This is the first of a five-part series Changing Tides originally published by Carolina Public Press with support from the Pulitzer Center.

A small net dipped into a patch of grass submerged in shin-deep water near the edge of a salt marsh on the central North Carolina coast. 

Retired National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration scientist Jud Kenworthy of Beaufort lifted the net to reveal a colorfully striped juvenile pinfish, no bigger than a pinkie, among the strands of green and brown vegetation.

Pinfish are among dozens of fish species residing in estuaries for part of their lives, grazing on underwater grasses. Eventually, schools of the small fish, distinguished by a sharp dorsal fin, will spawn offshore in large groups and be hunted by predators: groupers, snappers and dolphins. 

Their journey ends when hooked by a recreational angler from a pier or captured by a commercial fishing vessel to be used as bait for a bigger catch. 

But the pinfish depends on the rich estuarine habitat that flourishes along the North Carolina coast — an ecosystem that relies heavily on a meadow of grass covered by 12 inches of salt water where land and sea merge. The threat of climate change to those seemingly mundane patches — which are seldom above water — is a threat to the entire oceanic ecosystem. 

Indeed, the insidious impact of climate change on North Carolina’s coastal fisheries — the species in the water and the people who catch them, study them, sell them and eat them for dinner — may lie in murky meadows of submerged aquatic vegetation, or SAV. 

The unnoticed foundation

Kenworthy anchored his small vessel in Back Sound, between Shackleford Banks and the mainland of Carteret County. The east end of the sound is framed by two barrier islands, separated by a narrow inlet, which meet at a 90-degree angle at Cape Lookout. The junction forms what looks like the apex of a tensioned slingshot, ready to blast its ammunition inland.  

“North Carolina is at this unique biogeographic boundary,” said Kenworthy, a thunderhead bulging over the Atlantic Ocean behind him. “There are probably only two or three places in the world like this, where major ocean current systems overlap and collide.” 

From Corolla to Calabash, a confluence of tropical water from the Gulf Stream blends with a countercurrent of chilly sea transported on the Labrador Current from the North Atlantic, nourishing the grasses. 

The unique mingling of seawater yields expansive meadows of both tropical and cold-temperate marine grass species that permit a year-round supply of vegetation supporting one of the world’s most diverse ocean habitats.

The ecosystem is a crucial variable to untangle not just how changing temperatures and rising sea levels will impact the grasses on which the scientist is standing, but how the marine organisms that live in North Carolina’s coastal waters — everything from microscopic critters to sharks — will respond to climate change.

Once regarded as a nuisance, ecologists now deem seagrass as vital to the health of coastal waters and communities. The vegetation absorbs excess nutrients, producing oxygen and capturing carbon dioxide. The grass also blunts the wave energy that erodes shorelines, slowing the persistent creep of barrier islands toward the coast. It also serves as a nursery habitat, providing food and shelter for a range of organisms.

Kenworthy, an adjunct faculty member at UNC Wilmington and a member of the scientific and technical advisory committee of the Albemarle-Pamlico National Estuary Partnership, became fascinated with seagrass while growing up in coastal Rhode Island. 

In the early 1900s, European scientists identified seagrass as an important component of coastal ecology. However, interest in its ecology languished for decades.

“There were few people who really knew enough to care about seagrass,” Kenworthy said. 

That is until the 1970s, when renewed interest intersected with a surge of research funds.

Kenworthy was one of a handful of students funded by the National Science Foundation to study seagrass in the ’70s. At the time, little was known about its habitat and ecological function. 

In the 1980s, as a member of a NOAA team, he helped create the first maps of seagrass habitat. 

Based on those and more recent observations, North Carolina has somewhere between 100,000 and 130,000 acres of seagrass in addition to other SAV species that are equally important but harder to map, tucked behind the barrier islands and in estuaries up and down the Carolina coast. 

In the ’80s and ’90s, experts began to notice that poor water quality was decimating seagrass in the Chesapeake Bay and along the Florida coast, but North Carolina was spared because of the high quality of its estuarine waters. 

SAV, like an average front lawn, requires light to survive, making diminished water quality and higher sea levels its enemies.

“Think of a green, yellow, red scale bar to measure the quality of seagrass,” Kenworthy said. 

“We have a lot of yellow, a healthy amount of green and a few red. With climate change coming at us, all of our yellows will be red. Greens will become yellow because of things that are stressing the system. 

“Nowhere are we seeing increases in seagrasses in North Carolina. That’s unacceptable.” 

And one thing is clear, Kenworthy said: “If you don’t have seagrass, you’re going to lose these fisheries.”

‘You can’t hide from a warming ocean’

Climate change affects creatures around the world. But land animals may have a slight advantage over marine species in running from the ill effects of global warming: the ability to escape. 

While a fox can find shade in a grove or move to the north side of a ridge, a fish can’t hide from ocean warming.

As a result, said Rutgers University research ecologist Malin Pinsky, oceans and marine species are feeling the impacts of climate change because they are more sensitive to temperature change and respond faster than species on land.

“When I was starting my career, there was so much discussion about climate change impact on land, but there was very little discussion about the oceans,” he said. 

“Because marine species are especially sensitive, we’re seeing responses in the ocean that are five times faster than what’s observed on land. You can’t hide from a warming ocean.”

A central question for scientists, including Pinsky, is how the transition will take place. “Climate variability and ocean warming are not abstract future problems,” Pinsky said. It’s here already, he said.

More evidence shows that ocean temperatures are increasing off the North Carolina coast, particularly in the winter, said Jim Morley, a scientist at East Carolina University’s Coastal Studies Institute.

Oceans serve as a giant heat sink for the globe. Without oceans, people on land would experience dramatically higher temperatures. The oceans absorb the majority of the excess heat. Because they distribute the heat widely, ocean temperature gains are subtle.

Nevertheless, even a small change in ocean temperature can have a profound impact on how marine species respond. For example, as an ocean warms, it loses oxygen, threatening the survival of species that require oxygen from the water. 

As ocean conditions alter, the likely result will be a massive rearrangement of marine life. 

Some species may move north or south as ocean temperatures and currents are altered. Other species may thrive on the change to Carolina’s coastal waters, while still others are depleted. 

“With climate change, in North Carolina, there are going to be winners and losers,” Morley said. 

The results are already evident. North Carolina historically is at the northernmost boundary for commercial quantities of white shrimp, which do poorly in cold water. But the shrimp, one of three marine crustacean species harvested in North Carolina waters, have multiplied at a surprising rate over the last decade in Pamlico Sound.

According to the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries, white shrimp made up 10% to 37% of the annual total catch between 2015 and 2019, up from 0% to 8% between 1994 and 2015.

For commercial fishing enterprises, the boom is good news, bringing a longer season for the consumers who covet the shrimp for dinner.

In 2019, the Jacksonville Daily News reported that shrimp trawlers were landing enormous hauls of white shrimp, upward of 20,000 to 30,000 pounds.

Ashley O’Neal, owner of O’Neal’s Sea Harvest in Wanchese, told the Daily News that in the past, 12,000 pounds was a good catch.

“This 30,000-pound stuff is unheard of,” O’Neal told the Daily News.

Nevertheless, while white shrimp have moved in, summer flounder are leaving Carolina waters, forcing other commercial fishermen on longer voyages to capture their federally allotted quota.  

Pinsky described recent research examining large trawl boats from Beaufort, whose primary catch is summer flounder. In 1996, the fleet fished mainly off the Carolina coast. Over time, however, the average catch location moved north, and it is now primarily fished off the coast of New Jersey.

As summer flounder have migrated north, fishermen must take longer, more expensive trips requiring larger boats to travel longer distances.

The puzzle for scientists, Morley said, is that climate change effects don’t happen overnight. 

“To really understand potential impacts of climate change, you really need to look at a long series of data,” he said. “The focus of our work is trying to identify the species that might be subject to the greatest amount of change due to ocean warming.”

‘We are drowning marshes’

Understanding and predicting how fisheries are changing may help regulators too.

Federal authorities, primarily the NOAA Fisheries (the National Marine Fishery Service), manage marine fisheries within the U.S. exclusive economic zone extending 3-200 nautical miles off the coast. Individual states are responsible for fishery management from their coastlines out to 3 miles.

“Fishermen are at the absolute tip of the spear of climate change. We are on the front line,” said Tom Roller, a fishing guide in Beaufort who is serving his second term on the N.C. Marine Fisheries Commission. “Our role is to manage the fish that are in the water.”

Even without a warming climate, Roller told Carolina Public Press that it’s a difficult job.

“The biggest challenge is trying to maintain a viable coastal economy. It’s a balancing act. At the end of the day, our role is to manage the fish that are in the water. But at the same time trying to identify the big picture of what’s causing changes to fish stocks, such as water quality and climate change. 

In North Carolina, the state Division of Marine Fisheries stewards the state’s coastal fisheries, working in conjunction with the nine-member N.C. Marine Fisheries Commission. The governor-appointed commission adopts rules and management plans within its jurisdiction. 

The Marine Fisheries Division develops fishery management plans for commercially and recreationally significant species or fisheries, such as red drum, southern flounder and shrimp.

Plans are also supported by the independent research of scientists, including Pinsky and Morley, as well as the observations of commercial and recreational fishermen.

“If climate change proceeds too quickly and if we continue emitting these really high greenhouse gas emissions, there will be dramatic disruptions and unpleasant surprises,” Pinsky said. 

Yet, fisheries management plans are not driven solely by science. There’s a complex calculus in managing fisheries that also considers the communities and individuals that depend on healthy fish stocks. 

“I worry about the human side and how we adapt in a way that is equitable and leads to a fair distribution of resources,” he said. 

“I’m worried if ocean resources change too quickly, it’ll spark conflicts, and we’ll end up just fighting among ourselves over the scraps that are left. 

“I think there are worrying signs that we may head down that path if we don’t get our act together and start planning for change rather than hoping things will stay the same. The oceans are largely hidden from our daily lives, so we don’t realize this massive rearrangement of life just off our coast.”

Marsh ecology

What not be may be evident to visitors and residents of the coast is that vast salt marshes protect North Carolina’s shoreline and serve as crucial habitat for fish species. 

Unlike seagrasses, which are below the water’s surface, the rich green salt marshes are coastal wetlands flooded and drained by tides. 

The salt water flowing in and out fosters a staggering amount of diversity, providing food, refuge or nursery habitat for more than 75% of fisheries species, including shrimp, blue crab and finfish.

“Seagrass and marshes are dynamically interacting with each other,” said Kenworthy. “Many species need both, and we are just now beginning to insert a way of thinking into this process at larger scales and time frames.”

Carolyn Currin, a research scientist at NOAA’s laboratory in Beaufort, studies their microbiology. Microscopic organisms, which flourish in marshes and seagrasses, are the basis of a vast food chain.

Salt marshes make up roughly 8,000 miles of North Carolina’s 12,000 miles of estuarine shoreline, she said. 

However, rising sea levels are altering the marshes.

“Water is inundating the lower and upper elevations of the marsh for a longer period of time,” Currin said. “So, the whole community of marsh has to respond to increasing periods of flood.”

The increased flooding may have meaningful consequences for the marsh ecosystem since there is a narrow sweet spot of sea level where marshes can thrive. 

As salty ocean water floods inland and into estuaries, it can mow down plant life in salt marshes due to increased salinity, lack of sunlight and diminished oxygen. 

Plants at the edge of marshes are more resilient to being covered periodically in seawater. However, some marsh grasses that sit on higher land are less accustomed to seawater and less likely to adapt to higher seas and being submerged more often as sea levels rise.

For eons, marshes have responded to sea level changes and flooding by building elevation. As organisms die and add to the biomass at the base of the marsh, they also move inland to higher ground. This time, human development on land and changing topography may inhibit their migration.

 “There is a limit to how fast they can keep up,” Currin said. “The problem is that we are getting to the higher end of that limit. We are drowning marshes.”

Much of Currin’s work is developing and examining the effectiveness of different shoreline stabilization efforts, an approach that emphasizes nature-based infrastructure instead of hardened materials, such as a bulkhead or a sea wall.

For example, the North Carolina Coastal Federation released and facilitated a five-year oyster restoration and protection plan in April, designed to reconstruct a living, healthy shoreline.

But Currin is skeptical about the potential to reverse the damage.

“Now we’re thinking that those low marshes won’t be around in 10-20 years,” she said. 

“Those marshes will not be fish habitat if they are underwater most of the time. We really need to think about the future and come up with habitat restoration plans that will be resilient to an extra 6 inches to a foot of sea in the next 25-30 years.”

From the helm of his vessel, Kenworthy yells over the din of the wind and outboard engine about why he thinks people should care about seagrass, notwithstanding its invisibility to those passing by it, or over it, in boats at 10 knots.

The potential losses

“Seagrass doesn’t have the profile of a charismatic species like a sea turtle or a manatee,” he said. The mundane grass also lacks the culinary prestige of an oyster.

A sensible way to grab people’s attention, he thinks, is to draw a connection between a species that recreational and commercial fishermen like to catch and the health of the meadows of seagrass.

A recent study examined the value of two species prized by weekenders from Raleigh — spotted sea trout and red drum, as well as one of the most valuable North Carolina commercial products, blue crab. Each of the populations hinges on the health and existence of the marshes and seagrasses where they spawn, nourish and grow.  

The report by Duke University and N.C. State University measured the economic losses of losing submerged aquatic vegetation. The report estimated that a 5% loss of SAV over a decade would cost the state $8.7 million, and a 50% loss of SAV over a decade could cost $88.8 million.

While it may be too late to counter rising seas, protecting water quality is still within our control, Kenworthy said. Clear water means more sunlight and the possibility of balancing the consequences of higher water.

That means working with public agencies, such as the N.C. Division of Water Quality to regulate and enforce nonpoint sources of pollution, such as sediment from construction or fertilizer from farmland. 

Additionally, thoughtful land use policies to organize development, and manage stormwater and wastewater will help alleviate future impacts of growth.

In North Carolina, for example, excessive sediment and nutrients from storm runoff have contributed to declining water quality in the Albemarle and Pamlico sounds. 

Meanwhile, Shackleford Banks and other barrier islands are continuing their slog toward the continent as waves, wind and storms sweep sand from their beaches.

The grassy marshes capture and stabilize the sediment to slow its creep. Submerged aquatic vegetation and marsh also store vast volumes of “blue carbon,” greenhouse-gas causing carbon dioxide stored in the plants and their sediment. As long as it remains stored, it won’t add to the atmosphere’s oversupply of CO2.

Securing the marshes, Kenworthy said, are meadows of seagrass.

“Seagrass sets the stage for everything,” he warned. “Losing it threatens the entire system. It’s the driver of our fisheries. That alone justifies its protection.”

Coastal Review is partnering with Carolina Public Press to provide readers with more environmental and lifestyle stories of interest about our coast. 

Reprinted from Carolina Public Press

The Oceanana Fishing Pier in Atlantic Beach lost 150 feet of boardwalk along with the Barnacle Bar in a record high tide and tidal surge during Hurricane Florence in 2018.

The storm crashed into land near Wrightsville Beach then tortured the central North Carolina coast with fierce winds, devastating rain and a record-breaking storm surge of 13 feet that submerged the Oceanana’s deck.

Florence could have been a terminal blow to the 60-year-old pier, which also sustained damage from Hurricane Irene in 2011.

But Trace Cooper and his family, the owners of the pier, decided to rebuild in spite of the potential for more frequent and punishing storms in the future due to climate change.

According to Cooper, who also serves as Atlantic Beach’s mayor, it wasn’t an easy decision. In fact, the fate of the Oceanana and other ocean piers in North Carolina may be in peril, threatened by climate change, ebbing demand and rising real estate values.

Cooper told CPP that the cost to repair the pier is roughly $1,000 per foot. The last rebuild in 2018 and 2019 was nearly $300,000. Since the price of insurance is prohibitive, the Coopers incurred the entire cost to restore the pier.

“If you do the math, if we go 15 to 20 years without a hurricane, it makes sense to rebuild,” he said. “We’ve lost the pier twice in a decade. That’s never happened before.”

In the 1990s, Bogue Banks, a 21-mile barrier island near Morehead City, once anchored seven ocean piers to its shore.

Today, there are just two on the island; the 1,000-foot-long Oceanana is one of them. Two piers in Atlantic Beach, the Sportsman’s Pier and the Triple S Pier, were razed in 2006 to make room for development.

The other remaining structure, the Bogue Inlet Fishing Pier in Emerald Isle, was placed on the market earlier this month. Its future is uncertain. The asking price is $18 million.

The heyday of seaside piers, Cooper said, was the 1950s and 1960s.

Cooper’s grandfather A.B. Cooper built the Oceanana Fishing Pier and a motel in 1959. The 8-acre property bounded by State Road 58 on one side and the Atlantic Ocean on the other also includes several dozen vacation trailers whose owners lease land from the Oceanana.

“For a long time, if you wanted to fish on the ocean, you had to go to a pier,” Cooper said. At the height of the pier boom, in 1980, there were 36 ocean piers along the state’s coast.

Now, according to Chris Wilson, who collects recreational fishing data for the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries, 20 coastal piers remain in operation.

Excluding the state-owned Jennette’s Pier in Nags Head on the Outer Banks and the town-operated Oak Island Pier south of Wilmington, all are private enterprises.

Cooper attended college in New York and worked as an attorney in Silicon Valley. But in 2011, he returned to Atlantic Beach to operate the family’s business. Since his return, aside from a recent spike in visitation, the number of pier anglers has diminished.

Cooper attributes the decline in the Oceanana’s fishing business to the relatively low cost of financing a boat. Longer loan terms and low borrowing rates have eased the purchase of oceangoing vessels and, perhaps, has made pier fishing less of an attraction.

In 2015, when the Oceanana began collecting data, 20,036 people paid $10 per day  — it’s now $12 per day — to fish from the pier. Walking, visiting the bar or sightseeing from the pier has no fee.

In 2017, 17,171 people fished at the pier, a 14.3% decline from 2015. In 2019, only 11,369 paid to fish from the Oceanana, although storm damage and construction closures resulting from Florence, Cooper said, contributed to the decline.

Wilson with the division said that since the state agency began collecting data in 2012, North Carolina piers have averaged 340,000 users per year. Casting aside 2018 and 2019, which were impacted by Hurricane Florence, Wilson said use is trending upward slightly.

Still, Cooper isn’t hopeful that the Oceanana’s numbers will resurface, nor is he banking on it.

According to Cooper, 25% of the revenue comes from fishing passes, bait, tackle and rod-and-reel rental, but the majority of the revenue is generated by the motel and the restaurant in the pier house.

Piers that rely only on fishing may have more incentive to sell to a developer, especially if the price of scarce oceanfront property continues to rise.

“The pier is an amenity for the hotel and helps us rent rooms,” he said. “We have a reason to rebuild that a stand-alone pier doesn’t.”

Providing habitat for coastal species

A primary reason that anglers are drawn to piers is that the structure orchestrates a lush habitat of marine life. Barnacles and sea urchins form on the pylons and provide a smorgasbord that feeds a range of fishes, including northern puffers, sheepshead and Atlantic spadefish.

They also attract hunter species, such as southern flounders, which visit piers seeking prey.

Discarded carcasses, tossed by anglers, are a substantial food source for rays, crabs, sharks and birds. And the elevated boardwalk provides a better vantage than the shore for saltwater anglers who pursue Spanish mackerel and spotted sea trout.

According to Wilson, the biggest catches by weight from North Carolina’s ocean piers in 2019 were bluefish, Spanish mackerel, kingfish, pompano and pufferfish.

Anne Deaton, a division habitat manager, said the habitat that developed along barrier islands, such as Bogue Banks, has been transformed by humans and nature over time.

Geologically speaking, barrier islands are offshore deposits of sand separated from the mainland. The sand is perpetually shifted during floods, and the dunes roll toward the mainland during storms.

To protect property and counter shore erosion, beach nourishment projects have altered the marine landscape along the shore of the islands.

“We’re putting sand over the shallows near the shore,” Deaton said. The result is a rising sea floor below the pier, which means that species, such as spot and croaker, are now farther from the beach.

Many barrier islands also have muddy sloughs — deep, underwater troughs running parallel to the beach. Fish travel them looking for food, such as crabs or sand fleas.

“Old-timers have told me that there were muddy sloughs near the surf break that attracted shrimp” and other predators at Atlantic Beach, Deaton said.

But the bottom of nourished beaches can become hard from additions of mud, sand and shells. The near-shore sloughs are often covered, making it difficult for small flounder to burrow or mullet to feed. That loss of habitat, whether caused by storms or human-made projects, is a major fisheries management concern.

Piers as an economic asset

Saltwater fishing and marine habitat, however, aren’t the only assets piers offer.

Like lighthouses, they are public goods. That is, they are an economic good in which users can’t be excluded and also provide a community or civic benefit.

For example, the breaking waves near the Oceanana and other piers along the eastern coast are hallowed waters for surfers. By forming sand bars, piers enhance the waves that reliably peak on either side of the structure.

And while occasionally visitors may have one too many beers and tensions sometimes flare between surfers and anglers, Cooper said the Oceanana remains committed to his grandfather’s vision of building a family-friendly operation.

In the ’30s and ’40s, Atlantic Beach, Cooper said, was initially developed and funded, in large part, by Eastern North Carolina tobacco money. But after World War II, the eastern end of Bogue Banks attracted middle-class farmers from Kinston, Goldsboro, Wilson and Greenville.

By the 1980s, condominium complexes rose. In the 1990s and 2000s, single-home development filled in empty spaces. Now, Cooper said, 95% of land in Atlantic Beach is developed. Predictably, multimillion-dollar homes are replacing modest beach cottages.

“This town reflects the evolution of North Carolina,” Cooper said. “It’s more affluent in Eastern North Carolina than when it was primarily agricultural. What happens in Raleigh will happen here.”

Based on ZIP codes, Cooper said, Wake County residents are the largest group of homeowners in Atlantic Beach.

The grill fare in the Oceanana’s Pier House Restaurant also reflects the economic status of visitors to Atlantic Beach. On the menu, fresh, local seafood has supplanted hot dogs.

Yet the pier has remained more pluralistic, economically speaking, than perhaps the rest of Atlantic Beach. Much like public spaces and public parks, piers may be more inclusive and a shared place because of the low entrance barriers.

“Piers offer access to people from all walks of life, a wide range of income, different races and different levels of fishing ability,” said John Hadley, an economist with the South Atlantic Fisheries Management Council who authored an NCDMF social and economic study of piers in 2012.

“Many are also handicapped-accessible. They are pillars of the beach community. North Carolina is pretty unique in the number of ocean piers. They are one of the defining features of the North Carolina coast.”

Wilson added that piers are a microcosm of fishing society.

“You’ve got your tourists and cliques of regulars – the pier rats that you see over and over again. It’s a microcosm of fishing society. When one pier disappears, it’s a loss.”

Indeed, a characteristic of a public good is that private parties may struggle to profit, which undermines their incentive to provide them.

While some have suggested that the state should build additional public piers, such as Jennette’s Pier, not everyone is on board with that idea.

“You want to maintain the public benefit and access, but at the same time, not inadvertently put other piers out of business that have been operating for decades,” said Hadley.

Unexpectedly, Cooper said, after fishing resumed during phase 1 of the state’s reopening from the coronavirus pandemic this spring, the Oceanana experienced a spike in the number of anglers.

“The pier was a godsend during March and April and kept our people working,” Cooper said. “It’s the first time we leaned on the fishing business in a while.”

Despite the economic slowdown caused by the pandemic, Cooper said he is preparing plans to redevelop the property.

The outdated motel and pier house will be replaced, and owners of trailers who lease land are on notice that redevelopment is imminent. That portion of the property will be replaced by vacation rentals.

While the buildings and space will get a fresh look, Cooper said the pier will remain.

That is, as long as Mother Nature allows.

“If a hurricane happens again this year, it wouldn’t make sense economically to rebuild the pier,” he said.

“It’s all private money. We want to continue to have public access, but there’s no state or federal money to help us. There is a reason there aren’t a lot of piers left: They don’t make great businesses.”

Coastal Review Online is partnering with Carolina Public Press to provide readers with more environmental and lifestyle stories of interest about our coast.