North Carolina Estuaries
Pamlico Sound
Pamlico sound is located on the east coast of north carolina. It includes animals such as blue fish, clams, oysters, stone crabs, grass shrimp, and plants such as, cypress, tupelo, cordgrass, black needlerush, and cattails. The Chowan, Roanoke, and Neuse are a few of the major waterways the feed into the Pamlico sound.
Estuaries are important because they protect the main land from flooding and the crashing waves that repeatedly hit the shore line. They also help against erosion while the plants hold the soil down during tides. While all this is going on esturaries are also giving a home for many living plants and animals. They are a nursery habitat for more than half of the fish on our coast.
In the Pamlico sound the threats include the pollution coming from runoff of fertilizers and storm water entering the water. Also City sewage treatment plants are having more wastewater coming in from the growing population than they can handle which ends in poorly treated wastewater being poured into our rivers and streams.