3609 Hwy 24 (Ocean) | Newport, North Carolina 28570

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
April 12, 2002

Ted Wilgis, Cape Fear COASTKEEPER^®
910-790-3275 or 910-520-6606 (mobile)
Coastkeeper-cf@nccoast.org

Frank Tursi, Cape Lookout COASTKEEPER^®
252-393-8185
lookoutkeeper@nccoast.org

THE RISKS OF BEACH RENOURISHMENT:

How Pumping Sand on the Beach Can Harm Sea Turtles and Other Critters

     Ocean, NC – Beach rebuilding projects in North Carolina during the last year have killed threatened and endangered sea turtles, deterred others from nesting and point to the need for tougher state regulations to protect turtles and other animals that use the state's beaches, according to a report released today by the state's largest coastal advocacy group.
     The NC Coastal Federation (NCCF) studied the environmental effects of beach renourishment projects in Brunswick, New Hanover and Carteret counties in 2001 and early 2002. In the first of a series of reports on the effects of beach renourishment, the group noted that sea turtles are most at risk when the dredges are at work. Four turtles were sucked up and killed in one day by dredges pumping sand onto Bogue Banks in Carteret County, the report noted. Another was killed by a dredge in New Hanover County.
     Renourishment projects that extend into the turtle-nesting season, which begins on May 1 and ends on Nov. 15, can keep turtles from nesting, NCCF found. Some turtles abandoned efforts to nest after encountering the pipes that move sand along the beach. Sand that contained too much rocks and shells may have deterred others. A beach in Brunswick County purportedly renourished to create nesting habitat for turtles is now dotted with steep cliffs at the water's edge that turtles may have a tough time climbing over and is littered with chunks of marl that could also hinder a nesting turtle.
     "These beach projects obviously have and will have both direct and indirect effects on sea turtles," said Ted Wilgis, the Federation's Cape Fear COASTKEEPER^®. "We should be doing everything possible to ensure that these projects have the least possible effect on the environment and create beaches that are healthy for humans and animals. If the goal is to create nesting habitat, then we shouldn't be putting rocks and shells on the beach, obstructing their nesting and killing them with dredges. Yes, property is protected with these projects, but at what cost to the environment and to the taxpayer and for how long. There is only so much sand and so many sea turtles out there."
     Some of the major findings of the report, which can be found on NCCF's website include:

• Turtle monitors on Bald Head Island, where a renourishment project stretched into the middle of last summer, documented 77 turtle nests and 125 false crawls, or double the normal ratio of nests to false crawls, which are signs that a turtle crawled up the beach but didn't lay eggs. Normally, 108 turtle nests are counted annually on Bald Head, one of the most important nesting places for turtles in the state.
• Homeowners on Holden Beach last year bought sand from a source off the island. Large dump trucks dumped it onto the beach, and bulldozers, then, pushed the sand into shape. This work also extended into the turtle nesting season. Forty-two nests a year were counted on average on Holden Beach from 1989-2000. Only 19 turtles successfully dug nests on the island in 2001. More brown sand is being dumped on the beach this year.
• Sand pumped onto a portion of the beach at Pine Knoll Shores in Carteret County averaged a shell content of 40 percent, almost five times what scientists consider natural. Yet, state and federal regulators remained unconcerned and allowed the project to continue. Scientists fear that too much shell could harden the beach to the point that sea turtles and feeding shorebirds would have a hard time burrowing into it. Invertebrates that live in the sand, such as mole crabs, could also be affected.

     "State and federal permits require that the sand being pumped on our beaches be 'compatible' with what's already there," said Frank Tursi, the Federation's Cape Lookout COASTKEEPER^® who has closely monitored the project in Carteret County. "Admittedly, that's a squishy word that's open to interpretation, but one would have hoped that someone in authority would have had the courage to determine that sand that contained four or five times more shell than normal was incompatible. The fact that no one did doesn't bode well for our beaches."
     Such issues as shell content will become more important if beach renourishment becomes a common strategy to combat erosion in North Carolina. Sand could be pumped onto more than 122 miles of state's oceanfront in the next 12 years, a four-fold increase in the miles of beach now being maintained. Such large-scale manipulation could pose serious consequences for the clams, crabs and other organisms that so many fish rely on for food, for nesting sea turtles and birds that depend on the state's beaches to survive, and for the public that uses the beaches to fish, swim and build sand castles.

     To prevent that from happening NCCF recommends that state permits:

• Require that construction begins Dec.1 and ends March 31 to avoid affecting nesting turtles and shorebirds.
• Require that hopper dredging stop when waters rise above 58 degrees to avoid killing sea turtles. The turtles killed by dredges during the last year were in water above that temperature.
• Require that sand used in each project closely match the natural sand in grain size, color and shell and silt content.
• Make clear that projects are not exempt from water quality standards for turbidity and fecal coliform bacteria.
  
  

  

Reporters note: Wilgis and Tursi are available to take reporters
on tours of beach renourishment projects by foot, water or by air.