More North Carolinians than ever are turning to outdoor recreation as a safe and healthy way to spend time with friends and family.

As the number of visitors increases on the state’s trail system, the trails may require more maintenance, a problem compounded by the effects of more frequent extreme weather. 

North Carolina State Parks reported 19.8 million visitors to its parks and recreation areas in 2020, 2 million more than in 2019, an increase likely associated with the COVID-19 pandemic.

In 2021, visitation grew even more with parks reporting 22.8 million visitors, 3 million more than any previous year on record.

Coastal region trails specialist for the North Carolina Trails Program Bob Taber explained how trails have become popular since COVID-19.

“Whether we’re talking about county parks, state parks, or federal parks, we are seeing a huge influx of people getting out and enjoying trails,” he said.  “And they took a huge hit as far as maintenance.”

COVID-19 is not the only factor influencing the management of North Carolina trail systems. Taber told Coastal Review, “A higher frequency of flooding and drought conditions will play a paramount role in trail maintenance.”

He explained that more extreme weather can cause issues such as trail tread erosion and washed-out boardwalks.

“Changing times means our trail designs need to adapt,” said Taber.

Development director of the North Carolina Conservation Corps Jan Pender said more trails will require intervention and attention as the frequency and severity of storms increases.

“You have so many more places where they’re getting washed out and need more severe intervention,” she said.

Trail design and maintenance

The 2021-22 state budget added $91 million for state and local parks along with trails and beach access. An additional $29 million was allocated for state trails projects. 

The Conservation Corps North Carolina partners with the North Carolina Division of Parks and Recreation and other land managers to create sustainable trail systems, while also engaging young people in conservation service projects.

Not only are organizations focused on building new trails, but also maintaining and redesigning old trails. Taber said that state parks are “essentially trying to better design some of our old trails to be more sustainable.”

When designing and managing a trail, many factors are considered, but Taber and Pender expressed the importance of water.

“The main problem with any trail is water. You’re trying to get runoff off the trail as quick as possible and trying to prevent it flowing down the trail tread. So, it’s all in the design,” said Taber.

“One of the big stressors is a lot of these trails are old and were not sustainably laid out,” said Pender. “If they weren’t laid out to be sustainable, you’re just fighting gravity and water erosion all the time.”

Northern NC Reserve trails

Erik Alnes, the Northern Sites manager for the North Carolina Coastal Reserve & National Estuarine Research Reserve, said that location is the first consideration when building trails in Currituck Banks, Kitty Hawk Woods or Buxton Woods.

In an email response, Alnes explained, “This includes looking at the project area to avoid sensitive soils, plan trail paths on higher ground to avoid sensitive wetland areas, avoid steep slopes and highly erodible soils, and avoid areas where there are rare species and communities.”

“The wetland areas of the northern reserves are very fragile, and we have several rare species and communities that have been found on our sites. This includes globally rare maritime forest community types, as well as state and federally threatened plants,” Alnes continued.

Once the trail is constructed, Alnes explained that best management practices are utilized such as maintaining vegetation on the edge of trails along with keeping a layer of organic material on the trail beds to control erosion.

There are more than 25 miles of trail to be maintained at the Northern Sites, and Alnes added “Our trained volunteers are a huge help to keeping trails trimmed back.”

Reserve officials hope to perform a trail-use study in the fall for Kitty Hawk Woods that will likely be replicated in Currituck Banks and Buxton Woods. This type of study will help officials better understand trail usage in their areas and to improve future trail design and maintenance.

Visiting Trails

Whether hiking, biking, running, or horseback riding, eastern North Carolina trails have a lot to offer visitors throughout the year. There are 41 state parks in North Carolina with more than 580 miles of trails.

“We ask visitors to stay on the trails, use designated access points, and respect other users,” said Alnes.

“The increased traffic is a problem to the ecosystem that these trails are in because what happens is they erode, and people make social trails around them. Then they start trampling on fragile vegetation,” Pender said. “If a trail isn’t working for you, try not to go around that trail, but to stay on the trail. Because that’s where the ecosystem becomes threatened — people walking around that trail and creating trails in areas that are fragile.”

To learn more about what eastern North Carolina trails have to offer, visit NC State Parks or the NC Coastal Reserve sites.

North Carolina’s unique barrier island environment attracts millions of visitors each year with its long, sandy beaches, great fishing opportunities and nesting grounds for birds and sea turtles.

The largest crowds are often found mid-June through August, and as one of their busiest weekends approaches, the Fourth of July, the balance between visitor accessibility and park managers’ goals of maintaining and sustaining these areas for future generations to enjoy becomes most critical.

Superintendent of the National Parks of Eastern North Carolina Dave Hallac recently explained to Coastal Review that 2021 saw a record high number of visitors to Cape Hatteras National Seashore. Around 3.2 million visitors flocked to the area during the year, compared to about a million visitors per year less a decade ago.

“Just the number of people that are here cumulatively can have impacts on the seashore in general,” Hallac said.   

Protecting North Carolina’s barrier islands from the effects of so many visitors takes a community effort from nonprofit organizations and federal and state agencies such as the National Parks Service, the Division of Coastal Management and its Coastal Reserve and National Estuarine Research Reserve program, along with law enforcement agencies and volunteers. Making sure the islands are preserved during peak season includes considering fire safety, maintaining trail and off-road vehicle access, and creating wildlife protection areas.

Fireworks

The use of fireworks is a major problem that comes with Independence Day at Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Hallac said. Fireworks are illegal on all lands managed by the National Parks Service.

“Unfortunately, we are finding ourselves cleaning up hundreds if not thousands of fireworks. So that’s definitely an issue. The bigger concern is that those fireworks could start fires and have impacts either on the natural landscape or on the developed areas next to the park,” he said. 

The National Fire Protection Association found that an estimated 19,500 fires were started by fireworks in 2018 in the United States. And over a quarter of the fires started by fireworks from 2014 to 2018 were reported on the Fourth of July.

Beach driving

Cape Hatteras National Seashore offers annual and 10-day off-road vehicle permits for beach access. Impacts from inappropriate off-roading include damage to dunes or dune vegetation, along with safety hazards for visitors and wildlife.

“Even something as simple as airing your tires down to better drive on the beach can reduce the rutting and impacts on the beach itself and make it a safer place for other people to drive,” Hallac said. “There are other impacts that can occur. For example, when people are speeding, it can cause a safety impact and can also disrupt wildlife.”

South of Cape Hatteras, officials at Cape Lookout National Seashore also take steps to minimize the effects off-road vehicles can have.

Watch for wildlife

Cape Lookout National Seashore Chief of Interpretation and Education and Public Information Officer BG Horvat said park officials take precautions, such as blocking vehicle access to wildlife protection zones and areas of the beach where there are shorebird or sea turtle nests.

Shackleford Banks is part of Cape Lookout National Seashore and is populated by feral horses believed to have arrived on the island via a shipwreck in the late 1500s.

“Leave the horses 50 feet of space if you’re going to go see them, the length of a bus, and respect the wildlife that lives there,” Horvat said.

Pack out your litter

Horvat stressed that, when visiting Cape Lookout, it’s important to know that there aren’t many amenities at Cape Lookout National Seashore.

“You need to be self-sustained and have everything you need, and be prepared to take it out with you. Go and have a good time, but pack out your trash,” said Horvat.

North Carolina Coastal Reserve Southern Sites Manager Elizabeth Pinnix also stressed the importance of packing out your trash when visiting Masonboro Island, part of the North Carolina National Estuarine Research Reserve and one of the state’s most popular island destinations for the Fourth.

“Leading up to the holiday weekend, we install additional signage on the high traffic areas that remind people to pack out their trash. So, anything you pack in, you need to pack out to follow guidance that’s on the island,” she told Coastal Review.

The nonprofit Masonboro.org, along with the Division of Coastal Management, have made progress in driving home that message.

Masonboro.org, whose mission is to protect public access, promote responsible use and preserve the traditions of Masonboro Island, conducts litter cleanups on the undeveloped island. In 2015, volunteers with the group picked up their largest quantity of July Fourth trash, 5,800 pounds. In 2018, volunteers picked up about 1,800 pounds of trash on the holiday.

Since then, less than 1,000 pounds of trash has been picked up each year. That’s partly due to COVID-19 travel reductions but also thanks to education and outreach efforts. But there’s more to be done.

“Masonboro.org volunteers are staged on the northern portion of the island where most visitors land their boats on the Fourth of July – there are still 7 more miles of island that are not being actively cleaned up on the Fourth,^” Pinnix said. “Marine debris and litter, just like our erosion on beaches, is something that all our coastal beaches encounter. So, we are doing our best and doing our part to help with the marine debris problem in our state.”

Pinnix added that endangered species are nesting during the island’s peak season for visitors, including loggerhead and green sea turtles. She stressed that visitors should be aware of these nests.

As for how to balance public access and sustainability, “It’s something that we’re going to have to keep thinking about and moving towards,” Pinnix said. The sites should remain open and visited by the public, she said, because, “part of the reason we have such an appreciation for nature is because people are able to go out and enjoy it.”

Work to spread that message continues, she said.

“I think increasing our education and involvement with the public is going to be something big moving forward. Keep people engaged and understand that the systems are changing. And we want them to be here for as long as possible,” Pinnix said.

The lower Neuse River is known for many things, including sportfishing and magnificent and serene views from homesites, campgrounds and parks, but increasingly often during this time of year, a foul stench begins arising from its waters.

Harmful algal blooms and fish kills can affect recreation, business and property values, and create unsafe and undesirable environmental effects.

“The last five summers there’s been quite a few blooms that have really worried people enough to where property values are starting to be at risk because of summertime blooms, or people can’t enjoy swimming off their dock,” Dr. Nathan Hall of the University of North Carolina Institute of Marine Sciences recently told Coastal Review.

The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality submits a biennial list of the state’s impaired waters to the Environmental Protection Agency under the Clean Water Act. The draft impaired waters list for North Carolina released for public comment earlier this year is part of an effort to address poor water quality conditions across the state, but it also prompts questions about how to best carry out any restoration work and which water bodies should be listed.

The public comment period on the draft ended in April.

Once a water body has been listed as impaired, the state must develop a restoration plan that includes standards for reducing pollution — a path to improved water quality.

Nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus are found naturally in ecosystems, but when overly abundant in waterways, they can create algal blooms that, in turn, can reduce the amount of oxygen in the water and cause loss of marine life, including fish kills.

Areas experiencing an excessive growth of microscopic and macroscopic vegetation are known as nutrient sensitive waters. Waters classified as nutrient sensitive waters in North Carolina include the Neuse, Tar-Pamlico and Chowan River basins, the New River watershed in the White Oak River basin, and the Haw River watershed.

Waterways not listed

EPA guidance suggests that nutrient sensitive waters are at least “expected not to meet standards,” and are impaired for designated uses due to excessive nutrients. This means that pollution may make the waters unsuitable for recreational use, public water supply usage or consumption of its fish or shellfish. However, some waterways, such as the Chowan River and Albemarle Sound often experience large algal blooms and are not listed as impaired by nutrients on the North Carolina impaired waters list even though they are showing visual evidence of nutrient overloading. These waterways have been experiencing algal blooms in recent years to an extent not seen since the 1970s.

“I think right now that Chowan and Albemarle Sound are areas that need a lot of attention pretty quickly, because there’s some pretty massive harmful algal blooms,” said Dr. Jud Kenworthy, a former research biologist for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

Kenworthy explained that the budgeting and scientific monitoring issues “can’t be separated. They go hand in hand.”

“The state government just doesn’t spend enough money and that’s the problem. And so, trying to adopt some sort of criteria or standard in our estuaries is going to require vastly increasing the money we spend on the people and the infrastructure to actually do the monitoring,” he said.

Excessive algal growth occurs in a setting of abundant nitrogen and phosphorus coupled with conditions of warm temperatures, plentiful sunlight and still waters. Water quality standards for nitrogen and phosphorus are not in place in North Carolina. Instead, North Carolina uses chlorophyll a as an indirect indicator of the amount of algae that is growing in the water. As Coastal Review reported last week, this brings into question the efficacy of current standards and tools used to identify potentially nutrient sensitive waters.

Related: NC water quality thresholds may leave seagrass vulnerable

Sound Rivers Tar-Pamlico Riverkeeper Jillian Howell told Coastal Review that the organization often does water quality sampling to detect both organic and inorganic forms of nitrogen, as well as phosphorus.

“We see high or elevated levels of these nutrients. But there’s no standard to compare that to,” she said. “So even though we know that these levels are not naturally occurring because they’re too elevated and it is from like inputs. Whether it be the sources such as stormwater or septic or sanitary or human waste or from animal runoff, the levels are elevated and are too high, but again, there are no standards.”

Public health

The presence of these excess nutrients is not only a problem for the ecosystem, “it can also be a public health-related issue,” noted Howell.

Exposure to harmful algal blooms can cause serious health problems including rashes, stomach or liver illness, respiratory problems and neurological effects. Toxic water conditions create unsafe conditions for pets and livestock as well. Exposure can lead to illness in animals or death.

Fish kills are the visual evidence of impaired waterways but also a blind spot.

“It feels like lots of folks are kind of desensitized to this because it is a regularly occurring thing now that we see,” Howell said. “But just because it happens frequently, that doesn’t mean it’s normal. That’s a sign that waters are in distress and that the nutrient burden is too much for our waterways.”

Dead zones

Nutrient pollution can create areas with little or no oxygen known as dead zones. Once the harmful algae die, they are decomposed by bacteria, which removes dissolved oxygen from surrounding water. One prominent example of a dead zone in the United States is in the Gulf of Mexico. Kenworthy explained that in the late 1990s and early 2000s there was a substantial effort to educate farmers that people across numerous states were contributing to the pollution of the Mississippi River watershed, which stretches all the way from northern Minnesota down to Texas.

There is a possibility of dead zones developing in North Carolina waterways. Kenworthy said, “What people need to understand from inland areas and the Piedmont is that if you’re in a watershed that’s delivering surface water to an estuary, the impact is going to have a really wide scope.”

Thick, murky algal blooms also block sunlight from reaching the bottom of the waterway preventing the growth of underwater vegetation.

“There were a few fairly large-sized seagrass beds along the northern shore of Albemarle Sound in the Edenton area. Five or six years ago, they were pretty expansive, and now they’re gone,” Hall said. The loss of underwater vegetation creates shoreline loss and changes in the marine environment.

Pollution sources

The sources of the nutrient pollution include agricultural and urban runoff, wastewater treatment plant discharges and air pollution.

Stormwater runoff can carry nutrients from urban or agricultural lands and they accumulate in surface waters and groundwater. Wastewater treatment plants, home septic systems and animal waste also are primary sources of excessive nitrogen and phosphorus in waterways.

Fossil fuels emit large amounts of nitrogen into the atmosphere that can slowly infiltrate waterways.

Hall explained that everyone is contributing to the problem and that it’s going to take people being aware that it’s not just agricultural fields and big point sources, but also things like lawns.

“There are things people can do, and if everybody did it, it would probably make a difference” in restoring and protecting North Carolina waterways, he said.

One way reduce your nutrient footprint is to apply fertilizers only when necessary, avoid application before windy or rainy days, use the recommended amount and avoid fertilizing close to waterways. Chemical fertilizers contain nitrates and phosphates that make their way into watersheds mainly due to stormwater runoff.

Other ways individuals can control the amount of nutrients leached into the environment include properly maintaining septic systems, properly disposing of pet waste, planting native plants and using water and energy more efficiently.

Stewardship, along with community awareness and involvement, aids the health of North Carolina waterways. Howell, the riverkeeper, also stressed the importance of paying attention to what’s happening in your local community and being engaged and showing up to public meetings.

“All of these water systems are stressed but they’re not dead,” said Hall of UNC. “They’re still really nice places to visit and canoe and fish and swim.”