Giving Compass' Take:

• Lisa Song and Al Shaw discuss the high cost to taxpayers of repeatedly rebuilding beaches in predominately white areas. These interventions are temporary and environmentally damaging. 

• As climate change continues to fuel more intense storms more frequently, what is a more sustainable option for dealing with destroyed beaches? 

• Learn how Hurricane Harvey recovery differs between ethnic groups. 

As lawmakers consider disaster relief in the wake of Hurricane Florence, projects to rebuild North Carolina's shrunken shorelines are likely to get a healthy chunk of government money.

To their advocates, these so-called beach nourishment initiatives are crucial steps in buffering valuable oceanfront properties from storm damage and boosting local economies that rely on tourism.

But such projects replenish the same vulnerable areas again and again, and disproportionately benefit wealthy owners of seaside lots.

Moreover, pumping millions of cubic yards of sand onto beaches can cause environmental damage, according to decades of studies. It kills wildlife scooped up from the ocean floor and smothers mole crabs and other creatures where sand is dumped, said Robert Young, a geology professor at Western Carolina University.

The United States has spent some $9 billion to rebuild beaches since 1923, a Western Carolina University database shows. Federal, state, and local governments have spent more than $828 million to restock beaches in North Carolina alone since 1939, with much of that money coming from the Army Corps of Engineers and the Federal Emergency Management Agency. In some cases, the Corps' support consists of in-kind donations of sand dredged from other construction projects.

Though the projects help beach economies overall, experts say federal funds favor predominantly white, high-income towns, and even more so the properties right along the beach.

Read the full article about North Carolina beaches by Lisa Song and Al Shaw at Pacific Standard.