. Coast watch. Marine resources; Oceanography; Coastal zone management; Coastal ecology. water quality ; This was the case on Howe Creek. Before it was closed by nonpoint pollution in December 1991, it had been the only New Hanover County tidal creek still open to shellfishing. One by one, all of the county's other creeks had been partially or entirely closed. Residents, however, were blindsided by the closure because Howe Creek had been protected as a shellfishing area and an ORW. It was the only tidal creek in the county with this level of protec- tion, meaning that it had exce
. Coast watch. Marine resources; Oceanography; Coastal zone management; Coastal ecology. water quality ; This was the case on Howe Creek. Before it was closed by nonpoint pollution in December 1991, it had been the only New Hanover County tidal creek still open to shellfishing. One by one, all of the county's other creeks had been partially or entirely closed. Residents, however, were blindsided by the closure because Howe Creek had been protected as a shellfishing area and an ORW. It was the only tidal creek in the county with this level of protec- tion, meaning that it had excep- tional water quality, no known point sources of pollu- tion and a high resource value when it was designated in 1989. As such, it has been pro- tected from cer- tain development since that time. Construction within 575 feet of the water must be low-density, covering no more than 25 percent of a lot. Increased buffer zones of vegetation are required, and no dredge or fill activities are allowed near significant shellfish areas But all to no avail. Howe Creek was closed even though recent development has met these ORW standards. Follow-up investigations by DEM and Shellfish Sanitation have not yielded much information on specific sources of bacteria, says Beth McGee, an environ- mental supervisor in the water quality planning branch of DEM. Because the pollution sources are mostly nonpoint, they're washed from a large land area and are very difficult to track. Also, the movement of fecal coliform bacteria into coastal water is still poorly understood. But the Howe Creek closing flies in the face of the federal Clean Water Act, which says there should be no water qual- ity degradation, especially in ORWs, says Derb Carter, an attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center. ORWs ac- count for about 198,000 acres of salt water in North Carolina. Jeannie Fans. The beauty ofHewletts Creek belies the bacterial contamination that has closed it entirely to shellfishing. "It
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