Climate change in coastal county: Think global, act hyperlocal

NAGS HEAD, N.C. — Of all the communities across the United States wrestling with climate change, few face its effects day to day like the strand of coastal islands that make up Dare County.

The county, strung mostly along a chain of narrow barrier islands jutting into the Atlantic Ocean, sits in the path of hurricanes that form in late summer off Africa’s Cape Verde. It has been pummeled by two major storms in the past three years. Sunny-day flooding, when tides and wind push water back into the neighborhoods, has become more common.

And the intensity of both summer afternoon downpours and winter nor’easters has increased, leading to still more flooding. Local leaders know that sometime in the distant future, the islands eventually will slip out from under them.

Residents here have lived with their harsh environment for generations, so many feel confident the county has lessons to offer in how to adapt and survive in a changing climate. In the early 1900s, for example, some coastal houses could be placed on logs and rolled away from the water.

But perhaps the chief lesson is how local officials have managed to sell preparation efforts to a mostly conservative county, against the backdrop of climate change denial in national politics and despite past state and current federal policy that discourages long-term planning.

“We could be an example to the state of North Carolina, to the rest of the country and to the rest of the world in how to deal with a changing ocean, a changing coastline, when your community is completely dependent on the environment,” said Reide Corbett, a coastal oceanographer and geochemist who is also the executive director of the Coastal Studies Institute at East Carolina University, whose office on Roanoke Island overlooks the Croatan Sound.

In the past few years, Dare County and its municipalities, once a series of fishing villages and now also an international tourism draw, have spent millions adapting to the environment — pouring tons of new sand onto eroding beaches, building underground piping systems to pump out stormwater, investing in a new dredge to keep inlets open to boat traffic.

The town of Nags Head, in particular, has earned plaudits for the way in which it developed a long-range plan with groups — such as homebuilders and environmental activists — who often stand at odds with each other.

Published after intense community meetings, the 2017 plan prioritizes stormwater and septic projects over the next 10 to 20 years. Two pennies per $100 of assessed value on the property tax brings in nearly $475,000 a year now for stormwater projects. Three of 13 recently planned projects are under construction. And a separate, multimillion-dollar beach renourishment project, using 4 million cubic yards of sand dredged from the bottom of an inlet and piped onto the beach, is expected to be finished by September, paid for with a mix of local, county and federal funds.

“They’re really on the leading edge of thinking about how to prepare for the future,” said Megan Mullin, who studies public policy and environmental issues at Duke University’s Nicholas School of the Environment. “More communities are taking that seriously than we give them credit for. In Nags Head and Dare County, that really is happening.”

Still, some critics say Dare County hasn’t done nearly enough to stop new development of massive vacation homes and otherwise keep property out of harm’s way.

“No, I can’t really defend Dare County,” said Orrin Pilkey, a longtime geologist and professor emeritus at Duke University who has criticized coastal development.

“This is dangerous stuff,” Pilkey said. “Why build those big buildings so close to the beach?”

But the secret to what they have accomplished, folks in Nags Head say, is to focus solely on what’s in front of them.

“We don’t think it’s constructive to get into the causes of sea level rise,” said Nags Head Mayor Ben Cahoon, a Republican. “But we see flooding issues, and we’re addressing it. It’s going to get worse.”

Dare County’s Roanoke Island was settled by English explorers in 1587. That first colony later disappeared, thought by many researchers to have blended with a local indigenous tribe, and its whereabouts remain a mystery. (Tribune News Service)