In the wake of Hurricane Floyd's destruction, North Carolinians struggle to rebuild their lives, and the State struggles to provide adequate disaster assistance. The thousands of people in eastern North Carolina who have lost their homes and their jobs need all the assistance our State can offer. But before public money is used to rebuild homes, businesses, and farms, the State should relocate these structures so they will not be repeatedly damaged by storms. The destruction caused by recent hurricanes-Fran, Bonnie, Dennis, and now Floyd-suggests that development in wetland and coastal areas has proceeded without adequate consideration of the cost to taxpayers and the environment.

The Cost to Taxpayers

The average cost of a natural disaster is around $500 million with the cost increasing as coastal regions become more developed.¹ A 1983 study found that, on average, flooding caused over $90 million in p roperty damages each year in NC. An initial figure for Hurricane Floyd damage is $1.3 billion, but this figure is expected to increase and exceed the $6 billion tab for Hurricane Fran. Current estimates of damage include 3,680 homes destroyed, 4,282 homes with severe damage, and 7,890 homes with minor damage.²

Throughout the years, the State has spent millions of dollars on efforts to protect homes and property from storm damage. Along the coast, seawalls and other state-funded erosion control projects may benefit some owners of beachfront property, but they often increase erosion of other beach areas and limit citizen access to public beaches. Similarly, state policymakers have spent millions on flood control structures, such as dikes and dams, yet these structures have encouraged development in low-lying areas. The recent flooding of Princeville, NC, a town surrounded by a dike built in 1965, illustrates that such areas are still at risk and that flood control devices ultimately cannot control rising waters. By allowing and, in some cases, encouraging development in wetland areas, the State creates great costs to taxpayers.

The Cost to the Environment

The cost of coastal development is not just measured in dollars, but also in environmental damage. Development on fragile beaches can increase erosion, flooding, and environmental destruction further inland.³ In addition, population growth along the coast has spawned subsequent growth in infrastructure, industry, and agriculture-all of which can negatively impact the environment. For example, with more people comes the need for more public works, such as sewage and water treatment facilities. These facilities, sometimes located in flood plains, have had major waste spillage during storms. After Hurricane Fran in 1996, Triangle sewage treatment plants dumped 120 million gallons of raw sewage into local streams and river. Two weeks after Hurricane Floyd came through the state, 14 sewage treatment plants remained under water.⁴

Similarly, 50 hog lagoons were flooded after Hurricane Floyd.⁵ The rapid expansion of intensive livestock operations in the eastern part of NC has created environmental problems with stormwater runoff. Waste from NC's 9 million hogs is stored in open pit lagoons.⁶ The heavy rains from recent hurricanes caused several waste lagoons to overflow and spill nitrates and coliform bacteria into nearby creeks and streams. These waste by-products are harmful to marine life and to humans when they seep into streams and well water.

Nonpoint source pollution, caused by rainfall washing chemicals over and through the ground into waterways, accounts for 96 percent of all pollution in NC's streams and rivers. Of that total, agriculture is responsible for 67 percent.⁷ To prevent runoff, wastewater, and manure from entering waterways, NC enacted regulations for large animal confinement facilities. These facilities are required to store wastewater and runoff in structures that can control discharges resulting from a storm, the severity of which occurs, on average, every 25 years and lasts for 24 hours.⁸ Unfortunately, the State does not have enough inspectors to guarantee that pork producers are in compliance with the regulations. Without more resources for policing hog operations, over-capacity lagoons will continue to overflow from heavy rains.

Changes to Cut Future Costs

Increasing inspections of hog operations is just one action that state lawmakers can take to lessen storms' environmental impacts. A law passed in 1997 prohibits the location of any component of a liquid animal waste system within a 100-year flood plain, but 100-200 hog operations still remain in flood prone areas.⁹ Environmental groups have urged the government not to allow the rebuilding of hurricane-damaged swine operations in flood plains. A plan from the Environmental Protection Agency calls for federal assistance to help producers move their lagoons to higher ground.¹⁰ Public money, however, should not go to wealthy, corporate hog producers. Producers who can afford to relocate their lagoons should be required to relocate without the use of tax dollars.

North Carolina can also restrict industrial and housing development in flood plains. For example, the Coastal Resources Commission should follow through on plans to require a 30-foot buffer between buildings and public surface waters. Currently, new oceanfront structures must be a certain distance from the sand dunes. Applying setback requirements to structures near inland waterways would also reduce the risk to life and property, protect the environment, and reduce the amount of tax money spent on disaster assistance.¹¹ Furthermore, lawmakers should end state expenditures that support private coastal and wetland development, including roads, dikes, and other public works that support high-risk areas.¹² Relocation of flood-prone buildings and prohibitions on coastal development will save taxpayers money in the long run.

Ultimately, the State should take steps to reduce future costs of natural disasters. Unwise coastal development threatens not only tax dollars. It also endangers residents' lives, lessens public enjoyment of natural resources, and threatens the future of NC's coast and wetlands. It's time the State made a wise decision to invest in its coastal resources by protecting them from further development.

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¹ National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). 1998 (on-line). "Population at Risk from Natural Hazards" by Sandy Ward and Catherine Main. NOAA's State of the Coast Report. Sliver Spring, MD: NOAA.
² Glasscock, Ned, James Eli Shiffer, and Jerry Allgood. 10/1/99. "Officials Survey Damage." The News and Observer.
³ Searchinger, Timothy. 1992. "Private Property Rights and Environmental Harm." Environmental Defense Fund Column, Vol. XXIII, No. 4.
⁴ Glasscock, Ned, James Eli Shiffer, and Jerry Allgood. 10/1/99. "Officials Survey Damage." The News and Observer.
⁵ Glasscock, Ned, James Eli Shiffer, and Jerry Allgood. 10/1/99. "Officials Survey Damage." The News and Observer.
⁶ "September 1, 1999 Hog Inventory." http://www.agr.state.nc.us/stats/livestoc/anihgi09.htm.
⁷ Soil Facts: Agriculture and Coastal Water Quality. North Carolina Agricultural Extension Service.
⁸ Danielson, Leon E., and Vernon Cox. November 1994. "Agriculture and the Coastal Nonpoint Pollution Control Program." NC State University Applied Resource Economics and Policy Group.
⁹ Estimate from the NC Department of Agriculture, Division of Aquaculture and Natural Resources.
¹⁰ Glasscock, Ned, James Eli Shiffer, and Jerry Allgood. 10/1/99. "Officials Survey Damage." The News and Observer.
¹¹ "Rebuilding After a Hurricane: Some Questions and Answers." NC Division of Coastal Management.
¹² "A Blow to the Rivers." 9/15/96. The News and Observer.

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