1 Put an environmentalist in charge of protecting the coast. In speaking about his appointment of Bill Holman as secretary of the state Department of Environment and Natural Resources in 1999, former Gov. Jim Hunt said, "I picked the first real environmentalist to head the environmental department in the history of state government." The next governor should follow Hunt's example.

2Appoint good commissioners who don't undercut environmental agencies. The litmus test for any appointments to regulatory commissions should be a pledge that they work on behalf of the public's interest and the state's environment and never to return political favors or promote private agendas.

3 Help coastal agencies do their jobs. The governor's annual budget requests to the General Assembly should be adequate so that coastal environmental agencies have a fighting chance to carry out their existing legislative mandates. The new administration should constantly shield agencies from political interference in their day-to-day decision making. Political decisions need to be made by elected politicians and not state agencies or appointed officials.

4 Declare war on stormwater and stimulate the coastal economy. The Civilian Conservation Corps, called Franklin D. Roosevelt's "Tree Army," is credited with renewing the nation's decimated forests between 1933 and 1942. It also helped stimulate a depressed economy. The new governor should enlist an army of landowners and contractors to renew coastal water quality by getting legislators to provide financial incentives to install thousands of stormwater reduction measures all over the coast.

Channeling significant funding through the established Community Conservation Assistance Program would be a great way to rekindle the coastal economy by putting the private sector to work cleaning up our coastal waters.

5 Promote Low Impact Development. Encourage LID so that it becomes the normal approach to coastal development by promoting its merits and removing regulatory obstacles at the state and local government levels.

6Use trends in shellfish and swimming water quality as the environmental indicators to gauge the effectiveness of coastal management programs. Put a laser focus on protecting and enhancing shellfish and swimming waters along our coast. Success of environmental programs should be measured by their ability to arrest further declines in water quality and to move water quality trends in positive directions.

7 Put "energy" in the governor's Cabinet. Chart a clean, renewable and diversified energy future for our coast. The governor should seek to establish a Cabinet-level energy position to coordinate and promote state energy policy in environmentally sustainable and climate-friendly ways.

8 Shore up beach-management policies and regulations. Public oceanfront beaches should never be sacrificed to protect private oceanfront property. The governor should reaffirm this longstanding state policy by providing the leadership necessary to adopt forward-looking oceanfront management initiatives that will be effective in an era of rising sea levels and more intense storm activity.

9Promote living shorelines. Maryland has a new law that mandates the use of living shorelines wherever they are feasible to deal with erosion along the estuarine shoreline. Meanwhile, North Carolina still allows for this prime fisheries habitat to be walled off with vertical bulkheads even when more natural approaches to controlling erosion are practical. The governor should insist that North Carolina follow Maryland's lead and go on to become regional leaders.

10Promote green and efficient infrastructure. Push for expanded trust fund budgets and disaster mitigation funds so that coastal lands and easements can be purchased to protect and restore water quality, provide for public access and shield development from dangerous storm surges and winds. Guide financial investments in new infrastructure (sewers, highways, etc.) into those communities that effectively promote land use patterns that are efficient to service and designed to protect sensitive environmental areas.

(Todd Miller is executive director and founder of the N.C. Coastal Federation (www.nccoast.org).)

Get it all with convenient home delivery of The News & Observer.