On the Brunswick County Coast we are blessed with all three, but do you know why they are there and how they work ?  What role do they play in the coastal process?  Where does beach sand come from?  Why do beaches grow, shrink, and move? Why do we have shoreline erosion ?  Why Tubbs Inlet ?  What happened to Madd Inlet? What is a flood tide?  What is an ebb tide? What about their deltas? What role does a barrier island play within our marsh environment and ecology? 

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Also. the dredging of North and South Jinks Creek has been a controversial and emotional issue in Sunset Beach for the past two years. It was one of the main foci of the Sunset Beach Environmental Resources Committee, the issue that led all of the members of the ERC to resign, and the proposed dredging of Jinks Creek that spurred the re-birth of the Brunswick Environmental Action Team. Unfortunately, as discussion of the issue began and has continued, there has been little public education on the relevance of the geography of Sunset Beach to this issue or on the relevance of our waterways, wetlands, and shores to deciding whether dredging should occur or not.

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These are the questions that Dr. Len Pietrafesa and Dr. Richard Hilderman addressed in extremely informative and lively presentations and questions-and-answers at Seaside United Methodist Church, in Sunset Beach, on October 4th. 

 

For the record, ​Dr. Len Pietrafesa is Research Scholar at Coastal Carolina University and Professor Emeritus at North Carolina State University in Marine, Earth, and Atmospheric Sciences. He is an expert in cyclone and hurricane wind force and wind-wave-current coupled interactions. Dr. Richard Hilderman was the Founding Chair of the Department of Genetics and Biochemistry and Director of the Genomic Institute at Clemson University and has dedicated an enormous number of hours studying this issue. 

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