FAYETTEVILLE — Proposed monitoring and minimization rules for industrial dischargers of 1,4-dioxane and the public sewage plants that accept those facilities’ waste fail to protect North Carolinians’ drinking water, speakers at a public hearing said Tuesday.

All but one of the 13 people who spoke at the North Carolina Environmental Management Commission’s hearing at Fayetteville Technical Community College criticized the proposed rules, arguing those rules fall short in reducing the amounts of 1,4-dioxane discharged into people’s drinking water sources and lack enforcement.

Those comments mirror ones articulated at the commission’s April 9 hearing on the proposed rules in Hickory. A third hearing is scheduled for May 12 in Jamestown.

“The so-called monitoring and minimization rule establishes certain monitoring requirements, but the term minimization is misleading,” Fayetteville resident Madison Williams said. “The way the rule is promulgated is in a way that does not require polluters to reduce PFAS or 1,4-dioxane emissions into North Carolina drinking water supplies, and it imposes no consequences, even if those discharges increase. This in effect is a polluter written rule.”

Related: Public hearings set on proposed wastewater discharge rules

The commission is hosting separate public hearings, the first of which was held in Asheville last week, on a similar rule for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS; perfluorooctanoic acid, or PFOA; perfluorooctanesulfonic acid, or PFOS; and GenX, a chemical specific to a manufacturing plant that sits near Cape Fear River in Bladen County.

Under the proposed rules, publicly owned treatment works that receive industrial wastewater, and their manufacturer customers, would be required to monitor for discharges of 1,4-dioxane, an industrial solvent, into rivers, creeks and streams.

Facilities would be required to conduct baseline monitoring every three months for one year. Based on those sampling results, dischargers may be required to conduct additional monitoring.

“If determined to need ongoing sampling the industrial direct discharger will be required to develop a minimization plan,” explained Bridget Shelton with the Division of Water Resources’ planning section. “A minimization plan is a strategy to reduce or eliminate pollutants at the source before they are discharged into the environment.”

Facilities that “meet certain criteria” may request exceptions from ongoing monitoring and minimization plan requirements, she said.

The proposed rules do not set specific discharge limits or penalties for violations.

That fact has drawn sharp criticism from residents, environmental groups and public drinking water providers who have been calling on the state to establish drinking water standards for PFAS and 1,4-dioxane and regulate direct dischargers of those chemicals.

“Over 1 million North Carolina residents consume water from the Cape Fear River, water that is contaminated with 1,4-dixoane, PFAS and other forever chemicals that will continue to proliferate without sufficient regulations at the federal and state levels,” said Jonelle Kimbrough, executive director of Fayetteville-based environmental nonprofit Sustainable Sandhills. “The proposed 1,4-dioxane minimization rules seem to be an attempt at regulation but, as written, they essentially do nothing to protect the natural resources or public health of our state and we need protection.”

Rob Clark, Cape Fear River Watch’s water quality programs manager, said the organization and its more than 1,000 members collectively opposed the proposed rules.

“These rules are completely inadequate when it comes to dealing with PFAS and 1,4-dioxane pollution in the Cape Fear River Basin,” he said. “The proposed minimization rules do not set enforceable limits on how much these toxic compounds can be discharged into our waterways. Instead, they rely on polluters to monitor their pollution and submit plans describing how they might reduce that over time. Do we really think that polluters are going to cut into their profits in order to do the right thing and stop discharging these chemicals into our waterways?”

Representatives of downstream public water suppliers said the proposed rules lack a clear objective to significantly decrease 1,4-dioxane levels in state surface waters.

Fayetteville Public Works Commission’s Environmental Programs Manager Rhonda Locklear pointed out that statewide monitoring has identified 1,4-dioxane primarily in the Cape Fear River Basin.

The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, “has sampled surface waters in 15 of North Carolina’s 17 river basins, confirming that most industrial 1,4-dioxane sources are in the Cape Fear River Basin, where 35% of these samples since 2017 were above non-detect thresholds, almost 10 times the rate in the Neuse River Basin, and nearly 200 times that of the Yadkin-Pee Dee River Basin,” she said. “The problem areas are well-defined, documented, and PWC expects DEQ to set meaningful regulations and reductions in the Cape Fear River Basin.”

Cape Fear Public Utility Authority Deputy Executive Director Kevin Morris said that the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, which classifies 1,4-dioxane as a likely human carcinogen, warns that at even at concentrations of 0.35 parts per billion, long-term exposure to the chemical increases cancer risks to humans and may cause significant kidney and liver impacts.

“Downstream water systems continue to experience periodic spikes in 1,4-dioxane despite having no role in producing or discharging this chemical, which demonstrates the limitations of our current regulatory framework,” Morris said.

He highlighted how effluent from Asheboro’s wastewater treatment plant has periodically tested for elevated levels of 1,4-dioxane, concentrations of which far exceeded levels associated with long-term health risks.

“These discharges flow into waterways like the Haw and Cape Fear rivers,” Morris said. “They’re relied upon by downstream drinking water systems, and they require additional monitoring, treatment, adjustments and customer communication. The downstream public ultimately bears the risk from and the cost of managing contamination that they had no part in creating. Voluntary reduction measures are insufficient to ensure consistent outcomes or to protect downstream communities. Utilities can manage only what arrives at their intake.”

As of Wednesday, DEQ had received more than 2,000 public comments and counting on the commission’s proposed rules for 1,4-dixoane and PFAS, according to Josh Kastrinksy, DEQ’s deputy communications director.

“The comments we’ve received in writing have by and large reflected the comments we’ve received in person,” he said.

Andrew Mlot, chair of the North Carolina Pretreatment Consortium Inc., a nonprofit that represents more than 180 pretreatment professionals in 64 state-approved pretreatment programs across North Carolina, was the only person Tuesday to speak in support of the proposed rules.

But that organization has “several specific concerns” with the rules as they are currently written, he said.

“The costs to treat 1,4-dioxane at the POTW (publicly owned treatment works) level is staggering. Capital costs alone range from $10 million to $1.3 billion, making source control the only practical path forward,” he said.

The proposed rules would require public treatment works in Greensboro, Burlington, Asheboro, High Point and Reidsville, which have been conducting monitoring and minimization activities going back to 2015, to start over, Mlot said.

“We ask for an explicit offramp for POTWs that have already completed successful programs. Replace any detection with a workable screening threshold. As currently written, any detection of 1,4-dioxane triggers ongoing monitoring requirements and a full minimization plan. NCPC members do not believe this is workable. We support an alternative screening threshold based on meaningful concentrations or loading levels,” he said.

DEQ is accepting written comments through June 15. Comments may be submitted by email to publiccomments@deq.nc.gov with the subject heading “1,4-dioxane minimization, or by mail to Bridget Shelton, DEQ-DWR Planning Section, 1611 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC 27699-1611.

Reprinted from the Ocracoke Observer

Waterfowl memories are woven throughout Ocracoke native Eddie O’Neal’s life.

He recalls redheads, pintails, teal and great flocks of geese on the Pamlico Sound and winter days in sink boxes with old-timers like Thurston Gaskill.

Because of that history and his skill of turning a block of wood into a work of art, he was named featured carver for this year’s Ocracoke Island Waterfowl Festival from 5 p.m. to 8 p.m. Friday, and from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday in the Ocracoke School gym.

O’Neal chose the Canada goose as his signature piece, honoring both the bird and the generations of island hunters and carvers who came before him.

“A Canada goose was a real trophy back then,” he said. “Something you showed off with pride and often shared with older neighbors who couldn’t get out to hunt themselves.”

O’Neal graduated from Ocracoke School in 1978 alongside classmates Vince O’Neal and the late John Simpson, two of the founders of the Ocracoke Decoy Carver’s Guild in 2018.

As a boy, O’Neal was constantly on the water.

Like many island youth, by age 12 he was already hunting and fishing around Springer’s Point and on his father’s nearby property.

He fished commercially with his father, Carson, who served in the Coast Guard, and brothers Andy and Albert, working pound nets and gigging flounder.

During his 23 years working for the state of North Carolina, he held a variety of positions: on a dredge crew, building spillways and working heavy equipment from Southport to Knotts Island.

Included in his working career, he also built golf courses, was a truck driver and worked on road paving crews for an asphalt company out of Norfolk, Virginia.

He and his wife Pam also ran the Island Galley restaurant on Ocracoke until damage from Hurricane Isabel (2003) forced them to close.

Although he appreciated decoys, he didn’t start carving as a hobby until around 2008 while living in Virginia Beach. Over time, that hobby “morphed into a full-time job.”

Among his fond memories are watching Wilbur and Clinton Gaskill, older Ocracoke carvers, who turned out small geese flyers and decoys at an astonishing pace. Wilbur could make 15 to 20 decoys a day and sell every one of them on a summer day when the island was far quieter than it is now.

His second cousin, Dave O’Neal, a retired Coast Guard man and renowned carver, has been an important influence offering tips on the techniques and tools of the craft.

Preferring to focus on his own carvings, O’Neal doesn’t collect or trade in other people’s decoys.

When he and Pam retired several years ago, they moved back to Ocracoke, and his carving became a daily practice.

Today, O’Neal does most of his carvings for the Island Ragpicker shop, run by his siblings Stephanie and Albert.

Not just decoys — he crafts shore birds, small flyers, fish, and a variety of decorative pieces that keep the shelves full and his hands busy.

Carving is his “therapy room” — something that keeps him grounded in retirement and balances time with his grandchildren Carter, Kyler, Amaya, Johnny and Angel.

He rarely sells pieces directly, except at some island events.

He prefers to stock the shop or donate carvings to local fundraisers like the Ocracoke Firemen’s Ball auction where his works have helped raise significant financial support over the years.

For materials, O’Neal favors northern white cedar, which he hauls back from a sawmill near Egg Harbor, New Jersey.

He also uses tupelo, sourced from a Mennonite mill near Pink Hill, and some pine.

Large decoys are almost always cedar, while smaller items, like flyers, often come from scrap wood he picks up from around the island, such as from the school that was torn down.

He appreciates cedar’s similarity to local juniper and its fine, aromatic grain. O’Neal shapes his birds with an angle grinder for the rough form, then refines them with a Dremel and extensive sanding, especially on the delicate heads and bills of shore birds.

He draws most of his own patterns by hand and also enjoys building furniture, having made tables and household pieces for family members from barn oak and other reclaimed woods.

This story is provided courtesy of the Ocracoke Observer, a newspaper covering Ocracoke Island. Coastal Review partners with the Ocracoke Observer to provide readers with more environmental and lifestyle stories of interest along our coast.

Microplastics and pharmaceuticals have made the Environmental Protection Agency’s newly published draft list of substances in public drinking water that warrant scientific scrutiny.

This marks a first for the EPA, which, along with U.S. Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., announced last week that microplastics and pharmaceuticals are two of four contaminant groups and dozens of chemicals included on the draft Sixth Contaminant Candidate List.

The April 2 announcement kick-started a 60-day public comment period.

The Trump administration hailed the additions to the list, also referred to as CCL 6, as “a landmark set of actions to safeguard the nation’s drinking water.”

“For too long, Americans have vocalized concerns about plastics and pharmaceuticals in their drinking water. That ends today,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin stated in a release. “By placing microplastics and pharmaceuticals on the Contaminant Candidate List for the first time ever, EPA is sending a clear message: we will follow the science, we will pursue answers, and we will hold ourselves to the highest standards to protect the health of every American family.”

The announcement comes as the Trump administration is actively pursuing rolling back drinking water standards for several per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, established under the previous administration.

PFAS, along with disinfection byproducts, once again made it onto a CCL, which singles out contaminants that are known or anticipated to be in public drinking water systems, but are not regulated under the Safe Water Drinking Act and may be considered for future regulatory action.

Also making it back on the list is 1,4-dioxane, an industrial solvent that, along with PFAS, is known to be in the drinking water sources for tens of thousands of North Carolinians, perhaps most notably in the Cape Fear Region.

Last year, the EPA announced that it would retain current National Primary Drinking Water Regulations for PFOA and PFOS but rescind regulations and reconsider regulatory determinations for other PFAS, including GenX.

GenX is specific to Chemours’ Fayetteville Works facility that is situated near the banks of the Cape Fear River and more than 70 miles upstream of Wilmington. The Cape Fear River is the raw drinking water source for hundreds of thousands of North Carolinians.

The federal agency also said it was extending deadlines for public water treatment plants to come into compliance with the federally established limits for those PFAS.

Since the late 1990s, the EPA has been required by law to publish every five years a list of contaminants that are either unregulated or not proposed for regulation.

CCLs are considered the initial step in a process to better understand, through scientific research, potential human health risks of contaminants in drinking water.

And, while clean drinking water advocates say this is a good first step, they urge the public to call for regulations to limit the levels of or altogether halt the discharge of contaminants into public drinking water sources.

“I think it’s important to recognize what chemicals are in our drinking water and to study the risks associated with that,” Hannah Nelson, a staff attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center’s Chapel Hill office said. “But simply adding chemicals to this list isn’t going to protect our communities. They’re on the list because we know they’re in drinking water, so now we need to take the next step to control the source of that pollution at the source and get it out of our drinking water. I North Carolina, because we know these pollutants are already there, I think we really should be focusing on how do we keep them out in the first place, because that’s how we truly protect our communities.”

Residents in the Cape Fear region, the local governments that represent them, the public water utilities that serve them, and environmental organizations are embroiled in an ongoing fight pushing for state regulations to put the onus on dischargers of PFAS and 1,4-dioxane to reduce the amounts of chemicals they release into drinking water sources.

On Tuesday, the North Carolina Environmental Management Commission will host its first in a series of public hearings on proposed PFAS and 1,4-dioxane monitoring and minimization rules.

Three hearings will focus on proposed rules for discharges of PFOS, PFOA and GenX into North Carolina’s surface waters and three on proposed rules for monitoring and minimizing 1,4-dioxane in wastewater discharges from certain facilities into surface waters.

The proposed rules packages do not set specific discharge limits or penalties for discharge violations, which has become a sticking point for those who argue that the rules would do little in actually minimizing the amount of those contaminants in drinking water sources.

“We know our environmental rulemaking body is currently trying to pass rules on PFAS and 1,4-dioxane that don’t control chemicals at the source,” Nelson said. “Having drinking water standards would be a helpful too, but our real focus should be, how can we keep these out in the first place and how can we encourage our state and our federal leaders to protect the people from the pollution before it even reaches the point of coming out of our sink and pouring into our cups.”

Beyond Plastics, a Bennington College, Vermont-based organization dedicated to ending single-use plastic pollution, called for similar regulation for microplastics.

“The U.S. Environmental Agency has taken an important first step to regulate microplastics in drinking water,” Beyond Plastics President and former EPA Regional Administrator Judith Enck stated in a release. “I applaud this decision by the EPA and urge the agency to move rapidly to not only regulate microplastics in drinking water but to also prevent microplastics from entering our water supplies.”

Cape Fear River Watch’s Water Quality Programs Manager Rob Clark agreed, saying that microplastics are ubiquitous – they’re in our environment and in our bodies.

“It’s a situation where it seems like we already have a lot of information on this,” he said. “What we need is ubiquitous monitoring across the country and we need regulation. The quicker that we get to setting a maximum contaminant level for microplastics, the quicker it’s not in our drinking water.”

In its April 2 release, the EPA noted that while human health benchmarks for pharmaceuticals are not regulations and not enforceable, “they are a vital resource, empowering local decision-makers to evaluate risks and protect their communities when pharmaceutical contamination is detected at concerning levels.”

The public comment period on draft CCL 6 will close June 5.

The EPA is expected to sign a final list by Nov. 17.

“I think public comment periods on action like this are really important because it’s a good time for folks to express concerns about the chemicals that are known to be present in their drinking water,” Nelson said. “Adding chemicals to the list is truly just an acknowledgement that they’re in the water. I don’t think we should read this list as a commitment to going above and beyond and advocating for folks. What we need to see is strong action to keep those chemicals out, whether it be from the federal administration or our state agencies.”

The Master Gardener Volunteer Association is hosting is annual native plant sale April 16-19 in Wilmington.

Now in its 39th year, the sale will feature more than 8,000 plant varieties, showcasing native plants that support wildlife populations in southeastern North Carolina and enhance the community’s botanical landscape.

Annuals, perennials, herbs and vegetables, azaleas, Japanese maples, and shrubs will be available for selection during the four-day sale, which will run 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. Thursday, April 16, through Saturday, April 18, and noon – 4 p.m. on Sunday, April 19.

The sale will be held at the New Hanover County Arboretum and N.C. Cooperative Extension, 6206 Oleander Drive.

The event will host a free seed exchange in the Cooperative Extension’s Plant Clinic. Houseplants will be made available through the Ability Garden, and an expert talk will be held on Japanese maple care and pruning.

Expert guidance will be offered from master gardener volunteers and extension staff on plant selections and they will help with safely and securely transferring plants to vehicles.

Parking and plant carts are limited, so participants are encouraged to carpool and bring their own carts to reduce wait time.

The arboretum will be closed April 13-15 in preparation for the sale.

Being able to watch a mother sperm whale give birth to her calf in the eastern Caribbean Sea a couple of summers ago “felt like an encounter with something both impossibly rare and profoundly ancient,” marine biologist David Gruber told Coastal Review.

Gruber, a National Geographic Explorer and City University of New York distinguished professor of biology, is president of Project CETI (Cetacean Translation Initiative). He founded the nonprofit based in the U.S. and Dominica in 2020. It’s made up of artificial intelligence and natural language processing specialists, cryptographers, linguists, marine biologists, roboticists and underwater acousticians from a network of universities and other partners, per the website.

He was aboard the organization’s sailing research vessel on July 8, 2023, off the coast of Dominica, where scientists have been observing whales for decades, when the team noticed that all 11 members of a known sperm whale unit had gathered at the water’s surface.

The team soon realized that they were witnessing the exceedingly rare 34-minutelong birth of a sperm whale in the wild and the coordinated care efforts for the newborn by the other adult females.

Project CETI published two reports detailing what the team observed, calling the work in a March 26 press release “the most comprehensive documentation of a sperm whale birth ever recorded and the first quantitative evidence of cooperative birth assistance among non-primates.”

The two studies analyze more than six hours of underwater audio and aerial drone footage recorded during the birth event.

Gruber, in the March 26 release, stated that these findings fundamentally reshape how we understand whale society. “What we’re seeing is deeply coordinated social care during one of the most vulnerable moments of life.”

Researchers said that understanding of labor, birth, postnatal and neonatal behavior is lacking for most cetaceans, with observations of these births in the wild recorded for less than 10% of species. Cetaceans are marine mammals such as whales, dolphins and porpoises.

“Of the described 93 species of cetaceans only nine species have reported birth observations collected in the wild,” the study states. “And reports of birth events of pelagic, deep-diving cetacean species, such as sperm whales, are exceptionally rare.”

Published in Nature’s Scientific Reports, “Description of a collaborative sperm whale birth and shifts in coda vocal styles during key events,” gives a chronological timeline of the birth framed within the context of known whale behavior, communication and evolution.

“Audio data revealed distinct shifts in vocal styles during key moments of the birth, including the presence of vowel-like structures, adding a new dimension to Project CETI’s ongoing work decoding sperm whale communication,” according to the nonprofit.

The journal Science published “Cooperation by non-kin during birth underpins sperm whale social complexity.” The organization explained that the study quantified the behavior of the 11-member unit by using high-resolution drone footage, computer vision, and multiscale network analysis using software developed for the work, combined with previously made scientific observations, including reports of whale births.

“The findings show that female sperm whales from two unrelated matrilines come together during a birth to assist the labouring mother, and both kin and non-kin taking turns assisting the newborn. This provides the first quantitative evidence of birth attendance outside of humans and a few other primates,” researchers state in the press release, adding that the birth attracted the attention of short-finned pilot whales and Fraser’s dolphins.

Gruber told Coastal Review what it was like to witness the live birth.

“To be on CETI’s sailing research vessel, in that moment, felt like an encounter with something both impossibly rare and profoundly ancient,” he noted.

“In marine biology, so much of a career is impacted by luck — being present when ocean life decides to reveal itself,” Gruber continued. “I’ve been fortunate enough to witness things like the first biofluorescent turtle seen to humans, but nothing compares to witnessing a sperm whale come into the world.”

Gruber went on to say that very few such births have been seen by humans, and the last scientifically recorded observation after the birth was decades ago.

“It makes you wonder what Herman Melville would have written had he glimpsed this: not the violence of whaling, but the circle of care and a society revealing itself through cooperation,” he explained about the author of the 1851 American novel, “Moby Dick,” that tells the tale of a whaling vessel’s captain and his quest for vengeance against the whale that took his leg.

“We witnessed culture in action,” when the 11 whales, across family lines, “coordinated to keep a newborn alive, communicating in ways we’re only beginning to understand.”

Gruber said it took more than 50 scientists 2.5 years “to begin to interpret even a fraction of that moment, because Project CETI sits at the intersection of marine biology, artificial intelligence, and network science — fields that must come together if we are to decode these lives,” he said. ”And, in some sense, this is why Project CETI exists: We are one of the few teams in the world continuously embedded with these whales, with the tools, the longitudinal data, and the interdisciplinary lens to not only witness something this rare, but to begin to understand it.” 

Shane Gero, National Geographic Explorer, Project CETI biology lead, and founder of The Dominica Sperm Whale Project, leads the research.

Researchers, who have been tracking since 2005, the mother that gave birth, observed her that day with both her mother and her daughter.

“This is the most detailed window we’ve ever had into one of the most important moments in a whale’s life,” Gero said in the release. “Because this family unit has been studied for decades, we could see what the grandmother was doing, how the new big sister acted, and how each helped mom and newborn, placing this rare birth within a deep social and behavioral context.”

The two studies point to cooperative caregiving during birth being ancient evolutionary behavior.

The behaviors documented in the research “suggest that cooperation during births functions to reinforce social bonds between sperm whales, which underpin their large-scale society. Helping unrelated companions drives them to help in return later. In this way, a foundation of trust and collective success builds their social world,” researchers said.

The North Carolina Coastal Federation has acquired 787 acres along the North River in Carteret County, expanding the North River Wetlands Preserve to close to 7,000 acres.

The property, purchased for just shy of $1.9 million, is expected to further the nonprofit organization’s mission to protect water quality, while supporting military operations. The new land is also going to provide a new official portion of North Carolina’s Mountains-to-Sea Trail, the environmental group said Monday.

The North River Wetlands Preserve was once mostly ditched and drained farm land but has been restored over the past two decades into one of the largest rehabilitated wetland systems in state.

The new property was purchased through a partnership of state, federal and nonprofit funding, including $590,000 from the U.S. Department of Defense, $449,000 from the Complete the Trails Program for the Mountains-to-Sea Trail, and $964,691 from the N.C. Land and Water Fund for acquisition and transaction costs. 

With the property acquisition April 2, the preserve includes the headwaters of the North River, Wards Creek, and Jarrett Bay, “forming a connected natural system that filters runoff, improves water quality, and sustains productive fisheries downstream,” according to the organization.

“The newly protected tract includes forested wetlands, upland areas, and approximately 6,900 linear feet of tributaries flowing into the North River—a designated Primary Nursery Area and contributor to the Outstanding Resource Waters of Core and Back Sounds,” the organization added.

The Coastal Federation said it plans to begin restoring the site’s natural hydrology by reconnecting wetlands, improving drainage patterns, and enhancing long-term resilience to sea level rise. 

Coastal Federation Executive Director Braxton Davis explained in a release that the acquisition reflects the kind of forward-looking investment North Carolina needs.

“One that protects water quality, strengthens coastal ecosystems, supports military readiness, and creates meaningful public access. Expanding the North River Wetlands Preserve to nearly 7,000 acres ensures this landscape will provide lasting benefits for communities, fisheries, and future generations,” he said.

The land will be a new official section of North Carolina’s Mountains-to-Sea Trail, which is a 1,400-mile route connecting the Great Smoky Mountains to the Outer Banks, and is managed by North Carolina State Parks. 

“The acquisition of this property represents a transformational moment for the Mountains-to-Sea Trail in this area,” Brent Laurenz, executive director of Friends of the Mountains-to-Sea Trail, said in a release. “We’re so appreciative of the partnership with the Federation to acquire this property for both the significant addition it will make to the MST and for its long-term conservation value.” 

The Department of Navy used funding from the Defense Department’s Readiness and Environmental Protection Integration, or REPI, Program, to secure a permanent restrictive use easement over the property where low-altitude helicopter training routes associated with Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point operations are held.

“This project represents years of work bringing together the right partners and funding to protect a truly special place,” Todd Miller, senior adviser to the Coastal Federation and project manager for the acquisition, said in a statement.

“By securing this property, we are safeguarding the headwaters of the North River, expanding one of the most important coastal preserves in the state, and creating a permanent route for the Mountains-to-Sea Trail. It’s a powerful example of how conservation can deliver clean water, public access, and support for our military at the same time,” he added.

This project is part of the organization’s “Lands for a Healthy Coast” initiative, which focuses on conserving strategic coastal landscapes that protect water quality, sustain fisheries, and build resilience to climate change. The Coastal Federation publishes Coastal Review.

Additional partners on the project include the North Carolina General Assembly, and Morehead City attorney John Harris.

North Carolina’s Flood Resiliency Blueprint Tool now includes enhanced flood mapping and risk information for five river basins in Eastern North Carolina.

The online tool designed to help local governments, agencies and nongovernmental partners develop, evaluate and prioritize resilience actions has been updated with new nonregulatory or “advisory” flood maps for the Cape Fear, Lumber, Neuse, Tar-Pamlico, and White Oak river basins.

The need for new maps and modeling efforts were identified in the draft blueprint, which was created by the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality at the direction of the General Assembly.

The updates were made through extensive coordination with local leaders, other state agencies, nongovernmental organizations, university researchers and evaluating programs in other states like Texas and Louisiana for guidance, according to an NCDEQ release.

NCDEQ Secretary Reid Wilson, in the release, stated that research from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill found that more than 90,000 buildings in Eastern North Carolina flooded at least once from 1996 until 2020, and 43% of those buildings were outside the mapped Federal Emergency Management Agency floodplain. “The General Assembly’s investment in updated modeling and mapping means that North Carolinians in five river basins now have a more accurate picture of their actual flooding risk, Wilson said.”   

The improved mapping was done in partnership with the North Carolina Floodplain Mapping Program, one overseen by the North Carolina Emergency Management.

“NC Emergency Management is proud to provide flood mapping support to DEQ which will produce additional flood mapping products to build resilient communities across the state,” N.C. Emergency Management Director Will Ray stated. “As part of a multi-year advisory flood data web application development project, which began in 2022, the NCEM Floodplain Management Program was able to provide data and resources to assist in this project, once again showing the whole-of-community approach to disaster preparedness In North Carolina.” 

The mapping includes numerical models that simulate surface runoff and routing on a landscape, and are available for previously unmapped or undermapped basins too small to be included on regulatory maps and extend beyond what is normally included in traditional regulatory floodplain mapping.

The maps also include areas that flood despite being many miles from the nearest stream and allow communities to explore their future risk associated with projected growth patterns and the changing climate fueling more frequent and severe storms and sea level rise.

“These new maps, available through our Flood Resiliency Blueprint Tool, mean that Eastern North Carolinians can make more informed decisions and better investments to build their resilience in the face of more frequent and severe flooding,” Flood Resiliency Blueprint Manager Stuart Brown said in a release.

River Basin Action Strategies for the five river basins are expected to be available this summer, and new maps for the French Broad River Basin available this fall, according to DEQ.

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.

Presales for commercial and for-hire fishing licenses and permits for the new license year will begin April 15.

The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Marine Fisheries is encouraging fishers to schedule appointments to obtain licenses and permits in April and May, when presales traffic is typically lighter.

Walk-in only service will be available in June.

Under new rules this year, all license sales offices will stop taking customers at 4 p.m. during the last two weeks of June and the first week of July. Service may be slower at license offices during lunch between 12- p.m., according to a division release.

The new license years starts July 1.

Applicants are asked to bring any one of the following current/valid photo identifications:

• State Issued Driver’s License.
• State Issued Identification Card (issued by Department of Motor Vehicles).
• Military ID.
• Passport.
• Resident Alien Card (green card).
• Individuals applying for another license under the authority of Power of Attorney must submit a photocopy of the power of attorney and a current/valid photo ID.

Current/valid state vessel registration or U.S. Coast Guard vessel documentation is also required. Anyone applying for a transfer of ownership with pending U.S. Coast Guard vessel documentation may bring a notarized bill of sale.

Those applying as a business are required to provide the following documents to renew:

• A copy of the original business documents from the Secretary of State in which the business was created.
• A copy of the annual report from the Secretary of State in which the business was created.
• A copy of the written agreement partnership.
• A copy of the assumed name statement from the register of deeds in the county in which the business was created.

You might not have noticed, but the pine trees seem to have been in overdrive the last few years, throwing out pollen like they’re dishing out revenge for every one of their brethren that’s been cut down. Ever.

We all know pollen season is coming when the loblolly pines (Pinus taeda) turn vibrantly green, standing out like the Jolly Green Giant outlined against a cerulean sky. Then they get the yellow candles on the ends of their branches, which some people say look like crosses. Personally, I think they look more like a vampire-warding motion.

“Back! Back,” I say! “Get thee gone, thou foul spawn of Satan!”

One day, you’ll be standing at your kitchen window, washing dishes and minding your own business, enjoying seeing things beginning to green up. Maybe a few early flowers have popped here and there, the cheery yellow of daffodils, or the pinks and purples and blues of hyacinths. A splash of purple where some grape hyacinths are poking their stack of miniature-cannonball-looking, pyramidal heads out. A bit of fragrant jasmine draped over the myrkle bushes.

Then comes the squint and head tilt. “Wow. It’s really hazy out today!” Haze isn’t that unusual around here. Maybe it’s a fog bank moving in off the ocean. Again, not that unusual.

Another squint, and a head tilt in the other direction. A grimace.

“Maybe my windows are just really, really dirty.”

Again, nothing unusual. The way the never-ending wind blows around here, dust is almost as much a factor as during the Dust Bowl. Add in some heavy dews and a fuzz of mildew … and how does that stuff stick to something as slick and impenetrable as glass?

A gust of wind, another cloud of sulfur yellow, and you realize … it’s not haze. It’s not dust. It’s not even merely windows severely in need of some Windex and elbow grease. Nope, this year’s Pollen-palooza has descended.

Like marauding army ants — those in the jungle that swarm over everything in their path, leaving nothing but destruction and desolation in their wake — the pollen drifts and blows.

Your newly applied windshield tint wouldn’t pass inspection, not even if you slipped the mechanic a hefty tip and paid the fine. Activating the windshield-washer fluid and the windshield wipers results in yellow sludge drooling down the sides of your windshield like somebody christened your car with a bottle of Karo syrup.

Whatever color vehicle you have, it’s either become snot green or looks like the primer gray and rust have been awaiting paint so long they’ve faded to a noncolor.

Congratulations on your spring decorating skills! Your porch, sidewalk, and steps have been painted yellow. Walking across the yard means your shoes and the cuffs of your jeans match the trim on your porch rail. Dust puffs with every step, like videos of men walking on the moon. The airborne menace sticks to your face worse than pancake makeup on a rodeo clown.

Better hope you have stock in Kleenex and Benadryl, because you’re fixing to need copious quantities of both! Sniffles and sneezes and wheezes, oh my! And Visine. Can’t forget the red, itchy eyes.

Pollen is necessary. We all know that. Without it, things can’t get pollenated. Although do we really need any more pine trees? Flowers and vegetables get pollenated without all the over-the-top, absolutely outrageous hoopla associated with pines. We’ve all seen cute little bee’s knees all decked out in puffy orange pantaloons as they visit various flowers. The bees and the flowers both seem well satisfied, so what gives?

Why do pines go crazy? Other trees need to be pollenated as well! It’s discrimination, I tell ya! Pine pollen particles are larger than those of hardwoods and theoretically don’t affect allergy sufferers as much as hardwoods. More visibility means pines get blamed. Yeah, right! Sure!

Pine trees are pollenated by the wind, as if we humans weren’t already aware. All you have to do is watch the dense clouds of pollen blowing across fields and roads, obscuring the sky like a haboob of epic proportions. Because they are wind pollenated instead of being pollenated by insects, pines rely on quantity and chance. Less pollen means fewer pines, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, unless you’re a pine tree.

Short winters and warmer weather earlier in the spring make pollen season worse, as does less rainfall. So we’ve had a short winter and an early spring combined with very little rain this year, therefore … pollen-palooza.

But wait! Maybe we should be bottling this stuff instead of battling it.

Pine pollen is supposedly a super food, nutrient-dense and high in vitamins, minerals and antioxidants. Used in China for thousands of years for whole-body wellness and to boost energy levels (among many other things) pine pollen can be consumed in several different forms, powders, capsules and tinctures.

Pass. Hard pass.

If pine pollen was really that good for humans then everyone in eastern North Carolina should be able to cancel their health insurance straightaway. Maybe China has different pines than we do. Who knows?

Native to the Southeastern coastal plains and once the dominant species of pine, longleaf pines (Pinus palustris) made many North Carolina naval suppliers wealthy. Consisting of exports like whole tree trunks for masts and various other much-needed products for wooden ships such as pitch, rosin, turpentine and lumber for shipbuilding, harvesting the slow-growing, fire-resistant trees was a booming operation. Because of this, it’s not unusual to find the remains of tar kilns, or tarkle beds, throughout eastern North Carolina.

The pine is also the state tree, and the Order of the Longleaf Pine is the highest awarded civilian honor. Some famous recipients include Maya Angelou, Billy Graham, Charlie Daniels, and Dale Earnhardt.

Meanwhile, for those of us affected by pollen-palooza , it seems there’s little we can do except grin and bear it. Wash our cars. Spray the porch and the steps off.

Rinse and repeat.

Cheer up! Pollen season can’t last forever.

Before accepting the Trump administration’s $1 billion taxpayer buyout, TotalEnergies fostered a campaign that its wind energy project off the coast of Brunswick County would eventually generate enough electricity to power 300,000 homes in the Carolinas.

“Our team is passionate about creating a clean energy economy and the new opportunities it brings to our local communities,” reads an excerpt from TotalEnergies Carolina Long Bay website. “Our partnerships in the Carolinas are making renewable energy a regional priority, building a stronger future for us all.”

TotalEnergies Carolina Long Bay, a wholly owned subsidiary of the France-based global energy company, “will harness the power of offshore wind to generate abundant energy and significant economic growth for the communities of the Southeast.”

The Interior Department’s announcement Monday that TotalEnergies had accepted a federal buyout of its wind energy leases off the New York and North Carolina coasts is a sharp pivot from the company’s previous narrative on offshore wind in the United States.

TotalEnergies’ chief executive officer and chair of the company’s board of directors said in a Department of Interior release that the decision to relinquish offshore wind development in the United States was made because such projects are “not in the country’s interest.”

Instead, TotalEnergies will invest the refunded money in a liquefied natural gas export terminal in Texas and other fossil fuel projects.

The Trump administration lauded it as an “innovative agreement,” one that is a major win for President Donald Trump, who has made offshore wind the biggest bullseye in his target to dismantle renewable energy projects and replace them with fossil fuel and nuclear power.

“Offshore wind is one of the most expensive, unreliable, environmentally disruptive, and subsidy-dependent schemes ever forced on American ratepayers and taxpayers,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in a release. “We welcome TotalEnergies’ commitment to developing projects that produce dependable, affordable power to lower Americans’ monthly bills while providing secure U.S. baseload power today – and in the future.”

Shortly after taking office in January 2025, Trump issued an executive order barring new offshore wind leases and requiring reviews of existing and permitted wind projects.

Last December, the Trump administration, citing risks to national security, ordered work to stop in five offshore wind energy areas on the East Coast, including Dominion Energy’s 2.6-gigawatt project based in Hampton Roads, Virginia.

Courts have since allowed all five of the projects to operate for the time being until final judgments are rendered in those cases.

Monday’s announcement drew immediate rebuke from opponents who argue the deal sets a dangerous precedent and limits alternative energy production as Americans face rising electricity bills and concerns mount about the amount of power artificial intelligence data centers use.

“Donald Trump truly can’t leave a good thing alone,” BlueGreen Alliance Vice President of Federal Affairs Katie Harris said in a release. “His never-ending vendetta against offshore wind shows that he either doesn’t understand the affordable energy crisis or that he just doesn’t care. Either way, it’s clear he’s never paid his own electricity bill, and he’s determined to raise bills for working people.”

Southeastern Wind Coalition Senior Program Manager Karly Brownfield said that the agreement “feels really counterproductive” at a time when people are closely watching their energy costs at home and at the pump.

“The whole thing is unprecedented and it’s also completely unprecedented to take a lease payment and then refund it in exchange for investment in the natural gas industry. That has never happened before,” she said in a telephone interview earlier this week. “Whether you’re investing in offshore wind or you’re investing in solar or whatever it might be, it’s not a great feeling to know that just because you have a project that’s permitted or a project that’s received all the stamps of approval that it still runs the risk of the plug being pulled halfway down the line. Certainty is what drives business and the more uncertain we make our energy market the more complicated this is all going to become in the long term.”

North Carolina is investing in natural gas, but the gas turbine industry is facing years-out backlogs on turbine orders. Nuclear power, from permitting to production, can take upwards of 15 years to build.

“And the leg up we had with offshore wind was that these projects were leased. Permitting had started. The sites were secured. There was some sort of headway that was made on those projects,” Brownfield said.

The Carolina Long Bay wind energy area spans a little more than 110,000 acres roughly 22 miles offshore, south of Bald Head Island.

The area is split into two leases.

In May 2022, Duke Energy paid $155 million for what equates to a little more than half of the total wind energy area.

In June of that same year, TotalEnergies Renewable USA paid more than $133 million for the adjacent lease.

Projects in the Carolina Long Bay area were anticipated to generate up to 3 gigawatts of electricity, enough to power about 675,000 homes, and estimated to provide more than $4 billion in net economic impacts.

According to information on its website, Duke Energy was collaborating with TotalEnergies on “early development activities.”

When asked for comment, Duke Energy spokesperson Bill Norton responded to Coastal Review by email, writing in part, “Large offshore wind projects involve substantial capital investments and extensive development timelines. It’s reasonable that policy makers question cost-exposure of such projects to customers. We continue to evaluate next steps as it relates to the Carolina Long Bay lease, which is currently maintained by Duke Energy’s nonregulated subsidiary, Cinergy.”

Duke Energy prioritizes energy sources “proven to be the most cost-effective while meeting the growing needs of our customers,” he wrote. “A diversified energy mix is essential to meeting the moment of high demand under all conditions.”

Offshore wind, Brownfield said, offers just that.

“What offshore wind is really, really good at is providing that really stable and predictable energy during extreme weather, and especially at nighttime, when solar is not really working, or when either gas is really constrained or you’re looking at scarcity pricing,” she said. “And, with wind being a free resource, yes, it’s an upfront investment, but it’s a very predictable cost of the project.”

There are still active leases for a wind project off Kitty Hawk that’s owned by Avangrid Renewables and Dominion Energy.

“As far as I know, Avangrid is still very much firm on engaging in North Carolina and they’re still looking at a longer-term future for their lease,” Brownfield said.

As she sees it, the Interior Department’s agreement with TotalEnergies is perhaps less of a setback to offshore wind energy production in the U.S. but rather increases the need for other energy resources.

“Not saying that we don’t need natural gas. SEWC is a very technology-neutral organization,” Brownfield said. “We don’t want to shoot down other resources by any means. But your grid is a lot more balanced when you’ve got a little bit of everything on it. And, right now, we’re on track for our grid to be about 50% gas by 2034, and that’s a lot of gas.”

Second and final in a series

As the North Carolina Coastal Resources Commission’s Science Panel studies the effects of permanent beach erosion control structures such as seawalls and jetties, a critical aspect of the analysis will be looking at the lessons learned.

The commission banned hardened structures on the ocean shoreline in 1985 because of the down-shore erosive effects on the beach. Still, there are numerous examples of such structures in place along different parts of the coast, with varied degrees of effectiveness.

Erosion is not only more severe and longstanding on the Outer Banks, which are more exposed to the power of the open ocean and coastal storms than other parts of the North Carolina coast, it is the most dramatic and unforgiving, especially on Hatteras and Ocracoke islands. But coastal erosion is a statewide issue. To that point, federal beach nourishment projects in North Carolina began in 1965 at Wrightsville Beach and at Carolina Beach, and nourishment at both locations has been done in recent years.

When development and tourism took off on the Outer Banks in the 1980s, it didn’t take long before beach cottages began lining ocean shorelines.

Still, the forces of erosion had no mercy, and Kitty Hawk began losing beachfront properties. After the commission issued a variance to the hardened structures ban in 2003, permitting sheet-piling along N.C. Highway 12 in the beach community, then-Sen. Marc Basnight strongarmed the state’s ban into legislation.

Then in 2011, the North Carolina General Assembly passed a law that permitted four “test” terminal groins and has since expanded the permissible number of groins to seven. To date, four communities submitted permit applications: Figure Eight Island, Ocean Isle Beach, Bald Head Island and Holden Beach. Holden Beach has since withdrawn its application.

Long before the ban, numerous attempts were made to shore up the beach oceanward of the 1870 Cape Hatteras Lighthouse in Buxton. By 1930, the nation’s tallest brick lighthouse was a mere 98 feet from the ocean.

According to National Park Service records, interlocking steel sheet-pile groins were installed in the 1930s on the beach near the lighthouse and reinforced a few years later. Over the years, dunes were built, grasses were planted, the beach was nourished, revetment and sandbag walls were installed.

In 1969, the U.S. Navy installed three reinforced concrete groins to protect its base, which was adjacent to the lighthouse at the time. But the erosion continued. More sandbags were put in place; more beach nourishment was done. The Navy left in the 1980s. While the National Park Service officially gave up its beach nourishment and dune stabilization efforts in 1973, it continued trying in ensuing years to protect the lighthouse from the sea with rip-rap, artificial seagrass, sandbags and a scour-mat apron.

Finally, after much study and public debate, with the ocean lapping at its foundation, in 1999 the lighthouse was relocated about a half mile from the beach.

Fast-forward a quarter-century and, since September 2025, 19 unoccupied beach houses near that same beach in Buxton have collapsed into the ocean.

Escalating beach erosion along the state’s entire coast, but especially in Buxton, has put difficult discussions about lifting the hardened shorelines ban back on the table. The few existing permanent erosion-control structures built over the years on North Carolina beaches have yielded mixed results.

Oregon Inlet

One of the most successful examples of a terminal groin doing what it was intended to do, and with relatively minimal harm, is the 3,125-foot terminal groin and 625-foot revetment built in 1991 to protect the N.C. Highway 12 tie-in at the Herbert C. Bonner Bridge, which has since been replaced and renamed the Marc Basnight Bridge. The $13.4 million groin is substantial — ranging from 110 to 170 feet wide at its base and 25 feet wide at its landward end, and 39 feet wide at its seaward end — and was built to withstand waves as high as 15 feet, according to an analysis done by the state Division of Coastal Management, “North Carolina’s Terminal Groins at Oregon Inlet and Fort Macon,  Descriptions and Discussions.”

Located on the south side of Oregon Inlet at the north edge of Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge land, the groin placement encouraged sand buildup, or accretion, landward, resulting in a wide expansion of 50 acres of sandy property on the inlet side of the historic state-owned Oregon Inlet Life-Saving Station. The building is vacant, but has been weatherized to preserve it for future use.

The groin site and surrounding beach have been regularly monitored by state and federal coastal scientists. Studies have shown that the structure has likely increased shoaling of a spit on the Bodie island side and deepening of the channel. Yet, the groin has cause little if any destructive downstream erosion while adequately protecting the highway and bridge infrastructure.

But the report warned that within the next 20 years or so, the continued southward migration of the Bodie Island spit could push the inlet’s main navigational channel up against the terminal groin structure itself.

“If this were to occur, the result would be severe scour and an increase in the maintenance necessary to preserve the threatened integrity of the structure itself,” according to the document.

Beaufort Inlet/Fort Macon

Since Fort Macon was constructed in 1834, about 25 erosion-control structures adjacent to Beaufort Inlet have been built, including groins, breakwaters, timber cribbing, sand-fencing and seawalls, as well as multiple beach nourishment projects, according to the terminal groin report.  The first phase of the terminal groin project began in 1961 and included a 530-foot seawall, a 250-foot revetment and 720-foot long, 6-foot-high terminal groin. Phase II, beginning in 1965, extended the groin 410 feet oceanward, and another groin was built west of the revetment to address extensive soundside erosion, while 93,000 cubic yards of sand was placed on the ocean beach.

The third phase, started in 1970, extended the terminal groin another 400 feet, to a total of 1,530 feet long. A 480-foot-long stone groin was built to stabilize the beach fill, and another 100,000 cubic yards of sand was placed on the ocean beach. Total costs for the three-phase project was $1.35 million.

Effects of the project include increased wave energy along the Fort Macon State Park and Bogue Banks area, and continued increases in wave energy were predicted. A sediment deficit has created erosion on the inlet’s western shoreline. Meanwhile, the sand spit at Fort Macon has migrated into the western bank of the navigation channel, indicating that the terminal groin has become inefficient at trapping sediment.

“Without constant beach nourishment, the terminal groin would no longer perform as observed historically and potentially fail altogether,” the report concluded.

Buxton

Dare County is planning a nourishment project in Buxton, as well as restoration of one of the Navy’s three abandoned reinforced sheet-pile groins that had been installed in 1969. According to the recent application to repair the southernmost groin, which is 50% or more intact, that groin had been lengthened in 1982 on the landward side by 300 feet, and armor stone was added two years later. New sheet piles and additional scour protection were added to the structures in 1994. The other two groins in the original groin field are too damaged to qualify under the Coastal Resources Commission’s “50% rule” that permits repairs.

Dare County Manager Bobby Outten has said publicly that the county is under no illusions that the project planned for this summer will solve the erosion issue for good. But the hope is that it will serve as a Band-Aid long enough to find a more permanent solution to erosion that is now so severe it is threatening the livelihoods of community residents and the island’s tourism economy, as well as N.C Highway 12.

Retired East Carolina University professor and veteran coastal geologist Dr. Stanley Riggs, who has studied the Outer Banks since the 1970s, agreed that the fact that the lighthouse had to be relocated to save it illustrates why Buxton’s erosion is not going to be easy to tame for long, with or without groins. When the first coastal survey from Virginia to Ocracoke was done in 1852, the original 1802 Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, which was destroyed, had been 1,000 feet from the shoreline, Riggs recently told Coastal Review. All told, the shoreline has receded 3,000 feet, or about two-thirds of a mile, at the cape, he said.

“And it’s been constant,” Riggs said. “It oscillates a little bit, but the main direction has been constant.”

As Riggs explained, offshore just north of the motel area in Buxton, there is an underwater rock structure that is set at an oblique angle relative to the barrier island. Similar “old capes” are also off Avon and Rodanthe, he said. The rocks are under as much as 50 feet of water, and they dictate how the waves refract there.

“And so, if you fly over it, and you get the right angle down there, what you see is a series of cusps, and one side of that cusp will be stable, the other side will be highly erosional,” he said. Groins will only make the eroding side erode faster. And when there are permanent or semipermanent structures along the beach, the shore face — the part that is under water — starts to erode and gets steeper and steeper, he said. And the steeper it gets, the more severe the overwash and the more difficult it is to hold the sand in place. That’s a big reason why beach nourishment is having to be done more frequently.

Not only does the Outer Banks stick out farther into the Atlantic, there is also a narrower continental shelf, which allows the bigger waves to come ashore from the open ocean without the wider “speed bump” needed to dissipate the power.

There’s no negotiating with the ocean, Riggs said. Considering the combination of coastal dynamics at play in Buxton, efforts to control erosion will continue to fail.

“It’s that land-sea-air interface that is really the highest energy place that we’ve got on our planet,” Riggs said. “And there’s some things you can do there. There’s some things you shouldn’t do there, you can’t do there, and it’s a matter of understanding how that system works.”

Ocracoke Island

A persistent erosion hot spot on the north end of the island along N.C. Highway 12, the only road between the Hatteras Ferry Docks and Ocracoke Village, has been patched on and off for decades by increasing numbers of ever larger numbers and size of sandbags.

But even the type of large, new, trapezoidal bags permitted at Ocracoke, Pea Island and Mirlo Beach have not held up as expected, according to a presentation provided by Paul Williams of the North Carolina Department of Transportation at the February Coastal Resources Commission meeting.

Williams presented details at the meeting of NCDOT’s revised request to increase the base of the sandbags from 20 to 30 feet and the height from 6 feet to 10 feet, to better protect them from being undermined by waves.

The newer bags have open ends at the top, which proved to be a problem at Pea Island, Williams told the commission. The Pea Island Refuge at the Visitor Center, he added, faces similar risks now to that seen at Mirlo Beach in Rodanthe in the years before the hotspot was bypassed with completion of the Rodanthe “Jug-Handle” Bridge.

“The performance has not been what we anticipated,” he said, describing how they were flooded at the top, which caused the sandbags to deflate. “This product, there may be some modifications that can be made to make them more resilient.”

Some of the new bags were also installed along with traditional sandbags at Ocracoke, and they’re still covered, Williams said, but roughly 1 mile of sandbags along N.C. 12 are at risk of being undermined during the next big storm.

“So it’s basically to give us more latitude on different products, to try to protect the roadway out there better than traditional sandbags have,” Willams told Coastal Review after the meeting. “We’ve used them for decades out there, and especially Mirlo, they really got tossed around during storms. We were looking to find a more resilient product, and we’re working on evaluating other options out there.”

The new sandbags with an opening at the top are quicker to fill, he said. They’ve worked at other areas, but conditions elsewhere are not as fierce.

“When you’re on the Outer Banks, you’re under constant pressure during some of these storm events, because we’ll have a storm set up on the coast and grind for days at a time,” Williams said. “And every tide cycle is just steadily pulling sand out of the bags, and we need to have some way to stop that.”

Even though many of the traditional sandbags without the troublesome opening are still in place at Ocracoke, Williams said that about half of them, or about 1,000, have been exposed and need to be replaced. Another issue on the island is the limited amount of sand available to cover.

Sandbags, which are considered temporary erosion-control structures that are permitted parallel to shore to protect imminently threatened roads or structures, have rules about color and size, but those rules have been notoriously abused with regard to the “temporary” part, with extensions often adding up to decades at a site, making them “hardened structures” in everything but name.

Before Nags Head in 2011 started nourishing its eroded beaches in South Nags Head, for instance, even battered and torn sandbags weren’t removed for years, and property owners often successfully sued the state to keep longstanding stacked rows of protective bags in place in front of their oceanfront homes on the eroded beach.

As sea levels continue to rise, storms intensify and erosion accelerates, even sandbags as fallbacks in the absence of other impermissible erosion-control structures are becoming less effective, as evidenced by photographs of huge piles of sandbags lined up against undermined houses at North Topsail Beach.

Ocean Isle Beach

Responding to the state legislature’s repeal of the ban on hardened erosion-control structures on the coast, Ocean Isle Beach in 2011 began the planning process to pursue permits to install a terminal groin at Shallotte Inlet to stem erosion that for decades had chewed away at the island’s east end. Five years later, state and federal approval was in hand to build a 750-foot-long terminal groin, but environmental groups in 2017 filed a lawsuit to stop the project. A ruling in March 2021 in the 4th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court’s ruling that the project alternatives were properly considered. By April 2022, the $11 million terminal groin was completed.

Today, a diminished beach remains in front of multi-million-dollar homes that were built after the groin was in place. Rows of sandbags block the surf from reaching some of the oceanfront homes, and several lots remain vacant because there is no longer enough property left to meet setback requirements.

In November, the Coastal Resources Commission allowed the owners of eroding vacant oceanfront lots to use larger sandbags to protect their properties.

Interest in future terminal groins

The Village of Bald Head Island, the first community to build a terminal groin after the “test groin” law passed, was issued a permit in October 2014 to build the erosion-control structure, which was completed in 2015.

North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality monitoring of the project after its completion did not turn up significant issues requiring corrective measures, according to its January 2024 report.

“While ongoing post-construction monitoring performed by the permittee has not identified any significant issues that would require corrective or mitigative measures, the Village performed a maintenance beach nourishment event, received nourishment from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ regularly scheduled Wilmington Harbor maintenance project, and is currently seeking permit authorization for a second Village-sponsored maintenance nourishment event,” according to the document.

Six other communities have expressed “varying degrees” of interest in building a terminal groin project, including North Topsail Beach and Figure Eight Island, as noted in the report.

First in a series

Something potentially and significantly consequential is underway now in North Carolina that could alter management of the state’s increasingly battered Atlantic coastline.

The state Coastal Resources Commission’s Science Panel is in the process of finalizing an analysis of beach erosion-control structures, a report that is expected to be submitted to the commission in June. Although the 10-member advisory panel’s study is meant to inform policymakers of their options, some fear – or hope – that it’s the first step toward repealing the state’s longstanding ban on hardened shoreline structures.

“Alarms are sounding in nearly all of our oceanfront counties,” state Division of Coastal Management Director Tancred Miller said at the commission’s meeting in November at Atlantic Beach, referring to threats from accelerating beach erosion. “Nourishment costs continue to rise and the lifespan of many of these projects is painfully short. Infrastructure is increasingly vulnerable, and some communities are very concerned.”

Since September 2025, the Hatteras Island village of Buxton, home of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse and the massive corner of wild beach known as Cape Point, has seen 19 unoccupied oceanfront homes collapse into the surf. In addition to a beach nourishment project, Dare County this summer is planning to restore the only salvageable groin of a 57-year-old groin field in an attempt to prolong the project’s lifespan.

In response to calls from Dare and Hyde counties, among others, to allow more options to address erosion, the division last winter asked the Coastal Resources Commission to review the structures.

“We must approach these challenges with open minds, innovation, and balanced pragmatism,” Miller urged. “We must take a critical view of our past and current practices, embrace what continues to succeed, and replace practices that are no longer working.”

But even the draft outline that the Science Panel submitted at the commission’s February meeting,  titled “Report on The Effects of Hard Structures on Sandy, Open-ocean Coastlines,” revealed the complexity involved in redirecting, blocking, deflecting, buffering, or absorbing the power of an open ocean energized by high winds, with forceful longshore and cross-shore currents feeding beaches with sand here, starving them of sand there.

“We’ve broken this into two categories according to how these erosion-management measures function; essentially all erosion-management approaches fall into two categories,” CRC Science Panel Chair Laura Moore told the commission. “One is structures or approaches that trap sand, and the second is structures that that really harden the shoreline.”

While the report will provide details about protective barriers and techniques, she said, it is less about offering remedies than providing information about effects of each option. It will also include comparisons to beach-restoration methods such as nourishment and living shorelines.

Erosion has been a fact of life along North Carolina’s 320-mile-long ocean shoreline for centuries, but before coastal development and tourism went into overdrive, the Coastal Resources Commission, the 13-member body that sets coastal policy in the state, took steps to preserve beaches.

In 1985, after studying the down-shore erosive effects of seawalls, bulkheads, groins, jetties and sandbags, the commission established a policy banning permanent hardened structures on the ocean coast. Sandbags were permitted as temporary structures.

Upheld in court in 2000, the ban was codified as law three years later by the North Carolina General Assembly. Then in 2011, a law was passed that permitted a limited number of terminal groins — sand-trapping barriers built near inlets or at the end of an island. Much of the ban, however, remains the law of the land. Environmentalists and countless coastal scientists have credited the limits on hard structures for preserving the state’s coastal wildlife and beautiful natural beaches, which attract millions of tourists every year. But critics blame the ban for limiting the ability to protect shorelines, as well as private and public property and infrastructure.

No magic, one-size-fits-all formula exists to address erosion, Moore said, and many factors will need to be weighed.

“There are approaches and strategies that can either shift the erosion problem to another adjacent location, or in some cases, we can slow the problem down,” said Moore, who is professor of coastal geomorphology at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill. “We can create more time to make perhaps bigger adjustments that are likely to be needed going forward.”

With seas rising and Atlantic storms intensifying over recent decades as a result of climate change, erosion on the state’s barrier island beaches has been happening faster and more dramatically, especially along the high-energy Outer Banks coastline, where erosion rates at some locations – as severe as an annual average of 14 feet – are among the highest on the East Coast. Dozens of oceanfront houses on eroded beaches, pounded and undermined by surging surf, have fallen into the sea. At the same time, more Outer Banks inlets and waterways are filling with sand, clogging channels that until the recent past had always been navigable.

But the entire coast has been experiencing its own degree of changing and increasingly destructive conditions, and the pressure has been building to find ways to prevent or mitigate damages at different locations, each with different conditions.

“I would say most of the North Carolina coastline is either barrier or behaves like barrier,” Moore told Coastal Review. “Certainly, subsidence in the north is a factor that’s going to make the relative rate of sea level rise a little higher. But there’s also the shape and the orientation of the shoreline and the wave approach angles and the wave energy and how those drive longshore sediment transport gradients, and how much sand is coming into a stretch of coast versus how much is leaving. Also, a really big factor is how frequently in the past the coast has been nourished.”

The final report is to be centered on sand-trapping and shoreline-hardening structures, Moore said. But it will also look at other widely used erosion management tactics, ranging from avoidance with setbacks or relocation, sand trapping with fences or beach plants, and building the beach with sand nourishment and dunes.

The two-category design of the document is focused on function of the structures, she said, “because there are hundreds, maybe even thousands, of coastal erosion management approaches out there, and they all essentially fall into two buckets.” What the panel of volunteer scientists cannot do, she added, is analyze each approach.

“What we are trying to do is provide a better, clearer explanation of how structures function and what their effects are,” Moore said.

Moore emphasized that the science panel’s task is to provide an assessment of structures on the coastline. But she understands the urgency people feel for finding a “solution” rather than a range of options.

“And although we’re not providing recommendations, I do want to highlight that we will be discussing tradeoffs, and I think that’s really important, because whether an approach has benefits or negative effects depends on the perspective and goals of the beholder,” she said. “We certainly know that there are efforts afoot to repeal the ban. And again, it’s not our job to say whether that should or should not happen. It’s our job to lay out in a clear way what the tradeoffs are, given how these different approaches to mitigating erosion function.”

Next in the series: How have hardened structures currently installed on North Carolina beaches performed?

Part of an ongoing series on coastal North Carolina’s observance of America’s 250th.

Tensions began to brew between the colonists and Britain in the early 1760s after the Seven Years War, also called the French and Indian War, in North America. The British decided to impose new taxes on the colonies to recoup the funds that went to the war, but instead incited widespread protest.

Britain passed the Stamp Act March 22, 1765, and then in June 1767, the Townshend Act imposed duties on paint, paper, tea and other commodities. British troops attempted to enforce the Townshend duties in Boston October 1768, ultimately leading in March 1770 to the Boston Massacre that left five dead.

The British, to help the struggling United East India Co., passed the Tea Act in May 1773, allowing the company to import and sell tea to the colonies duty-free, undercutting the Dutch who had been smuggling tea in, and creating a monopoly.

Then, on Nov. 28, 1773, the Dartmouth sails into Boston Harbor, and three more ships were expected to arrive, all carrying chests of tea.

Over the next few weeks, colonists met to figure out a way to fight back. On the night of Dec. 16, 1773, around four dozen men impersonating Native Americans boarded the ships and dumped 342 chests of tea into the harbor.

Almost a year later, 51 women in Edenton took a more peaceful approach to protesting the tea tax by drafting a document explaining their boycott. The women committed to no longer drinking tea or wearing British cloth because of taxation without representation and sent the final copy to England.

“This action forms one of the earliest-known political actions written and organized by women in the American colonies,”  the Edenton Historical Commission explains. “The events of the ‘Edenton Tea Party’ today form an iconic moment in our nation’s history, when a community of women used their own voices to stand by their loved ones and risk the wrath of the Crown by protesting injustice.”

The women of Wilmington responded to British taxation with a similar protest in the spring of 1775, though little is known about the gathering to publicly burn tea.

Burgwin-Wright House and Gardens Assistant Museum Director Hunter Ingram told Coastal Review that the Wilmington Tea Party is an oft-overlooked event in the final days before the start of the American Revolution.

In the port city of Wilmington, the import of tea had ground to a halt by the spring of 1775.

The Continental Congress had forbidden tea from coming through the colonies’ ports, so it had become a scarce commodity, he said. That is why events like the Boston Tea Party and the Edenton Tea Party were so crucial to the cause of resistance.

“Tea was hard to come by and sacrificing it sent a message to those who were already hurting from the disruption of its trade,” Ingram continued.

The Wilmington Tea Party happened in the spring of 1775 and is only documented in one place: the writings of Janet Schaw, a Scottish woman who was traveling through Wilmington to visit her brother.

“She wrote a single line about her observations of the tea resistance in Wilmington, which she did not support. ‘The Ladies have burnt their tea in a solemn procession, but they had delayed however ’til the sacrifice was not very considerable, as I do not think anyone offered above a quarter of a pound,’” Ingram said. 

While the simple description doesn’t give many specifics, Schaw was clear in what the protestors did, Ingram said. “Burning the tea was unique, and it meant the women of Wilmington, even in the eleventh hour before the outbreak of war, were willing to set a precious privilege blaze in the name of revolution.”

The Burgwin-Wright House is the oldest and largest historic site in Wilmington, comprised of four of the eight remaining colonial structures in town, Ingram said of the house’s importance during the Revolution.

“We have three buildings from the city’s first jail, circa 1744, and the mansion home built in 1770 on top of the main jail building after the prisoners were relocated. It has sat at the corner of Third and Market streets for 256 years, and it has watched Wilmington grow from small-but-mighty port city into a thriving town that was, for a time, the most populous area in the state,” Ingram explained.

“The colonial era in Wilmington doesn’t always get its due, but the surviving home built for merchant and politician John Burgwin can tell that story –– and has been for generations,” said Ingram.

Ingram explained that that the Burgwin-Wright House had partnered with the National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution’s Wilmington Ladies Tea Walk Chapter to commemorate the 251st anniversary of the protest with the “Wilmington Ladies Tea Walk.”

The Wilmington Ladies Tea Walk event begins at 10 a.m. Thursday, March 26, at 224 Market St. the program will include remarks from a few historic organizations and officials and samples of a brand-new tea blend by Cape Fear Spice Merchants.

“Guests can walk through the gardens, enjoy a presentation about Janet Schaw and then join members of the Daughters of the American Revolution and the Sons of the American Revolution as they walk, in a solemn procession, to river to burn tea in commemoration of this act of resistance on the eve of revolution,” he said.

The historic home is a good fit for the Wilmington Ladies Tea Walk because the site likely would have been “witness to that solemn procession into history, and the act of resistance that helped give Wilmington a reputation for rebellion even before the war.”

Schaw was also a Loyalist, as was Burgwin, and it’s “likely she would have visited the house during her time in Wilmington. This was a home built for a wealthy guest list, and Janet would have qualified,” he said.

Though the program is offered at no charge, registration is required. Call 910-762-0570 to register.

“If you can’t get in this year, we hope to make it a recurring event through multiyear A250 celebration,” Ingram said, referring to the state’s official celebration of 250 years of independence, America 250 NC, a program under the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.

Elected officials in Leland seek to tighten language related to the town’s purchasing guidelines following a highly contentious, well-publicized investigation into one of their own.

The Leland Town Council voted Wednesday night to direct the town attorney to consult with the North Carolina Local Government Commission about the town’s procurement policies and ask for suggestions on amending those policies with respect to the role of elected officials.

The unanimous vote was cast in a special-called meeting to discuss a legal advisory opinion the town’s attorney released following his investigation into Councilman Frank Pendleton, a relative newcomer to the town board.

Attorney Steve Coggins determined in his 175-page report that Pendleton’s effort earlier this year to expedite the delivery of a laptop the town signed off on buying him did not break any laws.

But Pendleton’s attempt did violate the town’s policies, Coggins concluded, telling council members Wednesday night that the matter was a “learning lesson.”

After he highlighted his findings to the council, Coggins thanked Pendleton for taking the time, one-on-one, to explain his side of the story.

“I appreciate it very much his willingness to do that and his candor with that,” Coggins said. “It certainly made this most unpleasant task more palatable and for which I extend my gratitude for that, as well as to staff who spent time in educating me.”

Pendleton, who asked for an opportunity to speak when the mayor asked for a motion to adjourn the meeting, did not reciprocate, instead rebuking Coggins and Town Manager David Hollis.

“When you look at this entire situation, if it weren’t for the fact that this process has needlessly wasted a huge amount of time and, more importantly, a great deal of taxpayer monies, it would be laughable,” he began. “This entire situation speaks volumes to the professionalism on the part of this council, the council attorney and especially the town manager.”

Pendleton refuted various points Coggins identified as undisputed facts in his report, disputing he called the laptop vendor on Jan. 21 to try and expedite the time in which the laptop would be delivered. When he made that call, he was under the impression that the delivery time would be up to 13 weeks.

“I called simply to verify the lead time from the vendor and to see if the town manager had lied to me,” Pendleton said. “As it turned out, someone was lying because the vendor told me that the computer would be delivered between January 30 and February 4, which would have been two weeks from the delivery date or from the order date. So, someone was indeed lying. Either the town manager was lying to me, or the vendor was lying to the staff.”

“What actually happened, but was conveniently left out,” of the report, he continued, “was that the vendor called me back two days later on January 23 to tell me that the delivery would actually be pushed back two additional weeks. This would put it at four weeks from the original date, not 13-plus weeks.”

Pendleton said he did not ask or attempt to authorize canceling the town’s laptop order.

“The question that should have been asked when the town manager was made aware of the conversations between myself and the vendor, why didn’t he handle this situation like the CEO he claims to be?” he continued. “Why didn’t he act like a man and pick up the phone and call me? He could have said, ‘Mr. Pendleton, you shouldn’t be speaking with the vendor and, going forward, please director those questions to me.’ Why didn’t he tell me about the procurement policy that applies to town employees regarding purchases when he provided me the name of the vendor and the specs on the computer? No, he chose to attempt to discredit me by implying that I did something that I didn’t do. It certainly appears that this was a case built on entrapment, political meddling, violations of employee code of ethics and insubordination on the part of the town manager.”

Meeting attendees sitting in the council’s chambers broke out in applause when Pendleton, who was sworn in last December to serve his first term on the council, finished speaking.

They jeered when his fellow Councilman Bob Campbell fired back, “I absolutely agree somebody was lying. And, in my opinion, just from what I read, sounds more like you.”

Mayor Brenda Bozeman repeatedly hammered her gavel to quiet the audience as other council members questioned Pendleton about his actions.

“I was hoping this was going to be put to bed tonight,” Bozeman said. “I’m tired of it. It’s an issue we need to get rid of.”

Councilwoman Veronica Carter reminded the board of a previous discussion it had about how, in the town’s 37-year history, nothing like this issue had occurred until now.

“I think we all want it to end, but we don’t want it to come back to bite us later,” Carter said. “We haven’t put it to bed if we haven’t come up with any change.”

AHOSKIE — Between 35 and 40 protestors gathered on a downtown street corner Saturday to call attention to the proposed reopening of the Rivers Correctional Facility in Winton as a federal immigrant detention center.

While the number protesting was modest, they were buoyed by the overwhelmingly supportive response from passing drivers.

The 257-acre, 1,450-bed facility shuttered in 2021 is being considered as a facility to house people seized by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and suspected of not being in compliance with U.S. immigration law. The facility is owned by international private prison company GEO Group, “the largest detention services provider to ICE, with nearly 40 years of operational experience under ICE contracts,” according to the American Civil Liberties Union.

The ACLU on Jan. 29 released the information it had obtained via a Freedom of Information Act process, and within three weeks, during the Hertford County Board of Commissioners Feb. 16 meeting, at least 10 people spoke out against the prison plan.

One individual, while not expressing support, noted that the decision about the fate of the Riverside prison was in the federal government’s hands, leaving county officials little, if any, recourse.

County commissioners, as of this publication, had declined to take a position on the property. Soon after the Feb. 16 commissioners meeting, Coastal Review asked County Manager Bill Shanahan whether he had been contacted about reopening the facility.

“I can tell you that the county manager has not been contacted,” he said, indicating that he had no more to add.

In an email following Saturday’s protest, Shanahan said nothing had changed.

Caroline Stephenson, who helped organize the protest, told Coastal Review that while she opposed ICE moving in, she had also been thinking about the “implications for citizens and residents,” she said. “I think the implications are not great.”

She said the facility would overwhelm the sheriff’s office, emergency medical services and hospital. “We’re a really small, rural county in terms of the amount of capacity that we have,” she explained.

Hertford County had fewer than 22,000 people when the last census was taken, and the official estimate was fewer than 20,000 as of 2024. Its population is roughly 58.4% Black, 36% white, 6.7% Hispanic or Latino, 1.9% Native American and 1.2% Asian. Nearly 23% of residents live in poverty and the per capita income is less than $29,000.

Walking along the protest line, Bobby Riddick used his cellphone to record the protest, planning, he said, to use it on his Facebook page. As cars passed by honking in support, he talked about the challenges of organizing a protest in Hertford County.

“It’s a very small area. A lot of people here have been here all their life,” he said. “They’re not used to protesting. They’re not used to fighting for their rights.”

Stephenson agreed, telling Coastal Review, “A lot of people, I think, are unsure or afraid of using their First Amendment rights and any of their rights that are provided under the Constitution. I think it’s important to educate people about their rights, but also about the dangers of not speaking.”

Standing with two friends behind a sign reading “ICE Out,” C.S. Brown High School senior Bird Lashbrook spoke clearly about her feelings.

“I have a voice that should be put to use, and I’m happy to give my support,” she said.

In 2021, President Biden, citing Justice Department reports that found private prisons were often less safe and had lower safety standards, as compared to publicly managed facilities, ordered the Justice Department to no longer renew contracts with private prison companies.

Construction and other projects expected to affect waters or wetlands will now be vetted through a newly implemented state process.

Depending on a its impacts to streams and wetlands, some projects will get to bypass a 30-day notice as part of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Water Resources Clean Water Act 401 general certifications updates that took effect March 15.

The new certificate of coverage process is anticipated to apply to “many project” currently requiring individual Clean Water Act Section 401 water quality certifications, according to a DEQ release.

Applicants must still apply to the division through the new process, but those that meet thresholds and conditions under the general certification will receive a letter of concurrence, which will allow the project to proceed without a 30-day notice.

Project located in sensitive areas, those with a significant quantity of impacts to waters or wetlands, or those that cannot meet the general certification conditions must still go through the process of a 30-day public notice and project-specific decision letter to obtain individual 401 water quality certification.

The state’s update reflects corresponding U.S. Army Corps of Engineers 404 Nationwide Permits, which have been modified following a 2023 Supreme Court ruling that changed the definition of “waters of the United States,” or WOTUS.

That same year, the North Carolina General Assembly passed session law directing the state Environmental Management Commission to adopt a rule that aligns the state’s definition of wetlands to those of the federal definition.

The latest definition excludes noncontiguous wetlands, or those that are not connected to navigable waters.

The Corps has extended a one-year grace period to projects it has approved for permitting to complete impacts to waters outlined under their existing federal permit. New certifications will not be required for those projects.

DEQ advises permittees to check with their Corps representative to confirm whether the grace period is applicable to their projects.

The division has included a list of frequently asked questions online for general information.

Whether its a nature hike, a stormwater tour at North Carolina’s premiere coastal university, or helping a town’s staff permanently mark storm drains, there’s something for nearly everyone during Cape Fear Creek Week.

Creek Week kicks off on Sunday and goes through March 21, offering opportunities to connect with, celebrate, and care for local waterways of the Cape Fear Region.

Throughout the week, participants are invited to play Cape Fear Creek Week virtual bingo by completing activities for a chance to win a swag bag.

The events lineup starts Sunday with a birding walk from 10-11 a.m. in Leland, where participants will be given tips on how to identify local and migrating birds. Registration for this event is through the town of Leland.

On Monday, gather beneath cypress trees in Wallace Park at 2110 Market St. in Wilmington for a scavenger hunt from 10 a.m. until 11 a.m. The Alliance for Cape Fear Trees will have resources on hand to share tips on how to properly plant and care for trees.

The University of North Carolina Wilmington is hosting that afternoon a behind-the-scenes tour of its stormwater-control measures, including rain gardens, permeable pavement systems and other sustainable features that reduce runoff and support healthier waterways. This event will be held 2-3 p.m. Monday at 4935 Riegel Road. Registration is required.

On Monday evening, discover ways to diagnose and restore wetland habitats through Habitat Fixer Uppers with Fort Fisher Aquarium, a program scheduled for 6-7:30 p.m. at 1212 Magnolia Village Way in Leland. You may register here.

Tuesday, Cape Fear Public Utility Authority will host a tour of its Southside Water Reclamation Facility, 3436 River Road in Wilmington. Registered participants must be age 5 or older.

Events for Wednesday include a bird hike at Burnt Mill Creek 8-9:30 a.m., an opportunity to work alongside employees of Leland’s engineering department 4-5:30 p.m. to permanently mark the town’s storm drains, a children’s scavenger hunt 5-6 p.m. at Cypress Cover Park in Leland, and resilient coastal communities program public meeting drop in between 5p.m. and 7 p.m. at the Skyline Center in downtown Wilmington.

Events later in the week include a golden hour guided tour by paddleboat in Greenfield Lake Park, a walking tour at Pages Creek, a sustainability brewery tour at Mad Mole Brewing (for those 21 and older), a Brunswick Nature Park tour in Winnabow, and a cleanup at Greenfield Lake Park.

Details, including all dates, times and locations, are available on the N.C. Cooperative Extension website.

Cape Fear Creek Week is a collaboration between the N.C. Cooperative Extension, Wilmington’s Heal our Waterways, Leland, Cape Fear River Watch, New Hanover County Soil and Water Conservation District, Cape Fear Public Utility Authority, Coastal Land Trust, Cape Fear Birding Observatory, Plastic Ocean Project, Mad Mole Brewery, UNCW Sustainability, and Alliance for Cape Fear Trees.

The North Carolina Environmental Management Commission has scheduled a series of public hearings in select cities beginning next month on proposed PFAS and 1,4-dioxane monitoring and minimization rules.

In all, six hearings have been set, three of which will focus on proposed rules for discharges of three per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances through wastewater into North Carolina’s surface waters and three on proposed rules for monitoring and minimizing 1,4-dioxane in wastewater discharges from certain facilities into surface waters.

A public comment period for each set of proposed rules will kick off on March 16 and continue until June 15.

Under the proposed PFAS rules, all major and minor industrial direct dischargers, and significant industrial users that discharge to publicly owned treatment works, would be required to monitor and implement “minimization activities required to eliminate or significantly reduce” discharges of PFOS, PFOA, and GenX within a period of anywhere between three and five years.

Discharge limits for those specific PFAS have yet to be determined.

PFAS exposure has been linked to a number of adverse health impacts to people, including thyroid disease, increased cholesterol, liver damage, and different types of cancers.

More than 3 million North Carolinians are estimated to drink tap water containing PFAS levels above the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency health-based standard scheduled to go into effect in the coming years, according to the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality.

Public hearings on the proposed rules for the three PFAS are scheduled as follows:

• April 7 at 6 p.m. in Ferguson Auditorium, AB-Tech Community College, 19 Tech Drive, Asheville.
• April 20 at 6 p.m. in the Archdale Building, ground floor hearing room, 512 N. Salisbury St., Raleigh. Public parking will be available after 5 p.m. at parking deck 64 across North Salisbury Street from the Archdale Building.
• April 23 at 6 p.m. in Wilmington City Hall at Skyline Center, first floor conference center, 929 North Front St., Wilmington. Parking is available in the south lot using the Brunswick Street entrance. Attendees requiring American with Disabilities Act access should park in the visitor lot.

Written comments are being accepted by email to publiccomments@deq.nc.gov with the subject title “PFAS minimization” or by mail to Karen Preston, DEQ-DWR NPDES Permitting Section, 1617 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC 27699-1617.

Comments will be accepted on the proposed rule adoptions and associated regulatory impact analysis. The commission is also accepting comments on specific questions including:

• Whether it would be scientifically defensible and advisable to establish a screening threshold above the lowest reporting concentration for PFOS, PFOA and GenX that could serve as a trigger for ongoing monitoring and minimization requirements.
• Whether the applicability of the PFAS monitoring and minimization rule should be limited to industrial dischargers associated with a standard industry classification (SIC) or North American Industry Classification System (NAICS) codes known to be linked to PFAS use or discharge.

Hearings on proposed rules for monitoring and minimizing 1,4-dioxane, a federally deemed likely human carcinogen, in wastewater discharges into surface waters from certain facilities have been scheduled for the following dates:

• April 9 at 6 p.m. in the Catawba County St. Stephens Branch Library, 3225 Springs Road, Hickory.
• April 14 at 6 p.m. at Fayetteville Technology Community College, Tony Rand Student Center multipurpose room, 2220 Hull Road, Fayetteville.
• May 12 at 6 p.m. in the Percy H. Sears Applied Technologies Building Auditorium, Guilford Technical Community College, 1201 Bonner Drive, Jamestown.

Written comments on the proposed rules for 1,4-dixoane may be submitted via email to publiccomments@deq.nc.gov with the subject heading “1,4-dioxane minimization,” or by mail to Bridget Shelton, DEQ-DWR Planning Section, 1611 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, N.C., 27699-1611.

The EMC will also be accepting specific comments on the proposed 1,4-dixoane minimization rules to include:

• Whether a screening threshold above the lowest reported concentration (currently 1 microgram per liter) for 1,4-dioxane would be appropriate as a trigger for ongoing monitoring and minimization planning.
• whether the applicability of the 1,4-dioxane monitoring and minimization rules should be expanded beyond the currently proposed scope of dischargers with certain standard industry classification or North American Industry Classification System codes to include all industrial dischargers.

Sign-in and speaker registration will begin at 5 p.m. at each of the hearings.

Based on attendance, speaking time may be limited to allow everyone an opportunity to be heard. The commission will accept written comments and copies of prepared remarks at each hearing.

HERTFORD — Even as the proposed Mid-Currituck bridge project has been uncharacteristically zipping along in the planning process, a new analysis of two revenue options has cast doubts on the project’s future, with serious concerns raised about the latest estimated construction costs that hover around $1.2 billion.

The North Carolina Department of Transportation presented a report Feb. 18 to the Albemarle Regional Planning Organization comparing a traditional toll project and a “P3” toll project, as required by federal law, to determine “value for money.” With a traditional toll project, the state is responsible for financial, operational and construction-related risks. A “P3” toll project is where a private sector/single developer has responsibility for revenue, financial, operational and construction-related risks.

“The base case financial results from the comparative analysis reveal that neither the Traditional Toll Delivery nor the P3 Toll Delivery are currently financially feasible,” the report said. “The analysis highlights funding gaps of $1,005 million for the Traditional Toll Delivery and $875 million for the P3 Toll Delivery, both of which exceed the $173 million of committed STIP (State Transportation Improvement Plan) funding.”

And it doesn’t appear that sunny prospects are around the corner. “Project costs have continued to increase above inflation and any schedule delays would likely increase costs further,” the report adds.

NCDOT has scheduled another presentation to the Albemarle Regional Planning Organization of the Mid-Currituck bridge comparative analysis for 11 a.m. Wednesday at the Albemarle Commission headquarters, 512 South Church St., Hertford.

A decision on the next step must be made by the organization’s board by its April meeting.

Although the transportation department and the North Carolina Turnpike Authority, the state agency responsible for tolling, are not advocating for any particular decision, the report said, it did cite several potential options.

One option is to adjust the STIP schedule and submitting it again to compete for funding, or removing the project from the schedule all together, which would free up the $173 million bridge allocation to be used for other Division 1 projects. Other options are to continue applying for federal grants, looking for other funding sources, consider local sales or occupancy taxes, and/or request an annual state appropriation.

Despite the challenging budgetary situation, the bridge agencies are still in the fight, with both NCDOT and the Turnpike Authority continuing to advance the project toward construction, Logen Hodges, the authority’s marketing and communications director, said in an email responding to questions from Coastal Review.

So far, he said, three permits have been issued for the project, including those issued by the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality’s divisions of Water Resources and Coastal Management on Sept. 19, 2025, and one issued by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers on Oct. 28, 2025. While geotechnical investigations are being completed, another permit application to the Coast Guard is pending.

First identified as a need in 1975, the proposed bridge would connect the Currituck mainland at Aydlett to Corolla, on the Currituck Outer Banks. The 4.66-mile-long bridge would cross Currituck Sound and a 1.5-mile-long bridge would cross Maple Swamp on the mainland side about 25 miles south of the Virginia state line.

But the project, which has a timeline of five years for design and construction, has been rife with conflict, budget shortfalls, waning and waxing political support and repeated legal challenges. Dare and Currituck counties, and most of their respective towns and villages, have been pushing for the bridge for decades as a necessity to decrease traffic volume and improve hurricane evacuation.

At the same time, vocal opponents, many of them residents from both sides of the proposed bridge, have maintained that the bridge would be a costly boondoggle that would damage the environment and increase traffic.

Legal challenges were filed by the Southern Environmental Law Center, which challenged the permit issued by DEQ on different fronts.

“The timeline for resolution of this legal challenge is uncertain,” Hodges wrote. “Due to the pending legal challenge of an environmental permit and additional project funding needs, the project schedule will remain uncertain. To reflect this, the project construction let date has been extended by one year and may continue to be adjusted until a project schedule is determined.” 

On behalf of No Mid-Currituck Bridge, a citizens’ group opposed to the bridge, and the Sierra Club, an environmental nonprofit group, the SELC submitted a Petition for a Contested Case Hearing to the state in November that challenged the DEQ’s Coastal Area Management Act, or CAMA, permit. 

The petition argues, among others, that the bridge will bring adverse effects and disrupt communities on both sides.

“The permit for the construction of the Bridge Alternative would induce dramatic increases in traffic and development on both the mainland and Outer Banks, strain already overburdened coastal wastewater and drinking water infrastructure, permanently harm estuarine waters, wetlands, and other surface waters,” the document states.

In a separate action, the law center submitted a petition for judicial review to the state in December, also challenging the issuance of the permit by Coastal Resources Commission and DEQ.

To the community on the northern Outer Banks and the southern end of mainland Currituck County, as well as for visiting property owners and tourists, the summer traffic crossing the Wright Memorial Bridge back and forth from Currituck to Dare counties is an annual headache, with bumper-to-bumper traffic clogging roads to and from Corolla every weekend and holiday.

According to a September 2025 traffic and revenue report, more than 1 million vehicles crossed the Wright Memorial Bridge in July 2023, the highest count to date. 

“The proposed (Currituck bridge) is expected to provide significant distance and time savings to residents and visitors, particularly to those that travel to the most northern portion of Dare County and the Currituck County portion of the Outer Banks,” the report said. “The (bridge) will reduce peak season congestion for trips to the south, facilitate planned growth north of the (Wright bridge), and improve emergency evacuation for those residing on all parts of the Outer Banks.”

Tolls would be charged starting in 2032, according to the report. Minimum tolls in 2023 dollars for cars would be $6 each direction, with discounts for tolls paid by transponders and future increases reflecting the inflation rate. Trucks and other heavy vehicles will pay proportionally higher tolls.

The report also states that the optimal toll rate of $15 would generate 90% of the maximum forecasted toll revenue. In the numerous models, calculated rates were as high as $40. 

But Hodges cautioned that the models are not just that.

 “While estimated toll rates were used for the purpose of the analysis, all toll rates are set by the North Carolina Turnpike Authority Board of Directors,” he wrote in the email. “Formal toll rates for the Mid-Currituck Bridge would not be established until closer to the facility’s opening.”

The $173 million in committed division funds represents about 20% of the total STIP funding for Division 1, Hodges said. Depending on the outcome of the project schedule, the DEQ permits would not expire on their own, he said. The Corps’ permit, however, is set to expire iis set to expire on Dec. 31,2030, unless an extension is granted.

But if the Albemarle Regional Planning Organization decides to move the project to the last five years of the STIP, he said, it could potentially be eligible for funding at statewide, regional impact funding and division needs tiers.

“Ultimately whether the project is funded and programmed for construction would be dependent on available funding at each tier and how the project scores relative to other projects submitted for prioritization,” he wrote.

Whatever its fate, it’s taken a lot of resources for the Mid-Currituck Bridge proposal to finally reach the runway, only to be stalled indefinitely — or eliminated. 

“Since the early 1990s when the project was first conceived,” Hodges wrote, “approximately $60 million has been spent on early project work, including preliminary engineering, environmental analysis and initial right-of-way acquisition.”

As North Carolina’s population grows, local and state governments, elected officials, educators and nonprofit groups are bracing for the demands more residents will put on the state’s already taxed and aging water infrastructure.

The 2026 Emerging Issues Forum: Future Forward Water held Feb. 25 brought together these decision-makers and advocates to forums in Morehead City, Winston-Salem and Asheville, where they could share their challenges, ideas and solutions regarding the often-unnoticed necessity.

The forum featured several speakers, including Gov. Josh Stein, and group discussions that focused on four main challenges: aging infrastructure, resiliency, the water workforce crisis, and maintaining safe and reliable water systems.  

In a video message, Stein said that North Carolina’s water infrastructure faces serious challenges. The American Society of Civil Engineers recently graded the state, giving it a C-plus on drinking water, C-minus on stormwater, and a D-minus on dams and on wastewater.

“Storms like Hurricane Helene, Hurricane Matthew, Hurricane Florence and tropical Storm Chantal damaged wells and water systems across the state, leaving many communities without clean water,” he continued. “At the same time, continued population growth in some of our areas require expanded service and new infrastructure. Life sciences, companies, data centers coming to North Carolina also require large amounts of water to operate, further straining our infrastructure. Many rural communities struggle in aging systems and limited financial capacity. Contaminants such as PFAS further poison our water supply. We must take all of these challenges on as a clarion call.” 

Usually held in Raleigh, this year’s forum was hosted in the three locations to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Emerging Issues Forum, the idea of the late Gov. Jim Hunt, who died in December. Institute for Emerging Issues, established in 2002 at North Carolina State University, hosts the forum. The institute “is a nonpartisan connector, bringing North Carolinians together across sectors, regions and perspectives to address the state’s most significant challenges while advancing its economic competitiveness.”

Sandra Merkel DeJames, who is a member of the Institute for Emerging Issues National Advisory Board, explained to the more than 100 attending the Morehead City forum that the challenge being addressed that day is how to keep up with the unprecedented population growth facing the state. Population growth is the topic of the three-year Emerging Issues Forum series that kicked off in 2025, and focused on energy infrastructure. Next year the event will address housing.

“Last year, the state added an average of 400 new residents every day. That’s over 145,000 people by 2050. Some 14 million residents will call our state home, compared to the 11.2 million today,” said DeJames, who is president and CEO of Harmonize Strategy Group.

“People are moving to North Carolina for work, education, our climate and a host of other reasons,” she continued. All of these “new residents will need access to housing, energy and water that’s safe and affordable. They’ll need transportation and broadband and all of the other critical infrastructure needed to support a thriving economy, like childcare, healthcare, public safety and education.”

Companies are moving to the state as well, she continued.

“We’ve been named the best state for business in three of the past four years by CNBC. Once here, they too need infrastructure to support their operations,” DeJames said. “As to those businesses already here, this population and business growth will not be even across the state, or even within this region, but all areas have infrastructure needs, and we must now meet them.”

DeJames continued that forum organizers spent the last year learning more about the state’s water issues, “and we’ve learned the following: Water is a truly hidden infrastructure.” But, it is also the “most local form of infrastructure.”

The state is one of 10 with more than 5,000 public water systems – it is closer to 6,000 — and that number does not include the more than 2 million people who use privately owned wells and septic systems.

While water issues vary by region, there are common themes.

“First, our water infrastructure is aging,” DeJames said, despite some of the largest increases in water infrastructure spending in recent years.

“One conservative estimate is that we need $20 billion in new investments for drinking water and $21 billion in new investments for wastewater treatment and sanitary sewers in the coming decades, left unaddressed, our state’s economic vitality and public health are at risk.”

Next is the need to treat water for new contaminants.

“The emergence of new contaminants that can impact our health, such as PFAS, and the additional billions of dollars in cost to treat them will further compound financial pressures on our water systems and our customers,” DeJames said. Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, are long-lasting chemicals found in water, air and soil that are linked to harmful health effects.

Third, the state’s water infrastructure is too vulnerable.

“The damage done to wells and water systems from Hurricane Helene, Tropical Storm Chantal and other storms add to longer-term challenges to water and wastewater systems across the state. We need to increase our infrastructure’s resiliency,” she said.

“And finally, we need more workers in the water sector. There is significant shortage of qualified workers as the current workforce ages out, and not enough new workers to enter these fields.”

N.C. State’s Peter A. Pappas Real Estate Development Program Director Chuck Flink expressed similar points in a message delivered to all three forum locations via video.

The state’s population is expected to grow by between 3 and 3.5 million people in the next 25 years, and the growth is not going to hit North Carolina in a uniform manner. “A lot of it’s going to congregate in our two metro areas, which we expect to grow by more than a million people each in this 25-year period,” Flink said.

Wake County currently is the third fastest growing county in the country, averaging around 65 to 75 people moving there each day. It is the most populated county in the state. Charlotte is currently the sixth fastest growing city in America, averaging around 65 residents a day, and it’s the 15th most populated city in the country today, Flink continued.

By the year 2050, 75% of all residents will live in cities, and that’s a new phenomenon for the state, and at the same time, while we have this population growing, the state is experiencing population loss, with 41% of North Carolina’s municipalities in decline.

“We have vast swaths of our eastern part of our state and some portions of our western counties that are losing population,” Flink said. “In fact, we have a band of counties that stretches from the Virginia border to the South Carolina border, where we need more population, we need more economic opportunity. So it’s not a real simple picture there.”

He paused to say that he loves that the state is a collection of small communities, “and yet some of these small communities, especially in the eastern part of the state, are literally being abandoned due to population loss.”

“In North Carolina, 50% of us derive our drinking water from underground reservoirs, aquifers, and when we look at other elements of our water infrastructure, our water and wastewater systems are antiquated and they’re failing,” he said.

In some cases, there has been an overall decline in water quality across the state because of drought, overconsumption, and pollution, including forever chemicals.

The people that manage water infrastructure are aging as well. More education and training is needed for a new workforce to manage the infrastructure going forward.

However, Flink said he’s optimistic about where the state can go.

“It really begins with planning. Planning for growth. How do we want to grow? I think that’s the ace of spades that we control,” Flink said, adding that growth can be controlled and that’s how these challenges will be met.

There were four panel discussions throughout the day. The panels each had participants represented different sectors who shared the hurdles they’re facing, their frustrations and ways they’re navigating these challenges.

Martin Doyle, professor of River Systems Science and Policy at Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Energy, explained that water systems are not supported by general tax revenue, but are covered by the funds generated by billing its customers.

The UNC School of Government surveyed water systems around the state, and found that less than a quarter of those water systems actually collected sufficient revenue to be considered economically viable.

“They’re not collecting sufficient revenue to cover their costs as well as to cover the cost of preventative maintenance,” Doyle said. “The challenge for this is that we have a large number of water systems that are operating right at the financial threshold. They’re just getting by” and unable to keep up with preventative maintenance.

East Carolina University Water Resources Center Associate Director Samantha Mosier said that there are a number of ways to solve some of the state’s problems. She encouraged raising awareness about infrastructure needs, but the “real solution” is to help municipalities establish or join a regional authority.

“Most small local governments in North Carolina have their own water and wastewater system because that was part of becoming a town, years and years ago when we had lots of population,” Mosier said. “But in the eastern part of the state, we’re seeing that loss of the population.”

With the population dwindling, utilities are losing their customer base, making it no longer feasible for every small town to maintain a water system. Encouraging regionalization brings folks together to have those conversations. 

“To me is that next critical strategy we’ve got to embrace as a local, regional and state level,” she said.

Belhaven Town Manager Lynn Davis said that Beaufort County town’s obstacles are many, including a limited budget. “How do we not just look at the day to day, not just look at the infrastructure that we have, but how do we plan for if something breaks and that’s a challenge that faces us.”

She said staffing is another challenge. Half of the town’s staff could retire right now, and it won’t be easy to replace those workers. “You just don’t find people that have the knowledge and the skills.”

Cape Fear Public Utility Authority Security and Emergency Manager Craig Malone said when it comes to tackling these issues, “it’s not the plan itself that we need to focus on, it’s the process of planning. It helps us look at these contingencies, look at these risks, and our options to address these emergencies.”

He incorporates resiliency planning into his capital improvement plan. “Now you don’t have to stop and plan for emergency. Now you don’t have to stop and plan for that resiliency action or that upgrade to your facility.”

Nags Head Mayor Ben Cahoon said the town has 3,000 year-round residents, and around 45,000 in the summer time, and 80% of the properties have on-site septic systems. On a summer day, millions of gallons of water goes through the houses and into the septic systems.

“At the same time we have sea level rise, which is bringing the water table up under those wastewater systems, causing them to perhaps function less effectively. And then we get a storm, and you get a lot of water in those ditches and in the ground, and you can imagine the dynamics of what’s happening in the ground.”

Cahoon said the town has to plan for these issues.

“We do integrate drinking water, wastewater, stormwater, capacity into our zoning, development/redevelopment decisions. We do that by tying our infrastructure capacity directly to our long-range planning and adopted master plans and our resilience strategies, rather than treating any of these separately. So in Nags Head, our land use and development decisions are guided by the town’s comp plan.”

To address the retiring workforce that most local governments seem to be facing, some town leaders are changing how they recruit. For example, Maysville Town Manager Shcumata Brown said they’re looking for employees who have the aptitude to learn and not focus on certain certifications.

Perry Harker, vice president of Workforce Continuing Education at Carteret Community College, said that students aren’t hearing about this type of career, and the college is trying to introduce students to water and wastewater industry opportunities.

Compounding these issues is water quality.

Ben Farmer, planning and development services director for Upper Coastal Plain Council of Government, said raw water is pumped to a treatment plant, and that water has to fall within certain threshold or maximum containment levels. The systems, regardless of the town or city’s size, have to make sure that drinking water is up to that very extreme standard to keep the water safe.

Cape Fear Riverkeeper Kemp Burdette told the attendees that many residents get their drinking water from rivers — the Cape Fear River basin provides about one in five residents with the drinking water – and “protecting rivers is the single most effective way of protecting drinking water supply and reducing infrastructure costs for communities, period.”

Jacksonville Stormwater Manager Pat Donovan-Brandenburg said that we all need to be part of the solution.

“Each one of us impact stormwater. Meaning we have a home, we have a car, we have a road to get to and from work. I challenge all of us to look at our individual yards, our individual businesses,” she said.

“What can we do to disconnect our stormwater runoff from ever making it out to the storm drain in the road and out to a stream? Can we get it to infiltrate instead of making it to our surface waters? Making it to our surface waters does not recharge our aquifers, and we need to recharge aquifers in order to have the drinking water,” she said. “There’s the connection. So can you disconnect your storm drains or your gutters and put it into your landscape beds? Can you put in an infiltration trench? Can you put in a rain garden or rain barrel? Everybody’s yard, everybody’s business counts toward stormwater runoff, so we can all be part of the solution,” she reiterated.

There’s so much technology out there, so ask your engineer to think outside of the box. “Yes, it may cost a little bit more, but if you’re building there for the rest of your life, invest in your community. Because that’s what it is. We’ve got to invest in our neighborhoods, invest in our communities. So my message is very simple, reduce the storm water that you’re creating individually off your own property, and collectively, we will make a difference.”

We all like vibrant colors and new show-offs in our gardens, and with a mailbox full of gardening catalogs this time of year that advertise all sorts of gorgeous goodies, what’s a gardener to do? Ignore all the pretties?

Though it is tempting to collect plant specimens from faraway lands — a part of human history that is many, many centuries old and not likely to fizzle out any time soon — there’s a risk to introducing non-native species to your garden.

So, what’s so bad about trying out new plants? Sometimes plants from far off make it, sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they thrive, and sometimes they really thrive, to the point of becoming dangerously invasive. Sadly, the only way to find out is to try it, often with disastrous results.

While natives have evolved over centuries to survive in certain soil and temperature conditions, and native pollinators have thrived along with them, non-natives often throw off the delicate balance.

Some pollinators, such as monarch butterflies (Danaus plexippus), have specific plants for feeding or laying their eggs on. Monarchs love milkweed, both to nosh on and for their nurseries. The plants and butterflies have developed a symbiotic relationship.

Milkweed (Asclepias spp.) is the sole host plant for monarchs. Momma monarchs lay their eggs on milkweed plants. When the eggs hatch, the caterpillars feed on the leaves of the milkweed.

While poisonous to most critters, including humans, the monarchs use the toxins as their first line of defense. Because the milkweeds are toxic to many critters, the monarchs store the toxins in their bodies, thus making them unpalatable to many predators. The butterfly’s bright orange coloring serves as an added warning.

Adult monarchs feed on brightly colored flowers such as zinnias, sunflower, golden rod, asters, and lantana. Since milkweeds are, well, weedy looking, and because people fear them as a poisonous plant, many people rid their yards and woods of the plants.

But wait … can’t you just go to a nursery and buy milkweed plants? Again, native versus non-native.

Native milkweeds die back in winter, encouraging monarchs to migrate. Tropical milkweeds such as Asclepias curassavica, do not die back, confusing the monarchs and tricking them into staying.

Because the tropical variety overwinters, a harmful protozoan parasite (Ophryocystis elektroscirrha) also overwinters on the plant. The spores of this parasite accumulate on the plant and infect monarch caterpillars, causing infection and deforming wings, leading to death. 

Natives versus non-natives are kind of like name brand groceries versus store brand. Some things you can’t substitute. Like peanut butter, for instance. Team Jif all the way. Cream cheese has to be Philadelphia brand or nothing.

It may be cheaper and it may look the same, but the qualities you prize are muted or nonexistent and it won’t do what you want.

Growing up, we all took weedy lots and meadows for granted. They were just there, something waiting to be mowed and maintained to human standards.

Somewhere in the last few decades, or centuries, we’ve lost our appreciation for lush cottage garden-type landscapes and replaced them with sterile, manicured expanses of monoculture.

Monocultures, such as grass lawns, while orderly and green, feed pretty much nothing. In past times, there would still be enough wild places around to offset lawns and support plants and insects and critters. With more and more pavement, more and more houses and stores and buildings sprouting up every day, it’s becoming harder and harder for wildlife to survive.

We are fortunate enough to live in a place with vast tracts of woodlands and fields to support biodiversity. Anybody local ever hike the Patsy Pond loop on N.C. Highway 24 in Newport? Or any of our local trails, really?

At first glance, it looks, well, weedy. Take your time and really look. Because it is so “weedy,” there is a plethora of pollinators and critters.

A patch of purple blazing star (liatris) and honeybees here. Some native grasses and a lizard or toad there. Wild native blueberries and other berries scattered around. Toadstools on a rotting log. Lichens and fungi growing on trees. Beetles. Flies. Gnats. Mosquitoes.

While the insects bother us, they provide an all-you-can-eat buffet for birds and toads and turtles and frogs. Because the plants are all natives, they’re well adapted to the poor, sandy soil, humidity, wind, salt, and heat prevalent in our coastal area.

Walking our trails, in addition to lots of natives, you may also notice invasive plants.

Centipede grass (Eremochloa ophiuroides) tracked in on someone’s shoes and thriving because it found a perfect spot for itself, and because it isn’t being mowed. Did you know it was once an on the books law that it was illegal to plant Centipede within a certain distance of crops?

One of the worst invasives is Elaeagnus, or Russian tea olive. With its distinctive speckled foliage, tannish on the bottom and green on the top, this one is easy to spot. Originating in China and Japan, spreading invasively here by the bird/berry method, this fugitive from Sleeping Beauty’s protective wall was planted as hedges and soil conservation for decades.

Did I mention it has thorns? Nasty thorns. And it’s almost impossible to kill.

So if you don’t want to plant non-native invasives, what can you plant? Kind of depends on where you are, your soil, what your objectives are. Do you want color? Trees? Butterflies? Wildlife? Some combination of all of the above?

What if you love a certain non-native but don’t like its downside? With a bit of research, you can probably find a native with similar qualities.

To that end, check out these resources:

• go.ncsu.edu/CoastalLandscapes
• https://ncwildflower.org/native-plant-nurseries/
• https://homegrownnationalpark.org/keystone-plants/
• https://plants.ces.ncsu.edu/
• https://ncseagrant.ncsu.edu/plant-this-instead/
• https://auth1.dpr.ncparks.gov/nbnc/a/accounts.php

These are just a few of the many resources designed to help you help the environment while beautifying your yard. With a little research, planting can be much more than just seeing a really cool plant and sticking it in your yard only to regret it later.

Registration is open for the 2026 North Carolina Aquaculture Development Conference, a three-day event that focuses on the future of aquaculture in state.

The event, which will be held March 25-27 at they Crystal Coast Civic Center on the Carteret Community College campus in Morehead City, is to include keynote sessions, technical workshops, and interactive discussions on a range of aquaculture species and production systems relevant to the state.

The program is a time for the public, current and aspiring fish farmers, scientists, educators, researchers, students, and agency and regulatory professionals to come together to share ideas, advance best practices, and strengthen connections across the aquaculture community, organizers said.

The Got to Be NC Seafood Expo, which celebrates the state’s seafood industry, will take place during the event, and innovative equipment, technologies, and products will be showcased

There will be a career fair March 25 and attendees may join in at 6 p.m. for trivia night at Tight Lines Pub and Brewing Co. in downtown Morehead City.

Agendas for each day of the conference are available online. To register for the conference and the expo visit https://ncaquaculture.com/registration/.

Though it snakes 50 miles through Onslow County from start to finish, the New River is, in a practical sense, two distinct parts.

The upper river begins northwest of Richlands, a small but increasingly developing town that’s roughly 10 miles from the Duplin County line. From there, the river cuts a narrow path through largely rural agricultural land southeast to Jacksonville, where it widens, its fresh water transitioning to salt water.

The lower river then forms into a tidal estuarine 2 miles wide before ultimately opening into Onslow Bay in the Atlantic Ocean.

Plans have been in the works some two years now to ensure the river’s distinguishing parts get the attention they need. This year, Coastal Carolina Riverwatch, with the support of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, is finalizing the Lower New River Watershed Restoration Plan,  one that focuses on areas where saltwater creeks drain into shellfish-harvesting waters and tributaries including bays and creeks.

One river, two plans.

Plans are being designed through a wide-reaching collaborative effort to work in unison to restore and protect the river’s water quality.

“We felt that, even though this a river that begins and ends in Onslow County, that it would be a great opportunity for us to separate it into two different plans so that we are spending as much time as we can in those two sections and really delve into the issues and the concerns and things that are affecting water quality and things that could potentially improve water quality through the watershed restoration plan,” Coastal Carolina Riverwatch Executive Director Lisa Rider told Coastal Review in an interview earlier this month.

Next year, the upper New River plan is expected to be complete. That plan addresses inland freshwater systems that flow through neighborhoods, farms, and paddle trails, she added.

At their cores, the plans espouse the connections shared by water, land and people. Essential to both missions is bridging people, whether it be those who live along it, recreate on it, or fish in it for sustenance, with organizations and agencies “needed to respond at the scale the river demands” to improve and protect it, Rider explained.

“It’s definitely a collaborative effort and I think that’s what makes this process a little bit unique for the watershed water management planning,” she said. “We’ve been really spending a lot of time connecting with community members, leadership in the community, folks that really have a unique grasp of what’s going on in the area.”

Riverwatch has worked through the New River Roundtable, a collaborative group of scientists, regulators, academics, government representatives and stakeholders, Rider explained. The organization has also worked closely with the county and with state partners.

The organization took a boots-on-the-ground approach, setting up at local festivals and other public events and speaking at various homeowners’ associations and community meetings.

The watershed restoration plans are a first for Coastal Carolina Riverwatch, an organization that has for years been monitoring the New River to try and determine sources of bacteria detected in the river.

The plans are rooted in the idea that, by creating one set of watershed restoration plans for the river, “we may get some really great projects out of that” to fill in gaps in areas of the river where water quality improvements and protections are needed, Rider said.

“That sort of initiated us into starting to work with the North Carolina Land and Water Fund to start funding the lower part of the New River plan, and we talked to them quite a bit about the reasoning for separating those plans out, knowing that eventually we would be working in unison,” she said.

The North Carolina Division of Water Resources has been key in helping the organization make the lower river plan sustainable through continued use and updates.

The plans in the agency’s watershed improvement projects, or WIPS, tool, which maps water quality improvement projects reported by residents, organizations and local governments.

“Even after the plan is complete it’s not really complete because we’re going to be continually using the watershed improvement tool to gauge what the public sees, what’s being requested in terms of projects by stakeholders and community members, and then looking to help connect funders with the projects that are being prioritized,” Rider said.

Severe pollution closed the New River to the public in the 1980s.

Things were so dire in the river that when 25 million gallons of waste flowed from a breached hog lagoon into its waters, no fish kills were recorded.

Three years after that spill, Jacksonville closed its downtown wastewater treatment plant to cut off the predominant source of pollution that had been sickening the lower river, where the riverbed between Wilson Bay and Stones Bay was covered by soft organics like ammonia and phosphates that, when in excessive amounts, choke out aquatic life.

City officials urged those at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune to stop its wastewater facility from discharging into the river.

The river was reopened in 2001.

Since then, both the city and Onslow County have been taking further steps to improve and protect the New River.

Jacksonville took on a multiyear project installing artificial reefs on either side of the river between Wilson Bay and Stones Bay to grow millions of oysters. The final phase of the $1.6 million Oyster Highway Project, which has helped usher marine life back into the river, wrapped a couple of years ago.

In 2024, the city’s elected leaders signed off on a grant awarded to Jacksonville’s stormwater department to develop a New River Nutrient Management Plan.

That plan focuses on nutrient loading from nonpoint sources — stormwater that flows from streets, subdivisions, commercial and industrial areas — into the city’s drainage system.

Last December, the Onslow County Board of Commissioners adopted a resolution that supports using low-impact development strategies in all new or significantly renovated county-funded facilities “when they are fiscally responsible and practical,” according to a county notice.

The resolution also encourages the county school system and Coastal Carolina Community College in Jacksonville to adopt similar strategies, such as bioretention areas, swales, pocket wetlands, impervious surface removal, cisterns, green roofs, and permeable pavement, for new and renovated projects.

“As Onslow County continues to grow it will be increasingly important to meet the needs of future development through sustainable means,” according to a county release.

Onslow County residents who would like to help Coastal Carolina Riverwatch identify flood-prone areas, streams in need of restoration or stabilization, areas where stormwater runoff causes erosion or water quality problems, and flood mitigation projects may contact the organization by email at waterkeeper@coastalcarolina.org.

Community-based organizations, including homeowner associations, civic and church groups, environmental and conservation clubs, paddling and fishing organizations, business associations and school groups may request a presentation by Coastal Carolina Riverwatch – or offer a project idea, or talk about an area where there are problems with flooding, at one of the group’s regular meetings.

“The collaboration, I think, really reflects how the river itself works,” Rider said. “Water doesn’t recognize those jurisdictional lines so the solutions themselves are more effective when the planning reflects that reality. This approach, we fell like, helps ensure that the investments are targeted, the support is local, and that it’s designed to deliver real benefits for both water quality and the quality of life across the watershed.”                                                                                                               

The North Carolina Maritime Museum in Beaufort welcomed visitors Saturday for the first time in over a year after closing to the public in late 2024 for a major overhaul of the heating and cooling system.

During the yearlong closure, staff worked to revamp existing displays and installed two new exhibits, Museum Site Manager Jamie McCargo explained during a ribbon-cutting last week.

“We have two brand-new exhibits. We are very proud to say one is called ‘North Carolina’s Road to Revolution,’” McCargo said, which celebrates America’s 250th anniversary, and “is wonderfully aligned with our division-wide initiative to celebrate the anniversary.”

The other new exhibit is “Swell Times,” which highlights coastal recreation, such surfing, fishing and boating, she said.

The maritime museums are under the N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, which is leading America 250 NC, the state’s yearlong commemoration of the 250^th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence. Programs, experiences, exhibits and more are scheduled throughout the year at sites across the state.

McCargo highlighted one panel from the “Road to Revolution” exhibit. During the winter of 1777-78, Gen. Washington’s army was camped Valley Forge, Pennsylvania, and desperately in need of supplies.

“They were cut off and just really were in dire need, and North Carolina rose to the occasion. North Carolina was able to provide food and clothing. They came from Ocracoke Inlet and traveled up our rivers and sounds and were able to deliver items to both South Key, Virginia, and on up to Valley Forge,” McCargo said.

McCargo added that the extensive upgrades inside the facility required moving all of the artifacts, around 10,000, to a controlled-climate room, while the rest of the facility’s HVAC was replaced.

During the site closure, staff continued to work by planning new and updating existing exhibits, including adding new artifacts to the Queen Anne’s Revenge exhibit. The museum is the official repository for the ship, which Blackbeard the Pirate was captaining when it ran aground in Beaufort Inlet 1718, and are expecting more from the Queen Anne’s Revenge conservation laboratory in Greenville.

McCargo also thanked the Friends of the N.C. Maritime Museum, for the $80,000 gift the nonprofit made toward the updates before welcoming the president of the group that supports the museum, Tom Kies.

“The museum is important on many different levels. First and foremost, it safeguards our history. The stories preserved within these walls of boatbuilders, sailors, fishermen, families and communities — and pirates — are not just relics of the past. They are living reminders of who we are and how this region was shaped by the sea. The educational programs offered here ensure that these stories are not last or lost, but passed on to a new generation who will carry them forward. But this Museum’s impact extends far beyond education and preservation,” Kies said.

He added that places like the Maritime Museum are where visitors can connect with the state’s maritime heritage, experience something authentic and meaningful, and understand why this part of North Carolina is so special.

“When they do, they don’t just visit the museum, they support local businesses, stay in our hotels, dine in our restaurants, and leave with a deeper appreciation of our community. In that way, the Maritime Museum is both a cultural anchor and an economic engine, strengthening the region in ways that are sometimes unseen but always felt,” Kies said.

Division of Cultural and Natural Resources Secretary Pamela Brewington Cashwell opened her remarks by telling the room that, for the past year, she had been asking when the facility would reopen. 

“How long does it take to put in a new HVAC system?” she said, with a hint of humor. “To which my staff says, ‘It’s not a window unit, secretary, it’s different,’” and the museum underwent a facelift, which she said many state sites need.

She thanked legislators for help with the $1.8 million project and the supporters, who are “critical to allowing us to do what we do across all of our over 100 sites in North Carolina.” The total includes other sites in the nearby area, like Fort Macon State Park and the N.C. Aquarium at Pine Knoll Shores.

The museum was initially scheduled to reopen Jan. 31 but the event was rescheduled for Feb. 21 because of inclement weather.

‘America 250 NC,’ ‘Swell Times’

The museum’s Information and Communications Specialist Cyndi Brown told Coastal Review that the “America 250 NC” exhibit is the first of three phases looking at North Carolina’s role in the American War for Independence.

“This first phase, which will remain on exhibit for about three years, looks at Revolutionary War commerce. The exhibit explores the state’s imports and exports, shares stories about some of its interesting figures and details the importance of the maritime routes in supplying war efforts to the north,” Brown said. “Phase 2 will focus on North Carolina’s privateers and the state’s navy. The final exhibit will look at the end of the war, focusing on coastal raids and the battle of Beaufort.”

Brown explained that creating these exhibits, as with all exhibits in the museum, starts with the history curator and collections staff.

“The historian will come up with a potential theme or concept and research it to be sure there are enough primary sources accessible to tell the history. He’ll then work with collections to be sure we can support those histories with artifacts that are either already in our collection or available for purchase or via loan from another institution,” she continued.

The other new exhibit, “Swell Times,” explores the history of recreation along the coast, specifically on the water.

“There’s info on surfing and sailing, boating, spearfishing, hunting and more. There’s a fun interactive with various historic postcards, front and back, to show some personal perspectives of being on the coast,” Brown said.

It has been almost two weeks since the Environmental Protection Agency announced plans to ax Obama-era carbon emission regulations for new motor vehicles and engines, arguing that the agency didn’t have the authority to impose the science-based standards on the greenhouse gas emissions that the current administration says have only a negligible effect on climate change.

While Republican lawmakers and leaders in the fossil fuel and automotive industries support the move, Democratic Party leaders, health care industry and environmental groups are saying the decision goes against decades of peer-reviewed research that the heat-trapping gases will amplify climate change, and are taking legal action.

President Donald Trump and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin announced Feb. 12 that the administration was rescinding its own findings, and, consequently, eliminating the greenhouse gas emission standards, or the legal limits on the amount of pollutants a vehicle can emit, that have been in place for more than 15 years.

“We are officially terminating the so-called Endangerment Finding, a disastrous Obama-era policy that severely damaged the American auto industry and massively drove up prices for American consumers,” Trump said during a press conference Feb. 12 at the White House. “Effective immediately, we’re repealing the ridiculous endangerment finding and terminating all additional green emission standards imposed unnecessarily on vehicle models and engines between 2012 and 2027 and beyond.”

The agency stated in a release that week that the Obama-era EPA, via section 202 of the Clean Air Act, exceeded its “authority to combat ‘air pollution’ that harms public health and welfare.” The EPA said that a policy decision of this magnitude should be up to Congress, and “even if the U.S. were to eliminate all GHG emissions from all vehicles, there would be no material impact on global climate indicators through 2100. Therefore, maintaining GHG emission standards is not necessary for EPA to fulfill its core mission of protecting human health and the environment, but regardless, is not within the authority Congress entrusted to EPA.”

When the action was announced, there was a torrent of criticism.

“Today, the Trump administration repealed the endangerment finding: the ruling that served as the basis for limits on tailpipe emissions and power plant rules. Without it, we’ll be less safe, less healthy and less able to fight climate change — all so the fossil fuel industry can make even more money,” former President Barack Obama said on social media Feb. 12.

Dr. Georges C. Benjamin, executive director of the American Public Health Association, said that the EPA’s action to repeal the endangerment finding that greenhouse gases threaten the health of all communities undermines decades of science and rulings by federal courts, including the U.S. Supreme Court.

“Instead of protecting the public’s health from the dangerous and deadly effects of air pollution, including greenhouse gases emitted by new cars and trucks, this action will exacerbate the health threats we are already seeing from climate change, including increased heat waves, more air pollution and deadly wildfires,” Benjamin said in a statement.

Dr. Gretchen Goldman, president and CEO of the Union of Concerned Scientists, said in a statement that Zeldin “took a chainsaw to the Endangerment Finding, undoing this long-standing, science-based finding on bogus grounds at the expense of our health. Ramming through this unlawful, destructive action at the behest of polluters is an obvious example of what happens when a corrupt administration and fossil fuel interests are allowed to run amok.”

Goldman continued that the science establishing harm to human health and the environment from heat-trapping emissions was clear in 2009.

“More than fifteen years later, the evidence has only mounted as have human suffering and economic damages. Meanwhile, the continued burning of fossil fuels is causing global warming emissions to rise. The science, the facts and the law are unassailable: EPA has the obligation and the authority to regulate this pollution under the Clean Air Act, an act of Congress it’s now blatantly violating,” she said. “The transportation sector is the single largest source of U.S. global heat-trapping emissions. By scrapping vehicle global warming pollution standards today, the Trump administration has co-signed the release of more than 7 billion tons of planet-warming emissions nationally in the decades ahead.”

The “Rescission of the Greenhouse Gas Endangerment Finding and Motor Vehicle Greenhouse Gas Emission Standards Under the Clean Air Act” was published Feb. 18 in the Federal Register.

The same day more than a dozen groups filed a lawsuit in the D.C. circuit against the EPA, “over its illegal determination that it is not responsible for protecting us from climate pollution and its elimination of rules to cut the tailpipe pollution fueling the climate crisis and harming people’s health,” the Environmental Defense Fund announced last week.

“The finding supported commonsense safeguards to cut that pollution, including from cars and trucks. In addition, the agency eliminated the clean vehicle standards, which were set to deliver the single biggest cut to U.S. carbon pollution in history, save lives, and save Americans hard-earned money on gas,” continued the Environmental Defense Fund.

Clean Air Act

The Clean Air Act has given the EPA comprehensive authority to set standards for and regulate motor vehicle pollution since it was signed by President Richard Nixon Dec. 31, 1970.

Section 202(a), states that the administrator “shall by regulation prescribe (and from time to time revise) in accordance with the provisions of this section, standards applicable to the emission of any air pollutant from any class or classes of new motor vehicles or new motor vehicle engines, which in his judgment cause, or contribute to, air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.”

The act was amended in 1977 and 1990, expanding EPA authority.

In 2004, the agency initiated efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Then in 2007, in Massachusetts v. EPA, the Supreme Court found that greenhouse gases are air pollutants covered by the Clean Air Act.

By December 2009, the EPA had established the backbone for greenhouse gas emission rules with the final “Endangerment and Cause or Contribute Findings for Greenhouse Gases Under Section 202(a) of the Clean Air Act,” or the “endangerment finding.”

The EPA administrator had two conclusions: the “endangerment finding,” and the “cause or contribute finding.”

The endangerment finding that determined the current and projected concentrations of the six key well-mixed greenhouse gases — carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, hydrofluorocarbons, perfluorocarbons and sulfur hexafluoride — “in the atmosphere threaten the public health and welfare of current and future generations.”

The cause or contribute finding is that “the combined emissions of the six “well-mixed greenhouse gases from new motor vehicles and new motor vehicle engines contribute to the greenhouse gas pollution that threatens public health and welfare under CAA section 202(a).”

Rescission background

Rescinding the endangerment finding has been in the works for a year. Zeldin said in March 2025, that the agency was going to formally reconsider the 2009 endangerment finding and resulting regulations.

A fact sheet from the EPA explains that the agency was directed to review the legality and applicability of the endangerment finding.

“EPA carefully considered and reevaluated the legal foundation of the 2009 Endangerment Finding, the text of the CAA, and the Endangerment Finding’s legality in light of subsequent legal developments and court decisions,” the agency states. “The agency concludes that Section 202(a) of the CAA does not provide EPA statutory authority to prescribe motor vehicle emission standards for the purpose of addressing global climate change concerns. In the absence of such authority, the Endangerment Finding is not valid, and EPA cannot retain the regulations that resulted from it.”

Zeldin reiterated the argument during the Feb. 12 press conference, saying that Congress never voted for the climate mandates in section 202 of the Clean Air Act.

“If Congress wants EPA to regulate the heck out of greenhouse gasses emitted from motor vehicles, then Congress can clearly make that the law, which they haven’t done, for good reason,” Zeldin said at the press conference. “We have now realigned EPA rulemaking to reflect the Clean Air Act exactly as it is written and as Congress intended, not as others might wish it to be, where our predecessors focused on trying to make and please a few fear mongering climate alarmists.”

‘Exhaustive Precedent’

Around the time a public comment period opened on the findings, Dena Adler, senior attorney at the Institute for Policy Integrity out of the New York University School of Law, and legal fellow Kate Welty, issued a 19-page brief, “Exhaustive Precedent: EPA’s Requirement to Regulate Motor Vehicle Emissions that Contribute to Dangerous Air Pollution” in July 2025.

They explain that the current administration’s reasons for repealing the emission standards, stating that the “EPA’s suggestion that motor vehicle greenhouse gas emissions may not legally ‘contribute’ to climate change because they comprise a small share of global emissions rests on a flawed understanding of Section 202.”

They write that the Clean Air Act controls pollution from both stationary sources such as power plants and factories and mobile sources such as cars and trucks. Section 202 requires EPA to regulate emissions from new motor vehicles “if the Administrator finds that they ‘cause, or contribute to, air pollution which may reasonably be anticipated to endanger public health or welfare.’”

The provision “authorizes EPA to regulate a variety of air emissions from new ‘motor vehicles,’ which encompasses cars, light-duty trucks (pick-up trucks and SUVs), heavy-duty trucks, buses, and motorcycles. Under this authority, EPA has been regulating air pollution from motor vehicles since the 1970s,” they continue.

With the 1977 revisions to the Clean Air Act, “Congress wanted EPA to consider how each source of emissions contributed to public health dangers, not limit the agency to regulating only source categories that emitted enough pollution to independently cause health harms,” Adler and Welty explain. “Any effort by EPA to now require that greenhouse gas emissions from new motor vehicles independently endanger public health and welfare would contradict the express Congressional intention described in the legislative history.”

Adler and Welty note that, in 2009, when the EPA concluded that greenhouse gas emissions endanger public health and welfare and that the greenhouse gas emissions from new motor vehicles contribute to climate change, “the agency found that new motor vehicles were responsible for over 23 percent of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions and approximately 4 percent of all greenhouse gas emissions worldwide and concluded that either comparison was sufficient to meet the contribution standard of Section 202(a).”

In the time since, nothing has meaningfully changed to disturb this finding, as motor vehicles remain responsible for more than 23% of all U.S. greenhouse gas emissions, and greenhouse gas emissions from new motor vehicles “still make a meaningful contribution to climate change and unquestionably cause substantial damages in and of themselves. They also far surpass the levels of contribution that EPA has consistently recognized as sufficient to justify regulation in the past,” they wrote.

“The scale of greenhouse gas emissions from motor vehicles, EPA’s regulatory precedents under Section 202, and its reasoning under analogous Clean Air Act provisions all demonstrate that emissions from motor vehicles contribute to dangerous air pollution.”

Coastal effects

Southern Environmental Law Center Climate Analyst Jenny Brennan told Coastal Review last week that the lift of the endangerment finding “will almost certainly result in the worsening of climate change impacts that North Carolina communities are already struggling with — meaning sea level rise at faster rates, more rainstorms that drop massive amounts of water in just a few hours, and heatwaves that make it difficult for people to stay safe and healthy.”

Brennan continued that all these impacts will add stress to the already taxed infrastructure, such as roads, drainage systems and housing.

“Extreme heatwaves with even more air pollution, which is likely in the absence of the air regulation policies based on the endangerment finding, pose an even greater health hazard; heat plus air pollution makes it harder for even healthy people to breathe and is especially dangerous to people with asthma, heart conditions, or other medical conditions,” Brennan said.

First of two parts

A highway sign installed last September in Camden County calls attention to Moses Grandy, born there an enslaved person, and the story of his life told in “Narrative of the Life of Moses Grandy; Late a Slave in the United States of America.”

The book was published in London, England, in 1843. When the book was printed, he was, Grandy guessed, 56 years old, although as he notes in his book, “Slaves seldom know exactly how old they are: neither they nor their masters set down the time of a birth; the slaves, because they are not allowed to write or read; and the masters, because they only care to know what slaves belong to them.”

The book was published the following year in the United States.

There are no kindly “Old Black Joes,” elderly enslaved people treasured for their wisdom by caring masters in Moses Grandy’s autobiography. Rather, early in the book, there is a description of his mother, “blind and very old … living in a little hut, in the woods, after the usual manner of old worn-out slaves.”

Grandy observed late in his narrative that, “As far as the owner is concerned, they live or die as it happens; it is just the same thing as turning out an old horse.”

The book is filled with Simon Legree-like characters, capricious in their cruelty, and chilling descriptions of the horrors of the American institution of slavery. Legree is a harsh slaveowner in Harriet Beacher Stowe’s fictional, antislavery novel, “Uncle Tom’s Cabin.”

Yet the book is more than that. Grandy’s eye for detail and his memory are remarkable. What emerges from the pages is an exceptional and complex description of the institution of slavery.

It is Grandy’s penchant for remembering names that may provide the most damning indictment of slavery.

The title page of the book carries the warning, “It is not improbable that some of the proper names in the following pages are incorrectly spelled. M. G., owing to the laws of the slave states, being perfectly illiterate, his pronunciation is the only guide.” Yet, if some names are muddled in pronunciation and untraceable, there is still plenty to go on.

He describes his first master, Billy Grandy, as “a hard-drinking man” who “sold away many slaves.”

The Camden County 1790 census lists 18 slaves in the William Grandy household, but its apparent there had been more.

“I remember four sisters and four brothers; my mother had more children, but they were dead or sold away before I can remember. I was the youngest,” Moses Grandy recalled. 

His master died when he was probably 9 and the Grandy will bequeathed Moses to James Grandy, the son of William Grandy. James and Moses were the same age and there was a stipulation in the will that Moses would be hired out until “my master and myself were twenty-one years old.”

When he was old enough “to be taken away from my mother and put to field-work, I was hired out for the year, by auction, at the Court House, every January; this is the common practice with respect to slaves belonging to persons who are under age.”

The first person to buy his services, a Mr. Kemp, “used me pretty well; he gave me plenty to eat and sufficient clothing,” he then went to Jemmy Coates, “a severe man”

“Because I could not learn his way of hilling corn, he flogged me naked with a severe whip made of a very tough sapling…The point of it at last entered my belly and broke off; leaving an inch and a-half outside…On looking down I saw it sticking, out of my body: I pulled it out and the blood spouted after it. The wound festered, and discharged very much at the time, and hurt me for years after,” he said.

“I was next with Mr. Enoch Sawyer of Camden county,” Grandy recalled.

A prominent North Carolina politician immediately after the Revolution, Sawyer was deeply involved in developing the Great Dismal Swamp Canal. If the gravestone the Elizabeth City Economist found in November, 1897 is to be believed, Sawyer was a good man.

“Sacred to the memory of Enoch Sawyer, who was born on the 10th of March, 1758. and departed this life on the 16th of March, 1827, age 68 and six days. He was universally beloved and respected, and a faithful servant of the Lord Jesus. Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his Saints,” the Economist reported.

If Sawyer was a good man to his neighbors and peers, to Grandy, “It was cruel living.”

“We had not near enough of either victuals or clothes … I have often ground the husks of Indian corn over again in a hand-mill, for the chance of getting something to eat out of it,” Grandy reported. “In severe frosts, I was compelled to go into the fields and woods to work, with my naked feet cracked and bleeding from extreme cold.”

If the living was cruel in working for Sawyer, Grandy learned a skill that gave him a degree of freedom very few enslaved people enjoyed.

“The young Moses Grandy tended the ferry across the Narrows on the Pasquotank River,” historian David Cecelski wrote in his 1994 article “Moses Grandy: A Slave Waterman’s Life,” written for the Institute for Southern Studies.

The Black watermen were, Cecelski wrote, “an elite fraternity … both irreplaceable to the plantation economy, and subversive of the racial bondage that fueled it.”

That skill served Grandy well, raising his importance as a commodity, and the value that was placed on his skill as a waterman underscores how complex the institution of American slavery was.

After three years working for Sawyer his services were acquired by “Mr. George Furley (probably George Ferebee, early postmaster of South Mills) … he employed me as a car-boy in the Dismal swamp; I had to drive lumber, &. I had plenty to eat and plenty of clothes. I was so overjoyed… that I then thought I would not have left the place to go to heaven.”

Although no longer working under Sawyer, the “cruel living” touched him once again.

“I married a slave belonging to Mr. Enoch Sawyer,” he said. After eight months of marriage, he was returning home on a Friday, when he “heard a noise behind me, on the road which ran by the side of the canal … When they came up to me, one of them cried out, ‘Moses, my dear!’… It was my wife. She cried out to me, ‘I am gone.’

His wife had been sold.

He was able to walk with her for a short distance “and bid her farewell. I have never seen or heard of her from that day to this. I loved her as I loved my life.”

Next in the series: To purchase his freedom

Reprinted from the Outer Banks Voice

On Tuesday, Feb. 17, the North Carolina Supreme Court heard arguments in the long-running legal battle between Currituck County and the Corolla Civic Association (CCA) over how the county spends occupancy tax money.

The CCA plaintiffs contend that the county has improperly used those funds to pay for police, fire protection, emergency services and equipment for public safety rather than earmarking them for tourism-related expenses. The Currituck County Commissioners, citing the extra needs placed on public safety in the summer tourist season in Corolla, have contended that state law allows public safety spending with those funds.

The state legislature passes a law for any county that wishes to charge an occupancy tax, with a provision outlining how the tax can be used. The Currituck County occupancy tax law was first passed in 1987 and amended in 2004. The Outer Banks Voice – NC Supreme Court to hear Currituck County occupancy tax case

In March 2024, the NC Court of Appeals Court ruled in favor of the CCA and members of the organization. Currituck County then appealed that ruling to the State Supreme Court.  During the Feb. 17 arguments, it seemed clear that key elements of the case are whether public safety expenses are related to tourism and how much discretion the commissioners have in allocating occupancy tax dollars.

In speaking first for the defendants, attorney Chris Geis of the Womble Bond Dickinson firm argued that under the statute, the “[Currituck] Commissioners were given the broad authority to use their judgment to determine what is a tourism-related expenditure” that brings tourism to the county.

As an example, Geis cited occupancy tax spending on the county’s Veterans’ Memorial Park, which he said a “leaves people with a good feeling about [this] place. That is a tourism related expenditure.” He noted that the plaintiffs opposed spending occupancy tax dollars on the Park.

“We have reasonable disagreement here, we understand that,” Geis said, in addressing the Supreme Court Justices. “But this is not an area where the county has stepped outside that line” of violating state law.

Making the case for the plaintiffs, attorney Troy Shelton of the Dowling PLLC firm, stated that “the Court of Appeals saw exactly what happened for what it was,” in ruling for the plaintiffs. “The County’s been breaking the law, and it has to stop.”

In response to one Justice’s question, Shelton said that “I don’t think that paying for police or firefighters attracts tourists.”

“There is nothing stopping the County from going back to the [North Carolina] legislature and trying a new round of lobbying” to change the statute. “That’s what they need to be doing instead of fighting this case,” he stated.

Asked by Chief Justice Paul Newby what remedies the plaintiffs are seeking if they prevail, Shelton indicated that among things, they want the restoration of the occupancy tax funds they say were improperly spent.

You can see the Supreme Court arguments here. Supreme Court of North Carolina: 101PA24 Costanzo, et al. v Currituck County, et al.

This story first appeared in the Outer Banks Voice, Coastal Review Online partners with the Voice to provide readers with more environmental and lifestyle stories of interest about our coast.

This story has been updated to include a corrected description of land ownership. Information initially provided to Coastal Review had incorrectly identified the owner.

More people moved to North Carolina last year from different parts of the country than any other state in the nation.

North Carolina’s population grew by almost 150,000 people, trailing behind only Texas and Florida, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates released last month.

As political leaders grapple with the demands that growth is placing on essential services like water and sewer, public safety and education, pressure is mounting on conservation groups to acquire, conserve and preserve land.

This month, more than 2,000 acres in coastal counties have been secured for permanent protection from development.

These newly protected areas are filled with natural landscape features that reduce flood risk, improve water quality, and provide habitat for plants and animals that are increasingly getting squeezed out by encroaching development.

In Brunswick County, one of the fastest growing in the state, North Carolina-based conservation nonprofit Unique Places to Save acquired land that serves as a corridor between two protected natural areas, bridging what amounts to nearly 10,000 acres of conserved landscape.

“We really want to be able to maintain large, connected natural areas for habitat for species and to maintain biodiversity of our natural areas,” Unique Places to Save Executive Director Christine Pickens told Coastal Review in a recent telephone interview. “And, particularly, in the southeast of North Carolina, we have some really cool endemic species and really wonderful habitats that you don’t find anywhere else.”

Within the 1,040-acre tract nestled between the towns of St. James and Boiling Spring Lakes are forested wetlands, Carolina bays, sandy pine and wet sandy pine savanna.

The tract, referred to as Boiling Springs Wilderness, specifically connects thousands of acres of privately conserved land including Orton with the North Carolina Boiling Spring Lakes Plant Conservation Preserve.

“When you connect these large areas, you’re connecting a mosaic across the landscape and there’s tiny variations of habitat availability,” Pickens explained. “What that does is allow species that use that area for habitat or refuge or migration to use those slight variations of habitat. When we experience extremes in weather, precipitation or drought or big storms, having just a little bit of wiggle room in terms of available habitat goes a long way to allowing species to be resilient to some of these extremes and some of these changes.”

Habitat that is free from being sliced up by ditches or roads is valuable to species that rely on that habitat, she said.

Take the red cockaded woodpecker, for example. These birds, which were reclassified in late 2024 from endangered to threatened, live in groups, or clusters, helping each other raise their young.

They depend on large, connected natural areas – typically anywhere from 125 to 200 acres – where living pine trees, preferably mature, longleaf pine forests, grow.

Boiling Springs Wilderness includes varying types of soils that support different sets of plants, trees, shrubs and forbs, more commonly referred to as herbs.

A good deal of pond pine and a “little bit” of young longleaf pine grace its landscape, Pickens said.

The headwaters of Orton Creek are within the project area, as are wetlands that blanket the Castle Hayne aquifer, a drinking water source for thousands of Brunswick County residents and tens of thousands in other coastal North Carolina areas.

“That’s a long-term way to protect water quality,” Pickens said. “The areas around streams act as buffers to absorb nutrients, runoff, excess components in surface water that soak in, and they get absorbed by the plants and the roots and the soils around streams. That prevents excess nutrients getting into waterways.”

Then there are the wetlands, which function like nature’s sponges, absorbing stormwater that might otherwise flood developed properties.

“Every chance we get to conserve wetlands is really important right now,” Pickens said.

That’s because state lawmakers decided to align North Carolina’s definition of wetlands with that of the federal government, which is in the process of changing the interpretation of waters of the United States that may omit protections for millions of acres of wetlands in the state.

“It may result in more wetlands being nonjurisdictional, therefore a lot more likely to be converted to uplands through ditching and draining. These conservation easements are perpetual. Once we protect it, that’s it,” Pickens said.

The Boiling Springs Wilderness project was funded through a $3.68 million North Carolina Land and Water Fund grant.

Unique Places to Save will own and manage the tract, while the state will hold the conservation easement. The Coastal Land Trust will steward that easement.

Last year, Unique Places to Save applied for another state Land and Water Fund grant to protect about 500 acres of predominately wetlands between the town of St. James and N.C. Highway 211.

“We’ve got a provisional award from the Land and Water Fund so if they have enough funding we may get funded this year for that effort,” Pickens said.

She touted efforts among other groups that work to conserve land throughout the state, including the North Carolina Coastal Federation, which publishes Coastal Review, The Nature Conservancy, North Carolina Plant Conservation Program, North Carolina Coastal Land Trust, and Cape Fear Arch to name a few.

Tyrrell County parcel transferred

Last week, national nonprofit The Conservation Fund finalized the transfer of ownership of about 1,550 acres of coastal wetlands and forestland in Tyrrell County to the Coastal Federation.

“This partnership reflects years of careful conservation planning and cooperation,” Coastal Federation Executive Director Braxton Davis stated in a release. “This acquisition protects important coastal wetlands that help filter water, support fish and wildlife habitat, and provide natural flood buffering in on the of the state’s most ecologically significant regions.”

Portions of the Tyrrell County property, which is valued at an estimated $1.7 million, are in the Land and Water Fund’s Stewardship Program, one designed to establish, monitor and enforce perpetual conservation agreements.

The property will be included as part of the Coastal Federation’s Land for a Healthy Coast program, which focuses on protecting estuaries, reducing polluted runoff, buffering floods, and boosting long-term coastal resilience.

“Some lands are simply too important to risk losing,” Coastal Federation founder and senior adviser Todd Miller said in the release. “When a property protects water quality, supports fisheries, and strengthens the natural defenses of the coast, we believe it’s our responsibility to step forward and ensure it is permanently conserved and well managed.”

This report has been updated for clarification.

Dominion Energy’s 2.6-gigawatt offshore wind project based in Hampton Roads, Virginia, which was ordered by the Trump administration to stop work right before Christmas, has resumed the project and is now on track for completion by early 2027.

But the 26-day shutdown of Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind, also known as CVOW, came at considerable cost to the company, its customers and the nation’s energy needs. 

According to its Jan. 30 project update, Dominion tallied the current total project cost at $11.5 billion, reflecting $228 million for increases associated with the suspension, as well as $580 million related to actual/estimated tariffs. Dominion’s update in May 2025 had the project cost at $10.8 billion.

“It’s a terrible time to be restricting any source of new energy and especially sources of new clean energy that can be constructed in places that otherwise have limited ability to add new generation, whether that might be a new gas plant or a new coal plant,” Katharine Kollins, president of the Southeastern Wind Coalition, told Coastal Review.

When fully operational, CVOW’s 176 wind turbines will generate enough energy to power up to 660,000 homes, making it the largest offshore wind farm in the U.S and one of the largest wind energy production facilities in the world. Dominion, which provides electricity to 3.6 million homes and businesses in Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina and natural gas service to 500,000 customers in South Carolina, said the wind project is critical to its “diverse energy supply strategy” to meet growing regional demand.

“I think from the wind industry’s perspective, this is an industry that has been operating for over 20 years and has shown that there’s an ability to put a significant amount of new clean energy on the grid every year — when the free market is at play and when they are able to construct in areas where it makes sense to have wind,” Kollins said.

Citing risks to national security, the U.S. Department of Interior issued the suspension order on Dec. 22 to CVOW and four other offshore wind projects in varied stages of development on the East Coast. The following day, Dominion sued the federal government.

In the action, filed in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Virginia, Dominion argued, in part, that it had worked extensively with military interests while developing the project to ensure that any concerns about radar, training or operational readiness were addressed. Not only did the agency director lack the “generalized authority” under the lease regulations to order the suspension “at whim,” the lawsuit said, the government did not cite an “applicable trigger” to halt construction.

“Our nation is governed by laws, and a stable legal and regulatory environment is essential to allow regulated public utilities like (Dominion)  as well as other businesses, contractors, suppliers, and workers, to invest and support our nation’s energy needs and associated jobs,” according to the lawsuit.

“Sudden and baseless withdrawal of regulatory approvals by government officials cannot be reconciled with the predictability needed to support the exceptionally large capital investments required for large-scale energy development projects like CVOW critical to domestic energy security, continues the legal document. “That is true regardless of the source of energy.”

Based on a 2022 agreement with regulators on cost-sharing, for project costs beyond $10.3 billion up to $11.3 billion, the company and the customers each pay 50%, and from $11.3 billion to $13.7 billion, the company pays 100%, according to Dominion’s Jan. 30 project update.

Customers in Virginia, but not North Carolina, currently pay about $11 a month to cover CVOW costs, said Jeremy Slayton with Dominion media relations in a Feb. 10 email response to Coastal Review. Cost recovery, which influences rates, is updated annually, he added, and the October 2025 filing is still before the Virginia State Corporation Commission.

On Jan. 16, the court granted Dominion’s request for a preliminary injunction that allowed construction at CVOW to resume while the lawsuit is resolved. Courts have now allowed all five stalled offshore projects to operate for the time being.

“While our legal challenge proceeds, we will continue seeking a durable resolution of this matter through cooperation with the federal government”, Dominion Energy said in a press release.

The company didn’t waste time getting back to work. According to information provided by Slayton, project construction was by late January about 70% complete, with the facility expected to deliver its first power to the grid by the end of the first quarter of this year.

“Our U.S-flagged wind turbine installation vessel Charybdis completed the first turbine installation today,” Slayton wrote in the Jan 27 email. 

So far, he added, all 176 monopole foundations have been installed, and 119 of the 176 transition pieces — the yellow parts that connect the foundations to the turbine towers — are in place.

Also, two of the three offshore substations have been installed, the deepwater offshore export cables installation has been completed and the nearshore export cables installation is about 60% completed. And about 67 miles of an estimated 231 miles of inter-array cables, which carry energy created by the wind turbines to the offshore substations, has been installed.

Onshore electric transmission construction is expected to be completed in early 2026. Before the abrupt stop-work order, CVOW, which started construction in 2024, had expected to flip the power switch on by that date, and be fully operational by the end of 2026.

In addition to the obvious benefit of clean, plentiful energy, the project has brought millions in economic value to the region, including many jobs and dollars while under construction.

“Offshore wind, in particular, provides the United States with a generational opportunity to supply large amounts of affordable, reliable power while spurring investment and creating U.S. jobs,” Dominion argued in its filing.

According to Dominion, the completed project will create 1,100 direct and indirect jobs annually in Hampton Roads, equaling about $82 million in pay and benefits, $210 million in economic output, $6 million in revenues for local governments and $5 million in state tax revenue.

Since Donald Trump’s reelection, the president has focused on dismantling renewable energy-related projects — solar, wind, battery storage, even grid modernization —  in the U.S, and replacing it with fossil fuel and nuclear power. But he has reserved his strongest animus for offshore wind, apparently based on his objection to 11 wind turbines in the water off his Aberdeenshire, Scotland golf course.

Shortly after he purchased an estate there in 2006, according to a July 29, 2025, article published online by the BBC,  Trump “soon became infuriated at plans to construct an offshore wind farm nearby, arguing that the ‘windmills’ — as he prefers to call the structures — would ruin the view.”

He also insisted that the turbine blades killed “all” the birds, but surveys at the site have to date not found a single bird strike. In addition to calling wind energy “a scam,” as quoted in the article, the president regards wind power as “very expensive, very ugly energy”.

Despite Trump fighting the plans through the Scottish courts and ultimately the UK’s Supreme Court, construction of the “monsters” went ahead in 2018.

“It clearly left him smarting and he’s not had a good word to say about wind power since,” the article said.

According to an Audubon study, most bird deaths are caused by striking buildings, especially tall ones with large windows, and cats eating them. On land, building collisions alone are estimated to kill over a billion birds each year in the U.S., the report said.

“On the open ocean, birds can be killed or injured when they collide with ships or offshore oil platforms,” the report stated. “Similarly, offshore wind infrastructure — including turbine blades, towers, electrical platforms, and construction equipment on boats — all pose potential threats.”

The report goes into much detail, but best practices were summed up as “Avoid, Minimize, Offset and Monitor.”

Dominion states on its website that it uses the latest technologies to protect birds and other wildlife, such as time-of-year restrictions, installation of anti-perching devices and acoustic monitoring.

Typically, offshore wind production is generated by three-bladed rotors attached to a ocean-worthy structure that houses a generator insider turbines attached to elevated platforms. Cables from the generator deliver the energy to the bottom of the tower to the underwater transmission cables to onshore power stations. 

But technology has evolved considerably since the first offshore turbine was built in Denmark in 1991.

“As turbine technology continues its rapid evolution — with units now reaching 26 (megawatts) — and floating wind advances toward commercial scale, the industry finds itself at a critical juncture that will shape its trajectory for years to come,” Power magazine reported in a Feb. 9, 2026, article published online.

Global offshore wind capacity reached 83 gigawatts at the end of 2024, the article said, and it appears that the 2025 report will show it was another banner year for the industry, with new construction “positioning the sector for accelerated growth through the decade.”

Significant projects have been constructed or are planned in European and Asia-Pacific regions, the magazine said. Meanwhile, the U.S. offshore wind industry is sputtering, resulting in a severe impact to the market. The International Energy Agency, according to the article, forecasts a 60% downward revision from 2025-2030 for U.S. wind energy, equaling 57 GW of both onshore and offshore capacity “that is now unlikely to be built.”

It appears the U.S, for now, may be left in the dust.

“Offshore wind technology continues its relentless march toward larger, more powerful machines,” according to the article. “The average capacity of turbines installed offshore in 2024 reached 10 MW, according to (the Global Wind Energy Council), a figure that would have seemed implausible a decade ago. Yet, the frontier has already moved well beyond that threshold.”

Still, in the long run, the realities of market forces and the limitations of dirty or destructive energy resources can make an unlimited, clean energy such as wind an unavoidable choice. Offshore projects may be a younger industry in the U.S., but it is considered a powerful renewable resource to tap. While land-based wind projects are less costly, wind speeds are generally higher and more constant offshore, allowing turbines to generate more electricity for longer periods.

In the U.S., solar and wind have often been the most affordable energy resource, but they are also compatible grid partners, Kollins said, with wind at its peak when the sun is not.

“Generally, wind turbines have higher generation factors in the winter and in evenings, and those are two times when solar has less output,” she said, “So if you have a lot of solar on the grid, you can add a lot of wind before you really need storage.”

Once all five of the offshore projects are operating at full capacity, she said, that’s when people will see the benefits of having more electricity produced, when they need it — such as the recent weekend deep freezes along the East Coast.

“These things are going to be generating their full output all weekend when everybody’s got their heat turned on and is using max electricity load,” Kollins said, adding: “Offshore wind is highly correlated with winter storms.”

There is an increasing demand overall for electricity, Kollins noted. And construction of gas turbines and nuclear power is many years down the road.

“These electrons are needed so badly,” she said.  “We are in a period of rapid economic growth, and in order to continue fueling that growth, we need every resource available.

“And offshore wind provides one of the only ways to build a significant amount of new energy generation in the near term.”

A North Carolina court has ruled that the state’s lead environmental agency has the authority to set 1,4-dioxane discharge limits for public wastewater utilities.

The ruling reverses a 2024 administrative law judge’s determination that the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality did not follow the proper process when it established discharge limits for a handful of municipal wastewater treatment plants in the piedmont.

DEQ followed state Environmental Management Commission and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency “protocols in creating the 1,4-dioxane limits and created the criteria for the purpose of protecting the health and wellbeing of North Carolinians,” Wake County Superior Court Judge A. Graham Shirley wrote in his Feb. 5 decision. “Compliance with regulations and a desire to maintain or improve public health cannot be said to be a ‘patently in bad faith’ decision.”

Shirley wrote that the agency “did not err” in considering 1,4-dioxane, a substance used primarily as a solvent in chemical manufacturing, as a carcinogen.

“Because 1,4-dioxane is a pollutant likely to cause cancer in humans, permit limits are necessary to protect North Carolinians’ drinking water and their health,” DEQ Secretary Reid Wilson stated in a release the agency published Thursday. “The court vindicates DEQ’s decision to impose limits to protect downstream communities from this harmful carcinogen.”

Discharges of the chemical substance into North Carolinians’ drinking water sources has gained attention in recent years, with downstream public water suppliers and communities calling for tighter regulations and that pollution be controlled at the source.

DEQ’s Division of Water Resources attempted to do that when, in August 2023, it issued Asheboro’s wastewater treatment plant a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, or NPDES, permit that capped its releases of 1,4-dixoane.

Asheboro sued, challenging the state’s authority to include a water quality standard for 1,4-dioxane in the permit and arguing the new limits created an excessive financial burden.

The cities of Greensboro and Reidsville joined the lawsuit. Both had been ordered to include limits in their draft NPDES permits after they received notices of violation for 1,4-dioxane discharges in November 2019.

Asheboro’s wastewater treatment plant discharges into Cape Fear River basin, where some 900,000 North Carolinians receive their drinking water downstream of the plant.

Brunswick County, Cape Fear Public Utility Authority and Fayetteville Public Works Commission intervened in the case, asserting that upstream 1,4-dioxane dischargers placed an undue financial burden on them to sample drinking water sources for the chemical and try and reduce the level of consumption of it to their customers.

In a September 2024 ruling, then-Chief Administrative Law Judge Dr. Donald van der Vaart sided with the upstream municipalities and revoked the permit limits set by DEQ.

“The Superior Court was right to uphold DEQ’s ability to limit chemicals in our water, and my office will continue working with DEQ to make sure people have clean drinking water,” North Carolina Attorney General Jeff Jackson stated in a release.

Cape Fear Public Utility Authority Executive Director Kenneth Waldroup said in a statement to Coastal Review Thursday afternoon that the utility is pleased with Shirley’s decision.

“CFPUA’s raw water intake is the last on the Cape Fear River. We rely on State regulators to set and enforce reasonable discharge standards upstream of our intake to protect our region’s raw water supply,” he explained. “While CFPUA’s Sweeney Water Treatment Plant is able to treat drinking water for 1,4-dioxane, that treatment process carries an expense and our ability to treat this pollution has its limits. Reducing the amounts of 1,4-dioxane and other emerging contaminants being released upstream also reduces the financial burden on downstream customers and communities.”

Last October, Waldroup joined representatives of other public water utilities and residents in asking the EPA to uphold its earlier objection to the proposed NPDES permit excluding Asheboro’s discharge limit for 1,4-dioxane.

As of this report, the EPA had not made its final determination.

Emily Donovan, co-founder of Clean Cape Fear, said in an email that the Superior Court ruling, “is a win for public health and every downstream community threatened by Asheboro’s irresponsible leadership.”

“It’s a shame cities like Asheboro prefer squandering tax dollars defending industrial polluters rather than protecting the public’s drinking water supplies,” she said. “It’s also a devastating reminder that until North Carolina creates strong source control measures for toxic chemicals, we will always be one discharge away from the next preventable crisis.”

Earlier this year, the state Environmental Management Commission voted to push proposed monitoring and minimization rules for 1,4-dioxane and three per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, to the public this month.

Critics of the proposed rules argue they lack any real enforceability because they do not include water quality standards, specify what best management practices dischargers must follow, or how facilities must minimize their discharges.

The public comment period had yet to be announced as of this report.

In June of last year, the Southern Environmental Law Center filed a lawsuit on behalf of Cape Fear River Watch and Haw River Assembly against Asheboro and the city’s industrial customer StarPet Inc., to stop their discharges of 1,4-dioxane into the Cape Fear River basin.

“Asheboro, Greensboro, and Reidsville have spent years arguing for downstream communities to shoulder the health and monetary costs of the cities’ pollution,” Jean Zhuang, a senior attorney with the center’s Chapel Hill office, stated in a release. “The Wake County Superior Court saw through the cities’ arguments and restored a key tool that can be used to protect families, communities, and drinking water utilities downstream.”

According to that release, the cities have filed a motion to suspend the court’s decision and an appeal is pending.

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.

The N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission has opened for public comment a proposed temporary rule amendment to close recreational harvesting of spotted seatrout in the state’s inland and joint fishing waters from April 6 until June 30.

The proposed rule aligns with the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries’ recently announced seatrout harvest closure for all commercial and recreational coastal and joint fishing waters.

The closure was enacted because of recent cold stun events in multiple areas of the state.

“The Wildlife Resources Commission initiated the temporary rulemaking process as quickly as possible to provide regulatory consistency following the Marine Fisheries proclamation,” Inland Fisheries Division Chief Corey Oakley stated in a release. “Temporarily closing the spotting seatrout harvest season will follow recommendations set out by the N.C. Marine Fisheries Commission’s Spotted Seatrout Management Plan to allow the population to recover from cold stun events.”

A virtual hearing on the proposed temporary rule amendment has been scheduled for noon, Feb. 25. Pre-registration is required.

An in-person public hearing is scheduled for 6 p.m. March 10 at the N.C. Cooperative Extension’s Lenoir County Center, 1791 NC-11 in Kinston.

Public comments may be submitted through March 13 online, by email to regulations@ncwildlife.gov, or by mail to Rulemaking Coordinator, 1701 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC 27699-1701. Mailed comments must be postmarked by March 13.

State Wildlife Resource Commission commissioners will review comments and vote on the temporary rule during their March business meeting.

If the proposed rule passes, spotted seatrout harvest season in inland and joint fishing waters will reopen July 1.

NEWPORT — State Rep. Celeste C. Cairns, R-Carteret and Craven, members of the Carteret County Board of Commissioners, county staff, area town officials and project partners broke ground Friday for a new public boat launch in the growing western part of Carteret County.

The ceremonial groundbreaking for the Western Carteret County Boat Launch Facility at 4411 N.C. Highway 24, Newport, has been in the making for a long time, said Commissioner Mark Mansfield, the county board’s vice chairman, at the event. “As you can see, the western part of the county has been deficient in access to the water for quite some time, and this will hopefully enable us, with all the growth that’s going into the western end of the county, provide access to the waterways, which actually helps with the tax base and the property values in this area”

Former Commissioner Robin Comer, who was in office years ago when the project was conceived, was also on hand for the ceremony. He said the launch site is on one of the last available parcels that would facilitate the kind of facility needed in this part of the county where residential development has been rapid.

“This project became so popular — and when I say popular everywhere — everywhere we went to try to round up money for this thing, everybody was on board,” said Comer during his remarks.

Comer said the state provided money, as did the federal government using funding from a Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point program to buffer its nearby auxiliary airfield from residential encroachment. “And everybody wound up, everybody we asked, wound up putting money, time and effort in this thing.”

He said that Emerald Isle businessman Ronnie Watson represented the site’s then-landowner, Steven Stroud.

“If anybody knows Steve, he’s a tough businessman, so a lot of appreciation goes there to (Watson),” said Comer.

Cairns, in her remarks, credited her predecessor, former Rep. Pat McElraft, who served eight consecutive terms ending Jan. 1, 2023, for providing the initial momentum that made the project possible.

“I’m here to celebrate this occasion, that it has finally come to fruition with all the hard work that your county commissioners and my predecessor and others have put into it,” Cairns said. “It’s a wonderful opportunity for folks on the western end of the county to be able to get access to the water. A wonderful collaboration with the Coastal Federation conservation folks. It’s just beautiful all the way around this great project. And I’m just honored, as I can be, to be a part of it today.”

The North Carolina Coastal Federation, which publishes Coastal Review, is developing an abutting parcel for its new Center for Coastal Protection and Restoration being built on Bogue Sound. Construction on that project began in late 2024 and is anticipated to wrap up later this year. The center will share access with the county facility through a common driveway.

County Commissioner David Quinn, who represents the Newport area, expressed how meaningful the boating access is to residents here.

“If you’ve lived in Carteret County, you know that the water isn’t just scenery, it’s part of our daily life. It’s how we relax, it’s how we work, it’s how we make memories with our families,” Quinn said. “Bogue Sound has always been central to who we are, and having safe, dependable access to it matters. That’s exactly what this facility is going to provide for folks who live here year-round and for visitors who come to enjoy the coast. This gives people a safe, convenient place to get on the water. It also helps take pressure off of other boat ramps that have been overcrowded for years.”

Quinn said that with six launch ramps and a transient floating dock, boaters will be able to get in and out more efficiently with less waiting and less congestion, especially during peak season.

“That makes a real difference for families, makes a real difference for fishermen, makes a real difference for anyone that’s trying to enjoy a day out on Bogue Sound without frustration,” he said. “But in Carteret County, access alone isn’t enough. We also understand, if we don’t take care of the waters, then the waters will not take care of us. This project was built with that in mind.”

He explained that the 159-space trailer and vehicle parking lot will help keep vehicles out of sensitive areas. A channel connecting to the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway was designed to minimize the environmental impact while still proving easy for navigators.

“One of the most important features is the living shoreline,” Quinn noted. “Instead of concrete walls, we’re using natural systems that protect marshes, reduce erosion and preserve submerged vegetation that helps improve water quality and it keeps it healthy for a long time for fishing, for boating and, more importantly, for future generations. This site isn’t just about boats, the nature trails connecting Bogue Sound to the Croatan National Forest will give people another way to experience our outdoors, whether that’s a quiet walk, learning about the marsh, or just slowing down and enjoying where we live.”

He said the partnership with the Coastal Federation was important.

“It shows what can happen when public access and environmental stewardship work together instead of against each other. That kind of cooperation reflects Carteret County values: It’s practical, responsible and rooted in long-term thinking,” Quinn said.

Quinn said that in addition to the expected economic benefits of the facility, the project strengthens our connection to the water and to each other.

“It’s a place where kids learn to fish, neighbors cross paths, families spend time together, making memories together, the same way generations did before us,” said Quinn. “Found here in this body of water is the mind-clearing quiet of nature, and the small sounds of its islands are stark and healing, the squeaky flap of a cormorant’s wings overhead, the sizzle of salt foam over broken shells in a backwashing wave, the clicking of sandfiddler claws as they scuffle in the mud, and the splash of a jumping mullet breaking that flat water.

“My granddaddy was a commercial fisherman on these waters. My daddy was born here. I was raised on Bogue Sound. It isn’t just a place that I love, it’s who I am. I want to see my sons and future generations of Carteret County citizens to enjoy, to protect and to appreciate this beautiful place we call home.”

The North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fisher invites you to cast your vote on names for some of its newest, cutest residents.

Two months have passed since the aquarium welcomed an all-male trio of Asian small-clawed otters born during a full moon on Dec. 5, 2025.

As these adorable pups grow, physical differences are beginning to show and they’re starting to develop their own personalities.

The boys share what aquarium officials are calling “very special genetics,” making them “promising additions” to the Association of Zoos and Aquariums Species Survival Plan program.

Their grandparents, Si and Fun, as well as mom, Milli, are all from Hong Kong.

Si and Fun were confiscated in 2018 by the Hong Kong Agriculture, Fisheries and Conservation Department and moved to Ocean Park Hong Kong where they were placed under the professional care of animal experts.

Later that year, Milli was born. She was sent to the Fort Fisher aquarium in January 2024, where she was paired with mate Binx later that year.

Aquarium staff focus on names that highlight an important connection, such as historical or cultural significance, a species’ history or scientific name, and an attribute, adaptation, or behavior of the animal.

Voters may choose one of the following three groups of name options:

1. Koshi, Bheri, and Seti.
2. Bo, Eddy, and Reed.
3. Nyx, Baloo, and Bodhi.

Meanings of each name, information about each pup, and how to vote are on the aquarium’s website.

The voting deadline is noon Feb. 19.

This report first appeared Feb. 3 in NC Newsline.

North Carolina Insurance Commissioner Mike Causey says even as snow from last weekend’s storm begins to melt, his office has received a flurry of calls from business owners and lifetime Outer Banks residents upset to see more homes falling into the Atlantic Ocean.

The powerful storm, packing winds of 60 mph, brought down four more unoccupied structures in Buxton.

“There’s some angry people out there,” Causey told members of the Council of State on Tuesday. “That makes a total of 31 homes that have collapsed since 2020.”

Related: Winter storm takes 4 Buxton houses, leaves inches of snow

Causey said while his office doesn’t have a solution to deal with the continually eroding shoreline, the state should listen to the locals.

“The complaint that I hear is there’s been too much finger-pointing with the multiple agencies involved, the federal government, the parks system, environmental groups, on down the list,” said Causey. “But what they’re telling me is that we need emergency help to stop the bleeding, because we can’t let these houses keep collapsing.”

Buxton typically loses six feet to eight feet of shoreline each year, but rising sea levels and an active storm season can accelerate that erosion. And a collapsed home can leave a debris field that stretches for miles.

“It is an economic nightmare and it’s an environmental nightmare when that happens,” said Causey.

Property owners are responsible for removing debris when a home collapses, but currents can spread the wreckage far down the coast, so responsibility has increasingly fallen on park officials to protect the shoreline.

Last year the Cape Hatteras National Seashore hauled out over 400 truckloads of debris from fallen houses.

Causey said the residents he’s spoken to this week want to see manmade reefs or hardened structures, which are currently banned, reconsidered. Beach renourishment, which has been used in other coastal communities, is an expensive and temporary solution.

This is not the first time Causey has pressed for help for Outer Banks homeowners.

Last November, Causey and Gov. Josh Stein urged Congress to pass the Preventing Environmental Hazards Act of 2025. The bipartisan bill would allow National Flood Insurance Program (NFIP) payments to be made before an imminent collapse caused by erosion.

Standard homeowners’ insurance doesn’t cover shoreline erosion damage, so property owners can’t collect on it, even if the property is condemned, until the house collapses. The proposed legislation would give homeowners financial help to demolish or relocate a condemned structure before it falls into the surf.

“Federal NFIP pre-collapse authority would reduce hazards, protect visitors and wildlife, and save taxpayer dollars on emergency response and cleanup,” Causey and Stein wrote in their Nov. 2025 letter.

But the bill, co-sponsored by U.S. Rep. Greg Murphy (R-NC3), has not moved since last May, when it was referred to the House Committee on Financial Services.

“I think those people deserve to be heard,” said Causey.

While Causey was focused on the coast at Tuesday’s Council of State, Stein turned his attention to disaster recovery out west.

The governor’s office continues to push for Congress to authorize $13.5 billion requested for Hurricane Helene relief, Stein told the council. While North Carolina’s congressional delegation is supportive, the wheels of the federal government move very slowly, tied up in red tape due to new FEMA review requirements.

North Carolina has only received about 12% of the federal aid it has requested for Helene recovery, Stein said.

“I’m so glad I’m not in Congress because I can only imagine trying to get anything constructive done in that body,” said Stein. “But we need their help, Western North Carolina needs their help, and we’re going to keep asking for their help.”

For now, Stein said he’s incredibly grateful for the state employees who helped North Carolinians weather back-to-back winter storms in January.

Transportation crews pre-treated state roads with over 10 million gallons of brine, Stein said. Over 100,000 tons of salt was spread across North Carolina’s 100 counties, with another 20,000 tons expected to be needed in the next day or two with more wintry weather in the forecast.

“They’re just working nonstop to try to minimize the impact on our lives,” said Stein.

NC Newsline is part of States Newsroom, a nonprofit news network supported by grants and a coalition of donors as a 501c(3) public charity. NC Newsline maintains editorial independence.

A beach nourishment project expected to begin this summer on Buxton’s ocean shoreline will be the topic of a public meeting scheduled for Feb. 11.

Officials with Dare County, which is hosting the meeting at 6 p.m. in Buxton, will be joined by several representatives from the National Park Service – Outer Banks Group to provide general information and answer questions from the community about the upcoming project.

The meeting will kick off with a brief discussion about the nourishment project, including its expected timeline and duration, after which time the public may ask questions.

The meeting will be held in person at the Fessenden Center, 46830 N.C. Highway 12 and will also be livestreamed on the Dare County YouTube channel.

Those who are unable to attend the meeting may submit comments or questions via email to DareCountyPR@DareNC.gov no later than Sunday.

Additional information about nourishment projects in the county is available at MoreBeachToLove.com.

MANTEO — Shoaling in a Roanoke Sound channel just outside Shallowbag Bay has once again prevented the state attraction Elizabeth II from leaving its moorings at Roanoke Island Festival Park for maintenance.

And once again, Dare County has agreed to help manage another dredging project for the state so the ship can motor to the Wanchese state shipyard for its overdue haul-out.

“We’re still essentially in the planning stages,” Dare County Waterways Commission administrator Barton Grover said in a recent interview. “We’re not exactly sure what path we’re going to take moving forward.”

The 43-year-old wooden-hulled vessel, built to represent a 16th-century English sailing ship that participated in Sir Walter Raleigh’s 1584-1587 Roanoke Voyages, was last hauled out for dry-dock maintenance in 2021, after sitting in brackish water for four years.

Grover said that the proposed project would be addressing the same clogged area near where the channel intersects at Roanoke Sound and Shallowbag Bay that had earlier blocked the ship from moving.

In November 2020, the county had approved a contract and a grant application to conduct maintenance dredging in the channel to allow larger vessels, including the Elizabeth II, to access Manteo harbor. The vessel, which has an 8-foot draft, was able to safely leave its dock in Dough’s Creek about a week earlier than completion of the project in late February 2021, according to the county website.

Although the Roanoke Channel is officially a federally authorized channel, Grover explained that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers pipeline dredge does not do work north of Wanchese. Ultimately, a bucket-and-barge method was used for the 90-day project, which increased the depth of about 2.2 miles of channel from as little as 1 to 5 feet to 9 feet. Another 290 feet in a connector channel to the ship’s berth was also dredged. Costs for the $1.9 million project were appropriated by the North Carolina General Assembly, with an additional $170,000 provided by the state’s Shallow Draft Navigation Channel Dredging and Aquatic Weed Fund and the town of Manteo.

Some of the factors that come into play with the proposed dredge project, Grover said, include higher costs to dispose of the dredged material, as well as the lack of an obvious disposal area.

In the earlier projects, the material — scooped from the channel, piled onto a barge and then transported to land — was hauled off in a truck to the be placed on top of the county’s Manns Harbor landfill. But the increased expense may have made that option less attractive, he said. Other possibilities could include placement in a permitted area of water, or beneficial re-use along a shoreline or other area, he said.

Another consideration under review is whether the local hopper dredge Miss Katie would be capable of doing the necessary work instead of again using a bucket-and-barge method, Grover said. But the choice of an appropriate disposal site could also come into play in determining costs for that dredge to reach the site.

Typically planning and permitting for a similar dredge project takes at least “six-plus” months, he said. Also, the state has yet to secure the funding. Ideally, he said, a project would be ready to go during the upcoming winter of 2026-2027.

By then, the 69-foot-long ship will have been sitting in the brackish water alongside its dock in Dough’s Creek for about six years.

Michele Walker, assistant communications director at the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, said in an email responding to questions from Coastal Review that the last condition report was done by surveyor Paul C. Haley with Capt. G. W. Full & Associates Marine Surveyors in 2016, when numerous issues, including signs of rot and deterioration of the exterior and interior, were detailed.

When the vessel was hauled out in 2021, she added, Haley did not travel to the Outer Banks because of the COVID-19 pandemic, but he verified with the firm’s staff on site that the earlier repair recommendations had been completed.

“In addition, the ship is inspected annually by the U.S. Coast Guard,” Walker wrote. “This provides us approval to operate as an attraction vessel, which allows us to have passengers on board while moored.”

Walker added that the ship is maintained above the waterline throughout the year, with more extensive maintenance done while Roanoke Island Festival Park, a state museum that memorializes regional English precolonial and Native American history, and the adjacent Elizabeth II State Historic Site are closed January through mid-March.

Haley’s 2021 report, while emphasizing his familiarity with the vessel from doing the surveys in 2004, 2011 and 2016, also lauds the park for always following through on the surveyors’ recommendations.

Notably, when compromised planking documented in the earlier survey had been replaced, he said, the frames exposed during the work were observed to be in good condition. Also, all the critical repairs and plank replacements had been completed, he said.

“The vessel has a good maintenance program by the park and they haul out the vessel on a regular basis for repainting of the bottom and doing any maintenance work that requires the vessel being out of water,” he wrote.

Except for a few months in the winter, the Elizabeth II welcomes visitors aboard to experience a sailor’s view of ship life and duties, guided by interpreters in period costumes who regale them with stories.

As a representative vessel, the Elizabeth II was built based on knowledge of the tools, materials and basic designs used in Elizabethan-era shipbuilding, but there are no original design sketches of the actual merchant ships that sailed during the late 1500s to Roanoke Island from England. Still, the three-masted, square-rigged ship with dashing blue-and-white markings contrasting with its wooden hull — even while rarely moving from its dock across from the Manteo waterfront — has reliably served its mission as an ambassador for the state, the Outer Banks and Manteo’s heritage as the site of the first English colony in America.

But since the flashy ship’s 1984 launch during the town’s 400th anniversary celebration of the Roanoke Voyages, which culminated in the ill-fated “Lost Colony” that was never seen again after its governor left for supplies in 1587, once-routine day trips to visit coastal ports or join in community festivals fell by the wayside due to lack of funds, scheduling difficulties and other challenges. And gradually, even annual haul-outs started being delayed for multiple years, despite that prolonged time in the water for wooden hulls can lead to damage from shipworms and rot.

The ship’s current dockside stranding was not anticipated during the last review five years ago.

“It is the plan of this office to be present and to conduct a full survey at the haul out at the beginning of 2022,” Haley wrote in the report. “With this in mind, it is our opinion that the vessel is suitable for her present use.”

On Dec. 18, the nonprofit Friends of Elizabeth II indicated no intent to give up the ship, so to speak, posting a notice seeking to hire a new captain for the vessel. Applications were due Jan. 29. In addition to overseeing the maintenance of the ship and leading the crew and interpreters, the job’s responsibilities include training staff and volunteers in rigging, sailmaking and marine woodworking.

The required duties also illustrate that the Elizabeth II isn’t just a pretty ship decorating a small historic North Carolina town’s harbor. The captain must not only understand Coast Guard regulations associated with “moving watercraft” through waterways, the captain must be capable of “sailing the Elizabeth II as needed.”

While North Carolina residents are dealing with the inches of snowfall in the aftermath of this weekend’s winter storm, National Park Service officials on the Outer Banks are also dealing with the debris left behind by four more houses collapsing on Cape Hatteras National Seashore’s beaches.

National Park Service Public Affairs Specialist Mike Barber told Coastal Review Monday that Cape Hatteras National Seashore officials were notified that a house in Buxton collapsed earlier in the day, around 9 a.m. It was the fourth unoccupied house to collapse since Sunday morning.

The first house at 46201 Tower Circle Road collapsed early Sunday morning. Overnight, two more unoccupied houses at 46215 and 46219 Tower Circle Road fell, then the fourth house, which was at 46285 Old Lighthouse Road, Buxton. These four bring to 31 the total number of houses to collapse on the seashore’s beaches since 2020.

“Cape Hatteras National Seashore advises everyone to stay away from the collapse sites and the surrounding beach area, due to potentially hazardous debris. The beach is closed in front of the entire village of Buxton,” Barber said.

The Outer Banks, like much of the coast, continued to experience compromised roadways Monday and people were advised to stay off the roads unless necessary.

State transportation officials closed N.C. Highway 12 Saturday evening between the Basnight Bridge and Rodanthe, as well as on the north end of Ocracoke. They said Monday that the road would remain closed, “as we continue to see ocean overwash from this weekend’s nor’easter. Overwash also occurring at Buxton corner and on Rodanthe secondaries. Crews will be out working to clear today.”

N.C. 12 experienced ocean overwash and dune breaches on Pea Island Sunday morning, as well in Buxton and in Hatteras.

Additionally, all ferry routes were suspended Friday and remain suspended until conditions are deemed safe for operation, according to the North Carolina Department of Transportation.

NCDOT crews said they were making progress Monday clearing interstates and highways, but dangerous icy spots may remain because temperatures remained low. Gov. Josh Stein’s office and transportation officials urged people to stay off snow- and ice-covered roads and warned people to beware of black ice, which forms when ice and snow melt and then refreeze overnight into hard-to-see slippery patches.

As of late Monday, there were 2,500 NCDOT employees and contractors working to plow snow and spread salt on the highways and secondary routes. Since the storm began affecting the coast Saturday, crews have spread more than 23,000 tons of salt and plowed thousands of miles of roads.

Stein said that the state was “working around the clock to clear roads and get people back to their daily lives as quickly and safely as possible, but because temperatures will remain low overnight, this process takes time. We ask for your patience, and if you need to be on the roads this week, I urge you to slow down, give extra distance, and use caution while traveling.”

His office reported that the sunshine Monday, with temperatures reaching the upper 30s to lower 40s, allowed for snow that fell over the weekend to melt. However, that water will likely refreeze after sunset Monday evening because temperatures are forecast to fall into the teens and 20s.

Temperatures will warm into the low to mid 40s Tuesday before a cold front approaches the region.

The National Weather Service said Monday that for parts of eastern North Carolina, a light wintry mix of snow and freezing rain was possible Wednesday night.

“Please continue to remain vigilant as we are still experiencing extremely cold temperatures across the state,” NC Emergency Management Director Will Ray said in a statement. “As a reminder, several hazards remain, such as the risk of freezing pipes in homes. There are many people in our communities that are especially vulnerable to prolonged cold temperatures, so please check on your friends, family, and neighbors.”

Currituck County Emergency Management, in a social media post around lunchtime Monday, said that NCDOT crews were actively out working on the primary roadways throughout the county.

“While some roads are improving, many side roads remain covered with snow and ice, and freezing temperatures are keeping conditions slick. As temperatures drop and the sun goes down tonight, please be alert for black ice: a thin, nearly invisible layer of ice that forms when moisture refreezes on road surfaces. Black ice is especially common on bridges, shaded areas, overpasses, and low-lying roads, and can cause vehicles to lose traction with little warning,” they warned. “If you must travel, slow down, increase your following distance, and use extra caution. If you can stay home, that remains the safest option.”

Carteret County sent out a similar message Monday.

“Some roadways still have several inches of snow coverage, and partially melted snow and ice are expected to refreeze overnight, creating dangerous travel conditions. Residents are urged to stay off the roads if possible. If travel is necessary, exercise extreme caution, as icy conditions may make driving at posted speeds extremely dangerous and cause vehicles to lose traction with little warning,” according to Carteret County government officials. “Secondary and less-traveled roads are more likely to remain untreated and pose additional risks. Remaining off the roads also allows first responders and emergency management staff to continue their work safely.

Largely because of travel concerns, most county government offices were closed Monday because of the weather, and several had announced plans to close Tuesday as well, including Beaufort, Carteret, Gates, Pamlico, Dare and Hyde counties.

Record snowfall in coastal counties

Assistant State Climatologist Corey Davis, in a blog on this weekend’s snow storm, called the accumulated snow that fell all across North Carolina, “our most widespread wintry event in more than a dozen years, and the biggest snow for some areas in several decades.”

For parts of eastern North Carolina, this was the snowstorm of a lifetime, he continued.

“More than a foot fell over the central Coastal Plain, surpassing every other wintry event so far this century. The 12.5 inches in New Bern and 15 inches in Newport made this the first foot of snow for both areas since December 1989. The highest totals in the state came along the Crystal Coast, including 19.5 inches in Peletier and 17 inches in Swansboro,” he wrote.

In Cape Carteret, near whiteout conditions were observed on Saturday, Davis continues, bordering on blizzard criteria. Beaufort reported three consecutive hours with visibility of a quarter-mile or less, wind gusts of 35 mph or greater, and heavy snow falling or blowing.

Northeast North Carolina from Friday to Sunday experienced between 6 and 10.5 inches of snow, according to the National Weather Service Wakefield, Virginia, office, which provides the forecast for the region that includes Ahoskie, Elizabeth City and Currituck County.

Mainland Hyde County experienced a widespread swath of 8 to 12 inches, with localized snowfall totals in some townships exceeding 12 to 16 inches. For Ocracoke Island, “reliable totals” range from 4 to 6 inches, and that accumulation was coupled with “significant coastal flooding and inundation,” county officials announced Monday.

Heading south, centrally located counties including Beaufort, Carteret, Craven, Dare, Pamlico, Onslow and Tyrrell saw between 2 and 19 inches. Dare experienced the least amount with 2 to 11 inches and Carteret, Craven and Pamlico had areas getting hit with more than 18 inches, according to the Weather Service office in Newport.

“Most remarkably, along the Pamlico River in Beaufort County, this was the first foot of snow in more than 67 years, since December 1958. In that region, reported totals included 17 inches in Bath, 15 inches in Bayview, and 13 inches in Belhaven,” Davis explains in the blog.

“Along with having a strong, moisture-laden low pressure system just offshore, a key factor in ramping up the snowfall amounts was the cold air that created unusually high snow-to-liquid ratios for this part of the country. While Wilmington only measured 0.32 inches of liquid precipitation, that yielded 5.8 inches of fluffy snow – the heaviest snow there since 1989 – at an impressive 18-to-1 ratio,” Davis wrote.

In a Monday morning announcement, Holden Beach officials in Brunswick County warned residents that, although the bridge to the island had reopened, roads on the island were “treacherous.”

Holden Beach’s neighboring island to the west, Ocean Isle Beach, was covered in a whopping 15 inches of snow, according to estimated totals based on National Weather Service reports and local observations.

Farther north in Brunswick County, Leland, Bolivia and Southport all received a reported 9 inches of snow.

Brunswick County announced its offices and facilities will reopen at 10 a.m. Tuesday. The Brunswick County Commissioners meeting postponed Monday had not been rescheduled as of this report.

In New Hanover County, a reported 9 inches of snow accumulated in Carolina Beach. Wilmington saw less with a little under 6 inches of snow.

And, in Pender County, Hampstead received 10 inches of snow, while farther north, areas of Onslow County got upwards from 13 inches accumulation.

From a science perspective

Davis explained to Coastal Review that the coast was hit so hard because, “to put it simply, this was a strong nor’easter setup that happened to be cold enough for snow.”

He said that anytime the state gets these low-pressure systems right off the coast, whether they’re tropical storms or winter storms, “we know they’re capable of some major impacts. And we saw a lot of those typical impacts in this event, including the gusty winds and high surf that has already claimed a couple more houses along the Outer Banks.”

Davis compared this system and the nor’easter that moved up the coast October 2025.

The main low-pressure center started to deepen at pretty much the same location just south of Cape Fear, and the minimum pressure observed at Hatteras was nearly identical: 998.8 millibars in October, and 998.4 millibars during this storm. A millibar is a metric measurement of atmospheric pressure.

“If this had happened at any other time of year, we would have been talking about similar impacts, but with rain instead of snow. Having such cold temperatures in place so far south meant that it fell as all snow, and the snow-to-liquid ratios were off the charts compared to what we’re accustomed to. That let a lot of snow add up very quickly, and with the wind added in, that snow covered everything, and deep,” Davis continued.

When it comes to climate change and storms like these, Davis noted that a “common, or at least vocal, misconception about climate change is that it can and will make cold and snow impossible.”

He explained that while warming temperatures do make some wintry events — like the one from this previous weekend — more marginal for anything frozen, cold and snow are still a part of the winter climate, and big events like this can and do still occur.

“Of course, we’ve also seen the flip side of that, with a nearly three-year stretch with no measurable snowfall across much of the state, the average annual snowfall nearly cut in half in places like Charlotte and Raleigh, and steady warming in our wintertime low temperatures at the rate of about a degree per decade. All of those things — warming with snow events becoming rarer, along with seeing an occasional big snowfall — can still be true,” Davis explained.

“As a scientist, I think it’s important to acknowledge our certainty about climate changes and future projections. We’re very confident that the overall warming trend, especially in our nighttime low temperatures, will continue into the future, and that will continue to reduce our overall snow totals and snow event frequency. We’re less certain about how coastal winter storms like this one may change in the future,” he continued. “We often think about these climate trends as clearly pointing in one direction, but that’s really not true for projections of coastal storms like this, and there are competing forces that may affect how they evolve.”

He said that on one hand, these systems originate in tropical areas and strengthen over the warm ocean, which we know is warming at an even faster rate than the atmosphere, letting these coastal lows strengthen faster and pull in more moisture. But, on the other hand, it’s getting tougher to get temperatures cold enough over land to see all-snow events. These lows tend to bring in warm air in the mid-levels that causes precipitation to transition from snow to sleet, freezing rain, or regular rain, like we saw a couple of weekends ago.

“You might say that this storm offered up the best — or worst, depending on your perspective — of our past and future climates. We had that deep layer of cold air like we saw during our big storms back in the 1970s and 80s, but also a rapidly intensifying coastal low in a very warm and moist ocean environment that was able to drop extreme snowfall amounts,” he said. “That doesn’t mean this sort of event will get any more common in the future. It is now, and always will be, a rare collision of circumstances to bring such a major winter storm over such a large part of the state.”

Though there’s piles of snow out there, Davis said to keep in mind that, in terms of the liquid precipitation totals, most areas saw less than an inch of total liquid during this event, which he said is “a surprisingly low amount, given how much snow we received.”

That matters because it may mean the state sees less drought recovery than expected.

“Most of eastern North Carolina is still in moderate to severe drought, and even after the storm, places like Wilmington, Greenville, and Fayetteville are more than 10 inches below their normal precipitation over the past six months,” Davis said. “We may see some small improvements this week based on that precipitation, and the gradual snow melt may bring a slow recharge in streamflow and soil moisture levels over the next few weeks. But this winter is still tracking as a dry one overall, and we could use some more precipitation in any form before the end of the season to keep from entering the spring and the growing season with a bad drought still going on.”

Annie Harshbarger had been interested in animal behavior ever since she was young. Now, as a doctoral candidate at Duke University’s Marine Lab, she is currently building her thesis on decision-making in pilot whale social groups.

“I sort of knew when I started college that I wanted to study the behavior of whales and dolphins,” Harshbarger said. “The way that they navigate this really challenging environment that they’ve evolved to live in is very interesting.”

Harshbarger spoke about the way we can see this in the behaviors of whales off the coast of Cape Hatteras. She said in a talk at the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences that the behavior of pilot whales in that area demonstrates this flexibility. “They’re generalist foragers, so they can eat a lot of different things, so that means they can live in a lot of different habitats, and their behavior varies with what they live and what they’re eating.”

Pilot whales’ flexibility is tempered by the needs of their social groups, however. Unlike other whale species, they stay with the same group of whales for their entire lives (with occasional exceptions of males who join other groups to mate). When pilot whales dive for food, they do so together. Harshbarger is studying how those groups make decisions at different points throughout this process — a question without a lot of known answers, as of now.

New technology brings new information

One of the tools Harshbarger is using for her thesis is data gathered from digital acoustic recording tags, or DTAGs. These tracking tags can capture whale movement in three dimensions, painting a much more holistic picture of their behavior, and as the name implies, they record sound as well as movement. The technology was initially developed in 2003 by Mark Johnson and Peter Tyack in order to better understand the ways in which human-made noise pollution potentially affects the behavior of whales and dolphins.

“They were designed to study the effects of anthropogenic noise. We didn’t have the tools to understand the ways that noise pollution affects marine life. Peter and Mark came up with the tags to tackle that,” said Dr. Andy Read, director of the Duke Marine Lab and Harshbarger’s academic adviser.

Now this technology is being used to paint a fuller picture of what pilot whales are doing beneath the ocean’s surface. Harshbarger explained that the acoustic tags not only captured sound, but depth and movement in three dimensions. This allows researchers to study specific details about the whales’ diving behavior. Harshbarger is particularly interested in this data because of her focus on how pilot whales decide as a group when and where to look for food.

The information shows that pilot whales usually stick together throughout the entirety of their dives. It was originally hypothesized that while hunting, pilot whales would stay far enough apart from one another so as to avoid competition while also staying close enough that they could still hear each other.

To test this, researchers used information gathered from the acoustic tags. Because the tags have special hydrophones attached, they are able to record the sounds in such a way that they can gain an approximation of each whale’s position relative to the others.

“We can really understand how the group is foraging separately and together like we never have before,” Harshbarger said.

Tackling the big questions

One of the great unknowns with pilot whale behavior has to do with their decision-making processes. They are flexible animals who eat a wide variety of food found in many different environments. So how do they decide when and where to eat? Because pilot whale populations around the world are so large and varied, it can be difficult to track any one group consistently enough to determine the specifics of their behavior.

This is the question that Harshbarger is trying to help answer. “I found that decision-making process really interesting. So I’m studying how groups of pilot whales make decisions at different points in the dive cycle,” she said. Harshbarger compared it to a large family or group of friends trying to decide where to go for dinner. There are a number of options, and it can be difficult to make a decision for a big group of people. The same rule applies to pilot whales.

Harshbarger hopes that her research will begin to tackle these questions. Data gathered from the tagging of the Gibraltar whales has already answered some of them. By examining the audio and movement information gathered from the acoustic tags, researchers have learned that pilot whales not only dive together, but they usually forage for food at the same depths as well, even though there isn’t currently any evidence of them sharing prey.

The question of how pilot whales make decisions as a group remains mostly unanswered. Large populations and limited technology makes tracking them difficult in the long term. Acoustic tags stay on the whales’ bodies for around 24 hours maximum, so information is still limited.

“I think Annie’s work is probably going to leave us with a lot more questions. The potential conflicts between animals in groups is a really interesting idea. But Annie’s going to address the first, fundamental questions,” Read said.

Harshbarger said she believes in the value of studying and understanding these whales’ habits and behaviors, even if they are not currently endangered. There have been instances where local populations have suffered declines due to disease, and those populations’ behaviors changed as a result. Researchers were only able to notice that change because they had been observing the population beforehand.

“I think that’s kind of why I’m really interested in this, even for pilot whales, which are not necessarily something that people think of as the species with the most pressing conservation needs,” Harshbarger said. “That’s why I think it’s valuable to understand social behavior in any species, because you know that could change for them at any time.”

Part of a series about the effects federal budget and staff cuts and the cancellations of programs and services are having in coastal North Carolina.

The call from the North Carolina Attorney General’s office late last year relayed news of a victory.

A federal judge in Boston on Dec. 11, 2025, sided with Jeff Jackson and 19 other state attorneys general in their case against the Federal Emergency Management Agency, informed the caller.

U.S. District Court Judge Richard G. Stearns ruled that FEMA unlawfully terminated a federal grant program under which roughly $200 million had been awarded to North Carolina communities, including Pollocksville, to tailor projects to reduce and prevent storm damage.

Stearns issued an immediate, permanent injunction restoring the Building Resilient Infrastructures and Communities, or BRIC, program.

“And, that’s all we’ve heard,” Pollocksville Mayor Jay Bender said. “We’ve never heard anything official from FEMA saying yay or nay. We have not heard anything from North Carolina Emergency Management saying yay or nay.”

FEMA funnels BRIC grants to state emergency management offices, which are responsible for managing and passing funds on to grant recipients.

N.C. Division of Emergency Management’s Justin Graney, chief of external affairs and communications, said in an email that the agency had not been notified by FEMA as to when funding would be released.

“NCEM continues to work closely with FEMA to determine the next steps and looks forward to a resolution,” Graney said.

But any such resolution could be, at a minimum, months away.

The federal government still has time to appeal Stearns’ decision. The 60-day window to challenge his ruling closes before the middle of next month.

The N.C. Department of Justice’s communications office confirmed in an Jan. 26 email that FEMA had, at that time, not filed an appeal in the case.

“We are closely monitoring FEMA’s compliance with the court order,” the email states.

FEMA’s news desk at its regional office in Atlanta did not respond to requests for comment. 

The agency announced without any forewarning last April it was canceling the BRIC program, one created under President Donald Trump’s first term in office.

But just three months or so into Trump’s second term, an unnamed FEMA spokesperson stated in the announcement that the agency considered BRIC to be “wasteful” and “political.”

FEMA later clarified only projects that had been completed would be fully funded, erasing congressionally appropriated funding for more than 60 infrastructure projects in North Carolina.

Jackson joined a lawsuit filed last July by a coalition of state attorneys general who argued FEMA’s termination of the program was unlawful.

The court agreed, concluding that FEMA did not have the authority to end BRIC because Congress, not the federal agency, appropriated funds for that program.

“The BRIC program is designed to protect against natural disasters and save lives,” Stearns wrote.

“Our towns spent years doing everything FEMA asked them to do to qualify for this funding, and they were in the middle of building real protections against storms when FEMA suddenly broke its word,” Jackson said in a release following the court ruling. “Keeping water systems working and keeping homes out of floodwater isn’t politics – it’s basic safety.”

Pollocksville and Leland were selected to each receive about $1.1 million through the BRIC program.

Leland plans to relocate the town’s sewer system away from Sturgeon Creek from which floodwaters rise often after storms and natural disasters.

Jessica Jewell, Leland’s communications manager, said in an email that the town is exploring other grant opportunities to help fund their project.

At the time of FEMA’s announcement last April, Pollocksville had already paid out about $18,000 in legal, advertising and procurement fees ahead of the project the Jones County town had secured to raise six commercial buildings in its downtown next to the Trent River.

“I mean, this is a project that we thought was done,” Bender said. “We had a contractor. That was probably one of the most frustrating things. We were already under contract.”

Before the state attorneys general filed their lawsuit, town officials were contacted by the state and encouraged to submit their project proposal through the Hazard Mitigation Grant program. The HMGP is federally funded, but managed by the state Division of Emergency Management.

“Having to file all the same paperwork over – I don’t know that I can convey to you the complexity of the paperwork,” Bender said. “The positive thing about this, going through HMGP as opposed to going through FEMA, is that HMGP will be at no cost to the town. There’s no match and so that will obviously make it a more financially attractive proposal than FEMA.”

He went on to say that the town will take “the best deal that comes the quickest.”

“I will feel much more confident when there is an actual piece of paper to sign and when I see people on the street preparing elevate a building,” he said.

The National Park Service has approved a project to stabilize about a mile of rapidly eroding shoreline at Fort Raleigh National Historic Site.

The 513-acre site located on the northern end of Roanoke Island in the Albemarle Sound was established in 1941 to preserve where Sir Walter Raleigh established colonial settlements between 1581 and 1591.

National Park Service leadership signed on Jan. 14 a finding of no significant impact to install a combination of rock revetment and rock berm to sections of the shoreline. A finding of no significant impact confirms that a proposed action won’t significantly affect the environment.

When the National Park Service announced the project’s approval Jan. 15, officials also released the mandatory floodplain statement of findings, which explains why the project must take place in a floodplain, along with any associated risk, and flood mitigation strategies.

The announcement opened up a two-week comment period that ends Friday on the findings. Instructions on how to comment are on National Park Service’s website.

The floodplain statement of findings concludes that the proposed rock revetment and berm to prevent ongoing and future shoreline erosion at Fort Raleigh National Historic Site “is necessary and consistent” with federal rules on activities in floodplains.

On the same day, the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Coastal Management announced and opened up a public comment period for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration-requested federal consistency determination for the proposed rock berm and revetment combination project.

The determination is to “ensure compliance” with the Coastal Zone Management Act, a national policy for managing coastal resources.

“Specifically, the National Park Service proposes installing rock berms and rock revetments along approximately 1,100 linear feet of shoreline on the western end of Roanoke Island to reduce erosion, protect infrastructure, and enhance long-term shoreline stability,” per the state. “The State’s review of the submitted federal consistency determination request will determine if the proposed project in Dare County is consistent with the enforceable policies of North Carolina’s Coastal Management Program.”

To read the shoreline stabilization federal consistency determination request and comment, visit NCDEQ’s website.

Since becoming a national historic site, erosion along the property’s shoreline has been a management challenge. The shoreline is estimated to have eroded a quarter-mile or more since the late 16th century, according to the National Park Service.

Previous efforts have been made to slow shoreline loss but erosion has continued at an estimated 1 to 5 feet per year, impacting both cultural and natural resources at the site as well as the adjacent, privately owned Elizabethan Gardens, documents explain.

Michael Flynn is the physical scientist and certified floodplain manager for the Outer Banks Group of National Parks, which consists of Fort Raleigh, Cape Hatteras National Seashore and Wright Brothers National Memorial.

Flynn told Coastal Review that wind, wave action and currents have eroded the shoreline over time and threaten facilities, infrastructure and cultural resources such as the Waterside Theater, where the “Lost Colony” out door drama is performed every summer, and a family cemetery on the property.

“This has caused loss of archeological resources and upland forested areas,” Flynn said. “In the 1980s, the park installed stabilization measures including rock berm and rock revetment. Erosion is especially prevalent at the edges of these stabilization measures in an effect known as flanking.”

In recent years, park staff have been developing the stabilization and erosion control plan approved earlier this month and the associated environmental assessment, which identifies any potential effects of the proposed project.

The plan and environmental assessment released in July 2025 detailed three possible projects: a rock revetment, a rock berm or a combination of the two. The environmental assessment that was out for public review July 21, 2025, to Aug. 20, 2025, identified as the preferred action the combination of the two.

“After evaluating the potential impacts of three action alternatives, NPS selected the preferred alternative: a combination of rock revetment and rock berm in areas of the shoreline that are the best fit due to existing topography, land use and constructability,” according to the press release.

Flynn said the combination was chosen because of the variable topography along the shoreline. The approach also offers flexibility for engineered designs for different environmental conditions.

For example, the rock revetment alternative will be placed in locations where existing steep and high embankments range from 5 to 15 feet or higher, he said.

“For areas with rock revetment, the application of appropriately sized rock will prevent the bluff from sloughing. The rock berm alternative will be placed in areas with no or minimal embankment heights. For areas with rock berm, the application of appropriately sized rock will protect the low-elevation sand beach areas from erosion caused by wave action,” he explained.

Flynn said that the environmental assessment for the proposed project was prepared in accordance with the National Environmental Policy Act, NEPA, and Department of Interior NEPA regulations.

Because the National Park Service issuing earlier this month the finding of no significant impact, often referred to as a FONSI, officials determined that the preferred alternative identified in the environmental assessment, or EA, will not have a significant effect on the human environment. If the environmental assessment does not support a finding of no significant impact, then the park service must prepare an environmental impact statement and issue a Record of Decision before taking action on the proposed activity.

“In short, Fort Raleigh may now proceed with implementing the preferred alternative described within the EA. The park will stabilize the shoreline for erosion control once NPS officials finalize the accompanying Floodplain Statement of Findings,” Flynn said.

The floodplain statement of findings is necessary because of two executive orders that require the National Park Service to evaluate the likely impacts of actions in floodplains.

It is park service policy to preserve floodplain functions and values, minimize potentially hazardous conditions associated with flooding, including threats to human health and safety, risks to National Park Service capital investment, and impacts on natural and beneficial floodplain values, he said.

That means a floodplain statement of findings “is prepared when a proposed action is found to be in, or affecting a floodplain, and relocating the action to a non-floodplain site is considered not to be a viable alternative. This is the case with implementing shoreline stabilization measures for erosion control,” Flynn continued.

Flynn noted that the floodplain findings factor in climate change effects. When data are available, the climate-informed science approach detailed in one of the executive orders is the preferred way to develop the floodplain statement of findings.

The climate-informed science approach incorporates the use of best-available data on water movement and methods that integrate current and future changes in flooding due to the increasing severity and frequency of precipitation, sea level rise, tidal cycles, land use change, yielding the most accurate elevation and flood hazard area, Flynn said.

Once the public review and comment period closes Friday, park staff are to revise the document accordingly and send it to the National Park Service’s Water Resources Division for review and signature. After that, the plan goes to the regional office for review, signature and approval to move forward, he explained.

Nature-based coastal shoreline erosion control structures that successfully attract and grow oysters can better defend shores from waves, according to a study led by East Carolina University researchers.

The study, published late last year in the journal Scientific Reports, found that the more oyster-dense a breakwater designed to recruit and grow those shellfish is, the better that structure is at dissipating waves.

“We actually found that wave attenuation increased or improved as the structures recruited oysters,” said Georgette Tso, a doctoral candidate in ECU’s Integrated Coastal Sciences Program and co-author of the study.

As more and more oysters grow on a surface, their shells building layer by layer, those shells alter that structure’s surface, making that surface rougher and less permeable.

After documenting two seasons of oyster recruitment, researchers found that living shorelines constructed with living oyster breakwaters absorbed wave activity by an increase of 10-15%.

Their findings are based on observations of living shorelines at two private properties along Bogue Sound in Newport in Carteret County.

The structures were installed between May and June 2022 by Native Shorelines, the coastal resiliency division of Davey Resources Group, using concrete-based breakwater systems called QuickReef.

QuickReef is built from materials primarily of natural calcium carbonate formed into concrete slabs. Those slabs are installed to allow water flow and attract oyster larval, which attach to and grow on the structures.

Living shorelines are becoming increasingly attractive for coastal waterfront property owners seeking ways to curb erosion of their land.

“I think there’s been a lot more awareness within coastal North Carolina about living shoreline options as an alternative to a hardened shoreline, like bulkheads or some other vertical structure, which oftentimes actually costs more over time to repair. And, they’re not as resistant to hurricane damage because of that vertical profile,” Tso said.

The benefits of living shorelines, including their resiliency against the effects of rising sea levels, have been documented through research spanning back more than a decade.

But Tso said that there is little data how smaller-scale living shoreline projects like the ones she and her fellow scientists observed for this study actually change the way waves interact with shorelines.

Their observations proved to be “an exciting finding,” Tso said, because they prove what researchers have suspected for some time.

“Oysters grow vertically and they increase the roughness on the surfaces that they grow on. They also can grow within interstitial spaces and reduce porosity in that way. So, we hypothesized that the amount of wave attenuation a structure could provide would increase with the recruitment of live and healthy oyster populations,” she said. “This additional factor that’s not been explored, of it actually improving the wave attenuation potential and reducing the wave energy that hits the back of your shoreline over time, is something that we should communicate more to homeowners because they’ve actually bought into a solution that has increased benefits over time that they may not have anticipated when they first put in the structure.”

And while it’s fair to say the longer these structures recruit oysters the more protection they may offer to a shoreline, Tso said there is one important caveat.

“This is just a two-year study so we’re not capturing the point in time where the oyster population will eventually plateau. The size of the structure and the amount of food available to the oysters in the water is limited, obviously, so the oyster population will eventually plateau. So, though we’ve observed increases in wave attenuation potential, probably it’s going to cap off at some point,” she said.

It is also important to note that oyster recruitment and growth will not be the same at every shoreline.

Shorelines bend and curve, leaving pockets where water does not circulate to deliver oyster larvae.

“What we found is only relevant if your structure can actually recruit oysters, and that’s not true on all North Carolina shorelines,” Tso said. “If you don’t have baby oysters being delivered to your shoreline, you’re not going to be able to recruit oysters. If you’re in a site where that’s not possible then the wave attenuation potential that you have at construction is what you’re going to have. It’s not going to improve because you’re not recruiting oysters.”

Successful oyster larval recruitment and growth also depends on things like water temperature, salinity, and tidal variation.

Tso is in the process of analyzing data researchers collected last summer at more than a dozen QuickReef living shoreline sites. Scientists during that time also revisited their two original study sites, which continued to recruit oysters, Tso said.

The other researchers on this study include Dr. Siddharth Narayan, assistant professor in ECU’s Integrated Coastal Programs, Megan Geesin, a doctoral candidate at ECU, Dr. Matthew Reidenbach, professor and chair of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, Dr. Jens Figlus with Texas A&M’s Ocean Engineering Department, and Dr. Rachel Gittman, assistant professor with ECU’s Department of Biology.

A powerhouse in the marine science and coastal management community, Dr. B.J. Copeland, 89, died Wednesday, Jan. 14.

Copeland left a lasting impact on the state as the director of North Carolina Sea Grant, a N.C. State University professor, and through his work with the Albemarle-Pamlico National Estuary Partnership. He served on the Marine Fisheries Commission, and was on the committee that drafted what is now the Fisheries Reform Act of 1997.

Copeland spent his childhood, along with his three siblings, on the family farm in rural Oklahoma. He earned his master’s and doctorate at Oklahoma State University, where he met his wife of more than 60 years, Jean Van Nortwick. They married Jan. 26, 1963.

He relocated to Texas in 1962 where he was a postdoctoral researcher and lecturer at the University of Texas Marine Science Laboratory at Port Aransas.

In a 2016 interview for the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum and Heritage Center’s Coastal Voices Project, Copeland said his “Ph.D. degree is in Limnology, the study of fresh water. So, I went to the University of Texas to see if salt water was the same as fresh water and indeed it is, except for a little bit of salt!”

He moved to Raleigh in 1970 for an associate professor position at N.C. State. Copeland said in the Q&A that he moved to North Carolina mainly because of the beginning of a marine science program jointly between N.C. State, the universities of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Wilmington, and Duke University.

“We were trying to start a graduate program in Marine Science and so I was a researcher and a professor in the Zoology Department, Botany Department, and the new Marine Sciences program,” he said, adding that the new marine sciences program eventually became the Department of Marine, Earth, and Atmospheric Sciences at N.C. State. 

In 1973, he took on a new role as the director for what was then the North Carolina Sea Grant institutional program, explains an article on the 25^th anniversary of the program in the October 2001 issue of N.C. Sea Grant’s Coastwatch magazine.

Congress established the program in 1966, and began awarding grants in 1968. Sea Grant then became part of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, that was formed in 1970. UNC Chapel Hill administered the Sea Grant institutional program from 1970 to when Copeland took over and relocated the program to Raleigh.

“In truth, if Sea Grant wasn’t invented in 1966, someone would invent it today. People depend on Sea Grant for good information and to help them survive,” Copeland said in the 2001 article. “You can’t argue with priorities when they are to improve the quality of life and enhance economic opportunities. That’s what Sea Grant is all about.”

Copeland said that in the early days of trying to gather input on research and extensions needs, he talked with a man who working his eel pots and crab pots. Copeland said he asked the waterman what the program could do for him and the man responded, “’Sounds like you guys are just looking for something to do.’”

Copeland got the message, though. For Sea Grant to be accepted, the program would need to be relevant and deliver good information, he said in the article.

He began hiring staff who brought in their own experiences, leading the program to marine advisory work, promoting shellfish culture, addressing seafood processing issues, developing seafood recipes, outreach efforts, and research.

When Copeland took over the program in 1973, his goal was to elevate N.C. Sea Grant from an institutional program to be designated a Sea Grant College Program, which happened in July 1976. The program also got a budget of $1 million.

The federal-state partnership was supported with $2 in federal funds for each $1 in state funding, but in 1980, Sea Grant was zeroed out of the federal budget, leading to Copeland spending many days in Washington getting the Sea Grant message out, according to the 2001 article.

He said at the time that it wasn’t a stretch to show that Sea Grant was worth something and worth keeping.

“The direct impact was evident in the growth of the extension program. Initial work in fisheries and marine education were soon joined by aquaculture and mariculture. Coastal processes work increased, as did coastal law and policy efforts,” the article explains.

Copeland left Sea Grant in 1996 and began serving as graduate administrator for the Zoology Department at N.C. State. He retired from the university in 2002.

Current N.C. Sea Grant Executive Director Susan White told Coastal Review that she was fortunate have had Copeland as an early and regular mentor when she joined the North Carolina Sea Grant program as director in 2012.

“We had great lunches together, sometimes here in Raleigh sometimes closer to his home, and his knowledge of the intricacies of a statewide program that evolves regularly with the pressing needs of the times was relevant and timely as I was still learning the many paths for NC Sea Grant,” White said.

“B.J. always had great stories to tell about his time with NC Sea Grant, the challenges of federal funding support ebbing and flowing, the great characters of each of the team members, and his enjoyment of his time with the program. B.J. joined us for retirement parties and program reviews throughout the past decade, keeping his finger on the pulse. His practical advice, and huge laughs, were wonderful to be on the receiving end of,” she continued.

Copeland’s work with what is now Albemarle-Pamlico National Estuarine Program predates his time with Sea Grant and, once he began directing Sea Grant, his partnership with APNEP grew.

Copeland said in a Q&A with the program that he “was involved with APNEP before it was APNEP – before it even existed, in fact.” APNEP is an effort to understand, protect, and restore natural resources of the Albemarle-Pamlico estuarine system in North Carolina and Virginia, its website explains.

The only National Estuary Program in the 1960s was the Chesapeake Bay. In the late 1960s, “somebody got the happy idea that Congress ought to have an annual or biannual report on the status of the nation’s estuaries, so they commissioned one,” Copeland explained.

He went to Chapel Hill in 1968 to work on a report on the nation’s estuaries. He and the late Dr. Howard Odom wrote “Coastal Ecological Systems of the United States.”

“To do research for it, we went to every state and gathered material that had been written up or stuck in a drawer, and we took that data on coastal systems and turned it into a book. It was the first work on the status of the nation’s estuaries,” Copeland said.

A handful of Congressmen in the 1970s, including Walter Jones from North Carolina, who was chair of the House Merchant Marine and Fisheries Committee, pointed out that there’s an estuary in North Carolina.

Copeland continued that the whole setup of the National Estuary Program was changed to include not only Chesapeake Bay, but also other estuarine systems. The Albemarle-Pamlico system “includes a lot of water and a lot of territory – we were known as the second-largest ecosystem on the East Coast.”

In the early 1980s, work began on establishing the Albemarle-Pamlico as a National Estuary Program, and he helped form the first technical committee. “In 1987, we got the first grant for the program – for the Albemarle-Pamlico Estuarine Study (APES). We were a part of the National Estuary Program, authorized by Congress earlier that same year,” he said.

At the time, there were water quality problems that he described as “astronomical,” with algal blooms in the Chowan River, Albemarle Sound and Pamlico River. The Neuse River had fish kills.

“We had a crisis. You couldn’t sell seafood for a year, so we had to solve this problem. You’ve got to turn this thing around or the seafood industry is going to go down the tubes – that’s the reason for the program. But what people sometimes forget is that you can’t do all this at once. You’ve got to prioritize, you’ve get something understood and you find out it’s really connected to something else over here – it’s not easy,” Copeland told APNEP. “And so, we began to work. We had technical committees and proposals for projects and for priority research, and things began to trickle into state policies and state government.”

After the technical committee completed the Albemarle-Pamlico Estuarine Study and produced the Comprehensive Conservation and Management Plan for the region in 1994, the project was renamed as the Albemarle-Pamlico National Estuarine Program. In 2012, program was changed to partnership.

Southern Environmental Law Center Senior Attorney Derb S. Carter Jr. told Coastal Review that Copeland was leading the state’s Sea Grant program when the Coastal Area Management Act was enacted in 1974 and when the Albemarle Pamlico Estuarine Program launched. 

“Effective environmental and natural resource programs must be based on sound science.  We are all fortunate that B.J. was passionate about ensuring programs to manage our coastal resources incorporate the best science,” Carter said.

It was also in the 1980s when Copeland was appointed the first time to the Marine Fisheries Commission, and eventually helped draft the Marine Fisheries Reform Act in the 1990s.

In the 2016 Q&A for Carolina Coastal Voices project, Copeland said he became involved with fisheries management because Sea Grant has programs on commercial fishery, recreational fishing, interactions, management of fisheries, how things worked, and could translate research into management.

“And I got into fisheries management for real when I was appointed to the Marine Fisheries Commission in the 1980s, under the so-called, ah, Egghead Commission,” he explained, adding he served on the commission for four or five years before it dissolved.

“I mean, the state government decided that commissions weren’t really the way to go, so the Marine Fisheries Commission was actually dissolved and they started over again. And so there was legislative action to create a new commission, which kept getting things added to, and added to, and added to until we have a 19-member Marine Fisheries Commission,” he explained. This was in the mid-1980s.

“And that was also a disaster, because 19 people can’t make any kind of decision,” Copeland said.

The committee argued a lot and “what happened with the Fisheries Moratorium Act, I mean–that was one of the factors, that we had an unwieldy commission — no way to get there — we had regulations right and left, none of which were related to others. People were kind of fed up with the whole idea,” Copeland said. The fisheries moratorium “came because they wanted to stop, look, consider, and really come up with something. And so, we had a three-year moratorium on anything; on any regulation, on any activity, any new activity. And that resulted in the Fisheries Reform Act.”

The North Carolina General Assembly approved in 1994 the moratorium on selling any new commercial fishing licenses and established the 19-member Fisheries Moratorium Steering Committee to study the state’s coastal fisheries management process and recommend improvements.

The committee issued a draft report in late summer 1996, held 19 public meetings statewide, and adopted a final report in October 1996 that formed the basis for the Fisheries Reform Act, which was signed into law Aug. 14, 1997, according to the oral history project, calling it the “most significant fisheries legislation in NC history.”

Copeland was on the moratorium steering committee and as director of Sea Grant, he said he represented the research and information side.

As part of the moratorium, Copeland said, funds were appropriated for research that was administered through N.C. Sea Grant college program, and “I think I knew about all of the players. So, communication and interaction amongst the players was also important, and Sea Grant played a role in that, as well.”

Another part of Sea Grant’s role was to get the information out broadly and quickly, Copeland said they did that through a network “and we traded on two very important elements: one of them was the truth. If you’re a bearer of the truth, you usually get along pretty well. And so we had a reputation for doing that. And secondly, we thought that information was a necessary ingredient for anything we did. And so, we were doing that, too. It was kind of a natural fit.”

The committee was tasked with creating parameters for a Marine Fisheries Commission that “could actually function,” Copeland said, trimming it down from 19 to nine. The commission has three people from the commercial interests, three people from recreational interests, and three at large, all appointed by the governor. He served on the newly structured commission for 12 years.

Copeland said in the Q&A that “we were purveyors of the truth. We had a reputation of, you know, you can come and ask Sea Grant a question, you were going to get an honest answer. And so we could be a player without taking a side. And that was really important, because most people take sides somewhere, sometime. And so we worked very hard at not taking a side.”

He lamented that fisheries is going to take a hit because of misinformation, in the 2016 interview.

“Some of these environmental issues, which are going to get scuttled because of some misinformed position, somebody who’s more powerful than somebody else will get their way and so on. I mean, they practice the Golden Rule, you know: them what’s got the gold, rules. So, you know, I think things are going to get worse before they get better. I keep thinking that, one of these days the general public’s going to wake up and say, ‘We need to get rid of this bunch!’ but that’s not happening,” he said.

After the Fisheries Reform Act, Copeland said in an interview that he went back to the academic department at N.C. State and taught a couple of courses, retiring in 2002.

North Carolina Coastal Federation founder Todd Miller told Coastal Review that Copeland influenced the direction of coastal science and management in North Carolina for more than half a century.

“After ‘retirement,’ he continued to shape coastal policy and practice as a member of the N.C. Marine Fisheries Commission, an active participant in the Albemarle–Pamlico Estuarine Partnership, the Coastal Habitat Protection Plan process, and numerous other civic efforts,” Miller continued. “He built a Sea Grant program in North Carolina that earned international respect and, importantly, translated coastal research into practical solutions for real-world management challenges. Through his leadership and service, he profoundly influenced efforts to protect and restore the North Carolina coast and left it stronger for future generations.”

He and his wife owned a farm near Apex from 1978 until 2002 and later a farm near Pittsboro, according to his obituary, and he found joy in gardening and farming.

“For many who knew and loved him, B.J.’s deep voice and his loud belly laugh will always be remembered. His excellent memory and quick wit made him an entertaining teller of stories and jokes. We can only hope that some of us can tell them as well as he did. B.J. will long be remembered with gratitude, admiration, love and a big smile,” his obituary states.

His memorial is at 2 p.m. Friday at Pleasant Hill United Methodist Church in Siler City.

In lieu of flowers, donations may be made in memory of B.J. Copeland to: Boys & Girls Homes of North Carolina, P.O. Box 127, Lake Waccamaw, NC 28450, or Pleasant Hill United Methodist Church at P.O. Box 1322, Pittsboro, NC 27312. Arrangements are by Donaldson Funeral Home and Crematory.

The Army Corps of Engineers wants more time to mull over concerns that have been brought up on the proposed project to deepen and widen portions of the Wilmington Harbor channel.

The North Carolina Division of Coastal Management announced late Tuesday afternoon it had granted the Corps’ request, indefinitely pausing the division’s review of whether the proposed project is consistent with state coastal management program laws, regulations and policies.

“The decision to pause allows time for the Corps to review and consider issues raised by DCM and the public before DCM completes its review,” according to a release. “A timeline has not been established for when the pause may be lifted.”

The pause follows a series of deadline extensions that have been made in recent weeks on the proposed project, one that is being highly scrutinized for its potential effects to the environment, shorelines and treasure of historic and culturally significant areas along the shores of the lower Cape Fear River.

The N.C. State Ports Authority says the project designed to accommodate larger ships would attract more import and export business to the port, ease shipping congestion on the East Coast, and keep the state’s ports competitive. The proposal calls for deepening the harbor channel by 5 feet and widening portions of it from the mouth of the Cape Fear River to the Wilmington port.

In late December, the division announced that the Corps’ Wilmington District was giving the division more time to complete its review of the federal determination, pushing its deadline from Jan. 5 to Jan. 19.

The Corps requested the pause on Jan. 16, just days after state fisheries and wildlife resources officials sent the division memorandums saying those agencies continue to have concerns about impacts to fish and wildlife resources within the proposed project area.

A Corps spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment by deadline for this report.

In its Jan. 14 memorandum to the Division of Coastal Management, the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries reiterated its concerns about the proposed project’s effects on habitat essential to fish in the river, wetlands connected to the river, and the overall water quality in the river.

Deepening and widening the harbor as planned “will have significant adverse impacts to fisheries resources due to the permanent loss of state-designated nursery and anadromous fish spawning areas along the Cape Fear River estuary and its tributaries,” the memorandum states.

“There is also potential for significant adverse impacts to wetlands, (submerged aquatic vegetation), shellfish resources, and water column habitat due to insufficient mitigation plans and uncertain impacts associated with the proposed actions that are not adequately discussed,” in the federal letter report and draft environmental impact statement of the Wilmington Harbor 403 navigation project released in September. The figure 403 refers to the relevant section of the Water Resources Development Act.

N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission officials raised similar worries, stating in a Jan. 15 memorandum to DCM that while it had been involved throughout the project’s development process, “our agency still has concerns regarding impacts the proposal will have on wildlife resources in the project area.”

“These comments include concerns regarding the proposal’s direct impacts to wildlife habitats, whether impacts to these habitats have been adequately assessed, inadequacies of mitigation proposals, the need to consult appropriate agencies prior to moving forward with the proposal, and the subsequent impacts to wildlife and their habitats (particularly nesting waterbirds and shorelines) from larger and increased vessel use.”

A number of towns in Brunswick and New Hanover counties have adopted resolutions urging state and federal agencies to protect a series of islands within the lower Cape Fear River that support 30% of the state’s coastal shorebird population.

Those towns are also calling for the creation of a comprehensive, long-term, and fully funded environmental and adaptive management plan to cover costs related to monitoring and mitigation to prevent and repair environmental harm.

A Corps official earlier this month confirmed to Coastal Review that the agency was implementing a programmatic agreement with the North Carolina State Historic Preservation Office, the General Services Administration, the state Ports Authority, “and possibly the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation” to review historic and culturally significant areas along the river that may be impacted by the proposed project.

The agreement must be signed before the agency finalizes project plans, which would occur after the Corps releases its final environmental impact statement.

The final environmental impact statement is expected to be released sometime this summer, according to a tentative timeline released by the Corps. It is unclear how the Corps’ request of the state to pause its review may affect that projected timeline.

Once the review process resumes, DCM must decide whether to concur with or object the Corps’ determination.

“If DCM objects, it can offer alternatives or conditions that, if agreed to by the Corps, would allow the project to proceed,” according to the division.

Construction on the proposed project would begin no earlier than 2030 and take about six years to complete, a schedule Corps officials have said is optimistic.

The nonprofit organization that aims to preserve Bath’s history has asked the corporation selling an about 1,768-acre tract of riverfront property to consider separating out what it considers historically significant section of the land, Washington Daily News reported Jan. 19.

Currently owned by Nutrien, a global fertilizer company formerly operating as PCS Phosphate or PotashCorp, the multiparcel property known as Archbell Point is listed for $17.5 million.

The Historic Bath Foundation believes remnants of both Native American villages and early colonial plantations are among the important pieces of the area’s history that are within the property located across the Pamlico River from Nutrien Aurora’s phosphate mine.

The foundation feels that the property has the potential to be eligible for the National Register of Historic Places, and wants Nutrien to consider separating out a historically significant part of the parcel that’s currently up for sale, Washington Daily News reported.

The land for sale has more than 3.4 miles of shoreline along the Pamlico River, Bath Creek and Duck Creek. Structures on the property include three houses, a workshop, around 180 tillable acres, 1,500 acres of timberland and freshwater ponds, the listing states.

The foundation sent a letter to Nutrien late last summer after learning the property was going to be sold asking the company to consider excluding the historic area from the sale, but has not received a response, Washington Daily News reported.

Foundation President Seth Effron told Washington Daily News that the group wants all parties to be aware of the “documented historic and archeological significance of portions of the site and have an opportunity to discuss ways to assure there is a full understanding on how to move ahead before these places are sold.”

The listing notes that the property “offers a variety of development possibilities — all subject to approval by Nutrien,” the current owners.

The North Carolina Coastal Federation has received funding to remove a dozen abandoned and derelict vessels from waters in Carteret, Chowan, Hyde, New Hanover and Onslow counties.

BoatUS Foundation announced last week that the Coastal Federation, along with nine other organizations spanning five states, one reservation and two territories, has been selected for the funding.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Marine Debris Program funds this program administered by BoatUS Foundation, a nonprofit that promotes safe, clean and responsible boating. The Coastal Federation is a nonprofit member organization that works to protect and restore the state’s coast.

“This award provides critical support for removing vessels from working harbors,” Coastal Federation Marine Debris Program Director Ted Wilgis said in a release. “These communities, already facing tight budgets and rising expenses, do not have enough resources or funding to remove and dispose of these vessels. This award will enable the North Carolina Coastal Federation to continue its partnership with the NC Wildlife Resources Commission and local governments to remove and dispose of ADVs affecting the livelihood and environment of our coastal communities.”

The award for $550,000 is to go to the removal and disposal of vessels ranging in size from 24-foot recreational boats to commercial fishing trawlers up to 75 feet long out of waters in Edenton, Engelhard, Swan Quarter, Morehead City, Beaufort, Marshallberg, Sneads Ferry, Holly Ridge and Carolina Beach, according to the nonprofit.

The North Carolina Coastal Federation, publisher of Coastal Review, is launching a leadership and professional development program focused on coastal issues.

The cohort-based Coastal Leadership Institute is designed for individuals who play leadership roles in coastal North Carolina communities, as well as leaders from across the state whose work influences the coast.

The institute is designed as a six-month program with two full-day sessions per month beginning in March. The cohort size is limited to about 20–25 participants. Registration is now open for the inaugural class.

“The Coastal Federation has established a strong reputation as a convener of people and organizations interested in protecting and restoring the coast,” said Coastal Federation Executive Director Braxton Davis, “so the launch of this new Institute is a natural fit for us and will be important to advancing our mission.”

Through facilitated discussions, expert-led sessions, and site-based learning, participants will gain a deeper understanding of the forces shaping coastal communities, examined through economic, environmental, natural, and cultural history lenses, while building strong professional relationships that support effective leadership in complex coastal settings, institute organizers said.

“Coastal issues rarely have simple solutions,” said Coastal Federation Chief Community Engagement Officer Amanda Lyle. “By bringing together leaders from different communities and sectors, the Institute creates space for shared learning and helps build the capacity for informed decision-making.”

The tuition of $1,000 per participant covers program materials, meals, transportation for site visits, lodging, and alumni programming access. Scholarships are available.

The six sessions will convene in March, April, May, September, October, and November, with a summer break.

An orientation is set for March 9-10 in Beaufort. This session will also explore how the cultural, historical, and ecological context of coastal North Carolina factor into the region’s identity, challenges, and leadership needs.

Subsequent sessions will cover coastal and marine sciences, growth and economic development, coastal policy and management issues, and natural resource conservation and restoration. This year, sessions will primarily take place in Carteret County and the Wilmington area.

The program is intended to become an annual offering that brings together emerging and established leaders from a wide range of professional backgrounds, including business, local and regional government, military, education, nonprofit, and industry.

The Institute is geared to create a space for thoughtful dialogue, practical learning, and a trusted peer network that continues well beyond the program.

 “We really couldn’t do this without our partners and supporters – the many individuals and organizations who have committed to sharing their expertise, insights, resources and time with the participants and to helping create new professional connections for the betterment of our coast,” Davis added.

The inaugural Coastal Leadership Institute cohort is partially subsidized through the support of the Duke Energy Foundation, the Carlyle Adams Foundation, and the RBC Foundation.

More details and the application are online.

From shortly after the Civil War until the mid-2000s, when the last menhaden plant was shuttered, the town of Beaufort would “smell of money.”

“The menhaden industry made Beaufort prosperous. Local menhaden companies once provided hundreds of jobs in the local community and surrounding areas with numerous factories and vessels working this lucrative fishery,” according to information from the North Carolina Maritime Museum, which has held several programs on the industry.

“The fishery itself, processing plants ashore, and support infrastructure provided steady employment opportunities, especially for African-Americans. While many visitors remember the smell of the fish, locals call it the ‘smell of money,’” It was their livelihood. Local merchants all benefited from the influx of people and money during menhaden’s fishing season. Menhaden fishing was recognized throughout Carteret County as an important part of this county’s commercial fishing industry.”

In the early days of catching menhaden, the mother boat would deploy smaller purse boats to maneuver a large net around a school of fish. Once the string draws the net shut around the hundreds of pounds of menhaden, the fishermen would haul the net by hand.

To perform this physically demanding, dangerous work, the fishermen would sing work songs, or chanteys, to help rhythmically synchronize their movements.

Barbara Garrity-Blake, fisheries social scientist and adjunct at Duke University Marine Lab in Beaufort, told Coastal Review that the menhaden fishermen used to sing these songs before hydraulic net-lifting technology was introduced in the early 1960s.

“Each vessel carried a crew of about two-dozen men, mostly African Americans, who worked shoulder to shoulder in purse boats to pull in a giant seine net heavy with menhaden — sometimes a 100,000 or more fish. The men would coordinate their pulling by singing in a call-and-response style where the leader would sing out a line and the crew would answer in harmony,” she continued.

Their songs were a seafaring tradition known as chanteys.

After the menhaden industry became mechanized in the 1960s and 1970s, and the songs were no longer sung, some of the former and retired fishermen began to perform these traditional work songs for audiences, eventually becoming formally known as the Menhaden Chanteymen in 1988.

After the group began performing publicly, they sang for the North Carolina General Assembly, National Council on the Arts, at New York City’s Carnegie Hall and on national television, including for a segment on “CBS Sunday Morning” with Charles Kuralt. The group recorded the album “Won’t You Help Me to Raise ‘Em: Authentic Net Hauling Songs from an African-American Fishery,” for Global Village Music in 1990.

The remaining members made special appearances at events throughout the county, including a handful at Core Sound Waterfowl Museum and Heritage Center on Harkers Island.

Beaufort Mayor Sharon Harker awarded in 2022 the two surviving Chanteymen, Ernest Davis and the Rev. Leroy Cox, the key to the city. Cox died in 2023, leaving Davis as the “last legacy-bearer of the Menhaden Chanteyman” until the final member, Davis, 86, died Jan. 3. His service and burial was Jan. 8 Mt. Tabor Missionary Baptist Church of North River. Noe Funeral Services of Beaufort handled the arrangements.

Garrity-Blake noted that Davis was the youngest of the Chanteymen and had “explained that singing generated a special power or strength, used for nets otherwise too heavy for human strength alone. So the chantey songs were used as a tool.”

In a recording, Davis explains that the fishermen would sing a chantey when they needed to raise up a net full of fish.

“If we couldn’t sing, we couldn’t get them raised up,” Davis said. The singing “would give you more spirit, and more power” and you could raise your fish better.

“At night you couldn’t sleep because you’d be hurting and cold so you just make up songs,” Davis said. And most of the captains would be singing right along with the crew. “Music could be heard all over the ocean … like music was on the water.”

Garrity-Blake said in an interview that she worked for many years with Davis and other menhaden workers on a project called “Raising the Story of Menhaden Fishing.”

The 2005 closure of Beaufort Fisheries, the last menhaden plant in the state, inspired North Carolina Humanities Council-funded project that Garrity-Blake helped launch in 2009 and 2010 with the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum and Heritage Center on Harkers Island.

Davis was among a group of menhaden workers, including captains, crewmen, cookhouse and factory workers, who met several times at the Beaufort train depot to plan the project, “which was hilarious because ‘planning’ took a backseat to telling tales,” Garrity-Blake said, adding that the meetings always turned into a big storytelling session and nobody wanted to leave when the meeting was over.

“I realized that the menhaden folks had a hunger for getting together to talk about fishing. They feared their experiences and the industry’s legacy as the economic backbone of Carteret County would be forgotten. So we decided to call it ‘Raising the Story’ — just as the men worked together to raise fish, we’d work together to raise the story of menhaden fishing,” Garrity-Blake continued.

Garrity-Blake conducted about a dozen oral history recordings of people representing different skills in the fishery, from ring-setter in the fishing process to factory owner, the late Jule Wheatly in December 2009. He died in October 2011.

Fine art photographer and Beaufort resident Scott Taylor took portraits of all the folks who were interviewed, and developed an exhibit for the waterfowl museum. The oral history interviews and photos are part of the Core Sound museum’s online collection, on a Facebook page also called “Raising the Story of Menhaden Fishing,” and on Carolina Coastal Voices YouTube channel.

As part of “Raising the Story,” the group wanted to involve young people who didn’t know anything about the industry, so they collaborated with Josie Boyette’s seventh grade class at Beaufort Middle School.

“Three of the men, including Ernest Davis, were invited into the classroom to share stories, and the kids asked questions and recorded them,” Garrity-Blake said. “Davis talked about his role as first mate, although he’d also served as fish boat captain on occasion. He was proud to have made a good living, putting his kids through college, menhaden fishing. He said, ‘A lot of people think fishing is a disgrace. But I made a good living. Didn’t look to get rich or nothing.’”

She added that Davis’ grandson Trevor was in the classroom. “It was wonderful to see the pride on that little boy’s face when his grandad shared a story about fending off a shark that had swum in the net.”

The project culminated in what Garrity-Blake called a “jam-packed event” at Core Sound, where the middle school students showcased their work, captains and crewmen told stories to the audience, and the Menhaden Chanteymen performed their songs.

“When they performed, it was powerful and otherworldly; everyone was mesmerized,” Garrity-Blake said.

Historian and author David Cecelski has written extensively about coastal North Carolina’s fisheries, including that of menhaden, many of which can be found on his personal website such as “Menhaden Fishing Days” and “It Was Like a Ballet’: Menhaden Fishermen at Work, 1947,” which he describes the process of hauling a net based on a photo from the North Carolina State Archives.

He was invited to speak at the “Raising the Story of Menhaden Fishing” event held in the fall of 2010. In 2017, Cecelski reflected on the “Raising the Story” project and shared his comments from that event in an essay he titled, “Music All Over the Ocean.”

In the essay, he calls the project a “commemoration of the central role that the menhaden industry played in Carteret County for generations.”

Cecelski, who grew up near Beaufort, writes that anybody listening to the oral histories Garrity-Blake recorded for the project would be impressed with what the menhaden fishery meant to Carteret County, particularly the stink that permeated the town when the fish were being processed.

“When the wind was right, the aroma of the fish covered those towns like a blanket. Coastal visitors sometimes complained, but my cousins in the industry used to call it ‘the smell of money,’” he wrote in 2021.

Cecelski explains in his 2017 piece that Davis’s story was typical of what the industry’s wages meant to local fishermen and fish factory workers.

Davis, who left school when he was 15 and went to work menhaden fishing at Beaufort Fisheries, said in his interview that it was hard work but it was what he had to do. He fished for 41 years and became one of the most respected first mates on the East Coast, sending all five of his own children to college and helping raise and educate nine younger brothers and sisters.

The oral histories also show how the men and women watched the menhaden industry change over their lifetimes, like motorizing the process to haul in the fish, business became more corporate, unions made headway and state and federal governments enacted environmental regulations, just to name a few.

“But through it all, I could hear two things in the men’s voices: a love for menhaden fishing — master net mender Lee Crumbacker said it well: ‘it grows on you like a barnacle on a pole’— and a fierce pride in their craftsmanship,” Cecelski writes.

Cecelski writes that as a child, the first thing he ever heard about the menhaden industry was his mother’s stories about those chanteys. His mother grew up in Harlowe in the 1920s and 1930s, when Highway 101 was still a dirt road.

“Many of Beaufort’s African American fishermen lived in Harlowe, particularly in a reclusive community just across the county line called Craven Corner. As they drove oxen and carts down the road on their way to Beaufort, the menhaden fishermen sang the same songs that they sung as they hoisted the nets onto their boats,” he writes.

“Early Monday mornings, long before first light, my mother would wake up in her bed at the sound of those beautiful, haunting songs and listen to them as the fishermen moved through the darkness and toward the sea.”

Cecelski observes that the fishermen in the interviews talk about the chanteys the same way his mother did.

Davis said in his “Rising the Story” interview they “would sing all night long just to keep their minds off the cold and hurt. It ‘just seemed like music was all over the ocean’,” Cecelski writes.

“The fishermen mostly stopped singing their legendary chanteys with the introduction of power blocks and hardening rigs in the late 1950s and early 1960s, but those songs have remained a powerful memory for all who ever heard them.”

And while the chanteys have not been heard on a menhaden boat in a long time, but older people from around Carteret County still remember them, and tell Cecelski “how, on cool autumn days, you could sometimes stand on shore and hear the songs coming across the water. They filled the air and stirred the heart and got deep inside your bones,” Cecelski describes.

“And if you heard those songs, like my mother did when she was a little girl, you never forgot them or the way that they made you feel. It is hard to put into words, but it was not just the beauty of the melodies or the men’s fine voices, but the appearance that the music was rising right out of the sea.”

Note: This story has been updated to correct the misspelling of Louis Bacon’s first name.

Restoring land as close to how it was more than two centuries ago is by no means a cheap venture.

Just ask Louis Moore Bacon.

Since 2012, Bacon has invested more than $100 million in the property on which his ancestor, Roger Moore, founded Orton Plantation in 1725 off the lower Cape Fear River’s western bank in Brunswick County.

Nearly a third of that cost has gone toward restoring an expansive, historic rice field system and an earthen dike enslaved Africans built some 250 years ago to protect the fields they planted, grew, and harvested Carolina Gold rice from the river.

If the state green lights a proposed project to deepen and widen portions of the shipping channel from the Atlantic Ocean to the Port of Wilmington, all of it – the dike, 350 acres of historic rice fields and hundreds of acres of freshwater wetlands – will face threat of “irreversible damage,” according to Bacon.

In a 22-page letter he submitted to the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Coastal Management late last year, Bacon detailed how the proposed Wilmington Harbor 403 navigation project “threatens the failure” of the earthen dike.

“The structural integrity of the dike is Orton’s number one concern,” Bacon wrote. “The Project poses a real and unacceptable risk of catastrophic failure of the dike system. Failure of the dike will result in a cascading series of events including saltwater intrusion into the historic rice fields, rendering them incapable of growing rice and destroying the freshwater ecological water system at the Orton Property. Failure of the dike would flood the rice fields and freshwater ponds with saltwater, erasing what stands today as a preserved monument to enslaved African Americans dating back centuries.”

He closed the Nov. 24, 2025, letter with an ardent request of the division: Object to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ determination that the proposed project aligns with the state’s coastal policies and rules.

The Corps, Bacon wrote, failed to analyze how the proposed project to deepen and widen the harbor channel might affect historic and cultural resources along the river.

His objections echo those of other individuals and groups voicing concerns about how the project the N.C. State Ports Authority says is needed to keep the Wilmington Port competitive might impact those sites along the river.

Deepening the river channel from 42 feet to 47 feet and widening it along areas throughout the river will allow larger vessels to travel to and from the port, attracting more business, according to the authority.

But opponents of the proposed project say that, in addition to threatening historic and cultural resources along the river, it will accelerate erosion and exacerbate flooding, destroy habitat, disperse contaminants in the riverbed’s sediment into marshes and onto public beaches, and is not economically justified.

Like Bacon, their hope is that the Division of Coastal Management rejects the Corps’ determination.

The determination

Two days before the New Year, NCDEQ announced that the Corps was giving the Division of Coastal Management more time to complete its review of the federal determination, pushing the division’s deadline from Jan. 5 to Jan. 19.

Division officials have until then to determine whether the proposed project is consistent with the state’s coastal rules, including those under the Coastal Area Management Act, or CAMA.

The division must decide whether to concur with Corps’ determination, concur with conditions, or object.

Related: Wilmington residents see no good in proposed harbor project

If the division decides the latter, that could shutter the proposed project altogether.

“An objection generally prevents the federal permit or approval from being issued unless DCM and the project proponent negotiate a resolution that would allow the project to go forward,” according to the division’s Dec. 30 release notifying the public about the extension.

The Corps “may be entitled to certain mediation/appeal privileges” with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office for Coastal Management, which heads programs including the National Coastal Zone Management Program and Estuarine Research Reserves and works with coastal states, territories and partners to manage resources and address impacts from climate change.

The division has to render its decision months before the Corps wraps what it says will be a detailed examination to identify all historic and cultural properties within the project study area.

“To ensure historical and cultural sites are identified and evaluated properly, the Corps is executing a study specific Programmatic Agreement (PA) with the North Carolina State Historic Preservation Office, the General Services Administration, the North Carolina State Ports Authority, and possibly the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation,” Jed Cayton, public affairs specialist with the Corps’ Wilmington District, said in an email responding to questions.

The programmatic agreement, he wrote, is a “commonly applied strategy to protect cultural and historical resources.”

“It facilitates more informed decision-making by allowing time for additional data collection and formal coordination efforts to extend beyond the feasibility study phase,” Cayton said.

The agreement, which is currently being reviewed, must be signed before the agency finalizes project plans, which would occur some time after the Corps releases its final environmental impact statement on the proposed project.

Under a tentative timeline the Corps has shared with the public, the federal agency is expected to release the final EIS sometime this summer.

Construction on the project would not begin until 2030 and take about six years to complete, a schedule Corps officials have said is optimistic.

‘Necessary analysis’

Today, the Orton property spans about 14,000 acres. More than 830 acres of that land, including 6,800 feet of restored and repaired earthen dike and coinciding system of canals, roads, dams, and ditches, around the rice fields is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

In his letter to the division last year, Bacon argued that CAMA protects the historic resources on his land “from irreversible damage and it protects the Property’s significant ecological resources from adverse impacts.”

The draft environmental impact statement, or EIS, the Corps released last September, “does not disclose these obvious impacts,” Bacon wrote.

“There is no analysis in the Draft EIS about the effects of the Project on the Orton Property or the CAMA-protected resources at Orton. None. This analysis cannot be deferred. The Corps’ consistency determination must be supported by ‘comprehensive data and information.’”

“The Corps’ failure to undertake the necessary analysis is the simplest reason that Division should object to the consistency determination,” he continued.

His land is among nearly 30 historic sites and properties the N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources’ State Historic Preservation Office lists as being within the proposed projects area of potential effects.

Last October, that office penned a letter to the Corps requesting the programmatic agreement, “so as to address effects on known and potentially National Register-eligible historic properties to be adversely affected by the proposed undertaking and the regularly scheduled maintenance dredging, spoil placement, and environmental mitigation measures following the proposed undertaking.”

While Corps studies of historic properties that may be affected by the proposed project “appear to have focused solely on the physical impacts of dredging the river-bottom, placement of dredged materials, and locations of mitigation measures, we believe from nearly two decades of observation and monitoring erosion at historic properties along the channel that we can expect other effects will result from the proposed project,” the letter states.

Dark Branch

Among the list of 28 sites and properties identified in that letter is Dark Branch, a community in unincorporated Brunswick County where land remains largely owned by the descendants of emancipated slaves.

Dark Branch, also known as Kendall Chapel, was founded in the early 1870s by a handful of formerly enslaved people, including Robert “Hooper” Clark, who’d been forced to work the rice fields of Orton, Lilliput, and Kendal plantations.

The land they purchased between those plantations became “a thriving hub of Black farming, entrepreneurship, and civil rights activism,” according to the Historic Wilmington Foundation.

Dr. Charles Chavis Jr., Clark’s fourth-great-grandson and executive director of the Dark Branch Descendants Association, explained in a telephone interview that there is a direct connection between the cultural resources that have been restored at Orton and those members of the Dark Branch community have taken upon themselves to preserve.

“Everything that Mr. Moore Bacon has sought to preserve is the work of our ancestors and those who were enslaved on the various plantations,” Chavis said. “For us, this is not only about protecting our cultural resources, but also about protecting our community.”

Chavis, an assistant professor at George Mason University and founding director of the university’s John Mitchell Jr. Program for History, Justice, and Race, started the association about three years ago to preserve the community’s history.

There are about 20 historical structures in Dark Branch, including homes, a store, and sharecropping and slave cabins.

Some of those structures, as well as the community cemetery, one Chavis calls one of Dark Branch’s most sacred sites, are under threat of riverine flooding.

“We just can’t afford for it to get worse and we’re working with local organizations to try and get resources around historic resource preservation,” he said. “We’re concerned that any potential harm or more work done to the river is going to make our job as an organization harder to protect the cultural resources that we have. Based on the assessments and our conversations with those we’ve consulted with, it’s not going to get better. It’s going to get worse.”

Dark Branch is a member of the National Park Service’s Reconstruction Era National Historic Network.

According to the Division of State Historic Sites, the Dark Branch Community Historic District was added to the National Historic Preservation Study List in 2024.

Sites that make that list are good potential candidates for the National Register.

The association continues to pursue a nomination for the National Register of Historic Places.

The Dark Branch community lies within the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor, which encompasses 12,000 square miles of coastal area that runs up the southern Atlantic Coast from St. John’s County, Florida, to Pender County.

The corridor links places of historic significance to the Gullah Geechee, West Africans torn from their native land and enslaved on plantations along the southern Atlantic Coast, and tells stories of their lives on the plantations and in the coastal plains after abolition.

Efforts are underway to build the North Carolina Gullah Geechee Greenway Blueway Heritage Trail that will run from Navassa to Southport.

Last summer, the North Carolina General Assembly authorized the trail’s construction.

Veronica Carter, chairwoman of the heritage trail and member of the Leland Town Council, also raised concerns about how the proposed project might affect land within the trail. Carter is also board member with the North Carolina Coastal Federation, which publishes Coastal Review.

“Deepening the Cape Fear River will negatively impact our culturally significant, state-established North Carolina Gullah Geechee Blueway portion of our trail by increasing saltwater intrusion, worsening erosion, and degrading water quality, thereby threatening sensitive habitats,” she wrote Col. Brad Morgan, the Corps’ Wilmington District commander.

The Corps acknowledges that “more surveys are needed to determine the presence of additional historic and cultural properties within the study area,” Cayton said by email. “We have already included conservative cost estimates for this work, based on known resources identified within Wilmington Harbor and experiences at other similar projects, to ensure these resources are properly managed and respected.”

The University of North Carolina Wilmington’s Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship is accepting applications for its newest program aimed at helping business owners grow and strengthen their businesses.

The center’s new Thrive Lab will offer a series of sessions that focus on finance, funding, sales, product strategy and leadership beginning in March.

“Entrepreneurs will also build a strong peer network and receive hands-on support to develop the mindset and capabilities of CEOs, CFOs and CPOs, all while preserving the unique strengths that make their businesses thrive,” according to a university release.

The lab will run through May and is open to qualified business owners across all industries. The deadline to apply is Feb. 27. Space is limited. Additional details are available on the lab’s website.

Wells Fargo’s contribution to the program covers half of the original cost to attend the lab, lowering the total fee to $750.

According to a study by the North Carolina Department of the Secretary of State in collaboration with Fayetteville State University released in 2024, adopting policies and initiatives to help 5% of “aspirational” businesses become self-sufficient will create more than 24,000 jobs annually and $980 million in new wages.

Thrive Lab was created in response to those findings as targeted effort to help strengthen businesses and support long-term entrepreneurial growth in coastal North Carolina, according to the release.

“It’s relatively easy to start a business, but many fail within a year and only half make it to five years,” UNCW CIE Director Heather McWhorter stated in the release. “Even more striking are the entrepreneurs who don’t pay themselves and who are stuck year after year. CIE’s Thrive Lab will give entrepreneurs and small business owners the tools and connections they need to succeed and to scale, leading to direct impact for our students and community.”

Proposed rules that would require hundreds of industrial manufacturers and public sewer plants across the state to test the wastewater they discharge into rivers, creeks and streams for three types of PFAS and 1,4-dioxane will go out for public comment next month.

The North Carolina Environmental Management Commission last Thursday voted to push proposed monitoring and minimization rules for per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances PFOA, PFOS and GenX, and for 1,4-dixoane, an industrial solvent, to the public in February.

Commission Chair JD Solomon indicated that more than one public hearing will be scheduled during the comment period, which is to be held through April. As of publication, neither specific dates for the comment period, nor dates and locations for hearings, had been announced.

Solomon told fellow commissioners he anticipates the state will receive thousands of comments on the proposed rules packages, which do not set specific discharge limits or penalties for violations.

Those omissions from the proposed rules were the basis of lengthy, at times contentious, discussion among members of the commission.

A majority of commissioners ultimately rejected Commissioner Robin Smith’s motion to inject federally enforceable limits on a half-dozen individual chemical compounds and a mixture of those compounds into the proposed rules package for PFAS.

Amending the rules to include the Environmental Protection Agency’s enforceable levels of PFAS, including PFOA, PFOS and GenX, Solomon said, would substantially change the proposed rule, triggering the need for a new regulatory impact analysis to examine projected costs associated with the rule.

PFAS are a mixture of chemicals used in a host of consumer products from nonstick cookware and food packaging to stain-resistant carpets, water-repellant attire, and makeup.

These chemicals have been found in a number of drinking water sources in North Carolina through discharges from industrial manufacturers, landfills, firefighting facilities and publicly owned treatment works, or POTWs, that accept industry effluent.

Ongoing research into human health effects of PFAS, of which there are upwards of 15,000 related compounds, continues. Some of the more well-studied substances, including PFOA and PFOS, have been linked to health issues including weakened immune response, liver damage, increased cholesterol, high blood pressure, lower infant birth weights, and higher risks of certain cancers.

The Trump administration’s EPA announced last year that it would retain current National Primary Drinking Water Regulations for PFOA and PFOS and extend deadlines for public water treatment plants to come into compliance with the federally established limits for those PFAS.

EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin also announced plans to rescind regulations and reconsider regulatory determinations for the other PFAS, including GenX.

Solomon said the commission will start talking about legally enforceable limits, also known as numeric standards, for PFAS at its March meeting.

“That is the intention and that will continue to be the intention,” he said, later adding, “Everybody on this panel wants a numeric standard. The question is more, what level are those numeric standards and for what compounds. That’s what we’re going to talk about when we get to the numeric standard part.”

The Environmental Management Commission voted 10-3 to move the proposed PFAS monitoring and minimization rules package to public comment and hearing.

60-day deadline

Under the proposed rules, industrial manufacturers and publicly owned treatment works, which officials call POTWs, will be contacted by the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Water Resources and given 60 days to conduct baseline sampling for the three PFAS from the time the rules become effective.

Testing would be done quarterly for one year, with results reported to the division. Division officials would then determine whether ongoing sampling is needed based on practical quantitation limits, which are considered the base line in testing laboratories.

The division would decide whether a business or POTW has to develop a minimization plan, one that would take about 2.5 years to be implemented.

When asked how minimization would be measured, Division of Water Resources Deputy Director Julie Grzyb said, “There is nothing in the rule that defines a set level or set goal in the particular case. So, there is some left up to who is reviewing it.”

Minimization, she said, is determined by a number of things, including training and education equipment and seeing whether one product could be substituted for another.

“However, usually we have a water quality standard that we are shooting to meet and that defines the minimization much more clearly. I’ll leave it at that,” Grzyb said.

The proposed rule also does not specify what best management practices a facility must follow or how that facility must reach minimization.

Smith, who voted against moving the proposed rule to public comment, warned the rule may not pass the Rules Review Commission because, among other things, it lacks such standards.

“I think that one of the concerns is this could be an ongoing perpetual monitoring machine that doesn’t result in significant reductions,” she said, adding that a rule should not be sent out for public comment that “has basic drafting problems and gaps in essential decisions.”

“I cannot vote for this motion to be sent to public notice and comment the rule as it currently stands because I think there are too many issues that need to be resolved,” Smith said.

Commissioner Michael Ellison, who seconded the motion to move the rules to public comment, argued that the rules “help us as a state, statewide, reduce our uncertainty as to where the problems are and how bad they are while science continues to advance, while EPA continues whatever research they’re going to do and whatever standards they’re going to promulgate.”

After the vote to move the proposed rules on PFAS to public comment, the commission also agreed to ask for comments on whether industrial businesses and sewage plants should report to the division all 40 PFAS they are required to test for under federal requirements.

Smith made similar arguments against the proposed 1,4-dioxane monitoring and minimization rule that the commission voted 7-6 to move to public comment.

She said that while the proposed rule pertaining to 1,4-dioxane is a “pretty good monitoring rule,” it is “not a good minimization rule.”

“What I don’t want to do is create an impression out there that we have a serious minimization program if we don’t have any teeth in it. I think we need to be honest with the public about what this rule does. I’m not for something that calls itself a minimization rule that doesn’t have any enforceable attachment to it,” she said.

Early in what turned out to be a more than two-hour discussion leading up to their vote on the proposed PFAS monitoring and minimization rules, Solomon reminded commissioners that the votes they cast Thursday would not be their final, saying that getting the rules out for public comment is an incremental step in a process aimed at ultimately reducing PFAS discharges.

Why do sheepshead have a mouthful of human-like teeth? Fisheries ecologist Dr. Jim Morley will explain that and more during this month’s “Science on the Sound” Lecture Series.

Morley, an assistant professor in the biology department at East Carolina University, will present, “Investigating the Life History of Sheepshead, North Carolina’s Toothiest Fish,” starting at 6 p.m. Thursday, Jan. 15, at the Coastal Studies Institute on the ECU Outer Banks Campus in Wanchese.

The public is encouraged to attend the program being offered at no charge. The talk will be livestreamed on the CSI YouTube Channel and archived for later viewing.

Though sheepshead are a popular species among anglers throughout the state, their life history is one of the most poorly understood, according to the university. “Recently, researchers have uncovered important aspects of sheepshead biology relating to reproduction, movement patterns, and habitat use. However, as with all good science, new questions emerge.”

Morley has been investigating the life history of marine and estuarine species in North Carolina for more than 20 years. He is interested in how human-caused disturbances and climate change interact with the life cycles of aquatic species.

Science on the Sound is a monthly, in-person lecture series with the Coastal Studies Institute that brings perspectives from all over the state and highlights coastal topics in northeastern North Carolina.

North Carolina Department of Transportation’s Ferry Division has scheduled four career events along the coast to recruit temporary and seasonal employees to staff its ferries, terminals and shipyard.

Officials said that the seasonal employees are a key part of the ferry system’s service, and they are often the first considered for permanent roles.

“In fact, a majority of last year’s temporary hires transitioned into permanent roles,” Ferry Division Director Jed Dixon said in a statement.

The career events are all from 10 a.m.-3 p.m. on the following dates:

• Jan. 14 at NC Works Career Center, 3813 Arendell St., Morehead City.
• Jan. 21 at Hatteras Ferry Operations Center, 59063 N.C. 12, Hatteras.
• Jan. 28 at Southport Ferry Operations Center, 1650 Ferry Road, Southport.
• Feb. 4 at Pamlico River Ferry Operations Center, 229 N.C. 306 North, Bath.

At the events, applications will be accepted for temporary, seasonal employment at all experience levels, from general utility worker to experienced boat captains.

Those looking for permanent employment can learn more about open positions and how to obtain a Transportation Worker Identification Card or a Merchant Mariner Credential for the application process. 

Benefits of year-round, full-time permanent employment with the division include competitive salaries, health insurance, retirement benefits, and paid vacation, holiday and sick leave.

For a list of the Ferry Division’s current job openings, visit the state jobs website​ to create a profile and apply for permanent positions. For more information, call 252-370-5573.

A North Carolina native and long-serving law enforcement officer with the N.C. Marine Patrol was formally pinned Tuesday as the agency’s top cop.

Chris Lee, who most recently served as captain of the agency’s Marine Patrol District 1, took the helm as colonel of the Marine Patrol on Jan. 1, replacing Col. Carter Witten, who retired Dec. 31.

Lee, a native of Colerain, has served with the patrol for 18 years. He was pinned by his father, Vernon Lee, a former deputy sheriff, during the ceremony, which was held at the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries headquarters in Morehead City. A pinning ceremony is a long-held tradition that marks a a law enforcement officer’s promotion.

Lee helped form the Marine Patrol’s Swiftwater Rescue Team, building and training its members in late 2019. In 2021, the team became North Carolina’s first state law enforcement-certified swiftwater rescue team.

“That’s been one of the most rewarding things of my career,” Lee said in a release. “The relationships we have made across the state have done wonders for us as an agency, and we are providing a better service to the citizens of North Carolina.”

Lee, who trained alongside fellow team members, added, “We were all learning together and trying to make it happen to better serve in times of need.”

The team, which has deployed numerous times across the state, was one of 71 swiftwater rescue teams deployed to Western North Carolina to assist with rescuing people from floodwaters of Hurricane Helene in the fall of 2024.

The Marine Patrol enforces coastal recreational and commercial fishing regulations of the state. The patrol has helped transport food to flooded communities, provided security in business districts hit by tornadoes, and its officers have flown Department of Environmental Quality staff to survey shoreline erosion and flooded animal waste operations after hurricanes.

As colonel, one of Lee’s goals is to “make the Marine Patrol even more of an asset to the people of North Carolina through training and working with North Carolina Emergency Management, while continuing to serve as the fisheries law enforcement agency,” the release states.

As colonel, Lee manages more than 50 officers and directs law enforcement efforts over 2.7 million acres of ocean and coastal fishing waters in 21 eastern counties.

“The N.C. Marine Patrol plays a vital role by enforcing fishing regulations and providing water, air and ground support to other DEQ divisions, including during emergencies,” N.C. DEQ Secretary Reid Wilson said in the release. “Colonel Lee will do an outstanding job because of his tremendous experience, vision, and commitment to the Marine Patrol’s mission.”

Lee is an Operation Iraqi Freedom veteran, where he served in 2003 as a member of the N.C. Army National Guard.

He began Basic Law Enforcement Training at Beaufort Community College upon his return from overseas and later worked for the Edenton Police Department before joining the Marine Patrol in March 2008.

He earned a degree in criminal justice after joining the Marine Patrol. In 2012, he received the N.C. Marine Fisheries Enforcement Officer of the Year award from the Governor’s Conservation Achievement Awards Program.

Lee was joined in his pinning by his wife Melissa, who pinned his badge; sons, Sonny and Banks; parents, Vernon and Tammy Lee; brother, Bryan Lee; and mother-in-law Kathy Rea.

The Center for Biological Diversity filed a lawsuit Monday against the National Marine Fisheries Service for what it calls “failing to make a preliminary decision on whether to protect American horseshoe crabs under the Endangered Species Act.”

The nonprofit is among the more than two-dozen organizations that petitioned the federal agency in February 2024 to protect the ancient species found along the Atlantic and Gulf coasts. When a petition is filed, the service is required to publish within 90 days their initial findings if the species warrants protection. The petition was due May 2024.

Though the Endangered Species Act allows the service some leeway in publishing its initial finding “within 90-days of receipt of the petition ‘“’to the maximum extent practicable,’ but in no case longer than one year,” according to the lawsuit filed Monday.

Nearly twice as old as dinosaurs, horseshoe crabs date back to than 450 million years. The animal is a brown, body-armored arthropod with 10 eyes and a long, spiked tail. Each spring horseshoe crabs lay their eggs on beaches in massive spawning events.

In recent decades, according to the center, horseshoe crab populations have declined by more than 70% because of overharvesting and habitat loss.

“Biomedical companies drain the blood of horseshoe crabs for drug safety testing even though synthetic alternatives are available, approved and used widely in Europe and Asia. Biomedical harvests have doubled in the past seven years, with more than 1 million horseshoe crabs harvested in 2024,” the center explains in a press release.

Additionally, horseshoe crabs are harvested for use as bait by the commercial whelk and eel fisheries, fishing regulators have increased the amount of horseshoe crabs that can be harvested, and development and sea level rise are threatening horseshoe crabs and their spawning beaches across their entire range from Maine to Louisiana, the center said.

“Horseshoe crabs have saved so many people, and now it’s up to us to pay back that debt and save them,” said Will Harlan, a senior scientist at the center, said in a release. “We could lose these living fossils forever if they don’t get Endangered Species Act protections soon. It’s reckless to delay their obvious need for protection, so we’re going to court to force the government to do its job.”

As horseshoe crab numbers have declined, so have other species like endangered sea turtles, fish and birds. The rufa red knot, a shorebird species that feeds on horseshoe crab eggs during its 19,000-mile migration from South America to the Arctic, was listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 2015. The listing decision cited horseshoe crab overharvesting as one of the contributing factors to the red knot’s decline, per the center.

The two agencies that enforce the Clean Water Act have proposed changes to the waterbodies considered jurisdictional, or under federal protection, and the deadline for the public to comment is here.

The Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of Engineers published on Nov. 20 in the Federal Register the “Updated Definition of ‘Waters of the United States,’” opening the public comment period that ends 11:59 p.m. Monday, Jan. 5. Information on how to submit comments is on the EPA website.

The agencies said the proposed rule revises “the regulations defining the scope of waters federally covered under the Federal Water Pollution Control Act, as amended, also known as the Clean Water Act, in light of the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2023 decision in Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency.”

The agencies argue that their proposed amendments to the “waters of the United States” definition when finalized, will provide clarity and align with the Supreme Court’s opinion in the Sackett case that the “Clean Water Act extends to relatively permanent bodies of water connected to traditional navigable waters and wetlands with a continuous surface connection to those waters ‘so that there is no clear demarcation between “waters” and wetlands.’”

Environmental organizations argue that the proposed changes will gut basic water quality protections, which were already compromised by the 2023 Supreme Court decision on Sackett v. EPA that essentially left nontidal wetlands without protection. Nontidal wetlands are usually in floodplains along rivers and streams, in isolated depressions surrounded by dry land, along the margins of lakes and ponds, and in other low-lying areas where the groundwater intercepts the soil surface or where precipitation sufficiently saturates the soil, according to the EPA.

“When it comes to the definition of ‘waters of the United States,’ EPA has an important responsibility to protect water resources while setting clear and practical rules of the road that accelerate economic growth and opportunity,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said in a Nov. 17 press release. “EPA is delivering on President Trump’s promise to finalize a revised definition for WOTUS that protects the nation’s navigable waters from pollution, advances cooperative federalism by empowering states, and will result in economic growth across the country.”

Environmental Defense Fund Coasts and Watersheds Science Senior Manager Dr. Adam Gold told Coastal Review that the “proposed rule could increase the pace of wetlands loss and lead to more flooding impacts for communities. Wetlands loss increases downstream flooding impacts, and at the same time, any new infrastructure built in former wetlands is also at increased flood risk.”

Under the agencies’ proposed rule, the term “waters of the United States” would include “(1) traditional navigable waters and the territorial seas; (2) most impoundments of “waters of the United States;” (3) relatively permanent tributaries of traditional navigable waters, the territorial seas, and impoundments; (4) wetlands adjacent (i.e., having a continuous surface connection) to traditional navigable waters, impoundments, and tributaries; and (5) lakes and ponds that are relatively permanent and have a continuous surface connection to a traditional navigable water, the territorial seas, or a tributary.”

The difference between the existing rule and proposed is that the existing rule includes an interstate waters category and the word “interstate” is in front of the lakes and ponds category. The agencies propose deleting both.

The agencies also recommend revising the existing exclusions from the Clean Water Act permitting process for waste treatment systems, prior converted cropland and ditches, and adding an exclusion for groundwater, as well as definitions for “continuous surface connection,” “ditch,” “prior converted cropland,” “relatively permanent,” “tributary,” “and waste treatment system.”

Carolina Wetlands Association Executive Director Rick Savage also has concerns about the flooding that could be unleashed on communities if these proposed changes go through, and the damage to water quality.

He said communities are going to see developers take wetlands without a permit.

“These wetlands are often buffers against flood waters. if they are developed then guess what happens? The flood waters just go inland to the community,” Savage said, adding that water quality could suffer as well, because of the potential for more pollution to pass into streams.”

North Carolina Sierra Club Deputy Director Erin Carey told Coastal Review that ultimately, “the American public should be very concerned that the federal agency tasked with ensuring clean water, clean air, and the protection of our natural environment seems determined to undermine that responsibility. With this proposed change, the EPA claims to seek clarity in regulation, but this rule would serve only to allow industry to profit from environmental destruction, and the ruination of our natural resources.”

Gold said that according to the fund’s analysis published September 2024 in Science that modeled different interpretations of the Sackett decision, the modeled scenario that best aligns with the proposed rule open for public comment now would result in 82 million acres, or 91%, of nontidal wetlands in the contiguous United States estimated to be without Clean Water Act protections. 

About WOTUS, Sackett decision

The Clean Water Act is the revised and restructured Federal Water Pollution Control Act, enacted in 1948 to protect waterways that are used for or could be used for commerce.

“The 1972 amendments to the Clean Water Act established federal jurisdiction over ‘navigable waters,’ defined in the Act as the ‘waters of the United States,’” according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

But that’s as far as the definition goes, leaving the two agencies that jointly enforce the regulations to define the term under statute, and have had to determine what geographical features such as wetlands, streams and rivers fall under “waters of the United States,” or WOTUS, and, therefore, under federal protection under the Clean Water Act.    

In the decades since, that definition has undergone several amendments, most recently in 2023 to conform to the Supreme Court’s Sackett decision.

The Sacketts are an Idaho couple who were fined by the EPA for backfilling wetlands on their property near Priest Lake. The Sacketts filed a lawsuit asserting that the wetlands were not directly connected to the lake, a navigable body of water protected by the Clean Water Act. Justices ruled in favor of the couple and put parameters on “waters of the United States.”

Justices state in the May 2023 majority opinion that the Clean Water Act’s use of “waters” only refers to geographical features described in everyday language streams, oceans, rivers, and lakes “and to adjacent wetlands that are ‘indistinguishable’ from those bodies of water due to a continuous surface connection.”

The ruling narrowed the definition of “waters of the United States, stripping away protection under the Clean Water Act for isolated wetlands, or those without an obvious connection to navigable waters.

The two federal agencies, under the Biden administration at the time, had published a revised definition in January 2023 that was then amended that September to conform to Sackett.

Shortly after the second Trump administration took office, the agencies began a campaign to change the amended 2023 WOTUS that it called “overly broad” in a news release Monday and “failing to fully implement the Supreme Court’s decision in Sackett v. Environmental Protection Agency.”

Savage explained that the Clean Water Act, passed in 1972, was based on relationships with navigable waters. Then in 1977, the Corps of Engineers came up with the wetlands definition manual, which set the process for how wetlands were defined, based on hydrology, hydrophilic vegetation and hydric soils.

“During that time, almost any wetland was protected because you could find some relationship to​ a navigable water, even if it’s over land, but now you know that’s all changing,” he said, and the reason it started changing was because the Supreme Court got involved.

“That was in 2006 and ever since then, it is going around and around and up and down and through. You know, nobody knows what the rules are half the time. I mean, there’s been a couple of times where half the states were under one set of rules and the other half are under another set of rules because of litigation,” Savage said.

On the state level

Savage said regarding the proposed rule change that there’s two ways to look at it: the federal level and the state level.

“Right now, as far as North Carolina is concerned, it’s not looking good, period,” he said, because of the Farm Bill that made state and federal regulations to protect wetlands the same.

During summer 2023, the General Assembly approved language in Senate Bill 582, often called the Farm Bill, to align the state’s definition of wetlands with the federal. The definition reads: “Wetlands are classified as waters of the State are restricted to waters of the United States as defined by” the Army Corps and EPA.

Savage said he’d heard that a few legislators were starting to reconsider the move, and he said part of it is because the state government is funneling millions of dollars to use nature-based solutions, like wetlands, to mitigate flooding issues. “However, what the heck is this about, not wanting to protect the very resources we need to use to protect our communities? And I think that might be having a little bit of an effect.”

Savage said they’re working with the Southern Environmental Law Center and other groups to make changes, but there’s not a lot that can be done at the state level in North Carolina because of Dillon’s rule, which means that local governments only have as much power as the state specifically allows.

“Anything a locality may want to do to protect wetlands, the state legislature can immediately overturn it” via legislation, Savage said. “So, it’s not a lot that can be done there.”

Southern Environmental Law Center Senior Attorney Mark Sabath told Coastal Review in an earlier interview that, while this proposed rule reduces federal protections, states and tribes still have authority to protect waters, and can fill the void in protecting these resources that the federal government is leaving behind.

Sabath said in some situations, it’s not a possibility because of not having the resources, “and there are examples occasionally of states that do their best to try to fill that gap. But much more often, we see the opposite, like in North Carolina.”

Savage clarified his point in noting that, just because the wetland is not considered protected by the Clean Water Act, it is still a wetland.

“Some people think if it’s not jurisdiction​al, then it’s not a wetland. No, it’s just not a jurisdictional wetland. It’s still a wetland. It meets the Army Corps of Engineers’ definition of a wetland, which is heavily based on science,” Savage said. “I think it’s important to make that distinction. We have jurisdictional wetlands that are protected, and the definition of jurisdictional wetlands is getting tighter and tighter and tighter, so that most of our wetlands are no longer jurisdictional, right? Therefore, they’re not protected, but they’re still wetlands, right? And that’s why we still have to be concerned about them.”

The EPA and Corps committed in a Dec. 22 press release to consider the public input received in developing a final rule.

The management and operation of Beaufort Town Docks will officially transition to what the town calls an “experienced marina management company” at 12:01 a.m. Thursday.

The company, F3 Marina, specializes in the operation of public and private waterfront facilities along the East Coast, officials said Wednesday in a press release.

“On behalf of the Board of Commissioners and the citizens of Beaufort, I’m excited to welcome F3 Marina Management as the selected company to manage the Beaufort Town Docks beginning January 1,” Mayor Sharon Harker said in a release. “With their experience and proven track record, we’re looking forward to this new chapter and to working together to ensure the docks continue to operate safely, smoothly, and as a welcoming place for boaters and residents alike.”

As part of the transition, the new website, www.beauforttowndocks.org, has launched, to serve as the primary source for details on dockage, rates, policies, amenities, events, and contact information.

“The transition marks a new chapter for the Beaufort Town Docks, with an emphasis on enhancing services for residents, visiting boaters, and the maritime community while preserving the character and heritage of Beaufort’s historic waterfront,” the town said.

More than a dozen species of trees are expected to be available at this year’s annual TreeFest in Wilmington.

The event, now in its 28th year, will be held 11 a.m. – 4 p.m. Jan. 16-17, or until inventory runs out, at JCPenney’s atrium, Independence Mall, 3500 Oleander Drive.

Households may select up to five bare-root tree seedlings or native bunch grass plugs.

A $5 donation per household is encouraged and will be used to fund the return of TreeFest in 2027.

Experts will be available to assist with plant selection and provide care advice based on individual site conditions, space, and utility lines.

Visitors are encouraged to bring their own bags or buckets to reduce plastic waste.

The TreeFest committee expects to receive from the North Carolina Forest Service’s Claridge Forestry Nursery near Goldsboro a variety of species, including longlead pine, bald cypress, chickasaw plum, buttonbush, red maple, river birch, flowering dogwood, silky dogwood, southern wax myrtle, sugarberry, eastern redbud, crabapple, and coastal white oak.

More than 180,000 trees and grasses have been funded through donations since TreeFest’s inception in 1997 to restore tree populations after hurricanes Bertha and Fran.

The event is held in an effort to rebuild tree canopy in New Hanover County and neighboring counties.

For residents of other counties or to get additional plants, seedlings may also be purchased directly from the Forest Service nursery by calling 1-888-NCTREES (628-7337) or from the online forestry store. They may also be ordered through any Forest Service office.

The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality has suffered the highest percentage of staff cuts of any state, with nearly one-third of its workforce eliminated between 2010 and 2024, according to an environmental watchdog group.

A whopping 32%, or 386 DEQ staff positions, were wiped out during that 14-year period, according to an Environmental Integrity Project report released earlier this month.

Those staff cuts, the report concludes, leave the state agency responsible for administering regulations to protect water, air quality and the public’s health “ill-positioned to confront” pollution from the state’s growing factory farming industry, climate-driven storms and flooding in coastal communities.

The report notes how the agency was downsized when former Gov. Pat McCrory signed the 2015-16 state budget into law, triggering a shift of several divisions from what was then the Department of Environment and Natural Resources to the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.

The Republican governor, who also renamed the agency the Department of Environmental Quality, said the move aligned with his vision for government efficiency.

Josh Kastrinsky, DEQ’s deputy communications director, said in an email last week that it is “difficult” to directly compare present staffing levels to those in 2010 because of the changes that were made to the department in 2015.

“However, for several regulatory divisions that existed in 2010 and 2025, staffing levels declined by at least 25%,” he wrote, adding that, “The EIP report focuses on regulatory work and does not include DEQ’s non-regulatory work, which affects the total numbers of staff shown.”

As of the week that began Dec. 8, the departments vacancy rate was 8%, Kastrinsky said.

“This includes an engineer vacancy rate of 14% and an environmental specialist vacancy rate of 9%,” he said. “Several DEQ programs have larger workloads and several programs have less staff than they did in 2010.”

North Carolina’s population has increased by more than 11.5% since 2010, according to USAFacts, a nonprofit organization that gathers data from federal, state and local governments.

The state’s population growth corresponds to an increase in environmental permit applications filed with the department.

Since 2010, the department’s Division of Mitigation Services has seen a 200% increase in projects.

During that same time period, the number of erosion and sediment control project applicants filed with the Division of Energy, Mineral, and Land Resources has jumped by nearly 60%, and the Division of Waste Management has received a 62% increase in underground storage tank applications.

“The 2010-2025 period also includes several destructive hurricanes, and DEQ staff have been heavily involved in recovery and long-term resilience in impacted communities,” Kastrinsky said. “DEQ’s ability to hire and retain sufficient staff levels has a direct effect on its ability to provide permit oversight, technical assistance to businesses and customer service to North Carolinians.”

The department’s “roughly 1,700 staff members remain dedicated to providing science-based efforts to ensure clean air, water and lands by managing applications, conducting inspections and permit oversight, investigating complaints and taking enforcement measures as appropriate under law,” he continued. “DEQ also continues to focus on a variety of funding and assistance programs to maintain critical infrastructure and make communities’ aging systems more resilient to increasingly severe natural disasters.”

The Environmental Integrity Program analyzed the budgets, annual expenditures and staffing levels from 2010 through to 2024 of the environmental agencies of all 50 states.

North Carolina topped the list of 31 states found to have cut jobs at their environmental agencies from 2010 to 2024. Connecticut experienced a 26% cut during that same time, followed closely by Arizona, which saw a 25% reduction in its environmental agency’s staff.

Seven states, including Texas, Mississippi, South Dakota, and Connecticut, reduced their pollution control funding by at least a third, the report concludes.

The impacts of such cuts will likely only be exacerbated by the Trump Administration’s plans to downsize the Environmental Protection Agency, the program warns.

“The Trump Administration is attempting to dismantle EPA and rollback commonsense federal pollution rules, claiming that the states can pick up the slack and protect our communities – but that’s not the case,” Jen Duggan, Environmental Integrity Project executive director, stated in a release. “The implementation of our environmental laws depend on both a strong EPA and state agencies that have the resources they need to do their jobs. But our research found that many states have already cut their pollution control agencies and so more cuts at the federal level will only put more Americans at risk.”

The report highlights North Carolina’s factory farming industry, which includes the production of nearly 1 billion chickens annually for sale as meat. And, as of March, there were 8.1 million hogs in concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, in the state.

Poultry waste at these CAFOs is sometimes dumped in open-air heaps and, when it rains, washes into nearby streams, discharging harmful nutrients into waters downstream, including those in the Cape Fear River Basin, which has the highest density of CAFOs in the world, according to Cape Fear River Watch.

“The unchecked expansion of hog and poultry farms has left the state environmental agency unable to even evaluate the cumulative impacts,” Drew Ball, director of Natural Resources Defense Council’s Southeast Campaigns team, states in the report. “At this point, policy experts and advocates can’t even get the information they need to protect the public. You can’t respond if you don’t know what’s coming online. We need to think a lot harder about keeping track of potential pollution and what it could mean for downstream communities.”

Coastal Review will not publish Wednesday, Thursday and Friday in observance of the Christmas holiday.

Post has been updated.

WANCHESE — Genetic testing of purportedly wild-caught shrimp served earlier this month at dozens of Outer Banks restaurants found that 64% of the shrimp was actually imported.

On behalf of the Southern Shrimp Alliance, SeaD Consulting collected and analyzed shrimp samples from randomly selected seafood restaurants in Duck, Southern Shores, Kitty Hawk, Kill Devil Hills, Manteo, Rodanthe, Salvo, Avon, Buxton, Frisco, Nags Head and Hatteras, according to a Dec. 17 press release from SeaD.

Of the 44 restaurants tested, 43 had verbally claimed to serve local American wild-caught shrimp, but only 16 — 36% — were found to be serving local shrimp in the tested dishes. The remaining 28 restaurants had served imported farm-raised shrimp, but only one of them admitted it. All 44 of the eateries had used imagery to imply that they served local shrimp. 

“The findings raise concerns about seafood transparency in an iconic coastal region known for its local fishing heritage,” the release said.

Despite the Outer Banks’ poor showing, it was noted that Wilmington did even worse, with an “inauthenticity rate” of 77% in previous testing. 

SeaD (Seafood Development) Consulting, in partnership with Florida State University, holds the patent for the Rapid ID Genetic High-Accuracy Test, or RIGHTTest, that was used in the survey conducted Dec. 2-6. The Southern Shrimp Alliance, an advocacy trade group, has funded the genetic testing of shrimp throughout the region.

Shrimp, the most popular seafood in the U.S., was an $8 billion market in 2025, with Americans consuming 5 pounds per capita of shrimp a year. But it’s not local shrimpers who are raking in big profits.

According to the U.S. International Trade Commission, 93% of the shrimp consumed in the United States comes from overseas, with 1.7 billion pounds of shrimp products imported in 2024, valued at $6 billion. Meanwhile, commercial shrimp harvests in the Gulf of Mexico and the South Atlantic declined from $522 million in 2021 to $269 million in 2023; $25 million to $14 million, respectively, in North Carolina. 

The demand for shrimp is only increasing, along with the creativity in how to serve it.

“We don’t need to undersell our industry and our product,” David Williams, a commercial fishery scientist and co-founder of SeaD, told Coastal Review in a recent interview. A generation ago, shrimp cocktail was the extent of its use in most American cuisine; now there’s a dozen different shrimp dishes on menus, he said. “It should be a proud part of our industry”

As the Alliance detailed, imports, depending on the country, can be “dumped” at lower prices because they use cheap labor, and sometimes even forced, trafficked or child labor. Some countries use a lot of antibiotics, or grow shrimp in polluted ponds. A few countries impose tariffs ranging from 13% to 45% on U.S. wild-caught and farmed shrimp.

While most restaurant prices for shrimp dinners are on the higher end of the menu, they’re not reflecting the dock prices, which have remained low. But more recognition for the quality of wild shrimp as a food source would increase its value.

“The only real way of doing that is that people in restaurants appreciate wild caught shrimp,” Williams said. And diners who choose to eat wild seafood should be able to trust that they’re getting what they’re paying for, otherwise, it’s misrepresentation.

“You charge a premium for a product that’s not a premium,” he said.

North Carolina does not have a law that requires restaurants to disclose the origin of shrimp on menus. Certain retail seafood products fall under federal country-of-origin requirements, but they do not apply to restaurants. North Carolina U.S. Rep. David Rouzer, R-7th District, has recently met with the Alliance and others in the industry and is looking into the legislative remedies and other shrimp industry issues.

“Tackling mislabeling is crucial to ensure that consumers receive the shrimp they are sold,” Blake Price, deputy director of the Southern Shrimp Alliance said in the release. “This testing shows American fishermen are regularly losing sales of their own product to shrimp farmed in countries with safety, labor, and environmental abuses.”

Mark Vrablic, general manager of Willie R. Etheridge Seafood in Wanchese, said that he’s not directly aware of Outer Banks restaurants misrepresenting imported shrimp as local. Still, he has had people tell him that they were told the seafood they were served had come from Etheridge’s, when he knew it didn’t.

“I would love for it not to be this way, but I wouldn’t dare sell a farm-raised shrimp and call it domestic,” he told Coastal Review in an interview. People have a right to know what they’re eating, he added. “I’m not going to sell something marked one thing and it’s something else.”

Vrablic, 66, agrees that the biggest problem with imported shrimp is that the dock price shrimpers are paid is almost too low to make it worth the costs and work involved. 

Probably 25 countries send shrimp here, including Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Ecuador, Peru, Mexico and Venezuela, he said.

“When fuels went up real high two years back, (local shrimpers) were going to have to either raise prices or just get out of it, because they were going to go broke,” Vrablic said. Even with gas lower now, he said, the “homeboys” should still be getting prices 30% to 40% higher.

“But because of the millions of pounds of farm-raised that’s available daily, it’s just overwhelming,” he said. “The market is staying down because of the supply.”

Vrablic, who is a member of the Etheridge family, once one of the most powerful fishing clans on the Outer Banks, began fishing when he was 14 years old, and later joined the family restaurant business for a few years before taking over commercial management and sales.

Until about 20 years ago, shrimping was a short summer fishery in North Carolina, he said. But as the climate changed, the waters warmed to the shrimp’s liking. Now the season stretches from July Fourth until December or later.

“I don’t like imports, Vrablic said. “They’ve crushed us like cockroaches. They’ve taken our markets away, and our fishermen can’t get the fair share what they should be getting. When I fished, I made a lot of money. We didn’t have imports.”

But the fact is, he said, the increased demand for shrimp on the Outer Banks, and elsewhere, exceeds what local shrimpers can catch. And almost all farm-raised shrimp is from overseas.

“We produce shrimp in this country, but we do not produce enough,” Vrablic said, and referred to the 1.7 billion pounds that were imported last year. “Where would we find something like that?”

To his point, he explained, Etheridge Seafood doesn’t have the capacity or bargaining power to meet the volume of the demand.

“We keep a heavy inventory of shrimp, and it’s just the whole world dumps on us,” Vrablic said.

Bottom line, Vrablic says that something has to be done about the unfair competition from imported shrimp. Ideally, restaurants and fish markets should prioritize serving local catch, but when they can’t, they need to be honest about the origin of the shrimp they’re selling. And it would help if consumers remember that wild-caught shrimp also is a seasonal product.

“When restaurants say ’Mark, what will we do if we went three or four months without shrimp?’ I said, ‘If I got no shrimp … we could treat it like we do soft crabs or scallops or oysters when it comes in season.’ People come buy them just like they do watermelons. When it comes out of season, guess what? You come up short.

“Then they’ll just buy more fish from me,” he said, “because they can’t compete with me with fresh fish.”

The following eateries on the Outer Banks found to be serving authentic, American, wild-caught shrimp in the random sample of 44 restaurants:

1. 1587 Restaurant & Lounge, 405 Queen Elizabeth Ave, Manteo.
2. Barefoot Bernie’s Tropical Grill & Bar, 3730 N. Croatan Highway, Kitty Hawk.
3. Basnight’s Lone Cedar Café, 7623 S Virginia Dare Trail, Nags Head.
4. Coastal Cravings, 1209 Duck Road, Duck.
5. Goombays Grille & Raw Bar, 1608 N. Virginia Dare Trail, Kill Devil Hills.
6. Greentail’s Seafood Market and Kitchen, 3022 S. Croatan Highway Unit 34, Nags Head.
7. I Got Your Crabs Shellfish Market and Oyster Bar, 3809 N. Croatan Highway, Kitty Hawk.
8. Lucky 12 Tavern, 3308 S. Virginia Dare Trail, Nags Head.
9. O’Neal’s Sea Harvest, 618 Harbor Road, Wanchese.
10. Outer Banks Brewing Station, 600 S. Croatan Highway, Kill Devil Hills.
11. Red Sky Casual Dining & Cocktails,1197 Duck Road, Duck.
12. Roadside Bar & Grill, 1193 Duck Road, Duck,.
13. Sea Chef Dockside Kitchen, 8770 Oregon Inlet Road, Nags Head.
14. The Paper Canoe, 1564 Duck Road, Duck.
15. Village Table & Tavern, 1314 Duck Road, Duck.
16. Vicki B’s Restaurant & Market, 301 Budleigh St., Manteo.

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.”

A portrait of the late Darrell McNary Collins, a beloved historian at the Wright Brothers National Memorial for over 40 years and president emeritus of the Pea Island Cookhouse Museum, was delivered Wednesday to the museum as a gift to Collins’ widow, Tonya Collins, who continues to serve as a board member and treasurer with the Pea Island Preservation Society Inc.

“It is heartwarming to receive such a special gift and refreshing to have someone honor Darrell since his passing,” Tonya Collins said in a statement from the nonprofit that operates the museum. “He would be humbled but appreciative and delighted to continue to play a pivotal role in raising funds to share and promote the remarkable history of the Outer Banks, a place and people he truly loved! “

The presentation of the portrait entitled “A Legacy of Greatness” and painted by Outer Banks artist James Melvin happened on “Honorable Darrell Collins Day,” as proclaimed by Manteo town officials in 2023.

Looking back: Darrell Collins remembered for giving life to Wrights’ story

The portrait is to be on temporary display at the Cookhouse Museum and the artist was to be on hand from 2 p.m. until 4 p.m. Wednesday. A public viewing and program for a larger audience are planned and will be announced early next year.

Darrell Collins, who died on Christmas Eve last year, is remembered for his knowledge and storytelling associated with the Wright brothers and their famous first flight. In addition to working as a historian at the Wright Brothers National Memorial for over 40 years, he was considered among the top aviation historians, according to the news release.

“He was known especially for his ease in blending science and history and for his incredible storytelling technique about the history of flight using an engaging and interactive style that brought smiles and interest to creative people of all ages,” said Pea Island Preservation Society Director of Outreach and Education Joan L. Collins in the release.

In addition to his work with the Pea Island Preservation Society Inc., Collins served as a Manteo town commissioner for 18 years and as mayor pro tem. He also served on the town planning board for 10 years. He entered local government after the sudden death in 2006 of his mother Dellerva Collins, who had been a Manteo commissioner for over 21 years.

Collins’ storytelling earned numerous national and international awards, including the Order of the Long Life Pine, North Carolina’s highest civilian honor for exemplary community service.

He also spoke with authority about Keeper Richard Etheridge and the Pea Island Lifesavers, and he helped create and present a live program to fourth grade students at all Dare County schools for several years and an annual essay contest.

Collins was also a youth basketball coach and player for Dare County Parks and Recreation for more than 25 years.

“The new portrait is also intended to reflect the special connection Darrell had with youth,” Joan Collins said. “He especially enjoyed the smiles and questions he received as he brought to life stories that were considered complicated or especially difficult to hear and to understand.”

Collins’ family history is also connected to the Freedmen’s Colony on Roanoke Island, and the Native American history of the area.

This family history, museum officials said, also includes 400 years of combined service in the U.S. Life-Saving Service and its successor, the U.S. Coast Guard.

The museum on Roanoke Island honors the life-savers at the Pea Island from 1880 until 1947. It is located in the former Pea Island station cookhouse where the crew prepared and ate their meals.

A limited number of high-quality prints made on museum-grade paper and numbered and signed by the artist, will be offered for sale to businesses, organizations, and others as part of the museum’s fundraising efforts.

The museum would like to partner with area businesses and organizations interested in displaying the print for public viewing. 

And those interested in purchasing a limited-edition print are requested to contact the Pea Island Preservation Society by email at friends@peaislandpreservationsociety.com. A board member will then contact you to discuss preferred print size options and next steps.

The Preservation Society intends to make the prints available for shipment or pickup at the Pea Island Cookhouse Museum on Roanoke Island as soon as possible after the new year, so order right away. 

As temperatures drop on the coast, the state is asking the public to report any cold-stunned spotted seatrout to the North Carolina’s Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Marine Fisheries.

Cold stuns can occur when there is a sudden drop in temperature or during prolonged periods of cold weather, making fish so sluggish they can be harvested by hand.

Spotted seatrout can be vulnerable to cold stuns during the winter when they typically move to relatively shallow creeks and rivers.

“Studies suggest that cold-stun events can have a significant negative impact on spotted seatrout populations as many fish that are stunned die from the cold or are eaten by birds or other predators,” fisheries officials said Friday.

No cold-stun events have been reported so far this season, but if there are concerning weather conditions in the upcoming weeks or months then a cold stun event could occur in coastal rivers and creeks.

Under the North Carolina Spotted Seatrout Fishery Management Plan, if a significant cold stun event occurs, the division is to close all spotted seatrout harvest in the affected areas through June 30.

A significant cold stun is determined by assessing the size and scope of spotted seatrout affected by cold stun, and evaluating water temperatures to determine if triggers of 41 degrees for eight consecutive days or 37.4 degrees during a 24-hour period are met.

The intent of a harvest closure is to allow surviving fish a chance to spawn before harvest reopens. Peak spotted seatrout spawning occurs from May to June, fisheries officials said.

Data loggers are deployed statewide to continuously measure water temperatures in coastal rivers and creeks that are prone to cold stuns.

Spotted seatrout cold stun events can be reported at any time to the N.C. Marine Patrol at 252-515-5507 or during regular business hours to the division spotted seatrout biologist Lucas Pensinger at 252-515-5638 or Lucas.Pensinger@deq.nc.gov.

Officials ask that the public provide the specific location, date, and time the cold-stun event was observed along with contact information when reporting a cold-stun event.

The two federal branches that enforce the Clean Water Act last month pitched changes to the “waters of the United States” definition, which establishes the types of waterbodies that are federally protected against pollution, and if these amendments pass as written, conservation groups fear millions of acres of nontidal wetlands will be left vulnerable.

The Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of Engineers have for decades had the authority to regulate “navigable waters,” which means “the waters of the United States, including the territorial seas,” as written in the 1948 Federal Water Pollution Control Act. Expanded in the 1970s, the measure is typically referred to as the Clean Water Act.

The EPA explains on its website that the Clean Water Act “establishes the basic structure for regulating discharges of pollutants into the waters of the United States and regulating quality standards for surface waters.”

One thing the Clean Water Act doesn’t do is clearly define “waters of the United States.” The EPA calls it a “threshold term in the Clean Water Act and establishes the geographic scope of federal jurisdiction under the Act.”

EPA and Army leadership announced Nov. 17 plans to update the definition, which has been the subject of lawsuits and years’ worth of arguments.

The “Updated Definition of ‘’Waters of the United States’’’ was published Nov. 20 in the Federal Register, launching a 45-day comment period on the proposed changes that closes Jan. 5.  A virtual public meeting is scheduled for 12:30 to 4 p.m. Tuesday, with a 2-2:30 p.m. break. Attendees must register online to speak by 5 p.m. Monday. To listen only, register by the start of the meeting.

This latest attempt, which would exclude isolated wetlands, is directly linked to the Supreme Court’s May 2023 Sackett v. EPA decision. The Sacketts are an Idaho couple fined in the late 2000s for backfilling a section of their property that the EPA considered wetlands.

Judges ruled in the final opinion on the case that the “(Clean Water Act)’s use of ‘waters’” only refers to geographical features described in everyday language “as ‘streams, oceans, rivers and lakes’ and to adjacent wetlands that are ‘indistinguishable’ from those bodies of water due to a continuous surface connection.”

Earlier that year, the EPA had finalized a “Revised Definition of ‘Waters of the United States'” rule that took effect March 20, 2023, and which the Sackett case invalidated. In August 2023, the EPA and Army Corps issued an amendment to align the rule with the Sackett decision.

That final conforming rule is what the EPA and Army Corps leadership are proposing to amend.

The agencies argue that the change “would fully implement” the Supreme Court’s ruling “by ensuring federal jurisdiction is focused on relatively permanent, standing or continuously flowing bodies of water—such as streams, oceans, rivers, and lakes—and wetlands that are connected and indistinguishable from such waterbodies.”

With this proposed rule, the agencies explain in the docket, they “intend to provide greater regulatory certainty and increase Clean Water Act program predictability and consistency by clarifying the definition of ‘waters of the United States.’ This proposed rule is also intended to implement the overall objective of the Clean Water Act to restore and maintain the quality of the Nation’s waters while respecting State and Tribal authority over their own land and water resources.”

Environmental groups argued then, when the Sackett case was ruled, and still maintain that by removing protections from the millions of acres of nontidal wetlands, there will be consequences: Water quality will be jeopardized and flooding will increase, to name just two.

Southern Environmental Law Center Senior Attorney Mark Sabath said in an interview that for 50 years, the Clean Water Act has been the strongest and best federal protection for many of the waters and wetlands around the country.

The law does that “by saying you can’t pollute, you can’t fill, you can’t destroy certain features, certain waters, without a permit,” Sabath said, and the permitting process means that there are certain protections and controls you have to apply to minimize the amount of destruction.

Sabath added that a number of features of the Clean Water Act are dependent on the type of water, and, in addressing its critics, not every puddle in the country covered by the act.

“It’s only things that meet the definition of waters of the United States, and that isn’t defined in the statute itself,” Sabath continued. “Congress didn’t define it, so EPA and the Army Corps, in a series of rules over the years, have tried to define exactly what wetlands are and aren’t covered by the Clean Water Act.”

This proposed rule is the latest revision and it is “by far the most narrow, the most extreme definition,” Sabath continued. “It includes the fewest number of streams and wetlands and other waters of any interpretation of ‘waters the United States’ that we’ve seen.”

North Carolina Wildlife Federation Conservation Policy Vice President Manley Fuller told Coastal Review that with this proposed rule, the bottom line is a massive loss of protection of waters of the United States, which are vital habitats for fish and wildlife.

“This will also negatively affect hunting and fishing, which are a significant part of our natural resource-based economy,” he continued. “Wetlands are also buffers for the built environment and help reduce downstream flooding. Protecting clean waters and wetlands is extremely popular with the public for many reasons and we need to strengthen rather than weaken these programs.”

North Carolina Sierra Club Deputy Director Erin Carey told Coastal Review the rule will effectively remove federal protections from at least 80% of wetlands and over 5 million miles of streams across the country.

“This rule will open millions of acres of wetlands to the threat of development, leaving communities already vulnerable to flooding without the frontline protection afforded by these invaluable habitats. Wetlands act as filters for floodwaters and other runoff, making them critical not only to flood mitigation, but to the preservation of clean water resources,” Carey said.

Environmental Defense Fund Coasts and Watersheds Science Senior Manager Dr. Adam Gold pointed out as well that if the proposed rule is implemented as written, nearly all nontidal wetlands and intermittent streams could be without Clean Water Act protections in North Carolina and across the United States.

While there are many changes in the proposed rule, the most notable are to the definitions of “relative permanence” of waters and a “continuous surface connection” for wetlands, Gold said, adding that the proposed language introduces the concept of a “wet season.”

“Under the proposed rule, wetlands and waters would only receive Clean Water Act protections if they have surface water throughout the ‘wet season,’ described in the rule as ‘an extended period where there is continuous surface hydrology resulting from predictable seasonal precipitation patterns year after year,’” Gold said. “This proposed rule would make it easier to drain or develop wetlands that do not meet the ‘wet season’ surface water requirement, putting our wetlands and the benefits they provide at serious risk.”

In North Carolina, the impact of the proposed rule is 3.2 million acres, or about 88%, of nontidal wetlands estimated to be without Clean Water Act protections. “Importantly, this analysis relies on wetland ‘wetness’ during the growing season, but the proposed rule uses the ‘wet season,’” Gold said.

About the wet season, Gold continued, there are “fundamental issues with the proposed rule’s ‘wet season’ dataset.”

He said the classification of the “wet season” comes from the Army Corps of Engineers Antecedent Precipitation Tool, but the underlying data this tool relies on is modeled using the average monthly temperature and precipitation between 1950 and 1999. The modeled dataset was published in 2001 and does not use the best-available methods.

“The agencies proposed ‘wet season’ dataset classifies most of the year, and in some cases the entire year, as ‘wet’ for much of coastal North Carolina. So, under this proposed rule, wetlands or streams in Jacksonville would need to have surface water year-round (the whole year is classified as ‘wet’) to have Clean Water Act protections. For New Bern, the ‘wet season’ is 11 months, and for Wilmington or Brunswick County, the ‘wet season’ is 10 months.”

Gold said the proposed rule “which could essentially remove nontidal wetland and intermittent waters from the Clean Water Act, does not align with the goal of the Clean Water Act to ‘restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the nation’s waters.’ Science shows us that all wetlands, regardless of how ‘wet’ they are, clean our water, provide critical wildlife habitat, and reduce downstream flooding impacts.”

The EPA and Corps also asserted the week the proposed changes were announced that the new rules would provide “the regulatory certainty needed to support our nation’s farmers who feed and fuel the world and advance EPA’s Powering the Great American Comeback initiative.”

Sabath noted that the idea that this will have huge benefits for farming and for farmers is a common refrain when they’re restricting the protections of the Clean Water Act, “but the Clean Water Act actually exempts most farming activities from coverage already, so you don’t need to get a permit for doing regular farming activities, even when they would affect a wetland or stream that would otherwise be covered.”

The idea that this is a huge benefit for farmers is a nicer story, “because they don’t want to say, well, this is a huge benefit for large industrial facilities, industrial polluters, developers,” Sabath said.

Carey sees the proposed rule as demonstrating “that the EPA has abdicated its mandated responsibility to protect the environment and the people who depend on it. Even worse, the agency appears eager to sacrifice our natural resources on the altar of corporate greed.”

The public should be “very concerned that the federal agency tasked with ensuring clean water, clean air, and the protection of our natural environment seems determined to undermine that responsibility. With this proposed change, the EPA claims to seek clarity in regulation, but this rule would serve only to allow industry to profit from environmental destruction, and the ruination of our natural resources,” she added.

White Oak Waterkeeper Riley Lewis said in a statement that the EPA’s new definition of Waters of the United States ignores decades of scientific understanding and generations of Indigenous knowledge.

“By redefining wetlands using ambiguous criteria seemingly designed to maximize developable land and reduce regulatory barriers, the agency is turning a blind eye to the very real, very predictable impacts on our communities,” Lewis said. “Water will continue to move beneath our feet through groundwater and across the landscape during storms, regardless of a federal definition or a construction permit. This rule sets Americans up for flooding, damaged infrastructure, and increased pollution in the waters we rely on for our drinking supply, our food, and our way of life.”

So, why does this actually matter to the public? Sabath said it does in a few ways.

In North Carolina, people who hunt, fish and paddle use wetlands directly and those might be impacted by being destroyed or polluted without a permit.

“Anyone who is in a community that floods during extreme weather, and we all know that that’s happening more and more now, or that’s at risk of flooding,” Sabath said. By losing those wetlands, you lose their ability to protect communities from flooding, and that comes more often now from extreme weather.

“It’s a double whammy. You’re losing the benefits that they provide, and you’re probably creating more problems,” and more potential pollution or channels of pollution at the same time by replacing wetlands, natural areas with pavement or developed areas, he said.

With wetlands being a “good natural sponge” that can absorb huge amounts of water, “if anything, we should be trying to expand wetland coverage rather than take it away, Sabath said.

“In short,” Carey with the Sierra Club continued, “communities will watch rivers and streams in their communities fall victim to unchecked pollution. Without federal protections, industry will discharge and develop at will, destroying habitats, water quality, and flood protection measures as they go. The wetlands and streams of this country belong to all people, not just those who seek to exploit them.”

A Piedmont town’s request to permanently pull millions of gallons of water a day from the Cape Fear River would raise the risk of water shortages during periods of drought, undercut utilities’ ability to keep up with growing demand, and result in higher levels of contamination in the raw drinking water source for downstream communities, opponents of the plan say.

Of the dozen people who spoke Tuesday night during a public hearing in Raleigh, none supported Fuquay-Varina’s call for transferring 6.17 million gallons per day from the Cape Fear River Basin to the Neuse River Basin to meet that town’s projected water demands.

Similar opposition was expressed during a hearing held in Fayetteville last week by the North Carolina Environmental Management Commission and the state Division of Water Resources. A third hearing was scheduled to be held Thursday in Pittsboro.

Both elected officials and heads of public utilities in the lower Cape Fear region on Tuesday continued pressing the commission and division to host a public hearing in that area.

“None of the hearings for the Fuquay-Varina request are being held in the lower Cape Fear region, even though our communities will feel the downstream impacts,” said New Hanover County Commissioner Rob Zapple. “Residents in the city of Wilmington and the counties of New Hanover, Brunswick and Pender would have to spend four to five hours on the road just to attend the public hearing. Most residents simply cannot do that. Holding a hearing in the lower Cape Fear region in Wilmington would reduce frustration, encourage public trust, and allow our communities to be hearing in a constructive manner.”

As of Wednesday, more than 20 counties, municipalities, environmental organizations, businesses and drinking water providers have adopted resolutions opposing Fuquay-Varina’s request for an interbasin transfer certificate, or IBT.

Officials in Fuquay-Varina, which is about 30 miles south of Raleigh, project that the amount of water the town currently buys from the capital city, and Harnett and Johnston counties will fall short of demand by 2030.

Under the proposed preferred alternative identified in a draft environmental impact statement for the IBT, the town would source its entire water supply from a water treatment plant in Sanford, which is in the Cape Fear River Basin.

Once water pulled from the Cape Fear River is used by residents and businesses within the town, the treated wastewater would be discharged into the Neuse River Basin. This would permanently subtract more than 6 million gallons each day from the river flow that currently sources more than 500,000 residents with drinking water.

“We have absolutely no problem with Fuquay-Varina wanting to continue with their development,” Zapple said. “But if you take the water, just return it. That’s all. That’s the way the system works. And, if it costs more, well maybe that’s the price of doing business. We need our development down in the lower Cape Fear region as well and we can’t afford to lose 6.17 million gallons a day.”

The Cape Fear River is Brunswick County’s “primary and only reliable water source,” said Christopher Giesting, Brunswick County Public Utilities deputy director of water operations.

The utility supplies drinking water to 19 municipalities and serves more than 350,000 residents and seasonal visitors.

Giesting said that Brunswick County has invested more than $183 million to expand its Northwest Water Treatment Plant and upgrade to a reverse osmosis system designed to remove per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, discharged into the river by upstream polluters.

“These investments were made with the expectation that the full safe yield of the Cape Fear River at the intake would remain available,” he said. “Any IBT that removes water without returning it means that safe yield volume is reduced, ultimately making these major infrastructure investments unable to function as planned and designed. Our county alone has more than 50,000 planned housing units already built, under construction, or in the works. Without reliable access to the full safe yield of the Cape Fear, we cannot meet future water demands for these communities.”

The IBT proposal also threatens water quality, Giesting continued, because the requested daily transfer would lessen the amount of water available to dilute contaminants, including PFAS and 1,4-dioxane, discharged by upstream polluters.

The Lower Cape Fear Water and Sewer Authority, which provides wholesale regional raw water to treatment facilities that serve more than 550,000 customers in a five-county area, has sourced from the Cape Fear River more than half a century.

Authority Executive Director Tim Holloman said the river is already being substantially used as a water resource in the region.

“For a river that’s already maxed, we just ask that that be considered. If the IBT is granted, that (water) be returned to the Cape Fear River Basin because the need is not going to go away. It’s only going to increase over time,” he said.

Fayetteville Public Works Commission Chief Executive Officer and General Manager Timothy Bryant said that the commission would be forced to spend millions more each year to ensure safe drinking water to its more than 250,000 customers.

“I would argue very strenuously that no one with any legitimacy can claim that removing over 6 million gallons of water per day isn’t a foreseeable detrimental effect on the river basin and the 900,000 downstream residents of North Carolina who depend on this water every day,” he said. “To be clear, growth in Fuquay-Varina should not come at the expense of other communities. There are multiple reasonable alternative options presented that are not only consistent with the intent and letter of North Carolina law, but also squarely place the cost burden on Fuquay-Varina and not the customers downstream of it.”

Cape Fear Public Utility Authority Executive Director Ken Waldroup asked that the Environmental Management Commission look into what he said are “critical technical shortcomings” associated with models presented by the town.

The commission will make the final determination on whether to grant Fuquay-Varina’s request.

If approved, the IBT would occur after 2031, according to the draft impact statement.

No announcement had been made at the time of this publication as to whether a public hearing will be held in the lower Cape Fear region.

Guest Commentary

To stimulate discussion and debate, Coastal Review welcomes differing viewpoints on topical coastal issues.

The news that the entire Atlantic Coast, including North Carolina waters, has been excluded from the latest offshore drilling Draft Proposed Program is a welcome moment of relief for coastal communities. This exclusion is a direct result of decades of tireless, bipartisan opposition from citizens, businesses, and elected officials who have sent a message to Washington, D.C.: Our coast is not a chip at the poker table.

But let’s be crystal clear: This is a temporary reprieve, not a permanent victory. Without permanent federal protection, the oil industry will be back in five years, threatening to gamble with our livelihood all over again.

The High-Stakes Bet: Tourism vs. Oil

Our state’s economy is not hypothetical; it’s a proven powerhouse built on clean sand and clear water. In 2024, North Carolina welcomed over 40 million visitors who poured a record-breaking $36.7 billion into our economy. According to Visit NC, a stunning 90% of coastal region overnight visitors came for leisure.

Our identity is our asset: towns like Kure Beach thrive because of our clear coastline and the East Coast’s oldest fishing pier — not the promise of an oil rig. Our economy is built on soft sand. It’s our livelihood. Why would we risk a proven, multi-billion-dollar industry for the volatile, dirty promise of oil?

The danger of offshore drilling is not an abstract fear—it’s a guaranteed threat to our future. To argue that a disaster like the 2010 Deepwater Horizon explosion could not happen here is to ignore reality: the U.S. saw nearly 6,000 spills between 2010-2020. Our waters are ruled by powerful, north-flowing Gulf Stream and lie directly in the path of severe hurricanes and tropical storms. A spill would not be contained; it would rapidly devastate beaches, estuaries, and wetlands along the entire North Carolina coastline.

Even without a spill, industrial infrastructure and ugly rigs drive away tourists. Studies of the Gulf Coast have shown that counties with drilling infrastructure suffer a significant reduction in tourism revenue compared to non-drilling coastal areas. The promise of oil riches is a hollow one when the immediate cost is the destruction of our established, high-value tourism market.

United Opposition

Let’s be clear: this isn’t a political debate; it’s an enduring, bipartisan call for common economic sense. Earlier this year, both North Carolina Gov. Josh Stein, a Democrat, and South Carolina Gov. Henry McMaster, a Republican, issued a joint letter opposing the expansion of offshore oil and gas leasing, proving this threat unites governors across state and party lines.

This mandate flows directly from the coast itself. Kure Beach became ground zero of the opposition movement in 2014, and we have passed two resolutions opposing offshore drilling, the most recent of which passed in June 2025. We have since been joined by a chorus of over 40 North Carolina governments, all of whom have passed similar resolutions over the years.

Crucially, the business leaders who power our coastal economy — like NC Catch, the Outer Banks Association of REALTORS, and the Carteret County Chamber of Commerce — all understand a simple truth: clean beaches are their primary asset, and drilling is the greatest threat to their bottom line.

The Path Forward: Codify Protection

The people of the North Carolina coast have bought us time. We cannot afford to be complacent. The exclusion from this proposed program is merely a pause button, not a definitive “game over” for the oil industry.

I urge every reader: Contact your federal representatives. Demand that they move beyond the Draft Proposed Program and actively work to pass the COAST Anti-Drilling Act (S.1486, H.R.2881), that permanently withdraws the Atlantic from all future offshore oil and gas leasing.

Do not let Washington, D.C., gamble away North Carolina’s future again in the next five-year cycle.

We won the battle, but the war for our beaches rages on.

Opinions expressed by the authors are not necessarily those of Coastal Review or our publisher, the North Carolina Coastal Federation.

A district court judge has ruled that Chemours and its predecessor company cannot conceal thousands of pages of documents from the public.

The manufacturing giant failed to provide sufficient evidence the documents include commercially sensitive information that, if released, could competitively undermine the companies, Judge James Dever III concluded in his Dec. 3 ruling.

Information the companies requested to keep under seal are among 25,000 pages of documents lawyers representing public utilities and local governments downstream of Chemours’ Bladen County plant submitted to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina as part of lawsuit those entities brought against the companies in October 2017.

Related: EPA seeks reporting rollback as new study finds hidden PFAS

Cape Fear Public Utility Authority, or CFPUA, Brunswick County, Lower Cape Fear Water & Sewer Authority, and Wrightsville Beach aim to recover costs and damages associated with the Fayetteville Works’ plant’s discharges of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, for decades into the Cape Fear River. The river is a drinking water source for tens of thousands of residents.

PFAS are a group of more than 14,000 chemicals used in everyday consumer products including food containers, stain-resistant carpet and water-repellant gear. These human-made chemical compounds are persistent in the environment and have been found to accumulate in humans and animals. Exposure to these substances has been linked to weakened immune function, reproductive and development issues and increased risk of some cancers.

Last February, attorneys for Chemours and its predecessor company DuPont filed a motion requesting that the court keep thousands of pages of those documents under seal, arguing information in those documents contain internal communications about chemical production that, if made public, could give a leg up to their competitors.

Dever denied that request. He also rejected a second motion by the companies’ attorneys seeking to keep from the public an April 2018 report of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency detailing its inspection the Fayetteville Works facility.

“Defendants’ second motion to seal fails for the same reason as defendant’s first motion to seal. Defendants provide insufficient evidence to demonstrate that sealing the [Toxic Substance Act Compliance Monitoring Inspection] report serves a compelling interest which outweighs the public’s right of access,” Dever wrote in his 13-page ruling.

A document’s “status as confidential or commercially sensitive alone does not justify its sealing,” he continued.

“We thank the Court for its wise ruling in denying the motion to seal,” Cammie Bellamy, CFPUA public information officer, said in an email responding to a request for comment. “CFPUA will oppose every attempt by Chemours to delay, obfuscate, and deny the public its right to access the facts of this case. The documents that Chemours and its codefendants wanted to hide from the public include records of its decades of wrongdoing. The people of Southeastern North Carolina deserve better. CFPUA continues to work to hold Chemours accountable for its decades of polluting of the Cape Fear River – the source water for 500,000 North Carolinians.”

Dever also denied requests submitted to the court last April by environmental and community organizations, and the NAACP New Hanover County Branch, to intervene in the case and object to the companies’ motion to keep the documents sealed, ruling those motions are moot.

The Southern Environmental Law Center filed a motion to intervene in the case on behalf of Cape Fear River Watch, the North Carolina Coastal Federation, which publishes Coastal Review, and the Environmental Justice Community Action Network.

“We think that this is absolutely the right outcome,” Jean Zhuang, a senior attorney with the center’s Chapel Hill office, said in a telephone interview Friday morning. “In this case, the companies have concealed decades of pollution in southeastern North Carolina and harmed drinking water from the Cape Fear River for 500,000 people.”

The release of the documents comes at a crucial time, she said, because Chemours wants to expand its production of vinyl ethers, which are a class of compounds used to create a variety of products used in a range of technologies from semiconductor chips to aviation components.

The company’s permit application for that expansion is under review by the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality.

“Chemours is expecting the public to just trust them while they are planning a massive expansion of their facility,” Zhuang said. “After all these decades of harm they have caused on North Carolina communities, secrecy is not an option anymore.”

Tests commissioned by the SELC and Cape Fear River Watch showed that Chemours is releasing “extremely high levels” of ultra-short chain PFAS, which are highly mobile and difficult to remove from raw drinking water, into the Cape Fear River.

The results of those tests, released last October, confirmed earlier test results published by CFPUA, which has spent tens of millions of dollars upgrading its Sweeney Water Treatment Plant in downtown Wilmington to filtrate PFAS from reaching its customers’ taps.

CFPUA officials, along with those from other downstream facilities, are calling on the state to enforce polluters to treat chemicals at the source and set enforceable limits in discharge permits.

Anne Harvey David, chief counsel for environmental justice for the Southern Coalition for Social Justice, which asked to intervene in the case on behalf of the NAACP New Hanover County Branch, said in a release, “An effort to conceal information that details with the health and safety of thousands of North Carolinians cannot go unchallenged. We are happy to see this decision in favor of protecting public access to these documents. Information and transparency around the extent of the pollution is fundamental for the health and safety of the impacted communities.”

NACCP New Hanover County Branch President LeRon Montgomery said last week’s ruling “is one win in a long battle for our community to live free from harmful contamination of our air and water,” according to the release.

“The importance of this decision goes far beyond who it will impact today,” he stated. “The pollution of the Cape Fear River will impact generations to come, but so will having access to this information.”

As of this publication, it was unclear when the documents would be made public or whether the companies’ attorneys would appeal the ruling.

Reprinted from North Carolina Health News

Though the holiday season is here — with all the responsibilities it entails — some North Carolinians might consider adding one more thing to their to-do lists: weighing in on an EPA proposal that could reshape how the government collects information about per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS. The agency is taking input during the public comment period, which is open now and closes on Dec. 29.

On Nov. 10, the EPA announced a proposal to loosen reporting requirements for businesses that make or use PFAS. Agency officials say the changes are intended to make the rules easier for companies to follow and to avoid duplicate or unnecessary paperwork, while still allowing EPA to collect key information about how PFAS are used and what risks they may pose.

Currently PFAS are regulated under the Toxic Substances Control Act, a federal law that allows the EPA to require businesses to report, test, track or even ban chemicals that may threaten human health or the environment.

In October 2023, the Biden administration’s EPA finalized a one-time PFAS reporting rule under TSCA’s Section 8. The rule requires companies that manufactured or imported PFAS between 2011 and 2022 to disclose how the chemicals were used and provide available environmental or health data. Industry groups have pushed back, saying the rule is too costly and difficult for small businesses to navigate.

“This Biden-era rule would have imposed crushing regulatory burdens and nearly $1 billion in implementation costs on American businesses,” EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin said when announcing the proposed changes. “Today’s proposal is grounded in common sense and the law, allowing us to collect the information we need to help combat PFAS contamination without placing ridiculous requirements on manufacturers, especially the small businesses that drive our country’s economy.”

But environmental advocates and clean water managers say the proposal would significantly weaken PFAS oversight.

“By EPA’s own estimate, the proposed rule would eliminate more than 97 percent of the information that would have otherwise been generated by the (current) rule,” said Stephanie Schweickert, NC Conservation Network’s director of Environmental Health Campaigns.

“With PFAS and Chemours in North Carolina, we really need more information about PFAS, not less. This (proposal) is very problematic for public health in North Carolina,” Schweickert said. 

Harder-to-detect PFAS raise new concerns

The proposal comes when North Carolina researchers are uncovering PFAS pollution that standard monitoring can’t detect — raising new questions about whether EPA already has blind spots.

Recent Duke University research uncovered a previously unrecognized source of contamination in the Haw River, a tributary of the Cape Fear River: tiny solid PFAS “precursor” particles in industrial wastewater from a Burlington textile manufacturer that entered the local sewer system. These nanoparticles don’t show up in standard PFAS tests, which typically look for dissolved chemicals. But during wastewater treatment processes, the particles break down into better-known PFAS compounds that can contaminate rivers, drinking water sources and agricultural sludge.

At peak discharge, researchers detected precursor-particle levels exceeding 12 million parts per trillion — millions of times higher than EPA’s enforceable drinking-water limits of 4-10 ppt for regulated PFAS. The findings highlight major blind spots in current monitoring and suggest that industries may be releasing far more PFAS (or PFAS precursors) than regulators currently can detect.

“We have some of the most sophisticated instruments in the world for PFAS analysis, and we couldn’t detect these until we dramatically changed our approach,” said lead researcher Lee Ferguson, professor of civil and environmental engineering at Duke, in a release. “Sometimes we don’t know what we don’t know, and there is a lesson to be learned about blind spots in our analyses when it comes to looking for new PFAS in the environment.”

In a follow-up email, Ferguson said the findings show why PFAS disclosure rules should be strengthened, not rolled back. “Our work highlights why it is important to increase, not decrease, PFAS waste discharge reporting requirements for industries.”

Downstream utilities feel the impact

A public utility that relies on the Cape Fear River, echoed Ferguson’s concerns.

The Cape Fear Public Utility Authority, which provides drinking water to more than 200,000 customers in New Hanover County and spent $43 million installing a granular activated carbon filtration system in 2022 to remove PFAS, said weakened reporting would make their job harder.

“We are concerned that these (proposed) exemptions could create additional uncertainty for utilities, such as CFPUA, that are located downstream from known PFAS polluters,” the agency said.

“Utilities rely upon detailed, accurate data from potential and known contamination sources to inform our treatment processes in order to protect the drinking water we provide our customers,” the statement continued. “Rolling back reporting requirements for PFAS manufacturers passes more of the burden of monitoring and testing source water on to utilities and our ratepayers.”

Advocates say the stakes extend beyond utilities.

“The EPA is carving out loopholes under the Toxic Substances Control Act that allow industry to avoid reporting its use of PFAS — current forever chemicals that pose serious risks to people’s health,” a Southern Environmental Law Center spokesperson said in an emailed statement to NC Health News. 

“These exemptions include PFAS produced as byproducts, the very issue at the heart of the Chemours crisis,” the SELC statement said. “For decades, Chemours discharged GenX as a byproduct before intentionally manufacturing it, yet the harm caused by byproduct PFAS is no different from that caused by intentionally produced PFAS. This reality devastated 500,000 North Carolinians who drank—and continue to drink—water contaminated by Chemours’ PFAS pollution, and it remains true for communities across the country today.”

Health risks tied to PFAS exposure

These gaps in monitoring matter because PFAS exposure has been associated with a growing list of health concerns. Often called “forever chemicals” because they break down slowly and accumulate in the body over time, PFAS have been linked to immune system suppression, developmental and reproductive harm, thyroid disruption, elevated cholesterol and certain cancers.

In North Carolina, the GenX Exposure Study has documented elevated PFAS levels in blood samples from people living near the Cape Fear River, along with health markers such as increased cholesterol and changes in liver enzymes that have been associated with PFAS exposure. Researchers say the findings underscore the risks for communities living downstream of industrial PFAS sources.

“Some PFAS are formed as byproducts of chemical manufacturing. These chemicals, even though they aren’t used to make new products, are released into air and water and have been found in the blood of people who rely on downstream drinking water,” said N.C. State University epidemiologist Jane Hoppin, when responding to questions about the new Duke research and the EPA’s proposal.

“In our research, PFMOAA was detected at the highest levels in blood samples collected more than a year before the contamination was publicly identified,” she said. “Other byproducts of PFAS — Nafion byproduct 2 and PFO5DoA — were found in nearly all Wilmington residents tested in 2017 and remain in people’s blood today. We need more, not less, information about chemical byproducts to ensure drinking water safety.”

“The mission of the EPA, in the beginning, was to protect the public and the environment,” said Robert Bullard, a professor of urban planning and environmental policy at Texas Southern University who’s widely regarded as the father of the environmental justice movement. “Anytime you’re relaxing rules that would not only threaten the environment but also compromise public health — that’s the wrong way to go.”

The public comment period is open through Dec. 29. To submit a comment, go to: https://www.regulations.gov/commenton/EPA-HQ-OPPT-2020-0549-0311.

This article first appeared on North Carolina Health News and is republished here under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Jean Beasley was one of those people seemingly born to lead, happy to work in the trenches with a fervor and tenacity that magnetized others to her.

It was her charisma, her penchant to teach others about sea turtles, her drive to protect the iconic ocean dwellers, and her determination to carry out her daughter’s vision that led to the founding of the beloved Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Rescue and Rehabilitation Center on Topsail Island.

Beasley died early Tuesday morning “in the company of loved ones,” according to a center Facebook post. She was 90.

As word has spread of her passing, the center has received an outpouring from former interns expressing how Beasley’s passion and guidance shaped not only their career paths, but also their lives.

“I can attest to that because my life was completely changed after I met her,” Terry Meyer, the center’s deputy and conservation director and Beasley’s longtime friend, said Wednesday morning.

Meyer was introduced to Beasley in 1995 at Topsail Beach’s annual Autumn With Topsail Festival. Tucked somewhere among booths featuring handmade arts and crafts was Beasley’s stand, where she explained the Topsail Turtle Project Nesting Program to any interested passersby.

“She mentioned that there was a nest in front of her house if we wanted to go look at it. She lives about a block away from my house so I did walk down there, and she came charging out of the house in a very protective mode, which I would later learn the turtle people do,” Meyer said.

Those initial, brief encounters would later prompt Meyer to attend a volunteer meeting of the Topsail Turtle Project.

“She’s so charismatic. When I left that meeting, I thought protecting sea turtles was the most important, noble thing I could do with my life. I mean, she’s just, it was like three hours of brainwashing, and I never looked back,” Meyer laughed.

By that time, Beasley had long established a home in Surf City.

The native North Carolinian grew up in Henderson, a small town a little more than 40 miles northeast of Raleigh. She was awarded a full scholarship to Duke University, where she earned a degree and received her teacher certification in 1958.

She first moved to Topsail Island with her husband, Fred, after he received orders to Camp Lejeune, according to a 2005 report in the Wilmington Star-News.

The couple lived on the island two short years before Fred Beasley got out of the Marine Corps and took a job in Ohio, where they lived for 20 years. There, they raised sons, Barney and Kevin, and daughter, Karen.

Each year, the family would vacation in Topsail Island. Jean and Fred returned to Topsail Island to live full time in the early 1980s after he retired.

Less than 10 years after their move to Surf City, Karen, 29, died in 1991 from leukemia. Jean picked up the torch and carried forward Karen’s plans for the turtle project.

Within five years of Karen’s death, Jean struck up a deal with Topsail Beach to lease a small, waterfront lot nestled along Banks Channel and just behind town hall for $1 a year.

The new sea turtle hospital opened in 1997.

“A lot of groundbreaking, excellent work went on in that 900-square-foot building and that’s where our heart was,” Meyer said. “When I tell people we literally fished off the end of the dock to feed the turtles, that is a true story. Those are our humble beginnings. It was all running on a dream and it was running on Jean’s charisma.”

Beasley “had a big smile, and she had a hug for everybody, but she also had an iron will and she ran the program from a position of strength,” Meyer said.

Patient demand pushed the hospital to capacity, and then some, on a recurring basis, and, in 2013, a new, 13,000-square-foot center was opened on Surf City’s mainland.

“Our success over the years and being in this building today is because of Jean’s stewardship and leadership and our ability to properly manage our funds while saving hundreds of turtles,” Meyer said.

As of Wednesday, the hospital had cared for “at least” 1,701 turtles, she said. Of those, 1,290 had been rehabilitated and released.

In its Facebook post announcing Jean’s death, center officials thanked her “for sharing your dreams with us.”

“You inspired us to create a better world – for the turtles, for Mother Ocean, and for all. We will do our best to carry forward your legacy. Swim in Peace.”

Beasley was awarded Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Sea Turtle Society in 2017.

She stepped down as the center’s executive director in 2021 and later moved to Tennessee to live with one of her sons and daughters-in-law, Meyer said.

Up until this year, Jean would return in the summers to visit the center.

“It was very important to us and to her to have her meet with our interns and just impart some stories and some history,” Meyer said. “We followed her because she demonstrated every day what it took to save sea turtles because she did the work. She was down and dirty doing the work every day, and she didn’t shy away from any task. I watched her – from medical treatments on sea turtles to gluing PVC together, to repairing a pump – she did all things and she led by example. You know, it’s like she was our beating heart.”

There’s only a week left to register for a new webinar series created by North Carolina Sea Grant and the Coastal Landscapes Initiative that explores sustainable practices that protect North Carolina’s unique coastal environment.

The 2025-26 series, “Landscapes that Last,” is intended for coastal residents, local governments, homeowners associations and nurseries “to build shared knowledge and healthier coastal communities,” organizers said.

Registration is open for the first webinar but space is limited.

Each session will feature presentations by panelists with a variety of expertise and experience. These include practical strategies, such as choosing salt-tolerant plants and conserving trees to improving stormwater ponds, and tips for sourcing eco-friendly plants. Sessions will end with 15 minutes of audience questions.

The first in the series, “Local Policies for Native Plants,” is set for noon until 1:15 p.m. Dec. 11. The session will feature speakers from North Carolina communities who will discuss their policies to advance landscapes that protect native vegetation and discourage the spread of invasive plants.

This session’s speakers will share how local policies and community guidelines can make a lasting difference. Speakers include Pine Knoll Shores Planning Administrator Charlie Rocci, Bald Head Association Assistant Director Dora Richey and Raleigh City Council Member Jane Harrison.

Rocci, a coastal municipal planner, facilitated development of new landscaping requirements for forest management while updating the town’s Unified Development Ordinance.

Richey, a homeowners association director, is implementing planting covenants on new construction and renovated properties to enhance and protect island properties and the environment.

Harrison, in her capacity as an elected official, has promoted and helped to adopt ordinances to prohibit invasive species and encourage restoration of native landscapes in an urban area.                                                                                                              

Future webinar dates are to be announced as schedules are confirmed.

Professional development credits are available under the North Carolina Environmental Education Certification Program: Criteria III or Continuing Education.

Alliance for Cape Fear Trees is holding its largest tree giveaway yet on Friday, with more than 1,400 native trees up for the taking.

The giveaway will be held in Wilmington noon-5 p.m. Friday at Legion Stadium, 2149 Carolina Beach Road, and will continue starting at 9 a.m. Saturday, if there are remaining trees.

The nonprofit will be offering 14 species of native trees, including stock from Burton Natural Systems and heritage Southern live oaks from Penderlea Farms.

Those interested in participating in the giveaway are encouraged to view the list of available trees in advance to “plan ahead for a tree that will suit your space and needs.”

Trees will be distributed on a first-come, first-served basis. Coastal Review cannot guarantee availability.

Student researchers will present their findings on Nags Head Woods during the next installment of the “Science on the Sound” lecture series presented by the Coastal Studies Institute on the East Carolina University Outer Banks Campus.

The lecture, “Patterns of protection: Natural and Social Values of the Nags Head Woods Maritime Forest,” is set for 3 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 11, at the Coastal Studies Institute, 850 N.C. Highway 345, Wanchese.

The program is free and the public is encouraged to attend. The program will also be livestreamed on YouTube.

The monthly, in-person, lecture series at the Coastal Studies Institute brings perspectives from all over the state and highlights coastal topics in northeastern North Carolina.

During this month’s program, students of the Outer Banks Field Site will present the findings of their capstone research project.

The University of North Carolina Chapel Hill Institute for the Environment’s Outer Banks Field Site is a semester-long, interdisciplinary residential learning experience for undergraduate students hosted by the Coastal Studies Institute. Each fall since 2001, these students have spent the semester taking classes, engaging in internships with local organizations, and completing a capstone research project as a group.

This year’s research examines the maritime forest within the Nags Head Woods Preserve. The students interviewed stakeholders about the values that they ascribe to the woods and collected data about the salt spray, vegetation, and wildlife within the woods. The program will last about 90 minutes, including presentation, questions and discussion.

The Coastal Resources Commission approved last week revised text that is meant to satisfy the latest objection from the Rules Review Commission regarding Jockey’s Ridge’s designation as an area of environmental concern.

The Coastal Resources Commission, or CRC, has been trying to get this text sorted since October 2023, when the Rules Review Commission objected to and removed 30 rules, including those for Jockey’s Ridge protections, as part of the 10-year periodic rules review process.

According to the the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Coastal Management, which carries out the rules and regulations set by the CRC, the text that had been up for review a few years ago was almost identical to what had been approved in 1984 for the centerpiece of Jockey’s Ridge State Park in Dare County.

Part of the text the Rules Review Commission most recently objected to reads: “(a) Description. Jockey’s Ridge is the tallest active sand dune (medano) along the Atlantic Coast of the United States. Located within the Town of Nags Head in Dare County, between US 158 and Roanoke Sound, Jockey’s Ridge represents the southern extremity of a back barrier dune system which extends north along Currituck Spit into Virginia.”

The CRC at its regular business meeting in Beaufort Hotel was briefed about the rules commission’s latest objection Wednesday during the annual rules review update, and again Thursday before voting unanimously to submit the amended text to the rules panel.

Daniel Govoni, policy analyst with the Division of Coastal Management, said Wednesday that a general statute directs staff to review and identify any rules that are unnecessary, burdensome or inconsistent. Rules that are considered necessary, go through the rules review process, and that includes being run through the Rules Review Commission.

Govoni said that just recently, the Jockey’s Ridge area of environmental concern permanent rules the Coastal Resources Commission approved Aug. 27 was sent to the Rules Review Commission and “they again have objected.”

The reason this time, he continued, “is because the rule was split up into three categories: (a) being description, (b) being boundaries and (c) the use standards. They basically said that the description was unnecessary.”

When Coastal Resources picked up the discussion Thursday, Govoni reiterated that the rule was drafted into three parts, with a description explaining Jockey’s Ridge and its importance, and a boundary describing the area of environmental concern boundary and an accompanying map.

Govoni stated that the Rules Review specifically objecting to “the paragraph (a) description,” and that it “was not the same as the designation as under general statute.”

Coastal Resources was left with two options with a deadline of Dec. 1: either amend the rule to address the Rules Review objection, or submit a written response explaining why the rule won’t be changed.

Govoni said staff came up with the following proposed language as a way to meet the requirement: “Designation. Given the status of Jockey’s Ridge as a State Park, State Nature Preserve, complex natural area, and an area containing a unique geological formation as identified by the State Geologist, the Coastal Resources Commission hereby designates Jockey’s Ridge as an Area of Environmental Concern pursuant, as required under general statute.”

The amendment also included adding that “The AEC is located within the Town of Nags Head in Dare County, between US 158 and Roanoke Sound” to the boundaries explanation.

The Coastal Resources Commission’s legal counsel, Sarah Zambon, explained that the legal counsel for the Rules Review Commission was consulted on the proposed permanent language but, “just like I don’t speak for all of you, RC Council doesn’t speak for the RRC, but they have reviewed this language.”

Zambon continued that “the main issue was with the description of it being the tallest sand dune along the Atlantic Coast.”

Coastal Resources Chair Renee Cahoon pointed out that “this description just became a problem in August. Amazing. Amazing. After 40 years.”

About Jockey’s Ridge rules

The more than two-year back-and-forth between the two commissions began in early October 2023 over 30 rules undergoing the 10-year periodic review process.

“Development activities in and around the state park boundaries have been regulated by the administrative rules of the Coastal Resources Commission since the designation of Jockey’s Ridge as a Unique Geologic Feature Area of Environmental Concern in 1984,” division documents explain.

When the rules commission reviewed the 30 rules the division submitted, including Jockey’s Ridge as an Area of Environmental Concern and use standards, the rules panel removed the rules from the North Carolina Administrative Code and returned them to the Division of Coastal Management.

Coastal Resources filed a lawsuit shortly after contesting the Rules Review’s decision to remove the 30 rules, which is still in litigation.

The CRC then adopted emergency and temporary rules reestablishing the area of environmental concern and use standards that went into effect Jan. 3, 2024, and expired May 13, 2024, which the Rules Review Commission also objected.

Coastal Resources decided to move forward with permanent rulemaking on April 25, 2024, and adopted the permanent rule Nov. 14, 2024. The rules commission objected to the proposed permanent rule on Dec. 19, 2024, for failing to comply with public notice requirements. Staff said in documents that the terms of this objection had been satisfied.

A Wake County Superior Court judge in February of this year ruled in favor of Coastal Resources in the lawsuit that directs the codifier to “immediately return” the rules to the administrative code. Rules Review has since filed an appeal challenging the ruling and the Coastal Resources is due to submit a brief in response by Dec. 12.

The Coastal Resources Commission took up the subject again Aug. 27 and adopted permanent rules designating Jockey’s Ridge as an area of environmental concern and use standards. The Rules Review Commission objected on Oct. 30 to the recently submitted text for using the word “Description” because it is “not the same as a ‘designation’ as required under state law.”

The Coastal Resources Commission was given Dec. 1 as a deadline on the new proposed designation, which is an attempt to clarify the language going forward, Govoni said Thursday. In the time since the judge ruled that the Jockey’s Ridge rules would be returned to the administrative code, the division decided to amend and clarify the language.

If the suggested language meets final approval, the existing rule would be repealed and replaced with this new version.

Coastal Review will not publish Thursday and Friday in observation of the Thanksgiving holiday.

BEAUFORT – Owners of vacant oceanfront lots being chewed by erosion at the eastern tip of Ocean Isle Beach have been permitted to install larger than typically allowed sandbag structures at the beach to protect their properties.

The North Carolina Coastal Resources Commission unanimously agreed last week to grant permission to the owners of eight lots in The Pointe, a luxury gated neighborhood built east of the town’s terminal groin, to have sandbag structures that are 40 feet wide and 12 feet tall placed waterward of their land.

Current commission rules limit sandbag revetments to a 20-foot base width and a 6-foot height. The rules also stipulate sandbags may be placed only in areas where erosion scarp is within 20 feet from a structure.

The new, larger sandbag structures will connect to two revetments installed along developed lots this past summer, creating one, long contiguous sandbag wall along at the eastern tip of the Brunswick County barrier island at Shallotte Inlet.

Charles Baldwin IV, the Wilmington-based attorney representing the property owners, explained Wednesday during the meeting in Beaufort Hotel that his clients want to “simply connect the dots” and “try to avoid irreparable harm.”

“It needs to be a unified wall,” he said. “You can’t throw one person out and expect this project to go forward and work.”

Baldwin’s clients attribute the plight of their properties to the terminal groin the town had installed more than three years ago to stave off erosion that had battered Ocea Isle’s east end for decades.

“Obviously what we have is a unique situation here,” he said in his initial remarks to the commission. “We have these lots that are being affected negatively by the terminal groin.”

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

Baldwin noted that both state law and the town’s permit to build the terminal groin “say that if the groin doesn’t perform, and it’s required to monitor, has adverse effects, it has to be modified or removed.”

“That’s because that’s the law,” he said.

Baldwin went on to argue that a decision by the United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit said the terminal groin might contribute to “some short-term erosion” east of the structure, “but that within year one it’s going to stabilize.”

“That has not happened,” Baldwin said. “Their lots are already being substantially diminished, but this structure out there is just simply failing.”

Ocean Isle Beach officials have refuted that claim.

In a letter Coastal Review published last month, Ocean Isle Beach Mayor Debbie Smith wrote that The Pointe’s developer went before the town’s planning board in June 2015. The developer purchased the property in September of that same year.

By that time, both a draft and final environmental impact statement on the terminal groin had been published, and a public workshop on the terminal groin had taken place, Smith wrote.

The town received a Coastal Area Management Act, or CAMA, permit in November 2016 to build the structure.

But construction was pushed back years after the Southern Environmental Law Center, on behalf of the National Audubon Society, filed a lawsuit challenging the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ approval of the 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 what was then the undeveloped area on the island’s east end.

In March 2021, a panel of judges with the Fourth Circuit, affirmed a lower court’s decision that the Corps fairly considered the alternatives.

Construction of the $11 million terminal groin was complete in April the following year.

The final subdivision approval was granted to The Pointe’s developer in 2022, after which time construction began in the 44-lot neighborhood.

A series of offshore coastal storms that have skirted the East Coast the latter half of this year have further contributed to the threat to The Pointe’s oceanfront properties.

Erosion has swiped away chunks of the private road that rounds to lots at a cul-de-sac nearest the ocean entrance to the inlet. Piles of debris, including wood from an old bulkhead unearthed by the erosion, has been described as a scene akin to that of a war zone.

In a presentation to the commission Wednesday, North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality Assistant General Counsel Christy Goebel said that comparisons of the shoreline east of the terminal groin show that the line is moving landward.

The use of temporary sandbags “is to buy time” for existing, threatened structures while a longer-term solution can be figured out to protect those structures, she said.

Goebel noted that there have been no plans to relocate Shallotte Inlet, that the terminal groin already exists, “and the likelihood of success of beach nourishment placement so close to the inlet being dredged by the Corps’ shallow draft program and the associated available funding is uncertain.”

Baldwin rattled off a list of possible solutions, including reducing the profile of the terminal groin, removing rocks, using different size rocks to make the structure “more leaky,” modifying its location, or removing it altogether.

The commission’s motion approving the variances were made with a stipulation that the public area of the beach remain unimpeded by the sandbag wall.

TYNER – As neighborhood businesses go, Timbermill Wind is quiet, clean and visually striking. And barely a year from the start of its wind energy production in this rural northeastern North Carolina community, it is already pumping money into local coffers.

At a ceremony held Tuesday at the site of the project’s local operations, Ken Young, CEO of Apex Clean Energy, the operation’s owner, presented a large, ceremonial check representing about $750,000 in net tax payments to Chowan County.

“There’ll be many more like it,” Bob Kirby, a Chowan County commissioner, told a small gathering of local officials and community members.

According to a Timbermill Wind press release, annual payments to the county over the project’s 30-year lifespan are expected to total about $50 million, which will support community needs such as education and emergency services. The infusion of revenue, so far, makes Timbermill the county’s single largest taxpayer, officials said, equaling more in property taxes this year than last year’s top nine taxpayers combined.

With the silver blades of a turbine turning slowly in the background over his shoulder, Kirby couldn’t help boasting that the land-based wind facility was the first of its kind to be permitted in North Carolina.

“There’s a $400 million investment that’s sitting behind me,” he said.

Beyond the benefits to the county and state, Kirby added, Timbermill is also a huge help to local farmers who receive annual payments — the amount is deemed proprietary information — to lease their land to the business.

“The people who own these farms are under unbelievable stress to their way of life,” he said. “For the leaseholders, this sort of thing, that’s a predictable source of income for them.”

While farmers lose access to a small amount of their land, they can continue as usual to farm the land under the turbines.

During a tour of part of the production site, Richard Bunch, a local representative for Timbermill, while standing in front of a turbine, told the group that farmers are able to get relatively close to the side of the tower when they’re working the land, although they can get closer after the corn or other crops is harvested. 

“He’s going to lose a half an acre here, that’s all,” Bunch said.  “And he’ll have income for 30 years.”   

A 6,000-acre tract, bordered by tall trees and owned by timber company Weyerhaeuser, was the first site to be cleared for the project, said Win Dale, a project representative for Timbermill.

“Once they cut every tree down, every stump was removed,” he said, waving toward a large circle of open land surrounding a turbine.

Each “crane pad” at the 45 sites, he said, is an eighth of an acre.

Hunters now have new access roads to the area, where they hunt mostly for deer, as well as some bear and wild turkey, Bunch said.

“They rented this whole tract from Weyerhaeuser to hunt,” he said, adding that he’d heard that they’re quite happy with the change. “Between a company and a hunting group, to be able to say that — that never happens.”

Farmers are also enjoying the easier access to their land, Dale added.

“The roads are like interstates compared to what they were before,” he said.

The towers themselves are 345 feet tall. Counting to the tip of the blades — the project has a total of 135 — each “windmill” is 591 feet tall. Providing a short lesson for visitors, Tyler Finley, facility manager for Timbermill Wind, explained that each tower is divided into five sections. Inside, there’s a ladder running up the middle with a platform at each level. The three blades are attached before they’re elevated to the top. 

“It’s kind of like building a very big Lego,” he said about the assembly process.

When they’re moving, the 242-foot-long blades create a 4-acre sweep area. Shadow flickers that would otherwise pass over homes are mitigated by siting towers away from residential structures.

Finley and other Timbermill representatives said that the blades, which are a composite of fiberglass with an interior metal structure, don’t kick on until the wind reaches at least 7 mph, and they’re capable of pitching from zero to 90 degrees. When winds reach about 50 mph, they’ll flatten to reduce surface area. Feathering of blade pitch provides “aerodynamic braking,” and trailing-edge serrations on the blades help reduce noise.

From the onsite substation, a 6-mile line is connected directly to the Dominion Energy “point of intersection,” Finley explained.

Apex has a power purchase agreement with Google, meaning it provides Google with a portion of the power produced at Timbermill. But the power is obtained from the grid, which collects energy from numerous sources.

“It’s an integrated power market,” Finley said.

Simply put, the energy produced by the wind turbines is eventually sent to a large distribution network, where it is purchased by different customers. The concept is similar to global oil and gas markets, where the location of the energy source is rarely the direct recipient of that energy.

 According to Timbermill, the 189-megawatt wind energy project developed and operated by Charlottesville, Virginia-based Apex Clean Energy generates enough clean energy to power the equivalent of 47,000 U.S. homes.

Timbermill, which came online in Dec. 2024, became the second industrial scale land-based wind farm in the state.

Although it was permitted earlier, numerous delays led to it being behind the 104-turbine Amazon Wind U.S. East wind farm that straddles Perquimans and Pasquotank counties and that started its 208-megawatt operation in early 2017.

The Apex Community Grant Program has awarded more than $120,000 for local nonprofits and support for regional reforestation and other community conservation projects.

Speaking after the event, John Mitchener, 84, a native of Chowan County who had served as commissioner from 2010 to 2018, said he was on the board when “the significant decisions” were made about permitting the wind farm.

He noted that opinions initially seemed to be divided between the folks in the Yeopim area, who reside south of Edenton toward the Outer Banks, and the other side of the county.

“The people who objected the most lived down there, and the people who lived up there objected the least,” he said.

While Mitchener said he couldn’t pinpoint the reason for the differences, he said that he knew it was important to maintain a polite and civil approach.

“Part of my outlook as a public official,” he said, “is to try to have the conversation where you could come back to it.”

And as it turns out, he said, people in the community all seem pretty happy now with Timbermill.

Updated at 8 a.m. Thursday to include the link to the Federal Register, which published the proposed rules Thursday after the story posted, and public comment information.

The two federal agencies with jurisdiction over navigable waterways have published amendments to the existing “waters of the United States” rule that they say will “establish a clear, durable, common-sense definition” of the term, and a public comment period has opened.

The Environmental Protection Agency and Department of the Army’s changes have heightened worry among conservation groups that federal protections for isolated wetlands might be weakened further than they were soon after the 2023 Supreme Court decision that found wetlands must be connected by surface water to a navigable body of water to fall under the 1972 Clean Water Act.

The EPA and Army Corps of Engineers said in a release Monday that the newly proposed changes were to “fully implement the court’s direction by focusing on relatively permanent, standing or continuously flowing bodies of water—such as streams, oceans, rivers, and lakes—and wetlands that are connected and indistinguishable from such waterbodies.”

As part of the announcement, leadership posted the prepublication notice they planned to submit to the Federal Register, which was published Thursday, starting a 45-day public comment period.

Comments must be submitted by Jan. 5, 2026, and identified by Docket ID No. EPA–HQ– OW–2025–0322, through www.regulations.gov, by email to OW-Docket@epa.gov, or mail to U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, EPA Docket Center, Water Docket, Mail Code 28221T, 1200 Pennsylvania Ave. NW, Washington, DC 20460.

Language in the Clean Water Act states that the “term ‘navigable waters’ means the waters of the United States, including the territorial seas.” However, the act doesn’t define what “waters of the United States,” or WOTUS, actually are, leaving the EPA and Corps to determine the geographic scope of the rule.

Over the last five decades, pushback and litigation have forced the two agencies to revise the definition several times.

The current regulatory definition, according to the EPA, was put in place in September 2023 to align with the May 2023 Supreme Court ruling on the Sackett v EPA lawsuit.

The Sacketts filed the lawsuit after the agency ordered the Idaho couple to restore where they had begun backfilling with dirt the section of their property that the EPA considered to be wetlands of a nearby navigable waterbody. The judges sided with the Sacketts that federally protected wetlands must have an obvious connection to waterbodies like streams, oceans, rivers and lakes.

To conform to the Sackett decision, the EPA and Army amended in September 2023 the latest final rule, which had been put in place that January.

EPA Secretary Lee Zeldin and Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works Adam Telle shared with Washington, D.C., lawmakers Monday afternoon an overview of the proposed rules.

“I know that across the country, news of today’s proposal is going to be met with a lot of relief and happiness from farmers, ranchers, other landowners, governments that have been looking for a simple, prescriptive definition that the whole country can operate off of, and would allow individuals to know whether or not there’s a ‘water of the United States’ without having to go hire an attorney or a consultant, having to pay someone to Tell them,” Zeldin said Monday during the announcement livestreamed on the EPA’s YouTube.

The EPA secretary explained that the proposal “includes practical, common-sense revisions that will make a real difference,” and adds definitions for what he called “key terms” such as “’relatively permanent,’ ‘continuous surface connection’ and ‘tributary’ to appropriately limit the scope of what is consistent with” the Sackett case.

“We’re establishing that jurisdictional tributaries must connect to traditional navigable waters, either directly or through other features that provide predictable and consistent flow. We’re adding a new exclusion for groundwater and revising exclusions for certain ditches prior converted cropland and waste treatment systems,” Zeldin continued. “We’re incorporating locally familiar terminology such as wet season to help determine whether a water body qualifies as WOTUS. And we’re strengthening state and tribal decision-making authority by providing clear regulatory guidelines while recognizing their expertise in local land and water resources.”

He explained that the proposed rules were developed based on input from multiple sources, including preproposal recommendations, docket information from nine public listening sessions and consultation comments from states, tribes and local governments.

Telle addressed the audience after Zeldin.

“Since 1972 Americans have struggled to understand what Congress meant when it included the term ‘waters of the United States’ in the Clean Water Act. Did it apply to them? Did it not? The definition of that term has been often abused, sometimes stretched beyond recognition over time, and it’s left Americans uncertain about whether they were complying with the Clean Water Act or not,” he said Monday, adding that “under President Trump’s leadership, the EPA and army Civil Works, which oversees the Corps of Engineers, are kicking off the formal process that will give American certainty about their property once and for all.”

Several Republican officials thanked Zeldin from the podium for initiating the proposed amendments including West Virginia Gov. Patrick Morrisey who said that “for too long there’s been great deal of uncertainty” about the WOTUS rule.

“Unfortunately, it left many people holding the bag. Farmers, contractors, small business owners guessing whether their ephemeral stream or a backyard ditch was going to be classified as a waters of the United States rule and potentially subject them to significant penalties,” he continued.

Alabama Congressman Gary Palmer said he was confident that the rule will prioritize clean water while protecting farmers, ranchers, landowners and businesses alike.

Conservation groups have been vocal about these revisions opening up isolated wetlands to development and degradation since the announcement was made.

“Wetlands are the lifeblood of our coast, and should be held to the highest standards of protection,” North Carolina Coastal Federation Coastal Advocate Kerri Allen explained. “The wetlands most impacted by these proposed rollbacks are the very wetlands that hold water during storms and help protect downstream waters. With the proposed changes, our coast will face irrevocable damage that impacts not only our wildlife and fisheries, but also our coastal economy and communities.” The Coastal Federation publishes Coastal Review.

Southern Environmental Law Center Senior Attorney Mark Sabath said Monday in a statement that this proposed rule, if adopted, “could have catastrophic ramifications for communities already plagued by flooding, water quality concerns, and drinking water shortages. After critical, longstanding protections for clean water and wetlands were drastically narrowed by the Sackett decision, we need stronger protections, not weaker, to safeguard our communities and environment.”

League of Conservation Voters Healthy Communities Program Director Madeleine Foote had a similar reaction.

“The Trump administration’s Polluted Water Rule is another blatant giveaway to big corporate polluters that will jeopardize the waters that our families and communities rely on for drinking, recreation, and fueling our local economies,” Foote said.

“In 2023, the Supreme Court’s devastating Sackett decision stripped federal protections from millions of miles of streams and tens of millions of acres of wetlands, and now corporate polluters are pushing their friends in the administration to go even further in decimating our clean water safeguards. They won’t be happy until the Clean Water Act is nothing more than words on a page and they can pollute our waters with abandon,” Foote continued.

Environmental Defense Fund Associate Vice President Will McDow stated Monday that the new proposed WOTUS rule from the Trump administration that will redefine which wetlands and waters have Clean Water Act Protections. 

“We already spend billions annually responding to disasters that were created by building in risky areas. With today’s proposed WOTUS rule, commercial developers will be allowed to pave over wetlands to build unsafe housing that either floods or increases flooding to neighbors,” he continued. “This rule brings tremendous uncertainty and risk to our nation’s drinking water, flood protections and critical habitats. Based on our peer-reviewed analysis, new requirements for wetland protections could leave nearly all wetlands without Clean Water Act protections. Requirements in the new rule are not based in science, difficult to implement in practice and will create a dangerous lack of clarity.” 

WILMINGTON — Deepening the Wilmington Harbor would disperse PFAS now mingling in the riverbed’s sediment into marshes and onto public beaches, accelerate erosion, exacerbate flooding, destroy habitat, and is not economically justified, area residents said during a state-hosted public hearing.

Many who spoke at the North Carolina Division of Coastal Management’s hearing in downtown Wilmington Monday night argued that the federal draft environmental statement released by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers earlier this fall fails to fully examine potential impacts associated with the proposed project.

The draft study examines different alternatives for the North Carolina State Ports Authority’s aim to accommodate larger container ships at the Wilmington port.

The preferred alternative selected in the study calls for deepening the harbor from 42 to 47 feet, widening the channel in multiple areas, and extending the ocean entrance to the river. These changes would accommodate vessels that can carry 14,000 20-by-8-foot shipping containers, ports officials say.

But several of the nearly 20 people who spoke argued that the proposed project would not benefit the local economy, and its environmental harms would drastically overwhelm any associated economic benefits. About 70 people attended the hearing.

“This project is a poor economic decision given the massive cost compared to the miniscule benefits,” said Jessica Hardee, an attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center. “The cost of deepening the harbor and the channel is projected to be over $1 billion. However, the only noted benefit of this project are cost savings to international shipping companies who use the port, not North Carolina or local communities. This project provides little benefit to the Wilmington area and North Carolinians while also threatening significant damage to the coastal region.”

One striking absence from the study is how churning up and moving per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, in the sediment of the lower Cape Fear River might affect the environment, animals that rely on that environment, and human health, some speakers said.

“Even though we all know that there’s PFAS in the sediment of the river, the Corps says we can’t consider that because it’s not a regulated chemical,” said Wilmington resident and geologist Roger Shew.

But PFAS, or similar chemical compounds of which there are more than 14,000 used to make a host of consumer goods from food containers to stain-resistant clothing and carpet, will be regulated by the time the channel would be deepened in the early to mid-2030s, he said.

“And since 15 million of the 35 million cubic yards of dredge material will be used as beneficial placement in marshes on our area beaches, we should know the content of that sediment and potential impacts with sediment placement,” Shew said. “A core function of an (environmental impact statement) is consideration of potential harm. Therefore, they should and must include PFAS in the study.”

A study published late last month found concentrations of 56 PFAS in blood samples obtained from 119 Wilmington residents between 2010 and 2016.

Two chemical compounds – TFA and PFMOAA – were the dominant PFAS in the samples, “despite their likely short half-lives in the human body,” according to the study.

TFA, or trifluoroacetic acid, and PFMOAA, or perfluoro-2-methoxyacetic acid, are ultrashort-chain PFAS, which are the smallest type of PFAS and hardest to remove from drinking water sources.

The blood samples examined in the study were obtained before the public was made aware in 2017 that an upstream industrial facility had been discharging PFAS directly into the Cape Fear River, the drinking water sources for tens of thousands, since the 1980s.

“While current TFA and PFMOAA levels have likely decreased substantially from those in the historical blood serum samples evaluated here as a result of mandated discharge controls at the upstream fluorochemical manufacturer, this study, along with other recent studies, highlights the importance ultrashort-chain PFAS can play in determining the overall human PFAS burden,” the study states.

Wilmington resident Kaiti Sheehan said the fact that PFAS is not considered in the draft environmental impact statement, or DEIS, “is a slap in the face to residents who are paying for a $42 million granulated active-carbon filtration system and still facing the health consequences that have come from 40 years of contamination from our upstream bad actor.”

“I do genuinely hope that you will look and you will see how much the community has come out tonight in recognition that this is bad for Wilmington and this is bad for North Carolina,” she said.

Others raised concerns about how deepening the harbor to allow for larger ships to travel the 28 miles upriver to the port would increase erosion on the string of bird islands that pepper the lower Cape Fear River and the riverbanks themselves.

The Cape Fear River supports almost 30% of the state’s nesting American oystercatchers.

Audubon North Carolina’s Lindsay Addison, a coastal biologist, said she and her staff are on the Cape Fear River two to three days a week between March and August and at least once during each of the other months of the year.

“We have seen progressively the impacts of the larger and larger classes of ships coming up the river,” she said. “We saw larger, more severe wakes. The DEIS does not take this into account. The Corps, in its beneficial use plan, talks about maybe putting sediment on 2 miles of the shoreline.”

Birds nest on high-tide lines, Addison said. Waves created by a large ship’s wake push water “like a tsunami” over nests and sweep nests away.

“There is no model in the DEIS that accounts for this,” Addison said. “There is no data collection in the DEIS that accounts for this. In fact, there’s no new data collection in the DEIS. They’re relying on data that was already collected. They told us in the stakeholder meeting, flat out, that they’re not going to collected new data so impacts to the migratory birds in the DEIS are not taken into account.”

Officials with the Division of Coastal Management, which is under the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality, announced Monday night that the public comment period on the draft study has been extended from Dec. 5 to Dec. 20.

Written comments may be mailed to Federal Consistency Coordinator, 400 Commerce Ave., Morehead City, NC  28557, or emailed to Federalconsistencycomments@deq.nc.gov with “Federal Consistency: USACE Wilmington Harbor 403 Navigation Project” in the subject line.

More information on the proposed project is on the Corps’ website.

East Carolina University associate professor of coastal studies Dr. David Lagomasino will be the featured lecturer Thursday for the Coastal Studies Institute’s Science on the Sound Lecture Series.

Lagomasino will present, “Watching the Tides Roll: How Satellites Inform the Future of Coastal Communities” starting at 6 p.m. as part of the monthly, in-person lecture series at the ECU Outer Banks Campus.

Organizers say the series brings perspectives from all over the state and highlights coastal topics in northeastern North Carolina. The public is encouraged to attend and there’s no admission charge. The program will also be livestreamed on YouTube.

“From space, satellites capture the shifting shorelines, retreating beaches, and changing wetlands that define our coasts,” according to organizers. “In this talk, Dr. David Lagomasino will share stories of coastal change from around the world, from tropical mangroves to marshes and barrier islands, and connect those lessons to the challenges and opportunities facing communities on the Outer Banks. By connecting global perspectives with local insights, the seminar will explore how science can guide resilience planning and help coastal communities prepare for the future.”

Lagomasino’s passion for beaches and mangrove forests began in South Florida and has taken him around the world. He earned his Master of Science in geology from ECU and his doctorate in geological sciences from Florida International University, where he used satellite imagery and water chemistry to study coastal water flow.

Before returning to CSI and ECU’s Department of Coastal Studies, Lagomasino conducted research at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center, developing models to understand global shoreline change.

Lagomasino combines satellite, drone, and field data to assess coastal resilience and vulnerability, linking his findings directly with stakeholders to guide coastal management and ecosystem valuation, organizers said. “His work, supported by NASA and USDA programs, focuses on coastal blue carbon and has taken him to shorelines worldwide. Dedicated to mentoring students, he emphasizes hands-on research and community engagement to promote informed coastal stewardship.”

Update Nov. 19: According to an updated agenda document on the Marine Fisheries Commission webpage, the previously listed action item to consider adopting management strategies developed as part of the adaptative management framework for the Blue Crab Fishery Management Plan Amendment 3 during this week’s meeting has been removed.

Original post Nov. 14 “Fisheries to vote on proposed blue crab harvest rules” follows:

The coastal county lawmakers that formed a new group to support commercial fishing have submitted a resolution opposing more restrictions on the commercial harvest of blue crabs ahead of the Marine Fisheries Commission Nov. 19-20 meeting in Wrightsville Beach.

The Marine Fisheries Commission is expected to consider adopting management strategies developed as part of the adaptative management framework for the Blue Crab Fishery Management Plan Amendment 3.

Those proposed strategies were discussed extensively during the third meeting of the North Carolina Coastal Counties Fisheries Coalition held Nov. 5 in Morehead City, when the members approved the resolution opposing any further restrictions until the 2026 blue crab stock assessment is completed.  

Amendment 3 was adopted in 2020 “to end overfishing and achieve sustainable harvest in the blue crab fishery,” Division of Marine Fisheries documents state. The original plan was adopted in December 1998 with the intention to manage the species, and amended in 2004 and again in 2013. The division acts as staff to the commission.

Amendment 3 is nearly halfway through the legislatively mandated 10-year stock rebuilding period “with little evidence suggesting management measures have been successful in ending overfishing or achieving sustainable harvest,” documents continue. The adaptive management framework in the amendment 3 is being “used to implement management measures projected to reduce fishing mortality (F) closer to the F target and rebuild the spawning stock closer to the spawner abundance target with greater than 50% probability of success.”

Current rules include closures Jan. 1-31 north of the Highway 58 bridge in Carteret County and March 1-15 in waters south of the bridge, and a 5-inch minimum size for mature females.

Staff propose starting Jan. 1, in addition to existing closures, prohibiting crab trawling statewide year-round. For waters north of the Emerald Isle bridge, a 30-bushel trip limit would be put in place from September to December, and for south of the bridge, a 15-bushel hard crab trip limit from September to December.

“These recommendations should be viewed as a first step rather than a comprehensive solution. Recommendations are based on a stock assessment that indicated the stock was overfished and overfishing was occurring but has a terminal year of 2016. Fishery-independent stock indicators suggest stock status has not improved since then,” agenda documents state.

The division has begun the process of developing a new benchmark stock assessment that should provide an updated stock status, and a review of the blue crab fishery management plan is scheduled to begin in 2026, “at which time comprehensive management will be explored. Until then, Amendment 3 management, including adaptive management and changes made through adaptive management will remain in place,” documents continue.

The N.C. Coastal Counties Fisheries Coalition was put in motion this past summer by Dare County Chairman Bob Woodard after a proposed rule to ban shrimp trawling in some North Carolina waters worked its way through the Senate. The House decided not to take action on the bill.

Elected officials and staff representing Beaufort, Brunswick, Carteret, Camden, Chowan, Craven, Currituck, Dare, Hertford, Hyde, Onslow, Pasquotank, Perquimans, Tyrrell and Washington counties were invited to join the group that has met twice, on Aug. 5 and Sept. 16.

Currituck County Commissioner Janet Rose explained to the coalition during the Nov. 5 meeting that she has spoken with watermen in her area who are now crabbing, and they’ve been catching 50 to 60 bushels a day.

“If they’re cut to 30 bushels next year, that’s a 40 or 50% cut,” Rose said, adding that this reduction is going to hurt crab picking houses, and the towns that rely on them.

Woodard shared a resolution Dare County passed that week opposing the blue crab restrictions with the hope “that each county will adopt something similar with respects to the proposed blue crab harvest restrictions,” before the group decided to draft its own resolution to submit to Marine Fisheries Commission before the meeting.

Glenn Skinner, who is executive director of the N.C. Fisheries Association, was brought in as a consultant to the coalition.

He told the group that there’s a lot going on behind the scenes, but “I think the most important thing here is we do not have a stock assessment.”

They tried last year to update the stock assessment that was used for the last management measures “and when they added a few extra years of data, for lack of a better word, it went haywire and they determined it could not be used. So, we do not have a stock assessment for blue crab. Therefore, we do not have a stock status to say if it’s overfish or if over fishing is occurring.”

At this time what the division needs to do is to produce a reliable stock assessment for blue crab if that’s possible, Skinner said. “I doubt that in many ways that that’s possible because I think they lack a lot of the data they need. But that hurdle in my opinion has to be overcome before you start regulating the most valuable commercial fishery in this state.”

Marine Fisheries Commission meeting details

The commission meeting will begin at 1 p.m. Wednesday and resume at 9 a.m. Thursday at the Holiday Inn Resort Lumina. The public can attend in person or view the the livestream on YouTube. Public comment sessions are at 6 p.m. Wednesday and at 9 a.m. Thursday.

Other fisheries agenda items include the following:

• A presentation on the history of southern flounder management in North Carolina through Amendment 5.
• An analysis of southern flounder in North Carolina waters using the division’s fishery-independent sampling data.
• A presentation on upcoming management changes for striped bass in the Tar-Pamlico and Neuse rivers.
• An overview of reporting options available for the new reporting requirements for recreational and commercial fishermen that go into effect Dec. 1.
• A demonstration of the new electronic license and statistics annual report
• An update on the proposed framework and timeline for the 2026 revision to the Coastal Habitat Protection Plan.

The full agenda and associated materials are on the Marine Fisheries Commission Meetings webpage.

The deadline for written comments is 4 p.m. Monday and can be submitted through an online form; mailed to Marine Fisheries Commission Meeting Comments, P.O. Box 769, Morehead City, N.C. 28557; or dropped off at the Division of Marine Fisheries headquarters in Morehead City.

The commission responsible for adopting rules to protect the state’s air and water resources voted Thursday to wait on hearing proposed monitoring and minimization rules for PFAS and 1,4-dioxane from industrial users and dischargers.

The Environmental Management Commission committees met Wednesday and the full commission met Thursday in the Archdale Building in Raleigh.

Not enough members voted Thursday to waive the 30-day rule that would allow the full commission to take action on proposed rules for for 1,4-dioxane and per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS.

For a waiver to be granted, at least two-thirds of the members must vote in favor of waiving the bylaw that requires 30 days between when a committee votes on a rule and when it goes before the commission.

Though PFAS and 1,4-dioxane are human-made and long-lasting chemicals, they’re not the same because the compounds have different structures and different uses.

PFAS are long-lasting chemicals used in industrial and commercial processes as well as consumer products, while 1,4-dioxane, a likely carcinogen, is an organic synthetic chemical used in specialized industrial processes that may enter the environment through discharges where it is used or produced.

With PFAS, because of their widespread use and their persistence in the environment, many “are found in the blood of people and animals all over the world, including NC, and are present at low levels in a variety of food products and in the environment,” documents state.

The commission’s water quality committee tasked staff within the Division of Water Resources, under the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, on Nov. 12, 2024, to develop a PFAS minimization initiative for all industrial direct dischargers to surface water and all significant industrial users that discharge to publicly owned treatment works.

“The minimization initiative will require monitoring for PFAS, and implementation of minimization activities required to eliminate or significantly reduce discharges of PFOS, PFOA, and GenX, (levels TBD) over a 3-to-5-year period,” according to agenda documents.

In March of this year, the EMC water quality committee directed staff to develop a rule to support their “effort towards understanding the sources and levels of 1,4-dioxane.”

The proposed rules for both chemicals were drafted to monitor publicly owned treatment works with local pretreatment programs, and monitor and minimize significant industrial users, and industrial direct dischargers.

First of two parts.

It was a nasty January day about 14 years ago, not long after publication of his book, “The Battle for North Carolina’s Coast: Evolutionary History, Present Crisis, and Vision for the Future,” when veteran East Carolina University coastal scientist Dr. Stan Riggs, the book’s lead author, had an unexpected and impactful visit. Not only did it prolong the sunset of his then-50-yearlong career, it cemented the reach of his legacy beyond academia to the lives of everyday people.

And it inspired Riggs to write 10 reader-friendly books focused on a blend of science, culture and history of North Carolina’s northeast and central coastal region.

Related: Riggs to launch first book in series Sunday on Harkers Island

“I’ve done a lot of work here, but science builds on itself,” he said. “And so, I just decided in 2018 that they could just put me in the ground, and who would care? Who would know what I’ve learned?”

In October, the first volume in the series, “Cape Lookout National Seashore, Paradigm for a Coastal System Ethic,” was released. Subsequent volumes, several of which are already written, will cover North Carolinas Inner Banks, or inland coastal region, Outer Banks and the continental shelf.

The books, all planned for release over the next three years, present Riggs’ coastal science research in accessible and understandable language, accompanied by striking photographs and graphics that seek to educate, enrich and engage readers.

Also, the ecotourism-centered program called North Carolina Land of Water that was first proposed in the book, “The Battle for North Carolina’s Coast,” has been transformed from a dim concept into its current sunbeam of possibilities. All because of the support offered to him on that blustery day.

“A nor’easter was blowing Billy out there — it was cold!,” Riggs, 87, recalled in a recent interview with Coastal Review. “I got a knock on the door, and two people were standing there. They introduced themselves and asked if we would take them out on a field trip. And I said, ‘You don’t want to go out there today.’”

But they insisted on a tour of the region he and his co-authors had written about in the book. They wanted to see it for themselves, and chat with some of the folks who lived there. Intrigued, and convinced his visitors were serious, Riggs made some quick phone calls, and soon they were all piling into a vehicle and hitting the road.

“We had one hell of a good trip,” Riggs recalled about the four-day adventure. Starting in Greenville, the group wound their way through the Albemarle Penisula and Inner Banks counties, along rivers, through the wildlife refuges, and down the Outer Banks to Ocracoke Island, then on to a ferry to the Core Banks. Some year-round residents shared “incredible” meals, he said, and invited them to stay.

“We covered the whole system,” Riggs said, a tinge of amazement still in his voice. Finally, as everyone said their goodbyes, one man got out of the car and walked over to Riggs.

“He put his arm around my shoulder, and he said, ‘The real reason we’re here is we’re going to give you some money.’

Surprised, Riggs responded: “‘I don’t need money.’ He said, ‘Yes, you do.’ I said, ‘Why?’”

“‘We want you to implement the vision that you set out in your book,’” Riggs recalled. “And that was the beginning of NCLOW.”

After the visit, representatives from the Kenan Institute for Engineering, Technology and Science at North Carolina State University provided funding for Riggs to create the North Carolina Land of Water, or NCLOW. The nonprofit is “dedicated to advancing coastal science, education, and community stewardship through research, outreach, and partnerships,” while working to ensure that the state’s coastal systems are “understood and safeguarded,” according to a press release.

In October, NCLOW announced the appointment of Stanton Blakeslee to its board of directors to guide the nonprofit’s future projects and fundraising. As noted in the release, the appointment “comes at a critical inflection point for the organization,” and his leadership will encourage “strategic investment and cross-sector innovation.”

Blakeslee, 55, who had attended ECU and worked for the N.C. Literary Review, is currently the president and CEO of Instigator Inc., a Greenville-based life science marketing firm. His experience includes investment in real estate development and consumer goods industries, and he serves as a member of the East Carolina Angels, an angel investment network.

So far, he has helped Riggs divide his approach to NCLOW in two phases, Blakeslee said. 

“Phase one culminated with the development of the books,” he said. “It was a way for Stan to formalize not only his life’s work, but what he sees as a sustainable future for the coast.” 

Blakeslee’s background as an entrepreneur who understands private equity and venture capital as well as conservation work provides insight into the goals of NCLOW, he explained.

“So the more I started to hear about what he was envisioning, I was like, ‘Oh, wow. So there’s like an economic concept behind everything that you’re trying to do here.’ We’re not trying to stay off the coast. What we’re saying is let’s look at where the opportunities are and invest …  so we can sustain this resource for everyone.”

Riggs’ earlier work with the Bertie County and Scuppernong River projects are two big success stories that drive NCLOW’s future initiatives, Blakeslee added. By harnessing creative ideas to manage and maintain the natural resources, a community’s economy and sustainability can benefit. For example, Windsor, Bertie’s county seat, mitigated flooding risk by requesting the water in a river dam be released slowly about a week before a predicted storm. And the community constructed tree houses above the river’s edge to rent, which quickly became a popular ecotourism attraction.

“The geographic setting of Bertie County provides a prime basis to capitalize on the incredible water system it has been blessed with,” Riggs wrote in his 2018 report, “From Rivers to Sounds in the Bertie Water Crescent” that proposed an approach to ecotourism and environmental education. “Consequently, NCLOW recommends developing a series of five educational and recreational ‘water hubs’ for ecotourism development.”

NCLOW can serve as a catalyst for other communities to take active steps towards sustainability, Blakeslee said. It’s a matter of determining the challenges, how to address them, and how to transform them into economic opportunities.

“I think Stan proved a lot of that in its first 10 years,” he said. “And now we’re looking at what the next 10 years, and possibly 20 years, looks like.”

Over his long career, Riggs, professor emeritus at ECU, has authored or co-authored 16 books and more than 100 journal articles.  But data-heavy research terminology and scientific jargon is a heavy lift for nonscientist readers, Riggs noted, and he believes that educating people about the science in their lives is a critical responsibility so people can understand the processes and relevant public policies that affect their lives.

“You know, when I was at the university, I got all my salary and everything was public funds, and all my research came from public organizations,” he said. “And so I see this as a give-back. It’s one thing to go out there and do a project and raise money and write your technical papers. But nobody in the public domain will ever, ever, read a technical paper.”

Riggs said he decided to write the Cape Lookout book because it is a success story. The undeveloped barrier island showcases how natural beaches recover, adapt and rebuilt after storms because over wash and other coastal processes are not blocked by infrastructure.

With an affable, every-man persona and an uncanny ability to recite minutia about ancient and ongoing geologic processes at seemingly every location he encounters, Riggs has spent considerable time traveling throughout the coastal region talking to residents and politicians in small communities, many of which are stressed by poverty, job losses and frequent flooding. 

As described in “The Battle for the North Carolina Coast,” the “Land of Water” coastal system in northeastern North Carolina includes a huge “drowned-river” estuarine system that encompasses vast shorelines, marsh, swamp forest wetlands, pocosin swamps, Carolina bays and blackwater streams.

“The natural resources that constitute this “Land of Water” can play an increasingly important role in the tourist economy, a role that would revitalize the region … build on the natural and human history and the dynamic coastal resources of northeastern North Carolina within an overarching and integrated umbrella program for sustainable, water-based ecotourism,” the book said.

And indeed, much of the land in northeastern North Carolina, from ocean beaches to river shorelines, from farmlands to forests, is surrounded by a body, or several bodies, of water. The Albemarle-Pamlico estuary is the second largest in the country, behind Chesapeake.

Although still rich with wildlife and natural resources, the low-lying region, some just inches above sea level, is becoming more threatened by impacts of climate change and rising seas: increased flooding, saltwater intrusion, stormwater inundation, shoreline erosion, ocean overwash and storm surge.

“The way I think about this is, you better understand the dynamics of our planet,” Riggs said. “That doesn’t mean that you have to be a scientist. It means you have to know something about water. You have to know something about land. And that comes down to the problem of education.”

That is, people, as a society, need to understand that how and where there is growth and development cannot be unlimited or driven by profit. 

Riggs says he’s had the benefit of learning over the decades from numerous other “incredible” scientists with whom he has worked together in teams, sharing spaces in classrooms and research ships. He has spent years warning about the futility of trying to control destructive natural forces, whether or not people believe they’re created by man-made causes such as burning fossil fuels. On the coast, sea walls, sandbags, and jetties ultimately make things worse by increasing erosion and will ultimately fail anyway, he has preached.

But as nightmare damages from storms, such as the recent deadly flooding in the mountains from Hurricane Helene, have increased, he said he’s noticed that people are starting to listen; they’ve realized that climate conditions are not the same as they were in the old days.

“There’s nothing wrong with the history and and yes, we can respect the history, but the history includes change,” he said.  “We better understand how rivers (and oceans) work, and if we don’t understand that, there will be human disasters. The more we politically ignore the science, the bigger the human disasters.”

Next in the series: “Cape Lookout National Seashore, Paradigm for a Coastal System Ethic”: An excerpt.

A group of volunteers spent peak visitor season this year under the blistering sun and swarmed by thick clouds of flying insects, all to make sure the wild horses, including the newborn foals, inhabiting Cape Lookout National Seashore and Rachel Carson Reserve were undisturbed by the thousands who make their way to the barrier islands that are only accessible by boat.

The volunteers are part of the Pony Patrol program, which trains the “Pony Patrollers,” as they’re called, to share with visitors how to safely observe the two herds. One herd is on Shackleford Banks, the national seashore’s southernmost island, and the other is on the reserve site that is across Taylors Creek from downtown Beaufort.

The National Park Service, Foundation for Shackleford Horses and reserve staff organize the outreach effort that just wrapped up its third year. The foundation is the federally designated co-manager with the park service of the herd.  

Rich Rehm, a volunteer who leads the program for Cape Lookout, explained that the goal of Pony Patrol for the park service is twofold. First is to make sure guests on Shackleford Island stay at least 50 feet from the horses and keep their dogs leashed. Second, as representatives of the National Park Service, is to answer questions visitors may have about the horses, the island, or the seashore.

Paula Gillikin, stewardship coordinator for the 10 reserve sites, has been the longtime manager for the herd at Rachel Carson Reserve, one of 10 protected sites along the coast managed by the North Carolina Coastal Reserve and National Estuarine Research Reserve, under North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality.

“The Pony Patrol plays a vital role in supporting the Rachel Carson Reserve and our partners by helping us educate the public about the wild horse population that makes the reserve such a unique part of North Carolina’s coastal heritage,” Gillikin said. “When the public understands what the horses need to survive and be healthy, they are more likely to give the horses the space they need to thrive. This understanding also keeps our visitors safe.”

Foundation President Margaret Poindexter told Coastal Review that the 2025 season had been the largest “and undoubtedly our most successful,” despite its “very difficult start.”

What made 2025 special, she continued, was the determination and resolve of the close to 50 volunteers.

The rocky start began when the first foal of the year from either herd was born at the Rachel Carson Reserve in early May, Poindexter said.

“Her presence was immediately known — lots of eyeballs in Beaufort are constantly on that herd. Just a few days after her birth, and within days of the Pony Patrol season launching, a group of visitors got too close to the foal, the anxious stallion gathered up his mare to get away from them, and the foal was stranded on the oyster rocks unable to keep up with its mama,” she explained.

Though the reserve staff was able to intervene and reunite the two, the Pony Patrollers “were very disappointed that something so potentially tragic could happen so early into the season, before the real rush of visitors even started,” Poindexter said.

Then, on the Saturday of Memorial Day weekend, a newborn foal was found alone on the east end of Shackleford, on the oceanside. The foundation “made the difficult decision to remove it in order to save its life. Again, the Pony Patrollers were discouraged, afraid that perhaps human intervention had caused the foal to be separated from its mother,” she continued. 

Another foal on Shackleford was separated from its mother 10 days later, found in the mud on the sound side, likely as the result of a stallion fight. It too was removed to save its life, Poindexter said.

Volunteers Margo Hickman and Laura Palazzolo, both Carteret County residents, agreed it was particularly heartbreaking to see the foals removed from the island earlier this summer. Hickman said it was uncertain if they would survive.

“’The Americas’ TV episode about Shackleford was beautiful, but it drew a lot of attention — and with that came more pressure on the horses,” Palazzolo said. The first episode, “The Atlantic Coast,” of the NBC series dated Feb. 23 began with the wild horses at Cape Lookout.

“There were multiple incidents of visitors getting too close, trying to take selfies, or even attempting to pet the ponies,” Palazzolo explained. “We can’t say for sure why two foals were abandoned on the east end, but human interference could certainly have played a part.”

Poindexter continued that “Shortly after those incidents, a filly was born on the west end of Shackleford, in an area that receives significant visitation because of its close proximity to the ferry drop and the crossover to the beach. The Pony Patrollers committed themselves to ensuring the safety and survival of this little girl.”

The volunteers scheduled regular tours in the area around the pair and reported to each other after their shift about the whereabouts and well-being of the foal and her mother. “They intercepted numerous visitors who were curious about her, moving them away from her so as not to interfere with her nursing and nap times, but sharing insider information about her and her harem to create a unique and enhanced visitor experience,” Poindexter said.

Some of the volunteers that have been with the program since the first season, including retirees Hickman and Deb Walker, have been captivated by the filly.

Walker, who grew up in Newport and returned after retiring in 2015 from several decades as an educator in Mississippi, said a major highlight for her this summer was the newborn filly.

Hickman called the filly’s birth “the icing on the cake” for her. “We all became part of her family as her honorary aunts. We weathered heat and humidity and some god-awful mosquitoes daily to check on her.”

Fellow Pony Patroller Cindy K. Smith, who began volunteering in 2024, was the first of the group to spot the filly.

Smith, a Straits resident, said she was fortunate to be leading a tour that day in June when she spotted the foal shortly after birth. “Her little legs wobbled to steady herself against her Mama.”

Smith is photographer, naturalist and guide who has been visiting Shackleford and Rachael Carson for 30-plus years and joined Pony Patrol because, like so many others, she has a “fascination with the ‘ponies.’”

Smith said once realized the foal was a newborn, she began calling seashore staff and other patrollers.

“We were all elated,” Smith continued, adding that knowing that the Fourth of July week, and the associated influx of visitors, was near, the volunteers knew extra precautions would be needed to keep her safe and at a distance from human interaction.

The volunteers were given guidance from seashore and foundation staff to developed a plan to quietly watch from afar, Palazzolo said, adding they always kept a respectful distance. “At least one Patroller was stationed on the dunes, watching and ready to gently intervene if visitors wandered too close.”

Smith reiterated that the volunteers “went over and above for this little girl, perching on dunes, hiding behind bushes or whatever it took to make sure she would not be approached. Individuals went out on their own and watched over her even when it was not a shift. I think this camaraderie bonded us in a way that made each of us better and as a whole, a more cohesive unit.”

The foal is thriving now, Palazzolo explained, and along the way, “visitors got to experience something really special. We’d share what we’d learned from our reports — her habits, her routine — and people would sit quietly to watch. We’d tell them, ‘If you stay back and give her space, you’ll see her nurse, nap, or maybe even get the zoomies.’ It became this magical moment of connection — respectful and joyful all at once.”

How Pony Patrol began

Poindexter explained that the first year in 2023 was truly a pilot, and began with around 30 participants.

“We only sent volunteers to Shackleford that first season. Rich Rehm, one of the seasoned volunteers at Cape Lookout National Seashore, stepped up and offered to be the program coordinator. Truly, without his willingness to fill that role, the program likely would never have gotten off the ground,” Poindexter said.

Rehm retired as an environmental consultant in the Research Triangle Park area and moved to in 2016 to Merrimon with his wife. He began volunteering with the seashore in 2017.

When Rehm was asked in 2019 to coordinate the program for the National Park Service, he said he passed on the opportunity. Then, the program was put on hold because of the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2022, he decided he would take up the role.

After that first year in 2023, the seashore “was pleased with the success of the program and we expanded the program to include Rachel Carson Reserve,” Rehm said. “In 2025, we expanded the program again to include the east end of Shackleford Island.”

Though the 2025 season wrapped up in late September, a call for volunteers will likely go out in the coming months from both the National Park Service and Rachel Carson Reserve ahead of the 2026 season. Gillikin, with the reserve, said Pony Patrol applications for both herds will likely be launched in January or February.

Poindexter said that those interested in joining the Pony Patrol should know that conditions are rough. “Walking over dunes, in sand, through mud and marsh, often in extreme heat and humidity, while being besieged by mosquitoes,” she said.

Despite the challenges like the heat, the bugs, the mud, and the occasional rude visitor, Palazzolo said the horses make it all worth it.

“There’s nothing like standing on those dunes, watching them go about their day. It reminds you that wildness still exists — and that it’s fragile,” she said. “I’m looking forward to checking on her this winter — and jumping right back in next summer.”

Rehm added, “If you can put up with the heat, the humidity, the bugs, and the storms by all means you should volunteer.”

Coastal Review will not publish Tuesday in observation of Veterans Day.

Plastic may be cheap to make and convenient to use, but it comes with a staggering economic cost to the United States — possibly more than $1 trillion a year — according to a new report.

The study, released Thursday, estimates that the economic cost of the life cycle of plastic – from how it’s made, to its conversion into products, to its use and disposal – ranges anywhere from $436 billion to $1.1 trillion annually.

That figure is likely a significant underestimate, according to Duke University researchers who authored the report.

“We, from the beginning, wanted to focus on the harms and costs of the entire plastic life cycle, not just focus on plastic pollution,” said Dr. Nancy Lauer, a co-author of the report and staff scientist and lecturing fellow with the Duke Environmental Law and Policy Clinic. “That was because there really is this entire life of plastic product that has now-well-documented harms at every single stage that we are paying for. It was important for us to make those harms and those costs more transparent to consumers so that they understand this is not just a problem when plastic escapes into the environment and becomes litter or marine debris.”

The team of researchers was able to explore this concept after the university in 2023 awarded it a small grant. That grant led the researchers to host a workshop in early 2024 that brought together experts from across different fields with experience in analyzing the social costs of plastic from its production to its disposal.

Those experts were given a list of studies examining economic costs associated with plastic’s life cycle compiled and initially reviewed by a team of graduate students. The experts then advised researchers on what categories of studies were missing from that list and whether there was additional research that could be examined.

In the end, researchers reviewed 13 existing studies focusing on plastic’s harms and costs on the environment, human health, and the economy.

The report breaks down the economic impacts of plastics by several categories, from greenhouse gas emissions associated with plastic production to human health effects.

The largest cost, by far, is human exposure to toxic chemicals in plastics.

Researchers estimate that increased disease and mortality from plastics use is between $410 billion and $930 billion each year.

“These high costs are driven largely by the value of IQ loss and reduced productivity associated with exposure to plastic activities,” the report states.

Exposure to chemicals such as phthalates, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, bisphenol A, or BPA, and those found in flame retardants are linked to a host of adverse health outcomes, including cancer, cardiovascular disease, reproductive disorders and neurological damage.

Lauer explained that only within the last couple of years studies on the economic impacts of human health-associated harms from plastics use have “really taken off.”

“So that was certainly a category that we, in those initial searches and before the workshop, did not have as great of a handle on, but that research has just really continued to take off in these last two years or so,” she said.

And while studies of the economic effect on human health have come a long way, Lauer said there’s still a long way to go.

“The studies that we found document the harms and costs from exposure to just a tiny fraction of the chemicals that are in plastic. There’s thousands of chemicals in plastic, several of which have known health effects, and several of which we don’t know enough about to know if they have health effects,” she said.

There is also lack of research on the cumulative effects on human health from chemical mixtures in plastics.

“If we take in a plastic particle, we’re not just taking in one or two chemicals, we’re taking in that mixture of chemicals,” Lauer said. “How those chemicals interact together to spur health impacts, we don’t have a good sense of that at this time.”

The report highlights other research gaps, including economic costs associated with plastic recycling and incineration, the effect of plastic on property values, and the cost associated with loss of terrestrial environment.

“When plastics get into the environment, often our first thought is when it ends up as marine debris and the harms that it causes in the ocean, entangling animals and creating these great garbage patches that need to be cleaned up,” Laure said. “Plastics also impact the terrestrial environment. They get into streams and lakes, along our roadsides, and studies have documented that plastics also cause harm to terrestrial animals like invertebrates and freshwater fish. But, there’s not estimates in the literature for that loss of terrestrial ecosystem services in the same way that the literature has begun to document the cost of the loss of marine ecosystem services.”

According to the report, the estimated cost of the loss of marine ecosystem services ranges from $1.4 billion to $112 billion a year.

Other categories and estimated annual costs detailed in the report include the following:

• Greenhouse gas emissions produced from fossil fuel extraction and manufacturing: $6.4 billion to $15.9 billion.
• Increased disease and mortality from oil and gas extraction: $2.9 billion to $31.9 billion.
• Landfill disposal: $2.9 billion.
• Plastic litter cleanup: $9.8 billion to $13.3 billion.
• Loss of tourism: $2 billion.
• Damage to fisheries and aquaculture industry: $88 million.
• Damage to marine shipping: $909 million.

Lauer said that a motivation to make these costs more transparent to the consumer is to highlight that, though products we buy that are made of plastic tend to be relatively cheap, “that’s just the price we’re paying right there on the spot.”

“There’s so many other costs that we may not necessarily realize we’re paying when we use that plastic,” she said.

And while plastics are important for certain industries, including the medical industry, “we’re still using a lot of plastic in places that we don’t necessarily need to be,” Lauer said. “The patchwork of state and local laws on the books are important to reduce plastics on that local and state level, and they’re important to have proof of concept and build momentum towards something that is more comprehensive. But I think what that more comprehensive strategy needs to look like is really focusing on reducing plastics at the source, and that can be through phasing out needless plastics.”

The Wilmington City Council on Wednesday night unanimously adopted a resolution opposing Chemours’ proposed expansion of its Fayetteville Works plant.

The resolution asks the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, “and other relevant regulatory bodies to deny any permits or approvals related to such expansion until Chemours has fully remediated existing contamination and demonstrated a sustained, transparent commitment to environmental and public health protections.”

The resolution also states that the council formally opposes the plant’s releases of ultra-short chain per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, into downstream drinking water intakes and asks DEQ to deny permits that would allow Chemours to continue to discharge those chemical compounds into the environment.

Chemours has applied for a permit to expand its production of vinyl ethers, a class of compounds used to create a variety of products used in a range of technologies from semiconductor chips to aviation components.

The planned expansion has drawn considerable blowback from communities downstream of the plant, which discharged PFAS directly into the Cape Fear River, groundwater, and air unbeknownst to the public for decades.

PFAS specific to the Bladen County plant has been documented in the river, which is the drinking water source for some 500,000 North Carolinians, as well as in private drinking water wells.

“These discharges have resulted in significant public health concerns, environmental degradation, and economic burdens on local governments and residents who have had to invest in costly water treatment upgrades and health monitoring,” the resolution states.

The council, “calls on Chemours to engage in meaningful dialogue with affected communities, disclose all relevant environmental data, and prioritize the health and safety of North Carolinians over corporate expansion.”

COROLLA — There’s a pond at the Donal C. O’Brien, Jr. Sanctuary and Audubon Center, the Pine Island Club, just to the west of the clubhouse, with a troubled past.

Sometime in the 1940s, when the Pine Island Club was a hunting club, the membership dug out an existing pond, put in what was perhaps a 3 inches in diameter pipe to carry water from a canal off Currituck Sound and then bulkheaded the shore.

“They bulkheaded it so that they could have ducks in there all the time, so they could breed them,” said Audubon Center Senior Coordinator of Habitats and Facilities Sara Marschhauser.

The pond though, after more than 75 years, was no longer an inviting habitat for ducks, geese, or any of the species of birds, turtles or mammals that are part of the sanctuary habitat, longtime Sanctuary Director Robbie Fearn recently told the Coastal Review.

“The number of birds that I saw in it each winter went down as that pond was no longer serving the needs of wildlife,” he said.

Over the years, the water level had been falling, and “the water level was 2 feet below the bulkhead, so there was no soft side for turtles and smaller ducks. We saw little goslings (that) got stuck in there last year,” Marschhauser said. “We had to put something in there to get them out.”

That has since changed. As part of a $309,000 grant from the North Carolina Land and Water Fund, the pond, Marschhauser said, has been “restored back to its previous footprint.”

With the pond restored, wildlife came back almost immediately.

“Pretty quickly we had two wood ducks come out from the back side of the marsh and just hang out on the edge for a couple weeks,” Marschhauser said.

She mentioned that she had seen shorebirds, in this case a tri-colored heron, spotted sandpiper and great egret, standing side by side feeding.

“That means then there must have been a lot of food there. They don’t cooperate unless there’s food,” Marschhauser said.

Restoring the pond required considerably more than merely removing the bulkhead, smoothing the sides and digging out the bottom where silt had filled it.

The original pipes were much too small to provide enough water to maintain the pond’s depth, and, over the years, Fearn noted, “as sediment filled into the bottom of that pipe it got more and more restricted.”

The new pipe is significantly wider and will be much easier to maintain so that silt doesn’t restrict water flow. That extra volume of water can already be seen as it allows fish more access the pond.

“We’ve already seen increase in fish reproducing in this pond,” Marschhauser said.

What was clear from the outset of the project, however, was that simply bringing the pond back to its original shape and size and laying in a larger pipe would not be enough to maintain sufficient water levels.

The road from the clubhouse to the Currituck Sound dock passes through an open vista of marsh, trees and grasses. Songbirds are in constant motion. The dock itself is a haven for shorebirds and an occasional nutria.

About 25 or 30 yards from the dock, the canal that feeds the pond passes under the road. At one, the crossing was little more than a causeway over a ditch. “There were two little pipes … and that was it. You weren’t really getting much flow at all,” Marschhauser said.

To correct that, a low bridge now crosses the canal that is more open, allowing water to flow freely, “so that there’s not even a pipe that it has to go through,” she said.

An added bonus, Marschhauser continued, is that in high-water events, which results from any sustained wind from the west, “hopefully our bridge won’t flood.”

With a sustained flow of water, Marschhauser said she was confident the habitat will return to its original diversity.

“The hydrology is what’s going to bring in all the critters now,” she said.

Fearn agreed, noting how much more diverse the wildlife using the restored pond will be.

“By changing it back to a to a natural-edge pond where not just like diving ducks could use it, but (also) wading birds and bobcats and the otter, it becomes a buffet for everybody, rather than a small buffet for a limited number of species,” he said.

The North Carolina Land and Water Fund grant the Donal C. O’Brien, Jr. Audubon Center has received is the second substantial grant awarded to the center in the past two years. Last year a $3.05 million National Fish and Wildlife Foundation grant “to fund innovative marsh restoration pilot projects” was begun with a number of those pilot projects ongoing.

At least one of the projects, Fearn said, “a thin layer sediment, putting silt and sand on top of the (marsh) islands, is cutting-edge for the state of North Carolina. So the process of working through it with regulators … is taking a little longer to get that permit.”

Other shoreline-stabilization projects have been completed and are being evaluated.

Fearn attributed Pine Island’s success in scoring major grants to simply listening.

“We’re listening to the landscape, and we’re listening to what the community needs, and then we understand the grants that we’re applying for and make sure they fit well,” he said.

A Republican lawmaker for most of the Outer Banks has pressed the governor’s office to declare a state of emergency for sections of the barrier islands that have suffered in the last several weeks from what he calls “catastrophic shoreline collapse” and the associated infrastructure damage, particularly to N.C. Highway 12.

Sen. Bobby Hanig, who represents District 1, which consists of Bertie, Camden, Currituck, Dare, Gates, Hertford, Northampton, Pasquotank, Perquimans and Tyrrell counties, penned a letter to Gov. Josh Stein’s office dated Friday, Oct. 31, requesting a state of emergency be declared, for the “affected Ocracoke area (Highway 12, encompassing Hatteras and Ocracoke) and activate all state resources.”

In his letter to the governor, Hanig explained that the Buxton community “has suffered catastrophic shoreline collapse, resulting in the loss of sixteen homes and over two hundred feet of shoreline. NC Highway 12, south of Oregon Inlet — the only access route for residents, emergency services, and visitors — has been washed out by ocean waters, isolating families and placing lives at risk. Local emergency management and county resources are fully exhausted and cannot effectively respond without state support.”

He also requested that the state coordinate with federal partners to secure emergency assistance, and authorize emergency shoreline and infrastructure protection where “state and federal interests intersect.”

A spokesperson with the governor’s office said Monday in an email response to Coastal Review’s request for comment that “The images of homes being swept away are deeply unsettling. The state of the North Carolina is working closely with Dare County and state and federal partners in the area to make sure that North Carolinians remain as safe as possible.” 

The North Carolina Department of Public Safety explains on its website that “when a governor or local body declares a State of Emergency, emergency managers are provided with the legal means they need to deploy resources and immediately respond to a crisis to protect lives and property.”

This means that government officials can bypass certain procedures that are typically required, such as, for example, the budget approval process to access emergency funds, or the bidding process to hire a contractor to perform cleanup.

Stepping through the wrought-iron gate flanked by the First Baptist Church of Beaufort and Ann Street United Methodist Church, the Old Burying Ground offers a quiet respite from bustling Front Street in Beaufort, North Carolina’s third oldest town.

The low-hanging branches of gnarled live oaks tangle above most of the 300-year-old cemetery on the 400 block of Ann Street, casting shadows on the worn dirt paths that meander between the seemingly organized fenced-in family plots next to simple headstones wedged like crooked teeth between the ornate, weathered monuments, obelisks and statues.

There’s an area that appears to be an open space near the corner of Craven and Broad streets under a tree that Carteret County native Bill Lewis has determined is the unmarked grave of 13 of his ancestors, including Thomas Lewis Sr., born 1740 and died 1815.

A lifelong historian and genealogist of the Lewis family, Bill recently retired from the defense industry and splits his time between Morehead City and Virginia.

He told Coastal Review during a telephone interview that he has always known where his family was buried in the centuries-old graveyard. The location has been part of his family’s oral history for generations. 

He decided about three years ago, after his father and aunt died within days of each other, to expand on the family history research he inherited from them, and prove to some skeptics that his ancestors were in those unmarked graves. 

The Old Burying Ground

Beaufort, first known as Fishtown, was established in 1709 and the street plans for the town that were designed in 1713, and are still in use. Around 1724, the town deeded the lot to the wardens of St. John’s Parish, the first Anglican church in Beaufort, for the church and, presumably, a cemetery. Though speculation is that the land was used as a graveyard before 1724, documents state.

“The Old Burying Ground grew up around the building used for sessions of the Court and for reading the service of the Anglican Church in St. John’s Parish,” according to the Beaufort Historical Association, which manages the graveyard.

The property was transferred to the town in 1731 when an adjacent lot was added but was full by 1828. The graveyard was enlarged in 1851, 1855 and again in 1894 by the Baptist and Methodist churches that have stood on either side of the graveyard’s Ann Street gate since the mid-1800s. The Methodist congregation’s first building erected in 1820 now houses Purvis Chapel AME Zion Church, on the corner of the Old Burying Ground at Craven and Broad streets, according to the nomination form. 

The graveyard has around 500 marked graves, with about half from before and during the Civil War, which took place between 1861 an1865, 150 between 1865 and 1900, then a handful of 20^th century markers.

“The whole area with its lichen-encrusted stones shaded by great trees is pervaded by an atmosphere of age, peace, and pleasant melancholia that makes it one of the most memorable spots in one of North Carolina’s most picturesque communities,” reads the National Register of Historic Places nomination form submitted in 1974 for the nearly 3-acre graveyard. “The range of tombstone design is quite remarkable, from the primitive grace of the simple cypress slabs to the sober functionalism of the long brick grave covers to the ornate memorials of the Victorian period.”

Visitors can take self-guided tours using a map provided by the Beaufort Historical Association, the nonprofit that manages the graveyard, to see where the girl is buried in the barrel of rum, the monument topped with a cannon for Capt. Otway Burns, who was an American privateer during the War of 1812, the soldier from the British Navy who was buried standing up in full uniform facing England, the grave of a romance rekindled after decades of separation because her father didn’t approve, or the northwest corner, which is the oldest part of the cemetery. 

“The corner looks empty, however a 1992 archeological survey confirmed that there are many graves in this area. It is probable that some of the unmarked graves contain victims of the Indian wars whose skulls were cleft with tomahawks of hostile Coree and Neusiok Indians. It is recorded that in September, 1711 the area had ‘been depopulated by the late Indian War and Massacre,” according to the association. 

The Lewis ancestors

The Old Burying Ground holds “the history of our family roots, where Thomas Lewis, an often-overlooked progenitor, is buried alongside David Lewis and his wife. My siblings and I were captivated by our grandfather Raymond and father’s tales there. The cemetery was our playground, sparking imaginations with stories about our ancestors, including whimsical claims that Thomas was born a pirate and one of the first settlers in Carteret County,” Bill Lewis notes in his family research.

Bill is a native of the Promise Land, which is a neighborhood from 10^th  to 15th streets on the sound side of Morehead City, and a graduate of West Carteret High School. The Promise Land, Harkers Island and Bogue Banks were settled in the late 1800s and early 1900s by Cape Bankers, pronounced Ca’e Bankers, when these fishing and whaling families moved to the mainland after their settlements on Shackleford Banks experienced a series of devastating storms.

In his research, Bill introduces himself as “a proud descendant of Ca’e Banker and Waterman Thomas Lewis Sr. (1740 – 1815),” and he draws inspiration from his late father, Jerry Thomas Lewis (1937 – 2023), “a steadfast Promise Lander and beacon of strength” and his mother, Edna Faye Garner (1938 – 2013), who “came from a determined Salter Pather squatter family.”

His late father was in the military and traveled extensively, but every time they were home in Carteret County, they would visit the cemetery to put flowers on the unmarked graves. “He would say, I want you and your brother and sister to go out here in this graveyard and find Thomas Lewis Sr. Well, my dad new there was no headstones,” he told Coastal Review.

“We embarked on an exhilarating adventure through time as my father took us to a mysterious graveyard, where history whispered through the wind. He paused by an ancient oak tree, excitement gleaming in his eyes, and pointed to an elongated grave. ‘Can you believe this? This is the resting place of your great-great-great-great-grandfather, a son of a pirate!’ His enthusiasm was contagious,” Bill continues. “We were reminded of our family’s rich heritage in Carteret County, where the earliest Lewises settled between 1635 and 1730, helping to shape the community during its formative years.”

Bill said during the phone call that he pored over documents, records and other resources to corroborate the family lore. Once he had substantial proof, he approached the town with the idea to have a headstone installed marking his family gravesite. 

The Carteret County Historical Society oversees the History Museum of Carteret County, where Bill volunteers, and has been asking for donations to purchase and install the proposed 30-inch by 78-inch ledger, which, in this case, is a piece of stone about the size of an interior door the length of a grave, and the 13 footstones expected to be 8 inches by 4 inches.

He told Coastal Review Wednesday that, so far, they had raised around $1,700 and needed close to $5,000 for the simple marker they have designed, and are still taking donations. Call the society at 252-247-7533 for information.

Town of Beaufort Planning and Inspections Director Kyle Garner said in an interview Thursday that he has been working with Bill Lewis for the last year on the proposed headstone.

Bill “has done extensive research,” Garner said, “it’s amazing what he has been able to find.”

Garner added that the graves could have been marked at one time, but the marker could have been wooden and is no longer there. 

Because the cemetery is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, Garner and Bill Lewis have been consulting Melissa Timo, the historic cemetery specialist at the Office of State Archaeology, to make sure the proposed marker wouldn’t degrade the cemetery. 

Timo explained to Coastal Review that the state has limited information on the cemetery and “I don’t believe that the cemetery has been 100% surveyed archaeologically” by ground penetrating radar or similar. 

“There was a limited archaeological survey done in 1991 where they opened shallow trenches in what appeared to be ‘open areas’ in the north-central part of the cemetery,” Timo continued. “No surprise, their work reveal that the area wasn’t free from graves at all. There were dozens of unmarked graves and potential graves,” but the digging was just deep enough to expose the tops of grave shafts and not into the burials or human remains themselves.

Timo said that while this survey doesn’t appear to line up where the Lewis ancestors are, “it is very telling for the possibilities in the section he’s concerned about. I tell people that what’s on the surface in a historic cemetery rarely, rarely matches what’s underground,” Timo explained. “There are probably a great deal more people in that cemetery than we expect. Additionally, since this is an urban cemetery, popular but hemmed in on all sides, we might expect people to be much more tightly aligned than a rural cemetery with plenty of room.”

Beaufort Historical Association Executive Director Michael Tahaney said in an interview that the Beaufort Historic Site is looking forward to including this newly publicized Lewis family heritage and the new headstones on tours of Beaufort’s Old Burying Ground. 

“The watermen and whalers were invaluable to the formation of coastal village settlements that grew into the Carteret County towns of today. I’ve spoken with several of our long-term docent guides who have very little previous knowledge of these unmarked graves. The headstones will be a testament to the family’s legacy,” he said.

Reprinted from Island Free Press.

Debris from five oceanfront home collapses continues to cover the shoreline in Buxton as the Cape Hatteras National Seashore (CHNS) moves forward with a coordinated cleanup response, despite the ongoing federal shutdown.

The public is advised to avoid the beach south of Old Lighthouse Road, where pilings, broken construction materials, and household debris remain scattered along the surf zone and are shifting with each tide, creating dangerous conditions.

Beach access from the north end of Buxton to near ORV Ramp 43 remains closed. 

Tuesday’s collapses sent debris across National Seashore property and into nearby neighborhoods, where a significant portion of debris has reached private property inland. Dare County has previously contracted private debris removal crews to assist along Old Lighthouse Road after earlier home collapses in September and October, and similar support is anticipated as the latest cleanup continues.

Meanwhile, CHNS crews are conducting emergency, safety-focused cleanup operations and maintaining limited public access where possible, despite ongoing federal service limitations.

“We’re continuing to respond in an emergency fashion to help maintain public access to general areas,” said CHNS Superintendent David Hallac. “Most of our staff are working to protect the property of the seashore.”

Tuesday’s incidents mark the 12th, 13th, 14th, 15th, and 16th oceanfront home collapses on Hatteras Island since mid-September, which all occurred in Buxton except for one collapse in Rodanthe.

Homeowners are technically responsible for the cleanup of their property debris, but cleanup efforts often involve a combination of private contractors, county resources, local volunteers, and the National Park Service.

Hallac noted that while some of the 15 affected Buxton property owners have requested special use permit applications to help remove debris on Seashore lands, “they have not attempted to clean up on any National Seashore property south of the village, to my knowledge.” The situation differs somewhat from recent 2024 and 2025 collapses in Rodanthe, where homeowners — in several cases — undertook extensive cleanup initiatives along miles of shoreline.

Conditions remain hazardous in the impacted area, with sharp debris, exposed nails, buried pilings, and unstable materials continuing to wash in and out with the surf. Officials warn that the beachfront remains unsafe and urge the public to avoid the area until further notice while cleanup crews work to remove debris and stabilize access.

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

Updated 7:15 p.m. Tuesday.

Five unoccupied beachfront houses in Buxton collapsed within hours Tuesday, resulting in layers of lumber, siding, section of decks and other building materials to be spread along Cape Hatteras National Seashore beaches.

The first house collapsed at 10:45 a.m. at 46002 Ocean Drive, then the unoccupied structure at 46223 Tower Circle Road fell about 15 minutes later. At 12:45 p.m. the house at 46003 Ocean Drive fell, followed at 1 p.m. by 46016 Cottage Avenue, states the National Park Service’s Threatened Oceanfront Structures webpage.

The fifth home at 46213 Tower Circle Road, collapsed around 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, Island Free Press reported.

Including the five houses from Tuesday, 15 houses in Buxton and Rodanthe have fallen since mid-September, making the total 27 structures to collapse since May 29, 2020.

National Weather Service’s Morehead City office meteorologists expect the strong winds, large waves, coastal flooding, ocean overwash and other hazards that began Monday to continue through Wednesday.

Officials warn that the ongoing combination of strong surf, elevated tides, and shoreline instability could lead to further damage or additional home collapses in the coming days.

The ocean overwash has already resulted in North Carolina Department of Transportation officials closing Tuesday sections of N.C. 12.

The state agency around lunchtime Tuesday posted on its social media that the roadway was closed between the Basnight Bridge and Rodanthe, on the north end of Ocracoke between the park service’s Pony Pens and the ferry terminal, and at the Buxton turn, from just north of Buxton to Old Lighthouse Road.

“But even where open, there are spots with sand and standing water on the road. It’s an ideal day to stay home, but if you must drive the open sections of NC12, slow down and drive with EXTREME caution,” the agency wrote.

North Carolinians from cities, towns and communities throughout the Cape Fear River Basin urged the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to uphold its objection to a municipal wastewater treatment plant’s proposed permit that excludes an effluent discharge limit for 1,4-dioxane into their drinking water sources.

One after another, speakers at a public hearing the EPA hosted last Wednesday night asked the agency to force the state to reissue a permit that will limit discharges of the likely human carcinogen into surface waters that flow into tributaries of the Haw and Deep rivers, which converge to form the Cape Fear River.

Residents from Wilmington northwest to Fayetteville, Sanford, Pittsboro, Siler City, and Asheboro joined representatives of environmental organizations and downstream public water utilities at the hearing at Randolph Community College in Asheboro, the very city that fought to get 1,4-dioxane limits removed from its permit.

“Frankly I’m embarrassed that Asheboro is polluting the drinking water of as many as 900,000 people who live downstream from us,” longtime Asheboro resident Susie Scott said. “The solution, to me, seems simple. Our city should hold the companies producing this pollution to account and insist that they clean up their waste before we accept it into our treatment plant. People living downstream from us deserve safe drinking water.”

In August 2023, the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Water Resources issued Asheboro a National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System, or NPDES, permit limiting the city water treatment plant’s release of 1,4-dioxane.

The city sued, challenging the state’s power to include a water quality standard for the clear, odorless chemical solvent used in manufacturing processes.

In September 2024, the Chief Administrative Law Judge for North Carolina at the time, Donald van der Vaart, ruled in the city’s favor and revoked permit limits of 1,4-dioxane.

In his ruling, van der Vaart said that DEQ officials did not follow the letter of the law written in state statutes when they calculated discharge limits and established an enforceable water quality standard for 1,4-dixoane. He also noted anticipated high costs associated with monitoring and treatment of the chemical compound.

DEQ’s appeal of that ruling is pending in Wake County Superior Court.

Costs to treat 1,4-dioxane will fall on the backs of downstream water utilities customers if the pollutant is not controlled at the source, Cape Fear Public Utility Authority Executive Director Kenneth Waldroup said.

“The presence of 1,4-dioxane in our source water is just the latest example of how gaps in regulation can lead downstream communities exposed to risk,” he said. “1,4-dioxane is a synthetic, highly mobile compound that resists natural degradation and conventional water treatment. Once it enters our watershed, it is persistent and travels far downstream, all the way to our drinking water intakes. Removing 1,4-dioxane from our drinking water requires advanced and very costly treatment technologies. We’re talking millions of dollars in systems and additional millions in operations costs over a period of time.”

Waldroup said DEQ “took appropriate action” when it included 1,4-dioxane limits in Asheboro’s NPDES permit, but that the state Office of Administrative Hearings “inappropriately and inaccurately invalidated that move.”

“EPA is obligated to assume permitting authority if the state fails to comply with federal permits, and EPA must require the state of North Carolina to address this pollutant and protect 900,000 downstream users,” he said.

Public water utilities, including CFPUA, and businesses downstream of Asheboro’s wastewater treatment plant were notified by DEQ last January that the plant had discharged substantially high concentrations of 1,4-dioxane into Hasketts Creek, which empties into the Deep River.

Misty Manning, Fayetteville Public Works Commission’s chief operations officer for water resources, recalled to EPA officials last week of the Jan. 24 sampling results reported by the state and Asheboro.

“Asheboro’s own sampling result from that day was 3,520 parts per billion. This is more than 10 times higher than EPA’s calculation of what Asheboro’s discharge should be to protect public health at 22 parts per billion. Without enforceable limits, the city of Asheboro’s pretreatment program has yet to be successful in limiting 1,4-dioxane discharges to levels that meet water quality goals for a pollutant with a reasonable potential to cause or contribute to an excursion above state water quality standards,” Manning said.

She was one of several speakers at the hearing to point out that other municipalities in the state have successfully reduced 1,4-dioxane discharges through industrial pretreatment processes without bearing economic hardship.

“And Asheboro has the responsibility to do likewise, using its permitted authority over their local industrial users,” Manning said. “Downstream communities should not bear the financial burden of treating and removing pollutants introduced by unchecked upstream discharges.”

Last June, the Southern Environmental Law Center filed a lawsuit on behalf of Cape Fear River Watch and Haw River Assembly against Asheboro and the city’s industrial customer StarPet Inc., to stop their discharges of 1,4-dioxane into the Cape Fear River basin.

“As part of its antiregulatory fight, Asheboro has raised the absurd argument that it should not be the one that has to pay to control the cancer-causing pollution that it dumps upstream of drinking water supplies,” SELC attorney Hannah Nelson said. “I want to be clear. Asheboro could stop this pollution today by requiring its industries to treat for 1,4-dioxane, but it has chosen not to. In making that choice, Asheboro forces us, the families, the drinking water utilities, the local businesses, the schools, all of those who live downstream of the city, choose us to have to pay for their pollution.”

Stephen Bell, an attorney with Cranfill Sumer law firm’s Wilmington office and outside counsel for Asheboro, said that the city he represents believes steps DEQ took in implementing the August 2023 permit “set dangerous precedent with far-reaching implications.”

“Asheboro is not asking for no water regulation. They’re asking for regulation in accordance with the state law. As it stands today, based upon the court’s ruling, there is no water quality standard for 1,4-dioxane. The courts, our environmental rulemaking agency, they’re currently addressing this issue of limits for 1,4-dioxane and the EPA should respect that state-level process,” he said.

Once everyone at the hearing who signed up to speak addressed EPA officials, a member of the audience asked when the agency expects to make a final determination on the permit. The EPA may reaffirm its objection to the permit, require that the state modify the permit, or withdraw its objection of the permit.

Paul Schwartz, associate regional counsel in the Water Law Office at EPA’s Atlanta region office, said there is no statutory or regulatory timeline in which the agency must decide.

“In terms of specifying a date, certain that it would be done by, I don’t think we can do that,” he said. “And it doesn’t make it any easier that we’re operating during a period of government shutdown. But I think we want to give it immediate attention and focus on it so it doesn’t drag on too long.”

If the EPA decides to reaffirm its objection or require the permit to be modified, DEQ will have 30 days to submit a revised draft permit to the agency. If DEQ does not do that, the EPA will become the permitting authority.

The EPA is accepting public comments through Oct. 31 via email to R4NPDESComments@epa.gov or by mail to US EPA, NPDES Permitting Section, Water Division, 61 Forsyth Street, SW, Atlanta, GA 30303-8960.

The 18.8 million visitors to North Carolina’s nine National Park Service sites in 2024 injected $2.3 billion into the state’s economy, second only to California’s $3.7 billion, finds a recent report.

Of that $2.3 billion statewide, around 4.7 million visitors spent $732.2 million in the communities around the coast’s five National Park Service sites, according to “2024 National Park Visitor Spending Effects: Economic Contributions to Local Communities, States, and the Nation” made available to the public Sept. 25.

Park service officials release the annual report detailing what visitors paid the previous year on lodging, camping fees, restaurants, groceries, gas, local transportation, recreation industries and retail in gateway regions, which are the communities or areas that surround a site. An easy-to-use interactive online tool breaking down the report is on the website.

With the ongoing government shutdown that began Oct. 1, and ongoing at the time of this publication, next year’s numbers will likely show a different story.

Visit NC Executive Director Wit Tuttell told Coastal Review that the report “makes it clear that national parks, seashores, historic sites and trails enrich our state and local economies.” Visit NC is the state’s official destination marketing organization.

The study looked at the Wright Brothers National Memorial, Fort Raleigh National Historic Site and Cape Hatteras National Seashore, all on the Outer Banks, Cape Lookout National Seashore in Carteret County, and Moores Creek National Battlefield in Pender County, and, in the western part of the state, Guilford Courthouse National Military Park, the Blue Ridge Parkway, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site.

“Beyond the monetary impact, there’s endless value in preserving our scenic wonders and the experience of what humans as well as nature have achieved,” Tuttell continued. “Travelers come here to channel the Wright Brothers, camp on the beach at Cape Lookout, and view the foliage along the Blue Ridge Parkway. Knowing there’s an economic boost to go along with these priceless experiences makes us doubly appreciative.”

Nationwide, more than 85 million acres make up the 433 federally managed sites found in every state, Washington, D.C., American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

The report states that across the country in 2024 a record 332 million park visitors spent an estimated $29 billion in gateway regions at the 404 sites that counted the number of visitors. The previous record was set in 2016 with 330.9 million visits.

Total visitor spending estimates increased by almost 10% in 2024 compared to 2023, which the report authors credit to a 2% park visitation increase of around 6.36 million. Data also shows that more than 55% of parks had an above-average off-season in February-June and October-December. 

Using this report, the National Park Conservation Association estimates that the National Park Service is losing $1 million a day nationwide from fee revenue for each day the government is shutdown.

“Based on the Park Service’s shutdown plan, almost 9,300 people (nearly two-thirds of Park Service staff) are now being put in the scary position of not knowing when their next paycheck will arrive. Additionally, park concessioners and partners now face the prospect of lost revenue and further economic hardship — local economies could lose as much as $80 million in visitor spending every day parks are closed in October,” the association stated on its website.

National Park Service on the coast

On the Outer Banks, Wright Brothers National Memorial saw 407,000 visitors who spent around $28.6 million. The site in Kill Devil Hills “encompasses the spot where Wilbur and Orville made their world-changing first flights, the historic sand dune where they did most of their gliding, and the location they lived while they were experimenting in the Outer Banks,” the park service states.

Fort Raleigh National Historic Site is on Roanoke Island and its 275,000 visitors brough in an estimated $19.3 million to the local economy. The site “preserves and interprets the site of the first English Colony in the New World, is the site of the theatrical production, The Lost Colony, and interprets the historical events of the Native Americans, European Americans, and African Americans who lived on Roanoke Island, North Carolina,” according to the park service.

Cape Hatteras National Seashore saw 2.8 million park visitors in 2024 spend an estimated $650 million. This national seashore is roughly 70 miles from north to south and is made up of Bodie, Hatteras and Ocracoke islands. The nation’s first national seashore, Cape Hatteras was established in 1937 “to preserve significant segments of unspoiled barrier islands along North Carolina’s stretch of the Atlantic Coast,” the National Park Service said.

Bryan Burhans is the director of Outer Banks Forever, the official nonprofit partner of three parks, and a branch of Eastern National, a nonprofit that promotes America’s national parks and other public trust partners.

“The National Parks are a money generator. They generate a lot of tourism dollars for the Outer Banks,” he said, but more importantly, these sites are “such an integral part of the fabric that makes up the Outer Banks, which he called “a unique and special place.”

Outer Banks Forever is the official philanthropic partner and does not receive any federal funding. Its work is funded by local businesses, donors, state and county partners, and through various grants. “And our goal is simple. It is to preserve and enhance the visitor experience of our national parks here on the Outer Banks,” Burhans said.

One of the group’s recent projects is the pathway at Cape Hatteras connecting the lighthouse to the beach. It’s in the second phase of the project and is under contract with a company to build a restroom facility with outdoor showers with hot water. “The restroom facility alone is about a $380,000 investment by Outer Banks Forever.”

Cape Lookout National Seashore in Carteret County brought in 552,786 visitors that spent $28.9 million. The site protects a 56-mile stretch of barrier islands where sea turtles and shorebirds nest, a herd of wild horses roam free, and Cape Lookout Lighthouse and two historic villages are a snapshot into the past.

“People come to Cape Lookout National Seashore to recreate at the beach and end up supporting the U.S. and local economies along the way,” said Katherine Cushinberry, the acting superintendent, in a release. “We’re proud that Cape Lookout generates $32 million in revenue to communities near the park.”

Moores Creek National Battlefield is an 88-acre site in Pender County that welcomed 691,000 visitors who spent about $5.4 million. The battlefield preserves the site of a Feb. 27, 1776, Revolutionary War battle. “Loyalist forces charged across a partially dismantled Moores Creek Bridge. Beyond the bridge, nearly 1,000 North Carolina Patriots waited quietly with cannons and muskets poised to fire. This battle marked the last broadsword charge by Scottish Highlanders and the first significant victory for the Patriots in the American Revolution, according to the website.

“The two leading drivers of tourism are natural resources and history. Moores Creek National Battlefield is rich in both,” Greater Topsail Area Chamber of Commerce & Tourism Executive Director Tammy Proctor said in an interview.

“This national park is a treasure that attracts thousands of visitors each year, not only from the Pender County beaches but from the Wilmington area and Brunswick Isles,” she said, adding that the park and its history “had a significant impact on the Revolutionary War. Those fighting for independence from England experienced their first decisive victory at Moores Creek Bridge.”

Moores Creek is a tributary flowing to the Black River and a perfect kayaking location, with a kayak launch at the park. “The creek is pristine and leads to one of the nation’s most pristine rivers. The trails in Moores Creek provide visitors with an experience of the great outdoors and a walk among historical events,” Proctor continued.

“Regarding Moores Creek National Park staff, I can’t say enough about the educational opportunities, programs, and events this staff orchestrates in collaboration with the Friends of Moores Creek Battlefield Association, the nation’s oldest National Park friends organization,” she said.

National Park Service and the shutdown

As of Wednesday, the United States Government had been shut down for three weeks because, according to Oct. 10 post by the National Conference of State Legislatures, on Oct. 1, “lawmakers failed to resolve a budget deadlock, halting some federal operations and putting approximately 750,000 employees on unpaid leave. Triggered by partisan clashes over funding beyond Sept. 30, the shutdown has created uncertainty for many federal programs.”

The National Conference of State Legislatures was created in 1975 by state legislators and legislative staff to provide research, technical assistance and opportunities for policymakers, according to its website.

During a government shutdown, the organization continues, “the administration retains limited spending flexibility by prioritizing funding for programs that the president deems essential for public safety or national security, such as military operations or emergency services.”

As a result, national parks have remained partially open to the public. Many of the sites advise that some services may be limited on their official Facebook page by way of a reshare from the National Park Service dated Oct. 1, with a link to the Department of the Interior’s “Operations in the Absence of Appropriations” that includes the park service’s contingency plan dated September 2025.

Lincoln Larson, an associate professor of parks, recreation and tourism management at North Carolina State University, explained to Coastal Review that during a government shutdown, much of the park staff is furloughed, “meaning they don’t work and aren’t paid but retain their job and benefits when the shutdown ends. Overall, a shutdown presents enormous challenges for park management, members of the public who want to visit parks, and for the park employees themselves.”

In most cases, the decision to close depends on the park itself, but many park managers want to keep their sites as open and accessible to the public as possible. However, that is difficult to do with limited staffing, he continued.

While basic services such as roads and restrooms are usually open, they are not monitored or maintained at the same level as during regular operations, and other services, including visitor centers, entrance kiosks, campgrounds, websites, programming and permitting systems, might not be available at all.

Most National Park Service staff view stewardship of natural and cultural resources as a major part of their job, but when they’re not available to protect and conserve these valuable assets, many threats arise, including the effects of overtourism.

Threats like littering, graffiti, human waste, and off-trail behavior often increases under these conditions, causing irreparable damage to fragile park resources. “We saw this happen during the COVID-19 pandemic, when excessive visitation and limited staffing created unprecedented challenges for parks,” Larson said.

Limited staffing also creates safety issues, particularly if law enforcement or search and rescue operations are negatively impacted, which led to many parks closing during the pandemic because of concerns about degradation in the absence of enforcement. A government shutdown poses similar problems.

Larson said it’s difficult to quantify the broader economic impacts of park closures or service reductions.

“Although a shutdown clearly impacts operations within a park itself, the negative effects outside of parks can take an even greater and longer-lasting toll on nearby communities,” Larson explained. Adding, in many parts of rural America, including eastern North Carolina, national parks are major economic engines that, through outdoor recreation and tourism, power local economies.

“These gateway communities depend on park visitation to survive and thrive. Many park workers also live in communities near the parks, and their salaries breathe life into these towns. When parks shut down, many of these economic benefits are lost, making life much tougher for people living nearby. If shutdowns happen during peak tourism seasons, the economic impacts can be even more devastating and leave a lasting effect on the social and cultural landscape of an area,” Larson said.

The National Park Conservation Association urged in a Sept. 29 letter that the National Park Service close all parks during the shutdown to avoid the damage to infrastructure, vandalism and sanitation issues, like human waste and trash, many of the federally managed parks experienced during the last shutdown that lasted 35 days in December 2018 to January 2019.

“NPCA will not stand by and watch history repeat itself… We know what happened last time park staff were forced to leave parks open and unprotected, and the impacts were disastrous … If the federal government shuts down, unfortunately our parks should too,” NCPA President Theresa Pierno said in a release.

Chemours’ air permit application to expand production at its Fayetteville Works plant excludes emissions data that should be disclosed to the public, environmental lawyers say.

The company “improperly withheld vital emission data from the public” in its Aug. 14 application to the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Air Quality, according to a letter Southern Environmental Law Center attorneys sent the department last month.

“We urge the Department to require Chemours to re-submit its application with disclosed emissions data,” the Sept. 19 letter states. “North Carolina law clearly states that emission data cannot be kept secret.”

Jess Loizeaux, Chemours’ communications leader, refuted that claim, writing in an email responding to a request for comment, “our permit application fully disclosed the projected emissions associated with the expansion.”

“Certain details included in the application submitted to DAQ – such as production capacity, operating hours, and emissions factors – were redacted from the public version because they are considered confidential business information and, if made public, could harm our competitive position,” Loizeaux said. “Protecting confidential business information is standard practice and does not affect transparency regarding environmental impacts.”

Attorneys for Chemours and its predecessor company DuPont made a similar argument earlier this year when they filed a court motion to keep under seal thousands of pages of documents they say include “non-public facts” that largely pertain to chemical production.

Lawyers representing public utilities and local governments downstream of Chemours’ Bladen County plant submitted 25,000 pages of documents to the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of North Carolina as part of lawsuit those entities brought against the companies in October 2017.

Cape Fear Public Utility Authority, Brunswick County, Lower Cape Fear Water & Sewer Authority, and Wrightsville Beach aim to recover costs and damages associated with the Fayetteville Works’ plant’s discharges of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, for decades into the Cape Fear River. The river is a drinking water source for tens of thousands of residents in the region.

The court had not rendered a decision on Chemours’ request as of this story’s publication.

In 2020, Chemours submitted an application to renew its Title V permit, which applies to major source of air emissions, for its Fayetteville Works plant to the state Division of Air Quality.

Two years later, the company applied for a separate permit to expand its production of vinyl ethers and IXM.

Chemours revised and resubmitted that permit application to expand only its production of vinyl ethers last August. Vinyl ethers are a class of compounds used to create a variety of products used in a range of technologies from semiconductor chips to aviation components.

Vinyl ethers are used to create a wide variety of products, including polymers for adhesives, coatings, and plastics

The expansion would pertain to the plant’s two existing vinyl ethers production units, Loizeaux said.

“As outlined in the revised permit application, additional abatement technology will be installed alongside each expansion and is projected to decrease the site’s overall fluorinated emissions by approximately 15%, despite an increase in production,” she said. “A timeline for the expansions has not yet been set.”

Southern Environmental Law Center attorneys argue in their Sept. 19 letter to DEQ that Chemours is violating provisions within the state law that outlines protection and disclosure rules for confidential information.

The application, “blacks out emission rates from stack testing, uncontrolled emission factors, hours of operation, maximum hours of operation, historic production, and post-modification production capacity. The information is necessary to verify and fully understand the emissions and authorized emissions at the facility and cannot be withheld from the public,” according to the letter.

The letter goes on to state that Chemours previously disclosed similar information in previous submissions to DEQ.

“Chemours’ about-face from its past submissions further confirms that this information cannot be treated as confidential,” the letter states.

Last April, the SELC, on behalf of Cape Fear River Watch, asked DEQ to deny Chemours’ request to expand production at its Bladen County plant, arguing that the company’s air permit application was riddled with flaws.

As part of 2019 consent order with DEQ and Cape Fear River Watch, Chemours installed a thermal oxidizer to capture and destroy PFAS from emitting into the air. The order also requires the company to test tens of thousands of private drinking water wells for PFAS contamination throughout the region.

In a 20-page letter to DEQ, SELC attorneys argue Chemours questioned the efficacy of thermal destruction technology on PFAS.

“Investigating Chemours’ thermal oxidizer specifically, [the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency] determined that, due to a lack of data, ‘removal processes for products of incomplete combustion or of destruction of potential compounds not studied … are still unclear.’ In other words, it is possible that the company’s thermal oxidizer does not fully destroy many PFAS. Some may break down into other harmful chemicals, and others may not be destroyed at all,” the letter states.

DEQ Interim Deputy Communications Director Shawn Taylor said in an email earlier this month that while air quality officials deem the latest version of Chemours’ application administratively complete, “the Division may require additional information from the applicant to conduct its technical review.”

“The Division plans to schedule a full public engagement process, including a public comment period and public hearings, to be announced at a later date,” he said.

Another unoccupied oceanfront house collapsed in Buxton over the weekend, bringing the total to 11 to fall on the Outer Banks since Sept. 16, according to the Cape Hatteras National Seashore.

The house that fell into the Atlantic Saturday night was at 46006 Cottage Ave., according to the seashore’s “Threatened Oceanfront Structures” webpage. The seashore, under the National Park Service, manages the beaches.

On Sunday afternoon, the house owner’s contractor demolished the remainder of the structure, which had remained mostly intact except for some debris and pilings that scattered along the beach, according to an Island Free Press report published Sunday.

About 20 National Park Service staff were to begin on Monday clearing a 2.5-mile section of shoreline from Cape Point to the Buxton Formerly Used Defense Site at the end of Old Lighthouse Road.

The house that collapsed Saturday is the fourth on the same street to fall since last month. The first three collapsed within 45 minutes of each other, along with two on Tower Circle Road, starting at 2 p.m. Sep. 30. Tower Circle Road had two more houses give way, one on Oct. 1 and another Oct. 2, and then a house collapsed in Rodanthe Oct. 3.

The National Park Service has continued to update the Threatened Oceanfront Structures webpage as houses fall since the government shutdown went into effect Oct. 1. The lapse in federal appropriations resulted in most National Park Service sites only partially opening and being operated by those who are considered essential, while the rest have been furloughed.

Anne Edwards’ grandmother rarely spoke about the young man wearing a Navy “Crackerjack” uniform in the photograph displayed on a table in the living room of her New Bern home.

As a child, Edwards would hear her mother occasionally refer to him as “uncle.” From what other relatives said, he was a sociable, kind man.

“There’s not a whole lot,” Edwards said. “My mother and grandmother really didn’t talk about it a lot. All I knew was that he died in Pearl Harbor.”

His photo from the table has since gone missing. The Navy does not have an official photo.

His death was untimely, violent — his remains could not be identified and returned to his family for burial. The pain of it all was likely too much for them to convey in conversation, Edwards assumes.

Last week, Edwards attended her great-uncle’s burial with full military honors at Arlington National Cemetery. The Oct. 8 ceremony was held more than 80 years after he was killed in the attack that thrust the United States into World War II.

Navy Fireman 1^st Class Edward Bowden was aboard the USS California on the morning of Dec. 7, 1941, when the Imperial Japanese Navy launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor near Honolulu, Hawaii.

Early in the raid, two Japanese aerial torpedoes slammed the ship’s forward and aft, ripping a 40-foot hole in her hull. She would later be hit by a bomb that further opened her insides to flooding.

The attacks claimed the lives of 103 of her crew, including Bowden, a 29-year-old New Bern native. Bowden bore a striking resemblance to his sister who had raised him from the time he was roughly 10 or 11 after their parents died.

That would be about as much as Edwards would know about her late great-uncle, who died about three years before she came into the world, until a letter from the U.S. Defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency arrived at her Onslow County home more than six years ago.

Edwards called the agency, which works to identify the remains of unknown prisoners of war and those missing in action. She wanted to make sure the letter, one that requested a sample of her DNA, wasn’t some kind of a hoax.

It wasn’t.

This past April, Edwards got the call that Bowden’s remains, long since buried as an unknown at the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific in Hawaii, were officially identified as those of her great-uncle.

She now has a document some two inches thick that contains details about the young man in the black-and-white photograph that was a staple in her grandmother’s house.

Bowden was 28 when he enlisted in the Navy on Aug. 28, 1940, in Raleigh. He reported to the USS California by November of that year.

His sister, who was 18 and married when he moved in with the young couple, signed an affidavit as his guardian, according to the paperwork provided by the casualty office.

Records do not reveal where in the ship Bowden was when it was hit and eventually sank to the bottom of the harbor three days after the attack.

Navy personnel recovered the remains of the ship’s crew between December 1941 to April 1942.

“The problem with identification came because their remains were comingled and so they didn’t really know who they were,” Edwards said.

In all, there would be 20 unresolved casualties from the USS California and 25 associated unknowns buried at the National Cemetery of the Pacific.

Remains of servicemembers yet to be identified in the cemetery were all exhumed by March 2018. As of August, 10 had been identified as being from the USS California.

Edwards was given the discretion to decide where her great-uncle’s remains should be buried.

“Now he can always be found,” she said. “That’s the reason I chose Arlington. I want any family that might be out there related to him to be able to trace him and find out about him.”

Bowden’s military awards include the Purple Heart Medal, Combat Action Ribbon, and World War II Victor Medal.

Edwards was joined by more than a dozen relatives for the Oct. 8 burial. Nieces, nephews, their children, cousins and their spouses traveled from New Bern, Greenville and Maryland to the exceptionally manicured grounds of the cemetery marked by rows and rows of glistening white crosses.

“It was unbelievable,” she said. “Everything was perfect. I was very, very pleased that the young people from the family came. I was very pleased that they felt like they should honor him. I felt a sense of closure for him. He’s not just a name anymore.”

Post has been updated.

The nor’easter that swept up the East Coast this past weekend stripped ocean beaches of sand, inundated areas with floodwaters and pushed seawater over dunes and roads along North Carolina’s coast.

The Outer Banks suffered much of the brunt of the powerful system that brought wind, rain and coastal flooding.

On Saturday the North Carolina Department of Transportation closed sections of N.C. 12 on Ocracoke. Overwash forced officials to close portions of the road Sunday on Hatteras Island, where crews spent the weekend pushing sand and water from the road and rebuilding the dune line that divides the beach from the road.

As of late afternoon Tuesday, N.C. 12 on Ocracoke was the only road closed and the Hatteras-Ocracoke Ferry service remained suspended, NCDOT’s Assistant Director of Communications Jamie Kritzer said in an interview.

N.C. 12 is closed on the north end of Ocracoke Island between the ferry terminal and the National Park Service Pony Pens.

“This afternoon, we’ve been forced to close N.C. 12 again on Pea Island from Marc Basnight Bridge to Rodanthe, due to ocean overwash,” Kritzer said. “The stretch on Pea Island was reopened at 5 p.m. (Monday) but the wind increased this afternoon and we saw overwash around high tide.”

Kritzer said that NCDOT crews were continuing to push sand and water from N.C. 12 and restore the protective dunes on both islands.

“Our ability to reopen N.C. 12 will depend on whether the dune holds through the next high tide cycle,” he said.

In addition to NCDOT’s highway crews, the state’s Ferry Division played a critical role during the response to this weekend’s nor’easter, Kritzer said.

“At one point, all seven ferry routes were suspended this weekend. However, when the winds subsided, the ferries were able to make a special run to take Ocracoke visitors back to Swan Quarter,” he said. “The Hatteras-Ocracoke ferry have helped transport highway crews and equipment between Hatteras and Ocracoke, so the crews could work on clearing N.C. 12.”

Cape Hatteras National Seashore Superintendent Dave Hallac told Coastal Review early Tuesday afternoon that there has been a lot of coastal erosion in certain areas of the national seashore.

At the time of the interview, the National Weather Service forecast much of the Outer Banks to experience flooding through Wednesday. Hallac said that he expects oceanfront flooding as a result, which could make driving on the highway through the seashore hazardous.

“The beaches continue to remain hazardous, especially the beachfront in the Buxton area and the beachfront in the Rodanthe area due to the waves and high-water levels battering many threatened oceanfront structures,” he said.

Between Sept. 30 and Oct. 2, eight unoccupied beachfront houses fell in Buxton, five of which collapsed within 45 minutes of each other. Another unoccupied house gave way on Oct. 3 in Buxton, bringing the total number of houses that have succumbed to encroaching ocean waters to 21 within the past five years.

As of Oct. 3, nine homes on Hatteras Island have toppled into the sea, “but there are a number of significantly threatened oceanfront structures, and you know, collapse is definitely possible,” Hallac said. “Even if collapse doesn’t occur, pieces and parts of those homes have broken off over the last couple of days, including large structures like decks. So that’s the reason that the entire beach front in the village of Buxton remains closed.”

He recommended travelers avoid taking N.C. 12 during the high-tide window, adding that there’s a likelihood of some minor soundside flooding as the winds are switching more to the north and northwest.

“That could also make some of our access points on the sound side flooded, and also make highway driving hazardous,” he said.

Conditions were less dire further south along the state’s coast.

Carteret County’s Public Information Officer Nick Wilson said that the county didn’t see any significant damage from last weekend’s coastal low.

“Most of the impacts were primarily in the Down East,” he said, where some roads in Cedar Island and a few other areas experienced overwash.

“A couple of our convenience sites were closed on Sunday for safety but were back to normal on Monday,” he continued. “There haven’t been any reports of building damage or injuries. The high tides over the weekend, combined with king tide conditions, did cause some flooding in low-lying spots, but it quickly receded once the low passed.”

Carteret County Shore Protection Manager Ryan Davenport said Wednesday morning that Most of Bogue Banks fared well during the recent storm.

“We did see moderate erosion and some dune escarpments in western Pine Knoll Shores, Indian Beach, and Salter Path, but the impacts were no worse than what we typically expect from a winter storm. We remain on track for the island-wide nourishment project scheduled to begin in fall 2026,” he said.

Town officials from North Topsail Beach in Onslow County to Holden Beach in Brunswick County reported experiencing some erosion and escarpment.

North Topsail Beach officials assessed the town’s little more than 11-mile stretch of ocean shoreline throughout Monday and found most erosion to have occurred along the northern end of town toward New River Inlet.

“We noticed our typical hotspots had erosion,” North Topsail’s Town Manager Alice Derian said Tuesday. “There’s some escarpment there. There was some scarping south, but the dunes are still intact.”

All of the town’s public accesses remain open.

Topsail Beach’s ocean shoreline “held up well except at the very south end,” Topsail Island Shoreline Protection Commission Chair William Snyder said.

He said that there is some escarpment to the natural dunes that front a portion of the undeveloped southern tip of the island.

New Hanover County Coastal Protection Coordinator Bryan Hall said in an email Tuesday afternoon that Wrightsville, Carolina and Kure beaches all experienced some erosion over the weekend. Wrightsville Beach’s ocean shoreline also suffered some escarpments.

“As far as I’m aware, there was no significant public or private infrastructure damage or significant established dune damage, which is a testament to the well-established dunes and the County’s Coastal Storm Risk Management (CSRM) projects,” Hall said.

Officials in Brunswick County beach towns that responded to Coastal Review’s requests for comments also reported minor erosion, including Bald Head Island and Oak Island.

“Honestly, I think we fared pretty well,” Ocean Isle Beach Town Manager Justin Whiteside said Tuesday afternoon.

One end of a privately maintained road that runs through a gated neighborhood at the eastern tip of the island has been partially eaten away.

Whiteside said roughly half of the cul-de-sac within The Pointe, a relatively new development of luxury homes, is gone.

“They’re sandbagging around the perimeter of where the cul-de-sac was,” he said.

“There have not been any reports to us of damage besides some flooding caused by tides and winds,” Holden Beach Town Manager Bryan Chadwick said in an email Tuesday afternoon. “We do feel fortunate because it could have been a lot worse.”

Storm recap

Warning Coordination Meteorologist Erik Heden with the National Weather Service office in the Newport/Morehead City office said that with this last storm, “we wanted to make sure people knew that despite it not having a name,” nor’easters can produce the same winds, flooding and rain as hurricanes.

There have been multiple offshore storms that have beaten and battered areas of the state’s coastline, particularly the Outer Banks, where N.C. 12 on Ocracoke and Hatteras islands has been closed for most of the last few days and Down East Carteret County has experienced high-water levels.

There was also a king tide, which means at certain times of the year the tides come in higher and go out lower than normal, that began early last week, leading to some flooding, which was not storm related, in Beaufort, Buxton and other spots on the Outer Banks, Heden said.

The combination of higher water levels with a king tide, a storm with gale-force winds, large waves and swells, and 3 to 4 inches of rain made everything worse, especially in low lying areas, he said.

Flooding occurred up the Neuse and the Pamlico rivers, pushing water levels in New Bern to their highest since Hurricane Ophelia in 2023.

Down East Carteret County had a “tremendous amount of water on the roads,” but nothing they haven’t experienced before, Heden said. The Outer Banks experienced significant ocean overwash, especially at the March Basnight Bridge southward to the Pea Island Visitor Center, where the man-made dunes are built.

Heden said that while the coast will experience slow improvements and fall temperatures the remainder of this week, some areas will continue to experience issues with water, especially at high tide.

“Today’s Tuesday, and we’ve got this advisory through Thursday, so it’s not going to be worse than it was this weekend. We don’t have the wind, we don’t have the swell, but it takes a while for that water to calm down,” he said.

​It was well into what we now call hurricane season in 1879 when the Atlantic Hotel on the Beaufort waterfront began filling with hundreds of guests ahead of the North Carolina Press Association’s annual meeting taking place there in late August.

Visitors from across the state, including the then-governor and his wife, made the lengthy trek to the hotel, most arriving around Aug. 15, of that year, about the same time as rumors began to circulate that a hurricane was causing damage in the Caribbean.

“But nobody in Beaufort was too bothered by that. In fact, the hotel manager was told about it, and he said, ‘we haven’t had a bad storm here in over 20 years. Everyone’s going to be fine,’” Assistant State Climatologist Corey Davis explained when he began his talk on “Lessons Learned from Recent Statewide Storms” at the Down East Resilience Network’s fall gathering.

Davis is with the State Climate Office of North Carolina based at N.C. State University in Raleigh, and was one of the speakers at the get-together held Sept. 23-24 in the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum and Heritage Center on Harkers Island.

A project of the museum, the network meets there a few times a year to share and discuss with scientists, decision-makers and residents the latest research on the threats to Carteret County’s coastal communities such as nuisance flooding and hurricanes, and opportunities to address the aftermath.

Davis continued, fast-forward to a few days later, and warning signs began to appear that a storm was coming. “It’s the fishermen, the locals, that are the first ones to take notice.”

Then a Coast Guardsman stationed at Fort Macon on Bogue Banks began to receive telegraph transmissions from Florida and Georgia about the storm making its way up the coast.

The Coast Guardsman rushes to Beaufort to tell the hotel manager that a hurricane is on its way, Davis narrated, “and this hotel manager just scoffs. He said, ‘Nobody from the U.S. government is going to tell me how to run my hotel. Now you go back and do your job. Everybody here is going to be fine for the night. Well, as you can guess from the foreshadowing, they were not fine,” Davis said. “By 3 a.m. the rain had picked up. The wind was blowing even harder. The floodwaters along the ocean from the storm surge had risen to waist high by that point.”

A local then sounded the alarm to alert everyone that they needed to seek safety. The bottom floors of the hotel were already flooding, but not many people took notice.

“Now, I wish I could tell you that this story had a happy ending, but it doesn’t. This is a tragedy in our state. This is the story of the great Beaufort hurricane of 1879. It was a Category 3 storm at landfall right here in Carteret County. And in total, 46 people in North Carolina and Virginia lost their lives during the storm,” Davis said.

The hotel was rebuilt the next year on the Morehead City waterfront, only to burn to the ground in 1933.

He opened his talk with ​that history to give “a perspective of how these storms were perceived 100 and some years ago. Largely, that’s that hurricanes were primarily coastal events.”

Prompting him to ask what has changed when it comes to learning about hurricane behavior and forecasting, as well as why tropical storms and their hazards getting worse, and putting more folks at risk.

One change, for the good, is that forecasting has improved since the early 1970s. “What we saw back in the late ’70s, early ’80s is that the average track error at 72 hours was something like 400 nautical miles. That’s basically the distance between right here on Harkers Island and Knoxville, Tennessee,” Davis said.

Track error is the difference between where a hurricane is expected to go and the path it actually travels.

As science, modeling and forecasting have improved in the decades since, track error has decreased. “Over the last five to 10 years, that 72-hour error is under 100 nautical miles,” he said.

Another area of improvement, which he thinks should continue to improve, is communicating to the public the storm forecast and associated hazards.

Past messaging has focused on winds being the primary hazard, especially for coastal areas, but in recent years forecasters have emphasized rain amounts, flooding and storm surge, as well as hazards people in inland areas should expect.

One of the changes “that we don’t have a whole lot of control over” is background climate, which includes increasing global ocean heat content, or the total amount of heat the ocean has absorbed and stored.

“We know by now that the oceans have really absorbed the brunt of the warming that’s happening, especially over the last 50 to 60 years,” he said, and there’s been a steady increase since the late 1960s or the early 1970s.

This increase has had a few different impacts on tropical storm and hurricane events.

“No. 1, when you’re seeing that much warm water present, it means more seasons will be favorable for tropical activity. Even though there can be some other environmental oceanic factors that you have to worry about, if the ocean is warm enough, you can pretty much always get storms to form,” Davis said.

Another big impact is rapid intensification, like when a storm goes from a Category 1 to a Category 4 in 18 hours, as did Hurricane Erin earlier this summer.

“Obviously, that does add to the punch that those storms bring when they get to land,” Davis said.

As for atmospheric factors, a warmer atmosphere is similar to a bigger sponge and is “able to soak up more moisture, and it tends to wring out that moisture all at once, and it is able to do that even farther inland as well. So storms are getting wetter overall,” Davis said.

Hurricane Florence in September 2018 dumped “36 inches of rain in parts of southeastern North Carolina, just unheard-of amounts.”

Researchers looking at hurricane trends have found that, especially since the early 1970s, the storms are slowing down and even stalling when reaching land, and that’s primarily for the coastal Carolinas.

“That means we see storms like Florence. They get to our coast and just slow to a crawl; they sit over us for days and drop even more rainfall than we’ve ever seen,” he said.

Another consequence of these changes is that more people are in harm’s way from these storms. Davis cited a study from a few years ago that found for every house in North Carolina that was removed due to floodplain buyouts, another 10 had been built in those floodplain areas.

Another study determined that from 1996 to 2020, 43% of the flooded buildings in the state were outside of the Federal Emergency Management Agency-designated floodplains, and of all the buildings that have flooded in the state during this 25-year window, 23% flooded multiple times.

Storms look different now than they did in 2010, Davis continued, referencing a map showing the major storms most people consider the worst they experienced.

From the mountains, east, the storms were: Frances in 1916, Ivan in 1940, Hugo in 1989, Hazel in 1954, Fran in 1996, Floyd in 1999 and Isabel in 2003.

Davis then moved to a new map his office created showing the state’s worst tropical events as of September, which looks drastically different from the 2010 map.

“Carteret County is a really good example,” Davis said. “You’ve got one of those classic coastal monster storms. Hazel in 1954, a big event, storm surge in Morehead City and other parts of the coastline.”

But for the North Core Banks and Ocracoke Island, 2019’s Dorian caused soundside storm surge like those areas had never seen before. “Most of the rest of Carteret County and most of southeastern North Carolina would now show Florence as the worst.”

Fifty other counties have seen their worst storm come during the last 10 years.

Looking at the scale of some of these events, Florence can now be considered the worst storm from Cape Lookout to the suburbs of Charlotte. “That is a massive footprint that we just didn’t see historically for those sorts of storms,” Davis said.

Davis said there are things to be learned from these storms.  

“The first is what I’ll call action at a distance,” which essentially means that an area can experience big impacts even if the eye of the storm remains far away.

“I know this area saw that with Erin earlier in the summer, 200 to 300 miles offshore, but you still saw the rip currents and the overwash as if it was literally right in your backyard,” Davis said.

Another takeaway, he continued, is that you can’t just look at the strength of the winds or the category to understand what a storm will do.

Tropical Storm Chantal in early July was a weak tropical depression when it moved over central North Carolina, but the 8 to 10 inches of rain over a 12-hour period was far beyond what those areas had seen before.

Davis said he’s “firmly in the camp” of if we don’t learn from history, we’re doomed to repeat it, and one of the big tragedies in eastern North Carolina was after Hurricane Floyd came through in 1999. Residents were told that it was a thousand-year event, leading people to believe a storm of that magnitude wouldn’t happen again in their lifetime, their children’s lifetime, or their children’s children’s lifetime, so they rebuilt the same as before.

“It wasn’t until we got the next storm with Matthew and the next storm with Florence, that they realized it’s probably not a great idea to have a house here, because this is not a once-in-a-lifetime event,” he said, adding that has to be emphasized to people. “If it happens once, it’ll happen again.”

Gardening isn’t just about seeing things others miss, it’s also the scents. Isn’t it amazing how much our tastes change with the advent of fall?

Instead of the salads and light desserts we enjoy during hotter weather, our souls crave hearty soups and stews, carb-rich foods like breads, and the fruits of our summer labors.

Many people won’t notice the changes, or think much about them, and just go on with their normal lives. Gardeners and farmers, more attuned to the seasons, relish the ancient rhythms. Things are slowing down, preparing to catch their breath in order to gear up for next year.

Colors are switching from shades of green to browns and purples and oranges, yellows and burnt umber. Again, most people won’t pay much attention, but even the colors or our clothing reflect the changing of the seasons.

Our wind, from the south most of the summer, switches to north or northwest, bringing cooler temps and lessening humidity. Or occasionally northeast, bringing storms and setting schools of fish to running, hopefully insuring a bountiful catch for our commercial fishermen.

Fall scents, such as wood smoke or burning leaves, or applesauce or pear butter simmering fill the air. Ever notice how easily you can distinguish leaf smoke from any other smoke scent? Maybe it’s because the leaves have stored up a summer’s worth of sunshine and blue skies and they’re releasing it back into the air.

Grasshoppers are giving it their best effort, filling their bellies and in turn, feeding birds and lizards. Butterflies are slurping nectar from any available source like insects possessed, some preparing to over-winter here and some to migrate.

One of my fondest childhood memories is experiencing the Monarchs on their way to Mexico. We had a huge oak tree in our yard. I went out to play one day and the tree looked odd. Upon closer inspection, it was absolutely enveloped in Monarchs. Flexing their wings like they’d become tree leaves being stirred by the lightest of zephyrs, they were resting. Next day, they were gone. How crazy is it to think something as fragile as a butterfly can fly thousands of miles?

The heady scent of cinnamon and spices, of casseroles baking, of winter squash and collards and sweet potatoes, sets our bellies to rumbling. Winter squashes, such as butternuts, with their hard shells, don’t grow in the winter, they merely ripen closer to cool weather and will keep most of the winter.

Summer squash grow in the summer but their softer skins turn to moldy mush quickly. Winter squash, which include pumpkins and cushaws and spaghetti squash as well as butternuts have traditionally been grown as winter keepers, designed to stave off starvation when other, more fragile vegetables are nothing but a memory.

Like late apples and Kieffer pears, also utilized as winter keepers, winter squash provided vitamins and nutrition when little else, other than greens or onions and other root crops, was available from the garden.

Some enjoy the flies-on-the-screen-door scents of collards and cabbage cooking, others can’t stand them. Hopefully you’ve gotten your winter garden planted and off to a good start so your cabbage and collards will be ready to eat for Thanksgiving. Blessed with multiple growing seasons in a year, eastern North Carolina provides ample opportunity to space out our gardening.

Veggies like broccoli and greens love the cooler fall weather. Lettuces and spinach and brussels sprouts thrive this time of year, while trying them in the spring, depending on how quickly the weather turns hot, is often an iffy proposition. Turnips and rutabagas and even radishes do well now. All of these, even uncooked, have distinct smells.

Wonder if that’s how moths and butterflies, the ones that lay the eggs that turn into nasty little green caterpillars who like to eat our cole crops, locate their choice egg laying spots? Can insects smell? How do they locate suitable plants? Inquiring minds want to know!

Ever noticed how even some seeds smell like the vegetables they will become? Carrots, for instance, with one whiff, there’s no doubt what they are. Some herb seeds are the same, dill being a favorite, and thyme. Queen Anne’s lace (Daucus carota), the wild ancestor of modern carrots, along with having gorgeous blooms, carries the distinct carrot aroma.

Mums are blooming, their scent as characteristic as that of marigolds or geraniums. The scent of freshly mown grass takes on more of a hay-like quality as the grasses go into winter mode.

If you have a suitable window, fresh herbs such as basil and dill will do fine inside for the winter. More cold hardy herbs, like parsley and rosemary, will be fine outside. Whether they’re fresh or dried, herbs smell wonderful. There’s nothing like a fresh baked loaf of rosemary-parmesan sourdough just out of the oven, and a big fat slice slathered in butter! Or fresh made applejacks/handpies/fruit pies.

Scents seem … more … during cooler weather, the way the stars are clearer and closer during the winter.

Scent is said to be the strongest of our senses, as far as memories go. Scent-triggered memories, the longest lasting and most particularly powerful of what our brains can conjure, can take us back to our childhoods or to any special memories with just one whiff. Cotton candy, anyone? Tobacco drying in a barn? Clothes hanging on the line? Rotten eggs? Grandpa’s pipe? Fresh-sawn lumber? A live Christmas tree? Pancakes and bacon, coffee and hot cocoa? A new box of crayons? Hay in a barn? Milk cows in a parlor?

How many memories just exploded from merely mentioning those scents?

Given the Scottish-Cherokee-Scots-Irish roots prevalent in our area, offering food is a time-honored gift. Differing circumstances led to all those ancestors of ours knowing firsthand about starvation. It’s often why the first thing that greets you — after the aroma of a home-cooked meal on the stove tantalizes your senses and sets your tummy to growling like a hungry dragon — is, “D’jeet yet? Come on in and set a spell.”

Saturday marks the 129th anniversary of one of the most daring ocean rescues in the history of the U.S. Life-Saving Service, the predecessor to today’s Coast Guard.

On Oct. 11, 1896, during hurricane conditions and in the darkness of the night, Keeper Richard Etheridge and the all-Black surfmen crew he commanded at the Pea Island Life-Saving Station — Benjamin Bowser, Dorman Pugh, Theodore Meekins, Lewis Wescott, Stanley Wise and William Irving — saved all onboard the shipwrecked E.S. Newman.

Among the survivors were the captain, his wife and 3-year-old son, and six others.

At the time of the rescue, its depiction was limited to just a short paragraph in some news sources. There was no mention of an all-Black crew having performed the rescue. While now many more are aware of the heroic rescue, the story is still not widely known. Today is a special time to remember it, and to think about the history the Pea Island station represents.

Before selected to take command of the Pea Island station in January 1880, Etheridge had served as the lowest-ranked surfmen at a neighboring station. After he assumed command, and throughout the period the station was active, it was staffed primarily with Black commanders and all-Black surfmen crews, long after Etheridge’s death in May 1900.

In 1949 the Pea Island station was decommissioned, but it had been deactivated a couple of years earlier. In March 1947, my father, Herbert M. Collins, the last left in charge, locked the station’s doors for the last time and turned in the keys to his superiors.

Perhaps just as remarkable as an “all-Black” surfmen crew working on the North Carolina coast decades ago is that Etheridge, the first Black or African American to command the Pea Island station, grew up enslaved. Before being selected, he had also served with the 36th Regiment of U.S. Colored Troops during the Civil War, helping the Union to free thousands who were once enslaved.

The family history of many who served at the Pea Island, like that of my own father, is also tied to the story of the enslaved. Likewise, the family history of many who served at Pea Island, like my father and other family members who served there, is also tied to the Native American, Algonquian-speaking tribes who once lived along the coast. In fact, although most known for being the first Black or African American to command the station, it is noteworthy that in a 1932 Coast Guard magazine article written by Rodney J. Benson and currently available online, Etheridge was described as being “part Indian.”

The 1932 article asserts the “Pea Island station never had a pure strain negro keeper, white or Indian blood having blended with the African strain.” The article is one of, if not the earliest written mention, as it describes, of “checkerboard-ed” crews, a term used to identify stations with both white and Black crewmembers. It is also reflective of a period when people who served at lifesaving stations along the North Carolina coast were categorized racially in one of two ways, either being white or Black, to determine their status and rights, no matter their racial mix.

The 100-year delay the Gold Lifesaving Medal was finally awarded to the Pea Island crew is a reminder of the challenges and obstacles men who were known as being “Black” in U.S. Life-Saving stations and the early Coast Guard faced. Yet, as the unjustified delay teaches, still many bravely and honorably served.

Etheridge’s selection as keeper in January 1880 made him, as is described on the Coast Guard webpage, “the first African American station keeper in the service and first minority member of any kind to command a U.S. base of operations.” Likewise, at the time of my father’s death in 2010, he was described in a Coast Guard press release as a “Coast Guard Legend,” and especially “in light of the challenges that African Americans faced” during the era he served.

After Etheridge’s selection, and until my father locked the doors for the last time, the Pea Island station was known as being one of the best on the coast.

Perhaps as remarkable as the heroic rescue of the shipwrecked E.S Newman, is the incredible 67-year period the Pea Island station was staffed primarily with Black commanders and crews, especially given the political and social climate at the time. These men faced incredible obstacles. This included serving during the Wilmington, North Carolina massacre and the Jim Crow era in the South.

Having researched and studied the history of the Pea Island station for well over 10 years now, when speaking of it I say that today I understand the smile on my father’s face as he opened the doors of Pea Island Cookhouse Museum to the public for the first time. Likewise, today I better understand the tears William Charles Bowser, his cousin, and who had served at the station before him, displayed when he first learned the Coast Guard’s highest honor, the Gold Lifesaving Medal, would be awarded to Etheridge and his crew.

The anniversary of the Oct. 11, 1896, rescue of nine onboard the shipwrecked schooner, the E.S. Newman, is an important reminder of this history. It is also important to remember the brave men at Pea Island are credited with performing some 600 rescues.

The Pea Island Cookhouse Museum on Roanoke Island is dedicated to honoring their service and legacy. Presently the museum is open for group tours by appointment only. To make an appointment for a group visit, contact the Pea Island Preservation Society, Inc., otherwise known as PIPSI, by email at: friends@peaislandpreservationsociety.com

Dare County’s debris removal contractor will begin collecting Wednesday the tons of debris that resulted from a spate of oceanfront houses that collapsed within the last week, ahead of the bad weather forecast for this weekend.

County commissioners during their regular meeting Monday in Manteo discussed the aftermath left behind when eight houses in Buxton and one in Rodanthe fell between Sept. 30 and Oct. 3, littering Cape Hatteras National Seashore beaches with lumber, furniture, insulation, siding, nails and other debris for nearly 20 miles.

County Manager Bobby Outten explained that the intention was to wait until next week to bring the contractor in but decided to start sooner because of the impending weather.

“Let’s get those contractors in there to get finished taking the debris that’s there now and get it to the road so we can get it out,” Outten said. “And then we’ll deal with the weekend on Monday. We’ll see where we are. If there’s more houses and there’s more debris, then we can get the contractor back down here.”

Assistant County Manager Dustin Peele explained to the commission that last week he saw a “substantial amount of debris” at the right-of-way of Old Lighthouse Road, the designated area for private contractors to deliver what they cleaned up. The county’s contractor will pick up the debris from there starting Wednesday.

The debris field in Rodanthe was heavy for the first few miles, and then it tapered off, stretching approximately 18 miles north to Avon, Chairman Bob Woodard said in his opening remarks.

He explained that the total assessed value of these nine houses as of 2025 was $5,457,200. The houses were built between 1973 and 1998, and vary in size from about 1,130 square feet to 2,188 square feet.

One of the nine property owners has a mailing address in Dare County, three have property owners somewhere else in North Carolina, three have Virginia addresses, and two have Maryland addresses.

Woodard thanked Cape Hatteras National Seashore Superintendent Dave Hallac, who is working with a limited staff because of the government shutdown, for the cleanup that’s already taken place in Rodanthe and Buxton over the weekend.

“Ocean overwash and hazardous conditions from Thursday through Tuesday are potential,” Woodard said Monday. “As you know, today starts another high tide situation that could bring some more damage to both the Buxton area and Rodanthe with knocking down some potential other residences. So we just have to hold our breath and keep our fingers crossed.”

Brian Harris with the Buxton Civic Association reiterated during the public comment period that nine houses have already fallen and there’s “13 more in the ocean” that could fall.

Harris said that with the weather forecast for this weekend being absolutely horrible, he expects three or four more houses to fall as a result.

“There’s just no way around it,” he continued, adding they’ve “got to be smart with this nourishment and, you know, retreating is definitely the answer. You know these houses got to go.”

Harris, who told the commission that he is the official lobbyist for the association, intends to lobby in Washington, D.C., for funding to buy the houses.

He thanked the county for the work taking place to help the communities, adding “we’ll get through this, but Buxton is about to look a lot different. It already does.”