The North Carolina Coastal Federation was awarded more than $1 million to help prevent shoreline erosion in Carteret and Pamlico Counties. Funding from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation will go towards the construction of two large scale living shoreline projects in Atlantic and Oriental. The project in Down East Carteret County is next to a community harbor which is experiencing significant erosion of several feet per year, said Lexia Weaver, a coastal scientist with the Federation.
“We are putting in living shorelines to help reduce the wave energy, reduce the boat wakes and protect that shoreline from further erosion.”
The project calls for 2,000 feet of living shoreline in Atlantic. Weaver said the shoreline stabilization technique is a more effective and sustainable option for erosion control than constructing a bulkhead.
“When you have a bulkhead, what happens is that wave energy, it has nowhere to go, and it hits that seawall and it ends up scouring and taking away all of that valuable marine habitat in front of it. But with a living shoreline, water still passes through at a lower wave energy and you can still keep that habitat.”
Another living shoreline project at Whittaker Pointe in Oriental will prevent erosion and stabilize about 1,500 feet of shoreline. Construction on both projects is slated in summer 2019 with completion expected in 2020.