As North Carolinians head to the beach for Memorial Day weekend, many will find something that has become increasingly rare along parts of the East Coast: miles of shoreline uninterrupted by rock groins, jetties and seawalls.
While many coastal states embraced hardened structures to help slow erosion and protect oceanfront development, North Carolina largely chose a different path. For decades, state leaders restricted most new shoreline-hardening projects, relying instead on beach nourishment and other strategies to manage a coast constantly reshaped by storms, currents and shifting barrier islands.
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Now, lawmakers are reconsidering whether that approach still makes sense.
A bill moving through the General Assembly would loosen some of North Carolina's long-standing restrictions on hardened shoreline structures, reopening a debate that reaches far beyond a handful of beaches. The proposal comes as coastal communities spend millions replenishing eroding shorelines, oceanfront homes continue collapsing into the Atlantic and local officials grapple with the realities of rising seas and repeated storm damage.
Few places illustrate those tensions more clearly than Buxton.
The Hatteras Island village has become one of North Carolina's most visible examples of shoreline retreat. Since September 2025, 19 homes have collapsed into the ocean there. A major beach nourishment project completed in 2022 washed away years sooner than expected. This week, more than a mile of shoreline near a former military site reopened after testing found petroleum contamination exposed by erosion had fallen below state limits following an extensive cleanup effort.
Just south of the village sit three groins built by the Navy in the 1960s. Originally constructed near the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, the structures have become a focal point in a larger argument about how North Carolina should respond to an increasingly dynamic coastline.
Some residents see the groins as evidence that the state has been too reluctant to use tools that could help hold sand in place. Others point to decades of scientific research that helped shape the state's restrictions in the first place.
Republican Senate leader Phil Berger said North Carolina should revisit policies that limit shoreline protection options as coastal communities grapple with erosion and repeated beach nourishment projects.
"We have some of the more restrictive regulations on the coast," Berger said. "I think some of those proposals are actually a step in the right direction."
The debate comes at a time when communities are questioning whether beach nourishment alone can keep pace with accelerating erosion. Dare County has spent hundreds of millions of dollars on nourishment projects over the past two decades, helping protect homes, roads, businesses and one of North Carolina's most important tourism economies. Yet those projects must be repeated as storms and currents move sand away, and some coastal residents argue taxpayers deserve a broader range of options.
Chris Lipsett, an Outer Banks resident who spent more than four decades working in marine construction in New Jersey, has seen groins and jetties used extensively along the Northeast coast.
"I think it's going to help a lot to retain the sand, but I don't think it's a cure-all," Lipsett said.
That frustration is particularly evident in Buxton, where some residents and members of the Buxton Civic Association have argued that years of deferred maintenance on the groins contributed to worsening erosion. They question whether the shoreline would look different today had the structures been maintained.
Scientists say the concern is understandable. The groins were built in the 1960s because erosion was already a problem along this stretch of coast.
Reide Corbett, executive director of East Carolina University's Coastal Studies Institute, said the forces reshaping Buxton today are much larger than any single structure. Storms, sea-level rise and the natural movement of barrier islands have been driving shoreline change there for decades.
"This erosion has been going on for decades and decades," Corbett said. "They've tried to slow that through groins, they've tried to manage that through nourishment, but this is a long-term, highly energetic location and that erosion will continue."
The debate over groins is also one reason North Carolina restricted new hardened shoreline structures in the first place. While they can help build a beach in one location, Corbett said they can also alter the natural movement of sand along the coast.
"It may trap some sand, but it starves sand down beneath it, which leads to higher erosion below that," Corbett said.
Along much of North Carolina's coast, sand naturally moves from north to south. A groin interrupts that movement. While one section of beach may widen as sand accumulates, areas farther down the shoreline can receive less sediment and experience additional erosion.
"There are trade-offs to doing that," Corbett said. "Is it that we want to protect a certain number of homes? Is it that we want to protect that recreation beach, or the ecology of the system? Depending on your answer, you're going to have a different approach."
As erosion worsens and the cost of maintaining beaches continues to rise, lawmakers, scientists and residents are increasingly divided over whether that philosophy still works.
Corbett said no single project is likely to change the trajectory of places like Buxton.
"This erosion has been going on for decades and decades," he said. "They've tried to slow that through groins, they've tried to manage that through nourishment, but this is a long-term, highly energetic location and that erosion will continue."
As lawmakers weigh whether to loosen restrictions on hardened shoreline structures, the debate is no longer simply about groins, jetties or seawalls. It is about what North Carolinians expect from a coastline that continues to change, and how much they are willing to spend — or build — to try to hold it in place.