From the editor:

Sunday is World Wetlands Day.

The United Nations in 2021 adopted a resolution to commemorate annually on Feb. 2 the adoption of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, an international treaty signed in 1971. The observance actually dates back to 1997.

Wetlands across the state serve important roles, and especially here on the North Carolina coast, they surround us. They help provide the quality of life and desirability that lure so many. They buffer us from tropical cyclones and flooding. They help sequester carbon making them critical for mitigating the effects of climate change and to biodiversity and human health. They are nurseries and habitat for countless marine and bird species.

To many regular Coastal Review readers, these points may seem obvious, but they are also key messages behind the recognition of World Wetlands Day, and our wetlands are increasingly imperiled.

The Ramsar Convention defines numerous distinct types of wetlands, organized into three main categories: marine/coastal wetlands, inland wetlands and human-made wetlands. Included among inland wetlands are intermittent or seasonal pools, streams, lakes and rivers.

Article 1 of the UN treaty more broadly defines wetlands as “areas of marsh, fen, peatland or water, whether natural or artificial, permanent or temporary, with water that is static or flowing, fresh, brackish or salt, including areas of marine water the depth of which at low tide does not exceed six metres.”

That’s about 20 feet deep for the metrically challenged. It’s also distant from the U.S. Supreme Court’s myopic, unscientific definition set forth in its 2023 Sackett decision. The ruling found that only wetlands with “a continuous surface connection to” water bodies that are “‘waters of the United States’ in their own right,” those to which we so often refer as “WOTUS,” so that they are “indistinguishable” from those waters, are protected under the Clean Water Act.

The decision was merely the first ominous domino to fall for North Carolina’s wetlands.

“In the wake of the Supreme Court’s decision in Sackett v. EPA, the only thing now protecting many North Carolina communities from being flooded in the coming years is the state’s existing ban on paving over wetlands without a permit,” Grady McCallie, policy director with the North Carolina Conservation Network, said at the time, noting that state law was all that was left, “literally protecting lives and property.”

But later that same year, the North Carolina General Assembly saw fit to narrow protections that were tailored to our specific vulnerabilities as a region, placing isolated wetlands outside both state and federal jurisdictions and, therefore, more likely subject to development or degradation.

At the time, state environmental staff estimated that, as a result of both the Supreme Court decision and state legislative action, around 2.5 million acres, or about half of North Carolina’s wetlands and more than 7% of the state’s total landmass, were left unprotected.

Wetlands are too critically important to endanger in this way. The point of World Wetlands Day is to each year raise awareness of this key fact so conveniently disregarded by those wielding power. For 2025, the theme for the day is “Protecting Wetlands for Our Common Future.”

Another definition: A “common future” is one we all share.

“Life thrives in wetlands, and human life depends on them,” said Secretary General of the Convention on Wetlands Dr. Musonda Mumba in a statement marking World Wetlands Day 2025. “Wetlands provide the home or breeding ground of many endangered and threatened species and a multitude of endemic plants and animals can only survive in certain wetland locations. Beyond the clean water and food that wetlands provide, they help protect against natural disasters by mitigating the impact of storm surges, floods and droughts.”

Now, with a new administration in Washington rapidly acting on its explicitly stated intent to eliminate or at least further diminish federal water quality, air quality and other environmental safeguards — while also dismantling from within the agencies that enforce regulations and stripping away any environmental justice and civil rights responsibilities in their purview — it’s imperative to recognize how important wetlands are to our coastal way of life. The challenge to maintain and preserve coastal protections throughout the coming deregulatory onslaught has never been more daunting, nor more critical.

The North Carolina Coastal Federation, which publishes Coastal Review, has over the course of its four-decade history often phrased the message in pure bumper-sticker simplicity, “No Wetlands, No Seafood.” That’s because it’s a message that resonates.

The nonprofit’s more complete, updated message is to “protect and restore coastal water quality and habitats throughout the North Carolina coast by collaborating with and engaging people from all walks of life who are committed to preserving the coast for now and the future.” Far from simple, it’s hard work that already requires many hands.

Coastal Review strives to always present unbiased reporting on just these issues, encompassing science, energy, government, education, laws, history and culture. Our journalists work to provide all relevant perspectives in our environmental reporting – not the least of which are economic factors. And we will continue this important work, bringing you, our valued readers, the most complete and timely information possible, so that you can better understand and then decide. Of course, as a nonprofit organization, your financial support can help us serve you better in this regard.

Eastern North Carolina’s economy and well-being and those of our nation depend on clean water and healthy wetlands. The people of this region demand it, despite whatever their predominant voter registrations or candidate preferences may indicate, because nobody voted for environmental destruction, endangering public health or imperiling our coastal way of life.

Views expressed herein are solely those of the editor.

These days it may seem like every month of the year celebrates some concept or ideal to which we should all aspire. In the case of countless coastal residents and visitors, not to mention those who wish they could be here, October is a green light to pursue the lofty goal of eating more oysters.

Oysters in North Carolina waters may be harvested wild starting in October each year, but cultivated or farmed oysters can be enjoyed year-round. Nevertheless, October is a perfect time to honor the humble oyster. It’s North Carolina Oyster Month, a “shellabration” of what scientists call a keystone species, one that’s crucial to North Carolina’s marine and coastal environments.

“Our eastern oyster is a coastal treasure: They help to keep our waters clean and clear by filtering them, providing habitat (or homes) for up to 300 different coastal species, and being a tasty treat for humans and other animals alike,” North Carolina Coastal Federation Oyster Program Director Erin Fleckenstein told Coastal Review.

Fleckenstein, who was the longtime coastal scientist with the Coastal Federation’s Wanchese office, coordinates the statewide Oyster Blueprint, a guide for oyster restoration and protection measures in North Carolina. Its focus is on protecting water quality, creating and restoring oyster habitat, nurturing the burgeoning shellfish mariculture industry, sustaining the wild harvest of oysters and then engaging the public in this work.

Oysters are beneficial in all kinds of ways. Nutritionists at the Cleveland Clinic say there are reasons to love oysters, “even if you hate them.” They’re a low-calorie, high-protein food loaded with nutrients that are deficient in a significant portion of people, especially as they age – nutrients such as copper, iron, selenium and zinc, and vitamins B-12 and D.

More than a nutritious culinary treasure, oysters also serve important functions in the marine environment, and oyster cultivation is a sustainable way of producing seafood. Advocates tout the need for no added food, chemicals or antibiotics, and their harvests relieve pressure on wild oyster populations.

And both wild and farmed oysters are filter feeders, improving water clarity and quality. Advocates, including the Coastal Federation, often point out that a single oyster can filter up to 50 gallons of water a day. The improved clarity benefits the entire ecosystem.

“They really are to be celebrated and I’m excited that we’ve been able to partner with North Carolina Sea Grant, the Department of Cultural and Natural Resources, North Carolina Shellfish Growers and the North Carolina Oyster Trail to honor them in a monthlong celebration,” said Fleckenstein.

The Coastal Federation has partnered with Sea Grant and the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources in organizing Oyster Month festivities under the umbrella of the NC Oyster Trail. The NC Oyster Trail provides experiences intended to help sustain oysters and oyster growers, “resulting in economic, environmental and social benefits to the state’s seafood industry and coastal communities,” according to its website.

Sea Grant Coastal Economist Jane Harrison recently said that North Carolina Oyster Month events “highlight the ecology, culture, economy, and history related to this vital resource.”

The Department of Natural and Cultural Resources has published a calendar of events for Oyster Month.

The Coastal Federation is hosting the following Oyster Month events:

• Oct. 9 Volunteer event at Morris Landing.
• Oct. 12 Oysters Uncovered: Kayak tours.
• Oct. 12 Green Drinks: Oyster Month Focus.
• Oct. 19 Oysters Uncovered: Kayak tours.
• Oct. 24 Ambassador’s Program: Oyster Month focus.
• Oct. 26 Oysters Uncovered: Kayak tours.
• Oct. 27 Tide to Table: evening event with Coastal Studies Institute.

Also in October, look for messaging on the importance of oyster shell recycling and how you can do your part.

And importantly, eat lots of delicious oysters.

As we pause to ponder the year that was 2022 and consider our goals, or resolutions, for the year ahead, we at Coastal Review vow to our valued readers to continue our work to provide objective reporting and thorough analysis of issues important to all North Carolina coastal counties and communities.

We will strive in 2023 to further extend our reach and provide the relevant, credible, accurate and thorough environmental reporting that you have come to expect, as well as the cultural, historical and science journalism that resonates with so many readers.

Coastal Review has published more than 900 news items and reached more than 689,000 readers during the past 12 months, with 1.1 million page views.

In addition to our daily publication of breaking news and features, we published during 2022 more than a half-dozen special reporting series to examine relevant issues more closely.

This year included special reports on climate science and solutions as relevant to the North Carolina coast, as well as aquaculture in a changing climate; navigation and federal infrastructure spending; the five years of research and efforts to address chemical contamination of drinking water supplies in eastern North Carolina; state funding of shallow-draft inlet maintenance; the role of sustainable seafood in the American diet; and the issue of erosion-threatened houses on the public beaches of the Outer Banks. The sustainable seafood series published this year was produced in collaboration with another respected nonprofit news service, North Carolina Health News, our first joint effort.

Some of our most-read stories of 2022 have been about coastal transportation issues such as navigation, N.C. 12 and bridges, and three of our top six stories in 2022 were related to the collapse of oceanfront houses and associated issues.

Our work also earned recognition from our peers. In 2022, Coastal Review received seven awards during the North Carolina Press Association’s annual editorial contest, including first-place awards for breaking news coverage, feature photography and general news photography, a second-place award for overall general excellence and third place for appearance and design in the contest’s online-only division. Entries are judged by member journalists in other state associations.

Coastal Review has been a member of the North Carolina Press Association since 2015. The association works to protect the public’s right to know through the defense of open government and First Amendment freedoms and helps maintain the public’s access to local, state and federal governments.

We worked during the past year to help sustain environmental journalism as a profession. Our science freelancer Lena Beck received her master’s in environmental science and natural resource journalism this year and included her work for Coastal Review in defending her thesis. We also added fishing columnist Capt. Gordon Churchill, highlighting another important aspect of life on — and the lure of — the North Carolina coast.

Our publisher

The work of the Coastal Review staff and contributors is but one aspect of the 40 years of accomplishments of our publisher, the North Carolina Coastal Federation, which marked the anniversary by stepping up its efforts to protect and restore the North Carolina coast.

“Doing what we do best — protecting and restoring our wonderful coast — is the best way we could ever celebrate the past four decades of work,” said Executive Director Todd Miller, who founded the organization in 1982. “We’re proud that the Coastal Federation has been able to continue to make lasting strides to improve the health of North Carolina’s coastal environment.”

The work included efforts to keep coastal waters clean, maintain and expand living shorelines along estuaries, restore oyster reefs and expand shellfish farms, remove hundreds of tons of marine debris, and improve day-to-day decisions about how the coast is managed.

In terms of water quality improvements, the Coastal Federation completed a 20-year restoration at the nearly 6,000-acre North River Wetlands Preserve, one of the largest single wetland recovery projects in the nation.

The organization also restored 365 acres of wetlands in Hyde County; installed a rain garden at the University of North Carolina Wilmington that collects 200,000 gallons of runoff per year; installed a pervious paver cul-de-sac in Pine Knoll Shores that will infiltrate 14 million gallons of runoff per year; and installed a stormwater outfall retrofit in Swansboro that treats approximately 13 million gallons of stormwater per year.

The Coastal Federation worked with watermen and women and contractors to remove 652,180 pounds of large-scale marine debris from coastal waters. It worked with 48 commercial watermen and women to find and remove 1,983 lost crab pots and hosted eight volunteer cleanups that resulted in the removal of 1,200 pounds of small-scale debris. The organization worked with the N.C. Division of Coastal Management and N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission to remove 21 abandoned and derelict vessels totaling 182,860 pounds.

The Coastal Federation built a total of 1.21 miles of living shoreline at 34 sites and worked with Belhaven, Carteret County, Carolina Beach, and Fort Macon, Hammocks Beach and Jockey’s Ridge state parks, Marine Corps air stations Cherry Point and New River, Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, the N.C. Department of Transportation, Swan Quarter Harbor, and Morehead City to fund, design, and permit future large-scale living shorelines.

The Coastal Federation collected 2,778 bushels of oyster shells and worked with the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries to build 7 acres of new oyster sanctuary at Cedar Island. It worked with the Natural Resources Conservation Service to offer a new cost-share program for oyster growers and partnered with Carteret County to plan a logistics hub for shellfish farmers who don’t own waterfront property.

The Coastal Federation helped Topsail Beach, Surf City, North Topsail Beach, and Wrightsville Beach in their development and adoption of ordinances to ban the use of unencapsulated polystyrene in dock construction. It hosted an Offshore Wind and Wildlife Summit to advance understanding of environmental management issues involved in siting offshore wind energy facilities. And it promoted the use of nature-based stormwater solutions to improve water quality and reduce flooding in the state funding priorities.

Support our work                 

While we maintain separation between our reporting and the advocacy work of our publisher, your donations to the Coastal Federation also support Coastal Review. Our objective with Coastal Review is to provide various perspectives and inform readers. Our professional journalists strive to meet the highest standards of fairness and accuracy. Our editorial decisions are made independently of the publisher and any other persons or interests.

Our publisher’s financial health, accountability and transparency have earned it a perfect score with Charity Navigator. Fewer than 1% of the thousands of charities rated by Charity Navigator have earned perfect scores.

You can support our work by joining or giving a gift membership to the Coastal Federation, by becoming a member of the CRO Press Club, or by putting your business in the Sponsor Spotlight.

We thank our donors, sponsors and Press Club members. Your support empowers us to continue to deliver the news that matters for the coast.

The news on the climate front keeps getting worse.

Regarding the report released Monday by the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, or IPCC, the headlines paint a dire picture: “Code Red for humanity,” was CNN’s banner for its coverage, quoting UN Secretary-General António Guterres; “Humans have pushed the climate into ‘unprecedented’ territory,” was how The Washington Post topped its story; “A Hotter Future Is Certain, Climate Panel Warns. But How Hot Is Up to Us,” warned The New York Times’ analysis.

All noted that even if nations of the world acted immediately to curb greenhouse gas emissions, enough damage is already done to guarantee a 1.5-degree Celsius rise in average global temperatures, or about 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit hotter.

The consequences of not rapidly and permanently cutting emissions, as The Post reported, are “increasingly catastrophic impacts.”

As we reported last year, North Carolina’s Climate Science Advisory Council’s 2020 assessment predicted warmer and wetter conditions with more flooding statewide and with coastal areas as risk from rising seas and increasingly frequent heavy downpours. At the time, our Kirk Ross interviewed State Climatologist Katie Dello about the report. She made it clear then that change was already happening.

“We’re feeling climate change now, so we don’t get to the luxury of talking about this as a future problem anymore,” she said. “It’s here in North Carolina. It’s here in our backyard and we’re seeing it through the sea level rise and extreme downpours.”

The IPCC’s summary of its findings for policymakers bears that out: “Human influence has warmed the climate at a rate that is unprecedented in at least the last 2000 years.” Some of the changes already happening, including sea level rise, are irreversible.

In 2019, atmospheric CO2 concentrations were higher than at any time in at least 2 million years, according to the summary, and concentrations of other greenhouse gases were higher than at any time in at least 800,000 years.

Global mean sea level has risen faster since 1900 than during any century in at least the last 3,000 years

Each of the last four decades has been successively warmer than any decade that preceded it since 1850.

It is likely that human behavior contributed to changing rainfall patterns since the mid-20th century, and mid-latitude storm tracks have shifted toward the poles in both hemispheres since the 1980s.

The scientists say it is virtually certain that oceans have warmed just since the 1970s and it is extremely likely that human influence is the main driver. It is also virtually certain that human-caused CO2 emissions are the main driver of ocean acidification.

Coastal cities, towns and villages “are particularly affected” by climatic factors that have already changed and will continue to change, whatever happens with regard to emissions. That means increases in extreme heat, flooding rainstorms, coastal erosion and coastal flooding. Increasing relative sea levels are compounding the flood problems associated with storm surge and intense rainfall.

There’s still much we can do to limit the damage. As the Times phrased it, “humanity can still prevent the planet from getting even hotter.” Doing so will require what the IPCC report describes as “strong and sustained reductions” in emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases. And even then, it could take two to three decades before global temperatures stabilize. But we will have at least taken steps to lessen the damage that would otherwise only be worse for our children and grandchildren.

And while there’s no silver lining, North Carolina, which still has a reputation for climate change denialism, has begun slowly moving in the right direction. As Coastal Review has reported in detail, debate here has shifted over the past decade from whether to do something to what should be done.

Officials released in 2020 the North Carolina Climate Risk Assessment and Resilience Plan as a comprehensive guide for addressing the risks of climate change to the state’s infrastructure and economy. The plan was hailed for addressing both the causes and effects and providing planning tools for local governments.

Also, the legislature has in recent sessions advanced bills that reflect a more comprehensive approach to flooding and stormwater management.

The House budget plan for the next two years would boost funding for the state’s Land and Water Fund and and other conservation programs with nearly $2 billion for flood prevention, resiliency and stormwater and wastewater infrastructure.

Meanwhile, new federal infrastructure and climate initiatives promise an even larger flow of funds if the state has programs in place to take advantage of it.

While these efforts offer numerous reasons for optimism, as the IPCC report states, the time to act on resiliency and the kind of carbon reductions that will truly make an impact for the next generation is now.

As we look ahead to the prospects outlined in the report and the state’s risk assessment, we know that what we do in the immediate future will have an impact on what the next generations face.

At Coastal Review, our role is not just to report on the impacts of the climate crisis, but to critically examine the plans, the science and proposed solutions in detail and to take a clear-eyed approach to the decisions at the state, federal and local levels that will affect our region and, ultimately, our planet. 

Regular readers may have noticed this week that things look a bit different here at CoastalReview.org.

We are excited to announce our first major redesign since launching this site in 2015. The changes are part of an overall effort to better serve our readers, especially mobile users who make up a growing majority of those who visit here. And while you may know us as Coastal Review Online, you also probably knew we were online without having to tell you.

The redesign allows us more flexibility and responsiveness in delivering the news of the North Carolina coast that you have come to expect and trust. In response to your comments and suggestions, we’ve added new or improved functions and are continuing to refine them to make it easier to find stories and information from the recent, or not so recent, past. Other new features are tools we needed to up our game.

After 10 years of coastal environmental reporting and six years since the North Carolina Coastal Federation launched Coastal Review as a freestanding, daily, online coastal news site, our readership continues to grow, and by larger margins each year.

There is clearly a lot of interest in news about North Carolina’s coastal region and this should come as no surprise. The 20 counties we cover are environmental treasures that are rich in abundance, ecological diversity and scenic splendor, with fascinating people and culture.

The region’s place in history is well known as a setting for early European exploration, the beginnings of a nation, and home to significant events and important people in the centuries that followed. It’s also a lesson on how life here has for thousands of years depended on the water that surrounds us.

These waters — the ocean as well as creeks, rivers, marshes and sounds — are the foundation of much of eastern North Carolina’s economy. Water is the draw for millions of visitors each year who spend billions of dollars in coastal counties.

“Tourists have discovered the unspoiled natural beauty and relative lack of congestion in the region’s beach areas,” says the NC East Alliance, an economic development organization for eastern North Carolina.

While the region has long been a popular tourist destination, North Carolina’s 20 Coastal Area Management Act, or CAMA, counties are also home to more than 1.06 million people, ranging from just under 5,000 residents in Hyde County to more than 234,000 in New Hanover County.

It may go without saying that no two are alike, but even neighboring counties can be vastly different. The North Carolina Rural Center ranks all but one coastal county, New Hanover, as rural, or having fewer than 250 people per square mile. While some counties are rapidly growing, others are seeing flat growth or slight declines in their population. But in each county, coastal waters play a significant role in the sense of place, quality of life and cultural identity.

The health of North Carolina’s seafood industry and the state’s significant recreational fishing-related economy depends on protecting the water around us. Fishing and hunting are a big part of coastal culture, especially in smaller communities.

Coastal wetlands and sounds not only are habitat for highly coveted fish and shellfish, but they also serve as a shock absorber, absorbing some of the brunt of coastal storms. Wetlands serve as an indicator of changes, such as those associated with sea level rise and rising ocean temperatures. In addition, our coastal waters are a laboratory for researchers in a variety of fields.

The North Carolina coast has been for more than a century a hub for scientific research. It’s home to National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Beaufort Laboratory and the Duke University Marine Lab, both in Beaufort; the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill Institute of Marine Sciences and the North Carolina State University Center for Marine Sciences and Technology, both in Morehead City; the East Carolina University Coastal Studies Institute in Wanchese; and the University of North Carolina Wilmington Center for Marine Science in Wilmington.

The research and findings at these institutions are often groundbreaking, sometimes with worldwide implications and recognition, and often the language is highly technical. Much of our science reporting is tied to issues related to pollution or contaminants and public health and sometimes these studies are mandated by the legislature.

We try to make science and the exacting but sometimes purposely vague language of legislation accessible to ordinary people. We strive to present in-depth reporting on topics that are often ignored, glossed over or delivered elsewhere without context or history.

We keep in mind that people too are part of the environment. Their well-being, ingenuity and perseverance are at the center of our environmental reporting.

Coastal communities are making new investments in protecting, conserving, celebrating and capitalizing on their resources because it makes sense for the environment and the economy, and it benefits people who live here.

Although our coverage focuses on issues that matter most to coastal residents, our audience, according to Google Analytics, is much more widespread, with significant numbers of readers in Raleigh, Atlanta — the location of Environmental Protection Agency’s Southeast regional headquarters — and Washington, D.C., in addition to the coast. This fact strengthens our resolve to clearly communicate coastal issues not just for the folks on the coast but also for key decision makers at the state and federal levels.

Our name, “Coastal Review,” dates back to the North Carolina Coastal Federation’s earliest days and a twice-yearly newspaper-form newsletter first published in August 1983 with a $5 per year subscription rate that covered environmental threats, water quality issues, legislative news and coastal residents — not unlike the coverage we now strive to deliver each day, Monday through Friday, at no cost to readers.

Then and now, North Carolina Coastal Federation Executive Director Todd Miller’s approach has been one of informing rather than trying to persuade. “People need to think for themselves based upon good, factual information,” he says.

Todd and Frank Tursi, a former environmental reporter at the Winston-Salem Journal before taking the helm of the federation’s Coastkeeper program, created Coastal Review Online in 2012 as part of the federation’s website, nccoast.org, and launched the freestanding news website at coastalreview.org in 2015. It was, “an act of desperation,” as Frank put it in 2016.

“Environmental groups depend on good journalism to educate people about the complicated science and policy issues that they often tackle. But decades of wilting revenue and falling readership had decimated daily newspapers, which reduced staff and cut coverage in response. Environmental journalism was a casualty,” Frank noted at the time.

Although published by an advocacy organization, we work hard to deliver unbiased, objective reporting and editorial decisions are made independently from the publisher and any other persons or interests.

With a full-time staff of two, we rely largely on freelance reporters, mostly veteran newspaper journalists who know the region and issues that matter. Our work has helped us grow our audience to more than three-quarters of a million readers during the past year alone, with more than 1.2 million pages viewed.

Since being accepted as a member of the North Carolina Press Association in 2015, our work has garnered more than 100 awards, including a first-place Public Service Award for 2020 presented earlier this year. We want to continue growing and improving to better serve the communities we cover.

Coastal Review is not supported by paid subscriptions or advertising. Our continued work to report the news of the North Carolina coast depends on your help. So, we’re offering new ways to make it easier for you to support our work through donations, sponsorships and gifts. Visit coastalreview.org/support to learn more. Our publisher’s financial health, accountability and transparency have earned it a perfect score with Charity Navigator. Fewer than 1% of the thousands of charities rated by Charity Navigator have earned perfect scores.

We extend our utmost appreciation to our website designer and technical guru Sara Birkemeier of 8dot Graphics LLC for her extensive work during the past few months, weeks and days to incorporate our ideas, suggest things we hadn’t considered and make this redesign as seamless as possible for Coastal Review staff. She lived up to her company’s slogan in making us “shine.”

Also, we thank our publishing partners who reprint our stories and share theirs with us to keep coastal residents informed. We’ve added a new feature on each story page so that publishers who wish to share our work with their readers may do so with all the proper attribution and contact information readily available, and to help us track our reach.

Just one more thing: Astute regular readers may have noticed at the top of our pages a new logo, which not only states who we are but also where we are, right here at CoastalReview.org. So, please suggest us to anyone who may have an interest in the news of the coast and tell them where to go. And while the moniker Coastal Review Online is a thing of the past, you can still call us “CRO.” We don’t mind a bit.

NEWPORT – We’re trying. As this Carteret County community struggles to get back to normal we’ve been trying to get a report on conditions here posted at Coastal Review Online. Wednesday was our first opportunity to publish.

Power has been restored to more and more homes and businesses each day since Florence moved on, mobile phones work in some places some of the time, but internet service has proved elusive until now.

Florence left a large swath of damage and destruction, but residents here have begun putting the pieces back together. It’s going to take a while. Each day, we hear about more who lost everything. The extent of the destruction is just becoming clear for those of us left isolated by the storm.

Like most lifelong coastal North Carolina residents, I’ve lived through many hurricanes. But unlike some, this is the first disaster I’ve experienced firsthand. For days, news and information have been courtesy a barely web-connected radio station or two, leaving us essentially cut off from the rest of the world. That’s just how it felt.

Saturday morning, the Newport River rose above the bridges and into neighborhoods, leaving Newport temporarily isolated from the rest of Carteret County. Much of the Down East community, we’d heard, was underwater and things weren’t much better to the west, especially in New Bern.

What we’ve heard most has been the obnoxious but welcome roar of generators that for days have kept folks going with some level of comfort – charging mostly useless mobile phones and preserving what little food remains in refrigerators. Conversations, both in person and by phone, are best had a few yards away from the din. Gas stations began making scarce supplies available Sunday, but lines for gas were long and at first and $30 was each customer’s limit. Gas has become more easily available as power is gradually restored across the area.

Recovery began at daybreak Friday, even as Florence continued to thrash the coast. Sunrise revealed broken or toppled trees had penetrated homes, mangled trucks and cars and stretched or snapped power lines every so many doors up and down each street. Near the Newport River, floodwaters had trapped some on the highway, who apparently abandoned their vehicles and found safety, and reached the doorknobs or higher in homes. Many homes were lost entirely.

Phone calls only occasionally connect. In Newport, connections are sometimes better if you walk out to the street and pace back and forth until you find a sweet spot. Sending text messages has been like throwing electronic darts that lack feathers. Few reach their targets. Receiving them sometimes happens in spurts, like around midnight when you’ve finally managed to drift off despite the uncomfortably muggy stillness and then your phone starts dinging like a pinball machine. Internet and email? Forget about it. Hence the missed publication schedule for Coastal Review Online.

During the storm, mobile phones became a chorus of emergency warnings directing us to “check local media” for details on tornadoes, flash floods and other calamities. But at the height of the storm, much of the local media were like Coastal Review Online and much of the public, off the grid. This is a big flaw in the public warning system, one that should be addressed before the next storm. Details should accompany alerts. Referrals are not so helpful.

What appears to have worked was the early-warning sounded in the days before Florence arrived.

Forecasters warned of relentless rainfall, dangerous storm surge and flooding at levels most coastal residents had never seen – and even the old-timers were unlikely to have experienced – and wind speed estimates that prompted visions of exploding structures and airborne roofs.

The apparent weakening that followed initial reports gave some hope for the typical, less destructive reality that followed the early alarming forecasts of countless previous hurricanes. But Florence wasn’t like previous storms.

Making landfall as a Category 1, Florence didn’t really “weaken.” The storm instead shifted into low gear, grinding to a near halt to slowly pummel the barrier islands along Onslow Bay, drenching nearly all of eastern North Carolina with driving and persistent rains and forcing a massive wall of water into inland communities along sounds and rivers.

Following the storm, curfews were enacted or extended to deter criminal or just plain stupid activities. But storm-related incidents appear to have been few and mostly unrelated to bad behavior, despite a fistfight in a local grocery store parking lot Sunday morning.

Mostly there have been examples of shining humanity.

Large convoys of bucket trucks operated by local line crews and volunteers from distant towns arrived to help restore desperately needed power as quickly as possible. Fire crews from all over the state brought their various types of apparatus to assist. The National Guard showed up, letting anyone in doubt know this really is serious.

Nonprofit groups, loosely affiliated volunteers and others arrived quickly and provided meals, shelter, cleanup help and comfort to those in need. Neighbors combined what they had on hand and fed one another.

People with chainsaws headed out in the early light and continued wind-driven rain Friday and cleared the streets around Newport of fallen trees. Entire crews, some with heavy equipment, went door-to-door to help those with trees on their homes or blocking their driveways. Neighbors helping neighbors, it was going on almost everywhere you looked.

Florence was not quite the same as any of the historic storms we remember, but Florence was what many had warned: the storm of a lifetime. But that’s an assessment that relies only on what we’d seen in the past. Science says we’ll continue to see more like Florence, more often.

We have work to do.

There’s a new guy in charge here at Coastal Review Online. Mark Hibbs, a longtime community journalist and CRO’s assistant editor since June 2015, takes the helm today as I prepare for my retirement after almost four decades in journalism.

A native of Carteret County, Mark worked for more than 20 years with the Carteret County News-Times, a tri-weekly newspaper in Morehead City. He wore a lot of hats there — staff writer, photographer, business editor and assistant to the editor – and won numerous journalism awards for his reporting. He’s a solid journalist and a good fella.

I’ll be around for a bit longer, spending the last few months of the year reporting and writing a special series on the state of the coast’s environment that will run in CRO next year. I’ll retire on Dec. 31.

Walking away hasn’t been easy, but I’m comforted knowing that the experiment we started four years ago is a success and that CRO is in good shape and in good hands.

The North Carolina Coastal Federation in 2012 launched the daily news service to cover coastal environmental issues. It was, frankly, an act of desperation. Environmental groups depend on good journalism to educate people about the complicated science and policy issues that they often tackle. But decades of wilting revenue and falling readership had decimated daily newspapers, which reduced staff and cut coverage in response. Environmental journalism was a casualty.

As a longtime environmental reporter, I knew my time was about up in 2002. I voluntarily left the Winston-Salem Journal after more than 30 years in newspaper newsrooms to take the job heading the Coastkeeper program here at the federation. There had once been as many as six reporters in the state whose full-time jobs were to cover environmental issues. There were four when I left. Now, there is one.  Much of the coast — indeed much of the state — is no longer within the beat of the last remaining environmental reporter.

We intended for the news service to fill that gap. I docked my Coastkeeper boat and took over as editor. Though I enjoyed my gig as an environmental watchdog, I’m a newsman. When the time comes, I hope they put that in my obituary. It felt good to be back home, even though my “newsroom” consisted of a single office and a computer, some software and freelancers for reporters.

Something else was different this time around: Our publisher was an advocacy group. Could a news service owned by the most-prominent environmental group on the coast produce credible journalism? No one knew because no one had tried it before. We made the rules as we went along.

The first rule, though, was simple and immutable: We would adhere to the strictest journalistic standards of fairness and balance. I told our writers, many of whom are former newspaper reporters, that we weren’t interested in one-side stories, even if that side was the publisher’s. In a media world dominated by Fox News, MSNBC, “news” websites of suspect origins and ideological screech radio, we still cling to the quaint notion that if you give them the facts most people will come to the right conclusions. Call me a romantic in that regard.

To provide a bit more separation between the federation and CRO, the news service launched this website in February 2015. Until then, it had been a feature of the federation’s site.

We did good journalism and even had some real scoops. Our inaugural story, a profile of Marc Basnight, made headlines across the state by revealing that the former state senator and once one of the most powerful political figures in the state was suffering from Lou Gehrig’s disease. Our story about the state legislature’s attempt to ban planning for sea-level rise reverberated around the world. Stephen Colbert had fun with it, and King Canute made a brief resurgence.

Still, the Board of Directors of the N.C. Press Association, the state’s only trade organization for journalists, was rightly suspicious when CRO applied for membership in 2013. The association is made up mostly of newspapers and TV and radio stations, all reliable members of the Fourth Estate. A digital newspaper published by an environmental advocacy group? Heresy.

We had several hundred stories in our archives by then. I asked the board members to judge us not by our publisher but by what we’ve published. They voted unanimously to let us in.

It turned out all right. The association last year recognized our work with 22 journalism awards for reporting and photography. Included in that total were first-place awards for the most extensive examination of offshore drilling published in the state – more than 40 stories run out over two months.

CRO also caught the attention of the North Carolina Wildlife Federation, which last year gave us a prestigious Governor’s Conservation Achievement Award for our environmental journalism.

We had arrived.

And readers began finding us. We started with a handful of visitors to the website, literally a couple of dozen a day. I had always feared that I probably accounted for half that traffic as I went back and forth to the site constantly. Today, more than 20,000 people read CRO every month. They’ve viewed more than a half-million pages. Almost 3,000 people receive our daily email, and a phone and tablet app is in the works.

None of this came cheaply. CRO is a nonprofit news service, one of only two in the state. We don’t sell ads or charge for subscriptions. But every story you see costs about $200. We wouldn’t have survived this long without the good people at the Park, Campbell and Z. Smith Reynolds foundations and without Fred and Alice Stanback of Salisbury. They took a chance on an unproven journalism model. I hope they now think their faith was well placed.

Any news organization is only as good as its reporters. The freelancers who are the core of our reporting staff have been with us from the beginning. Trista Talton, Cate Kozak, Brad Rich, Kirk Ross and Liz Biro stuck with us, even when the pay was meager, because they believed in what we were trying to do. Like all good reporters, each was always willing to do what it took to get the story. They even made their deadlines … most of the time.

The staff here also deserves mention. Though CRO is the odd duck around here, my colleagues have always supported what we were trying to accomplish. Many of them even became good news hounds and passed along ideas that became good stories. Thank you.

A special thanks to the boss. CRO would not have been possible without Todd Miller’s unfailing support and encouragement. He understood the need to allow CRO to establish its journalistic independence if the news service was to succeed. He rarely interfered and put up with my occasional cantankerousness. And like a good publisher he got out of the way and let us do our job.

I started my career many years ago in dingy newsrooms that could have been the sets used in “It Happened One Night,” the classic 1930’s newspaper movie. There, some of the most profound and profane people I would ever know banged out copy on manual Remington typewriters and reached into desk drawers for the occasional shot of 90-proof inspiration. The walls, stained a grimy yellow from decades of tobacco smoke, vibrated when the presses in the basement rumbled to life each night for the first edition. It would be delivered to our desks a short time later still moist and warm to the touch.

I end that career sitting here in front of a computer screen, sending email to reporters a hundred miles away. A mere push of a button will transport this copy out to thousands of readers.

It’s been a helluva story. But every story must end … and another begins.

–30–

One of the many pleasant amenities of living on the coast is that suits are rarely required for anything. But somewhere in the back of a closet I have one. A pretty nice suit, too, if I recollect correctly. Gray pinstripes, I think. I don it these days for just weddings and funerals, but I’ll have to break it out tomorrow. No one I know has died or is getting hitched, but the good folks at the N.C. Wildlife Federation insist I wear it anyway.

They’re going to give us here at Coastal Review Online one of their Governor’s Conservation Achievement Awards at a banquet in Cary. The official name of the award is Conservation Communicator of the Year, and it must be a pretty big deal because the letter notifying us of the award had this in bold type: “Dress for this prestigious event is business attire.” I assume that doesn’t mean shorts, flip-flops and a T-shirt proclaiming the Swansboro Yacht Club’s spot fishing tournament – my team came in second two years ago.

So, I’ll have to clean up Saturday to accept a conservation award that the federation has been giving out since 1958 when Gov. Luther Hodges was in charge. He allowed them to be called “Governor’s” awards and they have been ever since. Every year, the federation recognizes sportsmen, scientists, volunteers, elected officials, groups, businesses, wildlife professionals and media representatives who have shown an unwavering commitment to conservation in North Carolina. The awards are considered the highest natural resource honors given in the state.

“Each year we are amazed at the commitment and creativity of North Carolina citizens in protecting wildlife and wild places,” said T. Edward Nickens, the federation’s Awards Committee chair. “Many of our award winners tell us their Governor’s Conservation Achievement Award represents the high point of their career—whether they are full-time scientists or full-time volunteer conservationists.”

We are certainly proud to have been chosen in only our third year of existence. Since launching Coastal Review Online in 2012, we have strived to report factually and unflinchingly on the environmental and conservation issues facing our coast, while also highlighting our region’s culture, history, people and places. Winning this award will only encourage us to redouble our efforts.

We will certainly be in good company Saturday. The other award winners with coastal connections are:

Land Conservationist of the Year: Harriett Hurst Turner and John Henry Hurst. When the brother and sister sold 290 acres of rare maritime forestland to North Carolina last year, it boosted the size of popular Hammocks Beach State Park near Swansboro in a deal that will also bring back to life a historic camp that will be used for nature education.

Legislator of the Year: Sen. Harry Brown. As the senior chair of the state Senate Appropriations Committee, Brown of Jacksonville has led the effort to restore funding for land and water conservation. Under his leadership, funding for the Clean Water Management Trust Fund and other conservation trust funds has risen every year.

Natural Resources Scientist of the Year: Ron Sutherland. A conservation scientist for the Wildlands Network, Sutherland of Durham is actively involved in both research and education. He is a tireless voice for the conservation of public resources and was a leader in efforts to prevent the initial sale of N.C. State University’s Hofmann Forest in Onslow and Jones counties. He was a recipient of the N.C. Coastal Federation’s 2015 Pelican Award for his work to conserve Hofmann Forest.

Marine Fisheries Enforcement Officer of the Year: Justin Lott. Lott patrols the waters of Dare and Currituck counties, whose rich maritime legacy continues with a robust recreational and commercial fishing industry. Lott is known for keeping a keen eye out for fishing violations and has participated in educational and search and rescue operations, as well.

Our Girl in Paris

When world representatives gather in Paris in November for a crucial conference to achieve a new agreement on climate change, our Cate Kozak will be there to report for Coastal Review Online.

Kozak, who lives in Nags Head and writes about the Outer Banks for our news service, was notified this week that her press credentials were approved for the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, which starts Nov. 19. She’ll write about climate change issues as they relate to the N.C. coast.

They’ll probably force her to gussy up as well.

Coastal Review Online, starting today, will begin running a new feature at the bottom of our front page called “Coastoons” by Bob Eckstein, an award-winning cartoonist for the New Yorker, The New York Times, Playboy, Reader’s Digest, Mad Magazine…

… And now CRO.

High cotton, I would say.

It’s a coup that I would like to take some credit for, but the fact is that Bob found us. An email from him appeared out of the blue in my inbox one day a few weeks ago. He wanted to know if we’d be interested in running his original cartoons. Bob attached a few as samples.

We were immediately interested, but I was sure we couldn’t afford Bob. Did I note that he is a New Yorker cartoonist? In the email exchange that ensued, Bob assured me that he wasn’t interested in making a lot of money from CRO. Buy a minimum of two cartoons a month, he said, and he’d let us have them for a fraction of his going rate. I’m talking a 90 percent discount.

The deal was too good; I was suspicious. I can’t help it. All those years in the news business will turn even the sweetest guy into a cuss, and I was never the sweetest guy. This was probably some sort of cartoon scam, I thought with a furrowed brow. I first asked Bob for a photo and bio, ostensibly for our Staff and Contributors Page.  He sent them along. He doesn’t know this, but I then spent the next few days checking Bob out on the Internet, comparing the photo and the facts he sent. I became convinced that Bob is who he says he is.

Sorry  about all that, Bob.

During that search I learned that this guy is more than a renowned illustrator and funny cartoonist who has been nominated a couple of times as Gag Cartoonist of the Year by the National Cartoonist Society. He is, for instance, a snowman expert. How does one become such a thing and, more importantly, why? Well, Bob thought Frosty was getting a bum rap. Consumer capitalism had turned the snowman into a pitchman for everything from shampoo to laxatives. Some feminist professors have even publicly denounced him as a fat white guy who lolls on the lawn “while the woman of the house is inside toiling.” In Switzerland, there is even a national holiday dedicated to blowing him up.

So Bob set out to right a wrong, traveling the world for seven years researching and attempting to answer the age-old question, who made the first snowman? The resulting book, The History of the Snowman, was published in 2007.

“The snowman might be different to everyone, but most importantly, he is nobody to everybody,” Bob writes. “We can all relate to him. He’s the last man picked on the team. He is Everyman.”

Born in the Bronx, Bob now lives next to The Cloisters in northern Manhattan, where he wrote his next book, The Sea Below Us, a graphic novel and 1850 diary of a sailor searching for the North Pole. To write the book he reconfigured his office into the inside of a ship’s quarters.

Bob’s currently writing another graphic book about the best bookstores in the world.

We’re happy to welcome Bob to the CRO family. Look for his cartoons, which will all have a coastal theme, at least twice a month at the bottom of the front page.

Offshore Drilling and the N.C. Coast

Also, beginning next month, look for what we think will be the most comprehensive series of stories about offshore drilling and the N.C. coast.

In the most ambitious reporting project we’ve ever attempted, seven reporters will write more than 40 stories that will stretch out over two months. The stories will be contained into weeklong packages with two-week breaks in between. The first package will run June 1 and the last start on July 27.

Stories will detail the history of oil drilling in North Carolina, including the last time the topic dominated public debate in the mid-1980s. I was one of the lead reporters in the state covering that debate. Like Yogi Berra, I have déjà vu all over again.

Other stories will describe the geology of the Atlantic and why it might harbor fields of oil or natural gas. We’ll explain the politics of oil and the tortuous federal process in place to regulate offshore drilling. We’ll examine the possible benefits of drilling and its environmental consequences. Two reporters will travel the coast, from Calabash to Corolla, to record the views of ordinary people, and I’ll spend a week along America’s Oil Coast along the Gulf of Mexico to describe life amid the oil rigs, refineries and processing plants.