The Risks of Renourishment: North Carolina Coastal Federation How pumping sand on North Carolina’s beaches can affect Sea Turtles, Mole Crabs and other Critters April 2002 Who We Are The North Carolina Coastal Federation (NCCF) is the state’s largest non-profit organization working to restore and protect the coast. NCCF headquarters are at 3609 Highway 24 in Ocean between Morehead City and Swansboro and are open Monday through Friday. The headquarters houses NCCF’s main offices, a nature shop, library, and information area. NCCF also operates a field office at 3806-B Park Avenue in Wilmington. For more information call 252-393-8185 or visit our website at www.nccoast.org. This report was written by Ted Wilgis, the Federation’s Cape Fear Coastkeeper, and edited by Frank Tursi, the Cape Lookout Coastkeeper, and Jim Stephenson, Program Analyst. All are closely monitoring beach renourishment projects in North Carolina during the time covered in this report. Wilgis and Tursi also took all of the photographs. Cover Photo Bulldozers work the new sand being pumped onto the beach at Fort Macon State Park in Carteret County. 2 Index Executive Summary.................................................4 Recommendations....................................................5 Background..............................................................6 Sea Turtles ........................................................ 7-11 Mole Crabs and Other Critters...............................12 Other Effects ..........................................................13 Monitoring .............................................................14 Appendix................................................................15 3 The Risks of Renourishment How Pumping Sand on North Carolina’s Beaches Can Affect Sea Turtles, Mole Crabs and other Critters Executive Summary Only time will tell if the renourished hough the evidence is still coming beach will be good turtle habitat. in, many scientists, government The type of material being pumped onto T officials, fishermen and the beach also became an issue during a environmentalists are beginning to worry renourishment project in Carteret County about the cumulative effects that after scientists warned that portions of widespread beach renourishment may the new beach contained so much shell have on a wide variety of animals that that turtles couldn’t nest in it and the use the beaches for food, nesting and invertebrates that comprise the basis of habitat. the food chain couldn’t live in it. That project highlighted the need for Projects along the NC coast within the including specific requirements in state last year showed that beach and federal permits about the type of renourishment could be very hazardous sand that should be used in to the survival of endangered or renourishment projects. threatened sea turtles, for instance. Four were sucked up by a dredge and killed in Such issues will only become more one day during a project in Carteret important if beach renourishment County. Another turtle was killed by a becomes a common strategy to combat dredge in New Hanover County. erosion in North Carolina. Sand could be pumped onto more than 122 miles of Pumping sand onto the beaches during state’s oceanfront in the next 12 years, a the turtle-nesting season also can be four-fold increase in the miles of beach precarious for turtles. Some abandoned now being maintained. Such large-scale efforts to nest last year after hitting pipes manipulation could pose serious on the beach. Sand that contained too consequences for the clams, crabs and much rocks and shells deterred others, other organisms that so many fish rely the data showed. A beach in Brunswick on for food, for nesting sea turtles and County purportedly renourished to create birds that depend on the state’s beaches nesting habitat for turtles is now dotted to survive, and for the public that uses with steep cliffs at the water’s edge that the beaches to fish, swim and build sand turtles may have a tough time climbing castles. over and is littered with chunks of marl that could hinder a nesting turtle. 4 Recommendations turtle nesting starts on May 1 and ends on Nov. 15. he NC Coastal Federation generally doesn’t oppose beach • Require that hopper dredging stop T renourishment if it is part of a when waters rise above 58 degrees to multi-faceted strategy to deal with avoid killing sea turtles. oceanfront erosion and is properly planned, done in environmentally and • Require that sand used in each fiscally sound ways and assures public project closely match the natural access to the beach. A fuller explanation sand in grain size, color and shell of the Federation’s policy can be found and silt content. The current state on our website at: requirement that renourished sand be “compatible” with existing sand is www.nccoast.org/SOC2001/BeachReno too vague to afford adequate urishment.htm protection to natural resources. North Carolina should adopt sand The beach renourishment projects done compatibility standards similar to in North Carolina in 2001 and 2002, ones in Florida that protect turtle though, point to severe weaknesses in nesting habitat. the state’s permitting requirements. The NC Division of Coastal Management, • Result in project sponsors which has a mandate to protect the monitoring biological activity on the natural resources of the state’s public section of beach proposed for beaches, and the project’s sponsors renourishment at least one year in should insist that beach-renourishment each of four seasons before the permits: project and two years after renourishment. The monitoring • Require that construction periods should include at a minimum begin Dec.1 and end March 31. population counts of shorebirds, fish Construction activities can kill and invertebrates on the beach and at wildlife, prevent them from foraging the borrow zones. Monitoring of sea or deter them from nesting. Beach turtle nesting activity should occur invertebrates, such as mole crabs and for a minimum of six years after a coquina clam, migrate to deeper renourishment project. water in November from where they can return to a renourished beach • Make clear that projects are not once the project is completed. These exempt from water quality standards organisms are smothered by new for turbidity and fecal coliform sand if the project begins before their bacteria. Existing regulations migration. Also during November, prohibit permits from being issued if there is significant fish activity it is known up-front that projects will feeding on bottom invertebrates at violate these standards. If planned the dredge sites. April is the peak of measures to prevent violations do not invertebrate recruitment and work, appropriate enforcement is shorebird migration and an important needed. period for larval recruitment. Sea 5 Bulldozers push sand to make dunes at Holden Beach. Background and, shells, rocks, and silt were were or will be replenished with dredge dredged and pumped on more than spoils. S 36 miles of beaches in North Carolina in 2001 and early 2002. The This includes: about four miles on sand came primarily from offshore Figure 8 Island, almost three miles of mining or the dredging of inlets, harbors Wrightsville Beach and Masonboro or the Intracoastal Waterway. Island, about one mile of Carolina Increasingly, though, upland sources of Beach, about three miles of Kure Beach, sand are being used. about three miles of Bald Head Island, 12 miles of Caswell Beach/Oak Island, The US Army Corps of Engineers now five miles of Holden Beach, and three has long-term projects at Wrightsville miles of Ocean Isle Beach. Beach, Carolina Beach, Kure Beach and new this past year, Ocean Isle Beach. Sources of sand include: Shallotte, The beaches are renourished every three Carolina, Mason, Masonboro and Rich’s to five years for 50 years. There are inlets; the Wilmington Harbor another dozen or so beach towns in the Deepening Project; and some upland feasibility or design stage for the federal sources. program. Those projects combined with others planned by private property About seven miles of beaches on Bogue owners and the state could mean that Banks in Carteret County were also more than 122 miles of beaches would renourished in 2002 with dredge spoils be renourished in the next 12 years. That taken offshore. comprises almost two-fifths of North Carolina’s 320-mile ocean coastline. During 2001 and 2002, portions of nearly every developed beach in Brunswick and New Hanover Counties 6 Sea Turtles ndangered and threatened sea Studies have shown that the number of turtles could be particularly at risk turtle nests decreases on a renourished E during and after beach beach. At times, turtles can’t crawl up renourishment projects. The loggerhead the beach because of the small but steep (Caretta caretta), green (Chelonia escarpments, or cliffs, that sometimes mydas), kemp’s ridley (Lepidochelys form after sand has been pumped on the kempii) and leatherback (Dermochelys beach. The sand may also contain too coriacea) sea turtles frequent the waters much silt, shell or rock fragments that off North Carolina. Many of the state’s harden over time, making it difficult for beaches, from May to mid-November, the turtles to dig their nests. This are prime nesting grounds for incompatible material in the sand may loggerheads, a threatened species, and also affect the eggs as they incubate and less commonly for green turtles. the hatchlings ability to escape from the nest. The turtles spend most of their lives in the water where they face numerous Renourishment projects during the hazards. They can drown in a fish net, nesting season between May and choke on trash, get run over by boats, or November 15 also affects sea turtles. get sucked up in a dredge. Every few Nesting behavior in females may be years, a female turtle crawls ashore, changed because of construction lights instinctively returning to the same beach and activity on the beach. The females where she was born. There, she digs a may not nest at all, abandon their eggs in hole up to two feet deep and lays about the ocean or nest in unsuitable areas.