RALEIGH – It happens every now and then: public officials see a problem, study it carefully, and end up proposing a rational policy response.
No, really.
R.C. Soles, the veteran Democratic senator from Columbus County, inserted a special provision in last year’s budget bill requiring a study of North Carolina’s inlets and waterways. The research question was whether the state should get directly involved in dredging projects to ensure commercial and recreational access along the coast.
The connection between dredging and North Carolina state government has not been a pleasant one of late. But the Soles initiative has generated some useful conclusions that could significantly benefit coastal communities and state taxpayers. For one thing, the legislative study concluded that the state should not be in the dredging business, that it should pay the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to perform any necessary work as a contractor. Good.
Second, Soles is not suggesting that faraway taxpayers or motorists should pay more to keep inlets navigable. Instead, he’s correctly arguing for a policy to relate the costs of dredging to expected benefits. There are two separate financing mechanisms under discussion: property taxes and boating fees. “If you use the highway, you pay a fee,” Soles told the Wilmington Star-News. “It seems reasonable that if you have shoreline that benefits from dredging or use a boat in the waterway, you ought to contribute.”
Either approach would be far preferable to funding any additional dredging with general tax revenues. The same is true with regard to beach renourishment and other projects with identifiable beneficiaries who can directly or indirectly defray the cost.
Don’t fall for the old, familiar argument that general taxes should be employed for the purpose because “everyone” benefits from coastal development, tourism, or transportation access. It is an attempt to confuse the issue. If inland restaurant-goers derive a benefit from the fact that fishing boats can navigate an inlet, they’ll pay for the privilege to the extent that fishermen pass some of the cost of their registration fees along in the price of their catch. Similarly, if dredging costs are added to the cost of owning coastal property, bargaining among property owners, lenders, insurers, and renters will result in spreading those costs reasonably.
Keeping state government out of dredging, either as provider or financier, would be an excellent first step. Unfortunately, the federal government’s role would remain, and it is highly problematic. If there is any need for governmental action here, it is justified by an enforcement problem – by the potential for some boaters to evade a purely private system of keeping waterways open and charging users for the privilege. Another kind of enforcement problem is environmental, protecting the property rights of those who might be injured by excessive or incompetent dredging. In neither case would a federal intervention be justified. These are local or regional matters.
It’s true that the Army Corps of Engineers has long intruded. The intrusion dates back to the 1820s, in the case of river navigation. But the original excuses included postal and military operations. Let’s face it: the vast majority of dredging projects on the North Carolina coast today have nothing to do with accommodating warships or delivering the mail. Time to chart a different course.
Hood is president of the John Locke Foundation.