Sand fleas, Home ticks, and Astroturf
Submitted by James on Tue, 12/04/2007 - 7:30pm
I wrote about the Sand Fleas at Figure 8 Island back in July, after homeowners there started leaning on the legislature to allow hardened structures on beaches - the first step toward building sea walls in front of luxury beachfront properties. In case you're not aware, hardened structures on one part of a beach cause accelerated erosion on other parts of the beach. In other words, they're destructive and stupid. The NC Conservation Network was asking people like us to contact our representatives to stop Senate Bill 599.
Well now Adam Searing at NC Policy Watch reports that the Sand Fleas have taken a page from the Home Ticks book and have created an Astroturf organization to give the illusion that there's a ground-swell of grassroots activism behind the scenes.
There is no such thing:
As part of the campaign, the Figure 8 Homeowners Association appears to have had one of the top law firms in Raleigh – Helm, Mullis and Wicker – set up a website that tries to maintain the appearance of a grassroots lobbying effort to protect “our coast” from “beach erosion.” Unsurprisingly, the solution to protect “our coast” is to pass the bill in the General Assembly that would allow Figure 8 to install a prohibited hardened structure and protect a few houses at the northern end of the island.
A close look at website is revealing. In the “about us” section, there is nothing to indicate the Figure 8 connection. However, a simple Whois.net search reveals the inletsolutions.org domain is registered to the high-end corporate law and lobbying firm of Helms, Mullis and Wicker, specifically to chief lobbyist Frank Folger. A quick check of lobbyists at the NC Secretary of State and, sure enough, Folger is the registered lobbyist for the Figure 8 Island Homeowners Association.
Go read Adam's post to get a first hand glimpse of Sand Fleas in action. It'll just about turn your stomach.
And don't forget, spray for Home Ticks, too.
- James's blog
- 1951 reads
Off!
You know what annoys me?
The amount of money someone was willing to toss out without a thought to build that astroturf website.
One of the pitfalls of childhood is that one doesn't have to understand something to feel it. - Carlos Ruiz Zafon
Jesus Swept ticked me off. Too short. I loved the characters and then POOF it was over.
-me
More money than sense
I'm not too worried about this one...
As soon as their southern neighbors on the island realize that a northern groin will eat their beach, this will go away. As Adam points out, Edwards is already against it.
The bill passed in the NC Senate
but not the House (yet). I'm more worried about it than I'd like to be.
Reasonable to worry.
The proponents of this terrible proposal clearly have the ear of some of the top Senate leaders, I suspect in an effort to help protect a Democrat in a tough Senate district. On its merits, however, the bill is simply too bad to let go through.
This is an example of a bill that I would have raised to public attention as Lieutenant Governor. It's unjustified, undermines a critical state coastal protection policy, and its concept of a "pilot project" is a thin facade relying on long-discredited "science".
This is the kind of bad coastal policy that I had hoped we'd gotten beyond while I was serving on the Coastal Resources Commission, where we turned down this kind of proposal time after time.
Our friends in the House need to hear that this bill needs to be killed.
Dan Besse
Democrat for Lieutenant Governor
Dan Besse
The question is
will there soon be a TV campaign starring "Angie the Sea Turtle" going from beach to beach in NC representing the "average" North Carolina sea turtle's need for private beaches and seaside McMansions to protect her habitat?
Groins
Oddly, the image used in the astroturf website for an example of a groin at Fort Macon is from 1993.
A more recent photo from Google Maps shows a different configuration. The "accretion fillet" is a little reduced but there is also a lot of accumulation of sand on the inlet side which I don't think was intended.
There is sand accumulation shown on adjacent beaches but I think a that has changed in the past year as beaches have been heavily eroded.
You can't cheat Mother Nature.
The key point to remember, scientifically, in this debate is that groins, seawalls, etc., don't create sand. They temporarily trap part of what moves in storms and longshore currents. It's a zero-sum game, in which any gain at one spot (again, emphasize temporary gain, as the picture above shows) is sand taken or kept away from another location. Beachfront hardening is the archetype for "robbing Peter to pay Paul."
Dan Besse
Democrat for Lieutenant Governor
Dan Besse
If these folks are so into fake beaches...
Why don't they move to Dubai?
Now there's a beach that's 100% groin!
I've never seen that before.
How long before Mother Nature says "oh no you don't!"?
Be the change you wish to see in the world. --Gandhi
There are two of those now
View Larger Map
and a larger one under construction:
View Larger Map
Is that real?
I am guessing that is where the $3 a gallon gas profits go to.
Another thing to thank Bill Graham for. When he helped convince our cowardly politicians to cap the gas tax last year, all he did was put more money into the pockets of the big oil companies. We're still paying $3 a gallon, and now we're getting less tax revenue, meaning more profits for the oil companies.