What Needs to Be Measured and Reported?

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March 2018 - The Pine Island beach sand volume study was a good piece of engineering work, but its focus was more on basic coastal environmental science using the scientific community’s standards of cubic yards of sand in different regions.  This way of reporting the results is fine, but it missed the four most important metrics relevant to the health and economic well-being of a beach vacation community.  These should be part of the requirements for the Currituck County study. (March 2018)

1.    What is the width of the dry sand beach between the toe of the dune and the mean high-tide line, i.e. the width of the public dry beach? This gets directly to the issue of our relative attractiveness to beach vacationers and our beach’s tourist capacity, especially for renters of non-oceanfront properties.  It is also information easily extracted from the elevation data that is being collected in the traditional surveys.

2.    What is the average elevation of dry sand beach? This combined with beach width gives you a metric of how the beach will act to protect the frontal dune from storms by slowing the wave action before it impacts and undermines the dune face. Again information easily extracted from the elevation data normally collected to measure sand volumes.

3.    How close is the toe of the dune to the closest element of residential infrastructure? – pool, septic field, water wells (Corolla Light) or house?   This gets to the issue of how much time is left before significant property tax value loss occurs.  This can be estimated from the GIS database aerial surveys.

4.    How many cubic yards of sand would be required to raise the elevation of the dry sand beach and extend the beach width to be able to provide adequate width for vacationers and adequate protection of the beachfront property tax base?  (The estimated costs for cubic yard for current projects is well known.  I assume that your office is also aware of the time it takes to get permits and arrange contacting for the projects.)

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Ed Cornet

Ed Cornet, PhD, is a long time Currituck resident in Corolla. He has over six years of service as a member of the County's Economic Development Advisory Board and the Land Use Plan Steering Group. His business career was in high-tech industries and as a Partner of Booz Allen Hamilton. He has served on several corporate Boards. After retiring from business Ed was a Professor in the Kenan-Flagler Business School of UNC Chapel Hill where he established the STAR Program guiding MBA students to help NC businesses.