By Catherine Welch
Washington, DC – Members of the Wilmington-New Hanover County Ports, Waterways, and Beach commission walked miles down marble halls, shaking hands and passing out jars of sand, as a reminder that sand needs to be scooped out of area inlets and dumped onto eroding beaches.
The group also walked lawmakers through a new study looking at the economic impact of recreational boating on the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway. The study finds recreational boaters add $21 million in taxes to state coffers and create roughly four thousand jobs in North Carolina.
The latest budget out of the White House offers zero dollars for maintaining the Intracoastal Waterway.