August 7, 2013 — CHARLESTON, S.C. — Speakers at a public hearing on designating almost 750 miles of beaches from North Carolina to Mississippi as being critical habitat for endangered loggerhead sea turtles said Tuesday they are all for protecting the turtles. But some warned the designation by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service could restrict communities from rebuilding the very beaches where loggerheads nest.
"When it comes to sea turtles, we have been protecting them for 20 years," Bill Holtz, the mayor of Seabrook Island, S.C., told the hearing attended by about 60 people. "We're mainly concerned about beach maintenance."
Volunteers at the resort southwest of Charleston have been monitoring sea turtle nests for decades. This year, 68 nests were found and, in 80 percent of them, volunteers had to move the eggs higher in the dunes so they would not be washed away, the mayor said.
Holtz said if the island is designated critical habitat, there would be restrictions on when the beach can be rebuilt with sand — generally it would not be allowed during spring and summer nesting season — and that could limit the island's ability to maintain its beach.
Read the full story from the Associated Press at the Biloxi-Gulfport Sun Herald