The coast on the rocks

If you've been feeling anxious about the North Carolina coast in recent years, get ready to dial up your Prozac prescription. Things are going to get a lot worse before they get better. Kirk Ross has the analysis at Indy Week.

The state, recognizing the dynamic nature of the coastline and the negative impact seawalls and jetties have had elsewhere, established rules in 1985 preventing hardened structures, such as jetties, seawalls and groins, from being built.

Ever since, those trying to protect their investments from being taken by the sea have tried to overturn the rules or circumvent them, most famously the late oil tycoon Walter Davis, whose waterside home in North Topsail was threatened by an eroding shoreline. In more recent years, the well-heeled residents of Figure Eight Island, a private resort community just north of Wrightsville Beach, financed a nearly successful lobbying effort to win legislative approval to build a terminal groin to preserve several rather pricey homes. This year, after a protracted debate and closed-door negotiations, an agreement was struck between the governor and coastal legislators to allow four terminal groins to be built.
::
Orrin Pilkey, a Duke ocean sciences professor emeritus and author of several books on the Carolina coast and other shorelines, says four may seem like a small number, but it's just the beginning of the armoring of the coastline.
::
"Within three to five years there'll be serious problems," he says. "It'll happen fast."