Issue link: https://newsleader.uberflip.com/i/149186
Sarasota News Leader August 9 & 16, 2013 Page 30 THE SCIENCE AND THE RESERVATIONS Dr. Stanley R. Riggs, a highly respected geologist with expertise in marine and coastal issues, was a member of the North Carolina Estuarine Biological and Physical Processes Work Group that issued an August 2006 report on stabilization methods for various North Carolina estuarine shoreline types. The report points out that groins "trap sand on the updrift side to build out the upland." However, it says, "The number one recommendation for all estuarine shoreline types is land planning (i.e. leave the land in its natural state). Typically, the number two recommendation is to use vegetation control because vegetation is a natural and environmentally beneficial stabilization method. In many cases, beach fill is a recommended action to maintain the current shoreline type due to its non-structural, non-hardening attributes. When shoreline hardening stabilization methods are proposed, the Work Group [ranks] sills as the most preferred option since it is a small structure that is constructed to support wetland plantings, or the conservation of existing wetland vegetation." A map shows the location of Big Pass north of Siesta Key, with Lido Key on the other side of the inlet. Image courtesy of Google Maps Addressing the Corps of Engineers' decision to allow the construction of a 3,000-foot terminal groin to protect N.C. Highway 12, which runs between the Atlantic Ocean and Pamlico Sound, Pilkey referenced an article by Robert Dolan, who had written that the terminal groin did not work as claimed to protect the shoreline. Severe erosion had continued, Pilkey pointed out, and the groin had led to the clogging of Oregon Inlet, "since sand exchange across the inlet is now halted." In late March, Laird Wreford, coastal resources manager for Sarasota County, told the News Leader that the Corps would have to determine through a cost-benefit analysis that future Lido renourishment projects would be "extended out much longer" before approving the construction of the groins on the southern tip of Lido. Another nationally known expert on coastal geology, Orrin H. Pilkey — James B. Duke professor emeritus at Duke University's Nicholas School of the Environment — also has expressed opposition to groins. Writing, for one example, in The News and Observer on April 26, 2011, he described the situation in North Carolina's Oregon Inlet, a highly un- However, DavisShaw told the News Leader on stable area of the Outer Banks between Nags April 2, "I think there's a lot of improvement Head and Cape Hatteras. in technology" regarding the design of groins,