Nothing shelled out for beaches

Towns try to put projects in budget

President Bush's proposed budget doesn't include money to restore a single grain of sand to North Carolina's eroding coastline.

This isn't a huge surprise to coastal leaders. Neither the Clinton nor Bush administrations have been interested much in beach nourishment. So once again, getting the money comes down to lobbying Congress.

The Outer Banks and towns such as Nags Head are losing ground to the ocean's pounding. A single storm can take out more than 50 feet of beach.

"It's the single biggest issue Nags Head faces," said Bob Muller, who stepped down last fall after five years as mayor of Nags Head. "We can't let the ocean just keep marching in."

Muller said that every morning when he was mayor, he would wake up and wonder, "Is this the day my town gets wiped off the face of the Earth?"

He would check the weather and, if nothing was brewing in the Atlantic, breathe a sigh of relief.

He and other coastal leaders say they need help.

Mayors, developers and property owners will map a strategy to ask Congress to reinstate millions of dollars for beach nourishment and dredging projects. The plan has worked in the past as senators and congressional members from every state add "earmarks" to the budget, special projects for their home districts.

Last year, the state received about 75 percent of what it requested, said Harry Simmons, Caswell Beach mayor and president of the American Shore and Beach Preservation Association. That amounted to $3.8 million for studies and construction up and down the coast.

This year is more worrisome, given the debate over the federal deficit and the high cost of the war in Iraq.

"Projects are going to get lost in the shuffle," said Greg "Rudi" Rudolph, shore protection manager for Carteret County. "If you're little, you lose."

Paul Ordal, a Washington lobbyist hired by beach towns nationwide to push for nourishment projects, said strategists are looking for help beyond coastal states.

He is encouraging beach property owners, whatever state they live in, to call their congressional representatives for help. And he is turning attention to appropriations leaders on Capitol Hill. "The decision-makers are not always from coastal states," said Ordal, vice president of Marlowe & Co.

Protection vs. subsidy

Beach nourishment is controversial.

Proponents say the cost of the sand is worth the benefits it provides when hurricanes and nor'easters gnaw the dunes that protect homes, roads and utilities. The Army Corps of Engineers, which constructs the new beaches, won't take on a job unless a study proves that the benefits in storm protection are worth the costs.

Opponents say owners ought to know better than to build on a shifting island, that the costs aren't worth the benefits and that dumping tons of sand could hurt the coastline's ecosystem. They say the new sand amounts to a taxpayer-funded benefit for wealthy, oceanfront property owners.

With the federal government trying to pull out of the beach-building business, local communities are trying to figure out other ways to pay the high costs.

Even locals are torn. Last week, voters in Dare County, which includes the town of Nags Head, repealed a one-cent-per-dollar sales tax devoted to beach nourishment. The sales tax, approved last year, was projected to raise more than $12 million a year.

Muller thinks voters were against the sales tax itself rather than beach nourishment, figuring residents might rather buy sand with property taxes or occupancy taxes.

Splitting the burden

The annual dance with Congress is frustrating to local governments, which are raising money to match federal funds that they expect will come through.