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Why the towns are split on Nags Head’s sand plan
Kitty Hawk would not have enough oceanfront property for a federal beach nourishment project.
Applying the model locally, Kitty Hawk’s rejection of Nags Head’s beach nourishment proposal should not be surprising.
The Dare County Shoreline Management Commission is in rational actor mode.
A pile of money sits in a fund for beach nourishment and erosion control. Seven local governments contribute to it. Two, Nags Head and Kill Devil Hills, want to withdraw all of the existing balance for their own projects, if only for a short period of time.
Which brings us to the rational actors on the commission: representatives of each of the six towns and three from Dare County.
Let’s start with Kitty Hawk. Its history with sand replenishment might help explain the recent thumbs-down on Nags Head’s nourishment plan.
When the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers first approved re-nourishment for Dare County beaches, Kitty Hawk was mostly left out of the equation. Why? Corps projects are predicated on beach engineering achieving a minimum cost-benefit ratio of project expense vs. dollar value of infrastructure to be protected. Kitty Hawk’s oceanfront had declined to such an extent that it failed to meet that minimum threshold. No oceanfront, no return on the nourishment dollar.
Further, Kitty Hawk has lost so much dry sand; N.C. 12 (a.k.a. “The Beach Road”) constitutes its defacto oceanfront. Since the North Carolina Department of Transportation is responsible for maintaining N.C. 12, Kitty Hawk benefits from “free” nourishment projects every time the Beach Road washes out. Not only is the road repaired, but some sand is thrown on the beach and a false dune erected.
Unable to benefit from a federal project, and not having to spend its own money to repair the effects of erosion, Kitty Hawk would not be acting rationally if it allowed its share of the nourishment fund to be used by another town, even if only temporarily. Better to keep its share for cosmetic repairs and projects over and above the usual DOT effort.
To the north, Southern Shores and Duck are similarly positioned. Neither municipality is super-supportive of beach nourishment. Under federal rules, both towns would be eliminated from any Army Corps project since one of their prerequisites is a minimum number of public beach accesses per mile of oceanfront.
Since neither town comes close to meeting this standard, they have made a conscious decision to trade future federal nourishment funds in favor of maintaining what amounts to semi-private beaches. It makes no sense to these two towns to “risk” the loss of their current share of funds for projects that piggyback on a federal scheme of which they have no chance of future participation.
Hatteras Island is another area where sentiment runs strongly against locally funded beach nourishment projects. And, like Duck, Southern Shores and Kitty Hawk, our southerly residents face a major hurdle with federal beach nourishment — they don’t control their own beaches.
On Hatteras Island, the federal government owns all of the beaches, and apart from the Corps, Uncle Sam is not much interested in funding nourishment projects, especially on National Park Service land, where environmental interests exert influence. And, like Kitty Hawk, when the ocean washes out N.C. 12 (or cuts an inlet, as it did during Hurricane Isabel), the state of North Carolina repairs the road, throws new sand on the beach and gets the dune line rebuilt.
Thus, the majority of voting members on the Shoreline Commission have no real motivation to allow those funds to be used disproportionately by Nags Head or Kill Devil Hills. They suffer no economic or political repercussions by opposing large-scale nourishment projects and they retain funds for “cosmetic” repairs after storms. Whether you agree or disagree with these representatives, their actions dovetail perfectly with the rational actor scenario.
One twist in all of this is how the state-funded repairs in Kitty Hawk and Hatteras Island fail to raise the ire of local beach nourishment opponents. In Kitty Hawk, there is no outcry from its own politicians or beach nourishment opponents for the state to stop spending taxpayer money on repairing the Beach Road. No one says that once repaired, “it might wash away again in 30 days when the next storm rolls in.”
And, as the Beach Road is now the only barrier between the sand and the houses on its west side, no one complains that taxpayer money is protecting access to those property owners who benefit from the road repairs. Apparently, retreat is not an option in Kitty Hawk west of the dry sand beach.
Likewise, the constant repair of N.C. 12 south of Oregon Inlet protects the investments of every mercantile interest on the island. Ferry service could accommodate whatever local population would remain if N.C 12 were allowed to be taken by the ocean. But repairing the road ensures unfettered access to the massive inventory of private rental homes on Hatteras Island.
Call it what you will, but Kitty Hawk and Hatteras Island already have a beach nourishment plan, courtesy of Raleigh, and N.C. 12 is nothing more than a very low seawall, a hardened structure if you will, supported and maintained by taxpayer dollars — dollars that protect private investment homes and commercial interests in both areas.
When the cost of shoreline management comes from a non-local source, opposition to shoreline engineering appears to evaporate, even from ardent anti-nourishment advocates.
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newjake says:
Personally, I think this is off the mark. My perception of nourishment is not dune building or road safekeeping.
My perception of nourishment is building out a section of the shoreline sand, out into the ocean, where the ocean sweeps it away. Dunes and roads are separate projects from 60 feet of sand extended into active surf.
I think if Nags Head were not so “single-solution” about the houses, locals would embrace the same program there as exists in Kitty Hawk: get the worst houses out of the surf, continue that over time, as they become exposed, just like in KH. Build a dune along the road now. Make minor repairs as needed.
barry brockway says:
A brilliant synopsis.
Bobby says:
What a logical and easy to understand editorial. Thanks for making it so logical and practical. Preserving our beaches is pro business on the Outer Banks. We do repave the roads don’t we? Let’s repave our beaches now. And instead of focusing on failure, how about focusing on the many success stories up and down the east and gulf coast?
Brian Grffith says:
Bobby is correct – paving the beach definitely would solve the problem!
Big Daddy says:
What a bunch of maroons. Someone that is pro-nourishment spouts off some BS, and you treat it as gospel.
GB says:
This editorial clearly points out that using road protection in the Jockey’s Ridge area as a justification for the locally funded Nags Head plan is very questionable since our state funds will take care it.
Bobby says:
Brian, it was an analogy. We repave our roads so why shouldn’t we expect to renourish and protect our most precious asset….our beaches? No beach no business. Pro business is pro protecting and preserving our beaches.
newjake says:
This “No Beach No Business” jingle is another one of those Maroon things. Talk about over-exaggerating the state of the local economy. Doom! DOOM!
We’ve had endangered houses for DECADES. Life goes on. Tourism goes on.
Come up with a new Chicken Little phrase, please.
Bobby says:
Check the business failures over the last five years. Two years ago no one would have bet on a banking failure and economy nose dive either. A stock market in a free for all. Life goes on is nothing but a cliche. Would you open a new business on the Outer Banks right now without a viable business plan and plenty of capital? Your claim of over exaggeration is reality in over drive. Check your brother’s plight on Hatteras Island.
Ray says:
I have to agree. This editorial is totally off the mark.
(1) Dunebuilding does not equate to beach nourishment.
(2) There is no federal project, no federal funding; none in the forseeable future. Why use it in any argument today?
(3) And, if we do use the federal requirement(s) argument; we need to remember that Nags Head also does not meet the parking access requirements in all of their project area either; especially in the historic district.
Could go on…but, enough said here..
Bobby says:
Anything that preserves the beach is invaluable and necessary. Now let’s make it happen instead of finding every reason to stonewall it. The laws need to be changed and they are long overdue to be changed. The editorial is right on center and let’s move on. Tomorrow is another day, and the battle against the naysayers has just begun and there is no end. Preserve our beaches!
DP says:
Psycho-babble . . . the Towns aren’t split, they are unanimously opposed to one unit exhausting all the revenue collected from the entire area by a risky and half-baked plan. You don’t put all your eggs in one basket and you don’t raise taxes in a recession. It is as simple as that.
bouy9 says:
i’m assuming if they re nourish it will cover up the shell beds and beach glass, when people come to the beach they want to do beach stuff “I HOPE” you know ghost crabs, seagulls, sandfiddlers, instead they can eat at one of the many seafood buffets that import seafood from all over world but here and they can eat fried genetically engineered hot wings from Hooters, beach combining is overrated anyway, i need a house with 12 flat screens a HUMMER a hot tub a swimming pool and for the love of money we need more PAVEMENT!!!!! GO FIGURE
Bob O says:
Insightful piece.
I think dune-building and putting the road back after a storm, the current situation in Kitty Hawk and Hatteras, is government reacting to a crisis. It seems to me that government typically waits until it is a crisis before it changes the way it does things.
Nourishment is a way to be proactive, and prevent the costs of storm damage. It takes a big investment of money for a long-term future benefit, not an ideal setup for politics. Nags Head has the best beach access of any town in the state, through good planning and actions in the past three decades. We’re focused on nourishment because we believe it is the best alternative for the long run. We know you can lose roads because we’ve lost some. This is easily foreseeable with retreat as the policy.
Most of the time, government waits until the crisis is on the doorstep, then spends a lot of money to avert crisis, at least for a little while. It still makes sense to me to take action before the ocean hits the road, and put your money into prevention, rather than crisis response.
Butch Stone says:
Those 12 flat screen TVs that people watch when they come here is what keeps your taxes low. And when they stop watching them and they are washed out to sea, that is when you will stop being envious and wish the people were back here watching the TVs and spending their money here again.
Tim says:
All of our eggs are in one basket now. It is called the do-nothing plan. That plan is making revenue go down and taxes go up. It seems people do not mind hidden taxes.
Rob/Bob says:
The use of the rational actor decision-making model to analyze the motivations of the towns effected by sand nourishment plans is great analytic framework. Another model you may want to consider for future analysis is Prince Charting and Prince Mapping. It is based on Machiavellian (The Prince) principles. It is nice to see the author of the article use a well established framework for analysis (vs) just expounding opinion.
newjake says:
Our latest report is we were UP 2.1% in tourism revenue, 2009 over 2008. And we were up 2% 2008 over 2007. It’s all available, please stop with the scare tactics.
GB says:
A way to make the NH plan more palatable and more effective would be to only nourish the areas where development makes the most sense. North of Whalebone Junction has lower erosion rates is the best place to see if nourishment can work.
The current plan calls for putting the most sand where it is least likely to stay put (reach 2, 3 and 4).
No matter how much sand is dredged and how much we spend, we will never, ever stop the erosion in an area that is currently moving at 10 feet + per year. Slowing the erosion there helps the owners, but the community will be left with the current condemnation problems and process, only it will be dragged out longer, “hurting our image” for that much longer, if you agree that the image argument for nourishment has merit.
If as a community we want to do a test case, as much as I am opposed to the whole idea of nourishment, as a rational actor I want the test case to work and not bankrupt us or damage the beach and shore systems.
None of us need engineering degrees to predict the results of the current plan and the chances of us stopping an erosion rate of 10 feet per year.
Glenn K says:
The town I live in in So. Jersey turned down a Federal beach project seven years ago and business here has flourished and home prices have gone up not down in the middle of the worst housing recession and economic recession since the Great Depression. The people who use scare tactics to try and sell these projects to the public are just another group of fear merchants that have seemed to have proliferated in this country since 9/11. Ignore them folks, their BS about how nourishment and the economy are one in the same is nonsense. Also ignore the entirely specious analogy that paving roads has anything even remotely in common with beach replenishment. Beaches are not public infrastructure; they’re part of the natural superstructure and they move around.
Bobby says:
Interesting the difference perspectives of retirees versus active businesses and their owners. Pro preservation is pro business and if the retirees get their way their taxes will have to be raised anyway. Doing nothing saves no one anything. Even if the naysayers win . . . they still lose big time.
Reacher says:
Nice analysis by brother Russ. It gets you thinking out of the box so to speak. Let’s hear some scenarios for the profile of the beach road, beach, etc, 20 years out, based on current erosion patterns and those programs currently in place and proposed or opposed. IE: Fed/DOT/State/local responses, beach nourishment in those townships where it is permitable vs. no beach nourishment; costs v benefits, and so on. Advance the debate on the issue; no circular or fallacious arguments. Think in terms of what you can project in terms of environment, economy, society. This is a great and meaningful debate.
Reacher says:
New topic: Oil and gas exploration off the Carolina coast; costs/benefits. To Rob and Russ: new thread.
Reacher says:
CSI needs to respond.
Gary says:
Tourism numbers are up, even as the beach in South Nags Head shrinks. Let nature decide. I don’t want my money tossed into the ocean.
Dennis J says:
Tourism numbers are up, and that’s in a recession! 80% of both retirees and local business owners have voted down nourishment, twice!
I’m proud of my fellow locals and business owners for making excellent decisions on the best way to allocate our valuable tax dollars. I’m proud of them twice.
Even with the US economy doing so poorly, we’re holding our own and growing a bit. We know we’ll lose a few houses to the ocean, and we know that businesses come and go here. Overall though, great job everyone! Stay the course!
Butch Stone says:
For the people that dont care about the beach
I would suggest that all the oceanfront home owners pay a 100.00 per foot of beach they own and make payments over a 5 year period.
Then we would own the beach, like everyone thinks..Then make the beach private and keep people from coming in our back yards..
Robert says:
Would they pay that? Good idea. That’d be over 5 million toward the project. And if you made it annual, that’s 25 million or almost the cost of the nourisment, and many think the project would last that long too, sounds like a win-win.
Robert says:
And a smaller assessment on the non-coeanfront guys would make up the difference too. Nice work Butch.
GB says:
Please consider making the cost per foot assessment correlate with historical erosion rates. The owner who paid more initially for a relatively stable oceanfront lot should pay less than the owner of a rapidly eroding beach.
Robert says:
The other aspect might be to look at the rental company too.
If they will benefit long-term from this project, perhaps an adjustment to their commission would help as well.
They could voluntarily contribute a percentage from what they make off each of their Nags Head houses to the fund.
Only those who directly benefit monetarily should be willing to put something into the kitty, but all of those parties need to step up.
Butch has a good plan, and Gail earlier even offered between 300-500 per foot.
Gail M. Jones says:
Hopefully, someone will get that assessment active and I’m willing to up it from $100 to $300 at least. It’s a great idea and I think the oceanfront homeowners will agree. It’s time to stop talking and act on the nourishment plan.
Butch Stone says:
If you dont have a bulldozer or bobcat,
Oceanfront owners pay between 500.00 to 1000.00 or more a year, bringing in sand or to do beach pushes anyway.
This also helps save Beach Road from being washed away.
barbara says:
I personally think the bulldozers / beach pushes / sand bags are causing the expedited erosion in SNH. They are making a steeper, narrowing beach by doing this. I also feel if one grain of sand is pumped on the beach, there better be laws in place preventing homeowners from bulldozing it up on their house. And it better be enforced on the weekends, too. You walk that beach every Sat. or Sun. and there is at least one bulldozer out, probably because they know no town officials are working.
If the public is expected to pay for it, then we should be able to prevent owners from bulldozing the public sand. If homes are in the water line, the Town should be able to remove them before they become a major safety hazard and remove them. I do think the insurance should cover the removal. That would prevent the safety and environmental hazards of allowing the structure to fall into the ocean, litter and cause injuries later.
Butch Stone says:
to barbara
The oceanfront owners will not have to push anymore sand after the nourishment. The pushing that they do now saves the homes there but also saves Beach Rd.
Yes everyone would like the insurance to pay for removal and pay the mortgage off, but it’s not going to happen. So you think the town should pay for removal? How about the hotels, like Comfort Inn? Should we let them fall in the ocean too?
How much tax income would that hotel alone bring in for Nags Head?
Robert says:
A question my wife posed:
If this goes through and ‘public’ sand is placed on ‘private property,’ she assumed there would also be a moratorium against ever building on that lot.
ie… the owner can’t just take the free ‘land’, immediately rip down their crumbling structure and throw up a 10 bedroom monstrosity all in the name of profit? Or can they?
Russ Lay says:
Writer’s clarification: Under CAMA these are the rules:
A replacement structure would have to meet the new CAMA setback, minimum 60 feet from the first line of vegetation, or 30 times the annual erosion rate. 60 times if it’s larger than 5,000 square feet.
The dune line would not move east enough, if at all, to allow new sand to become part of a buildable lot. The dry sand beach is privately owned but a public right-of-way and cannot be built upon. Further, lot coverage would preclude large houses in most instances, especially in south Nags Head.
barbara says:
to Butch,
All I was saying is IF this were to ever move forward using public taxpayer money, the town (s) need to clearly outlaw these practices, and enforce them. And make sure wash-out lots can not be rebuilt on either. I also disagree with your accusation the “beach pushing” saves the beach road. The section in Kitty Hawk where they bought out those 12 homes has not had a beach push since and a.) the road never floods there any more, the dunes have remained intact. and b.) areas where there are homes continually flood / experience ocean overwash from underneath their houses.
And no, I do not believe the town should pay to remove homes, BUT they could offer some assistance either with tax credits or help offset cost of demolition? I dont know. I do think a buyout program similar to what Kitty Hawk did is very feasible using shoreline management money.
Butch Stone says:
to Barbara
You are so wrong. When Isabel hit, the road at MP 4 was wiped out, the county brought in trucks and equipment and sand was taken from Beach Rd. at MP 1 to 3 to build that part of the beach back up. Then they dug big holes and put in sand bags 10 feet in the ground. The road was not damaged where the homes were.
Carey Kelley says:
Has any one that is in opposition walked the beach from NEW pier south.
I have owned for 5 years in Nags Head and am appalled at the condition of this area. You should be ashamed of yourselves to let it get to this. Whenever I heard the words Outer Banks I thought immediatly of Nags Head and beaches, these aren’t beaches they are dumps. Talk about costs how much will it cost to demo the Comfort Inn, the Yatchsman, the Whalebone motel, Owens motel, etc., and how much revenue will be lost there?
I took video today and would love to see what all the folks on YouTube would think of Nags Head. I am in total disbelief that you could even consider letting this continue.
This has gone on for 20 years and and no one has made a decision and the beaches of Nags Head are embarassing.
I had family down and even though they stayed for free, will be going elsewhere because when they attempted to walk the beaches thru all the DEBRIS they ran into motels and ran out of beach since the ocean was all the way to the dunes. I never would have believed that an OCEAN community could allow this. Unbelievable.
Pointer Men's Basketball says:
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