Currituck to rebuild dunes with Christmas trees

CURRITUCK COUNTY, N.C. 

Currituck County is collecting Christmas trees to rebuild dunes damaged during the November storm.

Plans are to erect sand fencing about 10 feet from the base of the eroded dunes near public property and attach Christmas trees with biodegradable string.

Sand blowing inland would catch in the trees and fencing and over a season or two rebuild the dunes, said Brenda McQueen, superintendent of buildings for the Currituck County Public Works Department.

"We're helping Mother Nature with her efforts," McQueen said.

Christmas trees should be brought to recycling centers free of decorations and tinsel, McQueen said.

In Corolla, trees should be dropped off at the water plant.

Mark Hocutt, site superintendent for the Grandy recycling center, had collected seven trees by Thursday piled next to the back fence.

"We had two come today," he said. "After New Year's then they'll be coming on in here."

The Nov. 11-13 storm brought winds gusting up to 60 mph, and up to 7 inches of rain washed away about half of the dune line protecting million-dollar beach homes in Corolla.

Dunes were cut off sharply like cliffs 10 to 15 feet tall.

Wooden walkways were torn away, often leaving a platform hanging in the air where the dune once supported it.

The county has 14 pedestrian ramps and three vehicle ramps in Corolla, where dunes were damaged.

In the four-wheel-drive area, access points from the beach to the communities were damaged and could lead to severe flooding near the fire station and the recycling center in Carova.

The county does not plan to restore dunes on private property.

About one mile of fence costs $4,815, McQueen said. Two to three rows of fencing of 8-to-10 foot lengths will be put up near the dunes. The county will not get state or federal assistance.

Dunes with a scarp or cliff face will typically recover on their own and about as quickly as they would with fencing and trees, said Spencer Rogers, a coastal construction and erosion specialist with the North Carolina Sea Grant program and co-author of "The Dune Book."

"Sand is not going to blow up and over the scarp," he said.

Rogers' book suggests Christmas trees as an inexpensive method of building dunes where storms have flattened the beach.

When waves wash away dunes, the sand remains close by in the near shore, he said. As time passes, wave action returns the sand to the beach and winds blow the beach sand inland.

In one or two seasons, most of the dunes will return, he said.

Even if another winter storm hits soon, sand bars left by the last storm would help knock down the wave action, he said.

"The sand they lost does not go away," Rogers said.

In the 1930s and 1940s, 1,500 government workers built dunes from the Virginia line to Ocracoke using more than 600 miles of sand fencing.

Some areas such as South Nags Head and Rodanthe have chronic erosion where dunes will stop encroachment of the sea, Rogers said.

State maps show an erosion rate of two feet or less in the Corolla area. In the four-wheel-drive area, the erosion rate is 7 to 8 feet per year.

Jeff Hampton, (252) 338-0159, Jeff.Hampton@pilotonline.com