Coastal Resources Commission Chair Renée Cahoon (standing) speaks at the end of the public hearing held at Jockey’s Ridge State Park in Nags Head on Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024. Daniel Govoni of the NC Division of Coastal Management (left) was the public hearing moderator. (Photo by Corinne Saunders)
By Corinne Saunders
NAGS HEAD — In a rare public meeting where attendees expressed unity, Dare County residents from Duck to Manteo on Tuesday afternoon spoke in favor of reinstating the area of environmental concern (AEC) protections for Jockey’s Ridge State Park.
The public hearing took place in the community room at the Jockey’s Ridge State Park visitor center. It is part of the formal process in the latest attempt by the Coastal Resources Commission (CRC) to reinstate park protections, which restrict development and sand removal. The Rules Review Commission rejected the CRC’s previous reinstatement attempts this year.
The CRC adopted an emergency rule reinstating the protections effective Jan. 3, but that expired May 13, according to NC Division of Coastal Management information.
About 50 people attended the public hearing, and 17 spoke. Each speaker, from citizens sharing personal anecdotes to government officials reiterating formal resolutions, received resounding applause.
Members of the public can also submit written comments through Nov. 4. People can email DCMcomments@deq.nc.gov with “Jockey’s Ridge” as the subject line or mail comments to the NC Division of Coastal Management at 400 Commerce Avenue, Morehead City, NC 28557.
The Division of Coastal Management will “prepare a summary of all the comments” and submit those to the CRC for its consideration at its next meeting, Nov. 13-14 in Ocean Isle Beach, said Daniel Govoni, division staffer and the public hearing moderator.
Craig Honeycutt, chair of the nonprofit Friends of Jockey’s Ridge State Park, said at the hearing that he and his family live next to “this beautiful sandbox.” He described the park as an important unifying force.
“It’s a place where so many people come to feel like they are connected to nature, to themselves and to their fellow humans,” Honeycutt said. Restoring the AEC “is an easy action to take to show the outside world that we as a community and state are actually on the same team.”
Jockey’s Ridge was the only state park created within municipal boundaries: it is within the Town of Nags Head.
Nags Head Mayor Ben Cahoon reiterated the support for reinstating park protections that he and other town leaders have consistently shown since the protections were dropped.
“I have spoken, and on behalf of the Nags Head Board of Commissioners, we’ve written letters [and] passed resolutions,” Cahoon said. “If I thought repeating all those comments more shrilly or louder would do any good, that’s what I would do, but they’re on the record already. So I would just say please take the action to make the rules permanent at Jockey’s Ridge. That’s what the Town of Nags Head—and that’s what everyone—wants.”
Ann-Cabell Baum speaks in favor of reinstating protections for Jockey’s Ridge State Park at the public hearing held at the park’s visitor center in Nags Head on Tuesday, Oct. 15, 2024. (Photo by Corinne Saunders)
Ann Cabell-Baum shared how her late mother, Carolista Baum, kickstarted Jockey’s Ridge preservation efforts in 1973 after Ann-Cabell Baum and her two siblings—then “three little kids…playing on the dune”—encountered a bulldozer beginning work to develop the area.
Carolista Baum was a driving force in establishing Jockey’s Ridge State Park, which happened in 1975. Now, it’s often North Carolina’s most-visited state park.
“She would be devastated to know there wasn’t an AEC designation in place, much like yourself,” Ann-Cabell Baum told attendees. She said she spoke for herself and for her siblings in favor of protecting this “very special natural resource” for generations to come.
What led to this
The protections were struck from the North Carolina Administrative Code on Oct. 5, 2023, two days after the General Assembly passed its budget bill, in a move that sent shock waves through the local community—including longtime CRC Chair Renée Cahoon, a Nags Head resident.
The CRC regulates development in North Carolina’s 20 coastal counties.
“We’re in unchartered waters,” Cahoon said at the end of the public hearing.
The CRC had readopted the Jockey’s Ridge rule “numerous times” over the decades without incident, Cahoon said. But the rule was among 30 CRC rules “suddenly dropped without even our knowledge or consent” after the state’s codifier of rules, Ashley Berger Snyder, was newly granted the power to do so through the 2023 state budget.
Snyder is the daughter of Senate President Pro Tempore Phil Berger (R-Rockingham).
The CRC first established its rule designating Jockey’s Ridge an AEC in 1984, following community concern that commercial mining of park sand “could have a negative impact on the integrity of the dune system and surrounding environment,” according to the NC Division of Coastal Management’s “Fiscal & Regulatory Impact Analysis” report Govoni prepared.
The proposed rule text notes that “Jockey’s Ridge is the tallest active sand dune (medano) along the Atlantic Coast of the United States.” It says that the state geologist has identified the area as containing a “unique geological formation.”
The proposed rule includes use standards that are nearly identical to those of the 1984 rule, according to Govoni’s report.
One of the proposed rule’s stipulations is that the removal of more than 10 cubic yards of sand per year requires a Coastal Area Management Act permit from the NC Division of Coastal Management. Another says that all sand removed under such a permit must be deposited within the park boundaries in areas designated by the Division of Coastal Management in consultation with the state’s parks and recreation division.
“We’re trying again for the fourth or fifth time to readopt this,” Cahoon told public hearing attendees. “I thank you for your support.”
After gaining formal CRC approval, the proposed rule will return to the Rules Review Commission. In prior attempts at reinstatement, the Rules Review Commission has cited issues with the language of the CRC’s rules, including the word “unique” being used in the Jockey’s Ridge rule.
“They were arguing about the word ‘unique’ for a long time,” Cahoon noted, and suggested, “maybe there’s a Webster’s Dictionary that could help them.”
She added, “We’re not going to stop trying. We’re going to keep pushing.”
Of the 30 CRC rules struck at the state level, only two dealt with AECs. The second rule designated Permuda Island in Onslow County as “a significant coastal archaeological resource.”
That rule’s text noted archaeological evidence of human occupation on Permuda Island dating as far back as the Middle Woodland Period of 300 B.C.E. through 800 C.E.
In a brief interview after Tuesday’s public hearing, Cahoon said no process is currently set up to attempt an individual rule reinstatement for Permuda Island. The CRC initiated the process for the Jockey’s Ridge rule because “this was the more vocal and concerned one.”
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