With 32 homes toppled since 2020, Buxton's fast-eroding shoreline has become emblematic of challenges some North Carolina's coastal communities are facing.
Wednesday, North Carolina's Senate Agriculture, Energy and Environment Committee discussed a trio of bills meant to protect Buxton and other communities with eroding shorelines. They would repeal the state's long-standing ban on new hardened structures on the coast while also paving the way for new pilot projects like seawalls and wave attenuators.
"I'm ready to stop telling them what they can't do and start working on how we can get it done. These conversations should lead to action. Our coast is changing, so let's solve these problems," said Sen. Bob Brinson, R-Craven, who sponsored both bills.
A third bill would allow money from the state's Coastal Storm Damage Mitigation Fund to be used to pay for building or repairing terminal groins to help prevent erosion at the end of barrier islands. Right now, the fund is typically used to help pay for beach nourishment projects or to build dune lines.
North Carolina has effectively banned new hardened structures on its coastline since 1985, with what had been a Coastal Resources Commission rule becoming state law in 2003. Then, in 2011, the General Assembly updated the rule to allow for four new terminal groins along the North Carolina coast.
Bald Head Island and Ocean Isle Beach have both built terminal groins under the 2011 bill, while Figure Eight Island and Holden Beach have also explored the possibility.
Opponents of hardened structures argue that building any hardened structure along the coast will shift wave energy elsewhere or start moving sand in unnatural ways, resulting in consequences for the shoreline near the structure.
"Hardened structures do not solve the problem of barrier islands moving. That's part of their natural geology. The terminal groins interrupt that natural process. They move the problem to other parts of the shore, and they create more demand for beach renourishment," said Rob Lamme, a lobbyist working for the N.C. Coastal Federation.
Lamme said the state already has a $40 million unmet beach nourishment need, which he said would likely grow more significant with additional hardened structures.
Lamme also called for lawmakers to reconsider the legislation allowing the Coastal Storm Damage Mitigation Fund to be used for terminal groin construction. When the 2011 bill was passed, Lamme recounted, then-Senator Bob Rucho was adamant that state funds collected from taxpayers should not be used for the projects.
"We think that taxpayer protection has served the state, has served the legislature, served the budget process and most important taxpayers themselves very, very effectively," Lamme said.
Sen. Michael Lazzara, R-Onslow is sponsoring the legislation. He said he's hopeful that a provision requiring that N.C. Department of Environmental Quality officials determine that a terminal groin funded with state money protects public land before the property can move forward would assuage any concern about using those funds for such a project.
Senate Bill 1008 focuses on protecting at-risk oceanfront homes using projects that can't currently be built in North Carolina such as sheet pile sea walls or wave attenuators. The bill would task the N.C. Collaboratory with determining where the projects should be built based on the severity of erosion there, the potential for adverse impacts to nearby coastline and the economic impact of what would be protected, among other concerns.
Local governments or homeowners associations would need to fund the projects.
The N.C. Division of Coastal Management would be tasked with monitoring the project to determine its effectiveness.
"The goal is to gather real data rather than argue in the abstract," Brinson said.
That argument didn't sway those with concerns.
"Unless we do a hard seawall along the entire coast, somebody's getting helped and somebody's getting hurt by every seawall, by every jetty, by every terminal groin, by every bulkhead. By everything that gets put in, there is an adjacent impact that is negative," said Sen. Julie Mayfield, D-Buncombe.
Upcoming CRC report
The N.C. Coastal Resources Commission is set to hear a report from its Science Panel next week looking at the impacts of terminal groins, what options are available to protect shorelines and the costs and benefits of adding hardened structures.
Some urged bill writers to wait to take any action until after that report has been issued.
"I'm just concerned that these are sort of getting out ahead of an important study and might commit us to a course of action that that study might stay is not the right one," Mayfield said.
Emma Hennen, the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality's legislative affairs director, told the committee that the agency supports an updated investigation into protecting oceanfront structures in the Buxton area. But it is important, Hennen said, to consider the different conditions at different beaches along North Carolina's coastline before allowing new hardened structures to move forward.
"A strong scientific basis to to support permitting for these is necessary. And we hope that members will wait until this report is released to move forward with any legislative action," Hennen said.
Brinson, the primary sponsor of two of the bills, said legislators would take the report into account. Still, he said more action is needed.
"A policy that was made 40 years ago should not be immune from review. Erosion rates have increased. The number of threatened structures has grown. Technology and understanding of engineering stabilization has increased," Brinson said.
Brinson also pointed to a terminal groin on the Bodie Island side of the Marc Basnight Bridge as a success story, as well as one already in place on Bald Head Island.
The Senate committee did not vote on any of the bills Wednesday. It was not immediately clear when, or if, they would move through the General Assembly.
