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.”

Brunswick County Public Utilities has lifted a water conservation alert it enacted earlier this summer.

Recent rainfalls and residents’ efforts to conserve water, “have contributed to a drop to sustainable levels for the County’s water system,” leading the utility to rescind the stage 1 alert in put in place June 26, according to a release.

The alert affected customers in the unincorporated areas of the county, as well as Boiling Spring Lakes, Bolivia, Calabash, Carolina Shores, Caswell Beach, Navassa, Northwest, Sandy Creek, Shallotte, Southport, St. James, Sunset Beach, and Varnamtown.

The recension also applies to customers of Bald Head Island Utilities, Holden Beach Utilities, Oak Island Utilities and Ocean Isle Beach Utilities.

It does not apply to Brunswick Regional – H2GO customers.

“Water conservation notices are not uncommon for this time of year,” the release states. “Water systems typically see higher demands in late spring and throughout summer due to the heat, increased irrigation demands, and the peak tourism season.”

The utility could issue additional notices if drier weather conditions return and customers are encouraged to “use water wisely” and maintain the water irrigation schedule the utility recommends.

The schedule is as follows:

• Odd address numbers: Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday.
• Even address numbers: Wednesday, Friday, Sunday.
• No irrigation on Mondays.

Customers are also encouraged to irrigate lawns outside of peak demand hours of 5 a.m.-11 a.m. to spread out demands on the system. Irrigation is recommended after nightfall.

Customers with questions may contact Brunswick County Public Utilities at 910.253.2657 or utilityadmin@brunswickcountync.gov.

BOILING SPRING LAKES – For the most part, work had wrapped on Pine Lake Dam here back in mid-June.

The light at the end of a tunnel of headaches caused since the closure of one of this city’s main traffic arteries, portions of which run atop Pine Lake and North Lake dams, was shining brighter and brighter.

With the dams complete, reconstruction could begin on sections of East Boiling Spring Road that have since the summer of 2023 been closed while crews rebuild and restore the dam system crippled by rainfall during Hurricane Florence nearly seven years ago.

But a swift burst of rain that drenched this little Brunswick County city on June 14 revealed that something was not right about the nearly finished Pine Lake Dam. It did not seem to be functioning properly.

That was the message one of the city’s commissioners relayed in a phone call to town staff that day. Rainwater, the commissioner reported, wasn’t stacking up behind the dam.

“In other words, there wasn’t a lake there,” City Manager Gordon Hargrove said. “It was a significant rainfall and it should have held some water. It did not hold water. It was running right through the dam.”

An investigation found that Pine Lake Dam, the design for which was vetted in multiple reviews by both federal and state agencies, is at an elevation of about 5 feet too low.

More than a month has passed since the city informed its residents of the revelation, one that has drawn a firestorm of criticism and finger pointing in a matter that might very well end up getting hashed out in court.

No timeline in sight

Today, large bright-white and blaze-orange barricades block off a roughly 750-foot stretch of neatly packed dirt and coarse sand imitating a road over top of Pine Lake Dam.

Pine Lake Dam is part of a system of five earthen dams initially built here in the mid-1960s.

Throughout the years, the dams withstood the brute force from powerful coastal storms that have swept through the region.

But the unprecedented rain Hurricane Florence dumped in September 2018 over the area – up to more than 30 inches in some parts of coastal North Carolina – proved too much.

Rainwater filled the 275-acre Boiling Spring Lake to the brink, overtopping Sanford Dam. The breach, paired with substantial embankment erosion, led to the dam’s catastrophic failure.

The breach caused a domino-like effect of failures at all four of the smaller upstream dams in the city, and then the lakes that made up Boiling Spring Lakes were no more.

During the years since, the city secured about $56 million in funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, through Department of Defense grants, and Brunswick County to repair and restore the dams it owns and operates: North Lake, Pine Lake, Sanford, and Upper Lake dams. A fifth dam, Middle Lake Dam, is privately owned.

That funding has been spent, in part, on hiring firms to undertake the task of designing and building dams that meet today’s safety codes.

Work to restore Sanford Dam was progressing nicely, Hargrove said, when another coastal storm, one often referred to in these parts as the “unnamed storm,” caught Brunswick County and southern portions of New Hanover County by surprise last September.

Potential Tropical Cyclone No. Eight pummeled Boiling Spring Lakes with more than 20 inches of rain within a short period of time. Rain waters swept away Sanford Dam’s bypass channel, destroying the work that had been completed thus far and forcing construction crews to essentially start from scratch.

“Weather forecast was for 3 inches,” Hargrove said. “We got 22. It flooded out the detour route and so people were stranded in particular pockets in that side of town with no way of getting out.”

The city experienced a similar scenario last May with residents becoming trapped in patches of the community as a wildfire spread through the area and jumped N.C. Highway 87.

East Boiling Spring Road is a primary entry and exit point as a hurricane evacuation route through the city.

“So, yes, there’s a lot of angst involved with getting this road open,” Hargrove said. “I mean, we have looked at every possible alternative short of building a bridge, but by the time we finish a bridge, this project will be done.”

When that might happen remains an unanswered question.

“The setback with Pine Lake Dam, I can’t even give you a timeline of how long it’s going to keep that road closed. It took 12 months to get our permits last time” from the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality’s Dam Safety Program, Hargrove said.

Days after Hargrove met for an interview with Coastal Review in city hall, he returned to the commissioners’ chamber for the board’s Aug. 5 meeting, where he provided an update on the dams.

Work continues at Sanford Dam. Had it not been for the potential tropical cyclone last September, that dam would be finished, he said. Upper Lake Dam is complete.

The section of East Boiling Spring Road atop the newly reconstructed North Lake Dam will hopefully be finished in the next two to three weeks, Hargrove told commissioners.

There was still no word as to when construction to fix Pine Lake Dam might begin.

Hargrove explained that Sequoia Services, LLC, the Greensboro-based construction company hired by the city to rebuild the dams, agreed to build a temporary road atop the dam.

But the city would be responsible for any damages to the site should any occur if the temporary road, one that would cost an additional $175,000, were to be built. Pine Lake Dam is valued at $3.5 million.

Commissioners voted against the proposal, saying it was a liability too steep.

Who’s responsible?

Hargrove didn’t mince words when he sat down for an interview with Coastal Review on a late July morning.

“There’s going to be some things I’ll talk about and then there’s, for liability reasons and that sort of thing, I’m not going to comment on them because this is obviously an issue that could grow larger over time,” he said.

The defunct Pine Lake Dam is not the construction contractor’s fault, Hargrove said. The contractor built the dam to the design the company was given.

“I’m not willing to say where the problem exists and how that problem came about. It’s the city’s position that this is a third-party responsibility,” Hargrove said.

The city hired consulting firms Ashville-based McGill Associates and Greensboro-based Schnabel Engineering to design the project.

Those designs were vetted through a series of agencies, including the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, FEMA and N.C. Dam Safety.

“As it goes up through the line, they’re really not getting into the hydraulics and analysis,” Hargrove said. “They’re just looking to make sure that the math works. So, the primary responsibility for the design of that dam is McGill and Schnabel.”

During the city commissioners meeting July 8, McGill Vice President Michael Hanson said that, unlike the other dams, there were no sufficient surveys or as-built records for Pine Lake Dam.

“We relied on information that was provided by the city, which was the best available information that was the original design plans,” Hanson said at the meeting, according to a WECT-TV report. “We relied on that information and moved forward. That was reviewed and approved by city staff. That was reviewed and approved by Dam Safety.”

This was Hanson’s first update to commissioners in a public setting since June 27 when the city announced in a social media post that Pine Lake Dam was defective.

The public’s response to that update was biting. There were one-word retorts including “Figures” and “Unbelievable” to accusations of “backdoor deals” and at least one call for city tax refunds to residents.

One commenter correctly pointed out, “THE HOOVER DAM WAS BUILT IN 5 YEARS, Y’ALL! In the 1930’s.”

The engineering marvel that spans the Nevada-Arizona border was, in fact, built from 1931-36, but not without disaster. The official number of people who died at the dam site during that time from causes ranging to drowning, blasting, rock slides, falls from the canyon walls, and heavy equipment and truck accidents, is 96, according to the U.S. Department of Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation.

City officials understand the mounting anger and frustration from Boiling Spring Lakes residents.

Hargrove wants them to know that commissioners have and continue to be “very proactive” and have tried to make sure the dam reconstruction cost doesn’t fall on the city’s taxpayers.

Earlier this year, commissioners approved an 8-cent tax hike, revenues of which will cover the costs of the city’s new stormwater department.

“This board does focus and look at the future and how we can improve it,” Hargrove said. “It just takes time. We’re catching up to 30 or 40 years of inactivity, but this board, my administration, are working hard to put that into play.”