From N.C. State University

North Carolina State University and Carteret Community College have signed a new agreement designed to create a streamlined transfer pathway for students seeking to earn bachelor’s degrees in fisheries, wildlife and conservation biology. 

Under the agreement, students enrolled in Carteret’s transfer-track Associate in Applied Science in Aquaculture Technology program will be eligible to transfer into NC State’s Bachelor of Science in Fisheries, Wildlife and Conservation Biology program. 

Carteret students who complete the transfer-track associate degree with a 3.0 GPA or higher — and meet all other university admission requirements — will be admitted to the fisheries science concentration of NC State’s fisheries, wildlife and conservation biology program. 

Erin Sills, head of the Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources at NC State, said the partnership reflects a shared commitment to expanding educational opportunities and preparing the next generation of professionals in natural resource conservation.

“Through our partnership with Carteret, students will graduate with valuable hands-on experience in aquaculture paired with a four-year education at a world-class research institution,” Sills said. “This combination of practical experience and advanced study will equip students with the skills needed to address the complex challenges of managing and conserving fisheries and other natural resources.”

Tracy Mancini, president of Carteret Community College, added that the partnership builds on Carteret’s strengths in aquaculture education while creating new opportunities for students to continue their academic and professional journeys.

“We are delighted to form this meaningful partnership with NC State,” Mancini said. “The articulation agreement will allow our highly skilled and qualified students to complete an undergraduate degree that might bring them back to Carteret County’s rich marine sciences landscape.”

Mancini added that the partnership also builds on the strong marine sciences presence already established in Carteret County. With the NC State Center for Marine Sciences and Technology on Carteret’s campus and established partnerships with CMAST faculty and NC Sea Grant staff, the agreement “promises to have positive, long-term implications for the pipeline and network of prepared marine sciences researchers and technicians.”

Carteret’s aquaculture technology curriculum is well-aligned with NC State’s fisheries, wildlife and conservation biology program, according to Lara Pacifici, director of undergraduate programs in the Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources at NC State.

The program prepares students for careers in one of the nation’s fastest-growing food production industries through hands-on training and classroom instruction. Students learn every stage of aquaculture production, from fish genetics and breeding to hatchery management to business principles such as marketing and distribution.

“Students from Carteret will bring skills and knowledge specific to aquaculture that many of our fisheries, wildlife and conservation biology students have not yet been exposed to,” Pacifici said. “Students will learn from each other and broaden their understanding of possible career paths.” 

NC State will accept up to 57 transfer credit hours from approved Carteret courses completed with a grade of C or higher. Students will enter NC State with sophomore standing, and those who complete additional approved coursework may qualify for junior standing.

Sarah Griggs, assistant director of undergraduate programs in the Department of Forestry and Environmental Resources at NC State, will work closely with students in Carteret’s aquaculture technology program to help them navigate their transition to NC State.

Griggs said the new pathway is already generating interest among Carteret students. She is in communication with at least one student about transferring into the fisheries, wildlife and conservation biology program at NC State. 

For Carteret students interested in transferring, Griggs encouraged them to begin planning early and work with program advisors to ensure they meet all admission requirements. The application deadline is Oct. 1 for spring entry and Feb. 15 for fall entry.

The Core Sound Waterfowl Museum and Heritage Center is rolling out this week a new speaker series that delves into the relationship between people and place.

A similar format to its annual Parlor Talks offered every Thursday afternoon in the summer, the “Water/Ways” speaker series set to launch at 2 p.m. Wednesday at the museum on Harkers Island is an extension of the Smithsonian’s traveling “Water/Ways” exhibit on display until Aug. 9.

The exhibit “explores the centrality of water in our lives including its effect on the environment and climate, it’s practical role in agriculture and economic planning, and its impact on culture and spirituality,” organizers said.

Geoffrey Adair, an area historian from Beaufort, is to give the first talk this week on waterfowling traditions. Other topics for the series include water and the arts with Connie Mason July 8, water and a changing coast with Dr. Reide Corbett July 15, water as recreation with Frank Tursi July 22, and water as a way of life with Wayne Davis and Staci Davis Basden July 29.

The museum began its fifth year of Parlor Talks, which focus on the history, heritage and the research taking place in Carteret County, earlier this month.

Next on the schedule is Dr. Nathan Hall who will focus on “Our Amazing Seagrass.”

Hall is a research assistant professor and director of the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill Institute for the Environment’s Morehead City Field Site at UNC Institute of Marine Sciences. His primary research focuses on understanding the factors that control microalgal biomass and community composition in lakes, rivers, and estuaries.

His talk Thursday afternoon will highlight why seagrass matters and why it need lots of light, what factors determine how much light reaches the seagrasses, and why scientists are worried about the current state of seagrass. Hall plans to wrap the talk up with what data exists on water quality where there are seagrass beds, and new efforts led by the Albemarle-Pamlico National Estuary Partnership to improve understanding of water quality.

Parlor Talks summer schedule:

• July 9: “The Wit & Wisdom of Ordinary People of Harkers Island” with Joel Hancock.
• July 16: “Opening Season for the Krakens” with Carteret Community College.
• July 23: “Everyone Has a Story” with Wayne and Staci Davis.
• July 30: The Atlantic Hotels of Morehead City with Geoffrey Adair.
• Aug. 6: Cape Lookout Foundation’s restoration of the U.S. Coast Guard Station with Bud Doughton, Mason Williams and Garry Brown.
• Aug. 13: “Coastal Heroes: An Old Newsman Looks Back at Those Who Fought to Make a Difference” with Frank Tursi.
• Aug. 20: “Growing Up in the Promise Land and the Inevitable Changes” with Promise Land friends.
• Aug. 27: “100 Years of Shark Research off Cape Lookout” with Dr. Joel Fodrie, who is moving from his role as UNC-IMS director to director of Duke University Marine Lab.
• Sept. 3: “Songs & Stories We Love the Best” with Connie Mason

Organizers of an afternoon fundraiser set for later this month invite folks to raise a glass to growing seafood and meet area aquaculture specialists to learn more about “a growing opportunity.”

Nacho Brewery in Morehead City is hosting the event set for 2 p.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, July 26, at 2900-6 Arendell St., in the Morehead Plaza shopping center. All proceeds from beer and food sales will go directly to the Carteret Community College Aquaculture Technology Program.

Organizers said the event will support workforce development and promote the future of sustainable seafood in coastal communities.

According to the college’s website, “Aquaculture is defined simply as the farming and husbandry of aquatic organisms. This can be growing seafood or ornamental specimens for commercial sale, environmental enhancement, research, or education.”

The college says its program curriculum is comprehensive, covering hatchery, grow-out, processing and marketing.

“Students learn practical skills that prepare them for future employment in a variety of industries or for continuation at a four-year institution,” according to the college.

The fundraiser will include hands-on experiences with marine life, marine science trivia and delicious craft beer brewed in Carteret County.

It’s also possible to donate online to support the college program, just select “Aquaculture Program” from the options.

MOREHEAD CITY — Shoreline property owners, contractors and others interested in natural shoreline stabilization techniques can learn more about the benefits, feasibility and implementation of living shorelines during a one-day instruction in November.

Carteret Community College recently announced the new Introduction to Living Shorelines Academy set for 2-5 p.m. Nov. 2. There are no prerequisites.

The course will offer participants an overview of the benefits of living shorelines, ideas to consider for their own projects, support to complete permits, and cost-share opportunities.

Bulkheads, or seawalls, have long been the conventional approach for shoreline property management. Advocates say that research supports the use of living shorelines for their longevity and minimal maintenance costs. Living shorelines enhance habitat while stabilizing shorelines and attenuating wave action.

Participants interested in completing the Living Shoreline Primer need to complete the interest form. Once registration is open for Carteret Community College, interested parties will be notified with registration information.

The cost of this introductory workshop will be around $30, with scholarships available.

The primer course is the initial class being offered as the North Carolina Living Shoreline Program, a U.S. Coastal Research Program grant-funded project.

Carteret Community College officials said the college will begin offering a menu of additional courses to certify professionals with credentials to install living shorelines as additional services for marine construction and coastal landscape architecture.

Officials said the courses are ideal for both construction and landscaping professionals, but also informative for shoreline property owners and managers.

The program is presented in cooperation with East Carolina University, North Carolina Sea Grant, the North Carolina Division of Coastal Management and the North Carolina Coastal Federation, which publishes Coastal Review.

MOREHEAD CITY — Tucked away on the floor near a couple pieces of equipment in the busy aquaculture lab at Carteret Community College is an unassuming round, nearly waist-high, clear tank with a few sections of hard, white plastic pipes roughly the diameter of salad plates placed on the bottom.

Inside one section of T-shaped pipe, a female common octopus, Octopus vulgaris, has been incubating her eggs. Over the last week, her hundreds of thousands of eggs have been hatching, filling the tank with tiny gray wiggly specks, the paralarvae or newly hatched octopuses. 

Aquaculture Operations Manager Bryan Snyder explained Wednesday morning that the female octopus had been hiding in the pipe with her remaining eggs. Aquaculture is the farming and husbandry of aquatic organisms. 

“She probably still has a few unhatched eggs in there. They don’t hatch at exactly the same time,” Snyder said, adding that the mother’s job while the eggs are incubating and hatching is to protect her eggs and keep water moving over the eggs.

Snyder was in the middle of teaching students in his hatchery management II class how to spawn clams. They were standing around a spawning table, a long, narrow tank that can hold about 6 inches of water. The students had carefully placed rows of clams in the water, which was set at a temperature to simulate winter conditions in the wild. Snyder was explaining how to properly increase the temperature to encourage reproduction.

The class focuses on facility needs, hatchery production planning and propagation techniques for species, including clams, shrimp, catfish, hybrid striped bass and rainbow trout. It’s the next step for students after taking the basics of fish and shellfish propagation taught in hatchery management I.

The classes are part of the college’s Aquaculture Technology program that focuses on saltwater species like oysters, clams, softshell crabs, and marine finfish like flounder, drum and bait minnows, according to the website. Program graduates have the option to continue their education at the college, transfer classes to a four-year university, start their own fish or shellfish farm, or work as a technician at any aquaculture operation.

Aquaculture Department Chair David Cerino told Coastal Review Thursday that the program has had several octopuses lay eggs over the years, but they didn’t have all the live feeds needed for successful rearing. “We are hoping to have a better chance this time applying what we have learned in previous attempts,” he said.

Cerino said they collected the female octopus along with a male Nov. 4 at Radio Island. 

“We put both in the tank together and they immediately mated,” he explained. “We then released the male that same day to avoid aggression between the two.”

Snyder said while looking at her tank Wednesday that the octopus she was older and had probably already mated before. “They can hold onto the sperm package from the male for quite a while before they fertilize their eggs, but we actually watched this one mate. We took the male out because they are cannibalistic, they’ll eat each other.”

The female stored sperm until about Jan. 18 when she laid the eggs. The eggs incubated for 21 days before they began hatching and have continued for about a week with peak hatch on days two and three, Cerino said.

Typically, a common octopus will lay between 100,000 and 500,000 eggs at a time. After the eggs hatch, the mother octopus usually dies. 

“That’s the normal lifecycle,” Snyder said. “They’re not very long-lived animals, they normally live a year or two, and then once they reproduce that’s the end of their natural life cycle, generally.”

Snyder continued that having a pregnant octopus while a hatchery class is taking place is “a good trial for not only our students but us as well” because larvae are difficult to raise, and most people are not successful.

Snyder said they’ll release some of the paralarvae back into the wild and they’ll also try and raise the octopuses.

Snyder said that they’ve built a larval system in the lab to raise the paralarvae. This system has four tanks that can house up to 6,000 paralarvae per tank. Snyder said they move the paralarvae by scooping them up with a lab-grade pitcher, then the pitcher is floated inside the tank so the water temperature in the pitcher will acclimate to that of the water of the tank and then they’ll gently release the paralarvae into the tank.

“We don’t know how successful we’ll be once they turn into hatchlings — to juvenile octopus,” he said, adding that’s when they turn cannibalistic. “We have to add a lot of hiding spots to the tanks so they don’t eat each other.” 

Cerino said that the tanks are 100-gallon black tanks with moderate aeration. 

“We add brine shrimp nauplii and two species of copepods daily as food for the paralarvae and add three species of microalgae to nutritionally enrich the feeds and add color to the water, reducing light penetration and improving visual contrast of the prey for feeding,” Cerino said. “We periodically exchange the water in the tanks to maintain water quality. Published reports of rearing attempts suggest that successful rearing for the first 30 days is readily achieved, but survival to juvenile octopus at about 45-50 days is very low.” Nauplii is plural for nauplius, the is the first larval stage for many crustaceans. Copepods are small crustaceans. 

As of Thursday, “we have very high survival and the paralarvae are feeding well,” Cerino said.

In the lab beside the female octopus’ tank, it’s hard not to notice the row of tanks housing pairs of clownfish, another species the class is learning to breed.

The way the tank is set up, a shelf placed inside acts as a reef rock, where the clownfish will stick the eggs, “but sometimes if their water quality isn’t just right or they get stressed out, they’ll actually eat their eggs and try again,” Snyder said Wednesday.

The bigger fish in the tank is the female and the next biggest is the male that she breeds with and there’s a bunch of other males that just kind of hang out, Snyder explained. When the female dies, the biggest male will turn into a female and then the next biggest male will move up the ranks.

Snyder said they’re trying to grow corals, too, and have a touch tank onsite filled with animals collected from Bogue Sound, which is just behind the aquaculture building.

The touch tank has whelks, clams, vegetarian snails and other marine life, he said. The tank is a way to teach students how to care for a bunch of different animals and learn which can live together.

Reprinted from the Tideland News.

The 2022 interns at Hammocks Beach State Park have expressed a variety of goals in mind that led them to spend a summer in what some would consider primitive circumstances on a barrier island. They range in age from 17 to 23 and attend, have attended or will attend, colleges from across the country. But what they all have in common is a love of nature.

This year’s interns are Rachel Hoag, Destini Hudson, Kylee Johnson, Sarah Kinicki, Sydney Machion and Megan Rozier.

Megan Rozier, 19, is a rising sophomore at the University of North Carolina Charlotte. She is studying environmental biology and ecology.

A resident of Swansboro, she did not have to travel far to become familiar with Hammocks Beach State Park.

“I found out about Hammocks Beach State Park pretty soon after we first moved here about 10 years ago,” she said. “My first visit to Hammocks Beach was quite a long time ago. I was about 10 years old and my family and I came to check the place out. It didn’t take long for us to come back and start exploring the beautiful nature trails. Ever since we have been to the park many times for various events such as the Pirate Fest, Military Appreciation Day, educational programs, etc. It wasn’t until a few years later though that we would start to visit Bear Island.”

In high school and in her first year at UNCC, Rozier has been involved in music.
She was in the band program at Swansboro High School and was drum major in the marching band. Rozier continued playing her primary instrument, the flute, in UNCC’s Wind Ensemble.

“I was also active in various clubs at Swansboro such as Student to Student and National Honor Society and I was a member of the swim team my senior year,” she said.

Rozier is one of four sea turtle interns at the park this year.

“Our responsibilities include tagging the turtles, measuring them and taking an egg DNA sample for research,” she explained. “We also aid in the nesting process by relocating the nest if it is not situated far enough back onto the dune. This all happens at night while we patrol from 9 p.m. to 6 a.m.”

Rozier said she has enjoyed the hands-on experience provided by the internship.

“I personally feel like I am able to learn so much more this way and I am excited to use this knowledge to further me in my field. This opportunity is helping to prepare me for when related topics may come up in my college courses, but more importantly in real life. I love being able to share everything I know with others in hopes of bringing more awareness to the turtles and to ocean health in general.”

The experience could translate into a career.

“I would really love to work with marine animal rehabilitation programs and to be in the field as much as possible … whether it be collecting data, picking up trash, or removing nets and other things from the ocean,” Rozier said. “I am hoping to get SCUBA certified soon and possibly even work part time at a dive shop if time allows.”

When she is not up all night walking the Bear Island shoreline, Rozier still likes to be on Bear Island.

“I am fortunate to have such easy access to a beautiful beach while living on Bear Island,” she said. “This is where I like to spend a lot of my spare time. Us girls also like to watch movies together or take the ferry back to the mainland and go to local events. Some of the places we have been to are the Salty Air Market, Humphrey Farm and the Foundry in Jacksonville.”

Otherwise she said she enjoys catching up on her sleep!

Sydney Machion. 20, is from Mohnton, Pennsylvania.

A rising junior at West Virginia University, she is pursuing a double major in wildlife and fisheries resources and recreation, parks and tourism with a minor in conservation ecology.

She came to be familiar with Hammocks Beach State Park during her internship search.

“I came across this application and that was the first I had heard of the park,” said Machion.

Her first visit to the park came recently. “The day I moved into the barracks this summer to start the internship was the first I had ever visited the park.”

Machion is president of WVU Beekeeping Club, she is a member of the women’s rugby team and is an employee of Adventure WV.

She is a sea turtle intern.

“As a sea turtle intern I work directly with nesting sea turtles, taking measurements and collecting data that is used for conservation efforts around the country,” Machion said.

After college graduation she plans to pursue a career in the U.S. Navy’s Marine Mammal program and/or environmental policy. This internship could help with that goal.

“The hands-on experience, fieldwork and connections have all set me up for a future in marine conservation,” Machion said. “Working directly with a state park has taught me communication skills while participating in field work for my desired career.”

Her spare time is filled with activity.

“I spend most of my time recreating outdoors, so stand up paddleboarding, kayaking, fishing and swimming are my go-to activities,” she said.

Destini Hudson, 21, is originally from Mount Airy but she moved to Shallotte two years ago.

She is a senior at the University of North Carolina Wilmington pursuing a bachelor’s in marine biology with a minor in digital arts.

“I learned of Hammocks Beach State Park when I learned of this internship opportunity, which I had heard about through a flyer that the biology department at UNCW shared with its students,” Hudson said.

She said her first visit to the park came just a day before the start of her internship.

“It’s a beautiful park with one of the best beaches I have been on, definitely worth a visit,” Hudson said.

As befits a student spending her summer on a barrier island, Hudson is formerly a member of a year-round swim team.

“Now I enjoy the sport by swimming at my leisure,” she said.

A turtle intern, Hudson will be keeping up with the loggerheads, and perhaps leatherbacks, that nest on the park’s Bear Island, a 4-mile-long, undeveloped barrier island.

“My role this summer is to study turtles and contribute to their conservation by collecting data on the turtle, such as carapace length, and relocate a nest if necessary,” she said.

“This internship furthers my educational goals by providing me with field experience, of which I was lacking in school due to COVID these past two years,” Hudson explained.

This experience will provide a taste of what lies ahead.

“When I graduate I plan on searching for a job in rehabilitation or husbandry and move wherever the job takes me, but I would like to stick to the East Coast,” she said.

Being on one the nation’s most beautiful undeveloped barrier islands makes leisure time special for Hudson.

“In my spare time I like to go hang out at the beach,” she said. Otherwise, she said she enjoys watching movies and Netflix, reading and playing video games.

Rachel Hoag, 23, is from Erie, Pennsylvania, and is a May 2021 graduate of St. Bonaventure University.

She earned a degree in environmental studies.

Back in Pennsylvania, Hoag raises and trains service dogs with New Hope Assistance Dogs, an organization in Warren.

“I discovered Hammocks Beach State Park through the Texas A&M job board,” she said. “I previously worked with sea turtles along the North Carolina coast as an intern with the sea turtle hospital in Surf City and I was hopeful to find another sea turtle opportunity in North Carolina. Then I found Hammocks Beach State Park.”

Though she had been very close previously, Hoag said her first visit to Hammocks Beach State Park came when she arrived for the internship.

As a sea turtle intern, Hoag has some experience. And she takes the role seriously.
“I conduct nightly surveys with my team looking for nesting loggerhead sea turtles along 4-mile-long Bear Island,” she explained. “When we come across a nesting mother we scan her for pit tags and measure her carapace (sea turtle shell). If she has no previous tags, we tag her ourselves. If necessary, we relocate the nest further back along the dunes, which involves carefully digging up the eggs and placing them carefully one-by-one in containers. Nests are relocated if the nest is too close to the tide line and there is a risk of over-wash.

“One egg sample is taken from the nest for the ongoing DNA study with Duke Labs.
“We then dig our own hole back closer to the dunes approximately the same width and depth as the mother’s and then place the eggs in their home. The nest is then covered and a metal cage is placed over the nest to protect the eggs from predators, like coyotes.”

Hoag hopes to pursue a career in marine conservation, preferably on the East Coast.
She said her work at the park, which has one of the few nighttime sea turtle nesting programs along the east coast, provides good experience.

“In the field of wildlife conservation, hands-on experience is what matters most,” Hoag said. “This internship is giving me the opportunity to participate in this rare program and further my experience with nesting loggerhead sea turtles.”

In her spare time Hoag enjoys spending time at the beach or time with her host family.
“I’ve also had the opportunity to go scuba diving off the Emerald Isle coast and I hope to do more diving this summer,” she said.

Kylee Johnson, 17, is a rising senior at MaST Early College High School/Carteret Community College.

Johnson, who lives in nearby Stella, only visited the park for the first time this past spring.

“I’ve always known Hammocks Beach was here but I’ve never visited before,” she said.
“My first visit was on May 28.” She was impressed with the park and Bear Island. “It was absolutely beautiful and I couldn’t believe I’ve never been before.”

While at MaST Early College High School/Carteret Community College, Johnson is pursuing associate’s in science and arts. She hopes to participate is SkillsUSA beginning with the fall semester. SkillsUSA is a partnership of students, teachers and industry working together to ensure America has a skilled workforce, according to its website.

Johnson is the environmental education intern.

“I’m not sure what I want to be yet, but I definitely want to go in the science direction,” she said of her future course of study. “I took on this role so that I could gather more experience in parks and recreation, to see if this is something I would like to do in the future.”

In her off time, Johnson said there is plenty to do at and near the park.

“During my spare time I love to fish off the ferry dock on the island and the surf,” she said. “Bogue Inlet also has some cool things. I also love to read when I’m at the barracks. I look forward to kayaking and all the other wonderful things you can do on the water.”

Intern coordinator passionate about mission

While a lot of folks may have passing knowledge of the Hammocks Beach State Park summer intern program, few are as involved as Allyson Roberts of Swansboro.

From her role as intern coordinator with the Friends of the Hammocks and Bear Island, a citizen support group for the park, she admits the program is close to her heart.

It is, she noted recently, “a mission.”

“I’m passionate about the park and my volunteer work with the interns,” she said.
When “The Barracks,” the interns’ living quarters on Bear Island, needs repairs or new furniture, you can count on Roberts and her husband Chuck taking care of it.

When Hurricane Florence knocked out The Barracks in 2018, Roberts said a way was found to work around it.

The four turtle interns were local. “They worked very long nights as the rangers took them to Bear Island on the patrol boat and picked them up in the morning,” Roberts said.

When COVID-19 shut down most of the world in 2020, Roberts found a way to work around it.

Again, “We had some local folks just to do turtles,” she said.

So it was a relief for Roberts to return to some sense of normalcy during the summer of 2021.

“Last year. We had the barracks all year and had a full crop of interns,” she said.

To the casual observer, the intern is a young person with a summer job. To Roberts, more is there.

“I truly enjoy the interaction with them. I enjoy being out there with them,” she said. “We have a lot of fun.”

Roberts also matches the interns with host families on the mainland. This gives the young people a place to get away to for a home-cooked meal, to do laundry or use the internet.

“The community is so supportive of them,” she said. And, Roberts added, “As a parent, we want our kids to have these great adventures. But as a parent, we want to know that somebody has their backs.”

Interns work from mid-May to mid-August, according to Ranger Sarah Kendrick, park superintendent.

In addition to being provided lodging at The Barracks during the internship, the interns are considered seasonal employees at the park and are paid $14 an hour.

“Six is our typical intern number,” Kendrick said. “Some years we have less for various reasons. We typically have three to four sea turtle interns, one or two shorebird interns, and an education intern.”

She also said the role the interns play is vital to the park operation.

“Interns are able to complete the valuable work of sea turtle monitoring and protection, shorebird monitoring and protection and extra educational programs above and beyond what the ranger staff is able to do,” Kendrick said. “Without the interns a lot of this work would not be able to be done because of the rangers’ workload. We have one of only two nighttime sea turtle monitoring programs in North Carolina, the other being Bald Head Island.”

This story is provided courtesy of the Tideland News, a weekly newspaper in Swansboro. Coastal Review partners with the Tideland to provide readers with more environmental and lifestyle stories of interest about the North Carolina coast.

Reprinted from the Carteret County News-Times

Work is under way on a $1.7 million shoreline restoration project at Carteret Community College.

“TA Loving has begun staging and removing the old rubble from the shoreline,” College Vice President of Operations and Facilities Steve Sparks said during the Oct. 13 meeting of the college’s board of trustees. “The seal locations have been staked and a construction site plan has been submitted. Work will begin initially on the west end of the shoreline.”

The project includes restoration of 1,400 linear feet of the campus’ shoreline that was damaged by Hurricane Florence in September 2018. That is half the length of the college’s total shoreline.

Along with that work, one pier and two observation decks will be built. The decks will be constructed on the west and east ends of the campus. The pier, which will be located mid-campus, will include a floating dock and kayak launch.

The living shoreline at college will consist of a series of granite sills with landward salt marsh grass plantings, similar to construction methods used in front of the Center for Marine Sciences and Technology building on the west end of the campus.

The college partnered with the North Carolina Coastal Federation to submit a proposal to build a living shoreline along Bogue Sound property to reduce further erosion, while also protecting and restoring valuable salt marsh habitat.

The college received $812,555 of a $2.7 million grant award from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration/National Fish and Wildlife Foundation Emergency Coastal Resilience Fund to put toward the project. The remainder of the grant will provide another large-scale living shoreline along Highway 24 in between Swansboro and Cedar Point that will be done in partnership with the federation and the N.C. Department of Transportation.

The remainder of the funds for the the college shoreline project comes from Federal Emergency Management Agency funds and a special allocation from the North Carolina Community College System hurricane relief funds.

Mr. Sparks said the project is scheduled to be finished by the end of March. The federation is expected to start seeding marsh grass plants in mid-March.

This story is provided courtesy of the Carteret County News-Times, a tri-weekly newspaper published in Morehead City. Coastal Review Online partners with the News-Times to provide our readers with news of the North Carolina coast.

Reprinted with Permission from Carteret County News-Times

MOREHEAD CITY — Carteret Community College has received a $395,749 Golden Leaf Foundation Hurricane Florence recovery grant for shoreline repair and mitigation.

The college’s finance officer Steve Davis shared the news with trustees Tuesday during a meeting in the McGee Building boardroom.

“During Hurricane Florence (in September 2018) we suffered shoreline damages close to buildings, and we want to make sure that doesn’t happen again,” Davis said.

The college sustained more than $1 million in damage during Florence. With four of the college’s buildings located directly on the north bank of Bogue Sound, shoreline damage is one of the biggest concerns.

“We are still feeling the impact of Hurricane Florence one year later,” CCC President John Hauser said in a press release about the award. “Our location along Bogue Sound is a huge part of the college’s identity, and protecting our shoreline is crucial. We are very thankful for the Golden Leaf grant and look forward to repairing and improving our shoreline.”

Engineering estimates put the cost of repairing the shoreline at $908,000. Davis said in addition to Golden Leaf funds, the college will use $300,000 in state Hurricane Florence recovery funds, $208,000 in Federal Emergency Management Agency funds and $4,400 in institutional funds.

The college is working with Arendell Engineers to develop a plan to protect the shoreline and college facilities. Improvements will include removing any remaining rip-rap, rocks or other debris, grading and installation of an interlocking vinyl-sheet pile bulkhead. It will be capped with concrete barriers and filter fabric and layered with stone. Eroding dirt will be replaced.

Additionally, the college is working with the North Carolina Coastal Federation to secure a North Carolina Wildlife Marine Fisheries grant for a living shoreline. That project will include installation of granite sills about 30 feet offshore to help with wave activity.

Final plans are expected to be submitted for review by the State Construction Office in November, with approval expected 30 days later. The college plans to advertise and evaluate bids, with construction beginning in March or April.

“It will take about six months to complete the work, so we’re probably looking at a September time frame for completion,” Director of Plant Operations Steve Sparks said.

Of particular concern is a 273-foot section that contains a bulkhead and seawall in front of the Bryant Student Center and Crystal Coast Civic Center. That section was damaged by 3 feet of storm surge, which caused a concrete sidewalk to collapse and rip-rap to be destroyed.

While that section is of major concern, about 1,400 feet of shoreline from the Howard Building to where the college’s property ends at the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries building also sustained damage.

This story is provided courtesy of the Carteret County News-Times, a tri-weekly newspaper published in Morehead City. Coastal Review Online partners with the News-Times to provide our readers with news of the North Carolina coast.

Reprinted from the Carteret County News-Times

MOREHEAD CITY — Construction has begun on a $200,000 shellfish mariculture demonstration center at Carteret Community College that will expand research and training opportunities.

CCC aquaculture department chairman David Cerino said Tuesday the N.C. Shellfish Mariculture Demonstration Center will “provide shore-side support for the adjacent lease in Bogue Sound where we will conduct training and applied research for the shellfish aquaculture industry in collaboration with North Carolina Sea Grant.”

The approximate 2,500-square-foot structure is being built behind the Howard Aquaculture Building at CCC.

Funding for the project comes from a $50,000 National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Sea Grant Aquaculture Extension and Technology Transfer grant, as well as a $150,000 appropriation from the North Carolina General Assembly. Funds provide for construction and equipping of the center.

Cerino said he’s excited to see construction well underway and expects the facility to open this spring. LA Downey & Son of Morehead City is in charge of construction.

The original completion date was October 2018, but Hurricane Florence caused the project to be moved back, according to Cerino.

The N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries approved a 2.57-acre research demonstration lease last summer as part of the process to create the center for Carteret Community College and North Carolina State University students and researchers.

Mariculture, a specialized branch of aquaculture, involves the cultivation of marine organisms for food and other products in the open ocean or sound, an enclosed section of the ocean or in tanks, ponds or waterways filled with seawater.

The site will provide hands-on training and research activities to advance sustainable shellfish mariculture, according to Cerino.

He said it will not only benefit students, but help develop businesses for those interested in the industry.

The area starts just east of the Howard Aquaculture Building and extends to the west side of the N.C. State University Center for Marine Sciences and Technology building.

Cerino and North Carolina Sea Grant marine aquaculture specialist Chuck Weirich worked with University of North Carolina Wilmington to secure a $300,000 grant in 2015 from NOAA, with $50,000 of the money earmarked for the Bogue Sound shellfish lease expansion project.

The NOAA grant provides funds to establish shellfish mariculture demonstration centers at UNCW and the site shared by N.C. State University CMAST and CCC.

The grant also funds work that involves comparison of oyster gear types and different native oyster strains at industry partner sites around the state and evaluation of sunray Venus clams as a means to diversify the industry.

Cerino said the area would also be used to do research on other types of clams and bay scallops.

The lease allows for non-commercial production of shellfish within the proposed area.

The three main goals of the site are:

• To enhance the opportunities for the aquaculture curriculum courses currently offered at Carteret Community College.
• To provide a site for the development of the N.C. Shellfish Farming Academy, which will provide training for new and existing shellfish growers through the CCC Corporate and Community Education Division.
• To serve as a site to conduct experiments to develop best management practices for sustainable industry development.

As for the new structure, it’s “basically a covered pavilion with two main areas. One will be for the filtered seawater systems and the other is a work area for shellfish nursery systems and for sorting and processing shellfish,” he said, adding there’s also a storage area for equipment.

This story is provided courtesy of the Carteret County News-Times, a tri-weekly newspaper published in Morehead City. Coastal Review Online partners with the News-Times to provide our readers with news of the North Carolina coast.

JACKSONVILLE — A wave of alternative energy will eventually hit the United States, and coastal North Carolina would seem one good place for it to break, with generous amounts of sunshine to power solar panels and enough wind, especially offshore, to keep turbine blades spinning most days.

But when that wave does come, will there be technicians and managers trained to install, operate and maintain the solar panels, wind farms and other types of green energy systems?

There still isn’t a great demand in North Carolina for solar panels, but installers will be needed as the market develops. Photo: Jetson Green.

The answer, from a survey of community colleges along the coast, appears to be yes. A variety of programs are in place – offering both two-year associate’s degrees and more rapidly obtainable certificates – and some colleges are already producing graduates who are working in the field. But the programs are relatively new, some of the classes aren’t filling up and they aren’t offered everywhere. For example, there’s nothing  offered right now at Carteret Community College in Morehead City or at Craven Community College in New Bern.

And, some in the education field conceded, there are still some significant obstacles to job growth, both practical and philosophical.

For example, Steve Forney, director of the skills and training section in the continuing education department at Coastal Carolina Community College in Jacksonville, said recently that he’s been somewhat disappointed in the numbers of students who have signed up for classes in weatherization and home energy reduction, introduction to renewable energy and one on “green building,” which teaches students to “develop skills to produce and utilize renewable energy sources” and discuss future infrastructure from a local perspective.

“There is interest, and we have students, but it has not been quite what I’d like,” he said. “But these are fairly new courses, and it takes time. We’re not going anywhere. We’re going to keep offering them.”

Forney is a believer in alternative energy – an ex-Marine, he’s seen the technology used – and he annually attends conferences and training to stay in tune with th e latest advances. He feels the school’s solar technology training is excellent. He has great equipment, including panels and a converter, and said he’s been trying, unsuccessfully, for some time to get a wind turbine in his budget. But, he said, with a downturn in the housing market, power companies have not been quick enough to create the infrastructure to make if feasible for homeowners and home builders to use new energy technology.

Most of the homes in the a area, he said, are still not built for solar energy use, and the power companies “have not yet made it easy enough for individual homeowners or businesses” who want to retrofit or build new solar-capable structures to tie into the electrical power grid with meters that will put electricity into the grid and give owners a credit when panels produce an excess. The result, according to Forney, is that most who use solar panels to produce electricity have to use bulky and expensive batteries to store any excess energy produced. It’s also still difficult and complicated to convert the energy for household use.

Finally, he said, “solar panels are great, but there are studies out there that indicate they often need to be replaced about the time they break even on the investment.”

All of those things dampen demand for products, and without high demand, some of the potential for jobs is muted, so the demand for the training is dampened, too.

But farther south, at Brunswick Community College in Bolivia, a similar, relatively new but very specific program is humming along nicely.

According to Marilyn Graham, Green Information and Training Center coordinator, the school’s solar installer course uses a rigorous curriculum that is turning out ready-to-work employees. Some have found jobs already, she said.

Brunswick, in partnership with Cape Fear Solar Systems LLC, a local leader in solar system design and installation, this summer completed the second semester of solar installer classes. Of the eight of the 12 students last semester signed up to take the exam to be certified by the North American Board of Certified Energy Practitioners; five passed.

But the Brunswick course, Graham said, prepares the students well and qualifies them to get those entry level jobs, which can be stepping stones to bigger and better things.“It’s a very difficult test,” she said.  “One person who took it, who was already an electrician/contractor, said it was about as difficult as the exam to become an inspector.”

The current class has eight students, Graham said, and it’s obvious to her there is continuing interest.

“We’re very excited about this,” she said. “It is a new program, but I think it’s clear that we are giving the students who take it a competitive advantage (in the job market). That’s what it’s all about: Providing the training so people in our area can go out and get jobs.”

In addition to classroom work, students train on a “mock” roof on the college campus, where they install, re-install and troubleshoot various solar systems. They also go on field trips to solar systems installed by Cape Fear Solar.

John Donoghue, president of Cape Fear Solar Systems, is the instructor. The company offers a wide range of solar panels for solar thermal (solar water heating), photovoltaic (solar electric) and solar pool heating systems.

“I’m pleased to see young professionals taking solar power seriously and obtaining education and training to become qualified within this growing field,” he said recently. “The NABCEP entry level exam should be the starting point for every installer having long term professional objectives in the solar industry with the aim of providing quality workmanship.”

Cape Fear Community College in Wilmington is aiming higher. The school offers the expected certificate courses, such as one that enables students to become a solar installer quickly, but it’s betting bigger, offering a “Sustainable Technologies Program” that awards students an associate’s degree in applied technology.

Lead instructor John Wojciechowski said the three-year-old program has had one graduating class and currently has about 25 to 35 students enrolled either full- or part-time in “green” programs, either seeking the associate’s degree or certificates.

The degree curriculum is designed to prepare individuals for jobs in environmental, construction, alternative energy, manufacturing or related industries in which emphasis is placed on energy production and waste reduction along with sustainable technologies.

Course work includes alternative energy, environmental engineering technology, sustainable manufacturing and green building technology. Additional topics may include sustainability, energy management, waste reduction, renewable energy, site assessment and environmental responsibility. The school has its own alternative energy lab.

Some graduates are working for solar firms, a couple are in jobs related to energy efficiency or building energy audits and some are in construction-related jobs, such as Energy Star compliance.

Students are primarily from the New Hanover-Pender County area, but some are out of state, as far away as Massachusetts, Wojciechowski said. He is optimistic about the future of the program and the job market.

“Barring the complete breakdown of tax credits (for alternative energy), which I don’t foresee – I think they will be gradually phased out – I think the future is good,” he said. “Alternative energy costs are coming down, and I don’t see that stopping.”

It is possible, Wojciechowski said, that programs could produce too many students with degrees or certificates for the local or regional market right now, but as in most fields in the current economy, graduates who are willing to move to another area should have a good shot at a job. That’s especially true, he said, if the graduates have the flexibility gained from training in the “sustainability” program, which does not restrict them to one particular job, as a certificate might.

“I really think there are jobs out there now, in our area, for anyone who wants to be a solar ‘jockey,’ to climb up on roofs and install systems,” he said. “And there are green jobs elsewhere in the state, and in Georgia and South Carolina.”

Wojciechowski noted that there are similar sustainable technology degree programs at Lenoir Community College in Kinston and Central Carolina Community College in Pittsboro. He doesn’t mind that those are relatively nearby, and said it helps students who may move for family reasons or may be taking the courses while working and are transferred. One of his students, he said, needed one more class to earn his degree at Central Carolina, but it was not offered when he could take it, so he took it and passed it in Wilmington.

“That works for me,” he said. “That’s one of the great things about community colleges and the community college system. And it’s good, low-cost education.”