Coastal Services Center

An ocean and a sea separate coastal resource managers in the Southeast region of the U.S. The challenges managers are successfully addressing and see still looming in the future often can be determined by whether their state's coastline touches the Atlantic or the Gulf of Mexico.

While many of the coastal resource management issues are similar between the Gulf and the Southeast Atlantic, a few areas stand out. For instance, the Gulf of Mexico has the most offshore oil and gas production in the world, and is responsible for about 90 percent of America's offshore production. Also, the mainland's only coral reefs can be found in the waters off the shores of Florida and Texas.

The water bodies aren't the only differences found along the coastlines in this region, which includes the states between North Carolina and Texas. Shorelines vary from 359 miles in Mississippi to 8,436 miles in Florida. Residential and commercial development pressures are intense in those states, but are comparatively light in other states, such as Georgia and Louisiana.

"We have one of the smallest coastlines, only three counties, yet those three counties are like one city end to end," says Steve Oivanki, director of the Coastal Ecology Office of the Mississippi Department of Marine Resources. "We're pretty well developed, where a lot of places, like Louisiana and Texas, have stretches of undeveloped land. We don't have that luxury, and have to take a lot more care with what's left."

To help protect those undeveloped natural resources, both Georgia and Texas received federal approval for their coastal management programs within the past four years. Other regional coastal resource agencies receiving federal approval in the 90s include Ace Basin National Estuarine Research Reserve (NERR) and North Inlet-Winyah Bay NERR, both in South Carolina; Grand Bay NERR in Mississippi; Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary; and Flower Garden Banks National Marine Sanctuary off the coasts of Texas and Louisiana.

Other programs in the region include the North Carolina NERR and Monitor National Marine Sanctuary in North Carolina; Sapelo Island NERR and Gray's Reef National Marine Sanctuary, both in Georgia; Rookery Bay NERR and Apalachicola Bay NERR, both in Florida; and Weeks Bay NERR in Alabama. All the other states in the region have coastal zone management programs, and all the states are represented by Sea Grant programs.

Past Planning

Many of the region's coastal management agencies have had much success in the 90s working with various levels of government within their states to support and help produce comprehensive management plans.

"One of our big steps forward has been in coordinating efforts to take a sustainable approach to managing South Florida's ecosystem," says Billy Causey, superintendent of the Florida Keys National Marine Sanctuary. The 1994 Governor's Commission for Sustainable South Florida brought federal, state, and local officials, industry, and community groups together to "come up with a vision for sustainable development" for the southern portion of the state from about Orlando to the Keys. "Our economy depends on a healthy environment. It was critical for managers in our state to look upstream for potential problems and solutions."

Mississippi brought stakeholders together to create a comprehensive resource management plan addressing the growth brought about by the gaming industry (see related article in the January/February 1999 Coastal Services), and Louisiana's Department of Natural Resources spent 18 months working with constituents to produce Coast 2050, a management plan incorporating science, and economic and policy issues to deal with coastal land loss.

"In the past, we've had 35 to 50 square miles a year in land loss," explains Jack Van Lopik, executive director of the Louisiana Sea Grant College Program. "Anybody who has a problem with coastal land loss can learn from what Louisiana has gone through in the Coast 2050 exercise."

Georgia is taking a little different approach in that it is providing funding to local governments to implement comprehensive management plans. "Our future lies in decisions made at the local level," says Stuart Stevens, administrator of the state's Coastal Management Program. "In Georgia, [local governments] have to have a plan, but they don't have to implement that plan. To encourage implementation, we're willing to pay. We've got to get local governments to make better decisions to protect coastal habitat."

Local officials as well as students and teachers are the target audience of numerous education successes in the region. For instance, Rookery Bay NERR started a series of Coastal Decision Maker Workshops that have been incorporated as an educational tool throughout the national reserve system (see related article in August/September 1998 Coastal Services), and Georgia provides workshops to local officials and businesses to help them understand the resources and the laws and regulations that protect them. South Carolina Sea Grant has COASTeam, a program training science teachers, and North Carolina's reserves have a live Internet link between scientists and staff in the field and classrooms around the state.

"Government programs, nongovernmental organizations, and traditional marine labs are working together to raise the level of understanding of the general public and policy makers about problems in the coastal zone," says Rick Wallace, leader of the Alabama Sea Grant Extension Program. "As a result, I'm seeing a different attitude toward development and the use of resources in the marine environment."

This change in awareness, managers say, has led to successes that range from No Take Zones being established for fishermen in Florida to a No Hardening Rule in North Carolina that prohibits the construction of bulkheads, seawalls, or other coastal erosion structures on the state's beaches.

Future Needs

While much progress has been made in educating the public and decision makers about coastal issues, many of the managers interviewed for this article say more work needs to be done in the coming decade. "Our greatest success will come when people in middle America understand that they have an impact on the ocean," Causey says.

Impacts from population growth along the coastline were cited as the managers' number one concern for the future. "We're a rapidly growing area, which is great on one hand, but it's also our biggest problem," notes Oivanki. The managers agreed that continuing to broaden partnerships and taking a watershed approach to management were important to successfully addressing the increasing pressure on environmental resources.

Other future issues cited include wetland protection, restoration, and mitigation; coastal hazards; the need for improved technical training and information management; continued problems with coastal erosion; tensions between those utilizing traditional fishing techniques and aquaculture; restoration of coral reefs; dredging; and beach nourishment. A region specific issue that was cited was the struggle over revenue from oil and gas development to address the industry's environmental impacts.

Wallace says, "It's going to be quite a challenge to maintain our resources in a way that will keep them as desirable as they are today. My perception of the region is that we still have some wonderful, relatively undeveloped areas. The opportunity remains for some planning and wise development of our coastal resources."