Delaware Coastal Zone Management Act |
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In 1971 the General Assembly passed the Delaware Coastal Zone Management Act. At the urging of Governor Russell Peterson, who had placed a moratorium on building along the coastal zone while politicians decided the fate of the act, the legislature voted against the wishes of powerful lobbies including the oil companies, the Building and Construction Trades Council, the Chamber of Commerce and the United States Treasury and Commerce Departments. The act declared it public policy to control the location, extent and type of industrial development along coastal areas, and to safeguard their use for recreation and tourism. The Delaware Coastal Zone Act went hand-in-hand with two other pieces of conservation legislation, the Beach Preservation Act and Wetlands Act. The Beach Preservation Act empowers the state to prevent damaging alterations to the protective primary dune line, to prevent beach erosion, and to make certain destructive acts to beaches punishable as crimes. The act gives the state jurisdiction over use of private as well as public property. The Wetlands Act gives the state complete control of land use within the tidal wetlands. Activities overseen by the state government include dredging, draining, filling, dumping, bulkheading, and construction activities. The act includes jurisdiction over the expansion of pre-existing use on regulated wetlands. In 1972, one year after the Delaware legislature created a management act, the U.S. Congress passed the Coastal Zone Management Act. This act provides federal monies for grant assistance programs for comprehensive planning and management promoting state government partnerships with local government. This act declared it a national policy to preserve, develop, and, where possible, restore or enhance the resources of the nation’s coastal zone. It attempts to balance ecological, historical, cultural, and aesthetic values with economic development.
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