North Carolina’s Coastal Resources Commission is moving through the steps to update rules for building along high-hazard coastlines that are particularly vulnerable to erosion and flooding.

When the commission met April 16 in Ocean Isle Beach’s town hall, members voted unanimously to advance the rulemaking process to draft language amendments for ocean erodible areas and inlet hazard areas. Proposed changes include using the most recent data for erosion rates and maps for the two zones, which are classified as areas of environmental concern.

If approved, this will be the first time new inlet hazard boundaries have been updated since they were initiated in the late 1970s. The commission has been discussing revisions for decades, but the complicated process and public blowback have pushed talks of updates year to year.

Both inlet hazard and ocean erodible areas fall under the ocean hazard areas category of areas of environmental concern, which are the foundation for the Coastal Area Management Act permitting program. CAMA was enacted in 1974, along with the commission to adopt rules for legislation that protects the state’s coastal resources. The Division of Coastal Management, under the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, acts as staff to the commission.

Inlet hazard areas, or IHAs, encompass land along the narrow body of water that allows for tidal exchange between the ocean and inland waters. These swaths of shoreline are susceptible to inlet migration, rapid and severe erosion, and flooding. Land within the boundaries is subject to the commission’s development rules.

Ken Richardson, the division’s shoreline management specialist, told Coastal Review that in addition to the proposed updates to inlet hazard area boundaries, one of the primary changes under consideration is that erosion rate setbacks within inlet hazard areas will be based on inlet-specific erosion rates detailed in a 2025 report rather than the adjacent ocean erodible area, or oceanfront, rates, which is currently the case.

Because of limited data and resources, erosion rate setback factors within inlet hazard areas have been based on the rates of adjacent ocean erodible areas, essentially treating the inlet shoreline as an extension of the oceanfront.

“Given the rapid changes that can occur at inlets, this method has often resulted in setback factors that underestimate the true erosion dynamics of these areas,” according to the division. Erosion rates are used to determine how far back new construction must be from the shoreline.

Richardson said that, “Additionally, the rules would effectively ‘hold the line’ of existing development by preventing seaward expansion of new development in inlet areas that have experienced natural accretion.”

He referenced the “Inlet Hazard Area Boundaries, 2025 Update: Science Panel Recommendations to the North Carolina Coastal Resources Commission,” presented in August 2025 to the commission that explains “any accretion at most inlets is temporary and likely to reverse over time; maintaining this line helps reduce future exposure to erosion hazards.”

The commission’s Science Panel on Coastal Hazards was directed in 2016 to update IHA boundaries. Rules were in the process of being updated in 2019, but the COVID-19 pandemic paused draft rules from moving forward.

The “Science Panel recommended updating IHAs on a five-year cycle alongside oceanfront erosion rates, by the time work resumed after the pandemic, the next oceanfront study (2025) was already approaching.  As a result, some stakeholders asked the CRC to proceed with a coordinated update,” leading to the directive in 2023 to provide another five-year review, Richardson told Coastal Review.

Richardson explained during the meeting last week that the science panel analyzed for the 2025 update the state’s developed inlets, which are Bogue, New River, New Topsail, Rich, Mason, Masonboro, Carolina Beach, Lockwood Folly, Shallotte and Tubbs.

Panel Chair Dr. Laura Moore, professor of coastal geomorphology at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, presented the findings in the inlet hazard area boundaries report during the August 2025 meeting.

Last February, the Coastal Resources Advisory Council and a subcommittee reviewed the report and suggested deviating from the panel’s recommendation to measure setbacks from the hybrid-vegetation line because of concerns that existing structures would be nonconforming, and therefore harder to replace if something happened to the structure.

They decided to base the language on existing rules and continue to measure setbacks within inlet hazard areas from the actual vegetation line or pre-project line but not extend farther oceanward than the footprint of an existing structure, or, in the case with vacant lots, the landward-most adjacent neighboring structure, according to the division.

Richardson told the commission that another recommendation included amending the language for ocean erodible areas language citing the 2019 report to the “North Carolina 2025 Oceanfront Setback Factors & Long-Term Average Annual Erosion Rate Update Study: Methods Report report.”

Richardson noted that there are no boundary maps for ocean erodible areas because boundaries are measured from the vegetation line, which are dynamic and could change overnight, so the landward boundary is determined in the field.

Staff also proposes eliminating the distinction of residential or nonresidential for the type of structure, because “It doesn’t matter to erosion what the structure is being used for,” Richardson said.

Now, the proposed rule changes will go through the fiscal analysis. This step in the rulemaking process determines the financial impact of the proposed amendments. After the analysis is presented and voted on, the commission will decide to move on to the public comment period, then to final approval before sending it to the Rules Review Commission.

Septic tank update

Cameron Luck, a policy analyst for the division, briefed the commission on the work to develop rules for septic system siting, repair and replacement within ocean hazard areas.

He began by sharing what took place during a meeting March 30 in Buxton coordinated by the North Carolina Coastal Federation, with representatives from the North Carolina Home Builders Association, North Carolina Septic Tank Association, Outer Bank Association of Realtors, National Park Service, and from county health departments.

Attendees were brought up to speed on some of the issues surrounding failed septic tanks on the oceanfront, heard from Cape Hatteras National Seashore representatives about their policies and ongoing struggles and efforts to address both the threatened oceanfront structures and the failed septic tank systems and systems out on the beach

Department of Health and Human Services provided a quick synopsis of their process, focusing on the role within and alongside local health departments, with a discussion on how the department permits and cites septic tanks and how and failure enforcement.

Luck said that he and other division staff presented the most recently proposed rule language for discussion.

“We spent a good amount of time talking through the proposed language and some areas that could be improved,” Luck said.

Main points in the discussion focused on defining what type of repair would qualify for a permit.

“In other words,” Luck explained, would property owners be required to secure a permit if a filter or a section of pipe needs to be replaced, or does the rule need to be more focused on extreme failures.

Discussion also focused on whether the proposed rule changes should be applied coastwide or be more targeted to specific situations or locations.

“Perhaps, key takeaway from that meeting was a clear consensus among those attendees that some form of action is needed to limit the repair of failed septic systems on the ocean beach and to prevent them from remaining on the beach once they failed,” he said, adding that staff is working on those rule language updates.

Notorious for its bloated and rigid regulatory structure, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Civil Works program is looking to slim down and speed up, all while redirecting resources and prioritizing programs.

As detailed in 12 memorandums released in March, the agency’s new initiative, “Building Infrastructure, Not Paperwork,” seeks “to deliver critical projects and programs for the nation more efficiently, sooner, and at less cost than the current ways of doing business,” Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works Adam R. Telle stated in a February press release.

“This will eliminate bureaucratic delays and provide fast, clear decisions needed to save lives and empower our economy,” he added.

According to the release, the plan’s 27 initiatives are grouped under five categories: maximizing ability to deliver national infrastructure, cutting red tape, and focusing on efficiency, transparency and accountability and prioritization. The plan would not affect the Corps’ execution of its emergency response support to natural and human-made disasters.

Even by federal government standards, the Corps’ Civil Works is massive, managing about $259 billion in water resource assets and employing an estimated 37,000 full-time-equivalent employees, 98% of whom are civilians, according to a 2025 congressional report.

Through the initiatives, there are assurances that all projects are reviewed for the best path forward, said Eugene Pawlik with the Corps’ public affairs in an email, responding to questions from Coastal Review. “(The Corps) will be focused on strategically allocating available resources to prioritize the most pressing infrastructure needs across the country.”

The slow pace of the permit approval process will be addressed with new technology and geospatial tools that will expedite jurisdictional and permitting decision-making as well as reduce subjectivity in identification and elimination of Clean Water Act areas, Pawlik said.

Additional permitting goals, he wrote, include reissue and expand the existing Nationwide Permit program, eliminate barriers that prevent establishment of new mitigation banks, leverage private capital to modernize and expand generating capacity at Corps facilities, provide long-term leases with rights to additional revenues to entities willing to pay for capital improvements, and reform how the Corps conducts Section 408 reviews and engineering oversight.

The Section 408 program allows people or entities to make changes to a civil works project following reviews that are to verify that the changes do not have negative effects on the public interest or the project itself.

No additional funds nor dedicated budget item is being requested to implement the program.

“We believe the transformation initiatives will be a more effective use of annual appropriations,” Pawlik said.

But a closer look at just two interconnected and increasingly important tasks that the Corps is charged with in North Carolina and numerous other states — that is, dredging clogged inlets and nourishing eroding beaches by pumping in sand — may seem logical and sensible. But it’s not that simple.

With both activities being done more frequently, while sand supplies are becoming more sparse, the Corps is more often being asked to put the dredged sand from navigation channels on the beach. And more often, and to the enormous frustration of the permit applicant, it’s not permitted.

“In the Wilmington District, maintenance dredging often serves a dual purpose through the Beneficial Use of Dredged Material,” the Corps press release said, referring to a program created under the Water Resources Development Act of 2016. “The district uses beach-quality sand removed from navigation channels and inlets to provide for North Carolina’s coastal communities.”

On the Outer Banks, for instance, dredged material from Oregon Inlet in past years had been pumped onto an adjacent beach on the north end of Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge.

“Maintenance dredging is about more than just keeping the channels clear and ships moving; in North Carolina, it’s also a critical tool for coastal resiliency,” said Col. Brad A. Morgan, commander of the Corps’ Wilmington District. “By placing dredged sand back onto our beaches, we aren’t just maintaining a channel—we are protecting coastal infrastructure, supporting the local tourism economy, and restoring vital habitats.”

But the state Division of Environmental Quality has to permit sediment placed on state beaches, and it requires that sand to meet standards. On federal lands, such as the Pea Island refuge and Cape Hatteras National Seashore, the U.S. Department of Interior also must permit the sand placement. Even when sand is removed from a nearby location, it’s not necessarily transferable to the beach where it’s needed.  Dredged sand may be the wrong color or size, or testing has revealed pollutants or toxins. It might be mucky and unsuitable for bird habitat. It might be too fine for the targeted location, meaning it would soon blow away. Or as happened in 2015 at North Topsail Beach, it could be too rocky.

Still, the Corps would continue to ensure that dredged material used as beach fill meets required standards, Pawlik said.

“The Flood and Coastal Storm Risk Reduction programs reduce risk for millions of Americans and billions of dollars of infrastructure,” he wrote. “(The initiative) will ensure USACE pursues cost efficiency through better use and scheduling of dredging assets nationally and increased use of dredged materials for beneficial use.”

Pawlik said that the Corps’ district commanders would review all projects and be “key players” in forward motion of projects and allocation of resources “to prioritize the most pressing infrastructure needs across the country.”

Each of the 12 memorandums provides details of different aspects of implementation of the “Building Infrastructure, Not Paperwork” program, addressing what many people have frequently noted about the agency.

As one excerpt from the memo, “Prioritization of Efforts Within the Army Civil Works Program” reveals, there’s room for improvement: “In recent years, the Corps has prioritized every effort all at once, which of course means there are no priorities and that we can mask lack of delivery with progress on paper.”

Coastal Review will not publish Friday as our offices will be closed in observance of Good Friday.

Ocean Isle Beach hopes to pump tens of thousands of cubic yards of sand onto the beach at the easternmost tip of the island by this spring as an erosion stopgap.

The Brunswick County town has asked the Army Corps of Engineers Wilmington District for authorization to have up to 70,000 cubic yards of sand placed east of its terminal groin where erosion has been chipping away at the shoreline in front of a luxury neighborhood.

The Corps announced late last week that it is accepting public comments through March 8 on the town’s application to modify the federal permit it received in 2016 to build the terminal groin at Shallotte Inlet. 

As it stands, that permit does not allow sand to be placed east of the terminal groin.

A terminal groin is a wall-like structure built perpendicular to the shore at inlets to contain sand in areas with high rates of erosion.

Proposed modifications to the permit include placing sand along an 1,875-foot stretch of shoreline at The Pointe, a gated community whose oceanfront property owners have been desperately trying to hold back an encroaching sea.

Under the terms of the proposed permit changes, this would be a one-time beach nourishment project.

The town is also asking for its permitted sand borrow source in Shallotte Inlet to be expanded from about 83 acres to a little more than 117 acres, to add a new borrow area within the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway and be allowed to work outside of the environmental window for dredging from April 30 to June 15.

Ocean Isle Beach Town Manager Justin Whiteside said on Tuesday that the town wants to get the modified permit as quickly as possible in hopes that the sand placement project would coincide with a federal dredging project.

The Corps announced last September it had awarded a nearly $8.5 million contract to maintenance dredge several areas along the Intracoastal, including at the Shallotte Inlet crossing.

Whiteside explained that Ocean Isle Beach anticipates receiving 25,000 cubic yards of sand “that the town is paying for” from the Corps through the inlet crossing project.

“The hope is to get this permit modified within the timeframe that the Corps’ contractor is here on site and then we could contract with them possibly to dredge more in that federal channel or go into that inlet borrow area to put that additional sand there,” he said.

Whiteside said the town does not yet have an approximate cost of its proposal to nourish the beach east of the terminal groin.

Ocean Isle’s east end had for decades been losing ground to chronic erosion, the worst of which occurred along about a mile of ocean shoreline beginning near the inlet.

An encroaching ocean claimed homes, damaged and destroyed public utilities and prompted the North Carolina Department of Transportation to abandon state-maintained streets there.

To stave off further erosion, the town in 2005 was permitted to install a wall of sandbags to protect public roads and infrastructure from getting swallowed up by the sea.

In 2011, Ocean Isle Beach was, along with a handful of other beach communities, allowed to pursue the option of installing a terminal groin at an inlet area after the North Carolina General Assembly repealed a law that banned hardened erosion control structures on the state’s ocean shorelines.

Five years later, the town received state and federal approval to build a 750-foot terminal groin.

But before construction could begin, the Southern Environmental Law Center in August 2017 filed a lawsuit on behalf of the National Audubon Society challenging the Corps’ approval of the project.

More than three years passed before the lawsuit, which later included the town, concluded after an appellate court affirmed a lower court’s decision that the Corps fairly considered the alternatives included in an environmental impact statement examining the proposed project.

Construction of the $11 million project was completed in the spring of 2022, the same year the final plan for The Pointe, a 44-lot subdivision, was approved for development.

By fall 2025, The Pointe’s oceanfront properties were suffering significant erosion.

Last November, the North Carolina Coastal Resources Commission unanimously agreed to grant permission to the owners of eight lots in that neighborhood to install larger than typically allowed sandbag structures waterward of their land.

Whiteside said Tuesday that those sandbags had not been installed.

Sand in the area east of the terminal groin, he said, appears to be “recovering a little bit.”

“We think over the past month and a half or so that we’ve gained, just looking at aerial photographs, approximately 5,000 cubic yards of sand that’s deposited east of the groin, so some of the beach is building back up in that area,” Whiteside said.

He explained that in 2022 the town’s federal beach nourishment project took place in conjunction with the construction of the terminal groin.

“The dredger came through and we had a huge spit on the east end of the island and that contractor came through and just dredged right through that spit and took it down to a negative 15-foot elevation,” Whitesaid said. “It’s kind of filled back in now and we’re thinking that’s why we’re seeing the growth back east of the groin. We’re hoping this shows that that’s some of what contributed to it, that it was maybe our own nourishment project through the Corps.”

“But, in the meantime, we know this is a short-term solution that we’ve got to figure out some type of long-term solution to, so our engineer firm is going to be doing some modeling to see what kind of modifications, if any, need to take place to the existing groin,” he continued.

Comments on the proposed project should refer the permit application number (SAW-2011-01241) and may be submitted to the Corps electronically through the Regulatory Request System at https://rrs.usace.army.mil/rrs or by email to Tyler Crumbley at tyler.a.crumbley2@usace.army.mil. 

Written comments may be mailed to Commander, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, Wilmington District, Attention: Tyler Crumbley, 69 Darlington Ave., Wilmington, NC  28403.

The Corps will consider written requests for a public hearing to be held to consider the proposed application modifications.

BUXTON – Faced with devastating destruction across a significant segment of its beachfront, this small Outer Banks village is seeking help for coastal solutions, including measures that could require potentially controversial legislative action by the state and federal governments.

Since September, 15 houses have collapsed on a stretch of beach in Buxton just north of Cape Hatteras, the distinctive point of land midway along the East Coast that juts far into the Atlantic. Adaptation to storms and natural forces have fortified the community since its establishment in the late 1800s, but now stunningly rapid erosion is endangering its future.

“Today, small areas of our oceanfront have deteriorated to the point where we can no longer shoulder these challenges alone,” Dare County Board of Commissioners Chairman Bob Woodard wrote to members of the North Carolina General Assembly in November. “With your support, we can preserve our coastline, protect public infrastructure, and sustain the economic engine that benefits all of North Carolina.”

The county is one of the few “donor counties” in North Carolina, with more than 3 million people annually visiting Dare’s beaches and national parks and generating significant state tax revenue, he said. So far, he added, the county has spent about $275 million for beach nourishment as well as additional millions to maintain inlets, with little state or federal assistance.

In addition to a beach nourishment project in 2026 for Buxton, the county is planning to repair a purportedly half-intact groin, one of three installed in 1969 to protect the former Navy base constructed in 1956 near the original location of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse.

Dare and Hyde counties also have asked the state Division of Coastal Management to lift the 1985 state ban against hardened structures so the remnants of the two deteriorated groins at the site can be replaced.

But beach stabilization of any sort on the Outer Banks, with its extraordinarily high-energy coastal conditions, is becoming more challenging in a changing climate with quickly evolving and often unpredictable consequences: Sea levels are increasing faster than projected, storms are intensifying, rainfall is heavier.

In recent years, Hatteras and Ocracoke islands on the barrier islands’ southern end have been suffering dramatically increased shoaling in its inlets and far worse erosion at numerous hot spots along N.C. 12, the island’s only highway. Over wash, loss of dunes and road damage is becoming more frequent and difficult to mitigate, sometimes resulting in loss of vehicular access for hours or days. 

People say things feel different. Residents — from old timers to long-time transplants — have noticed places flooding where they never did before, shoaling in waterways that had never clogged before, and erosion consuming an entire shoreline that had been wide and stable just a few years before. And this fall and winter, even seasonal nor’easters have switched to overdrive, with the storms coming in one after another and more often than some ole salts say they’ve ever seen. 

“When we really developed these islands in the ’70s and ’80s, it was a different system, and we need to recognize that, acknowledge it, and plan accordingly,” Reide Corbett, executive director of the Coastal Studies Institute and Dean of the Integrated Coastal Program at East Carolina University, said in a recent interview. “We can’t let self-interest lead the way. We need to understand what this looks like, and we need to get behind better policy. And it starts with how we develop.”

Responding to increasing numbers of house collapses in Buxton and Rodanthe, the Hatteras Island’s northernmost village, state leaders are urging Congress to pass legislation introduced by Rep. Greg Murphy, a Republican from North Carolina’s 3rd District, that would authorize proactive Federal Emergency Management Agency flood insurance payments to remove threatened oceanfront houses before they fall.

While the proposal has garnered bipartisan support, FEMA is currently understaffed and targeted for downsizing, reorganization or even elimination, and its flood insurance program is woefully underfunded.

A delegation representing local, state and federal officials toured the damaged area in Buxton on Nov. 24, where dozens of additional oceanfront houses are scattered willy-nilly, awaiting near-certain demise. Numerous members of the group expressed shock at the disarray and destruction at the scene.

Meanwhile, North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality Secretary Reid Wilson has directed the Coastal Resources Commission’s Science Panel to analyze shoreline stabilization options, including the potential effectiveness or negative impacts of groins.

Erosion on Buxton’s oceanfront has been a persistent problem for many decades, at least to the infrastructure on the beach, such as the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse.

“It was quite obvious to everybody that in the course of time the lighthouse would topple into the Atlantic Ocean and the thousand acres of park land, upon which no tree and scarcely any blade of grass grew, would be swallowed up by the warring ocean currents that swirl around the point of Cape Hatteras,” author Ben Dixon MacNeill wrote in an article published on July 30, 1948, in the Coastland Times. At that point, he noted, in just the lifetime of a middle-aged man, erosion had already whittled away 1,500 feet of beach. 

Despite the 1937 congressional directive to the National Park Service to preserve what would later become Cape Hatteras National Seashore as a “primitive wilderness,” until the early 1970s, according to park documents, the agency spent more than $20 million to stop the “natural process” of barrier island movement. Projects included installing in 1930 steel sheet pile groins along the beach by Cape Hatteras Lighthouse; installing in 1933 additional sheet pile groins at the lighthouse; nourishment of the beach in 1966 near the Buxton motel area with sand dredged from Pamlico Sound; and in 1967 placement of revetment of large nylon sandbags in front of the lighthouse.

In addition, the U.S. Navy built three reinforced concrete groins in 1969 to protect its facility near the lighthouse; the beach near the Buxton motels was nourished again in 1971 with material dredged from Cape Point; and the beach near the Navy operation was nourished in 1973 with Cape Point sand. 

Those actions were in addition to construction and repeated reconstruction of sand dunes, as well as beach fences and planting grasses, shrubs and trees to hold the dunes. 

Finally, in 1973, the National Park Service acknowledged the futility and unsustainable costs of stabilization, and abandoned its efforts. The agency, however, did continue various attempts to protect the lighthouse with riprap, offshore artificial grass, sandbags and a scour-mat apron. With the sea by then lapping at its base, the lighthouse in 1999 was relocated a half-mile inland.

In a letter dated Jan. 9, 1974, from the U.S. Department of Interior to a Buxton resident, the agency promised that all available data would be analyzed before determining future beach stabilization management decisions in the Seashore, including relative to the groins.

“The most reliable scientific data we have obtained thus far offer no evidence that the existing jetties or groins at Buxton provide acceptable protection from ocean forces,” the department added. “While some stabilizing effect may be gained in the immediate area, the jetties actually cause more erosion in adjacent locations.”

A report the year earlier published by University of Virginia coastal scientist Robert Dolan, et. al, to analyze the effects of beach nourishment in Buxton, in fact, said that the groins — short jetties extending from a shoreline — rapidly increased erosion by the motel area, causing dune destruction and ocean over wash into private property.

“The groins, somewhat unexpectedly, are trapping sediment at the expense of the beaches to either side and as a result of their success, the reach protected by the groins has become stable,” the report said, adding that the localized erosion problem at Buxton had followed construction of the groins.

Barely more than four years after they were built, the groins were damaged by storms and required repairs with new sheet piling. Patches and reinforcements continued until the Navy in 1982 abandoned the base, apparently leaving the groins to the elements.

By the time heated discussions kicked in about whether the lighthouse should be saved in place or moved, the community tried to persuade the federal government to not only maintain the by-then-deteriorating existing groins, but also to add a fourth groin. The petition was soundly rejected, and the Navy, the Park Service and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers appeared to want nothing to do with the groins.

Today, the county sees the sand trapping barriers — even a single groin — as a way to prolong the effectiveness of a $50 million beach nourishment project, and importantly, as a way to buy time while consultants determine a long-term strategy for Buxton.

Dare County Manager Bobby Outten reported in March that, according to Coastal Science & Engineering, the firm hired to do the beach nourishment and groin work, the southern-most groin would meet the state’s 50% rule that allows repair of an existing structure that has 50% or less in damages. The county is currently awaiting approval from the state, as well as acknowledgement that the application meets the exemption criteria for an exemption from the hardened structures statute, he said.

If the groin work is approved, contractors estimate the $2 to $4 million project would take up to two months to complete this summer and involve about 640 feet of repairs, using steel sheet pile and riprap scour protection within the original footprint.

As Outten summed up the current dilemma facing Dare and other North Carolina coastal communities: There are two extremes, either hold the coast in place as it is, and build sea walls. Or let nature take its course, let the houses fall and see the economy crumble.

“And neither one of those extremes is acceptable,” he told Coastal Review. “To anybody.”

Update: A ninth oceanfront Hatteras Island house fell late Friday; an unoccupied structure at 23047 G.A. Kohler Court, Rodanthe, collapsed shortly before 6 p.m.

Original report follows below:

BUXTON — It started two weeks ago, when one small, unoccupied house here fell into the ocean, long before two powerful tropical storms were approaching Hatteras Island.

But by mid-afternoon Tuesday, shortly before high tide, both hurricanes Humberto and Imelda, while well offshore, had supercharged the ocean off Cape Hatteras, where the Outer Banks bend out farthest into the Atlantic. In a highly unusual spate of structural surrender, five houses along the beach in Buxton — all unoccupied and all off Tower Circle Road or Cottage Avenue — collapsed, apparently one after another and all within 45 minutes after 2 p.m.

Before midnight, another nearby house gave way to the pounding surf.

Then, at about 8 p.m. Wednesday, the eighth house fell onto the same stretch of beach, adding to a staggering amount of debris scattered along the oceanfront and buffeted by swirling surf.  

“We’ve got at least one or two more tides to go before this thing calms down,” John Robert Hooper, the owner of Lighthouse View Oceanfront Lodging in Buxton, told Coastal Review Thursday. “It’s a messy situation right now.”

Debris is spreading south through much of the village oceanfront, which is part of Cape Hatteras National Seashore. But unlike in Rodanthe, Hatteras Island’s northernmost village that experienced 12 house collapses from 2020 to 2024, the debris has not spread as far or as wide along the beach. Instead, much of it has been trapped under houses and driven by wind and surf into neighborhoods.

“We are working very closely with Dare County to coordinate cleanup activities,” said Dave Hallac, superintendent of Cape Hatteras National Seashore.

Hallac told Coastal Review Thursday that the National Park Service had been in contact with the property owners before the homes collapsed and is working to again communicate with them.

“We are implementing emergency cleanup activities to protect these federal lands and waterways and to prevent continued impact from the spread of debris,” he said. “We’re planning on starting tomorrow (Friday) morning.”

From what he had seen, Hallac said that it appears many of the houses still had contents inside when they fell. He said the park service had also observed “pieces and parts of septic drainfield lines and other wastewater system components.”

About two dozen park service personnel were planning Thursday to start collecting debris Friday between the southern end of Buxton and Cape Point.

The entire stretch of beach from the north end of the village to the Off-Road Vehicle Ramp 43 will remain closed until further notice.

Dare County Board of Commissioners Chairman Bob Woodard said Thursday that county and park officials expected to meet with the county’s contractor in Buxton Friday morning to assess the site and coordinate the cleanup response.

“We’re trying to get the homeowners to get contractors to move that debris to the road, so that our guys can come in with bucket trucks and pick it all up and haul it all away,” Woodard told Coastal Review.

Woodard said he believed that most, if not all, of the fallen houses were owned by out-of-town people. But there are an additional dozen or more homes along the same area of beach that are still vulnerable to collapse, he added. 

“We thought there would be a lot more going down yesterday, with that high tide at three o’clock,” Woodard said, referring to Wednesday’s rough conditions.

Considering the extensive impact of the offshore storms, the chairman couldn’t help lamenting the bad luck in the storm’s timing, saying it wouldn’t have happened if a beach nourishment project now planned for 2026 had been in place. 

“We were all praying once we’ve moved the nourishment from ’27 to ’26, just hoping and praying that we wouldn’t have any damages until then,” he said. “But unfortunately, with Mother Nature in 2025, we’ve had three weather systems that kicked us in the butt down there.”

Hooper, who was born in Buxton in 1954, said that these multiple collapses over such a short period of time is dramatically worse than he can recall happening before. 

“Oh, yes, it is,” he told Coastal Review. “There is something else going on here, rather than this normal erosion. You know, clearly the ocean’s higher, but … where is the equilibrium?”

A beach nourishment project in Buxton a few years ago seemed to have mostly ended up at Cape Point a couple of miles south, he said. Yet, Hooper, who had served as a Dare County commissioner from 2000 to 2004, said he has seen ebb and flow of the shoreline over the years, a slow rebalancing.

“And we may be there today, and this may be the end of it, I don’t know,” he said. “But clearly, as quick as all this stuff happened, this is a new element.”

Hooper has had sandbags – technically, a temporary measure only — in front of his oceanfront motel and cottages in Buxton since about 1992, he said, and he repaired and expanded them in 2013.

“Until now, we’ve been able to manage,” he said. The cottages, located south of the motel, have been most affected by the swell.

“I’ve been here fighting this thing for 50 years now, off and on, and probably this morning it’s my first house (that’s) unsafe because of the sewage,” he said. “It’s been tough, but it’s been really tough this fall with some of the PR, and certainly storms like this don’t help”

Since about Aug. 20, he said, visitation in Buxton had been hurting. Since mid-August, he said, he figures that businesses are off 60-70%.

Still, Hooper said that even though it hurts in the short term, losing the houses that were so close to the surf was a looming threat that seemed inevitable. 

“But at least in my viewpoint, you know, we got that over with,” he said. “Because nothing is worse than a house sitting out in the ocean.”

OCEAN ISLE BEACH — When the Army Corps of Engineers issued its final decision on the terminal groin project here more than eight years ago, the document conveyed a prescient warning.

A terminal groin “may increase erosion along the easternmost point of Ocean Isle Beach, down-drift of the structure.”

Today, the shoreline east of terminal groin is being gnawed away, vanishing beach in front of a neighborhood of grand, multimillion-dollar homes built shortly after the $11 million erosion-control structure was completed in spring 2022.

A wall of sandbags fends off waves from reaching some of the waterfront homes on the ocean side of the gated community that’s advertised as “luxurious coastal living.”

Several lots remain vacant because the properties no longer have enough beachfront necessary to meet the state’s ocean setback requirements.

“I would have never developed the property if I had known this was going to happen,” said Doc Dunlap, a developer with Pointe OIB, LLC. “It’s just devastating to tell you the truth. I even had plans myself to build there, have a summer home.”

The caveat written in the federal record of decision all those years ago, one that was a central argument in a lawsuit to try and stop the terminal groin from being built, was not explicitly pointed out to the developers of The Pointe, they say.

In an email responding to Coastal Review’s questions, the Division of Coastal Management said it, “is not aware of any specific notification to those property owners other than the standard (area of environmental concern) hazard notice.”

“We were just under the impression that all of this was going to be extremely positive and help protect this part of the beach,” said Jimmy Bell, who contributed to the planning and implementation of the community. “And then, once we started experiencing this massive erosion, I started researching groins more. We had engineers and other people that were helping, and we were informed and under the impression that it was going to all be good, and now it’s turning out to not be quite as good.”

Ocean Isle Beach Mayor Debbie Smith pushed back on those claims.

“My heart breaks for them, but the developers knew that that groin was going in,” she said. “They knew it was not designed to protect that area. It was not designed to harm it, but they also know that adjacent 2,000 feet west of them was a line of sandbags and most of them had been there for years.”

The developers are now seeking legal representation as they continue to try to figure out how to protect the oceanfront properties within the 44-lot neighborhood.

“Mr. Dunlap is extremely disappointed in the decisions made that resulted in the placement and construction of the terminal groin and the erosion damages it has caused,” John Hilton III, corporate counsel to Pointe OIB, stated in an email. “He is committed to holding those who made these decisions legally accountable and also seeking a remedy to correct the ongoing erosion.  We are working to obtain local legal counsel to explore and pursue all available options.”

Erosion-battered shore

The east end of the island at Shallotte Inlet historically accreted and eroded naturally as the inlet wagged back and forth between Ocean Isle Beach and Holden Beach up until Hurricane Hazel hit in 1954.

When the powerful hurricane – likely a Category 4 storm using the Saffir-Simpson scale developed in 1971 – made landfall in October 1954 near the South Carolina border, it caused the inlet channel to move in a more easterly direction, accelerating erosion at the east end of the barrier island.

Erosion has remained persistent in that area since the 1970s, according to N.C. Division of Coastal Management records.

The worst of the erosion occurred along about a mile of oceanfront shore beginning near the inlet. An encroaching ocean claimed homes, damaged and destroyed public utilities, and prompted the N.C. Department of Transportation to abandon state-maintained streets.

In 2005, the town was permitted to install at the east a wall of sandbags to barricade private properties and infrastructure from ocean waves.

Sandbags revetments are, under state rules, to be used as a temporary measure to hold erosion at bay.

In 2011, the North Carolina General Assembly repealed a decades-old state law that prohibited permanent, hardened erosion-control structures from being built on North Carolina beaches.

Under the revised law, a handful of beach communities, including Ocean Isle Beach, get the option to pursue installing a terminal groin at an inlet area.

Terminal groins are wall-like structures built perpendicular to the shore at inlets to contain sand in areas of high erosion like the east end of Ocean Isle Beach.

These structures are controversial because they capture sand that travels down the beach near shore, depleting the sand supply to the beach immediately downdrift of the structure, stripping land that is natural habitat for, among others, sea turtles and shorebirds.

Ocean Isle Beach Sea Turtle Protection Organization Island Coordinator Deb Allen said that beach conditions east of the terminal groin have hindered turtles from nesting there this season. Escarpment, sandbags and debris that Allen believes is coming from the development have impeded turtles from accessing the sandy areas they seek to lay their eggs.

As of early September, the organization had recorded four false crawls, which is when a female turtle crawls onto a beach only to return to the ocean without laying eggs, and three nests east of the terminal groin, Allen said.

The potential for that type of impact to wildlife was argued in a lawsuit the Southern Environmental Law Center filed on behalf of the National Audubon Society in August 2017 challenging the Corps’ approval of Ocean Isle Beach’s project.

The lawsuit claimed that the Corps failed to objectively evaluate alternatives to the terminal groin, including those that would be less costly to Ocean Isle residents and less destructive to the coast, particularly to what was then the undeveloped area on the island’s east end.

The lawsuit, which later included the town, came to an end in March 2021 after a panel of appellate court judges affirmed a lower court’s decision that the Corps fairly considered the alternatives included in an environmental impact statement, or EIS, examining the proposed project.

“As we went through and talked about the impacts of terminal groins in the EIS, this was the central argument – will the land east of the groin erode at a more rapid pace? And, everything we could point to, all of the science, said yes,” said Geoff Gisler, program director of SELC’s Chapel Hill office. “There’s only so much sand and the way that these structures operate is they keep more of it in one place and necessarily take it from somewhere else. That’s why we have seen over and over again that when you build a groin towards the end of an island, what happens is the island erodes at the end. That there is less sand going to the east end is not an accident.”

‘Righting this wrong’

Gisler said the SELC will be following how the town and the Corps respond to the erosion that is occurring east of the terminal groin.

“The town committed and the Corps committed to righting this wrong if it occurred and that’s what we’ll be looking at,” he said.

Under conditions in the town’s federal permit, the town is required to monitor the sand spit east of The Pointe as well as the town’s shoreline and that of neighboring Holden Beach to the west.

Should those shorelines erode past boundaries identified in 1999, “consideration will be given to modifying the structure to allow more sediment to move from west to east past the structure,” according to final EIS.

The town also has the option to nourish an eroded shoreline.

“In the event the negative impacts of the terminal groin cannot be mitigated with beach nourishment or possible modifications to the design of the terminal groin, the terminal groin would be removed,” the EIS states.

The Corps and the Division of Coastal Management are reviewing the monitoring report submitted by the engineering firm hired by the town, Coastal Protection Engineering of North Carolina.

That report indicates that erosion “has exceeded the 1999 shoreline threshold for the area immediately east of the groin.”

“However, the applicant is working on a modification request to alter this threshold as the shoreline had eroded landward of part of that threshold prior to construction of the groin,” according to the division.

A beach maintenance project scheduled for fall 2026 to inject sand west of the terminal groin is anticipated to increase the rate of sand that bypasses the terminal groin and “would serve to ‘feed’ the shoreline immediately east of the groin with additional material,” according to the town’s engineer.

But The Pointe’s developers and property owners say they can’t wait another year.

“There’s got to be an exception to the standard application restrictions (i.e., sandbag placement and height) the (Coastal Area Management Act/Coastal Resources Commission) process has today to protect near term east of the groin due to emergency status and a path longer term that can get us to a point of evaluating what we can do for the groin from a redesign standpoint that would protect all both west and east of the groin,” property owner Brendan Flynn said. “What we’re dealing with now in my view is we need to have another review of what could be done to enhance the groin’s performance to benefit and protect the other part of this island.”

Smith said that the terminal groin is doing what it was designed to do.

“It is building up right adjacent to the groin,” she said. “It just has not built anything far enough down to protect this new development. I wish Mother Nature would reserve herself and build it up right now instead of taking it away. I wish I had some magic bullet for them too, but I don’t today. It’s really up to them to take some action.”

Kerri Allen, director of the North Carolina Coastal Federation’s southeast office in Wrightsville Beach, called the situation “heartbreaking,” but not surprising. The Coastal Federation publishes Coastal Review.

“When you alter the natural movement of sand with a hardened structure like the terminal groin, you might protect one stretch of beach, but you inevitably put other areas at greater risk,” she said. “And, unfortunately, the erosion we’re seeing east of the groin is exactly what experts warn could happen.  That being said, the purpose of this groin was to protect existing infrastructure that was already at risk. Instead, new homes were built in an area that’s incredibly vulnerable and these homeowners are now facing devastating losses. Moving forward, we need to focus on solutions that don’t just shift the problem from one place to another and ensure that public resources aren’t used to subsidize these risky, short-term development decisions.”

“I think this is a pivotal moment for Ocean Isle and for other coastal towns,” she continued. “We have an opportunity to step back, look at the science, and commit to managing our coast in a way that protects both our communities and the natural systems that sustain them. That means resisting the temptation to build our way out of these challenges because, ultimately, the ocean always wins.”

OAK ISLAND – When Gigi Donovan looks at the dune fronting a row of largely undeveloped oceanfront lots across the street from her home, she sees a false sense of security.

“We’ve seen this dune go away three times in 12 years,” she said.

The sandy mound that separates the public beach from private lots along a stretch of East Beach Drive wasn’t here just a few years ago. It has been built up and planted with dune-stabilizing sea oats through the town of Oak Island’s efforts to restore its oceanfront shore. 

Now there is enough of it to render at least one of the thin slices of long-vacant beachfront lots suitable for building.

That has Donovan and several of her neighbors worried.

Amber and Dean Russell live a few doors down from the Donovans. When the Russells bought their bungalow in 2022, they went ahead and purchased the beachfront lot directly across the street.

“We bought that just to keep our view,” Amber Russell said. “It’s not safe to build on.”

That’s a sentiment a group of homeowners and residents who live in the area of SE 58^th Street and East Beach Drive have expressed to town officials in the days and months since they received notice that a developer had applied for a Coastal Area Management Act, or CAMA, permit to build a house on one of the oceanfront lots.

They’ve made countless telephone calls and sent emails to North Carolina Division of Coastal Management and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers staff.

They’ve posted handmade signs that read “SAVE OUR BEACHFRONT — No Building on Narrow, At-risk Lots!” along their block of East Beach Drive.

They started an online petition that, as of June 13, had more than 600 signatures.

They’ve dug in their heels and pushed back, calling “for the return to responsible, sustainable environmental development on fragile oceanfront properties” in a plea to Oak Island’s mayor.

But even they acknowledge this fight is an uphill battle, one that is likely to rage on as low-lying coastal areas deal with the effects of sea level rise, more frequent, intense coastal storms and shoreline erosion.

Regulatory flexibility

Last month, a CAMA minor permit was issued for 5515 East Beach Drive. Proposed building plans on the 0.17-acre lot include a 2,856 square-foot house.

Town officials in an email responding to questions said they do not have on file when a home last stood on that lot. Aerial satellite images from Brunswick County show that this particular block of East Beach Drive had more homes along the oceanfront in 1989 than today.

The homes captured by satellite imagery in 1989 were gone in 2003, destroyed by nature or demolition.

Today, houses stand on only two of the oceanfront lots along this block of East Beach Drive.

Oak Island officials said the town does not have an overarching designation determining whether a lot is buildable based on oceanfront construction setbacks.

“For building on an oceanfront lot, the developer would submit information to show compliance with CAMA regulations and receive a permit if they meet said requirements,” an official said in an email.

Back in 2023, the North Carolina Coastal Resources Commission rubber-stamped Oak Island’s beach management plan, which gives beachfront builders more regulatory flexibility regarding how far back they must build from the sea.

The year before, the commission repealed regulations that allowed coastal communities to use the less restrictive setback measurement line for oceanfront construction, instead requiring builders to measure back from what is referred to as the preproject vegetation line.

The preproject vegetation line is the first line of stable, natural vegetation that is on an oceanfront before a large-scale beach nourishment project begins, one where more than 300,000 cubic yards of sand is placed on the beach.

But coastal communities that create and follow beach management plans approved by the commission may measure setbacks from the vegetation line rather than the preproject line as long as they meet the obligations detailed in their plans. Setbacks are 60 feet from the measurement line.

Coastal Resources Commission approved beach management plans for five coastal towns: Carolina Beach, Kure Beach and Wrightsville Beach in New Hanover County, and Oak Island and Ocean Isle Beach in Brunswick County. Once approved, plans must be reauthorized every five years.

Oak Island’s authorized plan calls for placing a total estimated 16.2 million cubic yards of sand on the beach over the next three decades. Under the plan, the beach will be nourished every six years.

Oak Island’s most recent sand nourishment projects were carried out in 2021 and 2022.

A nourishment project originally planned for winter 2024-25 was postponed after the town was informed contractor bids for the project “had far exceeded the amounts expected or budgeted,” according to the town’s website.

The project is again out for bids, and town officials anticipate a contract will be awarded and work will begin later this year.

Risky building

“They’re looking to the renourishment as the permanent solution,” Donovan said.

Dr. Gavin Smith, a North Carolina State University professor who researches hazard mitigation, disaster recovery and climate change adaptation, is not a big fan of beach nourishment.

“I think that overrelying on beach nourishment as a way to protect coastal development is fraught with problems,” he said in a telephone interview earlier this month. “It’s extremely expensive. It can take several seasons or it can take one bad storm and it’s gone.”

Smith pointed out that coastal zones, in particular barrier island, are highly dynamic and subject to significant change.

“Thinking about the construction of a house in a highly dynamic area, I think we need to be really careful,” he said. “Builders and homebuyers need to think about the life of that structure. The conditions that that site might face in 40 or 50 years is worthy of consideration. Individuals need to think about and actually ask a question: While you might be able to legally build in a given place, should you build there? I think that’s something that we all need to perhaps be more aware of.”

It’s time governments at all levels, local, state and federal, “do better,” he said.

“How can we recognize or applaud local governments that have the political will to adopt more stringent standards than the minimums? That’s what many governments adhere to is the minimum standards” Smith said. “Our codes are inadequate in the state, yet that’s what we adhere to in many cases. The National Flood Insurance Program should be viewed as a minimum, not the maximum. In an era of climate change we’re moving toward this idea of nonstationary, which we don’t know what the future holds. So, therefore our codes and standards ought to be that much more rigorous to account for the uncertainty. But instead, we’re relying on old data. We’re relying on old codes and that’s a significant problem.”

Sitting at the kitchen table in her home on a late May afternoon, Donovan mulled the many concerns she, her husband Mark, and their neighbors have raised to government officials.

They worry about whether more lights from new construction will hinder sea turtles from nesting on the shore. They worry about how stormwater runoff from new rooftops, driveways and other impervious surfaces may exacerbate flooding on their second-row lots.

They worry what one unwelcome coastal storm, be it a hurricane of any category or a potential tropical cyclone that packs a punch like the unnamed storm that pummeled Brunswick County last year, might do to the dune and any homes standing on the small land plots just behind it.

“We don’t know. That’s the thing. We don’t know what’s going to happen,” Gigi Donovan said.

In a statement to the town’s mayor last month, the Donovans and their neighbors wrote: “While we cannot control the weather, we can mitigate the damage it causes by responsibly managing the development of oceanfront properties.”

Oceanfront lot development “should be based on comprehensive land-use plans that take into consideration beach erosion, turtle nesting habitat, climate change, protection of private and town property, and preserving the legacy of (Oak Island) as a quaint, family-focused beach community.”

They are appealing to Coastal Resources Commission Chair Renee Cahoon, who determines whether or not property owners can make their case in a hearing before the full commission.

“We are very motivated and stubborn,” Gigi Donovan said in a text message. “If we allow them to plow ahead, steam-rolling any local opposition, our entire island beachfront will be irreparably destroyed.”

Coastal towns and large homeowner associations representing beachfront properties now have the choice to install a controversial alternative to sand fencing on ocean-facing shores.

The North Carolina Coastal Resources Commission last week amended a rule to allow those entities to apply for a permit to place wheat straw bales on ocean shorelines as a means to protect and build up beachfront dunes.

The rule, which will now go to the state Rules Review Commission for final approval, limits the use of wheat straw bales to government organizations and HOAs with more than 1 mile of oceanfront shoreline.

Use of wheat hay bales is restricted to those groups until the state gains a better understanding of their impacts to wildlife, including sea turtles, shoreline environment, and their efficacy.

In a 7-5 vote in favor of the rule, some on the Coastal Resources Commission, or CRC, reiterated concerns that have been repeatedly raised in recent years by wildlife officials and environmental organizations.

Those groups, including the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, N.C. Audubon, North Carolina Wildlife Federation and Southern Environmental Law Center, argue additional studies need to be done to understand the potential impacts of wheat straw bales to shoreline habitat and the animals that rely on that habitat.

“I just would like to say I think we’re opening ourselves up to a lawsuit,” Commissioner Lauren Salter said during the CRC’s April 30 meeting in Manteo. “I think Southern Environmental Law Center is going to definitely pursue it based on the comments that we received.”

The effectiveness of wheat straw bales on an oceanfront shore was initially tested as an alternative to wooden sand fencing in 2015 on Figure Eight Island, a privately owned island north of Wilmington.

The North Carolina Division of Coastal Management issued a Coastal Area Management Act permit to two properties to initial a pilot study on the New Hanover County island.

The bales eventually became covered with sand, but, within a few months, they were washed away in a storm, according to the division.

Wheat straw bales were not allowed on a North Carolina beach again until 2023, after Ocean Isle Beach officials requested approval to place them on a portion of the town’s oceanfront shore.

Ocean Isle Town Administrator Justin Whiteside reminded commissioners last week that the town made the request because sand fencing was hard to acquire in the months following the COVID-19 pandemic.

Town officials noted the pilot project on Figure Eight Island and wanted to mimic it, he said.

“It was successful in some areas,” on Ocean Isle, Whiteside said. “Then we did have a storm and some of it washed away. Others, it’s still covered up and, as far as I’m aware, it’s still there just all covered up with sand.”

Division officials have said they do not expect a significant uptick in the use of straw bales because they tend to cost more than traditional sand fencing and they would need to be replaced more frequently than fencing.

Coastal Resources Commissioner Jordan Hennessy last week said that his position on the rule amendment remained the same as those he had expressed during a previous meeting.

Hennessy questioned whether the rule, by omitting private property owners from being able to apply for a permit to install wheat straw bales, is constitutional.

“I’ll be voting against the rule because I don’t believe it’s constitutional,” he said.

The CRC’s legal counsel, Mary Lucasse, advised that the rule amendment is not unconstitutional.

“I don’t see anything unconstitutional that’s jumping out on me, and I don’t actually understand your argument, commissioner, as to why you think it’s unconstitutional,” she said. “We do a lot of rulemaking that focuses on situational things, and we sometimes try things, as we did with (wheelchair-accessible) mats, with local governments being able to do it first, and we have not drawn any challenges to that based on constitutionality or other things, and I don’t see an issue in that.”

Under the amended rule, wheat straw bales cannot impede public or emergency vehicle access or be installed in a manner that endangers nesting sea turtles, which is similar the sand fencing rule.

Installation of wheat straw bales will require consultation with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the state Wildlife Resources Commission through permit application review. Ties or bindings on bales must be removed to reduce debris and the possibility of wildlife entanglement.

Straw bales will be limited to 10-foot-long sections, which is the same requirement for sand fencing, and can be no wider than 2 feet or higher than 3 feet. Bales can not be more than 10 feet waterward of the first line of stable, natural vegetation, erosion scarp or toe of a frontal dune.

Sections of straw bales, sand fencing, or Christmas trees, which may also be used to trap sand, must be spaced 7 feet apart. Nonfunctioning, damaged bales or stakes that have moved from their alignment must be repaired or removed from the shore.

NEW BERN — The commission that makes decisions about coastal development is moving ahead with public comment on proposed language to reinstate Jockey’s Ridge protections previously in place for decades.

During the Coastal Resources Commission’s first meeting of the year, which was held Wednesday and Thursday in the DoubleTree New Bern Riverfront, members unanimously approved setting a public hearing for a proposed permanent rule that would restore the area of environmental concern designation for Jockey’s Ridge in Nags Head.

What is often referred to as the largest sand dune system on the Atlantic Coast, the geological feature is the centerpiece of Jockey’s Ridge State Park, which was established in 1975. The Coastal Resources Commission designated Jockey’s Ridge in 1984 as a “Unique Geologic Feature Area of Environmental Concern” and put laws in place to manage activities in and around the park boundaries.

Daniel Govoni, policy analyst with the Division of Coastal Management, reminded the commission Thursday afternoon that it must go through the permanent rulemaking process because, during the periodic rules review, the designation for Jockey’s Ridge was removed from the North Carolina Administration Code. The division acts as staff to the Coastal Resources Commission.

The Rules Review Commission dropped in October 2023 the rule language, along with 29 other rules, in large part because of the wording. The Rules Review Commission’s objections centered on what it described as a lack of statutory authority, unclear or ambiguous language, that it was unnecessary and failed to comply with the Administrative Procedure Act.

“As the CRC explained in its verified complaint objecting to the removal of its rules from the North Carolina Administrative Code, ‘the removal of the rules at issue deprives DCM of the ability to determine whether a permit is required or available to protect a fragile coastal natural and culture resource areas, placing in immediate danger the stability of natural sand dunes in the coastal zone due to improper sand removal and development, including at Jockey’s Ridge,’” a division representative explained Friday in an email about the effort to get the rules reinstated.

The commission last year adopted emergency and temporary rules reestablishing Jockey’s Ridge as an area of environmental concern. The commission went through the permanent rulemaking process, approved the fiscal analysis, held a public hearing and then adopted the permanent rule in November 2024.

In December, the Rules Review Commission objected to the permanent rule again, claiming that the division didn’t follow the rules for a public notice.

Govoni said the division has now complied with the public hearing rules and can move forward with the public hearing.

While work was underway to reinstate these protections, the Coastal Resources Commission had a lawsuit in the works against the Rules Review Commission about the 30 rules that were removed from the code in the fall of 2023.

Related: Judge restores state’s 30 erased coastal development rules

Wake County Superior Court Judge William Pittman ruled on Feb. 12, “in the light most favorable to Defendants, that there is no genuine issue as to any material fact and that Plaintiffs are entitled to judgment as a matter of law” and that the “Rules Review Commission is ordered to approve Plaintiffs’ 30 rules.”

The defendant was ordered to return the 30 rules to the code. If there is an appeal, the Rules Review Commission “can identify those rules as ‘Under Appeal’ or words to that effect.”

During the meeting Thursday afternoon, the Coastal Resources Commission’s legal counsel, Mary Lucasse, shared that the Rules Review Commission had decided to appeal but didn’t know the time frame. She said that the trial had been scheduled for March 10 but that it was later changed.

Reid Wilson honors Mike Lopazanski

The commission was able to take a quick break from the agenda Thursday morning to welcome North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality Secretary Reid Wilson and recognize former Division Deputy Director Mike Lopazanski with the Order of the Long Leaf Pine Award.

Commission Chair Renee Cahoon introduced NCDEQ Secretary Wilson, who she said “brings a wealth of experience in environmental protection, land conservation and government and nonprofit leadership.”

“I’ve been in this job for two months, and I’m loving it every single day,” Wilson told the commission, adding NCDEQ covers “everything from the coast to the mountains and in between.”

Wilson was on his way to Morehead City to visit the divisions of Coastal Management and Marine Fisheries headquarters there when he stopped in New Bern.

Wilson praised department staff for helping him transition to NCDEQ after serving from 2021 to 2024 as secretary of the state’s Department of Natural and Cultural Resources. Gov. Josh Stein appointed Wilson to the NCDEQ secretary position and is waiting to be confirmed by the Senate.

“The Department of Environmental Quality benefits every North Carolinian’s life, every single day, in a lot of ways,” Wilson said, explaining that the agency protects air quality, water quality and human health and helps advance economic prosperity by funding water infrastructure projects “and not only making sure that people have safe drinking water, but that our rivers are clean, and also building the capacity of the business to come and grow and for those communities to thrive.”

Wilson commended the Coastal Resources Commission members for their dedication to protecting the coast. “I think all of us view our coastal resources as this incredible treasure,” he said, “and you all play a key role.”

While Wilson had the podium, he presented Lopazanski with the Order of the Long Leaf Pine. Lopazanski retired in December as deputy director of the division after more than 30 years in state government.

“This is the state’s highest honor society, and it is a huge accomplishment,” Wilson said. He thanked Lopazanski for his work to coordinate key acquisitions for the N.C. Coastal Reserve and National Estuarine Research Reserve system, and with the Coastal Resources Commission “to adopt common sense and science-based rules. Thank you for your dedication to your job and to the coast and to the people North Carolina.”

Before Wilson and his staff resumed their trip to Carteret County, he told Coastal Review that while the two departments are similar in size, staff and number of divisions, a difference is that Natural and Cultural Resources has 100 sites around the state that it oversees, whether it’s the zoo, parks or historic sites, while NCDEQ has around 10 offices around the state and they’re offices or labs.

“But the other thing that’s different is that our work at DEQ affects everybody. Making sure the air and the water and the land are clean and healthy,” he said. “So our work is in every county, in every town, whether it’s a drinking water plant or Brownfields cleanup or a permit for a business to come in and create jobs.”

When it comes to the ongoing uncertainty that surrounds federal funding, Wilson said his people “don’t actually know yet” about any particular programs within the agency that will be impacted.

“Every day we’re monitoring whether we have access to these federal grants,” he said. “I can’t tell you which ones are available, but we’re checking it every day and waiting to see how the Trump administration responds to various court orders that would require the release of these funds.”

Also during the meeting

Members approved a variance request from at The Shoals Club on Bald Head Island for a sandbag structure double the size of the allowed 6 feet by 20 feet. Petitioners requested permission to build a 12-foot-by-40-foot sandbag structure at the site in Brunswick County that’s subject to erosion.

The other variance from a petitioner to build in the setback in North Topsail Beach was put on hold while more information is collected.

Amendments to two different rules for ocean hazard areas were approved as well as the periodic review schedule for the Coastal Area Management Act land use planning public comment and final report.

Nelson Paul, who petitioned for a rule to add to the definition of estuarine waters “All the waters’ described herein includes man-made ditches” but withdrew his request because he plans take a different approach.

The board heard during public comment on a proposed rule to allow hay bales be used as sand fencing concerns from an attorney with Southern Environmental Law Center and a biologist form the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission that the bales would impede sea turtle nesting and could introduce invasive species.

This story has been updated.

A judge has ordered that more than two dozen longstanding rules used to guide coastal development and protect resources be placed back into the North Carolina Administrative Code.

All 30 rules removed from the code in fall 2023, shortly after the N.C. Rules Review Commission kicked them back to the Coastal Resources Commission, must be plugged back into the code, Wake County Superior Court Judge William Pittman ruled last week.

Pittman also affirmed that the Coastal Resources Commission and Department of Environmental Quality have the authority to, through rulemaking, create enforceable guidelines and policies, adopt rules that give context to or aid in understanding those and other rules, and that “adverse environmental impact” is not an ambiguous term used in rulemaking.

“The NC Coastal Resources Commission is pleased that the trial court has agreed with its position that the Rules Review Commission’s objections to thirty of the CRC’s rules were without foundation,” the CRC stated in an email Tuesday afternoon. “The CRC looks forward to a return of its rules to the North Carolina Administrative Code as these rules are important components of this State’s coastal management program.”

Related: Process to restore Jockey’s Ridge protections continues

Should the Rules Review Commission appeal, the state codifier of rules may “prominently notate and identify as ‘Under Appeal’” the 30 rules “or words to that effect,” Pittman wrote in his Feb. 12 decision.

Pittman’s ruling comes more than a year after the coastal commission and the state’s lead environmental agency filed a complaint asking the court to resolve a deadlock over legal interpretations between the two commissions and restore the rules.

The coastal commission adopts rules for the state’s Coastal Area Management Act and Dredge and Fill Act, and establishes policies for the North Carolina Coastal Management Program.

The Rules Review Commission’s objections to the rules in 2023 were largely based on technical wording.

After filing the lawsuit, the Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Coastal Management and the coastal commission worked to temporarily restore 16 of the rules division officials described as critical to day-to-day operations.

Some of those rules pertain to enforcing protections for coastal landmarks including Jockey’s Ridge State Park in Nags Head and Permuda Island off the shores of North Topsail Beach in Onslow County.

Last November, the 13-member Coastal Resources Commission unanimously adopted a proposed permanent rule identifying Jockey’s Ridge, the tallest active sand dune on America’s eastern sea board, as a unique geological feature area of environmental concern, or AEC. The designation received overwhelming public support and protects the dune from, among other things, sand mining.

AECs are areas of natural importance that the division designates to protect from uncontrolled development.

The coastal commission submitted 132 readopted rules to the Rules Review Commission.

Historically, when the Rules Review Commission objected to a rule, the agency that submitted the rule had to request the rule be returned to make changes. If an agency did not make that request, the objection would be merely noted in the rule and that rule would remain in the Administrative Code.

That changed with the adoption Oct. 3, 2023, of the state budget that includes language giving the rules commission authority to send rules it objects back to agencies.

Shortly after the law went into effect, the Rules Review Commission voted in a special called meeting to return 30 of the Coastal Resources Commission-approved 132 rules.

The 10-member rules commission reviews and approves state agency-created rules. The North Carolina General Assembly appoints commission members, half of which are on the recommendation of the Senate pro tem, and the other half on the recommendation of the House speaker.

“The court did the right thing in reserving the legislatively-controlled Rules Review Commission’s arbitrary repeal of long-standing, common-sense rules that are essential to North Carolina’s coastal communities as they face increasingly intense storms and sea level rise from climate change,” Southern Environmental Law Center Senior Attorney Julie Youngman stated Monday afternoon in response to a request for comment.

The law center filed an amicus brief on behalf of the North Carolina Coastal Federation, which supported restoration of the rules. The Coastal Federation publishes Coastal Review.

In addition to protecting Jockey’s Ridge State Park and archaeological remains on Permuda Island, the rules the judge ordered to be returned to the code designate and manage categories of coastal resources, dictate policies for shoreline erosion control and development of ocean-based energy facilities, and guide permitting for coastal development.

Update Feb. 5: The Fort Raleigh National Historic Site shoreline stabilization public meeting has been rescheduled for 6 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 12. The comment period was extended to Feb. 21 because of the weather-related meeting postponement.

Update 8:45 a.m. Jan. 23: National Park Service officials announced Wednesday night that the shoreline erosion public meeting, originally scheduled for Thursday has been postponed because of hazardous weather conditions. A new date will be announced.

Original post:

For the first time in close to 50 years, National Park Service officials are looking to stabilize the eroding shoreline at Fort Raleigh National Historic Site that, if not addressed, could jeopardize the cultural and natural resources stewards of the 355-acre site in Manteo aim to protect.

Park service staff are considering three different structures to protect the about a mile of shoreline and invite the public to share their thoughts through Feb. 7.

Established in 1941 on the north end of Roanoke Island where the Albemarle, Croatan and Roanoke sounds converge, Fort Raleigh is the last known location of the 116 English settlers that disappeared in the late 1580s, referred to as the “Lost Colony.”

Before Sir Walter Raleigh led English expeditions to the “New World” in the late 1580s, the land was home to Carolina Algonquians. During the American Civil War in the 1860s, formerly enslaved people established the Freedmen’s Colony on the island nestled between Manns Harbor and Nags Head.

The alternatives detailed in the public scoping newsletter include a rock revetment against the shoreline escarpment with fill material to create a slope; a 5- to 10-foot-high rock berm with a 20- to 40-foot-wide base at the toe of the existing slope on the beach possibly backfilled with natural materials; or a site-specific combination of the two along the mile stretch.

Comments can be submitted electronically or by mail to: Superintendent, 1401 National Park Drive, Manteo, NC 27954. The comment period began Jan. 8. A public meeting on the project is set for 6 p.m. Thursday at the site’s visitor center, 1500 Fort Raleigh Road, Manteo.

Project documents indicate that erosion has been an issue since the park was established. Wooden groins were built in the 1940s along the shoreline, and in the 1960s, an offshore breakwater was installed.

In the late 1970s, around 1,500 feet of riprap was placed near the Dough Cemetery, which dates to the mid-19^th century and faces the Croatan Sound, and along the shoreline around the Lost Colony Waterside Theater, where “The Lost Colony” dramatization of the 1580s interaction between the Algonquian and English has been performed nearly every summer since 1947.

Mike Barber, public affairs specialist with the National Park Service, said that 1979-80 work was the last shoreline-stabilization project at the cemetery and theater, and no maintenance of existing shoreline-stabilization measures has taken place to since, as far as anyone seems to know.

“Erosion along the remaining exposed shoreline, including 4500 feet of unstable, undercut cliffs as high as 25 feet, poses a serious threat to potential archeologically significant sites and park facilities,” the scoping newsletter states. “Without action, the erosion will most likely continue, causing continued loss of park lands, vegetation, archeological resources, and ultimately park facilities such as roadways, parking areas, and buildings.”

Barber expounded that, right now, mature trees near the shoreline are falling, and potential archeological resources may be washing away without intervention.

Barber said that the Waterside Theater parking lot, Pear Pad Road and the utilities that run along it as well as the National Park Service employee housing on the southern side of the road are along segments of shoreline that have not been stabilized and are the most vulnerable.

The three alternatives were determined using data from previous related studies, evaluating existing topographic conditions, and assessing existing jurisdiction, and “A preferred alternative has not been selected to date,” he said.

He added that the environmental assessment “is being developed to analyze the impacts of each alternative to guide the selection of a preferred alternative based on environmental impacts to the historic site’s natural and cultural resources.”

An environmental assessment evaluates the potential environmental impacts of a proposed action and is required by the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA.

Barber said that the environmental assessment is expected to be released for public review this summer with a goal of publishing the final version before the end of the year.

Barber said that if all goes as planned, it may be several years before project work begins.

“Prior to starting a project to stabilize the shoreline, we will need to finalize — with public feedback — the environmental assessment, enter into a contract to design the stabilization based on the selected alternative, and hire a contractor to perform the stabilization work,” he said.

Michael Flynn, physical scientist for the National Park Service, explained that while they don’t have an estimate of shoreline change since the 1940s, a1972 study reported that the northern end of Roanoke Island may have receded by as much as 928 feet from 1851 until 1970, losing around 7.25 feet a year, and 158 feet from 1903 to 1971, or around 2.32 feet a year.

More recent shoreline change rate data is provided within a park service technical assistance report published in 2010. That report describes the segmentation of the shoreline that took place because of stabilization methods employed between 1950-1980, Flynn said.

The report cites a 2003 study that estimates erosion rates for unmodified bluff segments between highly modified sediment bank shorelines is as high as 21 to 23 feet a year between 1969 and 1975, which motivated the riprap placement in 1980.

Natural rates of erosion along unmodified segments are estimated to be between 2 and 3 feet a year, with more severe rates of erosion located down drift of stabilization methods, Flynn explained.

Flynn said that the park is generally planning for a foot of sea level rise in the next 30 years based on the Sea Level Rise Technical Report released in 2022. He said park officials recognize that sea level rise will increase the frequency and magnitude of flooding and storm surge, exacerbating erosion and its impacts to resources and infrastructure.  

“Specific sea level rise scenarios used for engineering designs will be selected following the completion of the (environmental assessment),” he said.

The North Carolina Department of Transportation can begin work on a temporary solution to protect a stretch of N.C. Highway 12 in Rodanthe that frequently experiences overwash, coastal flooding and erosion — but NCDOT officials are looking for a more permanent fix.

Earlier this week, the Coastal Resources Commission unanimously approved NCDOT’s variance request to repair 1,300 feet of primary sand dune and install 1,100 feet of sandbags on the oceanside right-of-way near the visitor center for the Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge. A variance, once granted, allows coastal development that would otherwise be prohibited by commission rules.

“We hope to start the project sometime in mid-January, and it will take roughly one week to complete,” NCDOT Communications Officer Tim Hass told Coastal Review Tuesday. He said that during the project, which should cost about $400,000, there will be temporary single-lane closures in the area on N.C. Highway 12.

After a storm last month forced transportation officials to close N.C. 12 near the refuge’s visitor center, NCDOT submitted to Division of Coastal Management staff on Nov. 24 a request to modify the existing Coastal Area Management Act permit issued in 1999 that allows for maintenance work along the Outer Banks highway.

The division is under the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality and acts as staff to the commission. Division staff make permit decisions based on commission rules.

Division staff on Dec. 4 issued a modification to NCDOT’s existing CAMA major permit but “conditioned out those aspects of the proposed sandbag structure which did not meet the Commission’s Rules, including the size and color of the sandbags, the size of the sandbag structure, and the impacts to existing dunes,” documents state.

If the division denies a permit request because the proposed project is outside of development rules, the petitioner can request a variance from the commission to allow the work, which is what NCDOT did, leading to the special-called meeting held Monday morning by web conference.

NCDEQ Assistant General Counsel Christy Goebel explained that NCDOT owns and maintains the public right-of-way easement through Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge on Hatteras Island in Dare County.

“As we know, N.C. 12 provides the only roadway connection between the mainland and Hatteras Island. Beach erosion, dune loss and risk to Highway 12 have been particularly severe near the refuge visitor center,” she said.

The area has been identified as a “hot spot” since at least 2002 and is characterized by low topography and low elevations. The 2020 average annual erosion rate at the visitor center hot spot is 7.5 feet per a year, and the total width of the island there is between 3,500 and 5,800 feet, though much of that area is the refuge ponds. The space between the ocean and refuge ponds that N.C. 12 passes through is as narrow as 245 feet.

“Because of storm and tidal events, and the geomorphology of this area, the hot spot is susceptible to shoreline erosion, overwash, coastal flooding, the loss of beach and dunes, and sand cover. These circumstances can undermine the integrity of the road, making travel by the general public unsafe and forcing DOT to close the road,” Goebel said.

The Nov. 15-17 storm that severely damaged the primary dune along N.C. 12 by the refuge’s visitor center prompted NCDOT’s move to put in the temporary sandbag structure.

Goebel said that ocean overwash removed around 1,000 linear feet of dune, exposing the highway’s pavement edge to the high surf. Roadway flooding and pavement drop-off produced hazardous traffic conditions, and NCDOT temporarily closed the road to all traffic. NCDOT temporarily rebuilt the primary dune as maintenance work after the storm, under the existing CAMA permit.

Goebel said that NCDOT proposed using temporary sandbags for the project that would be white, trapezoid-shaped, woven polypropylene, an alternative to the traditional tan sandbags. Plans call for the sandbags to be placed in two adjoining rows parallel to the seashore.

The row closest to the ocean would be 6 feet high with an 8-foot base, and the row closest to land would be 4-foot high with a 6-foot base. The rows will be adjacent to each other and have a combined base of 14 feet. Both rows will be placed 2 feet below the roadway and 10 feet away from the pavement.

NCDOT plans to bring in sand to fill the sandbags and cover the sandbags after they are installed with a 6-foot-high and 20-foot-wide dune. “Sand would not be dredged from the swash zone on the beach, and there would be no wetland impacts,” Goebel said.

About 950 square feet of the protective dune will extend below the normal high-water line, as well.

Existing rules require the sandbags be tan, between 3 and 5 feet wide and 7 to 15 feet long when measured flat, with a base width no wider than 20 feet and total height no more than 6 feet. Rules also dictate that no primary dunes can be removed or located, and no part of the dune should be placed below normal high water line.

This type of sandbag has been granted variances twice before. The commission allowed for this type of sandbag to be used at the north end of Ocracoke Island, but that project didn’t come to fruition because of funding, and again in February 2022, for the north end of Rodanthe, she said.

Goebel said that division staff agrees with NCDOT “that construction of the sandbag structure and the dune and the use of the alternative bags will secure public safety and welfare, and it will preserve substantial justice as it will allow the petitioner to protect 12 in the short and midterm with alternative sandbags, while continuing to work towards a long-term solution for transportation along Hatteras Island.”

Special Deputy Attorney General Colin Justice reiterated to the commission that NCDOT officials believe there are benefits to using the alternative sandbags.

Justice, who represents NCDOT and works for the North Carolina Department of Justice, said officials believe these sandbags will be more durable. Installation will happen faster than traditional sandbags and cause less of an impact because of the way the bags are filled from the top. No hydraulic pump across the beach to fill traditional sandbags is necessary.

“We think that applying the rule strictly would prevent NCDOT from being able to do this repair as effectively, as quickly and for minimizing impacts the setback requirements,” he said.

The Division of Coastal Management’s NCDOT Project Coordinator Stephen Lane said Monday that NCDOT is looking at long-term solutions for the hot spot, and has obtained funds to study “long-term comprehensive solutions to try to keep Highway 12 open for the future,” he said.

Lane is referring to the $1.8 million grant announced earlier this year to study the 11-mile stretch of N.C. 12 between Oregon Inlet and Rodanthe on Pea Island. “The project will identify future construction projects, streamline environmental reviews, include public engagement and establish detailed, long-term plans for keeping the roadway passable during and following major storm events,” officials said in the at the time.

NCDOT Division 1 Engineer Win Bridgers states in the permit modification request dated Nov. 24 that the sandbag project is a temporary solution for maintaining N.C. 12 on the Pea Island refuge.

“NCDOT has recently been awarded a PROTECT Planning Grant from (Federal Highway Administration) to conduct a Planning and Environmental Linkages (PEL) study that includes comprehensive resiliency planning, alternatives development and evaluation, and robust public engagement for NC 12 on Pea Island,” Bridgers wrote. “Also known as Solving Access for NC 12 in Dare County (SAND), this project will establish a solid foundation for future project development and construction, with the goal of streamlining subsequent environmental review, accelerating project delivery, and securing the long-term resiliency of NC 12.”

He said that NCDOT anticipations the SAND project will determine short-term and long-term solutions for maintaining N.C. 12 on Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge.

“When those solutions are implemented, NCDOT would remove the temporary sandbags when no longer needed to protect the roadway of NC 12. With the stronger material and design, the Permashield bags can be more effectively removed when they are no longer needed. NCDOT anticipates quicker and more complete removal of Permashield sandbags as opposed to the challenging removal of traditional sandbags,” Bridgers said.

Thorough research needs to be done on how wheat straw bales might affect oceanfront habitat before the state allows them to be used as an alternative to sand fencing, a state wildlife official said.

The North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission has repeatedly stated its concerns in recent years about straw bales being used as a tool to protect and build up oceanfront dunes, Maria Dunn said in a recent meeting of the state Coastal Resources Commission.

Dunn, who is with Wildlife Resources Commission’s Habitat Conservation Program, said that the agency understands the desire to try and maintain shorelines, but pointed out what she said are “significant differences” between traditional sand fencing and bales.

“We have not objected to traditional use of sand-fencing material as long as installation was done in a manner to effectively collect wind-blown sand and not impede or block areas of the shore for public use and wildlife habitat,” Dunn said at the coastal commission’s Nov. 13 meeting. “Appropriate installation includes the location along the appropriate area of the beach profile, orientation and alignment of fencing, distance between fencing, and length of fencing down the beach profile.”

The proposed rule change the coastal commission approved in April establishes specific guidelines for where and how bales may be placed on a beachfront.

But the potential impacts to shoreline habitat and the animals, including endangered species and plants, that rely on that sandy habitat, remain grossly understudied, Dunn said.

“It was asked if research was available on how bales impact wildlife resources on habitats on ocean shorelines,” she said. “But since they are not permitted on any other Atlantic shoreline’s state shore there is no research or data available to share with you.”

The rule amendment was introduced as a way to help save permittees from waiting for sand fencing to become available during times when it is in high demand.

But unlike traditional sand fencing, straw bales could potentially introduce invasive and nonnative ocean shoreline plant species to shores, influence sand temperatures and, when initially installed, take up 48 times the area that traditional sand fencing uses, Dunn said.

Under the proposed rule amendment, bales cannot be placed in sections more than 10 feet long, 2 feet wide and 3 feet high and ties or binding must be removed from the bales. A permittee must repair or remove damaged, nonfunctioning, or bales sections or stakes moved from the alignment in which they were authorized.

Only local governments, state and federal agencies and large, oceanfront homeowners associations would be permitted to use bales.

A state Division of Coastal Management official told the Coastal Resources Commission in August that the division does not expect a significant uptick in the use of straw bales because they tend to cost more than traditional sand fencing, would need to be replaced more frequently than fencing, and the verdict is still out on how efficiently bales trap sand.

Ocean Isle Beach became the first in the state to test straw bales on a portion of its ocean shore in 2023.

Ocean Isle Beach Mayor Debbie Smith told Coastal Review in late August that the bales worked well, were cheaper than sand fencing and easily accessible during a time when the town could not get sand fencing because of high demand.

Dunn said that the town’s pilot program was monitored by little more than photographic documentation and some surface temperature readings.

There was no designed, controlled experiment comparing different bale installments to traditional sand fencing to see which application best collected windblown said, she said.

“We would recommend that such an experiment is designed with input from state and federal agencies to determine the best type of sand management tools to collect sand for dune structure while minimizing impacts to wildlife resources,” Dunn said.

Smith said in a telephone interview Tuesday afternoon that she never saw a Wildlife Resources Commission representative visit the island to check sand temperatures at turtle nests or conduct other monitoring.

“On any decision we have to make we can always say ‘what if,’” Smith said. “She has no evidence of some of those what-ifs. I don’t think anybody wants to do any environmental damage.”

The town is working on a dune project that will begin sometime this winter. Since the proposed rule amendments have not been made formative, the town has opted to use traditional sand fencing “to move our project along and get it permitted,” Smith said.

Sand temperatures play a significant role in determining the sex of sea turtles in a nest. Dunn said that a half-degree variation can change how many males or females are within a nest and possibly whether a nest remains viable.

Temperatures were not taken at sea turtle nest cavity depths in Ocean Isle Beach, she said.

“We don’t want to artificially create more females,” said Deb Allen, Ocean Isle Beach Sea Turtle Protection Organization coordinator. “We need a balance of males to females.”

Allen pointed to studies that show when nests incubate at higher temperatures it can affect the physical and cognitive abilities of hatchlings, slowing them in their ability to make it from the shore to the ocean.

“We want them to come out of that nest and we want them to crawl to that ocean as fast as possible,” she said.

The coastal commission in August unanimously approved the fiscal impact analysis of the proposed rule. The fiscal analysis measures how a rule may affect a government’s revenue and expenditures to help prepare for or prevent budget shortfalls.

The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, or DEQ, and Office of State Budget and Management also approved the fiscal analysis.

A public hearing on the proposed amended rule was held Oct. 30 in Morehead City. The public comment period on the rule ends December 2.

The division has not yet received comments from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, according to its public information officer, Christy Simmons.

The wildlife service did not respond to a request for comment in time for publication.

Division officials anticipate that the amended rule will become effective April 1, 2025.

Dave Hallac called it.

Within 48 hours, the Cape Hatteras National Seashore superintendent’s prediction came true. Another unoccupied, imperiled home on Rodanthe’s ocean shore toppled into the Atlantic Ocean.

“I would not be the least bit surprised with this weekend’s king tide and elevated seas from the north winds if they collapse by Sunday,” Hallac said last week to the state’s Coastal Resources Commission. “I hope that doesn’t happen, but that’s possible.”

The house that is no more at 23241 Surf Side Drive crumbled some time during the night between Thursday and Friday. Its tattered remnants littered Rodanthe’s shore, forcing the Cape Hatteras National Seashore to temporarily close the beach.

The low-pressure system that descended on the North Carolina coast Thursday evening, whipping up strong wind gusts, elevated tides and heavy rain and the closure of N.C. Highway 12 between the Basnight Bridge and Rodanthe hindered cleanup operations.

All the while, national seashore officials kept an eye on two other threatened structures Hallac said were at imminent risk of collapse.

“This is going to be one of the most significant problems that Cape Hatteras National Seashore faces and, of course, many areas of the coast,” he said last week.

Two years had passed since Hallac last met with the coastal commission to update its members on a situation that is becoming increasingly common along the national seashore on the Outer Banks.

Hallac made the five-hour drive to Ocean Isle Beach last week to talk about what he anticipates to be a looming increase in threatened oceanfront structures as seas rise and possible solutions to address the problem.

It’s a topic, he said, that is important not only to the national seashore, “but what we’re seeing is really the tip of the iceberg,” as problems associated with coastal erosion along, not only areas of the East Coast, but also the rest of the country’s ocean shores.

Although Rodanthe’s beachfront is not the only erosion hot spot along the North Carolina coast, it has gained notoriety in recent years as house after house after house has succumbed to powerful ocean waves that are increasingly unattenuated because of the vanishing shore.

In the two years since Hallac last spoke to the commission, 10 houses have collapsed on the national seashore. Six of those, counting the house that fell last week, have broken apart and tumbled to the ocean since May.

This is occurring in spite of decades-long efforts to keep erosion at bay in, what by all accounts, is a story of how the government tried, and failed, to hold a barrier island in place.

‘The Great Wall of Carolina’

The story goes back more than 80 years, when Congress authorized the creation of the park — the first national seashore — in August 1937.

During that time, single men aged 18 to 25 could enlist in the Civilian Conservation Corps, one of a series of programs created under President Franklin Roosevelt’s New Deal, a government work program aimed at lifting the nation out of the Great Depression.

Roosevelt established the conservation corps in 1933 to improve America’s parks, public lands and forests.

Cape Hatteras National Seashore was officially established in 1953. The park includes 75 miles of ocean-facing beaches spanning portions of Dare and Hyde counties.

Within its boundaries are three lighthouses, two fishing piers, two marinas, two boat ramps and three airports.

More than 150,000 people stayed overnight last year in its four beach campgrounds. During that same time, the national seashore had more than 3 million visits, ones Hallac described as long-duration, high-density visits where people rent beach homes and stay for a week.

Nine villages are either adjacent to or within the national seashore, one with a dune system that was largely built by the conservation corps.

Workers in the program erected more than 600 miles of sand fencing – called The Great Wall of Carolina – during a dune-building effort, which Hallac said was “really the beginning of the fight-the-ocean stage.”

The black and white photographs Hallac displayed on a projection screen for the Coastal Resources Commission last week showed park service employees in the 1950s planting American beach grass to try and stabilize the dunes that had been partially created by the fencing.

In all, more than 13 million square feet of grasses and millions of trees and shrubs were planted to try to hold in place the barrier island, Hallac said, adding, “which is really nothing more than a pile of sand.”

The park service had a helicopter for arial fertilizer spraying on the dunes to help make the grasses grow as quickly as possible. As erosion and storms kept sweeping away the ocean shore, workers kept pushing sand up from the sea, back onto the beach.

Significant erosion in Buxton was easily tracked at the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. The nearly 200-foot-tall beacon was built 1,500 feet from shore in 1870.

By 1919, only 300 feet of sand separated the lighthouse from the Atlantic Ocean.

“So, it just goes to show you how fast the erosion is in some areas of the Outer Banks,” Hallac said.

After 37 years and more than $20 million, virtually the entire federal investment in the park’s beaches and dunes, the “erosion control program had been lost to erosion control,” Hallac said.

“We decided we were now going to follow most of the National Park Service processes, the same policies that we have in places like Shenandoah National Park, Yellowstone National Park, which is to allow natural processes to occur, including erosion,” he said. “Even after investing a lot to try to control this, we just determined we were not successful. We could not keep up with it and so here we are.”

Today, nearly 7,000 feet of sandbags have been placed within the park facing N.C. Highway 12 to try and protect the vital roadway from the ocean.

Debris ‘becomes part of the beach ecosystem’

The breathtakingly tragic scene of an oceanfront littered for miles by debris from a collapsed house doesn’t fully capture the full impact fallen houses have on the shore.

Tens if not hundreds of thousands of remnants of tar paper, the layer of material typically installed beneath roofing shingles, ends up buried in the sand, Hallac said.

“You never get rid of all of this,” he said. “The debris associated with these home collapses becomes part of the beach ecosystem.”

Hallac hires biological technicians in the summers to oversee sea turtle nests and shorebirds. The technicians spend several hours every week picking up septic drain-field cells, diverter boxes and other pieces of septic systems that wash down the beach and come to rest on areas of the national seashore.

The park keeps handy a stack of signs supplied by the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Recreational Water Quality Program to post in the event of a wastewater spill caused every time a septic tank is compromised by the encroaching sea.

There were 23 septic spills on the national seashore between Aug. 12 and Oct. 1.

“This problem is going to get much worse with sea level rise,” Hallac warned.

A gauge the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration keeps at Oregon Inlet is tracking sea level rise at 5.56 millimeters per year, he said.

“When I started giving presentations like this it was in the 2 millimeters per year range, and this is expected to increase. But I can tell you right now, if it doesn’t increase at all, we will have a major problem based on the presence of threatened oceanfront structures,” Hallac said.

A recent study measuring erosion rates on the national seashore show that the beach is eroding and the shoreline is moving westward.

“What you’re seeing is an endpoint erosion rate of 4 meters per year and a linear regression rate of 3 meters per year,” Hallac said. “It doesn’t matter which one you pick. They’re both very rapid erosion rates.”

At these rates, he said, it’s time to start thinking about houses that are now across the street from oceanfront homes.

There are places like Avon, where dozens of houses will become threatened unless the beachfront is perpetually renourished or they are moved, Hallac said.

Those are some of the options in what he refers to as “the four Bs: build out, build back, build up, or, ultimately, build a boat.”

Beach nourishment has been successful along many areas of the North Carolina’s coast, he said, but it is not a silver bullet solution.

Renourishments are causing “an inadvertent loss of the barrier island area,” Hallac said.

“Normal barrier islands overwash. They deposit sand in the middle of the island. They build elevation and sometimes the sand gets washed over to the sound side. The marsh colonizes. You can maintain the width of the barrier island as it migrates slowly to the west. We have completely halted all of those processes. We have drowning at the interior of our barrier islands, and we now are having significant erosion of the sound side of our barrier islands,” he said.

Hallac said there had been several public meetings and expert panels where discussions centered on financial assistance, the role of public and private insurance, and legal and regulatory hurdles associated with threatened oceanfront structures.

“And I think what we’ve done is, we’ve put forward a series of ideas for further discussion that can help advocate this issue,” he said as he wrapped up his presentation. “There is no silver bullet, as I said before, but we really do need to work on this and come together to find solutions because this is a problem that is going to get worse over time.”

Commission Chair Renee Cahoon said threatened oceanfront structures are a never-ending problem up and down the North Carolina coast.

“We’re going to have to start looking at other solutions to help mitigate the damages because what we’re not covering, we’re cover the cleanup, but we’re not covering the damage of the water as well as to our sea turtles and other wildlife that’s out there,” she said. “It’s going to continue to grow I’m afraid as sea level rise keeps happening and erosion keeps getting worse.”

SURF CITY – If everything goes accordingly, Surf City’s ocean shore may begin getting massive sand injections by the end of next year.

The town’s federal coastal storm risk management project — more than 20 years in the making — will put a total of 21.8 million cubic yards of sand on the beach over the course of a half-century.

“That’s a lot of sand,” said Kent Tranter, project manager with the Army Corps of Engineers Wilmington district.

Tranter kicked off a public meeting in the town Tuesday night in a presentation of the Corps’ draft general reevaluation report and environmental assessment released last month on the project.

“I will caution you, this is the draft report. Things will change,” he said in front of an audience of more than 40 people.

The draft report is an update on a proposed project that originally included a portion of neighboring North Topsail Beach’s shore.

At the time, the two Topsail Island towns agreed to team up and commit to a cost-share agreement with the Corps to see the project through.

Under the original partnership agreement, Surf City, North Topsail and the state were to split 35% of the cost of the project’s initial construction. The Corps would pay 65%.

But the Corps would not get the funding to cover its portion until 2019, nine years after Wilmington district officials completed its feasibility study of the project.

During that time, the project’s cost more than doubled.

North Topsail Beach would have had to finance more than $26 million to pay its share of the project, which would have covered nearly 4 miles of beachfront. The remaining more than 7 miles of oceanfront is within a federally designated zone that omits it from receiving federal funding.

In July 2021, North Topsail Beach notified the Corps that the town would not be able to meet its deadline to commit to signing a project partnership agreement with the agency and Surf City.

North Topsail’s withdrawal meant the Corps had to reexamine the project and determine whether it remained economically justified, technically feasible and environmentally acceptable, Tranter said.

The updated project includes all 6 miles of oceanfront beach and will extend about 1,000 linear feet into the northernmost portion of North Topsail Beach. That extension across town lines will round out the project footprint for all of Surf City’s shore, Corps officials explained.

A whopping 8 million cubic yards of material will be pumped from several Corps-designated offshore borrow sites and onto the beach during initial construction.

The beach would be renourished about every six years, depending on sand erosion rates and coastal storms.

The price tag for initial construction, which is expected to begin in December 2025 if approved, is $187 million.

Construction is expected to take 16 months, during which time property owners may expect round-the-clock work.

Construction zones between 1,000-1,500 feet wide will be cordoned off, leaving a small portion of the beach closed at one time.

The public will be able to access a map on the Corps’ website that will include information about when and where construction zones will be located.

Wilmington District Commander Col. Brad Morgan thanked the town Tuesday night for sticking with the Corps through the long wait.

“I know this has been somewhat of a journey to get to this point,” he said. “We’re committed to delivering this project. We’ve got a lot of hoops to jump through, most of which are dictated by law. This is kind of the last hurdle. The team if fully committed to working with the town of Surf City to deliver this.”

Under the current schedule, construction would end in 2027. That would be the year the 50-year project begins. If that is the case, the project would end in 2076.

Corps officials will release further details about the project, including which area of the beach will be the first to receive sand, after the agency receives the contractor’s work plan.

The Corps is accepting public comments on the draft report through Oct. 4. All comments submitted will be address in the final report, which is expected to be presented in January 2025.

Questions and comments may be emailed to surfcitygrr@usace.army.mil or eric.k.gasch@usace.army.mil.

Like a slow-rolling disaster, the third house in four days collapsed Tuesday afternoon into the surf along the village of Rodanthe, casting tons more construction debris into the Atlantic and onto the beaches for miles within Cape Hatteras National Seashore.

“We have 30 people that are out there right now,” Cape Hatteras National Seashore Superintendent Dave Hallac told Coastal Review Wednesday in an interview, referring to park service staff who are racing the wind and tide to pick up debris, working alongside dozens of contract workers and volunteers.

Hallac described the state of the beach after the house fell Tuesday as a “total mess.” The ocean claimed two houses on Friday.

“I would say the debris field was so dense and thick, for the first quarter-mile south of the house collapse site that it was difficult to actually walk,” he said. “And that debris field continued to be fairly significant, actually, past the Rodanthe Pier.”

The superintendent also observed a large amount of “extremely hazardous” debris in the surf being “thrown all over the place as the waves were breaking.”

According to a National Park Service press release, the park has temporarily closed the beach from G A Kohler Court to Wimble Shores North Court in Waves, including the Dare County beach access on N.C. Highway 12 in Rodanthe.

Swimmers and surfers have been warned to stay out the ocean in front of the villages of Rodanthe, Waves and Salvo, and pedestrians have been cautioned to wear hard-soled shoes in the vicinity of the beach and ocean.

The latest house collapse at 23039 G A Kohler Court follows one at 23001 G A Kohler Court that fell Friday morning and another to its south at 23009 G A Kohler that collapsed shortly after 9:15 that night.

Each of the wooden houses, built on tall pilings, were unoccupied at the time of their collapse.

In a frustrating twist, plans were in the works to proactively demolish the house that collapsed Tuesday.

Hallac said the house had been foreclosed on and the bank had hired a real estate agent, who in turn hired a local contractor to tear it down. The contractor, W.M. Dunn Construction in Powells Point, was ready to go, he said, but the work was delayed by the very same high tides and powerful currents — pumped up by a couple of offshore storm systems and the full moon — that ultimately took it down. The same house had already been damaged Friday when the nearby house at 23009 collapsed.

So instead of the demolition, the contractor will be doing the cleanup of the house debris, Hallac said.

“Trying to secure the bulk of debris between the tide cycles after the third house fell,” a Tuesday post said on the contractor’s website.

A total of 10 houses have collapsed in the last four years in the Cape Hatteras National Seashore, and W.M. Dunn and company owner Mike Dunn have been contracted to clean up most of them. 

Although homeowners are responsible for hiring the contractor to clean up the debris from their house, the situation is complicated not just by the fact that it doesn’t stay where it fell, but also that it is mixed with debris from other collapsed houses.

Homeowners are billed by the park service for the time that park service staff dedicates to cleaning debris, Hallac said. They are also asked to move or demolish houses on the eroded shoreline that are at risk of being destroyed by the ocean. But the agency, he said, is not out to punish homeowners, many of whom bought their houses when they were far back from the ocean.

“We’re focused on working with the homeowners and finding constructive solutions,” he said. “Many of these owners have owned these houses for a long period of time.”

In the first two recent collapses, remains of the structures and whatever they contained could be found 20 miles down the beach, Hallac said.

Once debris gets into the Atlantic, it’s nearly impossible, or certainly much more difficult, to retrieve. Huge boards with nails in them and pieces of fiberglass, strands of wire, broken windows — anything and everything found in a house — could bob around the ocean, be taken far away by currents or sink into the sandy bottom.

Although the ideal solution would be getting every house off the beach before it falls, the reality is that a combination of private property rights versus public safety concerns, coastal regulations and policies, insurance compensation, legal constraints, and multiple jurisdictional issues make efficient and effective responses to eroding shorelines and other climate change complexities extremely difficult.

A report released in August, “Managing Threatened Oceanfront Structures: Ideas From An Interagency Work Group,” was the culmination of multiple meetings the work group held over two years. The group was co-chaired by Hallac and Braxton Davis. During this time, Davis was the director of the Division of Coastal Management, under the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality. Since February, Davis has been the executive director of the North Carolina Coastal Federation.

According to the report, in 2020 more than 750 of about 8,777 oceanfront structures on the North Carolina coast were at risk from oceanfront erosion, a term that was defined as lacking dunes or vegetation between the structure and ocean. It also noted that “the situation is anticipated to worsen with increasing sea level rise and coastal storms.”

The task force reviewed existing policies, laws, grant funds and coastal programs, and discussed tweaks or additions to them.

None of the numerous short-term or long-term proposals detailed in the report included simple or quick solutions. For instance, one idea was updating and revising the National Flood Insurance Program, but that could require an act of Congress. Still, the report broadly outlines options and goals.

With the recent collapses, Hallac said the report is getting more attention from their partners with the state and Dare County, among others.

“Definitely, our colleagues are reading the report, and we’re having a lot of discussions about certain options that are in the report,” he said.

For instance, there is more interest in scaling up a property-acquisition program, similar to a grant program the National Seashore used recently to acquire and demolish two other threatened oceanfront structures.

“So I think there’s a lot of momentum behind the report,” Hallac said. “I can’t say there’s a specific action that has come out of it, but it has definitely been a platform for having more discussions and working towards solutions. But I will continue to say that I’m not sure there’s going to be a silver bullet,” he added. “It’s a matter of, I think, all of the ideas that are in that (report) have merit. They’re worth further discussion.”

Meanwhile, two more houses remain standing — for now — in the surf near where the other three just fell.

RODANTHE — It’s as awesome as it is awful to watch the ocean take down a house, as happened again last week on an eroded beach in Rodanthe.

Once again, the ocean’s power was pumped up by a storm, this time Hurricane Ernesto churning far offshore, and once again, the stunning image of the otherwise sturdy looking house swaying on its pilings before collapsing into the surf was caught on video and shared with national media.

It’s the seventh house within the Cape Hatteras National Seashore to be taken by the sea over the last four years. But it undoubtably will not be the last.

“I’m so disappointed in what happened,” Cape Hatteras National Seashore Superintendent Dave Hallac told Coastal Review Monday. “But I’m not the least bit surprised.”

Related: Cleanup continues after beach house collapses in Rodanthe

Hallac said he received a phone call at about 5:30 p.m. Friday informing him that the unoccupied house at 23214 Corbina Drive, which was teetering in the surf for days, had fallen.

State and federal laws currently seem powerless to prevent houses on eroded beaches from continuing to fall into the ocean and spreading debris for miles over public and private lands. Homeowners cannot collect on their National Flood Insurance Program policy until the house is destroyed, and even then, only up to a maximum of $250,000.

Last year, the National Park Service, through a pilot program, was able to buy out two threatened oceanfront homes that it later demolished, but the grant program is limited.

So for now, homeowners who can’t afford to move their houses from the ocean, or those who don’t have the land to move it to, have few if any options to get it off the beach.

In addition to correspondence from Dare County, the National Park Service had sent letters of concern to the owners on June 5 and again on Aug. 14, Hallac said.

After the collapse, the superintendent said, the owners hired contractor Mike Dunn of W.M. Dunn Construction, LLC, of Powells Point, who has handled numerous cleanup operations on seashore property. Even though the contractors were limited by the heavy surf conditions from doing the heaviest work, they began gathering large pieces on Saturday and making piles on the beach.

“We appreciate that the owners have moved quickly to begin cleanup,” Hallac said.

Typically, the longshore current carries everything to the south, but in this instance the hurricane swell was moving to the north, Hallac said. By Sunday, the chunks of wood and nails, siding, insulation, PVC piping and other construction debris had traveled about 11 miles to near the N.C. Highway 12 Canal Zone. The majority of debris washed up by the north entrance to the new Rodanthe Bridge.

Beaches are closed from the northern boundary of Rodanthe to the northern end of the Rodanthe Bridge, or “jug handle bridge.” The park service and officials at the Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge are also warning swimmers and beachgoers to avoid the beaches and stay out of the water around all areas of the beaches and surf in Rodanthe.

Purchased in 2019

According to Dare County records, the 1,516-square-foot house, which had four bedrooms and two bathrooms, was built in 1973. It was purchased in 2019 for $339,000 by David M. Kern and Teresa T. Kern of Hershey, Pennsylvania. The deed lists the lot at the time as 10,018 square feet.

Coincidentally, Hallac had displayed the rapid rate of erosion on the section of beach in front of the Corbina Drive house as part of a broader, more general presentation about the national seashore on Aug. 12 in Buxton.

In a photo dated July 30 included in the presentation, the house was shown up against a dune, with all its pilings in dry sand and numerous feet of beach between it and the ocean. But in another photo taken Aug. 12, the pilings were in the surf, the dune was gone and the house was listing toward the ocean.

“You can see how dramatic the change was,” Hallac told Coastal Review, referring to the photo comparison. “And just a few days later it collapsed.”

Five other houses in the area of GA Kohler Drive in Rodanthe are also now sometimes standing in surf, even at low tide, he said. Some have various damages, including pilings that sway back and forth, and broken pools, beach accesses, decks and stairs.

Dare County Planning Department Director Noah Gilliam said that two septic systems in Rodanthe and one in Buxton were at least partially compromised as a result of Ernesto. Also, he said, about 23 structures had minor damage from the storm. In addition, there were about a dozen houses that had previously been characterized as threatened oceanfront structures.

Gilliam said that ocean water sitting, or even surging, under a house is not in and of itself a rationale to suspend occupancy certificates — properties are decertified only if aspects of damage is covered in the North Carolina building code, such as nonfunctional septic systems, compromised electrical systems, and lack of egress and ingress.

The Corbina Drive house, he said, was decertified Aug. 8. The house was also decertified on April 1 after showing signs of structural failures of some pilings, stairs and the septic. The house was recertified July 16, he said.

Gilliam said that the owners had another lot across the road and he believed they had been investigating moving their house there at the time it collapsed. Although he has no details, Gilliam said he knows from permits for other houses that were moved that it is expensive to move a house even to the other side of a lot. Moving it across a road requires additional permits.

A larger house that was moved about 100 feet back from the ocean on the same lot, for instance, was estimated in its permit to cost about $350,000 to move, he said.

The owner of the house at 23214 Corbina Drive requested that his name not be used but told Coastal Review that marine engineers who were consulted before the house was purchased said it would be fine for a while, and the other lot was purchased as a contingency for later years.

“We really weren’t aware (then) of the erosion rate,” the owner said, adding that the real estate agent did not raise any concerns about the issue.

Although the house was damaged earlier this year, he was caught off guard with how fast the beach disappeared this month.

“This was just way unexpected,” he said.

Although the house is gone, he said he appreciated the help and kindness of the people of Rodanthe.

“It’s a beautiful community,” he said. “We enjoyed our time there — we enjoyed it very much. Unfortunately, the amount of beach erosion is far more than we ever considered.

“We’re heartbroken at the loss of our home,” he said.

Bald Head Island could be the first beach town in the state to have two terminal groins now that the North Carolina General Assembly has amended the law that governs the number of such structures allowed on the state’s coastal shores.

Village officials were quick earlier this week to say that Senate Bill 607 gives them the option to pursue a study on whether a terminal groin would be a viable method of controlling chronic erosion at the east end of the island’s south beach.

Whether the village will move forward with such a study remains to be seen as the bill, which was ratified Friday, awaits Gov. Roy Cooper’s decision to sign, veto or let the bill become law.

Bald Head Island Village Mayor Peter Quinn on Monday sent an email to island property owners explaining why village officials had requested the change in the law, what the change means for the village and next steps.

“Such projects are very expensive and take years,” Quinn wrote. “The Village would not undertake such a study without any basis for a helpful solution. Any structure would be subject to extensive design, environmental study, public input, and state and federal permitting.”

A terminal groin has not been designed, planned or proposed, he wrote, and a multi-year investigation into whether such a structure would keep erosion at bay “will not be rushed.”

A terminal groin, as defined by bill, is one or more structures constructed at the terminus of an island or on the side of an inlet, or where the ocean shoreline converges with Frying Pan Shoals.

“Work to find a viable, financially responsible long-term answer needs to be environmentally sound,” Quinn stated. “Our community has, and hopefully always will, embrace the role of a steward whose actions are in harmony with its natural surroundings. We depend on this mutual idea and agents like the Conservancy to keep us on course.”

He is referring to the Bald Head Island Conservancy, an environmental and educational nonprofit that has publicly opposed the change to the law.

Last month, Bald Head Island Conservancy Executive Director Chris Shank was invited to make a presentation to the village council in which he argued whether a hardened structure would control the movement of sand on the east end of south beach, an area where sand is shifted by storms, which are unpredictable in frequency and strength.

Shank said in an email Monday afternoon that the conservancy was “very disappointed” legislators had passed the law, which also gives the village the option to explore replacing a series of fabric, sand-filled tubes on the west end of south beach with rock structures.

“I don’t believe the Village of BHI leadership or the NC legislators appreciate the monumental shift in approach to managing and protecting NC’s spectacular barrier islands that this legislation could bring,” he wrote. “Our barrier islands have always been one of our state’s most special resources, including our dynamic cape system whose constantly changing sands bring awe and wonder to those who experience them. Further, I doubt that North Carolina citizens want to armor their beaches to protect a limited number of private properties in the short-term in exchange for potentially much longer-term negative impacts to the rest of our beaches. I wish the Conservancy along with our research partners in the coastal physics and engineering fields had been offered the opportunity to discuss the potential consequences of this legislation with those who crafted and voted upon it. Then, at least, this baseline shifting decision would have been given the respect that it deserved for the citizens of Bald Head Island and throughout North Carolina.”

Bald Head Island was the first North Carolina beach community to build a terminal groin after the General Assembly repealed a decades’ old law prohibiting hardened shoreline erosion control structures on North Carolina’s coast.

The 2011 law authorized the Coastal Resources Commission to permit the construction of no more than four terminal groins under a pilot program. Legislators would later add that two additional terminal groins may be permitted. Senate Bill 607, if approved by the governor, will up the allowable number of terminal groins that may be permitted to seven.

Bald Head Island and Ocean Isle Beach are the only towns that have built terminal groins.

Village voters in 2014 overwhelmingly passed an $18 million bond to secure funding to build a 1,300-foot-long terminal groin at the western end of south beach, an area where the widening and deepening of the entrance to the Wilmington Harbor channel exacerbated sand loss.

“Changes in the island’s morphology at Frying Pan Shoals over the past few years have seen dramatic erosion and loss of beach habitat and property on the east end of South Beach,” Quinn stated in his letter to property owners.

The village spends anywhere from $1 million to $2 million about every five years to replace the cloth sand tube groin filed at south beach, he said. That groin field has been there since 1995.

“Replacing the cloth tubes with rock structures would save substantial public funds,” Quinn wrote. “These are not new or disappearing conditions.”

Village Manager Chris McCall described the tubes as, on average, stretching about 300 feet long.

Those tubes have proven to slow the rate of sand flow, he said. The law specifies that the field of rock structures may be groins, including T-head or lollipop groins, or breakwaters. The rock structures cannot be larger than the existing cloth tubes or greater in number.

These structures would have to be approved by the Division of Coastal Management or by variance from the Coastal Resources Commission.

Quinn said the village will dedicate a page on its website to keep property owners updated on its analysis of potential erosion control methods on the beach and when the public can provide input.

Note: Coastal Review will not publish Thursday in observance of Independence Day, a federal holiday.

Storms largely drive sand movement along the Bald Head Island beachfront and sand is being lapped away at the east end, where village officials are considering building a terminal groin to keep erosion at bay.

The unpredictability in the frequency and strength of those storms were among several points of concern raised by the Bald Head Island Conservancy last week over the prospect of additional hardened erosion control structures on the Brunswick County island’s shores.

“So, we’re going to try and control something, which we don’t even know how to predict the future of, and we’re going to try and put something there that says we know what it’s going to do?” Chris Shank, executive director of the Bald Head Island Conservancy, recently asked the village council. “It’s not an easy system to understand. To think, if we put something in the way, can you block sand in that area for a little while? You probably can for a little while. How long will it last? We don’t know that.”

Shank was invited to make a presentation to the village council during its meeting Friday, wrapping up a week when legislation was introduced that would allow the village the option to add a second terminal groin to its shoreline and replace a series of fabric sand tubes with a field of rock structures.

Related: Bald Head Island seeks to change hardened shorelines law

The proposed revision to a statute that lays out the rules for the construction, funding and number of terminal groins permitted on the North Carolina coast bumps the total of allowable hardened erosion control structures from six to seven.

Language added to the law went last week before the Senate judiciary committee, which is expected to take it up for further discussion this week. That language defines a terminal groin as one or more structures constructed at the terminus of an island or on the side of an inlet, or where the ocean shoreline converges with Frying Pan Shoals.

This would give the village the option of building what it describes as a field of rock structures that would replace fabric sand tubes installed along the west end of south beach and a terminal groin at the east end of south beach. The sand tubes have to be replaced every few years.

A state-permitted sandbag revetment installed by a private country club known as The Shoals Club protects it from the encroaching ocean at the east end of the south-facing beach.

Shank played a video of a female sea turtle lumbering under the cover of night along the beach to the sandbag wall. With no place to dig a nest, she eventually turned around and headed back to sea, he said.

“We don’t want something like that to be a long-term measure, especially not in this area,” Shank said, adding that the sandbags are analogy for how rock structures might affect nesting sea turtles.

“We’re sharing the island with our wildlife and, look, I’m not unrealistic about the fact that we have massive erosion in that area. I get that. But we have to be smart about the future.”

Bald Head Island’s beach is federally designated critical sea turtle habitat.

The soft tube groin field rests on the opposite end of the south beach from the 1,300-foot-long terminal groin the village had constructed nearly 10 years ago. The groin, a wall-like structure built perpendicular to the ocean shoreline, is designed to stop the movement of sand.

Bald Head Island was the first to build a terminal groin after the North Carolina General Assembly repealed a 30-year ban on such hardened erosion control structures on the state’s ocean shores.

Bald Head Island Mayor Peter Quinn made clear last week that village officials have not determined whether they want to go the route of having additional hardened structures on the island’s beachfront.

“It needs to be studied before anything is acted on, and this is a step toward making sure that it’s even a possibility before we do anything,” he said. “We’re working with the conservancy. This isn’t something we’re trying to steamroll or anything.”

Shank cautioned council members that, should they decide against building groins at the east end of south beach and the bill amendment passes in Raleigh, the door is opened for a future council to do so.

“I know that there’s a process involved, but it’s complicated,” he said. “By having this legislation passed you have created a pathway for somebody else to walk through and that is a major concern,” he said. “Once that pathway’s open, then what?”

The conservancy is a nonprofit organization that sponsors and facilitates coastal scientific research and offers recreational and educational activities to the public.

Shortly after Shank’s presentation, village council members approved a contract with Marinex Construction of North Carolina Inc. to place more than 1 million cubic yards of sand onto shore at the terminal groin fillet and the east end of south beach. That project is expected to begin later this year.

The village is sending out another round of bids for a project to replace the soft groin tubes on the east end.

If North Carolina beaches are going to keep up their tug-of-war with the sea to maintain robust ocean shores, they’re going to need sand and a lot of it.

But, in an era when mining sand and pumping it onto beaches has become a go-to means of fortifying shores against erosion and storms, finding that just-right type of sand and enough of it for the foreseeable future might prove to be quite the challenge for many of the state’s coastal communities.

The dilemma is that beneath the surface of the vast Atlantic Ocean stretching from our shores, the amount of prized “beach-quality” sand needed to replenish them is finite.

There are, “critical sand shortages” across regions off North Carolina’s coast, according to a 2020 study by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers in partnership with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, or BOEM.

Federal agencies are being asked to look elsewhere and explore potential untapped sand sources beyond the boundaries of state waters, miles and miles out to the outer continental shelf.

In return, those agencies are relaying a message to coastal communities throughout the country – it’s time to stop thinking about individual project needs and focus on a more regional approach if you want to keep putting sand on your beaches.

“We’re seeing this challenge through the South Atlantic region, call it ‘sand wars’ or ‘competing uses of the same resource,’” said Doug Piatkowski, a physical scientist with BOEM’s Office of Strategic Resources. “There’s a real need to start thinking about what we do know about offshore resource availability and then how we maximize use in a more holistic way, systems’ say, so that we can optimize what little resource we have.”

A century of coastal engineering

Little more than a century has passed since the first U.S. beach got sand from offshore to replump its eroded shoreline.

Since 1923, when Coney Island, New York, officially became the birthplace of the engineered beach, more than 1.5 billion cubic yards of sand has been dredged and injected onto the shores of some 475 communities in the country.

More than 3,200 sand projects have been completed on beaches from California to Florida to New York over the course of the last 100 years. Many of the communities that account for that number have renourished their beaches multiple times, according to the South Atlantic Coastal Study.

North Carolina is one of six coastal states that has placed a large portion of that total sand volume — more than 80% — on its shores, according to a beach nourishment study published in January 2021.

Carolina Beach has the distinction of being the first to have a federal beach erosion-control project completed in 1964.

Since then, the Army Corps has authorized dozens of federal projects, which entail routine sand nourishment throughout a period of 50 years.

Between 2010 and 2020, a total of 37 million cubic yards of sand was placed on U.S. beaches each year, according to the South Atlantic Coastal Study.

In the South Atlantic region, more than 1.3 billion cubic yards of sand is required to support the region’s 50-year sand needs. More than 1.56 million cubic yards of sand resources have been identified to fill those needs.

An evolving theme ‘many aren’t talking about’

That sand surplus isn’t expected to last.

“While regional sand resources are greater than documented sand needs as of today, economically viable long-term sources are limited in many areas across the region,” according to the study.

The South Atlantic study, also referred to as Sand Availability and Needs Determination, or SAND, was the first in which the Corps was given funding to do a regional assessment of sand needs.

It found that sand shortages were documented in every state within the Corps’ South Atlantic Division and identified “critical sand shortages” in regions of North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Alabama and Mississippi.

“If we were to continue at the rate that we’re going … we have a lot of work to do to figure out kind of this supply-and-demand assessment, realizing with climate change and increased storm frequency and this continued demand for sand that we’ve got to do a better job at assessing where this resource availability is, what conflicts may exist in their use and then, over this next 50-year horizon, really have a more realistic understanding of availability and what we can do in terms of meeting the resilience plans to address the need,” Piatkowski said.

Now, more than ever, it is important to recognize these regions are all within one system, he said.

It’s an “evolving theme that many aren’t talking about,” Piatkowski said.

But that isn’t to say that all beach communities are behind the regional-thinking curve.

Carteret County, for example, is considered a leader in its long-term management of available sand options to meet the needs for all of Bogue Banks. The 25-mile-long barrier island is home to Atlantic Beach, Indian Beach, Pine Knoll Shores, Salter Path and Emerald Isle.

And Dare County is starting to think longer-term and look more broadly at its potential sediment availability options, Piatkowski said.

“This is something that BOEM’s trying to kind of message to the coastal stakeholder communities that, ‘Look, it’s beginning to be a scenario where you’ve got multiple interests and multiple needs all within one system and we need to be smarter about figuring out the dynamics of what is the underlying geology for the sediment that we do have. Why is it there? What are the transport processes in the location that we’re dredging it from?’ And then, where we’re placing it because, at the end of the day, if two beaches are connected, that sediment is ultimately moving in that system,” Piatkowski said.

Sand-challenged Long Bay

To understand the complexities faced by beach communities that face critical shortages in sand nourishment sources look no further than Brunswick County.

According to the South Atlantic study, Brunswick County has a sand deficit of nearly 30 million cubic yards.

That’s because Long Bay is essentially a sand-starved area, one where there are vulnerable coastlines in need of hardy sand borrow sources.

“Due to the nature and location of the beaches, it’s more likely to find rock or clay material rather than beach-quality sand,” said Jed Cayton, public affairs specialist with the Corps’ Wilmington District, in an email response to Coastal Review.

Frying Pan Shoals, an area off the seaward southeastern side of Bald Head Island with millions and millions of yards of sediment sand, is federally recognized as essential fish habitat. That designation has kept it from being tapped as a sand borrow source.

That has made Jay Bird Shoals, which is near the mouth of the Cape Fear River, a dredging hotspot for Brunswick beaches and, in recent years, the subject of growing contention between towns vying for sand security.

The town of Oak Island earlier this year received pushback from neighboring beach towns for including the inner ocean bar at the mouth of the river as a secondary sand source in its application for a beach nourishment project. The Brunswick beach town hopes to kick off the project this winter.

Oak Island is requesting to place up to 3 million cubic yards of sand along its 9-mile-long beach from a primary source some 18 miles offshore.

Oak Island’s project is estimated to cost $40 million. The town is awaiting a decision on the permit application.

The secondary source identified in Oak Island’s initial application is between Caswell Beach and Bald Head Island, which each argue that sand is crucial to their nourishment efforts.

In a board of commissioners meeting earlier this year, Caswell Beach Town Manager Joseph Pierce told board members, “If they pull that much sand from that area, our concern is that erosion is going to affect our east end, as well as Bald Head Island. There is a huge hole down there now where sand will continue to fall in, and it will affect both beaches,” The State Port Pilot reported.

Oak Island amended its Coastal Area Management Act, or CAMA, major permit last month and removed its request to use the inner ocean bar as a secondary source.

The Corps and BOEM are currently studying a longer-term coastal storm risk management project for Oak Island. That study is projected to be completed in the fall of 2027.

The first North Carolina beach community to build a terminal groin after state lawmakers lifted a 30-year ban is looking at the possibility of constructing more hardened erosion-control structures.

The Village of Bald Head Island recently asked its legislative delegates to bump the number of permits the state can issue for terminal groins from six to seven, giving the Brunswick County island government the option of building a groin at the east end of south beach to curb erosion. This is an area where chronic erosion threatens The Shoals Club, a private club that has a state-permitted sandbag revetment installed on the property to help protect it from the encroaching ocean.

The village is also considering replacing a series of fabric sand tubes installed along the west end of south beach with a rock structures.

Proposed changes to the 2011 law were recently handed over to Rep. Charles Miller, Sen. Bill Rabon, both Republicans, and N.C. Department of Environmental Quality Secretary Elizabeth Biser.

Biser and Miller visited the island May 17 after touring the Brunswick County water treatment plant’s reverse osmosis project, according to Sharon Martin, DEQ’s deputy secretary of public affairs.

“Secretary Biser appreciated the opportunity to meet with the local leaders and hear their concerns,” Martin said in an email responding to questions. “The visit to BHI was part of the Brunswick County visits arranged by Representative Miller for that afternoon.”

Language the village has drafted to amend the current law specifies that the number of rock structures that would replace fiber, sand-filled tubes would not exceed the existing number of permitted tubes or surpass the length of the longest existing tube.

“The structure(s) or field of structures may consist of groins,” the draft language states.

It is unclear if and when the drafted language might be introduced in the General Assembly.

Miller’s office did not respond to a phone call and email for comment. Rabon’s office also did not respond to a request for comment.

The existing soft tube groin field rests on the opposite end of south beach from the 1,300-foot-long terminal groin built nearly 10 years ago. The groin, a wall-like structure built perpendicular to the ocean shoreline, is designed to stop the movement of sand.

Bald Head Island Public Information Officer and Deputy Clerk Carin Faulkner explained that the village is being proactive in exploring long-term, more cost-effective shoreline stabilization alternatives at the west end of south beach.

Fiber tubes must be replaced every four or five years, she said.

Bald Head is among a small number of Brunswick beaches that get sand injections from periodic dredging that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers does to maintain the Wilmington Harbor navigation channel.

The sand the village receives is typically not enough to stretch along the entirety of south beach, leaving the east end sand starved.

“We have successfully proven that an engineered beach solution works to stabilize our shoreline,” Bald Head Island Mayor Pro Tem Scott Gardner said in a statement to Coastal Review. “The combination of soft groins, a terminal groin, and a sand management plan have demonstrated that by slowing the movement of sand from our beaches, we can protect our infrastructure and property, and improve habitat for wildlife. Our 2025 plan maintains the quality of shoreline stabilization on the west end of south beach and allow us to begin investigating the possibility of a similar stabilization plan on the east end of south beach.”

The 2025 locally funded coastal storm damage reduction project will place more than 1 million cubic yards of sand onto shore at the terminal groin fillet, the east end of south beach and used to fill new fiber tubes that will replace existing ones in the tube groin field on the west end.

The village has obtained the necessary permits for the project, which is ready to go out for bids, Faulkner said.

Sand for the 2025 project is being tapped from Jay Bird Shoals, a borrow source that is not projected to have enough sand to provide for the future needs of Bald Head’s ocean beach.

The village has thus far unsuccessfully convinced the federal government to allow it to use a portion of Frying Pan Shoals as a sand borrow source.

In 2017, the village applied for a federal permit to mine with a 460-acre area on the western portion of Frying Pan Shoals about a mile off the island’s southeast shoreline.

Frying Pan Shoals is a line of shallow sandbars trailing from the southeastern tip of Bald Head island some 30 miles into the Atlantic Ocean and is an area that has no record of ever being dredged.

This is an area that includes essential fish habitat, a federal designation that describes waters and substrate necessary for fish for spawning, breeding, feeding or growth to maturity.

Bald Head Island is one of only two beach towns authorized to build terminal groins since the General Assembly in 2011 repealed the longstanding ban on the use of hardened erosion-control structures on the state’s beaches. Ocean Isle Beach in Brunswick County built its terminal groin in the winter of 2021-22.

Figure Eight Island in New Hanover County, Holden Beach in Brunswick County and Carteret County ultimately decided against building terminal groins on their shores.

North Topsail Beach in Onslow County is developing a draft environmental impact statement examining potential options, including a hardened structure, for stabilizing its shore at the New River Inlet.

Coastal Review Assistant Editor Jennifer Allen contributed to this report.

New Hanover County beaches could again mine sand from nearby inlets to nourish their oceanfront shores under a proposed law recently passed by the U.S. House of Representatives.

The bill would exempt a handful of federal coastal storm risk management projects on the East Coast from a rule that prohibits local governments from tapping sand sources they have historically used within the Coastal Barrier Resources System.

The proposed law would apply only to projects that have been pumping sand from borrow sources within the federally protected system for more than 15 years. Those include Masonboro Island at Wrightsville Beach, Carolina Beach Inlet at Carolina Beach, an inlet in South Carolina and one in New Jersey.

H.R. 524, introduced by Rep. David Rouzer, R-N.C., in January 2023, would also return the use of federal funds for projects that use sand within a Coastal Barrier Resources Act, or CBRA, unit to nourish adjacent beaches outside of the system.

“This legislation allows these beaches to continue to use their historic borrow sites for protection from storm damage, maintain their natural ecosystems, and protect our local economy,” Rouzer stated in a press release following the House’s April 11 passage of the bill.

The bill is now with the Senate environment and public works committee.

Proponents of the bill argue that allowing projects that had for years used sand within the system to nourish nearby beaches reduces costs and ecological impacts.

“It’s an opportunity to recycle sand. It’s an opportunity to reduce potential environmental impacts. And, it’s an opportunity to reduce federal and local expenditures,” said New Hanover County Shore Protection Coordinator Layton Bedsole. “I think Wilmington had been in compliance 20 years before CBRA was written and we haven’t encouraged development in sensitive coastal locations like inlet shoulders. That’s a major tenant in CBRA.”

Congress passed CBRA, pronounced “cobra,” in 1982 to discourage building on relatively undeveloped, storm-prone barrier islands by cutting off federal funding and financial assistance, including federal flood insurance. The act was also established to minimize damage to fish, wildlife and other resources associated with coastal barrier islands.

Last May, Matthew Strickler, deputy assistant secretary for the Interior Department’s U.S. Fish and Wildlife and Parks, expressed the current administration’s objections to H.R. 524 in his testimony before the House natural resources committee.

Using federal funds to move sand dredged within the system to an area outside of it “is considered counter to CBRA’s purposes,” he said referring to the Coastal Barrier Resource System, or CBRS.

“While some of the sand taken from CBRS units for beach renourishment activities may return to the unit over time, the overall impacts of dredging in these areas protected by CBRA are detrimental to coastal species and their habitats,” Strickler said.

But proponents of the bill argue that years of monitoring these inlets prove otherwise.

“We’re in a situation where Mother Nature brings sand down our beach into an engineered borrow site and then we recycle it back up on the beach in the next three or four years. That’s ideal. We’re recycling rather than mining. We’ve got consistency that works for us that we can work with,” Bedsole said.

December 2023: Sand nourishment to begin in Wrightsville Beach

Wrightsville Beach was using the rich, beach-quality sand routinely pumped from Banks Channel and placing that material on its ocean shore for roughly two decades before CBRA was enacted.

In the mid-1990s, the Army Corps of Engineers permanently allowed the town to use Masonboro Inlet as a sand borrow source, shielding the town from ongoing debates over the interpretation of the law as it pertains to whether sand within a CBRS unit may be dredged and placed onto a beach outside of a CBRA zone.

By 2019, then-Interior Secretary David Bernhardt determined that federal funds could be used to pay for dredging sand with CBRS units and placing that sand on beaches outside of those zones for shoreline-stabilization projects.

A year later, the National Audubon Society challenged Bernhardt’s interpretation in a lawsuit filed against the former secretary, the interior department and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The organization argued the interpretation “vastly expands potential sand mining projects” within areas protected in the system.

The Biden administration overturned the rule in 2021 and Audubon agreed to drop its lawsuit.

The new interpretation forced beach towns that had historically used sand from CBRA zones to look offshore.

Facing exponentially higher costs and an offshore borrow site scattered with old tires broken free from an artificial reef, the town was given an emergency exception by the Corps to get sand from the inlet. That project, which pumped roughly 1.04 million cubic yards of sand onto Wrightsville’s beach, wrapped in mid-March.

The cost to use sand dredged from the inlets is substantially lower than pumping sand from an offshore borrow site.

The last time Carolina Beach tapped the inlet borrow site for sand to place on its ocean shoreline the bid tab was $5 a yard.

“The current project came from the offshore borrow area, as it has, was $11 and some change a yard,” Bedsole said. “It just costs more to go offshore.”

Bids are expected to go out this spring for Carolina and Kure beaches’ nourishment projects, which as of now will use sand from an offshore borrow site.

How that sand might affect the channel Carolina Beach used for years as a sand source has raised concerns among beach town officials.

“We have pulled sand out of that inlet for pretty much my entire life,” said Carolina Beach Mayor Lynn Barbee. “We know what the environmental impacts are. They’re very minimal. We haven’t seen any sort of erosion because of taking that out of there. We haven’t seen any impacts to wildlife, ever, so it’s hard to see what the harm is. What we’ve been doing in the inlet is the borrow pit fills up and we pump that sand out every three years onto the beach and then it drifts back in and fills up and we pump it back out. That seems intuitively better than going out offshore and basically running a sand mine underwater and disturbing what was natural out there.”

Another issue, he said, is how sand pumped onto the beach from the offshore site may affect the inlet, one heavily used by boaters and offers the fastest route for first responders to get into the water.

Barbee said the town has seen “unprecedented” shoaling in Carolina Beach Inlet since it began using the offshore borrow site.

“We have really struggled to keep that open,” he said. “We’ve seen the cost to keep the inlet open go up. If in fact our theory is correct, where else would that sand have come from if it wasn’t introduced from the offshore borrow pit. You’re introducing a new sand source into the traditional system. Certainly, anecdotally, we didn’t have this problem, we do something different, now we do have the problem. It doesn’t seem like it’s a huge leap.”

Barbee said the hope is that the bill will become law before the next project begins.

“If not, we have three more years of these elevated costs, and then we’re just putting more and more sand in the system, and the worry is that when does it become too much?” he said.

Tell the public about a contract to buy land?

This isn’t business as usual for the North Carolina Coastal Land Trust.

But this time around, the prospective buy is a 150-acre tract of barrier island that has been written about in media outlets across the state and, on occasion, in national publications on and off for years. And it’s going to take some very public fundraising efforts to make the purchase possible.

So, pursuing the pristine, undeveloped expanse of land at the southern tip of Topsail Island affectionally named “The Point” has the Wilmington-based nonprofit established in 1992 breaking precedent.

“Our normal approach is we work privately with the sellers and we go through all our work and then, when it’s all done, we announce a deal. So, this is very different for us,” said Harrison Marks, the trust’s executive director. “This is a tight budget year for the state and we depend on state funds typically for projects. We don’t have a formula (for public fundraising) because this isn’t something we normally do.”

He’s hoping the state will come through on giving at least some money toward the purchase.

The Coastal Land Trust has a little less than a year to seal the deal. It has to close on the land on or before March 31, 2025.

Marks declined to reveal the actual price tag of the land, but said the appraisal is “somewhat more” than the purchase price.

All told, the organization expects to spend about $8 million on various expenses, surveys and title searches, and the land itself.

A little more than a week has passed since the trust announced that it had a contract with the four families who own different chunks of the land.

As of Thursday, more than 100 online donations approaching $50,000 in total had been made, Marks said. Substantial pledges, some in the range of six figures, have also been made.

Roy Costa, founder of the more-recently formed nonprofit, Conserve the Point-Topsail, said his organization is working with the Coastal Land Trust to figure out how to best support the fundraising efforts.

Costa said the contributions Conserve the Point has received have to date covered the organization’s operational costs.

“We really see that the Coastal Land Trust is a good place to do, in particular, major donations,” he said.

Conserve the Point was born out of a grassroots effort to raise public and private funds to buy the land at the south end of Topsail Beach, an opportunity that arose when a young, wealthy couple backed out of plans last November to build a family compound on the land.

Todd Olson, co-founder and CEO of Raleigh-based software company Pendo, and his wife Laura spent months trying to persuade Topsail Beach officials to rezone fewer than 30 acres of the property from C4: Conservation — Inlet Area to conditional use. The change would have allowed about a half dozen homes, a private marina, pool and beach and sound accesses to be built.

The property has steadily accreted over the years as the southern end of the island at New Topsail Inlet has gained sand, making it a favorite spot for island property owners and tourists who enjoy walking its beaches.

The Olsons’ proposal was met with fierce opposition from other area property owners, regular vacationers to the town, and environmentalists.

Thousands signed an online petition urging town officials to reject the rezoning request. People passionate about keeping the land as-is flooded town meetings whenever the request was up for discussion.

Months before pulling the plug on their contract with the property owners, a deal that was contingent upon getting their rezoning request approved, the Olsons signed a letter of intent with the Coastal Land Trust to grant the organization a conservation easement for a minimum of 80% of the land.

Attempts to buy the land, including those by the town to keep it free from development, have yet to pan out. Around 2005, the Coastal Land Trust tried to buy roughly 45 acres of the property, but a deal was not reached at the time.

This time around, supporters of conserving the land are hopeful the signed purchase and sales agreement between the Coastal Land Trust and the property owners will come through and end the threat of development.

“Everybody’s quite excited, including a lot of people in our community,” Costa said. “This is perfect timing, the perfect opportunity. I think there’s a groundswell of support for conservation efforts, particularly here in North Carolina, and so I think with all the conservation efforts that are going on that this is definitely something that can quite easily happen with the help of everybody.”

The Coastal Land Trust is looking to host a meeting in May in Topsail Beach to discuss its plans with town officials and answer questions from the public.

“We just are very grateful that (the property owners) gave us an opportunity to talk with them and I feel fairly confident that they could have done something with other people who had an intent to develop some of the property and, ultimately, think that would have occurred,” Marks said. “They were will to sell us the property at the price that they did because I think they care about seeing the property conserved as well.”

Once the Coastal Land Trust buys the land, it will be transferred to state ownership and managed by the N.C. Division of Coastal Management. That agency said it hopes to partner with the state Wildlife Resources Commission, which would help manage and monitor shorebird nesting areas.

Details about the upcoming public meeting are to be announced on the Coastal Land Trust’s website. Donations may be made online.

Cape Lookout National Seashore Superintendent Jeff West has been watching for weeks as a Louisiana-based company gets ready at the seashore’s visitor center on Harkers Island to begin maintenance dredging in the nearby waterways.

Next Generation Logistics, the company contracted for the work, will not only make the channels to the federally protected barrier islands safter and more accessible, but the suitable sand that’s dredged during the project will be used for beach nourishment to protect Cape Lookout Lighthouse and nearby historic structures from continual, soundside erosion.

Army Corps of Engineers Public Affairs Specialist Emily Winget said Wednesday that the company, which was awarded the contract in November for $6.9 million, plans to mobilize two cutter-suction pipeline dredges to work on this contract and had planned to begin work by the end of January.

But because of issues, like weather impacts to mobilization, the contract has not started dredging, she said. “We anticipate that dredging will start next week,” referring to the week of Feb. 5.

The Department of Defense Operation and Maintenance Funds, National Park Service, state and Carteret County are “all project stakeholders helping to cover the cost of this project. In addition to providing navigation access through Lookout Bight this maintenance dredging will help ensure access to Cape Lookout National Seashore. Dredging the channel is critical for safe and consistent access to frequently visited areas at Cape Lookout National Seashore. Once dredging is complete, the channel will be open to commercial boats and deep draft vessels,” Winget wrote in an email response.

The suitable material dredged during the course of the project will be placed on the interior beach next to National Park Service structures, including the lighthouse. The remaining material will be added to an open water placement island, being called Sandbag Island, to contain the dredge material and provide habitat for nesting shore birds.

“The preservation of our coast is of paramount importance to us in Carteret County,” County Board of Commissioners Chairman Jimmy Farrington said in November when the contract was announced. “This project not only ensures the safety and accessibility of our waterways but also reaffirms our commitment to the environment. We are proud to partner with the National Park Service and the State of North Carolina to undertake this project, ensuring that the Cape Lookout National Seashore remains a natural treasure for generations to come.”

Winget said the estimated cost to dredge 165,000 cubic yards in the federal fixed channel in Back Sound is around $3.2 million and another 30,000 cubic yards will be dredged through the inlet for $585,00.

To dredge the 8,000 cubic yards in the channel used to approach the passenger ferry dock where the lighthouse is located is expected to come in at $156,000. Sandbag Island is expected to cost about $910,000 to create.

Other costs include the $1.8 million to set up for the project and then demobilize after.

The route used by the passenger ferry between Harkers Island visitor center and the lighthouse has the most amount of sand, West explained in a recent interview, and that will be pumped over the Bird Island. They’ll use geotextile tubes, much like elongated sandbags, to hold the sand in place.

Getting the project off the ground has taken six or seven years, West said, with the COVID-19 pandemic being one of the delays.

He said that the National Park Service worked with the Army Corps of Engineers, state and county to work together to manage the funds for the property.

Once the funding was in place, the first thing they had to do was get through the environmental assessment process, which took about a year. The environmental assessment was put out for public comment in April 2023 to give state and federal agencies, organizations and the public a chance to weigh in and address those comments. The finding of no significant impact was then released September 2023, and the contract announced in November.

He said the sense of urgency comes from the fact that the channels are filling in, and it’s been getting worse over the years. That’s a main public access to Cape Lookout from the Park Service visitor center on Harkers Island. It’s also an important channel for a lot of private and commercial users.

He expounded that the sand dredged will be placed at the beach by the lighthouse complex, which is where the passenger ferry docks. Between the lighthouse and the shoreline are the Keepers Quarters and the summer kitchen. The summer kitchen right now is right at the high-tide line and the Keepers Quarters is about 30 to 35 feet from the high-tide line.

“It will take “roughly 34,000 to 38,000 cubic yards” and will stretch from 150 to 200 yards north of the lighthouse complex to 200 yards 250 yards south, West said. “Depends on how much sand is compatible with the beach there and then it will be graded out to match the current profile.”

The next phase, if the funds are available sometime in the near future, will be to put in a living shoreline or another type of device to try to hold that sand in place this time. “As opposed to how we did in 2006,” he said, referring to a beach nourishment project, “people really weren’t thinking about using living shorelines at the time.”

Right now, the deadline to finish the work is April 1, because of marine wildlife protections, but they could apply for an extension. Once they start dredging operations are supposed to run 24 hours a day, seven days a week.  

West added that they’re allowing the contractors to stage at the visitor center to help with logistics and the company has secured housing on Harkers Island.

The company anticipates having about 5,000 feet of pipe out at any given time, he said. They have a 10-inch pipe and 18-inch pipe and depending on the volume, they’re moving, they’ll use whatever is appropriate.

When it’s completed and opened back up the channel it will be a 7- to 9-foot-deep channel and will be 100 feet wide. “I mean, it’ll be the cat’s meow as far as getting back and forth,” between Harkers Island and the lighthouse, West said.

RODANTHE — Two excavators, some thick steel cables and seven determined men did Wednesday afternoon what the Atlantic Ocean was aiming to do: destroy a once-handsome house sitting dangerously close to the swirling surf.

“When we got here this morning, the tide was past the front of the house,” Mike Dunn, owner of W.M. Dunn Construction of Powells Point, told a small group of media at the site, where workers on the beach behind him were preparing the house at 23292 East Beacon Drive for its imminent demise.

After the larger excavator gingerly began nipping at the stairs, its operator soon began pulling at the planking under the house, followed by its monster-like chomps of the upper decks.

Meanwhile, the smaller excavator was hooked up to a steel line that encircled the house. Most of the crew, who were wielding various sizes of saws, started cutting into the crossbeams under the house with the intent of weakening the structure, while Dunn kept a close eye.

The destruction of a house when done by careful professionals is a compelling sight and it went quickly. Once the house’s support structure was sufficiently compromised by the cuts, the signal was given to the smaller excavator operator to start pulling away from the ocean. After a tentative sway of resistance, the house fell flat on the ground. At that, the larger excavator started pounding at the exterior, exposing the structure’s guts. It would be crushed and splintered, and removed within hours, while National Park Service personnel stood by, ready to scoop up any stray debris on the beach.

In recent years, Dunn had been hired to remove scattered debris from some houses that had collapsed farther south on Rodanthe beaches. But he said it’s a lot easier — and rewarding — to demolish a house before it falls onto the beach.

“We enjoy it, because it’s a pretty high-profile project,” Dunn said.  

Four houses have fallen on the Cape Hatteras National Seashore since February 2022, and numerous others on the beach remain threatened.

In a pilot program that made it possible for the National Park Service to buy the two houses, about $700,000 had been provided by the Land and Water Conservation Fund, which uses no tax dollars and is instead funded by income from oil and gas leases.

The valuation of the houses was done by specialists at the U.S. Department of Interior, Cape Hatteras National Seashore Superintendent Dave Hallac told journalists. 

“The fair market value was determined by a government appraiser,” he said.

The 30-day contract to demolish the two houses cost about $72,000, including removal of septic tanks and the debris, Hallac said. That cost is not covered by the grant.

Dunn said that he expects to remove five or six truckloads of debris from each house after they’re demolished. He added that the second house will be done when the tide and weather conditions allow. Pilings and numerous septic tanks will also be removed.

Although some of the wood may have still been reuseable, Dunn said it wouldn’t be practical to try to save it when you’re racing against high tide.  

“You could salvage some of this if it wasn’t on the ocean, but this is a speed process,” he said.

Once the houses are gone, and the beaches are cleaned up, the land will be returned to public use, Hallac said. Installation of a bike rack is under consideration, he added, but there won’t be any parking provided.

Meanwhile, the park service is continuing to evaluate whether the pilot program can be scaled up to allow additional removals of houses on the national seashore.

Until now, it has been difficult for property owners to afford costs of relocating or demolishing their threatened homes on the beach. Some owners said they had no choice but to wait for the houses to collapse before they could collect from their flood insurance policy. Currently, government laws and regulations are limited in requiring owners to take proactive action.

But Hallac said that Dunn’s work showed the sense in taking a house down in a controlled manner before the ocean destroys it and scatters the debris for miles. 

“In this case,” Hallac said, “the collapse is on his terms.” 

RODANTHE — Early in the last virtual meeting of the Threatened Oceanfront Structures Interagency Task Force Oct. 12, Cape Hatteras National Seashore Superintendent David Hallac provided details about a pilot program in which the agency recently used nonprofit conservation trust funds to purchase two endangered oceanfront houses in Rodanthe.

The plan sounded like it could be the kind of solution the task force had long been seeking: The owners agreed to the deal, and the National Park Service is keeping tons of debris from another inevitable house collapse from scattering into the Atlantic and for miles on the public trust seashore and nearby private property.

But comments on an Oct. 16 article in the Washington Post illustrate why the task force was assembled in the first place: to remedy government paralysis and address overlapping rights and inadequate regulations to protect public resources that affect private property, a contentious and complicated consequence of climate change involving money, power and unequal misfortune. 

Since an oceanfront house in Rodanthe fell Feb. 9, 2022, three others nearby have collapsed onto the national seashore, where numerous structures still standing on 2 miles of eroded shoreline are also threatened. 

“They knew the risks, now pay the piper,” commenter “cat whisker” wrote in response to the article. “Declare eminent domain and pull those houses down, no buyouts. Why should tax payers subsidize greed and stupidity?”

Others expressed similar sentiments.

“Your insurance is subsidized by the insurance of others, who do not live in high-risk areas,” “doggone 1” wrote. “Many of us who put a lot of thought into buying our homes resent those who obviously did not, and who now expect a bail-out of some sort.”

While Rodanthe is hardly the only beachfront community in the U.S., it is an early — and dramatic — illustration of the impacts of climate change on coastlines as sea levels continue to rise.

Much of the response and planning for climate impacts is being done on a local and state level, while integrating with federal programs and funding. Rodanthe is unusual in that it’s a blend of local, state, federal and private interests in one concentrated area that affects many thousands of visitors to a national park with vital natural resources and popular attractions.

Although Rodanthe has one of the highest erosion rates on the Outer Banks, the beach in front of the problem houses had been relatively wide and stable until recent years, when the beach erosion rate accelerated over a short span of time. Soon, it became evident that no level of government was equipped with the clear authorities or incentives to get people to remove their threatened houses before the ocean took them.

In two previous meetings held since March, the task force has discussed issues with federal flood insurance, private insurance, septic systems and grant programs, among others. The focus of the most recent workshop was on government’s role, its potential actions and limitations and its effects on private property protections and rights. 

“We collectively found that few if any federal funding programs were available for property owners voluntarily or local governments to address erosion-threatened structures, through removal of the structure or relocation of the structures, especially where those structures were second homes or investment properties,” North Carolina Division of Coastal Management Director Braxton Davis told the task force.

The authority of the National Park Service “is very limited,” said Trish Cortelyou-Hamilton, an attorney with the U.S. Department of the Interior.

The ambulatory boundaries between mean low and mean high water are difficult to nail down precisely, making them difficult to enforce, she said.

“So there’s no rules or federal statutes related to requiring these folks to relocate,” Corelyou-Hamilton said.

And some houses were originally built much farther back from the beach, Hallac added. 

“But for those 2 miles of Rodanthe, there’s this collision of private properties and our seashore boundary,” he said.

Corelyou-Hamilton said that litigation by conservative law groups like the Pacific Legal Foundation represent plaintiffs suing over regulatory takings under the Fifth Amendment at little to no cost to the homeowner. Often the goal is to further national case law, making potential resolutions or settlements more difficult. 

To Corelyou-Hamilton’s point, Nags Head’s town manager Andy Garman said that the town has the authority to condemn an oceanfront structure and require repairs that make it safe. But the dilemma the town has faced is when the owners do the required repair, “many” have let the house sit on the beach.

“And we’ve had some for more than 15 years on the beach that are essentially uninhabitable the entire time,” he said.

Part of the reason the town’s hands are tied is because of a lawsuit that the town lost over its attempt to have an owner remove their house from the beach.

Even if there was additional authority, Garman said he would expect lawsuits to test it, meaning additional litigation over takings claims.

“So a lot of the burden has been put on local government to deal with these issues,” he said. “And having some sort of coordinated statewide approach — I know that’s the purpose of this group — would be much appreciated from our perspective.”

Other states have been grappling with houses collapsing on the beach, including in California where they fall off cliffs undermined by erosion. Some states have stricter measures in place than North Carolina when it comes to owner responsibilities for cleanup.

For instance, Hawaii, which experienced similar house collapses around the same time as Rodanthe, just passed new statutes that address debris removal and other concerns, North Carolina Coastal Federation Coastal Advocate Alyson Flynn told the task force. The Coastal Federation publishes Coastal Review.

In addition to setting up penalties, she said, the new laws also grant authority for the state to tap the private property value to cover costs of removal of illegal objects on public land, and provide drones to view the subject area. 

Overall, the panel agreed that more innovation, collaboration and cooperation will be needed going forward.

“Local governments been given a lot of authority, but it’s basically been very piecemeal,” said Webb Fuller, a former Nags Head official and a member of the state Coastal Resources Advisory Committee. “And when local governments requested the state to come in and help us on stuff, the state has always been very reluctant to do that.”

Hallac said that the working group will provide a report summarizing the ideas, challenges and recommendations by year’s end.

Whatever the recommendations, private property and public resources, they will not be a one-size-fits-all solution, he said. Nor is there a bad guy to blame when a house collapses in the surf. 

“Whether or not you end up in the ocean within a week, a month or five years, it’s just going to happen on beaches where there is a long-term trend of erosion — it’s going to happen,” he said. “And so to me, that has to be some level of threshold in government’s work, hopefully collaboratively with owners to find a solution.”

RODANTHE — Dare County commissioners voted last month to provide about $1.5 million to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to study the feasibility of a beach nourishment project in Rodanthe, where five oceanfront houses since 2020 have succumbed to the sea, with more still at risk.  

North Carolina 3^rd District Republican Rep. Greg Murphy told the county that the three-year study is required to obtain any congressional funds for a beach nourishment project, and the county must pick up half the tab.   

“I am delighted to work with Dare County to provide the funding necessary to advance beach nourishment for Rodanthe,” Murphy said in a prepared statement dated July 27. “Preservation of the Outer Banks and its vibrant communities is one of my top priorities in Congress, and I’m grateful to work on delivering the resources necessary to do so.”  

Although commissioners expressed uncertainty about how the study would proceed, Murphy said through a spokesman that the study has been authorized since 1990 and the Corps has assured that it is committed to conduct the study if it is funded.    

The Corps would be able to begin work once the first increments of the study are funded, Murphy’s spokesman Alexander Crane said in a July 29 email response to Coastal Review. The county’s share would be expected after the Corps has the federal funds in hand, he explained. 

“Yes, the study is a precursor to requesting federal funding for beach nourishment,” Crane wrote. “The amount of federal funding for beach nourishment will be determined later on by Congress and the results of the feasibility study.” 

Crane said that the next step in the process would be an appropriations request by Murphy in the February-March time frame of next year, to be included in the fiscal 2025 budget. Those dollars would fund the federal portion of the feasibility study. 

Property owners along the severely eroded shoreline on the north end of Hatteras Island started asking for the project years ago and with dramatically increased urgency as erosion worsened, especially at Mirlo Beach, the village’s northernmost subdivision. Even before the $145 million “jug-handle” bridge opened last summer, bypassing Mirlo and the section of N.C. Highway 12 that was frequently damaged by ocean and sound storm tide, the houses located farther south near the Rodanthe pier started collapsing into the ocean.  

For months, federal, state and local officials have struggled to address a multitude of issues exposed by the tenuous and ongoing situation — property insurance, private property rights and liabilities, public safety and health, governments’ roles and responsibilities to protect public shorelines and accelerating climate change hazards — with few answers.  

For numerous reasons, nourishment has not been considered a viable option for Rodanthe. Some coastal geologists have long argued that with Rodanthe’s extraordinary erosion rates on both ocean and sound sides, the village had no business being developed in the first place. 

 “An aerial view shows that Rodanthe is actually on a small, deteriorating cape extending out to sea,” according to a description in “The North Carolina Shore and Its Barrier Islands, Restless Ribbons of Sand.” “Rodanthe is an extremely high-risk community.” 

The book’s six authors, coastal scientists who included Orrin Pilkey from Duke University and Stan Riggs from East Carolina University, now both semi-retired, warned that Rodanthe was rapidly narrowing, with an average annual erosion rate of 5 to 22 feet, and was at risk of becoming an inlet.   

“THIS AREA IS EXTREMELY DANGEROUS AND SHOULD BE AVOIDED!” the authors wrote, emphasizing the statement with an unusual use of bold, uppercase letters.  

And that was the assessment of coastal scientists 25 years ago, when the book was published in 1998. Since then, the average annual erosion rate in Rodanthe has not only increased, it seems as if it has worsened faster in some areas, such as where the houses are falling.  

In May, Columbia, South Carolina-based Coastal Science and Engineering released an updated report requested by Dare County on a sand analysis it had done in 2014 for the county at Rodanthe. According to the report, a 5.7-mile-long critically eroded area between the south end of Pea Island and the north end of the village of Waves, has a baseline deficit of 2.3 million cubic yards of sand, and it’s losing about 300,000 cubic yards a year. At that rate, it would require about 3.8 million cubic yards of sand at today’s cost of about $40 million to offset five years of erosion.  

Patrick Barrineau, coastal scientist and project manager for Coastal Science and Engineering, said the report, which compared the condition and the location of the beach in 2023 to that of 2014, was intended as an initial step toward a more comprehensive analysis.  

For instance, he said, if the Corps does its study, it will likely include an economic cost-benefit analysis, a sea level and climate analysis and analysis of more physical surveys. Also, the report looked qualitatively at what to expect with different sea levels.  

“A more complete modeling analysis would put quantitative measure on those predictions,” he told Coastal Review.    

In looking at the changes in volume of sand, which is measured from the beach out into surf, there was still some sand remaining — “Probably not very much,” he added — from an emergency nourishment project the Corps had done in 2014 to protect N.C. 12 until the new Rodanthe bridge was built.   

The volumetric changes were measured out into 40 to 50 feet of water, which details “sort of a three-dimensional change in the beach surface,” he said. Horizontal changes are just looking at the high-water line. Most people would describe the erosion rate with the horizontal measurement. Today, the annual erosion rate in the critical area ranges from 14 feet to about 20 feet.   

According to the report, the variations in volume can be attributed to the coastal dynamics: Overwash at Pea Island draws sand from the beach system and stores it, reducing it in Rodanthe; and the most eroded shorelines are situated near closed breaches, such as at Mirlo, making them vulnerable to again becoming inlets. 

Bottom line, it would take a lot of sand and frequent nourishment to keep a wide beach in Rodanthe, Barrineau agreed.

“Yes, definitely,” he said. “I mean it’s going to take on the order of millions of yards of sand to maintain the shoreline in a place where it’s naturally eroding at the rate that we see at Mirlo Beach just to accommodate for that and year-to-year change in the sand volume on the beach.”  

Adding the impacts of sea level rise, especially where there is minimal dune, could exacerbate the issue with storm-cut channels and overwash, he said. But unlike for some beaches along the southern North Carolina coast, Barrineau said he doesn’t think there’d be a problem finding sand borrow areas to keep up with the nourishment demand.  

“There’s a lot of sand out there,” he said.   

If a groin — a wall that traps sand — were to be added to the project, it would cost about $15 million and could prolong the length of time the beach would stay put. Over a 30-year period, the report said, a nourishment-only management strategy would cost about $40 million more than a strategy using groins as well as nourishment. 

“We’ve seen that in other sites where the groins can slow erosion along a project site and in doing so, they can extend the project lifetime,” Barrineau said. “And so, while it’s more expensive up front, it may be cheaper over a 30-year time horizon to have those in place.” 

Hardened structures like groins and jetties, however, are not permitted in North Carolina. They were included in the analysis to “have in the tool box,” he said.   

But barring a change in state law, groins aren’t going to be an option if a beach nourishment project ever does get approved and funded for Rodanthe. Barrineau said that the best chance for such geologically vulnerable locations to keep its beach is more substantial dunes that are taller and wider to be able to withstand pounding waves.  

“It’s pretty unlikely that an entire project would be removed from a site in one storm,” he said. “Now, that being said, major Category 5-type storms do strange things. And it can be difficult to predict.” 

Corps projects are not eligible for emergency federal funds for renourishment after storms, he added.  

Dare County Manager Bobby Outten said that the county has about $8 to $10 million available for a new project from money set aside for beach nourishment done in the county and its oceanfront towns.  

The county’s beach nourishment fund is restricted by state law to use a 2% share of Dare County’s occupancy tax, which totals 6%, for the placement of sand and planting of vegetation to widen the beach. In addition to the county fund, beach nourishment projects may also be funded by property and municipal service district taxes, and state and federal public assistance program funds.  

“In our preliminary modeling, if we had a $40 million project, then in three to five years, we would have enough money to build the project and maintain it,” he said, calculating on the fund’s current rate of growth.  

Outten said the county did not specifically ask consultant Coastal Science and Engineering to include data about the potential impact of sand-trapping groins on a beach nourishment project. 

“They know we can’t do groins,” he said, referring to the fact that “hardened structures” on shorelines are not permitted in North Carolina. But he doesn’t rule out asking in the future.  

If the feasibility study or a federally funded beach nourishment project do not move forward, then Outten said that the county would continue to look for other funding sources.  

Along with other coastal counties in North Carolina, he said, Dare County has asked the state to update the Beach Inlet Management Plan to help pay for shoreline-widening projects.  

“The idea is, we need a state fund for beach nourishment,” Outten said.  

More information, more work, more study and more discussion are needed.

Topsail Beach commissioners said Monday that a Raleigh software entrepreneur’s evolving plan to purchase and develop a personal multi-home family compound with a private marina on an undeveloped 119-acre site situated at the south end of town isn’t yet on solid enough footing to allow for a decision on a long-pending rezoning request.

The town board said it still wants more answers and professional analyses related to the proposal before it decides.

At one point during the special called meeting held to discuss proposed conditions and comments on the conditional rezoning application for the New Topsail Inlet property known as The Point, Commissioner John Gunter suggested the entire process needed to start anew because so much had changed, including late-hour changes that he said made it appear that the Olsons were just trying to win votes.

The applicants and prospective owners of the parcel, Todd Olson, founder of Pendo, and his wife Laura Olson, were at the meeting. The Olsons said they were merely reacting to feedback from the public and town planning board in making multiple changes to their plans since talks of the proposal began last year. They said the plans were presented as a “vision doc” and had been fluid to allow for dialogue, “to open up the aperture of what’s possible” regarding the site, which is part of the federal Coastal Barrier Resources System.

The Olsons said their proposed private development of the federally restricted site would be far less dense than any other development in town and all changes made in the latest iteration of their plans had been made in response to officials’ recommendations.

But some commissioners were frustrated that changes were made as recently as the night before the meeting.

“I’m struggling with why we’ve gotten to this point when my feeling is, you have had six months or more to respond to the initial public comments that you solicited yourself and then didn’t really address to people’s satisfaction,” Gunter said to the Olsons. “And now the proposal, in my mind, has changed in hopes of securing more agreement to it.”

Commissioner Frank Braxton said the Olsons could be best served by professional assessments that address the issues raised in prior discussions.

“You’re trying to sell a plan, and we don’t have it yet,” Braxton said.

The board consensus included calls for soil scientists for septic, hydrogeologists for potable water and engineers to study issues such as water pressure for fire suppression where public utilities cannot be extended. An environmental assessment was also recommended.

Jacksonville-based surveyor Charles Riggs submitted the rezoning request last year on behalf of the Olsons. Riggs offered on Monday to draw up a new site plan to allay the board’s unease, but Braxton suggested bringing in other expertise instead.

“You may be going outside of your wheelhouse on something like this because this is a one-of-a-kind shot. This is one of the most primo lots on the East Coast right now and something very unique. And I would think you’d really want to throw what you can at it and get a very talented architect and engineer — landscape architects, a planner, whatever — and have them really go over it and try to give you something good to sell,” Braxton said.

Braxton is president of an engineering and landscape architecture firm who has also worked with the Raleigh Planning Department.

Much of the meeting’s discussion centered on a draft of points for proposed conditions. The Olsons had previously agreed to the planning board’s conditions, included in the document, but commissioners wanted more detailed answers.

Earlier, during the public comment portion of the meeting, several property owners cited similar and familiar concerns about the proposed project. But it was the late-hour revisions that chafed some members of the board.

Commissioners said it was unfair to them and the public to be expected to consider the controversial rezoning application when the plan was still changing as recently as within 24 hours of the workshop meeting at town hall.

Todd Olson said the initial documents were submitted anticipating that further questions would be asked and intending to provide a sense for what the couple would be amenable to in advance.

“We’re not saying, ‘We need that,’ we’re not saying, ‘We want that.’ We’re not saying that even is what’s going to exist. We’re saying that if there’s discussion of a parking lot, there are questions that are, ‘What does it look like?’ and ‘What amenities will be there?’ And we’re simply open to having the conversation. We’re not saying this is what we think, but there’s a lot of conditions that we haven’t had an open dialogue around and we’re trying to create an open dialogue,” Olson said.

Olson said that the changes were also in response to public feedback.

“I don’t think there’s any submission that we’re going to submit that’s going to make people happy to be quite honest,” he said.

Gunter noted that the plans had been public for months, an official public hearing was set for Sept. 13, the board was expected to make its decision in October, and now among the last-minute changes was enlarging the proposed building envelope.

Riggs said that was to allow the family flexibility, “So that when they want to build a house in a couple of years, they can pick the spot and then design it, and then 10 years later, when they want to build their second house, they can pick that spot and then design. So, any plan that you see today is going to be approximate.”

“This needs to start all over again if you’re going to expand what you’re proposing,” Gunter said.

Conservation enhancements

Information was sent to Coastal Review on behalf of the Olsons over the weekend. In it, the couple says their plan would yield community benefits such as preservation of property the town had tried to purchase for more than 20 years, improved and more accessible beach access with showers and bathrooms maintained by an attendant, and enhanced conservation as the new owners would improve awareness of wildlife nesting site “disturbances” now most often caused by “unknowing beachgoers.”

The Olsons say they have been working with the Coastal Land Trust and, if conserved, the nonprofit’s “efforts would have uninterrupted reach between Topsail and Figure Eight Island.”

Their home placement decisions considered factors such as sea level rise, distance from critical habitats, inlet movement and distance from the ocean and Serenity Point.

“We chose these spots to be at the high points on the property,” according to a PowerPoint that was provided to Coastal Review. The slideshow was created by Laura Olson and details the steps the family plans to take regarding conversation and preservation.

The slideshow also notes the accretion of sand at The Point as the inlet has shifted farther out: “The walk around the point was a much shorter walk 50 years ago!” a text box superimposed over an aerial image showing historic shoreline positions over the decades.

Dr. Rob Young, director of the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines at Western Carolina University, has maintained that the site is appropriately zoned as-is. He said the Olson’s proposed conditions do nothing to diminish the risk.

“There are no ways to modify the project that would reduce the hazard exposure,” Young told Coastal Review Monday in an email.

Young, who has been mapping coastal hazards for three decades and has served on the North Carolina Coastal Resources Commission’s Science Advisory Panel, also leads a project working with the National Park Service to assess the vulnerability of every asset in every U.S. coastal park.

In previous comments submitted to the town, Young has contended that the site “would rank as extremely high in every single category we evaluate for coastal hazards” and leave town residents responsible for the potential consequences, including post-storm liabilities.

In his comments also published on his LinkedIn page, Young warned, “Don’t be misled by the fact that the spit is currently growing. It is still highly storm vulnerable. Land adjacent to inlets can change rapidly and it will experience extreme storm surge and significant wave impact during storm events. If you approve building here, you may as well eliminate all restrictions and pretend that we have learned nothing about coastal processes and coastal hazards over the last few decades in North Carolina. It is as simple as that.”

TOPSAIL BEACH – With the one-year mark approaching since a Raleigh software entrepreneur submitted plans to build a family compound on the undeveloped south end of Topsail Island, frustrations have mounted over when to hold the next and possibly final public hearing on a request to rezone a portion of the property.

This week, commissioners set a hearing for late summer.

When the town planner suggested Topsail Beach commissioners host the public hearing in October, several property owners attending the board’s regular monthly meeting Wednesday night let out a collective sigh of exacerbation and verbally protested.

What ensued was a debate of timelines, procedure and, when the conversation turned to holding the public hearing on a Saturday rather than during a regular weeknight meeting of the commissioners, precedent.

“October? This is July,” Commissioner John Gunter said.

Gunter said he had a list of a dozen or more conditions he’d like to add to proposed development plans that have morphed since Pendo CEO Todd Olson turned them over the town last October as part of a request to conditionally rezone the property.

Olson and his wife Laura are under contract to buy the nearly 150-acre site pending their request to rezone roughly a quarter of the property from its current conservation zone.

The couple has also signed a letter of intent with the North Carolina Coastal Land Trust to grant the organization a conservation easement for a minimum of 80% of the property, which would forever prevent development on more than 115 acres.

But a grassroots group called Conserve the Point is working with nongovernmental organizations to try and cull public and private funding to buy the land from the current owners to ensure none of the property gets developed.

The Topsail Beach Planning Board in May unanimously denied the Olsons’ rezoning request.

The Olsons want to build seven houses, a pool and pool house, decking beach and sound accesses, and a six-slip private marina on the sprawling, natural area known as The Point.

The south end of Topsail Island has steadily grown over the years with the island’s southerly migration at New Topsail Inlet.

The land, owned for decades by the McLeod family, is a popular draw for residents, tourists and frequent visitors of the town who enjoy sandy walks along the ocean and sound shores.

The Olsons’ request to rezone fewer than 30 acres has been met with fierce opposition from property owners, tourists and environmentalists.

The land is designated critical habitat to threatened and endangered piping plovers and loggerhead sea turtles. It is within a state-designated inlet hazard area and in a VE flood zone, which is an area with a 1% or greater chance of flooding with an additional risk of damage from storm waves.

The property is also within a federally designated Coastal Barrier Resources Act, or CBRA, unit.

Congress enacted CBRA in the early 1980s to discourage development in low-lying, storm- and flood-prone coastal areas by prohibiting certain federal assistance within those areas, including eligibility to the National Flood Insurance Program. Local governments face the threat of being cut off from some types of federal funding if that town, city or county extends infrastructure such as water and sewer service to development within a CBRA zone.

Town commissioners were informed Wednesday night that Laura Olson is in the process of meeting with various environmental agencies at the property and that she has a deadline of Aug. 18 to submit any additional information to the town based on the results of those meetings.

That led to commissioners questioning whether the Olsons are planning to make changes to the plans that have been submitted to the town.

When asked to address commissioners, a visibly frustrated Charles Riggs, the Jacksonville-based surveyor who represents the Olsons, said he was at the meeting with the understanding that the board was going to potentially place additional conditions on the proposed development plans.

“I was not prepared to make a presentation tonight,” he said. “Any change (to the plans) would be based off what the commissioners are requesting. It’s my understanding that the concept and plans that you have seen is what we’re going to be moving forward with. I was here tonight to gather information on what the commissioners wanted to do.”

He said the Olsons certainly do not want to withdraw and resubmit their application to rezone, a suggestion Gunter initially made and then recanted just before the meeting adjourned.

“I don’t want this to go back to the planning board,” Gunter said. “I want this to move and to move fast.”

Commissioner Frank Braxton concurred.

“I agree with John that we need to move this forward and to get this behind us,” he said.

Gunter continued to push for a public hearing before September, a timeline Mayor Steve Smith said simply isn’t feasible.

“We have a lot of other things we have to take care of in the town,” Smith said. “This is not the only one.”

Commissioners unanimously voted to schedule the public hearing at their Sept. 13 meeting.

Commissioners also agreed to hold a workshop to discuss any conditions they may decide to place on the proposed plans. Details of that workshop are to be determined.

Sand to renourish Wrightsville Beach’s ocean shoreline later this year will be pumped from within the same inlet it has for decades.

Making what it calls an emergency exception, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Wilmington District has determined the beach will get sand from Masonboro Inlet, sparing the town what was forecast to be a hefty price increase for a renourishment project that was already behind schedule.

Jed Cayton, a public affairs specialist with the Corps’ Wilmington District, said in an email responding to Coastal Review’s questions that the agency had exercised a Coastal Barrier Resources Act, or CBRA, exception for the town’s upcoming emergency nourishment project.

“Since Masonboro Inlet has been the historic borrow source for the project, the necessary environmental clearances are currently in place,” Cayton said in the email. “This exception was made on a case-by-case analysis, meaning it is for this particular situation only. However, the inlet could be used in the future if the situation fits the criteria of a federal emergency.”

The Corps no longer plans to finalize an environmental assessment of the town’s storm risk management project, the draft of which was released in January, examining alternative sand borrow areas for the town.

Masonboro Inlet has been the town’s go-to sand source since the 1960s.

The rich, beach-quality sand routinely pumped from Banks Channel onto the ocean shoreline lies within federally-designated Coastal Barrier Resources System Unit L09.

CBRA, pronounced “cobra,” was passed by Congress in 1982 to discourage building on relatively undeveloped, storm-prone barrier islands by cutting off federal funding and financial assistance, including federal flood insurance.

The act was also established to minimize damage to fish, wildlife and other resources associated with coastal barrier islands.

The interpretation of the law as it pertains to whether sand that is within a CBRA unit may be dredged and placed onto a beach outside of a CBRA zone has been kicked back-and-forth between federal regulatory agencies for years.

Wrightsville Beach had been shielded from the debate because the town was given an exception since it had been using the inlet as a borrow source years before CBRA was enacted. In the mid-1990s, the Corps made the exception a permanent rule, one that continued to be upheld through 2019 when then-Interior Secretary David Bernhardt determined that federal funds could be used to pay for dredging sand within CBRA units and for placing that sand on beaches outside of those zones for shoreline-stabilization projects.

Looking back: Tiresome issue won’t stop Wrightsville Beach sand project

Last year, the Biden administration overturned the rule, a move that forced Wrightsville Beach to look offshore for a sand borrow source.

Aside from anticipating a higher price tag to move sand from the ocean floor, the town ran into an unexpected problem with its offshore site – tires.

During surveys of the offshore borrow site, the Corps discovered some 300,000 tires had broken free from an old artificial reef and scattered along an area of seafloor within the site. A Corps official last year said the agency would have a mitigation plan to try and prevent a dredge from sucking up tires and pumping them onto the beach.

The Corps did not indicate whether the presence of tires within the offshore borrow site played a part in its decision to grant the emergency exemption.

Wrightsville Beach was initially on track to receive sand last year, New Hanover County Shoreline Protection Coordinator Layton Bedsole said Monday.

“I think it’s a positive step,” he said of the emergency exemption.

Wrightsville Beach Town Manager Tim Owens did not return a call Monday seeking comment.

Congressman David Rouzer, R-N.C., in January introduced a bill to amend CBRA to allow federal funds to be used for coastal storm risk management projects that have been pumping sand from borrow sources within a CBRA zone for more than 15 years.

Earlier this month, Rouzer and Wrightsville Beach Mayor Darryl Mills testified in favor of the bill before the House Natural Resources Subcommittee on Water, Wildlife and Fisheries.

During his May 10 address to the subcommittee, Rouzer said that the inlet borrow site has “served as a reliable, ecologically friendly” source for more than 50 years. He expressed urgency for renourishment of the town’s beachfront.

“Seasonal storms have caused flooding to occur quickly and more easily than in the past. In fact, if Wrightsville Beach experiences one more major storm, the destruction to property could be catastrophic, costing taxpayers as well as the National Flood Insurance Program significantly more,” he said.

Cayton said the Corps will continue to work with the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management to identify suitable borrow sources “within and beyond 3 nautical miles” for the town.

“An environmental assessment will be completed on any source considered,” he said.

Work to move tens of thousands of cubic yards of sand from the inlet borrow source to the town’s ocean shoreline is expected to begin in mid-November and wrap by the close of the environmental window March 31, 2024.

Heavy shoaling has created a challenging water course for ferries that carry tens of thousands of visitors to Cape Lookout National Seashore where iconic structures, including the lighthouse, are being threatened by erosion. 

Now, for the first time in more than a decade, the National Park Service hopes to unclog two channels — Lighthouse Channel and U.S. Coast Guard Channel — that passenger ferries and private boaters use to access the park and place the material that is dredged onto the soundside beach in front of the lighthouse compound. The public has until June 8 to comment on the plan.

“The shoaling is not anything new,” Cape Lookout Superintendent Jeff West said. “It’s just part of life out here.”

But not since March 2006 have sand borrow areas within Barden Inlet been dredged and that sand placed on the beach at the historic lighthouse. Erosion has stripped that sand away, leaving the iconic structures vulnerable. 

The federally maintained channel from Back Sound to Lookout Bight has not been dredged since 1997. 

Boat strandings have become commonplace as a result of the heavy shoaling. 

Many fishing and trawling boats cannot pass through Barden Inlet, which runs into Lookout Bight to the Atlantic Ocean, leaving the sole alternative of traveling nearly 9 miles west to Beaufort Inlet according to a draft environmental impact statement, or EIS, of the proposed project. 

There is no record of when the two park service channels, which access the dock to the lighthouse compound and a dock to the old Cape Lookout U.S. Coast Guard Station, were last dredged, according to the permit application. 

The Coast Guard pulled navigation buoys from Barden Inlet back in 2017. 

West said a number of local boaters have gone out and marked the channels, but constantly shifting sand moved at the will of currents, storms and extreme lunar tides makes those efforts fruitless.

“Low tide out there is terribly difficult to navigate,” he said in a recent telephone interview. “If you’re not running it all the time, it’s even more difficult. Even our ferry service, and those guys make multiple trips every day, have had some problems. They are able to make most of the runs most of the time. It’s just that they may have to be a little bit more careful when they run what we call locally the ‘S’ turns.” 

Each year some 110,000 passengers use passenger ferry service from Harkers Island to Cape Lookout, where a 200-foot docking facility leads to the 1859 lighthouse, lighthouse keeper’s quarters, a series of smaller structures and picnic areas. 

Cape Lookout also can be accessed by passenger ferry service from Beaufort.

The park is home to the old Coast Guard station and a former residential village. The NPS plans in the future to use the now-dilapidated station dock for maintenance operations. 

Erosion now threatens the 1873 lighthouse keeper’s quarters and summer kitchen. 

“There’s a critical issue there,” West said. 

The 2006 nourishment project injected 74,000 cubic yards of material over a three-quarter-mile stretch of the soundside beach in front of the lighthouse compound. 

An estimated 38,000 cubic yards of sand is anticipated to be placed on about 450 feet of beach if this next round of nourishment is approved, West said. 

“Ultimately what we’re trying to do is keep direct ocean impact from striking those buildings and taking those out,” he said. “Anything there man-made over there on the banks is subject to be destroyed.” 

The hope is to kick off the project – $6.5 million by rough estimates – on Nov. 1. 

“We’ve still got to answer concerns that were raised during the environmental assessment process,” West said. “I don’t foresee anything major coming out of that.” 

More than 150,000 cubic yards of material is anticipated to be dredged from the federal channel in Back Sound and placed onto Sandbag Island. 

According to the draft EIS, which assessed three project alternatives, neither essential fish habitat nor related species in the proposed project area is expected to be adversely affected under the park service’s preferred alternative. 

The preferred dredging locations are not likely to adversely affect sea turtles, sturgeon or manta rays, according to the study, but placement of dredged material may affect and will likely adversely affect sea turtles, piping plover, red knot and seabeach amaranth. 

The National Park Service is seeking a 10-year permit to cover maintenance dredging and material placement two or three times within that time frame. 

West said that, ultimately, the service’s goal is to install a living shoreline along the soundside beach to curb erosion. 

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is accepting written public comments on the park service’s May 1 permit application until 5 p.m. June 8. Comments may be submitted to Emily Hughes, Wilmington Regulatory Field Office, 69 Darlington Ave. Wilmington, NC 28403, or by email at emily.b.hughes@usace.army.mil. 

TOPSAIL BEACH – The highly anticipated recommendation for a rezoning request that would allow development on the southern end of Topsail Island is likely a little more than two weeks away.

Island property owners and visitors to the Pender County beach town continued to voice their opposition Wednesday to rezoning “The Point,” nearly 150 undisturbed acres stretching from the ocean to New Topsail Inlet.

Raleigh software entrepreneur Todd Olson is under contract to buy the tract pending his request of the town to rezone the land from conservation to conditional use, which would allow him to pursue plans to build a family compound.

Olson was not at the Topsail Beach Planning Board’s meeting Wednesday that included a public hearing, during which 20 people spoke in objection to his request.

The land that has been owned by the McLeod family for decades is a sentimental spot for many familiar with the island.

Speakers at Wednesday’s hearing expressed their love of the property and reiterated concerns raised over the past several months about potential environmental impacts development may have on land both state and federal governments have deemed particularly vulnerable to coastal storms because of its location to an inlet.

The property is within a state-designated Inlet Hazard Area, one in which shorelines face a higher threat of erosion and flooding at inlets that can suddenly and dramatically shift. The land is also in a Coastal Barrier Resources System, or CBRS, zone.

Congress created the system in the early 1980s to discourage building on relatively undeveloped barrier islands by barring federal funding and financial assistance in hurricane-prone, biologically rich areas.

Charles Riggs, a Jacksonville-based land surveyor representing Olson, told planning board members Wednesday that infrastructure on the property, including water wells, septic systems and roads, will be privately maintained.

Jones-Onslow Electric Membership Corp. has indicated it will supply power to the site.

Olson’s development proposal has changed since he initially approached the town with his rezoning request last year, including a proposal to conserve a majority of the property.

A lawyer representing Olson said Wednesday that Olson is currently in negotiations with the North Carolina Coastal Land Trust to place about 80% of the land — likely 115 or so acres — in a conservation easement in perpetuity.

That would restrict that portion of the land from being developed but allow construction within what officials call a “building envelope” of roughly 30 acres.

Plans submitted to the town call for seven homes, including a boat house Riggs said is being considered a dwelling, a fenced-in pool, road and waterfront accesses, and a six-slip private marina.

Riggs said the proposed development is a generational plan, one where Olson would initially have one house built with the prospect of adding the other six in the future.

The property would not be fenced off, Riggs said, but it will be gated.

Riggs said the houses would be single-story structures with low-profile roofs. The roofline of the homes may be at an elevation of 37 to 38 feet, he said, at least a couple of feet lower than those at Serenity Point, a townhome community sitting next to the property.

The homes cannot exceed 5,000 square feet, per building restrictions set forth in development within Inlet Hazard Areas.

The town’s planning staff last week sent Riggs a list of conditions for Olson to consider, including limiting the number of structures to those currently identified on the plan and granting a privately-maintained 30-foot easement for emergency vehicles to access the property.

Other conditions call for Olson to dedicate an existing parking lot at the south end to the town and about one acre adjacent to the lot, and have sprinkler systems installed in each house.

The town is not extending water service to the property, a move that would jeopardize Topsail Beach from receiving future federal funding because the property is in the CBRS.

The town-maintained parking lot is owned by the McLeod family, members of whom attended the public hearing.

Tom Terrell, an attorney representing the family, said the family has kindly and graciously allowed the public to freely access the land for six decades.

“This family has a unique voice,” he said. “They have a special interest that nobody in this room has. They have been willing taxpayers of this property. It is their property.”

He asked the planning board to recognize that the McLeod family has property rights and argued that denying the rezoning request would be a first step in a taking of the property.

The planning board is scheduled to meet May 24 and is expected to make its recommendation on the rezoning request. The board must make its decision by May 30.

The recommendation will then go before Topsail Beach commissioners, who will also hold a public hearing on the request.

RODANTHE — It’s been more than a year since the first oceanfront house, standing on an eroded beach within Cape Hatteras National Seashore, collapsed into the ocean in the early morning on Feb. 9.

Two more nearby houses fell in May. Each time, tons of construction debris — jagged, sharp, toxic, ugly — were carried for miles by wind and surf into the sea and along the beach.

Although the privately owned houses in Rodanthe, a small Hatteras Island village, were left by erosion teetering on the public beach, local, state and federal officials have been stymied by gaps in laws and a lack of funding options to prevent other houses from being swallowed by the Atlantic.

Special Report: Houses on the Edge

“I don’t believe that anyone really wants to see structures end up all the way out on the public beach, including the property owners,” Braxton Davis, director of the North Carolina Division of Coastal Management, told 46 attendees during a virtual workshop held Monday to share information and discuss solutions on threatened oceanfront houses, some of which obstruct the surf zone with their damaged decks and exposed septic tanks.

“They’re creating some impacts to aquatic species and shorebirds and their habitats, and they’re interfering with public use of the beach,” Davis said. “And unfortunately, in some cases, really no action is taken or available until after a house collapses and results in significant marine debris and additional impacts and costs.”

Hosted by Cape Hatteras National Seashore, and the division, which is part of the state Department of Environmental Quality, six members of the interagency work group, including co-chairs Davis and Hallac, addressed the topic “Property Acquisition and Financial Assistance.”

In the first of the four workshops planned for the year, other participants were Bill Holman, North Carolina director of The Conservation Fund; Bobby Outten, Dare County manager and attorney; Gavin Smith, professor at North Carolina State University’s Department of Landscape, Architecture and Environmental Planning; Tancred Miller, sections chief for the division’s policy and planning; and Heidi Stiller, South regional director for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Office for Coastal Management.

The group was established in August 2022 to determine, along with partners and stakeholders, policies and programs to “establish a proactive, holistic, predictable, and coordinated approach to erosion-threatened structures and to ensure that appropriate regulatory, legal, insurance, and financial mechanisms exist,” according to a division press release. The meeting Monday was its first open to the public and press.

But Dave Hallac, superintendent of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore, cautioned that the task force’s initial discussion is part of a process to determine what questions to ask and where to direct them, rather than resolve every issue.

“We need better answers and we need to develop better programs,” he said.

In his opening remarks, Davis noted that the coastal benefits of North Carolina’s “fairly conservative” oceanfront construction setbacks, as well as numerous beach nourishment projects, have been offset by constraints such as septic rules and private-versus-public property rights that can limit options to address impacts of beach erosion.

“And while sometimes you’ll have permitting conflicts, and legal disputes that linger for those properties while they’re out on the beach,” he continued, “they are, over the time period where that’s happening, posing significant risks to public health and safety.”

The following four questions were posed by the co-chairs:

• What programs are currently available to acquire, relocate or “deconstruct” threatened ocean structures?
• What is involved for beach communities that are considering a buyout, relocation or removal program?
• What options, if any, may be available through nonprofit organizations?
• What may be “out of the box” options worth investigating or pursuing?

As Hallac had forewarned, there weren’t many clear answers to be had.

For instance, Holman named a few programs that are in place, including the Resilient Communities Program and the Public Beach and Coastal Waterfront Access Program, but as they’re currently set up, neither would fund relocation or removal of threatened oceanfront structures.

Still, they could potentially be expanded or amended to allow those structures to be eligible, he said. And over the next four years, he added, there is potential for project funding from the $1 trillion 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.

Although climate change has finally gotten the attention of policymakers, government programs haven’t provided for more proactive measures such as relocation, retreat or removal. And assistance for owners of second homes or investment properties is anathema in proposals that involve public dollars.

Stiller with NOAA said that, in general, help for getting out of harm’s way is less available than help for repairs after the fact.

“I think the bottom line is there just isn’t a lot of funding out there for this,” she said. “And particularly, there isn’t funding for this in the predisaster context.”

But Stiller encouraged the panel to look at innovative programs that have been implemented or proposed in other states that incentivize property owners to work with local governments on solutions for their threatened properties that may buy them time or offer reasonable alternatives.

Buyouts are a concern not just to homeowners who are looking at losing their home, but also to municipalities that are facing loss of their tax base, Smith said.

One solution his department at N.C. State studied was looking at suitable land within the town’s extraterritorial jurisdiction that would maintain access to the municipal infrastructure while finding suitable locations to build replacement housing. But he conceded that there are unique challenges for barrier islands such as the Outer Banks.

“We’re looking at developing a series of managed-retreat options but also protect and accommodate strategies for coastal communities, both oceanfront and soundside,” he said, adding that he hopes to elaborate on them in a later discussion.

Holman said that nonprofits typically are not set up to support moving or buying private properties.

“It’s more challenging with these structures because it’s much harder to get both public and private support for buyouts,” he said.

Outten said that Rodanthe, which has a high rate of beach erosion, presents a quandary because its population is relatively small, but costs to fix the threats are relatively high. The county is currently seeking an estimate from a coastal engineering firm on costs for a beach nourishment project that would widen the shoreline in front of the threatened houses.

“You start talking about managed retreat, we do not have a mainland to retreat to,” he said. “And we’re essentially almost built out on the Outer Banks, and so retreat basically means abandonment for us.”

Meanwhile, as engineers and coastal managers work on long-term solutions, Outten suggested that it would make sense for national flood insurance policies administered by the Federal Emergency Management Agency to pay before a threatened house falls, rather than forcing homeowners to wait for collapse.

“If FEMA is going to pay for that, if that is something that is insurable and is a recoverable claim, then where it’s inevitable, as it is in Rodanthe, do a buyout ahead of the disaster to avoid all the problems that would come with it,” he said. “Let’s pay them out now and let’s get rid of them.”

Another improvement in government response, Stiller said, would be to require that people who buy property in vulnerable areas to buy an insurance policy that pays for removal and cleanup. Also, she said, paying for buyouts could provide the benefit of freeing up land to do nature-based solutions such as dune restoration.

Much of government is structured to protect roads and public infrastructure, Stiller said, citing a 2019 research paper, “Roads to Nowhere in Four States: State and Local Governments in the Atlantic Southeast Facing Sea-Level Rise.” But that posture overlooks current challenges, suggesting, she said, that “we need some new legal structures for this because we haven’t had to deal with these things before.”

Davis said that the next meeting planned for May will focus on legal and insurance issues.

At that, Miller said that private sector input will also be needed “to define where the answers are,” to address vulnerable beachfront houses on the eroding shoreline, considering that the risks and benefits of actions — or inactions — will be shared.

“But the clock is ticking,” he said. “… the impacts are being felt by all of us, whether they are before they collapse, and then after they collapse, certainly.”

Comments may be submitted by email to DCMcomments@ncdenr.gov. The subject line should reference “threatened oceanfront structures.”

OCEAN ISLE BEACH – This Brunswick County beach town may be the first in the state to test whether bales of hay and pine straw are an effective alternative to sand fencing.

The North Carolina Coastal Resources Commission on Thursday granted Ocean Isle Beach a variance that will, with conditions, allow the town to place hay and pine straw bales at six areas on the eastern end of the island.

The town has agreed to monitor the bales and report back to the state Division of Coastal Management, or DCM, on their effectiveness at trapping sand to boost dune building and how well or not they weather coastal storms.

Ocean Isle officials must consult with the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service before the division may issue a permit. Both wildlife agencies raised concerns about the use of bales as a sand management tool when the town applied for a Coastal Area Management Act, or CAMA permit, last year.

Officials with those agencies question the potential impacts to habitat, including that of nesting sea turtles, as the bales decompose, and the possibility of bales being a haven for nesting insects.

The Wildlife Resources Commission last June stated that any impacts of bales on the beach are undetermined and should “be vetted prior to allowance.”

“The direct, secondary, and cumulative impacts bales may have on these resources coast wide is unknown and should be discussed in more detail prior to the inclusion of bales as a management tool by the NCDCM. No information has been found regarding bale use on ocean shorelines in other states, so previously studied examples cannot be compared,” according to the Wildlife Resources Commission.

The Coastal Resources Commission, which held its first meeting of the year in Ocean Isle Beach, agreed that while the town must consult with the Wildlife Resources Commission and Fish and Wildlife Service, the town will not be bound by concerns raised by those agencies.

Ocean Isle hopes the bales will build up dunes along what is now a flat stretch of beach leading up to sandbags placed in front of waterfront homes to hold back erosion at the east end of the island.

In 2005, the town installed 1,800 feet of sandbags along east end and in 2012 added another 400 feet. The town covered the bags with stockpiled sand to try and create starter dunes after a terminal groin was built last April on the island’s east end at Shallotte Inlet.

The Coastal Resources Advisory Council, an advisory board to the commission, visited Wednesday the more than 1,000-foot-long groin, the second to be built in the state after the General Assembly in 2011 repealed a 30-year ban on hardened erosion control structures on ocean beaches.

A terminal groin is a wall-like structure built perpendicular to the ocean shoreline and designed to reduce erosion at inlets. Engineers who met with members of the council at Ocean Isle’s terminal groin last week said that the structure appeared so far to be working as designed, but that it is too soon to determine whether it’s a success.

The lack of a dune system behind the groin leaves the east end of Ocean Isle vulnerable to storms.

Ocean Isle’s town attorney Brian Eades displayed pictures taken during and after Hurricane Ian swept up the East Coast last fall that showed ocean overwash on private properties and into streets at the island’s east end.

In the months prior to that storm, the town had tried, unsuccessfully, to buy sand fencing for the east end.

In this post-pandemic market of supply chain issues and inflation, the time it takes to get sand fencing is lagging and the cost to buy has risen.

“It’s a hardship and it’s a hardship unique to this town,” Eades told commissioners.

He said concerns raised by wildlife agencies are speculative and not supported by a peer-reviewed study. Eades also said he does not see the difference between needles from bales being on the beach and pine needles from dead Christmas trees, which are placed on some beaches to build up dunes.

In May 2015, some property owners of two lots on Figure Eight Island, a private island in New Hanover County, installed bales without state authorization. That August, the Division of Coastal Management issued a CAMA minor permit authorizing the use of hay bales in lieu of sand fencing.

The hay bales were on the beach only a few months before they were washed away by storms, according to the Division of Coastal Management.

If permitted, bales will be placed at six street-end sites along the shore under the same requirements as wooden slat and wire sand fencing.

Coastal Resources Commission Chair Renee Cahoon said, based on how the bales perform, they could “add something to the tool box.”

“We’ll never know until we try something,” she said.

Monitoring will include photographic documentation on a monthly basis, following the durability of the bales, and placing signs on the beach notifying the public that the bales are a pilot project.

In other Coastal Resources Commission business:

• The Coastal Resources Commission received additional information about proposed amendments to inlet hazard areas, or IHAs. IHAs are shorelines at inlets, which can shift suddenly and dramatically, making them especially vulnerable to erosion and flooding. The state is in the process of updating the fiscal analysis for the proposed redrawn IHA boundary maps. Though construction is allowed in these areas, there are building size limits and setbacks that must be met. The public will have more time to comment on the proposed amendments, including a public hearing, before the commission makes a decision.
• The commission discussed amendments to proposed rules on beachfront septic systems. One of the proposed rules would allow oceanfront property owners who can repair a septic tank without having to relocate it from having to obtain a permit. The commission also discussed setback requirements for property owners that have to replace their septic tanks.

The commission is scheduled to meet April 26-27 in the Outer Banks.

A Topsail Island board hopes to prompt change to a North Carolina law that requires beach towns to foot the costs of building and maintaining hardened beach erosion-control structures.

When the North Carolina General Assembly in 2011 repealed a 30-year-old ban on the structures, known as terminal groins, legislators determined that state funds cannot be spent “for any activities related to a terminal groin and its accompanying beach project … unless the General Assembly enacts legislation appropriating funds explicitly for such purpose.”

The Topsail Island Shoreline Protection Commission, or TISPC, has included in its goals for 2023 advocating for a change to state funding and local financing guidelines for terminal groins, a move that could benefit North Topsail Beach.

North Topsail is currently in a long-haul process to determine whether a terminal groin is the town’s best option in curbing erosion at New River Inlet.

TISPC Chairman and Topsail Beach Mayor Steve Smith said the commission’s move is part of a process that “would like to see if the possibility exists of the state reconsidering their position on funding.”

The commission, made up of elected officials and local government appointees from the island’s three beach towns and Onslow and Pender counties, functions as a collaboration to preserve the 26-mile-long barrier island’s beaches and surrounding waterways.

While each town has its own set of needs, the differences are perhaps most stark at each end of the island.

In Topsail Beach, the southern tip of the island has been accreting, building up an expanse of unspoiled, undeveloped land.

The scene at the island’s northernmost end is the complete opposite, where the battle against erosion is as constant as the ebb and flow of waves on North Topsail’s ocean shore.

Initial attempts to curb erosion at the north end began around the early 2000s.

In early 2013, the town had high hopes its decision to proceed with a project to realign the New River Inlet channel would adequately reduce erosion at the north end.

It did not.

By then, the state’s longstanding ban on hardened beach erosion-control structures had been repealed, leaving the town the possible option to build a terminal groin.

A terminal groin is a wall-like structure made of rock or other material placed perpendicular to the shore and adjacent to an inlet, at the island’s terminus, to control erosion.

Two North Carolina Beach towns – Bald Head Island, and more recently, Ocean Isle Beach – have built terminal groins since 2011.

The General Assembly’s decision more than a decade ago to repeal the ban on terminal groins was met with opposition from some prominent coastal scientists in the state and environmental groups, including the North Carolina Coastal Federation, which publishes Coastal Review.

They argue hardened beach erosion structures increase erosion farther down beach and are expensive to build and maintain.

Roughly a year after the New River Inlet channel-realignment project was completed, North Topsail Beach received an emergency permit to build a sandbag revetment at the northern end to protect homes and condominiums.

In all, about 3,600 feet of sandbags have been placed along the ocean shore from the inlet south to Topsail Reef condominiums.

“We are getting close to when we need to renew our permit,” said North Topsail Beach Mayor Pro Tem Mike Benson.

Benson, who is a sitting board member of the TISPC, emphasized that the town had not decided whether to build a terminal groin. In fact, no past boards of aldermen had voted to construct a terminal groin.

Coastal engineering firm Applied Technology & Management Inc., in 2018 presented to the town a recommendation to build a terminal groin spanning a minimum of 1,500 feet.

The next year, the Army Corps of Engineers signed off on a third-party agreement with North Topsail Beach authorizing an environmental engineering firm to serve as an independent contractor to evaluate all alternatives, including a terminal groin, at the inlet.

“We’re in the very beginning stages because (Hurricane) Florence came along and COVID came along,” Benson said. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers “is really just getting into this for us and they haven’t published a notice of intent yet.”

The initial estimated cost presented to the town to build a terminal groin was around $10 million, he said.

“We have no idea what the cost would be today,” Benson said. “We’re looking out to the future to see how we can get some state help.”

Legislators whose districts include North Topsail Beach did not respond to requests for comment.

North Topsail Beach elected officials in recent years have worked to prioritize spending to ensure the town pays off debt while funding capital projects and beach nourishment projects.

In 2021, elected officials there backed away from a proposed joint project with Surf City and the Corps that would have secured routine beach nourishment along the southernmost 4.5 miles of North Topsail’s ocean shoreline for 50 years.

The board said the town could not fund its more than $33 million of the project’s cost.

RODANTHE — A new bridge has bypassed a dangerous and persistent ocean overwash problem on the roadway on the north end of Hatteras Island. Now residents of this tiny village are looking for beach nourishment to protect their homes from washing into the ocean.

The reason that Rodanthe is at risk is the same reason that a shoreline protection project would be very difficult: the unmanageable forces of geology, erosion and sea level rise.

“Look at the shape of the coast from Rodanthe down to Waves and Salvo, a broad convex to the shoreline,” Tim Kana, owner of Columbia, South Carolina-based Coastal Science & Engineering and a professional geologist, explained to Coastal Review. “You’re eroding at Rodanthe and accreting at Waves and Salvo. This crescent moon is just shifting down the coast.”

Averaging 14 feet per year and as much as 20 feet at times in some sections of beach, Rodanthe has one of the highest erosion rates on the East Coast, and in recent years it’s been accelerating. Homes that had many yards of beach out front when purchased are now sitting at the edge of the surf. Last year, three of them collapsed into the sea, and others now must be relocated back from the shoreline to prevent the same fate.

Special Report: Houses on the Edge

Without an infusion of lots of state or federal money, or enormous amounts of local tax revenue, the prospect of a new shoreline protection project for privately owned properties would be impossible.

At a standing-room-only community meeting held by Dare County Jan. 18 in Rodanthe, county manager Bobby Outten told residents that the first step in looking at beach nourishment is getting an update on the erosion rate provided in a 2013 study done by Kana’s firm that estimated a $20 million cost to widen Rodanthe’s beaches.

“We know that’s not going to be enough,” he said.

In a slide presentation, Outten gave an overview of beach nourishment projects in the county, starting with Nags Head in 2011. After the federal government declined to fund a planned project, the county stepped in and paid half the costs out of a special fund it created with 2% of its annual occupancy tax revenue. Since then, the county has continued sharing costs with numerous other town projects in the county, as well as its own in the unincorporated villages of Avon and Buxton.

Today, there is about $6 million available in the fund, he said, and to fund just the prior $20 million estimate for Rodanthe nourishment, the county would need $30 million.

“The question is, ‘how are we going to pay for this?’” he said. “That fund is not going to grow fast enough.”

The tax value generated from the combined 81 or so properties in Rodanthe would also fall woefully short.

Outten added that Dare County and other coastal communities in North Carolina have been asking the state to establish a recurring fund to help pay for nourishment projects.

“I’ll tell you, it’s not just us,” he said. “We’re all working all angles we can.”

In Dare County alone, two other areas — the “canal zone” on N.C. Highway 12 south of the Basnight Bridge and the Isabel Inlet area on N.C. 12 in Buxton — are subject to severe erosion. But those areas are part of a critical public transportation route. Rodanthe’s oceanfront area, on the other hand, is unlikely to be eligible for public funds because, although the beaches are part of Cape Hatteras National Seashore, the affected property is mostly vacation homes that are privately owned.

During the public comment period, Jett Ferebee, who owns a campground in Rodanthe, said that because the National Park Service owns the public beach, the situation is different than the other areas of the county.

“If we lose the entire beach in Rodanthe, I would declare that’s an impairment of the our National Park system,” he said. “Rodanthe, we’re sitting here, an unincorporated village, we really don’t have much representation. We need some federal help.”

Dave Hallac, superintendent of Cape Hatteras National Seashore, said that National Park Service policy does not permit spending public funds to protect private property. Not only are hundreds of parks competing for slim funds, there are numerous park needs and projects on the Outer Banks, including severe erosion on Ocracoke Island, that is threatening the National Seashore and N.C. 12.

Dare County, one of the most popular tourist destinations in the state, is not a poor or underserved county, so it does not qualify for government funds that are intended to help less wealthy populations and communities. That was part of the reason that Rodanthe was largely unsuited for a recent state grant program to buy out at-risk homes, Outten said.

Outten said he is trying to see what the options are, and the first step is finding out what the current erosion rate is and how much cubic yardage of sand would be required to do a nourishment project. The $35,000 update, which would provide a “rough estimate” of the extent of the project, would likely take 90-120 days to complete.

Kana, who said that work had not yet begun, explained that Rodanthe is not only challenging because of the high erosion rate, but also because it doesn’t have much naturally deposited sand available near shore, so it would have to be found farther offshore.

But it’s hard to know what to expect before doing the updated engineering work.

“Rodanthe is more exposed with the curvature of the shoreline right there,” Kana said. “The only way you can address that is with sand-retaining structures.”

But those structures are not permitted on ocean shorelines in North Carolina.

With so much erosion and storm damage happening nationwide, finding enough public money is at best extremely competitive.

“What I heard from that meeting is that new beach nourishment in Dare County is basically dead,” said Rob Young, director of the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines at Western Carolina University. “It was a very straightforward presentation.”

Young said he appreciated Outten’s frankness with Rodanthe residents about the situation. “That’s certainly not what they wanted to hear,” Young said.

Young, who attended the meeting, said he was disappointed to not hear a discussion of future buyouts. “What threatens the beach is development,” he said. “It’s not the park service’s job to hold the beach because there’s development there.”

Young said that with enough money, beach nourishment could buy time in Rodanthe to establish a buyout program, he said.

“It’s the best long-term solution,” he said of buyouts.

The long-drawn process of updating maps at coastal inlets and building rules within those areas will stretch well into the New Year.

Proposed updates to the state’s inlet hazard areas, or IHAs, will be tweaked again and up for discussion at the state Coastal Resources Commission’s February 2023 meeting.

If the commission at that time approves rule amendments proposed by Division of Coastal Management staff, it will kick off another round of the state rulemaking process, giving everyone from property owners to developers more time to express their opinions on the matter.

Related: Coastal commission delays vote on clarified septic rules

IHAs were established at developed inlets along the state’s coast more than 40 years ago to tighten building rules in these areas where shorelines are especially vulnerable to erosion and flooding.

“So, because they’re the most dynamic places we have on the coast, that’s where we typically see our erosion hotspots, that’s where we end up with sandbags and emergency orders and long-term impacts to inland habitats and beach uses and economic impacts. Those are the most hazardous spots,” Division Director Braxton Davis said at the commission’s Nov. 17 meeting.

IHAs are designed to control density and structure size at inlets.

Commission members during their September meeting unanimously approved updated maps and rules for these areas, wrapping up decades of discussions on how to best predict inlet erosion and accretion rates.

But shortly after that mid-September meeting, division staff discovered that the way the new rule was written cut out an exception that would allow homes of up to 2,000 square feet to be built in areas where the new erosion rate-based setbacks in the IHAs would prevent construction of new houses.

The division later that month withdrew the updated rules from the Rules Review Commission, which reviews and approves rules adopted by state agencies.

The division hosted a series of workshops in late 2019 through early 2020 in communities that will be affected by the rule updates and extended the public comment period for the proposed amended rules.

Property owners, developers and town officials continue to raise concerns about some of the proposed amendments and the map updates.

Davis told commission members that most of the letters he had read were from property owners whose lots were in an IHA and who worried that they would not be able to rebuild their homes if destroyed or damaged more than 50% by storms, fire or other causes.

“And that is just not the way that rule reads,” he said. “In fact, all of the existing homes would be grandfathered under the rules the same way that they’re grandfathered across the entire oceanfront in North Carolina.”

However, there are restrictions to rebuilding.

“You have to have at least 60 feet of distance between the oceanfront vegetation line and where the structure is,” Davis said. “You can’t expand the footprint and so there’s some conditions.”

North Carolina has 19 active inlets. Ten of those are developed, including Tubbs, Shallotte and Lockwood Folly in Brunswick County; Carolina Beach, Masonboro, Mason and Rich in New Hanover County; New Topsail and New River in Pender County; and Bogue Inlet in Carteret County.

Hundreds of acres at those inlets are designed IHAs.

At least some Ocean Isle Beach property owners are pushing back on the proposed map for Shallotte Inlet, arguing that erosion at the island’s east end is being curtailed by the terminal groin built there last spring.

The terminal groin, a wall-like structure made of rocks placed perpendicular to the shore at inlets to reduce erosion, was built well after the proposed updated maps were recommended for the commission’s approval.

Steve Johnson lives at Ocean Isle’s east end. He was one of a handful of people who spoke during the commission’s meeting earlier this month in Beaufort about the proposed IHA rule amendments and updated maps.

“The current plan was designed in 2019,” he said. “It is 2022, three years later. We’re not talking about the current state of reality on any design, specifically Ocean Isle. Why in the world would we implement rules on something that is not current reality.”

Ocean Isle property owner Cherri Cheek agreed.

“The map created several years ago affects many homes and properties on Ocean Isle Beach,” she said. “Studies for creating these maps need to be performed in the present and take into consideration our present-day beach renourishment and the completion of the terminal groin before causing the property rights of our citizens to be in danger. The map does not change the dynamics of nature, but it does take away the property rights of our tax paying citizens. The tax repercussions to our town and our county are huge.”

Ocean Isle Beach Assistant Town Administrator Justin Whiteside said that adding another 152 acres of property in the existing IHA would exceed the $1 million impact threshold set by the state.

The state’s goal is to update the IHAs every five years.

Reprinted from Island Free Press

Underwater power lines crossing Hatteras Inlet’s Connector Channel have created another delay in finalizing the realignment of the Hatteras ferry channel, also known as the Rollinson Channel.

Shortly before Oct. 24, when the Army Corps of Engineers was expected to sign off on the draft environmental assessment, or EA, the agency decided that it needed more information about the cables, Coley Cordeiro, civil works project manager at the Corps’ Wilmington district, told the Dare County Waterways Commission.

“We were pretty close to signing on the dotted line, and then this cable issue came up,” she said, calling into the meeting held Nov. 14 at the Dare County Administration Building in Manteo.

But she assured the panel that it shouldn’t be much longer before the issue is resolved.

“We’re working that into the environmental assessment,” she said, “and we should have that buttoned up by the end of November.”

The inlet channels are currently under state and federal jurisdictions, with only a portion of them authorized for federal funding or dredging, including the Hatteras Ferry Channel.

Commissioners have been frustrated for years by having to obtain different permits and funds to address shoaling, an inefficient and costly process. Once the realignment is in place, it would expand federal authorization for dredging in the inlet and allow more flexible and responsive maintenance and emergency dredging year-round.

Initially, the Hatteras Ferry Channel Realignment Draft Environmental Assessment, released in October 2021, was expected to be approved by April, but finalization has been stymied by additional review requirements to include the Connector, or Connecting, Channel in the EA and to determine impacts on submerged aquatic vegetation, among other reasons.

Commission Chairman Steve “Creature” Coulter seemed baffled at the recently stalled progress.

“That cable’s been there for a long time,” he noted. “It’s just kind of strange that it’s causing this delay at the end.”

Army Corps of Engineers Navigation Branch Chief Jeremy Smith, also speaking remotely, explained that the depth of the cables needed to be confirmed. There are three lines, but only one of them, which stretches to Ocracoke, is energized. The other two lines are abandoned or disconnected. There would be a 100-foot buffer on either side of the lines for dredging.

“It’s all about the safety for the crew, and safely getting power to the island,” he said. “We’re not going to risk either one of those.”

According to Ken Willson, Dare County dredge projects consultant with Coastal Planning & Engineering of North Carolina, there are GPS coordinates for the cable locations, but the depth of the live line needs to be verified.

“We have been talking to the power company,” he said. “They speak very confidently that the (line) has not changed since it was put in, that is, between 8 to 12 feet deep.”

Willson added that more discussion is expected about the inactive lines.

Commissioner Ernie Foster asked Willson if there was any way to remove the abandoned cables.

“I’m sure it can be done,” he responded. “It’s just a matter of who will pay for it.”

In addition to the glitch with the realignment, there will also be a wait for expected dredging in the Connector Channel.

The Corps’ dredge Merritt had been planned to work earlier this fall in the channel, but it ended up being diverted to work in Carolina Beach and then Oregon Inlet, where it broke a rudder, explained Barton Grover, Dare County grants and waterways administrator.

Grover said in a later interview that once the Merritt is repaired at Manns Harbor and able to finish its work in Oregon Inlet, the hope is that it will be able to go to Hatteras sometime in mid-December.

Then, if the Oregon Inlet Task Force gives its approval, he said, the Dare County dredge Miss Katie will be able to leave Oregon Inlet and do additional cleanup in the Connector Channel behind the Merritt.

The county has received a one-time permit modification to dredge in Hatteras Inlet for seven days while waiting for the alignment to go through, he added.

“We were covering our bases,” Grover said. “Now with all the delays, I’m glad we did.”

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.

WILMINGTON – Sand and other material from dredging projects funded by marinas, local governments and private property owners will remain forbidden from placement at federally managed disposal sites.

Five years have passed since the Army Corps of Engineers stopped allowing dredged material from nonfederal projects to be placed on the disposal sites it maintains, a policy that will remain effective “for the foreseeable future,” according to Jed Cayton, a public affairs specialist with the Corps’ Wilmington District.

“Federal placement sites will not be available to non-federal projects based on need,” Cayton said in an email responding to questions. “Currently, (the Corps) is unable to dredge several locations within the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway as a direct result of the federal placement sites being full and unable to hold additional dredged material.”

The move, which is nationwide, has had local and state government officials scrambling to find alternative disposal sites, which has largely equated to higher project costs because those sites are farther from the areas where dredging occurs.

Thus is the case at Wrightsville Beach Marina, where an average of about 7,500 cubic yards of sand is dredged every three years to maintain a suitable water depth for boats and yachts.

For years, the marina placed material pumped from the area around the property to privately owned spoil islands whose owners granted easements to the Corps.

“We were able to find an area just outside of the easement we’ve been able to use, which is at incredible financial hardship,” said Wrightsville Beach Marina General Manager Sam Clary.

The marina had to build dikes and a spillway to make the land suitable to hold disposed material, which cost a hefty $100,000.

“In addition to that it’s almost a mile away from us so it costs about 50% more to dredge and pump so far away,” Clary said.

The extra expense falls on the backs of the marina’s customers.

“It’s still in high demand here just because it’s limited space, but it’s coming at a premium and I don’t know how sustainable it is,” Clary said. “We hope that over time that the regulations will be eased. We’re moving beach quality sand. It’s not much. I just think it should be on a case-by-case basis instead of a national mandate.”

Wilmington District officials recently submitted to the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality a final report identifying and assessing existing nonfederal dredged material disposal placement sites along the Intracoastal Waterway within the state.

The report wraps up the first of two studies co-funded by the state to determine how many nonfederal disposal sites exist, where those sites are, which of those will accept material, generate a 20-year forecast of how much space will be needed in each of the 13 counties along the waterway, and identify the counties with the greatest need and greatest shortfalls.

DEQ Coastal Infrastructure Grant Coordinator Kevin Hart explained to the state Coastal Resources Commission last month that the Corps had identified 26 nonfederal placement sites in seven of the 13 counties. Those counties include Brunswick, Carteret, New Hanover, Onslow, Pamlico, Pender and Tyrell.

Twelve of the sites are state-owned, 13 are privately owned and one is a federally owned facility.

Of the 26, 20 are restricted-use sites, generally meaning that either the property owners of those areas said they will not accept material from other dredge projects or only beach-compatible sand is allowed.

There are 227 different waterfront facilities along the waterway, Hart said.

Carteret and New Hanover counties account for 62% of those marinas.

The Corps identified four nonfederal disposal sites, including two owned by the State Ports Authority in Carteret County. Three of those are restricted-use sites.

Nine sites have been identified in New Hanover County. Two of those are restricted-use sites.

In all, 206 marinas have agreed to provide to the Corps details on how often they dredge and their anticipated needs over the next 20 years.

“At this time, it is unknown whether the current sites can meet the demand,” Hart said in an email a few weeks after the Coastal Resources Commission’s Sept. 15 meeting.

The state is finalizing a cost-share agreement with the Corps for the second phase of the study, which is to examine the dredging needs of marinas that have more than 10 boat slips. The agreement will have to be signed off by the DEQ Secretary Elizabeth Biser before the Corps initiates the study.

“Approximately 70 to 75 non-active placement sites adjacent to the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway will be identified, which may also be available for placement of dredged material by local communities, marinas, or other waterfront facilities,” Cayton said. “Lastly, the report will outline general environmental requirements or concerns associated with constructing new, or redeveloping existing, dredged material placement sites.”

This phase of the study may take up to a year after a cost-share agreement has been signed, Hart said.

Time may only drive up costs of nonfederal projects forced to truck material to inland disposal sites.

“There’s always a way, it’s just how much money you can afford to spend on it,” Clary said. “You can always put it bucket-to-barge. It may cost a million dollars, we just don’t know. We hope that over time that the regulation will be eased.”

Rules on the size and location of buildings allowed at many of North Carolina’s inlets will once again be up for discussion by the state Coastal Resources Commission after state officials withdrew amendments approved by the commission last month.

Following years of discussion, debate and multiple public hearings, the Coastal Resources Commission, or CRC, unanimously approved rule amendments for Inlet Hazard Areas, or IHAs, and redrawn boundaries of those areas during its Sept. 15 quarterly meeting.

The amended rules were filed Sept. 23 with the state Rules Review Commission to be reviewed during that commission’s November meeting. Staff with the state Division of Coastal Management, or DCM, withdrew the updated rules Sept. 29 from the Rules Review Commission, which is tasked with reviewing and approving rules adopted by state agencies.

“The 2019 Fiscal Analysis for IHA rules was correct at the time it was written and approved by the CRC, but subsequent changes to other CRC rules removed a specific provision while the IHA rules were still being considered that would have provided certain exceptions in situations where erosion rates increased within newly designated IHAs to the point that this would ‘preclude the placement of permanent buildings,’” division spokesperson Christy Simmons said in a Sept. 30 email.

The proposed rule amendments are to be presented to the CRC at its November meeting.

“Depending on the Commission’s direction, this could result in additional amendments that would require further rulemaking procedures, including an updated Fiscal Analysis and the opportunity for public comments/public hearings,” Simmons said.

The CRC Science Panel, an advisory board to the commission, identified a need to update the state’s IHAs when it was initially formed in the late 1990s. Since then, the Science Panel has discussed how to best predict inlet erosion and accretion rates at IHAs and recommended updated boundaries.

Updates were proposed in 2010, but discussions on those were sidelined by a state-implemented terminal groin study and a study of oceanfront erosion rates, according to Ken Richardson, DCM shoreline management specialist.

“We know that inlets are kind of where the action is,” CRC board member Bob Emory said during the commission’s Sept. 15 meeting in Wilmington. “We’ve been studying it off and on pretty doggone thoroughly for 20 years. The science panel and their methodology is science-based and with each iteration it has improved over the years. I believe we’ve been thoughtful about the regulations that we’ve adopted to apply in these proposed inlet hazard areas. I think we’ve really arrived at a very good place having watched the evolution of this over the last few years.”

IHAs are shorelines especially vulnerable to erosion and flooding where inlets can shift suddenly and dramatically.

Erosion rates are more similar and evenly parallel along a straight shoreline. That’s not the case at inlet shores, which curve around.

“As a result, the CRC has adopted inlet setback requirements based on calculated inlet erosion rates rather than continuing to apply the adjacent (Ocean Erodible Area) erosion rates to IHAs. The CRC is continuing to implement limits on structure size and density within the IHAs,” Richardson said in an email responding to questions.

Ten of North Carolina’s 19 active inlets are developed, including Tubbs, Shallotte and Lockwood Folly in Brunswick County; Carolina Beach, Masonboro, Mason and Rich in New Hanover County; New Topsail and New River in Pender County; and Bogue Inlet in Carteret County.

Hundreds of acres of land at those inlets are designated IHAs.

The proposed size of IHAs has been reduced at some inlets but, overall, updated boundaries would include more acreage, Richardson explained in the email.

“Collectively, IHAs are reduced by approximately 470 acres at Tubbs, Mason and New Topsail Inlets; and increased by approximately 1,800 acres for all others combined,” he said.

Under the proposed boundaries, about 4,778 acres will be included in IHAs. A little more than 150 acres of that does not fall within existing Ocean Hazard Areas, or beaches, frontal dunes, inlet lands, and other areas susceptible to excessive erosion or flood damage.

“In other words, approximately 97% of the land area inside the proposed IHAs is already part of one of three existing (areas of environmental concern) that make up the current Ocean Hazard Area, and already within the CRC’s jurisdiction,” Richardson said.

The amended rules would only apply to new development.

Proposed amendments would allow structures built in an IHA prior to the updated boundaries to be grandfathered in, a move that addresses concerns voiced by property owners who have structures larger than 5,000 square feet.

Newly constructed buildings in IHAs cannot exceed 5,000 square feet.

Richardson told the commission that the plan is to review IHA erosion rates and boundaries on a similar schedule with oceanfront erosion rate updates, which occur about every five years.

That review process will include studying new methodologies for predicting erosion rates.

WILMINGTON – State rules on where septic tanks can be located on oceanfront properties are likely to change in the coming months.

The North Carolina Coastal Resources Commission Thursday gave the green light to Division of Coastal Management Director Braxton Davis to move ahead with proposed changes to existing rules, including setbacks and permit requirements.

Davis indicated those recommendations will include clarifying that an oceanfront property owner must obtain a permit in order to place a septic tank displaced by a storm or tide event back in its original location.

The proposed amendments would prohibit septic tanks from being placed seaward of the first line of oceanfront vegetation.

Davis will present recommended changes at the commission’s November meeting.

Discussions have been taking place for months as to how federal, state and local governments can address a problem coastal experts say is only going to get worse with rising seas and climate change.

In February, encroaching waves toppled three oceanfront homes in Rodanthe, leaving debris strewn for miles along the Cape Hatteras National Seashore.

“Even when houses don’t collapse they are constantly shedding debris due to the wrath of high tides and the ocean,” Cape Hatteras National Seashore Superintendent Dave Hallac said at the commission’s quarterly meeting Thursday in Wilmington.

As he spoke, he scrolled through pictures on a large projector capturing the aftermath of the homes that collapsed in early February, a time in which there were no coastal storms.

The destruction left a debris field stretching about 15 miles on the national seashore, where everything from fiberglass shards, tens of thousands of roofing tiles, drywall, carpet and other construction materials littered the beach.

“Even the kitchen sink, which is meant to be a bit of a joke, but it’s not,” Hallac said, referencing a photograph of a sink on the sand.

Though property owners paid for a contractor to clean the debris, the park has had to dig into its coffers to pay for cleanup. The park purchased a $40,000 beach rake, which is being used this week to pull materials off the beach.

The debris has affected access to the national shore. People have been injured by stepping on boards and nails. Surfers and swimmers have been hit by debris floating in the Atlantic Ocean.

More than 3 million people visited the Cape Hatteras National Seashore last year, the highest number on record, Hallac said. Nearly 160,000 people used the parks’ overnight campgrounds and 55,000 beach driving permits were issued.

Along with the problem of debris left behind from collapsed homes are septic tanks that have been exposed and relocated by waves.

Hallac shared with the commission that during an interview with a New York Times reporter following the collapse of a Buxton home in May, an exposed septic tank broke open.

“We actually had to leave the area because the smell was so bad,” he said.

Though Hurricane Earl was 830 miles off Rodanthe’s coast last weekend, churning waves exposed a newly installed septic system, which broke open and discharged raw, untreated sewage on the beach throughout the night.

“This is not an uncommon event and it does not take a significant storm to cause these problems,” Hallac said. “This is a problem that is likely to become more significant. We are dealing with significant issues from sea level rise.”

A 1986 survey found that more than 700 oceanfront structures in the state at that time faced short-term erosion risk, Davis said.

While many of those homes are gone, the numbers are about the same today. 

Davis said that North Carolina has some of the strongest oceanfront setbacks in the country. Coastal rules dictate that the bigger the structure, the farther away from the ocean it must be built.

“Even with really strong oceanfront setbacks we’re going to end up over time with houses on the beach,” he said.

Permits issued by the division or local governments must include a condition that a private home be moved within two years after it becomes imminently threatened.

That rule has not been enforced, Davis said, because natural beach recovery, beach renourishment, or permitted temporary sandbag structures typically occur within that time period.

Davis said the rule lacks clarity and is challenging to implement because of frequent changes in property ownership and worries about litigation.

The sea level is predicted to rise between 10 to 14 inches by 2050. Moderate flooding events are expected to increase tenfold by that time.

Hallac said some progress is being made as officials work with the owners of 24 homes in Rodanthe. Four homes had been relocated — the latest moved Wednesday — and permitting was underway to move another two.

Local, state and federal officials have been working together to get homes threatened by the ocean moved before they crumble into the sea.

The Division of Coastal Management, National Park Service and Dare County officials recently formed an interagency group to determine the authority of federal and state agencies to take protective actions on their jurisdictional shoreline.

The working group is to lay out a variety of immediate and long-term solutions to solving the problems facing some oceanfront properties and the communities they’re in.

“We need partners in thinking it through,” Davis said. “We’re talking about something that’s not going away. Coastwide, we’re going to see it.”

The group is discussing ways to educate homeowners, looking at the inventory of parcels that may be available for relocated homes, real estate disclosure requirements and the liability of property owners.

“It’s a situation from which I see no escape,” Commission Chair Renee Cahoon said.

RODANTHE — Big houses falling into the ocean on the Outer Banks earlier this year had many people wondering why the government didn’t do more to proactively get the houses off the beach before they collapsed, with debris spreading for miles.

The changing climate has added urgency to already complex balances between private property rights and public trust issues. And instead of proactive measures, legal threats have instead resulted in apparent inaction.

“It’s very frustrating to look nationally and see we don’t have any great models for getting homes off the beach that are risk of collapsing,” Robert Young, director of the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines at Western Carolina University, told Coastal Review last week.

As has happened in Nags Head and other beach areas, government measures are immediately met with lawsuits often with representation by legal advocates for private property rights that argue that such measures constitute a “taking” — essentially government taking private property for public use.

“There are very powerful interests that are seeking to protect this oceanfront resort economy,” Young said.

He noted a similar example happening in Harbor Island, South Carolina.

“They’re fighting over whose job it is to remove the houses,” Young said. “Everybody is suing everybody.”

In a May 31 op-ed in the Charlotte Observer, Young stated that climate change had increased the urgency to establish proactive coastal policies and encourage more realistic development.

Even though most oceanfront houses on the Outer Banks are investment properties, it is often the taxpayer and the local communities who pay the price when the houses collapse into the ocean. Only a small percentage of properties on the oceanfront are year-round homes, and the large majority are investment houses, Young said.

Young noted that some of the imperiled beach properties had sold within the past year. He pointed a finger at the real estate industry and the need for disclosure laws.

“So whose job is it?” Young asked during the interview, referring to removing teetering houses before they collapse. “I guess it’s God’s job.”

Willo Kelly, chief executive officer of the Outer Banks Association of Realtors, told Coastal Review that under North Carolina Real Estate Commission rules and standards, real estate agents have an ethical obligation to be truthful, but every risk is not necessarily apparent, predictable or even legal to talk about, such as a neighborhood crime rate.

Even federal flood insurance maps in North Carolina do not necessarily reflect the real risk, she said, so it is wise for prospective buyers to do their due diligence on oceanfront property.

“It’s not really that the house may be flooded — we have houses on pilings — but if (the ocean) pushes on pilings and the house falls, it’s flooded,” Kelly said, adding that the Outer Banks are undeniably dynamic barrier islands.

“Nobody is thinking that if you have an oceanfront house that it’s going to be there forever,” Kelly said. “This is the first year we’ve seen these numbers of houses that been impacted.”

After months of informal discussions on how to address the problem, Division of Coastal Management Director Braxton Davis and Cape Hatteras National Seashore Superintendent Dave Hallac are expected to elaborate on those discussions Thursday during the Coastal Resources Commission meeting in Wilmington.

Related: Coastal commission to discuss imperiled beach houses

Davis is expected to provide details of proposals to tighten regulations on septic tanks along the beachfront. Exposed tanks often create public health hazards on eroded beaches, especially after storms, as Davis notes in a memo to the commission included in the meeting agenda.

Davis, Hallac and others, including Dare County officials, have been part of discussions held by a recently formed interagency group to tackle the problem, including determination of the authority of federal and state agencies to take protective actions on their jurisdictional shorelines.

“The Work Group will engage with partner organizations and stakeholders to identify and research policies and programs to establish a proactive, holistic, predictable, and coordinated approach to erosion-threatened structures in North Carolina,” Davis explains in the memo. “The Work Group is planning to meet regularly in the coming year and produce a report outlining short- and long-term solutions.”

As erosion increases with rising seas, and with climate change intensifying storms, more oceanfront structures have encroached on public beaches, Davis notes in the memo. Based on an agency review of 2020 imagery, he said, “over 750 of approximately 8,777 oceanfront structures were considered at risk from oceanfront erosion (no dunes or vegetation between the structure and ocean.)”

Hallac told Coastal Review that preventing the problem in the first place is the goal.

It’s not just destruction of the houses, Hallac said, it’s also about the long-term effects on the public and the natural resources in and along Cape Hatteras National Seashore. After the houses fell into the surf earlier this year, debris stretched for 15 miles up and down the beach, as well as in the ocean and on private property, and dozens of destroyed or damaged septic tanks were strewn along the beach.

“We still have a debris problem from the houses that collapsed in May,” Hallac said recently. “There are thousands and thousands of pieces of tar paper and carpet padding up to 4 miles from the house collapse site.”

The park has had to purchase a $40,000 beach rake to sift debris from the sand and has spent a “substantial” amount in cleanup costs in addition to what the property owners paid for a contractor to clean the debris.

Erosion has complicated where the national seashore boundaries exist, but in general, Hallac said, the park is understood to have jurisdiction of the beach between the high- and low-tide lines. 

“Their backyards now are essentially in the Atlantic Ocean,” he said. “Fences, retaining walls, decks, lighting are in the national seashore.”

When Dare County notified the national seashore officials about the risk, Hallac said that 24 property owners were then notified and asked to do whatever was possible to prevent their houses from being destroyed, such as having it removed or demolished.

Several homes have been moved from the beach, either back on their own lot, or on a new lot, or are in the process of planning to move.

With severe beach erosion, houses don’t need a storm to push them into the sea — they can be undermined and collapse just from wave action on clear day. The most recent collapse happened when winds had maxed out at 30 mph.

“We’re beginning to get our arms around the magnitude of the threat,” Hallac said.

Meanwhile, the agency is researching and evaluating the park’s authority and long-term options in addressing protection of the national seashore.

Looming over past discussions has been the threat of lawsuits.

Sierra Weaver, senior attorney with the nonprofit Southern Environmental Law Center in Chapel Hill, said that the federal, state and local governments have the authority and responsibility to protect the public.

Weaver said that what’s known as a “taking” is a complicated legal concept, but it’s not when the ocean does the taking.

“North Carolina state law is very clear that when an ocean takes a person’s property, it’s not the government taking the person’s property, that is the ocean taking a person’s property,” she told Coastal Review. “And because of that, when you’re faced with erosion that takes down a person’s house, you’re looking at natural acts of the ocean. And so North Carolina law is set up to ensure we’re protecting public safety in the face of a dynamic coastline.” 

Weaver said the recent house collapses were a wakeup call to all levels of government. That includes increased transparency and disclosure on the part of real estate agents.

“This is one of those things that is becoming really a hot topic across the country at the state and federal levels, is how can homeowner disclosure requirements be strengthened to ensure that we stop this cycle of people either not knowing that there’s a problem or claiming that they know that there’s a problem?” she continued. “That is, is the buyer unaware that there’s a problem? Or are they fully aware that houses are washing into the ocean, but they’re gambling that they’re make enough in rent before the ocean is lost, and then collect on flood insurance?”

She said the long-term answer is in changing the incentive structure for homes on the coast, “so we stop this cycle of people simply looking to make money rather than looking to protect those public trust resources that we all value so much.”

Weaver said the takings concept is “a world full of balancing tests and multiple considerations” that becomes “very murky very quickly.” It’s site-specific.

“There’s just a lot of factors that come into play that make it very, very difficult to talk about any particular situation until it’s right in front of you,” she said.

MANTEO — Nearly 20 years ago, the White House Council on Environmental Quality seemed to have finally put its federal sword through the heart of the Oregon Inlet twin-jetty proposal, a project that Congress had approved in 1970 after it had brewed in local committee rooms for at least a decade.

But now, as shoaling has continued to create hazardous conditions for vessels in Oregon Inlet, North Carolina U.S. Rep. Greg Murphy, a Republican representing North Carolina’s 3^rd District, is asking the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to take another look at building twin jetties. Murphy and the bill’s cosponsor Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Va., have introduced legislation directing the Corps to conduct a new feasibility study for construction of the proposed jetties.

“While dredging has been somewhat effective in easing the issues at Oregon Inlet, it’s not a permanent solution,” Murphy said Thursday in a press release.  “It’s clear that a dual jetty system, which requires an act of Congress, is necessary for long-term navigation, commerce and flood control purposes.” 

Murphy had announced introduction of the legislation, the Oregon Inlet Jetty Feasibility Study Act, Aug. 19 during a press conference in Manteo, but the bill was not published on the congressional website until Thursday.

The legislation needs House and Senate approval. The study would then have to be done within eight months, and a report submitted to Congress within a year.

In an interview after the press conference, Murphy was uncertain what support the measure would receive in Congress, although he said he has had good discussions with members and with the Corps about the need for the jetties. 

Murphy also said that the feasibility study is not funded. The congressman, who had voted against Biden’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act, said he did not expect either bill to provide funds for the study, but he would welcome wherever the funding could be found.

As of late Thursday, the Congressional Budget Office cost estimate for the measure had not been received, according to the congressional legislative website.

At the press event, Murphy acknowledged the complexity of the more-than-60-year history of Oregon Inlet dual-jetty plan, which involved countless studies, hundreds of meetings from local boards to congressional committees, and millions of dollars. 

“It’s really going to take a concerted effort,” he said. “This is the most studied inlet in the country, but we have to start from scratch again.”  

In May 2003, when the Council on Environmental Quality announced the consensus agreement between jurisdictional federal agencies not to proceed with the proposed project, part of the explanation was that economic and environmental data created uncertainties about any benefits.  

Those questions, “and the risk to important resources,” Council Chair James L. Connaughton said at the time, “weigh against proceeding with the project.”

Although Outer Banks watermen were deflated, it didn’t take long before they began pursuit of new efforts — so far with no success — to get the project built. Proponents say the jetties, which would be walls on either side of the inlet by the Marc Basnight Bridge, would block sand buildup in the navigational channel.

They say that the jetties are needed to prevent loss of life and vessels in the inlet, to protect water quality, and to protect the enormous economic benefit of the inlet to the local economy and the fishing and boating communities.

The state and Dare County have been consistently in support of the project.

After Congress had authorized the jetties in 1970, it had never funded the estimated $100 million or so cost. The project called for the Corps to dredge a 20-foot by 400-foot navigation channel for deep-draft fishing vessels and construct two long jetties to divert sand from the channel.

Oregon Inlet, the only ocean to sound passage between Virginia and Hatteras, is known for its dangerous currents and constantly shifting shoals.

Barton Grover, Dare County waterways administrator, said the county currently allocates $3 million for Oregon Inlet dredging each year. With state match, that has meant $9 million in nonfederal funds have been available for dredging each year.

The inlet and its shoreline are within Cape Hatteras National Seashore, which has historically been opposed to the jetties. Opponents, including numerous environmental groups and public agencies, say that the jetties would cause serious erosion farther south and would have a detrimental effect on fish populations.

Located adjacent to the Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge and between the Atlantic Ocean and Pamlico Sound, the inlet and its marshes are important fish nurseries and habitats for dozens of species of fish, including crab, shrimp, sharks, bluefish and numerous other finfish and shellfish.

In 2014, Duke University coastal scientist Orrin Pilkey — a longstanding and vocal opponent of the jetty project — expressed to Coastal Review his shock that the state was studying how to get control of the inlet so the jetties could be built.

“I’m extremely concerned and appalled that the issue still exists,” Pilkey said at the time. “The jetties have been thoroughly discredited on all levels.”

After the council killed off the jetty project in 2003, it promised that the federal government would provide resources for more surveys and dredging of the inlet. Although both improved, the dredging has proved inadequate, whether because of funding shortages or increased demand.

The dredge Miss Katie, a private-public in partnership with Dare County and the state, arrived in Wanchese last week. The hopper dredge, built by private company EJE, will be taking over much of the dredging responsibilities in Oregon Inlet once it starts work in coming weeks.

Some 300,000 tires that have broken free from a decades-old artificial reef are scattered along an area of seafloor tapped as the new sand borrow source for Wrightsville Beach.

The tire debris field is not halting plans to pump material from the offshore site next spring onto the town’s ocean shoreline, which is already behind schedule in receiving a sand injection.

“The good news is that now that we know they’re there we can plan and mitigate for them,” said Dave Connolly, Army Corps of Engineers public affairs chief for the Wilmington district. “We’re going to be able to work and plan with the contractor to have more robust plans, which are being developed now for screening, and everything we can to mitigate the fact that we know there’s some potential to have tires out there.”

Whether its shipwrecks or other foreign debris, rocks or fine soil that’s not suitable to be pumped onto a beach, there’s always a risk of running across material along the seabed that dredges need to avoid.

Coming across the occasional scrap tire on the ocean floor is not uncommon, Connolly said, but it is “unusual that there are so many.”

Scrap tire reefs

The tires are suspected to have drifted from Artificial Reef 370, also referred to as Meares Harriss Reef, one of 43 man-made ocean reefs managed by the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries.

Over time, coastal storms have caused the tires to break free from where they were once tethered together, resting on the ocean floor among sunken tugboats, barges and concrete pipes used to create the reef off Wrightsville Beach.

It is unclear just how many scrap tires were placed in the reef.

“The problem is we don’t know the exact number of tires that were deployed,” said Patricia Smith, public information officer for the Division of Marine Fisheries.

Documents that state fisheries officials have on file vary: An estimated 56,500 tires were placed in 1973 and another 318,708 tires were added to the reef between 1973 and 1984. There’s documentation that 167,500 tires were placed at 370 and Artificial Reef 378, which is off the coast of Carolina Beach.

“We really cannot verify any of those numbers,” Smith said. “We can say we believe it exceeds 600,000 statewide.”

State fisheries began taking over artificial reefs off the state’s coast in the early 1970s.

Prior to that, offshore artificial reefs were built by different fishing clubs to produce fish habitat and bolster attractive fishing grounds.

The practice of using scrap vehicle tires to build up ocean artificial reefs began back in the late 1950s or early 1960s, according to the “2020 Guidelines for Marine Artificial Reef Materials,” a publication of the Atlantic and Gulf State Marine Fisheries Commissions.

Using old tires to build artificial reefs was an acceptable low-cost alternative disposal option for millions of stockpiled tires through to the early 1980s. North Carolina stopped using scrap tires to build ocean artificial reefs around that time.

Today, most states have banned the use of scrap tires for artificial reefs.

The emergence of new markets for scrap tires in the early 1990s have provided alternatives for reducing, reusing, recycling old tires.

But millions of tires remain in artificial reefs along the nation’s coasts.

In Mississippi, scrap tires were fastened together with cables and placed in the hulls of ships being deployed as artificial reefs.

An estimated 1 million to 2 million tires were deployed as an artificial reef near Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Off the coast of Virginia Beach, Tower Reef, Virginia’s primary tire reef, was built in the 1970s using 400,000 scrap tires.

From ocean floor to shore

In 1994, tires from that reef began washing up on Corolla’s ocean shoreline after storm events.

About 100,000 tires have been removed from North Carolina beaches since 1989 at a cost of more than $1 million, according to the commission’s 2020 report.

The state does not plan to retrieve tires from the ocean because it’s not cost-effective, Smith said.

In 2001, volunteer divers retrieved 1,600 tires from the reef off the Coast of Fort Lauderdale. The tires were removed and recycled at a cost of $20 per tire.

At that rate, removing all tires from the reef “may run into tens of millions of dollars,” according to the 2020 Guidelines for Marine Artificial Reef Materials.

“We do have a plan in place to get these tires off the beach when they wash up,” Smith said. “Sometimes we go and collect them. Sometimes, if it’s just a few, the town will go and pick it up.”

The state has occasionally used prison labor to pick up tires that have washed ashore on Bogue Banks in Carteret County.

“Those are usually for when there are really large amounts that come ashore,” Smith said.

New Hanover County Shoreline Protection Coordinator Layton Bedsole said he can’t recall officials in the county’s beach towns “being unusually upset about tires on the beach.”

“I know they’re out there,” he said.

New site, new headaches?

The cutter dredge used to pump sand onto the ocean shorelines of Carolina Beach and Kure Beach earlier this year sucked up a handful of tires during operation.

“They had to stop production, get it unclogged, and get it back to work,” Bedsole said. “It slowed down production.”

The Meares Harriss Reef is a little more than 2.5 miles from Masonboro Inlet, an area of which was Wrightsville Beach’s sand borrow source for decades before a legal interpretation forced the Corps to find an offshore site.

Wrightsville Beach had for years been getting beach quality sand from an area of the inlet that lies within Coastal Barrier Resources System Unit L09.

This is an area designated as part of the Coastal Barrier Resources Act, or CBRA, a law Congress passed in 1982 to discourage building on relatively undeveloped, storm-prone barrier islands by cutting off federal funding and financial assistance, including federal flood insurance.

CBRA, pronounced “cobra,” was also established to minimize damage to fish, wildlife and other resources associated with coastal barrier islands.

The interpretation of the law as it pertains to whether sand that is within a CBRA zone may be dredged and pumped onto a beach outside of a CBRA zone has been kicked back-and-forth between federal regulatory agencies for years.

Last year, the Biden administration overturned a 2019 decision by then-Interior Secretary David Bernhardt, who determined that federal funds could be used to pay for dredging sand within CBRA units and for placing that sand on beaches outside of those units for shoreline-stabilization projects.

The new interpretation of the law ultimately pushed Wrightsville Beach’s project off track to get sand this year. Meanwhile Costal Storm Risk Management, or CSRM, projects moved ahead this year at Carolina Beach and Kure Beach because the Corps already had offshore sand borrow sites for those towns.

New Hanover County’s beach towns are some of the Corp’s earliest CSRM projects.

When asked what his biggest concern is about the pending project in Wrightsville Beach, Bedsole said, “That we’re not using the inlet borrow site that we’ve used for 50 years and we’re taking a site that’s documented to have a tire debris field associated with it. We should be using the inlet borrow site.”

Once the Corps develops a plan for the project the agency will publish a public notice to allow for public comment, Connolly said.

It is unclear whether the project’s cost will increase.

“That’s all being determined with the project delivery team,” Connolly said. “Obviously it’s going to be factored in for sure.”

He said the goal is start pumping sand on the beach around March of next year.

RODANTHE — As a storm-crazed ocean churned furiously around its spindly pilings, a weather-beaten house collapsed Tuesday afternoon into the surf on this Hatteras Island beach.

It was the second house that day to fall into the raging sea. The first one fell early in the morning.

A number of people at the beach captured the moment on their cell phones when the second structure, a tan wooden house, crumbled into the water. One video showed a direct view as the house seemed to heave before surrendering to the relentless pounding. As soon as it caved into the ocean, waves surged under the wreckage and began carrying it away from the beach, as if a toy.

Related: Storm brings down second beach house, N.C. 12 still closed

An intense nor’easter had been sitting on the Outer Banks since Sunday, with strong winds and powerful currents pounding the beach and dunes and causing ocean overwash. The storm was expected to linger through Thursday. Dangerous conditions resulted in ferry cancellations and road closures on Hatteras Island.  

“These homes collapsing is not a surprise,” Cape Hatteras National Seashore Superintendent Dave Hallac said Tuesday in a telephone interview.  “To some degree, we were surprised that these houses didn’t collapse before.”

The first to fall was at 24235 Ocean Drive, which collapsed at about 3 a.m. Tuesday. The second structure at 24265 Ocean Drive went down shortly after noon Tuesday. The primary owners of each house live out of state, one in Tennessee and the other in California, according to Dare County tax records.

After another house collapsed Feb. 9 in the same Ocean Drive area at the south end of Rodanthe, Hallac said, Dare County officials had warned him that several other nearby houses were at risk of imminent collapse.

Hallac said that he had notified owners of the at-risk homes of the threatening situation and asked them to move the houses or take other proactive measures. Since then, he said, three of the owners had applied for and were granted permits to have a contractor remove debris after the houses fell. The owners of the two houses that collapsed Tuesday were notified that morning that they had fallen, he added.

But even with permits in hand, the contractor will not be able to get on the island until the storm passes and N.C. 12 is reopened. Even then, it will be impossible to access the remains of the houses until the ocean calms. 

After the house fell in February, Hallac said, a contractor picked up debris that stretched as far as 14 miles to the south. Considering that this storm has been so powerful, he said it’s hard to even guess how far and wide debris from two houses will travel on the currents. Although the contractor had removed a vast amount of debris, there were also numerous pickups required by National Park Service personnel and volunteers. It is likely the cleanup process will be similar, he said, but more extensive this time.

The stretch of beach near the homes is closed because of the risk posed by debris. And there was still at least one more house that appeared Tuesday to be in danger of being taken by the Atlantic.

“My priority right now is No. 1, public safety. A couple of two-by-fours or pilings can easily break a leg,” Hallac said. “And No. 2, is to protect Cape Hatteras National Seashore.”

NORTH TOPSAIL BEACH – A group of property owners here hoping to salvage a proposed 50-year federal beachfront project North Topsail officials turned down last year because of funding issues wants out of the town’s limits.

But when it boils down to details of how and what it would take for those with properties in the southern section of the town to de-annex from North Topsail Beach and become part of neighboring Surf City, the likelihood of it actually happening doesn’t appear favorable to those pushing to get out.

Emotions ran high at a Friday, March 11, special meeting called by the North Topsail Beach Board of Aldermen on behalf of Rep. Phil Shepard, R-Onslow, who had asked to hold a meeting about the queries he’d been getting from the property owners.

Shepard told the standing-room-only crowd packed in the board’s chambers Friday that he was not taking a side but rather was there to explain the legal process of de-annexation and annexation.

Property owner George Fieser was first up at the podium to explain why he supports the annexation of the “Phase 5” area, a reference to the breakdown of North Topsail Beach’s beachfront for nourishment and dune projects.

Phase 5 is the southernmost 4½ miles of town and is not included in Coastal Barrier Resources System, or CBRS, a federal designation that prohibits government funding such as Federal Emergency Management Agency money for properties within the system.

“We’re just a different community in that phase than other parts of the town,” Fieser said. “We have the opportunity for the next 50 years and we didn’t take that. It’s not just me, but it’s the state of North Carolina that benefits.”

North Topsail’s elected officials last year backed away from a proposed joint project with Surf City and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers that would secure routine nourishment of phase 5’s beachfront for 50 years.

After months of meetings, the town board concluded that, while they supported the project, the town simply could not fund its more than $33 million of the project’s cost.

The town still has another $14 million or so to pay off the U.S. Department of Agriculture loan it took out to cover the cost of a beach project in phase 5. The N.C. Local Government Commission would not permit the town to go into further debt.

Aldermen could not legally raise property taxes by the amount it would take to cover the joint project, the projected cost of which had grown exponentially from when it was first placed on the table by the Corps years ago.

North Topsail Beach aldermen last year discussed asking the North Carolina General Assembly to vote to approve the town raising the occupancy tax to generate additional revenue, a proposition that didn’t go far because of the powerful tourism lobby.

“There was not one board member that was against the project,” North Topsail Mayor Joann McDermon said. “It was, when it got down to the money and how it would affect all of the taxpayers town-wide,” not something the town could afford.

According to town officials, pro-annexation supporters are primarily property owners within one particular neighborhood, Village of Stump Sound, an area that consists largely of vacation rental homes along the beach and sound.

Shepard and a representative for North Carolina House Speaker Tim Moore explained Friday that 100% of registered voters — meaning those who claim their homes in North Topsail Beach as their primary residence — in Phase 5 would have to vote in favor of annexation into Surf City.

“That’s an onerous thing to get 100 percent of the people,” to vote in favor of annexation, said Village of Stump Sound property owner Reed Abernathy.

And, Surf City’s town board would have to vote to approve annexing the nearly 5-mile stretch of Topsail Island.

If Surf City annexed that town would incur the USDA loan, extending town services to the additional properties, and have to come up with the more than $33 million portion of the joint project.

Surf City Mayor Doug Medlin said in a telephone interview Monday that town officials there would have to examine all potential costs associated with annexing Phase 5, if the property owners can get the land de-annexed.

“We’ll be glad to talk to them if they do de-annex,” he said. “We can’t say anything as far as what we can do until they’re de-annexed.”

That includes going to the Corps to find out whether Phase 5 could be put back into the plans.

The General Assembly is the only governing body that may approve de-annexation.

“That vote can go either way in the General Assembly,” Shepard said. “If you’re de-annexed and North Topsail cuts the water and sewer and everything off, there’s a lot to look at.”

Property owner Burgess Allison expressed his support for annexation and suggested the state has a “huge” interest in seeing to it that the project moves forward.

“The Outer Banks has seen this success first hand,” he said. “Here on Topsail Island, sadly, we are really stuck with old town boundary lines that stand in the way of moving this progress forward. Frankly, I think that the state legislature, especially if the law is you have to get 100 percent of every single voter to sign up for something, the state legislature can see the benefit of the Corps’ project.”

Several people in the audience applauded his comments.

Robert Box said that though he’s not a full-time resident, he as a property owner wants to see the project go forward in North Topsail Beach.

“I’m not thrilled that I’m hearing that our interests don’t count even through we’ve paid 100 percent of our property taxes,” he said. “This is game changing. This will preserve the legacy of the beaches for us. This is home. We will never sell. If we miss this window, it will not come again.”

Some suggested whether the best course of action is to ask Pender County, not Surf City, to annex.

The occupancy tax rate in North Topsail Beach is 6% and the revenues generated are split equally between the town and Onslow County.

The northernmost stretch of Surf City is in Onslow County.

But in Pender County, Surf City collects the full 6%. The town allocates revenues generated through its portion of the 3% for tourism-related activities and the money collected from the county tax goes toward beach nourishment projects, according to the town’s website.

Sandy Cofier, a full-time resident who lives in the Ocean City area of Phase 5 in North Topsail Beach, said she supports the joint federal project, but does not want to be de-annexed.

She urged the audience to think about how long the area might go without town services if Phase 5 were to be de-annexed.

“How long does it take to be annexed?” she asked. “That’s a question everybody should ask. We need to do something to fix the beaches.”

“We are working on that,” McDermon replied.

Phase 5 is currently getting sand injections through a project that entails trucking sand to the island. About 1,000 feet of beachfront will be renourished by April 30, when sand placement activities must halt for sea turtle nesting season.

Sand hauls are to resume for the remainder of Phase 5 in November. The FEMA project includes placing 636,000 cubic yards of sand along more than 12,000 feet of the shoreline.

RODANTHE — It was a warm and breezy late winter afternoon, a perfect day for a stroll along the ocean. As seabirds dove for dinner just offshore, Hope Lineman and her family were working their way north, weaving between a stretch of large houses on the beach off Ocean Drive. But they weren’t there to watch the waves; they were there to see the devastation wrought by waves.

And like nearly all who see looming destruction on the eroded beach, they wonder why no one is trying to prevent it.

Weeks before, early on the morning of Feb. 9, one of the houses here had collapsed into the Atlantic. Soon photographs of the ruins filled national news sites and social media. Debris, much of it since picked up, stretched for miles.

Related: Cleanup of fallen house begins; beach near site closed

On Sunday, yards away from the stubs of its pilings, two battered beachfront homes dramatically stood in roiling surf, their fate all but guaranteed.

“It’s so sad,” commented Lineman as she squinted up at teetering decks, dangling stairs and stripped-off siding, while dodging tide that surged under the structures. 

Lineman, from Cranberry, Pennsylvania, said her family has been coming to Hatteras Island for years, and with her son home on spring break, they seized the opportunity for a beach vacation.

But even with her familiarity with the dynamic Outer Banks’ coast, she had the same question: Why can’t the government do something to get those houses off the beach? 

Eight of 11 houses in the section of beach have been “tagged” as unsafe, a condition that includes damaged septic tanks and egress-ingress issues.

“In that case, we typically pull the power to the house so they can’t be occupied,” Dare County Planning Director Noah Gillam said to about 85 people who attended a public meeting March 3 at the Rodanthe-Waves-Salvo Community Center to discuss the situation.

Of the tagged structures, three are at “immediate risk,” he said.

On Hatteras and Ocracoke islands, the ocean beaches from the foreshore to the low-tide line are part of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore, meaning they are public lands, National Park Service property. Statewide, North Carolina has a court-tested doctrine that beaches, up to high-water mark, are in the public trust.

Damage mitigation

“We’re right now in a damage-mitigation situation,” Hallac told the meeting crowd, adding that the debris impacts not just the seashore’s environment, but also public safety. “So, we’re really focused on trying to avoid these things.”

As it is now, the National Park Service can only “strongly recommend” that owners remove their at-risk houses from the beach. Homeowners are responsible for “damages they create in a national park,” if their house’s debris is not cleaned up, he said. But sometimes a homeowner lives out of state or out of the country, or cannot be located in time to hire a contractor to do the cleanup. In those cases, the agency will have to take responsibility for the cleanup and, if possible, get reimbursed at a later date.

But even though the homeowner of the recently collapsed house hired a contractor to pick up the debris, more of it is expected to continue to be blown into yards and beach accesses and wash up or float to the surface of the ocean for weeks or even months. Volunteers have already helped the park service clean the beach, and further volunteer beach sweeps are planned for the coming weeks.

In a later interview, Hallac said there are discussions underway about how to better address the impact on the seashore’s property.

“We are actively evaluating the position of the homes and the property boundaries and consider that as we move forward,” he said.

But, as he had told the meeting attendees, the issue is not going to go away.

“We do believe this is going to get worse,” Hallac said, citing recent data released by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration that predicted rising seas will result in moderate high-tide flooding increasing tenfold by 2050.

Dare County Commissioner Danny Couch, who lives on Hatteras Island, said that beach erosion’s risk to infrastructure is not unique to the Outer Banks.

“This is not just a Nags Head thing,” he said. “We’re talking about from Maine to Texas. Even the Great Lakes.”

Couch said that people need to put pressure on their elected representatives in Congress to help property owners and local governments address the problem before houses are taken by the ocean, scattering their contents and chunks of hazardous and/or toxic construction debris onto public and private properties and endangering mariners, sea creatures and beachgoers for months. 

Upton-Jones

At one time, Couch said, a federal insurance program known as Upton-Jones had paid oceanfront property owners to relocate or demolish their at-risk homes. But the program, part of the National Flood Insurance Program from 1988-1995, was repealed because the government said it was too costly.

According to an October 1995 report in The Virginian-Pilot, the Relocation Assistance Program, its official name, paid owners 40% of the insured value to move their house, or up to 110% to tear it down. More than 300 claims were filed, the article said, paying about $24 million. Of the total claims, North Carolina property owners filed 238 — 168 for demolitions and 70 for relocations — totaling about $13.3 million in payouts.

With the Outer Banks having some of the highest beach erosion rates in the nation, it may be unsurprising that property owners in Dare County filed about $7.2 million in claims, including its towns. Property owners in unincorporated Dare County, which includes Hatteras Island, filed 11 claims worth about $1.4 million. Of Dare’s towns, Nags Head filed the most, by far, with 84 claims worth about $4.4 million. 

All of Brunswick County, in comparison, filed about $5.5 million in claims.

Fletcher Willey, a longtime owner of a homeowner’s insurance agency in Nags Head with experience in federal flood insurance, confirmed in an interview that flood insurance policies cap claims at $250,000, and in circumstances such as those in Rodanthe, they are not paid until the house is destroyed by the ocean. 

Willey said he is not aware of any interest in reviving Upton-Jones; nor does he expect lawmakers to pursue something similar in the future.

“I don’t know why there’s no initiative to prevent houses from falling into the ocean,” he said. “I haven’t heard anything about it.”

Few options

Hallac said that the park has an approved sediment-management plan that can readily address beach nourishment projects within the seashore. But he said that sandbags are not a long-term solution to erosion because they worsen erosion on either side of them, they’re an eyesore when they break apart, and they are not appropriate on an already eroded beach such as Ocean Drive in Rodanthe. 

“Where would you put the sandbags if there’s no beach?” he asked in response to a man’s question about a possible protection strategy. 

Another man who owns a home on Ocean Drive said he inquired with a house mover about relocation cost, although his house is not currently threatened. Not only was he informed that there is an 18-month waiting list, he said, it would cost between $100,000 to $200,000 to move.  

“Most people don’t have that kind of money,” he said. “So, by default, they let the ocean take it.”

Bobby Outten, the Dare County attorney and county manager, told the packed room at the meeting that beach nourishment is not an option in Rodanthe, mostly because of high costs and increased demand from beach communities throughout the county. The new “jug-handle” bridge that is near completion by Mirlo Beach on the north end of Rodanthe makes emergency projects to protect N.C. 12 a moot issue, meaning that state funds would be unlikely to be forthcoming.

Numerous people at the meeting expressed frustration that government officials were offering no solutions to save their property, or even to prevent debris from spoiling the beach near their home.

“I’m watching my retirement go into the drink,” said one woman.

Outten explained that the U.S. Court of Appeals 4th Circuit had ruled against Nags Head after the town in 2010 had sued property owners to force them to remove their storm-damaged oceanfront houses. The court had decided, Outten said, that the town did not own the beach where the houses stood and therefore it lacked the authority to order the private property removed. The town later settled with owners for $1.7 million so it could remove the houses.

Cliff Ogburn, who had been the town manager in Nags Head during the legal battle, said that without cooperation from the homeowners or assistance from the state, the town had few options to address the hazards from the condemned houses.

“My frustration is that the state seemed to have no initiative to get these houses off the public trust,” he said in an interview on Monday.  Ogburn is currently serving as the town manager in Southern Shores.

Currently, there are numerous exposed or destroyed septic tanks in the surf zone. The county administers septic permits that are issued by the state.

A request for information on state policy on protection of the public beach from hazards was made to the state Division of Coastal Management and the Department of Environmental Quality, but officials were unavailable to respond by deadline for this report.

“This is not just something in our little bubble,” a woman told officials at the meeting. “It’s made the national news. With these homes collapsing, how can we get these homes cleaned up quick enough so our tourism is not affected?”

The Cape Hatteras National Seashore had record numbers of visitors last year, ranking it as one of the most-visited sites in the entire park system.

Responded Hallac: “As I said earlier, this not a good look for a national seashore.” 

Federal funds are back on tap for sand nourishment projects in Carolina Beach and Kure Beach, but back-and-forth interpretations of a law designed to discourage development in storm-prone coastal areas leaves Wrightsville Beach cut out, for now.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers recently announced it had shifted construction funds to projects for two of the three beach towns in New Hanover County.

The Corps plans to accept bids for a contract for work to begin after the Nov. 16 environmental window opens and be completed by April 30 next year.

Dave Connolly, public affairs chief of the Corps’ Wilmington district, said the projects, referred to as Coastal Storm Risk Management, or CSRM, projects, are expected to pump roughly 853,000 cubic yards of sand onto Kure Beach’s ocean shore and 865,000 cubic yards of sand onto Carolina Beach’s beachfront.

Corps officials decided it was more feasible to reprogram construction funds for those towns because Pleasure Island has an approved offshore sand borrow source, he said.

Wrightsville Beach does not.

Sand injected onto Wrightsville Beach’s ocean shore has, for years, been pumped from a portion of Masonboro Inlet that lies within Coastal Barrier Resources System Unit L09.

This is an area designated as part of the Coastal Barrier Resources Act, or CBRA, a law Congress passed in 1982 to discourage building on relatively undeveloped, storm-prone barrier islands by cutting off federal funding and financial assistance, including federal flood insurance.

CBRA, pronounced “cobra,” was also established to minimize the loss of human life, wasteful spending of federal funding, and damage to fish, wildlife and other resources associated with coastal barriers.

The interpretation of the law as it pertains to whether sand that is within a CBRA zone may be dredged and pumped onto a beach outside of a CBRA zone has gone through a kind of back-and-forth between federal regulatory agencies.

In 1996, Fish and Wildlife officials and the Corps established an agreement that allowed the Corps to dredge and move sand outside of the CBRA unit in a small number of areas, including Masonboro and Carolina Beach inlets, which the Corps dredges to maintain those inlets’ respective navigation channels.

Then, Fish and Wildlife in 2016 released an updated interpretation, one that said the law is intended to keep sand dredged from a CBRA unit within that unit.

The Corps disagreed and continued to maintain the projects in compliance with prior authorizations, agreeing to investigate alternative offshore borrow sources if the projects required additional authorization.

In late 2019, then-Interior Secretary David Bernhardt announced that federal funds could be used to pay for dredging sand within CBRA units and placing that sand on beaches outside of CBRA zones for shoreline stabilization projects.

The Biden Administration in July overturned that decision.

“We are currently in the process of identifying and conducting environmental clearances for offshore borrow sources for Wrightsville Beach,” Connolly said.

He said the process could take up to a year and is subject to the availability of funds.

A Wrightsville Beach nourishment contract “could be awarded next summer,” Connolly said.

Layton Bledsoe, New Hanover County shore protection coordinator, said county officials have made it clear to the Corps that the agency is “as sure as science will allow” that material from an offshore borrow site is comparable to the high quality of sand dredged from Masonboro Inlet.

“I’m confident they will do what’s necessary to make themselves comfortable that the material works,” Bledsoe said. “We can’t put substandard material up on the beaches. We just can’t.”

The CSRM projects in New Hanover County are some of the earliest in the Corps. The projects in Wrightsville Beach and Carolina Beach were first authorized in the mid-1960s. Kure Beach’s project was authorized in 1997.

Officials in all three towns and New Hanover County were rocked when they learned early this year that the 2021 Work Plan for the Army Civil Works program did not include appropriations for their longstanding shoreline maintenance projects.

Bledsoe said the county is prepared to bring its share of the funding to the table.

“The credit for making all this happen is with the delegation and with the delegation staff as well as the Wilmington district Corps of Engineers,” he said.

An Oct. 18 news release from the office of Rep. David Rouzer, R-N.C., explained that it was at the urging of Rouzer and Republican senators Richard Burr and Thom Tillis that the U.S. Office of Management and Budget and the Corps shifted funding for the projects.

“Throughout Congress, Rouzer, Burr, and Tillis spoke directly with all levels of the Army Corps to encourage the funding of this project,” according to the release.

“After urging the Corps to act, I’m pleased unused funds from other projects for the Carolina Beach and Kure Beach renourishment project has been approved,” Rouzer stated in the release. “This is a major win for Carolina and Kure Beaches, and it would be for Wrightsville Beach too if not for a change in how current officials at the Department of Interior are interpreting the Coastal Barrier Resources Act – an interpretation that is preventing sand from being used from Wrightsville Beach’s long-time historical borrowing site. This is not delaying renourishment but making it that much more costly as well. In spite of this new obstacle of nonsense, funding will be achieved. It will just take more time.”

Two major beachfront projects to mitigate erosion and beef up the east end of Ocean Isle Beach’s shore are expected to be underway next month.

Once the environmental window for dredging and beach nourishment activities opens Nov. 16, contractors are set to begin building a terminal groin, a wall-like structure built perpendicular to shore. At the same time, a joint federal project will kick off to beef up the east end of the town’s ocean shoreline.

“We do hope to see activity on the beach the middle of November,” said Ocean Isle Beach Mayor Debbie Smith.

Though the two projects were initiated separately, the timing is such that they will be done together.

Ocean Isle Beach had the necessary federal and state permits by February 2017 to build a 1,050-foot terminal groin, 300 feet of which will be a sheet-pile, shore-anchorage section.

In August that year, the National Audubon Society filed a lawsuit challenging the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ approval of the project.

A three-judge panel in the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit affirmed last March a lower court’s decision that the Corps fairly considered the alternatives included in an environmental impact statement examining the project.

About two months prior to that ruling, Congress approved the Fiscal Year 2021 Work Plan for the Army Civil Works program.

That approval included funding for a Coastal Storm Risk Management, or CSRM, project.

Federal funds cover 65% of the project costs, with the town and state matching the remaining 35%.

According to information on the town’s website, Ocean Isle Beach submitted the 35% share of $3,045,000 to the Corps and requested the state reimburse half of that amount.

Last month, the Corps awarded a $6,675,000 contract to Norfolk Dredging Co. to dredge from a borrow area within Shallotte Inlet and place the dredged material at the far-east end of the island.

An estimated 700,000 cubic yards of sand is anticipated to be placed on about 1.5 miles of the easternmost beachfront, according to Dave Connolly, public affairs chief of the Corps’ Wilmington district. Ocean Isle’s ocean shoreline is about 5.5 miles long.

“The work will be completed simultaneously and it is likely the town’s contractor for the groin will start work on the groin and our contractor will start and pump sand behind the groin and fill out the template,” Connolly said in an email response to Coastal Review. “This portion of work behind the groin is a contract option fully funded by the town – we are doing this work for them through an Additional Work Memorandum of Agreement.”

The cost to the town, per that agreement, is an estimated $2.45 million and does not include the cost of constructing the terminal groin, according to information provided on the town’s website.

Of the two bids the town received in September to build the terminal groin, Coastal Design and Construction Inc. of Virginia submitted the lowest at about $11.4 million. Coastal Protection Engineering, the Wilmington firm the town hired to oversee the project, recommended Ocean Isle award the contract to the low bidder contingent upon the town receiving a North Carolina Coastal Area Management Act, or CAMA, major permit modification.

The state has granted the permit modification extending the deadline of the completion of the terminal groin from March 31 to April 30, 2022.

Smith said the request for an extension was made in the event of possible weather-related or equipment-related issues that could push back work on the terminal groin.

“Hopefully with everybody out there it will move quickly,” she said.

A news release earlier this month from the Wilmington District described how, by the end of the project, “the east end of the island will look drastically different and provide added benefits toward recreation, erosion protection and a potential habitat for sea turtles and nesting birds.”

Smith said that opting to have the Corps build up the beach behind the terminal groin cuts down on costs.

“It will save the town money on the terminal groin project because it will save some on the mobilization cost of the dredge,” she said.

Smith said she did not know the specific cost savings, adding, “It’s substantial money.”

The terminal groin is designed to reduce the erosion that has for years eaten away at the east end of the island, where a wall of sandbags 15 feet tall and some 1,500 feet long barricades the ocean from private properties, roads and public utilities.

“Our engineer and modeling reports do say that the terminal groin should extend the life of the (CSRM) project,” Smith said. “How many years we don’t know for sure.”

Dredging for the Coastal Storm Risk Management project is expected to end March 31, 2022.

A three-year study is underway in Holden Beach that could set the tone for how future beach projects may be funded.

The town has signed an agreement with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to launch a coastal storm risk management feasibility study, one that will determine whether it’s in the federal government’s interest to take part in planning coastal storm risk plans for the town for up to 50 years.

An Aug. 27 signing ceremony between the Corps and Holden Beach officially kicked off the study, which is budgeted to cost up to $3 million, according to Emily Winget, a public affairs specialist in the Corps’ Wilmington District.

Funding for the study is being split 50-50.

Winget said in an email responding to questions that $500,000 was initially allocated for the study in the Corps’ Fiscal 2021 Work Plan. More funding has been requested for future budget cycles, she said.

“The Holden Beach, N.C. Coastal Storm Risk Management (CSRM) Project General Reevaluation Study will scope and analyze alternatives for Federal participation in cost shared coastal storm risk management measures over a project life up to 50 years,” Winget wrote in the email. “We will be looking at all possible alternatives that provide a benefit (reduced risk) to Holden Beach.”

Such alternatives will include routine beach nourishment, dune enhancement and repair, as well as public education, resilient town building codes and other “non-structural measures.”

“The study will analyze an array of alternatives (list to be determined), trying to find a project that maximizes benefits as compared to overall cost,” Winget said. “Specifically, the study will be determining if we can identify a project with ‘Federal Interest’ that reduces the risk to coastal storms at Holden Beach.”

The Brunswick County town’s entire 8-mile-long ocean shoreline will be included in the study.

In 2018, Holden Beach commissioners withdrew the town’s permit application to build a terminal groin at the east end of the barrier island, citing that the costs of the proposed hardened erosion mitigation structure outweighed the benefits to the town.

The board’s decision followed several years and more than $600,000 on studies examining various ways to mitigate severe erosion at the Lockwood Folly Inlet.

A coastal engineering firmed hired by the town to explore ways to reduce erosion at the inlet determined Holden Beach’s best alternative was to build a 1,000-foot-long terminal groin, the estimated long-term costs of which exceeded $34 million. Terminal groins are wall-like structures built perpendicular to the shore at inlets to contain sand in areas of high erosion, like that of beaches at inlets.

About a year before commissioners voted to withdraw the terminal groin permit application, the town completed the first phase of its Central Reach project, a multimillion-dollar sand nourishment project that pumped about 1.3 million cubic yards of sand along about a 4-mile stretch of oceanfront in the middle of the barrier island.

In March, North Carolina and the Federal Emergency Management Agency approved allocating nearly $15.5 million to help the town restore sand and vegetation along the Central Reach area damaged by Hurricane Dorian in 2019.

FEMA’s portion of the project cost included about $11.6 million for the project. The state’s share was about $3.8 million.

Those funds include restoring 555,000 cubic yards of sand and stabilizing 80,000 square yards of dune vegetation.

Town officials are currently discussing an east end project, one that would put at least 100,000 cubic yards of sand along that end of the island, according to information on the town’s website.

Holden Beach Town Manager David Hewett did not return calls seeking comment.

Oak Island, which is immediately east of Holden Beach, has submitted to the Corps a letter of intent asking to be considered for a Coastal Storm Risk Management feasibility study, Winget said.

“We have expressed that capability up the line, and will need funding (Federal and the non-Federal match) to be allocated to start that study,” she said.

No other beach towns in the state are scheduled to sign a feasibility cost share agreement with the Corps this year.

North Topsail Beach will not be joining its neighboring island town on a multi-million-dollar beach nourishment project.

North Topsail Mayor Joann McDermon earlier this month sent a letter to the Army Corps of Engineers notifying agency officials that the town would not, for a variety of reasons, be able to meet the deadline to commit to signing a project partnership agreement, or PPA.

The move ends months of discussions about the proposed 50-year, joint coastal storm risk management, or CSRM, project with the Corps and Surf City, one that has been on the table for more than 20 years.

Surf City plans to move forward with its portion of the project, which would nourish all 6 miles of that town’s oceanfront shoreline.

“The town certainly is not breaking away from the project,” Surf City Town Manager Kyle Breuer said.

As the years have passed, estimated costs of the project have drastically increased.

In 2010, the estimated construction cost of the project was $123 million and 50-year beach nourishment more than $227 million. Over the past decade, the project cost has more than doubled to $237 million for construction and $622 million for routine beach nourishment for the next half-century.

Under the PPA, the Corps would pay 65% of the project’s initial construction. The towns and state would split the remaining 35%.

According to the latest estimates provided from the Corps, North Topsail Beach would have to finance more than $26 million, according to McDermon.

She explained in the July 1 letter that entering into an agreement with Surf City and the Corps might jeopardize North Topsail Beach’s plans to fund a Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, project along the same stretch of beach this coming fall.

Funneling funds to the joint project would also limit how much money the town would have to pay for nourishment costs along its remaining 7 miles of beachfront, she wrote.

The town also is looking at the expense of replacing its south fire station.

If the town agreed to the joint project, McDermon wrote, that “could reduce or eliminate NTB’s ability to fund this necessary public safety item.”

The North Topsail Beach Board of Aldermen recently adopted two municipal service districts in the southern area of town in order to be able to take out a short-term loan for that project, which will be reimbursed with FEMA funds.

The property tax rate will remain the same this fiscal year in those districts.

The town board adopted a property tax rate was increase of .05 cents to a total of.46 cents per $100 valuation. The new tax rate went into effect July 1.

The oceanfront that would have been included in the joint project is already a FEMA engineered beach, meaning the shoreline has been designed and nourished to withstand severe erosion in coastal storms.

About six years ago, North Topsail Beach initiated a more than $15 million storm risk mitigation project in what is known as the “phase 5” area of the oceanfront shore.

Phase 5 includes 4 miles of beach at the southern end of North Topsail Beach starting at the town line with Surf City.

“The history provides perspective for the actions of NTB, including the questions of whether, given the substantial investment the town has already made in the CSRM project area, and the robustness and protection of the beach compared to the other non NTB areas of the Project, is the CSRM Project a proper use of NTB taxpayers’ funds,” McDermon wrote. “This is a question that the Board has wrestled with from the beginning recognizing that the CSRM Project is exciting, and the excellent work done by the USACE team.”

Now, a new partnership agreement will have to be worked out between the Corps and Surf City, which is looking at paying an estimated $24 million over the course of the 50-year project.

“We will work towards de-scoping the project to pertain to Surf City only,” Emily Winget, a public affairs specialist with the Corps’ Wilmington district office, said in an email. “The cost to Surf City will remain roughly the same, although some adjustments are likely as we determine the actual scope. Specifics and exact timings are to be determined.”

Bids for the joint project were anticipated to go out in October with sand being moved onto the beach beginning Dec. 1, Breuer said.

“Whether or not that timeline has been impacted we do not know yet,” he said.

Under the project, Surf City’s beach will be nourished every six years for the next 50 years.

Co-published with Island Free Press

HATTERAS — As a charter vessel approaches the South Ferry Channel, what appears to be the shadowy head of a cobra rising from an undulating body waits on the west side of the channel entrance, as if ready to strike.

Countless other visual imaginings are no doubt possible from the stunning bird’s-eye view of Hatteras Inlet provided by drone footage launched off the Tradition, owned by Hatteras charter Capt. Cameron Whitaker. What is most striking, in addition to the degree of visible shoaling, is how short the South Ferry Channel looks in the vast inlet, at least relative to the angst it has caused.

Once again, trouble with shoaling in the channel was of much concern to members of the Dare County Waterways Commission during its virtual meeting Monday. Their fears ended up being well-founded.

Whitaker said the videos were taken in mid-May by the company Point Click Fish, which provided the footage for the Hatteras Village Offshore Open tournament. Tournament organizer Laura Young said that as far as she was aware, the drone footage, which had been shared earlier with commission Chair Steve “Creature” Coulter, was the first aerial video of the inlet taken with a drone.

During the relatively short meeting, commissioners were updated on the Army Corps of Engineers’ dredge Merritt, but the news was not what they wanted to hear. The dredge had worked for four days last week to clear the channel that had been clogged again after being dredged in April and May. Still, the prognosis for the coming months was not good. 

Young, with the tournament, said local charter fishers have started jokingly referring to the channel as the “ditch of death.”

“It’s very shallow, it’s very narrow,” Coulter reported to commissioners about recent conditions. “We had one boat run aground out there this morning.” 

Ken Willson, the county’s consultant with Wilmington-based Coastal Protection Engineering, suggested that after the post-dredging survey is done at the South Ferry Channel, surveyors should check out another nearby passage. “If they could take a look at the south channel again, and get some additional data on seeing whether or not that south channel is going to open again … l think that’s really the solution to this problem.”

Others suggested that the north channel may be a possible alternative. Both south and north passages were natural channels that had been used in the past, and both are currently shoaled in sections and not navigable.

Responding later to Commissioner Dan Oden’s question about what could be done if the South Ferry Channel shoals again in July, Willson encouraged members to start looking at other options. In the last four years, he said, he had never seen a channel that has been so much trouble. Considering how inefficient it has been to dredge it repeatedly, he said, “I think trying to maintain this current route is going to continue to be kind of futile.”

In a later interview, Willson said that in the past, the dredge could work to clear South Ferry Channel for 25 days or so and it would hold for months. That’s not the case now.

In the most recent project, Willson added, even with two dredges, the Merritt and the Murden, working in the channel, they were only able to be make a narrow cut through the shoal. Ultimately, he said, the sand from the side-caster Merritt ended up piling up on the side of the channel. Soon, the dredged material started filling up the channel.

“The problem we’re having there needs immediate attention. But unfortunately, we can’t get the traction to get attention immediately,” said member Danny Couch in a later interview. 

“We don’t have the time to wait. We’ve got to figure out how to keep it together.”

Couch, who is the Hatteras Island representative on the Dare County Board of Commissioners, said that the hope is that the channel can be maintained until the Corps completes its realignment of Hatteras Inlet channels, which is expected in the fall or early winter.

If the Corps authorizes realigning the inlet, maintenance will be able to be more flexible and expansive and more responsive to conditions. The county has requested that the Corps add Hatteras Inlet bar to the realignment of Rollinson Channel project, which is the federally authorized ferry channel that is regularly maintained by the Corps.

In a resolution approved by the Dare County Board of Commissioners in May, the county says that the current authorization goes back to the 1940s and is no longer relevant to the conditions in Hatteras Inlet or how it’s used. 

In the interim, Couch said, it is critical to the local economy that the inlet is accessible for boaters during fishing tournaments.

“It’s almost like the tournaments need to get a pilot like we used to have in the old days,” Couch said, referring to guides who could help navigate boats safely through the bar into the inlet. 

Hatteras fishing tournaments are important to the Hatteras village economy, he said, and shoaling issues can scare away out-of-town vessels.

“That tide floats all boats,” Couch said of the revenue from tournaments. “From the coffee shop to the tackle shops, it impacts every phase of the economy.”

And fishing vessels that are well made enough to fish large gamefish in the ocean are not cheap.

“Eleven million will get you a Cadillac,” Couch says. “If you damage your running gear with these big boats, you don’t just run to Ace Hardware for parts.”

On the contrary, he said, a damaged propellor can cost upwards of $60,000, not including labor.

Coulter said in an email that the hope is that the county will budget more funds to dredge in July, if it’s necessary and the agencies grant an exemption. Meanwhile, he wrote, the North Carolina Department of Transportation’s Ferry Division is taking bids to dredge part of the emergency ferry route, if needed.

The chairman also encouraged members to send letters of support for the realignment to the county for it to forward to the Corps.

“These letters will go a long way in helping reestablish our safe and viable way to the ocean,” he wrote.

Footage dated May 15,2021, by Laura Young of Young’s Research and the Hatteras Village Offshore Open, including shoaled areas of South Ferry Channel at around the 4-minute mark, just above the South Dock ferry terminal at the bottom right.

NORTH TOPSAIL BEACH – Several property owners here at a public hearing Saturday morning spoke out against a proposal that would divvy a portion of the town into districts for special assessments to help pay for a multi-million-dollar, 50-year joint beach project on Topsail Island.

A majority of the nearly 20 property owners who spoke at the hearing said the creation of municipal service districts, or MSDs, will only divide the town.

“Municipal service districts sound great because they’re affecting other people, but in fact they open up a can of worms on all of us,” said property owner Stuart Gillman. “They’ve been used for very, very pernicious purposes. I think that municipal service districts will have us all hang separately. We all need to pay our fair share of taxes.”

Local city and county governments may establish MSDs to charge property owners assessments on top of property taxes as a way to provide more services to those who reside within those districts.

In the case of North Topsail Beach, assessments allowed by creating the proposed districts would help cover the annual estimated cost of $3 million for the next 50 years in a joint project with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Surf City, North Topsail’s island neighbor to the south.

The estimated $672 million project would secure beach nourishment along 10 miles of Topsail Island’s ocean shoreline, including all 6 miles of Surf City’s beach and the first 4 miles of beach at North Topsail Beach’s south end every six years.

Under an agreement, the Corps would pay 65% of the project’s initial construction. The towns and state would pay for the remaining 35%.

North Topsail aldermen for months have been discussing a multipronged approach to bring in more money to the town to help pay for the project.

Earlier this year, the town implemented paid parking at its public beach accesses. Surf City did the same.

North Topsail aldermen have also discussed raising the occupancy tax, a move that would have to be approved by the North Carolina General Assembly, and one town officials are not optimistic about because of the powerful tourism lobby.

The occupancy tax rate in North Topsail Beach is 6% and the revenues generated from that tax are split equally between the town and Onslow County.

Property owner Becky Dickson said Saturday morning that she is adamantly opposed to the proposed project and argued that the town needs to focus its spending on infrastructure improvements.

“Sand’s not a permanent issue,” she said. “We need to get back to taking care of the town and our citizens. I think we need to let go of this project. It’s a failed project. We don’t have the money for what we need to pay for.”

Lisa Kozlowski said the project, while needed, “is entirely out of the town’s financial league.”

The only fair way to address the matter is to divide the entire town into municipal service districts to pay for projects within those districts, she said.

“If you truly believe in this project you would have the whole town pay for this project,” she said.

Town officials are considering dividing properties within the proposed project area, referred to as the Phase 5 area, into two districts – an oceanfront district and a soundside district.

Officials have not discussed proposed tax rates within those districts.

The town’s current property tax rate is 41 cents per $100 of property valuation. The county tax rate is nearly twice that amount at 70.5 cents per $100 valuation.

Property owners and former North Topsail Beach alderman Bob Swantek said property owners should pay equally for the joint project.

“The beach is all of ours,” he said. “It’s not just phase 5, phase 2, phase 3. If you’re going to put an MSD on the island it should be equal. The tax should be equal across the board.”

Kenneth Chestnut, whose father built Ocean City, a mile-long stretch of land within North Topsail Beach believed to be one of the first Black-owned beachfront communities, said he and other Ocean City property owners oppose the town establishing MSDs.

“The MSD creates further division within North Topsail,” Chestnut said. “The oceanfront property owners already pay a premium because the land and the lots are more expensive. Everyone benefits from the beach and the beach nourishment project.”

Six letters from property owners were read into the record after those who attended the public hearing spoke.

Those who submitted their statements in writing included the homeowners’ association of Topsail Reef, a 240-unit oceanfront condominium complex at the north end of town. The association said it supports the town establishing the two proposed MSDs.

After the public meeting closed, Mayor Joann McDermon said that for the town to consider the project it needs a new revenue source.

“The reason we are here with you all today is because of the vocal response by citizens that are in favor of the project to the point that some folks were so in favor of the project that they were requesting annexation from North Topsail Beach if the project did not move forward,” she said.

Though not required, it is “likely” that a decision on whether to establish the districts will be made in June, when aldermen are expected to adopt the town’s 2021-22 budget, according to information on the town’s website. The board could opt to call a special meeting in which its members would then cast their votes.

The state in February gave Sunset Beach the green light to pump material dredged from an ocean-access waterway onto a disposal site just off the beach, but two Sunset Beach property owners are challenging that permit.

The North Carolina Division of Coastal Management on Feb. 18 issued a major modification to the Coastal Area Management Act, or CAMA, major permit the town initially received in October 2019.

The modified permit grants the town the go-ahead to move an estimated 40,500 cubic yards of beach-compatible sand from South Jinks Creek to a nearshore area along about a 2,000-foot stretch of shoreline seaward between Third and 13^th streets.

Residents Richard Hilderman and Rich Cerrato submitted to the division March 8 an application to appeal the permit. They argue that the town has not proven dredged sand placed in the nearshore site will remain within the shoal system from which it would be removed.

“The problem I have is there’s a CAMA regulation that says if you take spoils out, you must put it in the appropriate littoral system and it must remain in there permanently,” Hilderman said. “That’s the basis of my appeal, is you don’t have any evidence it’s going to remain in the Tubbs Inlet shoal system nor do you have any evidence that it will remain permanently there.”

He and Cerrato point specifically to a section of North Carolina General Statute Chapter 113 that reads “Clean, beach quality material dredged from navigational channels within the active nearshore, beach or inlet shoal systems shall not be removed permanently from the active nearshore, beach or inlet shoal system. This dredged material shall be disposed of on the beach or shallow active nearshore area where it is environmentally acceptable and compatible with other uses of the beach.”

Sunset Beach resubmitted permit applications to both the state and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers last October to put the dredged sand from South Jinks Creek in a new proposed location after beachfront property owners indicated they would refuse to grant the town property easements over concerns it might cost them “beachfront ownership.”

The town needed temporary construction easements under its original proposal to put equipment on private properties to move sand dredged from the creek onto a stretch of oceanfront between Fifth and 12^th streets.

Shortly before the town asked the Corps to pull its original permit application in 2019, the federal agency sent the town a letter noting that the proposed oceanfront placement site was not eroding or in need of additional sand.

The town has indicated that while nearshore placement of material dredged from South Jinks Creek is a “last resort,” that option is an “environmentally acceptable and least cost alternative that meets the purpose and need of the project.”

The town is waiting on approval of its federal permit application from the Corps.

“Our office is still in the review process and haven’t completed our permit decision at this time,” Emily Winget, a public affairs specialist in the Corps’ Wilmington District, said in an email.

The modified state permit expires at the end of 2024.

About a decade ago, Sunset Beach officials began looking into maintenance dredging of the barrier island’s surrounding waterways, including Mary’s Creek and Turtle Creek, to improve and restore navigation access.

Dredging would help the town manage future development because it would create a pier head alignment that would allow the town to monitor future dock construction to ensure new piers would not impede navigation, according to town officials.

The town’s project includes dredging roughly 3 miles of waterway.

The original permit authorized the project with the condition that the maximum dredging depth be 2 feet below mean low water, which is consistent with a state rule prohibiting canals and boat basins from being dredged deeper than connecting waters.

About a year ago the Coastal Resources Commission, or CRC, granted a variance to the 2019 permit that allows the town to dredge about 18 acres, including South Jinks Creek, to a depth deeper than the connecting waters along its eastern border.

The variance allows dredging about 10,650 feet of South Jinks Creek, the bay area and the feeder channel, to a depth of no more than 6 feet below mean water. A series of finger canals would be dredged to 5 feet below mean low water.

A Division of Coastal Management spokesperson confirmed that the division had received two appeals to the CAMA permit on March 8.

Coastal Resources Commission Chair Renee Cahoon has 15 days from receiving the appeals to decide if the petitioners are entitled to a third-party hearing.

In order to get a hearing, a petitioner has to do the following: allege the permit contradicts a statute or rule; show that he or she is directly affected by the permit decision; and demonstrate the appeal is not frivolous.

According to information provided on the division’s website, if the commission chair grants a hearing, the petitioner may then file a petition for a contested case hearing in the Office of Administrative Hearings.

An administrative law judge will issue a final decision. The judge’s decision may be appealed to superior court.

The town’s website includes documents related to the project.

WANCHESE — As Oregon Inlet continues to thwart nearly every effort to tame it, North Carolina Congressman Greg Murphy, a Republican from Greenville, is lending his voice to reviving pursuit of twin jetties to prevent sand clogging the inlet’s navigation channel.

“What we need to do is we need have the jetties built,” Murphy said at a brief press gathering Friday after touring Wanchese Marine Industrial Park. “That will be the fix.”

Despite being the subject of 40 years of battles from Manteo to Washington, D.C., the controversial Oregon Inlet jetty project was finally killed off in 2003 by the White House Council on Environmental Quality after a report the prior year that described economic and environmental concerns as unresolved. But it has since transformed into a mythical zombie, its huge shadow looming over frustrated attempts to harness the channel.

During a brief interview at the marine park office, Murphy explained that he had met several times with the Oregon Inlet Task Force Chair Jim Tobin, also a member of the Dare County Board of Commissioners, who had taken him to see the conditions in Oregon Inlet for himself.

The inlet, the only opening from sound to ocean between Virginia and Hatteras, has been badly shoaled from recent storms, making it hazardous for fishing vessels and charter boats to navigate. The authorized depth of the navigation channel is 14 feet, although the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has had difficulty maintaining the channel to that specification. With the new Basnight Bridge having multiple high spans, there is now flexibility to re-mark the navigational channel to follow best water, but shoaling persists.

Dredging, which can be costly and difficult to schedule, has not been able to keep up with maintenance needs.

“We’re putting good money after bad,” Murphy said.

The design of the proposed jetty project includes one, 2-mile-long jetty on the north side of the channel and a 3,500-foot-long jetty that would be attached to the existing half-mile-long south terminal groin. The project also would include a sand-bypass system to promote sand movement and prevent beach erosion.

Murphy said there’s an “exceedingly good economic argument” for the jetty project.

But for now, with dredging the only available solution to keep the channels open, he said he found more money to help. In February, Murphy submitted a special request for an additional $1.3 million from the Army Corps of Engineers to do more work in Oregon Inlet, Silver Lake Harbor, and New River Inlet, according to a press release.

“Dredging is an indispensable and critical service to eastern North Carolina’s commercial and recreational fishing industries,” Murphy said in the statement. “Livelihoods as well as our national defense depend upon navigable waters in the Third District.”

The congressman won a special election in 2019 to replace Rep. Walter Jones, who had represented the district for 25 years until his death in February 2019. Murphy was reelected to a full, two-year term in 2020.

Although he was not specific, Murphy said it was “suggested” that he visit the marine park, which opened in 1981, except then it was known as the “Seafood Park.” Originally, the park was supposed to be a hub for commercial seafood industries with trawlers moving local catch from the harbor out through Oregon Inlet to the ocean. But Oregon Inlet proved too unpredictable and difficult to maintain the channel depth required for the huge trawlers. Before long, most of the trawler fleet relocated to deeper ports, and by the mid-1990s, the park started its transformation to a premier boatbuilding location.

“It’s an amazingly well-run, well-equipped facility that’s not only known in North Carolina, but internationally,” Murphy said. “This is a gem for eastern North Carolina.”

Oregon Inlet, as legend has it, was named for the first ship that navigated through it — and promptly struck a shoal — after the inlet was carved out by a vicious hurricane in 1846. Ever since, the inlet has moved steadily to the south, at a rate of as much as 100 feet a year. Known for its powerful currents and fickle conditions, Oregon Inlet is regarded by coastal scientists and mariners as one of the most dynamic inlets on the East Coast.

In the brief time that Murphy made himself available Friday, he did not elaborate on what he would do to support the jetties.

In January, state Sens. Bob Steinburg, R-Chowan, and Michael Lazzara, R-Onslow, introduced Senate Bill 26. The one-page bill, “An Act to Clarify That A Terminal Groin Is Not An Erosion Control Structure And Therefore Is Not Subject To Limitations On Those Structures,” strikes out the words, “A ‘terminal groin’ is not a jetty.”

Rep. Bobby Hanig, R-Currituck, introduced a companion bill in the House. Hanig told Coastal Review in January that the measure was “a first step” to restart legislative action on the inlet and changes to the bill were possible.

As of Wednesday, both measures were still in committee, where they’ve been since early February.

Steinburg did not respond to multiple messages for comment and information about the bill.

“I stand ready to help in any way I can at the federal level.”

Rep. Greg Murphy, R-N.C.

Murphy said a jetty at Oregon Inlet would improve navigation.

“I am supportive of the effort in the North Carolina General Assembly spearheaded by Rep. Hanig and Sen. Steinberg to clear the path for this to become a reality. The inlet would continue to need further dredging, but I stand ready to help in any way I can at the federal level,” Murphy said Tuesday in an emailed statement his office provided in response to Coastal Review’s query.

Harry Schiffman, the vice-chairman of the Oregon Inlet Task Force, said in interview that he did not know the impetus for the bill in the North Carolina General Assembly. The task force was not aware of the legislation, he added, nor did it ask for it.

“My feeling was, well, there’s a lot of history out there on the meaning of these names,” he said.

In short, groins protect property, jetties protect channels.

At Oregon Inlet, a terminal groin — a structure built at the end of a piece of land — was built on the south side to protect the Bonner Bridge and N.C. 12 from erosion. Over time, sand built up — about 60 acres —behind the rock wall.

“So, it was very successful in what it was intended to do,” Schiffman said.

But Schiffman, who has spent his lifetime navigating Oregon Inlet, knows better than most how difficult it would be to not only get approval for the twin jetties, but to get the funding to build them.

The immediate hurdle is the fact that the U.S. Department of the Interior owns the land.

“The first thing that would have to happen is that the state would have to get control of both sides of the inlet because the DOI has always opposed the jetties,” he said. “Then you’d have to reengineer the project and there would have to be environmental assessments. All of that would have to be ramped up.”

Watermen started lobbying in the early 1960s for the twin jetties, which they argue would block sand from entering the inlet channel. In 1970, Congress approved the $108 million jetty project, but failed to fund it. But for the next 33 years, the lobbying continued, with proponents, including Schiffman, saying it would create jobs, save lives and allow for the inlet to be able to safely flush.

Environmentalists and scientists said it would harm fisheries and worsen erosion.

In 2013, the state created a task force to study acquisition of the inlet. But the effort fell flat, in large part because the federal government was not interested in trading or selling its land.

Schiffman said he believes the current plan that is underway to build a private-public dredge to maintain Oregon and Hatteras inlets is the most realistic option to maintain the waterways.  The Oregon Inlet jetty project would be a much heavier lift.

“What kind of success we would have, I don’t know,” he said. “I’m scarred and worn-out on that one. So, if (the dredge) fails, then only thing left is the jetties. And somebody else is going to have to fight that battle.”

More than a month has passed since New Hanover County’s beach towns were shocked to learn their longstanding shoreline maintenance projects did not receive federal funding, leaving them in a scramble to figure out how they may move forward with nourishing the beaches this fall.

“We are still trying to find out what happened and we’re working toward a remedy,” said Tim Buckland, New Hanover County intergovernmental affairs manager.

County and town officials have been elated at the news that beach nourishment projects in Carolina Beach, Kure Beach and Wrightsville Beach were authorized under the Water Resources Development Act, or WRDA, which was included in a $1.4 trillion omnibus spending package former President Donald Trump signed into law Dec. 27, 2020.

After projects receive federal authorization, federal appropriations for the projects still have to be approved.

The omnibus spending bill included the Energy and Water Development Appropriations Act, which doled out more than $53 million for operations and maintenance projects within the Corps’ Wilmington District.

The Corps delivered its fiscal 2021 Work Plan for the Army Civil Works program to Congress on Jan. 19. That plan does not include appropriations for New Hanover County’s beach nourishment projects.

“It was quite a surprise when the work plan was released,” Buckland said. “We went from elation to disappointment.”

Officials were anticipating another round of federal funding and, when they didn’t get it, they were caught off guard, New Hanover County’s Shoreline Protection Manager Layton Bledsoe said.

“This is maintenance money that we’ve been getting for years,” he said. “Historically, the nonfederal has been cost-shared by the state 50/50. In this maintenance event, the federal contribution would have been 65% for Kure Beach, 65% for Wrightsville Beach and 50% for Carolina Beach.”

The projects were first authorized in Wrightsville and Carolina Beaches in the mid-1960s, according to information provided by the Corps. Kure Beach’s project was authorized in 1997.

“These are some of the earliest (Coastal Storm Risk Management) projects in the Corps,” Emily Winget, a public affairs specialist with the Corps’ Wilmington District, said in an email.

For Carolina Beach and Kure Beach, these maintenance projects occur every three years. Wrightsville Beach’s project is completed every four years.

Every 12 years the maintenance cycles align. This is the year all three projects were set to take place at the same time.

The plan is to inject between 700,000 to 750,000 cubic yards of sand onto about 8 miles of Carolina Beach’s ocean shoreline. That same amount of sand will be spread across just under 3 miles on Wrightsville Beach’s shore.

Kure Beach is set to get about 500,000 cubic yards on nearly 4 miles of its beachfront.

Federally authorized beach maintenance projects are highly sought after by beach towns up and down the North Carolina coast as a way to fortify shorelines to protect infrastructure in coastal storms, be they hurricanes or powerful winter nor’easters.

“I think the projects speak for themselves,” Bledsoe said. “I don’t recall in the past several years any structural damage from ocean or wave overwash in the projects’ templates.”

“Simply put, they work,” Buckland said.

Local officials are hoping to kick off the projects this year after the Nov. 16 environmental window opens, but the work may be pushed back a year if federal funding is not made available.

“The board (of county commissioners) and the (county) manager and the municipalities will be sitting down soon, I understand, and a firmed-up direction will be put forth,” Bledsoe said.

In the meantime, Corps officials are looking into possible funding options.

“The Corps is evaluating funding alternatives for Wrightsville, Carolina Beach and Area South (Kure Beach) renourishments and is working with the sponsors to be transparent as we move forward,” Winget said.

The push to allocate federal funding for the projects is backed by Republicans Rep. David Rouzer and Sen. Thom Tillis.

“The projects in question were reauthorized for funding by this past Congress,” Rouzer said in an emailed statement. “However, when Congress banned earmarks years ago, all specific funding decisions were removed from the Legislative branch and given to the Executive branch. Therefore, the Army Corps of Engineers determines which projects they fund with the tax dollars appropriated by Congress. Demand for dollars nationwide far outstrips the supply, even when Congress appropriates more funding for the Army Corps accounts as it did this past Congress. While we’re disappointed the work plan put forward by the Army Corps’ national office did not include funding for these projects, we are supporting efforts by the Army Corps’ Wilmington District office to reallocate funds unused from other projects where and if possible.”

Tillis spokesperson Adam Webb said in an email that the senator “has been actively engaging on the funding issues facing the Carolina Beach and Wrightsville Beach renourishment projects.”

“He has been in touch with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and other members of the delegation to coordinate and explore other funding options to ensure these critically important projects can move forward.”

Wheelchair users will continue to get front-row access to a stretch of Carolina Beach’s ocean shoreline this coming summer.

The North Carolina Coastal Resources Commission on Thursday granted the New Hanover County town a variance allowing the seasonal installation of beach mats to create a nearly 3,000-foot-long hard surface atop dry sand beach.

The commission’s unanimous decision during its virtual meeting ends more than a year of wrangling between state agencies and the town, which last October was denied a state permit to have the mats installed.

“I felt like popping a bottle of champagne,” Carolina Beach Parks and Recreation Director Eric Jelinski said of the vote to approve.

The mats were initially installed with the town’s approval in spring 2017 by Ocean Cure, a Carolina Beach-based nonprofit organization that offers surfing programs to people with disabilities to give people in wheelchairs independent access to the beach.

“We were the first ones to kind of go against the grain and extend (access) down to just above the high tide line,” said Kevin Murphy, Ocean Cure’s founder. “The whole point is to allow some independence. That’s really what we were striving for.”

One large mat, created by a series of light gray-colored, hard plastic mats that link together, is connected to the town’s boardwalk in Carolina Beach’s central business district, where two oceanfront hotels, restaurants and shops pepper the popular ocean strand.

To someone in a wheelchair, the mat allows freedom to spend time on the beach without having to rely on others for help.

“Realizing that they can now get to the beach and get back up to the boardwalk and use the restrooms, go eat at a restaurant, go to the shops, that’s huge,” Murphy said.

What he and town leaders did not know that first summer the mats were installed was that, under state rules, the mats are considered a structure and thus require a Coastal Area Management Act, or CAMA, permit.

Ocean Cure reinstalled the mats for the 2018 summer season, which runs Memorial Day weekend at the end of May through to Labor Day weekend in early September, and the group reinstalled them again in 2019.

On May 9, 2019, the state Division of Coastal Management, or DCM, and North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission notified the town that the mats would have to be removed from the beach each night to avoid potential harm to nesting sea turtles. Turtle nesting season runs mid-May through August.

The mats were not removed.

The following year, in July 2020, the division issued an enforcement letter to the town, explaining that the beach mats were “development” within an ocean hazard area of environmental concern, or AEC.

Ocean hazard AECs are defined by the state as areas where a substantial possibility of excessive erosion and significant shoreline fluctuation exists. The average erosion rate for the site on which the beach mats are placed is 2 feet per year.

In the CAMA minor permit application that Carolina Beach submitted to the Division of Coastal Management last September, the town requested the mats remain in place between May and September.

The president of the Pleasure Island Sea Turtle Project, a nonprofit organization whose volunteers monitor sea turtle nests in Carolina Beach, said in an affidavit that in 15 years, two nests have been laid where the mats were placed and that none had been laid since the Hampton Inn was built in 2016.

The commission’s variance does not restrict the time frame in which the beach mats may stay on the shore, as proposed in the town’s CAMA permit application, just in case the town decides to use the mats beyond that time frame. The town will still have to receive a permit modification if it chooses to go that route.

The town’s parks and recreation department has 10 beach wheelchairs, most of which were funded by Island Women, another Pleasure Island nonprofit organization.

The wheelchairs are available to the public at no cost and can be reserved by emailing reccenter@carolinabeach.org or calling 910-458-2977.

“Those wheelchairs can be checked out any time of the year, but during the summer season, they’re heavily used,” Jelinski said. “We do allow folks to reserve a beach wheelchair for up to a week at a time. Usually it’ll be returned on a Saturday morning and turned around and sent back out again.”

His department has already received calls for reservations for the upcoming season.

Beach wheelchairs are larger than regular wheelchairs. They require transport in “sizable” vehicles, Murphy said. And, they’re not particularly easy to push on the beach.

Murphy said he has received more than 100 letters from people who have used the beach mat in Carolina Beach.

“I know it’s used constantly,” he said.

He lauded state officials for their role in ensuring the future of the beach mats.

“We were a little upset when we were told we had to pull it up,” Murphy said. “(The division) really wanted to listen to what we have done. They advocated for us. It really was a team effort.”

Division Director Braxton Davis said the stories people shared with him through emails and letters about the beach mats “moved me personally to advocate for these issues.”

“I think it’s a stellar example and I appreciate everyone going through this process,” he said.

Commission Chairwoman Renee Cahoon applauded the town’s efforts to provide beach accessibility to those with disabilities.

“I think more these are going to come forward,” she said. “It’s a component of family vacation for everybody in the family to be able to enjoy their beach vacation.”

MANTEO — From beach nourishment to channel dredging to erosion control to material disposal to shoreline preservation, sand management in coastal North Carolina communities is no longer a sporadic chore.

It is an engineering challenge, a ballooning expense, a bureaucratic headache, an evolving menace.

With rapidly changing coastal dynamics, it is also a necessity and, increasingly, a blessing.

Long-term planning for projects — whether permitting or designing — that would replace, preserve, move and/or remove sand is currently underway or about to be implemented at local, state and federal levels in North Carolina.

Even the National Park Service on the Outer Banks — once a strict advocate of beach management policies that “let nature take its course” — has taken a proactive approach with its first-ever Sediment Management Framework. The document is intended to guide the National Seashore in addressing project requests while minimizing impacts on the natural resources.

“What this plan is all about is looking at a framework so that when others come to us … (it) allows us to respond to those partners,” National Seashore Superintendent Dave Hallac said in a recent interview.

Under the preferred alternative in the proposed action, which is expected to be finalized this spring, permitted activities could under certain conditions and limitations include soundside and oceanside beach nourishment and filling island breaches.

Even as erosion worsened in the late 1990s and early 2000s, National Seashore officials were reluctant to permit beach nourishment projects except after severe storms. But it became evident that natural resources were not always benefitting from the hands-off approach.

“We are losing habitat at this seashore to sea level rise and erosion,” Hallac said, adding that how much has been lost “depends on when you look.”

In some places, such as off Cape Point in Buxton, where the emergence of 27-acre “Shelly Island” a few years ago caused a sensation before it soon disappeared, sand comes and goes. But at other places, it’s been more of a problem when sand doesn’t come back.

“Twenty years ago, there was 1 to 2 miles of a spit at the end of Hatteras Island,” the superintendent said. “It’s gone — completely gone.”

Hallac said the Park Service’s policies, like the environment, have been adapting to coastal impacts from climate change and associated sea level rise. Still, the sediment plan is dovetailing and intersecting with existing management, rather than dramatically altering it, he said.

For instance, Hallac added, sand replenishment makes sense in the short term, but it’s not a cure for erosion.

“Beach nourishment is best used as a stop-gap solution to more permanent solutions,” Hallac said.

Mirlo Beach in Rodanthe illustrates an effective use of beach nourishment, he said. The beach there, known as “S-turns” to surfers, is one of the fastest eroding shorelines on the Outer Banks. A temporary nourishment project was done there while planning was underway for the “jug-handle” bridge. The bridge, now under construction, bypasses the eroded area, meaning that beach nourishment will no longer be necessary.

“The ocean is at the doorstep at Highway 12.”

Dave Hallac, Cape Hatteras National Seashore

In the years since Hurricane Isabel in 2003 ripped a hole between Frisco and Hatteras village, overall storm damage, beach erosion and shoaling in waterways have worsened considerably in the National Seashore, which encompasses most of Hatteras and Ocracoke islands. But Hurricane Irene in 2011 and Hurricane Sandy in 2012 seemed to have dramatically changed the sand processes on the islands, filling channels that rarely had shoaled and taking away chunks of beach.

An area on the north end of Ocracoke Island near the Hatteras-Ocracoke ferry dock, for example, has become extremely eroded, making the road exceedingly difficult to maintain. During Hurricane Teddy last year, huge swells from an extreme high tide flattened the dunes, which had recently been repaired after damage from a previous storm.

“There’s just nothing left,” Hallac said of the shoreline. “The ocean is at the doorstep at Highway 12 south of South Dock.”

In addition to project needs from the North Carolina Department of Transportation, he said, Dare County continues to plan beach nourishment projects on the island.

By doing much of the environmental review documentation ahead of time, the framework will be more efficient and timelier for all involved.

“Cape Hatteras National Seashore simply does not have the financial capacity to do beach nourishment,” Hallac said. “But we also recognize that the natural environment has been altered.”

So have the rules statewide for coastal projects. For many decades and until not that long ago, dredge contractors would scoop out shoaled channels and dispose of the spoils at what they deemed suitable spots, leaving them to become real estate for migratory birds and turtles.

And when sand piled up at inconvenient places, property owners would get out their plows and push it away. If they needed to fill a beach bald spot, they would take sand from where there was plenty and truck it to where it was skimpy.

Along the way, bulkheads and sandbags and groins and jetties were installed to keep sand from coming or going.

With the growth in population necessitating the growth in environmental regulations, the old days of “no permit, no problem,” are mostly a dim memory. But so are the days when shoreline projects were funded by fat government budgets often stuffed with line-item “pork” to dole out to constituents.

Over the years, the federal budget for the Army of Corps of Engineers has been pared down to the extent that communities now need to pay all costs for them to do beach nourishment projects, and often, to dredge their channels.

In 2018, the Corps stopped allowing any dredged material that was not associated with a Corps project to be dumped at their dredge material sites, leaving communities scrambling to find places to place material dredged from their non-federal waterway projects.

“There was a history of the Corps allowing their islands to be used,” Kathleen Riely, executive director of North Carolina Beach, Inlet and Waterways Association, said in a 2019 interview. “So, when it was stopped, it was like ‘Boom!’ Really, you didn’t have any chance to adjust.”

Riely said that along the southern end of the coast, nearly every disposal area was owned by the Corps.

“But I think that as spoil areas get used up more and more,” she said, “it’s just a matter of time that everybody feels this.”

In response, the state has launched a Dredge Materials Management Plan to evaluate the federal and nonfederal placement facilities.

The state signed an agreement in late 2020 with the Corps to work on identifying upland disposal sites for dredge material and build and map a GIS database, according to Kevin Hart, coastal infrastructure grant program coordinator for the state Division of Water Resources.

“The goal is not just to figure out where to put that material, but how to best use that sediment as an asset.”

Ken Willson, Coastal Protection Engineering

Phase I of the total $266,000 project is expected to be completed in about a year, he said. Phases II and III — assessment of the sites and assessment of dredging needs, respectively — will follow, depending on funding. Meanwhile, the Corps has analyzed sediment needs as part of its South Atlantic Coastal Study. In its 2020 Regional Sediment Management update, the document recommended projects for numerous beneficial uses, including to restore wetlands and stabilize shorelines.

“Significant value and coastal resiliency can be achieved across (the South Atlantic district) through placement of sand in the nearshore environment but will require coordination among USACE districts, agencies, and the dredging industry to effectively implement a nearshore placement program,” it said.  “Placement strategies such as nearshore placement … and open water dispersal should continue to be implemented and refined throughout the Division to support long-term coastal resiliency and USACE programmatic efficiencies.”

Also, Dare County has contracted with Ken Willson, senior project manager at Coastal Protection Engineering of Wilmington, to analyze the southern and central coastal areas to find suitable disposal sites for channel dredging projects, including Rollinson Channel in Hatteras Inlet and the Manteo/Shallowbag Bay interior channels leading from Oregon Inlet.

“The goal is not just to figure out where to put that material, but how to best use that sediment as an asset,” Willson said.

Willson said that he hopes to be able to present project proposals to the Dare County Board of Commissioners this month.

Revenue from a possible town-wide property tax increase in North Topsail Beach next year will not likely be funneled solely to pay for a joint, 50-year federal beach project.

North Topsail Beach aldermen reached a consensus last week to create two municipal service districts within town as a way to bring in funds to cover its portion of the estimated $672 million project.

The consensus reached during the board’s Dec. 3 meeting was to give the town’s financial advisers a path to follow in hashing out a plan to be presented to the Local Government Commission. The board did not vote on the matter. Mayor Joann McDermon was not at the meeting.

Municipal service districts are used by local governments to pay for projects by collecting additional property taxes from the property owners who stand to benefit most. Money the town would collect from an additional property tax that would be levied in each of the districts – one soundside and one oceanside – would contribute to the estimated $3 million-a-year price tag of the proposed 50-year project.

The board has not determined how much additional property tax would be charged in the districts as it moves forward with plans to initiate paid public parking at its beach accesses and request legislative approval to increase the town’s occupancy tax – all of which would be collected to fund the federal project.

Under the proposed project, North Topsail Beach will enter a project partnership agreement with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Surf City to renourish 10 miles of Topsail Island’s oceanfront shore every six years for the next half-century. The project would nourish all 6 miles of Surf City’s beachfront and the southernmost 4 miles of North Topsail’s beach.

Under the agreement, the Corps would pay 65% of the project’s initial construction. The towns and state would pay for the remaining 35%.

North Topsail Beach aldermen have been discussing how to pay their town’s portion of the proposed federal project, pay off an outstanding loan the town received for a previous beach project, and generate revenue to cover the cost of capital projects, including a building for the town fire department.

Alderman Tom Leonard said he was not opposed to a “slight” property tax increase across the board to beef up revenue in the town’s general fund.

“I’m not in a favor of a town-wide increase for the federal project,” he said during the meeting.

If the board puts money generated from a town-wide property tax increase into its beach fund then that money would go straight toward the payment of the town’s U.S. Department of Agriculture loan, Leonard said.

The town is paying down the $16 million loan it received for a renourishment project known as Phase 5 along the southernmost portion of its beach, the same part of shoreline that is included in the proposed federal project.

The town is paying about $900,000 a year on that loan.

Doug Carter, president and managing director of the municipal consulting firm DEC Associates Inc., told the board that he was updating a financial model on paying off the loan by fiscal 2026 to present to the Local Government Commission.

“We’re very near on that,” he said.

Alderman Richard Grant said he favored establishing two municipal service districts and imposing a town-wide tax increase, the latter of which he would want to see go to the general fund.

Mayor Pro Tem Mike Benson said the federal project should be considered a town-wide project because previous beach projects, including Phase 5, were paid for with town-wide taxes.

The occupancy tax rate on vacation rentals, rooms and accommodations in North Topsail Beach is 6%. Revenues from that tax are split equally between Onslow County and the town.

Onslow County officials have said they will support the town’s request of the North Carolina General Assembly for an occupancy tax increase.

Aldermen have to decide whether to ask for a 1%, 2% or 3% increase.

Getting any one of those may be an uphill battle.

Leonard said he and fellow members of the Topsail Island Shoreline Protection Commission had a conversation before the meeting last week with Connie Wilson, the towns’ lobbyist, about possibly raising the occupancy tax. The commission represents the three towns on Topsail Island, including Topsail Beach.

He said Wilson indicated getting legislative approval to raise the occupancy tax may be difficult.

DEC Consulting advisors is expected to present financial data to the board at a specially scheduled meeting Dec. 15. That meeting is set to begin at 10 a.m.

North Topsail Beach is moving forward with plans to embark on a joint, 50-year, multi-million-dollar beach renourishment project.

North Topsail’s Board of Aldermen recently instructed the town’s attorney to notify U.S. Army Corps of Engineers officials that the town intends to join in on the proposed federal project and will at the appropriate time sign a project partnership agreement, or PPA, with the Corps and Surf City.

“You have to look at the great advantage of this federal project in that we would be getting over $90 million worth of sand in the initial construction of the project just in North Topsail,” Mayor Pro Tem Mike Benson said Oct. 31 during a special called meeting of the board. “We just have to figure out the right way to finance it that’s in the best interest of our residents and properties.”

North Topsail Beach will have to fork out about $3 million a year for the next 50 years to cover its portion of the project, which was in 2019 estimated by the Corps to cost more than $900 million over the life of the project.

That figure has since dropped to an estimated $672 million, according to information provided on the town’s website.

Under the agreement, the Corps would pay 65% of the project’s initial construction. The towns and state would pay for the remaining 35%.

The proposed project was approved last fall by the Corps and would secure beach renourishment along 10 miles of Topsail Island’s oceanfront shore, including all 6 miles of Surf City’s beach, every six years for the next half-century.

Talks continue in North Topsail Beach on ways the town can generate revenue to pay for its portion of the project, which will nourish the first 4 miles of beach at the southern end of town starting at the town line with Surf City.

North Topsail aldermen are considering a multipronged approach to bring in more money, including increasing the occupancy tax on rooms, lodging and accommodations.

To do that, the town will have to get legislative approval.

The combined occupancy tax rate in North Topsail Beach is 6%. Revenues are split equally between Onslow County and the town.

Onslow County officials have said that they will not give the town the full amount of occupancy tax, but that they will support the town in the pursuit to increase its occupancy tax.

Doug Carter, president and managing director of the municipal consulting firm DEC Associates Inc., broke down the increase-to-revenue-generated ratios for occupancy tax increases of 1% to 3%.

A 1% increase would bring in an additional $350,000; 2% would generate an additional $700,000; and 3% an additional $1,050,000, he said.

“Three is what I would go for, for obvious reasons, if I sat in your chair,” Carter said to the board during the Oct. 31 meeting.

Aldermen are also considering implementing paid parking at the town’s public beach accesses.

“The board has spoken that they’re in favor of paid parking in our parking lots,” Mayor Joann McDermon said during that meeting.

North Topsail Beach will “probably be the first” of the three towns on the island, which includes Topsail Beach, to charge for parking at its public beach accesses, she said.

“We’re looking at everything right now. Nothing is off the table.”

That also includes the potential of a property tax increase.

The town operates on about a $7 million budget and is currently paying down a $16 million U.S. Department of Agriculture loan it received for a renourishment project that was completed about five years ago.

The town is paying about $900,000 a year on that loan.

In September, Carter informed town officials that if the town continues to pay that amount each year for the next four to five years it will pay down about $8 million or so of the $14 million remaining debt.

The reserve fund, which is between $4 million and $5 million, would cover the remainder of the loan.

Carter said last month that he’d spoken with Local Government Commission officials and informed them that the town would be able to pay off the loan around fiscal 2026. He also said he told those same officials that the town understands it would have overlapping debt service on the USDA loan and to the Corps if the town agrees to the PPA.

“The understand that this is an opportunity,” Carter said to aldermen during the Oct. 31 meeting.

In addition to the proposed federal project, the town has been in the process of restoring town hall, which has been unoccupied since being heavily damaged during Hurricane Florence in 2018.

A project to haul more than 200,000 cubic yards of sand by trucks to beef up a portion of the town’s shoreline is underway with work to begin later this year.

The town is pursuing the possibility of constructing a terminal groin at New River Inlet.

Sunset Beach has resubmitted permit applications to state and federal agencies after finding a new proposed location to put the sand the town hopes to have pumped from surrounding waterways.

The town earlier this week turned in modified dredge permit applications to the N.C. Division of Coastal Management and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, asking to place beach-compatible sand just offshore.

This newest proposal to put beach quality sand pumped from south Jinks Creek onto a nearshore site comes after beachfront property owners said they would refuse to grant the town property easements.

According to information provided on the town’s website, those property owners expressed concerns about the possibility of losing “beach front” ownership. The landowners pointed to a North Carolina statute that reads, in part, “the title or land in or immediately along the Atlantic Ocean raised above the mean high-water mark by publicly financed projects which involve hydraulic dredging or other deposition of spoil materials or sand vests in the State.”

The proposed project would be partially funded through state grants.

Under the original proposal, the town would need to obtain temporary construction easements to put equipment on private properties to move sand dredged from the creek onto a stretch of oceanfront between Fifth and 12^th streets.

Shortly before the town asked the Corps to pull its permit application early this year, the federal agency sent the town a letter noting that the proposed original sand placement site is not eroding or in need of additional sand.

The town also considered moving beach-compatible sand to an adjacent beach in a neighboring town, but state rules mandate that the sand has to be maintained and, if temporarily removed, returned to the littoral zone from where it was dredged.

Temporarily storing the sand in an upland facility would take more time to get the sand on the beach and would significantly raise the project’s cost, officials say.

The option of nearshore placement was evaluated as “a last resort,” according to the town’s website. “Although nearshore placement is not a widely used option for non-federal stakeholders, the alternative provides a beneficial reuse option for placement of the beach material from south Jinks Creek. Nearshore placement also provides an environmentally acceptable and least cost alternative that meets the purpose and need of the project.”

The modified permit application proposes to move an estimated 40,500 cubic yards of beach-compatible sand from south Jinks Creek in the nearshore along about 2,000-foot stretch of shoreline seaward between Third and 13^th streets.

The town chose this particular spot after evaluating impacts from recent hurricanes, according to information provided on Sunset Beach’s website.

“The Town experienced noticeable erosion impacts in the beach and dune system along their central shoreline region extending between 3^rd Street and 13^th. Although the Town did not document the beach and shoreline impacts, data obtained from the DCM (Division of Coastal Management) corroborates the general consensus of erosion concerns in the area of 3^rd through 13^th streets,” according to Moffatt & Nichol, the Raleigh-based engineering firm hired by the town to oversee the proposed dredging project.

Sunset Beach resident Richard Hilderman, a vocal opponent of the proposed project, has argued that erosion data along that section of beach needs to be further examined and that the town has not justified placing the sand offshore.

“In order to verify the claim that the beach between 3^rd and 13^th St is eroding the actual data needs to be evaluated,” he said in an email. “They have identified areas where the spoils could be stored until a beneficial site can be found in the Tubbs Inlet littoral zone. This sand is too valuable to be lost by placing it offshore where (it) will be removed by the long-shore transport system.”

Hilderman is submitting comments to the state and the Corps, which have both opened 30-day public comment periods on the permit applications.

The town received a Coastal Area Management Act, or CAMA, major permit a year ago to dredge roughly 3 miles of waterway and place beach-compatible sand on a little more than 8 acres of oceanfront.

That permit authorized the project with the condition that the maximum dredging depth be 2 feet below mean low water, which is consistent with a state ruling prohibiting canals and boat basins from being dredged deeper than connecting waters.

In February, the Coastal Resources Commission, or CRC, granted a variance to that permit that allows the town to dredge about 18 acres, including south Jinks Creek, to a depth deeper than the connecting waters along its eastern border.

The variance allows dredging about 10,650 feet of south Jinks Creek, the bay area and the feeder channel, to a depth of no more than 6 feet below mean water. A series of finger canals would be dredged to 5 feet below mean low water.

Sunset Beach officials began looking into maintenance dredging of the waterways, including Mary’s Creek and Turtle Creek, about a decade ago to improve and restore navigation access.

Town officials say dredging will help the town manage future development because it will create a pier head alignment that will allow the town to monitor future dock construction to ensure new piers will not impede navigation.

An estimated 48,600 cubic yards of dredged sand deemed noncompatible to be placed on the beachfront will be placed in an upland landfill.

The town will have to get a major modification to its existing CAMA permit from the state. DCM is accepting public comments through Oct. 26.

The Corps had not published its comment period for the permit application as of deadline for this report Friday.

The Army Corps of Engineers’ Wilmington District is requesting the state drop its environmental window for hopper dredging within the federally maintained channels at North Carolina’s ports.

Eliminating the hopper dredging window would allow the Corps more flexibility to maintain the deep-draft channels and save millions of dollars, according to an environmental assessment, or EA, the district released in August.

The Corps is also asking that bed leveling be allowed throughout the year in conjunction with hopper dredging. In bed leveling, dredge contractors use plow-like equipment to level out ridges and trenches created during dredging.

The window for hopper dredging in the state is Dec. 1 – April 15.

“Previous environmental policy documents that were coordinated between the Wilmington District and the State of North Carolina aimed to avoid dredging/placement during periods of high biological activity,” Dave Connolly, the district’s public affairs chief, said in an email. “Using risk management-based decision making for dredging eliminates constraints based on specific dates and will allow more flexibility and increase efficiency in maintaining the harbors while improving navigability and safety.”

Under what the Corps refers to as the Regional Harbor Dredge Contract, or RHDC, Wilmington is paired with Charleston, South Carolina, and Savannah, Georgia, districts as a cost-saving measure when contracting for harbor maintenance projects predominately using hopper dredging.

Wilmington District is the only district within the RHDC that has an environmental window for hopper dredging.

That could be a sticking point for these districts when it comes time to bid for a hopper dredging contract.

These particular dredges are in short supply. There are 13 available for the coast stretching from Maine to Florida and across the Gulf Coast to Texas.

Since coming under the RHDC in 2017, the districts have not been forced to pass a dredging cycle because they could not secure a hopper dredge, Connolly said.

But, prior to the regional contract, projects in the Morehead City Harbor had to wait another dredging cycle because of dredge availability, he explained in the email.

According to the Corps’ assessment, four hopper dredges are scheduled for work through March 2021 and one remains in an “idle” status.

“This leaves only eight available hopper dredges between now and March 2021 to perform all the required dredging for approximately twenty-five to twenty-eight USACE contracts to remove 50-55 million cubic yards (CY) of dredged material in fiscal year 2021,” the EA states.

To remove that 50-55 million cubic yards of material, each dredge would have to remove 25,000 CY a day for 250 days, or about eight months.

A hopper dredger vacuums material from the channel floor and holds that material on the vessel.

They are the preferred dredge to maintain portions of the harbors leading to the state’s ports because they are more efficient, safer and economical, compared to other types of dredges, according to the environmental assessment.

Shoaled material sucked onto hopper dredges used at the ports in Morehead City and Wilmington is placed within preapproved offshore disposal sites, not on adjoining beaches.

“Our office had no significant comments because the project doesn’t include upland (beach) sand placement,” Lilibeth Serrano, public affairs specialist with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Raleigh Ecological Services Field Office, said in an email.

USFWS is recommending the Corps apply current guidelines for avoiding impacts to the West Indian manatee, which is both under the federal Endangered Species Act and North Carolina Endangered Species Act.

Protections for federally listed species are included in the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s South Atlantic Regional Biological Opinion, or SARBO, for dredging and material placement.

David Bernhart, head of NOAA’s Protected Resources Division, explained in a telephone interview that the SARBO dates back to the late 1980s to early 1990s.

“At that time, we were discovering for the first time how hopper dredges could capture and kill, if done in certain ways, a lot of sea turtles,” he said. “At that time, we worked with the Army Corps and implemented these seasonal restrictions on hopper dredges to protect sea turtles. It was pretty simple. It was let’s move all of the hopper dredging into the winter months. That was highly effective.”

Since that time, other species, such as Atlantic sturgeon and some corals, have been added for protection under the Endangered Species Act.

One of the things officials noticed was that the previous environmental hopper dredging windows for sea turtles placed 100% of dredging within the right whale calving season, which generally runs December through March largely from Florida to Georgia, but sometimes as far north as North Carolina.

“In our new SARBO that we were working to develop with the Army Corps we wanted to have a broader view of all the risk factors and we did want to revisit that issue of restricting the Corps to just working in the winter time,” Bernhart said.

“For our purposes, that was putting a lot of risks on the right whales. We have reissued as of this March a new, greatly updated SARBO that considers all of the ESA listed species and much less restrictive in terms of limitations on when and where. So, all of our formal ESA consultation has already been done,” Bernhart continued. “The general framework is that there will be a lot of monitoring and coordination by the Army Corps in communication with us as they implement changes because they did things this one way for 25 years or maybe closer to 30 years with those other windows. So, we don’t have full experience with how things are going to go when we deviate from this so I think they’re treating everything with let’s monitor and adjust as needed. We do know that we’ve got a lot more mitigations for particularly sea turtles that are effective that you don’t have to go all the way to closures.”

Several fishery species are present in the project areas between the months of April and June. Those include: Atlantic sturgeon, American Atlantic sturgeon, American shad, river herring, shad, white shrimp, blue crab, gag grouper and summer flounder.

The EA includes an essential fish habitat assessment and concludes that impacts to fishery species are not expected to be significant. Based on the channels’ proximity to designated nursery areas, “no adverse effects are anticipated” to occur in primary or secondary nursery areas, according to the assessment.

Wilmington District’s EA examines three alternatives, including taking no action and expanding the current environmental window from July 1 to April 15.

NORTH TOPSAIL BEACH – It might take a property tax increase, paired perhaps with other possible new sources of revenue, including pay-to-park at public beach access lots.

Whatever the case, North Topsail Beach Board of Aldermen Thursday night made clear they are not against a joint federal project with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Surf City.

Town leaders just have to figure out how tap new revenue sources to fund the estimated $3 million a year the town would have to pay for the next 50 years for its portion of the estimated $901.1 million project.

For North Topsail Beach, the project entails nourishing the first 4 miles of the southern end of town starting at the town line with Surf City.

The proposed project, approved by the Corps last fall, would secure beach renourishment along 10 miles of Topsail Island’s shoreline, including all 6 miles of oceanfront shoreline in Surf City, every six years for the next half-century.

Under a proposed funding agreement, the Corps would pay 65% of the project’s initial construction. The towns and state would pay for the remaining 35%.

Shortly after convening the board’s monthly meeting Thursday, North Topsail Beach Mayor Joann McDermon addressed an audience tuned into the town’s live meeting broadcast, saying that information recently posted on the town’s website was not an indication the town would withdraw from the proposed project.

“We as a board are very much for the project,” she said.

Instead, the board wants to make sure property owners understand town officials are trying to make sure the town can afford to pay for the federal project and have enough to pay for other capital projects.

Town officials were surprised in a meeting with Corps officials late last month to learn that the estimated cost of the project has nearly tripled in the 10 years since the proposal was introduced.

The town is currently paying down a U.S. Department of Agriculture loan it received for a renourishment project at the southern end of town that was completed about five years ago. And, there are projects in the works that will drain even more money from the town’s coffers.

For nearly two years, the town’s administrative staff and police department have been operating in rented space after Hurricane Florence in 2018 heavily damaged town hall. The building has been gutted and is expected to be restored later this year.

A project to haul more than 200,000 cubic yards of sand by trucks to beef up a portion of the town’s shoreline is underway with work to begin later this year.

The town continues to pursue the possibility of constructing a terminal groin at New River Inlet, where erosion is eating away the north end of Topsail Island. An environmental impact statement for that proposed project is still in the works.

“We’ve just got a lot that we’ve got to get accomplished here,” McDermon said.

The town has received about 100 emails with comments from property owners expressing their opinions, concerns, and, according to aldermen, overall support for the federal project.

“I appreciate it,” Alderman Tom Leonard said of the emails. “The board has not said ‘no’ to the project. Not by any means, but, instead, wrestling how to pay for a very expensive project. It’s already stressful enough trying to come up with the right decision.”

He urged property owners to help town leaders to identify new revenue sources.

“Give us something to work with,” Leonard said. “Thank you in advance for your future cooperation.”

He pointed out that only one of the email authors mentioned the town’s Phase 5 renourishment project completed in 2015 at the south end of town – the same area that would entail the federal project.

That cost the town about $16 million and, Leonard said, has proved to be a success because the dune structure built as a result of the project has protected the homes and infrastructure behind it through three storms – hurricanes Matthew, Florence and Dorian.

“The fact is we need to get everything out on the table and what this means to the citizens,” Leonard said.

 That may well include a tax increase.

According to information on the town’s website, the current rate of 1 cent per $100 valuation generates $100,000 each year. It would take a tax rate of 30 cents per $100 valuation to generate $3 million.

Among the questions about possible funding sources is whether all of the town’s property owners should pay the same amount to cover the cost of the project.

Should those who own property outside of the project area contribute equally to it?

“I think that’s a fair thing for us to consider,” Alderman Richard Grant said.

The town owes about $14 million on the USDA loan it received for the south-end project.

Doug Carter, president and managing director of DEC Associates Inc., said the town is paying about $900,000 a year on that loan.

The Charlotte-based municipal consulting company is currently working with the town’s interim manager and finance director to project whether the town can pay off the remaining loan within five years.

Carter said that if the town continues to pay $900,000 a year for the next four to five years, about $8 million or so of the $14 million will be paid down. The reserve fund, which is between $4 million and $5 million, would cover the remainder of the loan.

“We really have sort of a four- or five-year period we’re working with,” Carter said. “The other issue is we really have to work out the construction time period and all of the other timing factors to determine when essentially the North Topsail Beach project would be done by the Corps and essentially when our debt service to them would start. Once we can really get our timing worked out through our negotiations and conversations with the Corps on when we really would have to start paying debt service to them then that will make it easier to determine through the financial model where do we need the new revenues, when do y’all need to start levying them, how can we save them toward these payments and that’s what we’re trying to work through.”

Carter said he and town officials are “heavily” in the process of looking into a project partnership agreement, or PPA, with the Corps and Surf City.

McDermon said town officials will continue to meet with Corps and Surf City officials to hash out an agreement – possibly two PPAs, one with the Corps and one with Surf City.

Reprinted from Port City Daily

SURF CITY — This Topsail Island town is looking to finally attain its coveted status as a “Corps-engineered beach” at an estimated cost of nearly $25 million.

Surf City is expected to pay around $24.9 million for its portion of a 52,150-foot berm and dune system to be built by the Army Corps of Engineers from the town’s southern boundary with Topsail Beach to the northern end of Topsail Island.

The projected cost for constructing just shy of 10 miles of dune and berm system is about $237 million, according to a letter sent by Town Manager Kyle Breuer to Mayor Doug Medlin. Congress has already appropriated that money to the Corps, according to Breuer.

That figure will be broken down into financial commitments. The federal government is expected to contribute 65%, the state 17.5% and the towns of Surf City and North Topsail Beach, a combined 17.5%. North Topsail Beach is expected to contribute $16.6 million.

Breuer emphasized that these are estimated numbers, as the total amounts due will be based on the volume of sand dumped onto the roughly 6-mile stretch of beach in Surf City and the 3.9 mile-stretch in North Topsail Beach. The berm and dune line will extend to the southern edge of the Coastal Barrier Resources Act, or CBRA, Zone in North Topsail Beach.

“Beach volumes for initial construction are estimated at approximately 12 million cubic yards (MCY), requiring multiple years for initial completion,” Breuer wrote to the mayor.

He said the first phase of the project will start in the winter of 2020 or 2021 at the Surf City-Topsail Beach boundary, proceeding north roughly 2 miles. The next phases will continue until the project is completed, expected to be sometime in the spring of 2024.

A project partnership agreement has established responsibilities of both beach towns, requiring continued coordination between the two throughout construction as well as throughout a 50-year project life, during which time renourishment work will occur at six-year intervals “and funds will be budgeted accordingly,” according to Breuer.

He said the agreement will be presented during Friday’s Council Work Session for a vote. The agreement must be signed by both towns “and an action to approve must be provided by Council,” Breuer informed the mayor.

The six-year renourishment work will be split equally between the federal and nonfederal partners, and Breuer said the town’s nourishment funds will continue to be budgeted for the town’s 50-50 cost-share with the state.

Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., and Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., on Jan. 13 announced that the two towns would receive money provided by Congress through the Disaster Relief Act. According to an email from Burr’s office, both senators led efforts to secure the federal funding and, along with Sen. David Rouzer, R-Johnston, wrote to the Corps advocating for the beach towns.

“The Surf City and North Topsail Beach project is a critical, shovel-ready coastal storm reduction project, and constructing it is a priority for North Carolina, a state seriously impacted by Hurricane Florence,” the joint letter stated.

The letter went on to say that the Topsail Island project is designed to prevent disastrous losses by protecting vulnerable areas of the island “that lost storm protection capabilities in previous storms and through ongoing erosion.” Hurricanes Fran, Bertha, and Floyd eroded approximately 25 feet of protective beach width over the project area,” according to the congressmen.

“Today, shoreline erosion continues at a rate of two to three feet per year in some portions of the project area,” the letter continues. “Hurricane Florence further eroded the beaches and primary dune structure. The Corps estimates average damages exceed $19 million for every year the project is not constructed.”

Hurricane Florence in September 2018 caused over $100 million in damages to the towns’ beaches and infrastructure, according to the letter, and if it had made landfall as a Category 3 or 4 storm, as was predicted days before, “the damage would have been catastrophic.”

“The towns of Surf City and North Topsail Beach are aware of the risks they face and have sought to improve beach conditions on their own,” according to the letter.

Although the congressmen justified the economic soundness of the project, claiming a benefit-cost ratio of 3.47 to 1, they did not elaborate on the details of this claim.

Gov. Roy Cooper also praised the project’s funding, saying the substantial investment by Corps will help residents become “more resilient against future storms.

“These substantial investments by the Army Corps of Engineers will help make North Carolina safer and more resilient against future storms. North Carolinians have been hit hard by recent storms, and I appreciate the efforts of our federal partners as we work to rebuild smarter and stronger than ever,” Cooper said.

This story is provided courtesy of Port City Daily, an online news source for Wilmington and the Cape Fear region, including New Hanover, Brunswick and Pender counties. Coastal Review Online is partnering with Port City Daily to provide readers with more environmental and lifestyle stories of interest about our coast.

Updated Wednesday to clarify the type of dredge to be built 

Commercial and recreational fishers have been dealing for decades with the unpredictability of Oregon Inlet navigation but with the recent go-ahead by Dare County for its private partner to move on a contract to build a new hopper dredge, there may be an end in sight.

Legislation passed in 2017 to provide Dare County with funds to establish a private partnership with a company to build a hopper dredge for the state, explained Brent Johnson, project manager for grants and waterways in the county planning department. 

“It was identified that there were not enough assets in North Carolina, either private assets or dredging assets under the Corps of Engineers,” Johnson said Friday in an interview with Coastal Review Online, “And so, the state in 2017 passed legislation that provided $15 million to Dare County to go and seek out a private partner to build a new dredge that would work with Dare County and the state to do shallow draft dredging in our inlets and ports.”

In May 2019, Dare County entered into a public-private partnership with the EJE Dredging, a company formed in August 2018 by recycling firm owner Judson Whitehurst and based in Greenville. 

The Oregon Inlet Task Force want the dredge to be similar to the Army Corps of Engineers dredge Murden, according to a previous report questioning the decision to go with the EJE Dredging, which has never done major dredging.

Johnson said the $15 million is a forgivable loan to be used by EJE Dredging to help to build the dredge. “And in turn, they are providing us with a discounted rate of dredging.”

The Dare County Oregon Task Force is overseeing this process of having the dredge built and will oversee and manage the private partner in the dredging efforts within the state, Johnson said.

Johnson said when the Oregon Inlet Task Force met July 15 they went into closed session to discuss a contract between EJE and the proposed shipbuilder, which was approved. “That was part of the terms and conditions that were set in place to contract between EJE and Dare County.”

During the Dare County Board of Commissioners’ meeting last week, Commissioner Jim Tobin, who is on the task force, said that the task force approved EJE Dredging entering into a contract with Conrad Shipyard LLC of Morgan City, Louisiana, to build the vessel. 

After review of the vessel construction contract between EJE Dredging Service and Conrad Shipyard, the task force “has found the contract to be in compliance with all specifications and requirements set forth in the dredge work plan and forgivable loan agreement. We hereby authorize EJE Dredging services to proceed with the execution of this contract July, 20, 2020. So as of today, they can move forward and sign the contract,” Tobin announced during the commissioners’ comments portion of the meeting, reading from a letter he drafted following consultation with the Dare County attorney.

Once the contract is officially signed between EJE Dredging and Conrad, Johnson said he would have the contract amount, or cost to build the vessel.  

The contract is for 18 months to build the dredge but it will likely be at least 24 months before “we see the dredge here in Dare County dredging Oregon Inlet,” he said. After the dredge is built, there will need to be sea trials, get the crew trained, have the Coast Guard certify the dredge and move it to Dare County. 

The county is in a 10-year contract with EJE Dredging to dredge in Oregon Inlet and other shallow draft inlets in the state.

Johnson said having access to a dredge is going to be a game changer for the commercial fishing business. 

“Wanchese Harbor was established and built for commercial fishing but because of the unpredictability of Oregon inlet, the big commercial fishing that used to exist in Wanchese has gone away,” he said, explaining that commercial fishers never know if they can get to Oregon Inlet. 

“You leave one day and come back in two weeks and will not be able to get back there. And so, having the ability to constantly dredge and dredge when needed will provide us the ability to bring back that commercial fish fishing industry Wanchese once had,” he said.

Johnson said it’s not funding that’s the issue with keeping Oregon Inlet navigable, it’s access to assets, or man-hours and equipment.

Coastal inlets are constantly changing and sand is constantly moving. As you dredge, it fills back in, and fills in faster without any infrastructure put into play, so constant dredging has to be done in order to make it navigable, he said.

The Marc Basnight Bridge spanning Oregon Inlet replaced the Bonner Bridge, which is being dismantled and the debris is to be used for an artificial reef. An issue now, he said, is that the state Department of Transportation is trying to move the barges with the debris to the artificial reef site outside of Dare County. However, the Corps of Engineers isn’t able to dredge deep enough for a long enough time to allow for these barges to get to the reef site.

“There’s just not enough assets under the Corps to keep it open. Like I said, it’s not about money it’s just about man-hours and equipment-hours,” he said. 

At the end of the day, Johnson continued, the new dredge is great for Dare County, the state and watermen.

For example, he said Hatteras Inlet has been shoaled by up to 3 to 4 feet for the last eight months, and it’s not been a funding issue but having access to the proper equipment, he said. The section of Hatteras Inlet shoaled in is not part of the federal channel and has an authorized depth of 10 feet. The depth of the portion now is about 6 to 7 feet because of the shoaling.

“But if we had our own dredge,” Johnson said, the county could dredge immediately and keep that inlet maintained.

“We would never have had the issues that we’re having now. It’s to the extent that the Coast Guard out of Hatteras has not been able to get out and do their mission of protecting and serving, because it’s been shoaled in so much,” Johnson said. 

The Coast Guard relies on Dare County to open up the channel for them to get access to the ocean. “And like I said, it hasn’t been a funding issue it’s an asset issue. We just didn’t have the assets needed at the time we needed them.”

The board also approved two dredging-related items during the July 20 meeting that Johnson presented, a Hatteras Inlet maintenance contract and permit modifications for Oregon Inlet maintenance dredging.

Johnson said Aptim/Coastal Planning & Engineering, or CPE,  handles permit coordination and dredging coordination for Hatteras Inlet. The other contract with CPE to modify the existing Dare County permit to add sidecast dredging.

The board approved submitting a request to the Army Corps of Engineers to include Barney Slough, Sloop Channel and South Ferry Channel into the federally authorized channel.

This story has been updated to include comments from the state Division of Coastal Management.

A federal judge has dismissed a Maryland couple’s legal fight against North Carolina regulators to replace a house destroyed by fire on the same site, one of the most rapidly eroding stretches of beach on the Outer Banks.

Coastal advocates and others say the decision upholds North Carolina’s doctrine that beaches are in the public trust and reinforces the state’s coastal management strategy and push for resilience in the face of climate change, but the couple’s attorney has vowed to continue the challenge.

Michael and Cathy Zito of Timonium, Maryland, sued the state Coastal Resources Commission in March 2019 in federal court, alleging a taking of their property on East Seagull Drive in Nags Head without just compensation. The commission had backed a local permitting officer’s denial of permits because their planned construction was closer than the minimum allowable distance from the encroaching ocean.

U.S. District Court Judge James C. Dever III on Friday dismissed the Zitos’ complaint without prejudice for lack of subject matter jurisdiction.

The judge said precedent required that the court hold that the 11th Amendment bars the Zitos’ Fifth Amendment takings claim. “If the Zitos are to obtain relief on this claim, they first must get such relief from the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit sitting en banc (in full court) or from the United States Supreme Court,” according to the judge’s order.

The CRC in December 2018 denied the Zitos’ request for a variance from, or reversal of, a town permitting officer’s denial of a permit under the state’s Coastal Area Management Act, or CAMA, that would have allowed the couple to rebuild their vacation cottage on the lot they had owned since 2008. The original home built in 1982 on a 32- by 28-foot footprint was destroyed by an electrical fire in 2016.

The town’s permitting officer denied permits because the replacement house planned for the same footprint as the two-story, piling-supported original wouldn’t meet state coastal setback requirements. The state said that denying permits was necessary because allowing the Zitos to rebuild their home “would constitute inappropriately sited development.”

The judge’s dismissal does not affect the couple’s ability to assert a takings claim in state court, Dever said in his order.

“The Zitos are disappointed but will promptly appeal,” the couple’s attorney, J. David Breemer of the nonprofit Pacific Legal Foundation said in response to a query from Coastal Review Online.

But because the order ultimately rested on the matter of jurisdiction, and because appealing a case is different than taking it to state court, it’s unclear what that could mean, said Sierra Weaver, senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center in Chapel Hill and leader of the law center’s Coast and Wetlands Program.

“What’s important here is that the court says the Zitos cannot skip the normal process of going to state court to address those concerns,” Weaver said Monday.

She said the question remains as to whether the Zitos will take the case to North Carolina’s courts. Weaver said the Zitos took the federal court approach was because “North Carolina state law is very protective of these types of regulations to protect the coastal environment and the dynamic nature of the coast.”

The planned construction required a North Carolina Coastal Area Management Act, or CAMA, Minor Permit. CAMA rules and regulations include setback requirements for oceanfront development within the Ocean Erodible Area of Environmental Concern, an area so designated based on a combination of annual erosion rates, the location of the first stable, natural vegetation line and the size of the building.

For CAMA permits, the coastal governments at the local level are the initial decisionmakers. Applicants can seek a variance from the Coastal Resources Commission if their initial permit request is denied. That’s what happened with the Zitos’ request.

The official erosion rate at the Zitos’ property is 6 feet per year. Regulators multiply the erosion rate by 30, as required by CAMA, as based the term of many home mortgages, resulting in a standard setback line of 180 feet from the first line of stable vegetation. The Zitos’ planned home was set back only about 12 feet landward of the static vegetation line, prompting the denials at the local, and then state levels.

East Seagull Drive, near the southern town limits of Nags Head, has been battered by the ocean for years. The section of street the Zitos’ house formerly faced no longer exists, having been washed away years ago along with homes on the ocean side of it. Homes that remain are barely accessible. The area was the focus of a long-fought legal battle over homes that were destroyed or damaged during a coastal storm in 2009.

Weaver said there are other similar cases making their way through the courts, but erosion is not the same as the state taking someone’s property.

“That is really what the Zitos are up against here,” Weaver said. “What they’re up against here is erosion.”

Weaver said that means that, for now, the Coastal Resources Commission’s authority remains intact, and the longstanding regulations intended to protect property, access to beaches and coastal resources “are standing strong” and important.

“These regulations and issues have been really important to state of North Carolina for decades, but they are even more important in the face of climate change,” she said.

The law center had represented the North Carolina Coastal Federation, which publishes Coastal Review Online, advocates for sound coastal management and had sought to intervene in the case on behalf of the commission, a move the Zitos’ had opposed. In his order, Judge Dever denied the federation’s motion as moot.

Federation Executive Director Todd Miller said the federation still has a strong interest in the case and in coastal protection more generally.

“Having this case dismissed by the federal court is good news for all of us who love to go to the beaches. It allows the state to continue to enforce setback requirements for buildings along our oceanfront so that the public’s right to use the beach is protected for generations to come,” Miller said.

Christy Simmons, public information officer with the state Division of Coastal Management, responded Wednesday to Coastal Review Online’s request earlier this week for comment. She addressed the Zitos’ claim that the commission’s action was in violation of the Constitution.

Simmons explained that the commission had moved to dismiss the complaint for lack of jurisdiction on three grounds: First, the 11^th Amendment bars the Zitos from asserting their federal takings claim in federal court since they could have brought a takings claim in state court. Second, and relatedly, the 11^th Amendment provides the commission with 11^th Amendment immunity in federal court because it is an “arm of the state.” Third, Congress has not abrogated, or revoked, the commission’s 11^th Amendment immunity, and the commission had not waived it.

“In granting the motion to dismiss, the US District Court explained that it cannot ignore binding Fourth Circuit precedent and agreed with the Commission that the Fourth Circuit has held that ”the Eleventh Amendment bars Fifth Amendment taking claims against States in federal court where the State’s courts remain open to adjudicate such claims,” according to the division’s statement.

“The Commission is pleased its motion was granted. However, we expect this decision will be appealed and do not have any further comments regarding the litigation.”

SUNSET BEACH – The lingering question of where Sunset Beach will put beach-suitable sand dredged from surrounding waterways has prompted the withdraw of the town’s federal permit application.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has withdrawn the town’s application seeking to dredge roughly 3 miles of waterway and place beach-compatible sand on a little more than 8 acres of oceanfront.

The decision to pull the permit application was made after the town notified the Corps it was looking for a new site on which to place the sand, Jed Cayton, a public affairs specialist with the Corps’ Wilmington district, said in an email.

“The application was withdrawn in response to information provided to the Corps that proposed placement area for the beach compatible material will change,” Cayton said. “The placement location has not been determined yet and this office was unable to make a permit decision with the incomplete project design.”

He then referred to a letter the Corps sent to the town in January giving the town a rundown of all the information Corps officials needed to make a decision on the permit application.

That letter specifically noted that the placement site is not eroding or in need of additional sand.

Members of the state’s Coastal Resources Commission, or CRC, last month discussed the letter before ultimately casting a split vote to grant a variance to the Coastal Area Management Act, or CAMA, major permit the town was granted, with conditions, last fall.

The CRC’s variance gives the town approval to dredge about 18 acres, including south Jinks Creek, to a depth deeper than the connecting waters along its eastern border.

The proposed dredging would help improve navigational access to canals, a bay area and feeder channel through Jinks Creek, which connects Tubbs Inlet to the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway.

The major permit issued to the town last October authorized the project with the condition that the maximum dredging depth be 2 feet below mean low water, which is consistent with a state rule prohibiting canals and boat basins from being dredged deeper than connecting waters.

The CRC’s variance would allow the project dredge about 10,650 feet of south Jinks Creek, the bay area and the feeder channel, to a depth of no more than 6 feet below mean low water. A series of finger canals would be dredged to 5 feet below mean low water.

Dredging at this depth would ensure the waterways will be navigable at low tide immediately after the project is complete, the town’s project consultant told the CRC last month.

The consultant told the commission that state law dictates beach-compatible sand has to be placed on the downdraft beaches. That means sand has to be placed on Sunset Beach or neighboring Ocean Isle Beach, which declined placing the sand on its ocean shoreline.

Sunset Beach Administrator and Interim Planning Director Hiram Marziano II said the town is in the scoping process of finding a new proposed location in which to place the sand.

“At this point we don’t have a new location yet and we’re looking at other opportunities,” he said Tuesday in a telephone interview. “We’ve been working on another location for the last several months.”

The original proposal was to place an estimated 40,500 cubic yards of beach-compatible sand from south Jinks Creek onto about 1,600 feet of ocean shoreline between Fifth and 12^th streets. Noncompatible material, an estimated 48,600 cubic yards, is to be placed in an upland landfill.

In order to place the sand on the beach, the town would have to get easements from private property owners along that stretch of the island.

Marziano said some of those property owners said “flat out” that they would not grant easements, leaving the town in a “our hands are tied” position.

“This is an opportunity for us to resubmit everything,” he said. “This is just part of going through this process.”

When asked if the town has a timeline in which to identify a new sand placement site, Marziano answered, “ASAP,” noting there is not a specific time line.

Sunset Beach will have to submit a new permit application once it finalizes proposed project plans and a disposal area, Cayton said.

“This office will review the submitted documentation and determine if any additional public input is needed based on the proposed changes,” he said.

The town will also have to go back to the state Division of Coastal Management, or DCM, for approval.

“Due to this change, the DCM will be requiring a major modification of the existing permit,” Christy Simmons, the division’s public information officer, said in an email.

February is traditionally downtime for beach towns, but each year the shoreline along some stretches of North Carolina’s central and southern coast is anything but quiet as crews work around the clock to pump millions of cubic yards of sand in a never-ending fight against erosion.

Early last week, bulldozers and pipe haulers began crawling along the swash line where Atlantic Beach meets Pine Knoll Shores, dragging hundreds of feet of metal pipe under the DoubleTree hotel pier to connect with an underwater pipeline that’s tethered a few hundred yards offshore.

That’s where the Liberty Island, a 325-foot trailing suction hopper dredge, has begun pumping tons of sand-laden slurry sucked up from a borrow site 3 miles away onto the hurricane-damaged beaches of Bogue Banks.

This year’s beach renourishment project is the most ambitious in the history of the banks and represents a growing trend in how local governments in North Carolina and elsewhere plan and pay for beach repair.

Greg “Rudi” Rudolph, Carteret County’s shore protection manager, who has been coordinating the effort, said developing a plan to renourish nearly all of the 25-mile strand meant overcoming decades of leaving beach projects up to local governments.

“It was a town-by-town effort before that. One town one year, another town the next, and all with different funding sources,” Rudolph said.

Recognizing that the area needed a comprehensive approach, Rudolph started working on a master plan that would incorporate all four municipalities on Bogue Banks and Carteret County under one unified approach.

Last year, crews with contractor Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Co. put 1 million cubic yards of sand over 5.2 miles on beaches in eastern Emerald Isle and adjacent Indian Beach.

This year, the plan is to move 2 million cubic yards onto 9.5 miles of beach, working from western Atlantic Beach to Pine Knoll Shores and Salter Path and then a western section of Emerald Isle.

Next year, the final phase of the plan finishes out the rest of Emerald Isle. In all, beaches along 23 miles of the 25 miles of Bogue Banks are to be renourished.

“It’s a 24/7 operation.”

Greg Rudolph, Manager, Carteret County Shore Protection

So far, Rudolph said, the weather seems to be cooperating, but because renourishment projects have to be completed during the so-called “turtle window” from November to April to prevent conflicts with nesting sea turtles, there’s no room for downtime.

“It’s a 24/7 operation,” Rudolph said. Since the banks’ beaches are south-facing there is not same threat of nor’easters disrupting operations, but the size and scale of the project is massive.

The Liberty Island will be joined by the 480-foot, 15,000-cubic-yard capacity Ellis Island, the largest hopper dredge in the U.S., around mid-March. Depending on progress at that point, Rudolph said the two dredges could work a week or two in tandem, alternating runs to the Morehead City deposit area in Onslow Bay, where sand dredged from harbor has been dumped since the 1930s.

Rudolph said the main goal of the project is to rebuild the secondary line of dunes closest to the shore that were nearly all wiped out during Hurricane Florence.

“Part of our design is to put those baby dunes back,” he said. “They’ll contour the beach to mimic that.”

Planting vegetation on those new dunes also incorporates the new strategy.

“In the past, the dune-planting component has been a town-by-town or property-owner-by-property-owner decision. This year, it’s part of the dredging contract,” Rudolph said.

The Bogue Banks renourishment did not come cheap, but it did come at the right time. Although funding for the first phases of the project came from a mix of local and state funds, part of the cost going forward will be covered by North Carolina’s share of an emergency disaster appropriation that followed Hurricane Florence. The project had just received its permits when Florence hit in mid-September 2018, Rudolph said.

“We had everything in place to go.”

A question of priorities

For Rob Young, director of the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines, a collaborative effort by Duke University and Western Carolina University based at the latter’s Cullowhee campus, the surge in federal money in North Carolina is another example of a troubling shift in how beach renourishment projects are now funded.

For years, coastal communities and the state were coming to grips with a dwindling flow of federal dollars into beach projects because of tight budgets and the end of earmarks that allowed many of the projects to retain their funding. North Carolina set up a special fund in 2017 for coastal storm damage work to help fill the increasing gap between costs and federal dollars.

That changed with Hurricane Sandy in 2012 and the massive influx of money that followed, which the Army Corps of Engineers used to fund scores of projects along the Eastern Seaboard. A similar scenario of renourished beaches followed in areas hit by Hurricane Harvey in 2017. Young said post-disaster appropriations are rapidly becoming one of the main funding sources for beach projects, especially since the Federal Emergency Management Agency changed rules to allow communities to classify their beaches as infrastructure.

Young said local planners like Rudolph are doing their jobs to leverage resources and develop projects, but at the federal level, there is no oversight and no overall plan to set priorities. “It’s all off-budget,” Young said. “It’s a complete abdication of congressional oversight.

“It’s not like Congress is taking a look at all these beach renourishment projects and deciding which ones they want to fund and where the federal interest is. That’s not how it works. There’s a huge federal contribution and no national plan or vision for how or why this should be happening.”

Young said he’s not opposed to renourishment projects, but that they have to be better prioritized.

“There’s a huge federal contribution and no national plan or vision for how or why this should be happening.”

Rob Young, Director, Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines

The newly approved Topsail Island project, with a price tag at around $230 million, is a prime example of misplaced priorities, he said. “It’s a temporary resilience project by making a temporary beach out in front of what are largely investment homes on Topsail Island.”

It’s understandable, he said, that the locals are supportive, but if they had to shoulder the cost they probably would reconsider.

“If coastal communities had to pay 100% of the cost then they would do some very serious thinking about how they’re investing their money, but as long as the federal taxpayers are picking up the entire tab or most of the tab, you’re just going to take that money. Why would you not?”

The trade-off, he said, means less focus and incentives on elevating structures, moving them or buyouts, such as the one Young and his colleagues proposed last year for North Topsail Beach. The $30 million plan was roundly rejected by local officials.

“You should be spending money on long-term solutions, not be spending that money in ways that will encourage investment in places that are demonstrably at risk and especially in places where we’re not talking about people in their primary residences,” he said.

Young said there are also long-running concerns over the cumulative environmental effect of constant beach renourishment. There’s been little research on the carbon footprint of the massive projects and there are environmental impacts in both the borrow areas and the intertidal areas from where the sand is pumped.

“When you do it every four years and you do it everywhere, there are cumulative environmental impacts that we have never added up. We should be assessing those environmental impacts,” he said. “We don’t do it and we don’t really know the degree to which massive beach nourishment everywhere from Maine to Texas is slowly but surely diminishing shorebird populations and near-shore fisheries.”

Bogue Banks project studied

Pine Knoll Shores Town Manager Brian Kramer said he’s heard some environmental concern about the impact from residents, but assured those folks that the Bogue Banks project had gone through numerous environmental studies before winning approval, even having to pass muster with the federal Bureau of Ocean Energy Management. That’s because the offshore borrow site straddles state and federal waters.

Kramer said that replacing the “baby dunes” is important. Without them, he said, storms would start eroding and more properties would be threatened. Such losses could wipe out a town like Pine Knoll Shores where nearly half of its roughly $1 billion tax base is along that first row facing the Atlantic.

“It’s no secret that the major portion of the tax base is just that oceanfront stand,” he said.

The money goes for schools, services and infrastructure, he said, and protecting the front row is essential.

“This isn’t just in Pine Knolls Shores. The entire town and by extension the whole county benefits from having that tax base.”

“That healthy beach is the economic driver of the area.”

Brian Kramer, Town Manager, Pine Knoll Shores

He said the perception is that the renourishment only benefits the oceanfront property owners, but the entire local economy depends on a healthy beach.

“That healthy beach is the economic driver of the area,” he said.

Kramer was an avid backer of the banks renourishment plan and more so after Hurricane Florence, which showed that areas with flat, renourished beaches fared far better.

“That kind of says it all,” he said. “I think it’s a win from every angle.”

Young said federal funds and sand are flowing for now, but local governments not planning for a changing climate and a change in federal priorities are delaying the inevitable. The federal cost of dealing with rising seas in places like Miami, Charleston and New York City will dwarf what’s available now.

“When we have to spend money for major cities, the money for small resort communities is going to be gone,” Young said.

Eventually, the beaches will become harder and harder to maintain, he said. What has been happening in Folly Beach, South Carolina, where a steepening offshore contour is making it difficult to keep sand in place, is part of that future.

“Someday, we’re not going to hold everything in place by pumping sand,” he said. “If communities are not thinking about that day, then eventually it’s all going to come crashing down on them.”

Updated Jan. 15 to include comments from Army Corps of Engineers

The Army Corps of Engineers is providing more than $281 million for rebuilding beaches in North Carolina communities damaged by hurricanes Matthew and Florence.

The Corps announced Monday it will use funding provided in the Additional Supplemental Appropriations Disaster Relief Act of 2019 for flood and storm damage reduction projects in the Surf City and North Topsail Beach area and Carteret County’s Bogue Banks.

The act provides nearly $3.26 billion for five project categories, including construction, flood control and coastal emergencies. The Corps will use an estimated $281.5 million in construction funding for the two projects.

Surf City and North Topsail Beach will receive $237 million and Carteret County will receive $44.5 million. The announcement is on the heels of the state learning last week that the Corps awarded $39.6 million for design and construction of a new levee in the Edgecombe County town of Princeville, which flooded during Hurricane Floyd in 1999 and Hurricane Matthew in 2016.

“These substantial investments by the Army Corps of Engineers will help make North Carolina safer and more resilient against future storms. North Carolinians have been hit hard by recent storms, and I appreciate the efforts of our federal partners as we work to rebuild smarter and stronger than ever,” Gov. Roy Cooper said in a press release.

With the latest announcement, the Corps says it will have allocated around $321.1 million of the $740 million provided by the law for construction to build flood and coastal damage reduction projects.

Greg Rudolph with the Carteret County Shore Protection Office said Tuesday that his office had been pursuing two parallel paths for well over a decade for nourishment along Bogue Banks. The first path is the Corps 50-year project, which he described as long-range plan contingent on Congress providing funding for all the steps that they started working on in 2001.

Rudolph said that the county knew the Corps process would take time and that the county may never actually get the funding, so the county initiated its own 50-year master plan for beach nourishment.

“This (the master plan) is basically a permitting vehicle so we can conduct projects across the island. Everything we have done post-Florence has been under the auspices of the master plan,” Rudolph explained. Funding for the master plan comes from a “complex interplay of (county) occupancy tax money and whatever we can get from the state and FEMA.”

He said that the Corps project needed tens of millions of dollars from Congress to start construction, “that we honestly thought we would never receive … that is until we received the news over the weekend.”

Rudolph explained that the Corps project has a lot more rules of engagement than the one-time, one-storm FEMA projects.

“We will need to fulfill the Corps’ parking and access requirements — we’ve made good headway there — and the Corps has a different easement than we have on record for our oceanfront property owners and both of these requirements will take a considerable amount of work on our (the towns’) part,” he said.

The Corps program is a 65% federal and 35% nonfederal cost-share agreement and the state has provided 75% of the nonfederal match in the past, but that’s not a guarantee moving forward, Rudolph added.

Topsail Island funding

The $237 million marked for federal beach nourishment of Surf City and North Topsail Beach is in addition to a privately funded beach nourishment project, Surf City officials announced Monday.

“We have been working toward obtaining this funding for a significant amount of time and with persistence have now been approved federally. Many people have worked on getting this project approved,” according to the announcement.

Decisions regarding the project’s timeline and coordination with the privately funded project to maximize the benefit for the town are expected in the coming weeks, Surf City officials said.

Ashley Loftis, Surf City’s finance director and assistant town manager, told Coastal Review Online Tuesday that the town was notified several months ago that the federal government may allocate funds for projects such as theirs.

“We were not certain if our project would actually be funded or not. We were pleasantly surprised to find out that it was,” she said. “This money will be used to fund the joint federal beach nourishment project between Surf City and North Topsail Beach.”

Right now, the town is working to secure a day and time to meet with Corps representatives to discuss details of moving forward. Once those details are finalized, the town will provide the information to the public, she said.

Bryan Chadwick, North Topsail Beach town manager, told Coastal Review Online Tuesday that the town also received word a few months ago that the project might be funded.

“We have been working with federal officials to get this new start but were uncertain if it would actually be funded. As you can imagine, we are very thankful it was,” he said, adding that town is grateful to the elected officials who promoted the project.

Chadwick explained that the funding will be used to help build the dune system and beach profile in parts of North Topsail Beach, including Ocean City, which is in North Topsail Beach and in the area of the project, and Surf City. “This will assist in resiliency during storm events,” he said.

“We will be meeting in the near future with all stakeholders involved in this project for any next steps,” he said.

Dave Connolly, Public Affairs chief with the Army Corps of Engineers, told Coastal Review Online Wednesday that the district submitted the Surf City/North Topsail project as a part of a package of requests for consideration under the fiscal 2019 Supplemental Bill.

“So it was not guaranteed approval but also not unexpected either. The money will be used for the initial construction of an authorized Coastal Storm Risk Management project,” he said.

Connolly provided a map of the 9.9 miles that have been authorized for the project. The white line that says project limits is the authorized area. The area does not include Topsail Beach. “Topsail Beach was not included in the funding bill as the town chose not to proceed with the federal project,” he said.

The cost share is 65% federal and 35% nonfederal but for ongoing construction, 100% will be federally funded until construction completion, he said. There will be a 30-year payback of nonfederal share at 35% upon completion.

“The North Topsail/Surf City project was authorized in 2014 and the towns have been in strong support of project implementation since that time. The project, once constructed, will go a long way toward reducing the risk of damage from coastal storms such as Hurricane Florence,” he said. “These projects are designed to keep beaches healthy. Healthy beaches not only are important to our quality of life but also protect people and property along the coasts from hurricanes and coastal storms.”

Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., and Sen. Richard Burr, R-N.C., responded to the funding with a joint announcement Monday.

“Each storm that hits North Carolina takes a toll on our beaches and river basins,” Burr said. “After the historic damage inflicted by recent hurricanes, it was clear that more preventive measures needed to be taken to better protect our coastal communities. This additional $281.5 million allocation will do just that. I applaud the Corps of Engineers for investing more than $321 million in North Carolina so we can reduce the impact of future storms.”

The senators cosigned a letter with 7^th District Rep. David Rouzer in June 2019, asking the Corps to consider the Surf City/North Topsail Beach project. Tillis also contacted the Office of Management and Budget in July asking for disaster relief funds following hurricanes Matthew and Florence and had recommended to the Corps that the Carteret County project be considered, according to Tillis’ office.

Reprinted from the Carteret County News-Times

EMERALD ISLE — Bogue Banks’ next beach nourishment project is ready to roll, with dredging and pumping of sand set to begin the first week of February, a little earlier than originally planned.

Greg Rudolph, manager of the Carteret County Shore Protection Office, met Wednesday with town and county officials, representatives of county beach engineering firm Moffatt & Nichol and dredge contractor, Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Co., of Illinois, for a preconstruction session.

He said everything went well, and “kicked off” the $28.2 million Phase 2 Hurricane Florence sand replacement project in western Atlantic Beach, all of Pine Knoll Shores, a small part of Salter Path and a part of western Emerald Isle.

“The one caveat is that when you hear a date, you have to remember that it’s kind of like building a house,” he said. “You can know a lot of things, but you can’t know, for example, exactly when the electrical contractor is going to show up and wire the master bedroom.”

Rudolph said an area at The Circle district in Atlantic Beach will serve as the “main staging area for the land-based pipe that will move the sand east-to-west down the island as it is pumped ashore from the borrow site” in the ocean off the town.

The company’s smaller dredge, the Liberty Island, will arrive onsite first and will generally progress and “leapfrog” east to west from Atlantic Beach and continue into Pine Knoll Shores, Rudolph said Thursday.

“At some point in mid-March the larger hopper dredge, the Ellis Island, will relieve the Liberty Island and continue leapfrogging down the beach to finish the effort in west Emerald Isle before the (Thursday) April 30 environmental window closes for the sea turtle nesting season and other biological resources,” he added.

Rudolph said Great Lakes should begin mobilizing land- and water-based pipe, heavy equipment and personnel this month.

Once things get underway, the dredges will travel and discharge sand through a buoyed pick-up pipeline offshore that transitions to the preconstruction dry beach via a submerged pipeline assembly, Rudolph said.

 A secondary elbow connection is used to transport material in one direction (east), then the other direction (west) along the beach to complete approximately 1- to 2-mile sections as lengths of pipe are added and subsequently broken down.

Heavy equipment spreads the sand and shapes the constructed beach.

The project will involve 1.995 million cubic yards of sand. Western Emerald Isle, Salter Path, Pine Knoll Shores and western Atlantic Beach will receive 345,000, 140,000, 990,000 and 520,000 cubic yards of sand, respectively, along 9.5 miles of beach.

A conventional dump truck holds about 12 cubic yards of wet sand, Rudolph said, so the total sand involved equates to about 167,000 dump truck loads.

The Liberty Island has a maximum capacity of 6,540 cubic yards and the Ellis Island has a capacity of 14,800 cubic yards under optimal conditions.

In a post on the Carteret County Shore Protection Office website, Rudolph added that project engineers will use prepositioned stations along the beach to monitor progress and verify volumes of sand added in those locations.

Regarding the financial aspect of the project, the Federal Emergency Management Agency has approved $34 million to reimburse Bogue Banks towns for sand lost during Hurricane Florence in September 2018, and that money will be available if needed to pay for this project when bills come due at completion. Alternately, it could be used in a future project.

The county completed Phase 1 of the Hurricane Florence sand replacement project in April 2019, placing about 1 million cubic yards of sand on beaches in eastern Emerald Isle, most of Salter Path and all of Indian Beach.

The project to begin in February will be funded largely by about $12 million from the beach nourishment fund, which gets half of the money from the county’s occupancy tax, and $15.3 million from $18 million the North Carolina General Assembly set aside last year to help local governments nourish beaches after Hurricane Florence, which robbed Bogue Banks of about 3.6 million cubic yards of sand.

Unlike in the past, the towns will not have to pony up money for the February-through-April project. The towns will, however, reimburse the county for money the county “up-fronted” for the project last year. All that reimbursement money to the county will come from funds reimbursed to the towns by FEMA for the cost of replacing sand lost during Florence.

WILMINGTON – Keeping North Carolina’s more than 1,500 miles of federal navigation channels open for boating traffic takes planning, money and, as equally important, space to put sand pumped from clogged inlets and other coastal waterways.

A plan is in the works to determine how many nonfederally operated dredge material placement sites are along the state’s coast.

The North Carolina Division of Water Resources has drafted a plan to study dredge material placement facilities, or DMPFs, either owned, operated or managed by the state, local municipalities, private marinas, conservation groups and other nonfederal stakeholders.

The draft dredged material management plan, or DMMP, will identify those nonfederal disposal sites, determine the condition of and capacity of each facility, and evaluate the current dredging needs of nonfederal users including beach towns and private marinas.

If funded, the plan would consist of a second phase – a written report assessing disposal needs of nonfederal users over a 20-year period, identifying areas where new sites are needed and where those sites may be located.

Anywhere from 30 to 60 potential DMPFs are along the coast, based on the current information DWR has, division Assistant Director Coley Cordeiro said.

“We’re going to have to do focus groups in the various municipalities to better assess if there’s any privately owned or operated placement facilities that we’re not aware of currently,” she said.

The proposed study would be a significant step for future nonfederal dredging projects since the Army Corps of Engineers announced that only sand pumped from federal projects could be placed in Corps-maintained facilities.

The Corps’ February 2017 guidance was made to conserve space within its disposal sites after millions of cubic yards of material dredged from nonfederal projects were placed in a single DMPF in Galveston, Texas.

Since that decision, officials in the Corps’ Wilmington district have been consulting with the state and stakeholders about any possible alternatives.

The North Carolina Beach, Inlet and Waterway Association earlier this year initiated a plan to try and get the Corps to narrow its ban to deep-draft navigation projects, or those where a channel is maintained deeper than 16 feet.

This would allow North Carolina municipalities and small businesses the opportunity to dump dredge spoil pumped from shallow-draft projects, or those that are no more than 15 feet deep, onto federally managed disposal areas.

Seventeen of the state’s 19 navigable inlets are shallow-draft inlets, which tend to shoal more rapidly than deep-draft inlets and therefore require more frequent dredging to keep them unclogged and navigable.

Kathleen Riely, the association’s executive director, said in an email “it is a challenge but we are making some headway.”

“The Corps (both local and in DC) is very well aware of the issue we have here in (North Carolina) and is looking at giving the local districts more discretion in making decisions like these,” she said. “There is talk in DC, not only regarding the dredge disposal issue but other issues as well, that the local districts are in a better position to make these kinds of decisions. It is ongoing and as of now there is no definitive change in writing. We are following this issue.”

Whatever decisions the Corps makes will not affect the state’s plans to create a DMMP, Cordeiro said.

“As far as the dredge material management plan, we’re moving forward,” she said. “This is definitely the next step required regardless of the Corps’ decision.”

A draft of the plan has been sent out twice to stakeholders for their feedback.

Corderio said her deadline to get that feedback compiled and sent up for review by executive staff with the state Department of Environmental Quality was at the end of August. Corderio said Thursday that the revised draft that includes edits from the coastal communities and state agency employees was submitted Wednesday.

The draft plan will then be turned over to the Corps’ Wilmington district, which will review the plan, determine the estimated cost to do the study and send it back to the state before it goes to the Corps’ South Atlantic Division in Atlanta. The division will decide whether to fund half of the study through the Corps’ Planning Assistance to States Program.

Todd Horton, the Corps’ deputy chief of navigation, said the plan is to try and obtain funding for the study sometime next year.

The district office currently has permit applications for two non-federal dredge projects.

Horton said the office is in discussions with the applicants to possibly to allow them to use Corps-maintained disposal sites if those applicants agree to first remove material from those sites.

“There is talk in DC, not only regarding the dredge disposal issue but other issues as well, that the local districts are in a better position to make these kinds of decisions.”

Kathleen Riely, director, North Carolina Beach, Inlet and Waterway Association

In other words, the applicant would be responsible for removing at least as much material from the DMPF as would be placed in the site.

For example, if an applicant wants to dispose of 10,000 cubic yards of material, that applicant must first remove no less than 10,000 cubic yards of sand.

The applicants the Corps has been in discussion with would be the test pilots of such an agreement.

The Corps manages more than 200 DMPFs totaling more than 5,000 acres in North Carolina. Some of those sites have not been used, according to Corps’ officials. Other sites are nearly full.

Justin McCorcle, an attorney with the Corps’ Wilmington district, said the district office continues to ask about clarifications to the February 2017 guidance memorandum.

“We have been working with the state of North Carolina to help develop plans for local users to be able to essentially find locations where that material may be deposited,” he said. “Probably outside the federal disposal areas, but there may be adjacent properties that may be able to accept that material. There are limitations on what we could and couldn’t do there, but in terms of our ability to potentially help the state identify potential locations and prioritize them, that’s something that we might be able to do.”

He said the Corps’ assistance program typically funds projects under $200,000. The Corps is currently working with the state under one such project that received funding from the program to inventory privately owned dams and levees across the state.

“We continue to be willing and actively engaged in partnering with the state and we’re happy with the Division of Water Resources to work with us to find solutions,” McCorcle said. “There is the long-term opportunity for partnership agreements between the state and the Corps that could open up a variety of potential opportunities along the waterway.”

WILMINGTON – The University of North Carolina at Wilmington last week kicked off a series of seminars on coastal resiliency in a changing climate.

Nine different academic areas at UNCW are collaborating on the series to present what the university called “a more comprehensive and integrative look at the challenges we face as an institution and community living on the coast.”

The first seminar, Adapting to the Storms: A conversation about Wilmington and the Cape Fear Region after Florence, held Tuesday, Sept. 24, at UNCW’s Center for Marine Science, was a broad-ranging, question-filled discussion about how to cope with and adapt to life as the sea level rises and other effects of climate change alter the environment within the coastal plain.

To address the question of how, speakers introduced two schools of thought.

At one end of the spectrum is perhaps the least popular notion that barrier island beaches should be left in their natural state and property owners retreat from the rising sea.

Then, there’s the idea of engineered beaches where shorelines get routine sand injections and inlets are stabilized.

How much man-made effort should be made to protect coastal properties and who should be responsible for paying for the work and maintenance of things like beach nourishment and channel projects?

Tancred Miller’s role as the North Carolina Division of Coastal Management’s coastal and ocean policy manager is to engage people within coastal communities to find answers to those and other questions.

“It has to happen at the ground level,” he said Tuesday before a crowd of roughly 100 people.

His question to coastal residents: “Even if (sea level rise) is very gradual, can we continue to sustain ourselves in this environment?”

“We are trying to balance environmental protection with private property rights and development,” Miller said. “We are trying to manage our way out of a crisis.”

Coastal residents are feeling the impacts of climate change, he said, which is leading to a shift in discussions about whether it is, in fact, real.

“They’re seeing places flooding like they’ve never seen before, where they’ve never seen before,” Miller said.

In order to adapt, sensible policies need to be made concerning coastal development, he said.

“You can build to fight the wind, but not the water,” Miller said.

Dylan McNamara, chair of the university’s physics and physical oceanography department, explained that one of the issues that holds coastal communities back from adapting to the changes being experienced along the coast is the cycle of rebuilding.

Storms damage and destroy homes and businesses and eat away beaches. Subsidies and insurance companies pay for those homes and businesses to be rebuilt in the same areas and restore the beaches.

This, in turn, leads to a period of significant economic development in which there’s more beachfront building, dune building and renourishment, all of which contribute to increased property values.

“As long as there’s money to be made in these systems, I think we’re going to be caught in this system,” McNamara said. “From a standpoint of how the system works, if people had to pay for their damages it would put a lot of friction in it.”

In the case of the federal buyout program, higher property values mean higher purchase prices, which means the government will have to pay more in property buyouts.

The cost to buy properties in some coastal towns would be “immense,” and simply unaffordable, McNamara said.

“I don’t know how you manage retreat in Myrtle Beach, or Atlantic City in New Jersey, but there could be communities that handle it very well,” he said.

Population growth projections – 50-60% in New Hanover and abutting coastal counties – only raise further concerns, said state Sen. Harper Peterson, D-New Hanover.

“What impacts will that have on our livability as a community,” asked Peterson, who was among the audience. “I don’t know how we’re going to survive. We cannot recover if we take another hit like (Hurricane Florence). I don’t know where you start, but this is a great start right here. It’s not quality of life, it’s survival. We have to survive and do whatever it takes and not do it the same old way.”

Seminars will be held monthly at the university through April.

WILMINGTON – Carteret County’s freshly renourished beaches were ready for sea turtle nesting season and primed for the summer masses in the weeks leading up to Memorial Day this year.

All the heavy equipment needed to pump and push sand during the county’s post-Hurricane Florence beach renourishment project was off the ocean shore by April 30, the day before the start of the six-month-long turtle nesting season.

With that deadline met, the focus turned to dune planting, a key component in effectively restoring the first line of defense to properties on barrier islands.

Planting was a “little behind,” according to the May 1 update posted on the Carteret County Shore Protection Office’s website, which noted the work would likely be completed by mid to late June.

Then came a message that shore protection office officials were not expecting – the equipment being used to plant the sea oats was “heavy equipment,” according to U.S Fish and Wildlife Service and North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission officials.

That equipment – pickup trucks, all-terrain vehicles, a mechanical planter and a 1,000-gallon watering tank on a trailer – could impact turtle nests, agency officials said.

The project wasn’t shut down, but changes had to be made in how the planting was conducted.

Planting was broken down into two phases. First, the mechanical planter would plant sea oats on the dune crest, but that work had to be done by the end of May. After that time, manual planting would be done along the dune slope.

The 1,000-gallon water tank was replaced with a smaller tank, one that could be pulled by an ATV. Planters watered alternately using the tank and hoses hooked to fire hydrants.

The method got the job done, but it was less efficient, said Greg “Rudi” Rudolph, Carteret County’s Shore Protection manager.

Planting was finished in late August, but the reason behind why the regulatory agencies stepped in is part of ongoing discussions and debates about whether similar projects in beach towns up and down the North Carolina coast will face more or less restrictions.

During a recent meeting of the state Coastal Resources Advisory Council, Division of Coastal Management Director Braxton Davis said the division had been working with Fish and Wildlife Service and Wildlife Resources Commission officials to get better guidance on the matter.

“We have gone ’round and ’round about this and had lots of conversations,” Davis said at the Sept. 18 meeting held in Wilmington.

The emphasis from the regulatory agencies, he said, has been about heavy equipment on the beaches during nesting season, which runs May 1 through Oct. 31.

Exactly what the agencies define as heavy equipment is a question that has so far yielded no answer.

“That’s a significant problem,” said Spencer Rogers, a member of the advisory council and a coastal geologist who serves on the science panel that advises the Coastal Resources Commission.

Rudolph, who chairs the advisory council, pointed out that pickup trucks routinely operate on beaches through nesting season for things like trash collection.

So, he asked, what’s the difference?

Kathy Matthews, a fish and wildlife biologist who oversees federal project reviews under the Endangered Species Act with service’s Raleigh field office, said the issue is “very complex.”

“We’re trying to work out some of these things,” she said. “I’m not sure if we’re going to define heavy equipment at this point.”

The agency does not have an issue with dune planting, she said, but officials would like to see plantings done in a way that avoids as many impacts to nests as possible.

“Dune planting is beneficial in the scheme of things,” Matthews said. “We would rather see the beaches stay there. Having a wide beach is beneficial for sea turtles and other wildlife. The issue is with the (Endangered Species Act).”

The 1973 act is designed to protect threatened and endangered species and their habitat.

There are various sections under the act that regulatory agencies use to set conditions for projects permitted by the Army Corps of Engineers and the state to reduce a project’s environmental damage.

A Section 7 review under the Endangered Species Act requires federal agencies to determine whether permitted projects will adversely affect the habitat of listed threatened and endangered animals and plants needed to survive and recover a species.

Corps-permitted projects are covered under this section.

Section 9 lists prohibited acts outside of a permit known as “take.” A take includes harassing, harming, pursuing, hunting, shooting, wounding, killing, trapping, capturing or collecting a listed species.

Nonfederal projects may apply for a Section 10 permit, which allows for so-called incidental takes, which are takes that result from lawful activities, such as permitted beach re-nourishment projects.

Matthews said that Section 10 is an intense permitting process, one that includes a habitat conservation plan.

“Section 10 is voluntary,” she said. “However, it provides coverage. The issue for us and, I think for the state, that if something should happen there is no coverage. Right now, we are trying to look at multiple avenues for covering it.”

Agency officials are considering not only the size of the equipment being used on the beaches, but also the size of the project.

“I do think there’s a difference between dune planting between a 1,000-foot stretch or 1,500-foot stretch and 10 miles of beach,” she said.

The state, along with federal regulatory agencies, rolled out less than two years ago North Carolina’s statewide programmatic biological opinion, which was created to fast-track the permitting process for standard beach renourishment projects.

Rudolph said he does not want the process to get to the point where dune planting is done outside of a federal permit. Instead, he contends, the statewide program should be amended to include dune planting that is part of a federally permitted project.

“To be clear, I very much support that,” Davis said.

The council unanimously voted to urge the Division of Coastal Management to be an advocate for getting regulatory agencies to authorize mechanical planting equipment on beaches during the summer planting season.

“They’re summer plants and they have to be planted in the summer season,” Rogers said. “These projects are going to keep coming up. DCM needs to be an advocate to find a way to make this work.”

Updated to correct information provided in error by a state official to Coastal Review Online.

WILMINGTON – The North Carolina Division of Coastal Management will host of public meetings on proposed updated inlet hazard area boundaries and building rules within those areas, after a series of hearings about the updated erosion rates used to determine the proposed IHAs.

Everyone from coastal property owners to developers will get a chance to weigh in on the preliminary boundaries, which were approved earlier this year by the state Coastal Resources Commission, or CRC.

The CRC unanimously approved the fiscal analysis and rule amendments to the proposed inlet hazard areas, or IHAs, Wednesday during the commission’s quarterly meeting held in Wilmington.

That analysis, approved Aug. 30 by the Office of State Budget and Management and state Department of Environmental Quality, details the number of structures removed from and added to be included within the boundaries.

Currently there are 750 structures within IHAs, which are defined as shorelines especially vulnerable to erosion and flooding where inlets can shift suddenly and dramatically.

Of those structures, 307 would be removed from ocean hazard areas, or OHAs, under the proposed boundary revisions.

Any of those homes built before 1980 would, for the first time in nearly 40 years, not be included inside of these boundaries, according to Ken Richardson, shoreline management specialist with Division of Coastal Management.

OHAs are made up of three areas of environmental concern, or AECs: IHAs, ocean erodible areas, or OEAs, and unvegetated beach.

The proposed updated boundaries would include a total of about 930 structures within IHAs. Of those, 219 would be new to the OHA, meaning this would be the first time they would be within an IHA or OEA.

Properties newly exempt from the OHA will have less stringent development and redevelopment rules than those within an IHA.

AECs are identified as areas that may be easily destroyed by erosion or flooding or may have environmental, social, economic or aesthetic values that make it valuable to the state.

More than 2,900 acres of land is within IHA boundaries at 10 of the 19 active inlets in the state.

The 10 are: Tubbs, Shallotte and Lockwood Folly inlets in Brunswick County; Carolina Beach, Masonboro, Mason and Rich inlets in New Hanover County; New Topsail Inlet in Pender County; New River Inlet in Onslow County; and Bogue Inlet in Carteret County.

A majority of IHAs are being expanded under the proposed boundaries, which include building setbacks that vary from inlet to inlet.

The science panel that advises the CRC has for years worked on the proposed setbacks, studying historical shoreline data at each inlet and using that information to predict erosion and accretion rates at those inlets.

Building setbacks in the new boundaries are set based on annual inlet erosion rates rather than oceanfront erosion rates. For some of the inlets, this method of calculation equates to no change in the current building setbacks. For others, the setbacks vary.

Setback requirements will not change for a little more than 730 properties in IHAs. Fifty-seven properties will have decreased setback requirements, while setback requirements will increase for 137 properties.

Under the proposed changes, boundaries and setbacks will be reviewed every five years.

Richardson told the CRC last week that OEAs and IHAs are not factors in the calculation of flood insurance premiums.

The proposed IHA updates “do not have an immediate negative or positive impact” to community National Flood Insurance Policy’s Community Rating System, a voluntary program that incentivizes communities that go above and beyond the minimum floodplain management requirements, according to the fiscal analysis.

The updated rules maintain the structure size limitation to no more than 5,000 square feet of heated space and no more than one unit per 15,000 square feet of land area.

Homes and businesses that exceed the size limit and would be included in the new boundaries would be grandfathered under the rules.

IHA rules apply to property owners who want built a new structure or replace one that has been damaged and requires more than 50% repair.

If approved, the amended boundaries and rules may be adopted by early next year.

Public hearings on the updated erosion rates use to determine the proposed IHAs will be held at the following times and locations:

• 10 a.m. Oct. 3, Northeast Library, 1241 Military Cutoff Road, Wilmington.
• 2 p.m. Oct. 3, Harper Library, 109 W. Moore St., Southport.
• 1:30 p.m. Oct. 8, Ocracoke Volunteer Fire Department, 822 Irvin Garrish Highway, Ocracoke.
• 10 a.m. Oct. 9, Nags Head Board of Commissioners room, 5401 S. Croatan Highway, Nags Head.
• 2:30 p.m. Oct. 9, Outer Bank Center for Wildlife Education, 1160 Village Lane, Corolla.
• 10 a.m. Oct. 15, Surf City Welcome Center, 102 North Shore Drive, Surf City.
• 3 p.m. Oct. 15, Sneads Ferry Library, 1330 N.C. 210, Sneads Ferry.
• 3 p.m. Oct. 17, North Carolina Division of Coastal Management, 400 Commerce Ave., Morehead City.

Reprinted with permission from the Carteret County News-Times

EMERALD ISLE — Carteret County officials hope to begin a beach renourishment project on Bogue Banks by mid-November for western Atlantic Beach, Pine Knoll Shores, the far western end of Emerald Isle and a portion of Salter Path left out of the last project completed this spring.

Greg Rudolph, manager of the Carteret County Shore Protection Office, said Monday he believes bids will go out to potential contractors in the middle of August and work should be finished no later than the end of April. The price tag could be as much as $30 million.

The cost of the last project, which included eastern Emerald Isle, Indian Beach and most of Salter Path, was about $21 million.

Phase one of the new project would be paid for – if bids are within range – with a combination of local funds, including town money, the county beach nourishment funds and state money.

If all goes as expected, the county would then tackle a second project, Phase 2, to include central Emerald Isle, roughly from the Ocean Drive dogleg to the Western Ocean Regional Access, next fall or winter. That would be bid separately to contractors next year.

Initially, the county hoped to bid the entire project as a base and an option, even though they might have been conducted over a two-year period.

But, Rudolph said, that optimistic plan was in large part predicated on the towns involved receiving Federal Emergency Management Agency funds to reimburse the costs of replacing sand lost during Hurricane Florence last September. That now appears very unlikely to happen before the bids go out in mid-August for Phase 1.

Rudolph said the county went back to the drawing board and decided not to bid phase two as an option. The county should have all the funds available for phase one in time to award a contract and have construction begin in November.

“We should have around $15 to maybe $16 million in the beach nourishment fund by then,” he said. That money comes from half of the occupancy tax revenue the county generates. The rest of the money – as much as half of the cost – will come from the state.

The state General Assembly, Rudolph said, last year set aside $18 million to help local governments with beach renourishment projects after Florence. Luckily for Carteret County, only one other local government, Oak Island, applied, and the town’s project is expected to cost $3-4 million. That leaves Carteret County with the rest.

“It’s official,” Rudolph said Monday. “It is ours.”

Initially, he added, the county hoped to get at least $3-5 million in state money. What this means, he said, is that if bids for phase one come in within budget and the FEMA money eventually arrives – the county has applied for $60 million in FEMA sand money – phase two can be funded entirely with FEMA and town money.

There’s not yet a firm estimate of the cost of that project.

“This should work out good for everybody,” Rudolph said of the timetable. “It (the whole project) was probably going to be split over two years even if we had bid it out as a base and an option, so separating it doesn’t really make any difference.”

What it does, he said, is enable the county to tackle the areas that need the sand the most as soon as possible. Pine Knoll Shores’ beaches haven’t been renourished in many years, nor have the beaches in western Atlantic Beach, although eastern Atlantic Beach has regularly receives free sand from the dredging projects at the North Carolina Port of Morehead City.

The portion of Salter Path left undone in the spring 2019 project, around the county’s beach access facility, also has not been renourished in a long time.

The spring project completed this year covered 5.2 miles of beach between the Indian Beach/Pine Knoll Shores town boundary and the access ramp on Ocean Drive in Emerald Isle and totaled 975,647 cubic yards of sand, deposited and usable in time for the summer and the next hurricane season. It also included reconstruction of damaged dunes and the planting of vegetation to help the keep the dunes in place to offer hurricane protection.

Rudolph called that a “nice accomplishment.”

The combined Phase 1 and Phase 2 projects should cover 15.6 miles of beach, adding up to as much as 2.9 million cubic yards of sand.

If all goes as envisioned, the estimates are: Pine Knoll Shores, 716,310 cubic yards; central Emerald Isle, 472,316 cubic yards; western Atlantic Beach, 428,970 cubic yards; western Emerald Isle, including the Bogue Inlet area, 927,280 cubic yards; and the Salter Path “hole,” 90,090 cubic yards.

Basically, Rudolph said Monday, when the new project is complete, everyone on the island should be able to say their beaches have been nourished within the past two calendar years.

This story is provided courtesy of the Carteret County News-Times, a tri-weekly newspaper published in Morehead City. Coastal Review Online partners with the News-Times to provide our readers with news of the North Carolina coast.

The story has been updated.

BEAUFORT – The North Carolina Department of Transportation has in the works a short-term fix for erosion at the Hatteras ferry terminal on Ocracoke Island but is also working with the National Park Service on a long-term solution.

During its meeting at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Beaufort Lab on Pivers Island Wednesday, the Coastal Resources Commission granted NCDOT a variance to build a temporary erosion control structure that exceeds the permitted height and will stack the larger than permitted sandbags perpendicular as well as the permitted parallel at the ferry terminal within the Cape Hatteras National Seashore.

The temporary sandbag structure will be built adjacent to a bulkhead, which construction is expected to begin on this week, as authorized June 21 by Division of Coastal Management.

Ocracoke can only be reached by ferries that leave from Cedar Island in Carteret County, Swan Quarter in Hyde County and the Hatteras Inlet ferry, which is the most used by travelers and serves as an evacuation route.

Christine Goebel, assistant general counsel with the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality Office of General Counsel, told the commission that shoreline erosion, dune loss, frequent overwash, flooding damage from frequent storms and the shifting of Hatteras Inlet have been particularly severe at the Hatteras ferry terminal.

During summer 2017, spring 2018 and after Hurricane Florence in fall 2018, NCDOT put in place measures to slow erosion at the hairpin turn. But with the erosion rate of 7 to 15 feet per month this past winter, the terminal site lost more than 70 feet of shoreline in the last year to erosion, according to the variance request.

As a result of the erosion, the ferry boarding lanes at the hairpin turn disintegrated and have been closed since March because of safety concerns, Goebel said. An emergency declaration was issued that month because of the rapid erosion.

“If continued erosion were to cause the existing bulkhead to fail at the ferry basin, the entire ferry basin would be impacted, causing unsafe conditions for the loading and unloading of the traveling public,” Goebel said.

Tim Hass, NCDOT Ferry Division communications officer, told Coastal Review Online that NCDOT had completed beach renourishment when dredging the adjacent ferry channel and basin twice during the last eight years. In 2018, sandbags were put in place to save the hairpin turn from becoming compromised. Sand was also placed on top of the sandbags and a dune was created.

However, the sandbags failed to protect the stacking lanes and the ferry basin. By spring, asphalt had started crumble.

NCDOT submitted June 13 a request to Division of Coastal Management for an emergency stabilization project that included about 1,000 feet of sheet pile bulkhead in front of an existing steel sheet pile bulkhead, and sandbags as a temporary structure intended to protect the ferry terminal from further erosion, according to the variance request.

The division issued June 21 an emergency major modification to Coastal Area Management Act, or CAMA, permit No. 224-87, giving the go-ahead for NCDOT to install the sheet pile bulkhead as part of the proposed project but denied the request to build the proposed sandbag structure partially in the inlet hazard area.

Hass said that with the Army Corps of Engineers issuing July 16 the last permit needed for the project, NCDOT can proceed with the bulkhead work, which was expected to get underway this week.

The temporary sandbags are to be placed at the end of the sheet pile wall to protect it and prevent erosion caused by easterly winds until the groin project is complete.

Hass said that if the sandbags area not installed, “there would be no way to stabilize the area between the sheet pile wall and the existing roadway; therefore, allowing for additional erosion to occur.”

NCDOT filed a variance request June 27 for the proposed sandbag structure, and asked to have the variance expedited and reviewed during the commission’s meeting last week.

The size of the sandbags and height of the stacks, which would be perpendicular and parallel to the shoreline to act as a temporary groin, aren’t allowed under the rules for temporary erosion control structures. The permit allows only for sandbags to be placed parallel to the shoreline without exceeding 6 feet in height or 20 feet in width, according to the variance request.

The project is expected to use about 40 sandbags in three different sizes: 2 feet by 5 feet by 15 inches; 3 feet by 3 feet; and 4 feet by 4 feet. The sandbag wall would likely be 50 feet long and 15 feet wide, tapering as it rises to a maximum height of 15 feet.

Hass said that the specified sandbags were chosen because they are sizes the department already has in its inventory. The proposed sandbags’ orientation was designed to provide the most stability.

The structure is to be placed in the water and be higher than the water depth. The water is predicted to be 14 to 15 feet deep by the time construction begins, which should be in the early fall and will take about a month to complete.

Mollie Cozart, assistant attorney general with the state Department of Justice Transportation Division, told the commission that the temporary sandbags would be installed on the northeast end of the sheet pile bulkhead until the future project now being studied is completed and something more permanent is put in place.

Cozart explained that the bags would be installed in both perpendicular and parallel stacks in a pyramid shape to create more structural stability. The footprint of the perpendicular sandbags would act as a temporary groin system behind the sheet pile wall to allow NCDOT to stabilize the area and protect it until more permanent material is put in place.

Mike Barber, public affairs specialist for Cape Hatteras National Seashore, reiterated that the sandbags are temporary until a long-term structure can be built at the north end of Ocracoke Island.

The National Park Service, which accepted public comments on the project through Monday, anticipates that the environmental assessment for more permanent protection measures it’s preparing with NCDOT and other agencies will be available for review and comment in the fall.

The assessment is to document the effects the proposed structures will have on coastal shoreline processes, human health and safety, wildlife habitat, submerged aquatic vegetation, water resources and the visitor experience. The park service said it will use the document to determine what it will allow NCDOT to do to protect the shoreline, Coastal Review Online previously reported.

The North Carolina Coastal Federation, which publishes Coastal Review Online, submitted comments  to Cape Hatteras National Seashore, explaining that because of the scope of the proposed project, a more thorough environmental study is warranted.

“The proposed solution is short-sighted and does not take into account a long-term, holistic approach to the regional coastal processes. Long-term armoring of the shoreline warrants an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS),” the letter states.

The federation in the letter recommends NCDOT provide a complete analysis of all viable alternatives for the proposed project, including the possibility of relocating the ferry terminal to a more stable location on the barrier island.

Hass added that NCDOT is looking at several different options that include moving the terminal farther south, “but we have just started the study. Other options will be explored as well.”

Hass said that if a terminal groin is used, “models have shown that we will accrue sand between groins, hopefully provide a safer basin for the ferries,” and “allow us to hopefully use the stacking lanes again.”

But, a terminal groin is likely a short-term fix, about 10 or 15 years. “The long-term fix will probably take 10 years or more to study, design, fund and construct,” he said.

“Presently, the department is looking at placing groins perpendicular to the sheet pile wall. This also is considered more of a short-term than a long-term option, especially if the inlet continues to grow in width.”

Commission member Robin Smith expressed her frustration after the variance was granted. Noting that NCDOT didn’t create the conditions, “a lot of decisions and a lot of work done over the course of a very long period of time in an environment that is inherently risky has brought us where we are today,” Smith said during the meeting.

“I would hope that DOT and the park service are thinking very broadly and creatively because continuing on this path of continuing to construct temporary or permanent erosion control structures in this kind of environment is not a sustainable path, in my opinion.”

“Wishful thinking,” says Mayor Dan Tuman

NORTH TOPSAIL BEACH – Erosion, flooding, storm surge and a migrating inlet that has claimed properties at the north end make this beach town a prime candidate for government buyouts, according to an analysis by the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines at Western Carolina University.

In all, 347 parcels within the northernmost town on Topsail Island have the highest exposure to all of the hazards – erosion, storm surge, inlet migration and flooding – analyzed in the case study released Monday.

“Coastal Hazards & Targeted Acquisitions: A Reasonable Shoreline Management Alternative” makes the case that buyouts of those properties would cost less in the long run than funding shoreline stabilization projects.

By electing to participate in a buyout, the town could avoid spending an estimated $57.6 million in shoreline stabilization projects and sandbag maintenance over 30 years, according to the analysis.

The estimated buyout cost of those 347 properties is $30.1 million, the total assessed value of those parcels based on the latest county property tax revaluation completed in January 2018.

“The whole part of the fiscal analysis is to show even if the town had to pay the entire cost (of a buyout), over time, it would be beneficial,” said Rob Young, who is one of the paper’s authors, program director and coastal geology professor at Western Carolina University.

North Topsail Beach Mayor Dan Tuman in an email statement refuted the numbers.

“I should begin that I have not seen this report until now and no one in North Topsail Beach or our coastal engineers and scientists were consulted or assisted in its preparation,” he said. “Therefore the socioeconomic analysis is [Young’s]. At first blush, he is uninformed of the area that this report concerns. Had he consulted with the Science Panel of the Coastal Resources Commission (CRC) and the personnel of the North Carolina Division of Coastal Management, the inlet hazard area that the town is developing engineering plans to protect is much larger than his report covers. Since the buyout of affected properties he recommends approaches $100M not the $30M he reports, his analysis totally collapses and the North Topsail Beach’s planned effort to stabilize the shoreline adjacent to the inlet and protect the adjacent property is justified using his arguments.”

Young said those who were part of the analysis added up the assessed value for the properties within what the report calls the targeted buyout area, which includes more than 40 acres.“We’ve had it triple checked and peer reviewed,” he said. “I completely expected that there would be a strong reaction to this proposal and that’s OK. This was not meant to be a direct assault on North Topsail Beach.

It was meant to be the first in a series of case studies looking at coastal areas where buyouts would make sense fiscally and environmentally, a way to normalize the discussion of such a possibility in places battling erosion, flooding, storm surge and inlet migration in an age of climate change and sea level rise.

The paper does not identify recommended sources of funds for such buyouts.

Young said buyouts are typically funded through government entities. Property acquired in targeted buyouts are usually deeded to the locality, whether the town or county, and designated under a conservation easement to prevent future development.

Young said that while there are a few areas on North Carolina’s coast that have problems similar to North Topsail Beach, the Onslow County town was a fairly obvious pick to at least initiate discussions about coastal property buyouts.

“North Topsail Beach in North Carolina probably has the largest continuous area that has been in an erosion hot spot for a long time,” he said.

The town is under contract to develop an environmental study for a 2,000-foot-long terminal groin at New River Inlet, a proposed project that officials here hope will curtail chronic erosion the north end has faced for decades.

“North Topsail Beach in North Carolina probably has the largest continuous area that has been in an erosion hot spot for a long time,”

Rob Young, director, Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines

A terminal groin is a wall-like structure made of rock or other material placed perpendicular to the shore and adjacent to an inlet to control erosion.

More than half of the town’s beach – 6 miles of 11.1 miles – is within a Coastal Barrier Resources Act, or CBRA, boundary.

Congress created CBRA (pronounced “cobra”) in 1982 to discourage building on relatively undeveloped barrier islands by cutting off federal funding and financial assistance in hurricane-prone, biologically rich areas.

Owners of property within the CBRA unit cannot participate in the National Flood Insurance Program or apply for a Veterans Affairs loan.

Town officials have for years been fighting to get the town removed from the federal designation.

Amendments to CBRA under H.R. 5787, The Strengthening Coastal Communities Act of 2018, which is designed to create more accurate digital maps of units of the John H. Chafee Coastal Barrier Resources System, or CBRS, removed nearly 80 structures, including the Topsail Reef condominiums, from the designation.

Topsail Reef includes 240 condominium units, making up more than half of the properties identified within the target area.

According to the analysis, the average assessed value of the more than 300 parcels in the targeted area is $87,000, including 35 nonbuildable parcels valued at $100 each.

Over 30 years, the town and county would lose anywhere from a combined estimated $14.9 million to $20.4 million over 30 years if all parcels in the targeted area were to be purchased.

The bottom line is that the projected buyout, including property acquisition, tax revenue loss, structure demolition and removal, and sandbag removal costs, would be less expensive – an estimated $8.3 million without inflation and $2.8 million with inflation – than paying to stabilize the shoreline, according to the paper.

The paper concludes “If outside funds are available for the buyout, then it becomes a very attractive prospect for the municipality; but, it still makes good sense without that support. The savings could be used for dune building, for example. There are many unquantifiable benefits to these targeted acquisitions; however, the real benefit will be a chance to ensure the longer-term economic vitality of the more sustainable portions of the community. This is a way to strengthen North Topsail Beach, not diminish it.”

Tuman said a buyout is “wishful thinking.”

“The buyouts that I’m familiar are for payouts that are too small for consideration,” Tuman said. “Also, a buyout program fails unless you have 100% participation. Then you are into a property condemnation process, a messy legal and courtroom process.”

“We’ve had buyouts in North Carolina all over our flood plains,” Young said. “The goal here is just to give everybody some number to talk about and to lay out the philosophy of why this might make sense for some coastal communities. We’re just trying to normalize the discussion around this idea.”

EMERALD ISLE – Weather and sea conditions last week forced work to pause, but the Post-Florence Renourishment Project for Bogue Banks is well underway, the Carteret County Shore Protection Office announced Monday.

Phase 1 of the project, which includes part of Emerald Isle, Indian Beach and Salter Path, is expected to use 945,446 cubic yards of sand from the offshore dredged material disposal site associated with the Morehead City Federal Navigation Project. Emerald Isle is to receive 617,131 cubic yards, Indian Beach 617,131 cubic yards and the unincorporated area of Salter Path 56,410 cubic yards along the 5.2 miles of shoreline in three areas, or reaches, according to the shore protection website.

Work was completed March 17 on Indian Beach and Salter Path, or Reach 3, where the project began March 8, and the first load of sand was delivered March 18 to Reach 2 in Indian Beach. Temporary pipes have been put in place on the beaches as part of the project, the first of which was in Indian Beach in February.

County Shore Protection Manager Greg “Rudi” Rudolph told Coastal Review Online last week the project should be in Emerald Isle, or Reach 1, about April 1, the final leg of Phase 1.

“Productivity has been outstanding – the sand quality, the weather, the lack of mechanical issues, and the avoidance of turtles have all been in our favor. Only takes one of those factors to go sideways to derail things for a while,” Rudolph said. “The difference between the beach now in the nourished areas compared to the non-nourished areas is very, very noticeable – almost shocking really.”

Rudolph shared details about the project in late February with the Emerald Isle Business Association in the town board of commissioners’ meeting room.

“The first phase of the project is $20 million. This is a big deal,” Rudolph told the crowd of almost three dozen.

“We have until April 30 to do the project,” he added, explaining that the timeline for renourishment projects is based on when turtles are nesting and in the water.

Rudolph joined a panel of speakers to answer questions about Hurricane Florence recovery and what to expect for the tourism season, especially regarding beach renourishment and the status of rental property, hotels and condos, in Emerald Isle.

Rudolph explained that the plan with the Bogue Banks renourishment project taking place now is to repair the half of the dune that was carved out by the storm and create a flat spot, or “towel space,” he said.

Rudolph said that his staff monitors the beach every May or June before hurricane season and again after hurricanes hit and knows how much sand is lost.

An application is in for Federal Emergency Management Agency reimbursement, but “fortunately, one-half of the county’s occupancy tax goes toward the sole purpose of nourishment,” Rudolph said.

Carteret County hotels, motels and short-term rentals collect a 6 percent tax that is used to fund beach renourishment and tourism marketing for the county. Collections totaled nearly $7.6 million for the year ended June 30, 2018, according to the Carteret County Finance Office.

After the renourishment projects were finished in the 2000s, the fund was allowed to grow.  “After Florence hit, we had the data, we had the permit, we had the money in hand. Within a couple months, we had a nourishment contract. We didn’t have to take out a loan, we didn’t have to do any of that,” Rudolph added. The bid for the contract is from Illinois-based Great Lakes Dredging.

The dredge Liberty Island arrived in Morehead City Harbor from Charleston, South Carolina, the morning of March 8 and began work on Phase 1, which includes what Rudolph called the “dog leg,” through the eastern end of Emerald Isle, Indian Beach and Salter Path. Phase 2, planned for next winter, will be the remainder of Emerald Isle, Pine Knoll Shores and possibly part of Atlantic Beach, according to the website.

The second dredge, the Ellis Island, should arrive in early April. Built a year ago, the dredge is the biggest in the country, holding up to 15,000 cubic yards per load. Rudolph compared that to the haul of a dump truck, which is about 12 cubic yards. “The whole project is about a million cubic yards.”

Rudolph said part of the dredging contract is to plant sea oats and bitter panicum on the dunes as part of the second phase next year.

But, “It’s no guarantee the funding will come next year,” he added. “If we don’t get FEMA reimbursement at all or the timing isn’t right, then we’re going to have a cash flow issue, but we’re going to worry about that after we get sand on the beach here within the next couple of months.”

For individual oceanfront property owners looking to plant or install a sand fence to renourish their dune, Rudolph gave the go-ahead, but with the caveat the effort may be damaged at some point during the planned renourishment project.

The nourishment schedule will affect rebuilding public beach accesses before the busy season.

Alesia Sanderson, director of the town’s Parks and Recreation, who attended the meeting, said that all but 12 walkways in town had undergone annual inspections and were brought up to standard.

She said that the eastern end of the beach was most damaged during the hurricane, leaving many of the walkways broken at the crest of the dune and some just hanging with sometimes a 20-foot drop.

With the renourishment project wrapping up by April 30, there’s “a real time constraint on us for a couple of reasons. It’s going to be difficult to find someone to build 12 walkways between April 30 and the beginning of our peak season, Memorial Day, and that’s if we find available contractors willing to submit competitive bids,” Sanderson said.

She added that they are in the process of making those 12 walkways safe, “Basically tearing out all the wooden structure. From there, (beach) nourishment will be complete and then we’ll push sand up to where the termination point is so that every walkway that the town of Emerald Isle has will be open and usable.”

While it won’t be ideal because it will be more difficult to pull a wagon or push a beach cart, the accesses “will not hinder any of those visitors in the houses that are not oceanfront, they’re still going to be able to access the beach as they normally would,” Sanderson said.

Readying Accommodations

Heidi Barlow, president of the business association, said before kicking off the discussion, “All of us work in different industries, but we all work in the same community … we felt like bringing the professionals here to you to field the questions directly on disaster recovery and what our future looks like here on the island.”

In addition to Rudolph, the panel included Emergency Management Coordinator Jenn Sawyer, who is also the planner for Carteret County Emergency Services; Emerald Isle Police Chief Tony Reese; Emerald Isle Mayor Eddie Barber; Woody Warren, Bluewater Vacation Rentals and Sales owner; and Jim Browder, executive director of Crystal Coast Tourism Development Authority.

Looking ahead for the county, Browder said 75 percent of the hotels could be open by June, “but that’s probably a bit optimistic.”

He said that the home rental situation is much better than that of condominiums and townhomes.

Warren added, “I feel as far as single-family homes and duplexes, that by far the greatest majority of those should be completed by summertime.”

Officials were worried that condominiums would not be repaired in time, but Warren said several Emerald Isle condominium units were expected to be ready by June.

As for home purchases, Warren said that in September he would have predicted there would have been a fallout with a lot of contracts, but 2018 ended up being a good year.

“2019 has started out a little bit slower … maybe the houses that are being built or getting repaired will be ready by the spring,” he said.

Browder said stores and restaurants here should plan for a longer season.

“Early indications look that we’re having a little bit higher demand for the normal high season,” he said, adding that they’re seeing a bit more activity from Easter to May, “More interest than we’ve had in the past. We’re hoping our season spreads a little bit … but should plan for a slightly longer season rather a peak season.”

He said that the beach town has an “incredible number of repeat customers visiting the same places for 20 to 30 years. They’re excited about coming back.”

Florence ‘A Lot Different’

“This particular storm was a lot different than some of the more recent-history storms we’ve had,” said Sawyer with county emergency services when reflecting on the county’s response.

She said that in typical storms, the worst damage is limited to specific areas, but Hurricane Florence affected the entire county.

“Carteret County is unique compared to other counties across the state. We’re extremely long, were almost 100 miles of coastline, so there are challenges there and … the impacts were countywide,” she explained, including to infrastructure and accessibility.

“There were a lot of moving pieces, it was dynamic, and it was challenging for the fact that most of us have not seen a storm of this magnitude in recent history,” Sawyer said.

Town officials have discussed building a public safety center, Reese told the group.

“What we’re looking at now is the possibility in the future of designing a building that would house public safety and permit us to keep our operation center here on the island,” the police chief said.

Reese said the focus for police immediately after the storm was to assess damage and identify safety concerns. That work began before the hurricane had completely passed, and during the storm, teams began removing trees from roadways and trying to get the town ready to be reopened to the public.

Reese explained that Bogue Banks mayors decide when to reopen the island.

“It doesn’t do us any good to open up Emerald Isle if Indian Beach and Pine Knoll Shores are not going to allow people in their town, now we’re backing up cars down the highway and that’s just not a good thing,” he said.

The police chief said one of the reasons the town weathered the storm so well was its evacuation response.

“The fact that we were able to get somewhere between 80 and 90 percent of the folks off this island freed up the town emergency services to focus on dealing with the storm rather than having to run rescues for those who decided to remain in town, or were stuck because of flooding or tree on their house,” he said.

The town also put in place a curfew, which Barber said was an important decision. “I also think that having the curfew at nighttime once we allowed residents back over … I felt it was in the best interest in public safety to have a curfew since so many didn’t have electricity.”

Warren agreed because, with access cut off to the island, vacationers who couldn’t use their short-term rentals could then collect on travel insurance.

Reese added that the police department must enforce the curfew.

“When we see someone on your property, it takes an officer off the street to figure out what’s going on,” He said. “Don’t be scared to call me and we will work with you to get you where you can leave your property safely … “We want to work with you, give you all the time you can, just need to communicate with us,” he said.

Barber told the crowd that the town signed a contract before the hurricane with a company to collect debris. “So far we’ve spent over $2,100,000 in debris removal, and that’s a lot of money the town has spent on debris removal, and we’re still waiting to get the money reimbursed from FEMA.”

In addition to being prepared for debris removal, the town was proactive months before the storm by signing a contract for pumps to alleviate street flooding, Barber said.

The town had pumps secured months before the storm, but they didn’t expect there would be 31 inches of rain, Barber added. Additional pumps were secured but with the road closures between Emerald Isle and Wilmington, the pumps didn’t get to the town as quickly as needed.

Following the meeting, Barlow told Coastal Review Online that the overall feedback from the meeting was positive.

“Many were unaware of the number of hotels and rentals that are still shut down from the storm along with the process in place for the beach renourishment including the planting of the dune grass.  I believe these were the big key takeaways for most,” she said. “The town recovery as far as the beach access repairs and number that may not be restored before the season was also enlightening.”

Reprinted from Island Free Press

BUXTON — With a dredging project at the South Ferry Channel expected to start soon, another of the Rollinson Channel recently completed, and a third planned in the coming months in the Sloop Channel, members of the Dare County Waterways Commission, for a change, heard more concerns last week about waterways other than Hatteras Inlet.

Challenges have yet to be resolved with proposed projects in Manteo, Colington Harbour, Avon and Oregon Inlet, commissioners learned during updates at their regular meeting held this month in Manteo.

Discussion about planned maintenance work in the South Ferry Channel between the inlet gorge and Ocracoke prompted none of the worry heard previously, with positive results anticipated from the project.

“If everything goes well, we should end up with a wider and deeper channel than we started with,” engineering contractor Ken Willson, with Wilmington-based APTIM, told commissioners in a phone conference.

A construction meeting about the South Ferry Channel project is expected to be held by week’s end. With a go-ahead nailed down, the project could start as soon as the next day.  Since the goal is to dredge for 21 days, Willson said, there appears to be openness to extend the permit beyond the seasonal dredging window into early April.

Also, this year the Rollinson project, an authorized federal project done annually by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, included clearing a persistent low area at the end of the channel that had been pinching and creating hazards for vessels going in and out of Hatteras Harbor.

“As far as Hatteras Inlet and the South Ferry Channel, it appears to be in pretty good shape,” Chairman Steve “Creature” Coulter said in a later telephone interview. “And it’ll be in great shape once this dredging is completed.”

And despite an expected 7-to 8-month wait for permits to dredge the Sloop Channel, an area of concern where the channel zig-zags has gotten a little deeper lately – at least for the time being, Lance Winslow, state Ferry Division environmental supervisor told the panel.  A recent survey also shows that the channel has moved south, he added.

“That’s good news if it’s opened up some,” Coulter said.

Meanwhile, some shoaled areas in Oregon Inlet are still problematic, and moving heavy equipment into the inlet to prepare for demolition of the old Bonner Bridge has been difficult.

Shoaling at the main navigational channel at the old Bonner Bridge is too severe to get a dredge in there, said Steve Shriver, team leader at the Corps’ survey section in Wanchese, pointing to a red “lump” in the most recent survey that showed as little as 2 feet of water.

“Unfortunately, there’s been no improvement . . .  It’s kind of deteriorated a little bit,” he said.

Shriver said that the Corps is keeping a close eye to take advantage of any improvements and quickly get a dredge out there.

“As far as Hatteras Inlet and the South Ferry Channel, it appears to be in pretty good shape. And it’ll be in great shape once this dredging is completed.”

Steve “Creature” Coulter, Chairman , Dare County Waterways Commission

Not only has the severe shoaling forced boaters to find deeper water to the south, it  has created a significant challenge to bridge contractors who need to use large cranes and barges to remove the old bridge.

Roger Bullock, the Corps’ chief navigator, told commissioners that one crane was able to be modified, but they’re still working on a way to move another crane from the east side to the west side of the bridge.

Another project, dredging of Manteo channel, Willson said, has been complicated by new information from a recent survey that shows “significantly greater” amounts of sand would have to be removed from the intersection of the Pamlico Sound and Shallowbag Bay in order to provide clear passage to the state-owned Elizabeth II.

The wooden ship, built to represent the 16^th century vessels that sailed from England to Roanoke Island, has been stuck at its homeport at Roanoke Island Festival Park for several years, prevented by the shoaling from getting its annual maintenance at the Manns Harbor shipyard.

Addressing another issue that has been tough to solve, Willson said that a suitable location to deposit the dredge material from the proposed Manteo project has yet to be determined. After reviewing a number of options, he said, the answer may be that a series of spoil sites will be required.

In other updates, Avon resident Jack Bennett gave a brief summary on the Avon Harbor dredge project for which he is seeking funds. He said a man named Basil Hooper stopped by his property and questioned his right to have any spoil deposited on his property. Bennett said he has a designated spoil site on his property, and is not trying to benefit from dredging.

“The basin of the harbor is just about closed off on the east side,” he said. “My intention is to get a more usable harbor.”

Bennett said he would provide a copy of the document to the commission that shows the designation.

Commission administrator Ann Daisey also informed the panel that a dredge project in Colington has been delayed because the contractor’s dredge had sunk. In another matter, she said that the Oregon Inlet Task Force proposal to secure year-round dredging by the Corps in Oregon Inlet had to be delayed when the applicant was informed by the National Park Service that it “owns the inlet.” Daisey said the application requires a special use permit from the park service, which is expected to be approved.

Long-serving member Fletcher Willey told his fellow commissioners that he would not seek to be reappointed when his term expires in June because of family demands. Other members in attendance, in addition to the chairman, included Vice-chairman Ernie Foster and members Dan Oden and Natalie Kavanaugh. Commissioner Danny Couch was absent. A new member, Michael Flynn, a Waves resident who works as the northeast coastal advocate for the North Carolina Coastal Federation, has been appointed to fill the seat of Dave May, who recently resigned.

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. Read other stories about Hatteras and Ocracoke.

SURF CITY – Picking their top three? Easy enough.

The process that will follow, whether it’s fair, that each town gets a cut of the money, and that the towns, not outside influences, get the upper hand in deciding which storm mitigation projects get selected – this is where things could get tricky.

Topsail Island towns have narrowed the lists of projects each would like to see funded through a multi-million-dollar state grant awarded last year to Resource Institute, a Winston-Salem-based nonprofit.

In all, nine projects the towns are eyeing come with an estimated price tag well above the $5 million earmarked specifically for storm mitigation projects on the island.

Resource Institute, or RI, is asking for a 12 percent cut, or $600,000, of the Division of Water Resources grant for administrative costs to cover grant management, project management, technical assistance and oversight over the life of the project, according to a statement from the nonprofit’s board chairman Squeak Smith.

That leaves $4.4 million in the pot for projects that range in estimated price from $60,000 to $5 million.

“RI’s standard administrative cost when working with state, federal and private entities is 12 to 15% depending on project complexity, and we are certain the work on Topsail Island will be complex,” Smith said in the statement.

The towns of North Topsail Beach, Surf City and Topsail Beach initially submitted more than 20 projects to the institute for consideration.

Since January, town officials have pared down the number of proposed projects – three per town – to submit to a task force chaired by an RI representative with five voting members. Those voting members include one sitting member of each town board, a representative of RI and North Carolina Coastal Federation Executive Director Todd Miller.

Just how the projects will be ranked, selected and carried through were met with some apprehension and several questions from town managers and elected officials, who discussed the possibility of setting up in the future an emergency funding source, perhaps through the state, that the towns could tap into directly in the immediate aftermath of a storm.

“So that we’ll get full benefit,” said Topsail Beach Commissioner Steve Smith, who also chairs the Topsail Island Shoreline Protection Commission.

RI has done some work on coastal projects, but a majority of the nonprofit’s work has historically dealt in inland stream- and wetlands-restoration projects.

For that reason, some at the meeting March 5 suggested the institute rethink its system for ranking projects on the coast, where the window to work on shorelines is dictated by environmental-related factors such as turtle nesting season.

There’s also the time in which it takes to get Coastal Area Management Act, or CAMA, permits necessary to do shoreline projects such as the one North Topsail Beach has elected as its top priority project.

“You can’t even schedule your interagency meetings in 60 days, much less get a permit,” said Chris Gibson, president TI Coastal, a coastal engineering firm that routinely heads projects on the island.

North Topsail Beach leaders placed dune restoration at the top of their list of projects to be considered by the task force.

“We feel like we need to get our dune restored,” said town Alderman Mike Benson.

The town suffered an estimated $22 million loss of sand from the dune system stretching along North Topsail’s 11-mile shoreline during at Hurricane Florence, which hit the North Carolina coast last September. Later that same month, the remnants of Hurricane Michael swept away more sand from the island’s already battered beaches.

In a memorandum to RI, North Topsail Town Manager Bryan Chadwick explains that the town cannot financially replace all the sand. But, with some funding, about 100,000 cubic yards of sand could be placed along 6 miles of the dune line within the Coastal Barrier Resources Act, or CBRA, shoreline portion of the town’s beachfront.

CBRA was created in the early 1980s to discourage building on relatively undeveloped barrier islands. Areas designated CBRA do not receive federal funding and financial assistance.

Benson said it will cost the town an estimated $5 million to restore the dune line along about a 6-mile stretch of beach within the CBRA zone.

“Obviously we’re not going to get it with this one funding source,” he said, referring to the grant.

The town also placed among its three top priorities the installation of Hatteras ramps, which are wooden ramps that provide vehicle access to the beach, and planting vegetation to stabilize the dune berm.

“We need to protect our residential property, our town’s infrastructure, our tax revenue,” North Topsail Beach Mayor Dan Tuman said. “The dune is our shoreline defense. That’s the first thing we do.”

The town’s immediate neighbor to the south, Surf City, is currently working on its own post-Florence dune restoration project, which has a price tag of about $18 million.

The town would like to put grant money toward stormwater infiltration and improvements, Surf City Town Manager Ashley Loftis said.

Topsail Beach, the town on the southern end of the island, would also like to focus on stormwater improvements, with the top project being the installation of emergency stormwater pumping infrastructure.

There are seven areas within the town that experience the worst flooding during coastal storms and heavy rains, Town Manager Mike Rose said.

“From my end, stormwater management’s got to rank high for us,” he said.

The estimated costs associated with installing the pumping infrastructure total $140,000. Another estimated $60,000 would be need to place mobile emergency stormwater pumps to use at the flood-prone areas.

The town’s third-highest-ranking project is the development and installation of living shorelines and marsh sills along the sound side at potential public access sites. The estimated cost for those is up to $1 million.

Each project proposal the towns submit to the task force will be ranked by several factors, including the timeline a project will be “shovel ready,” that project’s overall impact on the town, and its environmental impact.

Smith pointed out that other groups, including the federation, will submit proposed projects to the task force, a prospect that drew criticism Tuesday during the meeting.

“You people probably know better than anybody else what’s best for Topsail Island,” Tuman said.

Rose said that, while he wasn’t sure the projects the towns are submitting to the task force benefit collectively all three towns, “I do feel this group in here now understands it.”

“Beyond these walls, that may be a different question,” he said.

To be completely fair, each town should get an equal cut of the grant funds and determine how to best use that money, Gibson said.

“There’s going to be some balancing,” Smith said. “It’s just a matter of how we flow through it and how we get that common ground to get things done correctly. We’ve got to make sure we know what makes a difference and what’s best for the island.”

Projects prioritized by the task force have to be submitted to the state by Oct. 1.

MOREHEAD CITY – The North Carolina Coastal Resources Commission has approved preliminary boundaries and building rules at inlets.

Though official adoption of the redrawn inlet hazard area, or IHA, maps and guidelines for development within those areas is still months away, the CRC’s decision last week puts the state one step closer to amending the current outdated maps.

North Carolina Division of Coastal Management Director Braxton Davis told members of the commission at the quarterly meeting Thursday that the regulatory agency understands the revised maps are going to be a topic of controversy in the coastal towns at inlets.

“These maps were done in 1981,” he said. “We have IHAs that don’t even capture some of these areas.”

A little more than 2,900 acres of land is designated as IHA at 10 of the 19 active inlets in the state.

The 10 are: Tubbs, Shallotte and Lockwood Folly inlets in Brunswick County; Carolina Beach, Masonboro, Mason and Rich inlets in New Hanover County; New Topsail Inlet in Pender County; New River Inlet in Onslow County; and Bogue Inlet in Carteret County.

The CRC approved removing IHA designations at inlets where the adjacent land is undeveloped and owned either by the state or federal government.

IHAs are defined as shorelines especially vulnerable to erosion and flooding where inlets can shift suddenly and dramatically.

Inlets typically move over time in one of two ways. An inlet migrates, meaning it moves in one general direction, or it oscillates, wagging back and forth.

A majority of the state’s inlets oscillate.

Long-term erosion rates are about five times greater at oceanfront shorelines near inlets.

The proposed maps expand current IHAs collectively by a little more than 1,359 acres while removing about 470 acres from existing boundaries at the 10 developed inlets.

A majority of IHAs are being expanded under the proposed boundaries.

The preliminary maps place an additional 152 acres and 243 structures within an ocean hazard area of environmental concern, or AECs.

Ocean hazard AECs are defined as those that may be easily destroyed by erosion or flooding or may have environmental, social, economic or aesthetic values that make it valuable to the state.

Rules governing development within IHAs were established to control density and structure size along the shorelines affected by the dynamic waterways.

The proposed setbacks have been established through years of work by the science panel that advises the CRC.

The science panel studied historical shoreline data at each inlet, then used that information to predict erosion and accretion rates at those inlets.

DCM has established building setbacks in the new boundaries based on the annual inlet erosion rates rather than the oceanfront erosion rates now. For some of the inlets, this method of calculation equates to no change in the current building setbacks. For others, the setbacks vary.

Current rules do not allow lots about one-third of an acre in size to be subdivided. Residential structures of four units or fewer or nonresidential structures of less than 5,000 square feet are only allowed on lots within an IHA.

The updated rules maintain the size limitation to no more than 5,000 square feet of heated space and remove restrictions on the number of units allowed in a structure.

Larger structures that would be included in the new boundaries would be grandfathered under the rules.

North Topsail Beach Alderman Mike Benson expressed his concerns about condominiums at the north end of town that would be grandfathered in under the new maps.

Benson told the commission during a public hearing on the proposed IHA map changes that the revised boundary at New River Inlet would include 11 buildings that are all larger than 5,000 square feet.

If any of those buildings were to be destroyed in a hurricane or fire, Benson wanted to know if they could be rebuilt.

DCM shoreline management specialist Ken Richardson clarified that structures between 5,000 and 10,000 square feet could be rebuilt to the same footprint. The owners of a structure greater than 10,000 square feet, such as Shell Island Resort in Wrightsville Beach, could request a variance from the CRC to rebuild.

Richardson said he will turn over DCM’s recommended changes to the state Office of State Budget and Management for review.

Once that office confirms its findings, a series of public meetings will be held where the public will get an opportunity to comment on the maps and rules.

Richardson said he hopes those meetings will kick off some time in the spring and that revised maps are adopted by year’s end.

If adopted, the new IHA boundaries would be updated every five years.

TOPSAIL BEACH – Rules on where sand within federally restricted coastal areas can be placed and funding sources to pay the cost to use the sand for beach renourishment are too limited and waste money, according to proponents pushing for a law that would lift current regulations.

Sand within areas designated Coastal Barrier Resources Act, or CBRA, zones cannot be spread along beaches outside of those zones.

Furthermore, federal dollars cannot be spent to move sand being dredged from a channel within a CBRA zone onto a nearby beach.

For the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers these restrictions mean tapping offshore beach-compatible sand sources for shoreline stabilization and beach renourishment projects.

Such sand sources can be miles offshore, “significantly increasing the cost to the taxpayer,” according to several congressmen who questioned the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s interpretation of CBRA.

Congress passed CBRA in 1982 to discourage building on relatively undeveloped, storm-prone barrier islands by cutting off federal funding and financial assistance, including federal flood insurance.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is responsible for identifying and mapping CBRA units.

Beach towns, including Topsail Beach in Pender County, have been permitted to dredge channels within CBRA zones and relocate the pumped sand onto their ocean shorelines as long as no federal money is used to pay for the project.

The town in 2010 initiated a project aligning dredging New Topsail Inlet with beach renourishment to cut costs.

Since then, millions of dollars in federal, state and town funds have been spent on three major projects to clear heavily shoaled areas of the inlet and place sand removed from the channel onto the beach.

“No funds allocated to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers can be used to take sand from our CBRA zone and put it on our beaches,” explained Steve Smith, chair of the Topsail Island Shoreline Protection Commission. “The Corps has not done any beach nourishment for Topsail Beach. All of it has been through our 30-year plan.”

Banks Channel, a portion of which is in a CBRA zone, has been the go-to sand source for beach renourishment projects in Topsail Beach, the southernmost town on Topsail Island.

More than half of the nearly 2 million cubic yards of sand dredged from Banks Channel and pumped onto the town’s beach within the past several years has come from the CBRA zone.

In 2014 Congress authorized Topsail Beach’s federal beach project. The following year, town asked the Corps to request the Fish and Wildlife Service to authorize a sand-borrow site within the CBRA zone. The Corps declined that request.

Fish and Wildlife may exempt federally funded projects within a CBRA zone if those projects meet a specific set of criteria.

The Corps can’t operate in a CBRA zone without proving it’s for the purpose of maintaining a channel or conducting jetty maintenance and this work may be done in channels and on related structures that were authorized before they were included in a Coastal Barrier Resources System, or CBRS.

In a letter last year to the head of the service, those congressmen, including the late Rep. Walter B. Jones, R-N.C., and Rep. David Rouzer, R-N.C., said they were troubled by what they called an “unreasonably narrow interpretation” of the section of CBRA that pertains to congressionally authorized beach stabilization and renourishment projects.

The June 20, 2018, letter, also signed by congressional representatives from Louisiana, Florida, Texas, New Jersey and Colorado, asks then-acting Fish and Wildlife director Greg Sheehan several questions about the 1994 solicitor’s opinion of CBRA.

“In many circumstances, beach renourishment projects that extract sand from a (CBRS) unit for use outside of the unit provide environmental and Federal economic benefits, help preserve life and property, stabilize critical fish and wildlife habitat in the area or otherwise provide benefits to the unit,” the congressmen wrote.

“This interpretation of the statutory language has been the basis for the Service’s interpretation and advice to other federal agencies for over 20 years.”

Margaret Everson, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Fish and Wildlife Service Principal Deputy Director Margaret Everson, who replaced Sheehan after he left the position last August, reaffirmed in a response to the congressmen the 1994 interpretation of the act.

“This interpretation of the statutory language has been the basis for the Service’s interpretation and advice to other federal agencies for over 20 years,” Everson wrote in a Dec. 21 letter. “Congress subsequently reauthorized the CBRA twice without regard to this interpretation of the law.”

Coastal engineer Chris Gibson and president of TI Coastal, which represents Topsail Beach, said the implications of that interpretation are far-reaching.

“It impacts nearly all of the federal projects in south Jersey,” he said. “Every one of those are mined from the ebb shoal on the adjacent inlets. The ones in Jersey have been used my entire career and now they’re at risk.”

The basic tenet of CBRA was that federal funds would not be spent on any new development after the act was created, he said.

“With that tenet that has been used and spread to mean multiple different things by various agencies and watchdog groups,” Gibson said. “They have decided that using the sand out of the CBRA zone is somehow spending money for development.”

Everson said in the letter that Fish and Wildlife currently has no plan to revisit the interpretation.

“It’s going to take legislative action by Congress to change the ruling of Fish and Wildlife. That’s the way we’re going to proceed to see if that’s possible.”

Steve Smith, Topsail Island Shoreline Protection Commission

“It’s going to take legislative action by Congress to change the ruling of Fish and Wildlife,” Smith said. “That’s the way we’re going to proceed to see if that’s possible. This a long-term issue for Topsail Beach. We want to make sure all avenues are open to the town, that we’re not limited by certain regulations.”

The town has the backing of U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., according to his press secretary Adam Webb.

“He believes USFWS’ current interpretation is unreasonably narrow and results in additional, unnecessary costs for shoreline protection and beach renourishment projects, which our coastal towns desperately need to mitigate storm surge and erosion from future storms,” Webb said in an email. “Senators Tillis and (Richard) Burr (R-N.C.) will continue to work on possible legislative fixes.”

In a telephone interview days before Jones’ Feb. 10 death, his chief of staff Joshua Brown said the congressman “does not see how allowing this sort of practice would undermine the integrity of CBRA and the purpose for which it was established.”

“Taking sand from an underwater portion of the CBRA and putting it on the beach on a location that’s outside the system that existed in a developed form prior to the system’s establishment makes sense,” Brown said. “I know that members are interested in addressing this issue via legislation or otherwise.”

JACKSONVILLE – The North Carolina Beach, Inlet and Waterway Association is rolling out a plan that, if approved, would allow municipalities and private businesses to once again unload sand in federally maintained dredged material disposal areas in the state.

Members of the nonprofit, also referred to as NCBIWA and pronounced “N.C. byway,” met recently with officials from the Army Corps of Engineers’ Wilmington district and staff from U.S. House and Senate offices to kick off a campaign that would scale back the nationwide ban on the use of the Corps-maintained disposal sites.

The initial move in what is being described as a two-pronged approach is to get the Corps to narrow the ban to deep-draft navigation projects, which are those where a channel is maintained deeper than 16 feet.

The Corps’ February 2017 guidance was made to conserve space within its disposal sites after millions of cubic yards of material dredged from non-federal projects were placed in a single dredged material placement facility, or DMPF, in Galveston, Texas.

Limiting the rule to deep-draft navigation projects would offer North Carolina municipalities and small businesses the opportunity to dump dredge spoil pumped from shallow-draft projects onto federally managed disposal areas.

“In our minds, that would allow Wilmington district to evaluate on a case-by-case (basis), ‘will this project impact future capacity?’” said Robert Neal, NCBIWA treasurer.

A majority of North Carolina’s inlets are shallow-draft navigation channels, meaning they are no more than 15 feet deep. The shipping lane of the Cape Fear River and Beaufort Inlet are the only deep-draft channels in the state.

Seventeen of North Carolina’s 19 navigable inlets are shallow-draft inlets, which tend to shoal more rapidly than deep-draft inlets and therefore require more frequent dredging to keep them unclogged and navigable.

“They need to hear from us how this is affecting us,” said Kathleen Riely, NCBIWA executive director, referring to officials in the Corps’ office in Washington, D.C. “I think they need to hear from us directly, ‘look, this is what it’s done.’”

So far, Wilmington district officials have declined requests from two small businesses and three towns in the state to use Corps DMPFs.

Those projects included maintenance dredging at Ocean Isle Beach, Holden Beach and Sunset Beach in Brunswick County and Bradley Creek Marina and Masonboro Yacht Club in New Hanover County.

They included more than 100,000 cubic yards of sand and “potentially” more than $1 million, according to information provided by NCBIWA.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg, NCBIWA officials said.

Marinas and other small businesses, and several beach towns, including Southport and Oak Island in Brunswick County, Topsail Beach in Pender County and other communities will experience hardships as a result of the policy.

Without access to federally maintained disposal areas, non-federal entities are limited to hauling dredged material by truck to upland areas.

Neal referred to such operations as “bucket and barge.”

“We’re talking about small businesses so the additional cost of that is a significant cost on them,” he said.

The Corps manages about 218 DMPFs totaling more than 5,000 acres in North Carolina. Some of those sites have not been used.

“We’ve got a couple we’re worried about,” said Justin McCorcle, an attorney with the Corps’ Wilmington district.

One facility near Masonboro Inlet in New Hanover County is full, he said.

The Coast Guard gave the Corps $1 million to raise the dikes at a facility near the Southport Marina in Brunswick County.

“Utilization of that capacity that the U.S. Coast Guard paid for is difficult,” McCorcle said. “Obviously in the Wilmington district we’re not in the position to advocate a change to our policy or particularly talk about how it is likely to be changed. We were not closely involved in the drafting of it. What we can express is what our concerns are and what we would be looking for moving forward. How do we make sure we have those available? I think we would want some sort of plan for what to do when an area became full. I think that would be the basic issue.”

A majority of the federally maintained dredge disposal areas in North Carolina are state owned, but the easements to the Corps are in perpetuity.

Neal said North Carolina is behind other coastal states like Florida and New Jersey, which have historic dredge disposal site management plans.

The idea, though, is for North Carolina to eventually have its own dredge management plan.

“We have short-term issues that need to be resolved and then we’re working on a long-term plan down the road,” Riely said.

NCBIWA is requesting a five-year grace period for the Corps’ Wilmington district and the state to work together to create such a plan.

“What we would like to do is propose something in unison with the district and the state,” Neal said.

Part of the work will be getting a handle on how often the sites will be used and how much material is expected to be disposed of within the sites.

“It’s a risk calculation,” McCorcle said. “Are there critical dredging issues at these facilities? What kinds of quantities? Are there adequate facilities nearby and do those appear to have adequate capacity? How can we identify the risk and make sure the (Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway) stays navigable?”

MANTEO – A hastily called meeting last week of the Oregon Inlet Task Force was intended to nail down details of a work plan for a proposed Dare County-based dredge and the forgivable loan to a private partner. But progress on the panel’s ambitious plan hit some headwinds.

Notably terse and testy, the special meeting Jan. 29 at the county administration building in Manteo succeeded in highlighting more questions about the dredge than answers, including the selection of the contractor, EJE Dredging Service, LLC. The Greenville-based company, which has never done major dredging, was formed on Aug. 17, 2018, weeks after the task force chose it over Quincy, Massachusetts-based Cashman Dredging, which has extensive experience with large projects off the Atlantic, Gulf and Caribbean coasts.

After Browny Douglas, an alternate member on the seven-member task force, a Dare County panel that addresses inlet matters, asked to “put some names” with the chosen contractor, Chairman Jim Tobin informed him that the firm is owned by Judson Whitehurst, who also owns EJE Recycling, a long-established disposal business in Greenville.

“It doesn’t ring a bell to me,” Douglas responded, “But it seems like – Pitt County – some bells should be ringing.”

The task force has been anxious to move forward on design and construction of a split-hull, or hopper, dredge that would be moored at Wanchese harbor, a plan engendered by legislation passed last year that appropriated $15 million from the state’s shallow draft inlet dredging fund. The law requires the contractor to pay $15 million of the $30 million dredge, and work at a reduced rate for Dare County for at least 10 years in exchange for a state loan being forgiven.

Under the legislation, the ocean-certified dredge, which must be completed in 24 months, would be used mostly in maintaining Oregon Inlet, although it would also be expected to be put to use in Hatteras Inlet and other state waterways.

“One thing I would say about it,” Tobin said at the meeting. “We’ve been working on this since September. It’s been a work in progress. It’s also something that complies with state law.”

As Tobin explained, the task force and EJE want Jensen Maritime Consultants to design the vessel. Jensen had designed the 156-foot Murden, an Army Corps of Engineers hopper dredge similar to what the task force wants. A hopper dredge fills its hold with dredged material to deposit at a set location, rather than pumping it through a pipe or casting it to the side. It is unclear if a Murden-sized dredge could be modified to also maintain some smaller waterways in the county, or even to build spoils islands.

“What will happen is once the design is finalized, they’ll put out RFPs to all the shipyards,” Tobin said, referring to request for proposals to build the dredge. But Tobin’s motion to approve Jensen, along with plans to review and approve an architectural proposal and promissory note, fizzled.

After some tart back-and-forth exchanges with member Harry Schiffman, Tobin abruptly left the room to fetch County Attorney Bobby Outten to explain a seeming discrepancy about whether it was premature to vote on the architect.

Responding, Outten advised the task force to let Jensen know that there was interest in starting negotiations.

“You can’t approve the contract,” he said, “because there’s nothing to approve yet.”

Equally murky was a discussion about setting “usual and customary” rates for dredging, based on the Corps’ rates, although it was not stated whether the Corps used updated rates. Proposed rates in the forgivable loan agreement ranged from $14.33 per cubic yard to $23.31 per cubic yard, depending on where it was loaded – inside or outside the bar – and whether it was dumped at Pea Island or at the bar, referring to the large shoal in the ocean at the entrance to inlet. And no one seemed to know what the rate might be at Hatteras Inlet.

“There’s a lot of guesswork here,” Schiffman said.

But Tobin said the document was not the final draft.

An explanation for the discounted rate – proposed at a minimum of $1.50 per cubic yard less than the base rate – was not provided. Whatever the rates end up to be, Tobin said, they will be reviewed every year and adjusted to mirror percentages in fluctuation of the Corps’ daily rate.

According to minutes from the task force meeting in August 2018, a 10-question rating system was used to determine which of the two requests for proposals submitted by EJE and Cashman Dredging were most suitable. The proposal from EJE scored higher, mostly because the company agreed to base its homeport and maintenance on the Outer Banks. EJE also apparently plans to hire someone who has a lot of experience working in Oregon and Hatteras inlets and other state waterways to run the operation, reportedly a retired Corps of Engineers captain.

In a recent interview, Whitehurst acknowledged that his dredging experience is limited to a brief period about a decade ago, when he created a company called NC Dredge that used a small barge to clear ditches and canals. When he realized that it “wouldn’t work out” because of regulatory requirements, he said, the business was closed after 20 months in operation.

But Whitehurst, a native of Greenville who enjoys fishing in his offshore boat, said he was familiar with Outer Banks inlets. Also, as the owner for 20 years of recycling, transfer station and landfill operations, he said, he has the proven managerial skills and experience to run EJE Dredging Service.

“I didn’t know a thing about the trash business in 1998,” Whitehurst said. “It’s not that difficult. You put a guy in place to do a job. If he doesn’t do his job, you get rid of him.”

Whitehurst said he learned about the Dare County dredge opportunity from “his friends in Raleigh,” especially former Sen. Bill Cook, a recently retired Republican from Beaufort County.  He said he has done extensive research over the last year, and is confident about securing the professional expertise to build and operate the dredge the state law and the task force require.

“I certainly wouldn’t have bid on it,” Whitehurst said, “unless I could be successful.”

SUNSET BEACH – The town is resubmitting its request for a permit to dredge a portion of Jinks Creek after state officials deemed the initial application incomplete.

The North Carolina Division of Coastal Management, or DCM, informed the town in a letter in December that the application missed several pieces of information, including core sediment samples, clear identification of the dredge footprint, and separate descriptions of each area to be dredged.

The state’s Dec. 21 notification pushes back the start of the town’s dredging project to the 2020 dredging season, which begins late fall/early winter of this year.

“Everybody wants to get done what we are going to do,” Sunset Beach Mayor Greg Weiss said. “It was disappointing.”

Earlier this month, the town received a Coastal Area Management Act, or CAMA, major permit to dredge Mary’s Creek and Turtle Creek as part of a project that includes roughly 3 miles of waterway, feeder canals and finger canals.

Jinks Creek continues to be a controversial part of the project because of environmental concerns.

The Sunset Beach Town Council last year agreed to a compromise that resulted in the town pulling north Jinks Creek, which has never been dredged, from the town’s permit application.

Jinks Creek connects Tubbs Inlet with the Intracoastal Waterway, providing ocean access to property owners who live on the eastern end of the Brunswick County island.

There are more than 300 properties, including yet-to-be-developed lots within two new developments, along the canals proposed to be dredged.

Shoaling has clogged the waterways along this area of the island, making it difficult for boaters to reach the Atlantic Ocean outside of a short window of opportunity that’s based on the tide, according to proponents of the dredging project.

Jinks Creek is roughly a mile long. It is not designated a primary nursery area, or PNA, by the state, but the tidal marshes lining both side of the creek are.

The North Carolina Marine Fisheries Commission designates PNAs to protect habitat, particularly along bottom areas, including sand, mud, sea grasses and oyster rocks. Dredging is restricted in PNAs and shoreline development to protect water quality and limit stormwater runoff.

Mannon Gore, who purchased the barrier island in 1955, had south Jinks Creek dredged once more than 40 years ago to create the man-made canals.

“It may or may not be exactly the same place that will be dredged this time,” Weiss said. “That has created a concern for some people.”

Ted Janes, who has owned a home in Sunset Beach for more than 30 years, is among a group of property owners who continue to raise questions about the potential environmental damage from dredging around north Jinks Creek.

“I’m not surprised that the permit was sent back,” he said. “In my opinion, the way it’s worded is misleading to CAMA.”

Janes said that because the permit application refers to the proposed work as “maintenance” dredging, it’s “misguided” because the southern part of the creek was dredged once decades ago.

The permit application, completed by engineering consulting firm Moffitt & Nichol, states that when feeder and finger canals included in the proposed project were dredged in 2002, the work did not negatively affect north Jinks Creek.

That, Janes said, is another mischaracterization, because the application omits what effect, if any, the 2002 dredging had on the remaining 1,750 feet of south Jinks Creek.

“The town has spent a lot of money from the town’s treasury to get it to the point where they could put the permit in and (Moffatt & Nichol) left out some very, very basic information,” he said.

Dr. Richard Hilderman, a Sunset Beach property owner, founding member of the Brunswick Environmental Action Team, or BEAT, and retired biochemist, has raised further concerns about dredging the creek in relation to sea level rise.

“Creating a 1,750 (-foot-long) navigational channel in South Jinks Creek which is 100 feet wide and 6 feet (mean water level) will increase the volume and velocity of water coming from the Atlantic Ocean into Jinks Creek and the surrounding PNAs,” Hilderman wrote in an email to Weiss. “Thus over time the salt concentration of the water in the PNAs will increase which will cause the salt intolerant marsh plants to attempt an upward land movement to create new tidal marshes.”

That migration can’t happen around Sunset Beach, he warns, because those areas are blocked by development on the island and the mainland.

Hilderman, former chair of the now defunct Sunset Beach Environment Resource Committee, makes the case that Jinks Creek is a PNA.

Sampling conducted by Dr. Fritz Rohde, a scientist with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and member of a scoping committee selected to advise the town about the dredging project, “showed a comparable level of diversity in different species of fish, shrimps and crabs to the diversity of areas that have been designated PNAs,” according to Hilderman.

Rohde could not be reached for comment.

“This brings us to the essential and fundamental question that needs to be addressed,” Hilderman wrote. “What impact will a 1,750-foot navigational channel in Jinks Creek have on North Jinks and thus the surrounding PNAs?  Will the increase sediment load trigger a die off of oysters?  Will the increase influx of salt water trigger a die off of tidal marsh plants?”

Those questions and other questions, Janes hopes, may be the ticket to taking off the table any possibility of dredging north Jinks Creek.

“What we’re trying to do is ask questions that voice concerns,” he said. “There’s enough questions there that we think the permit process should pay attention. If we’re lucky CAMA will come back and say you can’t go there.”

The blue tarps that dotted the landscape from Carteret to Brunswick counties are disappearing, businesses are reopening, but as communities reliant on tourism prepare for the season ahead, they’re faced with the reality that the damage to local economies from Hurricane Florence is still unfolding.

This year, as coastal counties and towns in North Carolina consider annual budgets, the damaged beaches, closed hotels and countless of yet-to-be repaired rental units are expected to drive down occupancy rates and, with them, the key source of funding for beach re-nourishment and coastal flooding repairs at a time of need.

Last year, a running tally of the costs to repair beaches, clear inlets and fix berms and flood control infrastructure reached a staggering $352 million. State officials reviewing the costs said it would be difficult to get close to the amount needed without a mix of federal, state and local funding. They estimated the state’s share at close to $163 million. But determining the local match is difficult because the required cash outlays for towns vary according to the type of project and the source of funding.

Those requirements and whether communities can meet them are now an even bigger question mark because for most communities affected by the storm, occupancy taxes are the main source of funds for beach re-nourishment and berm-replacement projects.

Tough Choice, Or No Choice

Chris Gibson, co-founder of engineering firm TI Coastal, said communities along hard-hit Topsail Island are going to be squeezed by the need to protect homes and infrastructure and a reduction in the revenue used to pay for it.

Some of the homes along the island will have a lower rental value because of damage to the beaches and some won’t be able to open this year at all, he said.

Still, in towns like Surf City, where the destruction of a protective berm has put homes and infrastructure at risk, waiting until there is certainty of federal reimbursement isn’t an option.

“They don’t have a choice,” Gibson said. “What do they do? You can’t just let your street be under water.”

Surf City plans to truck in sand over the winter, mainly to protect infrastructure while it works on a long-term solution. Gibson said communities must be proactive or face the prospect of getting behind the curve and losing more properties and more of the tax base.

With the destruction of Surf City’s main berm, about 90 percent of its front-row properties are exposed and out of compliance from setback requirements that could prevent them from being rebuilt if damaged in a storm.

Losing those houses would have an impact well beyond the coast, he said. “If you look at Pender County, 70 percent of the tax base is east of U.S. 17,” Gibson said.

Gibson said he believes the legislature could provide some assistance as it works out funding for a statewide storm damage mitigation fund set up during the last session.

Fewer Rooms Available

During a recent legislative review of how the hurricane season affected the tourism economy, Whit Tuttle, vice president for tourism at the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina, said the loss of lodging inventory was a top concern. Tuttle said that a recent survey showed that the inventory of commercial lodgings in the state’s southeastern region dropped 11.5 percent from September to November.

“That’s going to impact us as we head into the season,” he told members of a natural and economic resources oversight committee earlier this month. “We’re not going to be able to handle the typical volume of visitors that come to the area.”

Harder to measure, but probably more behind the curve is the area’s growing rental home inventory. Tuttle said many rental owners are dealing with a labor shortage and can’t make repairs. It’s been tougher for them to hire contractors because they’re competing with larger, commercial operations, he said.

“The rental industry is going to be hit harder than the commercial lodging industry,” he said.

Committee member Rep. Pat McElraft, R-Carteret, said she’s concerned about the number of rental houses still waiting for repair work to start.

“I don’t know if they’re going to be ready,” she said.

In a response Thursday, McElraft said the legislature could provide additional money for beach repairs as well as help with advertising, expenses local governments typically pay for in part through occupancy tax revenues.

“I am hoping to get some money put into the Coastal Storm Mitigation Fund to help beach towns rebuild the public trust beaches, the economic engine for coastal areas and for the state,” she said.

An Off-Season Boost

For now, the long-term effect on occupancy tax revenues is difficult to determine, in part because the storm recovery efforts have boosted off-season occupancy rates.

“A lot of that business that they’re seeing now is with recovery workers,” Tuttle said, adding that it’s important to remember that if the workers stay longer than 90 days, their accommodations no longer have to collect occupancy taxes.

Jim Browder, executive director of the Carteret County Tourism Development Authority, said officials had expected to lose a bigger share of occupancy tax collections because of the storm. At least a third of the county’s hotels remain closed for repairs, but the arrival of construction workers, insurance adjusters and others here as a result of Hurricane Florence, just as the tourism season had wound to a close, provided some balance.

“It filled the void on some of the occupancy we had lost on tourism,” Browder said. “We have a lot more occupancy going on right now than we would typically have this time of year. But going forward into the spring, we’re not sure how it will affect as these individuals leave.”

The county charges a 6 percent tax on hotel and motel rooms and cottage and condo rentals. The revenue is split to cover tourism marketing and beach re-nourishment expenses.

Hotels only represent about 15 percent of the total rooms available in Carteret County, which Browder described as unusual for the North Carolina coast. Cottages, condominiums and other rentals provide the remainder of the rooms available for vacationers and their status isn’t as clear as that of the dormant 200-room DoubleTree hotel on the oceanfront in Atlantic Beach, where like the Inn at Pine Knoll Shores and the Bask Hotel, the Quality Inn and the Holiday Inn Express, all in Morehead City, storm repairs continue.

“The good news is that wonderful new products will be coming online, but we’re not sure exactly sure when,” Browder said, adding that the outlook for cottages and condos is much less clear.

“That’s the hard part in trying to determine how big an impact it is: We really don’t have a grasp on when everybody’s going to be back online,” he said.

Atlantic Beach Mayor Trace Cooper said that while he expected a drop in revenues, ample funds had built up over past cycles to allow moving ahead with re-nourishment projects.

For now, he said, it’s hard to judge what the impact will be countywide.

“We’re all in a wait and see mode,” he said. “The big question is what happens to tourism in the spring.”

In a normal year, occupancy tax revenues would grow by about 3 percent, but this year the expectation for now is for no increase. Some of that is attributed to high off-season occupancy because of both recovery workers and people unable to return home in temporary housing. The real test will come during tourism season, he said.

“It’s not hard to move the needle in November,” he said. Once May and June numbers come in, he said, the picture will be much clearer.

Farther south, New Hanover County is also seeing stable occupancy rates.

Kate Murphy, spokesperson for New Hanover County, said occupancy taxes are consistent and growing in all areas and municipalities except Wrightsville Beach, where Florence made landfall, and where the closure of the 150-room Blockade Runner has had a pronounced effect.

The hotel’s owners recently announced that part of the hotel is to reopen in February and a second section later this spring. Damage was extensive at the hotel, and repairs were required in nearly every room, according to the announcement.

Coastal Review Online Editor Mark Hibbs contributed to this report.

OCEAN ISLE BEACH – Changes to state sand dune rules adopted in late 2018 and now awaiting final state approval would allow oceanfront landowners greater flexibility to relocate wind- and storm-driven sand on their property.

Also, beach access ways may now be built 6 feet beyond the vegetation line, which previously had not been allowed. Officials said that the change allowing a longer, less severe slope for Hatteras ramps, a common term for a type of beach access way, will be less destructive to dunes and improve accessibility.

The state Coastal Resources Commission adopted the changes during its most recent meeting held Nov. 28 at Brick Landing Plantation in Ocean Isle Beach. The adopted rules now go to the state Rules Review Commission for review and approval later this month. If approved, the rules become effective Feb. 1.

“The commission is pleased that the amendments to dune rules add more flexibility by addressing the redistribution of sand following storms and Hatteras ramps,” said Renee Cahoon, CRC chair. “The changes to walkovers and ramps should reduce the number of required switchbacks (or zig-zags) and reduce the slope of access ways, which can help with ADA (Americans with Disabilities Act) compliance.”

Shifting Sand

Mike Lopazanski, policy and planning section chief with the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Coastal Management, told the commission that the amendments grant property owners the freedom to relocate sand that’s been blown onto their property, as long as the sand stays in the beach and dune system.

Lopazanski said that the shifting sand blown by storms or prevailing winds can cover decks, driveways, pools, houses and buildings in the oceanfront area, as well as landward of the oceanfront area, including the opposite side of the road.

“It creates problems for property owners to remove the sand from around their structures while staying in compliance with the dune protection rules, and also property owners are looking for ways to enhance the protective value of barrier dunes, which included redistribution of sand on individual lots,” Lopazanski said. “Commissioners have also expressed an interest in ensuring that sand, particularly in areas that received beach nourishment, remains in the beach and dune systems, that it’s not carried off and placed elsewhere.”

In response, division staff drafted amendments to the rule that included “a little bit more flexibility when it comes with the redistribution of sand,” he said.

Under the revised language, “Sand held in storage in any dune, other than the frontal or primary dune, shall remain on the lot or tract of land to the maximum extent practicable.”

Lopazanski emphasized that the change is an effort to keep the sand in place and in the dune system.

Redistributing sand moved by storm overwash or winds from buildings, pools, roads, parking areas and other structures is considered maintenance as long as the sand remains within the AEC, according to information in the meeting agenda packet. Those looking to redistribute sand must consult with the Division of Coastal Management or the local permit officer to determine whether the proposed activity qualifies for the exclusion.

“It’s going to be considered under maintenance and repair. You won’t need a permit for that but we are going to require a consultation,” Lopazanski explained.

Town Officials Express Support

Lopazanski said that regarding structures in and around dunes, at the request of the local government, the permitted width of Hatteras ramps is increased from 10 to 15 feet, and the ramp can be built with material other than wood, if approved by DCM.

Additionally, access ways, including Hatteras ramps, will be permitted to be built 6 feet beyond the vegetation line, which wasn’t allowed before, as long as it doesn’t interfere with public trust rights or emergency access along the beach.

With the longer access ways, the ramps won’t have as steep of an incline and the dunes will not be cut down as much, he added, because you have a broader area to work with, so it will be regulated by volume instead of strictly by height.

“We’re going to change the rule to preserve the dune function as a protective barrier against flooding and erosion by limiting the reduction in the volume of the dune, as opposed to worrying so much about the dune height.” Lopazanski added. “You can’t reduce the elevation below it being defined as a primary dune but you can redistribute the sand by widening or flattening it out as long as the volume is maintained.”

The CRC approved the proposed amendments for public hearing during its July 2017 meeting and the fiscal analysis during its February meeting. Public hearings were held in April in Nags Head and Topsail Beach. Two comments were received, which were included in the agenda packet.

Cliff Ogburn, Nags Head town manager, had submitted a statement in support of the dune rules on behalf of the town’s mayor and board of commissioners. “These amendments as they pertain to allowing Hatteras Ramps to be made out of materials other than wood, allowing them to extend out onto the flat beach, and more dune protection. Nags Head has had a lot of sand that have created some dunes that are difficult to manage when it comes to providing access. We have more than 40 beach accesses and about half of them have vehicle access for the public or public safety workers. Being able to utilize these ramps will keep more of the dune in place and allow vehicle access without altering the dunes.”

Steve Smith, a Topsail Beach town commissioner and chairman of the Topsail Shoreline Protection Commission, also submitted a written comment regarding the dune rule amendments. “Some of our communities have started erosion control structure plans and designs, will these amendments stop these plans? If you lose the frontal dune, will these amendments allow the community to come back and restore a frontal dune system in the area? This is unclear.”

Smith said Topsail Beach would prefer to see language that “no new dunes shall be created in inlet hazard areas,” removed or modified. “We would also like to see some strengthening of 7H .0308(d)(3) to say it is for all structures in the VE (flood hazard) Zone and take into consideration that dune height plays as important of a role as pile depth. Topsail Beach is supportive of the areas in the amendments that address how to build in a dune area.”

Lopazanski told the CRC that residents of Nags Head expressed support for the changes, particularly regarding the Hatteras ramps.

In Topsail Beach, residents expressed concerns about erosion control structure plans and designs as well as the ability to restore the frontal dune system if destroyed. They also questioned the provision of the inlet hazard area rule, which states that “no new dunes shall be created in inlet hazard areas.”

The amendments will not interfere with the Topsail Beach’s erosion control structure plans and don’t change provisions for dune establishment in emergency situations, Lopazanski said in response to the above questions.

Atlantic Beach Mayor and CRC member Trace Cooper expressed during the meeting his support for the changes.

“I think these rules make a lot of sense. In Atlantic Beach, with our access ways and moving sand, we’ve worked hard to make all of our access ways ADA accessible … these are common-sense rules for access and for dune preservation,” Cooper said.

Compared to heavily flooded communities inland, property damage from Hurricane Florence along the North Carolina coast was somewhat lighter and much more scattered. But in almost all the hard-hit southern and central coastal regions, the slow-moving storm’s wrath spread over three tidal cycles, leveled dunes, chewed up beaches and left inlets clogged, shifted and closed.

Communities with an economy dependent on beaches and inlets continue to assess the toll. For some, the way ahead is more certain with a clear path to funding re-nourishment and repairs, but for others, the costs and funding sources are, for now, far out of reach.

The most recent assessment of the costs up and down the coast by the state’s Division of Water Resources identified about $272 million in beach projects, $62 million in inlet dredging and about $750,000 for beach-area sewer and flood-mitigation repairs. Even with a considerable federal match included, the cost to the state would far outpace any available resources. Of the projects so identified, the state match would total more than $162 million.

During recent hearings in the North Carolina General Assembly, as legislators began looking at estimates of what it would take to return beaches to their pre-storm state and clear inlets, the result was something beyond sticker shock.

Sen. Harry Brown, R-Onslow, one of the Senate’s main budget writers and the chief proponent of increased funding for dredging and re-nourishment, said there was no way the cost of the damage can be covered under the current system.

In the most recent hurricane relief package, which passed soon after the legislature’s return in late November, Brown was able to add an additional $18.5 million to the state’s new Coastal Storm Damage Mitigation Fund with an earmark of $5 million for projects in heavily damaged areas of Topsail Island. But he acknowledged in a recent interview that’s just a fraction of what’s needed.

“It’s a lot of money,” Brown said. “I don’t see where we’re going to get the funding.”

Storm Proves Value of Wide Beaches

Earlier this fall when Braxton Davis, director of the state’s Division of Coastal Management, briefed legislators on the impact of Hurricane Florence to North Carolina’s coast, he stressed that one of the major takeaways was that areas that had invested in wide, flat beaches and natural dunes fared far better than others.

Nothing underlined that point better, he said, than what happened in Surf City, which had a relatively narrow beach and relied on a 9-foot, Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA, berm to protect the town. Much of the berm was erased in the storm, nearly all the town’s overwalks were damaged and heavy flooding totaled, among other things, the town hall.

The town estimates that it will require as much as 350,000 cubic yards of sand to replace just what was lost, with an estimated cost ranging from $11 million to $16 million. Building up the beach beyond that is a much more long-range plan and would require both further federal review and a source of funding for an estimated cost of about $68 million.

But the Surf City project, one of the costliest estimates, pales in comparison to the town’s northern neighbors. In its initial estimate for state officials, North Topsail Beach estimated the loss of sand along its 11.5 miles of beaches to be between 4 million and 5 million cubic yards. The town estimated the cost of a major re-nourishment project to run about $85 million. Unlike Surf City and much of the rest of the coast, only about a third of a North Topsail Beach project would be eligible for federal funding because the rest is in a Coastal Barrier Resources Act, or CBRA, zone, which restricts federal expenditures in environmentally sensitive coastal areas. That currently puts the state’s share of the cost for North Topsail Beach at about $50 million.

Other large-scale projects include $24 million in restoration work at Topsail Beach and about $40.4 million for areas under the Bogue Banks Master Beach Nourishment Plan, which includes Pine Knoll Shores, Indian Beach, Salter Path and Emerald Isle.

Other major beach projects on the state’s list include the following:

• Morehead City Harbor, Atlantic Beach and Pine Knoll Shores –$10 million for beach nourishment using sand dredged from the harbor that serves the state port. The state match would be $3.3 million.
• Kill Devil Hills – $2.6 million for beach re-nourishment to replace sand lost from a 2017 project. State and local funds would pay for the project.
• Bald Head Island – $20 million for the south and west beach restoration project. State and local funds would pay for the project with the state match at round $1.4 million.
• Oak Island –$2.4 million to replace sand lost from recently completed beach project and $2.3 million to repair the FEMA emergency dune project with a state match of $1.2 million.
• Other Oak Island beaches – $4.6 million for beach restoration.
• Holden Beach – $6.9 million for beach sand replacement. Funding would come through Army Corps of Engineers supplemental funding.
• Carolina Beach and Kure Beach – an additional $1.7 million for each town’s current beach re-nourishment project. Funding would come through the Corps’ supplemental funding or the state.
• Wrightsville Beach – $8.35 million for beach re-nourishment. Funding would come through the Corps’ supplemental funding.

The state is also considering requests for assistance for flood-abatement projects in Craven and Pender counties and a stormwater system upgrade in Pine Knoll Shores.

Division of Water Resources Acting Director Jim Gregson said the cost estimates are likely to fluctuate as further survey work is done and communities search for grants from FEMA and other federal sources.

In the long run, Gregson said, a lot of the projects will depend on the outcome of a supplemental funding bill for the Corps.

“It costs a lot to move sand,” he said. “One of the big hurdles is what the Corps is able to do with some supplemental funding.”

“If Congress doesn’t appropriate some extra money, I don’t think the municipalities in the state alone are going to be able to foot the bill for something as large as this.”

Jim Gregson, Acting Director, Division of Water Resources

Without it, he said, the state would have to step in. Only a handful of local governments have the resources or revenue streams to cover the cost.

“If Congress doesn’t appropriate some extra money, I don’t think the municipalities in the state alone are going to be able to foot the bill for something as large as this,” Gregson said.

Some of the projects, he said, “are pipe dream projects,” but they get far more feasible if all three sources – federal, state and local – are available.

“I think the big thing is both the local governments and the Corps being able to come through with some money. We don’t have $169 million but you get a lot closer to getting some of the projects done when you get all three, state local and federal matches put in the pot.”

Rep. Pat McElraft, R-Carteret, said engineered beaches have an advantage post-storm because they already have a system for drawing federal funds to rebuild beaches in an emergency.

“I think we’re going to be OK in Carteret,” she said.

Rep. Phil Shepard, R-Onslow, said finding funds to fix issues on Topsail Island will be difficult. He said the state will help, but there’s not enough funds to go around.

“I’m hopeful that we can do some matching with the federal and local authorities to help in those areas,” he said. “I don’t think it would be feasible to do all that we’d like to do because we have so many other areas of the state that are affected.”

Shepard said it is possible the state may allow a local-option sales tax to help local governments raise the money to help cover the repair costs.

Most of the channel-dredging projects are still waiting on assessments and surveys from the Corps. The list of local requests from dredging projects includes 20 proposed in New Hanover County and several in and around Beaufort in Carteret County.

With that list growing, Gregson said for the first time since the creation of an inlet-dredging fund in 2013, the state may have more inlet project requests than it can fund.

“Up until probably this year we’ve had enough money coming into the shallow-draft fund that we’ve been able to fund every dredging project we received a request for,” he said. “That probably is no longer going to be the case and we’re going to have prioritize projects unless we get more money into that fund.”

The state currently has $62 million in the shallow-draft fund with $19 million of that encumbered, in part to cover the cost of a new public-private partnership that’s building a dredge dedicated to keeping Oregon Inlet clear.

Gregson said the list of projects is daunting and even if the funds become available, the amount of work will take time. There just aren’t enough crews and resources available.

“I don’t think there’s any way that all this can be done in a single year,” he said.

OCEAN ISLE BEACH – New boundaries and rules governing development at about half of North Carolina’s inlets may be adopted next year.

Currently a little more than 2,800 acres of land is designated within inlet hazard areas, or IHA, boundaries at 10 of the 19 active inlets in the state.

The science panel that advises the state’s Coastal Resources Commission recently presented to the commission proposed changes to IHA boundaries at those 10 inlets.

The proposed maps expand IHAs collectively by a little more than 1,830 acres and remove about 470 acres from existing boundaries.

A majority of IHAs would gain ground under the proposed boundaries. Acreage would be reduced at three inlets, including Tubbs Inlet at Sunset Beach and Ocean Isle Beach in Brunswick County, Mason Inlet at Wrightsville Beach and Figure Eight Island in New Hanover County, and in Pender County New Topsail Inlet at Lea-Hutaff Island.

Undeveloped inlets within state or federal management lands, such as Oregon Inlet, were excluded from the science panel’s yearslong study.

IHAs are defined as shorelines especially vulnerable to erosion and flooding where inlets can shift suddenly and dramatically.

“Inlets are complicated,” science panel member Bill Birkemeier said during a presentation at the CRC’s Nov. 29 meeting.

Inlets typically move over time in one of two ways. An inlet migrates, meaning it moves in one general direction, or it oscillates, wagging back and forth.

About five of the state’s inlets migrate, Birkemeier said. The rest are oscillating inlets.

Because no two inlets are alike, the challenge for the science panel has been to develop a method that fairly defines IHAs.

When IHAs were first drawn in late 1970s they were established based on the historic migration of the inlet shoreline.

The science panel determined that using the hybrid vegetation line, or landward most position of the historic vegetation line, is a more equitable method in determining an IHA.

Each new proposed boundary was created based on the annual inlet-shoreline erosion rate and the “30-year risk line” and the “90-year risk line.” The 30-year line is calculated by multiplying the annual inlet shore erosion rate by 30 and measuring landward from the hybrid vegetation line. The 90-year line is multiplied by 90 and measured landward from the hybrid vegetation line.

Birkemeier said that the method is objective and, for the most part, works at all 10 inlets the science panel has been studying for more than a decade.

Talk of updating IHA maps stretches back to 1998-99, when members of the first-appointed science panel suggested to the commission the boundaries were outdated.

About 10 years passed before the state Division of Coastal Management, or DCM, presented updated boundaries to the CRC around 2010.

The proposed boundaries were larger, prompting a host of questions and concerns that essentially pushed back progress on updating the IHAs.

It would be several years before the science panel studied the inlets: Tubbs, Shallotte and Lockwood Folly inlets in Brunswick County, Carolina Beach, Masonboro, Mason and Rich inlets in New Hanover County, New Topsail and New River inlets in Pender County and Bogue Inlet in Carteret County.

During the 40 years that have passed since IHAs were initially established, three inlets have closed and two have moved outside their original boundaries.

The science panel’s recommendations to the CRC include updating the IHAs every five years.

What may change

Long-term erosion rates are about five times greater at oceanfront shorelines near inlets.

“Inlet shorelines can also fluctuate much more than those farther away from the inlets,” according to a Nov. 15 DCM memorandum to the CRC. “These fluctuations may not increase the overall erosion rate but still contribute to the short-term risk to development.”

Rules governing development within IHAs were established to control density and structure size along the shorelines affected by the dynamic waterways.

“Right now (the rules) separate residential and commercial,” development, said Ken Richardson, DCM shoreline management specialist.

Current rules do not allow lots about one-third of an acre in size to be subdivided. Residential structures of four units or fewer or non-residential structures of less than 5,000 square feet are only allowed on lots within an IHA.

A majority of the inlets included in the study are pretty much built out, Richardson said, with the exception of New Topsail Inlet at the southern end of Topsail Island. That inlet has been moving south about 90 feet per year since the 1930s.

The division staff is proposing concepts for the CRC to consider as the commission discusses possible rule amendments, including grandfathering existing structures within the new IHAs.

Under the grandfather provision, structures within the IHA could be rebuilt at the same size if destroyed in a storm.

Perhaps the most significant concept DCM officials are proposing is establishing building setbacks based on annual inlet erosion rates, not the oceanfront erosion rates used now.

“Right now, we really can’t say definitively what the rules will be,” Richardson said. “That’s going to be strictly up to the commission in terms of the rules they’re going to try and amend.”

The CRC is expected to discuss the proposed boundary revisions and rule amendments at its February meeting.

OCEAN ISLE BEACH – Getting permission to dump sand in federally maintained dredged material disposal areas may not be entirely impossible, but a nationwide policy heavily restricts access for North Carolina coastal municipalities and businesses that have long relied on the sites.

If the Army Corps of Engineers’ Wilmington District office, along with local and state officials, can come up with ways to work around the policy, all indications are that it could come at a hefty price for non-federal users, including beach towns and private marina owners.

The policy indicates that while non-federal projects may apply to dispose of material on a Corps-maintained site if the project meets specific requirements, most federal projects are perpetual, and therefore “few” sites will have extra space.

Though the Corps’ nationwide guideline is more than a year old – it became effective Feb. 3, 2017 – word of it has gradually spread along the North Carolina coast.

The policy was the final topic of discussion at the state Coastal Resources Commission’s quarterly meeting held last week in Ocean Isle Beach, where one Corps official proclaimed the guideline “hit all of us by surprise.”

Justin McCorcle, an attorney with the Corps’ Wilmington district, explained to commission members that the decision to restrict sand disposal from non-federal projects was made to conserve space within federal dredged material placement facilities, or DMPFs.

“There are some disposal areas where we are going to run out of capacity before very long.”

Justin McCorcle, attorney, Army Corps of Engineers

The issue stems from cases involving major harbor projects where the Corps has had to find new facilities to place dredged sand because the DMPFs were full, in part, with material from non-federal projects.

Only one of the federal disposal sites in North Carolina is full, McCorcle said.

“There are some disposal areas where we are going to run out of capacity before very long,” he said. “For the most part we’re doing OK.”

There is a distinction between “at capacity” and “full.”

Full means just that – no more room for sand.

When a site is at capacity, the Corps has the option to build higher dikes so more sand may be placed in the DMPF.

There is a limit to how high the dikes can be built so, “At some point those areas run out of space,” McCorcle said.

He said the Corps is examining the federally managed disposal sites in the state, looking at each disposal area and pinpointing potential opportunities to extend beyond the Corps’ 1,000-foot easement at these sites.

Sand in a DMPF can be removed and recycled, which would free up space and open the possibility of a trade-off.

Material excavated from a town-initiated, shallow-draft inlet dredging project, for example, could be placed in a federal disposal site if that town first removes an equal amount of sand from the DMPF.

So, if 100,000 cubic yards of sand is anticipated to be dredged from a non-federal dredge project then 100,000 cubic yards of sand must be removed from the DMPF in which the dredged sand is to be placed.

The Corps has been charging a disposal fee to place dredged material in its DMPFs, which in the case of North Carolina are primarily on state-owned land. That fee would be waived in a sand-for-sand trade, McCorcle said.

Material removed from a federally maintained disposal site could be used for a variety of ways. If sand is beach compatible it can be injected onto an ocean shoreline as part of a re-nourishment project. Sand may also be used to cap landfills or on construction sites.

The sand in the DMPFs is free. Costs associated with evaluating its quality and moving it are not, particularly at disposal sites that cannot be accessed by road.

Thus is the case for Sunset Beach, which recently applied for a Coastal Area Management Act, or CAMA, major permit to dredge Mary’s Creek and Turtle Creek.

About 16,000 cubic yards of material is anticipated to be dredged in the project, which is being conducted by coastal engineering firm Moffatt & Nichol.

In a letter dated Nov. 1 to the state Division of Coastal Management providing additional information about project plans, Moffatt & Nichol engineers wrote that dredged material from the creeks would be transferred to a dump truck or other type of hauling equipment at a state-maintained public boat ramp. The material will be moved from the boat ramp area and disposed at a landfill in Brunswick County.

This may be the disposal area for a majority of the estimated 105,000 cubic yards of material anticipated to be removed in town’s waterway dredging project, which includes about 3 miles of canals and feeder canals, Mary’s Creek, Turtle Creek and south Jinks Creek. A small amount of material identified as beach compatible will be placed on a portion of the town’s oceanfront.

“Things are still a little fluid because we are still in the permitting process for many other waterways,” Sunset Beach Mayor Greg Weiss said. “Our strong preference is to take the spoils directly from the dredge to its ultimate destination site at the landfill off Old Georgetown Road.”

The town’s consultant has been researching possible alternative disposal sites, including one privately owned lot along the Intracoastal Waterway, a prospective location that could save the town money.

“But we’ve really not investigated that further yet to see if it would provide for the environmental safety we’re looking for,” Weiss said.

Todd Horton, the Corps’ deputy chief of navigation, said the Corps is looking into options for the town to use one of its DMPFs. The DMPF in question cannot be reached by roadway, which means the town would have dredge or barge material from the disposal site.

“I’m not sure how council members will react to that but my impression is we will not go back to that alternative,” Weiss said.

The town is among a small number of non-federal projects in Brunswick County and New Hanover County that have been affected by the policy since it was enacted last year.

Coastal engineer Chris Gibson with TI Coastal Services Inc. headed the first project in the state to get hit with the new guidelines.

After much wrangling, Gibson said the Corps permitted the project at Southport Marina a one-time use at a disposal site.

“There’s got to be some way that we can work around this,” Gibson said. “There are places on the (Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway) that haven’t been used in years upon years and they’re not allowing those to be used? I deal with dozens of these projects every year. There really is no viable land. There are a few parcels here and there, but realistically these sites have to be proximate to a marina. You can’t just pump 15 miles.”

“In the not-so-distant future you’re going to see marinas that are no longer going to be viable.”

Chris Gibson, TI Coastal Services Inc.

The implications of the policy, he said, could be grim for the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, or AIWW, industry.

“In the not-so-distant future you’re going to see marinas that are no longer going to be viable,” Gibson said. “In two to three years small dredging companies will start to go out of business. Regionally, it will shut down all of the companies that do this kind of work.”

Each year more than $400 million in expenditures is generated by AIWW-based industries in North Carolina, New Hanover County Shore Protection Coordinator Layton Bedsole said at the CRC’s Nov. 29 meeting.

In contrast, the Corps’ annual budget for the AIWW is about $10 million, he said.

More than 10,000 jobs are associated with AIWW industry, he said.

Those figures were derived from the 2016 N.C. Beach and Inlet Management Plan.

“It appears to me that the Corps of Engineers was putting their deferred maintenance back on the non-federal users in order to continue economic and environmentally sound disposal practices of our AIWW industries,” Bedsole said in an interview following the CRC’s Nov. 29 meeting.

“We need to recognize that this did not come from the Wilmington district and it was handed to the Wilmington district and the initial all-or-nothing approach seems unnecessary especially along the waterways,” he said. “There should be a way that we can determine what are absolutely the Corps’ needs and what areas can be used for the mom-and-pop marinas, for the public accessway ramps, for the residential developments, for the academic research and development, for the nonprofit public use and commercial fishing needs. Surely, it can be better than all or none. I think there are options for the beneficial use of these materials. It will not be cheap to regain the capacity that has been lost over the past 50 years.”

The North Carolina Beach, Inlet & Waterway Association, or NCBIWA (pronounced “N.C. byway”), has formed a dredged material management committee, which is currently looking at ways in which sand dredged from non-federal projects can be used as a short-term solution.

The committee is also inventorying land – local, state and privately owned – that may be available for future disposal use.

“We are working on it,” Executive Director Kathleen Riley said. “First we have to find out what’s out there and we have to find out who owns it. Once we figure out the availability of the sites then we can find a way that we can come to an agreement to use some of that area. NCBIWA looks at the big picture and what we see over time is this will be a big issue at some point for the rest of our coastal communities. We want a long-term solution. That’s important.”

HOLDEN BEACH – Sand that Holden Beach has received for years to re-nourish its east-end oceanfront may instead go to a neighboring island, a prospect that caught town officials by surprise and questioning why the sudden change.

The town is now in the process of obtaining some 60 property easements in the hopes of getting a shot at receiving sand the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers routinely pumps from the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway, or AIWW, crossing at Lockwood Folly Inlet.

The Corps has since 2002 given the dredged material to Holden Beach, but Corps officials in late August told town officials that the town would have to get easements and, since Holden Beach’s neighbor to the east, Oak Island, needs fewer easements, that town may get the sand.

The news was a jolt to a town where its board of commissioners this past spring voted unanimously to withdraw a permit application to build a terminal groin at the east end, which loses about 60,000 cubic yards of sand a year, according to annual monitoring.

“We were taken aback by it,” said Holden Beach Commissioner Joe Butler. “We were disturbed at the meeting, we honestly were. For X number of years that sand from Lockwood Folly has been placed on Holden Beach. Financially, it makes more sense to do it that way. From a sand-drift perspective, it makes more sense to do it that way.”

Lisa Parker, chief public affairs officer of the Corps’ Wilmington District, said in an email that the Corps is not implementing a new rule on easements, but rather easements “should have been required all along.”

“In the past we have not required the town to provide us copies of easements to place sand on the beach,” Parker said. “Easements have always been required; as part of our preparation for doing these projects, we are now making sure they are in place before issuing contracts to do the work. The Corps has had permits to place beach compatible sand on adjacent beaches when dredging the AIWW for many years. The specific permit for the Lockwood Folly Inlet Crossing allows for sand to be placed on either Holden Beach or Oak Island.”

Holden Beach Town Manager David Hewett said he doesn’t understand why the Corps is requiring easements because the sand is placed below the high-tide mark, which is under state ownership.

“It’s below the high-tide mark, which, of course, ebbs and flows in the public trust area,” he said. “We’re proceeding with the attempt to acquire the easements, but our position is that it’s a redundant exercise.”

The implication of the Corps’ easement requirement will be wide-sweeping with other beach towns that have been the beneficiaries of sand dredged in federal projects having to supply documentation that can be timely and costly.

“The easement issue has never been an issue,” said Greg “Rudi” Rudolph, head of the Carteret County Shore Protection Office. “Now this time they’re telling us that we need easements. Any raised land, nourished beach becomes property of the state of North Carolina so why would you need easements of these upland areas anyway?”

A majority of the easements obtained along the Bogue Banks oceanfront are permanent, he said.

“Does the Corps want a spreadsheet showing all the parcels? Do they want a hard copy of them all? Are the ones we have not good enough?” Rudolph asked.

Holden Beach is paying Applied Technology and Management Inc., or ATM, $40,000 to conduct a modeling project within the inlet to help make the town’s case for the sand.

“We have accumulated some historical shoreline maps and provided those to the Army Corps of Engineers in support of our position,” Hewett said.

ATM is the same company that identified a 1,000-foot-long terminal groin as the preferred erosion-control method at Holden Beach’s east end.

One of the arguments made against the terminal groin was that routine re-nourishment of the east end, coupled with what is known as the Central Reach project, will be sufficient to combat erosion and less expensive than building a hardened structure.

Terminal groins are wall-like structures built perpendicular to the shore at inlets to contain sand in areas of high erosion, like that of beaches at inlets.

The first phase of the Central Reach project was completed more than a year ago and pumped about 1.3 million cubic yards of sand along about a 4-mile stretch of oceanfront in the middle of the island.

Hewett said sand from the federal dredging project has been routinely placed on about a three-quarters-of-a-mile stretch of beach.

These sand injections are included with the town’s beach monitoring program.

“It’s more than 1,000 meters,” he said. “Every two years it varies, but it’s not unheard of to get up close to 200,000 cubic yards.”

That’s not a lot of sand, but that amount is significant to the entire island, Hewett explained.

The town’s annual average erosion rate along the entire 9-mile stretch of oceanfront is about 200,000 cubic yards.

The ocean current washes sand onto and sweeps sand off Holden Beach’s oceanfront from east to west. This is known as a littoral current, which develops parallel to the coast as waves break at an angle to the shoreline.

“That sand benefits the entire island because it migrates east to west,” Hewett said. “The east end of Holden Beach is erosional and the west end of Holden Beach is accretional. That is a direct result of 40 years of putting the sand on the east end of Holden Beach and it migrating to the west.”

For that reason, he argues, it doesn’t make sense to place the sand on the west end of Oak Island.

“It’s a wrong decision from the logical side because of the east-west littoral drift,” Hewett said.

Holden Beach commissioners in October adopted a resolution which states, in part, “natural nearshore transport of sand via littoral drift occurs from east to west in Long Bay, making sand placement on the West End of Oak Island of time-limited benefit while increasing the negative impact on the LWF Inlet.”

Oak Island Town Manager David Kelly did not return a call seeking comment.

Brunswick County Deputy County Manager Steve Stone said he was surprised to hear that the Corps was requiring easements.

“The county does not have an official written policy about the placement or the deposition of the sand,” he said. “But, I think there’s a general consensus that there should be some sort of management plan where sand would be shared between those two communities on some sort of rational basis. The county’s policy is that we want our beach communities to be successful. Ultimately, the towns are free agents.”

Holden Beach anticipates spending roughly $30,000 in attorney fees to get the easements.

“We’re working just as hard as we can so, if we can, somehow through a Hail Mary so we can get what we can,” Hewett said.

SNEADS FERRY – With each post-hurricane recovery there are at least a couple of things that are a given – there are some things to be learned and some things will remain the same.

Left in the wake of Hurricane Florence in Topsail Island’s three towns are mangled and destroyed public walkways and dunes, shoreline erosion, the fields of debris washed ashore that had to be collected and carted away, hundreds of damaged homes and lost revenue from rental closures.

It adds up to a hefty price tag, one the Topsail Island Shoreline Protection Commission is collectively working to recoup at least some of which from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, or FEMA.

“One of the things is to remember,” said Spencer Rogers. “You’ve dealt with this before. You can do it again.”

The coastal engineering expert with North Carolina Sea Grant spoke at a commission meeting last week in North Topsail Beach’s temporary town hall at the end of a small strip mall off N.C. 172 in Sneads Ferry.

He reminded commission members and a small audience at last Thursday’s meeting that the island has, in the last 25 years, recovered from the likes of Hurricane Fran – a Category 3 storm that in 1996 damaged three-quarters of the structures on the island and destroyed more than 300 homes.

Three years later, Hurricane Floyd, a Category 2 hurricane, dumped nearly 20 inches of rain in some areas of North Carolina, causing catastrophic flooding inland.

An average of more than 17.5 inches of rain fell over North Carolina from Hurricane Florence.

Rain, winds and waves sliced Topsail Island’s nearly 30-mile-long shoreline, breaching and scarping dunes.

Rogers advised allowing nature to play out and allow scarped dunes to dry out and collapse.

“That’s something you’re going to see,” he said. “There’s a lot of it out there. Don’t panic. Don’t think that’s necessarily a bad thing.”

When an escarped dune topples naturally, vegetation on the top of the dune will fall with the collapsed sand. This allows the vegetation to stabilize at the dune’s base and grow, fortifying the dune.

Pushing sand from the beach berm back to a damaged dune line isn’t necessarily the best idea, Rogers said.

“The farther landward you can build your dunes the more protection you’ll get out of it.”

Spencer Rogers, North Carolina Sea Grant

He referred to a study that showed dunes recovered after sand was pushed against them from a seaward location and will grow toward the ocean. That seaward-growing movement places the base of the dune closer to the ocean, making it even more susceptible to wave damage during a storm.

“The farther landward you can build your dunes the more protection you’ll get out of it,” Rogers said.

Sand ripped from the dunes during the storm will likely wash back ashore as time passes. How much of that sand the ocean will return is uncertain, but, there have been cases following some storms in which 100 percent of the sand was transported back onto the beach, Rogers said.

He also advised the commission, whose members include elected officials from each of the island’s towns as well as representatives from Onslow and Pender counties, to plan for better vehicle access ramps onto the beach.

Low, flat vehicle access areas allow water to easily wash through the dune line, pushing flood water and heaps of sand onto beach roads and into private yards.

Rogers said the best rule of thumb is to build vehicle access ramps at the same elevation as public accesses to the beach – no lower than 3 feet from the dunes around it.

Overall, Rogers suggested the towns look at ways to most efficiently use hurricane recovery funds.

“What you’ve got to do is convince (FEMA) you’ve got a better way to spend their money,” he said.

Town officials know the wait for any federal reimbursement for storm damage could be lengthy. They’re aware they may have to push harder to retrieve money as disaster-declared areas of Florida, where parts of the western panhandle were obliterated by Hurricane Michael earlier this month, continue its long road to recovery.

“The impacts are great, and the process is slow,” said Topsail Beach Town Manager Mike Rose.

“The impacts are great, and the process is slow.”

Mike Rose, Topsail Beach town manager

He said that Topsail Beach is “closer” to receiving a permit for its next beach re-nourishment project, originally planned for November 2019. Town officials will discuss what options they have, including whether to try to push the project before the fall of next year.

“It at least opens up the possibility of options as we go through,” Rose said.

Both Surf City and North Topsail Beach were forced to move their town hall operations to temporary facilities after the storm.

Surf City’s town hall has been condemned and town officials are in the process of looking for a new location, said Town Manager Ashley Loftis.

Hauling equipment has been moved onto the beach and crews have begun loading and hauling debris. They are beginning at the north end of town and moving south toward the pier. A staging site will be located at… https://t.co/1osoy6cixz

— Town of Surf City (@SurfCityTourism) October 30, 2018

Sand continues to be sifted off private properties and placed back on the beach, she said, and only a handful of beach accesses are open. Piles of debris gathered after the storm on the town’s shoreline will be removed by Nov. 9.

North Topsail’s town hall, located near the foot of the causeway that connects the island’s north end to the mainland, will cost an estimated $500,000 to upwards of $1 million in repairs, Town Manager Bryan Chadwick said.

More than 850 structures received minor damage from the storm and nearly 80 sustained heavy damage, he said. A debris-removal company has hauled away about 64,000 cubic yards of storm-related refuse.

The town is looking at about $15 million to $20 million in dune repairs.

North Topsail’s Mayor Dan Tuman suggested including the topic of sea walls as possible options to future beach armament.

He referred to the town’s permitted sandbag revetment, a super-sized wall of sandbags some 45 feet wide and 20 feet tall, to stave off chronic erosion at New River Inlet. The bags are permitted through 2022.

“Our dunes really took a beating,” he said. “One thing that didn’t take a beating was our sandbag revetment. It did just fine.”

DARE COUNTY — As the need for dredging in North Carolina waterways has long ago surpassed the availability of funds and equipment to dredge, Dare County, with the help of $15 million provided in the recent state budget, is about to try something different: Build a dedicated dredge to maintain its waterways.

The plan would be a private-public partnership where a forgivable loan would be offered to the owner/operator in exchange for discounts on the dredging work. The ocean-certified dredge would mostly be used to maintain Oregon Inlet – a notoriously high-need waterway – and Hatteras Inlet in Dare County.

Two responses to the county’s requests for proposals, or RFPs, were submitted before the July 30 deadline to the designated local partner, Dare County, and a private contractor is expected to be chosen this month.

“We want to do it quickly,” said Dare County Manager Bobby Outten, who referred to the proposed project as “a great opportunity for Dare County.”

A provision in North Carolina Senate Bill 99, added by state Sen. Bill Cook, R-Beaufort, appropriated the $15 million from the state Shallow Draft Navigation Channel Dredging and Aquatic Weed Fund for Dare to contract with a private developer to design build, operate, maintain and own an ocean-certified hopper dredge. The contractor would have 10 years, with a possible five-year extension, to pay off the loan with credits earned by providing discounted rates for dredging Dare County waterways.

Language in the legislation cited the decline in federal funds for decreased maintenance by the Army Corps of Engineers.

“The resulting deterioration in these channels,” the bill said, “damages the significant portion of the economy of the state’s coastal regions that is dependent on the use of navigation channels by watercraft.”

The proposed hopper dredge, estimated to cost $25 million to $30 million and take about two years to build, would service Oregon Inlet, Hatteras Inlet and their surrounding waterways, and when possible, other waterways and shallow-draft inlets in North Carolina. Hopper dredges hold the dredged material, or spoils, and then deposit it at specific locations. They are capable of withstanding ocean conditions.

The state defines shallow-draft navigation channels as inlets with a maximum depth of 16 feet, a river entrance to the Atlantic or other interior coastal waterways, including: the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway and its side channels, Beaufort Harbor, Bogue Inlet, Carolina Beach Inlet, Back Sound to Lookout Back channel, Lockwood Folly River, Oregon Inlet/Shallowbag Bay, Masonboro Inlet, New River, New Topsail Inlet, Rodanthe Harbor, Hatteras Inlet, Shallotte River, Silver Lake Harbor and the connecting waterway between Pamlico Sound and Beaufort Harbor.

At its June 4 board of commissioners meeting, Dare County delegated “any and all delegable duties” to the Oregon Inlet Task Force, an advisory panel established by the commissioners in 2013 to oversee Oregon Inlet maintenance and navigational issues.

Cook said that it made sense for the state to first target Oregon Inlet for dredging because of its disproportionate need for annual maintenance. Of the 3 million cubic yards dredged annually in all the state’s shallow-draft inlets, he said about 1.5 million is from Oregon Inlet, which connects Pamlico Sound to the Atlantic between Nags Head and Hatteras Island.

“We need dependable and safe waterway passages to have a vibrant route for commerce while protecting our environment,” Cook said in an email response to questions about the legislation. “Also, once this dredge starts in Oregon Inlet, that will open up and release the Corps of Engineers’ dredge assets to operate in other coastal waterways.”

According to dredge data from the 2016 North Carolina Beach and Inlet Management report, Oregon Inlet/Shallowbag Bay has been dredged 223 times since 1975, with a total of more than 45 million cubic yards removed. In comparison, Carolina Beach has been dredged 153 times since 1982, with 7 million cubic yards removed, and Morehead City Harbor – a deep-draft waterway – has been dredged 46 times since 1975, with about 47 million cubic yards removed.

Cook explained that his relationship with the task force goes back to 2013, when the state set up a committee to study acquisition of Oregon Inlet. The task force, he said, represents a broad range of marine industries, many of which provided information to him.

“Considering that half of the shallow draft dredging need is one inlet and the local committee for that inlet (Oregon Inlet Task Force) is well organized and has been a trusted resource, we wanted to make sure the local experts had the final say,” Cook wrote. “The economic impact of Oregon Inlet is very significant and far outweighs the costs necessary to keep the inlet passable.

A 2014 economic study by engineering firm Moffatt & Nichol calculated that the inlet is associated with 4,348 jobs and generates $548.4 million in economic impact to the state.

Frank Rush, town manager for Emerald Isle in Carteret County, said he understands the need in Dare County, but he hoped that the dredge will be available at some future date for his town to utilize.

In general, Rush said that communities on the coast are in the same boat, looking for navigation solutions.

“I think all of us collectively need to be exploring new strategies to get this done,” he said.

With the proposed contract with the private partner, North Carolina would bear no liability for damages or losses associated with the dredge. The task force would work with the county to develop criteria for the dredge and negotiate a memorandum of agreement with the “private partner,” who would contract with the dredge builder.

According to the RFP, the dredge would maintain a 17-foot-deep channel in Oregon Inlet, while “maintaining the capacity” to also dredge Hatteras Inlet and other waterways in the state. The private contractor would pay all costs for the dredge, and work with the task force in the scheduling and location of the dredge, with the decisions of the task force prevailing.

In designating the task force to coordinate use of the dredge to ensure that projects “are completed in an expeditious and timely manner,” the Dare County Board of Commissioners required monthly reports be submitted to the board.

The law also says that annual reports must be provided to the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality.

The base of operations and the home port for the dredge will be in Dare County. Any supplemental dredge projects in the state would be subject to county approval, based on whether county officials believe the dredge has the capacity. Those projects would not qualify for discounted rates, and the fees would not be credited toward repayment of the forgivable loan.

Jim Tobin, manager of Pirate’s Cove Marina and owner of its ship’s store, is chairman of the task force and serves as a Dare County commissioner.

Tobin also nominated himself for a three-member subcommittee dealing with the dredge issues, along with members Steve House, also a Dare commissioner, and Harry Schiffmann, according to the June 12 task force meeting minutes.

Tobin said that the task force expects to make a recommendation for the private contractor to the board at its next meeting. He said he could not discuss the proposals because they included proprietary information.

Despite his connection to the Pirate’s Cove Marina in Manteo, which sponsors popular fishing tournaments and has about 200 slips for charter boats that use Oregon Inlet to go offshore and inshore, Tobin, a Republican, said he has not heard any concerns about conflicts of interest.

As a task force member for six years, Tobin said he had traveled to Raleigh numerous times to lobby for help for Oregon Inlet and to talk with legislators. Although Tobin said he didn’t ask – or even know ahead of time – about Cook adding the provision for the dredge, he said it’s a great idea because it will allow Oregon Inlet to be properly maintained with much more frequent dredging.

Considering that the inlet has a massive volume of sand – 1.2 million to 1.8 million cubic yards – moving in and out of it every year, there has nearly always been an issue with shoaling, especially around the Bonner Bridge navigation channel, and will continue, even with the new bridge.

“Right now, there’s a hump right in front of the center span,” he said, “and there’s no dredge in sight.”

Although another advisory committee, the Dare County Waterways Commission, is charged with oversight of all the county’s waterway issues, Cook, who supports federal authorization of Hatteras Inlet, said no member of that commission has come to Raleigh in recent years seeking assistance.

But Steve “Creature” Coulter, a Hatteras charter boat captain and a Waterways Commission member, said that input from the commission had not been sought, nor had the commission been provided with any information.

Coulter said he intends to request that a member of the task force attend their meeting “to come and tell us what’s going on.”

“I think the overall project can be a good thing for Dare County and it can be a good thing for the state,” Coulter said. “I just don’t know enough about it.”

Bob Woodard, chairman of the Dare County Board of Commissioners, said that the board will be good stewards of the project and its waterways.

“I can assure you, my board has its hands on this and we’re going to watch it very carefully,” he said in an interview, “and we’re going to do what’s right for Dare County.”

TOPSAIL BEACH – The Topsail Beach board of adjustment has upheld a decision by town officials to issue a building permit for an oceanfront lot, the first since Topsail commissioners repealed the town’s longstanding dune ordinance more than a year ago.

The board of adjustment’s unanimous vote July 17 denied an appeal by property owners who argue that building on the oceanfront lots would increase the risk of flooding on their land.

Those property owners have 30 days to appeal in Pender County Superior Court.

The owners of three soundside properties appealed the building permit. Two of those soundside lots are immediately adjacent to the oceanfront property in the 1900 block of Ocean Boulevard whose owners now have a permit to build. Appellant Grier Fleischhauer’s home is in the 1800 block of Ocean Boulevard.

Fleischhauer declined to comment.

The dispute over whether a stretch of nearly 30 undeveloped oceanfront lots along the south end of town stretches back to early 2015, when the town issued a building permit to a couple who owns one of the lots.

In June 2015, five months after the permit was issued, commissioners adopted revisions to the more than 20-year-old dune ordinance.

Several oceanfront property owners began challenging the changes, arguing that the revisions rendered their properties unbuildable.

The following year, commissioners were asked to adopt a series of amendments to the dune ordinance.

Property owners throughout the town, particularly those at the south end, opposed the proposed amendments, raising concerns about whether moving more sand would weaken the protective dunes, which reinforce the frontal dunes immediately landward of the beach, and whether the proposed changes would affect flood insurance.

The dispute carried through 2016 and, in December of that year, commissioners repealed the ordinance.

Within a week of the board’s vote, several soundside property owners sued.

In April 2017, Pender County Superior Court Judge R. Kent Harrell ruled to dismiss the case on the grounds of “lack of subject matter jurisdiction.”

The North Carolina Court of Appeals earlier this year upheld Harrell’s ruling.

The lower court ruled the more than 40 plaintiffs representing more than 20 properties did not have standing. In this case, standing determines whether the property adjacent to the oceanfront lots are imminently affected or harmed if the lots are developed.

For years, the oceanfront lots where homes once stood before they were destroyed in coastal storms were unbuildable because the dune system along that stretch of beach had been flattened by storms.

The town and private property owners spent years restoring the dunes through beach re-nourishment, planting sea oats and installing fencing to trap sand.

Their efforts eventually created lots that now have enough sand on them to meet the state Coastal Area Management Act’s setback requirements from the frontal dune.

Several CAMA permits have already been issued to owners of the oceanfront properties, including 1907 Ocean Blvd., the lot whose owners received a building permit May 23.

The permit application was submitted to the town in December 2017. A review by town staff, the town’s attorney and the North Carolina Regional Council of Government, determined the application needed more, according to Christina Burke, town clerk.

“It came back that we required an engineered analysis,” she said. “We wanted an engineer to look at it and tell us if it would increase the flood potential or not.”

The applicants hired an engineer, who, in March, submitted a two-page flood assessment letter, Burke said.

The letter included a “qualitative” analysis, which is the opinion of the engineer.

“The other party felt like we needed to have a quantitative analysis,” Burke said.

That analysis, preferred by those who appealed the permit, would have included coastal modeling to show whether building on the oceanfront property would increase the flood potential to adjacent soundside lots.

An intent to appeal was emailed to the town the same day the permit was issued.

Burke said she anticipates the town will write an order “any day now” to the property owners officially upholding the permit issuance. Once that happens, building can begin.

It is unclear whether the board of adjustment’s decision will be appealed.

Plans for the lot in question include a 2,000-square-foot, four-bedroom home. Once the permit is issued, the applicants have six months to begin construction.

In all, there are 28 lots, 22 of which are privately owned. The town owns the remaining six lots.

No other building permit applications had been filed, Burke said. But town officials expect to receive more building permit applications for the oceanfront lots at the south end.

WILMINGTON – The science panel that advises the state’s Coastal Resources Commission has finalized proposed revisions to several inlet hazard area boundaries.

The revised maps, which are yet to be released to the public, are the result of more than 10 years of work that involved studying historical shoreline data at each inlet then using that information to predict erosion and accretion rates at those inlets. Those projections are used to establish inlet hazard area, or IHA, boundaries.

IHAs are defined as shorelines especially vulnerable to erosion and flooding where inlets can shift suddenly and dramatically.

The panel has focused on nine of the state’s 19 active inlets. Inlets excluded from the overhaul include those where the land on both sides of an inlet are federally owned, such as Oregon Inlet.

The proposed IHA maps will be presented to the CRC during one of the commission’s meetings later this year. The commission is set to meet in September and again in November. North Carolina Division of Coastal Management, or DCM, will determine later at which meeting to present the proposed revisions.

This is the first time IHA boundaries have been updated since they were established in 1979.

“The 1979 boundaries were supposed to be good for about 10 years,” said Ken Richardson, shoreline management specialist with DCM.

For years, the science panel has discussed the need to revise the outdated boundaries, which members of the panel explained were established through the use of antiquated methods.

“It was done basically by hand by looking at aerial photos from different sources,” said Steve Benton, a geologist on the panel. “The numbers were being crunched with a mini-computer. Everything was corrected by hand and it was actually a study of shoreline movements.

“Now we have this incredibly good GIS-type software that allows you to actually turn photos into these maps,” Benton said, referring to geographic information system technology. “The capabilities today, there’s no comparison.”

Of the state’s 19 coastal inlets, 15 are oscillating inlets, which tend to move back and forth, with sand building up on one side and eroding on the other. The remaining four inlets tend to migrate in only one direction.

Over the years, as inlets have been developed, sandbagging and beach re-nourishment have been used to stabilize and reduce shoreline erosion to protect homes and infrastructure.

In 2011, the General Assembly repealed a 30-year ban on hardened erosion control structures along the coast, allowing for up to six terminal groins to be built at inlets. A terminal groin is a wall-like structure made of rock or other material placed perpendicular to the shore and adjacent to an inlet to control erosion.

Members of the science panel initiated the idea to update IHA boundaries in 1997, the year the CRC created the panel. But discussions on how to formulate a method to redraw the lines took a back seat once the panel began work on the first of two sea level rise reports.

On Friday, five of the panel’s nine members met in a small conference room at the University of North Carolina Wilmington’s Center for Marine Science to hash out proposed boundaries at a handful of inlets.

No one from the public attended the open meeting.

‘Virgin Territory’

Since no two inlets are alike, the statistical formula created to draw the proposed IHA boundaries did not work at every inlet. In those cases, the panel injected its professional opinion to establish a boundary.

“Nobody has ever done this before,” Benton said. “We’re totally in virgin territory.”

Science panel member Spencer Rogers, an engineer with North Carolina Sea Grant, said the proposed boundaries more clearly define areas of risk, including how far the inlet hazard area extends on the sound side.

“This is much more fine-tuned what we’re working on now,” he said. “This effort is much more closely looking at the influences on the oceanfront related to the inlet.”

The science panel is not a policy-making board.

New regulations will need to be established by the CRC if the commission approves the revised maps, Rogers said.

“The present regulations for present inlet hazard areas will not work with the new maps,” he said.

The rules for building in an IHA specifically pertain to setbacks and density. For example, the only buildings allowed in an IHA are residential structures of no more than four units and non-residential buildings with less than 5,000 square feet.

General rules for ocean hazard areas of environmental concern, or AECs, also apply within an IHA. Ocean Hazard AECs are defined as areas that may be easily destroyed by erosion or flooding or may have environmental, social, economic or aesthetic values that make it valuable to the state.

DCM staff will provide amended rule language with the new proposed maps for the commission to consider, Richardson said.

The proposed revisions to the maps and rules will be made public once the information has been presented to the commission. After that time, a series of public hearings will be held, Richardson said.

A majority of the inlets where revisions are proposed are built out, which means new regulations will most likely affect property owners who want to rebuild after a storm.

Learn More

• Shifting Shorelines: Inlet Atlas
• Defining Inlet Hazard Areas Using a 30-Year Risk Line (pdf)

CAROLINA BEACH – The town’s board of adjustment Monday denied an appeal to dismiss several violations issued earlier this year to Freeman Park property owners for erecting a post and rope barrier in the public right of way.

The board unanimously upheld all the infractions town officials said Freeman Beach LLC committed when the company built a 1,938-foot fence, ostensibly to protect freshly planted beach grass, at the north end of Carolina Beach.

The board of adjustment, a quasi-judicial panel that hears development disputes and challenges, ultimately rejected the property owners’ argument that the town’s ordinances, by definition, limit the town from being able to enforce its ordinances within the town’s extraterritorial jurisdiction, or ETJ.

Wilmington attorney Steve Coggins, who represented the town during the three-hour hearing, cited a state statute that grants municipalities extraterritorial regulatory authority and defines the area in which a city may enforce land development regulations. In Carolina Beach’s case that authority extends a mile beyond the town limits, Coggins said.

Freeman Beach LLC owns 170 acres, the largest of nine privately owned parcels in Freeman Park, a majority of which is within the ETJ.

The town was granted the authority in 1972 to extend its extraterritorial boundaries to encompass all of Freeman Park.

In 2004, the town entered into an interlocal agreement with New Hanover County in which the town agreed to manage the land, providing town services including police, fire, rescue and trash collection.

The town owns the first 1,000 feet of the popular seaside park, where visitors are allowed by permit to drive and camp overnight within the public trust areas of the beach.

Steve Fort, one of four owners registered with the company, said that people violate the town’s regulations by driving and camping within 10 feet of the dunes, which, he said, has resulted in erosion on the private property.

Private Property, Public Trust

Fort’s situation is one of many beachfront property disputes that call into question the rights of private property owners whose land includes public trust areas.

Elizabethtown attorney Cliff Hester, who is a registered agent and legal representative of the company, said that private property under public trust gives people the right to go onto the public right of way.

“It does not give the right for someone to destroy it,” he said.

Fort went to North Carolina Division of Coastal Management, or DCM, officials to talk about how he could protect the property.

Fort testified that DCM officials told him that planting sea grass on private property is unregulated and that post and rope fences are allowed in order to protect the new plants.

“That’s when they told me the public would probably tear it down and I said, ‘Well, I’ll probably fix it back,’” he said.

He did not have a Coastal Area Management Act, or CAMA, permit and he did not apply for any town permits because he did not think it necessary since his property is within the ETJ.

CAMA allows permit exemptions for certain activities, including the installation and maintenance of sand fencing.

Among the requirements that must be met to be exempted, fencing has to be placed as far landward as possible to avoid interfering with sea turtle nesting, public access and use of the beach. A fence cannot be located more than 10 feet from the first line of stable natural vegetation, the toe of the frontal dune or the erosion escarpment of the dune, according to CAMA rules.

Fort did not request an exemption certificate. He believed he was operating within state guidelines when he installed the temporary barrier on Feb. 14.

Carolina Beach Senior Planner Jeremy Hardison said the fence was placed 50 feet to 150 feet waterward from the toe of the dune.

“In some cases, it took up half the beach,” he said. “We had not received any permits or consulted with the applicant.”

After the town began receiving phone calls about the fence installation on Feb. 14, town officials contacted DCM.

“They did not know anything about what was going on or authorizing any work,” Hardison said.

On the afternoon of Feb. 14, Town Manager Michael Cramer decided, for safety reasons, to close Freeman Park. He said he was concerned that because people were not used to the poles being on that stretch of the beach they might hit them, particularly at night.

DCM issued a notice of violation Feb. 15, charging that the fence impeded public access to the beach and broke the rule that sand fencing cannot be installed any farther than a maximum distance of 10 feet waterward of the toe of the front dune.

The state gave the company a Feb. 19 deadline to remove the posts and rope. Fort removed the rope, which, according to him, meant the barrier was no longer a fence because it was not connected.

The town removed the posts Feb. 21 and cited 11 different sections of the town’s ordinances the company violated. The violations included excavating the beach by digging holes in which to place the posts, obstructing a public place, failing to submit plans to erect the fence and failing to obtain permits to build the fence.

“It’s really frustrating to be cited with all these statutes because they have cast a wide net,” Fort said.

Rules Not Enforced

Fort said that while the town’s regulations pertaining to the public’s use of Freeman Beach are well meaning, the rules are not enforced. He said he has numerous photographs of people breaking rules outlined in the town’s ordinances.

Hester referred to the YouTube video below taken from inside a vehicle that shows the driver hugging the dune line before driving onto wet sand through the tide.

“If you look at this video you’ll see why my clients are taking the action they’re taking,” Hester said. “They’re trying to prevent damage to (the property). We’re trying to decide whether the town’s going to stop people who are trying to save the environment, who are trying to save the public trust area of the beach. All you have to do is go on the internet and you see people violate it all the time. You never see anybody getting a ticket for it.”

In addition to enacting his right to protect his property, Fort said he was simply doing something the town has done when he put up the posts and rope.

“For years Carolina Beach has been installing post and rope fence on private property without the owners’ consent. Both of those areas require CAMA permits. They had no CAMA permits for any of it,” he said.

Cramer said the town typically applies for a joint application when doing any type of work on the beach, whether it pertains to restroom facilities, garbage cans, or placing posts and rope to structure camp sites and driving lanes in Freeman Park. The town most recently received written permission in 2014 from DCM to erect posts and rope along with installing a ramp at the entrance to the park.

“If CAMA asks us to remove and change something, we remove and change it,” Cramer said. “It is very much a commonplace activity for us to talk with CAMA and get their approval on anything in Freeman Park.”

Fort received a CAMA minor permit on June 1 to install a fence on the Freeman Beach LLC property after Nov. 1, the end of sea turtle nesting season.

The permit authorizes the installation of 2,850 feet of sand-fencing along the property.

A stipulation of the permit requires that the applicant meet with a DCM representative on the site “to ensure that the alignment of the fence will not impede access for public safety vehicles.”

Because the board of adjustment’s decision is final, any appeal would go directly to superior court.

Fort said after Monday’s hearing that he and the other members of the company would discuss how to proceed.

Reprinted from the Outer Banks Voice

Following last summer’s beach nourishment projects from Duck to Kill Devil Hills, Dare County has been recognized by a national association for having one of the country’s best restored beaches.

The American Shore and Beach Preservation Association on Monday released its annual list of the nation’s best restored beaches and included the Dare beaches with Galveston Seawall Beach in Texas, Cardiff Beach off Encinitas, California, Sagaponack-Bridgehampton on Long Island, New York, and Thompsons Beach, New Jersey.

The group praised the $38.5 million project that pumped sand on a total of just over 7 miles of beachfront as why “nourishment is the number one method of enhancing beaches, providing protection to adjacent infrastructure and increasing coastal resiliency.”

As the project was winding down along Kitty Hawk last fall, hurricanes Irma, Jose and Maria passed just offshore, followed by nor’easters in January and March.

The most significant storm surge came during five consecutive high tides over three days in early March, including wave run-up in Kill Devil Hills of 15 feet.

Town officials agreed that the added sand, for the most part, did its job in protecting oceanfront properties.

“But that’s what the project was built for,” said Lee Weishar, chair of the association’s Best Restored Beach Committee. “The take-home message for these projects is a multi-town beach nourishment project can be successful even when the odds seem to be against you.”

“For more than 50 years, beach restoration has been the preferred method of shore protection in coastal communities,” said Tony Pratt, the association president.

“We honor the efforts that go into managing and, when necessary, rebuilding the beaches that are in the hearts of so many vacationers,” Pratt said.

“The town is appreciative of the effort the county manager made to allow our project to come to fruition at such a late point in the planning and permitting process,” said Southern Shores Mayor Tom Bennett.

“We are also grateful to the (county) board of commissioners and the other towns for allowing us in to the project at the 11th hour,” Bennett added.

“Dare County is committed to preserving our beaches,” said county board chairman Bob Woodard. “They are the engine that drives our tourism economy and they require ongoing attention.”

“That is why Dare County and its municipalities have stepped up to the plate and committed local resources to fund beach nourishment projects due to the lack of federal funding,” Woodard said.

“I think you’d be hard pressed to find this type of collaboration in a lot of communities, starting with the county and the way the municipalities worked so well together,” said Kill Devil Hills Mayor Shelia Davies.

“We’re incredibly fortunate to be headed into the summer of 2018 with a nourished beach and into storm season with a hazard mitigation plan,” Davies said.

“It’s already done a wonderful job as far as keeping us from having to pump (away overwash), normally we got to the point we had to pump after every nor’easter and we haven’t had to pump one time since,” said Kitty Hawk Mayor Gary Perry.

“We were a little worried as a council and what Kitty Hawk villagers would think of it,” Perry said. “In the end they saw the need, they saw the damage that would be done on a routine basis and they let us tax them (to help pay for it).”

“The project works,” Perry added. This collaboration is the only way it could be done.”

The American Shore and Beach Preservation Association advocates for beach nourishment and dune building. It is made up of town and county officials, dredging companies and coastal engineers and geologists.

To enter the Best Restored Beach competition, coastal communities nominated their projects for consideration, and an independent panel of coastal managers and scientists selected the winners.

Judging was based on three criteria:

• The economic and ecological benefits the beach brings to its community.
• The short- and long-term success of the restoration project.
• The challenges each community overcame during the course of the project.

“I look for commitment and dedication to the project,” Weishar said. “I want the applicant to make me love his or her beach.”

“Dare County’s collaborative effort is a model to be considered nationwide by communities trying to increase coastal resilience,” said Ken Willson, program manager with Texas-based APTIM, the firm that engineered the project.

“This approach enabled considerable cost and time savings,” Willson said. “For example, we’ve estimated that by constructing the projects cooperatively, the locals achieved a cost savings of around $5.5 million on mobilization alone.”

““I think we all agree that in order to remain as sustainable and resilient coastal communities, we must continue to prioritize protection of our beaches as a vital component of our tourism infrastructure,” Woodard said.

Russ Lay and Rob Morris contributed to this story.

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. 

NORTH TOPSAIL BEACH – Rocks strewn on the southern end of North Topsail Beach’s ocean shoreline have been picked up, as directed by the Army Corps of Engineers.

The town earlier this month hired C.M. Mitchell Construction to mechanically remove rocks on the surface of and upwards of four inches below the sand throughout about a 3-mile stretch of beach that begins at the town line with Surf City.

About nine to 10 yards of rock debris was removed from the beach, according to Town Clerk Laura Oxley. The three-day, $28,000 job wrapped April 13, well before the May 1 deadline that coincides with the start of sea turtle nesting season.

This marks the third time federal and state wildlife officials have directed rock removal since a beach re-nourishment project that wrapped up in 2015 inadvertently pumped tons of rocks onto the southernmost end of the shoreline.

Regulatory agencies this year expanded the rock-picking requirement an additional one mile north of what is referred to as the “Phase 5” project area. Rocky debris within small areas of that mile-long stretch had to be hand-picked from the toe of the dune line, a job done by town staff.

Town officials were notified April 5 that rocks would again need to be picked off the beach throughout the Phase 5 project area, despite appeals from Ken Willson, project manager with Coastal Planning & Engineering Inc., a consultant firm to the town.

Willson told town aldermen during an April 5 meeting that sea turtles have been nesting successfully in the Phase 5 area.

He said that the rocks on the beach are a natural occurrence, washed ashore from the depths of Onslow Bay, which has an abundance of rock bottom.

“There’s no reason to do rock picking this year,” Willson said. “We were pretty aggravated with that.”

Federal and state wildlife officials say the rock removal requirement is a precaution to ensure female sea turtles will not be deterred from nesting on that portion of the beach.

Rock removal has equated to successful nesting seasons, said Matthew Godfrey, sea turtle biologist with the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission.

After various weather and mechanical delays, North Topsail’s Phase 5 beach nourishment project was completed June 30, 2015.

That year, five sea turtle nests were laid successfully within the 3.5-mile project area, Godfrey said.

Thirty-six nests were found within that same stretch of beach in 2016.

Last year, 17 sea turtle nests were laid within the Phase 5 area.

Wildlife officials like the outcome they’ve seen thus far, Godfrey said.

“We’re concerned that the higher density of rock on the beach in that area will dissuade females from nesting” he said. “We don’t want that to occur. We’re not arguing that turtles will never nest in a rocky area. We are arguing that the presence of rocks may dissuade them from nesting in those areas.”

North Topsail Beach is one of three beach towns on Topsail Island, which stretches 26 miles. The island’s beaches are federally designated critical habitat for the threatened loggerhead sea turtle.

“Topsail Island in general is a high-density nesting beach for sea turtles,” said Kathy Matthews, a fish and wildlife biologist with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service’s Raleigh field office

Between 2004 and 2014, the rate sea turtle nesting rate on the island was 3.8 nests per mile, Godfrey said.

In 2015, the rate was 3.1 nests per mile.

“If you look at the project area in 2015 it was 1.4, so way down,” Godfrey said. “By having the town remove as much as rock as possible they make the habitat more suitable for nesting.”

The rocks were initially uncovered by winter storms in late January and early February 2015, about two months after a dredge began pumping sand from a site along the ocean floor onto the town’s southernmost beach.

Rather than halt the project, regulatory agencies agreed to allow work to continue as long as contractors abided by a rock remediation plan that included setting up boxes to catch rocks being pumped from the ocean floor and picking up rocks already on and beneath the sand.

The town of Oak Island ran into a similar problem during a re-nourishment project in 2000.

Godfrey said that officials have learned from that project that residual rocks from that project move to other areas of the beachfront.

Matthews said that it is difficult to pinpoint the source of the rocks in the Phase 5 project area.

“It’s hard to quantify what that is,” she said. “There’s still quite a bit of material in the dune. There’s still some material just below the water line. (Godfrey) and I felt the material was an amount that might deter sea turtle nesting. We don’t want to leave it there and see what happens.”

HOLDEN BEACH – Holden Beach commissioners are withdrawing the town’s permit application to build a terminal groin at the east end of the barrier island.

“… the total costs to the Town, its citizens and visitors of the proposed Lockwood Folly Inlet Terminal Groin greatly outweigh the potential benefits thereto, both financially and otherwise.”

Holden Beach Board of Commissioners

During their regular meeting Tuesday night, board members unanimously voted to permanently revoke the town’s application with the Army Corps of Engineers.

Commissioners have concluded that, “the total costs to the Town, its citizens and visitors of the proposed Lockwood Folly Inlet Terminal Groin greatly outweigh the potential benefits thereto, both financially and otherwise,” according to a resolution they unanimously adopted following their vote to revoke the application.

Commissioners directed attorney Clark Wright, a special environmental lawyer hired last December by the board, to notify the Corps of Engineers of the board’s decision to “withdraw fully and cease any and all further processing of, or action on” the permit applications and associated National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, documentation.

Federation Applauds Action

The North Carolina Coastal Federation, publisher of Coastal Review Online, has been against the terminal groin since it was first proposed.

“It is great news that the town will not be pursuing this destructive process,” said Todd Miller, executive director of the federation. “Town officials have been receptive in listening to the negative impacts of a terminal groin, which are extremely expensive and not guaranteed to work.”

The federation noted in a press release that its opposition to terminal groins and similar hardened structures is because of the threats they pose to public beach access and natural habitat for endangered or threatened species, including sea turtles and shorebirds.

The town has spent nearly seven years and more than $600,000 on studies examining various ways to mitigate severe erosion at the Lockwood Folly Inlet.

The final Environmental Impact Statement, or FEIS, a study prepared by coastal engineers hired by the town and released by the Corps last month, identified a 1,000-foot-long terminal groin as the preferred erosion-control method.

Terminal groins are wall-like structures built perpendicular to the shore at inlets to contain sand in areas of high erosion, like that of beaches at inlets.

What’s Best for the Town

Board members did not discuss why they chose to revoke the permit application before casting their votes, but the two-and-a-half-page resolution states that the analyses in the draft EIS and FEIS use out-of-date data, “without regard to more recent coastline and inlet changes.”

At the close of the meeting, Commissioner John Fletcher said everyone on the board thoroughly researched the environmental studies before making the decision to revoke the permit application.

“I think everybody made the decision on what they felt was best for the town individually,” Fletcher said. “My view is to keep the nine miles of beach beautiful.”

Engineers with Applied Technology and Management Inc., or ATM, identified a 700-foot-long terminal groin with a 300-foot-long shore anchorage system as the preferred alternative to shoreline erosion control at the island’s east end.

Fran Way, a senior coastal engineer with ATM, said earlier this month that the town would save $12 million over 30 years if it builds a terminal groin. During that April 6 meeting, Way encouraged commissioners to move ahead with obtaining the permits.

O’Neal Varnam, a Brunswick County resident who has been coming to the island for decades, asked commissioners Tuesday night to proceed with the proposed groin project.

“It would catch the sand,” he said. “This is something that’s really serious. We need to talk about it. You really need to think about this thing.”

Better Off Re-Nourishing

Opponents of the terminal groin have argued that the estimated $34.4 million cost associated with construction, maintenance and routine sand injections needed to supplement the structure over 30 years is too high a price tag to protect what would equate to protection of a handful of homes at the east end.

Several people who spoke during the April 6 meeting about the FEIS said the town would be better off re-nourishing the beach.

The town has been routinely pumping sand onto the eastern end of the 8.1-mile-long barrier island for 50 years. Sandbags have also been placed along the shore throughout the years as a temporary means to protect homes and properties.

About a year ago, the town completed the first phase of its $15 million Central Reach project, which pumped about 1.3 million cubic yards of sand along about a 4-mile stretch of oceanfront in the middle of the island.

The resolution commissioners adopted Tuesday acknowledged the Central Reach project and “significant beach nourishment on the East End, including beach nourishment utilizing low cost sand available as a by-product of the continued dredging of the Lockwood Folly Inlet at costs orders of magnitude lower than costs utilized by the USACE in the DEIS and FEIS.”

Ronda Dixon lives on an oceanfront lot at the east end. If the town had proceeded with building a terminal groin, the structure would have been built on a portion of her property.

“I think that (the permit application revocation) was the best possible decision for Holden Beach and for all the taxpayers,” Dixon said. “It was not done lightly. It was a tremendous amount of work and research that went into the formulation of that decision and I’m very happy with the result.”

Dixon said she suspects discussions about building a terminal groin at the east end will “come back again.”

“But at that time my hope is that they will start from scratch and look at updated data,” she said.

First to Back Out

Holden Beach is the first North Carolina beach town to formally revoke its permit application to construct a terminal groin since the General Assembly in 2011 repealed a decades’ old law banning coastal hardened erosion control structures.

The law allows for the construction of up to six terminal groins along the coast.

Bald Head Island is the only beach town in the state to build a groin since the 2011 repeal.

Figure Eight Island, a private barrier island in New Hanover County, got as far as seeing through the completion of an FEIS that identified a terminal groin as the preferred alternative at Rich Inlet. Property owners voted down the proposed project.

Ocean Isle Beach’s plans to build a terminal groin have been on hold since August when a lawsuit challenging that town’s FEIS was filed by the Southern Environmental Law Center on behalf of Audubon North Carolina.

North Topsail Beach in Onslow County is in the early stages of studying erosion-control alternatives at New River Inlet. Coastal engineer consultants hired by that town said that the preliminary preferred alternative to mitigate erosion at the northern end of town is a 2,000-foot-long terminal groin.

Learn More

• Read the town’s resolution

NORTH TOPSAIL BEACH – Property owners who settled a lawsuit late last year with the town will have to come up with more than one contractor’s proposal to repair the sandbag revetment put in place to ward off the ocean at the north end of the island.

Under the terms of the settlement, the 26 plaintiffs who brought the lawsuit against North Topsail Beach in May 2015 must submit at least two qualified engineers’ proposals for repairs to the sandbag revetment built to protect beachfront homes and condominiums from erosion.

For that reason, the town’s board of aldermen on Thursday night did not accept the sole contract proposal recently approved by a committee formed as part of the terms of the November settlement.

Members of the revetment committee include some of the plaintiffs in the case and representatives of the town. The plaintiffs are responsible for finding the minimum of two qualified engineers to submit contracts to do the job.

His motion to task town representatives on the committee to follow through with the terms of the settlement received a unanimous vote.

“I think you have a good point,” said Mike Benson, an aldermen and member of the committee. “With only having one proposal we don’t really know what the engineering cost is and whether it’s high or it’s low.”

All but one member of the six-person committee voted last month to recommend a contract proposal from Morehead City-based Arendell Engineers.

The civil engineering firm’s proposal includes the stipulation that the town sign a waiver stating it will not sue the firm or hold it responsible for any problems outside of issues directly caused by the engineer.

Arendell estimates the cost to survey, design, select a contractor and obtain permits for the work at about $50,000.

North Topsail Beach has been struggling for years to keep sand at the north end where the town abuts New River Inlet.

Shoreline erosion south of the inlet has been a persistent problem since 1984, the year the inlet’s bar channel shifted toward an alignment with Onslow Beach.

In response to the severe erosion, Topsail Reef Condominiums, a series of eight buildings overlooking the Atlantic on the north end, obtained a state permit in 2012 to install a sandbag revetment larger than the maximum the North Carolina Coastal Resources Commission, or CRC, typically allows.

The state in 2014 granted an extension to that permit.

That same year, the CRC gave the town permission to build a super-sized wall of sandbags spanning upward of 45 feet wide, 20 feet tall and extending 1,450 feet from the revetment in front of the condos.

The sandbags are there to provide temporary protection for oceanfront homes north of the Topsail Reef Condominiums and flood protection for a portion of New River Inlet Road.

The bags are permitted through 2022.

In October 2014 the town board voted to assess 39 property owners for half the cost of building the $1.4 million revetment. Those assessments ranged from $30,000 to $76,000.

The complaint 26 of those property owners made against the town, Carolina Marine Structures Inc., Coastal Planning & Engineering of North Carolina Inc. and Fish-Tec Inc., claimed the shoreline restoration project accelerated erosion.

The plaintiffs, which include former Mayor Fred Burns, charged that the project was poorly designed and constructed, made of inferior materials and that the sandbags were improperly placed.

“Despite starting with a design that was too small and too low, defendants then descoped the project, making the revetment even smaller, lower and sure to fail,” according to the complaint.

As part of the settlement, the plaintiffs will collectively pay $450,000 in assessments for the revetment project, a 45.3 percent reduction from the original assessment. Those funds will be coupled with the $200,000 the town has budgeted for the work.

The total budget for the project is $650,000.

The committee is supposed to aid the town in overseeing the third-party engineer’s work on the revetment, according to the settlement conditions.

Meanwhile, the town is in the process of obtaining federal and state permits to build a hardened erosion-control structure at the north end, which is another stipulation of the settlement.

Last month, representatives with Applied Technology and Management Inc., or ATM, the firm hired by the town to pursue a hardened structure project, suggested the town seek permits to build a 2,000-foot-long terminal groin.

ATM recommends the initial construction of a 1,500-foot terminal groin, which is a wall-like structure made of rock or other material placed perpendicular to the shore and adjacent to an inlet to control erosion.

An additional 500 feet of anchor could be added later if need be, engineers said.

A draft Environmental Impact Statement, or EIS, is being developed for the proposed project.

An EIS is a document that examines the positive and negative effects of a proposed project on the environment. Regulatory agencies use these documents, which are created by town-hired firms, as a tool to help determine whether to issue permits and what conditions, such as monitoring, to require in a permit.

Construction would cost an estimated $1.5 million and does not include moving an estimated 300,000 cubic yards of sand to stabilize the beach in conjunction with the structure.