Emerald Isle commissioners are expected to consider at their meeting later this month raising tenfold the town-imposed penalty for violations involving damage to primary dunes.

The proposal, one that would increase the fine from $1,000 to $10,000, was unanimously approved last Tuesday by the town’s planning board and comes on the heels of Emerald Isle’s issuance of a cease-and-desist order for construction on an oceanfront lot.

Remarque Home Builders LLC was slapped with a notice of violation and ordered to stop working at 3405 Ocean Drive until the dune destroyed at the property, as well as a designated natural area on the lot, have been fully restored.

“I’ve been working as a beach town manager for most of my career, nearly three decades, and this is the most egregious violation I have ever seen,” Emerald Isle Town Manager Frank Rush said by telephone late Wednesday.

Carving more than 5,600 square feet of primary dune that buffered the lot from the oceanfront beach is a violation of the Coastal Area Management Act, or CAMA, minor permit the builder’s obtained May 1, 2024.

The developer also violated a town ordinance that requires 35% of a lot remain as undisturbed natural area.

The owners of the Cedar Point-based limited liability company did not respond to Coastal Review’s request for comment in time for publication, but in a statement to WCTI-TV, the owners said they were “cooperating fully” with the state and the town.

“We are working cooperatively with the regulators to finalize a remediation plan, to restore the dune in accordance with their directives, and to satisfy any lawful fines or penalties that may be assessed. We will continue to do what the Town and CAMA ask for us until this matter is fully resolved. Dune stewardship along the coast is a shared responsibility.”

It is unclear why the dune was leveled.

“The questions being examined at our property, such as how construction, landscaping and dune work interact with CAMA requirements, are not unique to 3405 Ocean Drive,” Remarque Home Builders said in the email. “We understand that similar work has been undertaken by other owners on Ocean Drive without triggering comparable regulatory action.”

“We raise this not to deflect responsibility, but to underscore that these are questions faced by many property owners along the coast, and by the regulators charged with applying the same standards to each of them,” the statement continues. “We welcome a regulatory process that produces clear, consistent guidance and even-handed enforcement across all similarly situated properties, and we are committed to helping that process succeed here.”

Rush said that sand from the dune was redistributed on the 0.43-acre lot and, in some cases, pushed onto adjacent properties.

“Essentially they have to put it back the way it was,” he said.

That entails restoring the dune to its original height of around 25 to 26 feet and planting it with vegetation commonly used for dune stabilization.

Under the terms of the notice of violation, the developer will also have to resubmit a new, separate pool permit so town staff “can judge that application on its own merits after this violation is completely resolved.”

The town’s notice of violation issued April 22 came with a $1,000 fine. The developer also faces an estimated $1,000 state-imposed fine, according to the town. If the limited liability company does not come into compliance within 60 days, the developer will be fined $1,000 a day until work is complete.

“They’ve indicated they intend to rectify it much sooner than that,” Rush said.

The town will not issue a certificate of occupancy for the 7,300-square-foot, 12-bedroom, 13 ½-bath house listed for $6 million until the repairs and restoration have been completed, he said.

Remarque, in its statement, reiterated that the property is privately owned and asked the media and public to stay off the lot where the conspicuously missing dune has drawn the ire of area residents and property owners who’ve taken to social media to express their outrage.

“If this is not escalated appropriately, it opens the door for others to push limits, take shortcuts, and deal with the consequences later. That is not a precedent we can afford to set in Emerald Isle,” Jamie Vogel, a former town commissioner, wrote in a social media post last month.

“The oceanfront dunes provide critical storm protection, aesthetic, and ecological value for Emerald Isle and the Town places the highest priority on a healthy beach strand and dune field,” Rush wrote in the May edition of the town’s newsletter Emerald Tidings. “Collectively, the community has invested tens of millions of dollars in beneficial beach nourishment projects over the past 23 years, and these sane placement efforts have resulted in the significant augmentation of existing dunes and the construction of new dunes to advance the Town’s goals. The Town’s existing dune protection regulation and State CAMA regulations are carefully crafted to balance dune protection, private property rights, and overall storm protection for the entire community and the violations at 3405 Ocean Drive were clear and obvious.”

The Emerald Isle Board of Commissioners will hold a public hearing during its May 12 meeting at 7500 Emerald Drive before considering amending an ordinance to increase the penalty for violations that involve primary dunes. That meeting will begin at 6 p.m.

The North Carolina Coastal Resources Commission is to meet next week to consider proposed language amendments for inlet hazard areas.

The meeting for the commission, which establishes policies for the N.C. Coastal Management Program and adopts rules for both the Coastal Area Management Act and the N.C. Dredge and Fill Act, will begin with a field trip to Ocean Isle Beach’s terminal groin at 3 p.m. on April 15. 

The full commission meeting is scheduled for 9 a.m. on April 16 at 111 Causeway Drive, Ocean Isle Beach. An in-person public comment period is scheduled for 9:30 a.m. that day. The public may sign up to speak upon arrival at the meeting.  

Members of the public may attend in-person or join the meeting Thursday through the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s YouTube channel. 

The commission establishes areas of environmental concern, which are authorized under CAMA, and are the bases of the permitting program for regulating coastal development.

There are three types of ocean hazard AECs: ocean erodible, inlet hazard, and unvegetated beach.

The ocean erodible area is “the area where there exists a substantial possibility of excessive erosion and significant shoreline fluctuation,” and the inlet hazard area is defined as “locations that ‘are especially vulnerable to erosion, flooding and other adverse effects of sand, wind, and water because of their proximity to dynamic ocean inlets,” according to the division, which carries out the rules and regulations for the commission.

During the meeting, the commission will consider ocean erodible area and inlet hazard area erosion rates and setback factors.

The division has since 1979 used the same long-term erosion data to determine construction setbacks in inlet and ocean hazard areas, and to establish the landward boundaries of ocean erodible areas of environmental concern.  

The commission’s setback rules are used to site oceanfront development based on the size of the structure according to the graduated setback provisions. In areas where there is a high rate of erosion, buildings must be located farther from the shoreline than in areas where there is less erosion. The size of the structure determines how far back a house must be located away from the shoreline.

Because of limited data and resources, erosion rate setback factors within inlet hazard areas have traditionally been based on the rates of adjacent ocean erodible areas.

“Given the rapid changes that can occur at inlets, this method has often resulted in setback factors that underestimate the true erosion dynamics of these areas,” division documents state.

During the commission’s August 2025 meeting, Dr. Laura Moore, the chairperson of the commission’s Science Panel on Coastal Hazards, presented the panel’s recommendations on updated boundaries for inlet hazard areas and ocean erodible areas, and their corresponding erosion rate setback factors.

A subcommittee was appointed at the time to evaluate the possible changes, and presented its recommendation during the February meeting.

Updating ocean hazard area boundaries for inlet hazard areas and ocean erodible areas, along with the associated erosion rate setback factors, requires rule amendments to reference the updated report and maps, documents continue.

Because inlet hazard area boundaries have remained static and adjacent ocean erodible area erosion rates were applied within the inlet hazard areas, the primary amendment has been to the rule “to simply reference the updated oceanfront erosion rate report.  However, this update includes revised IHA boundaries and inlet-specific erosion rates within IHAs, necessitating additional rule amendments to reference the applicable reports, maps, and use standards,” documents explain.

Division staff noted that the 2025 study is consistent with previous update studies, in that inlet hazard area boundaries at undeveloped inlets were not analyzed.

The commission at this month’s meeting is to consider approving rule amendments that reflect the subcommittee’s findings and recommendations and supported by the Coastal Resources Advisory Council, updated inlet hazard boundaries, and updated ocean erodible areas and inlet hazard areas erosion rate setbacks, to include ocean erodible areas landward boundaries.

Division staff are to recommend removing the inlet hazard area designations from Little River Inlet, New River and Brown’s Inlets at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, Bogue Inlet at Hammocks Beach State Park, Barden Inlet, Ocracoke Inlet and Hatteras Inlet.

“It is important to note that while inlet hazards are present at these sites, these areas are not being developed,” staff said.

In addition, division staff are to present updates on septic systems within the ocean hazard areas of environmental concern, consider draft rule amendments for human-made ditches requested by a petition for rulemaking, and a permit for temporary weather monitoring structures on the beach in the ocean hazard area of environmental concern.

The full meeting agenda and briefing materials are on the commission’s website. 

Note: This story has been updated to correct the misspelling of Louis Bacon’s first name.

Restoring land as close to how it was more than two centuries ago is by no means a cheap venture.

Just ask Louis Moore Bacon.

Since 2012, Bacon has invested more than $100 million in the property on which his ancestor, Roger Moore, founded Orton Plantation in 1725 off the lower Cape Fear River’s western bank in Brunswick County.

Nearly a third of that cost has gone toward restoring an expansive, historic rice field system and an earthen dike enslaved Africans built some 250 years ago to protect the fields they planted, grew, and harvested Carolina Gold rice from the river.

If the state green lights a proposed project to deepen and widen portions of the shipping channel from the Atlantic Ocean to the Port of Wilmington, all of it – the dike, 350 acres of historic rice fields and hundreds of acres of freshwater wetlands – will face threat of “irreversible damage,” according to Bacon.

In a 22-page letter he submitted to the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Coastal Management late last year, Bacon detailed how the proposed Wilmington Harbor 403 navigation project “threatens the failure” of the earthen dike.

“The structural integrity of the dike is Orton’s number one concern,” Bacon wrote. “The Project poses a real and unacceptable risk of catastrophic failure of the dike system. Failure of the dike will result in a cascading series of events including saltwater intrusion into the historic rice fields, rendering them incapable of growing rice and destroying the freshwater ecological water system at the Orton Property. Failure of the dike would flood the rice fields and freshwater ponds with saltwater, erasing what stands today as a preserved monument to enslaved African Americans dating back centuries.”

He closed the Nov. 24, 2025, letter with an ardent request of the division: Object to the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ determination that the proposed project aligns with the state’s coastal policies and rules.

The Corps, Bacon wrote, failed to analyze how the proposed project to deepen and widen the harbor channel might affect historic and cultural resources along the river.

His objections echo those of other individuals and groups voicing concerns about how the project the N.C. State Ports Authority says is needed to keep the Wilmington Port competitive might impact those sites along the river.

Deepening the river channel from 42 feet to 47 feet and widening it along areas throughout the river will allow larger vessels to travel to and from the port, attracting more business, according to the authority.

But opponents of the proposed project say that, in addition to threatening historic and cultural resources along the river, it will accelerate erosion and exacerbate flooding, destroy habitat, disperse contaminants in the riverbed’s sediment into marshes and onto public beaches, and is not economically justified.

Like Bacon, their hope is that the Division of Coastal Management rejects the Corps’ determination.

The determination

Two days before the New Year, NCDEQ announced that the Corps was giving the Division of Coastal Management more time to complete its review of the federal determination, pushing the division’s deadline from Jan. 5 to Jan. 19.

Division officials have until then to determine whether the proposed project is consistent with the state’s coastal rules, including those under the Coastal Area Management Act, or CAMA.

The division must decide whether to concur with Corps’ determination, concur with conditions, or object.

Related: Wilmington residents see no good in proposed harbor project

If the division decides the latter, that could shutter the proposed project altogether.

“An objection generally prevents the federal permit or approval from being issued unless DCM and the project proponent negotiate a resolution that would allow the project to go forward,” according to the division’s Dec. 30 release notifying the public about the extension.

The Corps “may be entitled to certain mediation/appeal privileges” with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office for Coastal Management, which heads programs including the National Coastal Zone Management Program and Estuarine Research Reserves and works with coastal states, territories and partners to manage resources and address impacts from climate change.

The division has to render its decision months before the Corps wraps what it says will be a detailed examination to identify all historic and cultural properties within the project study area.

“To ensure historical and cultural sites are identified and evaluated properly, the Corps is executing a study specific Programmatic Agreement (PA) with the North Carolina State Historic Preservation Office, the General Services Administration, the North Carolina State Ports Authority, and possibly the Advisory Council on Historic Preservation,” Jed Cayton, public affairs specialist with the Corps’ Wilmington District, said in an email responding to questions.

The programmatic agreement, he wrote, is a “commonly applied strategy to protect cultural and historical resources.”

“It facilitates more informed decision-making by allowing time for additional data collection and formal coordination efforts to extend beyond the feasibility study phase,” Cayton said.

The agreement, which is currently being reviewed, must be signed before the agency finalizes project plans, which would occur some time after the Corps releases its final environmental impact statement on the proposed project.

Under a tentative timeline the Corps has shared with the public, the federal agency is expected to release the final EIS sometime this summer.

Construction on the project would not begin until 2030 and take about six years to complete, a schedule Corps officials have said is optimistic.

‘Necessary analysis’

Today, the Orton property spans about 14,000 acres. More than 830 acres of that land, including 6,800 feet of restored and repaired earthen dike and coinciding system of canals, roads, dams, and ditches, around the rice fields is listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

In his letter to the division last year, Bacon argued that CAMA protects the historic resources on his land “from irreversible damage and it protects the Property’s significant ecological resources from adverse impacts.”

The draft environmental impact statement, or EIS, the Corps released last September, “does not disclose these obvious impacts,” Bacon wrote.

“There is no analysis in the Draft EIS about the effects of the Project on the Orton Property or the CAMA-protected resources at Orton. None. This analysis cannot be deferred. The Corps’ consistency determination must be supported by ‘comprehensive data and information.’”

“The Corps’ failure to undertake the necessary analysis is the simplest reason that Division should object to the consistency determination,” he continued.

His land is among nearly 30 historic sites and properties the N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources’ State Historic Preservation Office lists as being within the proposed projects area of potential effects.

Last October, that office penned a letter to the Corps requesting the programmatic agreement, “so as to address effects on known and potentially National Register-eligible historic properties to be adversely affected by the proposed undertaking and the regularly scheduled maintenance dredging, spoil placement, and environmental mitigation measures following the proposed undertaking.”

While Corps studies of historic properties that may be affected by the proposed project “appear to have focused solely on the physical impacts of dredging the river-bottom, placement of dredged materials, and locations of mitigation measures, we believe from nearly two decades of observation and monitoring erosion at historic properties along the channel that we can expect other effects will result from the proposed project,” the letter states.

Dark Branch

Among the list of 28 sites and properties identified in that letter is Dark Branch, a community in unincorporated Brunswick County where land remains largely owned by the descendants of emancipated slaves.

Dark Branch, also known as Kendall Chapel, was founded in the early 1870s by a handful of formerly enslaved people, including Robert “Hooper” Clark, who’d been forced to work the rice fields of Orton, Lilliput, and Kendal plantations.

The land they purchased between those plantations became “a thriving hub of Black farming, entrepreneurship, and civil rights activism,” according to the Historic Wilmington Foundation.

Dr. Charles Chavis Jr., Clark’s fourth-great-grandson and executive director of the Dark Branch Descendants Association, explained in a telephone interview that there is a direct connection between the cultural resources that have been restored at Orton and those members of the Dark Branch community have taken upon themselves to preserve.

“Everything that Mr. Moore Bacon has sought to preserve is the work of our ancestors and those who were enslaved on the various plantations,” Chavis said. “For us, this is not only about protecting our cultural resources, but also about protecting our community.”

Chavis, an assistant professor at George Mason University and founding director of the university’s John Mitchell Jr. Program for History, Justice, and Race, started the association about three years ago to preserve the community’s history.

There are about 20 historical structures in Dark Branch, including homes, a store, and sharecropping and slave cabins.

Some of those structures, as well as the community cemetery, one Chavis calls one of Dark Branch’s most sacred sites, are under threat of riverine flooding.

“We just can’t afford for it to get worse and we’re working with local organizations to try and get resources around historic resource preservation,” he said. “We’re concerned that any potential harm or more work done to the river is going to make our job as an organization harder to protect the cultural resources that we have. Based on the assessments and our conversations with those we’ve consulted with, it’s not going to get better. It’s going to get worse.”

Dark Branch is a member of the National Park Service’s Reconstruction Era National Historic Network.

According to the Division of State Historic Sites, the Dark Branch Community Historic District was added to the National Historic Preservation Study List in 2024.

Sites that make that list are good potential candidates for the National Register.

The association continues to pursue a nomination for the National Register of Historic Places.

The Dark Branch community lies within the Gullah Geechee Cultural Heritage Corridor, which encompasses 12,000 square miles of coastal area that runs up the southern Atlantic Coast from St. John’s County, Florida, to Pender County.

The corridor links places of historic significance to the Gullah Geechee, West Africans torn from their native land and enslaved on plantations along the southern Atlantic Coast, and tells stories of their lives on the plantations and in the coastal plains after abolition.

Efforts are underway to build the North Carolina Gullah Geechee Greenway Blueway Heritage Trail that will run from Navassa to Southport.

Last summer, the North Carolina General Assembly authorized the trail’s construction.

Veronica Carter, chairwoman of the heritage trail and member of the Leland Town Council, also raised concerns about how the proposed project might affect land within the trail. Carter is also board member with the North Carolina Coastal Federation, which publishes Coastal Review.

“Deepening the Cape Fear River will negatively impact our culturally significant, state-established North Carolina Gullah Geechee Blueway portion of our trail by increasing saltwater intrusion, worsening erosion, and degrading water quality, thereby threatening sensitive habitats,” she wrote Col. Brad Morgan, the Corps’ Wilmington District commander.

The Corps acknowledges that “more surveys are needed to determine the presence of additional historic and cultural properties within the study area,” Cayton said by email. “We have already included conservative cost estimates for this work, based on known resources identified within Wilmington Harbor and experiences at other similar projects, to ensure these resources are properly managed and respected.”

The N.C. Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Coastal Management has announced guidance to property owners, organizations and towns that plan to accept natural Christmas trees this year for use in dune restoration.

Locally donated, undecorated natural Christmas trees may be used as a substitute for traditional sand fencing, a barrier, usually made of wood or synthetic materials, placed on beaches or dunes to trap blowing sand.

Donated trees should be placed in a manner that meets the state’s rules for sand fencing, with the exception that Christmas trees may be placed no closer to the ocean, sound, river or shoreline than the base of the closest dune to the waterline.

Christmas trees should not block public access to the beach, recreational use of the beach, emergency vehicle access or be placed on private property without permission. Trees should be placed at an angle no less than 45 degrees to the shoreline, and trees should be spaced apart at a minimum of 7 feet.

If sand fencing is present, a 7-foot separation between trees and the fence sections must also be maintained. Rows should be single-tree width. Unvegetated beach berms, or recently created “starter dunes,” are not considered natural dunes. Trees should not be placed at the seaward base of these berms, starter dunes or on the open beach.

The division notes that if the proposed layout of trees along the beachfront does not meet Coastal Area Management Act criteria, applicants should submit a CAMA Minor Permit application for review. For more information, contact the local CAMA permitting authority or appropriate Division of Coastal Management district office prior to tree placement.

To ensure compliance with recycling programs in your neighborhood, we suggest contacting the appropriate local government office for information regarding recycling natural Christmas trees.

Coastal Review will not publish Jan. 1 in observance of New Year’s Day.

This report was updated Nov. 25 to include information on arrangements.

Former North Carolina Supreme Court Justice Willis Padgett Whichard, one of four individuals widely credited for securing passage of the state’s Coastal Area Management Act, died Monday in Chapel Hill, sources close to the family confirmed this week.

A 1962 graduate of the University of North Carolina, Whichard left Chapel Hill three years later with a law degree. He served two terms as member of North Carolina House of Representatives from 1970 until 1974, when he was first elected to the state Senate. Whichard served three Senate terms and, in 1980, Gov. Jim Hunt appointed Whichard to the North Carolina Court of Appeals. In 1986 he became an associate justice of the North Carolina Supreme Court, serving until he retired in 1998.

“While a sitting justice, he somehow found time to earn his doctorate of systematic jurisprudence from the University of Virginia,” according to a Carolina Alumni article about his General Alumni Association Distinguished Service Medal citation. “That is the top degree possible for a legal scholar—one that very few lawyers and judges possess.” The citations are read aloud during the annual alumni luncheon and then presented to recipients.

Author, musician and UNC professor Bland Simpson called Whichard “an almost legendary man of many superlatives, and one of the most important of his legion of accomplishments was helping move the Coastal Area Management Act through the legislature in 1973-74.”

In an email Monday, Simpson told Coastal Review that he and Whichard spoke of the fight for CAMA on numerous occasions, “and he always said there were four individuals key to making this all-important bill into law.” Those individuals were then-Gov. James Holshouser, Milton Heath, who was a professor at UNC’s Institute of Government and wrote the bill, Sen. Bill Staton of Lee County, and Rep. Whichard from Durham County, who Simpson said carried the bill through the House.

“When CAMA passed the legislature, it was widely seen as the most comprehensive, progressive, protective coastal legislation become law in the nation,” Simpson said. “Whichard was a giant, a visionary, and the last surviving member of the quartet that gave us CAMA.”

Author, photographer, conservationist and attorney Tom Earnhardt told Coastal Review in an email Tuesday that in summer 1970, he worked a student clerkship with the Powe, Porter and Alphin law firm in Durham.

“E.K. Powe and others in the firm were well known North Carolina lawyers,” Earnhardt said, adding that the lawyer who taught him the most Whichard, then the youngest lawyer with the firm. “Bill always made the time to read and give a quick edit to anything I prepared. Always a mentor, he was exactly the same Bill Whichard I’ve known for the last 55 years — humble, patient, compassionate, and brilliant.”

Earnhardt said that, years later, he worked with Gov. James Holshouser to secure legislative funding for Cape Lookout National Seashore. He said that Whichard, then a House member, quickly took up the cause.

“After I had gotten several emphatic rejections from more senior officials, Bill assured me he’d help find the money. I still remember his political assessment of the North Carolina General Assembly at the time: ‘You’ve got to remember that in the General Assembly there will always be Members who will vote against the Creation to preserve the pre-existing darkness!’”

Earnhardt said that in each of Whichard’s roles, he “was always the brightest light in the room. No one has served North Carolina better.”

That sentiment was shared in the Campbell Law Review’s spring 2006 edition, which noted that, Whichard had served in both the legislative and judicial branches of government, “and in so doing, he has the distinction of being the only person to serve in both the House of Representatives and the Senate in the North Carolina General Assembly and on both of our appellate courts, the Court of Appeals and the Supreme Court of North Carolina. In each of these significant areas of service, Willis Whichard has established records of lasting import.”

Born in 1940 in Durham, Whichard was an adjunct law professor at UNC from 1986 until 1999. He was dean and law professor at Campbell University from 1999 until his retirement in 2006.

From 2006 to 2013, Whichard practiced as a partner with the Moore & Van Allen law firm’s Research Triangle Park office.

In 2013, Whichard joined the Chapel Hill law firm, Tillman, Whichard, and Cagle.

In 2019, Whichard and Raleigh attorney Scott Miskimon were presented Friend of the Court awards for their service to the Judicial Branch and work on the Supreme Court’s bicentennial exhibit at the North Carolina Museum of History. Whichard led the effort to create the North Carolina Supreme Court exhibit, “Law and Justice: The Supreme Court of North Carolina, 1819-2019.”

The News & Observer reported Nov. 24 that Clements Funeral & Cremation Services of Durham is handling the arrangements, and a public memorial service is planned for January.

CARY — In an update to our earlier report on the North Carolina Press Association’s recognition of Coastal Review’s editorial excellence, last week the North Carolina Bar Association presented a special award to Assistant Editor Jennifer Allen for her reporting on legal matters.

The award was presented along with other awards during the press organization’s annual convention held Thursday and Friday at the Cary Embassy Suites.

Allen received the Media and the Law Award of Excellence for her story, “Coastal commission lawyer: CAMA a 50-year ‘balancing act,’” published Dec. 16, 2024.

According to the contest rules, judges were to look for “insightful coverage of law-related topics that foster greater public understanding of the legal system and the role of lawyers in today’s society.”

Allen’s report detailed the history and implementation of the state’s 50-year-old Coastal Area Management Act, better known simply as CAMA.

“This award is what we’re all about: helping the public understand North Carolina’s complex coastal management laws and policy and the rationale behind their creation,” said Coastal Review Editor Mark Hibbs in reaction to the award.

Allen joined Coastal Review in 2017. She was previously the Coastal Living editor with the Carteret County News-Times.

This was the press association’s 152nd annual convention, and members were honored for excellence in news, photojournalism and advertising. The awards were for work published between April 1, 2024, and March 31, 2025. Coastal Review’s work was judged in the online-only category.

The Nebraska Press Association judged the contest this year.

A full list of contest winners is available online.

Launched in 2012, Coastal Review is published daily, Monday-Friday, by the North Carolina Coastal Federation, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit group dedicated to protecting and preserving the North Carolina coast. Coastal Review provides objective reporting, information and commentary on issues, policy and notable figures and history with a specific focus on the environment and people of the state’s 20 coastal counties.

MOREHEAD CITY – The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Coastal Management has awarded more than $2.25 million in grants to fund 10 projects to expand and improve public access to beaches and coastal waterways.

The grants, awarded through the Public Beach and Coastal Waterfront Access Grant Program, will help local governments in the 20 coastal counties acquire land for public access sites and build or improve amenities such as dune crossovers, fishing piers, parking areas, restrooms and kayak launches.

“These state investments will both ensure safe and expanded public access to our coastlines and strengthen the resilience of our communities by supporting infrastructure that can withstand extreme weather,” said DEQ Secretary Reid Wilson in a news release announcing the awards. “As we face increasingly severe storms, these projects will play a key role in safeguarding both public safety and the long-term health of our coastal environments.”

The division on Thursday announced the following awards:

• Atlantic Beach in Carteret County is awarded $115,200 for improvements to the New Bern Street Public Access. The work will entail removing the existing dune crossover and rebuilding 381 feet of the walkway with treated wood, Trex decking and handrails to provide access to the Atlantic Ocean.
• Beaufort in Carteret County is awarded $120,000 for an Ann Street Park water access project. The work will create an access site at the west end of Ann Street featuring an observation deck, greenspace, a picnic area and rain gardens while preserving existing open vistas and improving stormwater drainage.
• Belhaven in Beaufort County is awarded $540,000 for its Harbor Park expansion, which involves acquiring 0.74 acres. Recent site improvements include a new bulkhead and a 200-foot dock.
• Bertie County is awarded $80,000 for the second phase of the Tall Glass of Water Beach Access enhancement and will provide safe, maintenance-free access to the beach by providing a solid surface, accessible 12-foot by 440-foot path to meet Americans with Disabilities Act requirements and expanding the existing public beach by planting vegetation to stabilize the base of the bluff.
• Cedar Point in Carteret County is awarded $305,000 for the second phase of the Boathouse Creek Park bathroom facility project. The project is to add three ADA-accessible bathrooms and associated accessible parking to support and enhance usage of the town’s existing water access site at Boathouse Creek Park.
• Nags Head in Dare County is awarded $400,000 to replace the bathhouse and dune walkover at its Hargrove Street Public Beach Access. The project will also remove and replace existing decking, the emergency vehicle ramp, all wooden stairs and walkways, trash cans, fencing, three shower stations and signage.
• New Hanover County is awarded $265,000 to install a new kayak launch, ADA parking, and an ADA sidewalk to the existing pier, along with additional signage at the Trails End Waterfront Access. The work will be completed concurrently with bulkhead repairs.
• Ocean Isle Beach in Brunswick County is awarded $82,500 to replace a non-ADA-compliant dune crossover at the Shallotte Boulevard Beach Access. The new access will be widened to 8 feet and made to comply with ADA requirements. The stairs will be replaced with wheelchair-accessible ramps.
• Swansboro in Onslow County is awarded $127,623 to demolish the Main Street Dock, rebuild an existing pedestrian, fishing, and dinghy day dock at the end of Main Street, along the downtown waterfront area south of the White Oak River Bridge. The new docks will be built within the footprint of the existing facility.
• Vandemere in Pamlico County is awarded $167,700 to build an ADA-compliant fishing pier about 80 to 100 feet long and 9 feet wide. It will be located at the end of North First Street and provide access to the Pamlico River.

The North Carolina General Assembly created the Public Beach and Coastal Waterfront Access Program in 1981 in response to concerns over declining public access by amending the Coastal Area Management Act, also known as CAMA.

The program was expanded in 1983 to include estuarine areas. The program uses 5% of state Parks and Recreation Trust Fund, or PARTF, annual funds to offer matching grants to local governments. It has supported more than 528 projects, enhancing public access for recreation and coastal enjoyment.

For more information about the program, go to the Public Beach and Coastal Waterfront Access website.

The Coastal Resources Commission on Wednesday afternoon unanimously adopted a rule that restricts development within Jockey’s Ridge State Park.

The rule the 13-member commission adopted mandates how and where sand may be moved within the park and establishes the park’s area of environmental concern, or AEC, boundaries.

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

Under the rule, a Coastal Area Management Act, or CAMA, permit is required if more than 10 cubic yards of sand is moved in one year within the AEC. Sand that is removed must be placed within an area of the park designated by the N.C. Division of Coastal Management in consultation with the state Department of Natural Cultural Resources’ Division of Parks and Recreation.

And, sand within the AEC cannot be altered or prevented from moving freely by development activities “except when necessary” to maintain or construct a road, residential or commercial structure, accessway, lawn, garden, or parking area unless approved by the park’s management plan.

The rule will now go to the state Rules Review Commission for approval.

In the fall of 2023, that commission removed the rule along with more than a dozen other CRC-adopted longstanding rules from the North Carolina Administrative Code and kicked them back to the coastal commission, a move that triggered a legal fight between the two commissions.

Earlier this year, a Wake County Superior Court judge ruled all 30 rules be returned to the administrative code.

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

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.”

More than 30 North Carolina coastal communities have been awarded grants to boost their resilience to hazardous weather events.

The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Coastal Management announced Thursday the award of nearly $6 million in Resilient Coastal Communities Program grants to 32 counties, cities and towns along the coast.

“Increasingly catastrophic storms like Helene and Chantal underscore how important it is for communities to take concrete steps to strengthen their resilience to hazardous weather events,” DEQ Secretary Reid Wilson said in a release. “These grants provide technical assistance and resources so that community leaders can identify the most important actions they can take to safeguard their residents, their infrastructure, and their economies.”

Of the grant money awarded, $1.9 million has been funneled for the completion of phases 1 and 2 of the Resilient Coastal Communities Program, or RCCP, which includes technical assistance in risk assessment and resilience planning and incorporating resiliency into Coastal Area Management Act, or CAMA, land use plans.

Those plans, which communities use to guide development and drive future public investments, will include resilience policies and projects that focus on highly vulnerable areas.

“Given that many existing land use plans are outdated and typically only designed to be relevant for up to 20 years, the RCCP aligns with the growing demand in North Carolina for updated land use plans to better anticipate future development and weather hazards,” according to a release.

During phases 1 and 2, the division contracts with third-party firms, which directly receive the funding, to provide technical assistance services to the local governments.

Funding for those phases is going toward technical assistance for Beaufort, Dare, Hyde, New Hanover, Pamlico, Pasquotank, Pender and Tyrrell counties.

Municipalities for those phases include: Carolina Beach, Wilmington, Colerain, Holden Beach, Elizabeth City, Jacksonville, Manteo, Murfreesboro, Newport, Oak Island, Shallotte, Southern Shores and Southport.

More than $4 million in grants have been awarded to communities for phases 3 and 4 of the program to assist with engineering, design, construction and implementation of projects.

Nearly $3 million of that is being passed to five counties, including Beaufort, Carteret, Dare, Hyde and Pasquotank for the engineering and design of projects that will incorporate natural and nature-based elements like wetland restoration and living shoreline design. Municipalities receiving funding for engineering and design projects include Aulander, Belhaven, New Bern, Edenton, Elizabeth City, Holly Ridge, Plymouth and Washington Park.

Burgaw, Nags Head and Vandemere have been awarded a total of more than $1.2 million to complete phase 4 projects for stormwater management and flood mitigation. Those projects include building rain gardens and living shorelines to mitigate flooding and erosion.

The RCCP has awarded a total of about $16 million through 108 grants to 56 coastal communities.

The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality has increased several fees and rates, including those for Coastal Area Management Act major and minor permits.

The fee adjustments kicked in Tuesday, and are in accordance with a general statute that mandates fees and rates be adjusted and aligned with the Consumer Price Index computed by the Bureau of Labor Statistics during the prior two bienniums.

“With the increase in technical complexity, operating costs and labor requirements for DEQ programs, the revenue from the 2025 fee adjustments will allow DEQ to continue to provide critical services to North Carolina residents and businesses and ensure DEQ can meet the growing needs of the state,” according to the department.

Fees changed in 2023 have been adjusted on the prior biennium.

Changes include the costs for CAMA applicants, which have been increased between $19 and $74, depending on the permit.

The legislative report on fees and rates was submitted to the General Assembly last April.

The full list of fee adjustments is available on the DEQ website.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Special Deputy Attorney General Mary Lucasse announced Thursday that she had accepted a new position at the North Carolina Department of Justice and would no longer serve as legal counsel for the Coastal Resources Commission.

During the regular meeting of the state commission that establishes coastal development rules held Wednesday and Thursday in the Dare County Government Center in Manteo, Lucasse explained her decision before giving the legal update common at these meetings, adding that this would be her last as commission counsel.

“I’ve been promoted to work with the Board of Elections, and this is my last meeting. It’s been an utmost pleasure to learn from staff and to learn from the commission over the last almost 15 years that I’ve worked with you,” she said.

Looking back: Coastal commission lawyer: CAMA a 50-year ‘balancing act’

Lucasse assured the commission that while her replacement from the Department of Justice hadn’t been determined, “under the statute, the attorney general does provide an attorney to serve as your counsel.”

She added that although the task isn’t completed, she’s begun the process of transferring the commission’s cases to other lawyers.

Commission Chair Renee Cahoon thanked Lucasse for her years of hard work and dedication.

“It’s been a pleasure working with you over the past 15 or so years,” Cahoon said. “We wish you all the best in your new role at the Board of Elections. That should be interesting and challenging as well.”

Lucasse has been in Department of Justice’s environmental division since 2009.

In addition to the Coastal Resources Commission, she has provided legal representation to the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, the Environmental Management Commission, the Clean Water Management Trust Fund, the North Carolina Board for the Licensing of Geologists, and other boards and commissions as assigned, according to the National Association of Attorneys General.

Lucasse earned her bachelor’s in history from Calvin College in 1981 and graduated in 1986 from the University of Maryland School of Law. Her experience also includes civil litigation in the Maryland Office of the Attorney General and private practice in Honolulu, Hawaii.

The state Division of Coastal Management is hosting another public hearing on a permit application for the proposed mid-Currituck bridge project.

The focus of the April 16 hearing will be Coastal Area Management Act, or CAMA, permit application completed in early January by the North Carolina Department of Transportation and North Carolina Turnpike Authority.

The proposed bridge would span the Currituck Sound from Aydlett to south of Corolla. The project also includes improvements to existing roadways in Currituck and Dare Counties.

A previous public hearing on the project was held March 18 in Dare County.

The April 16 hearing will be held 5-7 p.m. at the Currituck Extension Center, 120 Community Way, Barco.

Speaker registration opens at 4 p.m. Speaker time may be limited depending on the number of registered speakers.

The public comment period on the proposed project has been extended to April 30.

Comments may be mailed to Tancred Miller, Director, Division of Coastal Management, 400 Commerce Avenue, Morehead City, NC 28557 or emailed with the subject line “Mid-Currituck CAMA application” to DCMcomments@deq.nc.gov.

The CAMA application may be view at the division’s Morehead City office, 400 Commerce Ave., during normal business hours or online.

The N.C. Division of Coastal Management is taking applications from local coastal-based governments to participate in the state Resilient Coastal Communities Program’s phases 1-4.

Phase 3 is designed to provide funding to assist coastal communities in the engineering and design of a project identified by an applicant in phases 1 and 2 of the program.

Phase 4 provides funding to assist with the implementation of previously identified and prioritized resilience projects  and supported by engineered site plans developed in phase 3.

Other eligible projects not identified in phases 1-2 may be eligible if a community has completed an evaluation to bypass those phases. Examples of eligible projects include wetland and stream restoration, flood mitigation, living shoreline stabilization, and infrastructure to improve stormwater management.

An estimated $2 million will be available for phases 1 and 2 and about $6 million available for phase 3 and phase 4 projects in fiscal 2025-26, according to a N.C. Department of Environmental Quality release.

The Resilient Coastal Communities Program aids communities in getting a better understanding of and enhancing coastal resilience at the local level. Phases within the program guide communities in assessing local risks and vulnerabilities, engaging representative stakeholders, and collaborating to identify and prioritize projects and actions to enhance resilience and protect critical assets.

County and municipal governments within the 20 Coastal Area Manage Act, or CAMA, counties and contractors who provide technical assistance to the localities selected may apply.

Eligible contracts include private planning and engineering firms, Councils of Government, nongovernment organizations and public and private academic institutions.

Applications are also being taken from coastal communities to be matched with a contractor to fully update local CAMA land use plans that will integrate core elements developed through the program’s resilience strategies.

Communities that are selected will work to incorporate resilience into land use planning and support proactive risk-reduction measures. This work may be done in conjunction with phases 1 and 2 for new communities accepted into the program or independently completed in communities that have completed those phases.

An informational webinar about the application process will be held 2-3:30 p.m. March 21. Register online.

Phases 1-4 community application materials are available online.

Applications will be accepted until 5 p.m. April 25.

Questions about the new Resilient Coastal Communities Program and completed applications may be sent to RCCP@deq.nc.gov.

This story has been updated.

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

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

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

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

Related: Process to restore Jockey’s Ridge protections continues

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

RODANTHE – The North Carolina Department of Transportation is set to begin work Friday rebuilding dunes and placing sandbags on a severely erosion-threatened stretch of N.C. Highway 12 here.

Department officials are calling the $400,000 project on an 1,100-foot stretch of highway “a temporary solution to protect the highway from ocean overwash caused by extreme tides and storms.”

Officials said the project near the Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge visitor center is meant to mitigate the type of overwash that caused the highway to be closed for a period in mid-November. They said it would also add a layer of protection for the road itself, helping to prevent the type of undermining that could damage the pavement and cause a long-term shutdown of the only roadway link between the mainland and Hatteras Island.

“We know this is only a temporary fix,” said N.C. Department of Transportation Division Engineer Win Bridgers. “But it’s vital for us to do everything we can to keep N.C. 12 open and accessible while we seek a more permanent solution.”

The sandbag project will take about a week to complete, with alternating single-lane closures in the area while the work is ongoing.

The Coastal Resources Commission in December approved a variance from Coastal Area Management Act development rules to allow the sandbag placement.

The November storm had washed away 1,000 feet of dune and exposed the highway’s pavement high surf. Roadway flooding and pavement drop-off produced hazardous traffic conditions, prompting the temporary road closure.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

This special news feature is part of Coastal Review’s 12-month observance of the Coastal Area Management Act’s 50th year.

NEW BERN — Special Deputy Attorney General Mary Lucasse gestured to the projector screen behind her as she began her presentation to a couple dozen last month about the rules governing the last five decades of coastal development.

On the screen, a black-and-white photograph taken over a century ago depicting three, nattily dressed men in a rowboat, gliding across Bogue Sound with the expanse of undeveloped waterfront in the background a reminder of how much North Carolina’s coastline has changed.

When the photo was taken in 1912, the character of coastal North Carolina was “so different than it is today, 100 years later. We didn’t have bridges to the coast, people were not building on barrier islands,” Lucasse explained.

Lucasse joined the state Department of Justice in 2009, and works in the department’s Environmental Division. Her presentation, “50th Anniversary of the Coastal Area Management Act,” opened the daylong Shape of the Coast legal symposium, held in conjunction with North Carolina Sea Grant’s biennial Coastal Conference, Nov. 13-14 at the Riverfront Convention Center.

North Carolina Sea Grant, the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Office of General Counsel and the National Sea Grant Law Center partnered on the symposium that featured speakers on concerns regarding homeowner’s insurance, oceanfront homes, wetlands, sand for beach nourishment and other aspects.

“Development really started on the oceanfront after World War II, and even later than that, and what North Carolina was experiencing was a destruction of wetlands, indiscriminate development, dredging, septic tanks that were improperly sited, declining water quality,” Lucasse said. “And as the population in coastal North Carolina grew, the governor at that time realized that we lacked the public infrastructure and regulations that would allow North Carolina the capacity to handle an increase in population and development.”

The governor at the time, Bob Scott, worked with legislature to put together the Dredge and Fill Act in 1969. Lucasse called the measure “the start” of the state’s work to protect its coastal and the natural resources. The act put limits on dredging and filling of wetlands. Scott also directed a committee to design what would become the Coastal Area Management Act.

When North Carolina was looking to protect its coastal resources, the federal level was doing the same, resulting in the Coastal Zone Management Act of 1972, which Lucasse called “an important partner as we protect and manage the coastal resources here in North Carolina.”

CAMA was first drafted in 1973 but there was a lot of pushback from utilities, agriculture and building interests.

“At first, CAMA was opposed by 90% of the coastal legislators,” which she said was in part because coastal stakeholders wanted a larger role in the process. Legislators in response reworked the proposed act to include their feedback.

CAMA was enacted in 1974 and created the Coastal Resources Commission.

The commission adopts rules, establishes procedures for processing and enforcing major and minor development permits, considers variances from coastal development rules and appeals of permitting decisions, and other development rules.

Lucasse has been legal counsel to the commission since 2011, In that role, Lucasse advises members on open meeting laws, meeting procedures, handles public records requests, writes the commission’s final decisions, represent the commission on any litigation, and works with the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Coastal Management. Division staff implement commission rules and issues CAMA permits.

“When I talk about CAMA, I always talk about the fact that this is a balancing statute. This is not about, ‘Let’s do everything we can to only protect natural resources.’ No, we balance the rights of development, the rights of property owners, with the need to protect natural resources,” she said.

CAMA protects the rights of neighbors, the public trust, the right to use ocean beaches, and to use navigable waters, she added.

A large part of CAMA is its land-use planning component. At the local level, the plans provide a blueprint for community growth and are used to guide development. At the state level, the plans review development requests and determine consistency both with state guidelines and federal regulations.

CAMA also gives the Coastal Resources Commission the power to determine areas of environmental concern. In the 1970s, the commission was directed to establish AECs.

They decided that all the barrier islands would fall under that designation, and there was “a lot of pushback for that,” Lucasse said. “They realized that really, the rules of the commission had to focus on critical areas. They began thinking about buffers, ocean beaches, not upland areas, but areas that are critical for protecting the North Carolina coastal resources.”

Now, areas environmental concern include estuarine system areas, ocean hazard areas, public water supplies, and natural and cultural resource areas. Examples are estuarine waters, coastal wetlands, beaches, frontal dunes, inlets and surface water and water supplies.

Another major aspect of CAMA is permitting and enforcement.

“I think of permits as the teeth of CAMA,” Lucasse said, because before any development in an any of the CAMA-designated areas, a permit is required, in addition to any required at the local or federal level.

CAMA grew to include in 1981 the Public Beach and Coastal Waterfront Access Program, a way to allow everyone to enjoy the shoreline.

“North Carolina realized that it was very important not only to protect the natural resources, but to allow the public to exercise their public trust rights. And this program was created to identify, to acquire, to improve and to maintain public access ways to public trust resources,” she said, noting that the legislature provided about $2 million in first-year funding.

In the decades since, appropriations have been at just over $1 million a year, she said. “Historically, the requests for funding have exceeded the amount of funding available. But since 1981, the division of coastal management has awarded over 500 grants that total about $45 million.”

Starting in 1982, the state began adding to CAMA reserve sites. Now, there are 10 coastal reserve sites making up the North Carolina Coastal Reserve and National Estuarine Research Reserve that protects about 44,000 acres along the coast.

“The reserves are really important component,” Lucasse said, adding that the sites allow for stewardship of these natural resources, research and education. Students visit the reserve sites to experience the natural resources.

Lucasse, in her presentation, was joined by Zach Griffith, a second-year law student at the University of North Carolina School of Law.

Griffith said that CAMA had undergone significant changes since 1994, including the exemption of floating structures associated with the shellfish industry from regulation, how lobbyists changed how the state interpreted sea level rise policy, the repeal of a ban on terminal groins to now allowing seven terminal groin permits that can potentially be issued.

This report has been updated.

The North Carolina Coastal Resources Commission will hold a special meeting at 10 a.m. Monday by web conference to hear a variance request from the N.C. Department of Transportation.

According to the agenda posted at the commission’s website, the request involves sandbags at Pea Island in Dare County. The request materials were not yet posted as of Friday morning. A variance, when granted, allows development that is otherwise prohibited by commission rules.

The Department of Environmental Quality announced Thursday that the meeting will be limited to that lone agenda item.

The public may join by computer or phone. Visit the commission website to see agenda materials, once available, and information on how to access the meeting.

Officials noted that times indicated on the agenda are subject to change.

Log on to the webinar using webinar number, or access code, 2427 740 8580, and password: crcspec1224, or 27277321 when dialing from a phone.

Those interested may also join by phone at 1-415-655-0003, using webinar number (access code): 2427 740 8580.

Also, a listening station will be set up at the Division of Coastal Management headquarters office at 400 Commerce Ave., Morehead City.

The commission sets the rules and policies carried out by the Division of Coastal Management under the state Coastal Area Management Act, the Dredge and Fill Law and the federal Coastal Zone Management Act of 1972 in the 20 coastal counties.

The science panel that advises the state Coastal Resources Commission is showing with a new report how the findings of a 2022 federal-level report projecting that sea levels will rise by more than a foot by 2050 apply to North Carolina.

Released in mid-October, the “North Carolina 2024 Sea Level Rise Science Update” is the product of the science panel following the commission’s 2022 charge to present any new or significant data and research on sea level rise projections.

The commission was put in place in 1974 when the North Carolina General Assembly adopted the Coastal Area Management Act, or CAMA. The 13-member commission designates areas of environmental concern, adopts rules and policies for coastal development within those areas, and certifies local land use plans. The state Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Coastal Management staff enforces the commission’s rules.

The U.S. Sea Level Rise and Coastal Flood Hazard Scenarios and Tools Interagency Task Force wrote “Global and Regional Sea Level Rise Scenarios for the United States,” that was published in February 2022 by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Among the task force members are scientists from NOAA, NASA, the U.S. Geological Survey, Federal Emergency Management Agency, Army Corps of Engineers, Department of Defense and Environmental Protection Agency.

“In recent years, confidence regarding the expected amount of sea level rise by 2050 has increased,” the science panel recaps from the 2022 technical report in its October 2024 update. Regardless of how much warming occurs by 2100, trajectories evaluated by the 2022 sea level rise technical report indicate sea level rise of 1 foot to 1.4 feet by 2050, relative to sea level in 2000.

“The actual amount will depend on future greenhouse gas emissions, and how much ice is lost from the Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets,” the science panel continues in its update. “Projections for sea level rise beyond 2050 are less certain because they depend even more strongly on future greenhouse gas emissions and rate of ice loss from Greenland and Antarctica. However, rates of sea level rise are expected to further increase toward the latter half of this century.”

On the science panel, Dr. Reide Corbett is the dean and executive director of the Integrated Coastal Programs at the Coastal Studies Institute on the East Carolina University Outer Banks Campus.

He told Coastal Review that sea level rise projections continue to improve as new data becomes available and as the scientific community gains a better understanding of global processes changing sea level on different spatial and temporal scales. 

The state’s science panel used the best available and most recent data to provide this 2024 Sea Level Rise Update, Corbett continued, adding that “It is critical that our communities are working with the most informed projections as they develop actionable plans for building more resilience across our coast.”

The strongest and most significant message Corbett said he sees coming from the 2024 update and other recent reports is that North Carolina must plan for at least a 1 foot rise in sea level by 2050. There is little deviation in this value whether projecting from tide gauges or using numerical models, Corbett added

“This is a reality that we need to start planning for today,” he said. “A 1 foot rise in sea level will significantly increase the number of days coastal North Carolina will experience high tide flooding. Communities need to start building these challenges into their land use plans, stormwater plans, and communicating the risks to residents.”

Division of Coastal Management Director Tancred Miller explained to Coastal Review that the science panel is defining sea level rise as an increase in the average height of the sea with respect to a specific reference.

Relative sea level is the combination of three primary factors: the global sea level, vertical land movement and oceanographic effects. These parameters are usually discussed in terms of their rates of temporal change, commonly expressed in millimeters per year, he said.

“Along the North Carolina coast, sea level is rising and the rate of rise varies depending on the location. There are two primary reasons for this variation along different parts of our coast: vertical land motion and the effects of ocean dynamics,” Miller continued.

He explained that this recent update emphasizes that tide gauge observations and modeling for all scenarios are nearly the same out to 2050, “indicating we are solidly on track for at least one foot of sea level rise by 2050.”

Miller noted that 2050 is just 25 years from now.

“To prepare for this, requires community involvement, planning, mitigation, and adaptation to start now,” Miller said.

To help better plan for sea level rise, the Coastal Resources Commission charged its science panel in 2022 with providing periodic updates to support what it called “informed planning and decision making.”

The charge includes a request for the science panel to review every year any “new and significant scientific literature and studies that address the range of implications of sea level rise at the State, sub-regional, and local scales.” If there’s enough new information to warrant an update, the panel is to present these findings to the commission.

Miller said for the science panel to follow through with the directive, the team of scientists held a series of meetings earlier this year to share and discuss any recent data related to sea level rise.

“Given that the painstaking work of preparing sea level rise projections based on the latest science has already been carried out” by the task force, the science panel recaps the key messages detailed in the 2022 technical report. The science panel also gives a brief summary of the regional sea level rise projections most relevant to North Carolina, and provides updated sea level rise projections and assessment of high-tide flooding frequencies for Duck, Beaufort and Wilmington, all based on data from the 2022 technical report.

The science panel sent out a draft of the sea level rise science update for comment this spring.

The document underwent a handful of changes based on public feedback, including the addition of a paragraph listing some of the key impacts of sea level rise, and adding the names of the different scenarios in the 2022 technical report — low, intermediate-low, intermediate, intermediate-high, and high — and referred to these throughout for clarity.

“The five sea level rise scenarios span the range of sea level rise that can be expected under the emissions and warming scenarios considered in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Sixth Assessment Report,” or IPCC, the science panel states in its update. The IPCC was created by the United Nations to assess climate change-related science.

“We also added text to explain how these scenarios relate to the emissions pathways and warming scenarios used in the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change report,” the new update continues. And provided more detail on the longer-term scenarios out to 2100.

The science panel did note in its update that, although summarizing the latest science on how these impacts will affect the state “is well beyond the scope of the Sea Level Rise Update Charge to the Science Panel, we refer interested parties to the coastal aspects of the 2020 Climate Risk Assessment and Resilience Plan, and associated or similar documents (and updates), for a more comprehensive discussion of sea level rise impacts, based on the latest science, to facilitate effective adaptation and mitigation planning.”

The first report the science panel, along with six additional contributors, issued was in March 2010 titled “North Carolina Sea Level Rise Assessment Report,” at the direction of the commission. The science panel recommended the report be reassessed every five years.

In April 2012 the panel issued a follow-up addendum to the report in response to questions from the commission.

That report was met with pushback from certain groups, resulting in a June 2012 law that put restrictions on how the sea level data was collated and used by state agencies and local governments.

The panel released an update in 2015 of the 2010 report.

“The next update was scheduled for 2020. However, due to the COVID pandemic, the 2020 update was postponed. In 2022, the CRC issued a revised charge to the science panel,” Miller said.

The division continues to accept public comments on the newly released update. Send comments to DCMcomments@deq.nc.gov. List “2024 Sea Level Rise Science Update” in the subject line.

“Comments regarding the final report simply serve as an opportunity for citizens to provide thoughts on the finished work and will be provided to the panel for review,” Miller said.

Update 2 p.m. Friday: The Coastal Resources Commission special meeting scheduled for Monday to review comments and consider the adoption of temporary rules has been canceled. The meeting will not be rescheduled.

Original post:

The commission that directs coastal development is to meet next week to review comments and consider adopting temporary rules that would allow local governments to put in place measurement lines for dune building.

The Coastal Resources Commission will hold the special, virtual meeting at 10 a.m. Monday. Anyone can join the meeting online or listen by phone. There will be a listening station at the N.C. Division of Coastal Management headquarters office at 400 Commerce Ave., Morehead City.

At the August commission meeting, members approved the temporary amendments authorizing the establishment of measurement lines, provided the local government has been granted a permit to construct a terminal groin, and works with the Division of Coastal Management.

The measurement line would represent the existing location of the first line of stable and natural vegetation that is covered by the dune building and beach planting project, according to the division.

The full agenda and briefing materials are to be available on the commission website at least 48 hours before the meeting. Times indicated on the agenda are subject to change.

The Division of Coastal Management is under the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality. The division carries out the state’s Coastal Area Management Act, or CAMA, the Dredge and Fill Law and the federal Coastal Zone Management Act of 1972 in the 20 coastal counties, applying the rules and policies set by the Coastal Resources Commission.

North Carolina’s coast is made up of more than 2 million acres of estuarine habitat, transition areas where fresh water from rivers meet the salty water of the sea.

Restore America’s Estuaries, the National Estuarine Research Reserve Association and the Association of National Estuary Programs have sought to draw attention to these fragile ecosystems that are continually facing challenges by celebrating National Estuaries Week, Sept. 21-28.

National Estuaries Week is a time to appreciate “the countless recreational, economic, and environmental benefits that our estuaries provide while acknowledging that they are under threat from a warming climate and continued development that can damage these national treasures,” Daniel Hayden, president and CEO of Restore America’s Estuaries, said in a statement. “We hope you take time during National Estuaries Week to enjoy your local estuary and celebrate the benefits it provides.”

First held in 1988, National Estuaries Day later was expanded to a weeklong celebration. Last year, there were 36 events in 11 different states with more than 11,400 volunteers. This week, around 40 projects have taken place or are scheduled across the country, a handful of on the North Carolina coast. For a full list of events, visit the website.

The North Carolina Coastal Reserve and National Estuarine Research Reserve Program Manager Rebecca Ellin said there is still time to take part in activities planned to celebrate North Carolina’s estuaries.

The reserve program is made up of 10 state-protected sites totaling more than 44,000 acres of estuarine land and water. Four of the sites are under federal protection as well, in partnership with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Under the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Coastal Management, the land acquisition program was established in early 1980s as part of the North Carolina Coastal Area Management Act that went into effect in 1974.

Taking place all week is the Bioblitz at three reserve sites: Masonboro Island, Kitty Hawk Woods, and Rachel Carson in Beaufort. Visitors are encouraged to take photos of flora and fauna and upload them to iNaturalist, a website for the public to record observations while out in nature.

“Documentation of species at reserve sites contributes to natural occurrence records and provides baseline data for existing species,” Ellin said.

Reserve staff will have booths 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Saturday at Olde Beaufort Farmers’ Market in Beaufort for Celebrate Estuaries Day and at the Femme in STEM event 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. at the North Carolina Aquarium at Fort Fisher.

Femme in STEM showcases the variety of science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields that are open for career paths, and is a celebration of women in STEM fields. The event “reminds how important it is for young girls to see someone like themselves in science and other STEM subjects. Reserve staff will have a booth for the event and engage all ages in hands-on learning activities,” Ellin explained.

The North Carolina Coastal Federation is kicking off its weekend with an estuaries-themed movie night starting at 6 p.m. Friday in its Wrightsville Beach office. Staff will have a booth at the Olde Beaufort Farmers’ Market Saturday as well.

The nonprofit is a member-supported organization with offices in Wanchese, Newport and Wrightsville Beach, and is one of the 10 member organizations of Restore America’s Estuaries.

But first, what is an estuary?

Coastal Federation’s Education Coordinator Bonnie Mitchell in the Wrightsville Beach office said that estuaries “create a unique habitat abundant with life.”

“These coastal water bodies support a diverse range of species, filter pollutants from the water, and act as natural buffers against storms. They play a crucial role in maintaining healthy ecosystems that directly impact public health by improving water quality, supporting fisheries that provide nutritious food, and protecting shorelines from erosion and flooding,” Mitchell said.

Often called “nurseries of the sea,” Coastal Education Coordinator Rachel Bisesi with the central office said that “estuaries provide a safe haven for many baby sea animals to grow up, since there is a plethora of food and hiding spaces, and fewer large predators than in the open ocean. Almost all seafood spends part of its life in an estuary and keeping them healthy is important for coastal communities and the economy.”

Education and Outreach Director Sara Hallas in the Wanchese office added that estuaries are her “favorite habitat” and loves “that there’s always dynamics that keep the estuary ever changing and there’s always something new to discover. Just as the estuary is important for animals to rest and find refuge, it serves a similar purpose for people to reflect and connect.”

Hallas echoed Bisesi that these habitats are important nursery grounds for animals to find shelter in calm water from larger predators, and for aquatic wildlife to lay their eggs and raise their young, and swim out to deeper waters when they’re ready.

“This supports the Federation’s motto, ‘No Wetlands, No Seafood,’ as the majority of the seafood that’s harvested — commercially and recreationally — depends on the estuary at some point in its life cycle. Estuaries are also important areas for animals to rest and refuel during long migrations,” Hallas said.

Ellin said that there is a lot of diversity found in the coastal and estuarine habitats along North Carolina’s coast since it includes two different biogeographic regions — the northern extent of southern species and the southern extent of northern species — and different tidal ranges and types of sounds.

The reserve sites “protect a range of coastal habitats found in North Carolina and are representative of the diversity of these conditions. Example habitats protected by reserve habitats include salt marsh, maritime forest, ocean beach, mud flat, maritime forest, swamp forest, pond pine woodlands, adding that these coastal habitats comprise North Carolina’s estuaries.”

Albemarle-Pamlico National Estuary Partnership, or APNEP, Director Bill Crowell said that preserving estuaries is crucial for several reasons, including estuaries’ ecosystem function and biodiversity, economic value, water quality, flood mitigation and cultural significance.

Like the reserve program, APNEP is under the state Department of Environmental Quality. APNEP is one of the first of 28 National Estuary Programs established by the Clean Water Act in the late 1980s, and protects around 28,000-square-mile watershed in southeastern Virginia and northeastern North Carolina.

The Albemarle-Pamlico region is one of the largest and most productive estuarine ecosystems in the United States, Crowell said.

“Estuaries are essential for functional ecosystems as they serve as vital habitats for a wide range of species, including fish, birds, and invertebrates. They provide breeding and nursery grounds, supporting both terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems,” he said. “Estuaries support important economic activities such as fishing, tourism, and recreation. Healthy ecosystems contribute to vibrant local economies, providing jobs and supporting livelihoods.”

Estuaries improve water quality because they act as natural filters, by trapping pollutants and sediments,” Crowell said. “This is essential for maintaining the health of both the estuary itself and the coastal waters it connects to,” Crowell said. And estuaries help with flooding. “Healthy estuarine ecosystems can absorb excess rainfall and storm surge, reducing the risk of flooding in surrounding communities and enhancing resilience to climate-related impacts.”

There’s also the social connection. “Many communities have deep cultural ties to estuaries, relying on them for food, recreation, and heritage. Preserving these areas helps maintain cultural identities and traditions,” he said.

Ellin explained that the reserve sites that stretch from North Carolina’s northern border to the southern border are protected for long-term research, education and stewardship.

“Research and stewardship work informs management of our sites and North Carolina’s coastal resources as they face increased use and changing environmental conditions by monitoring change and testing and evaluating restoration techniques such as living shorelines,” Ellin said. “Teachers, students, and decision-makers learn about the importance of our estuaries through interpretive field trips at the sites and how to incorporate science into their classrooms and daily decisions that may impact the coast and estuaries.”

Estuaries not only protect habitat and provide platforms for research and education, estuaries offer storm protection and economic benefits for nearby communities. “Protecting estuaries protects coastal habitat and the contributions they provide to healthy ecosystems and communities,” Ellin said.

All three of the Coastal Federation’s educators recognized that these ecosystems are increasingly under threat.

“Habitat loss and development, as well as stormwater pollution and climate change impact the health of the estuary,” Bisesi said.

Mitchell said that pollution, overdevelopment and climate change jeopardize these vital resources. “If we don’t act now to protect estuaries, we not only risk losing critical wildlife habitats but also endanger the well-being of our communities. Protecting estuaries is essential not only for biodiversity but for safeguarding public health and ensuring the sustainability of coastal life.”

Hallas added that, in addition to the risks Mitchell mentioned, estuaries are also at risk from the recent ruling that drastically reduced protections of wetlands across the United States. “How could we not protect something that’s so valuable to all living things, including the source of life: clean water.”

Hallas said that because estuaries provide protection from flooding, storm surge, erosion and water quality, “I feel like it’s our job to protect them in return.” Estuaries are “a haven of beauty on the North Carolina coast, a refuge for both humans and wildlife.”

The Coastal Federation publishes Coastal Review.

DUCK — For a few days this summer, three split-hull barges chugged south from Norfolk, Virginia, to deposit 6,500 cubic yards of olivine sand mined in Norway at a nearshore area of this small oceanfront town on the northern Outer Banks.

But with completion of the barge’s work in July, there’s no visible evidence that the trademarked Coastal Carbon Capture pilot research project is underway. The Vesta company project is to test whether olivine sand could permanently remove tons of carbon from the atmosphere and the ocean.

“So, I think ultimately, at the end of the day, it was a successful deployment in the sense that we’re set up for monitoring this project and getting the scientific results out of it,” Zach Cockrum, vice president of policy and partnerships with Vesta, told Coastal Review this week.

As the company’s website tells it, it’s taken decades of collaborative research to get to the point where data can be collected to support Vesta’s belief that plentiful and natural olivine could, if not outright save the planet, at least mitigate the problem.

“We could reverse climate change,” the company says on its website.

Vesta, which is permitted under the federal Clean Water Act and the state Coastal Area Management Act, has contracted with Hourglass Climate, a U.S-based nonprofit research organization, to monitor the site for two to three years. The site is a 300-foot-by-2,200-foot corridor situated 1,500 feet offshore of Duck’s beach in 25 feet of water.

Olivine, which has a light green tint, is a common magnesium silicate mineral similar to the quartz in Outer Banks sand. When it dissolves in seawater, it has the unique ability to remove carbon from the atmosphere and reduce acidity in the ocean.

Although olivine is not uncommon — there’s plenty in western North Carolina, for instance — Vesta’s coastal research is novel, including its two earlier projects testing olivine as part of shoreline replenishment and in a small area of marsh.

“But these pilot projects, using olivine in these coastal settings like this, is something that Vesta alone is doing, as far as we know, in the world,” Cockrum said.

According to company estimates, the Coastal Carbon Capture pilot project could remove at least 5,000 tons of carbon dioxide from the ocean and atmosphere. 

Eventually, the goal is that olivine, milled down to compatible grain size, could be integrated into beach nourishment projects, making the projects more affordable while helping to reduce carbon pollution. The olivine does lose its carbon removal ability over time, but further research is needed to determine how often it may need to be replenished.

As an alkaline material, olivine reacts with the carbonic acid, which contains carbon dioxide, as it weathers in the seawater. In the process, the acid is converted to bicarbonate, which provides long-term carbon storage.

Hourglass has a service agreement with the nearby Army Corps of Engineers Research and Development Center Field Research Facility, known locally as the Duck Pier, to use their equipment, vessels and amphibious vehicles at the site, Cockrum said.

“And then the researchers at the Army Corps are also looking at the sediment transport, how the olivine is moving in that ecosystem,” he added. “And that’s something that they’re interested in, outside of the carbon removal aspect of it, because olivine is a traceable mineral, so it’s helping them understand the dynamics of that coastal system.”

Hourglass is using “benthic flux chambers” that are placed on top of the sand for about a week to take consistent measurements of water over the sediment, Cockrum explained. There will also be sampling to look at benthic organisms in and around the olivine, as well as the surrounding ecosystem, and the carbon removal will be measured.

Since olivine is a natural mineral found on numerous locations, the issue is not its inherent safety; it’s what its impact would be to an ecosystem, as well as its carbon-removal ability, where it is not naturally occurring — hence, the testing at Duck. But not all olivine deposits react the same.

For instance, Papakolea Beach in Hawaii is notably green from its high olivine content. But it’s a different scenario, scientifically.

“I think the data on the naturally occurring beaches is complicated because of differences in grain size,” Cockrum said. “Like this gets way into the weeds of finer grain olivine dissolves more quickly, and therefore releases or captures carbon more efficiently. So, there are differences between the sort of existing beaches that are out there and what we’re hoping to do in these different settings. This is another thing that we’re looking at paying close attention to when I talk about how efficient is carbon removal.”

Part of the funding for research has been provided from the Coastal Carbon Capture Development Fund, a 501(c)(3) public charity. The project monitoring is also being supported by University of North Carolina Greensboro, UNC Wilmington, and the Coastal Studies Institute at East Carolina University Outer Banks Campus. 

Vesta is promising to share monitoring results publicly, including with regulatory agencies, and will be published in peer-reviewed journals.

Vesta’s monitoring partners are already starting to get some data back, Cockrum said.

“We’re in the process of basically analyzing that data and figuring out the best way to share it,” he said.

One of the most important goals of the pilot project is for data to establish how much carbon is being removed, and how quickly. And if it’s as the researchers are hoping to see, olivine could be elevated from its modest mineral status to a savior of the planet. Or at least a natural helper. 

“So, we go from here to really honing in on what is the coastal protection benefit,” he said. “Just in general, the coastal protection industry, whether it’s the Corps or any number of communities, they’re all looking for different sediment sources. And so, our hope is that we can be an affordable source of sand for any number of coastal protection projects.”

The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Coastal Management announced Monday more than $2.8 million has been awarded to 14 local governments to improve public access to coastal beaches and waters for fiscal 2024-25.

The awards include $350,000 for Topsail Beach, which is partnering with the North Carolina Coastal Land Trust and North Carolina Division of Coastal Management to purchase in fee title property at the south end of the island totaling more than 149 acres and known as “The Point.” The $350,000 grant will be used purchase 1.5 acres of the parcel for public access. The Coastal Land Trust is to purchase the property and immediately transfer 1.5 acres to the town with the remaining acreage to be transferred to the state.

Related: Coastal Land Trust takes fresh approach to save ‘The Point’

“The natural resources of North Carolina’s coastal communities draw residents and visitors alike and are a vital part of the state’s economy,” said Secretary Elizabeth S. Biser in the announcement. “Supporting projects that help local governments and communities sustain safe natural shoreline spaces and improve access to our beaches and waterfront continues to be a priority for our agency.”

In addition to Topsail Beach, grants were awarded to the following local governments:

• Atlantic Beach received $58,243 for improvements to the Beaufort Avenue beach access to rebuild and extend the existing wooden walkway.
• Atlantic Beach also received $60,574 for improvements to the Greenville Avenue beach access to rebuild and extend the existing wooden walkway.
• Carolina Beach received $132,322 improvements to the 1810 Canal Drive site to build a parking lot with accessible parking spots, and construction of a six-foot-by-150-foot Americans with Disabilities Act-compliant wooden walkway allowing access from parking area to beach strand.
• Carteret County received $225,000 for improvements to the Straits water access site including adding 33 paved parking spaces with two spaces for people with disabilities at the old Harkers Island Bridge site. The project also includes the addition of a picnic shelter.
• Carteret County received $300,000 for improvements to the West Beaufort water access to add walkways connecting the existing amenities to Beaufort’s sidewalk system, improvements to the kayak launch area and additional parking for the boat ramp.
• Dare County received $114,010 for new construction at the Old Lighthouse Beach in Buxton. The project includes construction of a new restroom and shower facilities.
• Elizabeth City received $378,000 for improvements to the Causeway Park access site to replace dilapidated pilings and boardwalk; add a kayak launch and connecting boardwalk segment; replace the current observation decks and fishing pier; and install a concrete pad sufficient to provide two accessible parking spaces.
• Indian Beach received $179,863 for improvements at the Ocean Club neighborhood beach access to replace the entire length of the boardwalk. The new plans for the boardwalk include the reconstruction of the original walkway and a 10-foot-by-10-foot observation deck overlooking the beach.
• Kill Devil Hills received $77,928 for new construction at the Hayman Boulevard beach access for construction of a dune crossover. The walkway will be elevated to traverse the growing dune system at this site.
• Manteo received $95,738 for improvements at the Roanoke Marshes Lighthouse Pier to replace decking on the pier leading to and surrounding the Roanoke Marshes Lighthouse replica in Shallowbag Bay.
• Morehead City received $205,084 for improvements at the 10th Street access site. The project has two major components: removal and reconstruction of the western dock to include and improve accessibility, stabilization and site protection features, and installation of nature-based resiliency features, a living shoreline, to further reduce and disable wave energy to the northern shoreline and site structures.
• Nags Head received $207,669 for improvements at the June Street public beach access to build an approximately 6-foot-wide, 1,650-square-foot, accessible, wooden dune walkover, a 16-foot octagonal gazebo and an upgraded shower-station and lamppost.
• Oak Island received $32,000 for new construction at the SE 31st Street kayak launch to install a new ADA-compliant kayak launch with a 3-foot-by-12-foot safe launch, a 4-foot-by-12-foot open slip and an ADA-compliant transfer platform and new aluminum gangway.
• Ocean Isle Beach received $54,000 for improvements to the Concord Street beach access. The existing beach access currently terminates within the dune system, this project will extend the access from its current location and result in it terminating roughly even with the frontal dune. To meet ADA compliance, the stair system will be replaced by a wheelchair-accessible ramp that will have appropriate 5-foot landings per every 20 feet of inclined ramp. The access will also be widened to 8 feet across and have engineered X-bracing supports.
• Sunset Beach received $392,175 for new construction at Majestic Oaks Park to build 1,000 feet of pervious walkway, and about 460 feet of boardwalk and a wildlife observation area.

The program has awarded 530 grants totaling more than $55 million to improve public waterfront access sites since it began in 1981. For more information about the program, go to the Public Beach and Coastal Waterfront Access website.

The Public Beach and Coastal Waterfront Access program provides matching funds to local governments in the 20 coastal counties. Governments that receive grants must match them by contributing at least 25 percent toward the project’s cost.

Funding for the grant program comes from the North Carolina General Assembly through the state’s Parks and Recreation Trust Fund. Access projects may include walkways, dune crossovers, restrooms, parking areas, piers and related projects. Funds also may be used for land acquisition or urban waterfront revitalization. Staff with the state Division of Coastal Management selected the recipients based on criteria set by the Coastal Resources Commission.

The commission that determines development rules and policies for the 20 coastal counties meets later this month to consider changes to align existing development rules with recently passed state laws, including new looser requirements for replacing or repairing damaged or destroyed docks.

The North Carolina Coastal Resources Commission, during its meeting set for 3 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 27, at the Beaufort Hotel, is also expected to consider four variance requests. The commission meeting is set to resume at 9 a.m. Wednesday, Aug. 28.

The public may attend at the hotel at 2440 Lennoxville Road in Beaufort or watch online. A full agenda and related materials are on the commission’s website. Times for agenda items are subject to change.

The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Coastal Management serves as staff to the Coastal Resources Commission. The division carries out the state’s Coastal Area Management Act, or CAMA, Dredge and Fill Law and the federal Coastal Zone Management Act of 1972 in the 20 coastal counties using rules and policies of the commission.

Two of the three rule changes on the agenda were directed by state lawmakers.

One previous rule had required a permit to replace damaged or destroyed structures. Earlier this year, the General Assembly eliminated that requirement.

“In the case of fixed docks, floating docks, fixed piers, or floating piers damaged or destroyed by natural elements, fire, or normal deterioration, activity to rebuild the dock, pier, or walkway to its pre-damaged condition shall be considered repair of the structure, and shall not require CAMA permits, without regard to the percentage of framing and structural components required to be rebuilt,” according to the new language.

Additionally, a replacement dock can be enlarged by as much as 5 feet or 5%, whichever is less, and its height may be increased without a permit. The change does not apply to docks and piers more than 6 feet wide, greater than 800 square feet of platform area, or adjacent to a federal navigation channel.

The other legislative directive is to allow for a measurement line to be established for dune-building projects related to permitted terminal groin construction.

A third rule change on the agenda is to adjust a deadline for a permit typically used by the North Carolina Department of Transportation to replace existing bridges and culverts.

The commission is expected to consider a variance request related to a soundside walkway wider than permitted at an event site in Nags Head. The division had previously authorized most of the proposed work at the site through a major permit application, except the proposed boardwalk. The boardwalk is part of a larger project for the town and Dare County Tourism to add public amenities to the site on Roanoke Sound with existing asphalt parking, as well as a gazebo, decks, ramp, office building, pier, platform, slips, and onsite septic systems. Petitioners requested permission to build a 10-foot-wide boardwalk over portions of coastal wetlands. The permitted width is 6 feet.

The other variance requests on the agenda include one from a restauranteur on the Wilmington waterfront looking to enclose a porch with vinyl wall panels, and there are two requests from oceanfront property owners in Pender County.

Also during the meeting, the division staff is to present a periodic review of the CAMA and Dredge and Fill Act permitting process with a focus on the major permit process. The committee is also expected to consider approving the fiscal analysis for the installation and maintenance of wheat straw bales for land fencing.

The commission is to hear from a subcommittee appointed to review the third-party hearing request process. This process allows any party except the permit applicant or NCDEQ secretary to challenge the commission’s decision to grant or deny a permit.

The Coastal Resources Advisory Council will have its in-person only meeting before the commission at 1 p.m. Aug. 27 in the hotel. Also in-person only, the public comment period is at 5 p.m. Aug. 27. The chair may limit comments to three minutes per person.                                                    

A set of coastal development rules temporarily placed back in the state code will be up for public comment and possibly reinstated as permanent by year’s end.

The Coastal Resources Commission, during a special meeting Tuesday, unanimously approved a rule that sets permit fees for minor and major development applications, approved the fiscal impact analyses on that and several other rules the commission adopted as temporary earlier this year, and re-designated Jockey’s Ridge State Park as an area of environmental concern.

The fiscal impact analysis measures how rules may affect a government’s revenue and expenditures to help prepare for or prevent budget shortfalls.

The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality and Office of State Budget and Management have determined that reinstating the rules will not substantially impact the economy and have little to no impact on state or local governments.

Commissioners postponed a vote this week to amend a rule that would allow beach towns to use wheat straw bales as an alternative to traditional sand fencing, which is used to protect oceanfront dunes.

The state Division of Coastal Management’s fiscal analysis on the amendment to that rule is currently under review by the state budget and management office. Coastal management officials determined in their analysis that the amendment will have little to no fiscal impact.

The commission in March adopted more than a dozen rules state coastal management officials argue are crucial to day-to-day operations as temporary as a means to get them back into the state Administrative Code for one year or until they are reinstated as permanent rules.

In all, 30 of the coastal commission’s longstanding rules were removed from the code last October after they were objected to by the Rules Review Commission, a decision that prompted an ongoing lawsuit the coastal commission and DEQ filed against the Rules Review Commission and the state codifier or rules.

State Division of Coastal Management officials have been working with the rules commission to tweak wording in the remaining 14 rules that the Coastal Resources Commission did not temporarily adopt earlier this year.

One of the temporary rules that has garnered much attention centers on keeping Jockey’s Ridge an area of environmental concern, a designation that protects it from uncontrolled development and mandates that any sand that spills over from the massive dune onto neighboring properties must be returned.

The popular state park in Nags Head first received the designation in 1984.

“Let’s hope that this rule will go through without a whole lot of conflict,” CRC Chair Renee Cahoon said shortly before the commission went into closed session.

The commission took no further action following the closed session.

The rules will go to public hearing between Sept. 18 and Nov. 4, Division of Coastal Management Public Information Officer Christy Simmons said in an email.

The rules will go before the coastal commission at its November meeting for possible adoption and returned to the rules commission. That meeting is scheduled Nov. 13-14 at Ocean Isle Beach Town Hall.

Division of Coastal Management officials anticipate the rules will be reentered into the code as permanent effective Jan. 1, 2024.

The Coastal Resources Commission’s next scheduled regular meeting is set for Aug. 27-28 in Beaufort at the Beaufort Hotel, 2440 Lennoxville Road.

North Carolina Division of Coastal Management staff are encouraging the public to speak about proposed changes to vessel speed restrictions determined on the federal level.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Marine Fisheries Service, or NOAA Fisheries, proposed the amendments to what is often called the “speed rule” to further reduce “the likelihood of mortalities and serious injuries to endangered right whales from vessel collisions, which are a leading cause of the species’ decline and a primary factor in an ongoing Unusual Mortality Event.”

The state is in the process of reviewing the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management’s consistency determination to see if NOAA Fisheries’ proposed amendments to the speed rule are as consistent as possible with the state’s enforceable coastal management policies.

Division officials said that the changes include the following:

• Modifying the boundaries and timing seasonal speed restrictions of 10 knots or less, renamed seasonal speed zones, to better align with areas characterized by elevated collision-related mortality risk.
• Creating a dynamic speed zone program to implement temporary mandatory speed restrictions when whales are known to be present outside active seasonal speed zones.
• Extending the size threshold of regulated vessels to include most vessels 35 feet or greater in length.
• Updating the speed rule’s safety deviation provision.

The public can submit comments during a meeting 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, July 23, at the Crystal Coast Civic Center in Morehead City. The meeting will end at 6:30 p.m. or until comments are concluded, whichever comes first. Each speaker will be allowed 3 minutes each.

Written comments can be mailed to Federal Consistency Coordinator Daniel Govoni, 400 Commerce Ave., Morehead City, NC 28557, or emailed to DCMComments@deq.nc.gov. Include “North Atlantic Right Whale Vessel Strike Reduction Rule” in the email subject line. Deadline is 5 p.m. July 31.

All comments will be considered in developing the state’s consistency response. Notice of the decision regarding this matter will be provided upon request, officials said.

Changes to a controversial bill that would have allowed development to trump historical and environmental protections went before the Senate judiciary committee Wednesday for discussion, and the measure now features a new provision allowing additional hardened shoreline structures to be built on Bald Head Island.

Sen. Norm Sanderson, R-Pamlico and also representing Carteret, Chowan, Dare, Hyde, Pasquotank, Perquimans and Washington counties, explained during the meeting that the previous language to change Coastal Area Management Act, or CAMA, permitting process rules was being replaced with directives for the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources regarding historically significant land.

With the new language, Sanderson said Wednesday, the department would be required, “upon request,” to inform the owner or prospective buyer of property “in an area of environmental concern of anything that may be of archaeological or historical significance,” Sanderson said.

The language also would prohibit the Office of State Archaeology, under the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, to add conditions to a CAMA permit restricting development for three years after its issued, and directs the state agency to apply for funding to purchase properties in an area of environmental concern that has archaeological or historical significance, he said.

The new language replaces, as Sanderson explained it during a June 6 Agriculture, Energy, and Environment committee meeting, an attempt to harness the Division of Coastal Management, which he said had “forced developers to conduct lengthy, open-ended and costly historical and archaeological investigations to obtain a permit or as a condition of a permit.”

The previous language, Sanderson continued on June 6, “to some degree reins in DCM’s historical and archaeological jurisdiction to develop activities that involve actual land disturbance, and so that specifies the circumstances under which an area can be designated as an Area of Environmental Concern based on cultural, scientific or scenic values, or natural systems.”

Cultural Resources Communications Director Schorr Johnson said Thursday that while the new language is an “improvement from the original proposal, the Office of State Archaeology already provides information to property owners and prospective property owners about archaeological resources on their property. The new language attempts to codify that practice while also undermining archaeological protections. We look forward to continuing to work with the legislature on this proposal.”

Regarding the new section on hardened shorelines, Sanderson told the judiciary committee Wednesday that the language modifies the decade-old statute that allowed a limited number of terminal groins as a pilot project along the North Carolina shoreline.

Bald Head Island was the first town to build a terminal groin after a former law banning hardened erosion control structures on the North Carolina coast was repealed in 2011.

The new language defines “terminal groin” as one or more structures constructed at the terminus of an island or on the side of an inlet, or where the ocean shoreline converges with Frying Pan Shoals, and changes the number of permits from six to seven to construct a terminal groin.

Bald Head Island has been working with the Department of Environmental Quality on the provision to allow the village to apply for a permit to build a second groin on the island nearest to Frying Pan Shoals, Sanderson explained.

“Upon passing, the village plans to do robust studies on the best environmental path forward for the new structure,” Sanderson said. “The section would also enable Bald Head Island to eliminate a number of geotextile sand tubes that have to be replaced every five to seven years at great expense to residents and replace them with permanent rock structures that are equal or less in number and size than the existing tubes.”

Southern Environmental Law Center North Carolina Legislative Counsel Brooks Rainey Pearson told Coastal Review in an email Thursday that the section added via proposed committee substitute Wednesday would change the definition of “terminal groin” to allow a new groin on the east end of south beach on Bald Head Island.

“We are against any expansion of the armoring (or ‘hardening’) of the coast, and believe that expanding the number of new groins allowed under state law will effectively open the entire coast to terminal groins on N.C.’s public trust beaches,” Pearson said in the email. “Groins are incredibly expensive to build and maintain, and encourage litigation as homeowners on the ‘wrong’ side of the groin lose sand/beach to properties on the ‘right’ side of the groin.”

Bald Head Island Public Information Officer Carin Faulkner said Thursday morning in response for a comment that the village council had not reviewed the proposed language, but village staff plan to present the information during the council’s 10 a.m. Friday meeting, which can be viewed online.

Division of Coastal Management officials said Thursday afternoon that the new provision would make the Village of Bald Head Island eligible to apply for a permit to construct another terminal groin near Frying Pan Shoals and it increases the cumulative number of terminal groins that the Coastal Resources Commission can permit from six to seven.

Sanderson, Lazzara want to ‘rein in’ regulatory authority

When the previous language, which was replaced Wednesday, had gone before the Senate agriculture committee June 6, both Sanderson and Sen. Michael Lazzara, R-Onslow, said the intention was to “rein in” the Division of Coastal Management and CAMA authority.

The North Carolina General Assembly passed the Coastal Area Management Act in 1974 to guide development on land near coastal waters. The Coastal Resources Commission adopts rules for CAMA that are carried out by the Division of Coastal Management, under the Department of Environmental Quality. The commission also determines for the 20 coastal counties area of environmental concern, which are those areas that are vulnerable to flooding or erosion, or may have environmental, social, economic or aesthetic values that make it valuable to the state.

State archaeology officials said in a June 10 response that the language was linked to a subdivision being built in Cedar Point where “extensive Native American human burials and an undisturbed Woodland period (1000 BC – AD 1600) village site have been found” and the bill as it was written then “would endanger some of North Carolina’s most significant archaeological and historical resources, including Native American village sites and human burials.”

Department of Natural and Cultural Resources Public Information Officer Michele Walker said Friday that two archaeological sites were found in the 1970s at the tract where Bridge View subdivision is now being developed.

Walker said that the department, through the Office of State Archaeology and the State Historic Preservation Office, is one of 10 state agencies that review CAMA major permit applications. These agencies may recommend specific permit conditions based on the permit review.

In response to the division’s CAMA Major Permit application review, the Office of State Archeology noted that the area of potential effect for the proposed Bridge View subdivision contained these two known and unassessed prehistoric archaeological sites that are adjacent to four other archaeological sites identified in a survey for the neighboring subdivision of the 1990s Magens Bay subdivision, she said.

“During construction at the site, the remains of at least five individuals were inadvertently disturbed in the developer’s Phase 1 area, which is outside the CAMA defined area of environmental concern,” Walker said. “And an initial archaeological survey within the AEC has identified 11 additional human burial sites, each of which may include multiple individuals. This initial archaeological survey included test trenches that, cumulatively, uncovered just over 1 acre of the almost 21-acre area of environmental concern.”

State Archaeologist Chris Southerly told Coastal Review last week that the “initial findings at this site indicate that this area was a pre-contact-era American Indian settlement which was occupied over multiple generations.”

Southerly said the site “is one of the most significant archaeological sites ever identified in North Carolina and could help us to understand more about these ancient people and their day-to-day lives. It’s important to recognize that this site contains multiple human burial sites – the ancestors of people living in coastal North Carolina today. These once-vibrant people deserve the utmost respect and care of their final resting place.”

Sanderson still could try to harness CAMA

Sanderson suggested at the agriculture committee meeting earlier this month that, during the legislative session most likely to begin in January, lawmakers can review CAMA parameters, “and see which ones are still good, which ones are outdated, which ones need to be changed or updated.”

“We welcome any opportunity to improve on our 50-year history of balancing the protection of coastal resources and the public trust with economic development. We all share a common desire to enjoy a healthy environment and economic growth. We support any reforms that are thoughtful, stakeholder engaged, and that will result in positive outcomes for a healthy coast and for the public,” division officials said Thursday.

It’s been a long time, Sanderson said in noting 50 years had passed since the landmark coastal measure became law. “CAMA has done a lot of great work on the coast, exactly what it was intended for,” but it’s time for a review “and we need to make sure that what we’re doing is still relevant for the coastal area, for the environment and for the people who want to take advantage of our areas.”

Division officials last week in response explained that eliminating its regulatory role does not improve the process for the public, “it simply replaces it with a much slower federal process, and certain permit applications that are now processed by DCM within two weeks could be taken over by the US Army Corps of Engineers and take six months or more to process.”

The division “serves as a permitting clearinghouse for coastal development so that one application to us covers all state and federal permits in most cases. Instead of having DCM guide applicants on necessary permits and standards, applicants will have to figure those out on their own and may inadvertently find themselves in violation of state or federal law due to a lack of awareness.”

The primary goal of CAMA is to balance protection of the public trust — environmental, cultural, aesthetic, recreational use — with private use and economic development, DCM officials said.

“DCM has a 50-year history of finding this balance, coordinating with other state and federal regulatory and resource agencies to continuously streamline the permitting process. This has made NC one of the most efficient coastal management programs in the nation. Some of the HB385 provisions stand to reverse years of progress to the detriment of the public,” officials continued. “Local governments may face heavier burdens on their staff time and resources to manage development activity that is currently handled by the state, including adopting and enforcing new ordinances, and resolving disputes and legal challenges.”

Sanderson also noted about the previous language discussed at the agriculture committee meeting June 6 that the provision would limit CAMA permits to development activities only within an area of environmental concern, and that Division of Coastal Management would be the only agency authorized to review and issue CAMA permits.

Division of Coastal Management officials said their agency collaborates with Cultural Resources staff throughout the permitting process if archaeological work on a project is requested, including after a permit is issued if there is a condition placed on the permit related to archaeological resources.

“Between 2020 and 2023, the Division of Cultural and Natural Resources reviewed 737 projects that were seeking major coastal permits and recommended archaeological work on 13 of those projects,” Walker said. The Office of State Archaeology “has limited to no statutory enforcement authority outside of its commenting responsibilities for environmental permits. Human burials, both marked and unmarked, do have statutory protections.”

The bill as it was previously written would have restricted the Office of State Archaeology, among other state agencies, from being consulted or recommending conditions on permits issued pursuant to CAMA.

“This sets an alarming precedent and could leave the permitting body or official unable to consult archaeological experts within state government when determining a project’s impact on archaeological and historical resources, including unmarked human remains,” she said.

This special news feature is part of Coastal Review’s 12-month observance of the Coastal Area Management Act’s 50th year.

BEAUFORT – The state’s Rachel Carson Reserve protects more than its herd of around 30 wild horses.

The dedicated nature preserve’s five uninhabited barrier islands, totaling 2,315 acres, protect historic downtown Beaufort from the ravages of ocean winds and tides.

“You can see just how vulnerable the town of Beaufort can be during storms coming through that Beaufort Inlet,” Central Sites Manager Paula Gillikin said early Friday afternoon from the boardwalk on Carrot Island, one of the five islands making up the site.

Gillikin was speaking to North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality leadership, local, state and federal elected officials, fiscal research and governor’s office budget staff, partners, residents and volunteers, as part of a “Discover the N.C. Coastal Reserve Tour.”

The gathering of about 20 had met earlier that morning at Beaufort Hotel to tour the Rachel Carson Reserve. It was the third stop on a multi-year campaign launched in June 2023 when the Currituck Banks Reserve reopened after repairs. The second stop was at Bird Island Reserve in December 2023.

NCDEQ Chief Deputy Secretary Tim Watkins explained before the tour how 50 years ago, “North Carolina enacted the Coastal Area Management Act, or CAMA, as we all know it.”

“Passing CAMA in 1974 was a bold and important step that was intended to balance economic development and protection of coastal resources through coordination and planning under the umbrella of state and local partnership,” Watkins said. “CAMA was also intended to reflect the will of coastal residents in finding this balance.”

He noted how CAMA was amended in the 1980s to establish the state Coastal Reserve Program, which “provides public access to coastal areas, essential habitat, fisheries and wildlife, and a cleaner healthier environment for all. The reserve sites also strengthen our communities by developing a sense of place and creating opportunities to reconnect and recharge with our natural world.”

Coastal Reserve Program Manager Rebecca Ellin said that the reserve program protects more than 44,000 acres of coastal and estuarine habitats across the 10 sites.

These sites provide essential habitat for wildlife, educational opportunities for students, teachers and the public, living laboratories for scientists to inform the management of the state’s coasts and estuaries, public enjoyment for citizens and visitors and protection of local communities from storms and erosion, Ellin said.

“The reserve program in North Carolina started nearly 40 years ago with the designation of the North Carolina National Estuarine Research Reserve. This happened in 1985 via a state-federal partnership between the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration National Estuarine Research Reserve System and the Division of Coastal Management,” she said.

The designation of the North Carolina National Estuarine Research Reserve provided an inspirational model for the state of North Carolina to protect additional habitat areas, Ellin continued.

“In 1989, the General Assembly amended the Coastal Area Management Act to do just that and formally established the North Carolina Coastal Reserve, which includes the North Carolina National Estuarine Research Reserve.”

There were a handful of past and current elected officials on hand, including Rett Newton, who was raised in Beaufort and is a former town mayor. He said that protecting the Rachel Carson Reserve is “personal for us. It is personal. It may not be personal for Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill, or Washington, D.C., but I assure you it is very personal for us.”

Beaufort Mayor Sharon Harker, who is in her second term, added that the reserve has a lot of talents, and the town is working with the state programs to protect the island for future generations. “It’s a classroom, it’s a laboratory, it provides us information so that we can inform policies to be better and proactive caretakers of the island, but the reserve is a gem. It’s part of our character, it’s part of our history.”

Sen. Norm Sanderson, R-Pamlico, who also represents Carteret County, told attendees that the reserve is worth fighting for and worth protecting, “not only for its beauty, but its protection” as a barrier island.  “It’s up to us to save it for the next generation.”

Rep. Pricey Harrison, D-Guilford, was on the coast for the tour, as well. A resident of Greensboro, Harrison said she spends her weekends patrolling the shoreline of the Rachel Carson Reserve and has for 34 years.

She extended her gratitude to those who have made the reserve “such a special place” adding, “I love this place. I’m going to do what I can save it.”

Rep. Celeste C. Cairns, R-Carteret and Craven counties, spoke briefly, stating she is “so proud of this district. It’s impossible to express how much I love it here.”

Gillikin, who grew up in Beaufort and is currently a town commissioner, has been with the reserve program since 2007, and oversees both the Rachel Carson Reserve and Permuda Island Reserve near Topsail Island.

Gillikin said she feels “privileged to coordinate the stewardship of this site and to work with all the passionate community members and commercial users and teachers and advisory committee members. It really is all about people.”

She echoed Newton in that the site is very personal to her, because five generations back, her family owned a lot of the land, and “I never thought that I would come back to Beaufort and be a steward of the land.” She left Beaufort to attend the University of North Carolina Wilmington.

“Their blood, sweat and tears are out there. And mine are too,” she said, clarifying “no big injuries, just some nicks and cuts.”

After the tour, Ellin expressed her gratitude for those who joined, “to celebrate the Rachel Carson Reserve, share their perspectives, and take in its beauty and the diverse roles the reserve plays for ecosystems and people alike.”

About the Carrot Island Living Shoreline Project

Part of the event included a quick peek by boat of the Carrot Island Living Shoreline Project, currently under construction.

A representative of consulting firm Moffatt & Nichol, which is a contractor on the living shoreline project here, told Coastal Review Monday that work began April 12. A joint project between Carteret County and the North Carolina Coastal Reserve, the work includes around 1,475 linear feet of living shoreline, extending along the east side of Carrot Island, which is adjacent to Taylor’s Creek. 

The design features two sills. There is a sill of wave-attenuation units, called ExoForms and manufactured by Natrx, a nature-based resilience and restoration company in Raleigh, and a sill with oyster habitat units called Oyster Catchers, which are manufactured by Sandbar Oyster Co. in Beaufort.

The footprint for the ExoForms is around 11,250 square feet, with a length of 1,250 feet, and the footprint for the oyster habitat sill is about 6,960 square feet, and about 1,270 linear feet.

The sills run parallel to one another with a gap of 10 feet in between. Both are 100-foot segments with 10-foot gaps between the segments to allow water and wildlife to move through.

Plans include planting marsh grass, both Spartina alterniflora and Spartina patens, to support stabilization of the shoreline and enhance the ecological value of the project, according to the company.

“The length of shoreline to be protected was chosen to provide maximum benefit to the Carrot Island shoreline based upon available funding from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, the North Carolina Land and Water Fund, and the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality,” according to the company.

Gilikin said monitoring the project’s performance over time and sharing successes and lessons learned could inform future living shoreline design and estuarine shoreline management in coastal North Carolina.

About the reserve program

The North Carolina Coastal Reserve and National Estuarine Research Reserve program initiative began in 1982 with funding from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Estuarine Research Reserve System.

Three sites were dedicated in 1985 to be part of the North Carolina National Estuarine Research Reserve: Rachel Carson, Currituck Banks and the Zeke Island reserves. The fourth national site, Masonboro Inlet Reserve, was designated in 1991.

The state initiated the parallel program in 1987. This move, according to NCDEQ, was to protect other coastal areas that could not be incorporated into the national program. The state acquired Permuda Island near topsail Island that year and Buxton Woods in the southern Outer Banks in 1988.

In 1989 CAMA formally established the North Carolina Coastal Reserve Program. In the following years, the state program grew to include Kitty Hawk Woods Reserve in 1992, Bald Head Woods Reserve in 1993, Emily and Richardson Preyer Buckridge Reserve in Tyrrell County in 1999, and Bird Island Reserve, the southernmost site, in 2002.

Updated 10:30 a.m. Wednesday: The Senate Agriculture, Energy and Environment Committee adopted the amendment during its meeting Wednesday morning in Raleigh.

Original post 11:45 a.m. Tuesday:

Sen. Bobby Hanig, R-Currituck, has proposed language that would direct the Coastal Resources Commission to implement its longstanding rule protecting Jockey’s Ridge until the commission can adopt a permanent rule that again defines the massive dune as an area of environmental concern.

Hanig said Tuesday during the Senate Agriculture, Energy and Environment Committee meeting in the Legislative Building in Raleigh that he would formally introduce the proposed committee substitute for House Bill 426 for committee consideration Wednesday.

The proposed language is in response to an ongoing dispute between the Coastal Resources Commission and the state Rules Review Commission, which last year rejected 30 longtime coastal rules, including protections for Jockey’s Ridge in place since 1977.

The CRC is responsible for adopting coastal management rules. The RRC is charged with reviewing and approving rules adopted by state agencies.

“Currently there’s a lawsuit between the CRC and RRC regarding several emergency declarations that were put in place and Jockey’s Ridge is caught in the middle of it,” Hanig said Tuesday during the committee discussion. “Currently Jockey’s Ridge is not protected from any type of construction or anything like that. So, we got to make sure we take care of Jockey’s Ridge.”

Hanig’s measure would direct the Coastal Resources Commission to implement its previously adopted rule establishing minimum use standards for development in the Jockey’s Ridge area environmental concern until the CRC adopts permanent rules.

The language would also require Department of Administration to hold a public hearing before granting an easement on state property for disposal of spoil materials dredged from navigable waters or dumping rights of spoil materials in the county where the proposed easement is located and consult with the Joint Legislative Commission on Governmental Operations, effective Aug. 1.

It would also “clarify” language regarding surfaces excluded from consideration as “built-upon area” for purposes of state or local stormwater programs. It would also add artificial turf installed over pervious surface to the list of surfaces that are not considered built-upon area.

MANTEO — In an effort to address objections from the commission that last year nulled 30 state rules, including the environmental designation for Jockey’s Ridge, and to maintain temporary rule protections, the North Carolina Coastal Resources Commission unanimously voted Thursday to send an amended rule and findings from the state geologist back to the state Rules Review Commission.

“We’re trying, but there’s no guarantee that the Rules Review (Commission) will in any way change their mind,” CRC Chair Renee Cahoon said after the vote during the second day of the two-day meeting at the Dare County Administration Building. “We hope that the supplemental findings and the fact that we’re fighting so hard will make a difference.”

The findings, she said, are based on a letter received this week from State Geologist Kenneth Taylor affirming that Jockey’s Ridge meets the qualifications that define an Area of Environmental Concern, including being a unique geologic formation.

The CRC is seeking to restore the AEC designation to Jockey’s Ridge State Park in a permanent rule to replace the one tossed by the 10-member Rules Review Commission, which is appointed by the leaders of each chamber of the North Carolina General Assembly.

Jockey’s Ridge in Dare County is the tallest living sand dune on the East Coast, according to the nonprofit Friends of Jockey’s Ridge organization that supports the state park created in 1975 at the site once targeted by developers.

The Division of Coastal Management staff is proposing an amended rule to redesignate Jockey’s Ridge as an Area of Environmental Concern, along with a set of use standards to protect the AEC from incompatible development and loss of sand.

The proposed amended rule would include protective-use standards for the AEC to prevent incompatible development and sand loss, according to division staff. At the same time, the CRC intends the revised rule to alleviate the Rules Review Commission’s stated objections by limiting rule content to the Jockey’s Ridge AEC designation and its particular use standards.

The Rules Review Commission had objected to 30 existing CRC rules. Last year, new legislation prevented the CRC from responding to the objections and the state codifier removed them from the N.C. Administrative Code. The CRC then reinstated 16 of those rules through emergency rulemaking and proposed temporary rules, to which the rules commission objected.

“This is unchartered territory for us,” Cahoon explained. “In the past, any rule that came up for periodic review, we worked with the Rules Review Commission.”

The Coastal Resources Commission was caught off guard during last year’s state legislative session, she said, when the General Assembly gave the rules codifier the ability to eliminate existing rules. Objections were also issued against numerous other state agencies’ rules.

“No more notification — just absolutely unfettered power to drop the rules,” Cahoon said of the change.

Area residents and Jockey’s Ridge supporters have come out in force in favor of the AEC redesignation, which in part ensures that sand will not be removed from the dune and protects it from unsuitable development.

“You can’t get this back,” resident Taylor Conyers told Coastal Resource Commission members during the public comment portion of the meeting Thursday, adding that she was speaking on behalf of other younger residents. “You can’t get Jockey’s Ridge back once it’s encroached upon. Like, it’s gone.”

As Daniel Govoni, policy analyst and federal consistency coordinator with the Division of Coastal Management, detailed in his presentation Thursday, the proposed rule is divided into three areas: description, boundary and use standards.  

“If we approach this rule as a brand-new rule and, instead of going into all the other processes, it would have three sections,” Govoni said.

Commission member Jordan Hennessy had previously requested staff to prepare proposed rule language for the panel to review.

Hennessy, who has attracted attention for, among other actions, attempting to oust Cahoon as chair at the start of his first commission meeting, spoke out in support of the AEC for Jockey’s Ridge. 

“It’s a gem, a treasure to the state,” said Hennessy.

The commission, during the meeting, also approved starting the permanent rulemaking process, which takes about a year, to replace six other rules that were deleted over Rules Review Commission objections.

The process would require additional public comment periods and public hearings.

Reprinted from Outer Banks Voice

As the Coastal Resources Commission and North Carolina Rules Review Commission head to court over regulatory language for coastal development and use, Jockey’s Ridge State Park is in danger of losing its Area of Environmental Concern protections.

The Area of Environmental Concern, or AEC, protections, among other things, prohibit removing sand that has migrated off the dune and allows the state to periodically move that sand back within park boundaries. The AEC also has provisions prohibiting some types of development in close proximity to the park.

There is increasing frustration with the rulings of the Rules Review Commission about what would constitute acceptable language for AEC protection.

Coastal Resources Commission is scheduled to hear an update Thursday during its meeting in Manteo on the Rules Revision Commission’s April 8 objection and hold a discussion in closed session.

Related: CRC to consider variances, hear rulemaking update

The Rules Review Commission determines the language that is used by regulatory agencies. It has ruled that some 30 regulations that govern how the Coastal Area Management Act, or CAMA, operates are vague, imprecise or inconsistent with its mandate. Those rules have been removed, including the AEC protections for Jockey’s Ridge.

The Coastal Resources Commission attempted to create temporary rules for the Jockey’s Ridge AEC in March, but the Rules Review Commission rejected those rules earlier this month, using the word “unique” 16 times in the five paragraphs written rejecting the AEC rule.

Although there were other descriptions and language the Rules Review Commission rejected, the word unique was associated with almost every objection.

Rules Review Commission counsel Brian Liebman wrote in part that the Coastal Resources Commission “does not define what degree of exclusivity transforms an ordinary geologic formation into a ‘unique’ geologic formation and does not define the coastal area in which these formations must be found.”

The North Carolina Division of Parks and Recreation describes Jockey’s Ridge as “an excellent example of a medano, a large, isolated hill of sand, asymmetrical in profile and lacking vegetation.”

Nags Head Mayor Ben Cahoon pointed out that there is nothing else like Jockey’s Ridge on the East Coast of the United States, and by that definition, it is unique.

“Jockey’s Ridge, as far as I know on the East Coast of the United States is unique…How many words do you want to use? There’s not another one like it. And it is in fact unique,” he said.

Speaking for herself, former Nags Head Commissioner and Coastal Resources Commission Chair Renee Cahoon, also voiced frustration.

“It’s just mind-boggling that all of a sudden, there’s verbiage use that’s not acceptable to a new Rules Review Commission that has been accepted for every 10 years by previous Rules Review Commissions and that were accepted by the initial Rules Review Commission when we made the rules,” she said.

The Coastal Resources and Rules Review commissions are currently in court over the wording that can be used in rulemaking. The Coastal Resources Commission is responsible for writing the language that is used in its regulations. The Rules Review Commission determines if the language is sufficiently clear and not open to interpretation.

“Because this matter is pending litigation, we are unable to comment,” Nazneen Ahmed, Press Secretary for Attorney General Josh Stein, wrote in an email to the Outer Banks Voice.

An attempt by the Coastal Resources Commission to put into effect temporary rules consistent with what had been in use for some time, was disallowed by the Rules Review Commission.

For Mayor Ben Cahoon, it leaves the town of Nags Head in a difficult position. The town, he said, will do all it can to support and protect Jockey’s Ridge, but there is a real limit to what a municipality can do.

“We’ll do what little bit it can do by ordinance…in the interim, until it’s all resolved,” he said. “But I see at some point, as frustrating as it is, we have to realize it’s out of our hands until either these two agencies come to agreement or the court or the legislature weighs in somehow.”

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

Post has been updated

Coastal Resources Commission members are scheduled to discuss during closed session at their meeting next week the Rules Revision Commission’s April 8 objection to temporary rules, including protections for Jockey’s Ridge.

The meeting will begin at 3 p.m. Wednesday, April 24, at the Dare County Government Center in Manteo, and resume at 9 a.m. Thursday, April 25. A public input and comment period is scheduled for 11:30 a.m. April 25. At the chair’s discretion, comments may be limited to three minutes per person.

The public may attend the meeting in-person or join the web conference online.

The Coastal Resources Advisory Council will meet at 1 p.m. Wednesday, also at the government center. This meeting will be in-person only.

A full meeting agenda and briefing materials can be found on the CRC website. Times indicated on the agenda for individual items are subject to change

Commissioners will hear Wednesday afternoon presentations on sea level rise impacts, sea level and high tide flooding predictions, sunny day flood monitoring and water level monitoring.

When the meeting resumes on Thursday, commission members are to hear updates on the Resilient Coastal Communities Program, and consider variance requests for a private dock in Kitty Hawk and urban waterfront use in Wilmington.

Staff are to then present recommendations for permanent rulemaking, as well, including for work plats, or project plans, standards, the application process and public notice requirements. Staff will also make recommendations for major development and dredge & fill applications, permit conditions and mitigation projects, the Jockey’s Ridge Area of Environmental Concern, and wheat straw bales for sand fencing installation and maintenance.

The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Coastal Management carries out the state’s Coastal Area Management Act, the Dredge and Fill Law and the federal Coastal Zone Management Act of 1972 in the 20 coastal counties, using rules and policies of the Coastal Resources Commission.

More than a dozen rules state coastal management officials say are crucial to day-to-day operations will remain on the books for now.

The Coastal Resources Commission on Wednesday unanimously adopted the 16 rules as “temporary,” a move that will keep the rules in the state Administrative Code for one year or until they are reinstated as permanent rules.

The lead-up to Wednesday’s vote, which was cast during a special called meeting, had Mary Lucasse, special deputy attorney general and counsel for the Coastal Resources Commission, at times seemingly defend a case already in the courts.

Commissioner Jordan Hennessy, who was newly appointed to the commission last year, peppered Lucasse with questions as he referenced an ongoing lawsuit the coastal commission and North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality filed against the Rules Review Commission and state Codifier of Rules Ashley Berger Snyder.

“Are we following all the rules and laws of the state when it comes to the temporary rules and permanent rulemaking process because the statement says that the CRC fails to show that the notice and hearing requirements of temporary and permanent rulemaking are contrary to public interest,” Hennessy said.

He was referring to comments included in a letter Snyder sent Lucasse a couple of days after the coastal commission adopted the rules as “emergency” late last year as a means to quickly get them back into the state code.

“In my opinion the Coastal Resources Commission is doing that,” Lucasse responded. “And, as you know, there’s a dispute between two equally positioned agencies about how to interpret laws. That’s what codifier has indicated. I don’t agree with her. Other people don’t agree with her. It doesn’t really matter because between the two of these equal agencies, if we think we’re following the law and we move forward doing that, then it will have to be determined by a court here in North Carolina because that’s how disputes are decided.”

When Hennessy read from the lawsuit later in the meeting, Lucasse said he “appeared to be taking that at face value” and that that was not appropriate.

“I’m asking questions to try to get better educated on this and I’d appreciate if we can just stick to that and answering the questions,” Hennessy responded.

Snyder, who is the daughter of North Carolina Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger, R-Rockingham and Guilford, removed 30 of the coastal commission’s longstanding rules last October after those rules were objected to by the rules commission.

State Division of Coastal Management officials have been working with the rules commission to tweak wording in the 14 rules that have not been temporarily adopted.

The now-adopted temporary rules enforce certain protections for coastal landmarks including Jockey’s Ridge State Park in Nags Head and Permuda Island off the shores of North Topsail Beach in Onslow County.

Some members of the coastal commission questioned why the state’s coastal management division needed the rule that designates Jockey’s Ridge as an area of environmental concern, or AEC, since the landmark is also offered federal protections. AECs are areas of natural importance that the division designates to protect from uncontrolled development.

“If it’s determined to be a natural landmark by the U.S. Department of Interior why will we need a rule to protect it?” Commission Robbie Yates asked.

The rules allow the coastal commission to have jurisdiction and set rules that are consistent within the coastal management’s Coastal Area Management Act, or CAMA, program, Lucasse said.

And the rule in question dictates that sand blown from Jockey’s Ridge onto neighboring properties must be returned to the park, another commissioner noted.

“Given the winds that we have down here, Jockey’s Ridge is protected so that when the sand blows away it gets put back into the resource, not taken away and disposed of, for example, on the beach or somewhere else,” Commission Chair Renee Cahoon said.

An overwhelming majority of nearly 230 comments submitted to the division over the course of more than a month supported the temporary rules. Environmental organizations, the Southern Environmental Law Center and a handful of beach towns from North Topsail Beach to Duck supported the rules. More than 600 signatures were included in a petition submitted by the N.C. Conservation Network.

Yates further pressed Lucasse, asking how one might argue that the rule pertaining to Jockey’s Ridge is a matter of public safety.

“The legislature has said that it’s very important for them to balance development and to protect the national natural resources at the coast,” Lucasse said. “Your commission, you and the people that have sat in the chairs before you, have gone through a very thoughtful process of designating areas of environmental concern in order to protect the natural resources at the coast. I think that this is a situation in which your coastal program has been lessened and the welfare of the people who have depended, as the legislature has designated this commission to do to protect those natural resources, means that we’re in a situation where there’s a need for this temporary action in order to protect public health, safety and welfare.”

But Commissioner Steve King questioned whether having multiple layers of jurisdiction is beneficial for the public.

“To me that is de facto definition of bureaucracy and I’m not sure how that weighs in the public interest to have that kind of process,” King said.

He said he would be looking at the permanent rules, saying what will be, in his opinion, a “complete investigative audit of rulemaking process and permitting making process.”

Hennessy said he would support the temporary rules “for now,” but that he would like to see some changes made to the rules before they become permanent.

Cahoon said there will be ample time for commissioners and the public to comment further on the rules.

This special news feature is part of Coastal Review’s 12-month observance of the Coastal Area Management Act’s 50th year.

WILMINGTON – There was no time to waste.

The North Carolina General Assembly’s April 1974 passage of the Coastal Area Management Act triggered demanding deadlines to set the course for managing development along the coast.

Today, the act continues to be referred to as “bold,” one that thrust North Carolina into an elite category whose leaders had the foresight to create something that other coastal states look to as a template for how to do it right.

Yet CAMA’s beginning was as humble as it was ambitious.

“There was zero staff, zero institutional history,” explained David Owens, retired professor of public law and government at the University of North Carolina School of Government. “It was a blank slate pretty much.”

Owens, who spent 10 years with the North Carolina Division of Coastal Management, was among a host of panelists who verbally unfolded CAMA’s history, how it has evolved over the last five decades, and how it has led to the creation of partnerships aimed at conserving unique coastal resources and, in today’s changing climate, helping communities adapt to the effects of rising seas.

From those who were there at the beginning to those who spoke of how the local governments they represent have benefited from CAMA, panelists spoke at the Coastal Resources Commission meeting Wednesday afternoon in downtown Wilmington to commemorate CAMA’s 50^th anniversary.

Owens reminisced on the first 15 years of CAMA, breaking the act’s earlier history into two parts – the first few, building from the ground up years to the subsequent years when officials “put some muscle on the bones that had been there.”

One of the big political debates that sprouted during CAMA’s first weeks centered on appointments to the Coastal Resources Commission, or CRC, a then-newly created commission that would be responsible for designating areas of environmental concern or areas of natural importance, to protect from uncontrolled development, adopting development rules and policies within those areas, and verify local coastal land use plans.

What qualifications were they looking for in commission members? How would they be appointed? Officials had to determine the answers to those questions and ensure the first sitting members were on the commission in six weeks.

For the first three years, the commission met two days each month, rotating their meetings up and down the coast. Within that time and starting with a staff of two, the commission adopted guidelines for local land use plans, identified areas of environmental concern and hosted public hearings on those areas, and adopted development standards. Nineteen of the state’s 20 coastal counties adopted land use plans.

State staff gradually grew to roughly a dozen people, and in March 1978, the CAMA permit program was launched.

Into the early to mid-1980s, the CRC beefed up CAMA’s foundation, improving planning guidelines to make them more useful and helpful for local governments. The board took another look at oceanfront development standards established for areas of environmental concern, formulated a method on how to get solid beach erosion rates, and examined social and economic impacts associated with these designated areas.

CAMA programs expanded to include land acquisition, which led to public beach accesses and estuarine system and acquisition programs for natural areas, which led to the purchase of state reserve sites.

CAMA has been amended several times over the years. Today, DCM has more than 50 full-time employees and issues about 3,000 permits each year.

Panelists who spoke Wednesday highlighted various successes DCM has achieved, including 16 U.S. Army Corps of Engineers regional general permits specific to North Carolina that streamline the permitting process, collaborating with other organizations to create and implement nature-based solutions such as living shorelines to combat erosion, and guiding local governments in implementing climate resiliency and adaptation programs.

Through the CAMA program, local governments have received more than $45 million to create or improve 420 sites to provide public access to beaches and coastal waters, said North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality Secretary Elizabeth Biser.

“Fifty years of CAMA has helped to preserve a healthy environment, foster economic opportunity, and protect our public trust resources for the future,” Biser said. “All of these have led to a high quality of life for coastal residents, a coast that draws visitors and their economic benefit, and a living laboratory to introduce students at our public schools to the natural world and the wonders of science. We should all be proud of the accomplishments this partnership has made through CAMA’s history.”

“CAMA has done many, many, many things positive for coastal North Carolina,” Sen. Norm Sanderson, R-Pamlico, said. “It’s also very, very connected to the economic health of this state and the safety of the people who live here. It’s not about our generation. It’s about what we leave for the next generation and the next generation.”

Hyde County Manager Kris Cahoon Noble explained that CAMA affects daily decisions of that local government.

“It is the act that has protected our most precious coastal resources,” she said.

Fresh challenges

The future of coastal management will look different in the years to come as an onset of fresh challenges emerges thanks to rapidly growing populations in the state’s 20 coastal counties, the onset of more intense coastal storms and nuisance flooding associated with sea level rise.

“The changes over the next 50 years aren’t going to look the same as the last 50,” DCM Director Tancred Miller said.

The Coastal Resources Commission is currently locked in a battle with the North Carolina Rules Review Commission over more than a dozen rules that affect day-to-day decisions within the division.

Thursday closed the public comment period on 16 of 30 longstanding rules objected to by the Rules Review Commission last fall and then removed from the North Carolina Administrative Code.

The commission voted in December to classify and adopt the 16 rules as “emergency,” which effectively got them back into the Administrative Code.

DCM had received 171 comments as of Monday, all of which urge the CRC to adopt the rules as temporary, a measure that would keep them in the Administrative Code for one year or until they are reinstated as permanent rules.

The rules include one that designates Jockey’s Ridge State Park as an area of environmental concern and dictates that sand blown from Jockey’s Ridge onto neighboring properties must be returned to the park.

The coastal commission and DEQ filed a lawsuit in Wake County Superior Court against the rules commission and Snyder to settle the deadlock over legal interpretations between the two commissions and restore the rules.

The commission has scheduled a special called meeting at 11 a.m. March 13 to decide whether to adopt the temporary rules.

This special commentary feature is part of Coastal Review’s 12-month observance of the Coastal Area Management Act’s 50th year.

When first considered 50 years ago, the Coastal Area Management Act (CAMA) was the most controversial environmental legislation considered in the state. It was then and remains the state’s only attempt to forge a state-local government partnership for regional resource management. Many observers in 1974 thought that if not repealed, this new law would collapse from the weight of its overly ambitious design.

Yet CAMA is still with us. This article reviews how the law came to be, how it has worked, and the challenges it faces moving forward.

Adoption

Gov. Bob Scott first proposed a state coastal program in 1969. Given the complexity of developing a “comprehensive and enforceable plan” for the coastal zone, in 1971 a 25-member Blue Ribbon Committee with diverse interests was created to develop legislation. It took the committee two years to develop a draft bill that served as the framework for CAMA.

In early 1973, the administration of newly elected Republican Gov. Jim Holshouser supported moving forward with the bill. It was introduced by the Democratic chairs of the House and Senate committees that would consider the bill, Rep. Willis Whichard of Durham and Sen. Bill Staton of Lee County. Coastal local governments quickly expressed reservations about the state taking over traditional local powers relative to land use management. So, the sponsors decided to conduct a series of hearings in the coastal area between the 1973 and 1974 legislative sessions to further refine the legislation.

After these hearings and much deliberation, the bill was revised to that strengthened the role of local government and move most policy decisions to a Coastal Resources Commission (CRC) composed of citizens with a broad range of differing interests and expertise (rather than with the Department of Environment and Natural Resources Secretary as originally proposed). A Coastal Resources Advisory Committee with strong local representation was added to bolster local involvement. The bill still faced strong opposition from some in the development community, from private property rights advocates, and some coastal local governments. Most coastal legislators remained in opposition. But with strong bipartisan support from Gov. Holshouser and Lt. Gov. Jim Hunt (who at that time was the presiding officer in the Senate), and after several legislative near-death experiences, the bill was enacted on April 11, 1974.

This four-year effort to develop CAMA modelled what has been a defining feature of coastal management in North Carolina – proceeding cautiously but ambitiously and only after a great deal of discussion and consensus building amongst affected interests.

Judicial and Legislative Challenges

The threat of judicial invalidation was a serious immediate concern. The three principal legal challenges were that application of the law to coastal counties rather than making it a statewide program rendered it a “local law” prohibited by the state constitution, that the broad authority granted to the CRC constituted an unlawful delegation of legislative discretion, and that the development regulations would be an unconstitutional taking of private property. In 1978 the North Carolina Supreme Court upheld the law on the local act and unlawful delegation claims and held the takings claim was premature.

There have since been nearly 30 state appellate court decisions regarding CAMA. Most have dealt with the process for making individual permit appeals to the courts, the details of specific enforcement orders, and the occasional interpretation of development standards and variance rules as applied to individual applications. No cases have found that CAMA rules unconstitutionally constrain private property rights, notably upholding decisions to deny permits for fill for a road in wetlands and for construction of shoreline erosion control structures.

The threat of legislative repeal of the law did not materialize. That is not to say there has not been ongoing legislative opposition. In the early 1980s a prominent coastal legislator threatened to “gut CAMA like a fish on the wharf in Wanchese” and unsuccessfully sought to eliminate most of its budget. While the General Assembly has continually tweaked and refined the law, most of the legislative changes strengthened or refined the details of the law rather than weakening it. Budgetary support has waxed and waned over the years, but as part of broader trends affecting all environmental programs.

Program Accomplishments

CAMA has successfully met most of its lofty goals.

Land use planning. When CAMA was enacted only a small handful of coastal cities or counties had land use plans and local development regulations. That was not surprising given the rural and small-town nature of much of the coastal region. So, building local institutional planning capacity was an early focus of CAMA. By 1993 all 20 coastal counties and 67 municipalities (including 59 cities with populations under 5,000) had adopted plans and had them approved by the CRC.

The state’s planning guidelines have evolved over time to promote local attention to key policy areas, including addressing storm hazards and rebuilding, beach access, coastal water quality, and more resilient and sustainable development patterns. Greater flexibility has been granted to local governments to tailor planning to their particular circumstances. While the quality of individual local plans still varies a good deal, the level of citizen and local government engagement in addressing future land use and development has moved from nearly nonexistent to robust. This would have happened for only a few local governments without the CAMA planning mandate and the substantial state and federal funding provided to prepare and implement local plans.

Development standards. The second early focus of the program was developing a permit program for critical coastal environmental areas. In 1977 the CRC designated coastal waters and wetlands and about 3% of the coastal land area as its permit jurisdiction. While the areas have been tweaked and modestly expanded several times since, the scope of CAMA permit jurisdiction has been accepted and noncontroversial. Initiatives to consolidate and streamline permit processing have been adopted over the years, including exemptions for minor development and expedited general permits for routine work.

The standards for development have prevented unwise and harmful development while not deterring beneficial and desirable development. The wholesale filling and excavation of coastal marshes taking place in the 1950s and 1960s was halted. Piers, bulkheads, and marinas are built without destroying critical fisheries habitats or interfering with public use of coastal waters. “Living shorelines” and other innovations for dealing with estuarine shoreline erosion are being encouraged. Redevelopment of urban waterfronts and enhancement of the state’s ports proceeds in a responsible fashion.

The standards adopted for development in ocean hazard areas are one of the more significant program accomplishments. Oceanfront setbacks have prevented construction of new structures that would shortly be in danger of falling into the ocean. When these setbacks were enacted in 1979, it was estimated there were nearly 800 existing oceanfront lots that could not meet the new setback requirements. The doubled setback later adopted for large structures further reduces future losses, particularly when major storms strike the coast. CAMA standards prohibit the construction of oceanfront bulkheads that would eventually destroy the public beach. These measures, which would not exist without CAMA, have been critical in preserving the attractive ocean beaches that are a beloved state treasure and essential to the tourism industry.

Beach and water access. The General Assembly significantly improved CAMA by adding an ocean beach access program in 1981 and extending it to estuarine shorelines and waters in 1983. These laws declared, and the courts subsequently confirmed, that the public has a right to free use of ocean beaches and public trust waters. These programs provided the walkways, dune crossovers, piers, parking, and restrooms needed for people to get to and use these public resources. Since an initial $1 million beach access appropriation in 1981, the state has provided over $50 million in grants to support nearly 500 access projects. This extensive access program has been a rousing success.

Preservation of natural areas. As with beach access, CAMA did not originally include a program for preservation of natural areas that were not already under public ownership. That was rectified when the state secured approval for a four-site National Estuarine Research Reserve in 1982. Additional sites were added in the mid-1980s as state protected areas. The General Assembly formalized this initiative with the adoption of legislation establishing a state coastal reserve program in 1989. There are now 10 coastal reserve sites containing over 44,000 acres, assuring the long-term preservation of important natural areas for research, education, and public enjoyment.

Challenges

Coastal management is never “solved.” The appropriate balance between competing legitimate public interests in development and conservation is always in flux. New issues and challenges emerge. Old conflicts and controversies are resurrected. Interest groups on all sides continually jockey for some new advantage.

Two additional factors will make resolution of ongoing coastal issues more challenging in the coming decades.

The state’s population, which was under 5.5 million when CAMA was enacted, is now over 10.5 million and is expected to top 14 million by 2050. While coastal population growth in the 1960s created the need for CAMA, the coming decades will see even greater growth. Six of our oceanfront counties are projected to have population increases of over 25% by 2050. Accommodating this growth will put significant pressures on natural resources and public infrastructure. Many of our beach towns are nearly built out at the current low-density levels desired by residents and visitors alike. Securing affordable housing and maintaining the traditional character and charm of coastal communities will be difficult. At the same time, six of our coastal counties are facing population losses of over 10% by 2050, which poses different but no less significant challenges for these more rural coastal areas.

There has been an understandable pressure on the state program since the mid-1980s to focus its efforts and attention on improving the permitting program that it directly manages. However, as those who crafted CAMA clearly understood, the permitting program alone will be inadequate to meet this coming growth challenge. Renewed funding and attention to the collaborative state-local land use planning built into CAMA will be necessary.

The second factor that will increasingly challenge CAMA success is the accelerating impacts of climate change in general and sea level rise particularly. Accommodating new development and protecting natural resources will be more difficult given more frequent and widespread flooding and storms, increasing habitat loss, threats to transportation and utilities infrastructure, and the near-certain eventual need to address major post-storm recovery and rebuilding. While meaningful attention is now being given to adaptation and resilience issues, going well beyond “business as usual” will be essential to deal with these longer-term impacts. The integrated use of regulation, planning, acquisition, and public education that is built into CAMA provides the opportunity to do this.

Keys to Continued Success

Legislative support and funding have always been and will continue to be fragile. Those disappointed by policies adopted by the CRC seek to persuade the legislature to intervene, a perennial practice that will no doubt continue. Building continuing and constructive legislative engagement is necessary for program success.

The question of who makes the key program policy decisions was one of the most hotly debated issues 50 years ago and continues today with debate on how the CRC should be composed and who should appoint its members. How that is resolved is critical as the program will thrive only with quality appointments. The CRC members’ expertise, judgment, dedication, and leadership are indispensable elements for program success.

Broad public engagement and education, which was absolutely essential to creation of the program and its early success, is all the more difficult with the loss of local newspapers, fractured electronic media, and increasingly rigid partisan and ideological polarization. Building a shared understanding of the impacts of and threats to coastal development is necessary to build the consensus needed to address coming challenges.

The guiding principle for those crafting CAMA and responsible for its early successes was an abiding dedication to long-term protection of the coast for the beneficial use and enjoyment of all its residents and visitors. In the early 1980s, then-CRC Chair Parker Chesson would often remind the CRC, CRAC, staff, and public at the end of long and sometimes fractious discussion, “We’ve heard from everybody and now it’s time to decide what is in the best long-term public interest.”

Adherence to that admonition, along with a lot of hard work by a lot of good people, will be necessary if we want to have a 100-year celebration of the enactment of CAMA.

The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality is kicking off a yearlong, 50th anniversary celebration of the N.C. Coastal Area Management Act, or CAMA, as part of the Coastal Resources Commission’s Feb. 21-22 meeting in Wilmington.

The Division of Coastal Management, under NCDEQ, carries out CAMA, the Dredge and Fill Law, and the federal Coastal Zone Management Act of 1972 in the 20 coastal counties, using rules and policies established by the Coastal Resources Commission. The Coastal Resources Commission was created in 1974 when the General Assembly adopted CAMA.

“The Division of Coastal Management will honor the 50^th anniversary of the NC Coastal Area Management Act by reflecting on the impact of this important legislation to our state and especially to coastal North Carolina,” Division of Coastal Management Director Tancred Miller told Coastal Review. “We will start by focusing on what 50 years of the law has accomplished with an afternoon of distinguished panelists from local, state and legislative partners. We look forward to sharing more about continuing our yearlong celebration in the months ahead.”

Related: Emergency coastal rules draw little notice during hearings

The Coastal Resources Advisory Council meeting will take place at 10:30 a.m. Wednesday, Feb. 21, followed by the anniversary celebration at Aloft Wilmington at Coastline Center, 501 Nutt St., Wilmington. The Coastal Resources Commission meeting is scheduled for 9 a.m. Thursday, Feb. 22.

The anniversary celebration will start at 1:30 p.m. with a welcome from Miller, NCDEQ Secretary Elizabeth Biser and Coastal Resources Commission Chair Renee Cahoon.

Panel discussions will begin at 1:45 p.m. with a review the history of CAMA. At 2:30 p.m. will be a panel on CAMA regulatory framework, followed at 3:30 p.m. with the local governments and partnerships panel. Programming will wrap up after the 4:30 p.m. legislative panel with Reps. Charles Miller, R-Brunswick, and Carson Smith, R-Onslow, and Sen. Norman Sanderson, R-Pamlico. The anniversary celebration will wrap up with a reception at 5:30 p.m.

The commission during its Feb. 22 meeting will consider a beach management plan for Kure Beach, hear an update on the public comment period for the proposed temporary rules.

A public comment period is scheduled for 10:45 a.m. Thursday, Feb. 22. At the chair’s discretion, comments may be limited to three minutes per person.

The full agenda and list of panelists for the anniversary event can be found on the website.

The public comment period on more than a dozen proposed temporary rules that guide state coastal matters has been extended through February.

Written comments on 16 rules the Coastal Resources Commission late last year reinstated as emergency rules will be accepted until 5 p.m. Feb. 22, which is also the date in which the commission is scheduled to hold its first meeting of the year.

“All comments received via email and mail will then be considered during review of the proposed rules,” North Carolina Division of Coastal Management Public Information Officer Christy Simmons stated in an email.

Related: Emergency coastal rules draw little notice during hearings

The commission voted at a specially called meeting in December to adopt the rules, which division officials say are critical to day-to-day operations, as “emergency” as a way to get them back into the administrative code.

Their vote overrode the decision of the state Codifier of Rules Ashley Berger Snyder to remove 30 of the coastal commission’s longstanding rules after those rules were objected to by the Rules Review Commission in October.

Last month, Division of Coastal Management staff hosted three public hearings to receive comment on the proposed temporary rules. Fewer than 20 people turned out for the hearings, which were held in Dare, Carteret and Onslow counties.

Written comments may be submitted by email to Angela.Willis@deq.nc.gov or by post to: Tancred Miller, Director, Division of Coastal Management, 400 Commerce Ave., Morehead City, NC  28557. List “Temporary Rules” in the subject line.

The Coastal Resources Commission is set to meet Feb. 21-22 at Aloft Wilmington at Coastline Center, 501 Nutt St., Wilmington. An agenda for that meeting was not available when this report was published.

Update Jan. 26: The Coastal Resources Commission has extended the public comment period on proposed temporary rules to 5 p.m. Feb. 22, the Division of Coastal Management announced Thursday. The previous deadline was Feb. 1.

Written comments can be sent by email with “Temporary Rules” in the subject line to Angela.Willis@deq.nc.gov or by mail Tancred Miller, Director, Division of Coastal Management, 400 Commerce Ave., Morehead City, NC 28557.

Original post published Jan. 12:

SNEADS FERRY – Rules the state’s lead environmental agency says are critical to its day-to-day operations drew little to no public comment during a series of hearings hosted in three coastal counties this week.

Fewer than 20 people turned out for public hearings the North Carolina Division of Coastal Management held Tuesday and Wednesday in Dare, Carteret and Onslow counties.

Even fewer spoke on the record to share their thoughts about 16 rules the Coastal Resources Commission agreed last month were too important to be pulled from the state Administrative Code. The commission was created to adopt rules for the state’s Coastal Area Management Act, or CAMA, and the Dredge and Fill Act, and establishes policies for the North Carolina Coastal Management Program.

The commission voted at a specially called meeting in mid-December to classify the rules as “emergency” and adopted them as a way to fast-track getting them back into the Administrative Code.

The commission’s vote overrode the decision of state Codifier of Rules Ashley Berger Snyder to remove 30 of the coastal commission’s longstanding rules after those rules were objected to by the Rules Review Commission last October.

Snyder, who was appointed in 2021, returned a telephone call to Coastal Review Thursday but declined to answer questions.

“We do not comment on any pending litigation,” Snyder said, referring to an ongoing lawsuit the coastal commission and North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality filed in November against her and the Rules Review Commission.

Snyder is the daughter of North Carolina Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger, R-Rockingham and Guilford.

The Division of Coastal Management is accepting written comments on the 16 emergency rules through Feb. 1.

All comments are to be shared with the Coastal Resources Commission during its first meeting of the year, Feb. 22, in Wilmington. The commission is expected to decide whether to adopt the 16 rules as temporary in order to keep them in the Administrative Code where the rules would remain through to about April.

If adopted, the temporary rules would then be kicked back to the Rules Review Commission for reconsideration.

Division of Coastal Management Deputy Director Mike Lopazanski said Wednesday during the last of the three public hearings the division held this week that staff had been working with the rules commission to tweak wording in the 14 rules that were not adopted as emergency rules.

Those rules are important, he said, but the 16 emergency rules “were the ones we thought were critical.”

Among those rules is one that designates Jockey’s Ridge State Park as an area of environmental concern, or AEC, and dictates that sand blown from Jockey’s Ridge onto neighboring properties must be returned to the park. AECs are areas of natural importance that the division designates to protect from uncontrolled development.

Nags Head Mayor Ben Cahoon, one of the few people who commented during the series of hearings, emphasized the importance of the rule to preserving the park.

“Coastal North Carolina has largely avoided corresponding coastal environment-changing disasters due to CAMA and its establishment and regulation of AECs,” he read from a prepared statement at the hearing held in Dare County on Tuesday. “The establishment of an AEC requires a closer examination of proposed activities and interventions, and gives everyone time to fully consider the consequences of particular actions.”

He noted that Jockey’s Ridge is the only state park that lies fully within a town’s boundaries.

“It is very special to us. Please help us protect it,” he said.

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

But the state budget adopted Oct. 3 of last year includes language that gives the rules commission authority to send rules it objects to back to agencies. The budget also appears to give the state codifier of rules, in this case, Snyder, new authority. It remains unclear, however, whether that new authority includes stripping longstanding rules from the books.

Two days after the budget went into effect, the Rules Review Commission voted in a special called meeting to return the 30 of 132 rules the Coastal Resources Commission submitted for review.

The coastal commission and Department of Environmental Quality sued, asking a Wake County Superior Court judge to resolve the deadlock over legal interpretations between the two commissions and restore the rules.

According to the complaint, on Oct. 26, 2023, Snyder explained via email to DEQ’s rulemaking coordinator that, “because readoption of rules in the periodic review process requires that all rules be readopted as if they are new rules, the RRC had to approve preexisting rules for those rules’ ‘entry’ into the Code. As described further in the attached email correspondence, the Codifier asserted that the thirty rules at issue were removed from the Code because the rules had not been approved by the RRC and were subsequently returned to the agency.”

Note: Coastal Review will not publish Monday in observance of the Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. holiday.

This historical profile is presented as part of Coastal Review’s 2024 yearlong examination of 50 years of the North Carolina Coastal Area Management Act, including the science that helped to inform and the advocacy and leadership that resulted in passage of the landmark 1974 legislation, as well as the coastal environmental challenges yet ahead.

Robert Dolan and Paul Godfrey didn’t meet the way scientists often do, at a conference or sharing a drink after a long, technical talk. Instead, they met on a wind-blown beach near Cape Lookout, part of the long, winding bands of sand we know as the Outer Banks. It was 1971.

Godfrey, a quiet but creative botanist, and his wife Melinda, a pathbreaking marine biologist, had been digging cores along transects in the sand and mud for a research project trying to determine the history of the remote, 28,000-acre Cape Lookout National Seashore. Each layer of sand, peat and mud was like a chapter in a book, they recalled, secrets revealed here, surprises there, building to an unexpected ending.

Dolan, a coastal geologist who specialized in sedimentology, was also digging cores, near Cape Hatteras. He had arrived there almost on a lark in 1959 searching for a topic for his doctoral dissertation. “Why not study the Outer Banks?” one of his professors at Louisiana State University suggested. At the time, little was known about the chain of islands’ geology; some scientists even theorized the Outer Banks must be anchored to a coral reef, which prevented the islands from washing away. Ever confident and always up for an adventure, Dolan packed the family wagon, collected his wife and young daughter, and off they went. A decade later, he was still studying the islands and publishing seminal papers when it was suggested he meet Paul Godfrey and his wife, who were doing similarly impressive work a couple of hours away by boat on the undeveloped Core Banks.

Dolan and Godfrey knew one another from their work and contacts in the National Park Service, which manages the seashores. But they had never spoken, let alone met. Paul and Melinda took Dolan and several park service officials to see their cores, which Melinda had cleverly engineered with PVC piping.

Paul Godfrey, now 83, and living on a nature preserve in Western Massachusetts, recently recalled: “I think Bob was really intrigued. All of the species we identified as being adapted to the coast, he picked up on that right away. He saw we were coming to similar conclusions. The islands weren’t fixed in place like people thought. Nor were they washing away. They were fine, healthy, moving and adapting, the same way humans do.”

“The islands weren’t fixed in place like people thought. Nor were they washing away. They were fine, healthy, moving and adapting, the same way humans do.”

— Paul Godfrey

After their meeting, Dolan and Godfrey began to work together on various projects while they consulted for the park service and held down jobs as young professors at the University of Virginia and the University of Massachusetts, respectively.

Their collaborations would forever change the way coastal scientists looked at barrier islands and prompt the National Park Service to reverse its decades-old policy of trying to hold the islands in place by constructing artificial sand dunes, engineering the beach, bulldozing sand around after storms, even fertilizing the grass and shrubs by plane.

It all sounds so simple today — allow water, wind and storms to naturally sculpt the islands — but it was a revolutionary idea in the early 1970s, even heretical. Many villagers had grown accustomed to the park service protecting them and keeping open N.C. Highway 12, the only route on and off the islands. Even today, decades later, the politics are challenging, with the park service expected to provide a buffer between the ocean and the ever-larger and more expensive vacation homes that line the eroding shoreline and fuel the Banks’ billion-dollar tourism economy.

~

They made an unlikely pair. Robert Dolan grew up in Southern California and was an avid surfer and self-described beach bum at a time when surfing was considered novel and daring in the Golden State. Following a stint in the Navy, he earned undergraduate and master’s degrees in the Earth sciences at Oregon State University. He then headed south, to Baton Rouge, to work on his doctorate in coastal geology at Louisiana State University. Various profiles of Dolan, including one in John Alexander’s 1992 book, “Ribbon of Sand,” described him as confident, exuberant, passionate and adventurous.

Paul Godfrey grew up on a small farm in central Connecticut where he developed an abiding respect for nature. Melinda: around water on Cape Cod, where she learned how to handle boats and measure her own confidence in a world dominated by men. The future couple met in graduate school at Duke University, where Paul was pursuing a PhD, Melinda a master’s. One day, Melinda walked into a call on soil composition affectionately called “Dirt.”

“It was all men,” Paul recalled. “Melinda walked in and all these men were saying, ‘What is she doing here?’” They became lab partners and later Paul followed Melinda to Beaufort, where she worked as an assistant in the school’s renowned marine lab. “It was how I got interested in the coast. Melinda taught me. She was pretty, too,” he laughed.

After arriving on the Outer Banks, Dolan settled his wife and young daughter in a Nags Head cottage about 200 yards from the Atlantic Ocean. In the early morning of March 7, 1962, Dolan awoke to find the ocean rushing under their cottage. Another cottage, seaward of his own, had broken loose and was crashing toward them.

“In record time, I packed my personal belongings and research gear into a four-wheel-drive vehicle and headed for high ground,” he wrote 25 years later in an editorial for the Journal of Coastal Research.     

Dolan had wanted to study the effects of powerful storms on barrier islands. Here was his chance. After delivering his wife and daughter to higher ground, he returned to take measure of the damage. The Ash Wednesday Storm, a three-day nor’easter featuring five high tides, each one higher than the last, was one of the strongest storms to ever strike the Outer Banks. It flooded or flattened scores of homes, crumpled a pier where Dolan had recently installed a tidal gage, and washed away a 30-foot aluminum tower he had built to take photos of the beach.

But the storm also answered some of his research questions. For example, it showed that the massive artificial dunes that Works Progress Administration and Civilian Conservation Corps workers had constructed during the Great Depression to “stabilize” the islands were no match for the storm surge and waves. It also demonstrated how the storm washed large fans of sand across the road to the middle of the island, elevating it, a form of coastal adaptation now known as overwash. As long as man didn’t interfere, barrier islands would heal themselves even after epochal storms, Dolan concluded, shifting sand inland, slowly rebuilding foredunes, widening the marsh along the tidal inlets and sounds.

Dolan had also used a machine to dig 140 cores to study sand samples and test the theory that the islands were anchored to coral reefs. He dug and dug. But all he found was sand, layer after layer, one older than the last — a clear indication that the islands weren’t fixed in place, but were moving. Always moving.

Paul and Melinda Godfrey arrived at similar conclusions near Cape Lookout. Melinda had ingeniously found a way to use PVC piping to take deep samples of sand and mud. She and Paul then pored over each layer, studying the shells, clams and plants for hints that helped to date the formation of the island. The wider and deeper they dug, the more surprises they found: snails near the beach that only could have come from the marsh; shells near the marsh that only could have come from the beach. It was their eureka moment, “powerfully proving,” Godfrey said, “that the islands were moving, slowly rolling over themselves as they inched their way toward land.”       

~

Dolan had begun writing up his findings in research papers for the National Park Service while becoming increasingly vocal about the threats that rampant development posed to Cape Hatteras National Seashore. In 1972, he was joined by Paul Godfrey in a paper questioning the park service’s decades-old practice of spending millions of dollars on dune-building and beach-engineering after storms. The service’s practices gave “the false impression of safety and stability offered by the [artificial] barrier dunes,” they wrote. “As the system is stabilized, man builds roads and utilities that establish a `line-of-development’ which soon becomes a ‘line-of-defense.’”

As you might imagine, the criticism made for some tense moments between the researchers and the park service. “But to their credit, they came around,” said Godfrey. In 1973, Director Ronald H. Walker announced that the park service would no longer try to hold the line against the forces of nature. “There is just no way the National Park Service can continue to fight nature,” he told reporters. “We’ve spent all of this money; tried various ways to control the situation, but none of them has worked.”

“There is just no way the National Park Service can continue to fight nature. We’ve spent all of this money; tried various ways to control the situation, but none of them has worked.”

— Ronald H. Walker, Director, National Park Service, in 1973

The policy shift was the direct result of the work of Dolan, who died in 2016, and Paul and Melinda Godfrey showing that the Outer Banks were “dynamic natural landscapes” that will adapt and repair themselves after storms, losing sand in some places but gaining it in others as part of the natural evolutionary process of barrier islands.

Despite their warnings, developers and governments continued to add thousands of vacation houses and investment properties along the shifting shorelines – scores of which quickly were threatened by rising seas and storms. In the last few decades alone, county, state and federal taxpayers have spent tens of millions of dollars renourishing beaches, building and rebuilding artificial dunes, and constructing multimillion-dollar bridges to bypass storm-damaged roads.

In 2021, the park service adopted a revised sand management policy to help speed up the permitting process, allowing state workers to repair dunes and scrape sand off of N.C. 12 and other applicants to seek sand management permits within national seashore boundaries. But even that may not be enough to satisfy property owners and politicians.

Recently, U.S. Rep. Greg Murphy, a Republican representing North Carolina’s 3rd District, drafted language directing Cape Hatteras National Seashore Superintendent Dave Hallac “to identify potential long-term, cost-effective sediment management activities to minimize the impacts of beach erosion.”

The spending bill provision and ever-evolving policy could place the National Park Service back in the beach-building business.

Footnote: Dolan and the Godfreys continued to study the Outer Banks for decades, bringing hundreds of eager students to dig cores, study the ecology and geology, and experience the unfiltered beauty of the Banks.

This story is part of a new reporting partnership with The Outer Banks Voice.

BEAUFORT – Newly appointed members took seats for their first Coastal Resources Commission meeting here Thursday – also the first since state lawmakers changed the rules regarding its makeup — and four members promptly and unsuccessfully attempted to replace Chair Renee Cahoon.

The board, along with the Environmental Management Commission, was one of the state regulatory commissions that a three-judge panel deciding Gov. Roy Cooper’s legal challenge to Senate Bill 512 on Nov. 1 allowed to proceed with new appointments that the law took away from the governor. The superior court judges gave Cooper a partial victory but did not rule on appointments to the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission or the state Building Council.

The 7-4 vote to reinstate Cahoon, whom Cooper had appointed as chair when that was still state law, came after new commission member Jordan Hennessy’s motion to delay a vote on the chair until after the entire board had been seated. Members Larry Baldwin, James Yates and Robert High joined Hennessy in opposing Cahoon.

Mary Lucasse, the commission’s legal counsel, halted that move, saying that a quorum being present was all the authority needed to proceed with the election and other business on the agenda.

Hennessy told Coastal Review during a break in the meeting that his desire to delay election of a chair was because other new appointees were absent.

“We have two new commissioners that were just appointed along with myself who weren’t here, and they asked for a virtual connection to this meeting and that wasn’t provided. I feel like that when 15% of our commission who are new appointees are not able to be here that they should be able to have a say in their leadership position,” Hennessy said.

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

Cooper had vetoed the bill that stripped the governor’s appointment powers Aug.24, but the GOP-controlled legislature overrode that veto Oct. 10. Cooper immediately challenged the measure’s constitutionality in court.

Previously, the governor appointed nine members but the new law took away three, gave the North Carolina General Assembly two additional appointments for a total of six, and gave the state insurance commissioner one.

Hennessy, a former aide to then-Sen. Bill Cook, R-Beaufort, and a CEO/managing partner with EJE Dredging Service, was Insurance Commissioner Mike Causey’s appointee.

Hennessy told Coastal Review that he looked forward to being of service to the commission. Asked about his relevant coastal management expertise, he said he had “various different experiences of working with local governments on various different projects.” He noted his six years working in the General Assembly, an Outer Banks dredging project and some real estate projects.

Cahoon, during a lunch break, told Coastal Review that she was honored by the commissioners who supported her in the vote. But she declined to comment on those who didn’t. Cahoon said building consensus was the biggest challenge she expected in her renewed role as chair.

“Blending the board, in terms of getting everybody working together,” she said. “It’s important to make sure everybody’s had their orientations and understand the CAMA program and that we’re here for the people of the coastal North Carolina and trying to protect the coast of North Carolina while being still fair to all the property owners.”

Cahoon said she was optimistic that regardless the outcome of any future legal challenges, “I think we’ll all be fine. We all just have to learn to know each other.”

The North Carolina Coastal Resources Commission meets Thursday, Nov. 9, in Beaufort.

The meeting is set for 9 a.m. at the Beaufort Hotel, 2440 Lennoxville Road. A public comment period is scheduled for 11:45 a.m. At the chair’s discretion, comments may be limited to 3 minutes per person.

The commission is expected to consider for adoption permit fee increases.

Commissioners are also expected to take up the state Rules Review Commission’s objections to coastal development rules and other rules including those regulating floating structures such as floating upweller systems associated with shellfish aquaculture.

“The RRC has objected to these rules on the basis that portions of the rules are either unclear, ambiguous, or lack statutory authority,” according to a memo from Division of Coastal Management Deputy Director Mike Lopazanski.

The rules panel also specifically objected to language in specific use standards for Ocean Hazard Areas adopted to include amendments related to the use of beach mats for dune crossovers and enhanced handicap access. In both cases, the objection centered on the use of the long-used term “significant adverse impact,” Lopazanski writes.

“This term has been used in your rules since the inception of the program and is a key phrase, when used by one of the review agencies in comments on a CAMA (Coastal Area Management Act) permit application, that may require alteration of a proposed development activity or a denial of the permit. The phrase has been used as a “term of art” and has been used by the General Assembly in various statutes, in other state regulations, in federal regulations, and by appellate courts to analyze negative impacts in various cases. This term has been used in your rules for decades and the RRC has approved its use repeatedly, most recently with readoption of the rule in 2020. However, the RRC now objects to “significant adverse impacts” because your rules “… provide no definition this term, provides no examples to elucidate the meaning of the term, or any other guidance that would allow the regulated public to determine whether a particular project is in compliance with this Rule and the laws undergirding it.”

The commission is also expected to hear a variance request from Brian and Susan Shugart of Oak Island regarding denial of a permit to expand their pier based on the water depth at the site. The couple seeks a variance from the commission’s rules to develop their proposed dock expansion as proposed in their permit application.

Prior to the commission meeting, the Coastal Resources Advisory Council (CRAC) meets at 3 p.m. Wednesday at the same location.

Both meetings are open to the public.

A full agenda is online.

Updated to include statewide awards

The Dare County Board of Commissioners approved during its regular meeting last week a $1 million grant from the state to help assuage the financial strain caused by last year’s Hurricane Dorian.

Like many counties and local and tribal governments, Dare County has been facing budget impacts caused by hurricane damage and applied for the  state-funded grant through the North Carolina Office of Recovery and Resiliency, or NCORR, program, State Grants for Financially Distressed Local and Tribal Governments.

Governments can apply for grants of up to $1 million as short-term assistance to pay for everyday operating expenses or provide additional support for disaster recovery. Information on the grant application process is on NCORR’s ReBuild.NC.gov website.

“Our communities are committed to rebuilding smarter and stronger and these funds will help foster new partnerships and make North Carolina more resilient against future storms,” said Gov. Roy Cooper in a release.

Communities are also able to apply for zero-interest loans through NCORR, though the 2020 loan application period has closed. Another application period will be announced in the coming months for the revolving loans of up to $2 million. These loans are to help with disaster-related expenses while local governments wait for reimbursement from federal disaster response, recovery and resiliency programs such as those from the Federal Emergency Management Agency. If approved, the loan principal must be repaid upon receiving federal reimbursements.

Clawson said that he identified what items the county needed that met the criteria outlined in the application.

“One of them was a vehicle for emergency management, and another one was if you had Hurricane Dorian costs that had not been reimbursed by FEMA or the state, and we have both of those. And then the rest, the grant application allowed you to use non-hurricane related — just straight up operating expenditures — you can use debt service, you can do payroll, I picked payroll,” he said.

The county, which applied for the grant Sept. 9, will use $55,000 for an emergency management vehicle that has been requested but not included in the FY2021 budget, $166,456 for debris costs from Hurricane Dorian that was ineligible for reimbursement, per FEMA, and $778,544 for economic relief to general fund, to be used for general payroll obligations, according to the county.

County commissioners approved a budget amendment for the grant and the memorandum of agreement during the meeting.

More than 40 local and tribal governments have been awarded about $50 million in grants and loans to help with operating costs and recovery expenses since the NCORR program was launched last year.

“Hurricanes damage not only individual homes, but also buildings and infrastructure that are critical for community stability and welfare,” said NCORR Chief Operating Officer Laura Hogshead in a statement. “Our office is committed to building local government partnerships that will support long-term disaster recovery throughout the state.”

Carteret County also received $1 million in grant money earlier this month from NCORR because of the impact recent major storms had on the budget.

“As a result of the hurricanes’ negative economic impact on the County’s operating budget, the award is a pivotal resource for our County. FEMA reimburses local government for direct cost incurred from disasters. It does not reimburse local governments for lost revenues, and these revenues pay operating expenses and debt service obligations.” said Dee Meshaw, Carteret County assistant manager, in a statement from the county. “By alleviating the need to use general fund money to pay for these debts, it will allow the County to be more resilient against future storms and continue to financially support future projects and improvements for our community.”

Pollocksville is using the $500,000 grant awarded in 2019 funds to reduce debt service, retain the services of a full-time employee to help with disaster mitigation and resiliency, and to cover additional accounting expenses and financial services, according to NCORR.

“The grant has been a financial lifesaver for our town,” said Mayor James V. Bender Jr.

In late 2018, Cooper established NCORR in the Department of Public Safety after the state experienced two devastating hurricanes in as many years.

The North Carolina General Assembly established the state recovery grants for county governments, incorporated municipalities and tribal governments to provide assistance under the Hurricane Florence and Hurricane Dorian Presidential Disaster declarations, according to the state.

NCORR announced in January that more funding was available through the grant and loan program established in 2019.

Cooper signed legislation Nov. 18, 2019, directing $10 million for NCORR to disperse as zero-interest loans that governments can use for recovery-related expenses while waiting for reimbursement from various federal programs. Additionally, $5 million was set aside for local government grants to help communities impacted by Hurricane Dorian. Those funds supplement $9 million in grant and loan funds for local governments that Cooper signed into law on September 2019.

The agency during the first round of funding in 2019 awarded more than $22.4 million in grants and loans to 22 local governments struggling financially because of costs related to Hurricane Florence.

The grants can be used to cover operating budget expenses not related to a disaster, such as payroll and payments to vendors for goods and services not related to disaster response and recovery, where nonpayment would result in a negative financial outcome. The grants can also be used for disaster response and recovery expenses denied for federal reimbursement, disaster-related repairs to facilities and infrastructure denied for federal reimbursement and debt service payments.

The following are the NCORR grants and loans to date for Coastal Area Management Act, or CAMA, counties and towns and reason for funding:

Grants 2019

• Cape Carteret: $500,000 for administrative expenditures such as payroll and debt service payments due to disaster recovery.
• River Bend: $300,000 for inspection specialist and a public works technician, vehicle used for the inspections and enforcement of building ordinances.
• Atlantic Beach: $500,000 for debt service payments, part-time building inspector.
• Emerald Isle: $370,000 for debt service payments.
• Navassa: $375,000 for stabilization of water and sewer fund.
• North Topsail Beach: $250,000 for debt service payment to USDA.

Loans 2019

• River Bend: $1 million for FEMA projects for debris removal, repairs to building, emergency response.
• Beaufort: $1 million for FEMA projects for debris removal, emergency response, cemetery clean up, additional payroll.
• Boiling Spring Lakes: $2 million for FEMA infrastructure projects.
• Jones County $2 million for FEMA Projects for debris removal, emergency response, utilities repair, inmate housing.
• Pamlico County: $2 million for FEMA projects for debris removal.
• Emerald Isle: $2 million for FEMA projects for debris removal.

Hurricane Florence Grants

• Belhaven: $97,500 for part-time building inspector.
• Oriental: $86,593 for Public Works position for three years, vehicle for disaster recovery support.
• Vandemere: $80,167 for bobcat excavator.
• Navassa: $500,000 for payroll obligation, debt services obligations, vendor payments.
• New Bern: $328,500 for resiliency consultant, truck.
• Morehead City Fire-EMS: $174,000 for equipment for water search rescue team.
• River Bend: $363,000 for debt services, payroll obligations.

Hurricane Dorian Grants 2020

• Hyde County: $500,000 for administrative functions to assist with disaster recovery, affordable housing study and $2,214,000 for budget shortfalls, individual assistance costs, housing recovering contractors.
• Dare County: $1 million for disaster expenses denied by FEMA, general payroll obligations, emergency operations vehicle.
• Carteret County $1 million for debt service obligations.

Loans 2020

• Topsail Beach: $2 million for FEMA beach nourishment fund project.
• Hyde County: $2 million for FEMA debris removal from Hurricane Dorian.
• Pollocksville: $1.66 million for FEMA project for elevation of main sewer pumping station and also a project to relocate town hall/train station.

The following are the loans and grants awarded statewide as part of the program:

Grants 2019

• Fair Bluff: $500,000 for administrative positions to assist with disaster recovery for three years.
• Pollocksville: $500,000 for debt service payments, engineering support .
• Robbins: $500,000 for debt service payments, computer equipment, equipment for waste water treatment plant.
• Boardman: $200,000 for administrative expenses such as payroll, utilities, construction expenses for town hall.
• Jones County: $1 million for debt service payments, emergency management position to assist with disaster recovery.
• Maysville: $450,000 for debt service payments, general payroll , radio read meters.
• Lumberton: $500,000 for debt service payment for water and sewer fund.
• Bladenboro: $500,000 for administrative expenses such as payroll and debt service payments.
• Trenton: $405,000 for sewer construction, repairs to city buildings.
• Elizabethtown: $500,000 for debt service payments, code enforcement officer, economic development manager, consultant.
• Chadbourn: $375,000 for general payroll obligations, water sewer repairs, assistant town manager, backhoe.
• Tabor City: $25,000 for position to Support Disaster Recovery Coordination.

Loans 2019

• Fair Bluff: $700,000 Debt Services and FEMA HMGP obligations for the town.
• Boardman: $130,000 FEMA HMGP Project obligations.
• Jones County: $2 million for FEMA projects for debris removal, emergency response, utilities repair, inmate housing expenses.
• Lumberton: $2 million for FEMA projects for debris removal.
• Robbins: 1,600,000 for various FEMA projects to include wastewater treatment repair, emergency response, and pump station repair.

Grants Florence 2020

• Marion: $245,773 for funds for administrative functions to assist with disaster recovery, affordable housing study.
• Tabor City: $ 475,000 for position to support disaster recovery coordination.
• Cerro Gordo: $358,085 for administrative expenses such as payroll, bonds, utilities water and sewer fund expenses.
• Jones County: $1 million for repairs to the water pump station that was denied by FEMA.
• Town of Fair Bluff: $500,000 for drainage equipment.
• Hoke County: $235,215 for equipment for water search rescue team.
• Rose Hill: $188,000.00 for debt services, payroll obligations.
• Wallace: $500,000 for debris removal, debris management consultant, and community development officer.
• Wilson County: $406,000 for debt services.
• Red Springs: $500,000 for consulting services, debt service obligations, payroll obligation.
• Pembroke: $280,050 for disaster recovery coordinator.
• Clarkton $96,000 for excavator.
• Maysville: $500,000 for payroll obligation, debt services obligation.
• White Lake: $155,000 for position to support disaster recovery coordination.

Loans 2020

• Princeville: $2 million for various FEMA projects to include town hall repairs, senior center construction and repair costs.
• Lumbee Tribe of NC: $2 million for construction and engineering costs for FEMA projects.
• Marion: $450,120 for FEMA project for Lincoln Avenue bridge reconstruction.
• Elizabethtown: $2 Million For FEMA Project for repair of local cemetery.
• Red Springs: $1,024,608 for FEMA projects for debris removal, emergency protective measure, repairs to buildings.
• Jones County: $2 million for FEMA project for buyout.