THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, September 29, 1995 TAG: 9509290495
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY BETTY MITCHELL GRAY, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 69 lines
Next week, North Carolina will begin imposing fees for marinas and other businesses that use state waters, but the fight over whether and how much to charge these businesses may not be over.
While marina operators along the state's coast may be ready to apply for easements under a new law that goes into effect this weekend, some environmental groups say the new law violates the state constitution and sacrifices public access to the state's waterways for private property interests.
And as the Department of Administration's state property office scrambles to prepare application forms for the new easements, environmental lawyers are mulling how and when to challenge the new law.
``We're trying to get our ducks in a row so that we can begin issuing easements in October,'' said Joe Henderson, head of the state property office, the agency that will oversee the state's new easement program. ``For new marinas, the . . . permit will serve as the easement application. For existing structures we're trying to keep it as simple as we can.''
Henderson said the agency's work is made harder because the General Assembly, which approved the new easement program this summer, did not appropriate any money to implement it.
Manteo marina owner Harry Schiffman, a member of a legislative committee that studied the issue of easements earlier this year, said the law as drafted by the legislature is a fair compromise.
``No one ever gets everything they want in a bill,'' he said. ``But all-in-all it ended up doing the job that the legalese people felt needed to be done.
``I think is is a good piece of legislation for all concerned.''
The law, which takes effect at 12:01 a.m. Sunday, generally authorizes the state to issue 50-year easements to commercial docks, marinas and similar structures built over navigable waters for a $1,000-per-acre fee, with the option to automatically renew the easement for an additional 50 years.
Owners of all new structures must apply for easements after they receive permits from the Division of Coastal Management that would allow construction to proceed. Owners of existing structures can voluntarily apply for easements.
The law includes language that stipulates that easement holders cannot prevent the public, including commercial and sports fishermen, from using waters covered by the easement.
These changes were intended to prevent waterfront property owners from obtaining an easement and then barring the public from using the waters before a structure is built in the area covered by an easement.
But one Chapel Hill lawyer questioned this week whether the new law will stand up to a legal challenge, despite the changes.
The idea of ``giving away state resources has been a problem all along and remains a fundamental problem with the law,'' said J. David Farren, with the Southern Environmental Law Center. ``By putting only a token value on that resource, the state is going to encourage a further proliferation of the sprawl on the water to the detriment of the public.''
Farren and spokesmen for some of the state's largest environmental groups argued in the legislature earlier this year for fees based on the fair-market-value of state waters. They said the $1,000-per acre fee and offsetting credit equals a ``give-away'' of public trust waters.
Because of offsetting credits based on the amount of waterfront owned, some large waterfront property owners could receive easements for little or no charge, they warned. by CNB