Coastal Review photographer Dylan Ray is the 2026 Hugh Morton Photographer of the Year in the North Carolina Press Association’s annual editorial contest.

According to the association, “The Hugh Morton Photographer of the Year award recognizes a photographer’s body of work for the contest year and is the most prestigious photography award we give.” The award is named for the photographer, developer and conservationist born in Wilmington in 1921 who “was part of the post-World War II era of tourism development in North Carolina and was friends and colleagues with notables from across the state,” according to a biography on the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources website. “He took close to a quarter-million photographs which are now part of the North Carolina Collection Photographic Archives at UNC-Chapel Hill.”

Judges, in selecting Ray for the photography award, were to consider content and composition along with technical quality and ability to convey a story. See the gallery of Ray’s work below. Click on an image to see the context in which it first appeared.

Coastal Review competes against about two dozen other publications in the association’s online-only division. In all, Coastal Review received five awards.

Coastal Review Staff Writer Trista Talton was recognized with the first-place award in the News Enterprise Reporting category for “Oak Island residents say oceanfront lots unsuited for homes.”

Catherine Kozak received second place in the Beat Feature Reporting category for “Red Wolves Recovery Efforts,” an entry that included “Biologists heartened by red wolf program’s recent successes” and related coverage. Kozak was also recognized with a third-place award in Beat News Reporting “Barrier Island Challenges.” This entry included a two-part series, “Shifting sands, hardened beaches: A new review,” and other stories about erosion, the loss of homes and revived old coastal policy debates as pertaining to the Outer Banks.

Coastal Review Assistant Editor Jennifer Allen was awarded a second place in the Multimedia Project category for “‘Smell of money’: Menhaden Chanteymen’s music still echoes.”

The awards are for work published between April 1, 2025, and March 31, 2026.

Editors and publishers were notified of the contest decisions this week, with results downloaded alphabetically by administrators and sent out. Coastal Review was notified around midday Thursday.

The association plans to announce all winners, including the General Excellence awards, Sept. 10 during the association’s annual convention at the Embassy Suites in Cary.

“We will have a full day of sessions, training, networking, and a reception to kick off the evening,” said North Carolina Press Association Member Services Director Katie Mozingo in the email notification.

Contest organizers expressed thanks to contest judges from the Wisconsin Newspaper Association “and numerous volunteers nationwide.”

Coastal Review is a daily, nonprofit, news and feature service covering the North Carolina coast and published with editorial independence by the North Carolina Coastal Federation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit group dedicated to protecting and preserving the North Carolina coast. Coastal Review provides objective reporting, information and commentary on issues, policy and notable figures and history with a specific focus on the environment and people of the state’s 20 coastal counties. 

Featured Image

Case Skinner, 4, son of Kathleen and Jeremy Skinner, fishes around 8 a.m. earlier this month from his parents’ dock on on the Newport River in Mill Creek, an unincorporated community in central Carteret County. The young Skinner is also accomplished with a cast net. Photo: Jeremy Skinner

Historian Glenn Blackburn, professor emeritus of history at University of Virginia’s College at Wise, has written his second book about Coastal Review’s publisher, the North Carolina Coastal Federation and the nonprofit’s history, people and accomplishments.

Released earlier this year, “A Spectacular Coast and Its Guardians” tells the Coastal Federation’s story and examines, according to the book’s subtitle, “its conservation, restoration, education, and advocacy work to protect and restore the North Carolina coast.”

The book chronicles the changes that have occurred on the coast since the organization was founded in 1982 to protect coastal water quality, with a shift toward helping coastal residents and the natural areas here adapt to the increasingly extreme weather that climate change has fueled.

“Through hundreds of interviews with staff, volunteers, fishermen, scientists, and community leaders, Blackburn’s books tell the story of the North Carolina Coastal Federation’s grassroots beginnings and its coastwide work to protect and restore the places we love,” according to the Coastal Federation. The book is a follow-up to Blackburn’s 2018 volume, “Saving Great Places,” which focuses on five projects the Coastal Federation and coastal residents took on to protect the  coast, including the organization’s first big win, stopping a proposed peat mining operation that put at risk wetlands and fisheries in the Albemarle-Pamlico peninsula.

Blackburn will be on hand 5:30-7 p.m. July 14 at the Coastal Federation’s Wrightsville Beach office, at 309 West Salisbury St. for an evening of coastal stories, history, and conversation. Learn more and register online.

Guests will have the opportunity to meet the author, get a copy of his book personally signed, and learn more about the people and places that shaped the Coastal Federation’s history. Light hors d’oeuvres will be served. You may purchase the book online.

An Advocacy Organization That Saved Land and Water

The Coastal Federation was a small but very effective advocacy organization in the 1980s and 1990s. Led by Todd Miller it was a polite but persistent advocate that worked in alliance with large numbers of ordinary people on the coast.

A very popular advocacy campaign was the Federation’s strong support for the right of all people to have access to North Carolina’s beaches. Another was a long-term, still ongoing campaign to keep our coastal waters clean and safe. Three others focused on specific places on the coast where commercial or housing development threatened the well-being of a beautiful place and the people who lived there.

First, was the 1982-1984 alliance with local fishermen that blocked a peat mining operation in the Albemarle-Pamlico peninsula that would have destroyed 120,000 acres of wetlands and undermined fishing waters.

Second was the 1983-1987 Stump Sound fight in which the Federation and local fishermen worked together to stop a condominium development that would likely have ruined the fishing waters in a lovely sound.

Third was a 1992-2002 struggle by the Federation, local residents, and other environmental groups to prevent a housing development from taking over valuable wild land on Bird Island near Sunset Beach. Full accounts of these three public fights are in Saving Great Places found online at nccoast.org.

And there was a very small beginning of advocacy about the threat of sea level rise.

Advocacy in Defense of Public Access to Sandy Beaches

The most popular policy the Federation has ever had is its ongoing advocacy that everyone should be able to enjoy our sandy beaches and all our public trust lands and waters, particularly the salt marshes. A huge number of North Carolinians are beach lovers, people who want to go to the beach to play. They want to play in the water, on the sand, in their boats, and on their surfboards. They want to see the beauty of the world on a spectacular coast. They want to feel the wonder and majesty of the ocean. They want to smell saltwater and hear birds sing. And a large number are fishermen who want to enjoy the riches of salt marsh habitats, particularly oystering.

From the 1980s on, the Federation has continually worked to educate North Carolinians about their legal right to use the state’s beaches. This work aligns exactly with long-established state policy stipulating that North Carolina’s beaches are held in public trust for everyone. The public owns and has the right to use any part of a beach up to the mean high tide mark. The dry sand area between the mean high tide mark and the base of the first line of sand dunes may be owned by individual property owners, but the public has the right to use this dry sand area so as to have access to the wet beach. These two rights are public trust rights protected by the state.

The right of public access to beaches is generally supported in North Carolina, although there is one gated island — Figure Eight — that keeps the public out and a few private housing developments that provide little if any, public access to beaches in front of them. And there are some chronic problems — not enough walkways for visitors to get to the beach, not enough parking spaces and toilet facilities for people wanting to spend a day at the beach. The Federation constantly pushes state agencies and beach town governments to provide more walkways, more parking, and more toilets.

The Federation also strongly opposes the building of oceanfront seawalls, because seawalls lead to the destruction of the beaches that belong to everyone. When sea level rise and hurricanes cause ocean waves to crash across beaches into the foundations of oceanfront houses, the instinct of property owners is to build something — a seawall or a row of sandbags — to block the ocean. But when waves hit a wall, the wave energy explodes and the explosion begins to eat out the sand in front of the wall. With explosion after explosion over days and months, the eaten-out sand is pulled back into the ocean bit by bit, and the sandy beach slowly disappears. A property owner may gain some protection, but the public loses its beach.

In the 1970s state policymakers began to realize that oceanfront seawalls do more harm than good, and in the 1980s the Federation, along with Duke University coastal scientist Orrin Pilkey and many others, began to push for a ban on all hardened structures on oceanfronts. In 1985, the Coastal Resources Commission (CRC) imposed a ban on seawalls and groins on the oceanfront (a groin is a wall perpendicular to a beach that is designed to capture sand from ocean currents thereby helping to restore an eroding beach). The ban eventually became state law early in 2003 after the Federation pointed out to Senator Marc Basnight that too many variances were being issued to the state’s seawall ban regulations by the CRC.

Within a few years of the original ban, a number of wealthy people who owned beach property allied with some developer organizations and began to try to find a way to circumvent the ban. Pressure on the CRC to modify the ban became so intense that in the early 1990s, the Federation had to organize a major letter-writing campaign leading to thousands of messages being sent to the CRC to demonstrate public support for the ban. The campaign succeeded in blocking the political pressure.

A few years later in the late 1990s, the Shell Island Resort on the northern end of Wrightsville Beach made another attempt to get around the ban. The Resort was built so close to Mason’s Inlet that inlet waters were threatening to erode the foundations of buildings, so the Resort’s owners (many of them out-of­state investors) sued the state seeking to get the right to build a permanent seawall. In 1998, the Federation joined the state in a legal defense of the ban on oceanfront seawalls on the grounds that a seawall would destroy the public beach. A court upheld the state ban, and the Resort was able to resolve its problem only by paying for a dredging operation to move the inlet away from its buildings.

The ban on oceanfront seawalls remained in place into the 21st century, but environmental attorneys believe that sea level rise will lead to more challenges to the ban. John Runkle, an attorney on the Federation’s Board, says bluntly: “If sea level rise speeds up, wealthy people who own oceanfront property will push hard for the right to build seawalls to protect their property” (John Runkle, July 18, 2009). Geoff Gisler of the Southern Environmental Law Center says the same thing in different words: “The conflict between nature and development will not go away. The desire to build terminal groins will be a continuing issue, as people will want to protect development in dynamic coastal areas through the use of hardened structures. These issues will be amplified by sea level rise” (Geoff Gisler, August 3, 2014).

Orrin Pilkey, the Duke scientist who has written numerous well-regarded books on barrier island beaches, is a long-time ally of the Federation. He insists that the most important thing we need to do on the coast is “preserve the beaches for future generations.” The Federation is very sympathetic to PiIkey’s argument (Dr. Orrin H. Pilkey, September 22, 2008).

From an Outer Banks Voice report

SOUTHERN SHORES —  The town council is considering a beach renourishment project in 2022 and seeking public input on whether to move forward.

Although a public hearing on the matter is set for 9 a.m. June 16 at the Pitts Center, 5377 N. Virginia Dare Trail, town officials are asking for feedback on the project in advance. The public is asked to submit comments no later than June 12 to info@southernshores-nc.gov or mail them to Town of Southern Shores, 5375 N. Virginia Dare Trail., Southern Shores, NC 27949.

The project could be funded through tax assessments, which may include municipal service districts or a town-wide assessment that could range from an additional $100 to around $3,000 per tax bill, depending on the assessed property value, location and proximity to the ocean.

The council has a workshop meeting set for June 16. The meeting will be open to the public and available online via Zoom.

The town said mass gathering restrictions under Gov. Roy Cooper’s Executive Order 141 does not apply to or limit the number of members of the public who may attend an in-person government board meeting and encompasses government officials, staff and members of the public and that a local government can put public health measures in place for in-person board meetings.

In an effort to comply with social distancing guidelines for mitigating the potential spread of COVID-19, those who attend the meeting should keep a minimum distance of 6 feet from others prior to, during and following the meeting. Seating in the Pitts Center has been arranged in a manner that complies with this guideline and seating will be limited. The meeting recording will be posted on the town website as soon as possible following the meeting.

Learn more

• Beach renourishment information, including potential projects

The following is a series of essays by students at Brunswick Early College High School in Bolivia on their personal experiences during Hurricane Florence in 2018 and their perceptions of climate change. This is part of a series for the Pulitzer Center’s nationwide Connected Coastlines reporting initiative. For more information, go to pulitzercenter.org/connected-coastlines.

A State of Helplessness

By Daniel Van Skiver

Hurricane Florence truly put the “disaster” in natural disaster when it tore through in 2018. Many felt the destruction and were left with nowhere to turn after their homes were ripped apart or flooded. I am one of these people.

Florence left me in a state of helplessness and, being one of the many people in Brunswick County with financial problems, there was no way out. My home was left in an almost unlivable state, my bed was soaked through from a hole in my bedroom roof, and the problem did not stop with the passing of the hurricane. The water damage brought infestations of bugs and rotted away other parts of the house that had been untouched. If I had not been able to stay with my brother I would have most likely been out on the streets, a living arrangement that would last the next 7 months as me and my dad looked for a house.

This kind of damage is tragic, but it seems to be more common with every year. As a coastal area this kind of water damage occurs almost every year during hurricane season and displaces more and more people who cannot afford that kind of a loss. The storms seem to get worse by the year as temperatures globally continue to become more unstable and the environment gets mistreated and ignored. These disasters may be rough, and I would know firsthand, but they might only be a small part in a larger-scale issue that not enough people are concerned with.

Climate change is a very real and very dangerous threat, and not only due to hurricanes. With rising global temperatures comes droughts and extreme heat waves and rising sea levels. For agricultural-based areas, this means an endangerment of an entire way of life. Crops will shrivel and die, leading to more poverty and less preparedness for the next storm season. Furthermore, rising sea levels will lead to worse flooding than we have ever seen before. These floods do not only hurt us, but our wildlife as well. As water washes onto shore and destroys more areas, it also contaminates our water supplies. This hurts the plants and animals that make our community so beautiful and only worsens the effects of climate change.

Florence took my house away, just as many storms have done to many people before, but if we don’t act to undo our part in these worsening disasters then we might end up losing entire communities.

A Life-Changing Event

By Bella Digiacomo

Webster’s definition of a hurricane is, “a tropical cyclone with winds of 74 mph or greater that is usually accompanied by rain, thunder and lightning and that sometimes moves into temperate latitudes.” I believe this is correct, but does not include any of the emotions people feel during a hurricane, or details about the effects and damages of a hurricane.

Hurricane Florence was a life-changing event that really opened my eyes toward reality. Florence, although devastating has taught me many life lessons, it showed me the good and the bad of situations. How did one event cause a whole chain reaction in my life? In sum, it all started when my Mom had called a family meeting deciding if we should evacuate or stay put, the vote came to an even split. We ended up evacuating to Winston-Salem where it was so peaceful, it was as if no one knew there was a hurricane. Seeing how peaceful Winston-Salem was, we made plans with our family that was going to get hit by Florence to meet up at our hotel. We all met up for dinner at Five Guys, and honestly it was such a great way to end a stressful day. After a few days of stressing and exploring Winston-Salem, mom decided to finally go back home, but once we got there we realized it was not such a great idea.

Our whole street was flooded with muddy water, it was up to my aunt’s hips, so around 5 feet of water, and it was only going to rise over time. After continuous warnings to not drive through the muddy water, mom thought she could do it, but halfway there the car began to sink and water began to rise. My siblings rapidly grabbed their life jackets as my grandpa began to jump out of the window to push the car out, he tried but didn’t succeed until our neighbors walked into the water to help.

The engine gave out so the only thing mom could do was steer the wheels to face straight ahead. The struggle continued after we got out. People were crying about such little things, everyone was so emotional. The next mission was to get out of our house due to the muddy water still rising, luckily our grandmother lived down the road at a higher platform, so the water would take longer to reach us. Days later, the whole neighborhood was evacuated, people were standing on the roofs of their homes to avoid the water from getting to them. We all had to squeeze into small trucks, and boats to get passed the flooded highway, but once we finally got settled in and it all ended, we were forced to fix our homes and sell them. This should have taken about a year, but with everyone’s help it only took months. This taught me that sometimes the people you would think would be there for you won’t be there in your most desperate times. It also showed people come together in a state of emergency and will try to help in any way.

Climate change was such a large factor in this hurricane, and according to Science Daily, “They predicted Hurricane Florence would be slightly more intense for a longer portion of the forecast period, rainfall amounts over the Carolinas would be increased by 50 percent due to climate change and warmer water temperatures, and the hurricane would be approximately 80 kilometers larger due to the effect of climate change on the large-scale environment around the storm.”

Climate change made an increase in flooding, and instead of just wind damage it became water damage as well. If climate change continues in the future, a normal rainy day could become another flood warning and hurricanes would be a constant unavoidable loop.

Still Feeling the Effects

By Lindsey Clark 

In the late summer of 2018, Hurricane Florence ripped through the Carolinas and devastated many homes, including my own.

There was 7 feet of water on the inside and 14 feet of water on the outside.

It has almost been a year and a half since it has happened, and we still feel the effects of it today. It hurt each part of the family differently and was so heartbreaking. We lost all of our old family photos, clothes and our home. It was difficult to build back up again and to try to get back on our feet. We felt stuck and felt like we had nowhere to go and did not know where to turn.

You really do not realize how much you have until it is taken away from you. Thankfully a family friend allowed us to stay at their house until we got back on our feet, which took months. It was crazy to see the people taking advantage of the ones that were without homes; because while we were searching for houses to rent, the prices were extremely outrageous. Even though some were taking advantage of others, there were many who donated and helped out ones who lost their homes.

My sister school, Bolivia Elementary set up these stations for people to go into the school and get cleaning supplies, food and clothes and it really helped us out. It was just amazing for them to do that! It is very nerve racking for me when there is a bad storm or another hurricane because I always think that there is going to be some freak accident where my house gets damaged again and we will have to start all over again. On top of that, my dad is in law enforcement — so when there is a storm he has to stay and wait it out with the rest of his team. That is scary because he is out in horrible conditions and something could happen.

In these past years I have been able to see a difference in the amount and strength of the hurricanes. They are happening more and more, and they are becoming more powerful due to the rising temperature of the ocean due to climate change. They are coming in one after the other, causing major damage to our infrastructure and it cost so much to fix these issues. During Hurricane Florence, the rain washed out many of our roads, and Highway 17 still has damage to it. There are still roads that we cannot go through because they are so damaged.

We need to do something about this before it is truly too late, because it is only going to get worse from here. This is especially important to people who live on the coast because it is our way of life and hurricanes disrupt that. Hurricanes cause erosion of the beaches which is not good for the sea life as well. We need to take care of what we have before it is gone.

Florence Shook Me Mentally

By Corban Cardenas

In August through September 2018 came catastrophic Hurricane Florence. The hurricane caused over 23 billion dollars in damage with a little over 50 fatalities. The hurricane flooded many parts of the Carolinas including a town in North Carolina, Leland. This was where I was when the major flooding and strong winds were taking effect. Florence not only completely destroyed my first home in North Carolina but it also shook me mentally.

Florence poured into a small community called Stoney Creek and with the strong winds combined with the powerful rain, it destroyed the septic tank in the community and flooded the community with a mixture of sewage and rainwater. Over the course of five days, through my bedroom window I watched as Florence tortured my mind by slowly filling the neighborhood with water. It started as puddle to lake-deep water that drifted my car off.

After the water, the power had finally gone out when we ran out of gas for the generator, my family decided to leave to my grandma’s house a couple streets down. Overnight, out of curiosity, I left to check on the house and soon found myself staring at my house completely underwater. This destroyed me because this was my first house in North Carolina, so many memories were formed and saved here. All the Christmases and birthdays now gone in 24 hours. My mission was to keep my family happy and smiling so I did everything in my power to make them laugh, from filming dumb videos to doing mini stand up. My mother however did not like this and we would argue because she saw me as heartless for not showing any remorse for what was reality. I still pushed through the pain and kept my reasons to myself. I stuffed all the sadness and confusion down and continued my mission to make them happy. After one week and a half of missions to spark smiles and in return receiving arguments, the water was completely gone. I could finally stop thinking about how the house could be and actually find out myself.

I ran to my street only to find myself in a post-apocalyptic wasteland; cars flipped in the street, broken windows and torn walls, papers flying everywhere. While walking through the silence, I stumbled across a notebook. The notebook was mine, the book contained all the songs I have ever written. It was drenched and torn up. This shattered my heart, this notebook had years of memories, now gone. I kept it and searched for my house.

I found my home, the front door was wide open, the fridge was in the living room. Picture frames shattered on the floor and tables flipped. Luckily, the water did not reach the upper floor, but the first floor was destroyed. I went upstairs and thought to myself about what had happened and everything I saw and took in. I thought to myself, everything and anything will come to an end eventually. The smiles I was creating on my little sisters faces had a beginning and an end. I was yelled at and argued with my mother who I worked hardest to make happy. Those arguments came to an end. A building that I called home, came to an end. I tried so hard to keep the smiles alive, that when the fell to a frown it hurt worse. The more arguments I tried to end quicker the more took place. Finally, the home I kept telling myself would be okay, was demolished from the inside.

I realized that the most important thing to understand in life is that you should not go through so much pain to keep things alive before the end, you should appreciate and enjoy every moment while it is still alive. The notebook served as a realization that memories are a past and not present. I should work on the present and enjoy every moment. Ever since Florence, I have been enjoying every moment with everyone and everything. I have been writing, producing, and helping people produce music. Florence had such an impact on my mentality, I have changed how I view the world and how I should live my life. Life is short, time is fast, there is no replay or rewind. Enjoy every moment as it comes.

Read more

• NC’s Turning Point For Climate Science

Reprinted from Island Free Press

The Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Wright Brothers National Memorial, and the Fort Raleigh National Historic Site are offering a number of ways for virtual visitors of all ages to experience these iconic Outer Banks destinations, per a recent update from their official partner, Outer Banks Forever.

In recent weeks, the organization has launched a number of digital experiences and online materials that include virtual Ranger programs, home school curriculums, and interactive experiences via the sharing of video and photo memories from fans.

For example, younger park-goers can help design the next Junior Ranger Badge at Fort Raleigh via an online contest, with entries accepted until April 15, while explorers can get an inside look at the mechanics of the Wright Brothers 1903 flyer via an in-person demonstration and video that was recently posted on social media.

Families that want to infuse a little close-to-home education into their homeschool curriculum will also find a wealth of lesson plans and materials available online. Unique lesson plans include features on the pirates of North Carolina, a history of the Little Kinnakeet Life-Saving Station, and stories about the people, events and landmarks that helped shape these barrier islands.

All online materials are free to the public, and per Outer Banks Forever, upcoming weekly videos will continue to highlight the unique aspects of the Outer Banks’ national parks, so that visitors can stay connected while being miles away.

For more information on Outer Banks Forever and all of these newly-launched programs and online materials, visit https://obxforever.org/.

This story is provided courtesy of the Island Free Press, a digital newspaper covering Hatteras and Ocracoke islands. Coastal Review Online is partnering with the Free Press to provide readers with more environmental and lifestyle stories of interest along our coast. 

BEAUFORT — Melvin Dunn, 41, is a shrimper from the Beaufort area. Dunn lost a shrimp season because of Hurricane Dorian in September 2019. Now he faces further economic challenges with COVID-19 putting the seafood industry in a near standstill.

Dunn is from South River, a predominantly black coastal community in Carteret County.

With increasingly intense hurricanes affecting his catch, Dunn decided to transition to a seafood truck delivery service after Hurricane Dorian. Now COVID-19 might change that.

The audio was originally published by Shoresides, a project of the nonprofit Working Narratives. The series compiles community stories about COVID-19 from coastal North Carolina. Coastal Review Online is partnering with Shoresides and Working Narratives to bring this feature to our readers.

Music: Ketsa. Editing: Working Narratives team.

Reprinted from the Island Free Press

Crew members from Coast Guard Station Hatteras Inlet recently released 30 sea turtles back into the ocean after the turtles made a full recovery from exposure to the winter temperatures and were deemed ready to return to the water.

The sea turtles were originally part of a wave of turtles that had to be treated after they were cold-stunned during icy temperatures.

In late January, 100 cold-stunned sea turtles were found and transported to the Network for Endangered Sea Turtles (NEST) Rehabilitation Center at the North Carolina Aquarium on Roanoke Island.  Two days of cold temperatures resulted in about 89 sea turtles being rescued on a single day.

The 30 turtles that were released were shuttled 10 nautical miles out to sea, and the passengers included a hefty 132-pound loggerhead turtle, as well as a number of smaller patients who made the trip in plastic food storage containers. All turtles were safely returned to the water during the operation Thursday, thanks to the assistance of three crew members from the Hatteras Inlet Station.

“We work with a couple of different agencies to release the sea turtles,” said Petty Officer Brandon Sanford of Station Hatteras Inlet. “(We do this) at least a couple of times a year. Usually, at the be ginning of winter season, they get picked up and sent to a rehab center, and when spring comes around, we’ll help return them to the ocean.”

This story is provided courtesy of the Island Free Press, a digital newspaper covering Hatteras and Ocracoke islands. Coastal Review Online is partnering with the Free Press to provide readers with more environmental and lifestyle stories of interest along our coast.

Reprinted from Outer Banks Voice

The Sand Dollar Shores Homeowners Association has announced, through its attorney Casey Varnell, that it has appealed a Feb. 14 ruling by a Camden County Superior Court Judge that sided with plaintiff Bob Hovey’s claim that a beach access in Duck belongs to the public.

“It goes without saying that the HOA does not agree with the decision of the trial court,” read a March 9 statement issued by the Sand Dollar Shores HOA, which described its position in the litigation as, “respecting private property rights legally established within the public record.”

The statement added that “the current ruling by the trial court affects many other Outer Banks Communities, and communities statewide, and not simply Sand Dollar Shores.”

The HOA also indicated that it is seeking a stay of the trial court’s order that the Sea Breeze beach access in the Duck Subdivision of Sand Dollar Shores is public property.

The dispute over the beach access in Duck exploded into public view last May when Hovey was arrested and charged with second-degree trespassing while attempting to use the access at the end of Sea Breeze Drive. A video of Hovey being confronted by two angry homeowners at the time of that incident went viral and stirred up considerable public and social media passions.

In August, Hovey and his wife Tanya filed a suit against the HOA arguing the walkway was a public trust.

Last month, Judge Lamott Wiggins granted them a summary judgment without a trial, ruling that, “It is declared that the “8’ pedestrian beach access easement … is an easement dedicated to the general public for the purpose of providing pedestrian access to the Atlantic Ocean beach held in the public trust by the State of North Carolina and is now in the jurisdiction of the Town of Duck.”

In its March 9 statement announcing the appeal, the HOA, in an apparent reference to social media commentary on the case, said it “will not address this legal matter through the use of social media, nor any other online outlets, as these mediums have shown to misconstrue and/or misrepresent the facts surrounding this case and further the vitriol within the entire Outer Banks Community.”

From an Outer Banks Voice report

Kitty Hawk officials are asking for help to push one of its projects across the finish line in pursuit of the North Carolina Department of Transportation’s Mobi Award.

The Mobi Awards recognize projects that showcase the role that investments in multimodal transportation play in creating vibrant communities in North Carolina. Kitty Hawk’s entry is its Moore Shore Road living shoreline project that was completed in July 2019.

According to information provided by the town, the project consists of 520 feet of offshore sill with native marsh grasses planted behind the sill. The purpose of the living shoreline is to protect Moore Shore Road while also creating a natural habitat for marine life and vegetation. The project also features two osprey poles to further support wildlife.

The $210,000 project was funded and built in partnership with the town, North Carolina Coastal Federation, NCDOT, Dare County Soil and Water, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, Coastal Engineering and Surveying and private landowners.

More than 100 volunteers planted the native marsh grasses in June and July 2019. Better Beaches OBX and the Coastal Federation aided in organizing the volunteers for the planting of the marsh grasses.

You vote online and individuals are allowed to vote once a day for up to three entries per day, but they can return every day to again vote for up to three entries. The last day of voting is Feb. 21.

Folks looking to spread their votes around might want to give some love to the Ocracoke Express passenger ferry, which is also among the candidates.

Economic developers in northeastern North Carolina counties expect to benefit from Dominion Energy’s plan for an offshore wind farm off the coast of Virginia Beach, the Elizabeth City Daily Advance reported.

Larry Lombardi, director of Currituck County’s economic development office, has said that several companies that could be connected to the wind farm construction and operation have expressed interest in the county’s Maple Commerce Park in Barco.

The officials pointed to the state’s lower corporate tax rate, compared to Virginia’s, lower cost of living and land prices and other selling points.

Reprinted from Island Free Press

The Chicamacomico Life-Saving Station Historic Site and Museum in Rodanthe has a wave of special events and activities planned this week as part of their annual Season’s End Festivities.

Visitors will have an opportunity to go back in time at 2 p.m. Tuesday to the Life-Saving Station’s early 20th-century heyday by watching the beach apparatus drill.

Performed by volunteers in period uniforms, the drill is an action-packed display that honors the heroes who practiced this drill every Thursday at four bells, or 2 p.m., when the original stations were still in commission. The event is free with the price of admission.

The community is invited to dig into a pre-Thanksgiving barbecue feast at noon Wednesday during the Life-Saving Station’s afternoon Pig Pickin’.

For $12 a plate, visitors can enjoy a plate of barbecue pork, baked beans, slaw and drinks. All proceeds from the pig pickin’ will benefit the nonprofit Chicamacomico Life-Saving Station Historic Site and Museum.

Vsitors can meet and greet with Santa Claus at 1 p.m. Friday, who will be making a special early holiday appearance at the Life-Saving Station the day after Thanksgiving.

The first 100 children who visit will receive a commemorative T-shirt along with a treat bag, and snacks and drinks will also be available. Visitors can bring a donation to the local food pantry as their admission ticket to the historic site and museum.

For more information on these upcoming events, as well as more info on the Chicamacomico Life-Saving Station Historic Site & Museum, visit the website or Facebook page.

This story is provided courtesy of the Island Free Press, a digital newspaper covering Hatteras and Ocracoke islands. Coastal Review Online is partnering with the Free Press to provide readers with more environmental and lifestyle stories of interest along our coast. 

From an OBX Today report

The Federal Emergency Management Agency has denied North Carolina’s application to provide assistance to individuals in Dare, Hyde, Carteret and New Hanover counties who suffered losses due to Hurricane Dorian, OBX Today reported Wednesday.

“Based on our review of all the information available, including the results of joint federal, state, and local government Preliminary Damage Assessments it has been determined that the impact to individuals and households from this event is not of such severity and magnitude to warrant the designation of Individual Assistance,” said Jeff Byard, Associate Administrator for FEMA’s Office of Response and Recovery in a letter sent Tuesday to Gov. Roy Cooper.

Byard was nominated by President Trump to become the new administrator of FEMA, but CNN reported last month that the White House was going to withdraw his nomination over a personal issue.

Sixth District state Rep. Bobby Hanig of Currituck County confirmed to OBX Today Wednesday morning that the request had been denied. A copy of the letter began circulating on Facebook late Tuesday.

“I will be working at the state level to find funding to help the folks that are in need,” Hanig said.

The letter said Cooper has 30 days to appeal the ruling with FEMA’s Region IV office in Atlanta.

“This is disappointing news for families who lost everything in Hurricane Dorian and still need help,” said Ford Porter, spokesperson for  Cooper. “The Governor will continue to work with our federal and state partners and North Carolina’s congressional delegation to determine a path forward to deliver assistance to those who need it.”

On Friday, FEMA approved providing reimbursement to local governments for the costs of debris removal, life-saving emergency protective measures and the repair, replacement or restoration of disaster-damaged publicly owned facilities. Certain private nonprofit organizations can also be eligible for reimbursement

Local officials expressed concerns early on that FEMA’s damage threshold may not be met from the storm that made landfall on Hatteras Island Sept. 6.

Cooper had requested a federal disaster declaration and FEMA public assistance for 14 North Carolina counties. He later asked FEMA to expand public assistance to 12 additional counties in eastern North Carolina.

From the Ocracoke Observer

OCRACOKE — Hurricane Dorian relief workers here have offered new information on how people can help.

The Ocracoke Relief Team said it had seen an overwhelming response from individuals wanting to help rebuild the community. Because of the massive response, the team has turned to four experienced organizations with the resources to coordinate large volunteer forces.

If you would like to come to the island as a volunteer,  visit any of the following:

• Samaritan’s Purse
• Christian Aid Ministry
• North Carolina Baptists on Mission
• North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church Disaster Ministries, or disaster@nccumc.org.

If you are unable to volunteer with these organizations,  consider donating to the Outer Banks Community Foundation and indicate you would like your funds allocated to Ocracoke Disaster Relief.

If you have specific questions, unique offers of aid, or questions about donating supplies, contact the relief team at ocracokedisasterrelief@gmail.com.

“Thank you so much to everyone who has reached out to us when we need it most, our community appreciates it more than words can express,” the Ocracoke Relief Team said.

Also, Hyde County officials announced that a small business recovery team plans to present available tools and resources and meet with individual business owners at 1 p.m. Friday at the Community Center. Learn more.

Reprinted from Island Free Press

CAPE HATTERAS NATIONAL SEASHORE — More than 400 sea turtle nests have been recorded within the Cape Hatteras National Seashore, shattering the previous record of 325 nests, which occurred in 2016.

As of Wednesday, there were 414 nests and an estimated 16,504 eggs reported at Cape Hatteras, according seaturtle.org. The total count of 414 nests includes 394 loggerhead turtle nests, 19 green turtle nests, and 1 Kemp’s Riley turtle nest.

Sea turtle nests laid by loggerheads, green turtles and leatherbacks have been monitored at the seashore since the 1970s. In 2015, a nesting record of 289 nests was set, followed by a new record in 2016 when 325 sea turtle nests were recorded along the National Seashore beaches.

Now, and with still a couple of weeks to go before the nesting season typically winds down, the seashore has exceeded these previous records by nearly 100 total nests.

The high number of sea turtle nests appears to be a multiple-year trend all along the Eastern Seaboard, according to data from seaturtle.org, which actively monitors sea turtle nests all around the world.

As of Wednesday, the site reported a total of 17,590 nests around the globe, which are primarily concentrated on the East Coast.

Due to the highly active nesting season, visitors are advised to be aware of sea turtle nesting activity or hatchlings while visiting the beaches on Hatteras and Ocracoke islands.

If you see turtle tracks, nesting activity, or hatchlings, notify park biologists by calling the stranding hotline at 252-216-6892.

Cape Hatteras National Seashore is also offering park visitors an opportunity to observe excavations of recently hatched sea turtle nests during the months of August and September. An “excavation” is the process completed by biologists to document what remains in the nest after a natural hatch has occurred, and during an excavation, the biologists will dig up the nest, count empty eggshells, and collect unhatched eggs for research.

Information on upcoming excavations can be obtained through the annual program’s hotline at 252-475-9629, which outlines any upcoming excavation events along Hatteras and Ocracoke islands.

In the meantime, visitors can keep tabs on nesting activity at shorelines all around the world at seaturtle.org.

This story is provided courtesy of the Island Free Press, a digital newspaper covering Hatteras and Ocracoke islands. Coastal Review Online is partnering with the Free Press to provide readers with more environmental and lifestyle stories of interest along our coast.

Researchers studying the presence of polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, in new mothers and their babies found that women with gestational diabetes had a significantly higher rate of transferring the synthetic compounds to their fetuses.

The newly published study in Environmental International is among the largest to date in the number of substances examined. The chemicals are linked with increasing health concerns, including cancer risk, hormone interference, immune system suppression and developmental disruptions in infants and children, according to the National Science Foundation, which announced the study this week.

Since the 1950s, PFAS have been used worldwide in common household and industry goods, including nonstick cookware, water- and stain-resistant materials and food packaging. These forever chemicals, so-called because they do not break down in the environment, are also used in aqueous firefighting foams at military training sites and can infiltrate drinking water, which has become a major source of exposure in specific communities.

“The contamination is all over the world,” said Youssef Oulhote, an epidemiologist at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, the study’s corresponding author.

Blood and umbilical cord samples from 151 mother-newborn pairs in the Faroe Islands, located off the coast of northern Europe, were examined by Oulhote and public health colleagues at Sorbonne University in Paris, the University of Southern Denmark, the Faroese Hospital System and Harvard University, where Oulhote began his research into the health effects of chemicals.

The local population of the Faroe Islands is genetically and socioeconomically homogeneous, minimizing confounding factors in the research. “Most importantly, they consume whale, which is high in the food chain, so it accumulates many of the contaminants,” Oulhote explained.

The research was funded by National Science Foundation’s Division of Ocean Sciences, through its Oceans and Human Health program in partnership with the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences.

WILMINGTON — New Hanover County Democrats in the state legislature laid out a plan Tuesday to respond to the recent Duke University study indicating long-running coal ash contamination of Lake Sutton from ash storage pits at the former coal-fired power plant north of the city.

The study announced Monday found levels of coal ash compounds in the lake’s bottom sediment were comparable to levels found in stream sediments after the 2008 Tennessee Valley Authority coal ash spill into the Emory and Clinch rivers and the 2014 Dan River spill near Eden, indicating a long-term process of unreported, unmonitored spills.

Sen. Harper Peterson and Rep. Deb Butler, both Democrats, held a press conference Tuesday at the lake, presenting a seven-step response plan, the StarNews reported. Among the steps are putting signs at the lake about the contamination and the potential public health risk, further analysis of the study findings, seeking temporary restrictions on public access to the lake, requesting Duke Energy’s internal documents related to storage and spills and seeking a determination on whether the utility violated the federal Clean Water Act.

Duke Energy responded earlier this week, saying the study results were no surprise and were proof that the company’s wastewater facility worked as intended.

A meeting is set for Tuesday in Raleigh where Duke geochemistry and water quality professor Avner Vengosh will present his findings to state officials.

Coal ash covers the sediment floor of Sutton Lake. What are the implications for the ecosystem and public health? Duke Energy must be held accountable for their coal ash mismanagement. pic.twitter.com/9d8uCNdhIq

— Harper Peterson (@harper4ncsenate) June 4, 2019

Avangrid Renewables, the company behind the Amazon Wind Farm in northeastern North Carolina, is exploring plans to build a solar farm nearby, the Elizabeth City Daily Advance reported.

Avangrid’s business development manager Andrew Makee said during an Elizabeth City Morning Rotary Club gathering last week that the solar project could be sited within the company’s 22,000-acre, 104-turbine wind farm, although he didn’t address project specifics.

A permit application for the project is months away, Makee told the group.

In responses to Rotarians’ questions, Makee said the company’s wind farm creates no interference problems for the Navy’s long-range surveillance radar array in Chesapeake, Virginia, and that the company had worked with the Navy on software modifications to filter out “noise” associated with turbines and their components.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Environmental Protection Agency has significantly weakened a proposed standard for per- and polyfluorinated substances, or PFAS, in groundwater, the New York Times reported.

The EPA bowed to pressure from the Defense Department because PFAS is an ingredient in firefighting foam used at military bases.

The EPA on Thursday released standards that did not include a previously proposed section dealing with short-term response, or removal actions, to address “immediate threats posed by hazardous waste sites.”

The Defense Department had spent about $200 million on PFAS investigations and response as of December 2016 and identified 401 installations with known or potential releases of these chemicals.

The military had taken actions including providing alternative drinking water to nearby residents at 32 locations as of August 2017. While no North Carolina bases appeared to be included in that list, the Navy has sampled water from 258 private wells near Marine Corps Outlying Landing Field Atlantic in Carteret County

Atlantic Field has been in operation since 1942 and supports training operations for nearby Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point. There’s no documentation that aircraft firefighting foam that could have included PFAS was used, disposed of, or stored at Atlantic Field, two wells sampled exceeded existing EPA standards for PFAS as of March 2018. Both property owners were offered alternate drinking water delivery “until a suitable long-term solution is determined,” according to the Navy.

Navy sampling for PFAS in groundwater dates back to a 2014 policy.

The EPA on Thursday opened a 45-day public comment period on the proposed guidelines.

According to the Times report, the Pentagon had complained to the White House about the EPA rule as originally proposed, which had included a standard contamination level of 400 parts per trillion for two kinds of PFAS that could require immediate action. The revised proposal deals instead with longer-term remediation.

Reprinted from Island Free Press

New requirements for gear configurations for shrimp trawls go into effect July 1 to reduce bycatch in areas of Pamlico Sound and portions of the Pamlico and Neuse rivers.

The new gear configurations will be required in all shrimp trawls, except skimmer trawls, used in inside waters where up to 220 feet of combined headrope length is allowed, Pamlico Sound and portions of Pamlico River and Neuse River.

Gear requirements for the remaining internal coastal fishing waters, where up to 90 feet of combined headrope length is allowed, and for the Atlantic Ocean out to 3 miles remain unchanged.

The N.C. Marine Fisheries Commission approved the new requirements at its May 2018 business meeting as part of Amendment 1 to the North Carolina Shrimp Fishery Management Plan after a collaborative study between the Division of Marine Fisheries, National Marine Fisheries Service, North Carolina Sea Grant and the commercial shrimp trawl industry identified four devices that achieve at least 40 percent reduction in bycatch.

A bycatch-reduction device is a fishing gear modification designed to reduce the catch of non-target species.

The new gear configuration requirements for trawl nets in Pamlico Sound and portions of the Neuse and Pamlico rivers:

• Increase the tail bag/cod end minimum mesh length to 1 3/4 inches;
• Specify the use of authorized bycatch reduction devices properly installed and operational in the tail bag/cod end of each net;
• Specify installation of turtle excluder devices.

The Virgil Potter bycatch reduction device is also approved for fishermen to use in shrimp trawls in these areas.

Try nets are also limited to a maximum of 12-feet headrope length for consistency with federal requirements in all areas. A try net is a smaller net pulled for brief periods just before or during deployment of the primary nets to test for shrimp concentrations or determine fishing conditions.

For specifics on the new shrimp trawl requirements for Pamlico Sound and portions of the Pamlico and Neuse rivers, see Proclamation SH-1-2019. For shrimp trawl requirements in all other areas in coastal fishing waters see Proclamation SH-2-2019.

For more information, contact Kevin H. Brown, gear specialist with the Division of Marine Fisheries, at 252-808-8089 or Chris Stewart, shrimp biologist with the division, at 910-796-7370.

Reprinted from Island Free Press

The North Carolina Department of Transportation will close a section of N.C. 12 in Frisco from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. March 24 to replace two cross pipes under the road.

The closure will take place between Delmer Willis Road and Sunset Strip in Frisco. A marked detour route along the beach will be available for four-wheel drive traffic only between National Park Service ramps 48 and 49. Motorists using the detour are advised to follow the marked route and obey posted speed limits. There is no detour route available for vehicles without four-wheel drive.

The work will be performed as scheduled unless a major weather event occurs.

For real-time travel information, visit DriveNC.gov or follow NCDOT on social media.

This story is provided courtesy of the Island Free Press, a digital newspaper covering Hatteras and Ocracoke islands. Coastal Review Online is partnering with the Free Press to provide readers with more environmental and lifestyle stories of interest along our coast. You can read other stories about Hatteras and Ocracoke here.

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This painting by a Swansboro High School student joins 60 other impressions of the Southern Outer Banks in a student art exhibit to be on display at Cape Lookout National Seashore through the summer.

Themed “Connect with the Rhythms of Nature on the Southern Outer Banks,” the art exhibition features 60 pieces created by 470 students attending 19 public and private schools.

The exhibit will open to the public at the Harkers Island Visitor Center, 131 Charles St., from Saturday, March 9, until Sept. 9.  The satellite exhibition will be in the Beaufort Visitor Information Center, 701 Front St., starting March 25, when the park information center reopens for the season.

Cape Lookout National Seashore and the nonprofit International Fiber Collaborative, or IFC,  partnered on the exhibit.

IFC, founded in 2008, works to develop and promote community programs that encourage learning and creativity in the arts to science, math, engineering, and the humanities and encourage collaboration between art and civic engagement.

Visit the Cape Lookout National Seashore website for hours and details about the park.

Got a photo you’d like to share with Coastal Review Online readers? Please read our submission guidelines.

Reprinted from Outer Banks Voice

OUTER BANKS — A large humpback whale was discovered on the beach in Corolla early Sunday, the second whale within six days to beach along the Outer Banks.

Corolla Beach Rescue posted photos Sunday morning of the large whale found near the Hampton Inn and Suites.

Tuesday, Feb. 12, a humpback whale washed up in the surf near Oregon Inlet after being spotted floating in the ocean in Nags Head the day before.

The 38-foot whale was partially decomposed and no cause of death was immediately apparent. Sunday’s incident marks the seventh stranding so far this year on Outer Banks beaches.

Another humpback was spotted floating off Jennette’s Pier Monday, Feb. 11, before ending up on the beach near Oregon Inlet.

“We took skin samples and some photos of its flukes to see if we can identify it to a known animal,”said Karen Clark of the Outer Banks Mammal Marine Stranding Network. “It was already scavenged on its head, so we just did a basically external examination.”

Humpbacks can be identified by prints on their flukes, which are the two lobes of its tail. Whales migrate to the coast of New England to forage for krill and schooling fish during the warmer months.

Marine networks in the northeast track and keep a catalog of known whales, Clark explained. However, because the humpback had spent so much time rolling in the surf, the whale, or its cause of death, couldn’t be identified.

This story is provided courtesy of the Outer Banks Voice, a digital newspaper covering the Outer Banks. Coastal Review Online is partnering with the Voice to provide readers with more environmental and lifestyle stories of interest about our coast.

Reprinted from Outer Banks Voice

A federal appeals court has dismissed continued efforts by Hatteras Island property owners and residents to halt construction of the “jug-handle” bridge over the Pamlico Sound.

In a decision published Wednesday, the U.S. Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court’s dismissal of claims that the North Carolina Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration violated the National Environmental Policy Act and the Department of Transportation Act in approving the 2.4-mile-long bridge over the sound to bypass northern Rodanthe.

Save Our Sound OBX Inc. and six individual plaintiffs brought the original action in February 2017 in U.S District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina against the NCDOT and the highway administration.

The group said that instead of basing their choice on an objective analysis of the environmental impacts of the various alternatives, as required by state and federal law, officials unlawfully predetermined their selection of the “jug-handle” bridge pursuant to a backroom deal struck with the Southern Environmental Law Center as part of a settlement from previous lawsuits related to the replacement of the Bonner Bridge over Oregon Inlet.  The “jug-handle” bridge construction is part of the second phase of the Bonner bridge replacement project.

In June 2018, U.S. District Court Judge Louise Flanagan issued a 46-page ruling that dismissed the claims.
Save Our Sound OBX appealed the decision to the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals, which considered the case and issued its decision Jan. 23.

Article by Kari Pugh reprinted from the Outer Banks Voice

Roamer, a stallion who became an ambassador for the northern Outer Banks’ storied wild horses, died last weekend following complications from colic.

The stallion’s photo is featured on the Corolla Wild Horse Fund’s educational billboard erected along U.S. 158 in Coinjock last year. He was also a regular at the fund’s “Meet a Mustang” events, where he greeted thousands curious about Currituck’s Colonial Spanish horses.

The wild horse fund manages the herd of about 100 wild mustangs who roam the four-wheel-drive area beaches and a rescue farm of about 17 horses.

Prior to his days as an ambassador, Roamer was a bit of a troublemaker. He “repeatedly swam around a fence that extends into the sound to make his way through busy neighborhoods and dangerous traffic on Route 12,” Currituck Travel and Tourism wrote.

His “roaming” ways eventually led to a life at the fund’s rescue farm, for his own protection. Roamer has lived there since.

This weekend, he was showing signs of colic and the herd’s vet was called.

“She and our staff did everything in their power to save Roamer, but he had a tear in his GI tract that led to sepsis,” the CWHF wrote in a Facebook post. “It was less than 24 hours after he first showed signs of colic that we made the difficult decision to let him go.”

Colic is a common ailment among the wild horses, and in fact is the subject of the billboard graced by Roamer’s photo.

“Admire Don’t Feed! Apples and Carrots Kill Wild Horses,” it reads.

The message is intended to educate people that wild horses cannot eat any food that is not from their natural habitat of beach grasses. The public is often unaware that their snacks are harmful and often cause painful colic and may result in death, according to a press release from the wild horse fund.

Describing Roamer’s death as “absolutely devastating for all of us,” the nonprofit said the loss is great for the herd, as well.

“However, Roamer leaves behind his offspring on the beach and his legacy as an ambassador for his breed. We take comfort in knowing he will live on in those ways, but we are still grieving, and will be for a long time.”

This story is provided courtesy of the Outer Banks Voice, a digital newspaper covering the Outer Banks. Coastal Review Online is partnering with the Voice to provide readers with more environmental and lifestyle stories of interest about our coast.

A U.S. Geological Survey study shows Hurricane Florence broke 28 flood records in the Carolinas, the News & Observer reported.

Eighteen USGS stream gauges in North Carolina and 10 in South Carolina registered record-setting water levels, called peaks of record, according to the report, which looked at peak stream flow and water level data measured at 84 stream gauges in the Carolinas with records going back 10 years or more. In addition, 45 stream gauges in North Carolina and four in South Carolina recorded flows that ranked among the top five on record. Some of the sites with record-breaking flooding had more than 70 years of historical data.

“One thing we discovered while compiling this report was many of the new peaks of record set by Hurricane Florence broke previous records set by Hurricane Matthew in 2016,” Toby Feaster, USGS Hydrologist and lead author of the study, said in a statement. “Since several of the streamgage sites we analyzed had more than 30 years of historical data associated with them, it was interesting that a majority of the number one and two records were from back-to-back flooding events.”

From an Outer Banks Voice report

Already on record as opposing offshore drilling for oil and natural gas, the chairman of the Dare County Board of Commissioners and Nags Head’s mayor signed a letter to the editor of the News & Observer protesting the National Marine Fisheries Service’s recent decision to approve seismic testing for undersea reserves.

Last week, the National Marine Fisheries Service gave its go-ahead for seismic surveys for oil and natural gas in the Atlantic, approving five companies for incidental harassment of marine mammals under the Marine Mammal Protection Act.

Woodard said that even if no reserves are found, the process using sound waves threatens marine life.

“I would encourage you to continue to speak out,” Woodard said during the commissioners’ meeting Monday. “I know that our board is unanimous in opposition to this.”

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BEAUFORT – Duke University Marine Lab announced Monday it has welcomed back 33 residential undergraduate students who had been displaced by Hurricane Florence.

Students who resided at the lab had been living off campus for the past six weeks while four dormitories damaged by the storm were repaired. The total included 20 Duke students and 13 undergrads studying at the University of North Carolina Institute for Marine Sciences in Morehead City.

“It’s great to be back to normal,” said Duke Marine Lab Director Andy Read. “Our undergraduate students are a central part of our community and it’s great to have them back on the island.”

The students were evacuated on Sept. 11, prior to Florence’s arrival, and spent two weeks on Duke’s main campus in Durham, before returning to their temporary accommodations on the coast when classes resumed at the Marine Lab on Oct. 1, officials said.

Rainwater entered several dorms after the storm caused minor roof damage. Roofs were replaced and repairs are now complete to four dorm buildings.

“Repairs are continuing to other buildings damaged by the storm, but we are now back to being fully operational,” said Read. “We’re thankful for all the hard work by Duke Facilities Management, Marine Lab staff and local contractors to get our students back so soon.”

Reprinted from the Ocracoke Observer

OCRACOKE — Thanks to a partnership between the North Carolina Coastal Land Trust, Ocracoke Community Park and the National Park Service, Ocracoke residents and visitors will have a new walking trail and attraction.

Work on the $300,000 project, Ocracoke Wetlands Preserve Nature Walk, traversing the marsh between the Community Park Ballfield at the end of Maurice Ballance Road and Loop Shack Hill, is expected to begin in mid to late 2020.

When complete, the walkway will allow all to experience the delicate marsh environment and give more exposure to Loop Shack Hill.

After the Ocracoke Preservation Society donated a 24-acre tract of land adjacent to the ballfield to the Land Trust in 2015, the trust and the Community Park board of directors immediately envisioned a raised walkway in this area.

Then, Ed Norvell, co-chair of the project’s capital campaign, suggested linking the walkway to the Loop Shack Hill area, an important piece of World War II history.

Loop Shack Hill is the site of a secret World War II exercise to train U.S. Navy Beach Jump­ers. After it was declassified, the late Earl O’Neal Jr. obtained a memorial marker in 2009 on N.C. 12.

The National Park Service plans to construct a parking area across the road from the monument.

David E. Hallac, Cape Hatteras National Seashore superintendent, was on board at the outset, said Greg Honeycutt, project co-chair.

“I’m thrilled to be working with the Coastal Land Trust and Ocracoke community on this wonderful project,” Hallac said.  “A coastal marsh trail that leads to Cape Hatteras Seashore lands will allow visitors to learn about the island’s rich World War II history.”

The park service also will provide some interpretive signage.

The trust likes that the project will open this area for public use and environmental education.

“There is broad-based enthusiasm and public support as people realize what a valuable resource this area is,” said Lee Leidy, Land Trust Northeast Regional director.  “It’s a win-win for everybody.”

The total project cost is about $300,000, and the Ocracoke Occupancy Tax Board in April granted the project $50,000 in seed money. The trust later asked the board for another $100,000 for future maintenance.

“Occupancy Tax monies are a vital resource for this project, as they will allow for somewhat of an endowment of reserve funds for maintenance and enhancement down the road,” Honeycutt said.

The remainder will be sought through private fundraising and grants. To date, about $45,000 has been pledged, he said.

The walkway material will be the same as that of the lifeguard beach walkway, requiring less maintenance in the saltwater environment and having minimal impact on the marsh.

Since the proposed location is included in the Areas of Environmental Concern set forth by the North Carolina Division of Coastal Management, the Coastal Area Management Act regulations ensure protection of the delicate marsh.

“We don’t have the CAMA permit yet,” Leidy said. “We’d like all funding to be in place first before we apply for the necessary permits.”

Honeycutt noted islanders’ approval of the project.

“Getting the public involved as much as possible and making this a desired attraction on Ocracoke are important goals of the project,” he said.

Individuals and businesses can become sponsors of the benches and signage.

Campaign packets for cash, bench or sign sponsors are available by calling Honeycutt at 252-207-1305.

This story by Rita Thiel is provided courtesy of the Ocracoke Observer, a newspaper covering Ocracoke island. Coastal Review Online is partnering with the Ocracoke Observer to provide readers with more environmental and lifestyle stories of interest along our coast. 

East Carolina University says it has renewed its commitment to coastal science by creating a new academic unit called Integrated Coastal Programs.

Reide Corbett has been named dean of Integrated Coastal Programs and will oversee the new program, which encompasses the Department of Coastal Studies and the Coastal Studies Institute at ECU’s Outer Banks Campus on Roanoke Island, the university announced Wednesday.

ECU said the new program is the product of years of strategic thinking about how ECU might grow and improve its coastal research and teaching programs, including the Coastal Studies Institute at Roanoke Island and the Institute of Coastal Science and Policy at ECU.

“So you had these two institutes, both focused on research, education and outreach from a coastal perspective,” Corbett said in a statement. “The marriage between ECU and CSI became stronger and stronger, and there clearly needed to be a lead institution to help CSI see its vision, and ECU … stepped up to the plate to take that lead.”

ECU said the partnership with University of North Carolina and North Carolina State University, as well as dive and vessel operations, will continue at the institute under the new organizational structure. Corbett said the new unit will break down barriers between disciplines to allow new approaches to coastal research.

“Think about it from a student’s perspective,” said Jay Golden, vice chancellor for research, economic development and engagement. “If you’re in engineering you’re trying to come up with new offshore energy designs or coastal engineering designs to address hurricanes, but then you have other faculty who are economists, other faculty who are looking at the social drivers for this.

“You really get a holistic approach, an interdisciplinary approach, and it’s exciting; you get to take what your innovation or design might be and really ground it in truth in regards to whether it makes economic sense and how the public will perceive it.”

The university said it is working to make the most of the Outer Banks campus, which is home to the institute. The facility was completed in 2012, and the campus spans 213 acres of marshes, scrub wetlands, forested wetlands and sound ecosystems.

Corbett’s vision for the Outer Banks campus includes growth that will allow more students to take advantage of the facility’s location and direct access to coastal ecosystems. “Ultimately we want to grow the campus so we can bring more students out there for the entire semester and offer them a full load of courses,” he said.

Research at ECU and CSI includes renewable ocean energy, including harnessing the power of waves and the Gulf Stream. Maritime history students have focused on the subject and made several discoveries including the identification of the mystery shipwreck at Pappy’s Lane near Rodanthe.

Coastal sustainability is another major area of research, Corbett said. Recent events like Hurricane Florence have brought attention to changing weather patterns and coastal flooding.

“It goes beyond what’s been in the news for so long with saltwater intrusion and sea level rise,” Corbett said. “It’s not just sea level rise; it’s changes in climate patterns that are going to lead to increased freshwater inundation and changes that we need to put in place for a more sustainable coastal community.”

Corbett noted ECU’s longtime focus on the coast, “from the coastal plain and its rivers and streams to our estuarine systems, as well as the continental shelf,” he said, adding that the marriage of socioeconomics and the natural sciences was also part of that focus.

“We have all this incredible marine heritage sitting right off the coast,” he said. “And we have some of the wealthiest and some of the poorest counties just east of ECU.”

Innovation and entrepreneurship are also in the mix, according to ECU.

“Students are interested in developing new micro-enterprises, new types of businesses and industries that leverage the vast resources in the ocean, far greater than we have on land, whether it’s energy or to feed the world, or new types of products that are more sustainable because they’re natural and ocean-based,” Golden said. “Or finding ways for existing businesses on the coast to be more profitable, more sustainable financially. That’s going to be something that we want to leverage the campus and the faculty to do.

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Businesses and streets in downtown Manteo are inundated Thursday night by storm surge associated with Tropical Storm Michael, which receded fairly quickly after catching many off guard. Photo: Cory Hemilright

RALEIGH — In the aftermath of Hurricane Florence, officials with the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services are encouraging nurses, physicians, behavioral health professionals and others interested in volunteering to help people impacted by the storm to get connected with the appropriate resources and organizations.

“North Carolinians are resilient and we will all work together to recover from this disaster,” said DHHS Secretary Dr. Mandy Cohen. “The outpouring of support from people across our state has been incredible and we want to make it as easy as possible for people to find opportunities to volunteer.”

How nurses can help: To get involved in relief efforts, nurses should contact the American Red Cross of Eastern North Carolina. More information is available at www.redcross.org/enc and on their ‘Become a Volunteer’ webpage. Out-of-state nurses interested in volunteering should also register with their state’s emergency management department.

How physicians can help: Physicians interested in volunteering should refer to resources offered by the NC Medical Board.

How behavioral health professionals can help: Both in-state and out-of-state behavioral health professionals can help by registering with the North Carolina Psychological Association’s Disaster Response Network and by contacting the American Red Cross of Eastern North Carolina, which is coordinating mental health volunteers.

Social workers in North Carolina seeking information on how to help should refer to information offered by the North Carolina Chapter of the National Association of Social Workers.

How anyone can help: Others willing to help are encouraged to get connected with one of many volunteer organizations assisting with relief efforts. To find volunteer opportunities, visit www.volunteernc.org, the North Carolina Voluntary Organizations Active in Disaster (VOAD) website at www.ncvoad.org or the American Red Cross’ ‘Become a Volunteer’ webpage. To donate to the North Carolina Disaster Relief Fund, visit: www.governor.nc.gov/donate-florence-recovery.

In addition, DHHS has more information about volunteering online at www.ncdhhs.gov/hurricane-florence-recovery-volunteers

Featured Photo

Born Aug. 22, a filly, the newest addition to the Corolla wild horse herd, stands with her mother just after her birth in this photo by Cathy Forgnone. The Corolla Wild Horse Fund, or CWHF, announced Monday the birth of the filly, this year’s fifth foal, at Swan Beach. The horses roam on about 7,500 acres of habitat north of the paved section of N.C. 12, and are managed by the CWHF.

Learn More

• Corolla Wild Horse Fund

MANTEO — The Dare County Board of Commissioners in a split vote Monday rejected a proposed ban on plastic drinking straws, the Outer Banks Sentinel reported.

The 4-3 vote against a resolution presented by the North Carolina Conference of the United Methodist Church Youth came despite support by Chairman Bob Woodard, Vice Chairman Wally Overman and the board’s only Democrat, Danny Couch. During the discussion, Couch noted the board’s previous support of a plastic bag ban, saying it would be “contradictory to not support this.”

Commissioners Steve House, Rob Ross, Jack Shea and Jim Tobin voted against the resolution.

The proposed ban had the support of the Surfrider Foundation, which has an Ocean Friendly Restaurant program recognizing restaurants with anti-plastic-pollution practices, such as offering plastic straws only upon request.

The Dare County town of Duck previously passed a resolution in support of the Ocean Friendly Establishments project. About 20 businesses, including restaurants, have been recognized under the program.

The church youth group is also sending its proposed resolution to boards of commissioners in 16 other coastal counties.

From a University of North Carolina Institute for the Environment news feature by Michael F. Piehler published by the University of North Carolina Institute for the Environment about research by master’s student and Coastal Review Online science correspondent Kathleen Onorevole.

MOREHEAD CITY  — Scientists have documented many benefits of living shorelines, but until now there have been no studies on their capacity to remove nitrogen from the water, a natural process called denitrification.

The ability of living shorelines to remove nitrogen enhances water quality by reducing the likelihood of excessive algal growth that can be detrimental to human health and aquatic life.

At the Piehler Lab at the Institute for Marine Sciences, University of North Carolina student Kathleen Onorevole conducted a study of living shorelines and their ability to moderate nitrogen in coastal waters as part of her master’s degree program in the Department of Marine Sciences.

Living shorelines are a great example of a technology that arose from the understanding of the function of natural systems. They are a natural alternative to prevent erosion along the shores of estuaries. Instead of using man-made structures like bulkheads, a type of marine retaining wall, individuals and communities can construct living shorelines using marsh grass bordered by oyster reefs or other hard substrate.

Onorevole sampled several living shorelines on the North Carolina coast to quantify denitrification, among other environmental parameters. She collected samples seasonally for a year, which consisted of four living shorelines that were constructed at various points in the past. By treating these sites as snapshots in time, changes in each parameter at a single model site could be analyzed over time.

Onorevole found that denitrification increased within seven years after living shorelines were constructed and was sustained afterwards. All of the habitats, including oyster reef, salt marsh and mudflat had similar denitrification rates, suggesting that the living shorelines were functioning as a fairly homogenous unit in terms of nitrogen removal.

She also found that denitrification was not accompanied by the production of nitrous oxide, a strong greenhouse gas that is sometimes associated with the denitrification process, alleviating concerns of the potential for this unwanted effect. Overall, this study demonstrated that shortly after they are constructed, living shorelines can provide valuable nitrogen removal and help moderate coastal water quality.

Her research article will appear in the September issue of Ecological Engineering. Read the full article.

This research also served as a foundation for a capstone class at the Morehead City Field Site, with Onorevole serving as a graduate research consultant, funded by UNC Office of Undergraduate Research.  She also was honored with an Impact Award by the UNC Graduate Education Advancement Board, recognizing the quality of the research and its value to North Carolina. The project was funded by the Biological Oceanography Program at the National Science Foundation.

The Piehler Lab focuses on understanding how aquatic systems function and the value that they bring to people. One aspect of that work is developing new approaches to sustain the function of natural systems in areas where human activities put pressure on these systems.

Featured Photo

Reader Barry Fetzer recently captured this image of two swans on Queens Creek near Swansboro in Onslow County. Originally spelled Swannsborough, the town however, took its name in 1783 from Samuel Swann, a resident who served in the North Carolina House of Commons.

EMERALD ISLE — A beach re-nourishment project on the town’s eastern strand appears likely this winter, the Carteret County News-Times reported.

The project could be paid for with money from the $5 million appropriated in the state budget for the new Coastal Storm Damage Mitigation Fund. The fund was created by the legislature in 2017 to help local governments pay for major beach re-nourishment projects.

The fund works like the one that receives money from boat fuel taxes and boat title registrations and helps pay for dredging projects, but the re-nourishment fund lacks a dedicated source of revenue. But this year, $5 million was transferred from the Industrial Development Fund Utility Account to the mitigation fund.

Greg “Rudi” Rudolph, head of the Carteret County Shore Protection Office, told the News-Times he hopes the legislature “will continue working on a dedicated source of revenue.”

If that doesn’t happen right away, he said, “maybe we’ll get another $5 million in there next year.”

Rep. Pat McElraft, R-Carteret, told the paper Friday the one-time appropriation was to get the program started and that other sources would be considered.

McElraft said beaches are important to the coastal economy and work was on to secure a dedicated revenue source for the re-nourishment fund.

“What I want to do is find some parks money for this fund, if possible. Our beaches on the coast are our parks,” she said.

Rush said he expects the money would be released for the eastern Emerald Isle beach re-nourishment project and companion projects in Indian Beach or Pine Knoll Shores set for this winter.

While not specifically earmarked for the project, officials agreed that the budget language appears to target the Bogue Banks beach project as the only one that meets stated criteria that includes a required interlocal management plan.

The entire Bogue Banks project would cost about $28 million and calls for the placement of more than 1.5 million cubic yards of sand.

Estimated cost for the eastern Emerald Isle project is about $9.2 million, with plans calling for a 50-50 share of the expense split between state and local funding.

Under that scenario, the county would provide about $3.45 million from its beach re-nourishment fund supported by occupancy tax proceeds, with the town providing the remaining $1.15 million, funded by a special tax on oceanfront property levied to pay for beach projects.

The county’s total outlay for Bogue Banks would be $8.8 million, with the towns covering about $2.8 million, including the $1.15 million from Emerald Isle, $1.02 million from Pine Knoll Shores and $673,000 from Indian Beach-Salter Path.

Learn More

• News-Times: State budget includes $5M in beach nourishment funds

Featured Photo

Reprinted from the Island Free Press

SALVO — Because of a collaboration among island groups and local, state and federal governments, the Salvo Cemetery will be protected from the storm-tossed waves of the Pamlico Sound.

The Hatteras Island Genealogical and Historic Preservation Society and the Rodanthe-Waves-Salvo Civic Association have long been concerned about the eroding shoreline in front of the historic Salvo community cemetery.

The community cemetery is within the Salvo Day Use Area of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore.

Locally raised funds placed sandbags in front of the cemetery in 2017. That temporary protection helped, but isn’t nearly enough.

Dare County applied for and received a $162,000 grant from the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality to protect the cemetery. The state funds were allocated to fix cemeteries affected by Hurricane Matthew.

Permits from the Division of Coastal Management and the National Park Service are making the project possible.

In early May, a pre-construction meeting was held at the cemetery.

For the first step, familiar orange fencing will be installed to denote the construction area. A narrow corridor to the south of the construction site will be available for access to the beach to the south.

Except for the work area, Salvo Day Use Area is open for public use.

Hatchell Concrete is the general contractor and Millstone Marine will construct the bulkhead around most of the cemetery. Albemarle & Associates is the construction manager.

The project is expected to be completed by the end of June.

Visitors with questions about access to the Salvo Day Use Area can call the Office of the Superintendent of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore at 252-475-9032.

This story is provided courtesy of the Island Free Press, a digital newspaper covering Hatteras and Ocracoke islands. Coastal Review Online is partnering with the Free Press to provide readers with more environmental and lifestyle stories of interest along our coast. 

Reprinted from the Outer Banks Voice

The North Carolina Supreme Court said Currituck County will not have to pay $39.1 million in a long-running legal dispute with Virginia Beach, Virginia, developer Chip Friedman and others over a proposed commercial development in the four-wheel-drive area of the Currituck Banks.

In the decision released Friday, high court justices agreed with last October’s ruling by the state Court of Appeals to set aside entry of default and vacate a default judgment delivered by Superior Court Judge Milton Fitch in April 2016 ordering the county to pay Swan Beach LLC $39.1 million in civil damages.

“The county is pleased with the Supreme Court’s decision, which we believed would be the result,” said Dan Scanlon, Currituck County manager. “The county looks forward to proceeding with the trial court’s determination of the plaintiff’s claims, which are outrageous and without merit.”

Swan Beach LLC and other plaintiffs alleged the county has discriminated against them by not allowing them to commercially develop property they own in the four-wheel-drive area of Currituck’s northern Outer Banks.

The property was purchased in the 1960s and platted for a mixture of commercial and residential development. The county’s zoning ordinances have evolved over time and now only allow for residential development in the four-wheel-drive area, which has no paved roads.

The plaintiffs assert that they should be allowed to develop the land based on the way it was zoned when they purchased it, and they would not have spent money preparing the land for development if they had known it would not be allowed.

According to the lawsuit, in the 1960s, the county asked the property owners to delay commercial development until there was enough residential development to support it, which they did in good faith.

The suit also alleged the county had discriminated against the plaintiffs because they were from out of state and Jewish.

In its news release on Friday, the county maintained that it does not discriminate, and that the property rights of Swan Beach LLC were not violated because commercial development in the four-wheel drive area has never been allowed by county ordinance.

In 2013, a Superior Court Judge dismissed the suit, followed by the state appellate court finding some of Friedman’s claims may have had merit and sent it back to the lower court.

Attorneys for Swan Beach LLC offered to settle the suit the following year, but claimed the county missed a filing deadline. That started the series of legal maneuvers leading up to Friday’s ruling.

The case will now return to Currituck County Superior Court for determination of the merits of the plaintiff’s complaint regarding development in the off-road area.

Dee Langston and Sam Walker contributed to this report

This story is provided courtesy of the Outer Banks Voice, a digital newspaper covering the Outer Banks. Coastal Review Online is partnering with the Voice to provide readers with more environmental and lifestyle stories of interest about our coast.

Reprinted from the Island Free Press

While the total removal of the Frisco, or Cape Hatteras, Pier is currently on hold due to the beginning of the sea turtle nesting and hatching season, the parking lot that borders the former structure has re-opened to the public this week.

The parking area was closed for the duration of the project, which began in December 2017, although the beach near the site remained open over the past few months, when safety conditions allowed.

When the pier stood on the site in Frisco, the parking lot and the road that led to the structure were both privately owned. However, now that the majority of the pier has been removed, the parking lot and road will remain open to the public, and a future comfort station with restrooms, perhaps similar to the Bathhouse in between Frisco and Hatteras village, has already been proposed and is being considered.

“Our plan is to install some sort of a restroom facility at some point,” said Cape Hatteras National Seashore Superintendent David Hallac. “We’re not sure if that will happen in the next year, or within the next three years, but that is on the list [of projects] to accomplish.”

“As of this week, the contractor has removed all of the equipment and scraped sand back up to reform the dunes, so the beach and parking area are usable right now,” said Hallac.

The contractor for the project got the bulk of the piling removal done before the early May deadline, when sea turtle nesting season begins, however there are still some submerged pilings that will need to be removed. Work is scheduled to resume again in September 2018.

This story is provided courtesy of the Island Free Press, a digital newspaper covering Hatteras and Ocracoke islands. Coastal Review Online is partnering with the Free Press to provide readers with more environmental and lifestyle stories of interest along our coast. 

WASHINGTON – The former superintendent of the Cape Lookout National Seashore is one of a handful of veteran National Park Service officials included in a proposed reshuffling of executive positions some see as retaliatory, the Washington Post reported.

Bob Vogel, a 37-year park service veteran, served as Cape Lookout superintendent from 2002-07 and has been National Capital Region director, overseeing the National Mall and Memorial Parks, since 2014. He would be sent to the service’s Southeast regional office in Atlanta as part of the short-notice transfers.

Vogel previously served three years as superintendent of the National Mall. He and a half-dozen other park service staff would have 60 days to decide whether to accept the transfers or leave the service altogether if the changes are approved.

The proposed transfers come days after the Interior Department’s inspector general determined that a round of transfers in June 2017 were ordered without explanation. The Post reported that some career staffers and others have suggested that the moves are in retaliation to employees who’ve criticized Trump administration policies.

A department spokeswoman said no announcements had been made about the transfers but that the Interior Department continually considers ways to improve.

Learn More

• Read the Washington Post report

MANTEO — The Dare Board of Commissioners provided time last week for offshore drilling advocates to speak but ultimately stuck to their position that the risks were unacceptable, the Outer Banks Sentinel reported.

Vice Chairman Wally Overman said during the meeting April 3, “I can’t imagine a worse place to be drilling.”

The meeting included a presentation by an anti-wind-power activist who claimed seismic surveys have resulted in no consequential environmental problems, that an oil spill would be extremely unlikely and that wind turbines produce more damage and greater risk to coastal tourism.

Featured Photo

Rep. Pat McElraft, R-Carteret, reaches toward a small ray swimming in the touch tank at the North Carolina Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores Tuesday during a tour of the facility for legislators and staff in town for a meeting of the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee on Agriculture and Natural and Economic Resources. Photo: Mark Hibbs

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The Environmental Protection Agency said Wednesday its deregulation actions and other agency changes led by Administrator Scott Pruitt during his first year in office could save Americans more than $1 billion in regulatory costs.

The EPA’s announcement touts a year-in-review report that looks at 22 deregulation actions, including moves to “refocus” the agency’s mission, shift regulatory power to states and improve agency processes.

“In just one year, we have made tremendous progress implementing President Trump’s agenda by refocusing the Agency to its core mission, restoring power to the states through cooperative federalism, and adhering to the rule of law,” EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt said in the announcement. “The American people can now trust that states and stakeholders will be treated as partners, and regulations will provide clarity, not confusion.”

Pruitt’s recent actions have included a proposal to roll back rules on coal ash disposal and ending a program examining the effects of toxins on children’s health.

The EPA’s announcement follows and appears at odds with a report the Office of Management and Budget released Friday that found that regulations, including those targeted by the Trump administration, provided benefits that far outweighed their costs, without negatively affecting jobs or economic growth.

The OMB report finds that of all new regulations enacted — mainly during the Obama administration — environmental regulations, while among the costliest, also provided the most benefit.

The estimated annual benefits of major federal regulations reviewed by OMB from Oct. 1, 2006, to Sept. 30, 2016, for which agencies estimated and monetized both benefits and costs, were between $287 and $911 billion while their costs were between $78 and $115 billion. For EPA rules alone, the benefits were $195.8 to $705.7 billion, versus $54.1 to $64.8 billion in costs. OMB said the ranges reflect uncertainty in the benefits and costs of each rule at the time that it was evaluated.

“Of the EPA’s 26 air rules, the highest estimated benefits are for the Clean Air Fine Particle Implementation Rule issued in 2007, with benefits estimates ranging from $19 billion to $167 billion per year; and the National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants From Coal- and Oil-Fired Electric Utility Steam Generating Units (“MATS”26) issued in 2011, with benefits estimates ranging from $28 billion to $77 billion,” according to the OMB report.

The OMB report acknowledges that the costs and benefits are not necessarily borne by the same people. In other words, industry bears most of environmental regulatory costs, but the American public reaps most of the benefits.

Learn More

• Read the EPA report
• Read the OMB report

5 p.m. Wednesday update: N.C. 12 has opened on Ocracoke Island and from the Bonner Bridge to Rodanthe. The Hatteras-Ocracoke ferry route has resumed service with an amended schedule as follows: from Hatteras: 6 p.m., 9 p.m. and midnight; from Ocracoke: 5:30 p.m, 7:30 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. Transportation officials said that if roads remain open, ferries will return to schedule Thursday.

Noon Wednesday update: Transportation officials said just after noon Wednesday that N.C. 12 had been opened from Bonner Bridge to Rodanthe. The road was still closed on Ocracoke.

Original report follows below:

OUTER BANKS — The North Carolina Department of Transportation said Wednesday morning that N.C. Highway 12 was again closed to all traffic between the Bonner Bridge and Rodanthe, as well as on Ocracoke Island between the pony pens and the ferry terminal as a result of severe overwash during the night.

The closure is a lingering effect of the nor’easter that arrived Friday and continued to bring high surf to the islands through early Tuesday morning.

Here’s a look at NC 12 this morning just north of Rodanthe. Our crews are working hard to get sand off of the road and back onto the dunes both here and at the Pea Island Visitors Center. We are still working toward/hoping for a midday opening. pic.twitter.com/rtFmZXBziu

— NCDOT NC12 (@NCDOT_NC12) March 7, 2018

N.C. 12 on Hatteras Island had reopened Tuesday evening, but closed again a little more than 12 hours later as sand and water from surf reaching heights of 13 feet covered the road, the Outer Banks Voice reported. State Ferries across Hatteras Inlet resumed Tuesday evening, but were suspended again Wednesday because the road closure.

Due to the re-closing of Highway 12 on both Hatteras and Ocracoke Islands, the Hatteras-Ocracoke ferry route is temporarily closed. We will resume service as soon as the roads are open again.

— NCDOT Ferry Division (@NCDOT_Ferry) March 7, 2018

NCDOT officials were working toward a midday reopening of the highway.

NCDOT said Tuesday afternoon that crews clearing N.C. 12 between Rodanthe and the Bonner Bridge found no structural damage to the road, leading officials to predict the road would reopen quickly.

Ocracoke Postmaster Celeste Brooks said Monday that no mail had been delivered or sent since Friday, nor packages delivered via UPS or FedEx, the Ocracoke Observer reported.  UPS service finally made it to the island on Tuesday, she said.

CURRITUCK — The Currituck Board of Commissioners voted 5-1 in a second reading Monday to require parking permits during the height of the summer season for the off-road section of the county’s beaches, the Outer Banks Voice reported.

As during the first reading Feb. 19, Commissioner Mike Hall of Moyock was the lone “no” vote.

Commissioner Paul Beaumont said that residents of Carova Beach had asked the board to consider parking permits to protect the public. The parking permits would reduce traffic on the county’s busy northern beaches during summer.

The permit requirement for beach parking will affect the area from Corolla village to the Virginia line from the Friday before Memorial Day until 11:59 p.m. Labor Day.

Currituck County residents and non-resident property owners will be allowed free permits for each vehicle they own, which will be assigned to the vehicles and not transferable. In addition, property owners in the off-road section of the county will be allowed two additional permits for guests.

Owners of homes in a rental program that are beyond the North Beach Access Ramp will be able to obtain up to two permits per house at no charge, which can be used by renters.

People who don’t live in or own property in Currituck may purchase parking permits at the county’s tourism offices in Moyock and Corolla. Visitors will also be able to purchase the permits online.

Fees for the parking permits are to be determined as part of the county’s budget process, with recommendations expected by May 1.

Exemptions to the parking permits will be granted to commercial fishermen, hunters, outdoor tour operators that have valid county-issued licenses for their businesses and are conducting an active tour at the time, along with contractors who are working for the county or on projects such as beach restoration or walkways and decks to the beach.

The passes would not be required of sightseers in the four-wheel drive areas along and north of Corolla village.

This story is provided courtesy of the Outer Banks Voice, a digital newspaper covering the Outer Banks. Coastal Review Online is partnering with the Voice to provide readers with more environmental and lifestyle stories of interest about our coast.

Reprinted from Island Free Press

OUTER BANKS — The North Carolina Department of Transportation said N.C. Highway 12 was expected to reopen late Tuesday following a weekend storm and after high tides Monday night and Tuesday morning, which were expected to bring more ocean overwash.

NCDOT crews continued to work on reopening N.C. 12 north of Rodanthe on Monday, but were dealing with miles of accumulated saltwater and sand and a steady barrage of water pouring in.

N.C. 12 remained closed Monday between the Bonner Bridge and Rodanthe, as well as on Ocracoke Island between the Pony Pens and the Hatteras-Ocracoke ferry terminal.

The coastal flood warning for the Outer Banks remained in effect Monday as oceanside flooding continued to bombard a number of vulnerable areas throughout the islands. By the morning’s roughly 10 a.m. high tide, ocean waves and water poured into already inundated areas of north Buxton, south Avon, Rodanthe and Pea Island, causing dangerous travel conditions.

On Ocean View Drive in Avon, gas tanks that were floating in local yards and side streets on Sunday were joined with outdoor air conditioner units, and a deep layer of sand and saltwater covered the road. The Cape Hatteras Electric Cooperative cut off power to a number of homes in the area as a safety measure, per a request from the Avon Fire Department. The Food Lion in Avon was open on Monday, but many adjacent businesses that were blocked by a flooded N.C. 12 were not.

“It seems like it’s worse today than yesterday,” said one Avon resident examining the area, “but it’s hard to tell if the [surf is] actually bigger, or if it’s just adding to the water that’s already there.”

The National Weather Service Newport/Morehead City Office reported that the ocean overwash conditions would repeat again with Monday’s high tide at roughly 10 p.m. Very large waves as high as 10-17 feet continue across the coastal waters, with the highest waves reported north of Cape Hatteras.

The strong winds were forecast taper off by early Tuesday morning.

Dare County Schools on Hatteras Island were closed Monday. On Ocracoke Island, the Cedar Island and Swan Quarter routes were running, but the Ocracoke / Hatteras route was closed due to the road closures on both Hatteras and Ocracoke Islands.

Learn More

• National Weather Service
• Island Free Press photos of the area

RALEIGH — University of North Carolina Wilmington researchers have found trace amounts of GenX in rainwater on campus, WRAL.com reported.

A university scientist told state legislators Wednesday about the discover during a meeting of the House Select Committee on North Carolina River Quality.

The concentration of GenX, a product of Chemours in Bladen County used to make Teflon, was about 25 parts per trillion, well under the state’s health goal for the compound of 140 parts per trillion.

Researcher Robert Kieber told the committee that the Chemours plant, 70 miles away from UNCW, is the likely source of the discovery. Kiebert said he believes the substance is widespread.

The state Department of Environmental Quality is testing air from Chemours’ smokestacks with results expected early next month.

Learn More

• WRAL.com’s report

Reprinted from WRAL.com

DURHAM — For years, the most critically acclaimed oysters on the East Coast were not wanted. The green gill oyster, native to eastern North Carolina, could not be found at a single restaurant in the state, but after years of struggle, a Durham restaurant is now offering them on the menu.

“Born in the Newport River, moved into the North River. It’s a very salty oyster,” said Tres Hundertmark, an oyster promoter.

The green gill grows naturally in the rivers of North Carolina and get its color and taste from the algae in the water.

“When the oysters feed on that, the pigment from the plant gets taken up by the gills, and gives it that emerald green color,” Hundertmark said.

Traditionally, they were unsaleable.

“I had to throw them away. People like green vegetables, they don’t like green meat,” Hundertmark said.

Now, the oysters are one of the most expensive oysters on Shuckin’ Shack’s menu.

Oysterman David Cessna of Carteret County has patented a way to grow the oysters faster and more efficiently, but still naturally.

“We have figured out how to grow a lot of oysters, so a green gill market is steady and available,” Cessna said.

The offering is marketed as the “Atlantic Emerald Oyster,” and upscale restaurants from New York to Miami are eager to put them on the menu. Currently, the Shuckin’ Shack in Durham is the only local place selling them.

Learn More

• Watch the report on WRAL.com

Coastal Review Online is partnering with WRAL.com to provide readers with more news from the state capitol that is relevant to the coast.

Featured Photo

Photo of the Week: March 9 – 15, 2015

Photograph by Lisa Miles of Cary.

Watermen up and down the N.C. coast are readying their crab pots this time of year in anticipation of blue crabs moving back into shallow waters to molt. For some visitors, simply admiring the blue crab can be a thrill.

“Our family has been enjoying summers in Swansboro and Emerald Isle for over a decade,” said photographer Lisa Miles. “We pulled up these two blue crabs to show a group of on-looking children. We all marveled at their brilliant colors, then released them. The Crystal Coast is an amazing place to see and experience!”

Photo of the Week: March 2-8, 2015

Photograph by Barry Fetzer of Hubert.

When the sky is on fire, it doesn’t matter that the temperature is freezing outside. Barry Fetzer says he ran out to the shoreline from his home in pajamas and slippers to catch this photo of the day’s blazing introduction. Just one of the beautiful parts of living on the N.C. coast.

Photo of the Week: Feb. 23 – March 1, 2015

Photograph by Randi Machovec of Waves, N.C.

Outer Banks artist Randi Machovec’s hands were frozen as she snapped this shot last week of her pier on the Pamlico Sound in Waves, a small town on Hatteras Island. “A rare sight for us islanders,” Machovec wrote. “I think I’ll stay inside.”

Photo of the Week: Feb. 16 – 22, 2015

Photograph by Sam Bland of Emerald Isle, N.C.

The shallow depth of field and statuesque profile of this coastal bird that frequents North Carolina’s marshes makes the great blue heron’s brilliant colors, lanky body and feathers’ texture pop into focus. In this photo we can truly admire the heron’s greatness.

Learn More

The great blue heron is one of North America’s most recognizable and adaptable wading birds. You might be interested in learning about the bird in naturalist Sam Bland’s story here on Coastal Review Online.

This photograph gives you an idea of an image we’d choose as the Photo of the Week for Coastal Review Online’s photography contest. Submit your photos now for a chance to win publicity and cash. See submission guidelines.

Photo of the Week: Feb. 9 – 15, 2015

Photograph by Jeffery King, Oak Island, N.C.

Five years ago this week Oak Island was a winter wonderland. Resident Jeffery King captured this rare sight at 40th Street on the island, his first snow on the North Carolina coast.

This photograph originally won first place in a N.C. Coastal Federation contest in 2011. It gives you an idea of an image we’d choose as the photo of the week for Coastal Review Online’s photography contest. Submit your photos now for a chance to win publicity and cash.

The following is a summary of bills passed by the N.C. General Assembly this year that affect conservation and natural resources on the coast. The summary was prepared by Amalia Manolagas, Jack Lyman and Kelly Anderson, research fellows at the N.C. Coastal Resources Law, Planning and Policy Center. It appeared in the fall edition of Legal Tides, the center’s newsletter. This is the last of two parts.

Beaches

Senate Bill 151 allows local governments to remove condemned houses from the beach. Photo: Andrew Morang, Urban Decay

Coastal Policy Reform Act of 2013, S151: This act amends marine fisheries laws and the laws governing the construction of terminal groins and clarifies that cities may enforce ordinances within the state’s public trust areas.

To build a terminal groin, an applicant must now show only that “structures or infrastructure are threatened by erosion.” An applicant is no longer required to demonstrate that the threat is “imminent” or that “nonstructural approaches to erosion control, including relocation of the threatened structures, are “impractical.” The act also compels that the monitoring and mitigation requirements of the mandated management plan for the inlet and the estuarine and ocean shorelines immediately adjacent to and under the influence of the inlet “be reasonable and not impose requirements whose costs outweigh the benefits.” Thus, the inlet management plan is not required to address sea-level rise. Neither is the financial assurances compelled to fund “restoration of public, private, or public trust property if the groin has an adverse impact on the environment or property.” Lastly, local municipalities are granted more flexibility to provide financial assurances. Currently, the N.C. Coastal Resources Commission may issue no more than a total of four permits for terminal groin construction.

The Coastal Policy Reform Act also requires changes regarding municipal protection of public trust areas. Cities now have the authority, based on ordinances, to regulate ocean beachfront in the state’s public trust area.

The act also, in effect, reverses the holding in Town of Nags Head v. Cherry Inc. In this case, the town sought to abate a nuisance, where storms and erosion resulted in beachfront houses being without power, water or sewer. The act strikes down the N.C. Court of Appeals ruling, which held that only the State has the authority to act to protect public trust interests. Primary sponsor: Sen. Rabon.

Amend Carteret Co. Occupancy Tax, H553: This act limits Carteret County’s authority to levy an additional 1 percent room occupancy and tourism development tax. The county may levy the additional 1 percent tax only when it levies a tax pursuant to G.S. 105-164.4(a)(3) (tax imposed on retailers). However, the room occupancy and tourism development tax does not apply to accommodations provided by nonprofit charitable, educational or religious organizations when furnished in furtherance of their nonprofit purpose. The act also modifies the distribution of the proceeds of the tax so that the funds are equally split between tourism promotion and beach nourishment on Bogue Banks. Primary sponsor: Rep. McElraft.

Development

Building Codes: Local Consistency/Exempt Cable, H120: This act requires approval from the N.C. Building Code Council before a local government may require building inspections in addition to those required by the building code; specifies the frequency and effective dates of code updates; and exempts cable television equipment installation from building code requirements. Primary sponsors: Sens. Hager, W. Brawley, Cotham and Arp.

Protect/Promote Locally Sourced Building Materials, H628: This act: requires net savings in association with major facility construction and renovation projects and protects use of N.C. products (N.C.-grown timber) in major facility construction and renovations projects under the sustainable energy-efficient buildings program. Primary sponsors: Reps.  Presnell  and Catlin.

Dredging

The legislature passed several bills dealing with dredging canals and inlets.

Holden Beach/Canal Dredging District Fee, H229: This act authorizes Holden Beach and Ocean Isle Beach to accumulate money in a capital reserve fund for canal dredging and maintenance for 10 years. Primary sponsor: Rep. Iler.

Sunset Beach/Canal Dredging/Maintenance Fee, S268: This act allows Sunset Beach to impose a canal dredging and maintenance fee. Primary sponsor: Sen. Rabon.

Ensure Safe Navigation Channels, H707: This act directs the N.C Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) to pursue various strategies to ensure that the state’s shallow draft navigation channels are safe and navigable by entering into agreements with the Army Corps of Engineers and aiding local governments receive Corps and Coastal Area Management Act permits for channel dredging and beach disposal of dredged materials. Additionally, this act creates the Oregon Inlet Land Acquisition Task Force to study and report to the N.C. General Assembly by May 1 on the state’s options for obtaining the federal government’s interest in the Oregon Inlet and the lands surrounding the inlet. Primary sponsors: Reps. Millis, McElraft, Warren and Tine.

Regulations/Permitting

Regulatory Reform Act of 2013, H74:The goals of this act are to improve and streamline the regulatory process in order to stimulate job creation, to eliminate unnecessary regulation, to make various other statutory changes and to amend certain environmental and natural resources laws. For example, this act amends the definition of “built-upon” area for stormwater programs to exclude some surfaces, including wooden slatted decks. It also provides for local governments to enter into development agreements for brownfields properties of less than 25 acres. The act also: requires applicants for proposed sanitary landfills to hire third parties to review permit applications and study the associated environmental impacts; adjusts buffer requirements;  lowers cleaning frequency of leachate collection systems; and modifies some hauling requirements from “leak-proof” to “leak-resistant” equipment. Finally, it lists mandatory factors that DENR must consider in calculating penalties for solid waste violations. Primary sponsors: Reps. Murry, Moffitt, Samuelson and Bryan.

Transfer Environmental Permits, H279: This act authorizes DENR (or a local government with the proper permitting authority) to transfer certain environmental permits associated with property development when the original property owner is unwilling or unable to agree to the permit transfer. Transferrable permits include stormwater permits, erosion control plans, permits for sewer systems, sewer system extensions, disposal systems or land application of waste. Primary sponsors: Reps. Millis, Hager, McElraft and Moffitt.

Environmental Permitting Reform, H480: The goals of this act are to provide regulatory certainty for North Carolina by requiring the development of minimum design criteria for stormwater permits to guide DENR in permit issuance and to reform the permitting process to allow fast-track permitting for applications certified by a qualified professional to be in compliance with the minimum design criteria. The act also directs DENR to develop “Minimum Design Criteria” by Sept. 1, 2014, by consulting “a technical working group that consists of industry experts, engineers, environmental consultants, relevant faculty from the University of North Carolina and other interested stakeholders.” The EMC is instructed to adopt implementation rules for the stormwater fast-track permitting system by July 1, 2016. Primary sponsors: Reps. Millis, Moffitt, Catlin and Hardister

State Government

Appropriations Act of 2013, S402: This act makes budget appropriations for current operations of state departments, institutions and agencies, and for other purposes. It also requires the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries to involve North Carolina’s commercial fishing industry in the “development of a plan to determine a source of funding necessary to support the Marine Fisheries At-Sea Observer Program,” an important program related to commercial fishers’ ability to maintain compliance with the federal Endangered Species Act. The act also creates a new division within DENR, the Division of Water Infrastructure, consolidating the water infrastructure roles previously carried out by the Division of Water Quality and the Division of Water Resources. It also eliminates the State Water Infrastructure Commission and creates a new Water Infrastructure Authority. This new body will be tasked with making grants for local water infrastructure projects and producing a master plan for the water infrastructure needs of the state. Primary sponsors: Sens. Brunstetter, Brown and Hunt.

Water

House Bill 296 requires that hunters buy a stamp before hunting for black bears. Photo: USFWS

Authority to Remove Abandoned Vessels, H294: This act allows certain Brunswick and Dare counties to remove abandoned vessels from navigable waters. Primary sponsor: Rep. Tine.

Amend Interbasin Transfer Law, S341: This act authorizes an expedited process to modify interbasin transfer certificates and to issue interbasin transfer certificates in the central coastal plain capacity use area and the coastal area counties. Primary sponsor: Sen. Rabon.

Wildlife

Ocean Isle Beach/Sea Turtle Sanctuary, S229: This act authorizes the Ocean Isle Beach to create a sea turtle sanctuary and to exchange a parcel of real property for services. Primary sponsor: Sen. Rabon.

Omnibus Wildlife Resources Commission Act, H296: This act: adjusts the fees charged for certain hunting and fishing licenses issued by the N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission (WRC) and repeals county hunting, fishing and trapping licenses and noncommercial special device licenses; establishes a black bear management stamp that must be procured before taking bear within the state and amends the law restricting the taking of black bear with bait; adjusts the age for discounted special licenses from age 65 to age 70; provides that effective Jan. 1, 2015, those hunting and fishing license fees in effect shall remain at the existing levels until the WRC establishes new fees through rule making, and authorizes the WRC to establish license fees through rule making beginning in 2015; replaces the current 6 percent wildlife service agent commission fee with a $2 transaction fee; provides that no more than 25 percent of the WRC’s authorized operating budget shall be kept in reserve; and provides an annual target for utilization of the annual expendable interest of the Wildlife Endowment Fund. Primary sponsors: Reps.. Bell, Moffitt, S. Martin and Wray.

The following is a summary of bills passed by the N.C. General Assembly this year that affect conservation and natural resources on the coast. The summary was prepared by Amalia Manolagas, Jack Lyman and Kelly Anderson, research fellows at the N.C. Coastal Resources Law, Planning and Policy Center. It appeared in the fall edition of Legal Tides, the center’s newsletter. The numbers that follow the bill titles are the bill numbers. This is the first of two parts.

Agriculture/Forestry

N. C. Farm Act of 2013, S638: This act, in part, directs the N.C. Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) and the N.C. Department of Transportation (DOT) to petition the Wilmington District of the Army Corps of Engineers to allow for more flexibility in performing stream and wetland mitigation outside of the eight-digit hydrologic unit code when development occurs that requires mitigation. Primary sponsors: Sens. Jackson and Brock.

House Bill 614 states that forestry and agricultural operations aren’t “nuisances” under state law under certain circumstances. Photo: Oregon State University

N.C. Agriculture and Forestry Act, H614: This act states that agricultural and forestry operations are not nuisances under certain circumstances. It also provides for the award of costs and expenses, including reasonable attorneys’ fees to the agricultural or forestry operation when the court finds the operation was not a nuisance and the nuisance action was frivolous or malicious or to the plaintiff when the court finds the agricultural or forestry operation was a nuisance and the operation asserted an affirmative defense in the nuisance action that was frivolous and malicious. Primary sponsors: Reps. Ramsey, Presnell and Waddell.

Extend DSWC Animal Waste Inspections, H505: This act codifies and makes permanent the program for inspections, to occur at least once a year, of certain animal operations that are subject to a permit under G.S. 143-215.10C by the N.C. Division of Soil and Water Conservation. The inspections will determine whether the operation is causing a violation of water quality standards and whether the facility is in compliance with its animal waste management plan or any other condition of the permit. Primary sponsors: Reps. Waddell, Millis, Iller and McElraft.

Amend Definition of Special Purpose Project, H629: This act amends the definition of a “special purpose project” to include agricultural and forestry waste disposal facilities. It also allows county and state financing authorities to render financial assistance to waste disposal facilities that handle forestry and agricultural wastes. Primary sponsors:Reps. S. Martin, R. Brawley and Lewis.

Eliminate Unnecessary Testing/Animal Waste, S205: This act eliminates unnecessary soil-testing requirements in animal waste management plans. Primary sponsor: Sen. Walters.

Energy

House Bill 484 sets up a permitting program for wind energy facilities. Photo: Tantum Consulting

Domestic Energy Jobs Act, S76: This act addresses the various issues associated with oil and gas exploration, including fracking and offshore development. It  also establishes an Offshore Energy Management Fund, provides for revenue allocation resulting from offshore energy production and encourages the governor to negotiate with South Carolina and Virginia to create a regional energy compact that would develop a unified regional strategy to build offshore energy resources in federal waters. This act also moves the Energy Policy Council and State Energy Office from the N.C. Department of Commerce to DENR. Primary sponsors:Sens. Newton, Rucho and Brock.

Permitting of Wind Energy Facilities, H484: This act establishes a permitting program for the siting and operation of wind energy facilities, requiring the developer of a “wind energy facility” to obtain a siting permit from DENR. The act is intended to prevent interference with military training air space and to add environmental safeguards. This statute requires early consultation with DENR and detailed disclosures of wind facility plans. Primary sponsors: Reps.  J. Bell, Dixon, McElraft and Whitmire.

Solid Waste

Amend Local Solid Waste Planning, H321: This act repeals the requirement that local governments develop and maintain a solid waste management plan, a process that previously involved public meetings, education and enforcement programs and DENR oversight. Primary sponsors: Reps. McGrady, McElraft, G. Graham and Speciale.

Adjust Landfill Permit Fee Timing, H135: This act adjusts the fee schedule for permits for sanitary landfills and transfer stations to reflect the extension of the duration of these permits, as directed by S.L. 2012-187 and as recommended by the Environmental Review Commission. Primary sponsors: Reps. Samuelson, McElraft and McGrady.

Senate Bill 24 allows landfills for demolition and construction debris to be sited within 500 feet of state gamelands. Photo: Joe Songer, The Birmingham News

Construction/Demolition Landfill Siting, S24: This act amends the gameland buffer requirement applicable to sanitary landfills for the disposal of construction and demolition debris under certain conditions. Siting requirements for construction and demolition debris landfills in counties with populations of less than 15,000 people require a setback of 500 feet from state gamelands. The setback had previously been one mile. Primary sponsor: Sen. H. Brown.

Omnibus County Legislation, S372: This act requires notice and an opportunity for comment from county boards when permits for land application of waste within that county are issued by the Environmental Management Commission (EMC); an increase in the threshold for DOT informal bid procedures and a clarification that DOT’s policy concerning participation by disadvantaged minority-owned and women-owned businesses applies to contracts let using those procedures; and a study of state payments in lieu of taxes of public lands. Primary sponsor: Sen. J. Davis.

Transportation

Strategic Transportation Investments, H817: The purpose of this act is to strengthen North Carolina’s economy through strategic transportation investments. The act abolished funding for the proposed Mid-Currituck Bridge and removed from statute the requirements that the N.C. Turnpike Authority study, plan, develop and undertake preliminary design work on the Mid-Currituck Bridge and the Cape Fear Skyway. It also placed ferry funding in the regional tier. As a result, North Carolina ferries now compete with other regional and divisional needs for funding support that is supplied by 60 percent of the N.C. Highway Trust Fund. Primary sponsors: Reps. W. Brawley, Torbett, Iler and Shepard

Friday: Water, wetlands and dredging

This story was compiled from a series of stories about Hurricanes Emily and Isabel that appear in the Island Free Press. Irene Nolan, the Web site’s editor, is the primary author. You can read all the stories and view slide shows here.

HATTERAS — As we head into the middle of August and the period for the most intense hurricane activity in the eastern Atlantic, we pause to remember two catastrophic hurricanes a decade apart that have significant anniversaries this year.

Hurricane Emily “brushed” the Outer Banks on Aug. 31, 1993 – 20 years ago.  And Hurricane Isabel slammed Hatteras village and moved inland across North Carolina 10 years later on Sept. 18, 2003.

Theirs is the tale of two very different hurricanes, both of which had impacts that won’t be soon forgotten.

They were not particularly strong storms on the National Weather Service’s Saffir-Simpson Scale as they approached Hatteras, but they caused damage of historic proportions. And the damage was not caused only by wind in either case, but mostly by storm surge.

Hurricane Emily

A tornado spawned by Hurricane Emily is thought to have caused this damage to U.S. Coast Guard housing in Buxton. Photo: Island Free Press

Vehicles fell into sinkholes along N.C. 12 in Buxton after Hurricane Emily. Photo: Island Free Press

Hurricane Emily was not a really impressive storm as it moved through the Atlantic Ocean on a path that would take it very close to Hatteras Island.

The tropical wave that spawned Emily moved off the West Coast of Africa on Aug. 17, 1993, and into the Cape Verde Islands. After briefly becoming a hurricane on Aug. 26, the storm fluctuated in intensity between a hurricane and a tropical storm as it moved west-northwest. Intensification continued and by the time Emily came within 13 miles of Cape Hatteras on Aug. 31, it had become a Category 3 storm.

Luckily for the Outer Banks, the hurricane veered north just offshore of Hatteras, but the southern part of the island was in Emily’s western eyewall for an hour and a half.  This caused a terrific and destructive storm surge from the Pamlico Sound.

Wally DeMaurice, who was then director of the Weather Service office in Buxton, said the storm surge in Avon, Buxton, Frisco and Hatteras was the highest in living memory. At more than 10 feet, the surge, he said, was higher than in the hurricanes of 1933 and 1944 – and probably the highest since an 1846 storm opened Oregon and Hatteras inlets.

The wind instruments at the Weather Service office stopped functioning about 6 p.m. when flood waters from the Pamlico Sound got telephone lines wet.  The highest gust measured at the office before that time was 98 mph.

A wind gauge at Fox Watersports in Buxton, which DeMaurice said was “very reliable,” measured a gust of 107 at 6:12 p.m.  The winds at the Diamond Shoals tower, which was very close to the eye, were clocked at 142.

DeMaurice said he was “sweating buckshot” until Emily’s gaping eye, headed straight for Cape Hatteras, made a turn to the north, just a few miles off the coast.  If the hurricane had passed over the island and turned north up the sound, he emphasized, the devastation would have been unbelievably worse.

The devastation on the lower part of the island, he noted, was because of the duration of the storm.  While Gloria in 1985 moved over Hatteras at 28 mph, Emily poked along at eight to 13 miles per hour.  The persistent northwest winds drove a storm surge from the Pamlico Sound over the island up to 10.5 feet in places.

The storm surge brought up to five feet of water into the homes of island residents from Avon through Buxton and on to Frisco and Hatteras villages. Dare County officials later estimated the damage at $12.6 million, but most of it was limited to a 17-mile stretch of the island.

Early damage estimates indicated that 683 primary homes of residents were affected by the storm.  That included 168 homes destroyed, 216 uninhabitable because of major damage, and 144 uninhabitable because of minor damage.  It was estimated that 25 percent of the year-round, single-family homes were destroyed or uninhabitable.

There were no deaths and only one reported injury during the storm, but Emily brought devastating personal tragedy to the islanders.

Connie Farrow was living on Lester Farrow Road in Frisco during Hurricane Emily.  She and her toddler daughter, Tiffany, decided to stay with her brother for the duration of the storm in his two-story house.  As they were preparing to leave, a neighbor stopped by and commented, “Shouldn’t you get some of these things up higher?”

“I have lived in this area for most of 30 years,” Connie said.  “We have never had tide in the houses.”  She later returned home to 18 inches of standing water and numerous ruined photographs, clothes, toys, and other possessions.

While they were staying with her brother, water began flooding the downstairs of the house, forcing them to climb to the second floor.  Tiffany kept running to the doorway to watch the water creep up the stairs.  With a child’s innocence, she joyfully announced, “I’m going swimming!”

Edie Coulter and her husband, “Creature,” were under their house in Frisco, attempting to secure a few things when they saw the tide beginning to rise at the corner of their yard.  They decided to disconnect their propane tanks, but within minutes the water was up to their waists and climbing higher.  As they struggled with the tanks, Edie says they were pelted with pine cones shaken from the trees in the wind and rain.

They had previously parked their John Deere lawn tractor on top of their septic tank since that spot was the highest point in their yard.  “We stood at the upstairs window and watched the water rise right up over that old John Deere,” Edie remembers.  “There was just water everywhere.  So much water.  Water as far as the eye could see.”

These before and after composite photos compiled by the U.S. Geological Survey show the section of Hatteras Island that was punched through by Hurricane Isabel. Photo: USGS

Hurricane Isabel

Unlike Emily, Isabel was a monster of a storm as it moved across the Atlantic toward its rendezvous with Hatteras village on Sept. 18, 2003.

Hurricane Isabel began as a strong tropical wave off the coast of Africa in early September.  It became a tropical depression and then was christened Tropical Storm Isabel on Sept. 6.  By the next day, it was a minimal hurricane, but it rapidly progressed up the Saffir-Simpson scale.  A day later, on Sept. 8, Isabel was a Category 4 with winds of 135 mph.  The winds kept going up and on Sept. 11, it became a Category 5 with winds measuring 160 mph.  It maintained that strength for the better part of three days, but then started to weaken.

Isabel was downgraded to a Category 2 on Sept. 16 and stayed there until it made landfall two days later near Drum Inlet in Carteret County around 1 p.m. The storm moved northwest to Roanoke Rapids by 5 p.m. and accelerated to northeast West Virginia by 5 a.m. Sept. 19 as a tropical storm. Its remnants eventually moved northward into Canada.

N.C. 12 though Kill Devil Hills is a jumbled mess after Hurricane Isabel. Photo: Mark Wolf, FEMA

The wave energy that built up as the storm churned over the ocean as a Category 4 and 5 sealed the fate of Hatteras village.

“When it was a Category 5, it generated very high surf,” Dr. Steve Lyons, who in 2003 was the Weather Channel’s tropical weather expert, said in an interview the week after the storm.  “The high surf continued to move on shore and made the wave action on landfall much larger than would have been expected in a Category 2 storm.”

Lyons and others note that Hatteras village was in the right front quadrant of the storm as it came ashore to the south.  That’s the area that can expect the worst weather — the highest winds, waves, and storm surge.  Hatteras, Lyons said, had “the highest waves of any on the East Coast.”

He added that Isabel was a Category 2 storm in terms of its winds and storm surge, but he said it was a Category 5 for wave action.

Gene “Iceman” Chiellini, who in 2003 was a hydrometeorological technician at the Newport weather office, is even more emphatic that wave energy was the most destructive force in Isabel.

“Isabel, the Category 2 storm, didn’t do that damage that you see,” he said.  “The winds didn’t do this.  They did some of the damage.  But most of the damage you see was done by wave action.”

Marine forecasts just before the storms predicted wave heights of 30 to 35 feet, but Chiellini, an avid surfer with 27 years’ experience with the Weather Service, felt that estimate was conservative.

On the afternoon and evening of Sept. 17, the day before Isabel hit the coast, Chiellini said the NOAA buoy at Diamond Shoals, about 15 miles off Cape Hatteras, was registering waves of 16 to 18 feet.  By 9 p.m., the wave height was up to 21 feet.  At 2 a.m. it was 27 feet, and then an hour later, at 3 a.m., the buoy registered a 44.6-foot wave and stopped reporting.  He presumes the buoy has been blown to parts unknown.

Chiellini says the Weather Service estimates that the storm surge was 6 to 8 feet with 15- to 20-foot waves breaking onshore in Hatteras village.  That would have put the wall of water with tremendous energy hitting the shoreline in the range of 21 to 28 feet.   Lyons at the Weather Channel put the height at 20 to 26 feet.

A tree came down on a historic house in Edenton. Photo: Mark Wolfe, FEMA

The immense power of the storm surge plus the wave energy was apparent in Hatteras village.  Motels along the beach were destroyed, with buildings moved into or across N.C. 12.  Buildings, such as the Hatteras Cabanas, were moved across the highway and into the marsh.  Other buildings were washed off their pilings.  Houses sat in sink holes with only a few feet of the top floor and the roofs above water.  One house was washed out into the Pamlico Sound.  Buildings stood with only side cinder-block walls, the front and back walls blown out by the wave energy and the building swept clean of furnishings.  Cars and trucks were flipped and crushed, and many feet of sand filled the lower floors of many buildings.

Although most of Hatteras Island did not have soundside flooding, as it does in most hurricanes, even homes in Hatteras village that were not on the oceanfront were not immune from damage.  The surge with the waves on top washed over the eastern end of the village and into the sound near Sandy Bay.  The east wind blew the water around the back of the village and in through the creeks that run through it.  Homes were flooded, and debris from the oceanfront — refrigerators, air conditioners, beds, dressers, motel room doors with the numbers still on them — lined the back creeks into the village.

Isabel would become the deadliest and costliest storm of the 2003 hurricane season. It produced moderate to heavy damage across eastern North Carolina, totaling $450 million. Damage was heaviest in Dare County, where storm surge flooding and strong winds damaged thousands of houses. The storm surge cut a 2,000-foot wide inlet on Hatteras Island, unofficially known as Isabel Inlet, isolating Hatteras by road for two months.

Strong winds downed hundreds of trees of across the state, leaving up to 700,000 residents without power. Most areas with power outages had power restored within a few days.

The hurricane directly killed one person and indirectly killed two in the state.

A version of this story first ran in the Outer Banks Voice, an online newspaper in Nags Head.

NAGS HEAD — Emergency legislation before Congress that is intended to provide relief to victims of Hurricane Sandy would also send $11 million to the Outer Banks to dredge clogged Oregon Inlet and the Hatteras ferry channels, Sen. Kay Hagan, D-N.C., said yesterday.

The $60.4 billion relief bill would also provide money to dredge the Morehead City harbor, the Intracoastal Waterway, Beaufort harbor, Wainwright Slough, Carolina Beach Inlet and Lockwoods Folly Inlet.

The Senate is scheduled to consider the bill this week, but conservative advocacy groups have urged Republicans to vote against it or pare it down because it pays for billions of dollars in projects, such as dredging inlets in North Carolina, that aren’t related to the hurricane.

Sen. Kay Hagan

A prominent geologist at Duke University also has complained to the Senate’s majority leader that the bill gives too much leeway to the Army Corps of Engineers to choose projects that aren’t hurricane related and allows the Corps to sidestep regulations and rebuild disaster-prone beaches.

Of the $1.8 billion in disaster recovery funds that the Hurricane Sandy Relief Bill sets aside for the Corps, $9 million would go toward dredging at Oregon Inlet and $2 million to clear the ferry channel between Hatteras and Ocracoke, Hagan said.

“What the Hurricane Sandy relief bill does, it ensures that North Carolina will have adequate funding to keep our inlets open to commercial fishing and the shipping vessels and to ensure that our ferries can navigate our channels and carry residents and visitors on and off the barrier islands,” Hagan said in an interview with the Outer Banks Voice, an online newspaper.

In her conversations with the Corps, Hagan said, $6 million was identified for work on the outer channel at Oregon Inlet if the bill passes. Shoaling under the Bonner Bridge navigation span has left the channel virtually impassable. Another $3 million would pay for dredging the inner channels.

Those numbers far exceed the $1.3 million in President Obama’s 2013 budget proposal and are about equal to funding the Corps had received annually before the federal government put shallow-draft inlets on a back burner.

Hagan also said she was told today that the side-cast dredge Merritt was able to make its way through the navigation span of the bridge at high tide. The corps said last week that dredging would not be possible because depths were as little as 2 feet in that area.

“I think it’s too early to tell whether the inlet’s going to stay deep enough for the Merritt dredge to start dredging, but I think this is obviously welcome news,” she said.

The Sandy relief bill contains money to continue the dredging of Oregon Inlet. Photo: Army Corps of Engineers.

A Corps survey Monday showed some improvement but depths still at 4 to 6 feet, not enough for oceangoing trawlers requiring at last 8 feet.

Overall, the Corps has identified about $30 million in recovery work for the North Carolina coast, Hagan said. The projects include $600,000 for the ferry channel from Ocracoke to Cedar Island and $150,000 for the emergency ferry channel between Rodanthe and Stumpy Point.

The bill includes money to reimburse states for repairs on damage attributed to Hurricane Sandy, which passed the Outer Banks offshore Oct. 31 and created high surf, wind and rain for almost a week.

State highway crews are still working to get N.C. 12 north of Rodanthe open for traffic. Hagan said the state or local governments might qualify for reimbursement for adding sand to the beach.

The bill has met with stiff criticism from Republicans for including money for projects and programs not related to Hurricane Sandy.

“You’re at the end of the Congress, and there’s always an interest in attaching anything you can to bills that are going through the Capitol Hill station,” Steve Ellis told the Web site Business Insider. He’s the vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan watchdog group. “This is one of the last trains going through the station.”

According to an analysis by Ellis, the Sandy emergency spending package includes $150 million for fishery disaster areas in Mississippi and Alaska; $20,000 for a new car for the Inspector General of the Justice Department; $10.8 billion for the Federal Transportation Administration; and cancellation of loans related to Hurricane Katrina. It also contains $4 million for repairs at the Kennedy Space Center and $3.3 million for the Plum Island Animal Disease Center.

Club for Growth, a conservative advocacy group, is urging Republicans to vote against the relief package, according to a statement on its web site.

Hagan said, however, that based on passage of similar bills after hurricanes Katrina and Irene, she was optimistic of approval by the end of the year. She noted that about 300,000 people had been displaced in New York and New Jersey.

Orrin Pilkey

“I think people need to realize that this has had a devastating impact on people who have lost their homes,” she said. “And, you know, these are working-class people. These are not second beachfront homes that we’re talking about.”

Orrin Pilkey, a marine geologist and professor emeritus at Duke University, has for decades advocated for sane development of  the country’s beaches. He worries that the bill will unleash the Corps to rebuild beaches that will just get destroyed again in the next storm.

“I believe the bill is a recipe for a major loss of the quality of our East Coast shorelines and beaches and will only encourage further development in dangerous areas,” Pilkey wrote in a letter Monday to Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and the Senate’s majority leader.

The bill, Pilkey wrote, gives the Corps almost $3.5 billion to spend on almost any non-relief project and exempts those projects from public participation and laws that regulate development in flood zones and hazardous areas.

“To make a long story short, the bill gives the Corps the freedom to choose its own projects and requires recovery of shorelines back to where they were pre-storm,” Pilkey wrote. “If the shoreline is moved back to where it was pre-storm, the next storm, either large or small, may do the same amount of or more damage in the same places.”

Pilkey urges Reid to rewrite the bill.

N.C. 12 north of Rodanthe looked like a crazy amusement park ride after Hurricane Sandy went by. Photo: NCDOT.

The story was compiled from previously published stories in the Outer Banks Voice and the Island Free Press, two online newspapers on the Outer Banks.

RODANTHE — It’s been more than a month since Hurricane Sandy passed hundreds of miles off the N.C. coast, but state transportation officials are still struggling to keep a passable road open on Hatteras Island on the Outer Banks.

When it went by on Oct. 28-29, Sandy flushed away protective dunes and sandbags and broke up about a half-mile of pavement on N.C. 12 at an area known as the S-curves near this island community. It’s a notorious trouble spot of frequent flooding on Hatteras Island’s only road to the mainland.

The aftermath was different this time.  “Much of our right of way is now in ocean,” an engineer for the state Department of Transportation said when the skies cleared… briefly.

Two nor’easters and generally foul weather after Sandy merely made a bad situation much worse. Hastily thrown up sand berms were flattened and the ocean washed over the buckled pavement with each high tide.

With nowhere to put a new section of road, DOT carved out and staked a temporary, rough sand path alongside the battered pavement.  It opened to four-wheel drive vehicles only on Nov. 21.

A few old-timers may have remembered the days when sand roads were the only routes on Hatteras Island and may have boasted that they got along just fine without fancy SUVs.

The drivers of those modern SUVs, however, weren’t faring as well. They were getting stuck. Routinely.  DOT reported on its Facebook page that 45 vehicles had to be towed on one Sunday.

After the ocean stopped regularly overwashing the route at high tide, the sand dried out and became soft and churned up, making the tire ruts deeper. Since the route is just a set of tire tracks in each direction, stuck vehicles hold up traffic in both directions.

Traffic, top, slowly makes its way along the sand route that bypasses bucked N.C. 12 in Rodanthe. Some vehicles towing boats got stuck, bottom, before state officials banned towed vehicles on the road. Photos: Don Bowers, Island Free Press.

In response, DOT officials put more restrictions on the route:  No trucks weighing more than a ton – about the size of a Ford F350 or a Chevrolet/Dodge 3500 – and no vehicles towing trailers.

Dare County Sheriff’s deputies at two checkpoints along the road enforce the restrictions.

The four-wheel-drive route is open from 5 a.m. until 10 p.m., but before dawn and after dusk, the Sheriff’s Office is providing a pilot car that leads traffic between Rodanthe to the Bonner Bridge.

As DOT struggles to keep the route passable, a decision on the long-term fix at the troublesome spot has been put off until late winter — more than a year later than originally expected.

Beth Smyre, a DOT project manager, said that with the challenges created by Sandy, the focus on a permanent solution has been at Pea Island, where a temporary bridge was built last year over a new inlet cut by Hurricane Irene last year.

The merger team —representatives of state and federal agencies —in early November officially signed off on building the replacement bridge in Pea Island within the existing easement, basically where the temporary bridge is situated, Smyre said.

“We’re trying to get the documentation done so we can award a contract,” she said.

After the contract is done for the 2.1-mile-long concrete bridge, hopefully in March, Smyre said, the department will announce the chosen alternative for the northern Rodanthe breach.

Alternative fixes for the road at the S-curves were narrowed down by DOT to two possibilities after a series of meetings last year. One proposed long-term solution would be to build a 2.5-mile-long bridge that would be 25-to 30-feet high and would go out into Pamlico Sound around the S-curves and tie into the highway south of Mirlo. The other alternative would be to build a bridge within the existing right-of-way.

Initially, the selection was supposed to be made in late 2011. The next preliminary deadline in spring 2012 came and went without a decision. All progress was halted when Hurricane Sandy blew through, and problems were exacerbated by the two northeasters that followed.

Smyre said that the driving surface of the Pea Island bridge will be 23 feet high and cost just under $100 million. Construction is expected to take about two to three years, and traffic will be maintained on the temporary bridge until the replacement is completed.

“The new bridge is going to be within the easement,” she said.  “The impact to the environment is really low.”

Bobby Outten

Allen Burrus

An environmental assessment providing details about the bridge will be issued for public review within weeks, she said, followed by a 30-day comment period and public meetings. The same will be done in the near future for the two alternatives at Rodanthe.

After the public process is complete on each project, she said, a final document will be issued for each one that provides details on the chosen alternative.

Meanwhile, Dare County is exploring the potential of doing beach nourishment at Rodanthe as part of the long-term solution, separate from DOT.  The transportation department had dropped plans last year to consider pumping sand on the beach, citing high costs and lack of available sand.

But county manager Bobby Outten said the discussion by the Dare County Board of Commissioners is at such an early stage, it’s not even known whether the National Park Service would challenge the county’s right to nourish at Mirlo, where the Park Service beach appears to have eroded away long ago.

Allen Burrus, a Dare County commissioner, said last week that high-level officials at DOT told him a deal has been worked out with the Army Corps of Engineers to place sand on the beach in front of the troubled S-curves.

According to Burrus, the Corps will receive money from the Federal Highway Administration. A large Army Corps dredge from Wilmington will be brought off Hatteras Island to pump sand onto the beach.

Burrus said details such as how much sand will be placed and where the sand will come from have yet to be worked out. He said Dare County commissioners are hoping the Corps will not only place sand on the beach from the S-curves south into Rodanthe itself, but also build a new dune line along the same route.

It is not known yet how much the project will cost.

The bottom line for Dare County is that access must be maintained for the long term to Hatteras Island, Outten said.

“There are lots of rationales for it,” Outten said, defending criticism of the costs.  “We are a donor county — we take in more tax revenue than we take from the state. We’ve got a population down there that we need to supply. We have a national park that needs to have access.”

Outten said it’s hard to imagine the state abandoning a road elsewhere in North Carolina that provides the only transportation route for 5,000 people and millions of tourists that the economy is dependent on.

“In other metropolitan areas, they spend $200 million for a road so people don’t have to sit in traffic,” he said. “We’re not talking about convenience. We’re talking about survival.”

Dennis Stewart, biologist with Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge, said that the refuge is working closely with the DOT and supports both their short-term and long-term efforts to restore access.

But Stewart said the refuge is also waiting to learn what long-term alternative the DOT will choose in Rodanthe.  There’s no issue whatsoever if they build a bridge in the existing right-of-way, he said, but there could be concerns if the option chosen is the one that swings out over Pamlico Sound.

“We’re in a holding pattern until they send us the appropriate information,” he said.

Whether it’s for short-term or long -term purposes, Stewart said that any nourishment at Mirlo, which would include some refuge land, could be problematic if the sand was not compatible. He said he is skeptical that there is enough good sand available to nourish, but he said the refuge will not oppose nourishment outright.

“We have standards that have to be met to put sand on the refuge,” he said.

• N.C. 12 photo gallery at Island Free Press

This story was compiled from reports published in the Island Free Press and the Outer Banks Voice over the last several days. We thank them for their work in keeping us informed and for allowing us to reprint their stories.

This picture of N.C. 12 through Kitty Hawk was taken Monday. Photo: NCDOT

Waves pound the Avalon pier, which eventually succumbed. Photo: Rob Morris

NAGS HEAD — Sound-side storm surge, expected to be as high as six feet along the Outer Banks, was not as serious as forecast Monday night, when winds from Hurricane Sandy shifted and threatened the backsides of the barrier islands.

“We fared well with the sound-side flooding,” Dorothy Killingsworth, Dare County spokeswoman, told the Outer Banks Voice, yesterday.

High tide yesterday, however, brought more ocean overwash, especially in Kitty Hawk, which appears to have lost a section of N.C. 12. Traffic was still being rerouted on U.S. 158 near milepost 4, where overwash and flooded ditches have left the highway impassable.

“Hopefully after this one, it’ll start to subside some,” Killingsworth said.

Neighborhoods between the highways — U.S. 158 and N.C. 12 — were flooded throughout Kitty Hawk and northern Kill Devil Hills. Some flooding was also reported in Nags Head.

When winds die down to 30 mph or less, Killingsworth said, the state Department of Transportation will test the emergency ferry channel between Rodanthe and Stumpy Point.

Sandy has isolated Hatteras Island. Regular ferry service has been suspended, though emergency service from Stumpy Point will start today. High surf washed out at least two sections of N.C. 12 south of Oregon Inlet.  DOT cleared the road between Hatteras and Rodanthe late yesterday. A severed fiber optic cable interrupted cell and Internet service, which resumed last night.

The storm took out a large section of the Avalon Pier and reportedly at least one house on Hatteras Island.

Dare County Emergency Management planned to confer with town fire chiefs yesterday for a more detailed assessment, Killingworth said.

Along the Outer Banks, winds shifted to the southwest yesterday and were generally gusting at about 30 mph.

Killingworth said that sound-side flooding has caused no serious damage or road closings.

Bonner Bridge

The temporary bridge over the inlet that Hurricane Irene cut through Pea Island was covered by the water it was intended to span. Photo: NCDOT

N.C. 12 was impassable south of Oregon Inlet. Photo: NCDOT

Neither did the storm do any serious damage to the Herbert C. Bonner Bridge across Oregon Inlet. Closed as a precaution during Hurricane Sandy, the bridge has suffered no apparent damage to its structure, at least the part that is visible above water.

“The visual inspection was fine,” Jeff Odom, state Department of Transportation bridge inspection supervisor, told the Island Free Press after inspecting the Oregon Inlet bridge Monday afternoon.

A piece of aluminum fabric had come off a portion of the concrete rail, he said, but that is only a cosmetic concern.

Odom said that divers will use sonar to look for any scouring at the pilings underneath the bridge as well as other potential structural issues as soon as the weather allows.

But he said that type of inspection is nothing unusual. In fact, he said it is routine to check for scour — sand around piles scooped out by currents — under the Bonner Bridge after any significant storm because of its location in treacherous Oregon Inlet.

“That’s normal for that bridge,” Odom said. “It really hasn’t done anything abnormal at all.”

Piled-up sand on the road on the south end of the bridge, he said, prevented him from driving further south on N.C. 12 to inspect the temporary truss bridge over the new inlet in Pea Island that was opened up last August during Hurricane Irene.

A DOT road crew on Sunday had reported seeing scouring around the south end of the bridge, he said, but the extent of it could not be determined.

Odom said the truss bridge’s structure is not the concern — it’s built on concrete pilings – as much as the risk of it washing away if it is undermined.

As soon as a bulldozer can be driven over Bonner Bridge, Odom said, the sand will be cleared off the road so he can get to the temporary bridge to inspect it.

In a press release issued on Sunday, DOT announced that the Bonner Bridge was closed that evening after DOT inspectors determined that the bridge was “unsafe for traffic at this time.”

But Odom said there was no specific problem that prompted the closure, other than the reality of the storm’s destructive potential and the inlet’s powerful currents.

“We want to make sure that everything is alright before we let anybody cross,” he said.

Hatteras Island

A house on Hatteras Island totters before collapsing into the surf.

High winds and water buffeted Hatteras Island through Monday.  The rains stopped by late morning and temperatures dropped as Sandy tracked around the edge of the Outer Banks.

Flooding from both sides of the island was the biggest issue. The sound and ocean ran together between Frisco and Hatteras and also Rodanthe. Onlookers stood on the dunes Monday in awe of the huge waves and magnificent spray, which could be seen from far away.

The winds gradually shifted Monday afternoon more to the west and sound-side flooding became the main concern.

Anne Bowers, a reporter with the Island Free Press, caught a ride Monday with investigators from the Dare County Sheriff’s Department Monday in their behemoth 5-ton truck with six-wheel drive.

Bowers reported Monday that the ocean was flowing freely through the Buxton motels at high tide. N.C.12, the main road on the island, was heavily covered in sand, which made travel difficult even for the big truck. North of Buxton, travel was easy until the Haul-over area, or the Canadian Hole, which was picturesque with the sound waters throwing up huge sprays when it slammed into the bulkhead.

From there, N.C. 12 was covered over by sound water that was deeper in the south end of Avon. Cars were parked wherever there was high ground — Ace Hardware, the movie theatre, Avon Post Office and Spa Koru.

The old village in Avon had significantly more water with most streets covered in at least knee-high water. Several vehicles sat in engine-high water and several lower houses looked like they were on the brink of flooding.

The officers continued their patrol throughout Avon before heading back to Buxton. High water and sand made travel nearly impossible north of the Top Dog Café in Waves.

During the drive, the investigators answered distress calls from visitors asking for help, frightened by the rising waters. They told most callers to remain calm and that flooding was expected during storms. In Buxton, visitors called to report that the oceanfront house they were in felt like it was coming apart. Six people were removed from the house, which had suffered severe damage.

After the ride with the Sheriff’s Department, Bowers walked along the Buxton oceanfront. Streets off Old Lighthouse road were thigh deep with water, she reported Monday. Several cottages seemed to have sustained significant damage. One had water pouring out of it and another was missing its steps. Several had missing shingles and siding while another was missing its front deck.

The pool area at the Lighthouse View Motel was ripped apart, Bowers noted, and chunks of concrete were broken up and strewn about. The little building that stood next to the pool had been washed towards the motel building.  And there was the pool itself which had sustained a lot of damage.

Before leaving the Buxton oceanfront, Bowers saw a sad looking pelican sitting on a dune. Like many water birds during a long storm like Sandy, pelicans can’t forage and this one looked worn and exhausted. He was easy to catch and spent the remainder of Sandy resting comfortably in Bowers’ backyard with her pet ducks. He seemed happy. “When he is ready, he will fly away,” Bowers wrote.

The pier in Avon was still standing but the end is pretty much gone, the Avon Fishing Pier posted on its Facebook page. “Going to have a lot of work to do…going to post pictures as soon as possible…the end of the pier will no longer open.”

OCRACOKE

Beachcombers hunted for shelled treasurers after Sandy passed. Photo: Rob Morris.

Ocracoke was coming back to life yesterday. Several owners were getting their businesses open as flood waters receded, but some areas of standing water remained, which is typical after a storm.

Ferries to Swan Quarter and Cedar Island will run on the normal winter schedule for all starting today, but the Hatteras-Ocracoke ferry is suspended until N.C. 12 on both Ocracoke and Hatteras Islands is cleared, said Justin Gibbs, Hyde County Emergency Management director.

Monday’s abbreviated ferry runs to Cedar Island and Swan Quarter were for Ocracoke residents, essential personnel and infrastructure workers only.

The north end of Ocracoke above the Pony Pen has sand on the road for about a 400-yard stretch from ocean overwash, he said, and sand-moving equipment was on its way to Ocracoke on the 4 p.m. ferry Tuesday.

“I expect one lane to be cleared by lunchtime Wednesday,” Gibbs told the Island Free Press yesterday. Until the lane is open, the road will be barricaded, he said.

Ocracoke residents uniformly felt lucky that monster storm Hurricane Sandy only grazed Ocracoke, and there was no major damage on the island.

Middle Road in Ocracoke was under water Monday. Photo: Connie Leinbach

“That wasn’t a hurricane,” said Tyke Ely, of the two-day storm. “The wind howls with hurricanes. This was like a really bad nor’easter.”

No large trees are down on the island and debris is at a minimum.

“It’s probably the cleanest I’ve seen it after a hurricane,” Sgt. Jason Daniels of the Hyde County Sheriff’s Department told the Free Press.

The Ocracoke Volunteer Fire Department did an assessment at 7 a.m. Tuesday and found a few areas where water was still a bit high, but no other damage.

Ed Fuller, Ocracoke district ranger for the National Park Service, said beach access for vehicles would open today at the earliest.  The beaches are open for pedestrians.

According to a late afternoon Monday press release from Hyde County, flood waters had receded to 6 to 10 inches throughout the village, down from 18- to 24 inches.

Numerous residents could be seen Monday slogging through the water in rain boots, hip waders and even bare feet, which dismayed Eric Godbey, lead paramedic on Ocracoke.

He said people should be careful of venturing into the water since it could contain contaminants.

Flood waters also pose a danger to residents with private wells, according to a Hyde County press release. Wesley Smith, Hyde County health director, said those with private wells must take steps to disinfect them.

Chip Stevens, who lives on Irvin Garrish Highway across from the harbor, reported that as water receded, “cars were everywhere” as people went about. Six inches pf water had covered the road Sunday.

As for provisions on the island, the Variety Store opened Monday and owner Tommy Hutcherson said he had plenty of stock for those still on the island.

Laura and Sean Death, who manage the Ocracoke Station at the Beachcomber Campground, opened for business and had made fried chicken, mashed potatoes and green beans for sale.

The Topless Oyster Restaurant, at Old Beach Road, was the only restaurant open Monday night and served a roomful of customers.  Other restaurants opened Tuesday.

Ocracoke School was closed Monday, but opened Tuesday afternoon.

The village had been flooded by sound-side storm surge  Sunday morning.

“I don’t think anyone was expecting this much water so soon,” Daniels told the Island Free Press.

Amy Howard, the new executive director of the Ocracoke Preservation Society, lives at Lawton Lane and Howard Street.  “We’re dry,” she told the Free Press Sunday, although she noted that water was just starting to show creep up historic Howard Street.

“I’ve renamed School Road, ‘School River,’” she said after posting photos of the street on a local blog.  You can see her photos and those taken by other islanders by clicking on “daily journal.”

Mazie Smith, the Hyde County manager, was on the island Sunday with Gibbs to set up their Emergency Operations Center at the Ocracoke Community Center. “The mainland is OK, but with the roads and the ferries, this is where I need to be to fight for the citizens and the county,” she said Sunday.

By that evening, Ocracoke Island businesses were all closed.

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