Protect North Carolina Coasts from Coastal Armoring
Protect North Carolina coasts from coastal armoring and increased coastal erosion.
Coastal erosion is a major problem in North Carolina and across the Southeast. North Carolina’s beautiful barrier islands face particularly challenging coastal erosion problems. Barrier islands are always changing shape as waves erode beaches and deposit sand onto the back side of the islands. Storms also cause significant changes to barrier islands. As storms increase in frequency and intensity, and coastal erosion issues accelerate, North Carolina’s coasts and coastal communities need resiliency solutions.
However, North Carolina’s new proposed solution S1009 is a major step in the wrong direction. The North Carolina Legislature has long acknowledged that hardened structures are not appropriate solutions to coastal erosion issues. In 2003, North Carolina banned hardened structures to protect NC coastlines from accelerated coastal erosion through the Coastal Area Management Act (CAMA). Hard structures such as jetties and terminal groins alter natural shoreline processes. The ban passed because the alterations from hard structures cause increased erosion for neighboring beaches. In other words, hard structures move coastal erosion problems elsewhere, they do not solve them. In April 2026, the NCGA put forth Senate Bill 1009 to repeal this ban. As erosion issues accelerate in areas like the Outer Banks, it is imperative that this ban stays in place.
Surfrider is opposed to hard armoring of sandy beaches everywhere. Hard structures do not offer long-term solutions for communities, they only offer short-term relief for property owners and high tax burdens for all North Carolinians. Surfrider’s North Carolina network seeks to protect North Carolina’s coastlines and communities by advocating to keep the state’s hardened structures ban intact. North Carolina’s pristine barrier islands and sandy shores exist because of the current ban on hard structures, one of the strongest and most protective of beach ecosystems in the nation. Surfrider is working to educate members of the state legislature about the harmful effects of hard structures to North Carolina’s beautiful coastlines and surrounding communities.