Last in a series.

Stretching north from the Wright Memorial Bridge at Kitty Hawk to the Back Bay of Virginia Beach, Currituck Sound was, at one time, the crown jewel of the Atlantic Flyway.

A large, freshwater estuary teeming with subaquatic vegetation and dotted with innumerable low-lying islands and marsh habitat for ducks, geese and swans, migratory waterfowl by the hundreds of thousands flocked to its waters every fall and winter.

By the early 20th century, market hunting and dozens of hunt clubs that placed no limit on the number of birds that could be taken sprang up and wiped out the population of waterfowl that migrated to the sound’s waters.

Those days are now the stuff of history and legend. Migratory waterfowl counts have plummeted. But now, researchers and conservationists from different organizations and fields are working together with a plan to restore the marsh habitat and make it more resilient – a blueprint that resulted from several years’ worth of pilot projects.

Audubon North Carolina, the state affiliate of the National Audubon Society, notes that at the Donal C. O’Brien Jr. Sanctuary at Pine Island, “waterfowl populations in the 1970s were around 300,000, recent surveys in Currituck Sound have counted only around 30,000 birds.”

Although bag limits have been in place for some time, balancing the take of hunters with the ability of waterfowl to repopulate, migratory waterfowl have not returned to their historic numbers. The reasons are complex, intertwined with an ecosystem that is unlike almost any other estuarine system anywhere.

Robbie Fearn, director of the Pine Island Sanctuary, recently described Currituck Sound for Coastal Review, noting how different it is from other estuarine systems.

“I don’t like to use the word unique, but it’s an unusual system in that it’s primarily freshwater,” he said, adding that the nearest ocean outlet for the sound’s waters is some 25 miles south at Oregon Inlet.

“The dynamics of the system are very unusual in that it is a giant shallow bathtub. And the water is sloshing around in it all the time. Most marsh systems don’t have this level of dynamism,” Fearn said, adding that it is “a really unusual system to be working in and exciting because every question is still ready to be answered.”

The environment, however, is not the only complex system to navigate in addressing how restore Currituck Sound’s restoration. Its shores include lands that are parts of Currituck County, the town of Duck and those managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the North Carolina Wildlife Commission.

To navigate the issues involved among multiple entities, Audubon in 2019 formed the Currituck Sound Coalition, a partnership that includes 14 members representing local governments, state and federal agencies, and research and educational institutions. The North Carolina Coastal Federation, which publishes Coastal Review, is part of the coalition.

In 2020, the North Carolina Attorney General’s office awarded Audubon North Carolina a $98,000 Environmental Enhancement Grant, or EEG. The work on the grant has been completed, but the grant was invaluable in creating a framework for marsh restoration and resilience, said Audubon Senior Coastal Resilience Program Manager Cat Bowler.

“The EEG funds allowed us to work with the Currituck Sound Coalition to develop the Marsh Conservation Plan for Currituck Sound. It also helped us to conduct a site analysis at Pine Island Sanctuary and start to develop the project concept for the marsh restoration pilot projects that Audubon is still working on with partners to this day,” Bowler said. “It really laid the groundwork for us to launch this work.”

The Currituck Sound Coalition Marsh Conservation Plan is a working publication that outlines how the group will work together to restore the waters of the sound. In the document’s “process overview,” the role the EEG played is specifically cited.

“In 2019, Audubon received funding from the North Carolina Environmental Enhancement Grant Program to support the coalition in developing a marsh conservation plan for Currituck Sound. A working group was formed to lead the planning process with partner members,” the plan’s authors wrote.

The plan outlines a wide scope of objectives to address sea level rise, erosion, invasive species, declining water quality, and loss of biodiversity — some of the issues listed that are known to affect Currituck Sound marshes.

“The beauty of the EEG funding was that it allowed us all to work together to share the knowledge we’re all developing separately and come together,” Fearn said. “I think it creates shared understanding. It created this connective tissue.”

The grant funding did more than create a communication network. The Audubon Society was also able to examine and compare different methods of marsh rehabilitation.

“The EEG actually funded a series of four pilot projects,” Bowler said. “Pilot marsh restoration projects looking at different types of living shoreline techniques, but also looking at more innovative restoration techniques like thin layer placement, where you take sediment and put it in thin layers on the surface of the marsh to help it accrete with sea level rise over time.”

Those research projects may prove to be critical in how much funding Currituck Sound restoration and resilience projects will be able to access. One of the partner organizations of the Coalition is Dr. Reide Corbett and the Coastal Studies Institute.  Corbett, the institute’s executive director, explained the significance the research that is now being done will have in the future.

“When it comes to any sort of resilience, some of it’s education, but a lot of it’s going to come down to funds, (and) the fact is, you can’t get those funds until you really understand what the problems are and where the problems really need to be addressed,” Corbett said.

The EEG projects, though, are not close-ended programs, rather the nature of the projects and the way in which the money has been administered has created additional opportunities to develop strategies for marsh restoration.

Bowler said the EEG funds in combination with money from other state sources, the North Carolina Land and Water Fund and the Clean Water Management Trust Fund, as well as from Northwest National Coastal Resilience Fund, “and all three of those grants supported different elements of this project,” Bowler said. “To be able to bring the three different funding sources together to help enhance our partnerships in the region and also get some of this work planned and designed on the ground, I think that’s been a huge success.”

Third in a series on the Albemarle region’s environmental-economic connections.

Persistent algal blooms on the Chowan River are nothing new, but there was a time when the problem, one affecting public health, the environment and the coastal economy, got better. Then the blooms returned, and researchers are still trying to determine why.

Blue-green algal blooms return each summer to rivers in northeastern North Carolina and linger. The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality on July 18 issued a warning to avoid the Chowan River from Tyner on Indian Creek in northern Chowan County to Edenton.

Related: Lingering Chowan River algal bloom prompts state advisory

A 30-month program administered by the Albemarle Resource and Conservation Development Council is more than a year into looking at why the Chowan, Perquimans and Pasquotank rivers are so prone to the blue-green algal blooms that are caused by cyanobacteria feeding frenzies on nutrient-rich waters. These bacteria are potentially toxic to humans and animals and are associated with hypoxia, or deprivation of oxygen, in the water, leading to fish kills.

Albemarle Resource and Conservation Development Council Executive Director Elizabeth Bryant, a longtime resident of the Edenton area, said the problem is significant and real, and affects the area’s most important resources.

“With blue-green algal blooms in Edenton Bay and then farther north on the Chowan River,” Bryant said, “They’ve been severe to the point where warnings had to go out about people not swimming, that if they’re boating, they should steer clear of algal blooms. And not touch the fish in the area. Obviously, that restricts tourism.”

The council serves 10 northeastern North Carolina counties: Camden, Chowan, Currituck, Dare, Gates, Hyde, Pasquotank, Perquimans, Tyrrell and Washington.

Bryant said the algal blooms can be breathtaking and affect towns across the region.

“If you get out of your car, and you can hardly breathe because of the scent of algal blooms, you’re going to get back in your car,” she said. “That will inhibit tourism to Edenton to Elizabeth City.”

Some of the region’s smaller towns’ economies depend on the summer travelers to or from the Outer Banks, Bryant added.

The 30-month-long study, Bryant noted, will yield data for the council’s entire service area. The grant requires gathering samples consistently throughout the year and, importantly, water samples are collected at tributaries and streams, and not necessarily the larger rivers.

The study is funded through the Environmental Enhancement Grant program administered by the state attorney general’s office. The program is part of a 25-year agreement that resulted from the state’s hog waste pollution case settlement with Smithfield Foods.

Attorney General Josh Stein, speaking at an event in May in Bertie County, said that in the 22 years since the agreement was signed, about 210 projects had been funded with awards totaling more than $40 million. Numerous awards have supported different strategies to improve water quality, Stein said.

Colleen Karl is the chairperson of the Chowan Edenton Environmental Group. She and others in the organization are among the numerous amateur, or public, scientists who are gathering samples for analysis as part of the program.

“It’s a very large watershed and we’re sampling on a lot of back roads,” she said.

The Chowan Edenton Environmental Group is sampling the waters of Potecasi Creek, a tributary of the Chowan River that joins the river at almost the same location as the Meherrin River.

“Some of those tributaries that come off Potecasi Creek, were earmarked as pretty high in nitrogen,” she said.

Nitrogen and phosphorous have long been known to contribute to cyanobacteria blooms, but other factors have also been identified, including those related to climate change.

Dr. Hans Paerl and Dr. Nathan Hall of the University of North Carolina Institute of Marine Sciences are analyzing the samples. Paerl, who has published papers on climate change and how it affects blue-green algae, explained that the organisms are influenced by changing weather patterns.

“These bloom organisms are particularly sensitive to climate change, including overall warming of the globe’s atmosphere and water, but then also more extreme events, like bigger storms and bigger droughts,” Paerl said. “Those things have come into the equation to more or less complicate factors in terms of coming up with recommending management strategies.”

Paerl has been studying the Chowan River watershed since the 1980s, when herring was still abundant in the river.

“When I first started working there, they had big herring pickling places (where) I used to buy my herring over in Colerain,” he recalled.

He was part of a team that came up with an early management plan for reducing the nutrient load entering the Chowan.

“When I first got hired to look at the blooms on the Chowan River, that was back in 1980, I believe. We did a good job. We identified both nitrogen and phosphorus and came up with some recommendations for how much reductions needed to take place in terms of input of those nutrients, and it proved to be pretty effective,” Paerl said.

It was a temporary reprieve.

“Then 15 or 20 years later, the blooms returned to the Chowan — pretty much the same players. So now we’re trying to figure out what has happened in the interim,” he said. “We’re still really aiming for nutrient reductions. We may need to reduce them even more now than we did before. The additional thing is climate change.”

But climate change does not completely explain why there has been an increase in algal blooms in rivers like the Chowan. As Hall explained, when the Albemarle Resource and Conservation Development Council first approached the researchers, they wanted to know where the nutrients had originated. In reviewing data and literature on nutrients in the rivers, a sudden spike wasn’t apparent.

“We have flow gauges (on the rivers) and the Division of Water Resources measures the concentrations. So, we have flow, we have concentrations, we can calculate loads,” Hall said. “Those major rivers don’t look particularly spectacular as far as how much load. The concentrations in the rivers really aren’t that high.”

What was apparent though was that relatively minor tributaries to the Albemarle Sound where gauges were in place or were otherwise monitored seemed to have significantly higher nutrient loads.

“For the few small streams where we do have concentration data, like the Scuppernong River, the Pasquotank River, the Perquimans River — these are smaller tributaries to the Albemarle Sound area — the concentrations are really high,” Hall said.

Those concentrations are also being found in the tributary streams — concentrations so high that they may be a significant contributing factor to algal blooms.

“A lot of the smaller streams are three times higher concentration than the big rivers. So if they’re carrying a proportional amount of flow and they’re about 15% of the watershed, they’re carrying three times higher concentration, they could be 40% of the load,” Hall said.

The study recently passed the 12-month mark, and there are still a number of unanswered questions. It remains unclear, for example, where or how the nitrogen is entering the river system.

“The organic nitrogen component is something that’s increasing in a lot of the streams in North Carolina. And it’s been kind of a head-scratcher as to where it’s coming from,” Hall said.

He explained that one of the goals of the project is to look across some of the streams that have different watershed and land-use characteristics, that are higher agriculture use, or include urban development, and try to investigate what the dissolved organic components look like.

Land use may be the key to mitigating extreme algal blooms, but to date the role of land use, how it affects nutrient loads, is not completely clear. To North Carolina State University researcher Dr. Chris Osburn, who is analyzing the data, the information is by no means definitive.

“Preliminary evidence points to changes in land use and climate (especially extreme rainfall events) that can mobilize DON (dissolved organic nitrogen) from wetlands and forested landscapes into tributaries, which could be driving some of the increases in DON observed in the Chowan River. Research into the sources of DON to these tributaries is ongoing,” Osburn responded to Coastal Review in an email.

Even if the sources of nutrients that are creating algal blooms in the Albemarle Basin are identified, Paerl said limiting the blooms is about the best that can be accomplished.

“We’re probably never going to be able to get rid of cyanobacteria in these slow-moving systems, and even in Albemarle Sound,” he said. “But we can keep it from getting worse.”

He said that’s essentially the point of mitigation strategies: holding back an issue or a problem from getting worse. “After all, cyanobacteria have been around on Earth for 2 billion years. They’re not going to go away.”

Second in a series on the Albemarle region’s environmental-economic connections.

Attorney General Josh Stein was at the Tall Glass of Water county park in Bertie County last month to meet with four groups whose projects had benefited from the Environmental Enhancement Grants that his office had awarded in eastern North Carolina.

The EEG funds are through a 25-year agreement the state and Smithfield Farms entered into in 2000 as part of a settlement stemming from hog waste pollution caused by company farms. The grants have been awarded since 2002.

Although advocates say EEGs have had an effect wherever they have been awarded, for Tall Glass of Water, the impact was particularly significant.

“The environmental enhancement money helped with the outdoor spaces that needed to be repaired,” Robin Payne told Coastal Review in an interview shortly after the Stein visit. Payne has been the facilitator for the project for the county since late 2019.

Those funds are what enabled Dr. Bo Dame, professor of biology and physical sciences at Chowan University, to bring his students to Tall Glass of Water as part of an ongoing restoration and study program of the site’s environment.

“We were asked to help with planning for wetland restoration … establish an ecological monitoring program. That program has a very strong water quality component to it,” he told Stein, adding that he hoped the program could eventually be a part of the local school system’s curriculum. “The idea is that we would implement that monitoring program until the restoration was done and a little bit beyond that, and then hand it over to the (local) schools.”

Sometime next month, the first phase of the Tall Glass of Water park is expected to be completed. The restrooms will be ready, the wheelchair-accessible ramp to the beach will be built, picnic tables in place, and a site the Tall Glass of Water website describes as “unlike anywhere else in Northeastern North Carolina” will be fully opened to the public.

The next phase is to feature an outdoor performance area.

It is a lush, scenic site. An open field gives way to high bluffs that overlook the river. There is a sandy beach that extends for 2,200 feet. Looking south along the beach, the Chowan River has carved deeply into the soil, creating shear bluffs 20 feet high in places. Tree roots are exposed, looping out of the dirt then back into the bluff.

The county purchased the property in 2016 in part thanks to a North Carolina Parks and Recreation Trust Fund grant. With its natural beauty and setting, it is, Payne said, the best possible fit for a county park.

“Bertie County looked at their assets, and they’re all nature-based assets,” she said.

It is a point of view that marine geologist Dr. Stan Riggs addressed during Stein’s visit.

“When I came in here, what became obvious, is that this is a world-class water system that surrounds Bertie County,” Riggs said. “So let’s look at the resources here … and what can we do with these with respect to long-term ecotourism and sustainability.”

Asked about Riggs’ contribution to Bertie County, Payne told the Coastal Review that his vision for the county extended well beyond the 147 acres at the site.

“Bertie County has such a wealth of natural resources and their geological history, there’s just so much there that’s worth protecting and (Riggs) has been a dynamo in helping the county do it,” she said.

Walking with the attorney general along the bluff, Riggs explained the geographical and ecological history of the area. As Stein and the other group members came to a trail that would eventually cut through a heavily forested part of the site, Riggs explained how important it was to understand what the county and state had at Tall Glass of Water.

At the base of the hills, the dark waters of a swamp reflected water tupelo, common spatterdock and other trees that thrive in a wetland environment.

“These are incredible ravines and they’re so steep that they could never be logged,” Riggs said. “This is probably one of the most perfect examples of a mature North Carolina hardwood forest. You’ve got a few big trees, you’ve got middle-sized trees, you’ve got new, young growth. This has probably never been logged, because there’s plenty of wood out here on the flatlands.”

Especially at the north end of the site where the swamp lies, the Tall Glass of Water project has been called ambitious.

“The TGOW Wetlands Restoration Northern Boundary project goal is to reestablish pre-agriculture hydrology and plant communities that support the healthy functioning of the incised ephemeral stream for improved water quality and habitat,” the Tall Glass of Water website states.

But for Bertie County, the Tall Glass of Water project represents more than environmental rehabilitation.

Some 2 miles of trails wind their way through the forests and wetlands. Almost surrounded by Salmon River Natural Area, the trails on the north end connect with a trail leading into the natural area.

The beach is relatively narrow, but the sand is soft and with 2,200 feet along the Chowan River, public access to water activities on the river are available for the first time in the county’s history, something Bertie County Board Chair Ron Wesson who grew up in the county, said is particularly important.

“I’ve never had access because there’s never been a public access on the Albemarle Sound,” he said. “There’s been a lot of private beach clubs, but kids like me when I grew up here, you could never access any of those. So having a public source access to the sound is very important for us.”

Although the EEG award has been invaluable in completing the first phase of Tall Glass of Water, Payne emphasized that it is not the only grant or source of funding for the project. The U.S. Department of Agriculture was also involved.

“The USDA paid for planning money and then the Environmental Enhancement (Grant) helped with the outdoor spaces that needed to be repaired,” she said. “And then the county, through legislative appropriation, and some of their ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act) funds were able to cobble together the entire picture.”

The money to complete the project though is just one part of the picture. Asked about the long-term maintenance of Tall Glass of Water, Wesson, the board chair, was emphatic that the county understood that it would take a commitment on their part.

“We would not have gone down this road unless we were sure that this is something that was not a just a short-term venture, but a long-term venture, decades really, because we need to make sure there is a reason to come to Bertie County,” he said.

Next in the series: Testing the waters.

First in a series on the Albemarle region’s environmental-economic connections.

Standing on a bluff overlooking the Chowan River at Bertie County’s Tall Glass of Water outdoor education site, North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein spoke last month about the North Carolina Environmental Enhancement Grants, or EEGs, what they have meant to communities, and what they have meant to him personally.

Stein, speaking during the May 4 event, said awarding EEGs is one of the most fun things he gets to do as attorney general. Addressing organizations selected for the EEGs, he said being able to support the good work of community organizations and civically minded folks was tremendous.

“To see these funds pour back into North Carolina … using a whole variety of different strategies … It’s my privilege to be able to do this work and it’s certainly my pleasure to do this work,” Stein said.

Earlier this year: State announces millions for park accessibility grants

The EEG program was part of a binding agreement in 2000 between Smithfield Foods and the state calling for the hog producer to phase out the use of open-air hog lagoons. As part of that agreement, Smithfield agreed to provide up to $2 million per year for 25 years of environmental projects across the state.

The EEG program began distributing grants in 2002.

“So far, we’ve done something like 210 projects in excess of $40 million,” Stein said.

Stein noted in his remarks that most, though not all, of the Environmental Enhancement Grants have been focused on eastern North Carolina, and the grants he came to Bertie County to talk about are specific to the area. The Albemarle Resource Conservation and Development Council received a grant to study algal blooms on the Chowan River, and the Audubon Society is applying a $98,000 grant to wetland restoration in Currituck County.

For many of the grants, the most apparent outcomes are visible. That is the case at Tall Glass of Water, as trails are cleared and much-needed unimpeded access to the beach becomes a reality.

For Bertie County, a Tier 1, or most-distressed county on the North Carolina Department of Commerce’s ranking of counties’ economic well-being, and facing a recent spate of violent crime, six murders this year, at least one of the grants may come to represent the human benefits of environmental enhancements.

The EEG funding for the Bertie County Hive House Virtual Learning Center at 103 Mitchell St. in Lewiston Woodville will create a green space from 4 acres of meadow, overgrown with invasive species and with limited access. But for Vivian Saunders, executive director of the Hive House, the grant, she explained to Stein, is more than just open space for the small town on the west side of the county.

Saunders spoke about “the unfortunate deaths” in Bertie County in the last couple of months, referring to the six homicides in 2023.

“What we’re going to try to do is … get our young people involved in some outdoor workforce-development training so we can get them outside (instead) of playing games and being on video games,” she said. “We’re trying to transform our young people’s minds from sitting in the house staying on video games to being back outside and around nature.”

Saunder’s remarks sparked an almost immediate response from Stein.

“That’s a wonderful articulation of the relationship of kids and mental health and nature,” he said.

Lewiston Woodville was once a small but thriving crossroads town. That was a long time ago. The few businesses that once lined the streets are now closed and falling into disrepair. The only open business by the crossroads is a gas station and convenience store. The paint on the front of the building is chipped and fading. On the west side of town is natural gas infrastructure where maintenance work in May produced a seemingly ceaseless din of venting gas and flame that resembled the sound of a jet engine.

The Bertie County Hive House, at the corner of Mitchell and Cashie streets, is just off the town crossroads. It is a rambling old house that Saunders has made into a gathering place for anyone who wants to come.

The house, Saunders said, was donated to her by her pastor, Dr. Gary Cordon. When she first got it, the house was not in very good shape, but a grant from Perdue Farms, the largest employer in Bertie County, paid for its rehabilitation.

“Perdue, they did the total renovations,” she emphasized.

The Hive House, as Saunders describes it, is a safe place, a shelter where people can come for whatever reason, and she added that space is available at almost any time, day or night.

“If you need somewhere to work, or chill, you can just give me a call: ‘Vivian, can I get into the Hive?’ And my people will come and unlock it,” she said.

For Saunders, the issues confronting the county have their roots in poverty and the hopelessness it creates, and she is uncompromising as she paints a picture of the impact on the county’s youth.

“You’re telling me, sitting in school, that I’ve got the whole world ahead of me. And then I go home, and some folks don’t have toilets. I’m in a mobile home, where I can see the dog running underneath. I don’t have lights on. Sometime my mom and dad are working so hard, I don’t get to see them,” Saunders said describing the county’s poverty.

She points out that the county has one of the state’s highest rates of juvenile diabetes related to obesity, an observation that is confirmed in the 2018 Bertie County Community Health Assessment, and to her the key is getting young adults and kids off social media and back outside.

“We got to get these babies back outside, loving nature, loving the community,” she said. “Kids don’t go outside. They want to be on MacBooks, phones and computers. One of the things that I’m going to require (on the green space work), you’ve got to leave that phone alone. You’ve got to go outside. Our project is to actually build that park.”

The work is still in its earliest stages. The design for the 4-acre green space is being handled by North Carolina State University landscape architecture and environmental planning professor Kofi Boone. He agreed that there is concern about the overall health of the community.

“The health disparities facing Bertie County broadly and Lewiston-Woodville specifically are alarming,” he wrote in an email response to Coastal Review. “That includes all sectors but especially seniors and young people. Vivian Saunders and Hive House have also expressed the need for young people to belong to the process and the transformation and see opportunities to look at workforce development associated with green space transformation.

Asked what the potential impact of creating a community green space could be, Boone was cautiously optimistic.

“The issues facing towns like Lewiston-Woodville are complex and beyond the scope of what one green space can solve on its own,” he wrote. “However, green space that can reflect and reinforce community values can engender a spirit of stewardship and care that can offer safe, and healthy open space for people to enjoy.”

That sense of cautious optimism is shared by Bertie County Sheriff Tyrone Ruffin.

“If people utilize it, yes, it will be a good thing for our county,” he said. “But do I think that is the solution to (all) issues? The answer’s no.”

Boone, however, does see the outdoor space as an important component in addressing the overall health of the community. He noted that the health concerns raised by Saunders could potentially be affected by an outdoor area for the community.

“The town does not currently have a public green space. From research, we know that a lack of access to green space can contribute to a lack of physical activity and poorer health outcomes. We know that well designed green space can help support improved physical health and mental wellbeing,” Boone wrote.

The field is going to take some work to create something usable. There are numerous ways to remove invasive species and Boone has not yet come to a decision on the best method.

“We’re going to be working with a number of partners to determine the right approach to handling invasive species. The treatments can vary,” he wrote.

There is also, evidently, material from what was once the West Bertie Elementary School that closed in the 1970s, according to Boone.

Graduate students from the N.C. State School of Landscape Architecture will be on hand to supervise the work, at times spending the night at the Hive House. Saunders mentioned that they are donating their time, and that the only request they made was, “all they’ve asked us to do is keep the fridge full for us.”

The project is still in its earliest stages, yet for Saunders even as the initial steps are taken, she sees hope in the willingness of people to work together to improve conditions in a troubled county.

“I want to thank everyone involved in helping us transform and take back our county from all the negativity that’s been going on,” she said.

Next in the series: A Tall Glass of Water.