File:Coast watch (1979) (20039149813).jpg

Title: Coast watch
Identifier: coastwatch00uncs_11 (find matches)
Year: 1979 (1970s)
Authors: UNC Sea Grant College Program
Subjects: Marine resources; Oceanography; Coastal zone management; Coastal ecology
Publisher: (Raleigh, N. C. : UNC Sea Grant College Program)
Contributing Library: State Library of North Carolina
Digitizing Sponsor: North Carolina Digital Heritage Center

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prospective waterfront development to the Division of Coastal Management. Yet, by early February, they had not applied. Plans are under way for construction in the South Water Street district, Merritt says. The city of Wilmington is preparing an overall plan for the district — including the riverwalk, shops and restaurants — that is expected to be
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Merritt surveys the Wilmington waterfront from his building presented to the Division of Coastal Management early this year. "The funny part about it is that you're not talking about very much land," Merritt says, referring to proposed South Water Street development. "You're probably talking about a maximum of four to five buildings, but you would think we were trying to build the Brooklyn Bridge." Once complete, the development will give the public something it hasn't had before, says Wilmington Assistant City Manager Michael Hargett. "The land is in private hands, so through this cooperative effort, the public would be afforded contact with the river in an area with high demand for pedes- trian access to the water." Even environ- mentalists agree that the Wilmington developers' plan is not a threat to the environment. Pricey Taylor, a member of the Coastal Resources Commission, the policy-making arm of the Division of Coastal Management, describes the Wilmington plan as a good one, designed to revitalize an aban- doned waterfront. However, she says, the stage is now set for environmental abuse under the new law. "Part of the way the law reads (is that) the cities and local government agencies can deter- mine environmental impact of the proposed develop- ment," she says. "It's scary to think the local government is going to decide if a proposed develop- ment has an environmental impact or not, particularly when the alternative is increased tax revenue." City officials like Hargett maintain that they will be vigilant. "We believe that there are sufficient restrictions to limit the type of develop- ment that occurs," he says. "The city of Wilmington is certainly committed to utilizing those provisions to ensure the development is suited to the location." The law, in effect, has removed certain projects from CAMA standards designed to protect the environment, says Robin W. Smith, state assistant attorney general and counsel to the Coastal Resources Commission. "(The Division of) Coastal Manage- ment has some fairly specific development standards that apply to activities in public trust waters — activities ranging from pier construction to dredging and excavation, and many of those standards, which have been fairly developed over the last 20 years, simply cannot be applied." It's a concern echoed by the Army Corps of Engineers, the federal regulatory agency that also oversees such develop- ment. Until the law passed, the corps and the Division of Coastal Management jointly issued permits to save time and avoid duplication. With the state agency's hands now tied so that it can no longer reject certain permits, the corps has reverted to issuing its own permits for urban waterfront development and is doing its own environmental assessments, says Wayne Wright, chief of the corps' regulatory division for the Wilmington district. "Very frankly, there are not many local governments that are really qualified to evaluate that (environmental impact) adequately, at least for federal purposes," he says. Since the 1980s, corps headquarters had encouraged its agencies to rely on a state permit program, when one existed, that would adequately cover the corps' environmental and navigational concerns. "This legislation, in this particular instance, forces us to reject that process for this type of development in the future and to require separate permits because the state is no longer able to take care of our concerns," Wright says. At the Division of Coastal Manage- ment, Director Roger Schecter points out that the division and the Coastal Resources Commission support the concept of redeveloping waterfronts. "Urban waterfront redevelopment has always been a good use of a water- front," he says. "The difficulty has been 18 SPRING 1998

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