House speaker keeps lid on N.C. erosion bill

OCEAN ISLE BEACH, N.C. -- Proponents of terminal groin legislation now stalled in an N.C. House committee say House Speaker Joe Hackney isn't acting according to democratic principles by not letting the bill get to the House floor for debate and a vote.

For at least two sessions spanning four years, Hackney has buried the bill that's passed the state Senate easily.

Last year after the bill was sent to the House environment committee, lawmakers ordered the state's Coastal Resources Commission to study terminal groins, structures designed to retain sand eroding from island ends while not harming nearby shoreline, and to report the findings to this year's session. This year, the bill has again not gotten out of the committee, in spite of a CRC report that said the groins can be a useful tool to combat erosion, and phone calls and e-mails to the speaker asking him to let the bill move forward.

A 2007 bill that would have allowed the construction of a single terminal groin along the coast as a research tool for the state also stalled in the House after having passed the Senate.

In a meeting just weeks ago with terminal groin proponents, Hackney reportedly told them that he had received about an equal number of phone calls and e-mails from both sides of the issue this year. While proponents believe groins are the best way to protect oceanfront property threatened by severe erosion at the ends of barrier islands, opponents say they are a step back from the state's ban on hardened structures to protect its coastline and that others will surely follow.

"He's not letting the democratic process work," said Debbie Smith, Ocean Isle Beach mayor. She and three others spanning the coast from Brunswick County to Dare County said what Hackney is doing is tantamount to rule by a single person rather than the majority. "If it gets to the floor and loses, then we lose. And that's democracy."

Smith's feelings were echoed by Harry Simmons, mayor of Caswell Beach, another Brunswick County island town, former Nags Head Mayor Renee Cahoon and David Kellam, executive director of the Figure Eight Island Homeowners Association. Cahoon added that Hackney's actions run counter to statements he made in accepting his election as speaker at the start of the 2007 session.

Hackney is not impressed.

"House Speakers in every state are elected by their peers and then most are granted the authority to set the agendas for their chambers," he wrote in response to an e-mail question. "North Carolina is among this majority. There is nothing undemocratic about such a system."

He did not address a question asking if his actions and his words might not agree.

But Cahoon thinks they don't mesh.

"There is no place in this State where the issues of government and politics are better or more fully debated, than in this Chamber," Hackney is quoted in the official House record of Jan. 24, 2007.

"We shall do so," Hackney is quoted at another point, "because the citizens of North Carolina deserve no less than the power of the combination of all our ideas and opinions, because democracy demands the opportunity for competition among ideas, and thrives only when what we produce has been tested by survival in free and open debate."

The latter statement was made after a reference to a quote by Benjamin Franklin that legislatures must resist the pressures of special interests, among other things. The proponents believe Hackney's stance is because of the opposition to terminal groins of the N.C. Coastal Federation.

Cahoon, a member of the Coastal Resources Commission, also said the majority of that body intended for its report on terminal groins to be tantamount to a recommendation that the legislature approve their construction.

The report sent to the legislature, though, never used the word "recommend." Instead, it recognized that terminal groins could be an effective tool in dealing with cases of severe erosion.

They wouldn't be feasible at all island ends, Simmons said. Just four or five out of the state's nearly two dozen inlets are experiencing conditions where proponents believe groins would help.

Kellam said that 18 homes on the north end of Figure Eight Island now are sandbagged. He said the island contracted with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers for a full environmental impact statement on potential solutions. The study was put on hold when preliminary findings pointed to a terminal groin as a logical and safe solution, he said.

While three of the proponents aimed their frustration at Hackney, Simmons said the speaker isn't doing anything different from past House speakers. The process allows for it, he said, but added that he believes the process should be changed.

Regardless of the outcome this year, the proponents said they won't go away until terminal groins are allowed as a tool oceanfront communities can use against erosion at island ends.

"We're going to keep fighting for it," Cahoon said. "The issue isn't going away."