HARKERS ISLAND — The North Carolina Coastal Federation on Friday hosted staff from Sens. Thom Tillis’ and Ted Budd’s offices along with federal and state officials on a tour of federally funded coastal projects.
The projects include removing abandoned and derelict vessels and marine debris, and the construction of oyster sanctuaries in the Pamlico Sound. The Coastal Federation publishes Coastal Review.
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Joe Huie is a commercial fisherman from Sneads Ferry. He has worked as Coastal Federation contractor, supervising marine debris crews, for about five years. His crew members are all fishermen, and their work began just after Hurricane Florence in 2018.
“Hurricane Florence devastated our area,” Huie said. “We got almost 4 feet of rain; the river was closed for four or five months. So they hired us on to help put together crews pick up marine debris. And from the very first day that we started, even in waters that we were intimately familiar with, we realized that there was way more marine debris than anybody could ever imagine.”
He said the crews, working between Sneads Ferry and the South Carolina state line, collected an average 1 ton of marine debris every day by hand.
“Even in places that we’ve been to and we returned to, we still average a ton of material a day,” Huie said. “And that’s four guys carrying it on their backs in and out of the marsh. So we make very small impacts to the environment, and it’s providing a lot of work for a lot of fishermen in our area.”
He said the crews truly appreciate the work.
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“We don’t take it for granted because it helps us clean up the places that we grew up in, that we work in, that we we get food from,” Huie said. “And it also provides us with a job so we feel like we’re giving back to the areas that made us all who we are.”
The work is funded by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration via the nearly $6 billion total funding under the Inflation Reduction Act and the bipartisan Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act. Tillis and Budd, along with all other Republicans in both chambers, voted against the 2022 climate change and healthcare measure. Tillis voted in favor of the 2021 infrastructure act, while Budd, who was a House member at the time, was opposed.
The senators’ regional representatives, Grayson Overholt for Tillis, and Sam Shumate, for Budd, declined to comment but offered to connect Coastal Review with staff who were authorized to speak. Tillis’ communications director responded, but no comment was received in time for publication.
The Coastal Federation said the work is part of a larger effort to rid the coast of storm-related debris, lost fishing gear and derelict vessels. The effort also includes broad public outreach and education efforts aimed at reducing marine debris at the source.
Coastal Federation scientist and Marine Debris Program Director Ted Wilgis explained how the federal and state funding the nonprofit receives to protect and restore coastal waters and habitats, provides jobs and economic support for coastal communities.
“The vast majority of funding is going to pay contractors, suppliers, fishermen like these,” Wilgis said.
Building oyster habitat
The tour included a visit to the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries stockpile and boatyard at South River. The NOAA Fisheries Office of Habitat Conservation is supporting construction of 120 acres of oyster habitat in Pamlico Sound. This project is to complete the 500-acre Sen. Jean Preston Memorial Oyster Sanctuary, which began with 15 acres in 2017 and was named for the longtime legislator who represented Carteret County in the North Carolina General Assembly. Preston died in 2013.
Oyster sanctuaries provide direct benefits for key recreational and commercial species, the Coastal Federation noted, citing as examples striped bass and wild oysters.
Another part of the project involves a collaboration of the Coastal Federation, North Carolina Central University and North Carolina State University’s Center for Marine Sciences and Technology, or CMAST, to provide hands-on opportunities for underrepresented graduate and undergraduate students studying marine sciences.
These NOAA-supported projects are helping the Coastal Federation advance its goal of protecting and restoring the North Carolina coast for future generations, the nonprofit said.
“We are incredibly grateful for the funds provided through the Inflation Reduction Act, which have allowed us to enhance our capacity to address the issue of marine debris,” said NOAA Marine Debris Program Director Nancy Wallace in a statement. “The strides made by our partners at the North Carolina Coastal Federation have been pivotal in protecting the North Carolina coast and waterways, and we are excited to see the effects of their continued efforts with the implementation of these projects.”
