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Coastal Issues
With over 300 miles of shoreline, North Carolinians pride themselves on their beautiful beaches and coastal environment. Citizens from all over the state, and indeed the country, head east to enjoy and recreate on our barrier islands, our vast public beaches, estuarine waters of the sound, and quaint coastal towns.
However, more and more people are coming to the coast, and this is putting increasing pressure on our coastal environment. Development has exploded in the last several years, with large vacation and rental homes being constructed at a rapid pace.
More development means more runoff from paved surfaces and rooftops, and this has negatively impacted our coastal water quality, leading to the closure of thousands of acres of shellfish beds. Development is also taking place without regard to the natural shifting nature of barrier island sands, leading homeowners to panic and seek to place hardened structures along the beach to try to prevent erosion. The problem is that these hard structures actually cause erosion further down the beach, just displacing the problem and, in the end, harming our pristine beaches which we all use.
North Carolina has as strong history of protecting our beaches and coastal environment, and citizens all across the state have a strong sense of ownership of this amazing natural resource.
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