Surfrider report says state is among least prepared on the East Coast for climate change, rising seas

WILMINGTON -- Days after a federal report issued a harsh warning about climate change, an environmental group said North Carolina's policies leave the state among the most ill-prepared on the East Coast to deal with the effects of rising seas.

The Surfrider Foundation's 2017 State of the Beach Report Card gave North Carolina a cumulative D+ grade for its policies across four topics, including sediment management, coastal armoring, development and sea-level rise. North Carolina fared better only than New Jersey, Georgia and Florida on the Eastern Seaboard.

"Climate change and sea-level rise is going to be problematic, and it's important to take this stuff seriously," said Stefanie Sekich-Quinn, a Surfrider coastal preservation manager.

Late last week, the U.S. Global Change Research Program released the Climate Science Special Report, concluding the Earth is warmer than at any point in modern civilization and that the sea has risen about 3 inches since 1993. During the next 15 years, the sea will rise more, adding another 1 to 4 feet by 2100, depending on greenhouse gas emissions.

In coastal towns from Corolla to Oak Island, governments are being buffeted by the realities of climate change and the demands placed on them by ocean-dependent economies. The sheer length of North Carolina's 325-mile coast -- about half of which is undeveloped -- complicates matters for state agencies that are constantly weighing various interests, said Greg "Rudi" Rudolph, Carteret County's shore protection manager and the chair of the N.C. Coastal Resources Commission's (CRC) advisory council.

"You're going to have a tourism economy, a commercial fishing economy, a recreation economy, ports and things like that," he said, adding, "You have to pick your battles with nature, and sometimes we pick good ones and sometimes we don't."

'Far behind'

Surfrider rated North Carolina as "bad" on both coastal armoring and sea-level rise policy.

Per the report, the sea-level rise rating stems largely from 2012 state legislation that ordered North Carolina agencies to ignore an estimate that seas would rise 39 inches by 2100. The federal report released last week says a 48-inch rise is very much possible, while the possibility of a 96-inch rise cannot be discounted entirely.

Additionally, the 2012 bill -- known as House Bill 819 -- also placed a four-year moratorium on state agencies adopting sea level polices, a ban that expired last July.

States should, Sekich-Quinn said, be taking steps to assess their vulnerability, figure out what's at risk, develop an adaptation plan, implement that plan and then monitor its effects. She pointed to California, which has adopted a sea-level guidance policy, as an example of a state that is ahead.

"Having that prohibitive legislation put your state far behind in the process," Sekich-Quinn said.

Despite the criticism of the 2012 bill -- including some references on late-night TV -- North Carolina has, Rudolph said, taken steps to show how sea-level rise could impact the state.

In 2015, for instance, the CRC's Science Panel conducted a sea-level rise assessment that took into account not only international sea-level projections, but also geographical factors showing the Outer Banks' sinking land means rising waters will have greater effects there than in the state's southeastern corner. Duck, for instance, is expected to have between 5.4 and 8.1 inches of sea level rise by 2045, while Southport can expect between 2.4 and 6.9 inches.

"I don't know of any other state," Rudolph said, "that went to that effort to look at the land movement, separate the land movement from the absolute, then combine it together."

Rudolph also acknowledged that the CRC has taken criticism for only studying 30 years into the future -- a step that was taken in part because it aligns with a normal mortgage rate and is less abstract than a longer time frame.

Spencer Rogers, a N.C. Sea Grant coastal construction and erosion specialist who worked on the sea level rise reports as part of his work with the CRC, said the 2012 legislation did not prevent the state from beginning to adapt to sea-level rise. The original report and its followup, he said, were meant to provide government agencies with a government, not serve as the basis for any regulation.

Coastal communities -- often on the local level -- have, Rogers added, long taken steps to prepare for sea-level rise, even if they aren't explicitly saying so or are reacting to the most recent storm.

For instance, a 2015 coastal adaptation report shows that about 72 percent of the state's coastal population has added at least 2 feet of elevation -- or freeboard -- to their homes because of local building standards.

"Next year's hurricane, last year's storm -- all of that," Rogers said, "is an immediate issue. If making appropriate decisions for sea-level rise is even better influenced by those local issues, then in 100 years sea level won't care why you made a decision."

'At the water's edge'

The Surfrider report is split on North Carolina's building policies, praising coastal rules about how far away from the ocean a structure can be built and a ban on most hardened structures while slamming the state for allowing homes to be rebuilt after suffering storm damage and sandbags on beaches.

North Carolina should, the report recommends, ban sandbags outright, rather than allowing them to be used temporarily and regularly extending terms when the permits expire.

"I think the state's done a good job on the sandbag rules, trying to make them temporary," Rudolph said, "but in practice, that hasn't been the case."

There are, Rudolph said, prominent examples of supposedly temporary sandbags becoming permanent fixtures on the beach in Nag's Head and in Kure Beach. The sandbags are often protecting private developments that would otherwise suffer catastrophic damage from the sea, but the structures can also accelerate erosion on nearby sections of the beach.

"When push comes to shove," he said, "we can't, as a state agency, come in there with bulldozers and all that stuff and take out the bags."

Both Rudolph and Sekich-Quinn noted that North Carolina does have some of the most stringent ban on hardened structures on the East Coast -- exempting, of course, sand bags.

The state also received praise from Surfrider for its setback rules, which shift where homes can be built depending on the size of the proposed building, erosion rates and other geographic features.

"We can still build in the coastal zone, but don't build right up to the sea," Sekich-Quinn said. "The sea has allured us for centuries, and we want to put our toes at the water's edge as much as we can."

Reporter Adam Wagner can be reached at 910-343-2389 or Adam.Wagner@GateHouseMedia.com.