By JEFFERSON WEAVER
Staff Writer

Bulkheads along Lake Waccamaw’s bluffs may be unregulated.

The bulkheads, which help shore up the bluffs on the lake banks and keep property from eroding, are above the high water mark, putting them past the jurisdiction of the N.C. State Parks. The town doesn’t regulate or issue permits on bulkheads. If the structures don’t prevent runoff from reaching the limestone shelf, state water quality and environmental rules don’t necessarily apply.

Lake Waccamaw Town Manager Darren Currie said the town has no policy on bulkheads.
“We would expect the state parks to handle them, but I don’t know,” he said. “Bulkheads are above the high water line, which puts them on private property – they aren’t on the lake itself. But the town has no policy on them.”

Currie said that structures along the shoreline sometimes fall into a gray area, and the town defers to the State Parks personnel, who are responsible for the lake itself.
“If they give it their blessing, it’s out of our hands,” he said.

Land behind bulkheads is sometimes backfilled to give a flat, even surface, Currie said, and at that point, town regulations do come into play.

“Since the 1940s there has been a rule against building anything that blocks the view from Lakeshore Drive,” he explained. “If you get the proper permits, you can build a pier and put a boathouse or screened-in porch on it – but someone couldn’t just create real estate by backfilling behind a bulkhead. You can’t use it for a spare building lot.”

Bulkheads may become more common, Currie said, if erosion continues along the bluff side of the lake. A strong storm late last year caused a washout near The Anchorage, briefly detouring Lakeshore Drive while N.C. Department of Transportation crews bulwarked the bluff with a bulkhead. State officials are considering similar reinforcements from the Anchorage to Flemington Drive to prevent future road damage.

“There are some properties that could be threatened by erosion on Lakeshore Drive,” Currie said. “The DOT, from what I understand, is talking about a gabion wall from the washout (at the Anchorage) to Dale’s Seafood, but I don’t know what their specific plans are.”

Gabion walls use sturdy baskets to hold dirt, rock, or a combination of the two. The gabions are then stacked on top of each other and anchored before backfill is put in place to further stabilize the soil. Gabions allow groundwater to filter down through the limestone layer, which maintains the proper acidity level in the lake water.

Hardened structures like concrete walls can cause pooling and runoff, which in turn increase erosion and pollution. Gabions have been used for erosion control and building for centuries, but they can be expensive due to the labor involved.

While nothing can be done about the strong coastal storms that sometimes blow across the lake and cause erosion, Currie said shoreside erosion problems can be reduced with a little common sense.

“People need to use care when they clean up along the shoreline,” he said. “Cutting out all the underbrush and trees isn’t just unsightly. It increases erosion and runoff.

“We encourage people to clean their lots,” he said, “just don’t defoliate them, like a lot of people do. They want to eliminate the weeds, and they just overspray the whole place. With no vegetation, runoff has no chance to be slowed down and filtered before it hits the lake.”
Currie said any shoreside construction must be carefully planned before a project is started.

“Anything you do along the lake is environmentally challenging,” he said. “There are a lot of factors that have to be considered, because if we don’t have a lake people can enjoy, we don’t have anything.”