Dear Mr. Basnight: Stop trying to screw with the beach
Submitted by James on Wed, 04/29/2009 - 9:58am
The Dome today reports that the North Carolina Senate, Inc., is again pushing misguided legislation to allow hardening the coastline. Ignoring decades of reliable research, Senator Julia Boseman, most likely with encouragement from Marc Basnight, has determined that North Carolina should do something stupid just because other states are doing it. And of course because she wants to help her buddies at Figure Eight Island. Here are some excerpts from this contortionist piece of crap bill.
- Whereas, shifting inlets have resulted in enormous losses of public beach access, property, business, and infrastructure, costing counties and cities all along North Carolina's coast tens of millions of dollars in reconstruction cost and lost tax revenue; and
- Whereas, every coastal state in the U.S. except North Carolina and Oregon allow for some manner of protection from the problem of shifting inlets; and
- Whereas, a terminal groin, also known as a terminal structure, is a structure that is built on one side of an inlet shoreline to prevent movement of sand into the inlet or on an isolated segment of shoreline where it will not interrupt the natural movement of sand along the shoreline; and
- Whereas, a terminal structure is unobtrusive and permeable, basically placing a template back where the land and beach was, allowing it to fill again with sand without detrimental consequences to the coastline
What the hell is the point of a terminal groin if it will not interrupt the natural movement of sand along a shoreline? Duh. NC Policy Watch covered the issue last year.
Promoters argue that the terminal groin will not create problems, which is not true. The very phrase “terminal groin” is a lie of Baron Munchausen proportions! It was a term first used incorrectly at Oregon Inlet to avoid the inflammatory word "jetty" after a long nationally-prominent societal battle over jetty construction. After 25 years' worth of evidence had accumulated indicating that building a jetty at Oregon Inlet wouldn’t work, the state said, “We're not building a jetty – we're building a terminal groin.” And just as predicted, the 3000-foot Oregon Inlet jetty has created immense and very costly erosion problems.
Please contact your Senators and let them know that North Carolina does not need to be trying to re-engineer the coastline so rich people can protect houses they built too close to the water. Also, please contact your Representative in the House, as well as Joe Hackney, and ask them to bury this odious piece of legislation.
- James's blog
- 2179 reads
Terminal groan
What new motives might be behind this. Maybe we should look beyond Figure Eight.
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Vote Democratic, the ass you save may be your own.
We should look, but here's what we'll find
Development interests combined with homeowner interests in search of the illusion of protection from Mother Nature. Maybe they can extend the use of some property for ten or even a hundred years. But at what cost in terms of dollars, fairness, and environmental risk.
Right now, the cost is unknowable, but certain to be more than zero. And whether it is our children or our children's children who have to deal with the aftermath of our short-sightedness, someone will eventually have to.
The Basnight-Boseman "solution" is instant gratification at its very worst. There are more than enough engineered beaches in the world. Let North Carolina be natural. In the long run, it is the winning market position anyway.
North Carolina
Oregon of the south.
Chris Fitzsimon on "Save our Sand"
an excellent column, as always.
If you haven't contacted your representative on this issue, now would be a good time to do that.
Nags Head & Cultural Heritage
It is sad that Senator Basnight is turning his back on his own cultural heritage by supporting a bill that will only add more blight to our natural beaches. The truth is that right here in his own home county, the Town of Nags Head is waiting for this bill to pass in order to push for a terminal groin to be placed between the southern town limits and U.S. Park Service property to supplement a planned $30 million beach nourishment project (they are looking to Basnight to get some State funding for that)which will surely fail. I say, shame on Senator Basnight for doing a 180 degree turn on his earlier stand to prohibit hard structures along our coastline. And, Basnight wants to hold himself out as a friend of the environment. If recycleable trash bags in grocery stores is the best he can do...I'm not sure that meets the test.
Fails the test
Basnight is an pseudo environmentalist. He talks a mean game with all his lip services, but when it comes to decision making, he's just another corporatist Democrat.
If he has his way, his great grand children will be cleaning up his messes a hundred years from now.
Dr. Robert Dean, University of Florida - expert ??
Dr. Dean
I continuously run across this quote, attributed to you about the rock groin which was placed on the southside of Oregon Inlet (NC) some time ago.
......(quote)...However, Dr. Robert Dean of the University of Florida said he’s never known of any instance where terminal groins have caused erosion on neighboring beaches. This makes them different from regular groins, which are built along the shoreline in a location besides near an inlet. This causes the sand to build up on one side of the groin while the beach erodes on the other side.
“A terminal groin on the downdrift side of an inlet’s purpose is to prevent sand from being pulled into the inlet,” Dr. Dean said. Currently there are two terminal groins in existence in North Carolina – one at Fort Macon near Atlantic Beach and the other at Oregon Inlet. Dr. Dean said he watched the Oregon Inlet groin being built.
“The beach followed it out,” he said. “As a beach engineer, there’s no doubt it has prevented erosion.” (end quote)..
Mr. Dean, the groin at Oregon Inlet is not on the downdrift side of the inlet....it is on the southside; and the downdrift is coming from the northside of the inlet. I am sure you must know that. Also, if you think there is no erosion on the adjacent northside of the inlet, then you have not been to here lately. While it is true the southside of the inlet adjacent to the groin has accreted, problems continue to be as severe as ever with erosion and sand moving into the inlet from the north.
I would appreciate further comment from you on this matter.
Ray Midgett
www.beachhuggers.com
Dr. Dean's reply
Dr. Dean was kind enough to reply to a personal email I made to him; and we both agree as to the placement site of the terminal groin. I acknowlede my mistake of a layman's mis-interpretation of "downdrift side" of the inlet. And, I hope that Dr. Dean understands my concern that his statement that "the Oregon Inlet groin has stopped erosion" is being erroneouly used by others as support for placing a similar groin miles away from the inlet.
Thanks.
I guess that's the real question. Has the groin stopped erosion? "Stops" seems like a pretty bold word. Nothing ever stops.