Cape Hatteras National Seashore officials advise visitors to its east-facing beaches to exercise caution through Saturday because the persistent northeast winds and breaking waves forecast for the next few days could cause coastal erosion and damage to beach houses.

The National Weather Service is calling for strong winds, dangerous rip currents and longshore currents are expected for much of the beaches from Duck to Cape Lookout, as well as portions of Onslow County, over the coming days, with waves in the surf zone that could reach up to 8 feet at times, according to its social media.

In the advisory the National Park Service issued late afternoon Tuesday, officials said the potential weather could cause the partial or full collapse of one or more threatened oceanfront structures in Buxton and Rodanthe.

Officials also note that the entirety of Buxton’s beachfront is closed because of public safety hazards associated with the presence of threatened oceanfront structures in or near the ocean.

“The proximity of these structures to seashore lands poses a serious risk to visitors walking along the beach or wading in the surf,” officials said. “Additionally, a public safety closure of a stretch of beach from the south end of Buxton to just north of off-road vehicle ramp 43 remains in place.”

Registration for the Dare County Board of Commissioners chair’s state of the county presentation is now open.

Board Chairman Bob Woodard is scheduled to deliver the state of the county presentation at 10 a.m. March 21 at Cape Hatteras Secondary School, 48576 N.C. 12 in Buxton. Doors will open at 9:15 a.m.

The program will include the same message Woodard is expected to deliver in Kill Devil Hills March 18, but is being hosted in Buxton for Hatteras Island residents and property owners so they do not have to travel to the county’s northern beaches. Registration for the event in Kill Devil Hills is full.

The theme of this year’s presentation is “Reviewing a year of Progress in the Land of Beginnings.”

Though the event is free, advanced registration is encouraged for planning purposes.

For additional information visit DareNC.gov/SOC.

Because of recent erosion concerns, Dare County GIS staff began remotely monitoring two priority areas on Hatteras Island using drone technology.

GIS staff used the drone imagery collected so far to create a new interactive map that allows the public to view and compare images of coastal erosion over time at Old Lighthouse Road in Buxton and the northern end of Rodanthe.

The map, Hatteras Island Erosion Drone Imagery, features side-by-side comparisons of aerial photos of Rodanthe and Buxton. The user can select two different dates of drone imagery taken in Buxton or Rodanthe using a dropdown menu. A tool in the center of the map allows users to compare images side by side.

The map is an active and ongoing Dare County GIS project. New drone imagery is being collected and added to the map as it becomes available.

The intent of the ongoing project is to collect continual imagery that creates a historical record of erosion to help Dare County officials and other decisionmakers better understand the changing conditions and enable them to make the most informed decisions, the county said.

“The situations in Buxton and Rodanthe are very dynamic, so we wanted to have the most up-to-date information available about the current state of the oceanfront,” Dare County GIS Analyst Kristen Stilson said in a release. “We also wanted the public to be able to see the changing conditions as they are occurring, so everyone can get a better understanding of how rapidly this situation is escalating. It is one thing to see it on the news, but with the map you will be able to see the whole landscape change by just swiping between different dates.”

For more information, contact Stilson at Kristen.Stilson@DareNC.gov or 252-475-5598. 

The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Coastal Management has issued a permit to Dare County for a beach nourishment project planned for this summer at Buxton.

The division also announced Wednesday that it had issued a letter to the county affirming that the proposed work to rebuild one of three groins near the former site of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse qualifies as “repair” under the Coastal Area Management Act and Coastal Resources Commission rules and does not require a CAMA permit for the project to proceed.

“North Carolina’s ocean shoreline is a dynamic environment with challenges driven by extreme shoreline erosion, rising sea levels and more frequent and intense storms,” the division said in its announcement. “Communities along the Outer Banks have been particularly affected by recent weather events and extreme erosion. Along many parts of the state’s coastline, local governments may pursue projects such as beach renourishment to reduce vulnerability to storm damages and protect critical public infrastructure. DCM reviews these projects to ensure they are consistent with CAMA and the CRC’s rules.”

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

The village’s beach, which is part of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore, has suffered severe erosion over the past few years that has led to houses collapsing into the ocean — 31 on the national seashore’s beaches since 2020 — and uncovered long-buried petroleum contamination at the site, which has been used in decades past as a naval facility and a Coast Guard station.

Beach renourishment is one of the primary erosion response strategies allowed under state law. Hard structures such as groins are subject to strict statutory limitations and case-by-case review. All permitted projects include conditions to minimize environmental impacts, maintain public access and safety and require ongoing monitoring.

The project documents are available online.

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.

Popular sites and attractions along the North Carolina coast are closing Friday in anticipation of a winter storm expected to bring this weekend snow, blustery winds, dangerously cold temperatures and some coastal flooding.

The National Parks Service announced Friday morning that it is closing all of its visitor facilities at Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Fort Raleigh National Historic Site and Wright Brothers National Memorial through at least Monday morning.

Oregon Inlet and Ocracoke campgrounds were to close at noon Friday.

Portions of the beach in Rodanthe and Buxton already have been closed because the presence of threatened oceanfront structures.

In Rodanthe, the beachfront is closed from East Point Drive south to Surfside Drive. Buxton’s ocean shore is closed from the north end to near off-road vehicle ramp 43.

The North Carolina Maritime Museum in Beaufort, which has been closed since November 2024 for renovations, has rescheduled its reopening from Saturday to Feb. 21 because of this weekend’s forecast, officials announced this week.

The North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fisher in New Hanover County will close to the public Saturday and Sunday. Updates, including plans for Monday, will be provided on the aquarium’s media pages on Facebook, Instagram and Threads.

Powerful winds, sound-side flooding, and the potential for as much as 1 to 1.5 feet of snow is expected to impact areas along the coast begging late Friday into Saturday. Residents are being urged to make preparations for the storm by Friday evening.

The combination of snow, cold and wind are expected to create life-threatening conditions.

The National Parks Service will provide operational updates its Outer Banks Group’s severe weather webpage and social media accounts.

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 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.

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.

Dare County is going to cover the cost for its debris-removal contractor to make one last round on Wednesday to collect the lumber, siding, appliances and other remaining debris from the 10 unoccupied houses that collapsed in recent weeks along the Buxton oceanfront.

The county asks that the private contractors move the debris they’ve collected to the right-of-way along the east side of Old Lighthouse Road in Buxton no later than Wednesday morning. Once placed there, the county’s contractor will collect and dispose of the material.

Dare County had previously coordinated an emergency debris removal with its contractor, Dupon, from Oct. 8 until Oct. 18 after eight unoccupied Buxton homes collapsed into the ocean between Sept. 30 and Oct. 3 because of severe beach erosion caused by a strong coastal storm, officials said Tuesday.

“This initial cleanup effort was conducted as an emergency response to an unprecedented situation in order to protect public safety and facilitate a timely cleanup of the affected area; however, it is not financially feasible for Dare County to continue to provide debris removal services for private properties,” county officials said, adding that property owners will be responsible for working with their private contractors to coordinate any debris removal going forward.

“Dare County appreciates the cooperation and understanding of the affected homeowners, their contractors and the Hatteras Island community as this final debris collection effort is completed,” officials continued.

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.

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.”

Reprinted from an Island Free Press report dated Oct. 6.

Cleanup efforts are continuing this week in Buxton and Rodanthe following the collapse of nine oceanfront homes last week — eight in Buxton and one in Rodanthe — as National Park Service crews, area organizations, and volunteers work to remove large volumes of debris scattered along the shoreline.

In Buxton, cleanup teams have already hauled away roughly 140 truckloads of debris from the beach as of Sunday, said Cape Hatteras National Seashore Superintendent David Hallac.

Large piles remain, including one near the former Navy base site that may contain a similar amount of material. Another pile near the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse measures about 100 feet long, 35 feet wide, and 5 feet high. Crews have been separating plastic, large lumber, and small lumber to facilitate disposal, and Dare County has reported eight septic system washouts in the Buxton collapse area.

“The odors from sewage were noticeable in several beachfront locations,” Hallac said. “And north of the jetty, petroleum odors were so strong on Sunday that we made the decision not to clean up in that area for safety reasons.” Petroleum smells were also strong on Saturday, but had briefly diminished enough to allow heavy equipment into the area.

Related: ‘Messy situation’: Buxton beach closed after 8th house falls

The cleanup zone in Buxton remains challenging due to its dense neighborhood layout, which caused debris to become trapped between collapsed structures, pilings, and sandbags when the homes fell. This has created a more concentrated debris field compared to Rodanthe.

“In Buxton, the water line was so high when these houses collapsed, and the area is so dense, that many of the homes and pilings and sandbags trapped this debris,” Hallac said.

Hallac emphasized that National Park Service crews have been working long hours daily alongside local partners to make progress.

“I’m extremely proud of all the National Park Service staff who have been working on this, some for hours a day, every day, and extraordinary thanks for the incredible efforts of the North Carolina Beach Buggy Association, Cape Hatteras United Methodist Men, and many community members who have come up to help,” he said.

In Rodanthe, the debris field from last week’s single home collapse extended around 18 miles, although most of that distance contained light debris, such as polyester filling, carpet padding, and small bits of wood that washed south to around Ramp 32. The initial few miles nearest the collapse site contained heavier material.

Cleanup in Rodanthe has benefited from a swift response by the homeowner, who began working on the beach the morning after the collapse and has remained actively involved. “He has worked continuously, and we worked as a team with him,” Hallac noted.

Over the weekend, the Rodanthe homeowner used an excavator to remove the remnant structure from the beach, which prevented additional debris from washing away. The North Carolina Beach Buggy Association also played a major role in the Rodanthe cleanup effort, according to Hallac.

While significant progress has been made, continued cleanup is expected in both locations.

In Rodanthe, National Park Service crews will use a mechanized beach rake to remove debris that has become buried in the sand. In Buxton, seashore staff are assessing remaining debris south of Ramp 43 to develop the next phase of the cleanup strategy.

Beachgoers are urged to use extreme caution in these areas, as nails, sharp debris, and other hazardous materials may be buried beneath the sand.

This story is provided courtesy of the Island Free Press, a digital newspaper covering Hatteras and Ocracoke islands. Coastal Review is partnering with the Free Press to provide readers with more environmental and lifestyle stories of interest along our coast.

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

Original report follows below:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Update 11 a.m. Thursday: The seventh oceanfront house in Buxton to collapse in less than 48 hours fell around 8 p.m. Wednesday at 46207 Tower Circle Road, Cape Hatteras National Seashore officials reported on its website. This remains a developing story.

Update 10 a.m. Wednesday: An unoccupied house collapsed overnight at 46203 Tower Circle Road, bringing the total to six since 2 p.m. Tuesday, per an update from the National Park Service on its threatened oceanfront structures webpage.

Original report of 5 p.m. Tuesday follows below:

Five unoccupied houses in Buxton collapsed into the Atlantic within 45 minutes of each other Tuesday afternoon, and officials warned that there could be more because of conditions associated with two hurricanes offshore.

Cape Hatteras National Seashore officials said that, as of 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, they were unaware of any bodily injuries associated with the collapse of the structures on Cottage Avenue and the two on Tower Circle Road.

Including the five that fell between 2 p.m. and 2:45 p.m. Tuesday, 17 privately owned houses have collapsed since 2020.

The entire beachfront from northern Buxton to the northern section of off-road vehicle, or ORV, ramp 43, is closed for public safety. ORV drivers using ramp 38 should avoid traveling to the south and anyone using ramp 43 should avoid traveling north.

The street numbers for the structures on Cottage Avenue are 46001, 46002 and 46007, and 46209 and 46211 for those on Tower Circle Road.

The National Park Service urges visitors to avoid the closed areas where the structures collapsed and to use caution along the beach south of the sites because of potentially hazardous debris.

“This is an ongoing incident; further collapses are possible due to the ocean conditions,” national seashore officials said.

The National Weather Service office in Newport, in a 3:45 p.m. Tuesday briefing, forecast a long duration and impactful swell event for coastal North Carolina associated with Hurricane Humberto, with added impacts from a strengthening Hurricane Imelda.

“Coastal flooding impacts have already begun and are expected to continue. We still expect the peak impacts to be focused through Thursday, with the greatest impacts occurring around high tide Wednesday afternoon,” forecasters said. Dangerous surf conditions are expected through the rest of the week.

The park service said plans are to announce on the national seashore’s threatened oceanfront structures webpage, go.nps.gov/cahatos, any additional collapses during the storm period.

This report has been updated to include information on the Thursday meeting.

Officials with the Cape Hatteras National Seashore urge visitors to avoid the beach and stay out of the water near Buxton where another house has fallen into the surf.

The unoccupied house at 46227 Tower Circle Road in Buxton collapsed about 4 p.m. Tuesday, according to a Hatteras Island resident.

It was the 12th house collapse on National Seashore beaches over the past five years.

A preexisting beach safety closure from the north end of Buxton to around off-road vehicle ramp 43 may need to be expanded, depending on the extent of the debris field, officials said.

Cape Hatteras National Seashore officials in a release urged visitors to avoid walking on the beach at the north ends of Radanthe and Buxton, “due to the potential for partial or full house collapses.”

The warning was issued Monday as a low-pressure weather system moving toward the area was expected to produce some oceanside and soundside coastal flooding, moderate to strong winds, heavy rain and minoring flooding, and dangerous surf conditions.

“Many threatened oceanfront structures have been damaged over the last several weeks in Rodanthe and Buxton,” the release states.

Beach drivers are advised to use caution on ocean-side off-road vehicle routes as well.

Dare County is hosting a public meeting Thursday on the problem of threatened oceanfront homes from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Coastal Studies Institute on the East Carolina University Outer Banks Campus in Wanchese and online for those who register in advance.

The Army Corps of Engineers’ Savannah District has awarded a contract for the second phase of cleanup at the former Buxton Naval Facility site in Dare County.

The petroleum-contaminated property is being handled under the Defense Department’s Formerly Used Defense Sites, or FUDS, program. The Buxton Beach access is also part of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore.

The Interim Response Action contract awarded Thursday to Eastern Shawnee Bay West JV, a joint venture between Eastern Shawnee Professional Services and environmental cleanup firm Bay West follows the first phase, for which Bay West LLC was the contractor, and includes work along the beach to further investigate the site for petroleum-impacted soil and groundwater.

The contractor is to bring in heavy excavation equipment and roll-off containers to remove and containerize any petroleum-polluted soil encountered, transporting and disposing the material at an off-site waste management facility. The equipment is due to arrive within the next two weeks, officials said.

The contractors and Savannah District personnel have been at the site since Aug. 8, monitoring conditions and containing the contamination, when needed, by placing oil-absorbent booms around any observed petroleum.

A 0.3-mile stretch of beach at the site at the south end of Old Lighthouse Road has been closed since Aug. 2 because of the presence of petroleum odors and sheens. Strong surf caused significant erosion that exposed contaminated soils on the same stretch of beach that had reopened June 12 following the lifting of a precautionary public health advisory by Dare County’s Department of Health and Human Services and after consulting with the U.S. Public Health Service.

In addition, the entire beachfront from Buxton village to 0.4 miles north of off-road vehicle, or ORV, ramp 43 is closed to public entry due to damage to dozens of houses and associated septic systems caused by Hurricane Erin in August. Officials said leaking septic systems, along with compromised decking, HVAC systems, pilings, concrete parking areas, and wiring, poses a serious public health and safety threat.

No petroleum sheens or odors were detected last week at the site of former military installations at Buxton Beach when federal, county and National Park Service representatives visited there.

On Thursday, Army Corps of Engineers headquarters and South Atlantic Division officials visited the Buxton FUDS property in Dare County, along with the Savannah District commander, Formerly Used Defense Sites, or FUDS, Program team and Bay West contractors to check out damage from Hurricane Erin, and plan how to best clean up the site. National Park Service officials and members of the Dare County Board of Commissioners also joined the walkthrough.

“We are committed to doing everything we can within our authorities to remove petroleum-contaminated soil and groundwater from the property,” said Col. Ron Sturgeon, Savannah District commander. “This project remains a priority of the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Savannah District.”

Officials said that after the storm had passed, about 100 feet of asbestos-cement pipe used for water distribution, storm drains and sewer lines was removed from the site surface and secured for proper disposal. A small remnant of the asbestos pipe remains attached to a sump associated with the former wastewater treatment plant, officials said, and that pipe has been temporarily stabilized and wrapped in place.

In addition to the removal of asbestos pipes as authorized under the FUDS authority because of possible risks, the park service has already moved to clear additional debris left behind by Hurricane Erin, utility workers addressed a downed powerline, and an alternate road is being used to access the site until the county repairs Old Lighthouse Road.

When Hurricane Erin passed by, the team was in the process of awarding a contract for phase two of the interim response action that began Aug. 8.

The team is weighing whether to postpone the comprehensive sampling, because of the interim response action. 

“The comprehensive sampling fieldwork can begin once the Quality Assurance Project Plan (QAPP) is accepted. However, since the recent weather events have created a need for the additional (interim response action) excavations in the project area, that work might hinder sampling efforts,” said Sara Keisler, Savannah District FUDS program manager, in the statement. “Therefore, we’re evaluating the possibility of postponing the sampling efforts, so we can ensure unhindered access to all sampling locations. If we do that, the comprehensive sampling fieldwork won’t start until December or January.” 

Update 4:30 p.m. Tuesday:

Gov. Josh Stein declared a State of Emergency Tuesday ahead of the anticipated impacts from Hurricane Erin, which was about 650 miles south-southeast of Cape Hatteras and moving at 10 mph at around 2 p.m. Tuesday.

“Hurricane Erin will bring threats of coastal flooding, beach erosion, and dangerous surf conditions,” Stein said in a statement. “North Carolinians along the coast should get prepared now, ensure their emergency kit is ready, and listen to local emergency guidelines and alerts in the event they need to evacuate.” 

Original post 6 p.m. Monday:

Eastern North Carolina should expect to see impacts from Hurricane Erin, including coastal flooding, starting Tuesday.

The center of the storm was predicted to remain off the coast by a couple hundred miles, but “We still expect impacts across eastern North Carolina, specifically coastal areas,” National Weather Service Meteorologist Erik Heden said during a webinar briefing at lunchtime Monday.

Effects will likely include dangerous surf and rip currents, storm surge, damaging beach erosion, major coastal flooding and overwash.

The storm was about 820 miles south-southeast of Buxton, or 810 miles south-southeast of Morehead City, according to the National Weather Service’s 5 p.m. Monday update. The Category 4 storm was moving northwest at 10 mph.

A storm surge watch and tropical storm watch were issued for eastern Carteret County, Hatteras Island, the northern Outer Banks and Ocracoke Island.

From Duck to Cape Lookout, water levels could reach up to 4 feet above ground, and 1 to 3 feet north of Duck and south of Cape Lookout.

“Elevated water levels will likely be accompanied by large and destructive waves,” forecasters said, adding peak storm surge forecast is generally provided within 48 hours of storm surge occurring in the area.

Heden, who is with the National Weather Service’s Morehead City/Newport office, said Monday that meteorologists began watching the storm Friday, and the storm is expected to increase in size in the coming days.

Updates throughout the weekend showed that as of midday Saturday, the storm was a Category 5, which has winds at 157 mph or faster on the Saffir-Simpson hurricane wind scale. The major storm weakened to a Category 4, then to a Category 3, with winds from 111 to 129 mph, by Sunday evening.

The storm restrengthened overnight Sunday to a Category 4, with 140 mph winds, Heden said. Sustained wind speeds for Category 4 storms range from 130 to 156 miles per hour.

Forecasters said Monday that tropical storm force wind gusts were possible for the coast, with the highest probability for the Outer Banks, but stronger gusts were possible in any passing outer rainbands associated with Erin.

“The earliest reasonable time of arrival of tropical storm force winds for the immediate coastline is sometime Wednesday morning,” forecasters said. “However, the most likely time this area could see tropical storm force winds will be during the evening on Wednesday.”

The main concern with the winds will be the potential for soundside flooding on a north to northeast wind for Down East Carteret County, Ocracoke and Hatteras Island on Thursday.

Coastal flooding could begin as soon as Tuesday, more than 24 hours before any tropical storm force winds arrive, peaking Wednesday into Thursday and slowly easing up later in the week, according to the National Weather Service.

Forecasters also advise that extensive beach erosion could occur because of strong, long periods of wave energy with waves as high as 15 to more than 20 feet in the surf zone. These waves will also make the surf extremely dangerous Wednesday into Thursday, as well as the life-threatening rip currents expected the majority of this week.

Hyde, Dare counties

Hyde and Dare counties have issued states of emergency and were evacuating Ocracoke and parts of Hatteras Island ahead of the storm’s arrival Monday.

States of emergency went into effect for Dare County at 6 p.m. Sunday, and for Hyde County’s Ocracoke Island at 8 p.m. Sunday.

Dare County officials announced Sunday afternoon a mandatory evacuation had been issued for Hatteras Island Zone A, which includes all of Hatteras Island, including the unincorporated villages of Rodanthe, Waves, Salvo, Avon, Buxton, Frisco, and Hatteras.

Visitors were to evacuate by 10 a.m. Monday and residents must begin evacuating beginning at 8 a.m. Tuesday.

The mandatory evacuation order for Ocracoke visitors began at 8 p.m. Sunday and for residents starting at 6 p.m. Tuesday.

“It is extremely likely that Hyde County EMS services will not be available in Ocracoke due to Highway 12 being inaccessible. Please take this warning seriously, especially if you have medical issues or are likely to need special care,” Hyde officials said in a release, adding plans to continue monitoring the forecast and issue advisories as appropriate.

The North Carolina Department of Transportation’s ferry division announced Monday that only residents, homeowners or vendors with an Ocracoke re-entry sticker on their vehicles will be allowed on ferries inbound to Ocracoke, in coordination with the mandatory evacuation order.

“While we don’t expect Hurricane Erin to make landfall on the Outer Banks, there will likely be large waves, ocean overwash and major coastal flooding that impact Highway 12,” said Ferry Division Director Jed Dixon. “We hope everyone will heed the evacuation orders for their own safety.”

No visitors will be allowed access to Ocracoke Island until the evacuation order is lifted.

Priority boarding will be suspended for all vessels leaving Ocracoke, and tolls have been waived for ferries heading from Ocracoke to Cedar Island or Swan Quarter.

The Ocracoke-Hatteras, Ocracoke-Cedar Island and Ocracoke-Swan Quarter routes will run the published schedules until the evacuation is complete.

Service on the Ocracoke Express passenger ferry, which runs between the village of Ocracoke and Hatteras Island, is suspended until further notice.

For real-time travel information, please check NCDOT’s DriveNC.gov and the agency’s social media accounts. People can also receive text or email notifications on ferry schedules and changes through the Ferry Information Notification System, or FINS.  

National Park Service

To be consistent with Dare and Hyde counties, Cape Hatteras National Seashore will be closing beach accesses and facilities, the National Park Service said.

“The Coastal Flood Watch indicates that extreme beach erosion and coastal damage is likely along the oceanside, resulting in a significant threat to life and property. Large, dangerous waves will likely inundate and destroy protective dune structures,” according to the press release. “Severe flooding will likely extend inland where there is vulnerable or no protective dune structure, flooding homes and businesses with some structural damage possible. Roads will likely be impassable under several feet of water and vehicles will likely be submerged.”

Museum of the Sea at Cape Hatteras Lighthouse and the Discovery Center on Ocracoke Island will close by 5 p.m. Monday. 

Cape Point, Frisco, and Ocracoke campgrounds were to close by 3 p.m. Monday and Oregon Inlet Campground will close at noon Tuesday. Bodie Island Lighthouse will close Wednesday and Thursday.

Off-road vehicle ramps were to close by 9 p.m. Monday. To view the status of beach access ramps, visit http://go.nps.gov/beachaccess.

Due to the presence of threatened oceanfront structures, the Seashore will close beach access in Rodanthe from the terminus of Old Highway 12 to the end of the Ocean Drive and in front of the village of Buxton southward to Ramp 43.   

Visitors should stay off the beaches completely and discontinue use of all beach trails and boardwalks beginning Tuesday morning.

Hurricane Erin is forecast to be a potential threat to Cape Lookout National
Seashore, with North and South Core Banks expected to experience the most significant impacts, Lookout officials said, adding that coastal flooding will likely be a long duration issue with impacts lasting late into the week.

Cape Lookout National Seashore officials plan to close facilities starting at noon Tuesday, including the Light Station Visitor Center and the Keepers Quarters Museum, through at least Friday.    

Island Express Ferry Service will cease operations out of Beaufort and Harkers Island beginning Wednesday through Friday.   

Great Island and Long Point Cabin Camps reservations have been canceled for Tuesday through Friday. The closure could extend beyond Friday, depending on the impact on the seashore. 

“I hope Erin will remain off the coast and head out sea, but hope is not a good way forward.  I really hate to impact people’s plans, and we aim to reopen as soon as possible afterwards,” acting Superintendent Katherine Cushinberry said Monday in a statement.

The National Park Service staff will be monitoring ongoing developments with Hurricane Erin and will post updates as needed on the park website at go.nps.gov/stormwatch.

BUXTON — A newly emerged area of petroleum pollution on Buxton Beach will be addressed by a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers-contracted response team, the Corps’ Savannah District announced late Wednesday.

After residents here again reported the presence of fuel sheen and odors, as well as the appearance of long-buried infrastructure and debris on the shoreline after a storm late last week, Col. Ron Sturgeon, the Corps district commander, visited the site Tuesday with Cape Hatteras National Seashore Superintendent Dave Hallac.

“We are committed to the health and safety of the community,” Sturgeon stated in press release Wednesday. “The beach environment is difficult and changes from day-to-day, but we are dedicated to finding the petroleum contamination and removing it.”

On Aug. 1, the National Park Service temporarily closed Old Lighthouse Beach lifeguard area and a 0.3-mile section of beach extending south from the southern end of Buxton village to about 0.4 miles north of Ramp 4, an area adjacent to what is officially known as the Buxton Formerly Used Defense Site.

The U.S. Navy, followed by the Coast Guard, operated bases on Buxton Beach from 1956 until 2010. Buxton Beach Access is at the south end of Old Lighthouse Road.

Hallac said the meeting with Sturgeon and members of the Corps’ response team was “very productive.”

“We had an opportunity to inspect the site and discuss next steps,” he said in an Aug. 5 text, responding to a question from Coastal Review. “They will be providing public information as they continue to evaluate options and advance a plan, but I am confident that they are moving very rapidly, as fast as they can, and are committed to mitigating the current threat to the environment.”

The contamination and debris problem had first revealed itself after a series of coastal storms in late summer 2023. Those storms caused severe erosion along the shoreline at Old Lighthouse Beach, exposing chunks of fuel-soaked peat and large pieces of buried infrastructure left behind from the Navy and Coast Guard bases. As a result, the beach was closed for safety and health reasons from Sept. 1, 2023, to June 12, 2025.

Since 1991, the Corps had been responsible for remediating the former Navy property as one of the Defense Department’s Formerly Used Defense Sites, or FUDS, under the Defense Environmental Restoration Program. Over the years, the program had removed tons of polluted soil and set up numerous monitoring wells.

After the 2023 exposure of petroleum contaminants on the beach, the Corps conducted numerous investigations but was unable to isolate a direct source. Still, the FUDS office took responsibility for removal of tons of soil with evidence of petroleum. Although its authorization does not include removal of buried infrastructure, the Corps’ contractor was permitted to haul away tons of debris, including concrete, pipes, cables and wires, that had to be removed to access the contaminated soil.

Meanwhile, the Coast Guard had conducted a Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, or CERCLA, investigation at the Buxton Beach site. According to an October 2024 press release, the Coast Guard Civil Engineering Unit Cleveland initiated the site investigation in August 2023 to identify any potential contamination resulting from operations at Old Group Cape Hatteras between 1982 and 2013, when the base was abandoned.

The final CERCLA site inspection report, released in August 2024, includes details of vast amounts of herbicides, pesticides, wastewater, petroleum and various chemicals spilled, leaked and deposited at the site over the years, by either, or both, the Navy and the Coast Guard. 

One draft assessment of tests performed in 2011 at the fueling station found certain chemicals, such as PCBs, at levels that were deemed above acceptable for residential or laboratory detection limits but below permissible for commercial/industrial sites.  Other contaminants, such as arsenic and certain metals, were determined to be naturally occurring. Even evidence of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, at the site was considered acceptable because it’s normally found in sea spray.

But the passage of time, the overlapping pollutants from both bases, in addition to regulatory complexity, apparently has satisfied the Coast Guard’s responsibility for the current environmental condition, from its point of view.

“In accordance with the U.S. Code and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulations the CERCLA investigation sought to determine actionable remediation levels associated with volatile organic compounds, semi-volatile organic compounds, heavy metals, and chlorinated solvents,” the Coast Guard said in an Oct. 4, 2024, press release. “The investigation findings concluded that there are no actionable levels of these contaminants resulting from past Coast Guard operations at the sites.” 

Coast Guard officials did not respond by deadline to an email asking whether the Coast Guard had plans to remove any remaining infrastructure that may be associated with Group Cape Hatteras. Both the Navy and the Coast Guard were obligated to remove all their buildings when they left the site, according to the park service, which owns the land.

Brian Harris, a Buxton resident and a founding member of the Buxton Civic Association, said that the latest petroleum was evident on the beach on the morning of Aug. 1, along with a portion of the remains of what some believe was from the Coast Guard’s wastewater treatment infrastructure. As typically happens on the beach, the exposed pollution and debris was soon recovered by sand, he said, and could be uncovered again at any time.

But unlike the initial incident in 2023, Harris said he has total confidence in the Corps’ FUDS team and Sturgeon, whom he can now call directly to discuss concerns. 

“A year ago, we were screaming and sending emails to all our congressional representatives and senators,” he said. “And we have contacts now.

“The Army Corps of Engineers isn’t going to tell you what they’re doing until they do it,” he continued. “But (Sturgeon) was here, and they’re working on a plan right now.  At this point, it’s light years above where it was last year.”

The Corps’ contracted response-action team will arrive as early as next week, the Corps said in the press release, and will continue to monitor the site conditions to determine the appropriate actions, including containment with oil-absorbent booms.  

“The Savannah District will concurrently mobilize equipment and personnel to excavate and remove petroleum-impacted soil from the beach and dunes,” it said. “These actions will not affect the upcoming petroleum comprehensive soil and groundwater sampling that begins in September/October 2025.”

MANTEO – The Dare County Board of Commissioners, in the face of strident pushback from residents and coastal advocates over a proposal to gut special protections for an area around the Buxton Woods Reserve, voted Monday to keep in place those development restrictions officials had previously called “unenforceable.”

The longstanding restrictions on multifamily dwellings within the half-mile buffer around the 1,007-acre Buxton Woods Reserve on Hatteras Island are part of a zoning ordinance that created the 1,868-acre special environmental district, also known as SED-1, which also includes protective areas around the island’s drinking water wellheads.

A company called OBX Timber Trail LLC in March had requested that the county remove the zone’s dwelling density limitation for multifamily development, townhouses, or condominium projects. The request from company manager and New Jersey resident Brian Suth was so he could add a fourth apartment for year-round occupancy to his commercial building in Frisco.

That request was ultimately granted in a unanimous vote Monday, but only after it had triggered questions among county officials about the validity of the 1988 zoning ordinance in place, and fears among Buxton residents and others that the special protections would be erased.

Dare County Planning Director Noah Gillam said during a meeting in April that the ordinance didn’t appear to meet state standards because it hadn’t been properly indexed or codified.

Others disagreed.

“The ordinance was properly adopted in 1988, “Southern Environmental Law Center attorneys Derb Carter and Julie Youngman wrote in a letter to Dare County Manager Bobby Outten dated Aug. 1.

When Suth submitted his request, Gillam found there had been no reference to the ordinance since the 1990s. Consequently, there had been no development that would have challenged its wording.

Concerned about confusion and possible legal challenges, Gillam proposed striking the ordinance entirely.

That’s not what happened Monday commissioners opted instead to approve a text amendment for the fourth apartment rather than remove the entire ordinance.

“Our original amendment for the text amendment was solely to lift the limitations on density, not to eliminate the entire ordinance,” said Joseph Anlauf, engineer for the project, during the commissioners’ discussion.

During a commissioners meeting May 6, the board, after hearing from Buxton residents who were vocal in support of the overlay district and a preliminary opinion from Outten that the county might lose a court challenge on the issue of improper indexing, postponed a vote to allow time for a firmer legal opinion.

Outten’s concern were confirmed by Outer Banks attorney John Leidy that it was likely the county would lose a court challenge. Outten was also worried about the implications of a state law passed late last year that prohibits downzoning, or placing a more restrictive use on a property after it has been purchased, as could be the case in enforcing SED-1 restrictions.

But the Southern Environmental Law Center pushed back in its letter, holding that, although state statutes require indexing, “it does not specifically state that an ordinance cannot be enforced if those requirements are not precisely satisfied.” Nor does the law provide a “definition of ‘indexing’ or any directions for how to do it properly.”

Other officials had submitted their written concerns about removing the development restrictions, including David Owens, who was with the North Carolina Division of Coastal Management for a decade, notably serving as its director at the time the ordinance was adopted, an author, historian in land use law and retired professor of public law and government at the University of North Carolina School of Government.

In his letter, Owens recalled that the “Dare County Board of Commissioners, the county planning staff, and the county attorney all strongly argued for local regulation, contending the standards the county would adopt would be comparable to the state standards being considered.”

John Taggert, who in the 1980s and 1990s was the Coastal Reserve and National Estuarine Reserve manager, had urged in a letter that commissioners “retain the ordinance with consistent enforcement to permit development within the buffer that will reasonably protect Buxton Woods from significant loss of adjacent vegetative cover and allow sufficient natural infiltration for sustainable recharge of the underlying aquifer system.”

lan Weakley, professor of botany and conservation biology at UNC, also wrote to commissioners, noting that the county had approved the zoning regulations to bolster coastal protections.

“In the 1980s and early 1990s,” Weakley wrote, “the state Coastal Resources Commission relied on the Dare County zoning protections in deferring regulation of Buxton Woods as a CAMA (Coastal Area Management Act) Area of Environmental Concern. The decision was that the zoning regulations, as written and implemented, would maintain a buffer with sufficient natural character, including canopy closure, to protect the natural values of Buxton Woods.”

The public can hear an update on the work taking place to clean up the former Buxton Naval Facility site during the next Restoration Advisory Board meeting.

Doors open to the public at 5:15 p.m. and the meeting starts at 5:30 p.m. Thursday, July 17, in the Cape Hatteras Anglers Club, 47231 Light Plant Road, Buxton.

The public will be able to ask questions the last 15 minutes of the meeting, starting at 7:15 p.m. People from the community are encouraged to submit questions to CESAS-FUDS@usace.army.mil.

Now called the Buxton Formerly Used Defense Site, the area around the Buxton beach access on Hatteras Island was a base for both Navy and Coast Guard operations from 1956 until 2010, when it was returned to the National Park Service. The Formerly Used Defense Sites Program manages the environmental restoration, or cleanup, of properties formerly owned or occupied by the U.S. Defense Department.

Back on Sept. 1, 2023, officials with the Cape Hatteras National Seashore announced that the beach beside the former military site had eroded, uncovering potentially hazardous infrastructure associated with the military’s previous use. This was after surfers and visitors reported a strong smell of petroleum.

Gayle Garland, project manager of the Buxton FUDS property for the Army Corps of Engineers, is to provide an update about the current property environmental restoration projects during the meeting.  

The Corps said last fall that it had removed nearly 4,600 cubic yards of petroleum-laced soil; nearly 100,000 gallons of petroleum-contaminated water; 278,000 pounds of concrete; 1,153 feet of pipe; and 1,088 feet of metal cable and wire.

The section of beach was closed in 2023 because of health and safety concerns related to petroleum contamination and potentially hazardous remnant military infrastructure, until it reopened in June.

This is the second meeting of the advisory board that was selected March 25. The first meeting was April 10. The board does not make decisions, but allows for the community to take part in the cleanup process.

Reprinted from The Outer Banks Voice

After two hours of testimony from county officials and public hearing comments, a visibly frustrated Dare County Commissioners Chair Bob Woodard presented a motion to table any decision on an environmental zone of influence that borders Buxton Woods for 90 days, “so that we can study this and try to iron out exactly what we’ve been discussing.” The motion passed unanimously.

The discussion at the Monday meeting followed a recommendation from the Dare County Planning Board that the zone of influence in the SED-1 district should be removed from the county ordinances “based on consistency with the Dare County Land Use Plan.”

Created in 1988, the zone of influence includes an eight-mile-long area on the soundside of N.C. 12 from Frisco to the north end of Buxton. Written soon after Buxton Woods Reserve was founded in 1988, the zone of influence was an attempt to provide a “buffer to the core area of the forest that was protected under the SED-1 (Special Environmental District),” Derb Carter, Southern Environmental Law Center senior adviser and attorney, said.

The SED-1 “is Dare County’s most restrictive zoning ordinance right as it pertains to the land,” County Planner Noah Gillam told the commissioners.

The controversy over the ordinance originated earlier this year when New Jersey resident Brian Suth, who owns a building in Frisco located in the zone of influence, asked Gillam what would be involved in converting retail space in a building he owned and creating a fourth apartment. At that time, Gillam came across the 1988 language in the SED-1 amendment that defined the zone of influence.

“No multi-family development, townhouses, or condominium project located with ½ mile of any SED-1 zoning district shall exceed a dwelling density of three single family units (whether contained under one or more roofs) per acre,” the amendment reads.

A number of Buxton and Frisco residents recalled the language in the amendment was specifically designed to stop a 40-unit condominium from being developed. The amendment did, in fact, prevent the construction of the condominium. But Gillam pointed out at the meeting that if the intent was to stop intensive development of a lot, it failed.

“It doesn’t apply to a duplex. It doesn’t apply to group developments, where you put ten single family structures on one property,” he said. “You could build a hotel on it.”

That amendment, tacked on to the end of the SED-1 zoning language, was never properly indexed or referenced in county zoning documents, and that has created the dilemma for the county.

The zone of influence was not, it is important to note, a zoning district. Rather it would overlay any zones that were created in the future.

Dare County Manager Bobby Outten said “There’s law that says that if you don’t properly index it, then it’s not enforceable. And so it’s clear that it was not properly indexed. You can’t go into zoning and look it up.”

What has happened in the 37 years since the zone of influence was established is that the soundside of Hatteras Island parallel to Buxton Woods has been zoned for a number of uses, such as residential, commercial and industrial, and none of those zones reference the zone-of-influence language. Because that has been the case, there are numerous nonconforming land uses in the district.

After identifying the zone of influence amendment, Gillam advised Suth that he could not “continue moving forward creating nonconformities.”

“I advise him that he couldn’t do this,” but he could have “the language (in the amendment) removed so he could have the four dwelling units,” Gillam said.

Much of the discussion at the May 5 meeting focused on whether the amendment is enforceable and whether it does protect Buxton Woods.

Asked by Commissioner Rob Ross to comment on the language prohibiting four living units under one roof, Carter noted the amendment was more comprehensive and had robust protections for land disturbance.

“There’s a pretty substantive requirement, if it were followed, to minimize the disturbance for every type of development that occurs in every zoning district within that influence area, and that’s important,” he said.

Carter also felt the county had met the minimal standard in indexing the amendment.

“The requirement in state law on indexing is you’ve got to have a file ordinance with an index that’s readily available to the public. That’s the basic legal requirement. And in our view, all that’s been met, on indexing a zoning amendment,” he said.

The confusion about what to do was reflected in the public’s comments. Although Hatteras Island residents were overwhelmingly in favor of retaining the protections of the amendment, there was an acknowledgment that it was a complex issue.

“It feels a bit rushed, like every angle has not been fully explored. I’m reminded of the Jodi Mitchell line,” said Buxton resident Aida Havel, paraphrasing the composer’s song Big Yellow Taxi. “They came to paradise and put up a parking lot.”

Complicating any effort to enforce the zone of influence is state law SB 382 passed last year that requires written permission from every property owner in a zoning district if the district is downzoned. Since the zones covered by the zone of influence allow more development than would be permitted by the language of the amendment, it would constitute downzoning, and that Outten said, means the ordinance may not even be relevant any longer.

“You can get rid of it or if you leave it in place, we can’t enforce it,” he said.

After listening to Buxton residents, in particular, voice strong support for keeping the zone of influence in place, Woodard said, “Those (1988) commissioners had a valid reason for doing what they were doing, and they were honoring what the citizens of Hatteras Island wanted. I understand what’s before us, and there’s too much gray there for me, way too much gray for me to say, ‘let’s move forward.’ I would prefer to table it.”

This story is provided courtesy of The Outer Banks Voice, a digital newspaper covering the Outer Banks. Coastal Review partners with The Voice to provide readers with more stories of interest about our coast.

Reprinted from The Outer Banks Voice

Speaking April 16 to a room of more than 40 concerned residents gathered in the former Buxton Volunteer Fire Station, Dare County Planning Director Noah Gillam addressed community concerns over the fate of a zone of influence district designed to protect Buxton Woods Reserve.

The zone of influence is an area on the soundside of N.C. Highway 12 from Billy Mitchell Airport Road north to the Buxton and Cape Hatteras National Seashore boundary. The zone may have been written to give extra protection to the maritime forest when it was established as a reserve site in 1988 by the North Carolina Coastal Reserve, a land protection program under the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality.

But based on what came to light during the meeting organized by the Buxton Civic Association, the zone of influence was not referenced in Buxton or Frisco zoning ordinances for at least 30 years, and apparently the Dare County Planning Department was not aware of it.

In April, a request for a text amendment for a fourth apartment in a three-apartment building in Frisco brought the zone of influence language to Gillam’s attention. Based on that, the variance would not be a permitted use. But there are legal questions about whether the 1988 ordinance can be applied and is enforceable, and whether anything can or should be done about apparent nonconforming uses within the zone of influence.

Gillam said he learned of the zone of influence ordinance when researching a request from New Jersey resident Brian Suth, who owns an office building in Frisco that is part of the S-1 zoning district, requested information on converting the offices to four apartments.

“The language that’s in the (zone of influence) ordinance prohibits him from doing that,” Gillam said “So he has requested (removing) the density limitation for multi-family housing that was established in September of 1988.”

The S-1 district is defined as allowing “broad flexibility of services and uses while establishing certain density limitations, setbacks, parking requirements and other general requirements.” Based on that description, Suth’s request would have been allowed. However, based on the language in the zone of influence, the additional apartment could not be permitted.

The zone of influence ordinance was apparently designed to stop a proposed 40-unit condominium project according to Alyson Flynn, coastal advocate and environmental economist with the North Carolina Coastal Federation.

“There are minutes that point to a 40-unit development that was denied originally,” Flynn said. Gillam agreed, noting, “That was the triggering point of what created the language in ’88,” he said. The zone of influence language is very specific, reading, “No multi-family development, townhouses, or condominium project located with ½ mile of any SED-1 zoning district shall exceed a dwelling density of three single family units…per acre or usable land area.”

The SED-1 district is the special environmental district that includes Buxton Woods in Buxton and Frisco and contains the most restrictive language of any county zone. The zone of influence borders the SED-1 zone, but it is not part of it.

The ordinance was written in 1988, but references to the zone of influence were not included in zoning language for either Frisco or Buxton. Because some of the provisions in the zone of influence are more restrictive than the zoning requirements in those communities, state law requires a reference to the additional zoning language, Gillam explained.

As it stands right now, the zone of influence ordinance may not meet the legal standards of the state.

“There’s a (North Carolina) general statute that establishes that if you make an amendment ordinance and you don’t codify it throughout the ordinance to the lands it affects, that ordinance is not legal…That’s what we’re investigating now with the county attorney. Is this language even enforceable?” Gillam said.

Whether or not it is enforceable, Gillam said, the ordinance is flawed. He pointed out that if the purpose was to restrict high-impact development, it failed to do so.

Flynn agreed with Gillam, noting that “It seems like this ordinance was put into place to stop a specific development that the county didn’t want…so in that sense it has worked because there aren’t 40-unit condominiums in Buxton or Frisco,” she said. “But Noah is exactly right. There could be a hotel there, and that’s where it starts to get hairy, because on one hand, it seems like it did its job, but on the other hand, it very clearly has not.”

There are other concerns as well. Asked if, based on the zone of influence language, there are nonconforming uses, Gillam answered, “When you look at Buxton, or just in the zone of influence area, I think I counted seven campgrounds that have a density way surpassing three units per acre.”

Pressed by The Voice to address what would happen to the zone of influence language if it were successfully challenged in court, Gillam answered, “It would be struck from the ordinance.”

“And that is what (county manager) Bobby Outten is investigating right now,” Commissioner Mary Ellon Ballance added.

It is unclear what, if any, effect removing the zone of influence ordinance would have. The zoning language has not been applied since it stopped the 40-unit condominium in 1988, and monitoring of the 1,007-acre Buxton Woods, which is the “largest remaining contiguous tract of Maritime Evergreen Forest on the Atlantic coast,” according to the Buxton Woods website, has shown it to be a healthy maritime forest.

Asked by the Voice what she felt the next steps should be to address concerns about the zone of influence ordinance, Ballance noted “There’s a lot of unknowns at this point, other than our first step has got to be a determination of whether this is even enforceable.”

She wondered if there could be “a 30-day freeze on building and on any new permitting within the zone of influence.” And in suggesting a moratorium on new permitting, Ballance’s position was similar to comments Flynn made during the meeting.

“I think we need to just take a step back and look at what removal of this ordinance would look like. Find more information so we can make an informed decision,” she said.

This story is provided courtesy of The Outer Banks Voice, a digital newspaper covering the Outer Banks. Coastal Review partners with The Voice to provide readers with more stories of interest about our coast.

The newly formed restoration advisory board for the Buxton Naval Facility Formerly Used Defense Site will meet for the first time Thursday, April 10, at the Cape Hatteras Anglers Club in Buxton.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will open the doors at 6:15 p.m. and the meeting is from 6:30-8 p.m. The last 15 minutes of the meeting have been reserved for questions. Officials encourage the public to submit questions before the meeting to Cesas-FUDS@usace.army.mil.

The advisory group is expected to review and approve operating procedures, elect the community co-chair and receive an update on the current Buxton Naval Facility restoration projects.

While the stakeholder advisory group, which was selected March 25, does not make decisions, it allows community members to be part of the environmental restoration process and influence cleanup decisions.

The Buxton Naval Facility Formerly Used Defense Sites, or FUDS, property was used by the U.S. Navy as a submarine monitoring station under a special permit from the National Park Service from 1956 to 1982. The U.S. Coast Guard then used the property until 2010, when it was returned to Cape Hatteras National Seashore.

The National Park Service in September 2023 alerted the Corps that organic material with a petroleum odor had washed up on the beach during a storm surge related to Hurricane Idalia.

The following year, there were “reports of petroleum, sheen, and odors at the property were sporadic and limited to a three-tenths of a mile section of beach,” and in early 2024, remnants of military infrastructure was exposed after an erosion event, according to the Corps.

The Army Corps said in a release this week that it is working to remove visible petroleum-impacted soil and sample soils along the beach and dunes that have exhibited odors and sheen. Future action includes soil and groundwater sampling within the project area to determine the nature and extent of petroleum contamination.

For more information, visit Buxton Naval Facility (army.mil), or email Cesas-FUDS@usace.army.mil.

BUXTON — The federal cleanup of Buxton Beach has been remarkable, if only for the stark improvement in its appearance compared with a few months earlier.

With the surface building debris mostly gone, and petroleum-soaked soil removed, now the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is turning its attention to the long-term well-being of both the site and the community.

“The dune is clean, the oil is gone from the groundwater, and the beach is clean,” said Brian Harris, co-vice president of the Buxton Civic Association in a recent interview with Coastal Review. Still, he said, a lot remains to be done at the Cape Hatteras National Seashore beach where a secret submarine survey base once operated.

The Coast Guard also operated a base at the site from 1982 until 2010.

“All those buildings that were once there, they’re still there — all the foundations,” he said. “So, it’s great that the beach is clean … but as this thing keeps eroding, I don’t want my son to have to deal with this in 10 years.”

Harris said that he is looking forward to participating in upcoming meetings of the Restoration Advisory Board, or RAB. Within months, the structured group of community and agency members is expected to start meeting regularly to discuss environmental restoration at the Buxton Naval Facility.

“You know, we’ve got everybody at the table now,” he said. “And that’s really what the RAB is going for — to keep this thing going forward, and the plan for the future.”

Contractor Baywest, a St. Paul, Minnesota-based environmental services company, completed removal of petroleum-contaminated soil and water before Christmas and did a final walk-through with the National Park Service on Jan. 17, according to Corps of Engineers Formerly Used Defense Sites (FUDS) Program Manager Sara Keisler.

The $4.8 million contract will end in June 2025, after Baywest completes beach plantings.

Keisler said another contractor, Yuma, Arizona-based Nicklaus-Ensafe JV, will begin a comprehensive survey of the site in February or early March that will investigate whether more contaminants remain underground.

“Currently, the initial deliverables, which is our work plan and our safety plan, are in the process of being written and reviewed,” Keisler told Coastal Review. “Those will be reviewed by many entities, including the Corps and then we have an independent technical review that has to be done, which is done by our center of expertise.” After several other reviews, the work will be able to start.

The $177,000 contract is scheduled to end in May 2026, she said, but it can be extended if needed.

In 1991, the former Naval base in Buxton, which was a submarine monitoring station from February 1956 until June 1982, was designated as a Formerly Used Defense Site, leaving the responsibility for its cleanup to the Corps. Starting in 1989, the FUDS team removed tons of petroleum infrastructure at the 50-acre site, as well as polluted soil and water, and continued to monitor groundwater. In the last test in 2024, the contaminant levels were below state standards.

But increased beach erosion, exacerbated by rising sea levels and coastal storms in September 2023, exposed chunks of concrete and oily clumps of sand, creating dangerous debris and a strong diesel odor. As a result, the park service closed three-tenths of a mile of Buxton Beach, and a FUDS team returned to the site.

The teams spent month after month investigating the site, and after the September 2024 reoccurrence of petroleum evidence, they developed a response plan, and hired the contractors.

FUDS teams only have the authority to remove petroleum, they’re not allowed to remove underground structures unless they’re in the way. 

“While the primary purpose of the ongoing response action is to remove petroleum-impacted soil, some of the remnant infrastructures that impede excavation access to the petroleum-impacted soil have been removed, too,” the Corps’ FUDS team in Savannah District said in a press release. But workers ended up removing considerable amounts of material.

“The team began excavations Oct. 2, 2024, and … they have removed 1,442 cubic yards and 24,126 gallons of petroleum-impacted soil and water, as well as approximately 138,400 pounds of concrete, 1,153 feet of pipes and 1,088 feet of metal cables and wires.”

As of Dec. 11 2024, a total of 4,599 cubic yards of petroleum-impacted soil has been removed; 99,526 gallons of water; 278,000 pounds of concrete; 1,153 feet of pipe; and 1,088 feet of metal cables and wires, according to the Buxton Naval Facility page on the Corps’ website.

Although it took nearly a year after the first report in 2023 for the Corps to start aggressive removal of petroleum contamination, no single source has yet been identified, despite numerous early efforts by the agency.

“From our perspective, the source is previously unremoved contaminated soil and groundwater,” Cape Hatteras National Seashore Superintendent Dave Hallac told Coastal Review. “In other words, at this point, there’s no evidence that there is what you would call a traditional source of bulk product, for example, a tank that’s sitting in the ground that’s just been leaking … Rather, what’s been observed just appears to be soil and groundwater that was contaminated, perhaps decades ago by the Navy.”

Hallac added that the Corps has done some geophysical work, including with ground-penetrating radar and an “excellent” study using a magnetometer looking for anomalies. Between reviews of that work, and similar ground studies done by the park service, combined with the comprehensive survey by the contractor, the superintendent said he is confident that any remaining petroleum source will be found.

Even after frustration with the slow start on remediation and disagreements about how to address the problem, Hallac said he is appreciative of the FUDS team’s partnership.

“Yes, we feel that the Corps has made a solid effort to remove the heavily contaminated soil from the beachfront area and mitigate the impact of those soils or ground waters washing into the Atlantic Ocean,” he said.

Hallac said he’s pleased that most of the huge chunks of concrete and other surface debris on the beach are now gone. His main focus, he said, was “to stop the bleeding” with the petroleum problem.  But he’s not giving up on getting the remaining buried infrastructure removed. 

“We’re moving forward in that level of priority order,” he said. “We are still in conversations with the Corps, the Navy and the Coast Guard about what to do about everything underground.”

Corps officials are also encouraged that, at least for now, the issue with the intermittent petroleum contamination at Buxton Beach seems to have been alleviated.

“We actually didn’t have any odors after this contractor was on the site,” said Keisler, with FUDS, “and there hasn’t been any since.”

A portion of Buxton’s ocean shore will remain closed to the public as officials continue monitoring the section for likely contamination.

The closure entails three-tenths of a mile of shoreline adjacent to the Buxton Formerly Used Defense Site, or FUDS, an area that was as a submarine monitoring station by the U.S. Navy for decades.

In September 2023, soils on the beach adjacent to the site, also known as the Buxton Beach Access, tested positive for petroleum contamination.

The Dare County Department of Health and Human Services, in consultation with Cape Hatteras National Seashore, issued the updated public health advisory Tuesday.

The decision to keep this portion of beach closed “was made after factoring in the amount of contaminated soil and water removed by the Corps (of Engineers) and the prolonged period of time between the last report of apparent petroleum sheens or odors in the area,” according to a release.

About two-tenths of a mile of beach starting at the southernmost jetty in Buxton and continuing south was reopened.

Additional information on the Buxton beach access and conditions may be found online.

Because of the potential for strong wind gusts, elevated tides and heavy rainfall associated with a low-pressure system, Cape Hatteras National Seashore officials advise visitors to exercise caution on roads and beaches from Thursday evening into this weekend.

National Weather Service forecasters in the Newport office said Thursday morning that the low-pressure system will impact eastern North Carolina Thursday and Friday, “bringing the potential for multiple hazards including: strong winds, coastal impacts, heavy rain, and a tornado or two.”

Forecasters warn that rapid water levels could rise along soundside areas on Ocracoke and Hatteras islands, and that minor to locally moderate coastal flooding could continue through this weekend because to high astronomical tides. For weather-related updates, visit the National Weather Service website.

“Visitors should avoid the beach between the north end of Rodanthe and South Shore Drive, and the north end of Buxton, due to the potential for small-to-large pieces of debris to fall off multiple threatened oceanfront structures during and after the storm conditions,” Park Service officials said Thursday.

Officials also said that motorists should use caution along vulnerable areas of N.C. Highway 12 Thursday evening through at least early Saturday morning because of periods of ocean overwash. Travelers should monitor road conditions at https://drivenc.gov.

The Dare County Sheriff’s Office in a social media post Thursday morning warned that overwash was already happening at the north end of Buxton Village.

Beach driving conditions are not expected to be favorable at off-road vehicle ramps. All Seashore campgrounds are open at this time but campers around low-elevation sites may experience flooding.

HATTERAS ISLAND — With ongoing removal of petroleum-contaminated soil from Buxton Beach, along with a considerable amount of remnant building debris trucked away since September, a community meeting hosted Monday evening by U.S. Army Corps of Engineers representatives revealed notably less frustration and even a hint of a friendly partnership vibe.

“I expect them to do the very best they can,” said Jeff Dawson, a member of the Buxton Civic Association, speaking after the meeting at the Fessenden Center in Buxton in reference to the Corps’ current response.

That’s a big difference from the alarm bells the newly formed group of village residents had been ringing about the petroleum pollution and old building debris first exposed on the eroding beach by a series of storms about a year and a half earlier.

“It’s like ‘Yay!’” Dawson added. “But why did they take so long?”

Brief updates of the cleanup project were provided, but the main impetus for the meeting was to present an overview about creating a Restoration Advisory Board, or RAB in government-speak.

In a slide presentation, Alexandra Jangrell-Tackett, program manager with Dawson, the Corps’ public outreach contractor, explained that a RAB would provide an option for the community to share information about work at what is officially known as Buxton Naval Facility, a Formerly Used Defense Sites, or FUDS, as a way to keep residents updated on the actions taking place at the Buxton Naval Facility.

The 50-acre site is entirely located within the Cape Hatteras National Seashore.

While a RAB allows for “concerns, needs or values” of a community to be conveyed, similar to a public meeting, it is more formal, with two co-chairs who conduct regular meetings that have agendas and minutes. It serves as a liaison between the Corps and the affected community.

“It’s important to note that a RAB is not a decision-making body,” Jangrell-Tackett said. “However, it’s that avenue for communication exchange.”

RABs are established with “sustained and sufficient” interest from communities where active environmental restoration projects are being done at Department of Defense sites, Jangrell-Tackett said during her presentation.

But a community also has the option of just holding public meetings concerning the cleanup work, she said.

While a RAB allows for “concerns, needs or values” of a community to be conveyed similar to a public meeting, Jangrell-Tackett explained, it is more formal, with two co-chairs — one from the community, one from the defense department — who conduct regular meetings that are structured with agendas, a mission statement, operational procedures and minutes.

Each RAB could have up to 30 members, each with two-year terms in the role of liaisons.

A survey on the community’s interest in a RAB was provided by the Corps, which will evaluate it after the deadline in 30 days.

Brian Harris, a member of the Buxton Civic Association, said after the presentation that he was very pleased with the Corps’ latest cleanup efforts and willingness to communicate with the community.

“Everything’s great — we love it,” he said. “Obviously, we want the RAB.”

Harris added that either a member or the overall association would be willing to serve as the RAB community member, but they’ll know more after the results of the survey are completed and further discussion is held with the Corps.

Since the Corps’ FUDS office took responsibility in 1991 for environmental restoration at the former Naval base near today’s Buxton Beach, it had removed 50 storage tanks and 4,000 tons of petroleum-contaminated soil. It has also conducted groundwater remediation and continued monitoring.

After a series of summer storms in 2023 exposed huge chunks of concrete that was once bits of buried Navy buildings, surfers and other locals started noticing strong diesel odors at the beach and a sheen in the ocean.

FUDS investigators responded, but over the months they had had difficulty determining the source of the intermittent petroleum stench.

Then, in September, more storms left an even stronger petroleum odor on the beach, resulting in the current, more visibly aggressive FUDS response.

“It was really that event that was a catalyst to get us out to that site,” said Col. Ronald Sturgeon, the Corps’ Savannah District commander, while speaking with reporters after the meeting.

Sturgeon noted that severe erosion had complicated detection of the petroleum.

“There was 15 more feet of beach there … That Building 19, the major source of the infrastructure, was 2 to 300 meters away from the ocean,” he said. “Now it’s in the ocean.”

After being back and forth doing testing at the site for more than a year, the Corps finally saw the evidence before their eyes in September, and responded.

Related: Work gets underway to pinpoint Buxton pollution source

“The release of the petroleum out of the site was a shock,” he said. “My team really pulled together and got a contractor to the site in record time. It was under two weeks … for this type of thing, it’s actually really fast.

“And once we started digging up some of the soil, removed some of the infrastructure and started to take those readings, yeah, there was a lot of (petroleum) contamination there that we weren’t tracking.”

Sturgeon said that the contractor had removed a large amount of infrastructure in order to test and access the petroleum contaminated-soil underneath, but the Corps does not have the authority to remove any additional remnant infrastructure unless it is hampering the petroleum contamination removal.

The contractors also removed about 18,000 gallons of water from the site, which was put in a machine to sort out whatever contaminants it may contain, he said.

Excavations began Oct. 2, according to the Corps, and were expected to be completed in 60 days. To date, 505 cubic yards and 11,000 gallons of petroleum-impacted soil and water, as well as approximately 82,400 pounds of concrete, 1,133 feet of pipes and 1,030 feet of metal cables and wires have been removed, the Corps said.

A contract for comprehensive sampling is expected to be awarded by Nov. 15, Sturgeon said. The sampling will delineate the nature and extent of any petroleum contamination remaining at the FUDS property.

The cleanup will be considered completed after it falls within the state Department of Environmental Quality standards. The Corps is also working closely with the National Park Service.

“We have focused in on immediate action that was required in specific zones,” Sturgeon said. “We will continue to sample within the FUDS boundary.”

But, Sturgeon said, the source of the petroleum is still unknown.

“If I knew that, I tell you what, we’d solve the problem already,” he said, adding the mystery is why the Corps is doing further work. “We have plans to sample the entire site.”

The Army Corps of Engineers announced Monday that it is set to host a presentation next week to update the public on the ongoing response to petroleum pollution on the beach in Buxton.

The presentation set for 7-9 p.m. Monday, Nov. 4, at the Fessenden Center, 46830 N.C. Highway 12 in Buxton will also include information regarding a restoration advisory board related to the cleanup at the Buxton Naval Facility Formerly Used Defense Sites, or FUDS property near the original location of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse.

The presentation will be followed by an open house session.

The Navy formerly used the as a submarine monitoring station, and then the Coast Guard subsequently used the property until it was returned to the National Park Service.

The Corps is working to remove visible petroleum-contaminated soil and collect soil samples in areas along the beach and dunes where odors and sheen have been observed.

The Corps said subsequent actions will include comprehensive soil and groundwater sampling in the area to delineate the nature and extent of petroleum contamination.

For more information, visit the Army’s Buxton Naval Facility project website
or email Cesas-FUDS@usace.army.mil.

A meeting is planned for early November for the public to learn more about the ongoing excavation of petroleum soil and other infrastructure at a former military site in Buxton.

Army Corps of Engineers Savannah District representatives scheduled the meeting to begin at 7 p.m. Monday, Nov. 4, at the Fessenden Center in Buxton. The meeting will include remarks, an overview presentation, and a chance for visitors can speak to subject matter experts until 9 p.m.

The Buxton Naval Facility Formerly Used Defense Sites property is at the Buxton Beach Access within Cape Hatteras National Seashore. The access has been closed since Sept. 1, 2023, because of “petroleum contamination that has been entering the ocean on a recurring basis and the remnants of unsafe military infrastructure,” according to Dare County.

Since the last Corps’ last news release dated Oct. 9, excavation work has continued at the site, and some remnant infrastructure was removed from the beach so the contractors could access and excavate any underlying contaminated soil, according to a news release from the Corps Friday.

“As a reminder, the area is an active construction site,” Terry Brooks, Army Corps of Engineers mechanical engineer and on-site manager, said in a statement. “For safety reasons, it is off-limits to anyone other than those working there or the National Park Service personnel, and the public should remain outside of the roped off area.”

Removed so far from the site are 37,000 pounds of concrete, 400 feet of pipes, 50 feet of cable/wire, 75 feet of listening cable that was used to detect enemy warships off the coast, and 45.5 cubic yards of petroleum-soil, Corps officials said. Once all excavations are completed, the contractor will replace any removed sand and restore the beach.

The Coast Guard completed a site inspection report of the former facility, identifying lead in the soil and groundwater near the former small arms range, which belonged to the Navy. The Buxton property does not have any open projects that address the small arms range.

“In anticipation of creating a new environmental restoration project and to prepare a Project Eligibility Recommendation, the Army Corps of Engineers is gathering information, to include the Coast Guard’s (site inspection) Report, about the small arms range. Project approval is required for environmental restoration activities to occur. The timeline is currently undetermined,” officials said.

BUXTON — As storm-roiled ocean surf continued to unbury noxious reminders of an old submarine surveillance base, aggressive action is finally being taken this week to address the ongoing blight of a Cape Hatteras National Seashore beach.

Contractors for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers are scheduled to start work Friday near Old Lighthouse Beach in an intensified effort to locate the source of intermittent fuel odors and oily soil clumps first exposed more than a year ago by storm erosion.

“The overall objective of the response action is to remove visible petroleum-impacted soils from the beach and dunes,” said Cheri Pritchard, media operations chief at the Corps’ Savannah office, in a Sept. 18 email response to questions from Coastal Review. The specific amount of material that will be removed, Pritchard said in the email, was “yet to be determined.”

The Corps in 1991 designated the former Naval facility as a Formerly Used Defense Site, or FUDS property. The Corps has since taken responsibility for cleanup of petroleum infrastructure and spills and leaks in surrounding soil at the 50-acre site. But during numerous visits over recent months to the site, the FUDS teams said that the current source of the petroleum had been difficult to pinpoint due to increased erosion, ever-changing conditions and the passage of time.

Bay West, a St. Paul, Minnesota-based environmental services company, was recently awarded a contract by the Corps to remove contaminated soils at the site.

According the information the FUDS team provided to Pritchard in the email, the contractors will work in up to four quadrants of various sizes along the beach and dunes, likely using heavy equipment such as excavators and roll-off containers.

“The contractor will excavate and containerize the petroleum-impacted soils from these areas and then properly transport and dispose of the material at an offsite waste management facility,” according to the email.

Depths of excavations of oily soil will vary, but generally would be expected to go down to the water table.

After fielding numerous questions and concerns from the community during the Sept. 3 Dare County Board of Commissioners meeting, Col. Ronald Sturgeon, the Corps’ Savannah District commander, traveled down to Buxton with other Corps officials.

About a week later, the Corps announced that it would send a district-level team in response to the fuel sheen and odors to monitor the site. According to the FUDS email, the team, which will stay until the contractors are onsite, has performed test pits on the beach and west of the dunes to identify petroleum-impacted soils.

 “We are committed to the safety of the community. Together with our federal, state and local partners, we’re going to find the contamination, and we’re going to remove it,” Lt. Gen. Scott A. Spellmon, Corps of Engineers commanding general, said in a Sept. 9 press statement.

In September 2023, the National Park Service closed three-tenths of a mile of Buxton Beach after reports of oily peat clumps on the beach, a strong odor of diesel, and an oily sheen in the nearshore ocean.

In addition to the fuel issues, the beach was littered with remnants of Naval base infrastructure, including large chunks of concrete and rusted rebar and wiring.

In the year since, the debris has been covered or partially covered by sand, then reexposed, depending on storms, tides and winds. And the fuel smells and sheen have also come and gone, although their appearance is more mysterious. But as the ocean eats away at the shoreline, each exposure seems worse than the time before.

Related: ‘Strong petroleum smells’ lead to expanded beach closure

With strong northeast winds on Sept. 5 carrying powerful petroleum odors along the beach near the FUDS location, as well as exposing more debris, Cape Hatteras National Seashore announced in a press release that it was expanding the size of an already-closed beach area.

“The precautionary expansion, implemented in consultation with the Dare County Department of Health and Human Services, closes the beach from the southern end of the location of beachfront homes in the village of Buxton, located at the end of Old Lighthouse Road, to approximately 0.25 miles south of the old lighthouse jetties,” according to the statement.

“We are working with the Coast Guard Sector N.C. and the EPA’s Regional Response team to see if there is some way the saturated sections of petroleum soil that are being uncovered can be removed to mitigate the releases into the ocean,” Dave Hallac, the superintendent of National Parks of Eastern North Carolina, said in a Sept. 5 email.  “We are also asking if something can be done to prevent the sheens that are coming out of the sand/water interface from washing into the ocean.”

Hallac was unavailable to be interviewed for this report.

Although the Buxton Naval Facility, decommissioned in 1982, qualified as a FUDS property — a status for sites transferred outside Department of Defense control prior to Oct. 1986 — the Savannah district says it does not have the authority to remove the remnant infrastructure from the property.

Still, in the process of removing petroleum-impacted soil, if it is found under remaining infrastructure, the Corps will respond.

“The response action will include excavating, with the possible removal, of petroleum-impact soil beneath some of the remnant infrastructure which may require removal of limited amounts of infrastructure that is incidental to accessing the impacted soil,” the FUDS team said in the email.

The site cleanup is made more complicated by the fact that the Coast Guard most recently used the property as a base until 2010, and left behind its own hazards, which are currently being reviewed by the Coast Guard.

According to a portion of its special use permit issued in 1956 to the Navy that the Cape Hatteras National Seashore cited on its website, it appears that the Navy may have slipped out of town before meeting its part of the deal.

Condition 11 of the permit states that “The permittee shall remove all structures, foundations, and pavements, and clean up and restore the site prior to or immediately following termination of use.”

“The Navy concluded operations at NAVFAC Cape Hatteras in June 1982;” the park service website said, “however, all buildings and infrastructure remained at the site.”

But with the Navy long gone and the Corps saying it lacks authority to get rid of the growing amount of debris, all eyes are now focused on getting rid of the petroleum pollution that is washing into the Atlantic and coating the beach.

The debris cleanup will be for another day.

Because of “strong petroleum smells” noted early Thursday, the Cape Hatteras National Seashore staff has temporarily expanded the boundaries of a previously closed section of Buxton beach adjacent to a former military site.

About 0.2 miles of beachfront where the U.S. Navy and Coast Guard had bases from 1956 until 2010 have remained closed since Sept. 1, 2023, “after naturally occurring barrier island erosion uncovered potentially hazardous infrastructure associated with the Navy and Coast Guard bases and visitors reported a strong smell of petroleum.” Since then, the park staff has been working with other agencies to mitigate the issue.

Staff said that over the past 24 to 36 hours, several feet of sand had washed away, exposing the soil and groundwater. The erosion uncovered a significant amount of hazardous remnant Navy and Coast Guard infrastructure, such as concrete, rebar, wires, PVC and metal pipes, metal fragments, and cables that have been left in the ground.

Around 8:30 a.m. Thursday, staff reminded visitors that the 0.3-mile-long section of beach was closed at what is now the Buxton Formerly Used Defense Site, or FUDS, because the “soil and groundwater that is apparently contaminated with petroleum from historic military use of the site is now exposed to the beachfront during low tide, and wave action during high tide.”

About an hour later and after consulting Dare County Department of Health and Human services, staff said the closure had been expanded 0.25 miles south of the old lighthouse jetties. The closure includes the beach in front of the southern groin and the Old Lighthouse Beach parking areas.

“The odors were impacting the area due to the strong northeast winds and erosion which is apparently exposing historic petroleum contamination at the FUDS,” according to the 9:30 a.m. Thursday update.

Seashore staff reported the observed petroleum exposure to the National Response Center, operated by the Coast Guard, Army Corps of Engineers and other state agencies that assist with pollution response. Staff also asked the interagency Regional Response Team, which coordinates response and provide technical advice during oil spills or pollution events, for help.

The closure may change over the coming days based on ongoing field observations and will update the public as information comes available, staff said.

Historical information about the former military site is at http://go.nps.gov/buxtonbeach. Recent and historical photos of the site are in the Buxton Beach Access photo album. 

The Army Corps of Engineers said Thursday it plans to begin as soon as this month geophysical work to identify any potential fuel distribution components remaining at the Buxton Naval Facility site that’s part of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore.

In its announcement, the Corps said the subsurface survey work would begin no later than early July and that a contractor would perform comprehensive sampling at the Formerly Used Defense Site, or FUDS, site in Dare County sometime later this year.

“We’re committed to advancing our investigative efforts at the Buxton FUDS project,” said Col. Ron Sturgeon, the Corps’ Savannah District commander, in a statement. “After thoroughly reviewing the data collected to date at the site, we have determined that a more comprehensive investigation is needed within the project area to further assess the site based on current conditions.”

Officials said that once the geophysical work was complete, the results would be used in drafting a plan to follow in the comprehensive sampling. A contract for the additional work is anticipated to be awarded in October.

The Corps said these next steps were identified after recent investigations and the completion of an internal review by its Environmental and Munitions Center of Expertise. The review included thorough assessment of data from a site visit, interviews with Corps, National Park Service, Coast Guard and contractor personnel, as well as a evaluation of 40 or so documents pertaining to prior and current observations, investigations and corrective actions taken at the FUDS site. The document, called The Strategic Optimization Technical Memorandum, is available in the center’s report.

The Corps said it also completed pipe removal work at the Buxton FUDS site last month, work that also included soil sampling. The contractor was waiting to receive the raw data from the laboratory, the Corps said, and once that is received and reviewed, final results will be publicly shared.

HATTERAS ISLAND – The Army Corps of Engineers said Tuesday it had finished removing a pipe at the former Navy base here, but officials are still awaiting results from soil sampling to determine their next steps in the cleanup.

The Corps’ Savannah District announced that contractors at the Buxton Naval Facility Formerly Used Defense Sites property completed their work Friday after removing 70 to 80 feet of pipe and liquids it contained as well as those in surrounding soil.

Results from the soil sampling, once processed, are to be shared with the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality for coordination on how to proceed.

The Corps said it was also performing an internal review of its investigations to date through the Environmental and Munitions Center of Expertise. 

“The Savannah District is committed to keeping the community informed about the status of our investigative work at the Buxton FUDS project,” said Col. Ron Sturgeon, the Corps’ Savannah District commander. “Once we receive the results and determine the next steps, we will provide an update through a news release and the project’s webpage.”

A Hatteras Island resident in September alerted Cape Hatteras National Seashore officials about strong diesel fumes and a sheen on the water near the old Navy base after Hurricane Idalia. Superintendent Dave Hallac reached out to the Savannah District to report organic material with a petroleum odor had washed up on the beach during this time.

The Corps sent teams in September, October, November, December and February to collect soil samples, perform borings, dig test pits, and take air samples, to identify the source. 

The Corps said that it had discovered a pipe in February after further beach erosion that it identified as a potential source. The Corps awarded a contract earlier this month to remove the pipe and sample the surrounding soil.

There’s a webpage for the former Buxton Naval Facility FUDS property at Buxton FUDS with access to a contact email for questions about the site, frequently asked questions, the September 2023-February 2024 Final Summary Report of Findings as well as facts related to the site and other Savannah District’s FUDS properties and projects.

BUXTON — The Army Corps of Engineers announced Monday that it is taking action related to intermittent evidence of petroleum odors and sheen at a Cape Hatteras National Seashore beach.

In a press release from the Savanah District Formerly Used Defense Site, or FUDS, program, the Corps said it will remove a pipe and sample surrounding soil to determine if it is the potential source of the petroleum.

After months of on-and-off reports from the public of strong diesel fuel odors and sheen present on the beach and in the ocean, the National Park Service told the FUDS office that a suspect pipe was observed on an eroded section of beach, the release said.

The Corps is working in partnership with the park service as part of an ongoing cleanup and investigation of pollutants related to former bases at the site that had been used by the U.S. Navy and the Coast Guard.

A contract to remove the pipe and test the soil is expected to be awarded by September, with work likely beginning by late 2024 or early 2025, the FUDS release said.

About a third of a mile of Buxton Beach has been closed for months because of the petroleum contamination concern and increasing amounts of debris exposed after a series of storms. Huge slabs of concrete, wires and other infrastructure remains now litter the national seashore where the old Navy base had once stood.

The FUDS program does not provide the authority or the funding under the Department of Defense law covering the debris removal, the Corps said. The program has previously removed petroleum pollutants from the former Navy site.

“All FUDS Program remediation efforts are authorized by Congress and are restricted to cleaning up properties formerly owned by, leased to, or otherwise possessed by the United States and transferred outside DoD control prior to Oct. 17, 1986,” according to the release.

“The FUDS Program may only address restoration activities which are determined to be the result of DoD activities,” the statement said. “However, the remnant infrastructures, exposed on the beach after storm erosion, are not eligible for removal under the FUDS Program, as those structures were not in an unsafe condition at the time the site was transferred out of DoD control.”

As part of the pipe removal contract, the Corps will establish a Restoration Advisory Board, which “serves as a forum for discussion and exchange of information between agencies and affected communities,” the statement said.

Also, a summary report that is currently under review will be posted to the Savannah District website when completed.

“The Army Corps of Engineers is committed to advancing remediation efforts authorized under the FUDS program to protect the health and well-being of communities and the environment,” the release said.

 Questions for the FUDS Program team members can be addressed to cesas-FUDS@usace.army.mil, with ‘Buxton FUDS’ in the subject line. To learn more about the project, visit Buxton FUDS.

Reprinted from Island Free Press

After photographer Don Bowers, who has been documenting storms in the northern Buxton beach area for decades, visited the shoreline Wednesday, he said that this week’s low-pressure system has caused more damage there than he has seen since he moved to Hatteras Island in the mid-1960s.

“In the 1970s, we had two big nor’easters that came through and pummeled the (Buxton) area, but we didn’t have as many houses back then,” he said. “This is as bad as I’ve ever seen it.”

Other areas of Hatteras Island were not as severely affected by the storm, but northern Buxton has had multiple cycles of oceanside flooding, particularly during recent high tides, since Monday.

The damage stretches from the northern Buxton border to the now-closed Buxton Beach Access at the end of Old Lighthouse Road.

As of Wednesday, Bowers reports that there are at least a dozen septic tanks that have been recently exposed.

There are a half dozen exterior staircases that have been washed away from homes, multiple broken water pipes, and extensive and miscellaneous debris.

Many side streets in the area remain flooded, while the pilings of oceanfront homes are submerged in ocean waters.

At the site of the former Navy and Coast Guard military base, which has been an area of concern since petroleum smells and sheens started appearing in the fall of 2023, the presence of old infrastructure has noticeably increased in the past several days.

Former remnants of concrete buildings, pipes, cables and other debris from the 1956 to 1982 Navy Base have been a continual sight since two offshore hurricanes brushed the Outer Banks in early September 2023.

As of Wednesday, more infrastructure along the shoreline has been revealed, and the petroleum smell has returned.

“I’ve been out there many times, and it smelled bad today – worse than it has before, I think,” Bowers said.

Cape Hatteras National Seashore personnel expanded the size of the closed beach area near the Buxton Beach Access on Sunday, and a revised precautionary public health advisory was issued for the area on Monday.

The Outer Banks may get a brief and minor respite after days of strong northeast winds, elevated surf, and accelerated erosion Wednesday afternoon, but a second low pressure system is expected to impact the Outer Banks starting late Wednesday night.

Additional overwash and erosion are possible in the next several days, and N.C. Highway 12 may be impacted in northern Buxton and other areas with vulnerable and compromised dunes.

For more information on the forecast, visit the National Weather Service.

This story is provided courtesy of the Island Free Press, a digital newspaper covering Hatteras and Ocracoke islands. Coastal Review is partnering with the Free Press to provide readers with more environmental and lifestyle stories of interest along our coast.

Update 9:35 a.m. March 26:

A meeting is scheduled for 6 p.m. Wednesday in Buxton for the public to hear updates on the status of petroleum contamination and hazardous infrastructure remediation at Cape Hatteras National Seashore’s Buxton Beach Access, officials announced Monday evening.

Seashore Superintendent David Hallac will give a presentation during the meeting being held in in the Fessenden center in Buxton, and the National Park Service staff will be available to answer questions.

History about the access is at http://go.nps.gov/buxtonbeach and photos are available at Buxton Beach Access photo album.

Original post 5 p.m. March 25:

Cape Hatteras National Seashore, state and Dare County health officials issued a public health advisory Monday for the Buxton Beach Access because of petroleum-contaminated soils that recently have caused alarm.

Officials said the contaminated soils were likely exposed by beach erosion near the former site of Naval Facility Cape Hatteras and Coast Guard Group Cape Hatteras in Buxton, from the near 46285 Old Lighthouse Road to and including the first jetty.

Officials cited cases of varying mild to moderate headache, nausea and skin irritation affecting people who had participated in recreational water activities in the area.

Since Sept. 1, 2023, when the agencies and the Army Corps of Engineers issued a precautionary public health advisory, multiple soil samples have shown the presence of weathered light fuel oil, a small amount of lubricating oil, petroleum hydrocarbons, and nonpetroleum contamination.

Related: Diesel odor returns to Buxton beach; source still unknown

The beach in this area has remained closed since the issuance of the precautionary public health advisory, and on-site mitigation work has not started, officials said Monday.

Until the petroleum contaminated soils are mitigated and the area is declared safe, environmental and public health officials recommend avoiding swimming, wading or fishing in this area in Buxton until further notice. If skin comes in contact with contaminated sediment or water, thoroughly wash the affected area with soap and water.

In addition to the potential health risks related to petroleum contamination, there are a number of remnants of what is believed to be Navy and Coast Guard infrastructure, officials warned. These structures include concrete bunkers and building foundations that may pose hazards to swimmers, surfers and beachgoers.

Area residents who rely on a private drinking well should have the well water sampled to ensure it does not contain contaminants. If the well is a drinking water well, contact Dare County Department of Health and Human Services at 252-475-5088 to schedule sampling.

Those who notice plumes, sheens or fish kills in this area should call the Environmental Protection Agency National Response Center at 800-424-8802.

Clarification: Dare County officials noted in an email to Coastal Review that while the Coast Guard was the last owner of the site, “it was inherited from the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is responsible for the FUDS declaration so there are several parties at play that we would like to appeal to without any one party being perceived as taking the blame.” That said, the resolution states that the Coast Guard is the designated federal on-scene coordinator in the coastal zone, with a duty to assess and mitigate the problem, “when a responsible party fails to do so.”

Citing threats to the environment and public safety, the Dare County Board of Commissioners unanimously approved a resolution Monday that requests that the Coast Guard take immediate action to restore the Buxton beach access to its “pre-military condition.”

Commissioner Danny Couch presented the resolution during the board’s regular meeting in Manteo. The resolution asks the Coast Guard, as the designated federal on-scene coordinator for the coastal zone in North Carolina, to take immediate action to rectify oil discharge into the Atlantic Ocean and adjacent shoreline and remove remaining infrastructure debris.

This situation is concerning, “not just from an environmental standpoint, but from a public safety standpoint as well,” Couch said.

The area at Cape Hatteras National Seashore’s Buxton beach access at the south end of Old Lighthouse Road served as a military base for both the Navy and Coast Guard from 1956 until 2010, according to the National Park Service website.

The Army Corps of Engineers approved in 1998 the Buxton Beach Access as a Formerly Used Defense Site and began responding to petroleum contamination there.

On Sept. 1, 2023, visitors reported that erosion from two storms “uncovered potentially hazardous infrastructure associated with the Navy and Coast Guard bases and visitors reported a strong smell of petroleum,” and reported these concerns to the Environmental Protection Agency’s National Spill Response Center.

“Due to decades-long military usage and apparently incomplete restoration of the area, samples taken from the Buxton Beach Access beach tested positive in early September 2023, for petroleum-contaminated soils (PCS). Additionally, due to coastal erosion, abandoned facilities, construction debris, and septic systems associated with historic Navy and Coast Guard activities have been observed along the beach adjacent to the Buxton Beach Access,” the website states.

Most recently on Feb. 9, park staff noticed “a very strong smell of petroleum products and multiple surfers reported that their wetsuits and hair smelled like fuel and noticed a sheen on the water near Buxton Beach Access,” according to the website. Reports were again submitted to the National Response Center.

“Why should we be concerned about the closing of this beach here? I’ll tell you why,” Couch told the board. “Because it’s not a good look for National Seashore” to have houses crumbling into the ocean in Rodanthe because of erosion “and then to have crime tape” cordoning off the debris on the beach ranked No. 4 in the U.S. by Dr. Beach.

Dr. Beach is an author and director of the Laboratory for Coastal Research at Florida International University who ranks beaches at drbeach.org.

The area in Buxton is also where where the county has committed to preserving N.C. Highway 12 infrastructure, Couch noted.

“I’m just curious if this exact scenario had washed up on the beaches of, I don’t know, Martha’s Vineyard or the Hamptons on Long Island. Would we still be begging pleading for someone to please remediate this dangerous and unhealthy situation?” Commissioner Bob Ross asked during the meeting.

Commissioner Bob Woodard noted during the meeting that he, the vice chair and the county manager were going to travel to Washington, D.C., and, “this will be one of our top subject matters when we meet with our legislators.”

BUXTON — Surfers catching waves off a Hatteras Island beach last week had reported a sheen on the water, burning in their eyes and a noxious coating on their wetsuits. Numerous people noticed a powerful stench of diesel on the shoreline by the popular surfing spot in Cape Hatteras National Seashore.

Although a similar strong odor was evident after an October storm at the same beach in washed-up clumps of peat, the source of the pollutant is still a mystery.

“We cannot address contamination if we don’t know where the contamination is,” Carl Dokter, program manager of the Army Corps of Engineers Savannah District’s Formerly Used Defense Sites, or FUDS, told Coastal Review on Thursday. “And every attempt we’ve made to drill some holes and find it reveals no peat, no organic layers, no diesel — just clean samples.”

Back in the fall, Dokter said in an interview, that since there had been fuel spills at the nearby former Buxton Naval Base that FUDS has remediated, in addition to removing tanks and contaminated soil in the early 2000s, the office had agreed in recent months to remove any remaining petroleum contamination. But with the ever-changing conditions at the beach, and the intermittent recurrence of the diesel odor, its origin has so far evaded detection by the team’s instruments.

In fact, Dokter said, when his team had gone to Buxton to investigate, the only place that tested positive for petroleum was washed-up sediment on the beach.

“Then our geologists looked for the peat layer,” he recounted in the interview last week. “And they explained to me that the beach has eroded about 30 feet vertically and 150 feet horizontally over the decades. So the peat layer, which you can see at the base of the dunes, has long since eroded away.”

During a visit on Wednesday at the Buxton beach, Cape Hatteras National Seashore Superintendent Dave Hallac noted that the diesel odor was clearly most powerful in the vicinity of a slab of concrete debris exposed in the surf zone. Even with breezy conditions that day at the oceanfront, the smell was potent and offensive.

Pointing to a pipe protruding from a nearby eroded dune, Hallac said that the odor was also discernible from whatever had been in the pipe. He later added that results received on Friday from an independent laboratory indicate evidence of the fuel. The test, commissioned by the park, detected TPH (total petroleum hydrocarbons) and DRO (diesel range organics) above “state action” levels, Hallac said.

Soil samples the Coast Guard took in Buxton in September revealed weathered light fuel oil, a small amount of lubricating oil, petroleum hydrocarbons, and nonpetroleum contamination, according to a press release.

Looking back: Navy base’s wretched reminders not just petroleum in soils

Before the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse was relocated from the surf in 1999, the nation’s tallest brick tower had stood guard since 1870 from the same beach. From 1956 to 1982, just to the north, the Navy had operated a secret submarine surveillance base, which the Coast Guard acquired in 1986. When Group Cape Hatteras relocated in 2005 to Fort Macon in Carteret County, the Coast Guard was required to remove infrastructure on the base before returning the property to the National Park Service.

As has become more apparent as erosion increases and unpleasant surprises are unburied, lots of stuff was left behind: building debris, toxins from dumped pesticides, and contaminants from spilled and leaking fuel containers.

The Coast Guard was still in the process of responding to questions from Coastal Review about its current and past responsibilities and activities in Buxton, according to an email Thursday from Jonathan Lally, with Coast Guard 5th District public affairs.

Chunks of concrete with wires sticking through, various sizes of pipes and portions of concrete foundation from what was once the Driftwood Club, where sailors gathered to drink and socialize, and Building 19, the terminal “T” building where the listening cable was believed to be, now litter the beach. Just off the sand in the nearshore, surfers have to evade metal parts of several deteriorating jetties the Navy built that stick up in the water. And the Coast Guard and FUDS are still monitoring groundwater, conducting tests and/or working to remove contaminated soils related to operations at the bases.

“Every time there’s a storm, more stuff gets exposed,” said Russell Blackwood, a surfer and free diver who has lived by what is known locally as Lighthouse Beach for 50 years. “Then in a day or two or three after a storm, it covers it right back up.”

Blackwood also worked at the Navy base in the 1970s. He theorized in a recent interview that the military had redundant diesel tanks under the T building, and the fuel is pushed up during storms.

“It only comes out of the tanks when there’s ocean water over them,” he said. “You’d go there when there’s no swell, at low tide, and you’d barely smell it.”

But around Feb. 7, after heavy weather, in addition to the seawater-fuel mix looking “milky-gray” and the sheen on top of the water, he said, “you couldn’t even breathe.”

Despite beach nourishment projects in 2017 and 2022, Blackwood said, severe erosion in the last 18 months has undone much of it, especially by Lighthouse Beach.

“It’s gone,” he said. “There is no dune.”

According to the Corps’ December 2023 Buxton Naval Facility report and proposed soil survey map, seven above-ground storage tanks, 27 underground storage tanks, an oil change ramp, a pipeline between a building and a tank, and soil in several areas were removed in the 1990s and 2000s. In addition, groundwater had been sampled repeatedly and monitoring wells were installed.

The Corps’ FUDS offices are responsible for environmental liabilities at sites that were owned, operated or controlled by the U.S. Department of Defense before Oct. 17, 1986.

Dokter, with FUDS, said that his office is continuing to work with the National Park Service and the state Department of Environmental Quality on how to tackle the problem. A team went to the site last week, and a field report on the December work is due within weeks.

“We’re trying to look into every possible source for where this is coming from,” Dokter said. “But the dilemma I’m facing the most is, I can’t remove something I can’t find. And that’s where our big frustration lies right now.”

The Corps team is even considering whether the fuel is coming from prior spills offshore. If the problem continues, he added, “at that point, I have to sit down with my with my technical team and probably reach out to our center of expertise and discuss options.”

But Dokter said the pipe to which Hallac is referring is an unlikely source because it wouldn’t account for the volume of fuel that has been reported.

Hallac also said that the National Seashore is asking the Corps to follow through on the cleanup that was supposed to have been wrapped up years ago.

“And so the concern is that the project was not completed and we continue to request that the Army Corps of Engineers remove the building foundations consistent with the plans that were provided to us in 1985 and 1986,” he said.

Dokter, however, said his “hands are tied,” at least for now.

“Because our program and policy states that we address things that were a hazard at the time, hazards that arise after it was transferred out of Department of Defense control are not eligible for FUDS funding,” Dokter said. “And so each erosion creating that hazard over time, since it was transferred out of DOD control, I’m just legally not allowed to pay to fix that.”

Despite the challenges, Hallac said that he is confident that the situation will be addressed, preferably sooner rather than later.

No matter, as Blackwood sees it, the fuel will just keep coming back to remind everyone that nothing is being done.

“I guarantee you, next time we get a north swell, it’ll be back,” Blackwood said. “When the surf gets to 6 feet, that’s when they need to come here. They need to camp here.”

BUXTON — Petroleum spilled and partially cleaned up at a long-abandoned U.S. Navy base at Cape Hatteras recently reemerged in clumps of peat soil after a storm. Last month, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers stepped up to take responsibility for the cleanup, even though its source is technically uncertain.

But the diesel smell and oily mudballs, now temporarily reburied, are only one of the wretched souvenirs left behind on the Cape Hatteras National Seashore beach by the Navy and later, the Coast Guard, including chunks of building debris, metal shards from deteriorated jetties and possibly other soil contaminants. 

“Looking at the historical evidence and knowing that the Navy had a release, we’ve decided that we are going to address any petroleum contamination that may still be present,” Carl Dokter, manager of the Corps’ Formerly Used Defense Sites, or FUDS, program based in Savannah, told Coastal Review.

The Corps responds to environmental liabilities at sites that were owned, operated or controlled by the U.S. Department of Defense before Oct. 17, 1986, he said. The Navy had operated a submarine surveillance operation in Buxton under a special-use permit from the National Park Service from 1956 to 1982. The Coast Guard acquired the site, near the original location of the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, in 1986, operating as Group Cape Hatteras until the base relocated in 2005 to Fort Macon in Carteret County.

According to a 1999 Corps site assessment, the state Department of Natural and Environmental Resources had issued a notice of violation to the Buxton facility in 1997, citing at the time groundwater samples containing chemicals 1,2,3,4 trimethylbenzene and naphthalene.

After discovering that the petroleum storage tanks on the base had apparently leaked, Dokter said, the Corps in the early 2000s removed the tanks and a significant portion of contaminated soil.

The stink after the storm

Cape Hatteras National Seashore Superintendent Dave Hallac got a call Sept. 1, after Tropical Storm Idalia, from a Hatteras Island resident concerning a strong diesel smell coming from the old Navy base, as well as a sheen in the ocean waters.

When staff arrived at the site, they didn’t see any sheen on the water, but they did note a slight smell of diesel, Hallac told Coastal Review. After Hallac reported the problem, Coast Guard members from Sector North Carolina came to the site and took soil samples that showed contamination from petroleum. The park service then closed that section of beach, which remains closed.

Hallac said the odor had followed strong swells from the offshore storms that caused erosion and uncovered the polluted soil. But about two weeks later, the situation worsened, with surfers in the area reporting headaches and rashes. On Sept. 26, the Dare County Department of Health and Human Services and other agencies issued a public alert to avoid swimming, fishing or wading in the area. Big clumps of oily peat soil, also called mudballs, were scattered over the beach.

“It was obvious that the odors were coming from those soils,” Hallac said. “I mean, it was very strong.” 

The Coast Guard then made another visit and took more samples, finding “weathered light fuel oil, a small amount of lubricating oil, petroleum hydrocarbons, and non-petroleum contamination,” according to the county’s news release.

“Totally coincidentally,” Hallac added, the Army Corps happened to be at the site when the odor was strongest, doing the groundwater remediation it has been conducting here on and off for years. The Corps also took a soil sample, which confirmed petroleum contamination.

Dokter, with the Corps, said that the agency has been addressing residual contamination in groundwater since it removed the tanks years ago. The Savannah district has been working with the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality to reduce the amount of methylnapthalene to acceptable levels.

“We have a series of injection wells and monitoring wells and we have been injecting a proprietary product … (that) binds with the petroleum and petroleum byproducts for neutralizing, but it doesn’t happen quickly,” he said. The last injection was done about 18 months ago, he added, and the Corps has continued sampling and monitoring on a quarterly basis. After the results are below regulatory levels, the site will be closed.

When the mudballs started washing up, it was clear that the petroleum contamination in the area was broader than previously understood. But Dokter said certainty as to its providence was close to impossible, especially since the oily peat clumps had already been reburied, and the beach has likely eroded 150 feet or more in recent years.

“We briefly considered trying to do what we call fingerprinting to establish, is it older petroleum or is it ’90s or later-type petroleum?” he said. “And there’s a marker that can tell you the difference. The problem is saltwater complicates everything, and the results are likely to be inconclusive if we even managed to get a sample of the (peat) product.”

Coordinated effort to determine corrective actions

The Savannah district announced Oct. 23 its intention to coordinate efforts with NCDEQ to determine corrective actions.

“While tremendous progress in technologies and techniques addressing environmental contamination have been made throughout the years, currently, there isn’t a fail-proof method that will provide a 100 percent certainty all environmental concerns are discovered and can be completely addressed,” the statement said. “The Corps does everything it can to ensure when its work is complete, human health and the environment are protected.”

Meanwhile, according to Hallac, the Coast Guard is in the process of implementing a Phase II environmental assessment of potential contaminants at the site. 

The Coast Guard has not responded to multiple phone calls and emails from Coastal Review seeking information. 

According to an online report, the Coast Guard was scheduled to start a $500,000 Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act, or CERCLA, investigation at the old U.S. Coast Guard Group Cape Hatteras site around June 15. “The contractor shall provide professional architectural and engineering services to perform continued CERCLA investigation in order to determine the extent of groundwater and soil contamination,” the posting said. “The contractor shall provide recommendations for additional remediation where applicable at the USCG Group Cape Hatteras (decommissioned) in Buxton, NC.”

In a Coastal Review report published July 1, 2013, a Coast Guard environmental engineer said that preliminary testing at the Buxton site detected evidence of chemicals that include benzanthracene, benzopyrene, chlordane, dieldrin, and endrin, as well as traces of heavy metals arsenic, chromium and mercury.

At the time, the Coast Guard was seeking $200,000 for remediation costs. No further information about the proposed cleanup has been provided.

Visible remnants

Far more visible remnants of the military’s former presence at Cape Hatteras’ oceanfront have become an increasingly obnoxious eyesore and hazard to beachgoers and surfers, including sharp shards from three concrete and steel groins the Navy installed in 1970 to stem beach erosion.

Although there had been previous discussion about repairing or removing the structures, which locals call jetties, no agency claimed responsibility, and they were left to further deteriorate after the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse was moved from the beach in 1999.

“There’s stuff that’s sticking out of the sand now,” said Carol Busbey, an owner of Natural Art Surf Shop in Buxton.

The “first jetty,” a favorite surf spot at Lighthouse Beach, has fallen apart to the extent that Busbey now has a piece of it standing in her shop’s parking lot.

“We’re actually going to sink it into the ground,” she said. “People have been cut by it. I wish they would do something about it. The surf break isn’t there anyway.”

Busbey blames the jetties’ demise and accompanying changes in the sandbar for ruining surfing at the spot. “It changed it completely,” she said. “It used to be such a great surf break. But the beach’s reputation keeps surfers coming anyway to catch what they can. Unfortunately, sometimes the jetties can be dangerous.

“The third jetty — the north jetty — it’s got horrible spikes sticking up,” she said. “At high tide you can’t see those pieces sticking up.”

In addition to litter on the beach from the oil-soaked peat clumps, which probably originated from the salt marsh, there are also chunks of debris from the old bases being exposed by erosion, much of it since September.

“There is a historic wastewater tank that is essentially on the beach — the foundation of it — that has been exposed,” Hallac said. “The building upon which the listening cables that we believe the Navy used, the foundation of that building, pipes leading into that building, chunks of concrete — and I mean very large chunks of concrete — all of that is now exposed, septic drain field pipes, PVC pipes.

“It’s to the point where it’s not safe,” he said. “There’s too much concrete, rebar, metal pipes along the beach section here that’s it’s really not safe to walk up and down the beach.”

Hallac has been discussing his concerns with both the Coast Guard and the Corps. He said he will likely reach out to the Navy soon. But, he said, the Corps is not optimistic that it could help with the problem.

As it is, the Corps has plenty of concerns with Buxton on its plate. After its risk assessment on the petroleum in the peat is completed, Dokter said the Corps will consult with NCDEQ about how to move forward, since it’s yet to be determined whether it’s even possible to remove a layer of contaminated peat soil.

“We haven’t really established a feasible way to do that,” he said. “Essentially, to remove a subsurface layer involves some level of dewatering. It’s not impossible to dewater a beach, but the costs would be astronomical.

“This is a challenge,” Dokter added. “We’ve included some of our chemists, geologists and environmental engineers, what we call our center of expertise within the Corps, because it’s a little more challenging of a problem than my typical project sites.”

Environmental and public health officials are urging people to avoid a section of beach in Buxton because petroleum-contaminated soils from military activity decades ago were likely exposed by recent beach erosion.

The Dare County Department of Health and Human Services, North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, Cape Hatteras National Seashore and U.S. Army Corps of Engineers issued the advisory Monday for the area near the former Coast Guard Group Cape Hatteras station, from about 46285 Old Lighthouse Road to and including the first jetty.

Officials recommend avoiding swimming, wading or fishing in the area until the area is declared safe. If skin does comes in contact with contaminated sediment or water, thoroughly wash the affected area with soap and water.

In addition to the potential health risks related to petroleum contamination, there are a number of remnants of previous U.S. Coast Guard and Navy installations, including concrete bunkers and steel infrastructure that may  pose hazards to swimmers, surfers and beachgoers.  

For those living near the affected area and have a private drinking well, officials recommend having the well water tested to ensure it does not contain contaminants. If the well is a drinking water well, contact the Dare County Department of Health and Human Services at 252-475-5088 to schedule sampling.

The Corps and the Coast Guard said they have been studying and remediating historic petroleum contamination at the site where military activity took place starting in the 1950s through some of the 1980s. Samples were taken by the Coast Guard after rangers with Cape Hatteras National Seashore noticed the strong scent of fuel.

The samples tested indicate that the soil contained “weathered light fuel oil, a small amount of lubricating oil, petroleum hydrocarbons, and non-petroleum contamination,” according to the release.

“We are aware of the situation along the shorelines of Buxton, N.C., and our technical team has made this a priority as they look into the matter,” Cheri Pritchard with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers said in a statement.

Pritchard explained that the Department of Defense “is committed to protecting human health and the environment and improving public safety by cleaning up environmental contamination of former military properties.”

If it is determined the petroleum-contaminated soil is related to a formerly used defense site, the Corps responds to Department of Defense-generated contamination that took place before the property was transferred to private owners or to federal, state, tribal or local government entities.

“Active communication, coordination, consultation and collaboration with those entities is critical in planning and carrying out cleanups. The Corps works hard to keep all interested parties informed and offers opportunities for dialogue throughout the cleanup phases,” Pritchard said.

If you notice any plumes, sheens or fish kills in the area, avoid coming into contact with the waters and report conditions by calling 800-424-8802.

Cape Hatteras National Seashore officials are requesting public feedback on an environmental assessment for the construction of a new multiuse pathway along Lighthouse Road, in the Seashore’s Hatteras Island District.

The comment period began Monday and ends March 28. Comments may be submitted electronically, which is preferred or mailed to Superintendent, 1401 National Park Drive, Manteo, NC 27954

A new pathway would provide users in the village of Buxton with a resilient, safe and accessible route to many of the seashore’s key visitor use areas including the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, Museum of the Sea and beach accesses, officials said.

There are two alternatives and analysis of their potential impacts are presented for public review in the Construct Multi-use Pathway in Hatteras Island District environmental assessment and newsletter.

Alternative A is no action. Preferred Alternative B is to construct a multiuse pathway.

The following are details the seashore provided on the pathway:

• A 1.6-mile-long paved multiuse pathway would be constructed on one side of the road in two segments.
• Elements of the pathway include wayfinding signage, benches, bollards and the reconfiguration of the Seashore entrance for intersection improvements and connections to local sidewalks.
• A standard 5-foot vegetative buffer parallel to Lighthouse Road from N.C. 12 to the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse and beach access areas would be created to enhance safety.
• The multiuse pathway would follow American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials standards with a minimum of 10-foot-wide path for two-way bike travel.
• An educational plaza with comfort station and picnic tables, benches and bike racks would be constructed.
• This alternative would allow bicycles, electric bicycles and motorized wheelchairs on the new pathway.
• This alternative would not allow equestrian use on the new pathway.

Students at the University of North Carolina Institute for the Environment’s Outer Banks Field Site, who have recently been studying changes in vegetation in the Buxton Woods Reserve that have occurred over the last 34 years, are set to present their research methods and findings during an event at the Dare County Fessenden Center Annex.

The presentation begins at 5:30 p.m. Monday, Dec. 5, at the Fessenden Center, 47013 Buxton Back Road, Buxton. The students are expected to discuss the type, extent, rates and reasons for change in the Buxton Woods plant community since 1988. A Q&A session is to follow the presentation, and light refreshments will be provided.

The Outer Banks Field Site is a semester-long, interdisciplinary residential learning experience for UNC Chapel Hill undergraduate students hosted by the Coastal Studies Institute at the East Carolina University Outer Banks Campus. Each fall, students from the UNC Institute for the Environment spend a semester at the field site, where they take classes, engage in internships and complete a capstone research project.

The 2022 capstone research follows the 2021 project on the 1,007-acre N.C. Coastal Reserve site and dedicated nature preserve that examined residents’ values and perspectives of Buxton Woods.

Much of the site is bordered by the Cape Hatteras National Seashore and it is part of the largest remaining contiguous tract of maritime evergreen forest on the Atlantic coast.

The program will also be livestreamed, with a recording of the presentation to be posted on the Coastal Studies Institute YouTube channel.

A written capstone report is to be posted Dec. 12 at the Outer Banks Field Site website. 

From an Island Free Press report

Dare County officials and representatives from contractors Coastal Science and Engineering and Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Co. last week reviewed for the public plans for the beach nourishment projects in Avon and Buxton.

The review took place Thursday during a meeting at the Fessenden Center in Buxton.

The two projects, which have been in the works for years, are expected to begin this summer and each take about 40-60 days to complete.

Officials have said the projects are to protect N.C. 12 from being destroyed by hurricanes and nor’easters, restore erosional hot spots, provide wider recreational beaches and restore sand eroded in Buxton since a 2017 beach nourishment project. The projects would also allow Avon and Buxton to be eligible for future Federal Emergency Management Agency community assistance funds, only granted to engineered beaches.

Dredging here takes place in the summer because of weather and wave heights. The maximum wave height to conduct safe dredging is 5 feet, and the average wave height during summer is typically well below the maximum.

During both projects, sand is to be dredged from two borrow pits about 2 miles offshore and deposited on the beach via five pipelines before being leveled. The process is expected to make the beaches at least 100 feet wide and flat throughout, but the beach profile will likely change as storms and natural weather patterns occur.

Dr. Haiqing Liu Kaczkowski, senior coastal engineer for Coastal Science & Engineering, said the beach nourishment maintenance project in Buxton will add about 1.2 million cubic yards of sand to the northern Buxton beaches.

Officials said the main reason for the project is that nourishment is not a one-time endeavor, and projects have to be conducted every five years or so in order to maintain a wide beach and a safe and protected N.C. 12.

A hopper dredge is to be used to excavate sand from the offshore borrow pit. The primary staging area is planned to be a half-acre site at the end of Old Lighthouse Road in Buxton.

Two dredges are to work in Buxton. The Ellis Island dredge, which is expected to arrive in July, is to immediately begin working in Buxton, and the Liberty Island dredge is expected to arrive in June and pump sand to both Avon and Buxton.

Once the project is complete, the county plans to have a contractor install sand fencing and vegetation sometime after Nov. 15, the end of the sea turtle nesting season.

The Avon Beach Nourishment project is a new endeavor expected to deposit 1 million cubic yards of sand on around 2.2 miles of Avon shoreline, from Due East Road to the southern village limits.

In 2021, the Dare County Board of Commissioners voted to create a new service tax district in Avon to help fund the project.

The Avon project is planned to begin before the Buxton project, with dredging by the Liberty Island expected to start in June, although construction activities may begin as early as May as Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Co. mobilizes.

Dunes are to be built up south of the Avon Pier, but not north of the pier where officials said a healthy dune line already exists.

The staging area for the Avon beach nourishment project is to be at off-road vehicle ramp 38, which will likely be closed for the duration of the project due to equipment and safety concerns.

Easements have been requested by Dare County from some homeowners in the project area so that sand may be added to sections of the shoreline beyond the National Park Service boundary.

One of the biggest concerns, primarily for Avon, is beach access during the summertime project.

Dare County Public Information Officer Dorothy Hester said the county would provide regular updates on the project’s progress and current closures via the county’s website, morebeachtolove.com, including a map for Avon and a map for Buxton.

Another concern was how construction would affect wildlife, particularly endangered sea turtles that nest and lay their eggs during summer.

Officials said wildlife monitoring would take place 24 hours a day and nests relocated as needed. If the subcontractor biologists conducting the monitoring work spot American oystercatchers, least terns or other nesting endangered or threatened bird species in the project area, a 1,000-foot closure is to be installed so that the contractor and equipment won’t encroach on the area.

A recording of the meeting is available on Dare County’s YouTube page at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CXnzYOaotwQ.

This story is provided courtesy of the Island Free Press, a digital newspaper covering Hatteras and Ocracoke islands. Coastal Review is partnering with the Free Press to provide readers with more environmental and lifestyle stories of interest along our coast. 

HATTERAS ISLAND — Buxton Woods is alive and well.

That is one of the conclusions of a study of the state coastal reserve and dedicated nature preserve conducted by University of North Carolina Chapel Hill undergraduate students and presented Dec. 2 to the Hatteras Island community at the Fessenden Center.

The students, participating in the Coastal Studies Institute’s capstone program, began their work in August and concluded the study in November.

The program is a research project giving students the opportunity to apply their academic experience in real-world situations. A one-semester course integrating human dynamics with field research, the 2021 project focused on the Buxton Woods Reserve.

The course requirements include a public presentation of the research findings.

The study, “A Temporal Analysis of Vegetation Dynamics and Community Perceptions of Buxton Woods,” found a dynamic and apparently healthy maritime forest and a community that cares deeply about Buxton Woods.

In his introduction to the presentation, Joseph Hernandez explained why Buxton Woods was studied and the research framework he and his fellow students applied.

“We were interested in Buxton Woods, which is one of the largest remaining maritime forests in the southeast United States,” he said. “We were also interested in examining Buxton residents’ perception of change in Buxton Woods. And we did that through a series of interviews that we conducted.”

The human dimension of the study was drawn from 11 interviews, a relatively small sample size. Some of that was by design and some a matter of logistics — there were only 11 students enrolled in the capstone course for the semester. But in her introduction to the human element of the study, Francesca Fradianni noted that the interviews were structured to allow full responses to open-ended questions.

“Each student conducted an interview, so there’s a total of 11 interviews, and each interview lasted roughly an hour (with) some going up to an hour and a half,” she said.

What the students found was universal support for keeping Buxton Woods as a protected nature preserve, but there were differences in how respondents saw the role of the forest.

Some viewed the preserve as a place to get away from the hurried pace of life.

“It’s an escape area. I can walk for 30 minutes, an hour, and just get my head in perspective,” one respondent said.

The question of how accessible the woods should be was where there was the widest range of opinions.

“The more people you get back there, you know, the more damage that could happen to it,” the students were told.

Others interviewed described increased access as a way to educate people in the value of the forest. “We took a walk on the nature trail … they there have little plaques that explain everything, which is very good.”

The quantitative research the students presented, reviewing human reactions to Buxton Woods, gave an overview of how the community views the forest. The qualitative work looked at whether that forest is healthy.

Buxton Woods became part of the state’s Coastal Reserve program in 1988 when residents here banded together to stop development of the forest.

According to a 1996 Buxton Woods management plan, the state began purchasing woodland tracts for protection and in 1988 Buxton Woods became part of the North Carolina Coastal Reserve program. At the same time as the state was moving to protect the maritime forest, a detailed survey of the vegetation of the area was undertaken in the Carolina Vegetation Survey.

The survey was not associated with the creation of Buxton Woods, but was rather a mutt-state study of vegetation. In their introduction to the survey, the authors wrote, “The purpose of the Carolina Vegetation Survey (CVS) is to provide a framework for characterization of natural plant communities throughout North and South Carolina and adjacent US states.”

The study looked extensively at the vegetation of Buxton Woods and provided the students with a baseline for comparison. The students were able to locate three of the original plots from the CVS study, allowing them to directly compare vegetation in an upland dune environment, lowland dune and swale.

What they found was an apparently healthy maritime forest. Although there were changes, some of them substantial, overall vegetation seemed to have increased at least marginally and, in some cases, quite dramatically.

In the presentation, pie charts were used to show the change in vegetation. Labeling any plant that was identified more than 5% of the time, the upland dune, as an example, showed a dramatic change in the type of vegetation, but not in the total vegetation identified.

In 1988, flowering dogwood, oak and loblolly pine were recorded 27.7% of the time, and ironwood, 5.5%. By 2021, there was a significant change in species composition: oak 44.6%; American holly 26.7%; loblolly pine 12.5%; wax myrtle 5.5%; and ironwood 5.3%. Perhaps most significantly the students found no flowering dogwood.

It was in the lowland dune that the largest increase in species growth was found. Using stem count as an indicator of variety, the students compared 1988 to 2021 and saw an increase from 91 to 132. When they looked more closely at the data, though, it became clear the entirety of the increase occurred at the lowland dune where the count more than doubled, going from 42 to 85 stems.

The changes in plant composition, the students pointed out, are part of a healthy ecosystem and are expected over time.

“We did notice there is difference in plant composition from 1988 to 2021. That is all natural,” Rebekah Littauer said in her concluding remarks. “Maritime forests are dynamic and changing, and Buxton Woods is no exception.”

The students’ work suggests need for further study, something Dr. Lindsay Dubbs, director of the Coastal Studies Institute Outer Banks Field Site and capstone director, noted.

“We definitely think that we will return to … Buxton Woods. We don’t know exactly what we’re going to include, but this year’s research was interesting enough, that we think it’s worth at least one more year,” she said.

For the students, the experience was sometimes physically difficult but ultimately rewarding and something to view with pride

“It was a very challenging process,” Mackenzie Douglas, a junior at UNC Chapel Hill said. “Our research … we spent two days out there, all day from 7 a.m. until 5p.m. Our directors, Lindsay (Dubbs) and Linda (Dr. Linda D’Anna), were very transparent, saying there’s going to be ticks, there’s going to be mosquitoes from the jump. So, I think they set the bar really low for enjoyment. And it ended up being far more enjoyable than any of us could have anticipated.”

For Douglas, it was something that she and the other students can also view as professional accomplishment.

“We even have some of (us) talking about how we’re going to continue this research, try to get the paper published. Even some of the people (are) wanting to work with future field sites after they graduate because this project was so unique and important,” she said.

YouTube of Presentation:

youtube.com/watch?v=ajVSUpgZ7FY&t=2837s

Reprinted from Island Free Press

The Dare County Board of Commissioners voted unanimously Monday to award a $25.87 million bid to Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Co. for the 2022 Avon and Buxton beach nourishment projects.

The county received bids for the project on Nov. 17 from Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Co., Manson Construction Co. and Weeks Marine.

Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Co. submitted the lowest bid, which was 13.7% less than project estimates from both Federal Emergency Management Agency and Coastal Science & Engineering, the primary contractor and manager of the two upcoming projects.

The estimate from Great Lakes is based on adding 2.2 million cubic yards of sand to the shoreline, which includes 1 million cubic yards of sand for Avon, and 1.2 million cubic yards of sand for Buxton.

The estimate is effectively $4.3 million less than the estimate the county received in the original beach nourishment model for the project, although the cost savings will be distributed among all the stakeholders contributing to the project, which includes Dare County and FEMA.

“FEMA is sharing in the project, so we got to reduce their shares well,” said David Clawson, Dare County finance director, during the meeting. “So when you reduce the FEMA share for the bid, we’re $2.9 million dollars to the good from what we planned on.”

According to a memo from Coastal Science and Engineering, Great Lakes is America’s largest dredging contractor and a major international competitor. Coastal Science and Engineering has worked with Great Lakes, on 10 beach nourishment projects since 1990, which includes 2011 and 2019 projects in Nags Head, and a number of similar projects in South Carolina and North Carolina.

“With extensive experience, two available hopper dredges, and a bid (that is approximately) 11% lower than the second-lowest bid, GLDD (Great Lakes) is clearly the Apparent Low Bidder,” stated Coastal Science and Engineering in the memo.

The memo also included price comparisons of recent beach nourishment projects in similar areas, with the Avon and Buxton’s cost being noticeably less than their coastal counterparts.

“When you look at (the cost) compared to what’s going on in Myrtle Beach and other areas, and the challenges that we have out here, that is very competitive. That’s a significant figure,” said Hatteras Island Commissioner Danny Couch.

After a brief presentation of the figures by Clawson, Couch introduced a motion to award the bid to Great Lakes for the 2022 project, and to authorize the county manager to proceed with the contract. The motion was unanimously approved.

Now that the county has awarded the work, Coastal Science and Engineering will coordinate with the contractor, National Park Service, state and federal resource agencies, and the county to determine an “Order of Work” before construction.

The project is slated to take place from May 1 through Sept. 30, 2022, in order to perform the work during optimal weather conditions.

The Buxton aspect of the project is a beach nourishment maintenance project, which will add about 1.2 million cubic yards of sand to the northern Buxton beaches. The original beach nourishment project, which was completed in February 2018, deposited a total 2.6 million cubic yards of sand on a 2.9-mile stretch of Buxton shoreline.

The Avon beach nourishment project is a new endeavor that will deposit 1 million cubic yards of sand on approximately 2.2 miles of Avon shoreline, from Due East Road to the southern village borer. Earlier in 2021, the commissioners voted to create a new service tax district in Avon to help fund the project.

Once the project begins, it is expected to take about 90 days to be completed, but the timeframe is very dependent on the weather. For example, the Buxton project was delayed by a few months due to a number of storms that impacted the area in 2017.

This story is provided courtesy of the Island Free Press, a digital newspaper covering Hatteras and Ocracoke islands. Coastal Review is partnering with the Free Press to provide readers with more environmental and lifestyle stories of interest along our coast. 

With the reopening of Kitty Hawk Woods Reserve in Kitty Hawk and the Buxton Woods Reserve on Hatteras Island this week after closure caused by Hurricane Dorian damage, all but one North Carolina Coastal Reserve and National Estuarine Research Reserve site is open to visitors.

Bald Head Woods Reserve on Bald Head Island remains closed to protect public safety until immediate hazards are addressed but Currituck Banks Reserve near Corolla, Emily and Richardson Preyer Buckridge Reserve near Columbia, Permuda Island Reserve near Topsail Island, Zeke’s Island Reserve near Kure Beach, Rachel Carson Reserve in Beaufort, Masonboro Island Reserve near Wilmington and Bird Island Reserve near Sunset Beach are open to visitors now.

Visitors should use caution when visiting these sites and be aware of the risk of potentially hazardous conditions associated with storm damage.

Grounded vessels have been documented on several reserve sites and visitors should refrain from disturbing these vessels to protect personal safety and respect vessel owners’ personal property while removal efforts are underway.

Updates will be posted on the Coastal Reserve’s website and via its Facebook and Twitter accounts.

The North Carolina Coastal Reserve and National Estuarine Research Reserve protects natural areas for education, research and compatible recreation. Since its creation in 1989, the program has preserved more than 44,000 acres of unique coastal environments at 10 sites along the coast.

BUXTON — Just in time for Memorial Day weekend, Cape Hatteras National Seashore will open a new beach access and parking area Friday, May 24.

The site at the end of Old Lighthouse Road, which previously served as a U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard base, will provide improved public access to oceanside recreational activities, National Park Service officials announced.

At the access, a 50-car parking area, portable restrooms, and a non-slip wheelchair beach access mat will be available.

Plans for a permanent restroom facility with showers and other site upgrades are currently under development.

Visitors planning a trip to the new Buxton Beach Access should be aware that travel through a residential area is necessary to reach the site and should pay close attention to pedestrians on Old Lighthouse Road and the speed limit signs.

In November 2013, the park service issued a Finding of No Significant Impact for a Proposal to Construct New Development That Facilitates Public Access at the Seashore. The new Buxton Beach Access and Kite Point parking area were included in the 29 projects that were approved as part of the plan.

From an Island Free Press report

BUXTON — The early impression from a recent survey of the 2017-18 beach re-nourishment project here is that the shoreline has adapted quicker than expected to the influx of sand.

The goal of the project that began in summer 2017 was to widen a stretch of beach that extended 2.94 miles in northern Buxton. A total of 2.6 million cubic yards of sand was deposited on the shoreline from an offshore ridge 1.7 miles offshore, a site that was chosen for its sand quality and consistency with the rest of the shoreline.

The dredging was officially completed Feb. 27, right before four nor’easters pounded the Outer Banks.

Haiqing Liu Kaczkowski, senior coastal engineer for project manager Coastal Science and Engineering, which conducted the survey, estimated that the series of storms sped up the sand-distribution process.

“The early impression is that the initial volume has adapted very fast, especially during the March nor’easters,” Kaczkowski reiterated.

“The overall impression is that the project has served its original purpose, which is to protect N.C. Highway 12,” said Kaczkowski. “Since the volume (of sand) was put in place, Highway 12 has not been (impassible), even during the September hurricanes and March nor’easters. The volume has adjusted faster than it would in a normal year. Because the groins at the south end of Buxton have deteriorated and have little capacity to hold more sand, the sand loss to the south has been much higher than the historical average. The detailed reasons as to why will be evaluated.”

Beach re-nourishment project surveys are typically conducted immediately after they are complete to ensure that the total volume of sand deposited aligns with the original project specs. This survey had to wait until weather conditions were optimal for obtaining the most accurate results.

The survey was conducted in two parts, measuring both the width of the beach and the depth of the waters within the sandbox, or area where the sand moves within the project. The surveyors examined the land on foot with handheld equipment and the nearshore waters with a boat equipped with GPS and tools that examine the underwater topography.

Janet Morrow Dawson, owner of the Cape Hatteras Motel in Buxton, said that the goal of protecting N.C. 12 has been successful.

“Overall, we’re very satisfied,” she said.

There’s still a little more behind-the-scenes work going on before the exact results of the survey are expected to be completed by August. Contractor Weeks Marine has been working roughly 1,000 feet offshore to remove sublines that were buried and have been inaccessible until recently. All of the equipment on the beach and close to shore was removed shortly after the project’s completion.

This story is provided courtesy of the Island Free Press, a digital newspaper covering Hatteras and Ocracoke islands. Coastal Review Online is partnering with the Free Press to provide readers with more environmental and lifestyle stories of interest along our coast.

Reprinted from Island Free Press

The Buxton Beach Nourishment project was completed on Feb. 27 with all of the 2.6 million cubic yards of sand deposited on the 2.9 miles of Buxton beach.

The completion of the project was roughly a week or two ahead of schedule, and was announced to involved parties and stakeholders at a Wednesday morning meeting in Buxton.

“Yesterday was a big day, as it was the last day of pumping,” said Dr. Haiqing Liu Kaczkowski, senior coastal engineer for Coastal Science and Engineering, or CSE. “A week ago, they were 92 percent complete. Everybody thought it would take another week or two [to finish], but then we got good news.”

The contractor, Weeks Marine, had logged in more than 114 hours of work in recent days, and had been breaking records on the amount of dredging completed during the project.

Alberto Saavedra of Weeks Marine said that the crew would be removing all equipment from the beach over the next three days, before forecasted severe weather arrives over the weekend.

“Hopefully by this weekend, all of the beach will be released to the public except for a small footprint,” he said.

The only elements from the project remaining will be two sublines, as the contractor will be unable to remove those before the bad weather arrives. However, Saavedra noted that crews would be patrolling the subline areas to ensure they are not impacted by any upcoming rough seas and winds.

The final steps will be restoring the beach to its pre-construction state, leveling the recently deposited sand, and possible tilling depending on the results of a pending compaction test.

National Park Service and Dare County representatives also discussed the possibility of adding county-funded sand fencing and vegetation, or “sprigging,” along the project area to protect the newly deposited sand.

“We asked Haiqing [and CSE] to come up with a plan for fencing and sprigging,” said County Manager Bobby Outten. “Assuming all goes well, it’s our intention to do just that.”

“This is a $22 million dollar investment, and we want to protect it,” added Dare County Commissioner Chairman Bob Woodard.

Though possible Dare County-sponsored sand fencing is in the initial discussion stages, Kaczkowski noted that installing sand fencing was an important step for affected homeowners and stakeholders.

“Sand fencing will help stabilize the dunes, so it’s a smart move,” she said. “It will protect your investment.”

In the meantime, both CSE and Weeks Marine were anticipating getting all equipment removed from the beach, so that the Buxton shoreline would get “back to normal.”

“We’re anxious about getting everything cleared out, and getting back to normal, so it looks like nothing has occurred,” said Timothy W. Kana, president of CSE. “We’ll still have natural rhythmic variations along the beach,” he added, noting that upcoming storms would shift the geography of the shoreline, “and that’s something we will be monitoring. With each project, we learn something new.”

“Our goal is for people not to recognize this as an unnatural beach,” he said.

The weekend’s forecasted windy weather, with gusts of up to 40-45 mph and high seas, will be a bit of a test, but will also speed up the adjustments that will transform the shoreline from unnaturally wide to more in-line with the other shorelines on Hatteras Island.

“What we’re trying to do is keep as much water off the highway as we can,” said Dare County Commissioner Danny Couch. “We’ve had two tests [of severe weather] so far, and it’s doing its job.”

The Buxton Beach Nourishment project was originally expected to last until August, but rough weather in the summer and fall, as well as a month of hurricanes in September, lead to multiple delays.

This story is provided courtesy of the Island Free Press, a digital newspaper covering Hatteras and Ocracoke islands. Coastal Review Online is partnering with the Free Press to provide readers with more environmental and lifestyle stories of interest along our coast. 

Reprinted from Island Free Press

Rough weather has repeatedly delayed the Buxton beach nourishment project, and now the contractor is expected to ask Dare County for an extension of its contract.

During a presentation at the Dare County Board of Commissioners meeting on Monday, Haiqing Kaczkowski with Coastal Science and Engineering, the firm overseeing the project for the county, told the board that numerous storms from late August into October made ocean conditions off the project area too dangerous for the dredge to work for 50 days.

“The average wave height is above the threshold” for the dredge to have operated safely, Kaczkowski said.

The original completion date of the $22.15 million project was Dec. 15, she said, but because of weather challenges, the contractor is proposing to extend the completion date to mid-February. Of the total 2.6 million cubic yards of sand to be pumped on 2.9 miles of shoreline, as of Nov. 6 about 1.2 million cubic yards, or 46 percent, have been placed.

With another storm headed to the Outer Banks on Monday, Weeks Marine took the hopper dredge to Norfolk for repairs and refueling, and will return when the weather improves.  Before it left, the dredge was working near Lighthouse View motel.

The company plans to replace the current dredge, the R.N. Weeks, with a new hopper dredge, the Magdalen, in January.  Kackowski said the Magdalen has more than double the capacity of the older dredge.

“So we are moving forward to the finish line,” she said. “If Weeks can continue at the same rate, we can reach it by mid-February.”

But Kaczkowski acknowledged that the larger dredge still has a shallow draft and would be subject to similar wave height limitations. Plus, winter storms can be just as problematic as summer’s tropical storms.

Wally Overman, board vice-chair, challenged the contractor’s explanation for the number of missed work days. Kackowski explained that there is a lack of historical data on wave heights at the project borrow site – the offshore source of the pumped sand – and the nearest place with data buoys is Diamond Shoals.  According to data from StormGeo, an advanced weather forecast company, there were higher than average waves at Buxton from July to October.

“The point is that Weeks knew,” Overman said about wave heights off Cape Hatteras.

But Dare County Manager Bobby Outten interrupted, making it clear that the county was not ready to discuss interpretation of the contractual requirements.

“I hate to get in a debate about what that means or doesn’t mean,” he responded.

The dredge contract includes a clause that allows for delays due to “abnormal weather conditions” and other factors out of the contractor’s control. Another provision calls for the contractor to pay $10,000 a day in “liquidated damages” to the county for each day of delay.

Kaczkowski said that she anticipates that Weeks will soon approach the county with a written proposal to extend the contract. If the parties agree, the contractor would work whenever weather permitted, including non-stop over holidays.

Forecasts so far from StormGeo for after the New Year are giving Commissioner Danny Couch, who represents Hatteras Island, some reason for hope.

“I’m going to hold out that the prognosis for the winter will be good for us,” he said. “I will stay positive that we will be able to keep rolling.”

Commissioner Steve House asked why two dredges couldn’t work at the same time to make up for lost time. But Outten said that when that option was raised during the weekly construction meetings, it was decided that it was not possible because of prior commitments for dredges.

“Short of taking a shoe and hitting it on the table, we’ve pressed them as hard as we could on those questions,” he said. “There’s not a whole lot we can do other than the screaming and kicking we’ve been doing all along.”

“It’s beyond frustrating,” House responded.

In a later telephone interview, Outten said that as of Wednesday, the county has not received any proposal from Weeks for a contract extension, meaning that current provisions still apply.

“Until we hear from them, and until we talk,” he said, “I don’t want to talk about what our legal position will or will not be.”

Outten said that during the weekly meetings with the contractor, it became obvious that the project was behind, but they had continued to say they would be able to “get it done.”  But in the last couple of weeks it became apparent that the completion date could not be met.

Still, Outten is confident that the project will be completed, one way or another.

“The only question is when is it going to be finished,” he said, “and how are the provisions of the contract going to be applied?”

This story is provided courtesy of the Island Free Press, a digital newspaper covering Hatteras and Ocracoke islands. Coastal Review Online is partnering with the Free Press to provide readers with more environmental and lifestyle stories of interest along our coast.

Reprinted from the Island Free Press

BUXTON — Coastal Science and Engineering, or CSE, project manager for the Buxton Beach Nourishment Project, provided a detailed update Monday during the Dare County Board of Commissioners’ meeting.

CSE discussed production improvement measures that are being considered to expedite construction. They reported that Weeks Marine is hoping to bring a second dredge and will work through inspections and other requirements in an effort to bring the B.E. Lindham hopper dredge on site in the next 10-15 days.

Learn More

• View the PowerPoint presentation from CSE
• MoreBeachtoLove.com

This story is provided courtesy of the Island Free Press, a digital newspaper covering Hatteras and Ocracoke islands. Coastal Review Online is partnering with the Free Press to provide readers with more environmental and lifestyle stories of interest along our coast. You can read other stories about Hatteras and Ocracoke here.

Reprinted from the Island Free Press

BUXTON — A new business on Hatteras Island is adding a little extra flavor to the community and is making waves with residents and visitors who have an appreciation for locally harvested and completely unique fare.

The company is Hatteras Saltworks, and this Buxton-based business is creating authentic sea salt from the island’s ocean waters through a lengthy but fascinating and environmentally-friendly process.

The minds behind the business are Shaena and Bryan McMahon – two longtime locals who had dabbled in homemade salt-making for years before embarking on this new venture.

Starting with a vacation to the Caribbean where Bryan created his own local salt with saltwater, a toaster tray, and a week of sunshine on the deck, the couple started making “local” salts with their son, Declan, during a number of vacations to Nicaragua, Mexico and other coastal destinations around the globe.

They were somewhat surprised to find that the salts from different regions and bodies of water – like the Pacific and the Caribbean – had a different consistency and flavor. And after moving back to Hatteras Island after a couple years of living in Maui and then New Jersey, they realized that the island’s saltwater could be ideal for homegrown, sea salt production.

“We always like to make salt when we travel,” says Bryan, “and when we moved back here, we decided to ‘test the waters.’”

“The No. 1 factor for salt is clean water, and the waters here are perfect,” adds Shaena. “Compared to the other salts we’ve made, it has such a robust flavor.”

“Location is another reason the salt here is so good,” says Bryan. “Two major currents – the Labrador and the Gulf Stream – collide here, so the waters are alive with good nutrients and minerals.”

He said the salty waters off the coast of Hatteras Island are unlike any other waters on Earth, which makes the local Hatteras salt completely distinctive, nicely bold and surprisingly healthy.

“We don’t add anything to it,” explains Bryan. “A lot of companies use iodine and caking agents, but the water here is pure with a high salinity, so we don’t add anything extra.”

The end result is fat flakes that hold a wealth of flavor in each little bite, and which upon first taste, is sharp, zesty and surprisingly different than everyday or even other specialty salts.

And best of all, because the saltwater is slowly evaporated, the final salt is high quality and unrefined, and the McMahons say it retains up to 92 trace minerals, which they note are a crucial contributor to our immune, digestive and circulatory systems.

So how does the process of extracting pure salt from the neighboring ocean work? It’s a lot more complex than you’d think.

The McMahons did a ton of trial-and-error testing before finding the perfect eco-friendly method for salt production, which didn’t utilize fossil fuels, but which still reached the temperatures required during the evaporation process to be approved by the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services.

The end result is an ingenious collection of recycled materials and glass-lined wooden box containers — or “ovens” — that use solar energy to speed along the evaporation, as well as enable the “kill stage.”

“We worked with a scientist from N.C. State,” says Bryan. “You need to bring [salt] up to 145 degrees for 15 minutes to kill off organisms. Our ovens reach up to 180 degrees… and all we need is sun.”

The McMahons’ operation takes place on a private lot behind Fox Watersports in Buxton, and at first glance, the site looks like a line of solar panels that are bordered by small huts on pilings and laid-down recycled carpet.

It’s a confusing set-up to be sure, but as the McMahons explain the operation, the individual elements start to make more sense as the process is outlined.

The McMahons collect the saltwater from the breaking waves in huge rectangular tanks that are tricky to transfer to and from the beach. From there, the saltwater goes through several filters that remove any sand or other sediments and is then transferred to the solar-designed ovens which each hold individual tubs.

Once in the tubs, it’s a waiting game of a month or so for the water to heat, evaporate and leave nothing but pure salt behind. The McMahons then do one final “flash” to remove any excess moisture, break it down with a mortar and pestle or just their hands, depending on the batch, and then package it.

Virtually all of the materials and containers in the intricate design are completely recycled.

The boxes or “ovens” that dry the salt are made out of wood that Bryan found on the beach and are covered with repurposed glass windows. The packing room used to be a storage area, and the carpet that lines the area around the ovens was acquired as a secondhand item as well.

And while the materials used for production may be simple on the surface, finding the precise formulas, ratios, and procedures to achieve the final product was a lengthy endeavor.

It took months for the McMahons to go from planning stages to finished product – with the ovens first put into operation in November – but they’ve been amazed by all the community help and support they’ve received to get their project off the ground.

“So many people have helped us with this,” says Shaena. “The community has been so embracing and supportive.”

And once Hatteras Saltworks was approved by the state, the first wave of salt became available to the public at the Avon Farmer’s Market and two local restaurants and was subsequently received with rave reviews.

“We’ve gotten a lot of positive responses,” says Shaena. “People bought it at the farmer’s market, and then came back for more. It’s a great gift to take home, and you can use it for so many things.”

Indeed, Hatteras Salt can actually be used a number of ways, outside the kitchen.

Granted, it’s tempting to use all the fat salt flakes to liven up a grilled fish, a pile of fresh veggies, a soup or pasta dish, or everything in between, but the salt has unexpected skincare and health benefits as well.

“One of my favorite ways to use it is in a scrub,” says Shaena. “There’s a coconut-eucalyptus-sea salt recipe that I love, and we put it on our website.”

The three ingredient recipe, which has been sampled at recent farmer’s markets, can be found here.

And while the salt is currently available in relatively limited supply, the demand for this versatile homegrown product is growing fast. Hatteras Saltworks has already received inquiries from health companies around the world, and they are planning to make their salt available in additional shops and/or restaurants all along the island.

In the meantime, if you want to try the surprisingly vibrant and robust salt, you can pick it up at the weekly Avon farmer’s markets on Tuesday mornings on the Hatteras Realty grounds, or can swing by Conner’s Supermarket in Buxton, Pangea Tavern in Avon, or The Inn on Pamlico Sound in Buxton to pick up a batch.

To Learn More

• Hatteras Saltworks Facebook Page

This story is provided courtesy of the Island Free Press, a digital newspaper covering Hatteras and Ocracoke islands. Coastal Review Online is partnering with the Free Press to provide readers with more environmental and lifestyle stories of interest along our coast. You can read other stories about Hatteras and Ocracoke here.

The maritime forest of Buxton Woods is an island of green amid the beach houses of Hatteras Island. Photo: Outerbanks.com

The Buxton Wood preserve stretches along N.C. just north of the village of Buxton. Much of it would have been destroyed for a golf course. Maps: N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission

BUXTON — Buxton Woods has perched for millennia on that windswept jut of land shouldering into the vast Atlantic known as Hatteras Island. But 25 years ago this maritime forest almost ceased to exist.

Part of a complex dune environment, Buxton Woods on Hatteras Island holds an otherworldly allure in the viney, impenetrable thickets and wind-shaped, mossy stands of ancient oak. It is America’s most easternmost maritime forest, and its trails appear to wend mysteriously back into time. Buxton Woods, though, has always been offbeat.

Perhaps it’s in the relict terrain, where beyond the surf clusters of shrubs and stands of red cedar give way to a line of dunes stabilized by the bordering woods. Here, sedges, seasonally flooded freshwater marshes crowded with cattails, sawgrass and wild rice, send spidery tendrils into the murky depths. Shimmering springs bubble up from the loam, making these blackwater swamps another maritime forest surprise. Great groves of oak and resiny pine may or may not yield to a salt pond marsh bordered by acres of meadow hay, where fiddler crabs scuttle and twirling shrimp come to rest at last on the briny bottom. And where the loblolly pine overlaps the palmetto palm is a special place, the biogeography demarcation line where north meets south.

Offshore lurk the treacherous Diamond Shoals, the graveyard of ships. Among the wrecks is the USS Monitor, the world’s first ironclad warship. Here, too, raged the U-boat campaign of WWII, when Allied merchant vessels blazed like lurid torches in the night. In the Woods’ midst a small cemetery contains the anonymous remains of British seamen, victims of that long-ago conflict. Sometimes, an owl’s cry floats hauntingly over the gravesite.

The sodden soils and boggy depressions attest to the presence of an aquifer. Maritime forests evolved in part to retain and replenish the underground water table, and in time a vast body of freshwater collects within the porous matrix. When tapped, it is called a well field. Overpumping can lead to an insufficient water supply, saltwater intrusion and contamination and land deformation such as sinkholes.

Buxton Woods offers several walking trails, top, that wend deep into the forest. A boardwalk provides easy access into parts of the preserve. Photos: Outerbanks.com, top, and National Park Service

Man’s imprint is light upon the land, which harbors carnivorous plants and delicate orchids concealed in the foliage, swarms of butterflies sipping nectar from colorful flowers and pond frogs piping incessantly until dawn. Jurassic-looking cormorants spread big black wings to dry, as speedy-legged shorebirds run a perilous gamut of crashing surf yet somehow evade a soaking. Sand hills buffeted by ocean tempest are held in check by the network of root and rhizomes that anchor the grasses and forest. Even the hurricanes tearing across the landscape help clear away the pine trees and give the slow-growing live oaks space to mature. Nature’s delicate stasis, in evidence everywhere, makes this fragile environment especially vulnerable to change.

The 1980s and ‘90s were economic boom times. Plans were developed concerning Buxton Woods’ entrancing remoteness, rugged beauty and precious underground aquifer.

In 1986, the future began to look like a golf course and subdivision. As Buxton Woods sits atop Buxton aquifer, an outcry ensued over the effects of development on the water supply and stability of the forest. The Southern Environmental Law Center of North Carolina joined the Friends of Hatteras Island in opposing the project. To better control development, the N.C. Chapter of the Sierra Club nominated Buxton Woods for designation as an area of environmental concern under the state Coastal Area Management Act. The N.C. Coastal Resources Commission, which sets development policy in the state’s 20 coastal counties, voted in 1988 to give the Woods such a designation, but allowed Dare County to adopt a special environmental-district local ordinance restricting development to protect the forest and aquifer. A landmark lawsuit in 1995 challenged a state permit that would have allowed the Cape Hatteras Water Association to dig wells in the Woods and strengthened protection of the maritime forest and its aquifers. The state stepped in to help secure funding for Buxton Woods as a state coastal reserve, acquiring the first 150 acres 25 years ago. Most of the remaining undeveloped forest – about 1,000 acres — was eventually acquired and permanently preserved.

Despite the contentious process, total protection of Buxton Woods remained elusive. But the key aspect of raising public awareness for the need of responsible land stewardship was achieved.

“It was an incredibly complex process,” recalls Shay Herring Clanton of Friends of Hatteras Island. “It took a lot of groups of people a long time to accomplish.”

Derb S. Carter, director of the law center’s office in Chapel Hill, who prosecuted the permit challenge, concurs. “The local residents who worked to prevent inappropriate development deserve all the credit for preserving Buxton Woods,” he said. “We were glad to provide assistance [and set] a legal standard for preserving it.”

The coalition worked together but used different methods. Behind the scenes, for instance, the Nature Conservancy of North Carolina prioritized and purchased endangered tracts of available land, while the guidance and support of the N.C. Coastal Federation was especially useful, as Clanton recalls, during “the endless public meetings” and the “heavy lifting” crucial for success.

Today, a more esoteric threat faces Buxton Woods, explained Todd Miller, the federation’s executive director. “The biggest concern is that private development will thin the tree canopy too much, and allow salt spray to intrude and kill back the remaining trees and vegetation,” he said. “Protecting the canopy so that it remains thick and unbroken is key to healthy maritime forests.

Was the effort worth it? “Putting aside those maritime lands was one of the finest things I’ve ever done—despite my naiveté”, wryly notes Clanton.

Ricki Shepherd, another Friend of Hatteras added, “Grassroots organizations can make a huge difference,” she noted. “But you have to make the effort.”

Buxton Woods still sits upon its jut of land, luring naturalists with a weird ear for diversion. A favorite is the fantastic birding opportunities. Athwart a migratory flyway, the skies of Buxton often fill with flocks of swans, geese and ducks of every strip, including scaups, grebes and the oddly-coifed but colorful wood ducks. In spring swallow-tailed kites may overshoot their southern nesting zones, while unfortunate migratory songbirds, some thousands of miles from home, fall prey to swift peregrine falcons and lordly eagles.

Still, barrier islands are inherently unstable formations, gone in the geologic blink of an eye. One needs an appreciation and a sense of place. “It’s an amazing thing to live on a thin strip of sand in the ocean and be able to walk into Buxton Woods,” says Shepherd. “I’m very proud of what the Friends of Hatteras Island accomplished.”