State Auditor Dave Boliek’s office released its performance audit of the Department of Environmental Quality’s Pre-Regulatory Landfill Program on Monday, revealing what the report called a shortfall in the statewide monitoring of former landfill sites.

The report found that 78%, or 534, of the 688 identified landfill sites where municipal solid waste disposal occurred without regulatory oversight have never been investigated under the DEQ program. Eleven of the list of top 100 of 629 program sites prioritized for investigation because of risk are in coastal counties.

The audit noted that, for most of the pre-regulation sites, it’s unknown what contamination may be present, whether it has spread to nearby properties or water supplies, or whether current conditions pose a risk to nearby residents. More than 80% of the landfill sites are within 1,000 feet of what are described as “vulnerable areas,” which includes homes, schools, daycares, churches, or drinking water wells.

“The Pre-Regulatory Landfill Program is a complex issue that creates challenges from a regulatory, legal, funding, and administrative standpoint,” said Boliek in the news release accompanying the audit. “But the bottom line is there are hundreds of potentially hazardous landfill sites across North Carolina, and despite tax dollars supporting a program meant to investigate these sites, 78% haven’t been examined. This audit lays out the facts, giving taxpayers a reliable update on a longstanding government issue.”

The program was established as part of the Division of Waste Management in 2007 to identify, assess, and remediate sites that accepted a wide range of waste prior to 1983. That’s before when modern environmental regulations were adopted. The list includes public and private sites near homes, schools and drinking water sources that could contain hazardous materials that pose health and environmental risks.

The risk ranking reflects scoring as of April 2025. In addition to the risk ranking, the audit includes an appendix listing all landfills alphabetically by county, then by risk priority rank within each county, if applicable. Another appendix identifies sites where issues related to property access have prevented or delayed investigation or cleanup and shows how long those delays have persisted in years.

The average estimated cost to investigate, assess and remediate a site is about $1.9 million. That would put the total cost, if applied to the remaining sites, at close to $1 billion. According to the report, of the 97 sites investigated since the program started, DEQ has secured 370 acres of waste, sampled 1,642 water supply wells and provided an alternate water supply to 30 homes.

According to the announcement, the DEQ Division of Waste Management agreed with the findings and the auditor’s recommendations. The audit lists all landfill sites, including sites pending access permission and sites that have been addressed, prioritized according to risk.

Among the ranked priority list’s top 100 sites in coastal counties are the following:

• No. 5, Jacksonville Wastewater Treatement Plant Landfill at Sturgeon City in Jacksonville, Onslow County.
• No. 9, Burnt Mill Creek Landfill in Wilmington.
• No. 11, Buxton Dump in Dare County.
• No. 30, Belltown Road Dump in Craven County.
• No. 44, Winnabow Landfill in Brunswick County.
• No. 53, Bolivia Refuse Disposal in Brunswick County.
• No. 67, Otway Community Refuse Dump in Carteret County.
• No. 73, Pantego Refuse Disposal in Beaufort County.
• No. 84, Rural Garbage Service in New Hanover County.
• No. 92, Ray’s Rural Dump in Onslow County.
• No. 98, Carolina Beach Refuse Disposal in New Hanover County.

There’s something almost poetic in how Thomas Marcinowski describes his plans for his final farewell.

Whenever that time comes, the U.S. military veteran wants to be cremated and put to sea.

“That way my ashes touch every continent my boots walked on,” Marcinowski said.

That long-carried thought surfaced when Marcinowski, on a commercial flight returning to Wilmington from an organizational event in 2019, read an article about people taking the ashes of their loved ones to be interred in an artificial reef off the Miami coast.

By that time, several years had passed since he’d retired from service, rounding out a military career spanning more than 20 years that began when he enlisted in the Air Force as a teenager and ended after becoming an officer in the Army National Guard.

Marcinowski, a physician assistant at Wilmington Veterans Administration Health Care Center, wasted no time after reading the article. He began bouncing an idea to friends and colleagues about a nonprofit organization that would build a living legacy beneath the waves where those who’ve honorably served would be memorialized, their stories preserved and their mission of service continued.

“The motto that I like to use is, ‘Those who served continue to serve,’” Marcinowski said. “They’ve passed away, but yet they’re still giving back to the nation and to the world by being out there to create something even greater and protect for future generations.”

Just two years after he first pitched his idea around, Veterans Memorial Reef held its first ceremony honoring veterans whose cremains were interred in eco-positive reef modules that were placed on the seafloor about 5 miles off the coast of Carolina Beach.

The nonprofit hosted its sixth annual three-day event this past weekend at the Fort Johnston Museum and Visitor Center in Southport, interring the ashes of nine people – six veterans and three spouses of veterans – in memorial markers to be lowered into the sea on Monday.

Those memorialized Saturday joined 30 others whose cremated remains are preserved in aquatic urns that are sealed into the square-shaped markers, each of which has a plaque engraved with the name, branch of service, and birth and death dates.

Veterans whose cremations are interred in the reef represent every branch of service – Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines and Coast Guard. Some served decades. Others, like Marine Corps Pfc. Ethan Eldrige, who died at age 21, served only a matter of months.

Several served in combat, veterans of World War II, Korea, Vietnam and Desert Storm.

Then there’s Felix Bigalke, a Coast Guard service K-9, also memorialized at the reef.

This is Marcinowski’s passion project, one that goes beyond recognizing veterans to educate the general public about the military, rehabilitate and protect natural ocean reef ecosystems, and provide researchers opportunities to study how the environment and the organisms that live within it respond to an artificial reef.

“Working at the VA, just hearing the stories and having served in battle, having lost me of my own in battle, brings it home for me because I see the internal scars that they bear. It’s moving to me because I understand those scars,” Marcinowski said. “So, to be able to give them honor and share their stories that they may never have told their families, it is very rewarding.”

And, for the veterans memorialized at the reef who either have no family or are estranged from family, “It becomes really important that they not be forgotten,” he said.

The Veterans Memorial Reef website includes a Fallen Heroes tab where viewers can read veterans’ biographies, along with any medals awarded to them. Users can simply scroll over a ribbon bar or medal and click to learn more about that award.

“Those are things people don’t understand the meaning behind what they do, the risks they take to earn something like that or to be recognized for that,” Marcinowski explained.

Today, fewer than 1% of the country’s population serve as active-duty military.

“It’s dwindling,” said University of North Carolina Wilmington Director of Military Affairs Bill Kawczynski. “As our population grows and less and less folk either consider going in the military or even qualify for the military, it’s getting worse each year. And so, as director of the office of military affairs it gives me great satisfaction when I can connect students and others to things such as VMR or other military and veteran resources.”

On Saturday, Armed Forces Day, the nonprofit hosted in Southport a “Fallen Heroes Ceremony” for those whose remains will be placed in the sea. The honors-packed military tribute typically includes honor guards, the presentation of a 13-fold American flag to one member of each veteran’s family, taps, and a bagpipe rendition of “Amazing Grace.”

In a final sendoff, usually two days after the ceremony, families are invited to board the Vonda Kay, a 72-foot head boat based in Carolina Beach, to watch their loved one’s memorial marker get submerged and placed onto the Veterans Memorial Reef.

To honor and to serve (research)

The North Carolina Division Marine Fisheries determines where the memorial markers will be placed on a large, open sandy bottom anywhere below 30 to 50 feet of water.

Veterans Memorial Reef has partnered with Raleigh-based Natrx that creates artificial reef structures called ExoForms, which are designed to promote habitat growth and ecological benefits and produced using 3-D printers.

The memorial reef is in what Troy Alphin, a senior research associate with the University of North Carolina Wilmington’s Center for Marine Science, describes as a dynamic environment with strong currents. Alphin was one of the people Marcinowski initially contacted for validation of his memorial reef idea. The two have known each other for several years and Marcinowski knew Alphin had studied the effects of underwater structures on the environment off other coasts.

Alphin thought an offshore monument for veterans a novel, innovative idea, one that not only honors veterans, but also offers a host of research opportunities.

“This is a passion project to meet the needs of veterans that’s providing us with an opportunity to address some questions that are really relevant for local marine science and in our coastal area,” he said. “This provides an interesting palette for researchers to come in and propose different questions. Are fish going to be attracted to it? Are other organisms going to be attracted to it? What’s that development through time? The Center for Marine Science and UNCW are well positioned to address a lot of those questions.”

This year, students in the university’s coastal engineering program launched a capstone research project to try and answer the question of what the wave energy is like around the Veterans Memorial Reef.

Students used the university’s wave flume, 9,500-gallon-capacity glass and steel tank that can be programmed to imitate varying degrees of wave energy, to collect data that will help in future studies of the artificial reef site.

“We’re going to put some sensors on some of these monuments that are being deployed and start gathering data on what that looks like in the real word,” said Alphin, who sits on the Veterans Memorial Reef board of directors. “We want to know what that flow environment around these structures is really going to be.

“We’re really at the very beginning,” he continued. “There’s a lot of potential right now. I’m hoping that we’ll get a lot of students in the future and a lot of researchers that will be able to go out there and do some work around these structures.”

Carolina Beach’s federally authorized beach nourishment project is scheduled to begin this weekend.

Sand placement is expected to begin Saturday, according to a U.S. Army Corps of Engineers release.

The project, which calls for placing about 800,000 cubic yards of sand on the town’s ocean shore, is expected to continue for about four to five weeks, depending on weather conditions.

To see which sections of the beach are closed or open during the coastal storm risk management project construction, residents may check the sand placement tracker.

The project contractor has staged equipment near the Freeman Park vehicular beach access and the North Pier parking lot. A pipe is being placed from Carolina Beach Inlet to the beach adjacent to the North Pier, where sand placement will begin and progress southward as pumping continues.

After the contractor has pumped sand from Carolina Beach Inlet, the dredge pipe will be moved to the offshore landing area, where sand will be pumped from an oceanside borrow source and placed along the remaining sections of the beach.

Residents are reminded to keep out of fenced construction areas and off the pipeline, only cross the pipeline at designated sand ramp crossings, maintain a safe distance from heavy equipment and the pipe discharge area, and follow all posted signage and contractor instructions.

Acres of wetland habitat undergoing restoration need a few days to dry out after a rain-soaked weekend before volunteers can get to work planting at Carolina Beach State Park.

The North Carolina Coastal Federation has rescheduled a volunteer planting originally planned for Monday to 10 a.m. to noon Thursday.

Volunteers may register to help plant native vegetation within the 10-acre project area, which was selected by federal and state agencies to address environmental damages caused by decades of creosote contamination that occurred during operations at a former wood treatment plant in Navassa.

The former Kerr-McGee Chemical Corp. site in the Brunswick County town, which is a little more than 30 miles upstream of Carolina Beach, was listed on the federal Superfund’s National Priorities List in 2010.

The Coastal Federation, which publishes Coastal Review, and project contractor designed the native tidal wetland restoration project to include removing invasive species, creating a slough through the removal of fill material and grading, planting native vegetation, and monitoring the project once it is complete.

Rainfall from a system that began over the weekend and continues to sweep up the East Coast have flooded the trail and wetland area.

“That said, this flooding is actually a great reminder that the wetland is doing exactly what it was designed to do – absorbing, filtering, and holding stormwater to reduce flooding elsewhere and improve water quality,” according to the Coastal Federation. “Wetlands act like nature’s sponges, capturing runoff and allowing sediment and nutrients to settle before the water slowly filters back into our coastal systems.”

Volunteers are recommended to bring tall boots or waders and gloves. These items will also be provided on site to volunteers who may not have them. It is recommended that volunteers dress in layers they do not mind getting dirty.

The North Carolina Coastal Federation could use some extra help this week with living shoreline maintenance work and collecting marine debris at Carolina Beach State Park.

The living shoreline maintenance and debris cleanup is scheduled for 10 a.m. to noon Friday. Registration for the event is required and can be made online.

Living shorelines help improve water quality, Protects oyster populations, and restores the natural and productive estuarine shoreline, according to the nonprofit organization.

Marine debris can be anything from bottle caps and balloons to lost fishing gear. Not only is it unsightly, it is hazardous to fish, wildlife and humans.

Volunteers collecting the marine debris will also be asked to record what and how much litter they collect to identify the sources of debris and focus educational efforts.

Coastal Education Coordinator Bonnie Mitchell said in a statement that the federation is beyond grateful for the support from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration marine debris program, and through state-appropriated funding from North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, which funds the work.

“Due to the pandemic, we have not hosted a public volunteer event at Carolina Beach State Park since 2019, so we are really excited to be back at this site conducting much-needed marine debris removal and living shoreline maintenance with our team of amazing volunteers,” Mitchell, event organizer, said. “Not only does this living shoreline protect the shoreline from erosion, but it also helps to absorb and filter stormwater runoff, provides important habitat to commercially and recreationally important fish, and promotes the growth of new oysters.”

The North Carolina Coastal Federation is a nonprofit membership organization that has worked since 1982 to keep the coast of North Carolina a great place to live, work and play. The federation publishes Coastal Review.

Sand placement is expected to begin Friday at Carolina Beach near the Halmet Street beach access, the Army Corps of Engineers announced Thursday.

This work is part of the coastal storm risk management project that officials said would provide protection from erosion and other effects from coastal storms.

Sand placement in the Carolina Beach portion of the project is anticipated to take four to five weeks to complete but could change due to weather, mechanical issues or other unforeseen complications. Progress can be followed using the Corps’ online sand placement tracker, which shows the section of beach closed for construction.

As of Thursday, the contractor for the beach fill has staged equipment beachside on and around the beach access at Hamlet Street. Multiple trucks are expected to bring large sections of pipe and heavy equipment onto Pleasure Island to the Hamlet Street beach access area.

The contractor is to place pipe from the ocean to the beach adjacent to Sandpiper Street beach access, Corps officials said. The process is to end just north of the Carolina Beach Fishing Pier.

Following this step, the contractor is to move the pipe back to the offshore pipe landing and repeat the process in the southern direction, eventually into the Kure Beach section of the project.

Officials ask the public not to enter construction areas, which will be fenced-in with orange fencing and signs, keep a safe distance from all heavy equipment and from the discharging end of the pipe, and read and follow signs and instructions given by contractor personnel. Only cross over a pipe where the sand has been piled up over pipe to create a safe crossing ramp. Do not stand or sit on the pipe.

The Corps awarded on Jan. 18 the $20 million Coastal Storm Risk Management at Carolina Beach and Kure Beach contract to Texas-based Great Lakes Dredge and Dock Co. LLC. The Corps shifted available funds in fall 2021 to Carolina and Kure Beach projects after expected federal funding did not come through.

Related: Scramble On For New Hanover Sand Money

Related: Nourishment funds now secured for 2 New Hanover towns

Bundle up, grab a shovel, tape measure and scissors and head to Carolina Beach at 11 a.m. Saturday to lend a hand during the eighth annual Cape Fear Surfrider Foundation dune restoration event.

Volunteers are asked to meet at the Ocean Boulevard beach access.

Initially planned for Jan. 22, the effort was rescheduled for Saturday because of the winter storm. A representative told Coastal Review Wednesday that while the weather forecast isn’t the best for this weekend, the event is still on.

Carolina Beach collected the natural Christmas trees after the holidays that will be used to restore the dunes.

Not only will the trees, which are biodegradable, help slow dune erosion and reduce spending on beach nourishment, the trees also help rebuild natural habitats, protect oceanfront property and divert old trees from the landfill, according to the organization.

Organizers ask that rather than bringing trees to the event, drop the trees off at the New Hanover County landfill or any Wilmington Home Depot by Jan. 31.

Contact socialmedia@capefear.surfrider.org for more details.