects have taken place on a four-year cycle. The last Wrightsville Beach project cost nearly $4.3 million, with the nonfederal share of $1.5 million split by the state and the county.

The project took place in spring 2006 after Hurricane Ophelia damaged the coastline and destroyed 50% of the dune structure. The project added 150 feet of width to the beach from the Blockade Runner to just north of Johnnie Mercer’s Pier.

Beach nourishment not only protects coastal property, it also ensures the continued existence of our tourism. Beach tourists contribute $260 billion to the U.S. economy and $60 billion in federal taxes, according to US Representative Mike McIntyre (D-N.C.). Federal funds for beach renourishment and waterway maintenance are vitally important to the economies of our coastal towns and to the environment that sea turtles and other marine life depend on, he said.

Unfortunately, federal funding for such projects is becoming more and more difficult to obtain, and those close to the project are already looking for new ways to fund the next round of beach nourishment. The good news is New Hanover County is ahead of the curve in the effort to supplement those funds, thanks to its room occupancy tax (ROT). A percentage of the revenues from the tax, levied on “heads in beds” — overnight stays in hotels, condos and rental homes — goes into a fund earmarked for beach nourishment.

“That fund has grown over the years to close to $25 million, and that’s great,” Catlin says. “Because of some forward thinking years ago, we’re in a position that we can ride this storm out for a long time.”

Wrightsville Beach will be due for another round of beach nourishment — currently projected at a cost of $6 million — in 2010, and it’s not too early to work to make sure it’s funded.

Catlin says it’s also important to think in the long term and plan ahead for a time when beach nourishment might not be enough to keep the ocean at bay.

“We live in a world that is constantly changing,” he says. “The environment is changing, the sea level is changing, our resources are changing. As people, we have to change with it, but we don’t have to change overnight. We need to engineer those solutions so that we have them when we need them.”

Thanks to Jules Norwood of Wrightsville Beach Magazine for supplying much of the above info and quotes in her article Fighting the Sands of Time.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, January 16th, 2008 at 1:11 pm and is filed under News, Rants and Raves. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.