07-10-06: State Budgets Money for Mapping of Shellfish Waters

State budgets money for mapping of shellfish waters:
North, Newport and White Oak rivers, Bogue Sound to be monitored for pollution with state-of-the-art computers

MOREHEAD CITY – The state will be able to produce state-of-the-art computerized maps of pollution problems near shellfish waters coast-wide with funding approved by the General Assembly last week.

The 2006 budget, presented to the governor Thursday, appropriates money for the Shellfish Sanitation and Recreational Water Quality section of the N.C. Division of Environmental Health to continue and add two new positions to a shellfish mapping program that it had conducted for four water bodies under a federal grant.

“By getting the new positions we’ll be able to expand the program to all of our shellfish growing areas,” said Patti Fowler, assistant section chief.

Shellfish Sanitation has for years conducted shoreline surveys to meet federal standards for shellfish waters. But in 2003, after receiving $279,829 of a Wetlands Program Grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, it took these surveys to a new, high-tech level in four of the state’s 55 shellfish growing areas.

The grant paid for hand-held Global Positioning Satellite loggers and computer analysis equipment that allowed the agency to make detailed Geographic Information System maps of actual and potential pollution sources — such as septic tanks, animal operations or marinas — along the North River, Newport River, White Oak River and the western part of Bogue Sound and its tributaries.

The grant also paid for a temporary GIS analyst to work with the agency’s existing shoreline surveyor on the project.

However, the grant expired June 30, and without state funding, the GIS position would have been eliminated.

The state budget appropriates $167,980 a year for salaries and other expenses so that Shellfish Sanitation can keep the GIS analyst and hire two more environmental health specialists.

The budget also includes a one-time expenditure of $11,020 for furniture and computers.

Securing funding for the program was a top legislative priority for the North Carolina Coastal Federation in the short session, said Todd Miller, the organization’s executive director.

“It’s really one of the few programs out there that is out proactively looking for sources of pollution and trying to do something about it,” Miller said.

Evaluation and possible expansion of the project also ranked as a specific implementation strategy in the Coastal Habitat Protection Plan that was put together by several coastal agencies