The Bald Head Island Conservancy hopes to break ground this October for a long-planned facility set to lead the nation in barrier island research.
All 22 members of the nonprofit’s board of directors this past weekend voted to approve construction of the Barrier Island Study Center (BISC), which would occupy land on the conservancy’s campus, near the eastern tip of Bald Head Island’s South Beach.
According to conservancy executive director Suzanne Dorsey, the $2.4-million project is a grand show of community support, as no state or federal dollars have touched it.
As for momentum, BISC has generated $900,000 in the last ten months, “totally from the community,” Dorsey said.
But the community itself is the result of development on the fragile island. With so much demand for island living, the conservancy hopes BISC will highlight realistic practices or policies for sustainable development.
BISC’s business plan, released in 2007, stated that barrier islands, such as Bald Head Island, protect approximately 85 percent of the United States coast. According to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, more than half the nation’s population lives within 50 miles of the coast.
By 2015, BISC’s plan states, another 25 million will call it home.
When hurricanes spin toward the coast, barrier islands and their lush forests act as shields for the mainland, but consequently they sustain much of the damage and are thus one of the fastest disappearing habitats on the planet.
According to a release about the groundbreaking, the conservancy “has successfully carried out its mission of conservation, preservation and education for the past 27 years and met environmental challenges head on with triumph. However, the impact of environmental and human-made challenges is increasing and so is the need for solutions. The Barrier Island Study Center will provide this and other coastal communities the means to continue to live sustainably. The center will facilitate stewardship of our barrier island home and community-based conservation.”
Conservancy president Jay Copan, who has owned property on Bald Head Island since 1998, said the studies and findings generated at BISC would, ideally, offer other barrier islands better understanding about themselves. It would also offer tools and know-how for addressing specific coastal or island problems.
A small example, he said, is the conservancy’s efforts to eradicate an invasive plant called beach vitex, which can crowd out native dune-building vegetation.
The conservancy’s successful methods of ousting the plant have been repeated on other beaches with similar success. So the research benefited its home base of Bald Head Island, but the implications were wide, Copan explained.
But BISC’s eyes — in an effort called “Project 20/20” — would focus on much more complex and foreboding issues as well. Studying the impacts of sea-level rise, shipping channel dredging and other factors facing barrier islands’ futures is part of the plan.
There’s also the educational component, to which the conservancy has long been dedicated. BISC would be a goldmine for students of all kinds, from the laboratory-minded to those who just want to get a little closer to “the beauty of nature,” Dorsey said.
And that’s how it fits in with the conservancy’s roots, said Copan. “In a way, this really is a project that began 27 years ago,” when the conservancy was founded, he said. “It really ties in with the mission and vision.”
Copan said the conservancy is wrapping up its fundraising campaign after generating 90 percent of what the construction’s end cost could be.
The construction would include green building practices and materials.
The job may take a year or two to complete, Copan predicted.
For more information, persons may visit http://barrierislandstudycenter.org.
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