September 2, 1999

DENNIS STEALING AWAY THE SHORELINE

from The Washington Post

REHOBOTH BEACH, Del - A third to a half of the white sandy beach in this popular resort town has disappeared, carried out to sea and blown away by Tropical Storm Dennis.

Dennis has accelerated a natural process, the constant shifting of grains up and down the coastline and in and out of the shore.

Although jetties and seawalls are built, and sand is dredged and pumped, the beach is nearly as fluid as the ocean. Sand recognizes no state boundaries, moving back and forth between Delaware's southern beaches and Ocean City, Md., about 20 miles to the south.

Saturday, October 9,1999
THE PHILADELPHIA INQUIRER

Floyd runoff creates aquatic 'dead zone' - By Estes Thompson

ASSOCIATED PRESS

RALEIGH, N.C. There is a new problem from Hurricane Floyd's deluge: Sewage-tainted floodwaters are creating a growing "dead zone" in Pamlico Sound where fish and other aquatic life cannot survive, scientists said, yesterday.

The brown freshwater plume containing human and animal waste is flowing into coastal estuaries. It sits atop the salt water, robbing the salt water of oxygen from air and reducing its salinity. Both ingredients are essential for aquatic life.

"What we're seeing is an ecological event on the catastrophic scale," said Hans Paerl, a marine scientist at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

Floyd dumped 20 inches of rain on eastern North Carolina on Sept. 16, killing at least 48 people as it flooded hog lagoons and sewer plants, homes and cars. The resulting sludge is flowing from the Neuse and Tar Rivers into Pamlico Sound, the nation's second-largest estuary, and from the Cape Fear River near Wilmington into the Atlantic. The largest affected area is a 350- square-mile expanse of Pamlico Sound and part of Core Sound.

Paerl said he found drastically low oxygen levels in the bottom waters of Pamlico Sound _ 1 milligram per liter, compared with the normal 7 milligrams.

While fishermen have to avoid the dead zone, they still have been able to catch fish and shrimp in areas not affected by the dirty water said Nancy Fish, a spokeswoman for the state Division of Marine Fisheries. Initial testing showed the catch was safe to eat. But Paerl and other scientists said it may be next spring or summer before the runoff's effect on the sound and the Atlantic is known

The situation in Pamlico Sound especially concerns scientists because pollutants won't readily be flushed into the ocean.