With House and Senate agreement on a state spending plan, it looks like another drawn-out budget battle with the governor may be avoided.
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Carp removal next step to healthier Lake Mattamuskeet
Plans are in the works to remove 1 million invasive carp from Lake Mattamuskeet, a move stakeholders hope will help with water quality and clarity.
Updated plan details human, climate damage to wetlands
The newly updated NC Wetland Program Plan details how climate change and nonpermitted human activities are causing wetland loss.
NC’s roots were in Albemarle Settlements, not ‘Lost Colony’
The role of Chowan County in North Carolina’s early Colonial history is often overshadowed by the first English settlement in North America, but it was here where the Tar Heel State had its true beginnings.
Swansboro family’s home kept flooding; state bought it
Zena Underwood and her husband Mark saw their home flood repeatedly, including during Hurricane Florence, before a state buyout program helped them move and took the property off the market for good.
Our Coast’s People: Dr. Ben Speller of Edenton
A retired NC Central professor and preservationist of African American history, Dr. Ben Speller of Edenton is a self-described collaborator who says that, despite the things that divide us, there’s more that we share in common than some may care to admit.
Latest dig yields new clues at Fort Raleigh Historic Site
Artifacts found in the current dig include sherds from olive jars once common on ships, a gun flint and what may be a fragment of laboratory equipment from the 1585 worksite.
Whitehurst fishery: A Down East community on Lake Erie
Historian David Cecelski illustrates with photos and family lore the story of fishers from Down East Carteret County who found their way to Lake Erie more than a century ago.
Coastal Resources Commission digs in on artificial turf
Addressing a growing number of permit questions, the coastal policy and rulemaking body has approved a prohibition on artificial turf within the 30-foot shoreline buffer in areas of environmental concern.
Panel with stakes in clean water adds to coastal habitat plan
A group of nine people with backgrounds and interests in the coastal economy and related water quality issues provided its recommendations for improving the state’s Coastal Habitat Protection Plan.
Gray, red foxes and coyotes: Know your coastal canids
Coastal North Carolina is home to two kinds of foxes and also the wily coyotes, and it can be important to know the differences.
Australian wildfires fertilized expansive algal blooms: Study
A recently published study by Duke University researchers found that particles in smoke and ash from Australian wildfires fed unprecedented algal blooms far away in the ocean.
Resilience, natural approach basis of habitat plan tweaks
Proposed amendments to the state’s official plan for protecting, restoring and conserving coastal habitats and fisheries drill in on newly specific priorities linked to water quality and climate change.
Lose the seagrass and lose the fisheries
Marine and estuary plant life on which North Carolina’s fish species depend are vulnerable to warming and rising seas, scientists say.
Holden Beach, Corps begin $3M storm risk planning study
The Holden Beach Coastal Storm Risk Management Project General Reevaluation Study is to consider feasibility and alternatives for federal participation in cost-shared management measures including beach nourishment for up to 50 years.
Guest commentary: Where plastic flows into the ocean
Kemp Burdette of Cape Fear River Watch and Ann Colley of the Moore Charitable Foundation write that there’s an overlooked connection in our own backyards that funnels plastics toward major bodies of water and eventually the world’s oceans.

















