'No wake' explored for small creeks

State looks for link between eroding banks, boat traffic

State looks for link between eroding banks, boat traffic

ISLE OF PALMS—Inlet Creek winds its way into the back bay from the Intracoastal Waterway at Breach Inlet. It's a popular sea trout fishing hole, a twisting play run for jet skis, a passage for crabbers, clammers and oystermen.

Its banks are falling in. The state is studying why and what to do about it. The upshot could be a series of no wake zones in places no boater expects them — the bends in smaller tidal creeks.

No wake zones are the "road rage" bottlenecks of developed, crowded waterways. Dock owners say the state doesn't have enough enforcement manpower and boaters routinely buzz through the zones. Boaters say the state clamps down on the smallest violations. The prospect of adding more zones in the backwaters won't be uniformly popular.

"I wouldn't try to guess whether the boating community would go for it," said Caroline Rhodes, a state Department of Natural Resources board member who runs Carolina Angler fishing outfitter in West Ashley.

"There are a few in the boating community who don't care. I think the fishermen care. You can't have great flats fishing in the marsh if the flats are eroded, if you don't have an area for the fish to come feed, for the birds to come."

DNR researchers looking to restore oyster beds began studying marsh erosion after finding "hot spots" in creek marshes were eroding a foot or more per year. In the Lowcountry, oysters are "intertidal," living between the high and low tide marks. Erosion is stripping oyster beds that help hold the marsh edge together.

A lot more is known about beach erosion than the erosion of small creeks, oyster marshes and mud flats, said Loren Coen, DNR shellfish resource scientist.

These are places in the backwater reeds that don't get a lot of wind-wave erosion and tend to have gentler tidal rise and fall.

What's changed in recent years is that smaller pleasure craft and boats with better navigation gear have begun to power through them at low tides, when boaters used to have to pick their way slowly.

"In a lot of places they're gone or much more fragile," Coen said. "It's a natural process. The question is whether it's increased by boat wake erosion."

An ongoing study at Inlet Creek has found banks have eroded at about two feet per year for the past eight years. DNR now has a study under way where a marina is being built in the May River off Bluffton. The study will compare erosion rates before and after the increase in boat traffic, and the effect of establishing a no wake zone.

DNR also is trying to identify the worst "hot spots" along the coast.

"What we're trying to do is come up with some reasonable recommendations" to take to the DNR board, Coen said. Rhodes and Coen said making boaters aware of the problems will be a big part; she points to the success getting boaters to respect no-landing zones on rookery islands.

"You can't have guys on the water stopping people every few yards," Rhodes said. "There's going to have to be some conservation consideration. I think we're going to have more boats on the water. There are some people who just want to ride and go fast and have a grand time. That scares me."

Reach Bo Petersen at 745-5852 or bpetersen@postandcourier.com.