The University of North Carolina Wilmington Blue Economy Index (Bloomberg Ticker: BLUEECO) declined 4.15% in March amid what index managers described in a news release as “a broad global market selloff.”

The index tracks the “economic activity of companies operating within oceans and waterways, with a focused lens on environmental sustainability.” It aligns with the World Bank’s Blue Economy definition: “the sustainable use of ocean resources for economic growth, improved livelihoods, and jobs while preserving the health of the ocean ecosystem.” It offers investors a way to evaluate the sustainable growth potential of sectors such as shipping, offshore energy, aquaculture, and marine infrastructure.

By comparison, the index’s major benchmarks recorded steeper losses than BLUEECO, with the Standard & Poor’s 500 falling 5.16%, the Morgan Stanley Capital International All World Index declining 6.22%, and the S&P Industrials dropping 10.66% during March.

“The downturn was driven by rising geopolitical tensions and renewed inflation concerns, which weighed on investor sentiment throughout the month,” according to the index managers. On a year-to-date basis through the first quarter, BLUEECO is still up 12.06%, compared to 4.30% for the S&P Industrials and declines of 3.52% for the MSCI All World Index and 4.63% for the S&P 500.

Industrials declined 7.61% in March, losing much of the strong gains seen earlier in the year, which was attributed to “renewed trade policy uncertainty and tariff escalation, which dampened capital expenditure expectations and weighed on cyclical demand across heavy industry and manufacturing segments,” according to the release.

Consumer staples declined 7.89% in March, driven by rising input costs across energy and logistics, alongside currency headwinds in key export markets, which, officials said, put pressure on margins for food production, processing, and distribution companies.

Utilities declined 3.90% in March, showing some resilience during the broader market selloff.

Consumer discretionary spending slipped 13.35% in March, making it the worst-performing sector. “The decline reflected deteriorating consumer confidence amid escalating trade tensions and equity market volatility, which weighed heavily on forward bookings and discretionary spending across travel, leisure, and cruise operators,” according to the release.

March’s top performers were concentrated in utilities and renewable energy, supported by rising energy prices and increased strategic interest in power and infrastructure assets.

For more, visit the Alliance for the Blue Economy.

Before accepting the Trump administration’s $1 billion taxpayer buyout, TotalEnergies fostered a campaign that its wind energy project off the coast of Brunswick County would eventually generate enough electricity to power 300,000 homes in the Carolinas.

“Our team is passionate about creating a clean energy economy and the new opportunities it brings to our local communities,” reads an excerpt from TotalEnergies Carolina Long Bay website. “Our partnerships in the Carolinas are making renewable energy a regional priority, building a stronger future for us all.”

TotalEnergies Carolina Long Bay, a wholly owned subsidiary of the France-based global energy company, “will harness the power of offshore wind to generate abundant energy and significant economic growth for the communities of the Southeast.”

The Interior Department’s announcement Monday that TotalEnergies had accepted a federal buyout of its wind energy leases off the New York and North Carolina coasts is a sharp pivot from the company’s previous narrative on offshore wind in the United States.

TotalEnergies’ chief executive officer and chair of the company’s board of directors said in a Department of Interior release that the decision to relinquish offshore wind development in the United States was made because such projects are “not in the country’s interest.”

Instead, TotalEnergies will invest the refunded money in a liquefied natural gas export terminal in Texas and other fossil fuel projects.

The Trump administration lauded it as an “innovative agreement,” one that is a major win for President Donald Trump, who has made offshore wind the biggest bullseye in his target to dismantle renewable energy projects and replace them with fossil fuel and nuclear power.

“Offshore wind is one of the most expensive, unreliable, environmentally disruptive, and subsidy-dependent schemes ever forced on American ratepayers and taxpayers,” Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in a release. “We welcome TotalEnergies’ commitment to developing projects that produce dependable, affordable power to lower Americans’ monthly bills while providing secure U.S. baseload power today – and in the future.”

Shortly after taking office in January 2025, Trump issued an executive order barring new offshore wind leases and requiring reviews of existing and permitted wind projects.

Last December, the Trump administration, citing risks to national security, ordered work to stop in five offshore wind energy areas on the East Coast, including Dominion Energy’s 2.6-gigawatt project based in Hampton Roads, Virginia.

Courts have since allowed all five of the projects to operate for the time being until final judgments are rendered in those cases.

Monday’s announcement drew immediate rebuke from opponents who argue the deal sets a dangerous precedent and limits alternative energy production as Americans face rising electricity bills and concerns mount about the amount of power artificial intelligence data centers use.

“Donald Trump truly can’t leave a good thing alone,” BlueGreen Alliance Vice President of Federal Affairs Katie Harris said in a release. “His never-ending vendetta against offshore wind shows that he either doesn’t understand the affordable energy crisis or that he just doesn’t care. Either way, it’s clear he’s never paid his own electricity bill, and he’s determined to raise bills for working people.”

Southeastern Wind Coalition Senior Program Manager Karly Brownfield said that the agreement “feels really counterproductive” at a time when people are closely watching their energy costs at home and at the pump.

“The whole thing is unprecedented and it’s also completely unprecedented to take a lease payment and then refund it in exchange for investment in the natural gas industry. That has never happened before,” she said in a telephone interview earlier this week. “Whether you’re investing in offshore wind or you’re investing in solar or whatever it might be, it’s not a great feeling to know that just because you have a project that’s permitted or a project that’s received all the stamps of approval that it still runs the risk of the plug being pulled halfway down the line. Certainty is what drives business and the more uncertain we make our energy market the more complicated this is all going to become in the long term.”

North Carolina is investing in natural gas, but the gas turbine industry is facing years-out backlogs on turbine orders. Nuclear power, from permitting to production, can take upwards of 15 years to build.

“And the leg up we had with offshore wind was that these projects were leased. Permitting had started. The sites were secured. There was some sort of headway that was made on those projects,” Brownfield said.

The Carolina Long Bay wind energy area spans a little more than 110,000 acres roughly 22 miles offshore, south of Bald Head Island.

The area is split into two leases.

In May 2022, Duke Energy paid $155 million for what equates to a little more than half of the total wind energy area.

In June of that same year, TotalEnergies Renewable USA paid more than $133 million for the adjacent lease.

Projects in the Carolina Long Bay area were anticipated to generate up to 3 gigawatts of electricity, enough to power about 675,000 homes, and estimated to provide more than $4 billion in net economic impacts.

According to information on its website, Duke Energy was collaborating with TotalEnergies on “early development activities.”

When asked for comment, Duke Energy spokesperson Bill Norton responded to Coastal Review by email, writing in part, “Large offshore wind projects involve substantial capital investments and extensive development timelines. It’s reasonable that policy makers question cost-exposure of such projects to customers. We continue to evaluate next steps as it relates to the Carolina Long Bay lease, which is currently maintained by Duke Energy’s nonregulated subsidiary, Cinergy.”

Duke Energy prioritizes energy sources “proven to be the most cost-effective while meeting the growing needs of our customers,” he wrote. “A diversified energy mix is essential to meeting the moment of high demand under all conditions.”

Offshore wind, Brownfield said, offers just that.

“What offshore wind is really, really good at is providing that really stable and predictable energy during extreme weather, and especially at nighttime, when solar is not really working, or when either gas is really constrained or you’re looking at scarcity pricing,” she said. “And, with wind being a free resource, yes, it’s an upfront investment, but it’s a very predictable cost of the project.”

There are still active leases for a wind project off Kitty Hawk that’s owned by Avangrid Renewables and Dominion Energy.

“As far as I know, Avangrid is still very much firm on engaging in North Carolina and they’re still looking at a longer-term future for their lease,” Brownfield said.

As she sees it, the Interior Department’s agreement with TotalEnergies is perhaps less of a setback to offshore wind energy production in the U.S. but rather increases the need for other energy resources.

“Not saying that we don’t need natural gas. SEWC is a very technology-neutral organization,” Brownfield said. “We don’t want to shoot down other resources by any means. But your grid is a lot more balanced when you’ve got a little bit of everything on it. And, right now, we’re on track for our grid to be about 50% gas by 2034, and that’s a lot of gas.”

Millions of dollars have been marked for coastal freight rail upgrades and improvements to include tracks, trestles, culverts and port infrastructure.

The projects are part of a total $16.3 million to go toward freight rail infrastructure improvements to a dozen short-line railroads and at the state Port of Morehead City, North Carolina Department of Transportation Rail Division officials announced Thursday.

The Morehead City port will see $177,500 for a rail scale installation and $844,860 for rail replacement and upgrades on the property.

The Wilmington Terminal Railroad will receive $627,000 for rail and switch improvements along its mainline corridor.

“These projects deliver significant benefits to North Carolina’s freight rail network,” said Rail Division Director Jason Orthner. “By working closely with our railroad partners, we are strengthening reliability and resiliency, supporting businesses across the state, and reinforcing the rail infrastructure that drives North Carolina’s economy.”

Other funded coastal projects include $1.23 million to the Carolina Coastal Railway for rail and bridge improvements along its Belhaven and Norfolk Southern Railway lines in Beaufort, Greene, Washington, and Wilson counties, and $712,801 for the Chesapeake & Albemarle Railroad’s bridge and track improvements along its mainline corridor and Edenton sidetracks in Camden, Pasquotank, Perquimans and Chowan counties.

NCDOT officials said the division’s $16.3 million contribution is funded through the Freight Rail and Rail Crossing Safety Improvement program, which the state legislature established in 2014 to support “the health, safety and performance of the state’s rail infrastructure while establishing partnerships to meet the growing demand for rail service.”

In total, the projects will upgrade more than 95 miles of track and eight railroad bridges and culverts in North Carolina to support an anticipated increase in freight rail traffic statewide.

The Rail Division said its grants are matched by investments from participating railroad companies and the North Carolina Ports Authority. The partnerships are putting $41.5 million into projects that improve North Carolina’s freight rail network.

Other awarded projects and NCDOT’s contribution to each include the following:

• Aberdeen Carolina and Western Railway — $4,845,392 in funding for rail replacement and improvements along its Piedmont Division in Cabarrus and Mecklenburg counties.
• Aberdeen and Rockfish Railroad — $771,397 for track upgrades and continuity of service on its mainline in Hoke County.
• Alexander Railroad Co. — $381,797 for track and corridor upgrades near the Alexander Industrial Park in Alexander County.
• Alexander Railroad Co. — $495,026 for track and grade-crossing upgrades on the mainline rail corridor in Iredell County.
• Atlantic & Western Railway — $690,440 for corridor improvements and rail track upgrades on the Jonesboro branch in Lee County.
• Great Smoky Mountains Railroad — $1.68 million for track improvements and bridge repairs along its mainline corridor in Jackson, Swain, Macon and Cherokee counties.
• North Carolina and Virginia Railroad — $979,813 for rail replacement and improvements along its mainline corridor in Northampton County.
• Raleigh & Fayetteville Railroad — $999,586 for rail corridor improvements to the Norfolk Southern and VF lines in Wake and Harnett counties.
• Winston-Salem Southbound Railroad — $1.11 million for rail improvements along its W line in Davidson County.
• Yadkin Valley Railroad — $754,700 for track upgrades and rail corridor improvements along its K and CF lines in Yadkin, Surry and Stokes counties.

Post has been updated.

WANCHESE — Genetic testing of purportedly wild-caught shrimp served earlier this month at dozens of Outer Banks restaurants found that 64% of the shrimp was actually imported.

On behalf of the Southern Shrimp Alliance, SeaD Consulting collected and analyzed shrimp samples from randomly selected seafood restaurants in Duck, Southern Shores, Kitty Hawk, Kill Devil Hills, Manteo, Rodanthe, Salvo, Avon, Buxton, Frisco, Nags Head and Hatteras, according to a Dec. 17 press release from SeaD.

Of the 44 restaurants tested, 43 had verbally claimed to serve local American wild-caught shrimp, but only 16 — 36% — were found to be serving local shrimp in the tested dishes. The remaining 28 restaurants had served imported farm-raised shrimp, but only one of them admitted it. All 44 of the eateries had used imagery to imply that they served local shrimp. 

“The findings raise concerns about seafood transparency in an iconic coastal region known for its local fishing heritage,” the release said.

Despite the Outer Banks’ poor showing, it was noted that Wilmington did even worse, with an “inauthenticity rate” of 77% in previous testing. 

SeaD (Seafood Development) Consulting, in partnership with Florida State University, holds the patent for the Rapid ID Genetic High-Accuracy Test, or RIGHTTest, that was used in the survey conducted Dec. 2-6. The Southern Shrimp Alliance, an advocacy trade group, has funded the genetic testing of shrimp throughout the region.

Shrimp, the most popular seafood in the U.S., was an $8 billion market in 2025, with Americans consuming 5 pounds per capita of shrimp a year. But it’s not local shrimpers who are raking in big profits.

According to the U.S. International Trade Commission, 93% of the shrimp consumed in the United States comes from overseas, with 1.7 billion pounds of shrimp products imported in 2024, valued at $6 billion. Meanwhile, commercial shrimp harvests in the Gulf of Mexico and the South Atlantic declined from $522 million in 2021 to $269 million in 2023; $25 million to $14 million, respectively, in North Carolina. 

The demand for shrimp is only increasing, along with the creativity in how to serve it.

“We don’t need to undersell our industry and our product,” David Williams, a commercial fishery scientist and co-founder of SeaD, told Coastal Review in a recent interview. A generation ago, shrimp cocktail was the extent of its use in most American cuisine; now there’s a dozen different shrimp dishes on menus, he said. “It should be a proud part of our industry”

As the Alliance detailed, imports, depending on the country, can be “dumped” at lower prices because they use cheap labor, and sometimes even forced, trafficked or child labor. Some countries use a lot of antibiotics, or grow shrimp in polluted ponds. A few countries impose tariffs ranging from 13% to 45% on U.S. wild-caught and farmed shrimp.

While most restaurant prices for shrimp dinners are on the higher end of the menu, they’re not reflecting the dock prices, which have remained low. But more recognition for the quality of wild shrimp as a food source would increase its value.

“The only real way of doing that is that people in restaurants appreciate wild caught shrimp,” Williams said. And diners who choose to eat wild seafood should be able to trust that they’re getting what they’re paying for, otherwise, it’s misrepresentation.

“You charge a premium for a product that’s not a premium,” he said.

North Carolina does not have a law that requires restaurants to disclose the origin of shrimp on menus. Certain retail seafood products fall under federal country-of-origin requirements, but they do not apply to restaurants. North Carolina U.S. Rep. David Rouzer, R-7th District, has recently met with the Alliance and others in the industry and is looking into the legislative remedies and other shrimp industry issues.

“Tackling mislabeling is crucial to ensure that consumers receive the shrimp they are sold,” Blake Price, deputy director of the Southern Shrimp Alliance said in the release. “This testing shows American fishermen are regularly losing sales of their own product to shrimp farmed in countries with safety, labor, and environmental abuses.”

Mark Vrablic, general manager of Willie R. Etheridge Seafood in Wanchese, said that he’s not directly aware of Outer Banks restaurants misrepresenting imported shrimp as local. Still, he has had people tell him that they were told the seafood they were served had come from Etheridge’s, when he knew it didn’t.

“I would love for it not to be this way, but I wouldn’t dare sell a farm-raised shrimp and call it domestic,” he told Coastal Review in an interview. People have a right to know what they’re eating, he added. “I’m not going to sell something marked one thing and it’s something else.”

Vrablic, 66, agrees that the biggest problem with imported shrimp is that the dock price shrimpers are paid is almost too low to make it worth the costs and work involved. 

Probably 25 countries send shrimp here, including Saudi Arabia, Turkey, Ecuador, Peru, Mexico and Venezuela, he said.

“When fuels went up real high two years back, (local shrimpers) were going to have to either raise prices or just get out of it, because they were going to go broke,” Vrablic said. Even with gas lower now, he said, the “homeboys” should still be getting prices 30% to 40% higher.

“But because of the millions of pounds of farm-raised that’s available daily, it’s just overwhelming,” he said. “The market is staying down because of the supply.”

Vrablic, who is a member of the Etheridge family, once one of the most powerful fishing clans on the Outer Banks, began fishing when he was 14 years old, and later joined the family restaurant business for a few years before taking over commercial management and sales.

Until about 20 years ago, shrimping was a short summer fishery in North Carolina, he said. But as the climate changed, the waters warmed to the shrimp’s liking. Now the season stretches from July Fourth until December or later.

“I don’t like imports, Vrablic said. “They’ve crushed us like cockroaches. They’ve taken our markets away, and our fishermen can’t get the fair share what they should be getting. When I fished, I made a lot of money. We didn’t have imports.”

But the fact is, he said, the increased demand for shrimp on the Outer Banks, and elsewhere, exceeds what local shrimpers can catch. And almost all farm-raised shrimp is from overseas.

“We produce shrimp in this country, but we do not produce enough,” Vrablic said, and referred to the 1.7 billion pounds that were imported last year. “Where would we find something like that?”

To his point, he explained, Etheridge Seafood doesn’t have the capacity or bargaining power to meet the volume of the demand.

“We keep a heavy inventory of shrimp, and it’s just the whole world dumps on us,” Vrablic said.

Bottom line, Vrablic says that something has to be done about the unfair competition from imported shrimp. Ideally, restaurants and fish markets should prioritize serving local catch, but when they can’t, they need to be honest about the origin of the shrimp they’re selling. And it would help if consumers remember that wild-caught shrimp also is a seasonal product.

“When restaurants say ’Mark, what will we do if we went three or four months without shrimp?’ I said, ‘If I got no shrimp … we could treat it like we do soft crabs or scallops or oysters when it comes in season.’ People come buy them just like they do watermelons. When it comes out of season, guess what? You come up short.

“Then they’ll just buy more fish from me,” he said, “because they can’t compete with me with fresh fish.”

The following eateries on the Outer Banks found to be serving authentic, American, wild-caught shrimp in the random sample of 44 restaurants:

1. 1587 Restaurant & Lounge, 405 Queen Elizabeth Ave, Manteo.
2. Barefoot Bernie’s Tropical Grill & Bar, 3730 N. Croatan Highway, Kitty Hawk.
3. Basnight’s Lone Cedar Café, 7623 S Virginia Dare Trail, Nags Head.
4. Coastal Cravings, 1209 Duck Road, Duck.
5. Goombays Grille & Raw Bar, 1608 N. Virginia Dare Trail, Kill Devil Hills.
6. Greentail’s Seafood Market and Kitchen, 3022 S. Croatan Highway Unit 34, Nags Head.
7. I Got Your Crabs Shellfish Market and Oyster Bar, 3809 N. Croatan Highway, Kitty Hawk.
8. Lucky 12 Tavern, 3308 S. Virginia Dare Trail, Nags Head.
9. O’Neal’s Sea Harvest, 618 Harbor Road, Wanchese.
10. Outer Banks Brewing Station, 600 S. Croatan Highway, Kill Devil Hills.
11. Red Sky Casual Dining & Cocktails,1197 Duck Road, Duck.
12. Roadside Bar & Grill, 1193 Duck Road, Duck,.
13. Sea Chef Dockside Kitchen, 8770 Oregon Inlet Road, Nags Head.
14. The Paper Canoe, 1564 Duck Road, Duck.
15. Village Table & Tavern, 1314 Duck Road, Duck.
16. Vicki B’s Restaurant & Market, 301 Budleigh St., Manteo.

The two federal branches that enforce the Clean Water Act last month pitched changes to the “waters of the United States” definition, which establishes the types of waterbodies that are federally protected against pollution, and if these amendments pass as written, conservation groups fear millions of acres of nontidal wetlands will be left vulnerable.

The Environmental Protection Agency and Army Corps of Engineers have for decades had the authority to regulate “navigable waters,” which means “the waters of the United States, including the territorial seas,” as written in the 1948 Federal Water Pollution Control Act. Expanded in the 1970s, the measure is typically referred to as the Clean Water Act.

The EPA explains on its website that the Clean Water Act “establishes the basic structure for regulating discharges of pollutants into the waters of the United States and regulating quality standards for surface waters.”

One thing the Clean Water Act doesn’t do is clearly define “waters of the United States.” The EPA calls it a “threshold term in the Clean Water Act and establishes the geographic scope of federal jurisdiction under the Act.”

EPA and Army leadership announced Nov. 17 plans to update the definition, which has been the subject of lawsuits and years’ worth of arguments.

The “Updated Definition of ‘’Waters of the United States’’’ was published Nov. 20 in the Federal Register, launching a 45-day comment period on the proposed changes that closes Jan. 5.  A virtual public meeting is scheduled for 12:30 to 4 p.m. Tuesday, with a 2-2:30 p.m. break. Attendees must register online to speak by 5 p.m. Monday. To listen only, register by the start of the meeting.

This latest attempt, which would exclude isolated wetlands, is directly linked to the Supreme Court’s May 2023 Sackett v. EPA decision. The Sacketts are an Idaho couple fined in the late 2000s for backfilling a section of their property that the EPA considered wetlands.

Judges ruled in the final opinion on the case that the “(Clean Water Act)’s use of ‘waters’” only refers to geographical features described in everyday language “as ‘streams, oceans, rivers and lakes’ and to adjacent wetlands that are ‘indistinguishable’ from those bodies of water due to a continuous surface connection.”

Earlier that year, the EPA had finalized a “Revised Definition of ‘Waters of the United States'” rule that took effect March 20, 2023, and which the Sackett case invalidated. In August 2023, the EPA and Army Corps issued an amendment to align the rule with the Sackett decision.

That final conforming rule is what the EPA and Army Corps leadership are proposing to amend.

The agencies argue that the change “would fully implement” the Supreme Court’s ruling “by ensuring federal jurisdiction is focused on relatively permanent, standing or continuously flowing bodies of water—such as streams, oceans, rivers, and lakes—and wetlands that are connected and indistinguishable from such waterbodies.”

With this proposed rule, the agencies explain in the docket, they “intend to provide greater regulatory certainty and increase Clean Water Act program predictability and consistency by clarifying the definition of ‘waters of the United States.’ This proposed rule is also intended to implement the overall objective of the Clean Water Act to restore and maintain the quality of the Nation’s waters while respecting State and Tribal authority over their own land and water resources.”

Environmental groups argued then, when the Sackett case was ruled, and still maintain that by removing protections from the millions of acres of nontidal wetlands, there will be consequences: Water quality will be jeopardized and flooding will increase, to name just two.

Southern Environmental Law Center Senior Attorney Mark Sabath said in an interview that for 50 years, the Clean Water Act has been the strongest and best federal protection for many of the waters and wetlands around the country.

The law does that “by saying you can’t pollute, you can’t fill, you can’t destroy certain features, certain waters, without a permit,” Sabath said, and the permitting process means that there are certain protections and controls you have to apply to minimize the amount of destruction.

Sabath added that a number of features of the Clean Water Act are dependent on the type of water, and, in addressing its critics, not every puddle in the country covered by the act.

“It’s only things that meet the definition of waters of the United States, and that isn’t defined in the statute itself,” Sabath continued. “Congress didn’t define it, so EPA and the Army Corps, in a series of rules over the years, have tried to define exactly what wetlands are and aren’t covered by the Clean Water Act.”

This proposed rule is the latest revision and it is “by far the most narrow, the most extreme definition,” Sabath continued. “It includes the fewest number of streams and wetlands and other waters of any interpretation of ‘waters the United States’ that we’ve seen.”

North Carolina Wildlife Federation Conservation Policy Vice President Manley Fuller told Coastal Review that with this proposed rule, the bottom line is a massive loss of protection of waters of the United States, which are vital habitats for fish and wildlife.

“This will also negatively affect hunting and fishing, which are a significant part of our natural resource-based economy,” he continued. “Wetlands are also buffers for the built environment and help reduce downstream flooding. Protecting clean waters and wetlands is extremely popular with the public for many reasons and we need to strengthen rather than weaken these programs.”

North Carolina Sierra Club Deputy Director Erin Carey told Coastal Review the rule will effectively remove federal protections from at least 80% of wetlands and over 5 million miles of streams across the country.

“This rule will open millions of acres of wetlands to the threat of development, leaving communities already vulnerable to flooding without the frontline protection afforded by these invaluable habitats. Wetlands act as filters for floodwaters and other runoff, making them critical not only to flood mitigation, but to the preservation of clean water resources,” Carey said.

Environmental Defense Fund Coasts and Watersheds Science Senior Manager Dr. Adam Gold pointed out as well that if the proposed rule is implemented as written, nearly all nontidal wetlands and intermittent streams could be without Clean Water Act protections in North Carolina and across the United States.

While there are many changes in the proposed rule, the most notable are to the definitions of “relative permanence” of waters and a “continuous surface connection” for wetlands, Gold said, adding that the proposed language introduces the concept of a “wet season.”

“Under the proposed rule, wetlands and waters would only receive Clean Water Act protections if they have surface water throughout the ‘wet season,’ described in the rule as ‘an extended period where there is continuous surface hydrology resulting from predictable seasonal precipitation patterns year after year,’” Gold said. “This proposed rule would make it easier to drain or develop wetlands that do not meet the ‘wet season’ surface water requirement, putting our wetlands and the benefits they provide at serious risk.”

In North Carolina, the impact of the proposed rule is 3.2 million acres, or about 88%, of nontidal wetlands estimated to be without Clean Water Act protections. “Importantly, this analysis relies on wetland ‘wetness’ during the growing season, but the proposed rule uses the ‘wet season,’” Gold said.

About the wet season, Gold continued, there are “fundamental issues with the proposed rule’s ‘wet season’ dataset.”

He said the classification of the “wet season” comes from the Army Corps of Engineers Antecedent Precipitation Tool, but the underlying data this tool relies on is modeled using the average monthly temperature and precipitation between 1950 and 1999. The modeled dataset was published in 2001 and does not use the best-available methods.

“The agencies proposed ‘wet season’ dataset classifies most of the year, and in some cases the entire year, as ‘wet’ for much of coastal North Carolina. So, under this proposed rule, wetlands or streams in Jacksonville would need to have surface water year-round (the whole year is classified as ‘wet’) to have Clean Water Act protections. For New Bern, the ‘wet season’ is 11 months, and for Wilmington or Brunswick County, the ‘wet season’ is 10 months.”

Gold said the proposed rule “which could essentially remove nontidal wetland and intermittent waters from the Clean Water Act, does not align with the goal of the Clean Water Act to ‘restore and maintain the chemical, physical, and biological integrity of the nation’s waters.’ Science shows us that all wetlands, regardless of how ‘wet’ they are, clean our water, provide critical wildlife habitat, and reduce downstream flooding impacts.”

The EPA and Corps also asserted the week the proposed changes were announced that the new rules would provide “the regulatory certainty needed to support our nation’s farmers who feed and fuel the world and advance EPA’s Powering the Great American Comeback initiative.”

Sabath noted that the idea that this will have huge benefits for farming and for farmers is a common refrain when they’re restricting the protections of the Clean Water Act, “but the Clean Water Act actually exempts most farming activities from coverage already, so you don’t need to get a permit for doing regular farming activities, even when they would affect a wetland or stream that would otherwise be covered.”

The idea that this is a huge benefit for farmers is a nicer story, “because they don’t want to say, well, this is a huge benefit for large industrial facilities, industrial polluters, developers,” Sabath said.

Carey sees the proposed rule as demonstrating “that the EPA has abdicated its mandated responsibility to protect the environment and the people who depend on it. Even worse, the agency appears eager to sacrifice our natural resources on the altar of corporate greed.”

The public should be “very concerned that the federal agency tasked with ensuring clean water, clean air, and the protection of our natural environment seems determined to undermine that responsibility. With this proposed change, the EPA claims to seek clarity in regulation, but this rule would serve only to allow industry to profit from environmental destruction, and the ruination of our natural resources,” she added.

White Oak Waterkeeper Riley Lewis said in a statement that the EPA’s new definition of Waters of the United States ignores decades of scientific understanding and generations of Indigenous knowledge.

“By redefining wetlands using ambiguous criteria seemingly designed to maximize developable land and reduce regulatory barriers, the agency is turning a blind eye to the very real, very predictable impacts on our communities,” Lewis said. “Water will continue to move beneath our feet through groundwater and across the landscape during storms, regardless of a federal definition or a construction permit. This rule sets Americans up for flooding, damaged infrastructure, and increased pollution in the waters we rely on for our drinking supply, our food, and our way of life.”

So, why does this actually matter to the public? Sabath said it does in a few ways.

In North Carolina, people who hunt, fish and paddle use wetlands directly and those might be impacted by being destroyed or polluted without a permit.

“Anyone who is in a community that floods during extreme weather, and we all know that that’s happening more and more now, or that’s at risk of flooding,” Sabath said. By losing those wetlands, you lose their ability to protect communities from flooding, and that comes more often now from extreme weather.

“It’s a double whammy. You’re losing the benefits that they provide, and you’re probably creating more problems,” and more potential pollution or channels of pollution at the same time by replacing wetlands, natural areas with pavement or developed areas, he said.

With wetlands being a “good natural sponge” that can absorb huge amounts of water, “if anything, we should be trying to expand wetland coverage rather than take it away, Sabath said.

“In short,” Carey with the Sierra Club continued, “communities will watch rivers and streams in their communities fall victim to unchecked pollution. Without federal protections, industry will discharge and develop at will, destroying habitats, water quality, and flood protection measures as they go. The wetlands and streams of this country belong to all people, not just those who seek to exploit them.”

A new bulk cement import terminal at the Port of Morehead City will be built to handle at least five times the volume of the port’s current cement operations.

Silvi Cement’s new terminal will include two 100,000-ton enclosed domes for Type I/II low-alkali cement and Grade 120 slag, complete with 24/7 truck loading capabilities and direct rail loadout, according to a North Carolina Ports release.

“The enclosed domes expand storage capacity and modernize the cement import system by providing a more environmentally friendly, contained operation,” the release states.

“Our expansion into Morehead City marks an exciting new chapter for Silvi Cement and represents a significant investment in the region,” Laurence J. Silvi II, Silvi Materials co-president, stated in the release. “We’re proud to collaborate with NC Ports on this important project and bring new jobs and economic opportunity to the community. The Morehead City terminal will increase the reliability and reach of our cement supply throughout the Southeast, and we look forward to supporting the continued growth of this rapidly developing market.”

Silvi Cement, a division of concrete supplier Silvi Materials based in Pennsylvania, will use a now fully operational temporary cement rail loadout facility supplied by the company’s flagship terminal in Bristol, Pennsylvania, until the new terminal is completed.

The terminal is expected to open in 2027.

“This significant investment underscores Silvi’s commitment to our growing region and market,” North Carolina Ports Executive Director Brian E. Clark stated in the release. “Once complete, the new import terminal will enhance the supply chain for construction materials throughout the Southeast while supporting job creation and overall economic vitality in Morehead City and beyond.”

The sector known as the Blue Economy, which includes companies operating on oceans and waterways that are focused on environmental sustainability, saw a 1.36% decline in November, according to the University of North Carolina Wilmington Blue Economy Index, but still showed relative stability compared with industrial benchmarks.

By comparison, in November, the S&P 500 was down 0.57%, the MSCI All World Index, which measures global equity portfolio performance, dropped 0.66%, and the S&P Industrials Index ended the month with a 2.07% decline.

The Blue Economy Index (Bloomberg Ticker: BLUEECO) slipped from 2,592.91 to 2,557.57, “reflecting broad-based softness across global equity markets,” according to a UNCW news release.

“November’s decline was driven by weakness across industrial, maritime, and consumer-related segments as global risk sentiment softened,” the release continues. “Cooling manufacturing activity, lower freight demand in key trans-Pacific routes, and cautious spending patterns in developed markets contributed to a more defensive posture among investors.”

The November results, while reflecting what UNCW called “a broadly negative month for global markets,” were buoyed by the index’s diverse mix of marine transport, renewable infrastructure, and essential services companies.

Consumer discretionary spending was down 5.71%, reflecting weaker seasonal demand for leisure, travel and discretionary goods. “Slowing economic momentum and reduced spending appetite weighed on retail-linked and service-oriented holdings,” UNCW said.

Consumer staples, however, increased 1.18% in November, the month’s only gain. “Strong demand for essential goods, along with resilient pricing in food and aquaculture producers, supported modest gains despite broader market weakness,” according to the university.

Utilities were down 1.48%, reflecting what UNCW called “softer sentiment toward renewable and grid-focused firms as project timelines and regulatory decisions remained in flux. Nonetheless, core power and distribution operators maintained stable operational fundamentals.”

Industrials declined 1.13%, which UNCW said was due to lower freight volumes, moderating shipbuilding activity and softer machinery demand across Asia and Europe. “Despite the downturn, the sector remained more resilient than the broader industrial benchmark,” UNCW said.

Notable gains that helped cushion overall Blue Economy Index performance included Himalaya Shipping, which rose 20.48%; Vestas Wind Systems, which posted a 16.62% gain as renewable equipment supply chain sentiment improved and turbine orders rebounded in key markets; and Wallenius Wilhelmsen, which posted a 14.95% gain driven by vehicle logistics demand and continued strength in roll-on/roll-off shipping activity.

“Together, these names demonstrated the index’s capacity for selective outperformance even during periods of broader market weakness,” according to the release.

The Blue Economy Index was developed in collaboration among the UNCW Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, the Alliance for the Blue Economy, or AllBlue, and the Cameron School of Business, and it relies on data from FactSet. UNCW says the index “represents a fusion of academic insight, environmental science, and financial market expertise.”

The index measures the performance of leading global firms that demonstrate both commercial viability and environmental responsibility, aligning with the World Bank’s definition of the Blue Economy: “the sustainable use of ocean resources for economic growth, improved livelihoods, and jobs while preserving the health of the ocean ecosystem.”

It serves to provide investors “a timely and transparent benchmark for evaluating the sustainable growth potential of ocean-based sectors such as shipping, offshore energy, aquaculture, and marine infrastructure,” according to the release.

TYNER – As neighborhood businesses go, Timbermill Wind is quiet, clean and visually striking. And barely a year from the start of its wind energy production in this rural northeastern North Carolina community, it is already pumping money into local coffers.

At a ceremony held Tuesday at the site of the project’s local operations, Ken Young, CEO of Apex Clean Energy, the operation’s owner, presented a large, ceremonial check representing about $750,000 in net tax payments to Chowan County.

“There’ll be many more like it,” Bob Kirby, a Chowan County commissioner, told a small gathering of local officials and community members.

According to a Timbermill Wind press release, annual payments to the county over the project’s 30-year lifespan are expected to total about $50 million, which will support community needs such as education and emergency services. The infusion of revenue, so far, makes Timbermill the county’s single largest taxpayer, officials said, equaling more in property taxes this year than last year’s top nine taxpayers combined.

With the silver blades of a turbine turning slowly in the background over his shoulder, Kirby couldn’t help boasting that the land-based wind facility was the first of its kind to be permitted in North Carolina.

“There’s a $400 million investment that’s sitting behind me,” he said.

Beyond the benefits to the county and state, Kirby added, Timbermill is also a huge help to local farmers who receive annual payments — the amount is deemed proprietary information — to lease their land to the business.

“The people who own these farms are under unbelievable stress to their way of life,” he said. “For the leaseholders, this sort of thing, that’s a predictable source of income for them.”

While farmers lose access to a small amount of their land, they can continue as usual to farm the land under the turbines.

During a tour of part of the production site, Richard Bunch, a local representative for Timbermill, while standing in front of a turbine, told the group that farmers are able to get relatively close to the side of the tower when they’re working the land, although they can get closer after the corn or other crops is harvested. 

“He’s going to lose a half an acre here, that’s all,” Bunch said.  “And he’ll have income for 30 years.”   

A 6,000-acre tract, bordered by tall trees and owned by timber company Weyerhaeuser, was the first site to be cleared for the project, said Win Dale, a project representative for Timbermill.

“Once they cut every tree down, every stump was removed,” he said, waving toward a large circle of open land surrounding a turbine.

Each “crane pad” at the 45 sites, he said, is an eighth of an acre.

Hunters now have new access roads to the area, where they hunt mostly for deer, as well as some bear and wild turkey, Bunch said.

“They rented this whole tract from Weyerhaeuser to hunt,” he said, adding that he’d heard that they’re quite happy with the change. “Between a company and a hunting group, to be able to say that — that never happens.”

Farmers are also enjoying the easier access to their land, Dale added.

“The roads are like interstates compared to what they were before,” he said.

The towers themselves are 345 feet tall. Counting to the tip of the blades — the project has a total of 135 — each “windmill” is 591 feet tall. Providing a short lesson for visitors, Tyler Finley, facility manager for Timbermill Wind, explained that each tower is divided into five sections. Inside, there’s a ladder running up the middle with a platform at each level. The three blades are attached before they’re elevated to the top. 

“It’s kind of like building a very big Lego,” he said about the assembly process.

When they’re moving, the 242-foot-long blades create a 4-acre sweep area. Shadow flickers that would otherwise pass over homes are mitigated by siting towers away from residential structures.

Finley and other Timbermill representatives said that the blades, which are a composite of fiberglass with an interior metal structure, don’t kick on until the wind reaches at least 7 mph, and they’re capable of pitching from zero to 90 degrees. When winds reach about 50 mph, they’ll flatten to reduce surface area. Feathering of blade pitch provides “aerodynamic braking,” and trailing-edge serrations on the blades help reduce noise.

From the onsite substation, a 6-mile line is connected directly to the Dominion Energy “point of intersection,” Finley explained.

Apex has a power purchase agreement with Google, meaning it provides Google with a portion of the power produced at Timbermill. But the power is obtained from the grid, which collects energy from numerous sources.

“It’s an integrated power market,” Finley said.

Simply put, the energy produced by the wind turbines is eventually sent to a large distribution network, where it is purchased by different customers. The concept is similar to global oil and gas markets, where the location of the energy source is rarely the direct recipient of that energy.

 According to Timbermill, the 189-megawatt wind energy project developed and operated by Charlottesville, Virginia-based Apex Clean Energy generates enough clean energy to power the equivalent of 47,000 U.S. homes.

Timbermill, which came online in Dec. 2024, became the second industrial scale land-based wind farm in the state.

Although it was permitted earlier, numerous delays led to it being behind the 104-turbine Amazon Wind U.S. East wind farm that straddles Perquimans and Pasquotank counties and that started its 208-megawatt operation in early 2017.

The Apex Community Grant Program has awarded more than $120,000 for local nonprofits and support for regional reforestation and other community conservation projects.

Speaking after the event, John Mitchener, 84, a native of Chowan County who had served as commissioner from 2010 to 2018, said he was on the board when “the significant decisions” were made about permitting the wind farm.

He noted that opinions initially seemed to be divided between the folks in the Yeopim area, who reside south of Edenton toward the Outer Banks, and the other side of the county.

“The people who objected the most lived down there, and the people who lived up there objected the least,” he said.

While Mitchener said he couldn’t pinpoint the reason for the differences, he said that he knew it was important to maintain a polite and civil approach.

“Part of my outlook as a public official,” he said, “is to try to have the conversation where you could come back to it.”

And as it turns out, he said, people in the community all seem pretty happy now with Timbermill.

WILMINGTON — Deepening the Wilmington Harbor would disperse PFAS now mingling in the riverbed’s sediment into marshes and onto public beaches, accelerate erosion, exacerbate flooding, destroy habitat, and is not economically justified, area residents said during a state-hosted public hearing.

Many who spoke at the North Carolina Division of Coastal Management’s hearing in downtown Wilmington Monday night argued that the federal draft environmental statement released by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers earlier this fall fails to fully examine potential impacts associated with the proposed project.

The draft study examines different alternatives for the North Carolina State Ports Authority’s aim to accommodate larger container ships at the Wilmington port.

The preferred alternative selected in the study calls for deepening the harbor from 42 to 47 feet, widening the channel in multiple areas, and extending the ocean entrance to the river. These changes would accommodate vessels that can carry 14,000 20-by-8-foot shipping containers, ports officials say.

But several of the nearly 20 people who spoke argued that the proposed project would not benefit the local economy, and its environmental harms would drastically overwhelm any associated economic benefits. About 70 people attended the hearing.

“This project is a poor economic decision given the massive cost compared to the miniscule benefits,” said Jessica Hardee, an attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center. “The cost of deepening the harbor and the channel is projected to be over $1 billion. However, the only noted benefit of this project are cost savings to international shipping companies who use the port, not North Carolina or local communities. This project provides little benefit to the Wilmington area and North Carolinians while also threatening significant damage to the coastal region.”

One striking absence from the study is how churning up and moving per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, in the sediment of the lower Cape Fear River might affect the environment, animals that rely on that environment, and human health, some speakers said.

“Even though we all know that there’s PFAS in the sediment of the river, the Corps says we can’t consider that because it’s not a regulated chemical,” said Wilmington resident and geologist Roger Shew.

But PFAS, or similar chemical compounds of which there are more than 14,000 used to make a host of consumer goods from food containers to stain-resistant clothing and carpet, will be regulated by the time the channel would be deepened in the early to mid-2030s, he said.

“And since 15 million of the 35 million cubic yards of dredge material will be used as beneficial placement in marshes on our area beaches, we should know the content of that sediment and potential impacts with sediment placement,” Shew said. “A core function of an (environmental impact statement) is consideration of potential harm. Therefore, they should and must include PFAS in the study.”

A study published late last month found concentrations of 56 PFAS in blood samples obtained from 119 Wilmington residents between 2010 and 2016.

Two chemical compounds – TFA and PFMOAA – were the dominant PFAS in the samples, “despite their likely short half-lives in the human body,” according to the study.

TFA, or trifluoroacetic acid, and PFMOAA, or perfluoro-2-methoxyacetic acid, are ultrashort-chain PFAS, which are the smallest type of PFAS and hardest to remove from drinking water sources.

The blood samples examined in the study were obtained before the public was made aware in 2017 that an upstream industrial facility had been discharging PFAS directly into the Cape Fear River, the drinking water sources for tens of thousands, since the 1980s.

“While current TFA and PFMOAA levels have likely decreased substantially from those in the historical blood serum samples evaluated here as a result of mandated discharge controls at the upstream fluorochemical manufacturer, this study, along with other recent studies, highlights the importance ultrashort-chain PFAS can play in determining the overall human PFAS burden,” the study states.

Wilmington resident Kaiti Sheehan said the fact that PFAS is not considered in the draft environmental impact statement, or DEIS, “is a slap in the face to residents who are paying for a $42 million granulated active-carbon filtration system and still facing the health consequences that have come from 40 years of contamination from our upstream bad actor.”

“I do genuinely hope that you will look and you will see how much the community has come out tonight in recognition that this is bad for Wilmington and this is bad for North Carolina,” she said.

Others raised concerns about how deepening the harbor to allow for larger ships to travel the 28 miles upriver to the port would increase erosion on the string of bird islands that pepper the lower Cape Fear River and the riverbanks themselves.

The Cape Fear River supports almost 30% of the state’s nesting American oystercatchers.

Audubon North Carolina’s Lindsay Addison, a coastal biologist, said she and her staff are on the Cape Fear River two to three days a week between March and August and at least once during each of the other months of the year.

“We have seen progressively the impacts of the larger and larger classes of ships coming up the river,” she said. “We saw larger, more severe wakes. The DEIS does not take this into account. The Corps, in its beneficial use plan, talks about maybe putting sediment on 2 miles of the shoreline.”

Birds nest on high-tide lines, Addison said. Waves created by a large ship’s wake push water “like a tsunami” over nests and sweep nests away.

“There is no model in the DEIS that accounts for this,” Addison said. “There is no data collection in the DEIS that accounts for this. In fact, there’s no new data collection in the DEIS. They’re relying on data that was already collected. They told us in the stakeholder meeting, flat out, that they’re not going to collected new data so impacts to the migratory birds in the DEIS are not taken into account.”

Officials with the Division of Coastal Management, which is under the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality, announced Monday night that the public comment period on the draft study has been extended from Dec. 5 to Dec. 20.

Written comments may be mailed to Federal Consistency Coordinator, 400 Commerce Ave., Morehead City, NC  28557, or emailed to Federalconsistencycomments@deq.nc.gov with “Federal Consistency: USACE Wilmington Harbor 403 Navigation Project” in the subject line.

More information on the proposed project is on the Corps’ website.

Guest Commentary

To stimulate discussion and debate, Coastal Review welcomes differing viewpoints on topical coastal issues.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers is currently working on an Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) for the Port of Wilmington’s plan to deepen the Cape Fear River, with the stated goal of accommodating larger cargo ships. As a retired Corps of Engineers senior project engineer, I feel it’s crucial to raise some serious concerns about this initiative.

The North Carolina State Ports Authority has significantly overlooked other viable alternatives, besides incremental deepening, and failed to assess the extensive infrastructure damage that increased freight traffic could inflict on our roads and bridges. This is particularly evident in major new projects like the replacement of the Cape Fear Memorial Bridge and Wilmington’s Rail Realignment Project. Both are billion-dollar investments intended to accommodate the large volume of new truck and rail freight movement. One only need to look at the definition of the secondary effects as defined by the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). These secondary effects clearly relate to the need to expand the port’s freight-handling capacity.

Deepening the river will only worsen flooding, affecting areas around the downtown Wilmington waterfront and the historically significant North Carolina Battleship site. It will also lead to a substantial loss of vital wetlands and floodplains due to increasing saltwater intrusion, a value the Ports Authority conveniently understates in its Section 203 report required under the Clean Water Act.

From 1980 to 2017, DuPont, and now Chemours, released vast quantities of hazardous PFAS compounds, polluting nearly 100 miles of the Cape Fear River, including the proposed dredging prisms defined in the port’s set of alternatives. This legacy of contamination must be a central part of the EIS evaluation, as it directly challenges the claimed benefits of the project. Additionally, the reverse osmosis water treatment plant in Brunswick County, which aims to remove PFAS from drinking water, will release highly concentrated PFAS-contaminated wastewater 3 miles upstream of the port. This will further complicate the environmental challenges posed by the proposed dredging project, as well as future dredging operations and maintenance requirements, which once again go unaddressed in the port’s Section 203 report.

Why is this a critical oversight? PFAS clings to or settles into fine sediments like silt and clay found in the soil in and around the dredge-soil prism proposed to be dredged. It’s only logical that when these contaminated sediments are dredged, a safe disposal management plan would be an essential requirement for both federal and state regulators. When PFAS is detected in the dredged sediment, our regulators need to determine whether the material is suitable for placement or disposal, especially regarding upland sites or beach renourishment projects.

The Corps’ “Beneficial Use” strategy aims to repurpose the dredged material as a resource. However, this faces significant hurdles within the scope of this proposed project, as regulators decide how to prevent PFAS from being released back into the environment. The Eagles Island disposal area, which predates NEPA and was built on a previously healthy wetland and floodplain, is not an appropriate site for disposing of contaminated dredged soil because it lacks a liner. Furthermore, researchers in North Carolina and across the globe continue to investigate the damage that PFAS is causing to aquatic ecosystems as it transfers from sediment back into the water column during dredging and placement operations.

Without the Corps thoroughly addressing PFAS contamination, there is zero chance of ensuring the health and well-being of those who rely on the river’s resources in the future. This is particularly important when considering deepening options for the beneficial uses of these contaminated sediments. PFAS contamination adds another layer of complexity that will require extensive testing and could significantly impact project costs and feasibility.

There is no question that this proposed dredging project will certainly disturb sediments, releasing PFAS and other contaminants back into the water, which poses risks to aquatic life and human health.

Key issues include the following:

• Contamination — Dedging stirs PFAS, disrupts water quality.
• Aquatic risks — PFAS can bioaccumulate in marine organisms.
• Health concerns — Contaminated fish and drinking water pose human health risks.
• Regulatory challenges — Lack of consistent state or federal guidelines will create confusion for any of the deepening alternatives proposed under the port’s Section 203 study.

To enable the federal and state governments to properly manage PFAS risks related to deepening or maintenance dredging within the navigation channel, increased testing, ongoing research, development of standards, and best management practices are essential.

PFAS contamination is impacting rivers and harbors across our country. Michigan’s Department of Environment now mandates PFAS testing for sediments in harbor dredging, which is causing project delays, such as in Grand Haven, due to unclear safety standards. The Corps warns that this could reduce dredging operations from 24 to only three to five harbors annually due to rising costs — up to 200% higher with resampling — and the lack of precise guidance.

Given these critical issues, taxpayers should be alarmed by a proposed port project that fails to account for its environmental and infrastructural costs. Suppose we don’t consider the long-term implications of the port’s proposed alterations to our river. In that case, we might find ourselves stuck with unsustainable financial and environmental costs, while the economic benefits remain questionable at best.

It is our river, yet it has been treated as a stepchild compared to other, less critical economic priorities. Standard economic models often overlook the real financial value of natural resources and ecological systems like those on the lower Cape Fear River. Since nature’s “goods and services,” such as clean air, fresh water, and fully functioning floodplains and wetlands, are often considered free, they are becoming overused and undervalued. As I’ve tried to explain here, the degradation of our environment directly affects our citizens, taxpayers, and the species that depend on healthy ecosystems.

As the Corps prepares its EIS, it is essential to find more sustainable alternatives than digging us into a deeper hole that we can’t escape.  If not for us, then how about our kids, grandchildren, and their grandchildren?

If you have an opinion or concerns about this project, please submit your comments to:

By Email: WilmingtonHarbor403@usace.army.mil, or by mail to  ATTN: Wilmington Harbor 403, 69 Darlington Ave., Wilmington, NC 28403, or by comment cards at the public meetings.

Opinions expressed by the authors are not necessarily those of Coastal Review or our publisher, the North Carolina Coastal Federation.

The 18.8 million visitors to North Carolina’s nine National Park Service sites in 2024 injected $2.3 billion into the state’s economy, second only to California’s $3.7 billion, finds a recent report.

Of that $2.3 billion statewide, around 4.7 million visitors spent $732.2 million in the communities around the coast’s five National Park Service sites, according to “2024 National Park Visitor Spending Effects: Economic Contributions to Local Communities, States, and the Nation” made available to the public Sept. 25.

Park service officials release the annual report detailing what visitors paid the previous year on lodging, camping fees, restaurants, groceries, gas, local transportation, recreation industries and retail in gateway regions, which are the communities or areas that surround a site. An easy-to-use interactive online tool breaking down the report is on the website.

With the ongoing government shutdown that began Oct. 1, and ongoing at the time of this publication, next year’s numbers will likely show a different story.

Visit NC Executive Director Wit Tuttell told Coastal Review that the report “makes it clear that national parks, seashores, historic sites and trails enrich our state and local economies.” Visit NC is the state’s official destination marketing organization.

The study looked at the Wright Brothers National Memorial, Fort Raleigh National Historic Site and Cape Hatteras National Seashore, all on the Outer Banks, Cape Lookout National Seashore in Carteret County, and Moores Creek National Battlefield in Pender County, and, in the western part of the state, Guilford Courthouse National Military Park, the Blue Ridge Parkway, Great Smoky Mountains National Park, and Carl Sandburg Home National Historic Site.

“Beyond the monetary impact, there’s endless value in preserving our scenic wonders and the experience of what humans as well as nature have achieved,” Tuttell continued. “Travelers come here to channel the Wright Brothers, camp on the beach at Cape Lookout, and view the foliage along the Blue Ridge Parkway. Knowing there’s an economic boost to go along with these priceless experiences makes us doubly appreciative.”

Nationwide, more than 85 million acres make up the 433 federally managed sites found in every state, Washington, D.C., American Samoa, Guam, Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

The report states that across the country in 2024 a record 332 million park visitors spent an estimated $29 billion in gateway regions at the 404 sites that counted the number of visitors. The previous record was set in 2016 with 330.9 million visits.

Total visitor spending estimates increased by almost 10% in 2024 compared to 2023, which the report authors credit to a 2% park visitation increase of around 6.36 million. Data also shows that more than 55% of parks had an above-average off-season in February-June and October-December. 

Using this report, the National Park Conservation Association estimates that the National Park Service is losing $1 million a day nationwide from fee revenue for each day the government is shutdown.

“Based on the Park Service’s shutdown plan, almost 9,300 people (nearly two-thirds of Park Service staff) are now being put in the scary position of not knowing when their next paycheck will arrive. Additionally, park concessioners and partners now face the prospect of lost revenue and further economic hardship — local economies could lose as much as $80 million in visitor spending every day parks are closed in October,” the association stated on its website.

National Park Service on the coast

On the Outer Banks, Wright Brothers National Memorial saw 407,000 visitors who spent around $28.6 million. The site in Kill Devil Hills “encompasses the spot where Wilbur and Orville made their world-changing first flights, the historic sand dune where they did most of their gliding, and the location they lived while they were experimenting in the Outer Banks,” the park service states.

Fort Raleigh National Historic Site is on Roanoke Island and its 275,000 visitors brough in an estimated $19.3 million to the local economy. The site “preserves and interprets the site of the first English Colony in the New World, is the site of the theatrical production, The Lost Colony, and interprets the historical events of the Native Americans, European Americans, and African Americans who lived on Roanoke Island, North Carolina,” according to the park service.

Cape Hatteras National Seashore saw 2.8 million park visitors in 2024 spend an estimated $650 million. This national seashore is roughly 70 miles from north to south and is made up of Bodie, Hatteras and Ocracoke islands. The nation’s first national seashore, Cape Hatteras was established in 1937 “to preserve significant segments of unspoiled barrier islands along North Carolina’s stretch of the Atlantic Coast,” the National Park Service said.

Bryan Burhans is the director of Outer Banks Forever, the official nonprofit partner of three parks, and a branch of Eastern National, a nonprofit that promotes America’s national parks and other public trust partners.

“The National Parks are a money generator. They generate a lot of tourism dollars for the Outer Banks,” he said, but more importantly, these sites are “such an integral part of the fabric that makes up the Outer Banks, which he called “a unique and special place.”

Outer Banks Forever is the official philanthropic partner and does not receive any federal funding. Its work is funded by local businesses, donors, state and county partners, and through various grants. “And our goal is simple. It is to preserve and enhance the visitor experience of our national parks here on the Outer Banks,” Burhans said.

One of the group’s recent projects is the pathway at Cape Hatteras connecting the lighthouse to the beach. It’s in the second phase of the project and is under contract with a company to build a restroom facility with outdoor showers with hot water. “The restroom facility alone is about a $380,000 investment by Outer Banks Forever.”

Cape Lookout National Seashore in Carteret County brought in 552,786 visitors that spent $28.9 million. The site protects a 56-mile stretch of barrier islands where sea turtles and shorebirds nest, a herd of wild horses roam free, and Cape Lookout Lighthouse and two historic villages are a snapshot into the past.

“People come to Cape Lookout National Seashore to recreate at the beach and end up supporting the U.S. and local economies along the way,” said Katherine Cushinberry, the acting superintendent, in a release. “We’re proud that Cape Lookout generates $32 million in revenue to communities near the park.”

Moores Creek National Battlefield is an 88-acre site in Pender County that welcomed 691,000 visitors who spent about $5.4 million. The battlefield preserves the site of a Feb. 27, 1776, Revolutionary War battle. “Loyalist forces charged across a partially dismantled Moores Creek Bridge. Beyond the bridge, nearly 1,000 North Carolina Patriots waited quietly with cannons and muskets poised to fire. This battle marked the last broadsword charge by Scottish Highlanders and the first significant victory for the Patriots in the American Revolution, according to the website.

“The two leading drivers of tourism are natural resources and history. Moores Creek National Battlefield is rich in both,” Greater Topsail Area Chamber of Commerce & Tourism Executive Director Tammy Proctor said in an interview.

“This national park is a treasure that attracts thousands of visitors each year, not only from the Pender County beaches but from the Wilmington area and Brunswick Isles,” she said, adding that the park and its history “had a significant impact on the Revolutionary War. Those fighting for independence from England experienced their first decisive victory at Moores Creek Bridge.”

Moores Creek is a tributary flowing to the Black River and a perfect kayaking location, with a kayak launch at the park. “The creek is pristine and leads to one of the nation’s most pristine rivers. The trails in Moores Creek provide visitors with an experience of the great outdoors and a walk among historical events,” Proctor continued.

“Regarding Moores Creek National Park staff, I can’t say enough about the educational opportunities, programs, and events this staff orchestrates in collaboration with the Friends of Moores Creek Battlefield Association, the nation’s oldest National Park friends organization,” she said.

National Park Service and the shutdown

As of Wednesday, the United States Government had been shut down for three weeks because, according to Oct. 10 post by the National Conference of State Legislatures, on Oct. 1, “lawmakers failed to resolve a budget deadlock, halting some federal operations and putting approximately 750,000 employees on unpaid leave. Triggered by partisan clashes over funding beyond Sept. 30, the shutdown has created uncertainty for many federal programs.”

The National Conference of State Legislatures was created in 1975 by state legislators and legislative staff to provide research, technical assistance and opportunities for policymakers, according to its website.

During a government shutdown, the organization continues, “the administration retains limited spending flexibility by prioritizing funding for programs that the president deems essential for public safety or national security, such as military operations or emergency services.”

As a result, national parks have remained partially open to the public. Many of the sites advise that some services may be limited on their official Facebook page by way of a reshare from the National Park Service dated Oct. 1, with a link to the Department of the Interior’s “Operations in the Absence of Appropriations” that includes the park service’s contingency plan dated September 2025.

Lincoln Larson, an associate professor of parks, recreation and tourism management at North Carolina State University, explained to Coastal Review that during a government shutdown, much of the park staff is furloughed, “meaning they don’t work and aren’t paid but retain their job and benefits when the shutdown ends. Overall, a shutdown presents enormous challenges for park management, members of the public who want to visit parks, and for the park employees themselves.”

In most cases, the decision to close depends on the park itself, but many park managers want to keep their sites as open and accessible to the public as possible. However, that is difficult to do with limited staffing, he continued.

While basic services such as roads and restrooms are usually open, they are not monitored or maintained at the same level as during regular operations, and other services, including visitor centers, entrance kiosks, campgrounds, websites, programming and permitting systems, might not be available at all.

Most National Park Service staff view stewardship of natural and cultural resources as a major part of their job, but when they’re not available to protect and conserve these valuable assets, many threats arise, including the effects of overtourism.

Threats like littering, graffiti, human waste, and off-trail behavior often increases under these conditions, causing irreparable damage to fragile park resources. “We saw this happen during the COVID-19 pandemic, when excessive visitation and limited staffing created unprecedented challenges for parks,” Larson said.

Limited staffing also creates safety issues, particularly if law enforcement or search and rescue operations are negatively impacted, which led to many parks closing during the pandemic because of concerns about degradation in the absence of enforcement. A government shutdown poses similar problems.

Larson said it’s difficult to quantify the broader economic impacts of park closures or service reductions.

“Although a shutdown clearly impacts operations within a park itself, the negative effects outside of parks can take an even greater and longer-lasting toll on nearby communities,” Larson explained. Adding, in many parts of rural America, including eastern North Carolina, national parks are major economic engines that, through outdoor recreation and tourism, power local economies.

“These gateway communities depend on park visitation to survive and thrive. Many park workers also live in communities near the parks, and their salaries breathe life into these towns. When parks shut down, many of these economic benefits are lost, making life much tougher for people living nearby. If shutdowns happen during peak tourism seasons, the economic impacts can be even more devastating and leave a lasting effect on the social and cultural landscape of an area,” Larson said.

The National Park Conservation Association urged in a Sept. 29 letter that the National Park Service close all parks during the shutdown to avoid the damage to infrastructure, vandalism and sanitation issues, like human waste and trash, many of the federally managed parks experienced during the last shutdown that lasted 35 days in December 2018 to January 2019.

“NPCA will not stand by and watch history repeat itself… We know what happened last time park staff were forced to leave parks open and unprotected, and the impacts were disastrous … If the federal government shuts down, unfortunately our parks should too,” NCPA President Theresa Pierno said in a release.

A new steel manufacturing company’s plans to open a factory in Hertford County will be “transformational” for the area, according to a state senator who worked behind the scenes to help land what is anticipated to be a nearly $1 billion investment project.

Sen. Bobby Hanig, R-Currituck, said he expects an official announcement from U.S. Forged Rings Inc., “coming very soon and it will be a very large event.”

“There’ll be folks from (Washington) D.C. coming down for this event,” he said.

USFR did not respond to requests for comment.

Hanig spoke to Coastal Review in a telephone interview a few days after the General Assembly on Sept. 23 advanced to Gov. Josh Stein a bill to appropriate $51 million to construct a public dock with access to the Chowan River and another $11 million to build a public road “capable of accommodating industrial loads” to the dock.

Stein signed House Bill 358 into law on Tuesday, stating it “makes helpful investments across the state” and that it “supports the state’s broader economic efforts.”

The bill does not specifically name the business for which the dock and road would be constructed, but states the company “is a manufacturer of steel forgings and large diameter steel fabrications” that would be required to invest a minimum of $947 million in the project site and create no fewer than 835 new jobs.

USFR on its website advertises itself as the country’s “only integrated One-Stop-Shop Manufacturer of Steel Forgings and Large Diameter Steel Fabrications.”

“What it’s going to do for Hertford County and all of northeastern North Carolina is transformational,” Hanig said. “This is going to be probably the biggest economic development project in decades. What’s happening here with these folks coming to town and this dock and barge … it’s going to explode into a major economic area. It really is.”

Hanig called what he said was a teamwork effort that included Hertford County commissioners, the county’s Economic Development Director Kelly Bowers, and state Rep. Bill Ward, a Republican who represents Camden, Gates, Hertford, Pasquotank counties, “magnificent.”

“We’ve been laughing, we’ve been crying, we’ve been yelling,” Hanig said. “You name it, every emotion over the last couple of years to get this thing to happen.”

Hertford County officials did not respond to requests for direct comment, instead issuing a statement by Andre Lassiter Sr., chairman of the county’s board of commissioners.

“Hertford County officials are excited at the prospect of a major industrial company considering locating a manufacturing facility in the county,” Lassiter stated. “Discussions with the company, and state and federal lawmakers and officials, have been occurring for more than a year, and are ongoing. The $51 million appropriation by the N.C. General Assembly, and the assistance and cooperation of the Economic Development Partnership of N.C., the N.C. Department of Commerce, and the Office of the Governor of North Carolina, all have been and remain critical to this endeavor.”

According to its website, USFR aims to operate three plants, including a piping facility, a fabrications facility and a forging and ring-rolling facility, all by the end of 2029.

“We are developing a state of the art Atlantic Coast based heavy industry components manufacturing hub with three co-located facilities,” the website states.

The fabrications facility, which the company plans to have up and running by the second quarter of 2028, will produce annually up to 100,000 metric tons of steel cylinders and shells up to 26 feet wide and up to 200 feet in length.

“The factory will have direct access to a wharf for shipment of large sections directly to end users or downstream fabrication yards,” the company website states. “It will support the energy & infrastructure sectors, supplying critical shell components and containment vessels for a wide range of applications.”

USFR has a supply chain partnership with Charlotte-based Nucor, a steel production company that has a plant in Hertford County near Cofield, a small village off the Chowan River.

Nucor’s Hertford County mill has been in operation since September 2000 and employs some 500 people. According to a recent WRAL report, Nucor has purchased hundreds of additional acres in the county this year.

Nucor did not respond to a request for comment.

Hanig said the General Assembly fund-appropriated dock will be utilized by more than one company and that “multiple companies” are inquiring about nearby property.

“There will be an agreement with USFR that they use it a certain amount of time and then other businesses will be able to use it as well,” he said. “That’s what is attracting other businesses to the location. As soon as this project starts it’s going to fill up so fast it’s going to be incredible. This is just a springboard to what’s going to happen over the next several years in Hertford County. I just can’t even put it into words how excited I am for everybody involved.”

At first glance, the stretch of coast near the Bennett Street beach access point in Kitty Hawk blends seamlessly with the rest of the coastline. 

It’s impossible to tell that, just a few months ago, this sand cradled the lifeless, 19,000-pound carcass of a humpback whale. 

Now, the soft tissue of the humpback lies below the sand. Its skeleton is housed in the neighboring town of Corolla, where students are analyzing remains for a school project, said Marina Piscitelli-Doshkov, stranding coordinator for the Marine Mammal Stranding Network. 

Under the beach, the humpback will join a number of other whales buried along the shore. Since 2016, humpback whale mortalities have increased, along with a rise in the deaths of minke and North Atlantic right whales along the Atlantic coast. 

North Carolina coastal communities are actively debating the cause of the increase in whale mortalities, with concerns surrounding political agendas at the heart of the discussion.

Marine scientists have identified human interaction with ships as the leading cause of these whale mortalities, causing the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to attempt tightening vessel speed restrictions.

Fishermen have largely opposed stricter regulations, blaming numerous economic struggles on what they see as a mountain of NOAA rules. 

Others call out the construction of offshore wind turbine facilities as disrupting whales’ migratory paths and hearing, pushing them into waters where fishing and shipping vessels often transit. 

“Everybody’s got an opinion,” said Dewey Hemilright, a commercial fisherman based in Wanchese and a former member of the Mid-Atlantic Fisheries Management Council. 

‘A Huge Shift’

Piscitelli-Doshkov has spent her career working on necropsies of beached mammals for the stranding network.

“I’ve been doing this for 20-plus years,” Piscitelli-Doshkov said. “There’s been a huge shift in the past few years with people — just in general.” 

Five years ago, when the network was called to investigate a whale in the process of shoring and start the process of determining a cause of death — performing a necropsy — no one would show up, she said.

Now, people flock to the scene.

In addition to the political climate surrounding wind energy, Piscitelli-Doshkov attributes the attention that recent whale beachings receive to social media and the spectacles “going kind of viral.”

The network responded to Kitty Hawk Police officers’ report of the juvenile female humpback on the morning of Dec. 27. After the network finished the necropsy, the Kitty Hawk Public Works Department handled the burial. 

“All we could tell on the necropsy was that it was a blunt-force trauma, and that is usually done by a ship strike,” said Piscitelli-Doshkov. 

Whether the whale was alive or dead when it was hit was to be determined after histopathology and diagnostic analyses were run. NOAA must pay for all samples to be researched, so the stranding network was left “just waiting” for the agency to officially approve more tests, she said.

But the network can’t always determine a whale’s cause of death through necropsy. 

Because whales generate so much heat within their internal insulation system, once they die, “they start pretty much cooking from the inside,” said Craig Harms, director of the marine health program at North Carolina State University’s Center for Marine Sciences and Technology. 

Harms, who often works with the network, added that “once you do a post mortem exam, you might be going through a lot of mush.”

‘Barely holding on’

In April 2017, NOAA declared an Unusual Mortality Event, or UME, for humpback whales. The agency defines a UME as a “marked increase in the magnitude or a marked change in the nature of morbidity, mortality, or strandings when compared with prior records”. 

“Most of those increased mortalities are being caused by ship strikes,” Harms said. 

According to NOAA, necropsies conducted on approximately half of beached humpbacks since 2016 showed that around 40% of their deaths involved a ship strike or entanglement. 

NOAA has determined two other whale species — the minke and North Atlantic right — as also experiencing UMEs.

Currently, under NOAA’s North Atlantic Right Whale Reduction Rule — regulations intended to specifically protect right whales — vessels over 65 feet cannot go more than 10 knots in certain areas of the ocean called seasonal management areas.

“There’s only about 360 of these whales left,” Harms said. “And we could very well drive them to extinction within 10 to 20 years if we don’t do something more than what we’re doing.”

In 2022, NOAA proposed to apply the 10-knot speed rule to vessels longer than 35 feet. This suggestion was officially withdrawn Jan. 16 due to “ongoing requests from the public for further opportunity to review and engage with the Agency on the proposal.”

Hemilright said the majority of commercial fishing vessels operate under 10 knots, so recreational fishermen, such as charter boat operators, would suffer most under these speed limitations. 

The speed restrictions make running charters extremely difficult for recreational fishermen, whom Hemilright said have been “devastated” by the regulations. 

“And these are individual, small businesses,” he added. “These ain’t corporations.”

Cane Faircloth, a former recreational fisherman and board member for the North Carolina For-Hire Captains Association, who currently manages a few charter boats, said the reduction rule would mainly affect larger recreational boats.

But many recreational fishermen, he added, are worried that restrictions will continue to apply to smaller and smaller boats. 

“If you start getting into that under 30-foot range, then that hits the majority of boats that are going out in the ocean fishing,” Faircloth said.

It’s not fair, he continued, for speed restrictions to be placed on boats that have never hit or come close to hitting a right whale. Slowing from an average speed of around 25 knots to 10 could double the travel time to fishing waters and hurt business, he said.

Faircloth, a 49-year-old fifth-generation fisherman, said that he has never heard of a recreational fishing boat hitting a whale. 

“I think when those whales are hit, it’s more of your big freighters, big ships,” he said. “Because those big ships, they move as fast as us little boats do, and they take up such a big area — it’s a lot harder for a whale to get away from them than it would be to get away from one of us.”

Between 2022 and 2023, NOAA filed 53 complaints against vessel operators, totaling nearly $1 million in civil penalties. The agency uses satellite technology, portable radar units and active patrols to detect speeding and enforce restrictions. 

While paying a violation can be detrimental to local fisheries, large shipping vessels incur the fees as “just the price of doing business,” Hemilright said.

For big companies, “What the hell’s a $20,000 fine?” he added. 

Where Hemilright sees the largest economic loss for North Carolina’s fishermen under NOAA regulations is competition from imported seafood.

“If every other country had to fish by the same regulations that I have, it’d be a lot more fish in the ocean,” he said. 

According to NOAA, the U.S. imports 70-85% of its seafood.

“We’re barely holding on as an industry, because there’s so many regulations,” Hemilright noted.

‘Doesn’t make any sense’

But fishing charters and cargo shippers aren’t the only entities being blamed for increased whale deaths. Offshore wind turbine facilities have also faced criticism. 

“These facilities are being placed in whales’ migratory paths and feeding and calving areas, and their construction and operations are excessively noisy, which is especially dangerous to whales who rely on sonar, pushing them into shipping and fishing lanes where they suffer deadly boat strikes and fishing entanglements,” Jon Sanders, a research editor for the John Locke Foundation, wrote in a Jan. 3 blog post. 

Harms, however, said humpback, right or minke whales are among the species of whales that do not use sonar. 

Andrew Read is director of the Duke University Marine Lab on Pivers Island in Beaufort and primarily studies longer-living marine species including marine mammals, namely the effects human activity can have.

Read noted that marine scientists such as him and Harms have been documenting whale deaths since before there were offshore wind activities. 

“The science is really clear that there’s no evidence whatsoever that any of these whales are being killed by any activity associated with offshore wind turbines,” he said. 

But Faircloth said he doubts some people performing necropsies “check for the right stuff.” 

While he understands the Dec. 27 whale that washed ashore in Kitty Hawk faced a ship strike, he questions whether its eardrums or communication abilities were affected by the Kitty Hawk Wind offshore turbine being built 27 miles off the coast.

People have linked whale deaths to offshore wind, Read said, to advance a political agenda against the development of green energy sources.

On the opposite side of the political spectrum, Faircloth said people “are all in on green energy” and don’t want to hear about the harm facilities are doing to the environment. 

Besides Kitty Hawk Wind, another offshore wind project has been proposed 22 miles from Bald Head Island — Carolina Long Bay. The project and location is still being assessed and construction has not started.

Hemilright, who works as a fishery representative to Kitty Hawk Wind, said people who are anti-wind “would do anything that would stop a wind turbine from being built.”

The Kitty Hawk Wind project is in a dead zone, a “pass-through” for fishermen, Faircloth said, but Carolina Long Bay would be encroaching on a bustling fishing area. 

“So you’re going to build this wind farm on one of our best fishing grounds, most productive reefs, habitats that are millions of years old, and you’re going to build a wind farm on it where there’s 13 endangered species — that doesn’t make any sense,” he added. 

Both sides of the offshore wind debate are loud, Hemilright said, and there is an incredible amount of complexity and a wide array of parties involved. 

“If I thought there was a smoking gun, then it’d be easy,” he said. 

The state is actively recruiting “experienced professionals interested in a career in public service,” especially those displaced due to Hurricane Helene or recent federal cuts.

Gov. Josh Stein’s office announced Friday a new website for those interested in working for the state.

The website encourages people “to consider coming to work with the state of North Carolina” and provides resources for servicemembers, their spouses, and veterans to apply for positions in the state government.

Interested public servants can apply on www.nc.gov/joinNC where applicants will be connected with an employment recruiter from Office of State Human Resources to help match their skills to a job in state government.

“If you have recently been displaced from your career of service, North Carolina encourages you to apply,” Office of State Human Resources Director Staci Meyer said. “My team at OSHR will help you find a job that matches your needs.”

Stein said in the release that North Carolina “is a great place” to live, play and work.

“Public servants help make our state everything that it is, and there are many talented people looking for work right now. The State of North Carolina is proud to welcome smart and dedicated public-spirited people to join our team,” he said.

In addition to the website, North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality officials and staff took advantage last week of having an audience invested in the state’s water resources to recruit for the understaffed agency.

Secretary Reid Wilson told the more than 300 academics, students, researchers, state and local government representatives and others at the N.C. Water Resources Research Institute’s annual conference Thursday morning that the agency has jobs available, “good ones, everything from engineers to chemistry technicians to program environmental program specialists.” He added that there are also internships for students.

WRRI held the conference March 19-20 in the McKimmon Center in Raleigh. The University of North Carolina System’s multi-campus program funds and disseminates water research, educational programs and training opportunities.

The first day of the conference, NCDEQ’s Division of Air Quality Director Mike Abraczinskas said during a roundtable with a half-dozen other staff that his division has 203 positions statewide and about 25 are vacant. He added that there’s “great opportunities” currently and forthcoming in the division.

“As of March 2025, DEQ has 258 total vacancies. Engineering and environmental specialist positions remain among the highest vacancies at DEQ, at 16% and 14%, respectively. DEQ’s vacancy rate is currently 12%, a decrease from 18% in January 2023,” an agency representative told Coastal Review Tuesday.

NCDEQ Chief Deputy Secretary John Nicholson addressed concerns with the pay scale Wednesday during the roundtable.

He explained Wednesday during the roundtable that the agency’s top priority right now is investing in the staff and their wages.

“We have taken a hard look at the health of the department. Everybody works extremely hard on difficult issues. If we don’t have skilled people in our positions within the department, we can’t do our job, and we argue that we have good people and they should be paid a fair wage,” he said. “And so that’s a was our big push to the government for his budget that he just released today was the number one ask of us.”

Post has been updated to include a comment from DEQ on vacancies.

This story was updated at 1:48 p.m. Feb. 19 to note that Dominion Energy and Avangrid’s Kitty Hawk Wind website had been removed.

KITTY HAWK — Wind projects that are leased, permitted or under construction in or near North Carolina are likely to survive buffeting by renewed wind energy skepticism from the Trump administration.

Shortly after taking office in January, President Donald Trump issued an executive order barring new offshore wind leases and requiring reviews of existing and permitted wind projects. Although it was not targeting existing leases, industry supporters have questions about what rules, permits or projects it could impact and the potential for broader impacts through the workforce and manufacturing industries.

“It’s not that companies are moving on as business as usual, but there’s so much uncertainty that they can’t just come to a screeching halt, and then all of this could change in five minutes,” Karly Lohan, Southeastern Wind Coalition’s senior Carolinas program manager, recently said in an interview with Coastal Review. “They have to keep going and figure this out as they go. And realistically, we’re probably not going to know an answer to a lot of those questions, and the true implications of this offshore wind executive action until … we know.”

Lohan noted that the nonprofit coalition she represents is focused on educational outreach about wind energy and does not speak or act as a trade organization for the industry.

A wind project off Kitty Hawk along the Outer Banks that’s owned by Avangrid Renewables and Dominion Energy is not yet under construction, but it still has active leases. The website link above was active at the time this report was published, but appeared to be down Wednesday afternoon. An Internet Archive version of the page was saved Jan. 30.

Dominion Energy’s $9.8 billion Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind, or CVOW, project off Virginia Beach is going full speed ahead. The 2.6-gigawatt project is currently about half done and is expected to be completed on schedule by the end of 2026, according to company spokesman Jeremy Slayton.

Duke Energy, along with Total Energies, has leased an offshore area off Southport for a wind farm known as Carolina Long Bay project, but it is in very early permitting stages.

“We are still easily at least six or seven years away from construction for any of those projects,” Lohan said.

The two land-based wind energy projects in North Carolina — Amazon Wind U.S. East in Elizabeth City, completed in 2017, and Timbermill Wind in Chowan County, completed in 2024 — will not be affected by the orders, Lohan said. Duke Energy has expressed interest in future land-based projects in North Carolina, but no information has been released about potential locations or plans, she said.

While Dominion is working to complete its Virginia Beach project, it is keeping its CVOW-South, formerly the Kitty Hawk North project, on hold for the time being, Slayton, the company’s spokesman, said.

“CVOW-South provides us with a potential option for additional offshore wind development,” he said in an email. “Our most recent long-term planning document, the Integrated Resource Plan, forecasts this project, if we pursue it, for the mid-2030s. At this time, we do not have a firm timeline or cost for developing this lease area.”

Dominion Energy came to an agreement in July 2024 to purchase one-third of the Kitty Hawk North project, which is about 27 miles east of Corolla, the northern end of the Outer Banks, and about 38 miles southeast of the Sandbridge community in Virginia Beach.

“Avangrid was willing to sell a portion of the project at a reasonable cost,” Slayton told Coastal Review at the time. “And we believe it was prudent to take advantage of this opportunity to meet the growing needs of our customers with clean energy and also help us achieve the requirements of the Virginia clean Economy Act, which calls for up to 5.2 gigawatts of offshore wind.”

If developed, the project will connect to the grid for CVOW-South at a new substation at Corporate Landing in Virginia Beach, near Naval Air Station Oceana, he said.

Katharine Kollins, president of Southeastern Wind Coalition, a nonprofit advocacy group, said that wind power production in the U.S. is behind the mature development of both offshore and onshore wind in Europe, but it has the capacity and resources to build a robust wind energy industry.

“It requires economies of scale in manufacturing, all of the components it requires, economies of scale in construction and development and even in operations and maintenance,” she told Coastal Review recently. “And so what the manufacturers have been saying to advocates in the industry for years is, ‘We need a solid pipeline of projects before we can commit a billion dollars to building a manufacturing facility in the U.S. that can then produce the major components, or an offshore wind turbine that would include your towers, your blades.’ Right now, I think the only thing that we can manufacture in the U.S. is foundations.”

Like any energy production, wind energy is an equation of risk versus benefits, she said. And wind is economical, clean and safe, she added. “You don’t hear anything about wind spills,” she said. Yes, there are bird mortalities associated with strikes, but far, far less than the estimated one billion annual deaths from birds striking buildings.

Kollins said the problem is uncertainty. “You know, uncertainty is not good for investment, and so if you have some significant political uncertainty, that makes it really hard for investors to move forward with any of those components that I was mentioning, whether in components, referencing manufacturing, referencing development, even thinking about leases.

“Like, am I going to go pay $100 million to lease a square of ocean that, then I might have another presidential administration that says, ‘I don’t really like this?’ No thanks,” she said. “It does make it hard to overcome. This is an industry that should be nonpartisan.”

Less than two weeks after Inauguration Day, the University of North Carolina Wilmington’s Blue Economy Index plummeted to almost 10% of its historical high.

President Donald Trump’s return to the White House, where on Day 1 he immediately began firing off a slew of executive orders unraveling those of his predecessor, clearly spooked investors of ocean-related economic activities.

But that’s not an atypical reaction when a newly seated president is certain to create upheaval in terms of policy changes, according to Dr. Miran Hossain, UNCW’s associate professor of finance.

Hossain doesn’t suspect it will last because, as he puts it, “you can’t deny the ocean.”

“Policy uncertainty does affect the market volatility,” Hossain said. “I totally believe that the underperformance that the index is showing, it’s definitely because of investors panicking and not knowing what’s going to happen for the next four years, at least in terms of the policies.”

The UNCW Blue Economy Index went live a year ago, debuting as a first-of-its kind benchmark that tracks companies that earn revenue through the use of ocean resources. This can be anything from cruise lines to offshore energy companies — oil, gas or wind — to container shipping, marine equipment and construction.

The index was developed in collaboration with the UNCW Cameron School of Business, UNCW Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, or CIE, and CIE’s Alliance for the Blue Economy.

The index, ticker: BLUEECO for those of you who check the Bloomberg terminals, specifically focuses on companies that use sustainable practices.

Last September, the index hit a historical high with better than 7% growth.

After screening thousands of companies from around the globe, the UNCW Blue Economy Index’s creators pared down the number to about 90. The index gauges how these companies are performing by combing their stock prices into a single number, which tracks their combined daily value.

The index essentially tells us about the health of blue economy, whether good or bad, and in which direction it’s going, Hossain explained.

“Why it’s going in a certain direction, that’s something to look at even more because it could be because of some policy. It could be because the companies are really not doing well because of some reason that we don’t know,” such as a company’s earnings, he said.

For that reason, it’s too early to conclude why the UNCW Blue Economy Index has been a low performer compared to some of the typical, larger indexes like the MSCI All World Index, S&P 500, and S&P 500 Industrials, since Trump’s election.

Yet there’s no doubt Trump’s second term is having an effect.

Hossain recently provided a snapshot of the index’s performance in pockets of time between Election Day and Trump’s first week back at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

The S&P 500, which is a kind of measure of the overall U.S. economy, earned about a 4 to 4.5% gain during the week of Nov. 5, 2024. The MSCI All World Index, one that’s more representative of the university’s Blue Economy Index because it, too, includes the stocks of companies from around the world, had about a 2.3% gain.

UNCW’s Blue Economy Index’s performance that same week eked out at only about 1.5%, making it the worst performer of out of any of its comparable benchmarks.

“It’s just a short time period, I agree, but it is also good to just zoom in and see what happened during that period of time,” Hossain said.

Fast-forward to Trump’s first week back in office, where he signed dozens of executive orders impacting policy on everything from immigration and climate change to offshore energy, the Blue Economy Index showed a return of around 0.6%, compared to the other benchmarks, Hossain said.

“So, certainly not a good picture for the blue economy,” he said. “I’m expecting this policy shift is the major reason, but still not coming to a conclusion before looking deeper at these companies.”

This is where UNCW students enrolled in the Blue Economy Index course come in. They’re being tasked with analyzing and researching individual companies in the index to determine what’s been happening with them during the last two to three months.

Hossain was asked what advice he might have for blue economy investors.

“That’s a tough question,” he said.

The blue economy is not strictly clean energy-producing companies. It’s not purely green.

So the fact that sustainability isn’t expected to be promoted under the Trump administration will not have as much of an effect on the blue economy as, say, a solar company.

“We do need this huge marine transportation system,” Hossain said. “We do need the ports. If we look at in long-term perspective, you can’t deny the ocean. You can’t do business without keeping the ocean and the waterways in your equation. When these uncertainties ease up and we have a better idea about the tariff situation, where the Trump administration is going in that regard, I think we’ll have a better idea and the index would probably start going back to where it was.”

Heat researchers at Duke University will spend the next two years developing an interactive, web-based tool to help policymakers plan for extreme heat, especially in rural and coastal communities.

The U.S. Department of Commerce and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced earlier this month that $500,000 was awarded to the university’s Heat Policy Innovation Hub on the campus in Durham.

“Over the last 30 years, heat exposure has killed more people in the United States than any other weather-related phenomenon. The combined economic impacts of labor loss, hospital visits, and reduced agricultural yield — along with the health impacts of exposure — make heat among the most significant consequences of climate change for humanity,” according to the hub.

Funded through the Biden-era Inflation Reduction Act signed in 2022, the hub is partnering on the project with the National Integrated Heat Health Information System, or NIHHIS. Under NOAA’s climate office, the system is a collaboration of 25 federal entities working to reduce heat impacts across the country.

“The economies of rural communities often rely on agriculture and other outdoor industries, while coastal communities exposed to high humidity tend to rely on hospitality, tourism and recreation,” hub Director Ashley Ward said in a release. “Extreme heat poses health and economic hazards in both types of communities, but the risks are different and require targeted solutions.”

Ward said in an interview that while there’s been a lot of research on how heat affects human health, there has been much less work on how it affects the economy.

“We have been so focused, and for good reason, on the health impacts of heat,” but heat’s impact on the economy is “going to have much bigger consequences than we’ve appreciated so far,” she said.

The World Economic Forum for the first time released in December its assessment of what climate change will mean for businesses globally. The report, Business on the Edge, predicts a 70% global loss in fixed assets from heat over the next decade.

That’s hundreds of billions of dollars, Ward said.

“They determined that most of that loss will occur in the communication sector and the utilities, and it will happen because of labor wage loss, labor productivity loss, and damage to hard infrastructure,” she said. “Personally, I think that we have not even begun to understand the catastrophic economic impact that heat will bring in the next 10 to 20 years.”

Ward explained the innovation hub is “very early” in the planning process and that researchers are thinking about what the web-based tool will look like.

The tool’s interactive map is expected to focus on localized heat impacts, offer guidance on developing heat policies, assess heat risks in rural and coastal communities, and facilitate private sector collaboration. The research team plans to work with policymakers to ensure the tool meets their needs.

“A good chunk of this work is going to be quantifying and looking at what the economic impacts of heat will be across six sectors, which are agriculture, transportation, health, energy, housing and labor,” she said.

While researchers won’t be able to cover the entire scope of heat-related impacts in this two-year period, the plan is to establish “the foundation for some really innovative work on pushing people to think about heat differently,” she added.

Ward said the researchers plan to take an in-depth look at extreme heat in rural and coastal communities.

A lot of research has been done on how heat impacts urban places, but “we have growing and greater vulnerability in rural areas, with fewer tools in the toolbox to address it,” she said.

In North Carolina, heat-related illness rates in rural areas are many times greater than in urban areas, and most of the solutions, like cooling centers or tree planting campaigns, don’t really translate into rural environments very well.

The same can be applies to coastal areas that are “plagued by some of the same challenges that rural communities are plagued with — real threats to their livelihoods — but also challenges with solutions,” she said. “We’re seeing a combination of increasing temperatures also destroying some of the economic backbone of coastal communities.”

Oyster farms, for example, are highly vulnerable, with some U.S. shellfish growers reporting 100% crop losses in the last couple of years, Ward added.

Ward’s work on extreme heat can be traced back to her days with NOAA, where she focused on the impacts of climate extremes in the coastal plains of the Carolinas.

In 2015, she was sent into coastal communities to talk to residents about issues of which they were particularly concerned.

“I thought that we would be talking about hurricanes. But when we showed up, a lot of the community partners basically said, we know a lot about hurricanes, we don’t know a lot about heat, and heat is really starting to show up in our communities. It was really the communities that started my interest and work in that topic,” Ward said.

When she arrived at Duke’s Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability in 2019, Ward said she noticed that researchers had done great work in identifying populations that are vulnerable to extreme heat and communities have responded by thinking about ways to mitigate the impacts of rising temperatures.

But, she said, those conversations were not being carried over to policymakers.

The heat hub was launched in 2023, “with the mission of bringing together a real cross-sector collaboration to try and think about ways to address heat and inform better policy, and sometimes that policy is public policy, but sometimes it’s also thinking about industry and the role that they play,” Ward said.

The hub’s researchers have worked with the state to develop a heat alert system and helped with county-level heat action plans. Last June, the hub held the HeatWise Policy Partnership Summit.

The hub is currently working with faith-based leaders in the Carolinas, exploring private sector and community-based solutions for heat and energy affordability. The hub is also working with the United Nations to develop a heat management system and is assessing readiness among UN agencies to deal with heat globally.

WILMINGTON – The University of North Carolina Wilmington Blue Economy Index, which measures the economic activities in the world’s oceans, rose by 0.02% in November, but still underperformed its closest benchmarks, according to a Monday news release.

The index is published on Bloomberg (Ticker: BLUEECO), which provides daily financial data.

Following a strong September showing with better than 7% growth, the UNCW index slipped by 4.55% in October, falling below the performance of its closest benchmarks, which include the MSCI All World Index, the S&P 500, and the S&P Industrials.

“The modest performance from BLUEECO can be attributed to uncertainty surrounding the United States election,” according to the release.

UNCW said the S&P Industrials increased 7.16% over the month, while the MSCI and S&P 500 showed gains of 3.27% and 5.30%, respectively.

The UNCW index’s top performer was Lindblad Expeditions, a U.S. company specializing in small-ship adventure and expedition cruises that posted a 41% return over the month. The growth was attributed to stronger-than-expected revenues.

Scottsdale, Arizona-based TPI Composites, a global manufacturer of composite wind blades used in wind turbines, was the worst performer in the index, with a 41% decline during the month. UNCW noted that the company was dogged by high operating expenses, an inability to fully pass on cost increases to customers, continued competitive presses from Chinese manufacturers, and potential inflationary challenges in regions such as Turkey.

The UNCW index follows the World Bank definition of the Blue Economy and was developed in collaboration with the UNCW Cameron School of Business, UNCW Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, or CIE, CIE’s Alliance for the Blue Economy, and FactSet to quantify economic activities in oceans and waterways.

​Second of two parts. Read Part 1.

By the time Chase Luker pointed the headlights of his king cab truck down a narrow country road that returned to Columbia, nighttime blanketed rural Tyrrell County.

A hunter safety specialist with the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, Luker had spent his evening with Coastal Review meandering along farm tracks on private land, with permission, and the dirt lanes of the Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge, to catch a glimpse of American black bears.​

As the unofficial tour of Tyrrell County came to a close, Luker said that he’d never met anyone who hates bears.

“Everybody loves bears, but the people that love them the most are the people that hunt them,” Luker said, adding the hunters “care a lot about the bears and what they can do to protect the species.”

Bears also seem to be a source of pride for Tyrrell County residents and businesses. During an early dinner at the Mexican grill downtown earlier that day, two locals shared photos of bear sightings.

A longtime hunter, Luker manages the 13-county District 1 that spans from Currituck to Carteret County and Greene County is the farthest county west. He also enjoys writing, carving decoys and, when he has time, guiding private hunting tours.

Luker noted that 150 years ago “we didn’t use canola oil, butter, we used bear fat, bear grease, rendered down.” He said there are numerous layers involved in what draws people to bear hunting. There’s a lot of legends surrounding black bears, and it’s “part of our American fabric.”

Black bear hunting heritage in North Carolina dates back to early Native Americans and was adopted by early colonial settlers, “Bear hunting continues to be an important tradition in North Carolina, bringing together friends and families, providing food for the table, and teaching outdoor and naturalist skills, the commission’s Game Mammals and Surveys Supervisor Colleen Olfenbuttel told Coastal Review recently.

She was the black bear and furbearer biologist, when she was responsible for managing and conserving black bears and 17 furbearer species, from 2007 until earlier this year, when she took on her current role.

“For decades, most bear hunters used the assistance of trained hounds to pick up the scent of a bear and track it,” Olfenbuttel continued. “In fact, the official state dog of North Carolina is the Plott hound, which was bred for hunting bears in North Carolina starting in the early 1800s.”

For a long time, the state’s black bear population suffered. “Black bears were once restricted to remote areas and reached very low population levels in the mid-1900s,” according to the agency. Hunters and conservationists pushed for bear hunting regulations beginning in the 1930s and for the state to establish a wildlife resources agency to manage wildlife and enforce wildlife laws.

Hunters joined in the conservation effort when the commission began managing the species in the 1970s, she said. The bear hunting community contributed by providing data needed to make science-based management decisions, and helped fund conservation and research efforts through hunting license sales and the Pittman-Robertson Act of 1937, which imposes an excise tax on firearms and ammunition.

Olfenbuttel added that “The restoration of black bears is also due to the reforestation that occurred, starting in the 1930s, and due to changes in human attitudes toward bears, as well as the remarkable adaptability of black bears. Black bears have adapted well to urbanization, human development and habitat fragmentation,” she said.

Public response

The North Carolina Bear Hunting Association, which formed in 1985, and past hunting clubs have worked with the agency over the decades, including on designating more thousands of acres of black bear sanctuaries, according to a March 2023 letter on its social media page.

In the letter, the organization notes that it has taken issue with how the agency has handled past investigations into illegal poaching, and the fact that the commission has online public hearing because “the anti-community has learned to take advantage of on-line public hearings and meetings.” The online meetings were in response to the COVID-19 pandemic.

During the 2021-22 session, those who are against bear hunting announced their support of a bill to “disapprove a rule of the Wildlife Resources Commission allowing hunting of bears in certain areas previously managed as bear sanctuaries.” The bill had a first reading but didn’t go anywhere after being referred to the house rules committee.

The bill was in response to the commission changing in February 2022 the title of “designated bear sanctuaries” to “bear management areas” and allow permitted bear hunting in three western lands previous off limits.

The commission made the choice to open up a permitted season to stabilize the growing bear population in the western part of the state.

Bear Defenders said on its its website that on Feb. 25, 2022, “Despite the overwhelming public opposition that included 2,744 comments, 86% percent in opposition, and our petition with over 7,600 signatures, the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission (NCWRC) voted unanimously to open up the Pisgah, Panthertown-Bonas Defeat, and Standing Indian Bear Sanctuaries to bear hunting and hunting with dogs. In addition, they approved a regulation that changed the term ‘designated bear sanctuary’ to “‘designated bear management area.'”

During a public comment hearing in January 2022, Olfenbuttel said that with a restored and increasing bear population coupled with a diverse and increasing human population and their associated development, “the Commission recognized the need to change from restoration efforts to management efforts to ensure the long-term viability of the bear population as well as assure  and maybe even increase acceptance and support for the restored bear population to do so require developing a statewide Black Bear management plan.”

She added that the bear population had nearly doubled in size between 2005 and 2022, and one reason the commission has not been able to stabilize the bear population is that areas in the mountains where hunting is not permitted are increasing largely due to development.

In Defense of Animals said in a press release at the time that, “Despite public outcry, North Carolina has approved the violent killing of black bears in three of the state’s bear sanctuaries. With few exceptions, black bears have been protected throughout their natural habitats in North Carolina for decades. Thankfully, a new bill has been introduced to stop these shortsighted plans. We must urge North Carolina legislators to support House Bill 1072 to save vulnerable bear populations to agonizing deaths.”

Regulated bear hunting

With the state bear population recovered, Olfenbuttel said the commission’s objective is to stabilize the population so that growth is no more than 0-1%. “Basically, we want to maintain the number of bears we currently have on the landscape, with the bear population neither increasing or decreasing.”

She said that regulated bear hunting is an effective way to keep the bears healthy and reinforce a bear’s natural fear of humans, while allowing the animal to be used, particularly for its meat.

A survey of hunters shows that 99.6% use the bear meat​ they harvest, Olfenbuttel explained. Mostly they feed their household, share the meat or donate it.

“I estimated that the annual regulated bear hunting season provides over 610,000 plates of food for people, which is especially helpful for those North Carolinians that live in food deserts or who are on fixed incomes and have limited financial resources to purchase meat from a store,” she said. Adding that doesn’t account for other ways hunters use a harvested bear, such as rendering the fat, eating the organ meat, and using the bones to make bone broth.

She said that with the commission’s success in recovering the bear population, “we are seeing increased interest from all over North America, and beyond, to hunt bears in North Carolina, partly due to the number of black bears we have, but also due to the size of our bears.”

And bear hunting in eastern North Carolina has definitely grown in the last five or six years.

Luker has led guided hunting tours in the past. “There’s not much to do in Hyde and Tyrrell counties” and he stumbled across the opportunity. Though he enjoys guiding, he said the commission is his priority and “really believes in what the agency does.” In a quick exchange last week, he mentioned that he hasn’t had time to lead any tours this year.

While Luker drove during that recent evening through miles and miles of uninhabited, protected lands, he said that coastal North Carolina wasn’t even on the radar as a destination for black bear hunting until the last five or six years.

Some influential hunters were invited to the area, had a successful trip and put it on social media, and the industry has grown.

There are several outfitters that offer guided hunts on the coast, costing anywhere from $2,000 to $15,000 per person, and in some cases more. The amount depends on the company, length of hunt – usually from one to five days — and what is included in the package like lodging or meals.

Luker said the rates haven’t always been that way, just in the last four or five years, but seem to be leveling out. The guided hunts bring in what he called “high-net-worth” clients who “want to do something that they can’t do anywhere else in the world.” It’s becoming an economic driver.

“They contribute so much money to the local economy here,” he said.

License, e-stamp required

Luker reiterated that the hunter needs a big game license, which can be purchased through Wildlife Resources Commission, and a bear management electronic stamp, or e-stamp.

The license holder is only permitted to take one black bear a season. The bear must be more than 75 pounds and sows, or female bears, with cubs are off limits. The hunter must notify the commission of their take by calling 1-800-I-Got-One.

Bear hunting isn’t like deer hunting, though. “It’s not tricky,” he said. “Bears have a great nose, but they can’t see. Camouflage is not an important aspect of the hunt. You’ve got to wear blaze orange, and you have got to bring a firearm that’s capable of taking the animal clean.”

Luker said that for most hunts offered by an outfitter, the guide usually brings five to 10 hunters to approved land early and gets them ready to hunt by 30 minutes before dawn, when hunting is allowed to begin.

Some outfitters have a processing facility where they can weigh and dress the animal, though sometimes a hunter will remove internal organs on-site before moving the bear to make it lighter.

The hunt must be in a designated bear management area and the hunter must use approved methods only during bear hunting season, which is usually announced about nine months before it starts. Once the guides know the dates, the clients are contacted and told what to expect and what to bring.

“Generally, about every 10 years, our agency will do a bear management plan and make recommendations,” Luker said, but staff use data from year to year to establish the season.

Olfenbuttel is an author of the management plan, the most recent written while she was black bear and furbearer biologist from 2007 to 2024, and in the game and furbearer program.

She said the program works to ensure the long-term viability and sustained harvest of 71 game and furbearer species by providing the best possible scientific information on the status and management of each species and its habitats so that regulations and management are based on objective data and participate in planning and coordination of management directives based on sound science.

“For eastern North Carolina, that means monitoring the bear population using various metrics and surveys, such as harvest rates, age-at-harvest, sex ratio of harvest, number of vehicle-bear collisions, number of human-bear conflicts, as well as conducting bear research,” she said.

The commission is currently estimating the density and population of black bears across the 37 counties making up the Coastal Plain Bear Management Unit, which Olfenbuttel said is the first time the agency had conducted a study of this scale in eastern North Carolina for data to inform future bear management.

“The program uses all the data collected from multiple sources to monitor the status of the bear population and make informed, science-based management recommendations,” Olfenbuttel continued.

Because of regulated hunting, Olfenbuttel said the commission is meeting bear population objectives in eastern North Carolina, but as development increases, people and bears are living more closely together.

“Since bears can easily adapt to living near or in communities and neighborhoods, it will become increasingly common for people to see a bear in their neighborhoods and towns,” she continued. “This is normal, but people can do their part to live responsibly with bears by following the BearWise Basics, which mainly involves securing bird feeders, garbage, and not feeding or approaching bears.”

Note: Coastal Review will not publish Thursday and Friday this week in recognition of the Thanksgiving and Native American Heritage Day holidays, respectively.

The University of North Carolina Wilmington said Wednesday that its Blue Economy Index rose by 3.07% in August but still slightly underperformed its closest benchmarks.

The UNCW Blue Economy Index measures the economic activities in the oceans and follows the World Bank definition of the Blue Economy. It was originally developed in 2018 but officially launched in this year in February.

“The modest performance from BLUEECO doubles the performance of last month’s return,” UNCW said in a press release.

The UNC Wilmington Blue Economy Index was developed in collaboration with the UNCW Cameron School of Business, UNCW Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, CIE’s Alliance for the Blue Economy, and FactSet, a global data and software firm. The UNCW index measures economic activities in oceans and waterways and places an emphasis on environmental impact, offering investors insights into what its developers describe as a “burgeoning economic landscape surrounding coastal communities.”

While the index underperformed the MSCI All World Index, the S&P 500, and S&P Industrials, according to the UNCW analysis, the benchmarks delivered similarly modest gains during the month.

That’s except for the S&P Industrials, which experienced a 4.58% increase in August. The MSCI and S&P 500 showed gains of 3.77% and 3.70%, respectively.

“Since April 27th, 2018, our index has outperformed MSCI All World Index by 11.91%, making it very appealing to investors,” Colin Waltsak, a research assistant in the UNCW Economics and Finance Department, told Coastal Review Wednesday. “Not only this, but the United Nations believes the Blue Economy will grow over 50% by 2030. Our index is a great tool for investors who are aiming to capture long term growth of the Blue Economy and shines light on the economic importance of coastal communities.”

The sector saw majority positive contributions to the index, according to university index analysts. The materials and real estate sector helped the index performance by posting returns of 4.99% and 4.89%, respectively. The energy sector, however, dipped into the negatives with returns of -6.82% over the month, according to the UNCW analysis.

UNCW noted that the materials sector was dominated by Schouw and Co., a supplier of feed for aquaculture. Schouw also is one of the largest suppliers of hydraulics in Denmark, producing hydraulic systems for industries including offshore wind energy.

The top performer within the index was CS Wind, a South Korea-based company specializing in manufacturing and sales of wind towers for offshore wind energy. CS Wind saw an increase of 29.48%, attributed to an earnings statement showing 99% growth over the year. The company had acquired Vesta Towers America, providing entry to the North American market.

The worst performer in the index was Grieg Seafood, a Norwegian salmon farming company that saw a 17.77% decrease over the month attributed to reduced harvest volumes, down by 7,000 tons. “The company also faced challenges with fish health and environmental issues which led to a higher mortality rate, straining operations, and contributing to economic loss,” UNCW officials said in the analysis.

BOLIVIA – A request to bump Bald Head Island ferry hourly departures to every 90 minutes got a verbal thumbs down from nearly everyone who spoke at a state-hosted public hearing Tuesday night.

The schedule change proposed by the private company, Bald Head Island Transportation Inc., would disrupt ferry runs that coincide with start and end times of the only school on the island, increase commute times for workers going to and from the island, and force businesses on the island to shrink their hours of operation, opponents of the change argued.

A handful of those who spoke at Tuesday’s hearing the North Carolina Utilities Commission held in Brunswick County Courthouse Courtroom 2 said they did, however, favor a hybrid schedule that has been floated around, but not submitted to the commission for consideration.

Elizabeth Stephen, a 30-year Bald Head property owner and 8-year full-time resident, said she was 100% in favor of the hybrid schedule, one that purportedly would begin and end departures to and from the island on the current 30-minute schedule and shift to a 45-minute schedule midday.

Stephen was among roughly 30 people scattered throughout the courtroom where utilities Commissioner Karen Kemerait, who headed the hearing, sat at the front of the room in the seat typically reserved for a judge.

Those who signed up to speak at the hearing were sworn in before taking a seat in the courtroom witness box, where they were allowed to give no more than a 3-minute-long statement and answer questions of commission members and attorneys representing various groups that have intervened in the application review process.

Bald Head resident Jesse Hermann, one of nearly a dozen people to speak at the hearing, said the proposed schedule change would be, simply put, a reduction in capacity.

“The ferries are going to get more crowded as you reduce the schedule,” he said.

The impact to people who frequently travel on and off the island would be akin to shutting down a heavily used commuter thoroughfare to every other hour of the day, a move that would substantially increase the amount of time a person commutes, Hermann argued.

He suggested the ferry service might be able to turn to making procedural changes, including finding more efficient ways to load and unload passengers and their luggage, and add more trams to shuttle passengers and their luggage to and from the ferry landing on the island.

Island property owner Trisha Johnson hopped a flight from her hometown of Athens, Georgia, to speak at the hearing, where she said the proposed “schedule change” is, in her estimation, a capacity reduction.

“The capacity of the ferry is not sufficient and reducing it is not going to solve the problem,” she said.

Nicola Cutler, a teacher at Bald Head Island Academy, a private K-8 school that first opened its doors in 2022, said the proposed schedule was unrealistic because the ferry run times would not align with the start or end of the school day.

“This schedule does not fit into our school schedule whatsoever,” she said.

“Numerous” students ride the ferry to get to and from school, Cutler said, adding that about 20% of those students have parents who work on the island.

The academy, Bald Head Island Academy Foundation Inc., Village of Bald Head Island, Bald Head Island Clu,b and Bald Head Association all intervened in the transportation company’s Feb. 19 application to the utilities commission.

A 90-minute passenger ferry schedule would not provide “enough capacity to meet the island’s current and growing needs,” Village Mayor Peter Quinn wrote in an announcement last week about the public hearing.

In a presentation to the village council earlier this year, Bald Head Island Transportation President Chad Paul said increased demand for passenger ferry and tram service has caused a lapse in on-time performance.

“The issue for the schedule is not just the ferries, it’s the trams,” he said at that February meeting. “We’ve got 350 more homes built since 2010.”

That was the first full year of ferry operations from the mainland terminal at Deep Point Marina in Southport to the island, when annual round-trip ridership was 570,000, according to the company’s application.

That number jumped to 700,000 in 2019. Last year, a record 782,000 passengers took the ferry.

More than 3 million pounds of baggage has been loaded and unloaded by hand aboard ferries each year since 2021 and, last year, more than 4,500 larger items that do not fit in dollies, including bicycles, kayaks, canoes and “large luggage items” were transported, according to the application.

About 85% of ticket buyers since June 2023 have purchased electronic tickets either online or through the transportation company’s mobile app, Paul told council members earlier this year.

While that has helped passengers see which ferries are already sold out and which ones are available for booking, it has not curtailed a “capacity issue” that caught the company off guard, he said.

“It kind of eased up on us and kind of hit us all at once,” when the company started selling passes to some of the larger employers on the island, Paul said.

Employers do not ask their employees to step aside and leave spots open for residents and guests on an otherwise fully ferry, he said. That means that either the customer or an employee gets bumped to the next available ferry.

Paul said there has been a 22% decrease in the number of passengers getting bumped to the next available ferry since the electronic ticketing system began.

“I would think, too that the 45-minute schedule would have even fewer bumped boats,” he said in February.

According to the company’s application, the contractor ferry, which is reserved for contractors who work on the island and may be utilized by employees as well, would continue to depart from the mainland terminal at 5:30 a.m. and from the island at 6 a.m. Monday – Friday during the summer and winter months.

In summers, the first passenger ferry would leave the mainland at 6 a.m. Monday-Friday instead of the current time of 7 a.m. and depart the island at 6:45 a.m. on weekdays. The first passenger ferry from the mainland would depart weekends at 6 a.m. and from the island at 6:30 a.m.

The last passenger ferry would leave the mainland each night at 10:30 p.m. and the island at 11 p.m.

In winters, the last passenger ferry would leave the mainland at 9 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 10:30 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays. The last ferry to leave the island would be at 9:45 p.m. Sunday through Thursday and 11 p.m. on Fridays and Saturdays.

Bald Head Island Conservancy Executive Director Chris Shank said the proposed schedule change would easily result in two weeks’ worth of lost worktime in a calendar year for his staff, lengthen their commute times and, in turn, likely increase staff turnover.

“The ferry’s already late,” he said. “A larger ferry would be nice. Having increase capacity during commuting times would be enormous.”

Southport resident Lindsey Urso said the ferry system she uses five times a week to get to the island to work “is an absolute disgrace.”

“What we are seeing recently with our ferry system is a complete failure on all fronts,” she continued. “We have delays that stretch hours and hours on end. These aren’t minor inconveniences. They are disruptions that affect people’s lives. Right now, the system is failing us.”

Island resident Robert Drumheller was the only person who spoke in favor of the proposed schedule change, saying the 5-nautical-mile trip between terminals, the time needed to move passengers and their luggage on and off the ferries and then transport them by tram to homes throughout the island essentially makes it impossible to run under the current schedule.

“I think we need to give this a try,” he said.

If after a year or so the schedule does not prove itself, the transportation company could revisit the matter, Drumheller said.

An expert witness hearing on the schedule change application is set for Nov. 5 in the utilities commission hearing room 2115, Dobbs Building, 430 North Salisbury St., Raleigh. The full schedule may be found online.

Dare, Brunswick, New Hanover, Carteret, Currituck and Onslow are the coastal counties to break into the Top 20 out of 100 for visitor spending in 2023.

Following a record-breaking increase of 15% in 2022, spending statewide rose 6.9% to $35.6 billion in 2023, setting another record year in visitor spending, according to data the North Carolina Department of Commerce released Tuesday.

The total spending is the amount spent on lodging, including second home spending, food and beverage, recreation, retail and transportation, and both ground and air transportation added together.

Mecklenburg County topped the list with $5.85 billion in total visitor spending, up 9.6% since last year. Though Camden had an 11.3% increase between 2022 and 2023 with a total spending of $4 million, the third highest increase of 100 counties, the county was at the bottom of the list for total spending.

State officials noted that last year, 98 of the state’s 100 counties saw increases in spending compared with 2022. Orange, Wake, Camden and Warren counties, in that order, led the state’s 6.9% growth in visitor spending. Dare ranked 10 in growth rate at 8.8%.

The two counties that had a decrease in spending are Alexander at -3.4% and Cleveland at -1.6%.

“It’s great to see increasing numbers of people continue to flock to North Carolina to see all we have to offer,” Gov. Roy Cooper said in the press release from his office. “Visitors are investing record amounts of money bolstering our booming tourism industry, and that brings good jobs and income to North Carolina businesses and families.”

The preliminary findings from an annual study commissioned by VisitNC, a unit of the Economic Development Partnership of North Carolina, reflect the economic impact of tourism on local economies across the state.

The visitor spending study, commissioned by Visit NC and conducted by Tourism Economics, provides preliminary estimates of domestic and international traveler expenditures as well as employment, payroll income, and state and local tax revenues directly generated by these expenditures.

The statistical model draws on detailed data from Visit NC as well as data derived from federal and state government sources, nationally known private and non-profit travel organizations, and other travel industry sources.

Coastal counties by rank out of the 100 counties, total visitor spending, and growth rate:

• 4. Dare: $2.15 billion, 8.8%
• 6. Brunswick: $1.17 billion, 7.5%
• 8. New Hanover $1.12 billion, 5.9%
• 11. Carteret: $732.29, 5.3%
• 14. Currituck: $573.35 million, 4.3%
• 18. Onslow $412.12 million, 8.5%
• 35. Pender $199.12 million, 5%
• 39. Craven: $178.11 million, 4.4%
• 44. Beaufort: $142.48 million 5.9%
• 57. Pasquotank: $90.21 million, 6.7%
• 67. Hyde: $61.87 million, 6.1%
• 83. Pamlico $37.76, million, 3.7%
• 87. Hertford: $31.21 million, 6.7%
• 88. Chowan: $30.11 million, 4.8%
• 90. Bertie: $24.47 million, 4.5%
• 92. Perquimans $20.43 million, 3.1%
• 94. Washington $18.41 million, 3.3%
• 97. Gates: $9.89 million, 1%
• 98. Tyrrell $6.94 million, 3.1%
• 100. Camden: $4 million, 11.3%

Other tourism facts for 2023 provided by the state include the following:

• Total spending by domestic and international visitors reached $35.6 billion, a 6.9% increase over 2022 expenditures. 
• Direct tourism employment increased 4.8% to 227,200. 
• Direct tourism payroll increased 6.6% to nearly $9.3 billion. 
• Visitors generated nearly $4.5 billion in federal, state and local taxes, a 5.8% increase from 2022. 
• State tax receipts from visitor spending rose 5.6% to $1.3 billion. 
• Local tax receipts grew 5.4% to $1.2 billion.
• Visitors spend more than $97 million per day, adding about $3.7 million in state taxes and $3.4 million in local taxes.
• Each household saved $518 on average in state and local taxes as a direct result of visitor spending in the state. Savings per capita averaged $239.

Full tables can be accessed at partners.visitnc.com/economic-impact-studies.

BEAUFORT – A split board of commissioners on Monday heeded the public’s increasingly vocal demands to slow down the process of selecting a new concessioner to operate the town docks.

Beaufort commissioners voted 3-2, with commissioners Charles “Bucky” Oliver and Dr. John LoPiccolo opposed, to terminate all discussions and rescind a letter of intent that was written to “the company of interest as it relates to future management of the Beaufort Docks.”

That was how Commissioner Paula Gillikin worded her two-part motion. The second part of her motion was to direct the town manager and/or the assistant town manager to work with Beaufort Waterfront Enterprises, the current and longtime operator of the docks, on a 12-month lease extension to be approved by commissioners no later than Sept. 9.

Related: Beaufort residents blast dock operator selection process

The action was in response to public demands for transparency in the selection process, which had been moved behind closed doors with town officials deeming it an “economic development” matter and therefore confidential.

Folks here found that specious, especially given the prominence of the town waterfront. The move was also in response to objections to apparent conflicts and legal cases in other coastal communities involving the “company of interest.” Despite the cloak of closed sessions, that company’s name — Safe Harbor Marinas — has for weeks been the worst-kept secret in Beaufort.

With a pouring rain outside, the meeting space, the old depot on Broad Street, was filled with residents and still more in a separate, overflow room with closed-circuit TVs, opposed to how officials had handled the process. After commissioners cast their votes, the raucous applause that erupted in the main meeting room was echoed after a slight lag by more cheering in the overflow room.

Gillikin’s motion followed Mayor Sharon Harker’s opening of a “general discussion of the steps going forward” with regard to the docks. Harker said it was time for “a fresh dialogue” to answer the public’s questions.

Some information was publicly available, and it was troubling to folks at the meeting.

Safe Harbor Marinas is a $2 billion company purchased in 2020 by Sun Communities Inc. Sun Communities is a Michigan-based real estate investment trust with about $17.4 billion in assets.

Gillikin said she had done “a deep dive” researching the firm’s operations elsewhere and concluded that the company’s philosophy “may not be the best match” for the town.

“And it was in my investigations and interviewing people and sitting down with coffee with people and visiting marinas and digging deeper into the philosophy behind the company of interest that led me to this conclusion,” Gillikin said to more applause.

Beaufort residents and business owners have told Coastal Review that their concerns with Safe Harbor were largely based on the corporate ownership and control that would be more focused on shareholder returns than Beaufort’s character and economy. They have worried that the fix was in for Safe Harbor from the start because the company had already purchased Jarret Bay Boatworks and the surrounding complex. Some speculated that the corporation had its eyes on the waterfront as a staging area for large yachts to be serviced at Safe Harbor Jarret Bay, which lacks sufficient marina space.

People have said they are worried about the further gentrification of Beaufort and how the business base of locally owned shops and restaurants may not appeal to those who arrive aboard the kinds of “superyachts” that Safe Harbor caters to in other locations.

Speakers who went to the podium during the lengthy public comment portion of the meeting Monday echoed these concerns. Commissioner Melvin Cooper said he had heard them, too. Cooper said he “fully supported” Gillikin’s motion to “terminate” the letter of intent.

“I know that Commissioner Oliver would love to see us carry on the discussion with the third party,” Cooper said, adding that there had been a push to “move along, move along” with the process when there was time to make a more careful and open choice. “Townspeople, who we represent, is asking us to back off of this, and I think we need to listen to them.”

Oliver said he strongly supported extending the lease but he saw no advantage to terminating the letter of intent. He urged Gillikin to amend that portion of her motion, which she refused.

“You may never get anywhere,” Oliver said in his plea to Gillikin. “I’m not promising anything, but I see no reason to shut off the consideration of it based on what I’ve heard. I can’t find a factual reason to do that, and I think it might potentially be, terminating that, it might potentially be detrimental to us, depending upon how the continued negotiations, which are ongoing, might turn out.”

During the public comment portion of the meeting, Barry Slade of Beaufort said his career was in marina and slip management, and waterfront development. He said the situation here was familiar to him. He told the board that marina operators come in all shapes and sizes and tend to specialize in what they do best, and the town should select one appropriate to its needs. But he worried Beaufort hadn’t cast far enough with its request for proposals to bring in the right operator.

“Remember, Beaufort doesn’t have a downtown marina,” Slade said. “What we have is a priceless downtown waterfront, which is the heart and soul of our town.”

He said that in reaching out to people in the industry, “It didn’t take many phone calls to find that some did not even know about Beaufort’s RFP and never received a bid package. These same companies, given the chance, would be happy to submit a proposal if that opportunity were presented. Many of these firms are flush with cash, are actively looking for projects and put a strong emphasis on relationships, not just the bottom line.”

‘Keep Our Docks Public’

Signs reading “Keep Our Docks Public!” and “Keep Beaufort Docks Public!” pepper lawns all over town.

Commissioner LoPiccolo during the meeting took issue with the signage, calling it a “misrepresentation” because the docks have been private for more than 40 years.

“We have had someone manage those docks who has been kind enough to let day boaters come into those docks, but I do want to make sure that the town does understand that those docks have been private,” LoPiccolo said.

LoPiccolo said his due diligence on the matter convinced him that a third-party concessioner was necessary because of the substantial improvements needed on the waterfront, an estimated $13 or so million, which a well-heeled company could finance rather than the town.

The town’s financial adviser, David Cheatwood, spent a chunk of meeting time early in the evening giving his rationale for opposing town-financed improvements through the various mechanisms available.

Mayor Harker had invited Cheatwood, managing director of First Tryon Advisors of Charlotte, to discuss the financing options in the public setting. Cheatwood explained that North Carolina has three basic types: general obligation bonds, limited obligation bonds and revenue bonds, all of which he advised against because of the financial peril to the town for this type of project.

“Looking ahead and kind of knowing what you have on the horizon, I think that is a lot of risk for the town to take when you have some other more traditional projects to fund that are more essential service type,” Cheatwood said.

Oliver said that people in attendance had not had the benefit of hearing the financing information before. He thanked the mayor for having the information presented to the public, because the commissioners felt the townsfolk’s lack of awareness was “giving us fits” as a board.

“When I can’t get information, I get frustrated too,” Oliver said.

LoPiccolo said the board had spent “countless hours in closed session, going over minute detail,” and nothing had raised suspicion.

“This is not being done by some dark hand managing all this. It’s not being done by some forces that we know the town is not aware of that’s pushing this along. These are the commissioners here that are leading the charge. So I would hope that you would trust in us, that we can make the right decisions for this town, and we do hear you,” he said, drawing applause.

Cooper said during the meeting that the closed meetings were not an attempt to hide anything, but rather based on North Carolina general statute.

“It did become apparent that we were in these closed sessions far too long without the community hearing from its commissioners,” Cooper said. “Citizens can be assured that whenever the decision is made, it will be made in a public meeting and with full disclosure.”

EDENTON — No ribbon-cutting or silver shovels wielded by a few politicians would represent the scale of North Carolina’s second land-based wind energy operation. Instead, Apex Clean Energy invited hundreds of community members, landowners and government officials to join them Wednesday morning on Chowan County farmland to a sign a prone, 242-foot-long silver turbine blade to kick off Timbermill Wind, a project to generate 189 megawatts of electricity with 45 three-bladed turbines.

After being shuttled in buses to the 6,300-acre site from Edenton United Methodist Church, where a breakfast event was held, folks lined up, chatting amiably while waiting to scribble their names on the blade.

First up, a man in a slate-blue suit and green tie strode up to the blade with a fat blue marking pen in his right hand. Reaching up while contractors watched, he wrote his name in large, looping cursive letters: Roy Cooper. Then, under his name he added “governor” and turned to the crowd, grinning widely. Everyone cheered and the signing commenced. Before long, about 250 different signatures covered the length of the blade.

One name, Sadie B. Eure, stood out just to the right of Cooper’s signature. That’s his mother-in-law’s name, said Donald “Randy” Park, pointing at the blade.

Eure and her late husband, Garland, who had three daughters, operated Eure Seed Farms in Perquimans County, Park said. Sadie Eure owns 300 hundred acres at the Timbermill site and has a lease agreement with the company for the turbines on her land.

Park, a retired farmer who lives in Belhaven, said that most of the farmers who grow crops such as soybeans, corn, cotton or wheat at the site are pleased with the project because they can still farm around the turbines, while also collecting regular payments.

“The majority are,” he said. “There are a few that are unhappy.”

Some don’t like the way the turbines look, he said.

“I don’t think they’re an eyesore,” Park said. And the payments enable farmers to be profitable, especially when the weather is not cooperating.

Eure, who is 93, started leasing her land to Apex about 8 to 10 years ago, Park said, collecting $1,587 a month. He doesn’t know what the monthly rent will be once the facility is operational, “But it’ll be a whole lot more than that.”

“It helps to have an extra income,” he said. “She’ll be passing this on to her heirs, too.”

Chowan County has also benefited from the project and will continue to for its operational life, which is expected to be about 30 years.

“We are in effect greatly expanding our tax base in one fell swoop,” Gene Jordan, chair of the Chowan County Board of Education, told the audience at the earlier event at the Edenton church.

Jordan, who is a farmer, said that the wind energy helps diversify their resources while supporting the community and the landowners.

“My family will be able to host seven turbines,” he said. “I’m optimistic we will be able to farm for years to come.”

In addition to creating 200 jobs and generating about $25 million spent with North Carolina businesses during its construction, the project is expected to provide up to $33 million in tax revenue over its lifetime.

The project, delayed by numerous glitches including the COVID-19 pandemic, took 11 years to complete, which Apex CEO Ken Young said is about twice the time it typically takes to build a large wind farm.

“It’s coming back to life,” he said, comparing it to a cat’s nine lives.

Sprinkling his description of the project during his speech at the church with words like “fortitude” and “blood, sweat and tears,” Young credited his team and its partners. “That spirit and dedication is why we’re here today with a $500 million facility, fully developed, financed and well under construction,” he told the audience.

Apex will own and operate the facility when it is completed later this year, the company said in a press release. Last year, Timbermill announced a power-purchase agreement with Google, which will contribute to the clean energy needs to offset energy usage at its data centers.

“Google is buying the output from this project,” Young clarified in a later interview.

Most of the project’s difficulties, besides the pandemic, were to be expected, said Richard Bunch, Apex project representative and retired director of the Edenton-Chowan Chamber of Commerce. “It was all permitting issues,” he said, adding that there were lots of discussions with the Army Corps of Engineers and the U.S. military that were worked through.

But whatever the bumps in the road, Bunch said Timbermill Wind is an asset for the county.

“It’s tremendous,” he said in an interview after the signing. “The occupancy tax this year is probably going to its highest ever,” he said, citing revenue related to construction. “Fuel sales, rooms, food — it just goes on and on.”

Even after the project is completed, Bunch said there will six or seven full-time staff employed locally by Timbermill.

Dr. Ellis Lawrence, who has served on the Chowan County Board of Commissioners for 14 years, said after the signing that the revenue created by the project is already being reflected in the county’s plan to build a new high school. And the county’s tax base will continue to have an annual infusion of $1.3 million from the project.

“We have watched it go full circle,” he said. “We have dealt with the ups and downs.”

In the beginning, a lot of people were calling in opposition, he said. But now most residents seem to have come around to be in favor of it.

“I was there when it started. I’ve heard it all,” he said. “In the beginning, they were talking about the bird killings, the noise that it would make. This is nothing like that. And the science is behind it. It’s more efficient. This is an alternate source of energy and we need to take advantage of it.”

Cooper applauded local, state and federal efforts working together for the success of the project.

 “When you talk about clean energy, a lot of times people think about climate change,” he said at the church event. “But what it’s really about is great-paying jobs and a cleaner environment.”

Featured Image

Gov. Roy Cooper speaks to reporters about renewable energy, sidestepping questions about his possible selection as a vice presidential candidate, Wednesday at a turbine blade-signing event celebrating construction of the Timbermill Wind project by Apex Clean Energy in Chowan County. The 189-megawatt wind energy project is the state’s second and the first to be built since 2017. It is expected to generate up to $33 million in tax revenue over its lifetime and become the county’s largest taxpayer during its first year of operation. Photo: Dylan Ray

WILMINGTON – The dates may have changed, but the host of concerns raised over the past few years have not as the North Carolina State Ports Authority’s plan to deepen and widen Wilmington Harbor is cast back into the public spotlight.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ Wilmington District hosted Thursday its first public meeting since publishing a notice of intent that the agency is preparing an environmental study of the ports authority’s proposal to make room for larger container ships to get to and from the Wilmington port.

The Corps’ notice kickstarts the process in which the public can provide comments, be they questions, suggestions or concerns, on the proposed project.

“We wanted to get this feedback before we invested a lot in our analysis,” said Bret Walters, Wilmington District Planning and Environmental Branch chief. “This is the opportunity to weigh-in very early in the process.”

Walters was among several Army Corps officials on hand at the meeting last week in Sunset Park Elementary School in Wilmington to answer questions and discuss the project with members of the public.

The Corps hosted a series of virtual meetings the first week of this month, each day focusing on specific topics ranging from how material dredged from the channel might be used to how the project might affect cultural resources along the river.

Five years have passed since the ports authority announced its proposal to deepen the harbor from 42 feet to 47 feet, widen the channel in multiple areas, and extend the ocean entrance to the Cape Fear River.

The ports authority maintains that the changes are needed to keep the Wilmington port, which is more than 25 miles upriver from the Atlantic Ocean, competitive with other East Coast ports by making room for larger container ships coming from Asia.

The changes would accommodate large vessels that can carry 14,000, 20-by-8-foot shipping containers that have been traveling through the Panama Canal since its expansion in 2016.

A plethora of concerns have been discussed about the proposed project over the past few years.

Environmental experts and advocates argue that deepening the channel could exacerbate saltwater intrusion through to the Northeast Cape Fear River and adjoining creeks, eradicate fish habitat, harm cultural resources, and disproportionately affect minority communities along the river.

During the virtual meetings held earlier this month, members of the public again posed those concerns to Army Corps officials, offering a new line of questioning about how disturbing the sediment in a river contaminated by per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, could further affect its quality.

Carolina Beach resident Anne Terry called the proposed project “very frightening.”

“The fish habitat would be ruined,” she said. “There’ll be erosion. Economically it just isn’t going to make any sense. And, it’s never going to be deep enough. I just don’t run into anybody that thinks this makes sense.”

But the ports authority predicts more cargo will be shipped to the Wilmington port, regardless of the size of the vessels transporting that cargo.

“That cargo is going to come here anyway,” Walter said in one of the virtual meetings hosted at the beginning of June.

That means, if the channel is not deepened, there will be a rise in the frequency of ships traveling to and from the port.

In 2019, then-Assistant Secretary of the Army for Civil Works R.D. James rejected the ports authority’s initial draft study, saying it needed significant revisions before he would pass along his recommendation to Congress for approval.

James approved an updated study the following year, and the proposed project was later conditionally authorized by Congress.

If the Corps’ recommends the conditionally authorized plan to dredge to 47 feet, then that plan will not have to go back to Congress for approval.

Other alternatives to be studied include either no action, which means the current depth and width of the channel would not be changed, or dredging to a depth of 46 feet.

If the Corps recommends an alternative aside from the conditionally authorized plan, then that recommendation will have to go to Congress for approval.

It would be several years before dredging would begin after — or if — the Corps recommends the project.

The public has through July 22 to submit comments to the Corps, which has provided a list of considerations people consider in their comments, including suggestions related to the evaluation of impacts to resources, concerns for themselves and their communities, resources that should be evaluated in the draft environmental impact statement, potential project opportunities, suggestions to alternatives being evaluated in the study, data, studies or reports that would support the analysis in the study, and any information missing in the study.

Once a draft environmental impact statement is released, the Corps will open a 45-day public comment period on that study. The public review and comment period is expected to open in late 2025.

A final environmental impact statement is projected to be released fall 2026.

Public comments may be submitted via any one of the following ways:

• Online.
• Email WilmingtonHarbor403@usace.army.mil.
• Mail to: U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Wilmington Harbor 403, 69 Darlington Ave., Wilmington, NC  28403.

WILMINGTON — The N.C. Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Air Quality said Wednesday it had granted a Title V air quality permit to CTI of North Carolina Inc. for its newly acquired Wilmington Terminal.

On Dec. 1, Colonial Terminals Inc., a division of Savannah-based Colonial Group Inc., acquired the Buckeye Terminal at 1312 S. Front St. on the Cape Fear River. The terminal, which has about 550,000 barrels of storage capacity, is next to an existing bulk terminal that CTI owns and operates.

The new air quality permit increases the permit class for the facility from synthetic minor to Title V, which the division said was required due to the ownership change. CTI of North Carolina’s neighboring major source bulk chemical terminal with its own Title V air quality permit at 1002 S. Front St., and the former Buckeye Terminal are now considered a single entity for permitting purposes.

The division said the new permit does not include any physical or operational changes. CTI plans to continue operating the Wilmington Terminal facility with the existing throughput limits and existing control devices, including vapor combustion units that reduce emissions of volatile organic compounds. Emissions will not increase, officials said.

As a major source Title V facility, the Wilmington Terminal, according to the division, is now subject to more frequent inspections and more stringent reporting and recordkeeping requirements. The final permit includes conditions that ensure ambient levels of all pollutants beyond the facility’s fence line comply with emission standards, including applicable health-based standards.

CTI said in December that the deal increased its storage infrastructure in Wilmington to more than a million barrels, 70 acres and over a half mile of river frontage. The terminals store products including industrial and specialty chemicals and petroleum.

“Wilmington is a gateway to the growing Southeastern US market, and we believe this acquisition strongly positions our team to support current and new customer growth far into the future,” said CTI President Ryan Chandler, in the December announcement.

With the addition of the new facility, CTI now operates seven terminals, five in Georgia and two in Wilmington, with a total liquid capacity of approximately eight million barrels and a total dry capacity of approximately 200,000 tons of vertical storage, 400,000 square feet of covered flat storage, and significant outside storage acreage. Each terminal is strategically located in close proximity to a world-class container port and provides access to ocean and landside (road and rail) logistics networks, as well as global and regional sourcing and distribution pathways.

The division said it conducted enhanced public engagement to solicit comments on a draft of the air permit, sharing project information in English and Spanish with local governments, health departments, places of worship, schools, day cares and community organizations.

Division staff thoroughly reviewed the comments received and addressed all comments in the final permit review, according to the announcement.

Copies of the final permit, final permit review, final environmental justice report, permit application, and a one-page project fact sheet are available online.

NAGS HEAD — What was lacking in Oregon Inlet Fishing Center’s unadorned functionality was made up for in its singular location at the edge of Outer Banks’ premier fishing grounds.

For decades, fishers, campers and folks just watching the fleet come back through the ocean bar after a day offshore stopped at the marina on the northwest side of the inlet, which provides passage between the Pamlico Sound to the Atlantic under the high span of the Basnight Bridge.

Now, the 70-year-old fishing center’s retail tackle shop and charter reservation business will relocate to a new, two-story, climate-resilient building that is elevated 11 feet above ground and topped by a metal roof that can withstand 150 mph winds. Inside, a restaurant run by award-winning chefs and a full retail area on the first floor, and offices and an event room with a deck on the second floor.

“At the end of the day here, we have the best charter fleet up and down the East Coast, if not the country,” Russ King, managing operator of Oregon Inlet Fishing Marina LLC, said before a ceremonial ribbon-cutting Monday morning. “And we now are going to have facilities that match. So, with that, we’re really hoping to make a true destination for the family, for the customer experience, for people coming to the national seashore.”

For the majority of the time the 1950s fishing center has been at Oregon Inlet, it was operated by a group of stockholders that was originally 22 of the who’s who of famed Outer Banks’ fishing boat captains, including Omie Tillett, Billy Brown, Warren O’Neal, Buddy Canady, Lee Perry, Arvin Midgett, Rudolph Peele and Tony Tillett.

In earlier days, the captains had moored in a ditch near the current Pirate’s Cove Marina before establishing a small outpost at the Oregon Inlet location. After Cape Hatteras National Seashore, which encompasses the Oregon Inlet area, was established in 1953, the Oregon Inlet Fishing Center, LLC, partners operated the marina under a concession agreement with the National Park Service.

But the partnership, stressed by changes over the decades, eventually failed to reach terms to renew the agreement with the park service. In December 2018, the agency announced that it had executed a lease with Oregon Inlet Marinas, LLC to operate and maintain the fishing center.

In an open letter after the announcement, Capt. Kenneth Brown, president of Oregon Inlet Fishing Center Inc., recalled the joy the center provided to the many visitors who came to see the catch of the day or admire the custom vessels at the docks.

“Regardless of the reason, Oregon Inlet Fishing Center has offered family and friends the opportunity to spend time together and make lasting memories,” the letter said. “We have seen our customers return year after year and measure success in their patronage. For that we say thank you.” 

At the time of the transfer, according to a park service press release, Oregon Inlet Fishing Center was comprised of a 60-slip marina, seven buildings totaling 7,369 square feet, around 7.4 acres of land, a parking lot with about 220 spaces, six vessel fuel pumps, one vehicle fuel pump, and associated fuel system and storage. A public boat ramp and the parking lot were managed by the park service. 

The center’s annual gross receipts were $3.38 million in 2014, $3 million in 2015, and $2.93 million in 2016, according to the park service.

“The Oregon Inlet Fishing Center and the talented captains docking at the marina have put Oregon Inlet on the map as one of the best offshore fishing destinations in the world,” David Hallac, superintendent of National Parks of Eastern North Carolina, said in the statement.

The park service’s request for proposals required the lessee, managed by Russell King, to create “a safe, sustainable, environmentally sound and resilient marina bulkhead” for operations.

According to terms of the 20-year lease, the company will pay 5% of gross receipts and an annual fixed fee of $40,000 to the park service.

In turn, Oregon Inlet Marinas would be authorized to continue the fishing center operations, including renting slips to charter fishing vessels, headboats, tour boats and dive boats, as well as large commercial and government vessels. Sales of food and alcoholic and nonalcoholic beverages, and special events associated with the use of the marina are also permitted.

Replacement of the bulkheads along the 1,700-linear-foot marina began in 2019, King said in a media tour before the ribbon-cutting. The marina, which is expected to open in early May, will offer in-slip fueling with nonethanol gas or diesel at the 60 slips, and a reinforced 17-foot bulkhead.

A 60-foot-long test section of the boardwalk is made of Titan decking, a resilient composite material that allows drainage. A 90-foot-long transient dock, which along with a dock walkway, is built with marine treated wood and reinforced with multiple pilings to protect the marina from vessel strikes.

““This dock is not going anywhere,” King said. “What we wanted to do was create a more safe experience for the charter boats.”

In addition, the park service will replace the asphalt in the parking lot and add improved stormwater drainage.

Construction of the nearly 10,000-square-foot building started in June 2022 where the original center had once stood, before it was severely damaged by the infamous Ash Wednesday Storm in 1962.

The old building was renovated by the new operators so customers could still be served in the interim. That building, which was expanded at its current site across from the U.S. Coast Guard Station, will be demolished and an open-air pavilion, owned by the King family, will be installed.

The new fishing center, designed by Beacon Architects of Kill Devil Hills, is notably more expansive than the modest former fishing center. On the 5,600 square-foot first floor, there’s a retail store, operated by Oceans East Bait and Tackle, a dedicated charter reservation area and a restaurant that offers counter service and provides takeout food and “tackle box” meals.

The restaurant, Sea Chef Dockside Kitchen is already open, serving its all-day menu from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. six days a week, said Mac Buben, half of the father-son chef team running the eatery.

Jeff Buben, a 45-year veteran of the restaurant business, is an award-winning chef who worked in New York City and Washington, D.C., restaurants before moving last year to the Outer Banks. 

His son, Mac Buben, who most recently worked at Blue Point restaurant in Duck, said the building will be open early for pre-dawn fishing trip departures, when “tackle box” breakfasts and sandwiches will be available.

Hours of operation, he said, will be adjusted and expanded as time goes on.

“It’s a soft landing, if you will,” Buben said.

On the 4,000-square-foot second floor, along with administrative offices, there is a conference/event room with a capacity of 50, that opens to a large open-air deck.

“And what I consider the best view on the Outer Banks,” King added, as he stepped outside and pointed to each part of the panoramic view. “You see the ocean here, you see the sound here, you see the lighthouse right here.”

And soon, visitors will be seeing many a glorious sunrise and sunset from those decks.

PBS North Carolina is holding a special screening of a film featuring residents who are adapting to the changing climate.

“State of Change: Seeds of Hope” will be shown at 7 p.m. Thursday, April 4. There is no charge to attend the event to be held in the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh and virtually, but registration is required.

Part of the Pulitzer Center’s nationwide Connected Coastlines reporting initiative, the film set to premier on PBS NC April 22 shows how “these innovators are facing the challenges of climate change with perseverance and ingenuity,” the release states.

Frank Graff, producer and host of PBS North Carolina’s “Sci NC,” is to moderate a discussion with the following panelists to provide an up close look at climate change issues after the screening:

• Michelle Lotker, executive producer, “State of Change: Seeds of Hope.”
• Kathie Dello, director, NC State Climate Office, co-director, NOAA’s Carolinas Climate Adaptation Partnership.
• Mary Alice Holley, director of community innovation, Conservation Trust of North Carolina.
• Steve Kalland, executive director, NC Energy Collaborative.
• Ajulo Othow, founder and CEO of EnerWealth Solutions, attorney and board member, Center for Progressive Reform.
• Jacob Rutz, lecturer of agroecology, Department of Environmental Studies, Elon University.

The showing is being supported by the North Carolina Science Festival and in partnership with the North Carolina Museum of Natural Sciences.

The public is invited to an event next week to celebrate planned renovations of the more-than-century-old Mattamuskeet Lodge.

The event is set for 2 p.m. Tuesday, Feb. 13, on the lodge grounds at 1 Mattamuskeet Road, Swan Quarter.

The $6.5 million, state-funded initial phase of renovations is part of a long-term plan to turn the lodge into an educational and event center.

Related: Hyde County agency’s future home may be key to saving it

The lodge on the state’s largest natural lake is part of the Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuge.

The lake itself was drained in the early 20^th century so that its bed could be farmed, a short-lived venture. The lodge housed the pumps used to drain the lake.

The North Carolina Department of Transportation’s Ferry Division and the state employment agency are hosting five career fairs across eastern North Carolina, starting this week in Shallotte.

The Brunswick County career fair is 10 a.m. to 3 p.m. Wednesday at the Brunswick County Career Center, 5300-7 Main St., Shallotte.

Career fairs are also scheduled for the following dates and locations:

• Feb. 12 at the Beaufort County Career Center in Washington.
• Feb. 21 at the NC Works Career Center in Wilmington.
• Feb. 28 at the NC Works Career Center in Morehead City.
• March 6 at the College of the Albemarle in Manteo.

Applications will be accepted for current and future positions at all skill levels, including entry-level parking lot attendants, office staff, shipyard tradespeople and experienced boat captains. Temporary and full-time permanent positions are available.

Officials said that benefits of Ferry Division employment include the following:

• Competitive salaries.
• Year-round, full-time permanent employment.
• Shift housing available at some locations.
• Health insurance.
• Recruitment bonuses.
• Retirement benefits.
• Paid vacation, holidays and sick leave.

People interested in attending the job fair should bring resumes, references and supporting documents. Representatives from the Ferry Division will be on hand to explain the various positions available and opportunities for advancement.

To see jobs available with the Ferry Division, visit the state jobs website and search “Ferry.” Then continue to visit the site, as new ferry jobs are added regularly.

For more information, call 252-463-7027.

Enviva, a wood pellet producer with a huge economic and environmental footprint in North Carolina, is teetering on the edge of financial collapse.

In a continuation of months of bad financial news for the multinational corporation, Fitch Ratings, a global credit-rating agency, last week downgraded Enviva Inc.’s default rating and unsecured debt rating, reflecting a missed interest payment on Jan. 16 of $24.4 million.

“This development follows worsening operating losses and Enviva’s announcement last fall of substantial doubt regarding its ability to continue as a going concern,” Fitch said in its Jan. 19 report. “Considerable uncertainty exists regarding Enviva’s ability to renegotiate uneconomic customer contracts entered into 4Q22 and the company’s related $300 million liability.”

Enviva is now in a 30-day grace period, the report said. If the interest is not “cured” next month, it said, the company is at risk of default and also is vulnerable to further rating downgrades. 

“Obviously, they are in dire straits,” Scot Quaranda, communications director with Dogwood Alliance, an Asheville-based environmental group and major critic of Enviva, said in a recent interview. “They bet on their own future in the futures market and they failed.”

But it’s not yet known what the impact of the Maryland-based company’s fiscal woes could be to the state and the rural communities where thousands of workers are employed.

Bryant Buck, executive director of the Mid-East Commission, which provides support to local governments in Hertford, Bertie, Martin, Beaufort and Pitt counties, said he had not heard that Enviva was having financial difficulty, but he said the potential of job cuts or operation downsizing is a concern.

“Any business loss in Hertford County certainly sparks my interest,” he said. “We want to do everything we can from our role in helping them. We really want to keep our economy going in all of our regions.”

An Enviva spokeswoman declined to elaborate on the company’s situation.

“At this time, we have no further comment beyond the information that is already publicly available on our IR website,” Maria Moreno, Enviva’s vice president of communications and public affairs, said in an emailed response to Coastal Review.

According to Enviva’s website, manufacturing plants in North Carolina, which are operated around the clock, seven days a week, are located in Ahoskie, Hertford County, where the permitted annual production capacity is 410,000 metric tons; in Garysburg, Northampton County, with 750,000 metric tons of permitted capacity per year; and in Faison, Sampson County, with 600,000 metrics tons permitted per year. Each of those sites store and ship the wood pellets from the Port of Chesapeake, Virginia.

An additional site in Hamlet, Richmond County, is permitted to produce 600,000 metric tons per year, but those pellets are stored and shipped from the Port of Wilmington.

Other Enviva plants in the Southeast are in Georgia, Mississippi, Florida, South Carolina and Virginia.

Elly Cosgrove, communications manager at North Carolina Ports, redirected questions about the business’s shipping to the company.

“Enviva has been a long-standing tenant at the Port of Wilmington and remains current on all their payments,” she said in an email response to Coastal Review. “We can only speak to the lease as we are the lease holder.”

As a result of the European Union’s Renewable Energy Directive issued in 2009, biomass — such as wood pellets — was classified as a renewable energy. That decision spurred rapid growth of the pellet industry in the U.S., largely in the Southeast.

Enviva describes itself as “the world’s largest producer of sustainable wood pellets, a renewable alternative to coal,” and a “global energy company specializing in sustainable wood bioenergy.” It also characterizes burning wood pellets as “a low-carbon alternative to fossil fuels.”

But the global environmental community contends the industry is, if anything, a prime example of greenwashing, with its practice of clearcutting forests and creating air pollution.

“I can’t think of anything that harms nature more than cutting down trees and burning them,” William Moomaw, professor emeritus of international environmental policy at Tufts University, said in a July 2021 CNN article.

A November 2022 class action lawsuit against Enviva filed in U.S. District Court in Maryland by stockholders accuses the company of misrepresenting the environmental impact of its business as well as its financial integrity.

“Specifically, Defendants made false and/or misleading statements and/or failed to disclose that: (i) Enviva had misrepresented the environmental sustainability of its wood pellet production and procurement; (ii) Enviva had similarly overstated the true measure of cash flow generated by the Company’s platform; (iii) accordingly, Enviva had misrepresented its business model and the Company’s ability to achieve the level of growth that Defendants had represented to investors; and (iv) as a result, the Company’s public statements were materially false and misleading at all relevant times.”

Despite the legal challenge, the company had around the same time announced plans to expand its footprint in the Southeast.

In 2022, Enviva applied to the state to expand production at its Ahoskie site by a third, to 630,000 tons a year.

Environmental justice advocates fought the proposal, saying that the facility was already polluting the air of the small community, which has a large population of Black residents.

In Feb. 2023, the state Department of Environmental Quality issued a modified permit to the facility that made expansion dependent on installation of new air pollution control devices to “substantially reduce emissions of volatile organic compounds, or VOCs, and hazardous air pollutants, or HAPs. This equipment includes a regenerative thermal oxidizer and a regenerative catalytic/thermal oxidizer.

Ahoskie, which was Enviva’s flagship site, has been operating since 2011. Over the years, the state has provided incentive funds, including grants, to several of the sites.

The most recent report Enviva filed in 2022 with the North Carolina Department of Commerce, a requirement of businesses that receive incentive funds, did not reveal any compliance issues, said communications director David Rhoades.

Still, the department is concerned, he said, with “any employer” and its workers in the state.

“We’re aware of the press reports and we monitor performance on a regular basis,” Rhoades said about Enviva.

Kevin Patterson, interim Hertford County manager, said that the county had not received a required notification of any layoffs at the Ahoskie plant, making it difficult to anticipate potential impacts to the community.

“Until we have an idea of what may or may not happen, it’s hard to know what a projection would be,” he said.

But for the time-being, Enviva’s standing, is on shaky ground.

According to a recent USA Today Network article, the company’s stock price has plummeted from about $87 a share in April 2022 to about 80 cents a share in January 2024. Quaranda, with Dogwood Alliance, said it’s possible that Enviva could completely shut down, or the company could find a way to renegotiate its contracts, among other adjustments.

“Without any kind of regulatory pressure to do things right, it’s hard to believe that they’ll not do whatever it takes to remain solvent,” he said.

But the industry has always been “a house of cards,” Quaranda said.

“It’s a false premise to cut down a bunch of trees, burn it, and call it renewable energy,” he said.

HARKERS ISLAND – From hurricane damage to the current proposed rate increase for homeowners insurance, having a home on the North Carolina coast often comes at a price.

To help property owners better understand their current insurance and what it covers, the Down East Resilience Network, a group focused on adaptation and resiliency for the Carteret County communities, held an all-day community roundtable on insurance at the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum and Heritage Center.

Insurance specialists, including Insurance Commissioner Mike Causey, were invited to answer questions, and provide information.

Causey told the crowd that making sure your property is more resistant to storms can help hold down insurance costs.

“I think anything we can do to protect the property from wind damage, storm damage, knowing what to do before, during and after a storm is most important in saving lives and holding down our insurance costs,” Causey said, adding there are grant programs for mitigation.

The about 100 who dropped by throughout Wednesday were able to speak with representatives from the state departments of Insurance and Public Safety, and the North Carolina Insurance Underwriting Association, a tax-exempt coastal property insurance pool, and other insurance specialists.

“I want you to understand that everyone lives in a flood zone. The level of risk varies,” Charlotte Hicks said that morning. The flood insurance consultant said that has been her mantra, “everyone is in the flood zone.”

“I want you to be able to assess your risk. Make a good decision for you. Does every single person in the United States need to buy flood insurance? Probably not, but you need to know what your true level of risk is and whether or not it’s a smart decision for you to make. And I think so many people don’t realize what their risk truly is. And if they did, they would purchase flood insurance and they would not have a problem.”

When asked how a homeowner can best prepare for a natural disaster, Department of Insurance Consumer Complaints Analyst Tim Crawley told Coastal Review that the “number one thing” is to have homeowners insurance in place and understand what’s covered in the policy. He also recommended making sure to keep the structure maintained and let the “cell phone be your friend.”

“Use your phone take a picture of your policy” ahead of the storm, take photos around the home as a way to inventory personal property, he said. “If your house gets decimated, all those papers are gone. You can at least retrieve that from an online cloud.

From a floodplain management perspective, “know your risks,” answered Eryn Futral, a National Flood Insurance Program planner with North Carolina Emergency Management, when asked how a homeowner can best prepare.

“Don’t just look at the flood maps that are available. Look at the other tools that might show you different flooding scenarios depending on storm surge for the type of flooding that you have,” Futral said.

Futral advised asking neighbors and other residents how high waters have been in the past and what types of storm caused flooding. She also recommended online resources such as the North Carolina Flood Inundation Mapping and Alert Network, or FIMAN, a flood-risk information system, and the NC Floodplain Mapping Program.

Department of Insurance Regional Director Jessica Gibbs added that there is a waiting period to buy flood insurance. “Some people will try to buy it right before the hurricane hits, which is never the best.”

It’s also unavailable, once a storm enters a prescribed geographic window. Companies will not put new policies in effect in these situations.

Companies seek big rate hike

Causey, during his remarks, encouraged residents to submit their input during the public comment period ending Feb. 2 on the North Carolina Rate Bureau’s proposed rate increase of 42.2% statewide. The requested increase includes a 99.4% hike for beach areas in Brunswick, Carteret, New Hanover, Onslow and Pender counties.

The most recent rate increase request was in November 2020, when the Rate Bureau sought an overall average increase of 24.5%. That resulted in a settlement between Causey and the Rate Bureau for an overall average rate increase of 7.9%, according to Department of Insurance website.

Causey explained the rate bureau system to the 50 or so at the waterfowl museum Wednesday. The association representing insurance industry interests was created by the North Carolina General Assembly in 1977, and any insurance company that writes business in the state must be a member. When insurance companies want to raise rates on car or homeowners insurance, they’re required by state law to submit a rate filing to the Department of Insurance, which can be 2,000 to 3,000 pages that actuaries must then comb through.

The rate bureau this year is “asking for a whopping increase on homeowners averaging 42% statewide, but is almost 100% on some of our coastal areas, from Carteret down to Brunswick County,” he said.

As required, the department has scheduled a public hearing for 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. Monday, Jan. 22, in Raleigh’s Albemarle Building. There is a virtual hearing taking place at the same time.

About 6,000 people have sent letters and emails so far with their opinion on the proposed homeowners rate increase, Causey said.

At the end of the roundtable Wednesday afternoon, Causey reiterated to Coastal Review that “the rate increase is a proposal, and not a done deal. We have a long way to go and the people need to let their voices be heard.”

The public can email comments to 2024Homeowners@ncdoi.gov, or by mail to Kimberly W. Pearce, Paralegal III, by Feb. 2 and addressed to 1201 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC 27699-1201.

All public comments will be shared with the North Carolina Rate Bureau. If Department of Insurance officials do not agree with the requested rates, the rates will either be denied or negotiated with the North Carolina Rate Bureau. If a settlement cannot be reached within 50 days, the Commissioner will call for a hearing, according to a release from Causey’s office.

‘A few major factors’

North Carolina Rate Bureau Chief Operating Officer Jarrod Chappell responded to Coastal Review Wednesday in an email that the rate indications in the filing were “being driven by a few major factors reflected in the data,” including rising costs to repair homes.

“We have all seen high rates of inflation in numerous aspects of our lives recently and construction supplies are not immune to that,” Chappell said.

He cited rising labor costs in the construction market since the last filing and noted greater demand than supply in the construction labor market.

“The largest driver overall, however, is reinsurance costs. Homeowners insurance companies must buy reinsurance to cover catastrophic claim exposures and their costs for reinsurance have risen roughly 50% per year over the last 3-4 years,” he said in the email. “This is primarily due to climate change and increased population/exposures in North Carolina. This is especially a problem in the coastal communities where they have the greatest exposure to hurricanes.”

Chappell said it’s the rate bureau’s statutory responsibility to collect data from the insurance companies on any policies written in the state and use that data to determine an adequate rate that will maintain a healthy insurance market for consumers.

“At this point, NCRB has supplied that data to the Commissioner of Insurance with the rate indications. The Commissioner will now review that data and ultimately determine what an appropriate rate should be. Consumers should expect to hear a response from the Commissioner within the next two months where he can either accept the changes as indicated or order a hearing to discuss it further. We have requested an August 1, 2024 effective date for the new rates, but the process often takes much longer than that,” he continued.

As a homeowner, Chappell said he understands the concerns about the numbers they’re seeing in the news. He advised shopping around.

“One thing people should keep in mind is that the Rate Bureau sets a base rate that insurance companies then deviate off of in order to price individual risks accordingly. What that means in the market, is that many homeowners policies are already priced with adequate rates and any change to the base rate will have little to no impact on them,” Chappell said. “We are lucky to have a very competitive insurance market in NC, because it helps keep our rates lower than many other similar states around the country. Maintaining an adequate base rate is critical to keeping that market as competitive as possible.”

WILMINGTON – More than 127 million people, 40% of the population, live in America’s coastal communities where rising seas and more frequent, intense coastal storms are challenging convention.

Here to take on those challenges is a growing workforce of entrepreneurs tapping into what proponents and practitioners call the blue economy.

The blue economy is collectively defined by the World Bank and U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or NOAA, as the sustainable use of ocean resources to grow coastal economies while preserving the ocean’s ecosystem.

America’s blue economy in 2019 supported more than 2 million jobs and contributed nearly $400 billion to the nation’s gross domestic product through things like tourism and recreation, commercial and recreational fishing, power generation and research, according to NOAA.

The blue economy that year outpaced the country’s economy “in its entirety,” the administration said.

The University of North Carolina Wilmington’s Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, or CIE, has taken notice and, since 2020, been ramping up a program to promote blue economic-driven initiatives.

“I think the one way that I would say we are evolving is toward the ocean innovation space, the blue economy,” CIE Director Heather McWhorter said.

CIE was created a decade ago following a request from Wilmington Chamber of Commerce officials to the university’s then-Chancellor Gary Miller.

“At that time in Wilmington there wasn’t a place for entrepreneurs to gather,” McWhorter explained.

The center, located a short distance from the main campus on College Road, is part of the university’s research and innovation, assisting entrepreneurs in the community as well as faculty and student entrepreneurs.

One aspect of CIE that makes it particularly unique is its mentor program, which consists of 140 volunteer mentors who can share personal experiences from starting their own businesses.

Though some of the volunteers actively work, many are retirees who moved from northern cities to New Hanover County for its beaches and warmer climate.

“We have this incredible knowledge and people who have scaled businesses and been leaders of companies to work with people with ideas that are getting started and I would call that one of our signature programs just because we can help so many different types of entrepreneurs along that journey,” McWhorter said.

In 2022, CIE served 236 entrepreneurs, who, in turn, created 50 jobs and raised $25 million.

Roughly 10% of those entrepreneurs were aiming for startups in the blue economy.

“I think it has grown and we want to continue to grow that. That’s really a huge opportunity for us a region, as a state,” McWhorter said.

CIE hosted last month an Ocean Innovation Conference, an on-campus event that sold out to an audience who listened to discussions from entrepreneurs, scientists and researchers about ocean-based innovation and technology, investment opportunities in those innovations, and ventures being undertaken to preserve ocean resources.

Wilmington last year ranked No. 2 worldwide among cities with populations between 100,000 and 300,000 by StartupBlink, a global startup ecosystem mapping and research center.

This region’s entrepreneurs are solving big problems, McWhorter said.

There’s OpiAID, a life science company that creates personalized plans for people in addiction treatment; SeaTox Research Inc., which was founded in 2013 by a UNCW clinical research professor and her husband, uses marine resources to develop natural products into new bio-actives and better methods to test for toxins that can contaminate commercial seafood; and Local Catch, an app that connects people and businesses within the commercial fishing industry to buy and sell local seafood.

“They’re solving the opioid crisis. They are taking on other sustainability issues, but what I would say is that everyone here loves the ocean and that’s why they came here,” McWhorter said.

So, she’s sparking in entrepreneurs the idea of solving problems related to the ocean and the opportunities associated with solving those problems “in a big way.”

“It’s not simply picking up plastic on the beach,” McWhorter said. “These problems are big and complicated and need to be thought of in a big way for big solutions. How can we get entrepreneurs, businesses, citizens, retirees, all of the above interested in this idea of problem solving related to the ocean and coastal resiliency of where we live. I know blue economy can be bigger because there are opportunities and it’s not about taking from the ocean, it’s about helping the ocean. It’s about problems like how we can work with this wonderful resource that we have, but also the business model has to be viable.”

CIE has a startup incubator that helps startups by providing workspace, mentoring and training, and seed money, and offers programs for entrepreneurs pursuing high-tech and science-based companies.

There’s a pitch coach to help entrepreneurs refine what they present their ideas to specific audiences, raise capital, or raise federal grant funding.

Every Wednesday, CIE offers a networking opportunity at 9 a.m. The center offers help with grant applications as well.

The region has what McWhorter said is a “gargantuan opportunity” to expand blue economic opportunities.

Wilmington’s geographic location to the ocean and intricate system of waterways, the strength of the university’s research base — UNCW’s Center for Marine Science has more than 120 researchers alone — and Cape Fear Community College’s workforce development puts it at an advantage to potentially become a leader in ocean innovation.

“There isn’t a blue economy hub between Boston and Miami and so if we could really start thinking about innovative approaches more here in Wilmington, perhaps that could be us,” McWhorter said. “We still have work to do. When you’re building an economy that takes time. We have volunteers that have really helped to guide thought around that, but I think at this point it is about continuing to get the right partners around the table that can help to spark this.”

Second in a series on the Albemarle region’s environmental-economic connections.

Attorney General Josh Stein was at the Tall Glass of Water county park in Bertie County last month to meet with four groups whose projects had benefited from the Environmental Enhancement Grants that his office had awarded in eastern North Carolina.

The EEG funds are through a 25-year agreement the state and Smithfield Farms entered into in 2000 as part of a settlement stemming from hog waste pollution caused by company farms. The grants have been awarded since 2002.

Although advocates say EEGs have had an effect wherever they have been awarded, for Tall Glass of Water, the impact was particularly significant.

“The environmental enhancement money helped with the outdoor spaces that needed to be repaired,” Robin Payne told Coastal Review in an interview shortly after the Stein visit. Payne has been the facilitator for the project for the county since late 2019.

Those funds are what enabled Dr. Bo Dame, professor of biology and physical sciences at Chowan University, to bring his students to Tall Glass of Water as part of an ongoing restoration and study program of the site’s environment.

“We were asked to help with planning for wetland restoration … establish an ecological monitoring program. That program has a very strong water quality component to it,” he told Stein, adding that he hoped the program could eventually be a part of the local school system’s curriculum. “The idea is that we would implement that monitoring program until the restoration was done and a little bit beyond that, and then hand it over to the (local) schools.”

Sometime next month, the first phase of the Tall Glass of Water park is expected to be completed. The restrooms will be ready, the wheelchair-accessible ramp to the beach will be built, picnic tables in place, and a site the Tall Glass of Water website describes as “unlike anywhere else in Northeastern North Carolina” will be fully opened to the public.

The next phase is to feature an outdoor performance area.

It is a lush, scenic site. An open field gives way to high bluffs that overlook the river. There is a sandy beach that extends for 2,200 feet. Looking south along the beach, the Chowan River has carved deeply into the soil, creating shear bluffs 20 feet high in places. Tree roots are exposed, looping out of the dirt then back into the bluff.

The county purchased the property in 2016 in part thanks to a North Carolina Parks and Recreation Trust Fund grant. With its natural beauty and setting, it is, Payne said, the best possible fit for a county park.

“Bertie County looked at their assets, and they’re all nature-based assets,” she said.

It is a point of view that marine geologist Dr. Stan Riggs addressed during Stein’s visit.

“When I came in here, what became obvious, is that this is a world-class water system that surrounds Bertie County,” Riggs said. “So let’s look at the resources here … and what can we do with these with respect to long-term ecotourism and sustainability.”

Asked about Riggs’ contribution to Bertie County, Payne told the Coastal Review that his vision for the county extended well beyond the 147 acres at the site.

“Bertie County has such a wealth of natural resources and their geological history, there’s just so much there that’s worth protecting and (Riggs) has been a dynamo in helping the county do it,” she said.

Walking with the attorney general along the bluff, Riggs explained the geographical and ecological history of the area. As Stein and the other group members came to a trail that would eventually cut through a heavily forested part of the site, Riggs explained how important it was to understand what the county and state had at Tall Glass of Water.

At the base of the hills, the dark waters of a swamp reflected water tupelo, common spatterdock and other trees that thrive in a wetland environment.

“These are incredible ravines and they’re so steep that they could never be logged,” Riggs said. “This is probably one of the most perfect examples of a mature North Carolina hardwood forest. You’ve got a few big trees, you’ve got middle-sized trees, you’ve got new, young growth. This has probably never been logged, because there’s plenty of wood out here on the flatlands.”

Especially at the north end of the site where the swamp lies, the Tall Glass of Water project has been called ambitious.

“The TGOW Wetlands Restoration Northern Boundary project goal is to reestablish pre-agriculture hydrology and plant communities that support the healthy functioning of the incised ephemeral stream for improved water quality and habitat,” the Tall Glass of Water website states.

But for Bertie County, the Tall Glass of Water project represents more than environmental rehabilitation.

Some 2 miles of trails wind their way through the forests and wetlands. Almost surrounded by Salmon River Natural Area, the trails on the north end connect with a trail leading into the natural area.

The beach is relatively narrow, but the sand is soft and with 2,200 feet along the Chowan River, public access to water activities on the river are available for the first time in the county’s history, something Bertie County Board Chair Ron Wesson who grew up in the county, said is particularly important.

“I’ve never had access because there’s never been a public access on the Albemarle Sound,” he said. “There’s been a lot of private beach clubs, but kids like me when I grew up here, you could never access any of those. So having a public source access to the sound is very important for us.”

Although the EEG award has been invaluable in completing the first phase of Tall Glass of Water, Payne emphasized that it is not the only grant or source of funding for the project. The U.S. Department of Agriculture was also involved.

“The USDA paid for planning money and then the Environmental Enhancement (Grant) helped with the outdoor spaces that needed to be repaired,” she said. “And then the county, through legislative appropriation, and some of their ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act) funds were able to cobble together the entire picture.”

The money to complete the project though is just one part of the picture. Asked about the long-term maintenance of Tall Glass of Water, Wesson, the board chair, was emphatic that the county understood that it would take a commitment on their part.

“We would not have gone down this road unless we were sure that this is something that was not a just a short-term venture, but a long-term venture, decades really, because we need to make sure there is a reason to come to Bertie County,” he said.

Next in the series: Testing the waters.

First in a series on the Albemarle region’s environmental-economic connections.

Standing on a bluff overlooking the Chowan River at Bertie County’s Tall Glass of Water outdoor education site, North Carolina Attorney General Josh Stein spoke last month about the North Carolina Environmental Enhancement Grants, or EEGs, what they have meant to communities, and what they have meant to him personally.

Stein, speaking during the May 4 event, said awarding EEGs is one of the most fun things he gets to do as attorney general. Addressing organizations selected for the EEGs, he said being able to support the good work of community organizations and civically minded folks was tremendous.

“To see these funds pour back into North Carolina … using a whole variety of different strategies … It’s my privilege to be able to do this work and it’s certainly my pleasure to do this work,” Stein said.

Earlier this year: State announces millions for park accessibility grants

The EEG program was part of a binding agreement in 2000 between Smithfield Foods and the state calling for the hog producer to phase out the use of open-air hog lagoons. As part of that agreement, Smithfield agreed to provide up to $2 million per year for 25 years of environmental projects across the state.

The EEG program began distributing grants in 2002.

“So far, we’ve done something like 210 projects in excess of $40 million,” Stein said.

Stein noted in his remarks that most, though not all, of the Environmental Enhancement Grants have been focused on eastern North Carolina, and the grants he came to Bertie County to talk about are specific to the area. The Albemarle Resource Conservation and Development Council received a grant to study algal blooms on the Chowan River, and the Audubon Society is applying a $98,000 grant to wetland restoration in Currituck County.

For many of the grants, the most apparent outcomes are visible. That is the case at Tall Glass of Water, as trails are cleared and much-needed unimpeded access to the beach becomes a reality.

For Bertie County, a Tier 1, or most-distressed county on the North Carolina Department of Commerce’s ranking of counties’ economic well-being, and facing a recent spate of violent crime, six murders this year, at least one of the grants may come to represent the human benefits of environmental enhancements.

The EEG funding for the Bertie County Hive House Virtual Learning Center at 103 Mitchell St. in Lewiston Woodville will create a green space from 4 acres of meadow, overgrown with invasive species and with limited access. But for Vivian Saunders, executive director of the Hive House, the grant, she explained to Stein, is more than just open space for the small town on the west side of the county.

Saunders spoke about “the unfortunate deaths” in Bertie County in the last couple of months, referring to the six homicides in 2023.

“What we’re going to try to do is … get our young people involved in some outdoor workforce-development training so we can get them outside (instead) of playing games and being on video games,” she said. “We’re trying to transform our young people’s minds from sitting in the house staying on video games to being back outside and around nature.”

Saunder’s remarks sparked an almost immediate response from Stein.

“That’s a wonderful articulation of the relationship of kids and mental health and nature,” he said.

Lewiston Woodville was once a small but thriving crossroads town. That was a long time ago. The few businesses that once lined the streets are now closed and falling into disrepair. The only open business by the crossroads is a gas station and convenience store. The paint on the front of the building is chipped and fading. On the west side of town is natural gas infrastructure where maintenance work in May produced a seemingly ceaseless din of venting gas and flame that resembled the sound of a jet engine.

The Bertie County Hive House, at the corner of Mitchell and Cashie streets, is just off the town crossroads. It is a rambling old house that Saunders has made into a gathering place for anyone who wants to come.

The house, Saunders said, was donated to her by her pastor, Dr. Gary Cordon. When she first got it, the house was not in very good shape, but a grant from Perdue Farms, the largest employer in Bertie County, paid for its rehabilitation.

“Perdue, they did the total renovations,” she emphasized.

The Hive House, as Saunders describes it, is a safe place, a shelter where people can come for whatever reason, and she added that space is available at almost any time, day or night.

“If you need somewhere to work, or chill, you can just give me a call: ‘Vivian, can I get into the Hive?’ And my people will come and unlock it,” she said.

For Saunders, the issues confronting the county have their roots in poverty and the hopelessness it creates, and she is uncompromising as she paints a picture of the impact on the county’s youth.

“You’re telling me, sitting in school, that I’ve got the whole world ahead of me. And then I go home, and some folks don’t have toilets. I’m in a mobile home, where I can see the dog running underneath. I don’t have lights on. Sometime my mom and dad are working so hard, I don’t get to see them,” Saunders said describing the county’s poverty.

She points out that the county has one of the state’s highest rates of juvenile diabetes related to obesity, an observation that is confirmed in the 2018 Bertie County Community Health Assessment, and to her the key is getting young adults and kids off social media and back outside.

“We got to get these babies back outside, loving nature, loving the community,” she said. “Kids don’t go outside. They want to be on MacBooks, phones and computers. One of the things that I’m going to require (on the green space work), you’ve got to leave that phone alone. You’ve got to go outside. Our project is to actually build that park.”

The work is still in its earliest stages. The design for the 4-acre green space is being handled by North Carolina State University landscape architecture and environmental planning professor Kofi Boone. He agreed that there is concern about the overall health of the community.

“The health disparities facing Bertie County broadly and Lewiston-Woodville specifically are alarming,” he wrote in an email response to Coastal Review. “That includes all sectors but especially seniors and young people. Vivian Saunders and Hive House have also expressed the need for young people to belong to the process and the transformation and see opportunities to look at workforce development associated with green space transformation.

Asked what the potential impact of creating a community green space could be, Boone was cautiously optimistic.

“The issues facing towns like Lewiston-Woodville are complex and beyond the scope of what one green space can solve on its own,” he wrote. “However, green space that can reflect and reinforce community values can engender a spirit of stewardship and care that can offer safe, and healthy open space for people to enjoy.”

That sense of cautious optimism is shared by Bertie County Sheriff Tyrone Ruffin.

“If people utilize it, yes, it will be a good thing for our county,” he said. “But do I think that is the solution to (all) issues? The answer’s no.”

Boone, however, does see the outdoor space as an important component in addressing the overall health of the community. He noted that the health concerns raised by Saunders could potentially be affected by an outdoor area for the community.

“The town does not currently have a public green space. From research, we know that a lack of access to green space can contribute to a lack of physical activity and poorer health outcomes. We know that well designed green space can help support improved physical health and mental wellbeing,” Boone wrote.

The field is going to take some work to create something usable. There are numerous ways to remove invasive species and Boone has not yet come to a decision on the best method.

“We’re going to be working with a number of partners to determine the right approach to handling invasive species. The treatments can vary,” he wrote.

There is also, evidently, material from what was once the West Bertie Elementary School that closed in the 1970s, according to Boone.

Graduate students from the N.C. State School of Landscape Architecture will be on hand to supervise the work, at times spending the night at the Hive House. Saunders mentioned that they are donating their time, and that the only request they made was, “all they’ve asked us to do is keep the fridge full for us.”

The project is still in its earliest stages, yet for Saunders even as the initial steps are taken, she sees hope in the willingness of people to work together to improve conditions in a troubled county.

“I want to thank everyone involved in helping us transform and take back our county from all the negativity that’s been going on,” she said.

Next in the series: A Tall Glass of Water.

This story has been updated to clarify that the moratorium in the C2 district applies to a limited area.

Facing public opposition to a proposed affordable housing development, the Nags Head Board of Commissioners voted 4-1 Wednesday to remove multifamily dwellings as a permissible use in the town’s C2, general commercial zoning district to allow time to develop standards for such development in “appropriate areas of town.”

The board’s action came amid widespread criticism and concerns voiced by residents and nonresident property owners after the unveiling in October of plans for a 4.7-acre, 54-unit workforce housing project at the intersection of U.S. 158 Croatan Highway and East Holloway Street, across from Jockey’s Ridge State Park.

Dare County officials have been pursuing efforts to develop essential and workforce housing. In 2020, business owners and employers were asked to complete a survey on their employees’ housing needs and to identify challenges associated with the shortage of housing options in the county. Last summer, the county contracted with Woda Cooper Companies, which planned to develop the housing units at Nags Head and another 46 units in Manteo.

Nags Head commissioners said the C2 language in the town’s zoning ordinance was contradictory and vague.

The C2 District is a large commercial designation in the town that includes Virginia Dare Trail, which is part of N.C. 12, and Croatan Highway, the town’s segment of U.S. 158, from the Kill Devil Hills corporate limit to South Nags Head. The board in October 2022 adopted a moratorium on all nonresidential development in a section of the C2 district until March 17. The moratorium applies only to the part of C2 within the Historic Character Area between U.S. 158 and N.C. 12 from Hollowell Street to Danube Street.

Numerous people voiced their concerns during the meeting Wednesday about multifamily dwellings in the C2 zone, which they see as their neighborhood of single-family homes.

During the public comment portion of the meeting, Frank Campanale told the board that he had driven from his home in New Jersey to attend and speak out about the project. His remarks reflected the concerns of other residents and property owners — who also acknowledged the need for workforce housing.

“We’re looking to retire (in Nags Head),” Campanale said. “We’re in favor of changing the zoning of the commercial C2 area to eliminate high-density housing … It’s not intended as a gripe or insensitive to the need of supporting businesses. I’ve owned multiple businesses my whole life. I’m just saying you’ve got to optimize where you put that content.”

In remarks following the meeting, Campanale said there are other, more appropriate areas where multifamily dwellings could be developed. “I wouldn’t do it at a state park that’s nationally recognized in a residential neighborhood and then put apartment dwelling in.”

Others said they worried about the scope of the board’s decision. Bobby Harrell, owner of Harrell & Associates, a real estate company in Nags Head, pointed to the effect removing multifamily dwellings from the district could have on critical housing needs of those who work service and other jobs in town. He said research had shown that the Outer Banks Hospital alone needs 40 housing units for employees.

“Elimination of the multifamily in the C2 zone will affect much of the area that will accommodate multifamily housing,” he said.

Mayor Ben Cahoon, who cast the dissenting vote, called the action “a little precipitous,” saying it would eliminate an essential use in a large part of town.

“The C2 is not just the area that’s been referenced repeatedly. C2 is virtually everything between the highways … and much of what borders 158 on the west side of the highway. I understand that we will probably put this back, but we’re taking it off the table without a guarantee that we’re putting it back,” said Cahoon.

In an email to Coastal Review clarifying his concerns, Cahoon noted that the C2 district was the only one in town where multifamily uses were permitted. “I believe we need multi-family housing. But multi-family is now not permitted in the town anywhere. It will take study, a proposed ordinance, and another public hearing to put it back.”

The commissioners who voted to eliminate multifamily buildings pointed to confusing and imprecise language in the existing requirements. They stressed that theirs was not a vote against multifamily zoning, rather they wanted more precise wording and better placement of multifamily units.

“We need to work on our end. Looking at some of the definitions that we’ve got. It contradicts itself in different areas of the of the ordinance,” Commissioner Kevin Brinkley said during the meeting. “I do think we need time to get it right.”

Cahoon, asked whether the vote was a permanent setback for workforce housing, said he was cautiously optimistic.

“It is for the short term. Whether it is or not for the long term, it’s hard to say,” he said. “It’s feasible that the board could adopt some standards that would make it easier to … do workforce housing. I don’t know. That’s speculation, because we don’t know what kind of recommendations are going to come forward as they get adopted.”

The more than 200 glossy-paged Croatan Regional Bicycle and Trails Plan sits among a stack of other bike and trail plans on a shelf in Becca Eversole’s office.

The plan is one Eversole, director of the Down East Rural Planning Organization, describes as ambitious, filled with page after page of suggestions for creating a continuous bike path through the Croatan National Forest that connects to local paths in Carteret, Craven, Jones, Onslow and Pamlico counties.

The plan calls for everything from multiuse trails to dedicated bicycle paths to creating bike-accessible roads by widening shoulders.

“It was very well done. It’s a very technically dense plan. It has a lot of good information on potential bike and pedestrian improvements,” Eversole said.

What’s good on paper has well, for the most part, stayed on paper. Nearly 10 years have passed since the plan was published in 2014.

“That is unfortunately the reality of the situation,” Eversole said.

The state Department of Transportation tends to fund bicycle and pedestrian projects that are associated with roadway projects, so funding for projects proposed in those like the Croatan regional plan are largely covered by local governments, where the vocal support tends to outweigh financial backing. There’s also the matter of political will.

“I would say in general when it comes to our local governments, they certainly support improving bike and pedestrian access in theory, but sometimes the money’s not there. Sometimes other priorities take precedent over improving bike and pedestrian facilities,” Eversole said.

Much of the Croatan Regional Bicycle and Trails Plan’s proposals fall within the boundaries of Carteret County, where there is a strong advocacy group for improving the bicycle network.

Alex McCrary, is a board member of Coastal Bike Impact, a group that aims to expand the number of safe bicycle routes for transportation, recreation and sport in Carteret and surrounding counties.

McCrary said in an email responding to questions that the group does not believe the status of the Croatan Regional Bicycle and Trails Plan “necessarily reflects a lack of priority, political will, or funding issues.”

There are other elements of bicycle and pedestrian plans that are being implemented in the county, he said.

“Realizing a regional bicycle and pedestrian plan is a complex process where certain parts of a plan may be feasible and implemented, but other parts may face constraints such as inadequate rights of way, the need to relocated utilities, or competing needs with other stakeholders,” he said. “The important thing is that the creation of plan is a critical step in the process of actually building out a true multi-modal transportation system.”

The regional plan was created as a result of the East Coast Greenway, a biking and pedestrian route that stretches 3,000 miles from Maine to Florida, connecting 15 states and 450 cities.

“The good thing about the plan is that a lot of what was proposed in it overlaps the East Coast Greenway,” Eversole said.

Because of that, implementing portions of the regional plan may be more cost-effective, she said.

For example, the East Coast Greenway is routed along Arendell Street, Morehead City’s main drag and part of U.S. 70. Planners are looking at creating a route closer to Bogue Sound, a move that would get cyclists away from the busy thoroughfare and onto a more scenic trail.

“This is an improvement that we can make that could be more cost-effective,” Eversole said.

The Carteret County Board of Commissioners earlier this year chartered a bicycle and pedestrian advisory committee to help plan.

“There is no doubt that the creation of a safe, viable bicycle and pedestrian transportation network would provide important recreational, health, and economic benefits to Carteret County,” McCrary said. “Bicycle and pedestrian facilities provide a high quality of life for residents, an opportunity for improving overall population health outcomes, and a big draw for the tourism industry that the county depends on. As projected growth begins to impact the area, bicycle and pedestrian facilities will play an important role in mitigating the congestion associated with that growth.”

The Down East Rural Planning Organization is one of 18 rural planning organizations in North Carolina. These organizations were created to help more effectively spread transportation dollars to rural areas and engage residents of rural areas in the transportation planning process.

The Eastern Carolina Council is the lead planning agency for the Down East organization, which was created in 2002.

The Croatan regional plan includes proposals for trail corridors through the Croatan National Forest and include a preferred route and alignment with the state’s Mountains-to-Sea Trail, which stretches more than 1,100 miles from the Great Smoky Mountains to the Outer Banks.

Proposed projects include expansion and improvements along N.C. 24, U.S. 17 and U.S. 70 as well as N.C. 58 in Carteret and Jones counties, N.C. 101 in Craven and Carteret counties, N.C. 12 in Carteret County and N.C. 306 in Pamlico and Craven counties.

Eversole is currently working on proposals with local partners to further study routes in Carteret, Craven and Pamlico counties. She’s been going to local municipalities to talk about what locals would like in terms of cycling and walking trails.

“At least half of the conversation we have in these meetings is bike and pedestrian projects,” she said. “Those are the projects I want to hear about and those are the projects often I don’t. I feel like it’s been very beneficial for me and our organization.”

She said public meetings will be hosted in Carteret County throughout 2023 for the development of the county’s new comprehensive transportation plan. Residents interested in participating in those meetings may check out eccog.org for more information and online surveys, which will be posted sometime in the spring.

President Joe Biden signed into law this week a sweeping measure that promises to address inflation in part by lowering Americans’ energy costs and bolstering the clean energy economy.

The administration said the new law would reduce the deficit by hundreds of billions of dollars and create millions of good-paying, clean energy jobs. The Inflation Reduction Act also removes the Trump administration’s 10-year moratorium on offshore wind energy leasing.

“That is certainly the most impactful provision for offshore wind for the Southeast that came out of the IRA,” Katharine Kollins, president of the Southeastern Wind Coalition, told Coastal Review Wednesday.

The coalition of developers, manufacturers and labor groups sees vast economic potential in adding leases off the North Carolina coast, beyond the current Kitty Hawk and Carolina Long Bay wind energy areas. 

“There’s still a lot of opportunity for additional leases, even off the coast of North Carolina. And without those, we just can’t maximize the opportunity that offshore wind brings to the Southeast. I think this is a very big deal,” Kollins said.

The House approved the measure Friday, 220-207. Rep. Greg Murphy, a Republican from North Carolina’s 3^rd District, called the bill an “irresponsible liberal spending spree” that “wastes $350 billion on Green New Deal priorities” and would have no effect on inflation.

Rep. Deborah Ross, a Democrat representing North Carolina’s 2^nd District, released a statement noting that she had fought for repeal of the offshore leasing moratorium. 

“I’m especially proud that this package includes a measure I have championed since I first came to Congress to lift the moratorium on offshore wind development in the Southeast, enabling new offshore wind energy projects to move forward that will power homes and create new jobs across North Carolina. This historic legislation puts our state and our nation on a path to a better and brighter future for all,” Ross said.

In the Senate, Vice President Kamala Harris cast the tiebreaking vote Friday with Republicans unanimously opposed.

Biden signed the bill during a White House ceremony Tuesday, calling the measure the most aggressive action taken to confront the climate crisis and strengthen the economy and energy security.

“It’s going to offer working families thousands of dollars in savings by providing them rebates to buy new and efficient appliances, weatherize their homes, get tax credit for purchasing heat pumps and rooftop solar, electric stoves, ovens, dryers,” Biden said. “It gives consumers a tax credit to buy electric vehicles or fuel cell vehicles, new or used. And it gives them a credit — a tax credit of up to $7,500 if those vehicles were made in America.”

The White House said that in North Carolina, there were already 103,854 workers employed in clean energy jobs last year. The act will bring an estimated $2.7 billion of investment in large-scale clean power generation and storage to North Carolina between now and 2030. Tax credits for clean energy include bonuses for businesses that pay prevailing industry wages for those positions.

The administration said the law puts the country on track to meet Biden’s climate goals and save every family an average of $500 per year on their energy costs.

The clean energy provisions will benefit rural electric cooperatives serving 42 million people, strengthen climate resilience and protect nearly 2 million acres of national forests, and reduce pollution while creating millions of good-paying jobs making clean energy in America, the administration said.

Included measures are expected to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by about 1 gigaton by 2030, which the White House said equals 10 times more climate impact than any other single bill ever enacted.

The energy industry sees opportunity, not just in renewables, resulting from the new law. National Ocean Industries Association President Erik Milito said the act also creates a framework for continued development of U.S. offshore oil and gas. 

“No legislation is perfect, but the IRA’s offshore energy provisions will enable continued investment in U.S. energy projects by an industry that is already solving, scaling, and deploying low carbon energy solutions,” Milito said in a statement. 

The association praised the law’s reinstatement of Gulf Coast lease sales for oil and gas that had been blocked.

Kollins, with the Southeast Wind Coalition, said most Americans understand that the country must move toward a cleaner energy future. “And that’s exactly what this bill does. This bill creates a framework where every state in the country can take advantage of the optimal resources that they have for generating clean energy. And as we move toward that cleaner future, I think it’s important that we are placing a strong emphasis on how we do that in the most economically competitive way.”

She said the provisions boost clean technologies and create opportunity for new economies of scale that will over time bring down costs of newer technologies, and that’s been proven with land-based wind and solar generation.

“What we’ve seen in the wind and solar industries over the last decade is, because of some of the early-stage government support, those technologies now stand on their own as the least-cost electricity generation in a number of states where the resource is strong and the supply chain is there. In North Carolina, you can look at solar. Solar generates the cheapest electricity for the state of any resource,” Kollins said.

In addition to solar, Kollins cited the Amazon Wind Farm US East in Pasquotank and Perquimans counties as an example of the benefits renewables bring to local communities. The wind farm that went fully operational in 2017 is the largest taxpayer in the two counties. Kollins said the revenue generated elevates local school systems and improves community services.

“That kind of investment is what really helps rural communities say, ‘Yes, this is this is what we need in our area.’”

Kollins said that removing the 10-year moratorium significantly advances the timeline for offshore wind energy development in numerous ways, particularly in terms of transmission planning, both onshore and offshore, and looking at the mix of resources. But, she said, North Carolina’s seaports need to be investing now in significant upgrades to be able to service the industry and compete with ports in other East Coast states.

Carteret County economic development officials and the North Carolina Ports Authority have touted the authority’s Radio Island property in Morehead City as a potential staging area for offshore turbine construction. Kollins said the authority needs to work more aggressively to lure the offshore industry to North Carolina.

“We’ve heard from a number of companies that the ports authority could do more to ready the ports for the kinds of construction and operations capabilities that will be required to fully support this industry,” she said. “I think we’ve seen a lot of support certainly from the governor’s office in North Carolina — not as much directly from the port.”

Infrastructure investments are also needed to get the power to the land grid. Kollins said that work is underway at the federal level. 

“There’s a lot of discussion and a lot of planning right now by the federal government to look at how we can build a transmission backbone, they’re calling it, so that you don’t have individual lines going from every East Coast project to shore. That’s the most economically or environmentally efficient way to build offshore transmission, if we’re talking about the 30 gigawatts-plus of development over the next few decades,” she said.

Early planning is happening in North Carolina, but Kollins said that states that are further along in the offshore wind development cycle have a significant presence and strategies to ensure that economic benefits go to communities that have been historically negatively impacted by the energy industry.

“The jobs that are based primarily offshore, which are fewer in number than those based onshore, but those that are based primarily offshore have average salaries well over $100,000 a year – clearly family-sustaining wages,” Kollins said. Onshore jobs, including the related manufacturing jobs, also offer good pay, she said. “And I think that this industry is committed to, again, ensuring that they don’t repeat some of the pitfalls that we’ve seen from the more extractive industries in the past.”

The administration noted that climate change disproportionately impacts low-income communities and communities of color. The new law creates a system of environmental justice block grants to address pollution in port communities. It also authorizes projects to protect minority communities from extreme heat, flooding and other climate impacts.

Still, some say more environmental justice protections are needed.

The advocacy group Green Latinos praised passage of the act and its investments in climate, jobs and health, but Green Latinos President and CEO Mark Magaña said the fossil fuel-related “trade-offs” included in the measure are dangerous for Latino communities. More work must be done, he said.

“We are experiencing deadly levels of contamination, pollution, and environmental degradation that will, unfortunately, be exacerbated by the increased fossil fuel exploration, mining, drilling, processing, refining, and transporting that will be realized if the fossil fuel handouts in the bill are not reversed,” Magaña said in a statement. 

Bertie and Hertford counties are among the 19 rural communities chosen for a new, state-led initiative to help increase planning, implementing and managing economic development programs and opportunities. 

The Rural Community Capacity, or RC2, program, is a pilot effort by the North Carolina Commerce Department involving Appalachian State University’s Walker College of Business, the state announced last week.

The first group of participants were welcomed May 24 in Boone.

“As we build on North Carolina’s economic development success, we must make sure that success is shared among both urban and rural communities across our state,” Gov. Roy Cooper said in a statement. “This program will strengthen the ability of local governments in rural communities to secure major economic projects and bolster North Carolina’s economy.”

The RC2 program, part of the Department of Commerce’s broader Rural Transformation Grant program, provides educational programming, technical assistance and guidance to local government staff in rural and distressed communities. 

Funding can go to downtowns impacted by the pandemic, removal and remediation of environmental contaminants or hazards from vacant or abandoned properties by the public sector and cleanups of vacant lots.

“Our rural communities can become stronger and more vibrant places to live and work, but to reach that goal we must build up local governments’ capacity to plan and execute proven economic development strategies,” said North Carolina Commerce Secretary Machelle Baker Sanders. “This new program, part of Commerce’s efforts to transform rural economies, will equip local governments and their staffs with the education, technical assistance, and implementation grants they need to succeed.”

As part of the RC2 process, communities have access to the Commerce Department’s rural planning team for additional training and technical assistance, including a strategic planning process focused on identifying economic development assets and priorities that are specific to each community.

Communities that complete the RC2 campus curriculum and participate in the rural planning process will then be eligible to apply for Community Implementation Grants offered by the Rural Economic Development Division through the new Rural Transformation Grant Fund.

“Success in economic development takes intentional preparation,” said Assistant Secretary for Rural Development Kenny Flowers. “We know the approaches that work well and lay the groundwork for success, and we’re excited to share these best practices with more local government officials.”

Other communities participating in the program include Martin County and the towns of Archdale, Carthage, China Grove, East Spencer, Garysburg, Hildebran, Jonesville, Liberty, Mars Hill, Marshville, Maysville, Pilot Mountain, Rosman, Spruce Pine, Vass and Wilson’s Mills.

More information about the Rural Transformation Grant Fund and the Rural Community Capacity initiative is available at nccommerce.com/transform.

First in a two-part series.

The sun warms the docks in Morehead City as Rebekah Williams stands on the back deck of Southern Salt, a restaurant on Morehead City’s waterfront that serves fresh seafood.

Before her on a table is a heap of oysters from her farm, Bekah’s Bay Oysters, sorted into two piles. The pile of bigger oysters will go inside and be served to guests that evening on the half shell. The others will go back into a floating oyster bag at her lease in a tidal bay near Cape Lookout.

Oyster farming is one of the United States’ most prominent forms of marine aquaculture, and Williams is one of many shellfish farmers in North Carolina. Aquaculture is an expansive industry that encompasses a lot of things — farming fish and shellfish for food is prominent among them. 

New research out of the University of British Columbia in Canada has indicated that while the marine aquaculture industry has huge potential for feeding a growing world population, a significant amount of that potential will be curbed due to climate change if we stay on our current carbon emissions pathway. 

An economically and culturally important industry in North Carolina, aquaculture has the potential to help us adapt to a changing world. But as things like warmer ocean temperatures, storms and landscape changes become more pressing factors, the industry will have to adapt as well.

Room to grow

Previous research indicates that marine aquaculture has tremendous potential when it comes to feeding the growing world population, which is expected to hit 10.9 billion by the end of the century. But whether that potential ever comes into being is another thing altogether.

Many capture fisheries around the world are either at their maximum yield or are close to overextending their capacities. This means there isn’t much room for that industry to grow in order to feed a higher world population.

Dr. Muhammed Oyinlola, lead author of the study published in Global Change Biology, said that while that food pathway is close to maxed out, the marine aquaculture industry is expanding.

“My recent research looked into marine aquaculture, because marine aquaculture production has been increasing over time,” Oyinlola said. “And most people are seeing it as the panacea for (the) decline of fisheries, particularly from the marine environment — how we’re going to increase food production.”

Oyinlola used modeling techniques to project into the future of marine aquaculture. He modeled two main pathways to see how the industry could be impacted by a suite of environmental and socioeconomic factors.

His results indicated that by the end of this century, climate change will be the driving factor influencing the production potential of the industry.

Under the more pressing of the two scenarios, Oyinlola found that global marine aquaculture production could decrease by up to 16% by the year 2090. This projected decrease was mostly driven by factors like warming ocean temperatures and changes in what areas are suitable for aquaculture.

What he found is that the future of the industry, globally, has vastly different possible trajectories. This study highlights the need for strong carbon emission mitigation measures in order to ensure a climate-resilient and economically sustainable future for marine aquaculture.

Climate extremes

The growing global aquaculture industry includes Williams, who jump-started a career in oyster farming about seven years ago. After a bit of trial and error, she started her own business and never looked back. Now, you can find Bekah’s Bay Oysters on the Southern Salt menu as well as with several regional distributors. It’s also not uncommon to see Williams driving around Morehead City in her truck, making dock to door deliveries herself.

Climate change is not part of Williams’ day-to-day train of thought. Between bar shifts at Southern Salt, tending to her oysters on her lease, and renovating homes for Airbnb on the side, Williams has a full schedule. But that’s not to say climate extremes haven’t affected her.

A few years into her business, Williams, like so many others in North Carolina, had to quickly pivot when Hurricane Florence made landfall in 2018.

“You don’t get a big heads-up on a storm,” Williams said. When she realized Florence was going to impact her oysters, she had to act fast.

She went out to her lease and gathered all of the baby oysters, leaving the more mature ones in place. She used a refrigerated trailer to bring them into the restaurant. It was a risk to bring them in, because reintroducing them to the water later on could cause them to die. 

“You’re taking a chance on bringing them in,” Williams said. But then, she didn’t have a lot of other options. “So we were like, ‘well, we’ll try it.’”

Many of the mature oysters she left at her lease did not survive the storm. But her baby oysters did.

“It’s a lot of work. You’re out there in the sun, no power … and you’re doing all this work to save the oysters, and luckily we did and we didn’t have any huge issues.” 

Others weren’t so lucky. In 2018, Hurricane Florence and Tropical Storm Michael caused nearly $10 million in damage to North Carolina’s shellfish industry.

The storm caused damage to gear, and leases were hit with an onslaught of freshwater, which decreased both salinity and dissolved oxygen. For many oyster farmers, it was a huge loss.

Research has shown that, while hurricanes are not new, climate change results in a heightened risk for more intense and more frequent storms. For Williams and many other small business farmers, these storms threaten catastrophic losses. They are a direct threat to the industry’s stability and security.

“It’s tough if you don’t have the resources,” Williams said. “But luckily, having the restaurant and coolers and refrigerators and stuff, we were able to try it and do it. And it did work. So, at least we know now.”

Next in the series: Seeding a future for North Carolina’s shellfish aquaculture industry

Guest commentary

This is the third and final piece in a commentary series by the nonprofit Environmental Defense Fund.

When North Carolina’s recent greenhouse gas inventory was updated earlier this year, it surprised few to see the electric power and transportation sectors account for the vast majority of the state’s climate emissions. And while there have been improvements in fuel-economy and greater adoption of clean energy over the years, a recent report by EDF found that the state is not on track to meet its climate pollution goals without new policies to meet its targets. Gov. Roy Cooper set important goals for the state to slash climate-warming pollution in half by 2030, so it makes sense that the state should first tackle its biggest offenders. Thankfully, there are readily available solutions for the transportation and power sectors that North Carolina can take advantage of to meet its climate goals, bolster the economy, and reduce harmful air pollution.  

When it comes to tackling transportation emissions, new analysis from RTI International, a North Carolina-based nonprofit research institute, shows that adopting clean transportation policies for medium- and heavy-duty (MHD) vehicles can make a big difference toward reaching the state’s climate goals while also offering significant health benefits, and providing billions of dollars of net-benefits to our state’s economy by 2050. Because MHD trucks and buses produce disproportionately more pollution than passenger cars, electrifying this class of vehicles will have an outsized impact on cutting pollution. RTI’s researchers concluded that the implementation of two policies — Advanced Clean Trucks (ACTs) and Heavy-Duty Omnibus (HDO) — could provide total net benefits between $25 billion and $53 billion for North Carolina’s economy by 2050. Improved air quality resulting from these policies provide even greater benefits, amounting to nearly $110 billion in cumulative public health savings for North Carolinians over the same time period. 

Under the Advanced Clean Trucks (ACT) rule, North Carolina would increase the percentage of new zero-emissions trucks purchased in North Carolina each year, beginning with the 2026 model year through 2035. Under the Heavy-Duty Omnibus (HDO) rule, the state would establish declining exhaust emissions standards for heavy-duty vehicles, requiring an additional 75% reduction in emissions starting with model year 2026, and then a 90% reduction beginning in model year 2027. Implementing both of these policies would cut North Carolina’s transportation pollution by nearly half by 2050, which is the equivalent of avoiding the use of roughly 16 billion gallons of diesel fuel or taking 35 million passenger vehicles off the road for a year. 

Cleaning up the power-sector is the linchpin to a clean economy because it unlocks deeper reductions in other sectors that rely on electricity, such as buildings and electric vehicles. Successfully achieving power-sector climate goals is essential to achieving the state’s economy-wide goals. The new North Carolina energy law enacted last fall, HB951, calls on the North Carolina Utilities Commission to develop a Carbon Plan to reduce power-sector pollution. The Commission will need to implement a strong Carbon Plan that puts the power-sector on a firm path to consistently drive down climate pollution, expand the use of clean energy, and meet the 2030 target without delay. 

A program like the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) could also play a key role in driving progress toward North Carolina’s power-sector climate goals, and is currently under consideration by the state’s environmental regulators. RGGI has enabled 11 other eastern states to lower climate pollution from power plants, successfully cutting emissions in half over the past decade. A report published last year by researchers at Duke and UNC found that joining RGGI was the most cost-effective pathway to reducing power-sector pollution, and that when implemented alongside other climate and clean energy policies, RGGI had the effect of improving the overall affordability of those policies. Based on that analysis, it’s reasonable to conclude that the RGGI program would be a meaningful complement to the H951 Carbon Plan, improving both its effectiveness in delivering carbon pollution reductions and doing so at lower cost to ratepayers.

Governor Cooper has laid the groundwork for North Carolina to be a national leader on climate with the pollution reduction goals established by Executive Order 80, and Executive Order 246. With just eight years remaining to meet the critical 2030 milestone, future North Carolinians will recognize this time as a defining moment in the fight against climate change. And though not currently on track to meet its climate commitments, policy tools are available to deliver on these critical pollution reduction goals and secure a cleaner, healthier and more prosperous future for North Carolina. With solutions like those laid out in RTI’s analysis to tackle the most polluting vehicles on the road, and with pivotal power-sector policies under development, North Carolina can make meaningful progress toward improving the quality of life and the health of our communities in the near term and for future generations of North Carolinians. 

To stimulate discussion and debate, Coastal Review welcomes differing viewpoints on topical coastal issues. See our guidelines for submitting guest columns. Opinions expressed by the authors are not necessarily those of Coastal Review or the North Carolina Coastal Federation. Submissions may be edited for clarity.

The state Department of Transportation has scheduled a virtual session to present to the public an overview of the North Carolina Clean Transportation Plan initiative, part of the governor’s broader push toward a clean energy economy.

The session begins at 10 a.m. Friday. Register online.

Gov. Roy Cooper signed Executive Order 246 “North Carolina’s Transformation to a Clean, Equitable Economy” in January of this year directing the state to reduce economy-wide greenhouse gas emissions, advance environmental justice and create good paying jobs for North Carolinians throughout the state.

The North Carolina Department of Transportation has been tasked as part of the executive order to create a North Carolina Clean Transportation Plan by April 2023. The plan aims to collaborate with stakeholders to recommend strategies to reduce greenhouse gasses in the transportation sector, according to the state.

The webinar is to open with remarks by Cooper and state Transportation Secretary Eric Boyette, followed by department staff and others who are to give an overview of the Clean Transportation Plan process and introduce stakeholders to work groups the department has established to co-create plan recommendations.

Attendees are to be provided with different ways to engage in the Clean Transportation Plan process and offer input during the the process.

They’re the alternative energy source accused of being bad for tourism and sure to deflate property values.

The stigma attached to wind turbines was preached in heated debates in Carteret County, where a Texas-based energy company recently pulled the plug on a proposed wind and solar facility just outside of Newport.

During the months leading up to Torch Renewable Energy’s decision, opponents of the proposed 40-turbine farm voiced their fears, calling to question potential negative impacts a wind farm might have on the local economy, their health and nearby military operations.

The wind farm’s opponents will likely re-use the arguments to convince the county commissioners to pass stringent zoning restrictions against future wind projects. The commissioners in January passed a 60-day moratorium on such projects while they considered changes to their ordinance on tall structures.

Recent, reputable studies and real-life cases suggest that at least some of the arguments presented in Carteret County may be more hype than fact.

Property Values

Corey Lang

The latest published analysis of wind turbines and their affect on property values determined that turbines operating in Rhode Island have not lowered land and home values.

Corey Lang, a University of Rhode Island assistant professor of natural resource economics, compared over a 15-year period homes near the state’s wind turbines to those further away. There are 12 wind turbines at 10 sites in the state.

Lang examined sale prices of 48,000 homes in Rhode Island.

“We found no statistically significant negative impacts,” Lang said in an interview. “The point estimates were negative, but very, very small. What we can do is, with the confidence in our interval, rule out some very large negative impacts.”

Lang’s government-sponsored study, released last December, examined property values before and after a wind turbine’s construction was announced and also following a turbine’s operation.

He found that turbines may cause a 0.4 percent decline in property values among homes within a half mile of a turbine.

His findings disprove theories that wind turbines deflate property values 10 to 20 percent. But Lang admits there are variances in his study and similar research conducted in other areas of the country.

“This study in Rhode Island was really single turbines,” Lang said. “It’s a very different setting than wind farms with 40 turbines. In terms of what other people have found there have been differences.”

One study conducted in upstate New York revealed there has been a negative impact on property values near wind turbines. According to research conducted by staff at New York’s Clarkson University, property values declined following the development of wind facilities in two of three Northern New York counties.

The research looked at 11,331 property transactions over nine years and determined that property values in one of the counties may have possibly increased.

On average, according to the 2011 study, homes in Franklin and Clinton counties within a half mile of a wind turbine had a loss of property value of anywhere from $10,793 to $19,046, according to the study. The impact was less significant on properties three miles from turbines, where values decreased anywhere from $2,500 to $9,800.

Lang points out that upstate New York is more rural, unlike Rhode Island, which has a dense population. A similar study in Massachusetts, which also has a more dense population, is expected to be released later this year

Tourism

Rather than scaring tourists away, the Lake Winds Energy Park in Mason County, Michigan. has become a tourist attraction. Photo: Lake Winds Energy Park

Opponents of the now-defunct proposed Mill Pond project near Newport argued that Carteret County’s biggest economic resource would suffer if the wind turbine farm was built.

That’s hardly been the case in Ludington, Michigan, where hundreds of visitors tour a land-based wind farm near the Lake Michigan shore.

“It really has not negatively impacted our tourism economy at all,” said Brandy Henderson, executive director of the Ludington Area Convention & Visitors Bureau. “Certainly those who have their homes out near the facility and proposed construction sites, that’s where the most controversy came from. But, the community embraced it overall. We really embrace green energy.”

Lake Winds Energy Park, a 56-turbine facility, is open for public tours throughout the summer, drawing hundreds of visitors to Mason County in western Michigan.

The park’s turbines are 476 feet tall, a sight that drew curious onlookers as soon as constructed on the turbines began, Henderson said.

In 2012, the year the park was completed, free tours offered three days a week during the summer drew 685 people, according to figures provided by Ludington’s Chamber of Commerce. In 2013, 682 visitors toured the park.

“Outside of that schedule a local tour guide provided additional tours that were, I think, $7,” Henderson said. “He also had great success with the tours. All of the tours have been full and very popular. Over the past two years hotels stays have increased.”

Madison County has a population of about 28,000 residents. Its location on a portion of Lake Michigan’s shore makes it a popular place for vacation homes and condos.

Turbines near a different shore, this one just outside Atlantic City, N.J., draw an average of 15,000 visitors each year. The five turbines were the first to be built in that state. They tower above Atlantic City’s sewer plant and are visible to more than 30 million visitors to the city each year.

Wind turbines are also an attraction on the west coast, where, in North Palm Springs, California, tourists pay to visit the oldest wind farm in the United States. Visitors pay upwards of $35 to tour San Gorgonio Wind Park, a sprawling wind farm with about 2,700 turbines.

Health Effects

Noise and and other possible health effects have sparked protests against wind farms across the country.

Concerns that wind turbines may have health impacts related to noise, infrasound, vibrations and shadow flickering have been raised world-wide in the turbine debate.

Numerous studies have been published on the possible health effects caused by wind turbines and critiques of those studies both here and abroad. Still, the verdict is out.

The Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) and that state’s Department of Public Health in January 2012 released a report of scientific findings on potential health impacts of risks that may be associated with exposure to wind turbines.

An independent panel of experts from various academic institutions combed through scientific literature, reports, popular media and public comments received by the Massachusetts DEP. The review was conducted in a state where the goal is to increase its use of wind energy from 40 megawatts to 2,000 megawatts by 2020.

The panel concluded that, overall, existing research shows there is no direct link between wind turbines and health impacts. However, the panel also agreed that more research must be conducted, calling some existing studies inadequate.