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

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
 March 5, 2003

Cape Hatteras COASTKEEPER^® , Jan DeBlieu, 252-473-1607
hatteraskeeper@nccoast.org

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

 Cape Hatteras COASTKEEPER®
Climbs Aboard

     Ocean – An author and longtime environmental activist in Manteo takes the helm as the NC Coastal Federation's Cape Hatteras COASTKEEPER^® .
     Jan DeBlieu becomes the Federation's third and final COASTKEEPER^®. She joins Ted Wilgis, the Cape Fear KEEPER^®, and Frank Tursi, the Cape Lookout KEEPER^®. She will cover a territory that extends from the Virginia line south to Ocracoke and will work out of an office in Manteo.
     "I've spent most of my life writing about the natural world, trying to help people realize how fragile it is. I don't think that's enough anymore," DeBlieu said. "With all the pressure that's being brought to bear on our coastal waters, it's time for me to take a more active role."
     As a COASTKEEPER^®, DeBlieu's main job will be to monitor potentially destructive environmental projects along the northern coast and to work with people and regulatory agencies to solve potential problems.
     "She'll be our eyes and ears for what's happening along the coast in that part of the state," said Todd Miller, the Federation's executive director. "Every day we have people seeking help with coastal-management rules and how they work."
     One of DeBlieu's first duties is to recruit volunteers who will help her monitor projects in her vast territory. "I'm looking forward to working with other people who love the northern coast, " she said. "My hope is to build a network of volunteers who can pull together to help protect the coastal waters and the things we love about living here."
     Residents of the northern coast are encouraged to call DeBlieu if they see what they suspect is an environmental problem. Her office number in Manteo is 252-473-1607. That phone should be working on March 11. Until then, people can call the Federation's headquarters at 252-393-8185 or log onto its website, www.nccoast.org, for more information. To report a pollution problem on the northern coast, they can call the COASTKEEPER^®'s Pollution Hotline at 866-NCWATER or fill out a pollution form on the website.
     An 18-year resident of the Outer Banks, DeBlieu is no stranger to grassroots activism. She helped found LegaSea, a citizens group, in the 1980s to fight a proposal to drill for oil and natural gas off the Outer Banks. The group was instrumental in turning public opinion against the project.
     Mostly, though, DeBlieu has spent the last 15 years writing books and essays about the relationship between people and the natural landscape. She moved to the Outer Banks in 1985 to write Hatteras Journal (Fulcrum, 1987), a first-person exploration of the people and ecology of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore. Her second book, Meant to Be Wild (Fulcrum 1991), had its genesis in her work with the rare red wolves that were reintroduced to the wild in northeastern North Carolina. The book examines the preservation of wildness in such endangered species as the red wolf, the California condor, the whooping crane, and the Florida panther. DeBlieu's third book, Wind: How the Flow of Air has Shaped Life, Myth, and the Land (Houghton Mifflin, 1998), grew from an essay about the Outer Banks wind that she published in Orion. From the beginning she intended the book to be as much about the wind's effects on human culture as on the natural world. Wind was awarded the 1999 John Burroughs Medal for Distinguished Natural History Writing, the highest award given each year to a volume of prose about nature.
     "We're lucky to have her," Tursi said. "She brings a writer's eye, perspective and patience to a fast-paced job that can seem bewildering. She brings a wealth of understanding of the relationships in the natural world and an ability to translate those relationships to others."