THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, May 12, 1995 TAG: 9505120463
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY LANE DEGREGORY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NAGS HEAD LENGTH: Long : 150 lines
In the past 20 years, the East Coast's tallest natural sand dune has buried a miniature golf course, swallowed a house, and spilled more than 20,000 cubic yards of sand onto Soundside Road.
State legislators have allocated almost $400,000 to purchase private property that the inland dune is encroaching on - and spent another $40,000 scooping sand off the street.
On Wednesday night, officials asked the public to help devise a long-term plan to put Jockey's Ridge State Park back in its place.
``It's taken years, and years and years. But we're finally ready to get this project started,'' said George Barnes, who has been superintendent of the 414-acre park since 1979. ``Tonight, we want to hear your ideas.''
A rare geographical formation, Jockey's Ridge is 87 feet tall and 1.5 miles long. Scientists say it is the southernmost extremity of a barrier island dune system that extends north to False Cape State Park in Virginia. The half-mile-wide Nags Head dune is one of North Carolina's five most popular parks, providing a haven for hang-gliders and sunset hikers.
Each year, more than 790,000 people visit Jockey's Ridge.
The dune itself, however, is constantly moving. Although the state set boundaries for Jockey's Ridge when it formed the park in 1975, the sand hill has migrated southwest at ever changing rates. In the past 25 years, the steepest side of the hill has shifted more than 1,500 feet to the southwest.
``We need to decide how to manage this dune and keep it in as close to its natural state as possible. We have identified five options to deal with the way the dune is moving,'' said Marshall Ellis, a Resource Management Specialist from Raleigh's state parks department.
``None of these options are easy. None are inexpensive. None of them just jumps out and screams, `Pick me!'
``It is the nature of these dunes to let it run. But how we're going to let it move and where we want to let it move is what we're here to discuss tonight.''
About 30 people turned out for the evening meeting at the Nags Head Fire Station.
The Friends of Jockey's Ridge, a non-profit support group, raised almost $10,000 from memberships and t-shirt sales to commission new aerial and topographic maps of the park. Wednesday night, a half-century of photographs and cartography of the dune were on display for the first time.
Besides moving southwest, the topographic maps show that Jockey's Ridge also is losing height off its tallest peak. At the turn of the century, the dune was estimated to be about 140 feet tall. In 1971, it was about 110 feet tall - 25 feet steeper than the peak stands today.
Options for preserving the dune, Ellis said, include:
Do nothing. Let nature take its course. That would mean the state could have to keep acquiring private property as the dune engulfs additional lots and homes.
Allow people to haul sand away from private property near the dune and from Soundside Road as the dune blows out of its boundaries.
Stabilize all or part of the hill with grass, trees or other natural vegetation.
Continue a sand removal process, indefinitely trucking sand that spills off the southwest side back to the northeast edge.
Buy land along Soundside Road and let the dune run its course. ``If we do that,'' Ellis said, ``we - or a future generation - will be back here again in 30 years, still searching for a permanent solution.''
Besides natural winds, storms and vegetation growth, development has had a profound effect on the migration - and shrinking - of Jockey's Ridge, state officials said. With buildings between the dune and the beach, sand is not blowing from the beach onto the dune as quickly.
Trees, grass and man-made structures have impeded the natural movement of sand.
``Prevailing winds are still taking sand off the dune, and spilling much of it into the sound,'' Ellis said. ``But it's not being replenished at the same rate. How much more compromise can Jockey's Ridge stand?''
Most of the people at Wednesday's meeting agreed that state officials have to do something to keep Jockey's Ridge from swallowing any more private property.
Participants urged state officials to find a more lasting solution than continually scooping sand with dump trucks. Many said the dune needs to be stabilized - but its height also needs to be preserved.
``You could use sand fences, intelligently installed, to slow seasonal migration somewhat,'' suggested Kitty Hawk Sports owner Ralph Buxton, whose business is directly across the street from the giant dune.
``You also could sell the sand that's being blown onto the road and use that money to run a pipe pumping sand from the sound back onto the dune.''
Barnes said his workers already have experimented with shifting sand fences around according to the prevailing winds.
But by the time the breeze shifts seasonally, the superintendent said, many of the fences are buried so deeply that they cannot be removed. Sand fences, at best, are a temporary fix, he said.
Other suggestions included shoving sand backward - instead of scooping it by the truckload. State officials said that couldn't be done. But Outer Banks Historian David Stick thought otherwise.
``It can be done. Don't be absurd,'' Stick told Ellis and other park spokesmen. ``We've been doing it all our lives down here. Over and over, I've seen people come in here from out-of-town and tell us things that we know aren't true. Jockey's Ridge has been here for more than 150 years. Pushing it back a bit is possible.
``There's another possibility, too,'' Stick said. ``You could keep pouring piles of money into this project and that hill would keep blowing away,'' Stick said. ``I think it would be criminal to keep on this course. A decision has to be made: Either vegetate Jockey's Ridge and stabilize it. Or just let it go.''
Vegetation plans could range from grassing the entire dune, like Kill Devil Hill where the Wright Brothers National Monument sits, to allowing private property owners to vegetate certain parts of Jockey's Ridge. Already, one Soundside Road resident has stabilized a portion of the dune by planting indigenous grasses along the sloped side. Plants and grasses take root in the sand, slowing its movement.
``The only way to save that dune is to vegetate it - period,'' said Soundside Road resident Aubrey Heath.
``But then what are we saving?'' asked Friends of Jockey's Ridge President Peggy Birkemeier, ``a vegetated hill instead of a sand dune?''
During the next year, state officials said they hope to generate a three-dimensional computer model of Jockey's Ridge to project how the dune might move - and at what rate it is migrating. They also plan to collect additional data and commission an environmental impact statement exploring all the alternatives. Within a year, they hope to come back to Nags Head to present their findings - then get additional public input.
``If you're thinking about replenishing sand to keep the dune's high altitude, then you'll also accelerate the forward movement of the dune that's bringing it out of its boundaries,'' said Nags Head Woods Ecological Preserve biologist Barbara Blounder.
``What you're saying is that we're creating our own misery, in a sense, with any solution that would address both concerns,'' said Ellis. ``You're right about that.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo
Map
DREW C. WILSON/STAFF
A school group, above, takes the high peak at Jockey's Ridge State
Park in Nags Head Thursday. The inland dune has been moving, as
dunes do. The map below shows 24 years of migration of the steepest
section of the park. The state formed the park in 1975. More than
790,000 people visit Jockey's Ridge annually.
Graphic
COMMENTS INVITED
State officials are collecting written comments about possible
solutions for Jockey's Ridge State Park. They want the public to
comment about added alternatives or any options that they have
described. Comments will be collected throughout the year, but
officials ask that most be submitted by June 1.
Address comments about saving the sand dune to: Marshall Ellis,
N.C. Division of Parks and Recreation, P.O. Box 27687, Raleigh, N.C.
27611.
by CNB