Lawmakers on Thursday sent their approved and long-awaited budget to Gov. Josh Stein, who on Tuesday signed the $34.4 billion spending plan, one that includes notable coastal environmental spending and policy provisions, as well as a blow for commuters who rely on the state ferries that have long been free to ride.

Republican leaders in the North Carolina General Assembly unveiled the measure, Senate Bill 257, on Tuesday, June 30. Despite short notice and the exclusion of Democrats in negotiations, the bill passed both chambers last week with bipartisan support. It’s the state’s first full budget in more than two years.

On Thursday, Stein told reporters he would carefully weigh its provisions, some of which further diminish the governor’s appointment powers.

“North Carolinians expect their elected officials to come together across our differences to deliver for people,” said Stein in a statement released upon signing the budget, in which he also added that the budget addresses serious concerns such as clean, safe water and disaster recovery.

Stein said the budget “makes meaningful investments” in community colleges and increases salaries for teachers and public safety officers. But the measure “has real flaws” and “unconstitutional and wrong-headed provisions,” the governor said.

“The legislature slashed more than 1,000 state government positions, making it harder for us to keep people safe and healthy,” Stein said in the statement.

The budget includes a provision mandating that the North Carolina Department of Transportation begin charging tolls on the state’s four free vehicle ferry routes. The measure does not set fare amounts. This prompted Sen. Bobby Hanig, R-Currituck, and Sen. Norman Sanderson, R-Pamlico, to cast preliminary “no” votes earlier last week, but both senators voted affirmatively in the final tally. Sanderson had been successful in striking down proposed ferry tolls during his tenure in the legislature.

Coastal environmental advocates were largely pleased with the bill’s coastal provisions, including those pertaining to water, wastewater, and stormwater projects. Among these are Flood Blueprint and other resiliency projects, creation of a state-nonprofit partnership with the North Carolina Coastal Federation, publisher of Coastal Review, to remove abandoned and derelict vessels from waterways, measures to protect wildlife and natural lands, and efforts to study and address per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, pollution.

“This is a very strong budget for North Carolina’s coast,” said Coastal Federation Executive Director Braxton Davis. “From investments in removing derelict vessels and improving stormwater management to addressing PFAS, the legislature and governor have reinforced their bipartisan commitment to making our coastal waters cleaner and safer. These investments will also strengthen the coastal economy by protecting the natural resources that support our communities, businesses, and way of life.”

The nonprofit Coastal Federation was also more fully empowered to establish and administer a stormwater retrofit pilot cost-share program and award grants, including to support a temporary position in the Division of Energy, Mineral, and Land Resources. This position would be to provide compliance assistance for existing stormwater permitholders.

The Coastal Federation was also awarded a $1 million grant for its Center for Coastal Protection and Restoration in Carteret County. That project will be completed this summer.

The budget incorporates language from Senate Bill 1053, the 2026 Water Safety Act, introduced by Sen. Michael Lee, R-New Hanover, and with Sen. Danny Earl Britt Jr., a Republican representing Hoke, Robeson and Scotland counties, and Sen. Val Applewhite, a Democrat representing Cumberland County, as cosponsors.

This section defines “emerging contaminants” as PFAS and 1,4-dioxane and establishes an Emerging Contaminant Mitigation Fund under the Division of Water Infrastructure seeded with $45 million nonrecurring under the Department of Environmental Quality to support efforts to offset the compounds’ negative effects on municipal and county public water and wastewater systems. The fund will also go to support detection, reduction, and prevention of exposure to PFAS and 1,4-dioxane, and related research and development. Another $10 million is to cover costs of emergency drinking water supplies resulting from emerging contaminants.

“For nearly a decade, families in the Cape Fear region have carried the burden of PFAS contamination they did nothing to create,” Lee said in a statement in response to Coastal Review. “This budget delivers the most significant state investment yet in confronting that problem: a new $45 million Emerging Contaminant Mitigation Fund to help local utilities test for and treat PFAS, more than $10 million in additional help for families on private wells, and a statewide sampling initiative to trace these compounds back to their sources. The fund is also built for the long haul, because when polluters settle in court, those dollars will flow directly into cleaning up our water. Add the moratorium on new water transfers out of the Cape Fear basin, and this budget treats clean water as exactly what it is: a public health imperative and the foundation of our region’s future.”

The budget authorizes the State Water Infrastructure Authority to award grants from the fund on a priority basis to public water or wastewater system operators to cover costs associated with sampling, treatment, emergency response, remediation and technical assistance to eliminate PFAS and 1,4-dioxane discharges.

About $7.68 million in federal infrastructure money is budgeted for grants for projects addressing emerging contaminants. And $16.5 million in federal Clean Water Act Emergency Response funding will go toward grants to help wastewater systems address emergencies.

The budget appropriates $1 million in recurring funds to DEQ for positions and operating costs associated with the increased need for emerging contaminant research and response. The department may create up to five positions for this purpose. An additional $7 million in nonrecurring funds are provided for the collection of samples for PFAS and 1,4-dioxane research to be conducted by the North Carolina Collaboratory at the University of North Carolina, as directed in the Water Safety Act language.

The Collaboratory is appropriated $15 million for research, development, and remedial activities associated with PFAS and its effects on firefighters. This includes funding of a partnership with the Office of the State Fire Marshal and North Carolina State University to develop and implement a pilot program for deep-cleaning firefighter protective gear to mitigate PFAS exposure and remediation activities related to PFAS at or near fire stations.

The Collaboratory, in cooperation with DEQ, is to conduct a two-phased study to identify and quantify measurable industrial PFAS discharges in the state, first, by collecting samples from publicly owned treatments works and National Pollution Discharge Elimination System permitholders and then sampling other significant dischargers. The final Phase 1 report is due to DEQ, the Environmental Management Commission and the Environmental Review Commission no later than March 31, 2028, and Phase 2 no later than March 31, 2029.

The Collaboratory must also conduct a study of PFAS contamination in biosolids.

The Collaboratory is further directed to conduct a Cape Fear River Basin study with $1.5 million appropriated for that purpose through the end of the decade, when a report is due, and conduct a study of long-term water supply needs in river basins experiencing high rates of growth.

Of the total $4.5 million in Collaboratory operating funds, $170,000 nonrecurring is to support the FerryMon water quality monitoring program that employs sensors mounted to state ferries, and $160,000 nonrecurring for the ModMon river monitoring, a Neuse River Estuary modeling and monitoring project.

DEQ’s total appropriation, net of $295.5 million in receipts, is $111.9 million.

Abandoned vessels

The budget directs the Wildlife Resources Commission to contract with the Coastal Federation to remove and dispose of commission-identified abandoned and derelict vessels with priority given to those in public waters. This refers to vessels left for more than 30 days in a wrecked, junked, or substantially damaged or dismantled condition, docked, grounded, or beached upon the property of another without owner consent.

The measure also provides for expedited vessel abatement during declared emergencies and liability protection for removal work absent gross negligence.

Lee told Coastal Review that owner protections are “built in” to the legislation. After a 30-day notice period, such vessels are deemed forfeited. Funding for removal is to come from boating registration fees, 10% of the total, which is estimated to generate about $1.01 million.

“Our coast has lived with abandoned and derelict vessels for too long,” Lee said. “This budget finally builds a standing program to get them out of our waters, with a dedicated funding stream and the Coastal Federation as the state’s partner on removal.”

The Coastal Federation launched its first coordinated, large-scale, marine debris cleanup in 2019 and has worked with the Wildlife Resources Commission on abandoned boat removals since 2021. The organization’s larger clean water effort dates back much earlier.

“Several of the investments included in this year’s budget strengthen programs that have been central to the North Carolina Coastal Federation’s mission of protecting and restoring the coast for decades,” Federation Chief Program Officer Ana Živanović-Nenadović told Coastal Review Tuesday. Noting the bipartisan support of coastal conservation, she explained how reducing amounts of polluted stormwater runoff keeps estuarine waters clean, supports shellfish harvesting and sustains healthy fisheries.

“Funding for abandoned and derelict vessel removal improves public access and navigation while restoring habitat. Together, these investments will deliver lasting benefits for North Carolina’s coastal ecosystems, communities, and economy,” she said.

Resilience spending

The budget appropriates $4.5 million for projects defined in the Flood Resiliency Blueprint, a planning tool geared to increase community resilience to flooding, and $850,000 for time-limited, associated DEQ positions. Another $250,000 is appropriated to the Resilient Coastal Communities Program to convert two temporary staff positions to permanent. This program administered by the Division of Coastal Management provides financial and technical assistance to help local governments in the 20 coastal counties become more resilient to flooding.

Other provisions

Lee said the budget also modernizes the state’s beach and inlet management planning with a required four-year cycle of planned maintenance and resiliency projects and with DEQ’s updated plan due July 1, 2027. The measure provides roughly $11.5 million combined for coastal storm risk management at Wrightsville Beach, Carolina Beach, and Kure Beach.

The budget eliminates two Department of Environmental Quality positions assigned to the Environmental Justice initiative. It also eliminates the state Office of Environmental Education.

Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger, R-Rockingham, released a statement in which he said he was “glad” Stein had signed the bill into law and that he “recognizes how vital this budget is for the people of North Carolina.”

The North Carolina Democratic Party also released a statement, noting that after more than 1,000 days, the state finally has a budget that addresses some of the most urgent needs. “While this budget isn’t perfect, it takes real steps in the right direction,” party officials said.

The North Carolina Forest Service’s annual tree seedling sale will begin next month.

The state agency will begin accepting Wednesday, July 1, orders for young conifers and hardwoods. A genetically improved stock is available for Fraser fir, loblolly, longleaf, shortleaf, eastern white pine and Virginia pine.

With an average annual production of 10 million seedlings, and a reliable supply of more than 40 tree species, the Forest Service said that its nursery program produces enough native and genetically improved tree seedlings to plant roughly 18,700 acres.

“Our nursery program continues to provide affordable native tree seedlings that are geographically suitable for the state’s diverse forestlands,” Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler said in a statement. “By offering seedlings in different quantities, the program can help customers of all sizes whether the need is as few as 10 seedlings, or as many as several thousand. The annual seedling sale is just another way that the forest service strives to keep North Carolina’s woodlands healthy, growing and thriving.”

Order from the online seedling store at buynctrees.com, by phone at 1-888-NCTREES (1-888-628-7337) or 919-731-7988, or fill out and mail the order form in the FY26-27 Nursery Seedling Catalog to Seedling Coordinator, 762 Claridge Nursery Road, Goldsboro, NC 27530.

The catalog will be available in area Forest Service offices starting next month, and a user-friendly online catalog is expected to be available on the website soon, Forest Service officials said Monday.

Within the catalog, landowners can find information about the types of tree species, quantities and cost to order. Each species description includes information about ideal planting locations and whether a species is typically used to benefit wildlife, restore forest habitats or as marketable timber.

Seedling orders can be shipped to one of 13 distribution centers statewide for a small fee or via UPS for a charge. Seedling orders are also available for pickup from the N.C. Forest Service Claridge Nursery in Goldsboro or the Linville River Nursery near Crossnore in Avery County.

Most containerized seedlings are available and used November through March while most bare root seedlings are available and used January through March.

For information on planting trees, customers are encouraged to contact their county ranger. Contact information is available at www.ncforestservice.gov/contacts.

Though it snakes 50 miles through Onslow County from start to finish, the New River is, in a practical sense, two distinct parts.

The upper river begins northwest of Richlands, a small but increasingly developing town that’s roughly 10 miles from the Duplin County line. From there, the river cuts a narrow path through largely rural agricultural land southeast to Jacksonville, where it widens, its fresh water transitioning to salt water.

The lower river then forms into a tidal estuarine 2 miles wide before ultimately opening into Onslow Bay in the Atlantic Ocean.

Plans have been in the works some two years now to ensure the river’s distinguishing parts get the attention they need. This year, Coastal Carolina Riverwatch, with the support of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, is finalizing the Lower New River Watershed Restoration Plan,  one that focuses on areas where saltwater creeks drain into shellfish-harvesting waters and tributaries including bays and creeks.

One river, two plans.

Plans are being designed through a wide-reaching collaborative effort to work in unison to restore and protect the river’s water quality.

“We felt that, even though this a river that begins and ends in Onslow County, that it would be a great opportunity for us to separate it into two different plans so that we are spending as much time as we can in those two sections and really delve into the issues and the concerns and things that are affecting water quality and things that could potentially improve water quality through the watershed restoration plan,” Coastal Carolina Riverwatch Executive Director Lisa Rider told Coastal Review in an interview earlier this month.

Next year, the upper New River plan is expected to be complete. That plan addresses inland freshwater systems that flow through neighborhoods, farms, and paddle trails, she added.

At their cores, the plans espouse the connections shared by water, land and people. Essential to both missions is bridging people, whether it be those who live along it, recreate on it, or fish in it for sustenance, with organizations and agencies “needed to respond at the scale the river demands” to improve and protect it, Rider explained.

“It’s definitely a collaborative effort and I think that’s what makes this process a little bit unique for the watershed water management planning,” she said. “We’ve been really spending a lot of time connecting with community members, leadership in the community, folks that really have a unique grasp of what’s going on in the area.”

Riverwatch has worked through the New River Roundtable, a collaborative group of scientists, regulators, academics, government representatives and stakeholders, Rider explained. The organization has also worked closely with the county and with state partners.

The organization took a boots-on-the-ground approach, setting up at local festivals and other public events and speaking at various homeowners’ associations and community meetings.

The watershed restoration plans are a first for Coastal Carolina Riverwatch, an organization that has for years been monitoring the New River to try and determine sources of bacteria detected in the river.

The plans are rooted in the idea that, by creating one set of watershed restoration plans for the river, “we may get some really great projects out of that” to fill in gaps in areas of the river where water quality improvements and protections are needed, Rider said.

“That sort of initiated us into starting to work with the North Carolina Land and Water Fund to start funding the lower part of the New River plan, and we talked to them quite a bit about the reasoning for separating those plans out, knowing that eventually we would be working in unison,” she said.

The North Carolina Division of Water Resources has been key in helping the organization make the lower river plan sustainable through continued use and updates.

The plans in the agency’s watershed improvement projects, or WIPS, tool, which maps water quality improvement projects reported by residents, organizations and local governments.

“Even after the plan is complete it’s not really complete because we’re going to be continually using the watershed improvement tool to gauge what the public sees, what’s being requested in terms of projects by stakeholders and community members, and then looking to help connect funders with the projects that are being prioritized,” Rider said.

Severe pollution closed the New River to the public in the 1980s.

Things were so dire in the river that when 25 million gallons of waste flowed from a breached hog lagoon into its waters, no fish kills were recorded.

Three years after that spill, Jacksonville closed its downtown wastewater treatment plant to cut off the predominant source of pollution that had been sickening the lower river, where the riverbed between Wilson Bay and Stones Bay was covered by soft organics like ammonia and phosphates that, when in excessive amounts, choke out aquatic life.

City officials urged those at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune to stop its wastewater facility from discharging into the river.

The river was reopened in 2001.

Since then, both the city and Onslow County have been taking further steps to improve and protect the New River.

Jacksonville took on a multiyear project installing artificial reefs on either side of the river between Wilson Bay and Stones Bay to grow millions of oysters. The final phase of the $1.6 million Oyster Highway Project, which has helped usher marine life back into the river, wrapped a couple of years ago.

In 2024, the city’s elected leaders signed off on a grant awarded to Jacksonville’s stormwater department to develop a New River Nutrient Management Plan.

That plan focuses on nutrient loading from nonpoint sources — stormwater that flows from streets, subdivisions, commercial and industrial areas — into the city’s drainage system.

Last December, the Onslow County Board of Commissioners adopted a resolution that supports using low-impact development strategies in all new or significantly renovated county-funded facilities “when they are fiscally responsible and practical,” according to a county notice.

The resolution also encourages the county school system and Coastal Carolina Community College in Jacksonville to adopt similar strategies, such as bioretention areas, swales, pocket wetlands, impervious surface removal, cisterns, green roofs, and permeable pavement, for new and renovated projects.

“As Onslow County continues to grow it will be increasingly important to meet the needs of future development through sustainable means,” according to a county release.

Onslow County residents who would like to help Coastal Carolina Riverwatch identify flood-prone areas, streams in need of restoration or stabilization, areas where stormwater runoff causes erosion or water quality problems, and flood mitigation projects may contact the organization by email at waterkeeper@coastalcarolina.org.

Community-based organizations, including homeowner associations, civic and church groups, environmental and conservation clubs, paddling and fishing organizations, business associations and school groups may request a presentation by Coastal Carolina Riverwatch – or offer a project idea, or talk about an area where there are problems with flooding, at one of the group’s regular meetings.

“The collaboration, I think, really reflects how the river itself works,” Rider said. “Water doesn’t recognize those jurisdictional lines so the solutions themselves are more effective when the planning reflects that reality. This approach, we fell like, helps ensure that the investments are targeted, the support is local, and that it’s designed to deliver real benefits for both water quality and the quality of life across the watershed.”                                                                                                               

Chris Doley’s legacy at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration is closely tied to his long and deeply influential partnerships with community-based organizations working on the frontlines of coastal restoration. Among those, his relationship with the North Carolina Coastal Federation stands out for its longevity and impact and for the role it played in advancing community-driven habitat restoration in North Carolina and beyond.

Chris became involved with the Coastal Federation’s work in the mid-1990s, during the formative years of NOAA’s Community-Based Habitat Restoration efforts. At that time, the Coastal Federation was in its second decade of work and was beginning to expand into fisheries habitat restoration as an emerging program area. The organization was advancing an idea that was still gaining traction nationally: that locally driven, science-based restoration — done with communities, not just for them — could deliver durable ecological results.

Chris was never just a grant manager. He became a trusted partner, sounding board, and advocate within NOAA — someone who understood both the realities of federal programs and the practical challenges of getting projects done on the ground. His willingness to listen, ask hard questions, and support promising ideas proved instrumental during a period when both NOAA’s restoration programs and the Federation’s habitat work were still taking shape.

With support provided through what would become NOAA’s Restoration Center, the Coastal Federation began to build one of the country’s more visible and respected nonprofit coastal restoration programs — rooted in applied science, community engagement, and practical outcomes.

Building a Restoration Agenda from the Ground Up

Working closely with Chris and NOAA’s habitat restoration staff, the Federation developed an increasingly integrated restoration approach — linking living shorelines, oyster reef restoration, salt marsh recovery, and water quality improvement into a more cohesive strategy. This systems-based framing was not yet common practice in the 1990s and early 2000s, when many restoration projects were relatively small, site-specific, and narrowly focused.

Chris encouraged partners to think beyond individual projects — at scale and to achieve significant ecological outcomes beyond individual project boundaries. Early NOAA support enabled the Federation to pilot some of North Carolina’s first living shoreline projects in the early 2000s, well before the practice was widely accepted or routinely permitted. These projects demonstrated that oyster reefs and marsh vegetation could stabilize shorelines, protect property, and improve habitat—often performing as well as or better than hardened shoreline structures, particularly during storm events.

The success of those projects didn’t just validate a new technique; it reshaped the Federation’s restoration agenda. Living shorelines became a core program area, and the lessons learned in North Carolina helped inform NOAA (and other federal agency) guidance, state permitting reforms, and restoration programs nationwide.

Oyster Reefs, Scale, and Staying Power

A similar trajectory emerged with oyster restoration. With Chris’s backing, the Coastal Federation undertook increasingly ambitious reef restoration efforts, including a major NOAA-supported initiative in 2009-2010, funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. That effort restored nearly 50 acres of oyster reefs and helped establish permanent oyster sanctuaries in Pamlico Sound, at the time among the larger oyster restoration efforts in the region.

More than a decade later, that long arc culminated in another milestone: the 2022 NOAA-supported investment to complete North Carolina’s 500-acre oyster sanctuary network. This project reflects decades of shared learning, trust, and persistence between NOAA and its partners.

Restore America’s Estuaries and Broader Influence

The Coastal Federation is a founding member of Restore America’s Estuaries (RAE), established in 1994 to connect community-based restoration organizations and share effective practices nationally. Chris supported NOAA’s engagement with RAE, recognizing that strong regional organizations could anchor a growing national restoration movement.

Through RAE and other collaborative forums, restoration approaches refined in North Carolina, such as community-driven project delivery, living shorelines, oyster sanctuaries, and volunteer engagement, were shared, adapted, and applied in other regions, helping advance restoration practice across the country.

Enduring Impact

From my perspective, what set Chris apart was his quiet confidence and deep respect for the people doing the work on the ground. I recall sitting with him in quiet corners of crowded conferences and workshops, where he would ask thoughtful, practical questions or offer observations about how our partnership was evolving. He simply wanted to understand, to learn, and to find ways to be an even better partner.

Chris Doley rarely sought the spotlight, but his influence is clear in the durability and credibility of NOAA’s community-based restoration programs and the projects they have supported. He created space for partners like the Coastal Federation to experiment, learn, and improve — while never losing sight of ecological outcomes and the public good.

As Chris retires after more than 35 years at NOAA, the North Carolina Coastal Federation — and countless partners across the country — continue to build on the foundation he helped establish. The restoration agenda he supported in North Carolina now informs broader policy discussions, restoration practice, and investment strategies nationwide.

Thank you, Chris, for believing early, backing consistently, and helping turn local action into lasting impact.

COROLLA — There’s a pond at the Donal C. O’Brien, Jr. Sanctuary and Audubon Center, the Pine Island Club, just to the west of the clubhouse, with a troubled past.

Sometime in the 1940s, when the Pine Island Club was a hunting club, the membership dug out an existing pond, put in what was perhaps a 3 inches in diameter pipe to carry water from a canal off Currituck Sound and then bulkheaded the shore.

“They bulkheaded it so that they could have ducks in there all the time, so they could breed them,” said Audubon Center Senior Coordinator of Habitats and Facilities Sara Marschhauser.

The pond though, after more than 75 years, was no longer an inviting habitat for ducks, geese, or any of the species of birds, turtles or mammals that are part of the sanctuary habitat, longtime Sanctuary Director Robbie Fearn recently told the Coastal Review.

“The number of birds that I saw in it each winter went down as that pond was no longer serving the needs of wildlife,” he said.

Over the years, the water level had been falling, and “the water level was 2 feet below the bulkhead, so there was no soft side for turtles and smaller ducks. We saw little goslings (that) got stuck in there last year,” Marschhauser said. “We had to put something in there to get them out.”

That has since changed. As part of a $309,000 grant from the North Carolina Land and Water Fund, the pond, Marschhauser said, has been “restored back to its previous footprint.”

With the pond restored, wildlife came back almost immediately.

“Pretty quickly we had two wood ducks come out from the back side of the marsh and just hang out on the edge for a couple weeks,” Marschhauser said.

She mentioned that she had seen shorebirds, in this case a tri-colored heron, spotted sandpiper and great egret, standing side by side feeding.

“That means then there must have been a lot of food there. They don’t cooperate unless there’s food,” Marschhauser said.

Restoring the pond required considerably more than merely removing the bulkhead, smoothing the sides and digging out the bottom where silt had filled it.

The original pipes were much too small to provide enough water to maintain the pond’s depth, and, over the years, Fearn noted, “as sediment filled into the bottom of that pipe it got more and more restricted.”

The new pipe is significantly wider and will be much easier to maintain so that silt doesn’t restrict water flow. That extra volume of water can already be seen as it allows fish more access the pond.

“We’ve already seen increase in fish reproducing in this pond,” Marschhauser said.

What was clear from the outset of the project, however, was that simply bringing the pond back to its original shape and size and laying in a larger pipe would not be enough to maintain sufficient water levels.

The road from the clubhouse to the Currituck Sound dock passes through an open vista of marsh, trees and grasses. Songbirds are in constant motion. The dock itself is a haven for shorebirds and an occasional nutria.

About 25 or 30 yards from the dock, the canal that feeds the pond passes under the road. At one, the crossing was little more than a causeway over a ditch. “There were two little pipes … and that was it. You weren’t really getting much flow at all,” Marschhauser said.

To correct that, a low bridge now crosses the canal that is more open, allowing water to flow freely, “so that there’s not even a pipe that it has to go through,” she said.

An added bonus, Marschhauser continued, is that in high-water events, which results from any sustained wind from the west, “hopefully our bridge won’t flood.”

With a sustained flow of water, Marschhauser said she was confident the habitat will return to its original diversity.

“The hydrology is what’s going to bring in all the critters now,” she said.

Fearn agreed, noting how much more diverse the wildlife using the restored pond will be.

“By changing it back to a to a natural-edge pond where not just like diving ducks could use it, but (also) wading birds and bobcats and the otter, it becomes a buffet for everybody, rather than a small buffet for a limited number of species,” he said.

The North Carolina Land and Water Fund grant the Donal C. O’Brien, Jr. Audubon Center has received is the second substantial grant awarded to the center in the past two years. Last year a $3.05 million National Fish and Wildlife Foundation grant “to fund innovative marsh restoration pilot projects” was begun with a number of those pilot projects ongoing.

At least one of the projects, Fearn said, “a thin layer sediment, putting silt and sand on top of the (marsh) islands, is cutting-edge for the state of North Carolina. So the process of working through it with regulators … is taking a little longer to get that permit.”

Other shoreline-stabilization projects have been completed and are being evaluated.

Fearn attributed Pine Island’s success in scoring major grants to simply listening.

“We’re listening to the landscape, and we’re listening to what the community needs, and then we understand the grants that we’re applying for and make sure they fit well,” he said.

EAST LAKE — Red wolf populations in northeastern North Carolina are still far from recovered, but there are optimistic signs that the highly endangered species now has a solid chance.

More wolves are breeding, more pups are surviving, coyote hybridization has been cut, and there are fewer mortalities from vehicle strikes and gunshots.

While still modest, those successes reflect increased community engagement and renewed commitment from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and its numerous partners.

“It’s kind of a small crew, but we’re really dedicated to what we’re doing here,” wildlife biologist Joe Madison, North Carolina program manager for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s Red Wolf Recovery Program, said during a virtual meeting held Sept. 23 to provide updates on the program. “We want to make this work. We want to work with landowners to make this work. We don’t want to impose it.”

Madison said that only about half of the red wolves roam within Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge land. The population, as of August, according to Fish and Wildlife data, totals about 30 red wolves, including 18 collared adults as well as uncollared juvenile wolves and a few other adults. This population roams the designated recovery area, 1.7 million acres of public and private land in Hyde, Dare, Tyrrell, Washington and Beaufort counties. Red wolves have been seen in all five counties

It is the only known wild population in the world.

Red wolves had once ranged over wide swaths of the U.S. mainland, including much of the Gulf Coast and Southeast regions, but after years of overhunting and habitat loss, the animals were declared extinct in the wild and added to the Endangered Species List in 1967. Twenty years later, four pairs of captive wolves, offspring of wild stragglers captured earlier in Louisiana, were transferred to Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge, headquartered in Dare County. Innovative management tactics led to steady population growth, reaching a height of about 120 red wolves by 2007.

In 2020, there were only about seven collared wolves.

But poor communication with landowners led to angry confrontations over wolves coming onto private lands, while coyote hunting regulations led to mistaken identities.  Political support and funding for the recovery program dropped precipitously, and more wolves were being shot, whether intentionally or by mistake. By 2015, proposals were introduced to drastically reduce or potentially eliminate the program. After a series of lawsuits by environmental groups, the recovery program was eventually restored.

As Red Wolf Recovery Program Coordinator for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Emily Weller has acknowledged, the agency had to change the way it operated.

“Reintroducing a large carnivore into the wild had never been done before, and the focus of this program in the beginning was almost entirely biological,” Weller said, according to minutes of a management update meeting in September 2024. “But the social aspects, the community engagement, and human dimension — those were the cracks in our program’s foundation.”

Now the concept of “collaborative conservation” is viewed as critical to the survival of the red wolf, she said recently. 

“We cannot recover this species on our own,” Weller said during this week’s virtual update. “Our work depends on a pretty complex network of organizations, agencies, communities and individuals.”

That network includes veterinarian care at North Carolina State University and local veterinarians, staff with the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, and assistance from numerous nonprofit and nongovernment groups.

“The science tells us what’s possible,” Weller said. “But it’s the relationships, the trust, the collaboration, that really determine what’s achievable.”

The Fish and Wildlife Service also now works with “Prey for the Pack,” a habitat-improvement program that engages with private landowners in eastern North Carolina wolf recovery areas in mutually beneficial habitat programming.

The Red Wolf Recovery Program also works closely with 52 zoo and wildlife centers across the country as part of the Saving Animals From Extinction, or SAFE, program, an initiative of the Association of Zoos and Aquariums, which currently cares for 280 captive red wolves. Part of the program’s goal is to increase the SAFE population to 400.

“They are a critical piece of this program in that they support the establishment of wild populations in maintaining genetic diversity,” Weller said.

Much care goes into choosing captive wolves to transfer to the recovery program in hopes of future pairing, as well as deciding which pups to place into dens with similarly aged pups for wild mothers to adopt, Weller noted.

“We rely on universities and academia for research and data to guide and base our decisions, and we’re using it constantly to adapt our management,” she said. “And then we need close coordination and communication with local landowners and community members to understand and incorporate their concerns and hopes for their community, as they have the most direct bearing on conservation and recovery, since they are the ones that live with the red wolves.”

Weller said that, other than a period of time when spending was frozen or restricted, the current funding for the Red Wolf Recovery Program had not been reduced.

Ultimately, she said, success will be when red wolves can be delisted — when they don’t need human help to survive — which is expected to take about 50 years, if all goes as planned.

Criteria that meets that goal include measurable thresholds: three viable populations, distributed to maximize redundancy and protect from catastrophic loss; one population of at least 180 and two with a minimum of 280 wolves, each with high gene diversity. Populations must be stable or growing for a decade with minimal human help and have a 95% probability of persisting for 100 years.

And finally, there must be long-term commitment that the sustainable populations can be maintained into the foreseeable future without Endangered Species Act protections.

“Red wolf recovery is about far more than just saving the species,” Weller added. “It’s about restoring ecosystems or landscapes to their natural balanced state and creating healthier environments that benefit plants and wildlife, including game species, and people.”

Every December, the red wolf program issues a release strategy for the coming year, that sets out a plan of how many captive wolves to release into the wild population that will best enable genetic diversity and sustainable growth. Changing conditions will be considered in any necessary revisions.

“It is also important to recognize that the ability to execute many of the releases is highly dependent on numerous on-the-ground factors,” according to the 2024-25 plan. “These factors include, but are not limited to, the ability to successfully capture specific wild Red Wolves, the correct timing of birth, and size of wild ad captive litters, to allow for pup fostering, and the survival of individual wild Red Wolves included in the scenarios.

“Given the myriad of factors that influence the different scenarios, the Service’s actions described in this strategy require real-time flexibility and the ability to adapt to changing factors on the ground and situations; thus, they require management discretion in the field to maximize the chances of success.”

Madison said that the team depends on having that flexibility to make judgment calls and adjust management tactics. During the update meeting, he elaborated on numerous and highly complex strategies that go into pup fostering, proper wolf-human interactions and handling — as little as possible — and wolf feeding – frozen, wild, small mammals like rabbits, raccoons, nutria and fresh frozen roadkill, like deer — and matchmaking (wolves are picky and fickle, too).

But Madison seemed quite pleased with the improvements in pup population survival, an obviously critical component of species recovery.

The pup survival rate to one year is typically about 50%, he said, but after two complete litters didn’t make it in recent years,  the recovery team determined that the likely cause was canine distemper.

“So this year when these pups were in an acclimation pen, and they were five weeks old, we went in the pen, recaptured them, and we gave them their first round of vaccines,” Madison explained. “Also, we implanted them with abdominal transmitters so we would be able to track them after they were released.”

So far, so good, he said. A family group that was released into the wild in May seems to be thriving.

“We may go into the season with a great plan, but then, you know, stuff happens out there,” Madison said. “And we have to adjust and make do with the best we possibly can.”

Guest Commentary

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

Note: National Estuaries Week is Sept. 20-27

When most people think about fighting climate change, they think about cutting tailpipe emissions, swapping coal plants for solar panels, or driving electric cars. But there’s another powerful tool right in front of us: coastal habitats like salt marshes and submerged seagrass meadows. These living ecosystems are not just fish nurseries, wildlife havens and storm buffers — they are also massive storehouses for carbon, helping slow the pace of global warming.

Nature’s Carbon Vaults

Every blade of marsh grass and every seagrass frond pulls carbon dioxide out of the air and water through photosynthesis. Some of that carbon goes back into the atmosphere when plants die and decay — but much of it gets buried in the wet, oxygen-poor soils beneath. Think of these habitats as nature’s deep freezers: once carbon is locked in the muck, it can stay there for hundreds or even thousands of years.

This storage is so effective that acre-for-acre, coastal wetland ecosystems can hold several times more carbon than forests on land. That’s why scientists call this “blue carbon.”

Beyond Storage: The New Science of Carbon Flux

For years, we assumed the carbon benefits of these habitats came mostly from how much carbon they locked underground. But new research — including work my colleagues and I have been doing — shows that the story is bigger.

Wetlands and seagrass beds aren’t closed systems. They interact constantly with surrounding waters, exchanging organic matter and nutrients in what scientists call lateral flux. In plain English: tides, currents, and groundwater move carbon in and out of these habitats.

Here’s the exciting part: the more we study this flux, the more we see that coastal habitats are exporting “good carbon”— forms that stimulate carbon storage in seawater or reduce greenhouse gases in the water column. In other words, their climate benefit isn’t just what they store in their soils, but also how they influence the chemistry of surrounding waters.

Early estimates suggest this added benefit may be as large, or even larger, than the carbon stored directly in the soil. That means we’ve been dramatically underestimating how valuable these habitats are for slowing climate change.

Research Coming to North Carolina

This fall, I’ll be bringing this research to North Carolina, where salt marshes play a defining role in both the coastal landscape and economy. With support from the North Carolina Coastal Federation, my team and I will be monitoring marshes in the state to measure their carbon values. These field studies will help determine just how much carbon is being stored and exported — and how that compares with other places along the East Coast and nationwide.

By putting real numbers on the carbon services provided by North Carolina’s salt marshes, we can give policymakers, landowners, and communities the science they need to make smart investments in protecting and restoring them.

More Than Just Carbon

Of course, carbon storage is only one of many economic and ecological gifts coastal wetlands and seagrasses provide. They buffer shorelines from storms, filter pollutants, support fisheries, and provide nurseries for countless species. Protecting and restoring them is not just smart climate policy — it’s smart coastal policy, period.

A Call to Action

We’re still learning just how much carbon benefit these habitats provide, but one thing is clear: Every acre we lose is a lost opportunity to fight climate change and protect coastal communities. Protecting and restoring degraded marshes and seagrass meadows is one of the rare win-win strategies that helps people, wildlife, and the planet’s climate at the same time.

As new science on lateral flux continues to emerge — and as fresh fieldwork in North Carolina fills in key data gaps — we’ll have an even stronger case for investing in these natural climate powerhouses. Protecting coastal habitats isn’t just about saving pretty places — it’s about giving our coastal communities and working lands a fighting chance against rising seas and extreme storms.

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

Hatteras Islanders will not soon forget Hurricane Isabel, which formed a new inlet and destroyed the only highway connection when it slammed the island Sept. 18, 2003.

The storm and its aftermath further increased residents’ sense of isolation and their appreciation for the people who make their living on the water and are credited with restarting the local economy.

Nearly a quarter century later, an annual event celebrates the hurricane’s heroes, the commercial fishing and commercial charter operators, and the islanders’ perseverance amid the devastation. This year’s Day at the Docks is set for Sept. 19-20.

The family-friendly event offers numerous activities along the waterfront and docks in Hatteras Village.

Events include a fishing contest, live music, maritime storytelling and cooking demonstrations. There will be an education tent that features a variety of organizations that support the coast through advocacy, education and habitat restoration and preservation.

The groups include the North Carolina Coastal Federation, which publishes Coastal Review and whose representatives will be on hand to share information about National Estuaries Week, Sept. 20-27, and its work in partnership with the South Atlantic Salt Marsh initiative.

At the Coastal Federation tent, visitors can join interactive activities to learn about nature-based solutions and ongoing projects that strengthen the community’s coastal resilience. Guests will also be invited to share the places that matter most to them, helping guide future efforts to protect and restore the coast.

The organizers’ website has more information and Day at the Docks event schedules.

This story has been updated.

WILMINGTON – Beams of sunlight broke through dark gray storm clouds suspended in the sky above this historic city on a recent August morning.

The local forecast was calling for rain, the kind of weather that drives tourists from area beaches to explore other experiences the area has to offer. The kind of weather that makes for a busy day at the Battleship North Carolina, the iconic floating World War II memorial moored on the Cape Fear River across from downtown Wilmington.

“This parking lot will be full in another hour,” said Terry DeMeo, the battleship’s director of development.

A year ago, DeMeo might not have made that prediction with as much certainty.

Back then, floodwaters overspilling from the Cape Fear River might have swallowed dozens of parking spaces in the western portion of the parking lot and forced visitors to make a decision: wade through water to get to the museum’s visitor center or head for higher ground.

That’s not much of a worry these days.

A wetland has been built in place of the chronically flooded section of parking lot to help absorb high-tide driven water. A tidal creek now meanders through this area of the property to direct water from the wetland back to the Cape Fear River.

A 500-foot-long and 50-foot-wide bioretention area extends through a paved, raised parking lot that has, since its completion Memorial Day weekend, gone untouched by floodwaters.

A bioswale runs the length of the parking lot next to Battleship Road. Living shorelines blend in with the rest of the natural, wild landscape around the ship’s mooring.

These features are all part of the battleship’s “Living with Water” project, one that accommodates the water rather than try and fight it back.

Construction on the project, some seven years in the making, is mostly complete.

Land next to the battleship has become a well-known and well-documented case in point on the impacts of sea level rise.

Since the memorial opened to the public in 1961, flood events on the property have climbed on a near-steady incline. Over the past six decades, a more than 7,000% increase in tidal flooding frequency has been documented at the site.

Flood events spurred by the rising sea created a sense of urgency for the museum’s leaders. The memorial does not receive regular government funding.

Persistent flooding of the property threatened one of the primary sources of the battleship’s funding – admission fees and gift shop sales.

“We actually lost parking, but that’s how committed we are to this project,” DeMeo said as she looked across the parking lot.

The lot sits at an elevation 6 feet above the old gravel one it replaced earlier this year.

The parking lot slopes to a bioretention area that looks as much like a pleasing water feature as it does a functional holding area for stormwater that allows water to percolate down into the soil.

A total of 450 spaces were at the memorial before the project was built. Today, there are 150 fewer parking spaces on the property.

Of those parking spaces, 100 were unusable due to flooding of the western portion of the old parking lot, DeMeo said. Plans are in the works to finish an overflow lot that may add roughly another 55 spaces.

“So, discounting the unusable old spaces, we expect to come out about even,” DeMeo said later in an email.

The loss of spaces has been a small price to pay for the multimillion-dollar project, one funded through federal and state grants, including the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the North Carolina Land and Water Fund, as well as the USS North Carolina Battleship Commission, Atlantic Coastal Fish Habitat Partnership, and numerous individual donors.

Within days of the wetland and tidal creek’s completion, birds moved in on the area, DeMeo said.

“That’s been pretty amazing to see the avian community step in right away, which means fish were in there,” she said. “That’s also when we saw the diminution of walking through knee-high flooding.”

The land, she explained, has been able to recreate itself.

The site now hosts researchers from NOAA as well as the University of North Carolina Wilmington, who are monitoring everything from the physical and vegetative parameters of the area to water quality.

The museum’s leaders are now in the early stages of exploring the creation of a living lab partnership with the university and NOAA.

A living lab is a natural fit, “and it’s a way to keep an eye on the project itself,” DeMeo said.

“This is a long-term project,” she said. “We don’t know where it’s ending. We consider ourselves a model for how this can be done and how it can’t be done. We really see ourselves as an opportunity to use as a case study. We had the opportunity and we had the need. That’s why we feel so strongly about serving as a model.”

The North Carolina Forest Service has begun accepting orders for its annual tree seedling sale.

Conifer and hardwood seedlings are available for purchase in a range of quantities. Genetically improved stock is available for Fraser fir, loblolly, longleaf, shortleaf, eastern white pine and Virginia pine. These seedlings offer better volume growth, tree form, disease resistance, straightness, and other characteristics needed to produce beautiful Christmas trees, healthy woodlands and quality forest products.

“Our nursery program continues to serve as a stable provider of native forest tree seedlings while ensuring access to a reliable supply of more than 40 tree species for planting throughout North Carolina,” Agriculture Commissioner Steve Troxler said in a release. “These affordable tree seedlings help keep our forestlands growing, thriving and beautiful. Traditionally, seedling inventory goes quickly, so I encourage folks not to hesitate.”

The seedling catalog is on the Forest Service website and printed copies are available in Forest Service offices. The catalogs contain information about the types of tree species, quantities and cost to order. Each species description includes information about ideal planting locations and whether a species is typically used to benefit wildlife, restore forest habitats or as marketable timber.

Tree seedlings can be ordered through www.buynctrees.com, by calling 1-888-628-7337 or 919-731-7988, or by filling out an order form and mailing it to Seedling Coordinator, 762 Claridge Nursery Road, Goldsboro, NC 27530.

Seedling orders can be shipped to one of 13 distribution centers statewide for a small fee or via UPS for a charge. Seedling orders are also available for pickup from the NCFS Claridge Nursery in Goldsboro or the Linville River Nursery near Crossnore.

Accepted methods of payment are check, money order, Mastercard and Visa.

The nursery program produces around 10 million seedlings a year, enough native and genetically improved tree seedlings to plant roughly 18,700 acres.

Contact information for county offices and nursery locations is at www.ncforestservice.gov/contacts.

CURRIE – There have been nights Clint North has lost sleep thinking about his land.

Ten years from now, he knows exactly what he wants the hundreds of acres of land he’s bought up in this unincorporated area of Pender County to look like: exactly the same, if not better.

And, most importantly, natural.

But North has a choice to make and it’s a decision weighing more heavily on him with each passing year.

“What’s going to happen with the land? That’s my biggest fear. It has come to where it is a concern of mine to make sure that it’s preserved. And I’d say, in the last five years, it’s become more important because I’m getting older,” he said.

Earlier this year, North and his wife, Amy, were presented with a certificate that essentially marks a first step toward permanently conserving the mostly forested land he’s purchased in plots and large chunks in this rural area southwest of Burgaw, the county seat.

North has registered 1,988 acres with North Carolina’s Natural Heritage Program, committing to protect and preserve the land’s biological diversity and natural qualities, and maintain it in as natural of a condition as possible.

He is one of only three property owners in the state to register 1,000 acres or more with the program.

But what makes North’s commitment even more unique is that he has spent more than half of his life acquiring land within this quiet countryside perhaps best known as the home of Moores Creek National Battlefield with the sole intent of keeping it natural.

“That is not common that is for sure,” said Scott Pohlman, Natural Heritage Program’s nature preserve property manager. “We’re certainly encouraged by it. We’re really excited to run across folks like Mr. North who are motivated to do this kind of work. I can’t tell you how excited we are to work with him.”

A labor of love

North is a true Wilmingtonian, a rarity these days, born and raised in the state’s largest coastal city.

Before Interstate 40 sliced a four-lane fast track to the Port City, life there was quite different than it is today.

North spent his childhood playing in forests long since chopped away and replaced by neighborhoods and businesses. Those woods introduced him to native carnivorous plants: Venus flytraps, pitcher plants and sundews.

He loved being out in the woods. That drove him to pursue a degree in biology.

Prompted by his father to get to work after graduating from college, North took a job with a large commercial construction company in town. It was far from the field he dreamt of working in, but it paid the bills.

Truth be told, it has funded his pursuit for land, one that stretches back to the late 1980s, when he and his wife, a fellow native Wilmingtonian, shared a desire to move out into the country.

With just a couple of years of marriage under their belts and a one-month-old son, the budding family moved out of Wilmington and into a home nestled in 125-acre tract North bought in Pender County.

The construction business kept him busy, traveling throughout the state and into Virginia and South Carolina.

At home, the sprawling woodlands he called home were his refuge, a place he walked and studied, hunted, fished and paddled with his wife and three sons. This is the land where he taught his sons how to respect and appreciate forests in their natural state.

He spent time bushhogging and learning other forestry techniques in those woods, all the while keeping an eye and ear out for more land prospects in the area.

In 1993, he bought a 525-acre tract across Moores Creek from his homestead.

“That was a big step,” North said. “I didn’t know how far it would go. I mean, it’s still not over.”

Opportunities to buy more land kept coming his way — a hundred acres here, 140 acres there. Much of the land sold to him has been by heirs of expansive land owners back in the day. Sellers seem to appreciate the fact that North wants to keep the land natural.

He’s a card-carrying, certified prescribed burner.

His handy work stands out in neat, patchwork-like blocks of forest carefully thinned out by fire and other land management measures on portions of his land.

What started out as a hobby “kind of turned into a passion,” once North retired from construction.

He’s walked every acre of his land, finding surprises along the way that tease his curiosity about its history.

He’s planted acres of long leaf pine, added native, pollinator-friendly plants to the landscape, and located and documented carnivorous plants. He can point out Carolina bays, those shallow wetland depressions that are often fed by rain or groundwater, on his land.

More than 240 acres of the land has been identified as primary natural areas, or those intact, old growth and natural habitat, by the heritage program. The remaining acreage has been designated as habitat restoration.

A ‘champion’

Chuck Roe, the founding director of North Carolina’s Natural Heritage Program, called North’s efforts to buy and preserve land, “very rare, very exceptional.”

“He is a true champion for conservation and a role model and should be recognized and honored for his conservation good deeds,” Roe said. “And, hopefully, other land owners will learn from his example and be willing to be good stewards of their land as well. The realities are that state and federal agencies are not going to be buying much more land.”

North is keenly aware that the “nice, cleared farmland” in the area, especially along U.S. Highway 421, a scenic byway that stretches through North Carolina from Fort Fisher to the Blue Ridge Mountains, is perfect for development.

He expects the whole area will change.

Conservation easements are the easiest way for him to preserve his land in perpetuity.

He’s talked with members of different land conservation organizations. He goes to meetings hosted by different organizations to learn as much as he can about the different conservation programs that are out there.

“At least that by being in the (heritage) program it kind of gives me, I’m going to say, a leg up if I were to do a conservation easement or get into some other conservation program because some of the work has already been done,” North said. “Yesterday, I got two letters in the mail that want to buy my land. I just throw them in the trash can.”

There was a time when the distinctive “kiki-do” call of eastern black rails were a common sound rising up from North Carolina marshes.

Masters of secrecy, these little birds are rarely, if ever, seen.

They prefer to skirt through the marsh using tunnels dug by rabbits and other small mammals rather than take to the sky. Their nests are typically well concealed close to the ground in the highest part of brackish, saltwater and inland freshwater marshes.

But the habitat that eastern black rails so skillfully use to maintain their privacy is under growing threat from rising ocean waters, more powerful storms, and development and, if their numbers continue to decline, projections are they’ll disappear altogether within 35 years.

The North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission aims to help these birds, putting forth a management plan to improve the black rails’ habitat by permanently protecting coastal marshes and assisting private landowners with potential habitat creation.

That’s going to take hundreds of acres of additional inland, shallow marsh and high-elevation coastal marsh.

“We think there’s probably less than 40 breeding pairs in North Carolina right now,” said Kacy Cook, a coastal waterbird biologist with the Wildlife Resources Commission.

The commission is accepting public comment on the Black Rail Management Plan through July 11.

The eastern black rail was listed as threatened under the Endangered Species Act in 2020. The commission lists it as a species of greatest conservation need.

Long gone are the days when eastern black rails were documented in freshwater marshes in the North Carolina mountains and Piedmont. No one has heard their “kiki-do” in the interior part of the state since 2005, Cook said.

Once abundant black rail habitat along the North Carolina has been crowded out by houses, roads and farmed land.

The last remaining pockets of coastal areas where the birds are heard in some places in the Outer Banks (exact locations are kept under wraps to prevent human disturbance) and Cedar Island, an unincorporated area of Carteret County. Even there, surveys reveal a dramatic population decline.

Surveys are conducted throughout the black rails’ breeding cycle by using something called a targeted call-response where biologists play a recording of the “kiki-do” sound and wait for a response from black rails in the survey area.

“You used to be able to hear 70 black rail calling from the causeway,” at Cedar Island, Cook said.

Now, fewer than 10 respond at any given time, she said.

And while that’s not good for the eastern black rail, it’s also indicative of a wider coastal problem.

“Black rails are our signal that our coastal marshes and freshwater wetlands are in trouble, and that makes a difference for a lot of species, and our own wellbeing,” Cook said.

Eastern black rails rely on very shallow water levels in marshes. They have legs that are typically just over one inch long. Their fledglings, roughly the size of cotton balls, are out of the nest within 24 hours of hatching, but they’re not able to fly until about 40 days later.

This is why coastal storm flooding, exacerbated by sea level rise, is a particular threat, because flood waters can wash away the nests, eggs and chicks. One big storm could wipe out the remaining population in North Carolina.

“Those are happening at a rate that is too high for their population to grow,” Cook said.

Lack of fire, which is crucial to maintaining that type of habitat, and agricultural practices that include cutting field borders where black rails like to settle among wet, tall, grassy habitat, are further degrading the birds’ habitat.

“I’m only finding black rails where we have high herbaceous plant diversity. They only use habitats that are very dense herbaceous cover, grasses and flowers with few shrubs and no trees,” Cook said.

The commission’s management plan for black rails includes the creation and restoration of 600 acres of freshwater marsh and 600 acres of additional high-elevation coastal march by 2056.

“What we do for black rails will benefit all of the marsh birds that we have now, including the egrets and the herons and the wood storks. So, working on restoring black rail habitat is going to benefit all of our coastal birds in some way and our seafood. Seventy-five percent of our seafood comes from coastal marshes,” Cook said.

The North Carolina Coastal Federation announced this week that the nonprofit was entering its third year of restoration efforts at Carolina Beach State Park.

The project aims to enhance wetland habitat, estuarine shorelines, and subtidal oyster reefs.

Wetlands are crucial for the health and resilience of North Carolina’s coast, says the Coastal Federation, which publishes Coastal Review. Wetlands act as natural barriers against storms, filter pollutants, provide habitat for diverse wildlife, and support the livelihoods of coastal communities.

“The goals for wetland restoration at Carolina Beach State Park were driven by the ecosystem services these habitats provide. The final phase of this project is the construction of an observation platform for visitors to learn about critical wetland habitats within our dynamic coastal systems,” said Coastal Federation Coastal Specialist Georgia Busch.

Previously overrun by the invasive plant, phragmites, the park partnered with the Coastal Federation to restore the habitat using native plants that benefit birds, mammals and aquatic life. To connect visitors with the ecosystem, the park is building an observation platform for educational talks and birdwatching opportunities.

“The addition of the overlook at Carolina Beach State Park will make an excellent area for observations of wildlife in their habitat that may otherwise be difficult to access,” said Jesse Anderson, lead ranger at the park. Anderson supervises natural resource management in the park, including the three-year restoration project. “We hope these educational opportunities will highlight the success of invasive species removal and wetland habitat restoration, allowing wildlife to call this space ‘home’.”

Carolina Beach State Park visitors are asked to exercise caution when hiking or accessing the Sugarloaf Trail via the marina parking lot. Hikers should pay special attention to signage and barricades indicating temporary trail closures during construction, which is expected to begin in the next few weeks.

The wetland restoration project at Carolina Beach State Park is a component of the Restoration Plan for the Natural Resources Damages Assessment for the Kerr-McGee EPA Superfund Site in Navassa. Trustees are the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, the National Ocean and Atmospheric Administration, and the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality.

Officials also thanked partners at the North Carolina Division of Parks and Recreation and the dedicated staff at Carolina Beach State Park.

SWAN QUARTER — Turns out that those million big, invasive fish that were supposed to be swimming in Lake Mattamuskeet didn’t show up, as contractors conducting a mass removal project that began last year reevaluate the estimated population of common carp in the state’s largest natural freshwater lake.

“What we found is we’re not finding the carp numbers in the lake that we thought were there,” Kendall Smith, refuge manager at Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuge, told the Lake Mattamuskeet Watershed Restoration Plan Core Stakeholder Team at a recent meeting.

“So far we have not detected any aggregations of fish. We are finding concentration, places where you find more fish than others, but nothing that would be considered an aggregation,” he said.

Smith explained that the refuge will continue to work with the contractor during the year to review other techniques, assess the issues with the carp’s habits and reproduction, and determine the next approach.

“We’re learning a lot about their movements, confirming whether or not they do activate in the wintertime or early spring,” Smith continued.

But reduction of carp, aggressive bottom feeders that are blamed for much of the lake’s turbidity, is just one of the multiple challenges being tackled. The team, made up of folks with local, state and federal expertise, including representatives from governments, nonprofits and landowners, is proving to be as resilient and adaptive as the lake itself.

“Like anything worthwhile, it’s the hard stuff you’ve got to pay attention to,” local farmer and former refuge biologist Kelly Davis told Coastal Review, “because the easy stuff works itself out, right?”

A member of the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, Davis, along with her late husband Blythe, for decades farmed 2,000 acres of farmland in Hyde County, of which about 150 acres drain into Lake Mattamuskeet.

In her observation, the lake’s biggest issue in restoring the submerged aquatic vegetation, or SAV, is the haziness of the water, to which the carp contribute by churning up the lake bottom.

“Whatever’s killing the grass,’ she said, “it’s sedimentation. It’s cloudy waters.”

 Often referred to as a jewel of Hyde County, Lake Mattamuskeet, the centerpiece of the refuge, is 6 miles wide, 18 miles long and averages 2 feet deep.

The 40,000-acre lake, expansive and often shimmering, is famously photogenic. Serene cypress swamps along its border could be described convincingly as habitat for elves and gnomes.

But its beauty belies its environmental vulnerability. It is situated on low land, surrounded by pocosin forests and rich farmlands, intersected by gated canals that drain water, sediment and nutrients into the lake.

In addition to nearby rivers, the vast Pamlico Sound, to the lake ecosystem’s benefit and detriment, contributes some of its marine life and waters, whether pushed in by wind-driven tides or flooding. 

Since the 1990s, the submerged aquatic vegetation in the lake had gradually then suddenly disappeared, depriving the hundreds of thousands of waterfowl along the Atlantic Flyway that had stopped over for food and shelter.

Once Hyde County’s community hub, the lake, the refuge and the long-closed Mattamuskeet Lodge, which the county plans to restore and reopen, is still supporting hunting, fishing and farming activities. And ducks, swans and geese still alight at Mattamuskeet, but now mostly at the seasonal duck impoundments created around the lake.

Since 2017, the stakeholder team has been focused on solutions to the lake’s water quality problems, including loss of SAV and persistent algal blooms, as well as flooding and drainage of the surrounding land.

Guidance for the work has been provided by a watershed restoration plan facilitated by the North Carolina Coastal Federation, in partnership with Hyde County, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission. The Coastal Federation is the publisher of Coastal Review, an independent online newspaper that covers coastal issues in North Carolina.

Despite uncertainty with staffing and funding concerns related to recent cuts in the federal government, work at the lake and surrounding land is ongoing and planned for upcoming months, according to a discussion during the Jan. 30 team meeting in the Hyde County Government Complex.

Five projects, funded by a $16.86 million Regional Conservation Partnership Program grant awarded to the North Carolina Coastal Federation, are designed to enhance water quality within the Lake Mattamuskeet watershed.

Project planned are improvements in the Fairfield Drainage District including installing a pump station to reduce drainage into the lake and enhance crops, restoring 1,000 acres of wetlands on converted agricultural land, constructing a 4,506-linear foot living shoreline to protect a Natural Resources Conservation Service dike in Swan Quarter and other critical infrastructure, facilitating agricultural best management practices to mitigate discharge of agricultural runoff into the lake, and outreach to aquaculture producers in an effort to boost participation in oyster restoration.

The Coastal Federation is currently working to finalize a partnership agreement with the Conservation Service, according to the federation’s coastal advocate Alyson Flynn, the meeting’s moderator. She also said that the federation has contracted with consultant Jonathan Hinkle to assist in the design and modeling of the large-scale restoration projects.

Part of the work, which has a four-year timeline, with a potential 1-year extension, involves diverting, pumping and draining water on the land in a way that would avoid adding sediment or nutrients to the lake, a hydrology challenge to engineer and a problem when there may be divergent goals. Drainage improvements also include cleaning out major drainage canals.

 “We all agree that the lake is in poor health, and we want to help fix it, but what that looks like seem to change,” Flynn said in an interview, referring to the proposed Fairfield project. “And so, yes, by diverting that fresh water up into the north, we’re hoping that the lake water will naturally filter out through that designed wetland before it gets to the Intracoastal Waterway in the north, with the assistance of pumps.”

Davis, who attended the stakeholders meeting informally as an area landowner, said that water is affected by changes in sea level and by wind tide, and there’s no choice but to work with the conditions, whatever their whims.  

“There will be times where some of that water movement is hampered until the wind shifts and blows the sound back out, but that’s part of water management in Hyde County, or really on the peninsula,” Davis said. “Whether the water body is the Pungo River, the Intracoastal Waterway, the Pamlico Sound, or Lake Mattamuskeet, the whole idea is to try to get the sediment trapped somewhere before it hits that water. And as the water slowly move through wetlands, the slower you can move the water, the more time it has for the sediment to fall out, and the more what you’re sending to the water bodies is mostly just water.”

What is important, she added, is that all the projects’ stakeholders are engaged and involved — and patient.

“They’re big projects, but they’re also projects that should have decades of value. The projects don’t have to be perfect,” she said, adding that every challenge that is addressed at the time makes a difference. “Because the needs are now, and they will be in the near term and the long term, and the wind still blows the sound out.”

The North Carolina Coastal Federation is partnering with two private firms to build a 1-acre salt marsh to serve as a “donor marsh” for scarce native salt marsh plants coastal restoration projects.

The Coastal Federation, NR Lands, LLC, and Backwater Environmental recently began construction of the donor marsh at North River Wetlands Preserve in Carteret County, which is itself a 6,800-acre wetland restoration project.

Formerly farmland, the Coastal Federation purchased the property in 1999 and has slowly restored it to forested freshwater and tidal wetlands. The return to nature has helped improve water quality in downstream estuaries by capturing sediments, bacteria and nutrients.

The Coastal Federation said that salt marsh habitat in North Carolina is at risk from land use changes, accelerated erosion rates and climate-driven sea level rise.

The North Carolina Division of Coastal Management determined that an estimated 80,000 acres of coastal wetlands are being lost on average each year in the U.S., up from 60,000 acres lost a year during the previous study. Additionally, restoration efforts in North Carolina are often hindered by a lack of native salt marsh grass plants available to purchase.

“The donor marsh will provide a consistent source of salt marsh plants that will reduce lead times and expense for other restoration projects,” said Coastal Federation Water Quality Program Director Bree Charon. “It also provides the co-benefit of filtering water entering Ward Creek and providing habitat for the many species that call North River Wetlands Preserve home.”

Once mature, the donor marsh will help supply plants that now cost anywhere from 75 cents to $2 each, providing significant savings. The donor marsh is intended a first-of-its-kind plant nursery in North Carolina that officials hope to see replicated by commercial nurseries.

Construction began Thursday, and work is expected to take a month to complete. Later this spring volunteers will help plant the initial salt marsh plants and will eventually help harvest plants once they are mature.

The North Carolina Land and Water Fund and the National Fish Habitat Partnership funded the project.

OAK ISLAND — To an unsuspecting eye, it may appear trees have fared well here despite hurricanes and crop rows of houses built on this barrier island over the past couple of decades.

Pines and curvy-limbed live oaks seemingly pepper the landscape on the 12-mile-long island in Brunswick County.

But an inventory of mature live oaks and longleaf pines on town property completed a little more than a year ago revealed that not all is what it seems. The tree canopy that provides respite from scorching summer days and slows wind speeds whipped up during powerful coastal storms has depleted since the mid-2000s.

The town had 59% tree canopy cover, or nearly 7,100 of its 12,000 acres, according to a 2022 assessment, one that has helped shepherd a townwide effort to protect its existing trees and plant hundreds more.

Oak Island’s Tree Preservation Project has prompted the implementation of local rules that require property owners and builders get approval before cutting down any tree, protects hundreds of what are known as heritage live oaks and longleaf pines (those near or at 100 years old), removes Bradford pears on public land and replaces them with new live oaks, and adds hundreds more live oaks to the island.

“We’re going to grow this program,” said Brice Taylor, the town’s stormwater administrator.

He’s eager for that to happen. There is something special, arguably majestic, about old live oak trees with their broad crowns and gnarly branches stoically bowing to the earth.

On a recent, mild February morning, Taylor propped on the tailgate of a pickup truck parked to one side of a street where a Southport-based landscaping crew readied to plant more than two dozen live oaks.

The trees arrive in 25-gallon plastic pots, each stand about 12 feet tall, and are a mere five years old. In time, they’ll grow to what town officials envision as an arch-like canopy, or as one town employee put it, a “tunnel of love” over Oak Island Drive, the main thoroughfare on the island.

This is the latest round of what will be 200 plantings this year along street rights-of-way and town-owned land.

Last year, 100 young live oaks were plugged into the landscape. They are of different varieties with names like George Washington, Hoggard and Wrightsville Beach.

The trees have sprouted from acorns and carefully grown at Penderlea Farms in Burgaw, a town roughly an hour north of the island.

Because the trees are locally sourced, they’ll be more resilient to the southeastern North Carolina climate.

As the trees grow, they’ll form an intricate system of roots that act as super absorbent sponges, soaking up rainfall in a manner that helps reduce flooding.

To ensure the young live oaks consistently get enough to drink, the town has watering bags installed around each tree.

Each bag holds 20 gallons of water, which is time released into the soil at the tree’s base. The bags get refilled every five days in the summer and every four days throughout cooler months.

“It’s a very efficient way of watering,” said Bryan Whitworth, owner of GreenMan Landscape Design & Maintenance, which is planting the trees.

That’s important because watering the trees is expensive.

The town is preparing to launch an adopt-a-tree program in the next couple of weeks where participants will take over responsibility from the town and fill the watering bags.

It’s a program that is expected to be well received in a community that has by and large supported protecting and expanding the town’s tree canopy.

Taylor said a little more than 92% of lots on the island are constructed out, a testament to the growth that has occurred here.

If a property owner wants to remove a tree from his or her land, that person is required to submit a free-of-charge permit application to the town for approval.

The town encourages property owners to remove Bradford pears from their land. These weak-limbed trees are an invasive species, one that’s being targeted by a collaborative of state agencies through a program called N.C. Bradford Pear Bounty.

This program offers a one-to-one tree exchange (one replacement tree for one Bradford pear) to qualifying property owners.

More than 20 Bradford pears have been removed from Oak Island town-owned land.

Since the Oak Island Town Council adopted Town Ordinance Chapter 32: Vegetation in mid-March last year, the town has issued $8,000 in ordinance-related violations.

If a property owner wants to plant a tree, he is allowed to choose from a list of 13 species preapproved by the town.

Oak Island is a Tree City USA, an honor the National Arbor Day Foundation bestowed it 25 years ago.

This year’s Arbor Day celebration will kick off with a tree ceremony 4-5 p.m. April 25 in Bill Smith Park. The following day, the town will announce the name selected from its name-the-tree contest for the park’s main attraction, a live oak estimated to be between 200-260 years old.

“We’re working really hard to ensure (Oak Island’s) not just a name, it’s an observation,” said town communications manager Mike Emory.

Thinking about what you want to do with your state tax refund this year?

The North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission is welcoming anyone filing a 2024 state tax return to donate some or all of their refund to the North Carolina Nongame and Endangered Wildlife Fund.

This fund supports research and conservation management projects for the state’s most vulnerable wildlife populations.

“Funds donated using the tax-checkoff program amplify those provided by a federal grant for species of greatest conservation need (SGCN) in North Carolina,” Sara Schweitzer, assistant chief of the agency’s Wildlife Management Division, said in a release. “A $100 donation is matched by $186 in grants—truly boosting SGCN conservation in North Carolina. Our biologists and agency partners are working around the clock to enhance habitat and populations, especially those greatly affected by Hurricane Helene in western North Carolina. The Eastern hellbender, bog turtle, gray bat, Carolina Northern flying squirrel, several high-elevation migratory birds, to name a few, have been greatly affected by the hurricane’s impacts. The matched funding from the tax check-off program will help conservation efforts immensely.”   

Projects supported by the fund include the development of diamondback terrapin surveys in coastal estuaries, habitat restoration for the bog turtle, Hickory Nut Gorge green salamander surveys, translocations of hellbenders to avoid direct impacts from in-stream dam removal projects, and use of audio-recording devices to detect vocalizing frogs in remote areas of the state’s Sandhills region.

Other projects supported by the tax check-off program are available online.

To participate, check Line 30 on your state income tax form. If filing through an online tax preparation software, enter the amount you wish to contribute when prompted to “N.C. Nongame and Endangered Wildlife Fund.”

Direct donations may be made online.

In observance of Martin Luther King Jr. Day and in recognition of the continued struggle for civil rights, Coastal Review will not publish on Monday, Jan. 20.

Editor’s note: This post will be updated as more towns, counties and organizations announce plans for natural Christmas trees.

Whether it’s for trapping beach sand or grinding it for fresh mulch, consider upcycling that live Christmas tree you’ll be undecorating as the holiday season comes to a close.

North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Coastal Management has released its annual guidelines for using natural Christmas trees as a substitute for traditional sand fending on oceanfront shores.

All decorations must be removed before the tree is placed at the toe of the frontal dune or erosion escarpment, according to a division release.

The trees should not block public or emergency vehicle accesses to beaches, hinder recreational use of a beach, or be placed on private property. Trees should also not be placed in a way that impedes, traps or otherwise endangers sea turtles, nests or hatchlings when the nesting season returns in a few months. 

For more information on how to properly use a live tree on oceanfront property, contact the Coastal Area Management Act permitting authority or appropriate Division of Coastal Management district office.

New Hanover County

New Hanover County residents who do not have residential trash and yard waste pick-up from Wilmington can recycle their Christmas trees and other natural decorations at no charge now through Jan. 31.

“Decorating for the holidays is such an important tradition for so many people, but once the holidays end, it can be hard to dispose of their natural décor in a responsible and environmentally friendly way,” Recycling and Solid Waste Director Joe Suleyman said in a statement. “We’re glad to continue this partnership with The Home Depot and the City of Wilmington which allows living Christmas trees, wreaths, and garlands to be recycled and converted into mulch and compost that will be used in our parks, gardens and grounds, helping reduce waste and keeping our environment clean.”

All natural trees, wreaths and garlands must have lights, ornaments, stands and tinsel removed before dropping the trees off at one of three locations in Wilmington: The Home Depot at 5511 Carolina Beach Road, The Home Depot at 210 Eastwood Road, or the New Hanover County Landfill at 5210 U.S. Highway 421 North. Residents are asked to stack recycled items neatly due to limited space at these drop-off sites.

In addition to trees and wreaths, residents are reminded that other holiday-related items such as gift wrap, paper or cardboard boxes, holiday cards, old gadgets and electronics can be recycled at the county’s recycling processing facility, drop-off sites or via the Mobile Hazwagon.

At this time, artificial trees or decorations, string lights, tinsel, foam packaging, bubble wrap, and ribbons or bows cannot be recycled and should either be reused or placed in the trash.

Onslow County

The Onslow County Landfill, and convenience sites in Midway Park in Jacksonville and Folkstone in Holly Ridge will accept real Christmas trees. The real Christmas trees are taken as yard waste. There is a charge of $3 per tree at the convenience sites, and $31 per ton at the landfill, which equals to $0.31 per 20 pounds.

Artificial Christmas trees can also be dropped off at all sites. There is no fee, and the artificial trees are accepted as recyclable metal. Please remove ornaments, lights, tinsel, and other decorations.

All Onslow County residents can recycle their used Christmas lights no matter the condition at any convenience site.

The convenience sites are open 8 a.m. to 5:30 p.m. Monday, Wednesday, Friday, and Saturday. For more information, call for the main refill 910-989-2107, for Midway Park call 910-353-3980 or 910-327-2444 for Folkstone, or visit the website.

North Topsail Beach

Christmas trees can be dropped off at the designated area at Jeffries Parking Lot, 316 New River Inlet Road now through Jan. 13. Free mulch will be available for pick up after Jan. 16.

Carteret County

Fort Macon State Park in Atlantic Beach will collect natural Christmas trees again this year for dune renourishment. Trees can be dropped off at the visitor center parking lot during business hours.

Ranger Benjamin Fleming reiterated that trees need to be completely free of ornaments, lights, tinsel, and other decorations before donating the tree.

“Also, we can’t accept other yard debris and anything that contains metal is not acceptable. For instance every year we get 30 or so wreaths that are made with metal backing, and we have to just throw those in the dumpster,” Fleming said.

Dare County

Residents are asked to remove all ornaments, tinsel, lights, and other nonorganic items from the natural Christmas tree. Place your tree in the right-of-way adjacent to your property and ensure that it is away from all other objects. No artificial trees or other bulk trash items will be collected.

The Dare County Public Works Department will not pick up any Christmas trees that are left on the curbside within the unincorporated areas of Dare County.

Unincorporated Dare County
Christmas trees should be dropped off at the Dare County Public Works Recycling Center located at 1018 Driftwood Drive in Manteo, at Dare County’s C&D Landfill located at 1603 Cub Road in Manns Harbor, or at the Buxton Transfer Station located at 47027 Buxton Back Road in Buxton. Trees that are dropped off at these locations will be recycled into mulch.

Manteo
Town officials request that residents place their undecorated Christmas trees on the curbside during the town’s regular Monday and Thursday sanitation runs.

Residents within the unincorporated areas of Manteo should drop trees off at the Dare County Public Works Recycling Center located at 1018 Driftwood Drive in Manteo to be turned into mulch.

Duck
The town will collect undecorated, tinsel-free Christmas trees from the curbside Jan. 6 and Jan. 13. Staff ask that trees be placed on the curbside the night before the scheduled collection dates.

Southern Shores
Residents may place their undecorated, tinsel-free Christmas trees in limb and branch piles for collection during the regularly scheduled pickup for their sector. Wreaths will not be collected.

Better Beaches OBX is collecting trees at the Hillcrest Beach parking lot in Southern Shores until Jan. 11 for dune restoration.

Kitty Hawk
The town requests that residents place their undecorated, tinsel-free Christmas trees along the curbside on normal trash collection days where they will be picked up in a timely manner.

Undecorated, tinsel-free Christmas trees can also be dropped off at the Kitty Hawk Bathhouse Beach Access in the grassy area to be used for dune restoration.

For more information about the Town of Kitty Hawk’s collection, click here.

Kill Devil Hills
Kill Devil Hills will be collecting natural and undecorated Christmas trees that are placed along the curbside beginning Jan. 8. Trees must be placed on the curbside right-of-way adjacent to your property no later than Jan. 7.

Nags Head
Nags Head residents are asked to place their undecorated, tinsel-free Christmas trees along the side of the road in front of their property, where they will be collected as part of the town’s monthly curbside bulk item/brush collection service. The town also reminds residents to set their trees in a separate pile from the rest of any bulk items that need to be collected.

Once a vital part of our ecosystem, hedgerows are mostly considered a nuisance nowadays.

Used for well over a thousand years in Europe to delineate boundaries or roads or fields, they have fallen out of favor, both in Europe and here in the United States.

The ones here are often sprayed or string-trimmed or bushhogged into oblivion in keeping with the idea of perfect golf course yards. After World War II, many of the hedgerows that divided smaller fields in Europe were bulldozed and combined into larger, more crop-productive acreage better suited to then-modern farming methods, and also to meet increased housing demands.

Thankfully, Europe has halted the destruction of their hedgerows and they are now protected.

Just to give you an idea of how impenetrable the European hedges are, despite the World War II-era military higher-ups having tons of aerial footage of the countryside around Normandy, our guys got trapped and slaughtered. For whatever reason, the higher-ups didn’t take the hedgerows into serious consideration.

Perhaps they assumed European hedgerows were like the natural ones here; a scruff of bushes and then somewhat clear inside. The hedgerows in Normandy, however, became deathtraps. Our soldiers couldn’t get around or through them, and they became sitting ducks for the enemy.

Whether it’s a hedge — those made up of mostly one type of plant — or a hedgerow, which consists of a multitude of different plants, both serve a purpose. A hedge can be a screen along a driveway or fence, or the hedge can be a fence.

A hedgerow, on the other hand, while it can be a fence, is more often a habitat, a hide-away, a highway.

It’s thought that the first hedgerows originated from strips of woodland left around cleared fields and spaces. Humans figured out that hedgerows worked pretty well for delineating boundaries and keeping livestock from wandering away. The rest, as is often said, is history.

Ancient hedgerows were often planted in a specific way, and the method of construction can be used to determine the age. One method showcases rocks or dirt banked as a foundation for a row of plants above, usually hawthorn whips or something similar that’s allowed to grow straight up before being slashed near the bottom of the trunk and then bent sideways.

Usually done in the winter, the following spring would see the slashed plants sending up lots of straight branches. Successive rows of various plants would be interspersed alongside this main planting. A few seasons of growth resulted in a nearly impenetrable explosion of plants.

Once the hedgerow was started, other than an occasional trimming, those hedgerows thickened pretty much by themselves. With a lot of help from birds and small mammals and reptiles, they soon became thriving ecosystems, teeming with wildlife and plant species.

As the birds perched and roosted, they spread berries and seeds, which encouraged more types of plants to grow. Same with mammals.

Hedgerows can be planted intentionally, but some of the best ones evolve naturally.

Around here, and specifically, the hedgerow beside the Newport Garden Center, provides endless opportunities for observation and enjoyment for me, but to the guys who keep it trimmed back, not so much!

Here, hedgerows consist of natives, especially along ditch banks, where it starts with a few scrub bushes, followed by a few pines and maybe some sweet gums or maples. A bit more scrub grows up around the base of the trunks, and so very gradually — you hardly notice — the hedgerow expands outward.

Privet appears, seemingly overnight, and soon wild roses begin to wind and cascade. Southern wax myrtle, or myrkle as it’s known locally, is next, then maybe poison ivy, wild grape vines, honeysuckle, jasmine, magnolias, persimmons, dogwoods, blackberries, smilax, Virginia creeper, and around the verge, mosses and ferns, thistles, grassy weeds and just plain weeds.

But how? Magic? Kind of.

Many seeds, magnolia for example, have to be scarified. What is that? It simply means the seed has an extremely hard coating that needs to be filed or scratched in order to germinate. When a bird eats a magnolia seed, as the seed travels through the bird’s crop and intestines, the outer coating is scarified. The bird perches on a branch, does what birds do, and voila!

Eventually, instead of a lone tree with a gauzy skirt of scrub brush, a whole ecosystem develops. The outer edges of the hedgerow present a solid front. The interior is made up of a tangle of countless trunks and branches and vines, twisting every which way. This wall and tangle, while offensive to humankind’s sense of order, is a haven for critters.

The more species of plants that end up thriving in a hedgerow, the more diverse the animal life that takes advantage of the habitat: Birds, of course, but also raccoons, possums, squirrels, foxes, turtles, rabbits, insects, lizards, toads, snakes … the list goes on and on.

Unfortunately, no matter how great your hedgerow becomes, you’ll never attract hedgehogs, not here. Wouldn’t that be neat?

Still, hedgerows not only provide above-ground habitat, they also improve the soil and provide homes for earthworms and grubs and snails. Their extensive root systems help hold the soil in place, slowing erosion. The leaf detritus from the fallen leaves adds nutritious mulch to the earth, and will eventually turn into rich soil, as will the windblown leaves that get caught along the edges.

Established hedgerows provide numerous other benefits, not the least as windbreaks. They provide ample forage and shelter, protected paths for animals to travel from one place to another, blossoms to feed bees and butterflies, seeds and berries for the birds and critters to feast upon.

Europeans have long taken advantage of their hedgerows for wilding, harvesting herbs and mushrooms and rose hips, among many other things from their hedgerows. Some hedgerows are even deliberately underplanted with perennial edibles that are left to grow and spread. There are also hedgerows used as a renewable source of firewood.

Far more than just a useless tangle of brambles and weeds, hedgerows are amazing places. Ever-evolving, what was once hedgerow will eventually become forest. Pushing outward, the cycle continues endlessly.

Sandy Cross, senior planner for Duck, recently brought Coastal Review with her as she walked along the edge of Currituck Sound, where a project to make the Dare County town more resilient was completed in May.

Cross excitedly pointed out signs of continuing progress at the site.

“See this little grass right here? This is a black needle rush or Juncus roemerianus,” she said, growing more excited as the stroll continued another 10 to 15 yards farther along the shoreline.

“Wait a minute. See this grass that looks kind of like a Charlie Brown Christmas tree?” she asked. “That’s called Spartina cynosuroides, which is a coastal wetland species. We did not plant that.”

The project funded with local, state and federal money also elevated a portion of N.C. Highway 12 to reduce flooding, and it restored native marsh to protect the shoreline and improve natural habitat.

In October, the American Planning Association recognized the project, honoring the town with its Marvin Collins Planning Award in Sustainability and Resilience.

The award-winning projects and programs were selected for their “high quality, originality, and innovation, as well as a degree of transferability,” according to the association. “They are also impactful, in that they address a known community need and position the community for a stronger, more equitable future.”

Most vulnerable infrastructure

N.C. 12 is the only road that connects Duck to the rest of Dare County to the south and Corolla village in Currituck County to the north. At the north end of Duck’s business district, the highway was prone to flooding. When the wind was strong enough for long enough, revetment rocks that were placed alongside the road were lifted from their bed and strewn across the highway.

“For anyone that’s been in Duck any length of time, they know that a good southwest wind will inundate the roadway,” Cross said.

Town officials knew well that the quarter-mile stretch of the road was at risk. A 2019 Western Carolina University vulnerability assessment, “indicated that this section of roadway was the most vulnerable infrastructure we had in the in the town,” Cross said.

The project cost a little more than $4.3 million, which was mostly paid for with grants, although the town did contribute $398,500 of its own. Construction began in October 2023 and took six months to complete.

Sills were installed to protect a new living shoreline. Marsh grasses were planted after the invasive phragmites reeds that had taken over the nearshore were removed. The small riprap rocks were replaced by Class III Armor Stone, revetment stones that weight more than a ton each and should withstand even the strongest winds and waves.

The roadbed was raised 2.5 feet and a new sidewalk was built, all with resilience features.

“They put in strips,” Cross said of the design, “intended as a small stormwater mechanism. They’re probably about 2 feet deep, and at the base there’s some filter cloth, and then there’s a rock bed, and then there’s bio-retention soil.” 

There is also a wild grass planted between the road and the sidewalk— liriope.

In the past the town had used little bluestem between the highway and sidewalk, but Cross really wanted to find a grass that would work better as a barrier.

“They (little bluestem) get really tall, and they get really floppy when they get wet,” she said.

Liriope is a flowering grass that Cross said, “is probably the only plant that can survive the soot and the very small space in which it has to survive.”

Duck has created a series of vision documents beginning in 2009 with its “2022 Vision” that describes the town as “a pedestrian first community that is safe and easy to navigate by walking and cycling.”

That same document stressed environmental stewardship with an emphasis on living shorelines for protection on the sound side of the village.

Phase 4 of the sidewalk project was to be at the north end of the business district, and plans called for a living shoreline to create additional defense from soundside flooding.

Standing at the south end of the project area, Cross explained how the project went from an ambitious but relatively limited shoreline plan to an award-winning project, a process kickstarted by the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

“We were going put in a sidewalk, and we were going to put in a living shoreline. That was all scheduled to begin in 2019,” she said. “Then FEMA came out with their Building Resilient Infrastructures and Communities grant program and there was a huge pot of money for resilience projects.”

With possibility of funding for raising the road in conjunction with the living shoreline and sidewalk project, the town paused to “apply for this BRIC grant to raise the road and then really make it a resilience project,” Cross recalled.

The state, Cross said, said the project was a good candidate for funding but advised the town to hold off on the sidewalk and living shoreline components.

“You need to encompass it all in order to really fare well in the scoring of the grant,” she said. “So we started the grant process with BRIC in 2020. Fast-forward to 2024, when we actually saw the money for the grant.”

The roughly $1.9 million appeared to be enough to raise the roadbed and replace the riprap.

“Then COVID happened,” Cross said. “Everything you thought was going to cost one thing ended up costing double that. We were able to apply to the Department of Emergency Management with the state for some additional funding. We ended up getting an additional $1.5 million and change to offset some of the increase in cost of the project.”

There were other grants as well, including the $398,500 from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation for the living shoreline, $148,000 from the Outer Banks Visitors Bureau for the sidewalk, and an additional $20,000 grant from the Community Conservation Assistance Program administered through the soil and water districts by the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services’ Division of Soil and Water Conservation.

Ricky Wiatt, senior landscape architect with environmental and government consulting firm VHB, which has long worked with the town, wrote on the company’s blog that the project, “was not merely a one-and-done solution but rather a dynamic and layered approach designed to adapt and thrive in the face of ongoing challenges. By embracing the principles of resiliency and incorporating diverse strategies, the Town of Duck is not only safeguarding its infrastructure but also fostering a more sustainable and vibrant community for generations to come.”

For Cross, however, although construction has been completed, there is still work to be done.

“We do expect this to be a case study. That’s one of the things I am continually telling people, and one of the reasons why I want to get some monitoring program together,” she said. “This is all fine and dandy, but if we don’t have a way to track it when it’s done, then what have we done it for?”

Recommendations for the second round of funding through the Transformational Habitat Restoration and Coastal Resilience grant program include two projects in North Carolina.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Thursday the 32 projects it recommends to receive nearly $220 million under the bipartisan infrastructure law passed in 2021 and the Democratic Party’s anti-inflation measure passed in 2022.

“This is a historic investment in strengthening the climate resilience of our nation’s coastal ecosystems and communities,” NOAA officials said. The projects to restore coastal habitat and strengthen community resilience “will reconnect rivers to their historic floodplains, outplant corals to rebuild reefs, restore salt marshes that protect coasts from erosion and sea level rise, and more.”

Jacksonville has been recommended to receive $8 million in the first year, and up to $16 million total over three years, to restore critical habitat and alleviate flooding within the New River watershed.

The effort, which builds on the success of the New River Estuary Oyster Highway and Wilson Bay restoration project, includes wetland restoration, culvert replacement, living shoreline creation and planting of 3 million oysters. The work is expected to improve water quality, recreational access and community resilience, officials said.

The Nature Conservancy has been recommended to receive $4 million in the first year, and up to $7.9 million total over three years. The conservation organization is to use the funding to lead extensive community engagement to improve fish passage and increase resilience on the Cape Fear River.

The project is expected to identify and garner consensus around a fish passage solution at two dams on the mainstem river. It will also build capacity for local governments by sharing best practices for nature-based solutions to address concerns related to water quality, flooding and other community hazards.

For the first round of grants announced in April 2023, NOAA awarded more than $265 million in funding for 38 projects, including $15 million to the North Carolina Coastal Federation.

The Coastal Federation has been using the funds to partner with the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries to restore nearly 120 acres of oyster habitat in Pamlico Sound to complete the 500-acre goal of the Jean Preston Memorial Oyster Sanctuary. The Coastal Federation has been working with the North Carolina State University Center for Marine Sciences and Technology and North Carolina Central University to provide opportunities for underrepresented graduate and undergraduate students studying marine sciences.

The National Fish and Wildlife Foundation is disbursing more than $1.7 million in conservation grants to help ongoing longleaf pine restoration efforts in North Carolina.

The nonprofit announced Tuesday $33.5 million in grants from the Longleaf Landscape Stewardship Fund, or LLSF, will be funneled to restore, enhance and protect longleaf pine forests in eight southern states.

The North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission has been awarded $1 million in funding. The agency is matching the grant with $555,800 to restore and enhance 29,000 acres of longleaf pine habitat in eastern North Carolina.

The project includes planting longleaf pines, removing competing pine and hardwood trees, and prescribed burning, which is essential to maintaining healthy longleaf forests. The project will also include prescribed burn plans written by specialists and assisting landowners with controlled burns, applying for financial assistance, and training property owners to become certified prescribed burners.

This project will improve habitat for endangered red-cockaded woodpeckers, Bachman’s sparrows and northern bobwhites.

The Nature Conservancy received $722,300 in grant money, which will be matched for a longleaf restoration and management project totaling more than $1.4 million in the Sandhills.

This funding will be used to restore nearly 1,100 acres of longleaf pine on private lands through landowner cost-share programs and by implementing climate-smart agricultural practices. This project includes burning more than 60,600 acres, enhancing more 2,800 acres of habitat through groundcover planting and mechanical and chemical treatments, and protecting 2,000 acres.

This year marks the largest grant in the foundation’s program history.

“Through this record investment of more than $33 million, the 30 projects announced today will help partners scale up efforts to reach more landowners and implement innovative voluntary approaches to restoring longleaf pine habitat and helping the wildlife that rely on this important forest ecosystem,” Jeff Trandahl, executive director and CEO of NFWF, said in a news release. “These projects would not be possible without the incredible network of funding partners and on-the-ground conservationists working collaboratively to reach the America’s Longleaf Restoration Initiative’s goal of restoring 8 million acres.” 

This year’s funding is being provided through a public-private partnership, including a major contribution from the Bezos Earth Fund and increased funding from the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service.

The longleaf pine ecosystem provides habitat for 40 species listed as threatened or endangered under the Endangered Species Act, and dozens of state-designated species of greatest conservation need.

The LLSF provides key financial support for organizations working to implement projects that contribute to the America’s Longleaf Restoration Initiative, which recently updated its plan to restore 8 million acres of longleaf pine habitat.

Grants were also disbursed to projects in South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, Mississippi, and Texas.

These projects are expected to establish more than 70,000 acres of longleaf pine habitat through plantings and prescribed burnings on an additional 430,000 acres.

Longleaf pine forests once covered more than 90 million across the southeastern coastal plain and Piedmont, but the ecosystem has been greatly depleted as it has been converted to other types of forests, land uses and fire suppression.

A complete list of the 2024 grants made through the Longleaf Landscape Stewardship Fund is available online.

North Carolina Coastal Federation and Carolina Beach State Park staff are asking volunteers to help out Tuesday to restore 10 acres of tidal marsh habitat.

Taking place from 9 a.m. to noon at the park 10 miles south of Wilmington, extra hands are needed to plant thousands of native wetland plants in marsh once overrun by invasive phragmites, or reed grass.

Wetlands serve as natural buffers against storms, and they filter pollutants, provide habitat for diverse wildlife and support the livelihoods of coastal communities.

“When planning these events, we have to take our cues from the plants when they are ready to go in the ground. Serendipitously, their readiness aligns with National Pollinator Week, symbolically acknowledging their vital role in supporting biodiversity,” said Coastal Education Coordinator Bonnie Mitchell. “These plants aren’t just for pollinators; they’re also crucial for safeguarding and restoring the wetlands, which act as buffers against storms, provide homes for wildlife and clean pollutants from our environment.”

Organizers said that volunteers should be prepared for physically demanding work in muddy, wet, and potentially hot and humid conditions. Prior experience is not necessary as basic training will be provided, and all necessary project supplies and equipment, as well as snacks and refreshments, will be provided on-site.

“Volunteer events are one of my favorites. Involving volunteers in something like restoring wetlands and planting native plants is such a valuable way to send home ownership. It really pushes the important aspects of environmental education further,” Carolina Beach State Park Park Ranger Jesse Anderson said. “Our volunteers return home to share with family and friends about their experiences, and that stays with you.”

This wetland restoration project at Carolina Beach State Park is made possible through funding from the Natural Resource Damage Assessment Trustees: National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality.

An ongoing lawsuit has put on hold both the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s plan to treat the toxic blue-green algae in Lake Mattamuskeet and state funding for the project.

On behalf of Defenders of Wildlife and the Sierra Club, the Southern Environmental Law Center challenged on May 20 the service’s decision “to allow the experimental use of an algaecide identified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as toxic to birds in the 40,000-acre Lake Mattamuskeet” which has shown declining water quality since the early 1990s.

The 50,180-acre Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuge was established in 1934, providing habitat for hundreds of species of birds and is part of the Atlantic Flyway. The lake once filled with seagrass had none by 2017, and the declining submerged aquatic vegetation has led to poor water quality and clarity and contributed to large blooms of phytoplankton and cyanobacteria, or blue-green algae, according to the Fish and Wildlife Service.

The North Carolina Collaboratory, under the direction of the General Assembly, in July 2022 awarded a $5 million contract to the vendor, BlueGreen Technologies, which has an office in Pennsylvania, to test out its Lake Guard Oxy product on 400 acres of the lake. Based on results of several toxicity tests, the maximum single dosage rate to be used was to be 50 pounds per acre of Lake Guard Oxy, according to the service.

Southern Environmental Law Center Senior Attorney and Leader of the Wildlife Program Ramona McGee explained to Coastal Review that Mattamuskeet Refuge “is a revered bird sanctuary, so we’re very concerned about the impacts to birds from this toxic algaecide. This is a plan that resulted from the North Carolina General Assembly appropriating funds to the Collaboratory to conduct an experimental test of an algaecide. And for whatever reason, they selected Lake Mattamuskeet as their test site.”

The lawsuit is asking the court to block the plan until the Fish and Wildlife Service “conducts a full analysis that protects the mission and purpose of the wildlife refuge and takes a hard look at the toxic algaecide’s harms and the available alternatives,” the center said in its announcement.

The service, in a response to the lawsuit filed May 29, states that because of the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s May 16 press release announcing that the “project would be ‘starting on June 1,’ Plaintiffs initiated this lawsuit and sought a temporary restraining order and preliminary injunction. However, as a result of the lawsuit, the Collaboratory has halted funding and put the Project on hold due to this pending lawsuit.”

McGee with the law center explained that not all details of how the company was selected for the study are known.

“What we do know is that BlueGreen Technologies registered lobbyists in the North Carolina General Assembly, and then subsequently the North Carolina General Assembly appropriated funds for this study. The vendor had to meet very specific criteria, and those criteria” match up with BlueGreen’s Lake Guard Oxy product and, “kind of unsurprisingly,” when the request for bids went out for this product, BlueGreen won with its Lake Guard Oxy product.

“After that, through whatever decision-making process, they selected Lake Mattamuskeet as the test site and again, Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuge is a bird sanctuary, and this algaecide is toxic to birds,” McGee said.

A U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service representative told Coastal Review that the service does not comment on active or pending litigation.

Emergency relief

The Fish and Wildlife Service released in March its final environmental assessment for the cyanobacteria treatment pilot study, and not long after, on May 16, the NCDEQ issued the press release stating that the department, under state water quality laws, had granted a certificate of coverage for the project to move forward as early as June 1.

“Because of that, the plaintiffs, the conservation groups here, went to the court seeking emergency relief,” McGee said, referring to the complaint filed May 20, motion filed May 24 that sought a temporary restraining order and a preliminary injunction, as well as the court-ordered, expedited hearing which took place May 31.

The Fish and Wildlife Service, the defendants in this case, indicated in their response brief in opposition to SELC’s motion dated May 29 that the Collaboratory had temporarily “halted funding and put the Project on hold due to this pending lawsuit,” but that funding could resume at any time.

The service added that, despite the Department of Environmental Quality’s announcement that the trial study could start on June 1, there were several steps that needed to be taken before the first treatment could be applied. Those steps could take around 10 weeks to complete.

SELC, in its May 30 reply to the defendant’s response brief, said its clients welcomed the new information and agreed to withdraw their request for a temporary restraining order, but not their request for a preliminary injunction.

“Because, as Defendants note, the UNC Collaboratory could resume funding the project at any time and set the project in motion, the Conservation Groups maintain their request for a preliminary injunction,” according to the reply.

McGee said that now, because of the new timeline, “we’re back to briefing.”

This means that the defendants will need to respond to the the law center’s May 30 reply by June 21, and then the groups would have to answer within 10 days, McGee explained.

This is still a request. “We’re still asking, at this point, the court to issue an order ensuring that defendants won’t move forward with the toxic algaecide experiment during the pendency of the lawsuit, but it’s at a slightly slower pace than it was before, given that defendants have basically assured us and the court that they’re not going to be applying the algaecide in the next couple of months,” McGee said.

The Collaboratory, in a prepared statement in response to Coastal Review’s query, said the vendor was selected in accordance with state law and that an academic team from the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill was working with the vendor to gather and assess baseline water quality data from Lake Mattamuskeet.

“The baseline data collection is ongoing, and the Collaboratory has made it clear to the vendor that subsequent phases of the project, including cost reimbursements for treatment activities, will depend on having all necessary State and federal authorizations in place. The continued collection of these data are important to better understand the impacts and effects of harmful algal blooms (HABs) in aquatic environments throughout our State,” according to the statement.

‘Evil plot of a comic book villain’

Plaintiffs Sierra Club North Carolina Chapter Acting State Director Erin Carey and Jane Davenport, senior attorney at Defenders of Wildlife, remain concerned about the algaecide study.

“An experimental algaecide that’s toxic to birds, targeted for use in a federal bird sanctuary, so a private company can collect proprietary information for its own profits –this whole thing feels like the evil plot of a comic book villain,” Carey said. “Common sense, public outcry, and even long-established mission priorities have failed to stop this misaligned and destructive project; our lawsuit is the logical next step. The stewardship inherent to the management of our preserves is paramount to the protection of thousands of species. We are proud to stand with our partners to protect the birds and other wildlife of Lake Mattamuskeet.”

Davenport reiterated that Defenders of Wildlife continues “to be very concerned about using Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuge as a testing ground for an algaecide known to be toxic to birds. We are grateful that we have more time to fully lay out the legal issues with the Fish and Wildlife Service’s short-circuited environmental analysis that treated the experiment as a done deal.”

‘Little risk of negative impact to birds’

The EPA said in March 2023 that Lake Guard Oxy “is toxic to birds. Do not apply this product or allow it to drift to blooming crops or weeds while pollinating insects are actively visiting the area.”

The environmental assessment the Fish and Wildlife Service released in March 2024, notes that the statement, “toxic to birds,” on the label of Lake Guard Oxy, “must be considered in the context of the use of the product,” but concluded that the expected benefits offset the risk.

“The Service believes that use of Lake Guard Oxy in the manner and location in which it is proposed will have little risk of negative impact to birds. The potential long-term benefits of the proposed action for birds and refuge habitats outweighs the potential for negative impacts.”

A BlueGreen Water Technologies spokesperson told Coastal Review Monday that the company “has safely remediated water bodies around the globe using its Lake Guard Oxy technology to improve ecosystems for waterfowl and wildlife.”

While the EPA’s product label “advises for potential toxicity of the active ingredient under a variety of conditions on land and water, BlueGreen’s protocol is specific to harmful algal blooms and our dosage rates for Lake Mattamuskeet are below toxic thresholds as confirmed through proactive testing on waterfowl,” they said.

The product “was developed as a ‘leave no trace’ protocol for use in threatened ecosystems battling toxic, harmful algae blooms, like Lake Mattamuskeet. The peroxide-based product is fully biodegradable and breaks down into water and oxygen molecules. Compared to other peroxide-based treatments, Lake Guard Oxy has been found to provide higher efficacy at much lower doses due to the floating time-release formulation,” they continued.

The commission that makes North Carolina’s marine fisheries rules has voted to have the state Division of Marine Fisheries take a broader look at seagrass protections.

The North Carolina Marine Fisheries Commission decided Thursday to request the division, which is part of the Department of Environmental Quality, work with its Habitat and Water Quality Advisory Committee to develop more comprehensive options for protecting submerged aquatic vegetation, often called SAV or seagrass.

The commission wants the division to consider all activities under the commission’s authority, rather than just shrimp trawling area closures. The comprehensive options could still include shrimp trawl area closures but should also consider other fishing activities that may affect seagrass.

Submerged aquatic vegetation federally designated as essential fish habitat and habitat areas of particular concern. These underwater grassy areas provide refuge and forage for juvenile fish and serve as spawning areas for numerous species. They serve other ecological functions, too.

Also during the meeting, the commission adopted the Estuarine Striped Mullet Fishery Management Plan Amendment 2.

Officials said that the following management measures for the commercial fishery are estimated to generate a 34.9% reduction in harvest:

• 11:59 p.m. Friday to 12:01 a.m. Monday closure from Jan. 1 to Sept. 30.
• 11:59 p.m. Friday to 12:01 a.m. Tuesday closure from Oct. 1 to Dec. 31.
• Manage the stop net fishery with the same measures as the rest of the striped mullet fishery.

The recreational individual bag limit is 100 fish, the recreational vessel limit is 400 fish. There is an exception for for-hire vessel operations to possess a bag limit for the number of anglers fishing up to the 400-fish maximum, including in advance of a trip.

The Amendment 2 includes adaptive management for both commercial and recreational fisheries that allows the division director to use proclamation authority to adjust season closures, day of week closures, and trip limits. The proclamation authority is contingent on Commission approval after consultation with advisory committees.

Threats to the state’s 220,000 acres of salt marshes spurred the development of a five-year strategy designed to protect and restore this vegetation that helps protect shorelines from erosion and provides habitat for juvenile seafood to grow.

Released Wednesday, the North Carolina Salt Marsh Action Plan has the overarching goal “to protect, restore, and facilitate the migration of salt marshes in North Carolina to minimize loss of function, benefits, and acreage through 2050 and beyond.”

There are numerous persistent and emerging threats to current and future salt marshes such as incompatible land and water uses, wave energy caused by boat wakes, and, as a result of climate change, more intense and wetter storms and sea level rise. The state plan offers strategies to address these threats, plus ways to promote the plan’s goals and actions, and a five-year monitoring and evaluation strategy to track success.

“Salt Marshes provide numerous benefits to the health and productivity of the coastal environment, economy, and culture. These benefits include essential fish habitats, water quality enhancements, climate change mitigation, and enhanced community and ecosystem resilience through flood and erosion protection,” Coastal Federation Salt Marsh Program Director Jacob Boyd said in a statement. “We can’t afford to lose that through inaction, especially with the ever-increasing impacts from climate change.”

The state plan was developed to implement the regional marsh plan, “Marsh Forward: A Regional Plan for the Future of the South Atlantic Coast’s Million-Acre Salt Marsh Ecosystem” the South Atlantic Salt Marsh Initiative, or SASMI, released in May 2023.

The Pew Charitable Trusts and Southeast Regional Partnership for Planning and Sustainability formed SASMI in 2021. The regional initiative is an effort of more than 350 partners to preserve and enhance the existing million acres of salt marsh between North Carolina and the northern Atlantic coast of Florida. The states are developing implementation plans specific to their needs.

“The development of the NC Salt Marsh Action Plan that builds off the SASMI regional efforts highlights the importance of protecting and restoring salt marshes in North Carolina and the region,” said Sarah Spiegler, North Carolina Sea Grant coastal resilience specialist. “The Plan’s emphasis on partner collaboration is vital to ensure we effectively build more resilient coastal communities and habitats throughout North Carolina.”

There are numerous partners who will contribute to plan implementation as members of the Salt Marsh Steering Committee that the Coastal Federation is leading, including the Albemarle-Pamlico National Estuary Partnership, Audubon North Carolina, Carolina Wetlands Association, Department of Environmental Quality, Duke University, East Carolina University, University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Eastern North Carolina Sentinel Landscape and others.

New Bern is commemorating Arbor Day at 11 a.m. Friday with a ceremonial tree planting at Martin Marietta Park, at 700 S. Glenburnie Road.

New Bern Parks and Recreation is hosting the event being held at no charge for the public that will include remarks from special guests and refreshments. Attendees are encouraged to commemorate the event by taking home free flowering cherry tree seed packets, while supplies last, to plant, nurture and grow at home.

The Tree City USA program is sponsored by the Arbor Day Foundation, in partnership with the U.S. Forest Service and the National Association of State Foresters. North Carolina Arbor day is the first Friday after March 15, according to the Arbor Day Foundation.

“If ever there was a time for trees, now is that time,” Parks and Recreation Director Kari Warren said. “Communities worldwide are facing issues with air quality, water resources, personal health and well-being, energy use, and extreme heat and flooding. New Bern is doing its part to address these challenges by focusing on our environment, encouraging the planting of trees, preserving soils, and supporting local wildlife.”

2023 marks the 28th New Bern has been awarded the Tree City USA designation. The city is one of 74 cities and towns in the state and one of over 3,600 in the nation to receive the recognition.

To receive this recognition, the city must have a tree board or city department responsible for caring for and managing the community’s trees, a public tree ordinance that establishes policies for managing street and park trees, a community forestry program with an annual budget of at least $2 per capita, and an annual Arbor Day Observance and Proclamation to celebrate trees and the many benefits they provide.

Gov. Roy Cooper has launched an ambitious initiative to conserve and restore wetlands that lost state protections last year when legislators passed a law that aligns with more narrowly defined federal wetland rules.

Cooper announced late Monday afternoon that he had signed Executive Order No. 305, which establishes a goal by 2040 to permanently conserve 1 million new acres of forests and wetlands, restore or reforest 1 million news acres of forests and wetlands, and plant 1 million trees in urban areas.

“North Carolina’s rich natural beauty is not only critical in our fight against flooding and climate change, but important to our economy,” Cooper stated in a release. “As our state continues to grow, we must be mindful to conserve and protect our natural resources and this historic Executive Order sets clear goals and puts a plan in place that will help us leave our state better than we found it for generations to come.”

Cooper last summer failed to stop the annual legislative exercise, the Farm Bill, which includes a provision that boxes in how the state can define and, ultimately, protect wetlands, from becoming law after North Carolina legislators overrode his veto of the bill.

Wording tucked into the North Carolina Farm Act of 2023 aligned how the state defines wetlands with that of the U.S. Supreme Court, which ruled last May that waters of the United States, or WOTUS, applies only to wetlands that have “continuous surface connection.”

Looking back: Digging into the Farm Act

The Farm Bill strips longtime state-enacted safeguards and compensatory mitigation for more than 2 million acres of wetlands unique to North Carolina like Carolina bays and pocosins, which have no inlet or outlet.

According to the order, pocosins cover a substantial portion of North Carolina, “offer extensive benefits through carbon storage and sequestration; enhance water quality through storage and filtration; contribute to biodiversity and ecological resilience and mitigate flood and fire risk that cause substantial economic cost.”

Looking back: Wetlands left unprotected

Under the order, state agencies are directed to avoid or curtail new projects that would harm these types of wetlands, including mountain bogs.

“The governor’s action today recognizes how vital wetlands are to North Carolina’s people and wildlife, fisheries and flood protection,” Mary Maclean Asbill, director of the North Carolina offices of the Southern Environmental Law Center, stated in a release. “North Carolina’s legislature set the wrong example by failing to protect our wetlands, increasing the risk of flooding to our communities and endangering North Carolinians and fisheries.”

The order also requires state agencies to study the social, economic and environmental value of protecting these and other types of wetlands and seek federal funding to protect and restore wetlands to minimize flooding, improve water quality and capture carbon.

Leaders of environmental organizations and state agency heads praised the order.

“Now more than ever, North Carolina needs to conserve our working lands—including wetlands and forests that reduce flooding, clean our drinking water, and sustain fish and wildlife,” Grady O’Brien, policy associate with North Carolina Conservation Network, said in a release. “We’re grateful for the robust commitment this executive order makes toward protecting natural resources and providing good stewardship of our state’s valuable lands.”

Katherine Skinner, executive director of The Nature Conservancy North Carolina Chapter, said efforts to protect and restore natural areas is “vital” for the state’s future.

“They ensure clean air, clean water, and recreational opportunities in a rapidly growing region,” she said in a release. “And, they are also crucial to our continued economic growth, most of which is centered on our natural resources.”

The state is experiencing more intense hurricanes, flooding, extreme temperatures, droughts, sea level rise and saltwater intrusion – all effects of climate change that have caused more than $250 billion in damages over the last few years, according to the executive order.

North Carolina has responded by investing millions in climate mitigation efforts, including the creation of the statewide Flood Resiliency Blueprint.

The goals and directives set in the order are derived in large part from the 2020 North Carolina Natural and Working Lands Action Plan, which was created with input from a group of nearly 100 expert stakeholders under the direction of the state Department of Environmental Quality, or DEQ. The plan lays out specific actions the state may take to reduce the impacts of climate change.

Looking back: Interactive maps show benefits of natural, working lands

Katie Warnell, a senior policy associate at Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Energy, Environment & Sustainability, is part of the working group on natural and working lands.

“It is inspiring to see recommendations from the state’s Natural and Working Lands Action Plan being elevated as priorities in this executive order,” she stated in a release. “The order’s ambitious goals for land conservation and restoration will preserve and enhance the many benefits North Carolina’s natural and working lands provide to everyone who lives in or visits the state. The executive order also addresses many data gaps and limitations previously highlighted in the action plan, which hinder planning for the sustainable management of North Carolina’s lands and waters.”

The executive order also includes the following stipulations:

• A native plant policy for all future state-owned projects.
• Promotion and support from state agencies for new and ongoing conservation and restoration, and climate resiliency efforts within tribal communities.
• Research climate impacts on the state’s biodiversity.

“This Executive Order positions North Carolina to take a science-based approach to achieving mutually beneficial goals relating to environmental quality, economic development, resiliency, and ecosystem enhancement by identifying and protecting our forests and natural and working lands,” DEQ Secretary Elizabeth S. Biser stated in a release.

U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Nature Based Resiliency Coordinator Sara Ward said the goal set in the order is a “game-changing target.”

“The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service is particularly excited about the emphasis on the state’s internationally significant peatlands, known as pocosins, in today’s action,” she said in a release.

North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission Executive Director Cameron Ingram called the order ambitious and important.

“Given all the tremendous pressures facing North Carolina’s lands and waters, we are excited to be a part of this ambitious and important initiative,” he said in a release. “We look forward to continuing to work with our State agency and non-profit partners to support the conservation of land to benefit wildlife and their habitats while providing opportunities for North Carolinians to enjoy hunting, fishing, boating, and wildlife associated recreation.”

WILMINGTON — Heal Our Waterways is piloting a new green infrastructure cost-share program for commercial properties and Homeowners Associations in the Bradley Creek or Hewletts Creek watersheds.

The Wilmington-led initiative, which came about through the adoption of the voluntary Bradley and Hewletts Creeks Watershed Restoration Plan, is offering up to $10,000 in rebates, depending on the project and size, for retrofitting existing infrastructure or incorporating new practices that go beyond the minimum stormwater requirements. Funding is on a first-come, first-served basis.

Those interested can check their address to see if they are eligible at wilmingtonnc.gov/watershedmap. The next step is to submit all application materials, which can be obtained by emailing healourwaterways@wilmingtonnc.gov.

Eligible projects are rain gardens, bioswales, bioretention areas and boxes, and infiltration basins, constructed wetlands, pervious pavement, impervious area removal, capturing stormwater on the roof, and cisterns.  

Close to $7 million in federal grants will go to support the design and implementation of natural infrastructure projects to benefit coastal North Carolina.

The money is part of a total $144 million marked to support projects to enhance the resilience of coastal communities and improve habitat for fish and wildlife in 31 coastal states and U.S. territories, National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration announced Wednesday.

The 109 grants will generate more than $97 million in matching contributions for a total conservation impact of $242 million, officials said. Matching contributions in North Carolina total around $2.64 million.

The grants were funded through Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, congressional appropriations and private partnerships and awarded through the National Coastal Resilience Fund, or NCRF.

NCRF is a partnership between the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, NOAA, the Department of Defense, Shell USA, TransRe international reinsurance organization, the SalesForce software company, and the Oxy international energy company. The fund supports capacity-building and larger-scale planning, design, and implementation projects to help improve community and coastal habitat resilience and reduce risks and devastating impacts of rising seas, coastal flooding, and more intense storms.

NCRF uses a “pipeline” approach for funding all stages of project development, including planning, design, and implementation. The 109 projects announced Tuesday will support efforts of grantees across all stages of the pipeline, including 17 grants to support ongoing NCRF-funded projects that will help these communities advance to the next stage in developing a “restoration-ready” resilience project.

“This year’s grant slate continues our significant investments in nature-based solutions that are critical to increasing the resilience of vulnerable communities and protecting and restoring essential habitats for fish and wildlife,” National Fish and Wildlife Foundation Executive Director and CEO Jeff Trandahl said in a statement. “The NCRF supports the development and implementation of sustainable designs, plans and practices that integrate natural features into successful coastal resilience outcomes and that promote adaptation and resilience to storms, floods and other coastal hazards.”

The natural infrastructure projects supported by the NCRF not only buffer communities from more intense storms, they also provide vital habitat for fish and wildlife species. 

“NOAA is proud to work with NFWF and partners to help communities be ready and resilient to climate change,” NOAA administrator Rick Spinrad said. “Funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law will help bolster community resilience efforts and meet the demand we’re seeing for projects that address coastal hazards and enhance ecosystems that are important for wildlife, communities and the coastal economy.”

The following North Carolina projects were selected for funding:

• Advancing Community-Led Resilience Initiatives in a Sentinel Landscape. North Carolina Foundation for Soil and Water Conservation has been awarded $1.49 million, no matching funds. The project is described as a “collaborative and inclusive project with ecological, community, and military resilience benefits in key geographies across the Eastern North Carolina Sentinel Landscape,” which spans nearly 11 million acres across a 33-county region in North Carolina’s Coastal Plain and Sandhills and is home to seven key military installations and ranges. The project will build critically needed capacity to support underserved and Tribal landowner enrollment in conservation practices, facilitate climate resilience planning, and work to reduce barriers for implementing emerging, nature-based flood mitigation practices.
• Building Capacity to Conserve Salt Marsh Habitat within Coastal Communities. California-based LegacyWorks Group consulting firm has been awarded $1.57 million, and matching funds are $175,000. The funds are to be used to build capacity within vulnerable coastal communities of the South Atlantic Salt Marsh Initiative region made up of North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Florida. The project is to develop 20 to 25 nature-based solutions that are site assessment and preliminary design ready to buffer storm surge, mitigate sea level rise impacts while also protecting local food production, historic sites, bird habitat and cultural traditions.
• Building Community Capacity for Coastal Resilience Planning in Atlantic Coastal Plain. Anthropocene Alliance, a national coalition of communities fighting for environmental and climate justice, has been awarded $397,900, Matching funds are $308,400. The funds are for 10 community-based organizations in Virginia, North Carolina and South Carolina to address issues of climate risk, displacement, relocation and the deployment of nature-based solutions to provide protection from storm surges, high tides and sea level rise. Project will provide a detailed road map for each organization for community resilience development and implementation of projects that build off the existing priorities and plans for addressing coastal hazards.
• Ecological, Community and Military Resilience through Spoil Island Restoration in Bogue Sound. The North Carolina Coastal Federation has been awarded $297,000. Matching funds are $150,000. The funds are for nature-based solutions to restore dredge spoil island habitat mosaics in Bogue Sound. Project will finalize designs and secure permits for 2,200 linear feet of high-stability oyster substrate sills, salt marsh plantings and restoration of 2.5 acres of seagrass beds. The Coastal Federation publishes Coastal Review.
• Equity through Final Design and Permitting Technical Assistance for Coastal Communities. North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality has been awarded $3.06 million, and matching funds are $2 million. funds will provide final engineering and design technical assistance for local government projects through the Resilient Coastal Communities Program.
• Final Design and Planning to Install Living Shorelines and Stormwater Management. North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries has been awarded $89,700, and matching funds are $5,500. The funds are to install a living shoreline and low impact stormwater retrofits. Project will increase community resilience from coastal hazards and improve habitats for fish and other species.

Construction of a long-planned project to save Sugarloaf Island, the rapidly eroding, uninhabited barrier island across from the Morehead City waterfront, is officially underway. 

Morehead City Mayor Jerry Jones welcomed the handful of reporters, elected officials and partner representatives gathered Wednesday at Big Rock Landing on Shepard Street, facing the island that’s just south of the federal Harbor Channel, to celebrate the start of the project.

The gathering was also held to thank Sen. Norm Sanderson, R-Pamlico, who also represents Carteret County, and Rep. Celeste C. Cairns, R-Carteret and Craven counties, both present at the media event, and former Rep. Pat McElraft of Emerald Isle for supporting the effort. 

The shoreline protection project has been appropriated a total of $6.6 million – $2 million in 2022 and $4.6 million in 2023 — to restore the island by using a hybrid approach of offshore wave attenuation breakwaters, expanding seagrass meadows, and building living shorelines.

Sanderson said Morehead City is a destination for many people in the state, across the Southeast and farther. He lauded local leadership for making the project happen, “because this is vital. It’s vital again for the citizens, for our tourists. It’s vital for the next generation. It’s vital for all of the people who want to come to Morehead City and enjoy what we get to enjoy every single day.”

Cairns added that when she was approached about the project, she was excited and thought “we can do this.” 

Jones said that when someone asked him a few minutes prior why they were there, “I said we’re here to celebrate. We have a celebration of protecting our future while preserving our past.”

For the last two years, Florida-based aquatic restoration company Sea & Shoreline, the nonprofit North Carolina Coastal Federation, engineering firm Quible & Associates, aquaculture firm Sandbar Oyster Co., and East Carolina University have been studying, designing, planning, and permitting the project, officials announced.

“Currently, the seaward shoreline of the Island is eroding, leaving uprooted trees and vegetation behind. In addition, wave exposure and swift currents are sweeping nutrient-rich sediment into the water column. The eroded sediments now released into the water are degrading water quality and visitor experiences to the Island,” officials continued. “Protecting the Island with an offshore wavebreak will mitigate shoreline and coastal habitat erosion, enhance coastal resilience, create seagrass habitat and increased fishing opportunities, improve water quality, enhance ecotourism by increasing the beach line, sequester carbon, and enhance shorebird nesting.”

Jones recalled Wednesday that the city had purchased Sugarloaf Island 20 years ago to prevent its development. 

“We had heard that a developer was coming. They wanted to build high-rises and boat marinas on the island, and we felt like the better use would be a public park,” Jones said. 

The city used grants, donations and tax dollars to purchase and conserve the island. 

“Today we’re here to preserve Sugarloaf Island for future generations,” he said, and to make sure that the Morehead City waterfront is protected. 

Brian Rubino, vice president of the engineering firm Quible & Associates in Currituck County, said that although Sugarloaf Island is a small barrier island — it’s only about 36 acres right now — it protects downtown Morehead City’s infrastructure, roads, homes and businesses. 

The island also is host to a number of different marine and coastal environments, such as sand flats, sandspits, low dunes, maritime forest and peat marsh, all of which is getting eroded at dramatic rates. 

“The erosion rates of the island vary, depending on where you are, but it’s anywhere from 5 to 15 feet per year and it’s not uncommon to lose up to 10 feet overnight in a big storm,” Rubino said. He added that sea level rise and large storms coupled with very strong currents creates a lot of erosion, leading to sediment washing away and going into the federal boat channel between downtown waterfront and the island.

The project, Rubino continued, is to protect what’s left and hopefully grow the island to create and expand shallow water habitats for fish and wildlife. 

Brian Henry, director of the Sea & Shoreline’s North Carolina and South Carolina offices, said state elected officials “saw the vision” to restore the small barrier island. 

Henry told attendees to expect Carteret County-based Sandbar Oyster Co. to be deploying soon its oyster tables on the east end of the island. Made of biodegradable hardscape formed in the shape of a table, these are designed to provide a surface for oysters to attach and grow and create an intertidal oyster reef and salt marsh habitat.

Henry continued that Sea & Shoreline has a construction area nearby where 400 of the 1,200 wave attenuation devices for the project have been built. The devices will be deployed from the west side of the island all the way around and leave room for boats to get through.

The concrete triangular structures are 7-foot-tall. The base measures 9 feet on each side. There are six triangular windows on each side, and a small opening on the top, officials said.

“These are the first wave attenuators that have been deployed in this area,” he said, adding they’re very excited to bring these here. 

The devices, which are supposed to withstand hurricane-force winds, are to be placed offshore to diffuse wave energy, help re-form the shoreline via sand accretion, support seagrass growth to enhance water quality, and create essential fish habitat, officials said. 

Henry added that the company plans to begin deploying the devices in January and complete work in June. 

Jones closed the press conference saying that the community was built on legacies.

“We would not be standing here today if it wasn’t for the people that came before us. The leadership that came before us. The generations that recognize the beauty that we have here to Morehead City,” he said. “We are protecting our legacies, we’re protecting the future of Morehead City for future generations because we don’t inherit the Earth, we borrow the Earth from our children. And we have a responsibility to protect that for our children for the future and our future generations.”

After the press conference, Sanderson told Coastal Review that the project could serve as a model for other communities looking to preserve their at-risk public lands.

“If they don’t, then they’re missing a great opportunity to preserve what God has given us here and be stewards. We’re supposed to be stewards,” he said, adding that it’s a challenge throughout the year. “We’re always fighting Mother Nature.”

Cairns added that one of the good things about this project is that everyone is on the same page, whether it’s the businesses, community, environmental groups and the city. 

“Everybody seems to benefit and I think when people are able to work together, then the project becomes much easier to come to fruition,” she said. “Success begets success. So if this project turns out as well as we expect and hope, then other towns will look at it as a model.” 

Coastal Federation Living Shoreline Program Director Dr. Lexia Weaver told Coastal Review that the nonprofit organization is eager to begin construction and that it will not only stabilize the shoreline of Sugarloaf Island and protect downtown Morehead City, but also restore valuable salt marsh and oyster habitats that have been lost through time. 

The Coastal Federation publishes Coastal Review. 

NEWPORT — The North Carolina Coastal Federation, publisher of Coastal Review, recently received $1.53 million from the North Carolina Land and Water Fund to support several efforts, including the nonprofit organization’s living shoreline cost-share program and large-scale wetland restoration in Carteret County.

The Coastal Federation promotes living shorelines as an environmentally friendly method to stabilize eroding shorelines in lieu of installing a bulkhead or seawall. Living shorelines have been used for more than 20 years and have withstood storm and hurricane impacts, officials said. Living shorelines also provide critical habitat for a number of species of crab, shrimp and fish.

“The Coastal Federation is so thankful for the support from the North Carolina Land and Water Fund to continue our living shoreline cost-share program. We are seeing habitat loss of vital wetlands along the coast due to the hardening of our shorelines as well as higher erosion rates due to climate change,” Coastal Resiliency Manager Sarah Bodin explained. “The program offers cost-share funding to offset the cost of constructing a living shoreline and marsh restoration while educating the public on nature-based solutions that will protect their properties and enhance those important ecosystems.
The Federation has worked with contractors to install over 8,835 feet of living shorelines on over 55 projects in 2023 alone.”

Those interested in learning more about living shorelines and if it could benefit their property can contact the Coastal Federation at livingshorelines@nccoast.org.

The funding received from the North Carolina Land and Water Fund will also support the Coastal Federation’s wetland restoration efforts through the purchase of nearly 800 acres adjacent to the North River Wetlands Preserve in Carteret County. The parcel sits at the headwaters of North River and is currently a ditched timber tract. This project is in partnership with the Friends of the Mountains to Sea Trail to provide a through-hike experience for hikers away from major highways.

Since its creation in 1996 by the General Assembly, the North Carolina Land and Water Fund, formerly known as the Clean Water Management Trust Fund, has conserved more than a half-million acres and protected or restored 3,000 miles of streams and rivers.  

Coastal Federation Water Quality Director Bree Charron said restoring this area of land will help further improve the water quality of the North River, which has been degraded for some time. “The Federation is excited to expand the Preserve to further our mission to improve water quality in North River. Restoration of wetlands on the site will retain surface water and reestablish native habitats. It is also a prime opportunity to preserve a valuable salt marsh migration corridor,” explained Charron.

Learn more about the North River Wetlands Preserve, 

JACKSONVILLE – Jacksonville Stormwater Manager Pat Donovan-Brandenburg vividly recalls the naysayers.

“I had scientists look me right in the face and tell me I’d lost my mind,” she said.

More than 20 years have passed since the city shuttered its downtown wastewater treatment plant in a move to cut off the predominant source of what had sickened the New River to the point that the state had closed its waters to the public nearly two decades earlier. At the urging of city officials, Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune also stopped its wastewater facility from discharging into the river.

By then, every inch of hard habitat along the riverbed between Wilson Bay and Stones Bay was covered by soft organics like ammonia and phosphates, which in excessive amounts choke out aquatic life.

To put into perspective just how dire things were in the river, consider this: No fish kills were recorded after 25 million gallons of waste flowed from a breached hog lagoon into the river in 1995.

The river needed not only to be cleaned, but the habitat within it restored.

Donovan-Brandenburg thought that, perhaps, oysters might do the trick.

Trying to clean and revive a river some argued had too much freshwater coming down from the upper and mid part of the estuary to sustain oysters was a gamble.

“But that’s science,” Donovan-Brandenburg said. “Science is taking a chance.”

The state in 2001 reopened New River, where more than 10 million oysters have been planted over the course of 10 years in Wilson Bay alone.

Another 15 million have been added to a series of strategically-placed, human-made oyster reefs through a plan dubbed the Oyster Highway Project, one that has aided in ushering marine life back into the river, Donovan-Brandenburg said.

In the seven years since the project began, fishermen have been reporting catches of red drum, flounder, spot and croaker that hadn’t been coming out of the river for decades, she said.

“I kind of thought they would come,” Donovan-Brandenburg said. “I just didn’t realize it would be that fast. You hope and you pray that that’s what happens, but there’s no guarantee it will happen.”

It’s not just fishermen who have returned to the river’s waters. Last May, dozens of people competed in the fifth annual New River Splash Triathlon.

The $1.6 million Oyster Highway Project has been funded through multiple sources, including private donations and grants from the North Carolina Land and Water Fund, Duke Energy Water Resources Fund and N.C. Attorney General’s Environmental Enhancement Grant program.

This year marks the project’s third and final phase, which entails the expansion of most of the 12 artificial reefs from a half-acre to an acre. City officials, representatives of nongovernment organizations and volunteers in 2019 began constructing the reefs on either side of the river between Wilson Bay and Stones Bay.

Three reefs will not be expanded to one full acre because of their proximity to areas where military officials suspect unexploded ordnance – bombs, shells, grenades and bullets – may be in shallow waters near the river banks.

On a sweltering August mid-morning, Donovan-Brandenburg waded through waters just off the shore of Marine Corps Air Station New River, where massive aircraft hangers and multi-storied barracks rose up from the horizon overlooking the glass smooth-like river.

She pointed out rows of reef teeming with oysters growing on two different types of foundations.

One set of foundations is called Oyster Catcher, a co-invention of University of North Carolina Chapel Hill Institute of Marine Sciences Professor Niels Lindquist and commercial fisherman David Cessna, who died in 2021.

“I was a little unsure about what would happen all the way up in Jacksonville and Wilson Bay where Pat had been putting oysters for quite a while,” Lindquist said. “It’s amazing how well the oysters have done all the way up Wilson Bay and back despite having some big freshwater pulses come through. I think the success of those site over the last two, three years certainly validate Pat’s contention that it is appropriate habitat.”

The other reef builder used in the river is an Oyster Castle, interlocking blocks made of shell, limestone and concrete.

The idea behind using the different substrate was to see which type would work best in the river.

“What we have found is that both are equally beneficial,” Donovan-Brandenburg said.

Oyster Catchers are designed to attract and offer oyster larvae drifting with the currents a hard substrate on which to grow.

Oyster Castles allow juvenile oysters to grow and the blocks also help combat shoreline erosion. Lindquist said the bigger, more important component of the project is now going to be stocking the reefs, particularly the Oyster Castle reefs, which not only have a lot of structure, but help the Oyster Catcher reefs stay in place.

The long road to restoring the river did not come without its challenges, Donovan-Brandenburg said.

“It was not easy, I can tell you that,” she said.

City staff and volunteers will install the remaining reef expansions sometime between October and December. Oysters will be added in the late spring of next year.

Donovan-Brandenbug said she’d like to continue adding oysters to the river to help ensure the river’s waters stay healthy, an effort, she said, that also entails protecting perimeter wetlands and residents educating themselves and taking responsibility by doing little things like picking up pet waste.

“As long as I’m here I don’t know that we’ll ever be done,” she said.

That’s good news for the river, one already being affected by sea level rise.

Professor Joel Fodrie with the UNC Institute of Marine Sciences has been monitoring the Oyster Highway project since 2019.

He said the project, overall, has been a success and notes that the reefs now support hundreds and hundreds of mussels, which filter out harmful algae and bacteria.

There are things to celebrate and some realization that a few things could be done better, Fodrie said.

“Some (reefs) are doing better than others and that’s because we worked across this environmental gradient that is the estuary. Not only have we benefited the system and the footprint of these areas, but as we share the data and as papers come out, the next people get to do this better because this was an experiment.”

And, there will always be work to be done in the river.

“It’s not the final story,” Fodrie said. “Restoration is not do it one time and then you get to walk away. We’re not really restoring these systems, we’re trying to maintain these systems. I don’t think we’re ever going to arrive at a finish line. I think we have to maintain these systems just like you maintain your car or your lawn or your house or any other thing you care about so I hate there to be the illusion that we somehow finished. I think the New River Highway is neat and it deserves a little spotlight and then Pat, yeah, not crazy, but certainly the core, the emotional, ethical core of making this happen. It’s kind of remarkable what she has leveraged to do this.”

Last in a series.

Stretching north from the Wright Memorial Bridge at Kitty Hawk to the Back Bay of Virginia Beach, Currituck Sound was, at one time, the crown jewel of the Atlantic Flyway.

A large, freshwater estuary teeming with subaquatic vegetation and dotted with innumerable low-lying islands and marsh habitat for ducks, geese and swans, migratory waterfowl by the hundreds of thousands flocked to its waters every fall and winter.

By the early 20th century, market hunting and dozens of hunt clubs that placed no limit on the number of birds that could be taken sprang up and wiped out the population of waterfowl that migrated to the sound’s waters.

Those days are now the stuff of history and legend. Migratory waterfowl counts have plummeted. But now, researchers and conservationists from different organizations and fields are working together with a plan to restore the marsh habitat and make it more resilient – a blueprint that resulted from several years’ worth of pilot projects.

Audubon North Carolina, the state affiliate of the National Audubon Society, notes that at the Donal C. O’Brien Jr. Sanctuary at Pine Island, “waterfowl populations in the 1970s were around 300,000, recent surveys in Currituck Sound have counted only around 30,000 birds.”

Although bag limits have been in place for some time, balancing the take of hunters with the ability of waterfowl to repopulate, migratory waterfowl have not returned to their historic numbers. The reasons are complex, intertwined with an ecosystem that is unlike almost any other estuarine system anywhere.

Robbie Fearn, director of the Pine Island Sanctuary, recently described Currituck Sound for Coastal Review, noting how different it is from other estuarine systems.

“I don’t like to use the word unique, but it’s an unusual system in that it’s primarily freshwater,” he said, adding that the nearest ocean outlet for the sound’s waters is some 25 miles south at Oregon Inlet.

“The dynamics of the system are very unusual in that it is a giant shallow bathtub. And the water is sloshing around in it all the time. Most marsh systems don’t have this level of dynamism,” Fearn said, adding that it is “a really unusual system to be working in and exciting because every question is still ready to be answered.”

The environment, however, is not the only complex system to navigate in addressing how restore Currituck Sound’s restoration. Its shores include lands that are parts of Currituck County, the town of Duck and those managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and the North Carolina Wildlife Commission.

To navigate the issues involved among multiple entities, Audubon in 2019 formed the Currituck Sound Coalition, a partnership that includes 14 members representing local governments, state and federal agencies, and research and educational institutions. The North Carolina Coastal Federation, which publishes Coastal Review, is part of the coalition.

In 2020, the North Carolina Attorney General’s office awarded Audubon North Carolina a $98,000 Environmental Enhancement Grant, or EEG. The work on the grant has been completed, but the grant was invaluable in creating a framework for marsh restoration and resilience, said Audubon Senior Coastal Resilience Program Manager Cat Bowler.

“The EEG funds allowed us to work with the Currituck Sound Coalition to develop the Marsh Conservation Plan for Currituck Sound. It also helped us to conduct a site analysis at Pine Island Sanctuary and start to develop the project concept for the marsh restoration pilot projects that Audubon is still working on with partners to this day,” Bowler said. “It really laid the groundwork for us to launch this work.”

The Currituck Sound Coalition Marsh Conservation Plan is a working publication that outlines how the group will work together to restore the waters of the sound. In the document’s “process overview,” the role the EEG played is specifically cited.

“In 2019, Audubon received funding from the North Carolina Environmental Enhancement Grant Program to support the coalition in developing a marsh conservation plan for Currituck Sound. A working group was formed to lead the planning process with partner members,” the plan’s authors wrote.

The plan outlines a wide scope of objectives to address sea level rise, erosion, invasive species, declining water quality, and loss of biodiversity — some of the issues listed that are known to affect Currituck Sound marshes.

“The beauty of the EEG funding was that it allowed us all to work together to share the knowledge we’re all developing separately and come together,” Fearn said. “I think it creates shared understanding. It created this connective tissue.”

The grant funding did more than create a communication network. The Audubon Society was also able to examine and compare different methods of marsh rehabilitation.

“The EEG actually funded a series of four pilot projects,” Bowler said. “Pilot marsh restoration projects looking at different types of living shoreline techniques, but also looking at more innovative restoration techniques like thin layer placement, where you take sediment and put it in thin layers on the surface of the marsh to help it accrete with sea level rise over time.”

Those research projects may prove to be critical in how much funding Currituck Sound restoration and resilience projects will be able to access. One of the partner organizations of the Coalition is Dr. Reide Corbett and the Coastal Studies Institute.  Corbett, the institute’s executive director, explained the significance the research that is now being done will have in the future.

“When it comes to any sort of resilience, some of it’s education, but a lot of it’s going to come down to funds, (and) the fact is, you can’t get those funds until you really understand what the problems are and where the problems really need to be addressed,” Corbett said.

The EEG projects, though, are not close-ended programs, rather the nature of the projects and the way in which the money has been administered has created additional opportunities to develop strategies for marsh restoration.

Bowler said the EEG funds in combination with money from other state sources, the North Carolina Land and Water Fund and the Clean Water Management Trust Fund, as well as from Northwest National Coastal Resilience Fund, “and all three of those grants supported different elements of this project,” Bowler said. “To be able to bring the three different funding sources together to help enhance our partnerships in the region and also get some of this work planned and designed on the ground, I think that’s been a huge success.”

Separate efforts to conserve a butterfly species endemic to Bogue Banks and to incorporate certain species in coastal restoration efforts are among six new projects funded by a partnership between the U.S. National Science Foundation and the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation.

The funding announced Wednesday will combine scientific research and conservation activities to learn from and protect Earth’s biodiversity. It includes grants to North Carolina State University and the North Carolina Aquariums to conserve the crystal skipper butterfly in a coastal urban environment.

The project, “Connectivity for a complex life cycle: Conserving the crystal skipper butterfly in a coastal urban environment,” was awarded $429,687 to develop a rigorous, sustainable and unbiased survey methodology to estimate skipper population size and trends; evaluate the role of connectivity, or ease of movement, between host plants and nectar plants in limiting skipper populations; assess whether management can increase crystal skipper populations and offset effects of climate change; and implement adaptive, robust and strategic improvements to the existing crystal skipper conservation plan. 

NCSU received $442,219 and Duke University $255,423 for the project, “Collaborative Research: Incorporating secondary foundation species in coastal restoration efforts to increase ecosystem regrowth, biodiversity recovery and climate resistance,” to work in concert with conservation organizations including the Nature Conservancy and the North Carolina Coastal Federation to test and co-design evidence-based approaches that restore secondary foundation species to increase the growth of primary foundation species and site biodiversity, while enhancing key ecosystem functions such as climate resistance of restored habitats.

The projects are funded by $8 million in combined support from the two organizations in a new Partnership to Advance Conservation Science and Practice, or PACSP, and focus on protecting diverse ecosystems and imperiled species across the United States.

“More than 1,000,000 species across the globe are threatened with extinction and these projects are a step towards decreasing that number and slowing the rate of biodiversity loss on Earth,” said Simon Malcomber, acting assistant director for the National Science Foundation’s Directorate for Biological Sciences. “These efforts are critical as losing any species impacts society, whether by changes in disease patterns, decreases in natural pest control, ecosystem degradation, or by losing one of life’s unique solutions to problems that humans could’ve harnessed to our benefit.”  

The competition received broad interest, with numerous submissions coming from researchers who had not previously submitted to the National Science Foundation. The six projects will work to understand threats to biodiversity and conserve species across a diversity of environments.

Other awards go to the following organizations and agencies:

• Fresno Chafee Zoo, University of California Davis and the U.S. Bureau of Land Management to protect the endangered blunt-nosed leopard lizard. 
• Bernice Pauah Bishop Museum; Pamona College; University of Hawaii, Manoa; and Hawaii Department of Land and Natural Resources, Division of Forestry and Wildlife to advance conservation for endangered Hawaiian land snails.
• San Diego Zoo and Iowa State University to study and enhance desert tortoises’ resilience to climate change.
• University of Wisconsin, Madison; U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service; and U.S. Geological Survey, National Wildlife Health Center; to develop tools to mitigate white nose syndrome, a lethal fungal disease decimating the North American bat.

“The breadth of biodiversity loss in the United States is reflected in the wide range of species covered in these six projects. While the approaches are different, each study addresses systemic issues that are much bigger than a singular species, and they leverage science and technology to accelerate conservation solutions,” said Lara Littlefield, executive director on behalf of the Paul G. Allen Family Foundation. “The increased number of new-to-NSF applicants also tells us that there is untapped potential for more collaboration between primary research and applied technology.” 

In addition to their scientific and preservation work, the teams will work to engage policymakers, students, teachers and the public on topics related to conservation. Several of these efforts will focus on underrepresented minorities, including a paid internship program for underrepresented minority students from throughout California’s Central Valley, training of Native Hawaiians and Pacific Islanders in STEM integrated with indigenous research models, and recruitment of minority students from across North Carolina.

Awardees are to develop lesson plans for K-12 students, participate in after-school programs and summer camps, and host workshops for teachers. Broader public outreach will include social media, festivals and community meetings, museum and aquarium exhibits, interactive activities for children, and citizen science projects.  

Learn more about the Partnership to Advance Conservation Science and Practice program and view the full list of awards by visiting nsf.gov.

Veined with thousands of miles of streams and rivers, dotted by several national wildlife refuges, pocosin wetlands and state parks, the Albemarle-Pamlico estuarine region is one of the nation’s ecological crown jewels.

The estuary was designated in 1987 as “an estuary of national significance” and is listed as one of “America’s Great Waters.”

But this precious ecological resource is in a region that is vulnerable to a host of man-made and climate change-related challenges: habitat conversion and wildfires, shoreline erosion and saltwater intrusion.

A recent allocation of federal funding will boost ongoing efforts to restore and build up resiliency throughout the nearly 28,000-mile watershed using a myriad of nature-based solutions.

The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service earlier this month announced $27.25 million is being appropriated to the agency’s National Wildlife Refuge System for Albemarle-Pamlico Sound restoration initiatives.

The funding will make a meaningful impact and be used for projects that will tie into nature-based activities and initiatives on wildlife refuges and state game lands within the region, explained Rebekah Martin, Coastal N.C. Refuges Complex project leader.

“We’ve really been working on these long-term types of resilience projects long before we thought this money would come our way,” she said.

Federal, state, local officials, private land owners and environmental groups have pulled together to tackle everything from water quality issues in the region to how to combat historic levels of flooding in vulnerable communities.

The watershed includes nearly 10,000 miles of streams and rivers that flow into a 2 million-acre estuary, the second largest in the country. Its system includes a portion of or all of six major river basins, including the Neuse, Roanoke, Tar-Pamlico, Chowan, Pasquotank and White Oak. The region is home to nearly 4 million people.

“There’s really not a community in the A-P that’s not experiencing some kind of climate-related impact,” Martin said.

Communities in the region have experienced everything from sunny-day flooding to saltwater intrusion on farmers’ crop fields to seeing an emergence of ghost forests.

The response to combat these climate-related problems has been through nature-based restoration solutions — living shorelines, creating substrate for oyster reefs, replacing existing drainage canals with stream-like drainage systems, and restoring submerged aquatic vegetation.

Such restoration activities are being worked on through partnerships with other federal agencies, state agencies and private land owners, all with the common goal to increase resiliency of the land.

Take North Carolina’s largest natural freshwater lake, Lake Mattamuskeet.

The lake was listed in 2016 for impaired waters because of its elevated pH and levels of chlorophyll-a.

To address the lake’s declining water quality, U.S. Fish and Wildlife, the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission and Hyde County formed a partnership that led to a large stakeholder effort to figure out what was happening in the lake.

“That is an effort where we are one of many partners interested in seeing the water quality in the lake improve,” Martin said.

State Wildlife Resources Commission Chief Deputy Director Kyle Briggs said the funding is a “huge win” for public lands on the Albemarle Peninsula.

“You talk about an incredibly diverse landscape that’s just magnificent for wildlife,” he said. “Those species all thrive in that pocosin and salt marsh and just that wonderful habitat.”

That habitat is largely going to be affected by sea level rise, he said, so it’s important to restore habitats on the refuges, game lands and private lands within the system.

“They money has to be spent either on wildlife refuges or on our game lands, but hopefully that leverages other funds on private lands,” Briggs said. “The way I see this working is really hand-in-hand with Fish and Wildlife Service and working together to get the biggest bang for our dollars.”

Martin said the next step is to identify projects that have already been or are close to being permitted as some of the first to be implemented on the ground. From there, officials will look at projects that may require some additional modeling or design work.

She said the agency will work closely with the Wildlife Resources Commission to understand shared priorities and is interested in ongoing engagement with communities to understand how increasing resiliency on refuges may help communities around those refuges.

“I would say we are going to be moving quickly to try to start preparing for the projects across the refuges,” Martin said.

Nine National Wildlife Refuges are within the Albemarle-Pamlico watershed. Those include: Currituck, Mackay Island, Pea Island, Alligator River, Pocosin Lakes, Roanoke River, Mattamuskeet, Swan Quarter and Cedar Island.

Carp removal. Sedimentation reduction. Regrowth of underwater vegetation.

Years of cooperative groundwork between individuals and agencies will soon translate into visible projects to restore Lake Mattamuskeet’s water quality.

And that, in turn, could benefit all area residents — human and wildlife.

Located on the Albemarle-Pamlico Peninsula, Lake Mattamuskeet covers about 40,000 acres and is the largest natural lake in North Carolina. County residents point to the lake as the center of Hyde County, both geographically and culturally.

Related: Inner coast: Lake Mattamuskeet draws outdoor enthusiasts

Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuge, established in 1934, comprises the lake and 10,000 acres of surrounding land. It’s an important overwintering site for migratory waterfowl along the Atlantic Flyway and a year-round habitat for many other species. The county is known as a hunting, fishing and bird-watching destination and for its rich farmland.

Hyde County, the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission contracted with the North Carolina Coastal Federation, publisher of Coastal Review, to develop the nearly 200-page Lake Mattamuskeet Watershed Restoration Plan, which was finalized in 2018 and approved by the state in 2019.

The plan names three interconnected goals: To protect the current way of life; to actively manage the lake’s water level; and to restore the lake’s water quality and clarity.

The plan was developed with input from a stakeholder team that included area residents, local government officials, graduate students, university professors, refuge staff and the Mattamuskeet Technical Working Group, a joint effort between Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuge and the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission.

“Everyone wants to see that lake cleaned up,” said Wendy Stanton, technical working group co-chair and acting refuge manager for Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge in Columbia.

Stanton called the lake “out of balance,” explaining that everyone is “trying to restore that balance” so it can again become “a healthy aquatic ecosystem.”

After about six years of the team meeting to address the problem from various angles, “it’s encouraging that their stamina and enthusiasm for the effort is still there. That speaks volumes to the care and concern and love that everybody has for this lake,” said Erin Fleckenstein, oyster program director for the Coastal Federation. She helped coordinate the development of the watershed restoration plan.

“Most local stakeholders have very fond memories of boating, fishing and crabbing on the lake. It’s part of their history, as well as their community’s history,” she continued.

Officials involved in the restoration efforts point to the growth of submerged aquatic vegetation, also called SAV or seagrass, as both a main goal and as an indicator of success.

Monitoring by the Fish and Wildlife Service initially noted seagrass declines in the late 1980s. By 2017, no plants could be found during the refuge’s annual SAV survey.

For aquatic plant life to return, two actions are required, according to Stanton: carp removal and the reduction of sediments being put into the lake.

The restoration plan calls for the removal of 5 million pounds of invasive common carp from the lake. Each adult fish weighs 4 to 5 pounds, Stanton said. Carp are bottom feeders, and their rooting for food also results in ripping up vegetation.

Human activities also must change. Fertilizer, fossil fuels, wastewater, stormwater and pet manure can cause “nutrient pollution” — excess nitrogen and phosphorus — in nearby waters, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

These sediments reduce water clarity, blocking sunlight from reaching the bottom, and aquatic vegetation cannot grow without sunlight, officials note on the agency’s website.

The overabundance of suspended nitrogen and phosphorus solids in Lake Mattamuskeet also contributes to blooms of phytoplankton and cyanobacteria, which “outcompete SAV,” according to the Fish and Wildlife Service website.

Cyanobacteria’s adverse effects extend beyond harming plant life.

As a Centers for Disease Control and Prevention “Harmful Algal Bloom Advisory” sign posted near a Lake Mattamuskeet culvert notes, “Cyanobacteria (blue-green algae) can produce toxins that can cause serious illness in animals and humans.”

Lake Mattamuskeet is currently considered a phytoplankton-cyanobacteria-dominated system. Once the shift from an aquatic plant-dominated system to an algae-dominated one like this occurs, “it takes a lot of work to return the system,” said Kelly Davis, who owns land adjacent to the lake and worked as the longtime refuge biologist.

She’s implementing a water-control project on her property to change the direction of runoff from her farmland. Instead of allowing gravity to carry runoff, which invariably includes some sediment, to the lake, she’s diverting it to the woodland area of her property.

Davis acknowledged that her actions alone will not clean the lake, but putting water management on her farm is one of many positive steps that area residents are taking.

“You take little bites of a big problem,” Davis stated. “It’s exciting to be working toward improving it.”

Davis’ project was already being designed prior to the restoration plan’s development, but that plan may involve similar water-control projects on other properties.

Although not yet finalized, one involves replumbing a private landowner’s drainage to move through restored wetlands instead of discharging into coastal waters, Fleckenstein said. Smaller projects with individual landowners like these may eventually serve as models for others in the county or in the 55,000-acre watershed, she added.

Larger-scale projects are being developed simultaneously. The Coastal Federation has worked on behalf of the county to help orchestrate some engineering, surveying and permitting work on those, Fleckenstein said. Multiple grants are involved in work toward the plan goals.

Mattamuskeet National Wildlife Refuge already has been working on better water quality control in its waterfowl impoundments, which are areas managed specifically for waterfowl, according to Stanton.

For any such effort, large-scale or small-scale, the key is to slow down the movement of water draining into the lake, so sediment has time to settle and not as much enters the lake, Davis explained.

Another necessary task is regularly clearing excess sediment from the four main canals that link the lake to the Pamlico Sound. The lake’s water level has been passively managed by the wind since the canals were built with one-way gates allowing drainage into the sound, Davis said.

As the restoration plan document states: “Rising sea levels and siltation of the main canals connecting the lake to the Pamlico Sound are thought to be contributing factors in the decline of drainage function, and those conditions are anticipated to exacerbate flooding in the future.”

And when the surrounding land floods, landowners sometimes use pumps to push the water off their properties. That accelerated velocity gives sediment less of a chance to fall out of the water before it ends up back in the lake, Davis noted.

But with the widespread support of the community, the restoration plan will disrupt that negative chain reaction.

Some changes are already underway.

Signs are going up at each of the five culverts that run beneath N.C. Highway 94 and connect the east and west sides of the lake warning of possible temporary closures for recreational fishing when carp removal efforts begin, Stanton said.

And that could be soon.

“We expect to receive that money any day now,” Stanton said on Feb. 24 of a $1 million large invasive species grant the Fish and Wildlife Service awarded the technical working group.

As soon as the money is available, the group will publicize the contract and accept bids. She estimates most carp will be removed within the next two years.

“Whoever the vendor is, they get to keep the carp,” she said. “They can dispose of them or use the various markets as they see fit.”

Carp are in demand as a food source in markets in New York and elsewhere, Stanton noted. Another option might be stocking catch-and-release fishing ponds on the western side of the state. When a prior, effective, large-scale carp removal program took place at the lake in the 1940s and 1950s, that is where most carp ended up, Stanton said.

Other steps have already been taken to address the carp problem. Barriers were installed at the tide gates in March 2021. Flat metal bars two inches apart prevent adult carp from entering the lake, while still allowing native fish species and blue crabs to pass back and forth from the sound, Stanton said.

This will also be the third year that the state Wildlife Resources Commission has stocked the lake with bluegills, a native fish species known for its voracious appetite for carp eggs and carp larvae, around the mid-May carp spawning season.

“A lot of people like fishing bluegills, too, so it not only helps us reduce the carp, but also provides recreational fishing opportunities,” Stanton noted.

For more information about the restoration projects, visit www.fws.gov/project/lake-mattamuskeet-aquatic-grass-restoration and www.nccoast.org/protect-the-coast/stormwater/lake-mattamuskeet-watershed-restoration/.

The Coastal Land Trust announced Monday that the conservation organization has recently acquired two properties in Bertie County, a farm near Aulander and a large floodplain forest tract along the Chowan River near Colerain.

Brothers, Wayland L. Jenkins Jr. of Ahoskie and Joe Henry Jenkins of Nags Head, donated the 55.75-acre farm property to the Coastal Land Trust. The property, a portion of which has traditionally been known as the “Rice Farm,” was in the Jenkins Family for more than 100 years and has great sentimental value to the Jenkins brothers, land trust officials said. They elected to donate the property, a combination of cultivated land and woodlands, to the Coastal Land Trust to place the property in permanent conservation in honor of their mother’s wishes. The property lies within an area known as the Beaverdam Pocosin.

The Coastal Land Trust said it hopes to undertake a project to restore the native vegetation and natural hydrology of the former wetland site.

The Coastal Land Trust also completed the purchase of 421.38 acres along the Chowan River in Bertie County.

The acquisition involved the purchase of five adjoining riverfront parcels from six sets of landowners. The transaction was negotiated in 2019, contracts with each set of owners were entered into in 2020, and the purchase was completed at the end of 2022.

“One of North Carolina Coastal Land Trust’s board members, Dr. Stan Riggs, of Greenville, a well-known coastal geologist, introduced one of the landowners to us. That landowner, who was excited at the prospect of permanently conserving their land, then talked with their neighbors. It took a couple of years to pull this sale together,” said Coastal Land Trust Attorney and Northeast Region Director Lee Leidy. “All of these landowners and their attorney were committed to working to conserve their property, and that made all the difference.”

The combined tracts have more than 1.7 miles of frontage along the Chowan River and consist primarily of mature cypress gum swamp. Officials noted that the tracts are in the Colerain/Cow Island Swamp and Slopes Significant Natural Heritage Area and are classified as having high ecological significance.

After the Coastal Land Trust completed the purchase, it transferred the 421.38 acres, together with the 766.48-acre Keel’s Creek Tract, which the Coastal Land Trust purchased in December 2021, to the state to be managed by the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission as part of the Chowan Swamp Game Lands, an almost 1,200-acre addition.

The purchases were made possible thanks to funding provided by the North Carolina Land and Water Fund, U. S. Fish and Wildlife Service, North American Wetlands Conservation Act and Coastal Programs grants, and the Enviva Forest Conservation Fund.

First of two parts.

BELHAVEN — Fourteen years separate two lightning strikes that sparked wildfires in nearly the same spot of private land near Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge.

The first blaze in 2008 consumed about 50,000 acres and took more than six months to extinguish. The second, in June 2022, burned just under 2,000 acres and was out in 10 days.

To Angie Tooley, manager of Carolina Ranch, the 10,000-acre site where both fires ignited, those contrasts illustrate the critical difference between toasty dry pocosin and spongy wet pocosin. Tooley credits the ranch’s work that rewetted the pocosin by raising water levels in the canals for suppressing the June fire.

But moist pocosin can also translate to income, she is quick to add. When peatlands are restored to their naturally boggy health, their thick mats of decayed plants sequester many tons of carbon. Carbon dioxide is the greenhouse gas that is threatening to destroy our planet. 

It’s an opportunity for ecosystem restoration that kills two birds with one stone — wildfire prevention and climate change mitigation — and Tooley intends to seize the ring. In recent years, she has reached out to environmental nonprofit group The Nature Conservancy, or TNC, and Charlottesville, Virginia, consulting firm TerraCarbon for expertise to help Carolina Ranch — and possibly neighboring properties — meet strict criteria to qualify for the burgeoning carbon credit market.

Carbon credits, or offsets, refer to the amount of greenhouse gas removed from the atmosphere, or the reduction of carbon emissions. Carbon farming creates credits based on the carbon dioxide, or CO2, held or drawn down into the soil.

“We are all looking for ways to work together in showcasing the private landowner use of the pocosin carbon offsets methodology funded by TNC and written in part by TerraCarbon,” she said in a text message after representatives of the groups had visited the site Jan. 11.

Wetland research

The Duke University Wetland Center, which is led by founding director Curtis J. Richardson, had conducted a three-year research project on pocosin in Carolina Ranch and, earlier, at the Pocosin Lakes refuge. In a paper released in September, the research data showed that rewetting and restoring 250,000 acres of previously drained peatlands could prevent 4.3 million tons of CO2 from being released into the atmosphere – equaling 2.4% of the total annual reductions in carbon dioxide emissions needed for the U.S. to be carbon neutral by 2050.

“Thus, management of hydrology and fire intensity in natural and degraded shrub/tree peatlands will be principal to maintaining peat/litter quality (phenolic/black carbon), enhancing long-term carbon accumulation, and preventing downstream (dissolved organic carbon) losses to coastal waters,” according to the paper.

In September, Richardson told Coastal Review that the Duke center is no longer working with anyone at Carolina Ranch. Although he noted “there’s a million steps that have to be done,” he hopes they move forward with carbon farming.

“I wish the project to be a success,” he said.

‘Hottest of the hot’

During a mid-September tour of the canal system within the project site, Tooley and ranch assistant Bill Ogburn of Ponser showed how the dark water sat just under the top edge of the canals that crisscrossed miles of flat grassy and wooded land.

“This is the worst part of the fire,” Tooley said, nodding towards charred vegetation off the access road on the property. “This was the hottest of the hot.”

Abutting the refuge and situated among vast farms of Hyde County’s coastal plain, Carolina Ranch totals 15,000 acres, some of which is still farmed or used for other purposes. Bumping along in an open all-terrain vehicle, views off the unpaved road showed off nature at its lovely best, mostly untouched by fire. The air had an earthy scent, with an occasional whiff of charred wood. Off the road, palm pine, wild asters, Carolina bay trees, maple, wild dogwood, wax myrtle, fern, scrub bushes and white pines grew with abandon. Wild blackberries, blueberries, gall berry, and wild Scuppernong grapes dotted the landscape in their late summer version. When the vehicle was stopped, it was quiet enough for black bear families to amble across the road. In one large section, there were patches of blackened earth and numerous downed trees.

We arrived at the fire scar.

“Look at the pine – it’s coming back,” Tooley exclaimed, pleased with the signs of recovery.

The property, today owned by Gus Schad of Albemarle, had once been part of the sprawling First Colony Farms, established in 1973 and comprised of 376,000 acres in Washington, Tyrrell, Hyde, and Dare counties. At the time, plans included clearing land for farming, forestry, raising livestock and peat mining. Much of the land was ditched and drained.

But concerns about loss of wetlands and harm to water quality, combined with economic questions, led to the project being dropped. A conservation group eventually bought much of the land at a bankruptcy proceeding, and a large portion became part of Pocosin Lakes National Wildlife Refuge.

After Schad, as Hyde County Partners LLC, purchased the 15,000 acres, he asked Tooley, an old friend, to help manage it and find a way to make a return on the investment. Tooley, an Elizabeth City native whose previous work includes serving as Hyde County planner and county manager, researched options for the land and realized it was a perfect fit for carbon farming. Much work, she knew, would be required to restore the pocosin, which had been dried out by the ditching and draining and periods of drought.

‘What we’re doing is working’

Ambitions for Carolina Ranch, which was incorporated in Sept. 2020, are big, according to its website: “Dedicated 10,000 acres to carbon offsets development in order to strengthen upland conservation, manage rainwater runoff using the peat to absorb and protect adjacent landowners, and enhance the natural environment for new biodiversity industrial job creation all while protecting the land from future peat fires.”

It would be one of the largest coastal resiliency projects in the U.S, continues the writeup on the site. TerraCarbon, which designed the American Carbon Registry methodology for restoration of pocosin wetlands, is directing development of the carbon project, along with East Carolina University and assistance from engineering firm Quible and Associates.

In addition to the prospect for carbon farming, Tooley said that scientists have discovered “never seen before” fungi deep in the peat. The ranch operation is working to continue onsite research into the find, with a goal of developing small business incubators for biodiversity jobs. At the same time, the operation is working to expand use of the property, which has 52 miles of roads, frontage on New Lake and diverse populations of flora and fauna, as a nature-tourism destination.

But without rewetting and restoring the pocosin, the biodiversity and health of the ecosystem would be at risk, Tooley noted, and it would lose any chance of qualifying as a carbon farm. That’s why it is important for the canals to hold the 9 feet of water. As Tooley described it, it was like creating a tub and putting a plug in it. Consequently, the natural sponginess of the peat was absorbed, in turn making it much less of a wildfire hazard.

“I know what we’re doing is working,” she said.

The Algonquin name for “swamp on a hill,” pocosin is the regional version of peat, known for its ability to hold water, and conversely, to burn hot and long. Fifty percent of peat – the remains of dead plants preserved over millennia – is composed of carbon. Despite being only 3% of the Earth’s surface, healthy peatlands store more than twice the carbon of all the planet’s combined forests. Desiccated or burned peat, however, releases carbon into the atmosphere.

Peat fires burn deep into the ground and are notoriously difficult to extinguish because they can spread horizontally and create hot spots that are difficult to find until they flare up. With their carbon-rich material – peat is still mined throughout the world for fuel – peat fires are some of the worst carbon polluters. Paradoxically, it is also one of the best natural solutions to keeping carbon in the ground.

John Cook, District 13 forester with the North Carolina Forest Service, told Coastal Review that the Evans Fire in 2008 happened after two years of severe drought, making the underground organic soil, which lacks sand or clay, exceptionally dry. Then once the topsoil is on fire, the heat keeps drying the soil deeper and deeper.

Even though there was a shorter-term drought going on when lightning ignited the recent wildfire, dubbed the Ferebee Road fire, the strategy at the ranch to dam canals with stacks of cement bags to sustain optimal water levels throughout the 10,000 acres is currently incomplete. The agency has a right to go on private land to stop a fire so it won’t affect somebody else, he added.

“They just don’t have the structures yet to hold water,” he said. “The ditching got ahead of the reality.”

Roads and ditches tend to eventually work like dikes, Cook said. And the problem with pocosin is that when flooded from above, the top of the “swamp on a hill” ends up becoming the center of a doughnut. Firefighters learned from the Evans Fire, which spread underground, and pumped water into canals from nearby lakes to flood the fire from below. Firefighters also cut firebreaks through the land and around the perimeter of the fire, and doused the sides and edges of the fire to keep it from spreading.

Cook said that holding the 9 feet of water Tooley had done at Carolina Ranch did help slow the progress of the Ferebee Road fire, but the more expensive water-control structures used nextdoor at the refuge are able to more efficiently pump water off and on a site as needed to move it around the network of canals.

“She’s doing what she can with what she has, until she can get structures in place,” he said.

Although Tooley wants the Fire Service to fix canal gates and remove cut trees and piles of brush left after the fire, Cook said that is not the agency’s responsibility, comparing it to expecting a fire department to repair your house after it burns. It’s not just because it’s private land, he said.

“I didn’t start the fire,” he said. “I came and put the fire out.”

But he said the service will remove sediments in wetland streams and restore access on paths and roads. Otherwise, the downed growth will be left to nature.

“Those trees are going to rot,” Cook added. “We don’t go back and landscape.”

Spurred by new urgency to mitigate climate change impacts and buoyed by a flood of federal funds, carbon offset projects are gaining momentum nationwide. Tooley remains determined to not only be one of them, but to help use pocosin as an asset to create an innovative business model for the community, while helping to stem the effects of climate change.

“That’s what makes coastal resiliency happen, because it naturally holds water,” Tooley said of northeastern North Carolina’s peatlands. “If everybody doesn’t work together – and I mean public and private – we will never have coastal resiliency.”

Get your shovels ready! The 25th annual TreeFest in Wilmington is coming up later this month and you may pick out up to five free trees or grasses and take them home to plant.

More than 10,000 plants will be available during the two-day giveaway — over 5,000 trees and grasses per day — between 11 a.m. and 4 p.m. Jan. 20 and Jan. 21 at Independence Mall, inside the JC Penney corridor.

Longleaf pine, red cedar, river birch, silky dogwood, sugarberry, red hickory, eastern redbud, crabapple, chestnut oak, live oak, wiregrass, Indian grass, little bluestem and big bluestem grass will be available on a first-come, first-serve basis. A donation of $5 per household is suggested.

Experts will be on hand to help with plant selection and provide information for their care.

Trees and grasses distributed during this event have been provided by the North Carolina Forest Service Nursery in Goldsboro.

Anyone interested in stopping in to pick up trees or grasses are encouraged to consider the size of the site in which they wish to plant, check for utility lines above and below ground, soil type, drainage, sun exposure and proximity to buildings.

Since the trees provided at TreeFest are bare root they should be planted as soon as possible.

“Our goal of expanding and increasing the tree canopy here in the Cape Fear region remains so important,” said New Hanover County Arboretum and N.C. Cooperative Extension Director Lloyd Singleton in a statement. “Trees offer many benefits to our community, from flood protection and improving water and air quality, to providing shade and oxygen, along with food and nesting sites for birds and wildlife.”

TreeFest began in 1997 after hurricanes Bertha and Fran wiped out tree populations in the area. TreeFest has given away over 100,000 tree seedlings to area residents.

Sponsors for TreeFest include the New Hanover County Arboretum and North Carolina Cooperative Extension, New Hanover County Soil and Water Conservation District, the city of Wilmington, Friends of Wilmington Skateparks, Independence Mall, N.C. Forest Service, and the University of North Carolina at Wilmington’s Environmental Sciences and Biology & Marine Biology departments.

From donating your natural, undecorated Christmas tree for dune restoration projects to dropping it off at a county convenience site to become mulch, there are options when it comes to disposing of a live tree after the holidays.

Fort Macon State Park has relied on natural Christmas trees to help stabilize its dunes since the mid-1960s. Unfortunately, donations have been lower in recent years, Park Ranger Benjamin Fleming said in an interview. 

The state park on Bogue Banks in Carteret County is collecting trees again this year to help with dune stabilization until Feb. 15, but Fleming said they’ll continue to take the trees if they’re dropped off after.

“We really need the trees to help with erosion control. We are still trying to rebuild dunes we lost during Florence,” Fleming said about the 2018 hurricane.  

Before dropping off the tree, Fleming said to remember to remove all ornaments and decorations. They find a few ornaments every year that were obviously important and special, like baby pictures, still left on the donated tree. He added that the park can’t use trees covered with silver plastic tinsel because the tinsel blows off the trees into the park or ocean, which makes the park look unkept and kills wildlife. 

Businesses should contact the park office at 252-726-3775 before bringing large loads for donation.

At the other end of the Island in Emerald Isle, Surfrider Bogue Banks will be collecting live Christmas trees at the corner of Islander and Emerald drives in now through Feb. 3. The organization will use the undecorated, natural trees to build dunes at the Point, or the westernmost portion of the island.

Sea Scout Ship and Maritime Explorer Club 7730 will collect trees for a $10 donation and take it to the drop-off area in Emerald Isle. Sign up for pickup at www.seascouts7730.org.  

On Feb. 4, Surfrider Bogue Banks will need volunteers to help haul and secure the trees on the beach. Email chair@boguebanks.surfrider.org to RSVP.

Not all beaches need trees though. In some cases, it can cause more harm than good.

Lindsay Addison, coastal biologist with Audubon North Carolina, told Coastal Review that a few years back, they found that people were leaving their old Christmas trees on Lea-Hutaff Island. In some cases, a large number were left. 

“This was concerning because we had not asked for trees to be brought to the island and they were not wanted for the island. We removed the trees including some that had washed into the marsh and were smothering the marsh grass and others that were taking up space in a Wilson’s Plover and least tern nesting area. We’ve seen them scattered on other local islands as well, not part of a planned effort,” she said.

Lea-Hutaff Island is a 5,641-acre undeveloped barrier island and marsh system that has remained undisturbed by development, dredged sand and off-road vehicles north of Wilmington between Figure Eight Island and Topsail Island, according to Audubon. 

Because Lea-Hutaff is an undeveloped barrier island, Audubon manages the site to be in as natural a state as possible, Addison explained.

“Barrier islands are supposed to move and change. When these natural movements threaten buildings on developed barrier islands, trees are sometimes placed there in the hopes that they will accelerate the regrowth of dunes. However, results are mixed,” Addison said. 

Trees can just as easily become coastal or marine debris, even if they are staked down, the dunes they create aren’t always stable, and they can impede the growth of native dune vegetation. The trees also can impede nesting sea turtles or take up habitat that would otherwise be good for nesting birds, Addison said. 

“Overall, they really don’t belong in a natural barrier island landscape,” she continued.

When the tree issue first came to Lea-Hutaff, Addison said they looked into pros and cons with the North Carolina Coastal Federation, which publishes Coastal Review, and Coastal Area Management Act, or CAMA, rules.

“Based on that research, we concluded that unless a cost-effective alternative to sand fencing is needed, trees aren’t the way to go. We also learned that unless they are being placed in accordance with sand fencing regulations, they require their own permit from the state,” she said.  

In 2021, Addison said Audubon decided to put out signs to keep the problem from repeating itself. 

“We had some signs made and planned to put them out around Christmas. Last year was our first year of ‘No Trees, Please,’ and we had no trees left on Lea-Hutaff. We just put out the signs again for this holiday season and we hope we have the same results,” she said.

For people who really want to have their tree go toward dune stabilization, Addison suggested looking for a project organized by a town or agency and make sure they follow state rules. 

“Definitely don’t bring your tree to any site that isn’t asking for them. Alternatively, trees make great backyard habitat,” Addison said. Placed in a backyard, they create habitat for wildlife like wrens and sparrows.

Addison also recommended taking the trees to towns or counties that have a mulching program. These programs are great because not all store-bought mulch is responsibly sourced, she said.

The state Division of Coastal Management officials said in a release Monday that rules state that Christmas trees for sand fencing must be placed as far inland as possible and should not obstruct existing public access to the beach, recreational use of the beach or emergency vehicle access. If sand fencing is present, there must be 7 feet separating the trees and sand fencing sections.

For example, trees should be installed at an angle no less than 45 degrees to the shoreline, no more than 10 feet seaward of the toe of the natural dune, and no less than 7 feet between trees, officials said.

Trees should not be installed in a manner that could impede, trap or otherwise endanger sea turtles, nests or hatchlings when the nesting season returns in a few months. Rows should be single tree width and not installed in conjunction with sand fencing. Trees should not be placed at the seaward toe of unvegetated beach berms, starter dunes, or on the open beach.

For more information, contact the Coastal Area Management Act permitting authority or appropriate Division of Coastal Management district office.

Boy Scout Troop 117 on the Outer Banks and Hammocks Beach State Park in Swansboro are not collecting trees this year.

By county

Currituck County has eight convenience centers for recycling and trash collection where live Christmas trees may be dropped off. All decorations will need to be removed from the tree, a county representative told Coastal Review. 

Chowan, Gates and Perquimans counties are accepting natural trees in the yard waste containers at any of the convenience sites or at the PCG Transfer Station in Belvidere.

Live Christmas trees will be used in the counties’ composting programs, which turn trees and yard debris into compost and mulch. Compost and mulch produced through these programs are free to community members, said Amy C. Underhill, public information officer for Albemarle Regional Health Services.

Hertford County has a yard waste program. The limbs need to be cut off and the base of the tree has to be less than 6 inches in diameter. The pieces can be dropped off at the Transfer Station at 227 Mt. Moriah Road in Ahoskie. 

Washington County will accept trees at the landfill. The trees will be disposed with other limb and leaf debris, which is used as infill material, a county representative said.

Beaufort County will accept natural trees, garland and wreaths at all convenience sites and the county landfill at 1342 Hawkins Beach Road, Washington.

Dare County Public Works Department will not pick up any Christmas trees that are left on the curbside within the unincorporated areas of the county. Christmas trees should be dropped off at the Dare County Public Works Recycling Center at 1018 Driftwood Drive in Manteo or at the Buxton Transfer Station, 47027 Buxton Back Road. Trees that are dropped off at these locations will be recycled into mulch.

Manteo requests that residents place their trees curbside during the town’s regular Monday and Thursday sanitation runs for the Public Works Department to remove the trees. Trees must not contain any ornaments, lights or tinsel in order to be picked up.

Duck will collect trees from the curbside on Monday and again Jan. 9. Trees need to be placed on the curbside the night before residents’ scheduled collection date.

Southern Shores residents may place their Christmas trees in limb and branch piles for collection during the regularly scheduled pickup for their sector. Wreaths will not be collected.

Kitty Hawk officials ask that residents place their Christmas trees along the curbside right-of-way before Wednesday, Feb. 1, to be picked up.

Kill Devil Hills will be collecting trees placed beginning Wednesday, Jan. 11. Trees must be on the curbside by Jan. 10.

Nags Head residents are asked to place trees along the side of the road in front of their property, where the trees will be collected as part of the town’s monthly curbside bulk item/brush collection service. The town also reminds residents to set their trees in a separate pile from the rest of any bulk items that need to be collected. 

Onslow County will be accepting natural Christmas trees from Dec. 27 to Jan. 7 at the Midway Park and Folkstone convenience sites only. Cost is $3.

Pender County’s convenience centers in Rocky Point and Hampstead will accept Christmas trees Jan. 2 through Jan. 16.

New Hanover County Recycling and Solid Waste Department has partnered with The Home Depot for free Christmas tree recycling through Jan. 31. Residents can drop their trees off at The Home Depot at 5511 Carolina Beach Road, The Home Depot at 210 Eastwood Road, and at New Hanover County Landfill, 5210 U.S. 421 North.

“Every year, people have natural décor in their homes to celebrate the holiday season, but once the festivities are finished many don’t have anywhere to easily dispose of it,” said New Hanover County Recycling and Solid Waste Director Joe Suleyman in a statement. “This program helps make sure that real Christmas trees, wreaths, and garlands can be recycled into mulch and composted to be used in New Hanover County parks, gardens and grounds. It’s a great way for our community to help reduce waste in our landfill and keep our environment clean.”

Artificial trees or decorations will not be accepted. 

Residents are asked to stack the materials neatly because space is limited and organizers expect demand to be high again this year. Fenced-in areas in The Home Depot parking lots will be marked with signage designating the drop-off locations. The program is funded and coordinated by New Hanover County Recycling and Solid Waste, with support from Wilmington Sanitation Department and Home Depot.

In addition to trees and wreaths, items like gift wrap, paper or cardboard boxes, holiday cards, old gadgets and electronics can be recycled at the county’s main recycling processing facility, drop-off sites or through the Mobile Hazwagon.

String lights, tinsel, foam packaging, bubble wrap, and ribbons or bows cannot be processed at the recycling facility and should be saved for reuse or thrown in the trash.

In Brunswick County, live Christmas trees will be accepted at the landfill at no charge from Jan. 2-31. After Jan. 31, normal tipping fees apply. The county convenience sites will accept trees for $5 each from Jan. 2-31. Artificial trees are not recyclable and will need to be disposed of as household trash. Normal tipping fees will apply.

Once the deadline passes, staff will collect all live Christmas trees from convenient sites and add them to the live Christmas tree collection site at the Brunswick County landfill, where the trees will be turned into mulch available at no cost to the public.

Lined with charter boats, old homes, restaurants and retail stores, Morehead City’s downtown waterfront has long been its biggest attraction, and a stone’s throw across the water, Sugarloaf Island has long helped protect the economic center of town from the brunt of coastal storms.

But Sugarloaf, which was created when Harbor Channel was dredged decades ago and forms a barrier to the wider expanse of water just inside Bogue Banks and Beaufort Inlet, has been eroding rapidly for years and causing alarm about the loss of protection from severe storm damage and flooding.

Now, with a $2 million state appropriation, a team of professionals is setting out to combine the best shoreline stabilization methods for the island in a way that officials said will balance shoreline protection, public uses and natural resource conservation. While the city has yet to secure all the money to complete the project, officials said the restoration would be incremental with $2 million enough for the first phase.

“When the town cut was first dredged and Sugarloaf Island was built back in the ’30s, I believe it was, it gave Morehead City the economic opportunity of growth on the waterfront,” Mayor Jerry Jones explained Thursday during a press conference at the Ottis Landing Deck on Shepard Street. “And over the years in my lifetime I’ve seen at least 1,000 feet of Sugarloaf erode away. It used to extend as far west as 12th Street and now it’s about Ninth Street. We’ve lost about three blocks and that erosion is accelerating.”

The erosion leaves uprooted trees and vegetation and the currents and wave exposure carry sediments and nutrients and degrade water quality.

Also in attendance at the press conference were members of the city council, waterfront business owners and Sen. Norm Sanderson, R-Pamlico, and Rep. Pat McElraft, R-Carteret, who helped secure the funding in the state budget.

“We are so blessed here in Carteret County to have our marine sciences, who have — all of them — banded together with the Coastal Federation to find the right solution, environmentally friendly solution for what I call the buffer, or the speed bump, protecting this beautiful city of Morehead City,” McElraft said at the event Thursday.

She said the funding was available for storm mitigation and resiliency because the legislature had built up copious “rainy day money.” The state’s rainy day fund, a budget surplus savings reserve for lessening the effects of sharp economic downturns and disasters, is projected to be about $4.75 billion by the end of next year.

Sanderson said that looking at Sugarloaf Island from above, from 20,000 feet or 10,000 feet with a drone, the tiny island might not look very important. “It’s very small on the grand scale of things, if you look at that, compared to our coastline. But because of this strategic location, it is extremely important to downtown Morehead City,” Sanderson said.

He said the North Carolina General Assembly shares the town council’s and coastal conservation group’s desire to be good environmental stewards.

“I don’t want, 50 years from now, somebody standing on this dock, saying, ‘Didn’t there used to be an island out there?’ and ‘Yeah, it was but it started going away, and even though we had technology to do something about it, we just didn’t think it was that important.’ Well, it is important,” Sanderson said.

Robert Purifoy owns and operates Olympus Dive Center at 713 Shepard St., directly across from Sugarloaf. He told Coastal Review that he had seen water coming up through the floorboards of his business during coastal storms, and while the structure is on pilings, it is normally over dry land. He said the restoration was a critical project for the waterfront.

City officials, aquatic restoration company Sea & Shoreline, the nonprofit North Carolina Coastal Federation, which publishes Coastal Review, and Quible & Associates announced in July the start of the project to restore and protect the island using wave attenuators that disperse wave energy to reduce erosion and help rebuild the shoreline, seagrass plantings to stabilize sediment, create essential fish habitat and improve water quality, and a living shoreline to build salt marsh and upland vegetation.

The combination of methods should also address tree and shorebird habitat loss on the island and provide carbon sequestration benefits. Officials said ecotourism opportunities from increased beach area and improved water quality conditions were another expected benefit.

Brian Henry, director of Sea & Shoreline’s North and South Carolina offices, said the project was his idea for the Florida-based firm’s entry to the market here. He said the legislators supported the idea from the start.

“Without hesitation, they dove in very quickly and told us that this is very, very important, critical infrastructure for Morehead City and that they would see what they can do. A lot of things had to come together to get this money,” Henry said during the press conference.

He said the project is in the permitting phase with about another 35 to 40 days likely remaining.

“No questions or real objections at this point because we had a really good team on the front end that put all the work together from a technical perspective,” Henry said.

Coastal Federation scientist Dr. Lexia Weaver explained that the plan to use living shorelines was a natural, long-term shoreline-stabilization method.

“These living shorelines have proven time and time again to work significantly better, are more cost-effective, and they are incredibly more resilient to the effects of storms compared to the traditionally used sea walls that have hardened our shorelines and unfortunately have led to the reduction in our valuable salt marsh habitats and oysters, as well, in the process,” Weaver said.

She explained how the island protects the entire downtown area from the winds, waves, storm surge and other damaging effects of strong storms that have increased in intensity and frequency in the last few years.

“Unfortunately, the island has eroded due to these rising water levels and these strong storms,” Weaver said. “More than three whole city blocks of the island have been lost and it has exposed this waterfront to the direct effects of Mother Nature, and it continues to shrink in size. So, if nothing is done to protect this island, this waterfront is in trouble.”

The planned project components to be installed off the island’s shoreline will not impede navigation as they are to be placed in areas too shallow for vessels to navigate at high speed, according to information provided at the press conference. The breakwater will also be staggered to allow fishers to reach areas around them.

A map of underwater grasses in North Carolina sounds, an important tool in monitoring the coast’s environmental well-being, is newly updated.

The Albemarle-Pamlico National Estuary Partnership, or APNEP, worked with regional partners to create the updated map using data from 2020 that shows the amount and location of seagrasses, also called submerged aquatic vegetation, in the high-salinity areas of the Albemarle-Pamlico estuary.

“These mapping efforts are critical to understanding the locations and health of this important habitat within our sounds,” APNEP Director Dr. Bill Crowell said in a statement.

APNEP has been working for more than 30 years to identify, protect and restore resources in the Albemarle-Pamlico estuarine system, such as submerged aquatic vegetation.

Dr. Tim Ellis, APNEP’s quantitative ecologist, told Coastal Review that it’s important for the public to know about the health of submerged aquatic vegetation because it “is closely linked to many things people care about on the coast, including clean water, productive recreational and commercial fisheries, shoreline protection, and resiliency to major storms like hurricanes.” 

Analysis of previous mapping efforts in 2006-08 and 2012-14 show that submerged aquatic vegetation resources are declining. The 2020 data will help researchers confirm whether and where seagrasses are continuing to decline, according to APNEP.

The 2020 data are being compared to previous maps, Ellis explained. While it is too early in the analysis to share even preliminary findings for specific regions, in general, for many of the areas examined so far, seagrass continues to decline.

“We attribute some of this decline to poor water clarity that limits the sunlight these underwater plants need to grow, particularly in the more developed regions; however, two recent major storm events — hurricanes Florence and Dorian — also certainly impacted SAV,” he said.

APNEP’s submerged aquatic vegetation team used a combination of aerial flights and ground truthing via boat-based surveys in 2020 to map the Albemarle-Pamlico estuary.

Ellis is a staff lead for the team that has members with various areas of expertise in long-term monitoring and assessment. Primary partners include the state Department of Transportation and the Division of Marine Fisheries.

Monitoring, which includes mapping, and assessment, or data analysis, are core components of APNEP’s efforts to develop and implement a protection strategy for the region, Ellis said.

“In 2021, we released a metric report on changes in the extent of high-salinity SAV. We are in the process of updating that change-detection analysis to include the new 2020 mapping information. We anticipate being able to provide this information to the public later this year,” Ellis said.

Ellis said that mapping submerged aquatic vegetation takes a lot of time and resources, as well as cooperation from the weather.

“For this mapping effort, aerial imagery was first acquired in June 2019,” he said, “but these images were deemed insufficient to reliably map SAV due to low-water clarity resulting from wind and rain in the days preceding the flights.”

The region was mapped again in May and June 2020 and that aerial imagery was largely sufficient.

“Given the vast amount of coastline and estuarine waters covered, as well as limited trained staff, delineating all of the visible SAV takes months to complete. That said, APNEP and its partners were able to produce this updated map of SAV much more quickly than our prior two mapping efforts, and we expect to continue to increase our mapping efficiency going forward depending on available resources and staff capacity,” Ellis continued. “APNEP is fortunate to be able to lead a large group of dedicated partners committed to monitoring and protecting SAV.”

Collaborative monitoring and assessment with partner organizations will continue annually as part of APNEP’s new regional strategy, with findings to be reported to the public as they become available, officials said.

Ellis explained that the new regional monitoring strategy is an effort to coordinate actions led by APNEP with regional partners.

“As being part of the EPA’s National Estuary Program, APNEP is required to have a monitoring plan for the region, and we’ve chosen to begin by formalizing our long-term strategy for SAV monitoring,” Ellis said.

“Briefly, rather than trying to fly and map the entire APNEP region for SAV every five years or so, we are now flying and mapping one different subregion each year,” he said. “This approach was designed to not only improve our mapping efficiency, but also to allow us to take an even closer look at the resource in each subregion to better understand seasonal variability in extent, abundance and species composition.”

In addition to the 2020 mapping data being used to determine where submerged aquatic vegetation is declining, the data is to help guide the development of protection and restoration strategies.

“These mapping efforts are a key component of North Carolina’s Coastal Habitat Protection Plan implementation,” APNEP Coastal Habitats Coordinator Jimmy Johnson said in a statement. “Protecting SAV habitat will increase the resilience of our coastal ecosystems overall.”

The Coastal Habitat Protection Plan, or CHPP, is a long-term effort developed by the state Division of Environmental Quality to improve coastal fisheries through habitat protection and enhancement. The state Marine Fisheries, Environmental Management and Coastal Resources commissions adopted the plan in 2004.

Johnson was part of the team that developed an amendment to the plan approved in 2021 that recommends actions to protect and restore submerged aquatic vegetation through water quality improvements.

APNEP is currently hosted by the state Department of Environmental Quality under a cooperative agreement with the Environmental Protection Agency and works closely with Virginia. The program area is from the headwaters in the Virginia mountains and North Carolina Piedmont, through the coastal plain and out to the string of barrier islands bordering the sounds, according to the website.

The EPA and NCDEQ provided APNEP with funding for this 2020 map update project, with field and technical support from the Division of Marine Fisheries and other partners.

A recent study published in Nature has found sugar concentrations in the pore waters of sediments beneath Posidonia oceanica, a seagrass found in the Mediterranean Sea and commonly known as Mediterranean tapeweed or Neptune grass, to be about 80 times higher than previously observed. Posidonia oceanica secretes this sugar into the sediment beneath it.

It’s a finding that will help increase the understanding of what’s going on in the sediment below and around seagrass root systems, which in turn could help improve seagrass conservation approaches in the future.

“Sucrose is a sugar that we would use to sweeten our coffee in the mornings,” said Dr. Maggie Sogin, assistant professor in the Molecular Cell Biology Department at University of California, Merced, and lead author on the study. “One of the important things about sugar and sucrose itself is that microorganisms can gain a lot of energy and nutrition from that sugar molecule.”

Microbial colonies — organisms not visible to the naked eye that are critical to ecosystem function — often consume this sugar rapidly. In terrestrial environments, you would likely not detect sugar at such high concentrations because microbes are putting it to use. Therefore, Sogin was surprised to find so much sugar beneath seagrass.

The underground area beneath a plant where the root system interacts with the surrounding soil or sediment is called a “rhizosphere.” A lot less is known about these underwater rhizospheres in comparison to land-based rhizospheres.

A key difference is that oxygen is consumed very quickly by microbes in upper sediment layers in aquatic environments, so in much of the sediment there is no oxygen available. Sogin found during lab experiments that the microbial communities living in the rhizosphere do have the ability to break down sucrose, but they also have the ability to break down phenolics, a class of organic compounds. In the absence of oxygen, the presence of phenolics limits their capacity to break down the sugars.

Sogin’s ongoing work continues to investigate microbial communities in seagrass rhizospheres. She hypothesizes that since her team observed high sucrose levels under three other species of marine plants, the combination of a low-oxygen environment and plant-produced phenolics allows for things like sugar to amass in aquatic rhizospheres. Filling in the blanks of what’s going on in these rhizospheres can lead to improved management of seagrass meadows, a very valuable resource in aquatic ecosystems.

“If we can better understand the interactions that are occurring and how microbes help promote the health and metabolism and maintenance of seagrass meadows, then maybe we have a better way of thinking about how we can restore seagrass meadows or how we can protect them for future climate change scenarios,” Sogin said.

North Carolina has the most seagrass acreage on the Atlantic coast, but even these expansive meadows are not immune to long-term threats.

Dr. Jud Kenworthy worked for the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration for more than three decades. Retired from NOAA now, he continues to partner in a volunteer capacity with the Albemarle-Pamlico National Estuary Partnership, and is a adjunct member of the faculty at the University of North Carolina Wilmington.

Kenworthy was involved in the development of a submerged aquatic vegetation program in Beaufort through NOAA in the 1970s. He went on to work with seagrass for the majority of his career.

North Carolina, said Kenworthy, is a unique area when it comes to seagrass, but its role in the ecosystem is irreplaceable.

“It’s an incredible place because we have this mix of temperate and tropical species,” Kenworthy said.

North Carolina has a unique physical location with the Gulf Stream coming up from the south, and the Labrador Current flowing down from the north. As a result, you will find seagrasses at their northernmost and southernmost limits in North Carolina. From the standpoint of climate change, said Kenworthy, this makes North Carolina’s seagrass meadows a bit of a “living laboratory.”

Seagrass does a lot for the ecosystem. Its root systems hold sediment in place and protect the shoreline by preventing erosion. The structure it provides offers food and habitat to countless underwater species. Seagrass is a highly effective carbon sink, and helps improve water quality.

But seagrass also faces encroaching threats from pollution, climate change and urban development. APNEP research shows that between 2006 and 2013, total seagrass coverage decreased by about 5.6% in the Albemarle-Pamlico Estuary.

Kenworthy said it’s important to conserve seagrass because nothing else provides all the same ecosystem services to a comparable degree. There’s no equivalent substitute for it. And once it is gone, restoration has a really low rate of success.

“It’s hard and expensive to bring it back once we’ve lost it,” Kenworthy said. At their most effective, restoration efforts have a success rate of only 42%. “It’s not even as good as a flip of a coin.”

NEWPORT — The Coastal Environmental Partnership is working with the North Carolina Coastal Federation to help ramp up oyster shell recycling throughout Craven and Pamlico counties.

It’s illegal to dispose of oyster shell in North Carolina landfills. The Coastal Federation’s Recycling for Reefs program collects recycled oyster shells and uses them to build oyster reefs and living shorelines. Oysters provide important habitats for fish, crabs, shrimp and other species. They also help clean and filter the water.

The Coastal Federation announced Friday that new shell recycling drop-off sites are open in Craven and Pamlico counties for public use. The Coastal Environmental Partnership has partnered with the federation to host the shell drop-off sites at two of its facilities. Craven County is collecting shell at a county convenience site.

Drop off oyster shell at the following locations:

• The CEP Grantsboro Transfer Station at 3291 N.C. 306 North, Grantsboro. 
• The CEP Tuscarora Landfill at 7400 Old U.S. 70 West, New Bern.
• The Craven County Convenience Center at 7240 U.S. 70 East, New Bern.

Students from Swansboro and Havelock high schools adorned dumpsters for oyster shell recycling with oyster-themed murals.

Oyster populations have decreased 90% along the coast over the last 100 years. The Coastal Federation said it is vital to take every step possible to protect and restore oyster populations, which in turn supports better water quality.

One way you can help oysters is to recycle oyster shells.

When dropped off at official recycling locations your shells can be used properly and strategically to support the new growth of oysters.

“Whether from an oyster roast, restaurant, or backyard cookout, every shell collected can help protect and restore our coast,” the federation said. Oyster shells are a valuable resource costing up to $3 per bushel when purchased for coastal restoration.

From 2003 to 2018, the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries operated a state-funded oyster shell recycling program that provided 6-15% of the shell needed for restoration projects. The state- run oyster shell recycling program ended in 2018 due to budget cuts and staff reductions.

The Coastal Federation is working to fill that gap by providing a way for the public and businesses to support a healthy coastal environment and keep shells out of the trash. The Recycling for Reefs program in Craven and Pamlico counties is funded by the Bosch Foundation. For a complete list of coastwide recycling sites visit nccoast.org.

Guest commentary

From Lea-Hutaff Island to the south end of Wrightsville Beach, birds are returning to nest at our inlets and beaches. Brown pelicans are already patrolling the waves and marshes to feed their young. Black skimmers and least terns are raising chicks right on the sand, to the delight of beachgoers and vacationers. 

Birds have safe places to rear their young on our coast thanks to years of teamwork by conservation organizations, volunteers, state agencies, and local governments. A new bipartisan bill in Congress offers an opportunity to build on this work by protecting our beach towns and important coastal habitats at the same time. 

The Shoreline Health Oversight, Restoration, Resilience, and Enhancement Act, or SHORRE Act — which is backed by Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate — would preserve coastal habitat while providing affordable, alternative sand sources used for beach nourishment projects. Under the bill, local governments would be able to seek federal support for any added costs of dredging and sourcing sand outside of sensitive coastal areas. It’s a win-win: Communities get sand for beach renourishment projects while protecting the habitats that birds and people depend on.  

For decades, pristine beaches, marshes, and inlets up and down North Carolina’s coast have been protected from development by the Coastal Barrier Resources Act (CBRA). Signed into law by President Ronald Reagan in 1982, the program prohibits development and federal infrastructure spending in certain designated areas. 

The result has been a generation of conservation that continues to make our coast a top-tier destination, from world-class fishing to open stretches of untouched beach to the abundant wildlife we all enjoy. The new bill would build on CBRA to support beach towns and ensure habitats are conserved.  

That means enduring protections for the places that serve as nurseries for marine life, including important commercial and recreational fish species. In North Carolina, the commercial saltwater fishing industry brings in $78 million per year. 

It also means enduring protections for rare bird habitat, from undeveloped stretches of open sand home to vulnerable beach-nesting birds like least terns, to inlets that provide safe places for plovers, skimmers, and oystercatchers to raise their young. Sand mining in inlets and other nearshore areas can harm habitats that are vital to shorebirds and waterbirds, with damage to the food chain persisting for months to several years. 

Undeveloped inlets, islands, beaches and wetlands in the CBRA program also help protect upland communities from storms and erosion. A 2021 federal report found that sand mining in inlets, like those protected by the CBRA system, can harm downdrift communities, increasing their erosion and exposing them to greater storm hazards. 

Closer to home, this compromise bill will help ensure CBRA areas like Masonboro Island remain a beloved destination for families and wildlife for years to come. 

The SHORRE Act is a strong example of how we can continue the work of protecting the environment and supporting coastal communities at the same time. Audubon North Carolina supports the balance that it presents, and urges North Carolina’s Congressional delegation to vote in favor of it. 

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.

Wilmington is working on what officials are calling the city’s first Urban Forest Master Plan, and residents can help by filling out an online survey.

An urban forest is a city’s trees, including those growing along streets, in parks and natural areas, around homes, workplaces and businesses. Wilmington’s plan is to serve as a road map to grow and manage the city’s urban forest.

City officials and natural resource planning consultants Davey Resource Group Inc. are working together on the plan. As part of the initial outreach effort, residents are asked to take a 10-minute survey about Wilmington trees and urban forest.

The survey can be found online. The results are to be used to guide development of the Urban Forest Master Plan.

According to the city, an abundant and healthy urban forest has been proven to help mitigate the effects of climate change and improve our quality of life by the following:

• Reducing summer temperatures by shading and cooling streets, buildings, and the surrounding environment.
• Improving air quality and the public health effects of air pollution.
• Positively impacting our mental and physical health.
• Providing homes, food and shelter for birds and other wildlife.
• Intercepting and absorbing stormwater and improving water quality of local lakes and streams.
• Beautifying the community and creating a sense of place.
• Increasing real estate values.

A workshop set for Friday offers instruction on how to better manage stormwater and prevent flooding to protect wetlands.

Set for 8:30 p.m. to 3 p.m., the New Hanover Soil & Water Conservation District, the Coastal Reserve & National Estuarine Research Reserve, Alliance for Cape Fear Trees, Wilmington Tree Commission, and North Carolina Cooperative Extension are hosting the workshop.

“Stormwater Management & Flooding Prevention on Wetland Landscapes” is being held at the New Hanover County Arboretum and North Carolina Cooperative Extension Auditorium, 6206 Oleander Drive, Wilmington.

Those interested in participating should register online. The fee is $10 and includes lunch. Participants also receive a thumb drive with all presentations from the day. Professional credits are available.

The workshop is designed to address drainage, stormwater management and flooding prevention for residential and commercial development on landscapes with large areas of jurisdictional wetlands, officials said.

While the workshop will focus on northern New Hanover County, which includes more than 20 square miles of predominantly poorly drained soils and very poorly drained hydric soils, the principles, practices, and regulations to be discussed in this workshop are applicable to drainage, stormwater management and flooding prevention for wetland conversion to development in any large wetland ecosystem.

Topics covered will include wetland definitions and characteristics, wetland regulatory programs, water management systems to facilitate wetland conversions to development uses and the economic and legal aspects of water management districts.

FERRY SLIP ISLAND – It’s not much to look at.

This island mound rises up from the Cape Fear River like a misshaped pancake — rounded and flat along one edge, fluffy and jagged on the other.

There are no trees or shrubs. A handful of small patches of grass break through the caramel-colored sand. More desert than oasis.

Alas, appearances can be deceiving.

This island is one of only two nesting spots along North Carolina’s southern coast for royal terns and sandwich terns and — good news for the terns — it recently received its first fresh batch of sand in 18 years.

In all, 80,000 cubic yards of sand was scooped from a shoaled-in area in the nearby shipping channel and pumped onto the island.

“It has taken many years for the channel to need dredging in that area so, finally, the stars have aligned, and we were able to receive the sand,” said Lindsay Addison, Audubon North Carolina coastal biologist. “It’s close to beach quality sand on the island. That means the birds are going to get improved habitat. There’s about six sites in this state where these species nest, so that’s not a lot of sites and so it’s really important that they’ve got these islands to nest on.”

Ferry Slip Island, the name given to it because of its proximity to the Fort Fisher Ferry Terminal landing, was created some 60 years ago as a dredge spoil disposal area for the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

Corps officials did not respond to Coastal Review’s questions about the project in time for publication.

After going nearly two decades without a sand injection, the island, battered by waves churned by storms and large container ships traveling to and from the North Carolina Port of Wilmington, had shrunk from more than 5 acres to less than 3.5 acres.

Unlike barrier islands, where erosion is a natural process that can create new habitat, dredge spoil islands like Ferry Slip are at the mercy of shoaling and machinery.

“In the case of the river islands, because they’re artificial, they’re not really self-sustaining. So they do need periodic dredge deposits,” Addison said.

Every five to seven years would be ideal, she said.

About nine islands in the lower Cape Fear River host nesting shorebirds most every year.

“Most of those islands are what we call important bird areas. So, they support a significant portion of the state population or they support a significant portion of the regional population of birds,” Addison said.

Ferry Slip and South Pelican Island, another dredged material island with view of the former, are the only two islands in the southeastern part of the state that support royal and sandwich terns. These black-crowned, gray-winged terns prefer low islands in sounds and estuaries.

“We’re usually talking (3,000) to 4,000 pairs of them, both species combined, between these two islands,” Addison said. “They like to nest on open, sandy habitat. Dredge islands, because they’re made out of dredged sand, have got that habitat.”

These islands are also inaccessible to foxes and racoons, animals that like to feast on the eggs and chicks, making them generally predator-free, with the exception of some bird species like the great horned owl and gulls.

There’s also little threat of human activity on the islands. Still, Audubon posts warning signs on the islands during nesting season.

After a brief, light rain one recent morning, Addison and two Corps officials made the quick trip by boat from the marina at Carolina Beach State Park to Ferry Slip to assess the newly sand-beefed island.

Hundreds of birds — dark-feathered double-crested cormorants, royal terns, laughing gulls and American oyster catchers — heavily peppered the island’s expanded shores, their chorus of shrieks and calls filling the air.

A single oystercatcher nest, no more than a slight indentation in the sand, was marked by its maker with wood planks that appeared to have drift ashore.

Intricate patterns made by birds’ feet indented the island’s sandy surface, interrupted only by the fresh tracks of a bulldozer used to push sand pumped onto the island.

Other than that, there are no signs equipment was on the island. Work has to be done by March 31, when the environmental window closes.

The spoil dredge islands are dedicated disposal sites for the Corps, owned by the state and managed by Audubon.

Audubon, in cooperation with the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission’s Habitat Management Division, manage vegetation growth on the islands, generally through use of an herbicide and, in some cases, burning, Addison said.

“In some years if we didn’t do any treatment (vegetation) would cover 100% of the island,” she said. “Other species will use it, like brown pelicans, but we don’t really need more pelican habitat. We have a lot of brown pelican habitat. The turns are the ones that are missing their habitat.”

Addison said she’s expecting a “good year” for nesting terns and oystercatchers.

“They are starting to arrive,” she said. “The timing of the project is really great because it’s wrapping up just as they’re arriving so they’re going to come back and see this nice, new habitat. It’s nice when there’s a project that has to happen for infrastructure reasons that can be good for wildlife. If this sand we’re going on these islands it would be taken offshore so it would be lost entirely from the system. You ideally want to keep sediment in these estuaries and inlet systems where they can form habitat and provide buffer for shoreline whether developed or undeveloped.”

Millions in payments by Smithfield Foods to North Carolina can be routed to grants for environmental enhancement projects and are not civil penalties that must be designated for schools, the state’s high court ruled last week.

The Supreme Court ruled Friday that the North Carolina Court of Appeals acted prematurely when it allowed the New Hanover County Board of Education to raise on appeal a new claim that had not been argued in a lower court.

The 6-0 decision means money paid out from a 2000 settlement between the pork giant and then-Attorney General Mike Easley may continue to be funneled to the state’s Environmental Enhancement Grant, or EEG, program.

That program was established in 2001 by Gov. Roy Cooper, who was at that time attorney general, as a way to disburse funds collected under the Smithfield Agreement.

Under the terms of the agreement, Smithfield and its subsidiaries agreed to pay up to $2 million each year for 25 years to a savings account where the money is held until it is distributed by the attorney general to environmental enhancement projects.

Francis De Luca, former president of Civitas Institute, a Raleigh-based conservative policy organization, filed a complaint in Wake County Superior Court in fall 2016 alleging the payments made as part of the agreement were civil penalties and, per the state Constitution, the funds should go to county schools. De Luca added the New Hanover County Board of Education as a party plaintiff in early 2017.

De Luca eventually removed himself from the case, one that has played out like a back-and-forth tennis match of the Court of Appeals and Supreme Court.

“This is hopefully the last time that the courts have to hear arguments about the Environmental Enhancement Grant Program,” Blakely Hildebrand, a staff attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center said in a telephone interview Monday.

The law center represented the nonprofit North Carolina Coastal Federation and Sound Rivers Inc., which joined the case in 2017 in support of Attorney General Josh Stein.

Stein had moved the annual payments from a private bank account to the Office of State Treasurer out of abundance of caution before the Court of Appeals’ December 2020 ruling that the money had to be paid into the treasury or the general fund.

That ruling reversed the state Supreme Court’s April 2020 ruling in favor of the attorney general’s office and that the payments did not constitute penalties.

In the split decision, Judge Philip Berger Jr. and Judge John Tyson had ruled that N.C. General Statute 147-76.1, referred by some as the “gift statute,” applies to present and future funds paid under the agreement and that the law mandates those funds be deposited into the treasury.

Cooper signed that bill into law in 2019, some three years before the lawsuit was filed in Wake County Superior Court.

Dissenting Judge Wanda Bryant noted in a separate opinion that the appellate court’s ruling was premature and that the board of education’s claim should first be argued in a trial court.

The split decision entitled the parties to get another hearing before the Supreme Court.

Berger, an associate justice in the Supreme Court, did not participate in that court’s deliberations on the case.

Associate Justice Sam Ervin IV wrote that the board of education can choose to file a new lawsuit to argue where the money should be routed.

Paul “Skip” Stam, the plaintiff’s lead attorney, did not return a call seeking comment.

“We are very pleased with the outcome of this decision and we’re glad that this really important program can continue to operate for the next several years in a way that benefits communities and the environment in North Carolina,” Hildebrand said. “This program is really important to particularly the environment and also to the nonprofit organizations that do the hard work under this grant program.”

To date, the attorney general’s office has awarded nearly $37 million to more than 190 projects in the state. Those projects include wetland restoration, land acquisition, stormwater remediation, stream stabilization, and environmental education and research initiatives.

Since the program launched, 240 abandoned hog lagoons have been closed and more than 31,000 acres of land and wildlife habitats have been conserved or restored, according to the attorney general’s website.

The program awards $5,000 up to $500,000 in grants for a three-year project and grants are available only to nonprofit organizations, including academic institutions and government entities.

Last year, Stein awarded nearly $3 million to 27 grantees. More than $850,000 EEG projects were funded in eastern North Carolina last November.

The normally quiet Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge will be busy over the next few weeks as habitat restoration activities take place.

The North Carolina Department of Transportation and Fred Smith Construction of Raleigh began this week excavating sand in an area behind the Oregon Inlet terminal groin. Sections within a 3-acre area will be dug out to create open-water intertidal pools for multiple shorebird species.

“We anticipate approximately 25,000 cubic yards of sand will be excavated and deposited on the upper beach adjacent to the work area. We estimate the work will take one to three weeks to complete, (weather permitting),” US Fish and Wildlife Service officials said in a statement.

NCDOT was issued a permit in June 1989 from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to build the Oregon Inlet terminal groin. Work began on the terminal groin in 1989 and was completed in 1991.

NCDOT requested a new permit to retain the Oregon Inlet Terminal Groin in 2012 as part of the N.C. 12 Transportation Management Plan.

When the terminal groin permit was updated a decade ago, it required several monitoring and management conditions, including moving sand to create suitable habitat conditions for migratory birds or other federal trust species within a half-mile of the terminal groin, according to Fish and Wildlife.

It was estimated that habitat management would be necessary every five years, give or take two years, depending upon storm frequency and intensity, and habitat monitoring results. These have occurred in winters of 2008, 2011, 2014 and 2020.

“It is anticipated by the moving of sand to create moist sand and intertidal pool habitats with unvegetated shoreline with coarse shell substrate that habitat quality for these nesting shorebirds and waterbirds will be greatly improved,” officials said. “These habitats are important areas for foraging, breeding, and nesting activities of many different shorebirds including piping plovers, black skimmers, American oystercatchers, and least terns.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Guest commentary

It may sound too good to be true that one, palm-sized organism could filter water, provide habitat, secure the coastline, and be a delicious, nutritious powerhouse on the plate. But it’s not a gimmick — the oyster does it all.

In North Carolina, a consortium of government, university, business and nonprofit stakeholders are working to restore historically depleted oyster populations in tandem with designing resilient wetlands, building a thriving industry, and preserving an icon of coastal heritage. North Carolina leads the way nationally in its collaborative, multifaceted approach to protecting, restoring, harvesting, and educating people about oysters.

In support of this superhero species, North Carolina Forever is working to spark awareness about oysters and the people behind the nimble and broad effort to bolster them as a catalyst for a resilient future, where people and ecosystems thrive. North Carolina Forever is a bipartisan coalition of North Carolinians — from businesses, agricultural, conservation and environmental organizations — aiming to influence legislation and secure the funding necessary to keep a promise held by the state constitution: “to conserve and protect its lands and waters for the benefit of all its citizenry.”

On Dec. 14, 2021, NC Forever hosted an educational webinar exploring the kaleidoscopic benefits of oysters to our state. This panel discussion entitled, “Oysters! Good for the economy. Great for the environment. Even better for dinner!” was the final installment of a five-webinar series sponsored by State Employees Credit Union and aimed at engaging stakeholders around vital issues facing North Carolina’s lands and waters.

Convened for this aquaculture deep dive were: Erin Fleckenstein of the North Carolina Coastal Federation, Jason Peters of the N.C. Division for Marine Fisheries, Tom
Looney of the Coastal Federation’s Coastal Executive Leadership Council, Rep. Bobby Hanig, R-Currituck, and Sen. Norman Sanderson, R-Pamlico. The webinar was moderated by Coastal Federation Executive Director Todd Miller, who is also a board member with NC Forever.

A coastal scientist with the federation who’s based in Wanchese, Fleckenstein kicked off
the conversation with a review of the comprehensive roadmap driving statewide strategy and action around oyster resiliency: the North Carolina Oyster Blueprint. Fleckenstein introduced the fourth edition of the Blueprint, which sets goals for the next five years, focusing on the four strategies of protecting, restoring, harvesting, and educating about oysters. She highlighted key actions within each strategy, including oyster sanctuaries, living shorelines, oyster shell recycling, cultch planting, and expanded outreach.

Fleckenstein noted that the Blueprint “is one of the only efforts in the country that outlines goals and actions to balance oyster habitat, water quality protection, oyster harvest, and oyster farming.”

Reviewing additional aspects of the Blueprint was Jason Peters, who oversees
shellfish restoration programs for the Division of Marine Fisheries. Peters’ enthusiasm for oysters and his work was clear; he admitted that his fiancé continually reminds him to cut the oyster talk after 5 p.m. He stressed that oysters offer us “so many services
other than just food value,” from environmental to economic. Peters shared recent developments in the oyster sanctuary and cultch planting programs, which he oversees and are further outlined within the Blueprint.

Currently there are around 400 acres protected through the oyster sanctuary program, which creates small, sheltered areas to foster high density oyster populations, spawning larvae and supporting wild species beyond their borders. These sanctuaries also support fish populations and filter vast amounts of water.

In 2020, the General Assembly approved $1.35 million in funding for the Sen. Jean Preston Oyster Sanctuary Network, which currently consists of 15 sanctuaries throughout the Pamlico Sound. The Blueprint sets a goal to build an additional 100 acres of sanctuary in Pamlico Sound by 2025.

The cultch planting program complements the work of these sanctuaries, restoring wild oyster habitat by establishing new reef sites using hard substrates like shell and limestone marl, which are deposited in strategic areas by barges. Peters is excited about the division’s recently received funding for the purchase of a new cultch planting vessel, which will be able to reach previously inaccessible areas in need of oyster habitat restoration, particularly in southern and remote parts of the North Carolina coast.

Peters emphasized that with frequent and increasingly severe storms, the power
of oyster reefs to stabilize sediments is critical to coastal habitat resilience, and
that the state’s interest in protecting these areas through shellfish restoration is
promising.

Key to legislative backing for this restoration and protection work has been the win-win equation of the oyster industry’s economic potential, alongside the ecosystem services they provide. Bringing to bear deep business expertise paired with a passion for aquaculture was Tom Looney, the third panelist to share his experiences. Looney illustrated a convergence of factors leading to the explosive growth of North Carolina aquaculture in recent years — an unlikely turnaround following at least 100 years of depleted oyster resources, and a historically anemic aquaculture industry.

Efforts to restore oyster habitat and population have been met with key developments in oyster breeding to awaken this latent economic engine along our coast. The development and improved availability of triploid oysters for year-round enjoyment (not just months containing the letter “r”), along with increased oyster shell thickness (for easier shucking), and a shorter maturation period, have made oysters more consistently marketable. These improvements have dramatically increased the viability of small-scale aquaculture operations.

Such developments were critical, Looney highlighted, in convincing the legislature that this industry could deliver prolific, solid jobs and bring sustainable economic growth to our coastal communities.

It can be notoriously tricky to bring bipartisan environmental and business interests on board with a shared legislative agenda. The Blueprint meets the moment of economic opportunity with sound guidance on how to restore, protect, and harvest the threatened coastal resources that allow this industry to exist, so that it can grow sustainably.

Sen. Sanderson said the Blueprint “impressed the Senate” with its efficacy and its thoughtfulness, stressing that not many plans come to their desks so ready to implement. The effectiveness of the Blueprint to garner bipartisan support strikes a note of hope as we face layered environmental challenges in North Carolina; not only is it a roadmap for sustained oyster resources, but a potentially useful framework for future
communication and conservation victories as well.

“No one is doing this kind of a program in the way North Carolina is doing it,” stressed
Sen. Sanderson, “and it’s all because of the wisdom, the scientific approach, and all the other facets that have come together to see this succeed. And I absolutely believe that it is going to succeed.”

Oysters have proven themselves to be worthy of investment. Today, there are over 200 oyster growers along the N.C. coast, generating $27 million in economic impact with over 500 new jobs created. The goal of the working group surrounding these oyster efforts is to generate $100 million in business and 1,000 jobs by 2030.

Empowering passionate people who want to join this emerging industry will be key to achieving these goals, but barriers to entry for growers have been significant. Thanks to the advocacy of the oyster experts convened, the legislature has approved $1 million in funding for low-cost loans catered to shellfish startups, via the N.C. Rural Center. Such loans will make starting an aquaculture business much more accessible.

The next phase of support for these entrepreneurs is a plan to line the coast of North Carolina with aquaculture business incubator programs, to foster healthy growth of sustainable businesses — alongside healthy growth of our coastal ecosystems.

This isn’t a venture to rush into, however. Sen. Sanderson emphasized, “You’ve
got to know what you’re getting into … this is hard work.”

Along with shellfish curricula at community colleges, the proposed incubator programs could help shape dreams into savvy business plans, bolstering the likelihood of successful ventures, and the conscious growth of the aquaculture industry.

Rep. Hanig highlighted the “really comprehensive” Senate Bill 648, entitled “Support Shellfish Aquaculture.” The legislation was passed unanimously in 2019, establishing a pilot project for large oyster leases, streamlining the permitting process for aquaculture operations, increasing areas available for aquaculture, and looking at ways to mitigate user conflicts in lease areas. Improved regulatory processes, in tandem with increased educational opportunities and accessible loans, aim to buoy new N.C. aquaculture ventures.

Consumers are critical to the longevity of any industry; all panelists stressed the importance of education and outreach for the continued enjoyment of our state’s treasured bivalves. Tom Looney highlighted that oyster consumption is doubling every five years; intentional communication strategies can ensure that those consumer cravings are connected with local resources.

Looney applauded The Oyster Trail — a connective platform with over 50 members
and a user-friendly app that links customers to oyster farms, restaurants, markets, and educational tours. Beyond this tool, N.C. oyster resources can now be found in state welcome centers, aquariums, and coastal museums.

“Many people weren’t even aware we had an oyster industry,” remarked Looney. “Today, we’re driving awareness in a big way.”

In addition to following The Oyster Trail throughout the state, citizens can engage in service to fortify our coastal ecosystems. The Coastal Federation offers opportunities for volunteers to plant native vegetation, recycle oyster shells, install rain gardens, clean up marine debris, and assist with outreach programs.

Not only does Erin Fleckenstein spend her working hours fighting for our coastline through strategy and science, she also spends time helping to restore wetland habitats. Fleckenstein explained that, if we can more effectively divert and filter water through the landscape— effectively removing pollutants before it hits the coast— we can help oysters do their jobs and thrive in greater numbers.

“It’s all coming back to water quality,” Fleckenstein maintained, “making sure the waters of our sound are supporting these restoration efforts.”

Rep. Hanig emphasized that the multi-layered benefits and increased awareness of oysters “are just huge for us here, especially in eastern North Carolina,” where some of the state’s most economically and geographically vulnerable communities are located.

While the aquaculture industry’s growth is a beacon of hope in North Carolina, there are significant challenges to navigate. Presently, the coronavirus pandemic and its pervasive disruptions present hurdles to oyster stakeholders, from the coast to the kitchen.

Hanig called attention to House Bill 916, which appropriated $17 million in meat and seafood processing grants, to support businesses in the creation of new programs for resiliency in the face of COVID-19.

Looking forward, Tom Looney underscored the growing challenges presented by erosion, sea level rise, and climate change. These ecological crises require unconventional partnerships working together for our shared natural resources,
taking bold action on behalf of NC’s intertwined communities and ecosystems.

Such unconventional, bold partnerships are central to North Carolina Forever’s
agenda to preserve our state’s natural resources.

In the face of these complex challenges, it is wise to follow the lead of the oyster, which holds the knowledge to restore our waters and support its neighbors — if only we can protect and bolster the wild spaces in which they thrive. In times like these, we have much to learn from the oyster.

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.

Update Jan. 10:

New Hanover County announced that the planning committee has decided to postpone the 2022 TreeFest event originally scheduled for Jan. 14-15. The committee is working to reschedule the event..

Original post:

More than 7,000 individual plants are expected to be available at no cost during the 24th annual TreeFest set for Friday, Jan.14, and Saturday, Jan. 15, in Wilmington.

Trees and grasses can be picked up from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m., or while supplies last, on both days at Independence Mall inside the JC Penney corridor. Organizers noted that this is a different starting time than previous years.

In order to serve as many as possible, households may choose up to five free trees or grasses from the available selection. A $5 donation per household is suggested. All trees and grasses are available on a first-come, first-serve basis.

Tree species include bald cypress, black walnut, red maple, persimmon, silky dogwood, Chickasaw plum, crape myrtle, overcup oak, willow oak, sugarberry, redbud, flowering dogwood and longleaf pine. Little bluestem grass will also be available.

The bare-root trees should be planted as soon as possible.

“While we avoided a hurricane this season, we know our area has suffered significant tree loss in recent years and TreeFest is a great opportunity to get replacement trees and rebuild the canopy in our community,” said New Hanover County Arboretum and North Carolina Cooperative Extension Director Lloyd Singleton in a statement. “Trees are so important to our quality of life here in New Hanover County, as well as our global environment.”

Experts are to be available to help with plant selection and provide information on their care. Before selecting trees, residents are encouraged to consider the size of the site, whether utility lines exist above and below ground, proximity to buildings, and site conditions like soil type, drainage and sun exposure.

TreeFest began in 1997 after hurricanes Bertha and Fran wiped out tree populations in the area. Since its inception, TreeFest has given away more than 100,000 tree seedlings to residents.

The North Carolina Forest Service Nursey in Goldsboro grew the plants for the event.

The North Carolina Forest Service, North Carolina Cooperative Extension, New Hanover Soil and Water Conservation District, University of North Carolina Wilmington Department of Environmental Sciences, Wilmington Earth Day Alliance, Alliance for Cape Fear Trees, New Hanover County Parks and Gardens and Independence Mall, make TreeFest possible, and generous donations from its patrons.

A recently published study examining the effects of Hurricane Florence on the lower Neuse River reveals how one river system adapted to the type of coastal storm forecasted to be the norm of future hurricane seasons.

Jonathan Phillips, an adjunct professor in East Carolina University’s Department of Geography, Planning and Environment, began examining the lower Neuse and its estuarine sites a few days after Hurricane Florence trudged through eastern North Carolina in September 2018.

Phillips, who also holds the title professor emeritus at the University of Kentucky, focused in the study, “Geomorphic impacts of Hurricane Florence on the lower Neuse River: Portents and particulars,” on the storm’s effects on the river’s physical landscape, including shoreline bluffs, and the Neuse estuary, including ravine swamps and tributary swamps along the river.

What he found is that the river, specifically the largely undeveloped stretch between Kinston and New Bern, and its accompanying swamps adapted and recovered after the storm.

“There’s absolutely no reason to intervene in the recovery of the undeveloped shorelines,” Phillips said. “Their ecosystem services are just as good now as they were before the storm. They’re providing the same functions and values.”

Though Hurricane Florence was a Category 1 on the Saffir-Sampson Hurricane Wind Scale when it made landfall near Wrightsville Beach Sept. 14, 2018, it quickly broke records, becoming the wettest tropical cyclone on record in the Carolinas.

The combination of torrential rainfall, storm surge and wave action beat the already eroding estuarine shoreline bluffs in the lower Neuse, an area Phillips examined after hurricanes Bertha and Fran in 1996.

Those shorelines would continue to erode without the impacts from Hurricane Florence, Phillips said. Such erosion has been occurring since at least the 1970s, according to scientific literature, he said.

“What was different about Florence was, at least at the sites I looked at, was an unprecedented rate of erosion in terms of retreats of those bluffs — more than any other storm or single recorded incident,” Philips said. “One of the characteristics that happened during Florence was because the water was so high for so long. Usually, in terms of its effects on any particular location, a hurricane comes and goes in half a day or less. In this case, in the lower Neuse area, you had high winds, not hurricane winds, but high winds and high water for about four days.”

High waters and winds occurring for an extended period of time enabled what Phillips referred to as “wave attack” both higher up on the bluff and for a longer-than-normal period of time.

The result: an average of about 40 feet worth of shoreline retreat.

“When you’re talking about 12 meters, or 40 feet, of lateral retreat with bluffs that are typically about 10 meters — 30 to 35 feet high — that’s a lot of sediment,” Phillips said.

That sediment ended up in the ravine swamps, transforming them from the perpetually flooded swamps with a muddy, organic base they were prior to Hurricane Florence to sand-filled swamps.

Sand loss on the bluffs created what Phillips refers to as a “storm bench” or “storm platform,” which is formed when a layer of sand over top of a tight, clay base, erodes away.

In eastern North Carolina, Phillips said, it doesn’t take long for some kind of vegetation to colonize on most any surface.

New vegetation is growing in the sand that has filled some of the ravine swamps. It’s also growing on the storm benches.

“These systems, in terms of their geomorphology and hydrology and ecology are adapted to storms,” Phillips said. “They’re created by storms. They’re getting to experience tropical cyclones and nor’easters periodically. The difference is now they’re likely to experience more and more powerful and different in terms of the slower moving, wetter storms.”

He said that, in spite of Hurricane Florence’s record-breaking storm surge and the high stream flows created by the storm, environmentally speaking, there were no major geomorphic impacts to the lower river from Contentnea Creek, a major tributary of the Neuse, down to New Bern.

“There was very little change and that was because those systems have evolved during a period of sea level rise and they’ve developed in such a way that they’re perfectly suited to handle a lot of water coming from upstream or downstream or both,” Phillips said.  

“What you’ve got along most of that corridor is, rather than your classic complex of channels that flow all the time, ones that flow only sometime, wetland depressions, and wetlands that typically have water flow through them so it’s adapted to be able to temporarily store large amounts of water and release it gradually downstream through all that complex of channels and wetlands and depressions,” he continued. “The fact that it was able to do that during Floyd is attributable to the fact that those wetlands have been protected by Section 404 (of the Clean Water Act) by incorporating a number of those swamps for the Neuse River Gamelands.”

The storm’s impact on human infrastructure along the river was substantial.

Hurricane Florence was the third storm — following Matthew in 2016 and Floyd in 1991 — to cause major flooding in a handful of North Carolina’s coastal plain river basins, exposing the vulnerabilities of communities within those flood plains.

Responses to mitigating impacts to those communities from similar storms in the future have included government buyouts.

Nearly 650 properties damaged by hurricanes Matthew and Florence had by December 2019 been acquired in buyouts, according to North Carolina Sea Grant.

Academic studies since Florence have looked at ways to implement natural infrastructure, such as stream restoration, along the riverine landscape to abate flooding.

“In terms of planning and management I feel like we shouldn’t be like the proverbial generals fighting the last war,” Phillips said. “We have to be ready for new and different things and Florence was unprecedented in terms of the duration of the winds and the amount of water involved. But, we can’t really assume that other storms are going to be like Florence now. We’ve just got to be ready for anything basically.”

As folks are taking down their holiday decorations, they may be wondering the best way to dispose of their natural Christmas trees.

Fort Macon State Park in Carteret County has been collecting natural Christmas trees since 1964 and park Superintendent Randy Newman told Coastal Review he thinks around 80,000 trees have been collected in that time.

The park has already begun collecting trees from this holiday season. Visitors can drop their tree off at the end of the fort parking lot.

“The trees are placed along the dune line where the trees act as sand fence catching the sand and building the dunes,” Newman said. “Within a year the tree is normally buried by sand and vegetation is growing on top of it.”

While Fort Macon has a program in place to use natural Christmas trees to build dunes, it’s not ideal for all barrier islands and habitat.

Lindsay Addison, coastal biologist for Audubon North Carolina, told Coastal Review that, over the past three years or so, they’ve noticed more trees being left on Lea-Hutaff Island after Christmas. They also have received some inquiries from groups about doing tree-placement projects.

“In response, we looked into the pros and cons with the Coastal Federation and checked with (Division of Coastal Management) about related regulations. We concluded that unless there’s a need for a cost-effective alternative to installing sand fencing, trees aren’t needed,” she said. “And, unless they are being used as sand fencing they will require their own permit.”

The Division of Coastal Management said in a release last week that property owners, organizations and towns that plan to use natural Christmas trees for dune restoration or beach sand fencing must meet the state’s rules for sand fencing and should submit a Coastal Area Management Act, or CAMA, minor permit application for review to ensure compliance.

Addison explained that generally, for undeveloped barrier islands, the trees are more of a nuisance than a benefit.

“Some of the trees that people have left on the island have washed into the marsh after storms, requiring removal so they don’t harm the vegetation. Some have been put in places that obstruct or diminish bird and turtle nesting habitat. None of them met the state’s regulations. People obviously mean well and want to help barrier islands, but unless the tree is part of an approved placement project, it’s best to pursue other options,” Addison said.

If there isn’t a barrier island project available there are other options, like free mulching programs, which are more eco-friendly than using commercially produced mulch.

“An old Christmas tree is also a ready-made brush pile that is prefect habitat for birds and other backyard critters. Wildlife such as wrens, sparrows, and squirrels will appreciate it,” she said.

Addison added that the organization will place temporary signs letting people know not to drop off their trees.

Many of the towns and counties on the coast have plans in place to help residents properly dispose of natural Christmas trees.

Brunswick County is accepting during this month trees at the county landfill site at 172 Landfill Road in Bolivia, free of charge. There is a $5 charge to drop off the trees at the convenience sites in Sunset Beach, Supply, Southport and Leland.

Southport will collect trees with all the decorations removed that are placed in the right-of-way by Jan. 14 to be picked up Jan. 15.

Craven County accepts Christmas trees at any of its seven convenience centers, said Steven Aster, solid waste director with the county, adding this disposal is free of charge.

New Bern will pick up natural trees, without decorations, from the curbside as yard waste pickup. Artificial trees are part of bulk waste pickup.

In addition to Fort Macon State Park in Carteret County, Surfrider Foundation Bogue Banks Chapter is collecting Christmas trees at the corner of Islander and Emerald drives in Emerald Isle to help build dunes on a section of beach in Emerald Isle. Organizers ask that all ornaments, plastic, and tinsel be removed prior to drop off.

Jen Welborn, chair of the Bogue Banks chapter, said they will collect trees until Jan. 28. On Saturday, Jan. 29, Surfrider Bogue Banks will host an event to haul them out to The Point. All are welcome to attend.

“We secure the trees at The Point with stakes and twine, within CAMA regulations. The trees act as a sand fence to collect sand as the wind blows, and eventually develop into or add to existing dunes to help protect our little island from hurricanes and storms,” she said.

The organization has been hosting this event since 2018 when they collected about 50 trees.

“We recycled 208 trees in 2021, 162 in 2020, 160 in 2019, about 50 in 2018, and we hope to collect even more this year,” Welborn said.

Emerald Isle property owners and residents also can discard their live Christmas tree by placing it curbside on their regular yard waste pickup day. The town’s public works will not collect artificial trees.

Christmas trees may be dropped off on the southwest corner of the Iron Steam Public Beach Access in Pine Knoll Shores. “We’ll make good use of them on the beach to help build our dunes,” Brian Kramer, town manager, said in a letter to residents.

Outer Banks Wildlife Shelter at 100 Wildlife Way, Newport, is collecting natural Christmas trees with all decorations removed to be used as natural habitat, according to a Facebook post.

Randall Edwards, with Currituck County Public Information, said Currituck County has eight recycling/convenience centers where residents drop off their trash and recycling materials.

“Each of these sites will accept live Christmas trees. All decorations and tinsel must be removed from the tree prior to disposal,” Edwards said.

The Dare County Public Works Department will not pick up any Christmas trees that are left on the curbside within the unincorporated areas of Dare County, which include Rodanthe, Waves, Salvo, Avon, Buxton, Frisco and Hatteras Village on Hatteras Island, the county mainland’s East Lake, Manns Harbor, Mashoes and Stumpy Point communities, as well as Wanchese, Colington and Martins Point, according to a release.

Though Dare County does not pick up Christmas trees, they are being accepted at the county recycling center, 1018 Driftwood Drive, in Manteo, Shanna Fullmer, public works director said. Christmas trees can be dropped off at the Buxton Transfer Station, 47027 Buxton Back Road, as well.

Trees that are dropped off at these locations will be recycled into mulch.

Manteo officials request that residents place their undecorated Christmas trees next to their roll carts during the town’s regular Monday and Thursday sanitation runs for removal.

Duck Public Works will collect undecorated Christmas trees from the curbside on its regular Monday and Tuesday collection routes through Jan. 11. The town also asks that trees be placed on the curbside the night before scheduled collection date.

Southern Shores residents may place their undecorated Christmas trees in their limb and branch piles for collection during the regularly scheduled pickup for their sector. Wreaths are excluded and will not be collected.

“Alternatively, Christmas trees may be taken to the north end of Hillcrest Beach Access Parking lot,” said Cynthia Mills, administrative specialist with the town.

Kitty Hawk officials request that residents place their undecorated Christmas trees along the curbside for pickup.

Kill Devil Hills officials said the town will be collecting natural undecorated Christmas trees placed along the curbside beginning Jan. 12, though trees must be placed on the curbside no later than Jan. 11.

Nags Head residents are asked to place their undecorated Christmas trees along the side of the road in front of their property, where they are to be collected as part of the town’s monthly curbside bulk item/brush collection service. The town also reminds residents to set their trees in a separate pile from the rest of any bulk items that need to be collected.

Gates County does not have any special arrangements for Christmas tree disposal, officials said.

Joe​ Suleyman, environmental management director for New Hanover County, said the county, in partnership with the city of Wilmington, will be collecting natural trees and wreaths through Jan. 31 free of charge at the following locations: Home Depot at 210 Eastwood Road, Home Depot at 5511 Carolina Beach Road, and the New Hanover County Landfill, 5210 U.S. Highway 421 N., all in Wilmington.

No artificial trees or wreaths will be accepted, and all decorations must be removed. At both the Home Depot locations, there is a fenced area, with signage, in the parking lot to collect the trees. Residents are encouraged to stack the trees neatly, as space is limited, Suleyman said.

“We would like to express our appreciation to the Home Depot for providing space again this year, and many thanks to the City of Wilmington solid waste department for assisting us with the collection and transport of the trees. Trees are ground up and used to either generate compost or as mulch for erosion control,” Suleyman added.

Onslow County Solid Waste Director Randy Vanover told Coastal Review that the county accepts trees at convenience sites at 122 Carver Drive in Jacksonville and 320 Old Folkstone Road in Holly Ridge. The main Landfill at 415 Meadowview Road in Jacksonville is also accepting trees.

“They are taken as yard waste, and there is a charge of $1 per tree at the convenience sites and $31 per ton at the landfill,” that is equal to 2 cents a pound with a 31-cent minimum, Vanover wrote in an email response to Coastal Review. “Since acquiring the shredder we will plan on shredding the trees this year separately and using it for landscaping around the landfill.”

He said that he has not been contacted by any organizations this year about recycling.

Hammocks Beach State Park is not accepting live Christmas trees this year. “The hundreds of trees collected over the past two years were enough to stimulate the formation of new sand dunes on Bear Island,” according to a Facebook post.

North Topsail Beach residents can drop off their natural, undecorated Christmas trees through mid-January in the designated area at the Jeffries parking lot at 316 New River Inlet Road. Trees are to be used in dune restoration or beach sand fencing.

In Topsail Beach, Christmas trees will be picked up during the first Friday bulk-item pickup. The next two bulk item pickup dates are Jan. 7 and Feb. 4.

Pamlico County has no arrangements for natural tree disposal, officials said.

Pasquotank County Solid Waste Director Brad Gardner told Coastal Review that the county doesn’t have any specific recycle program, but trees are treated as yard waste or land clearing debris.

“We basically combine them with yard waste and have them ground up as mulch every 6 months. We then use this mulch as alternative daily cover in the operation of our construction and demolition landfill,” Gardner wrote in an email response.

Gardner added that residents are encouraged to remove all ornaments, lights and metal bases in advance before disposing them as yard waste.

“You would really be amazed at how many people throw the entire tree out with everything still attached,” he said. “These materials contaminate the yard waste pile and finished mulch while also damaging equipment when the wire gets tangled.”

If you have artificial trees to throw out, they can’t be disposed of as yard waste and are instead treated as bulky waste.

“Leave them on the curb within city limits or at the drop-off sites be sure to tell the attendant and they will direct them to the bulky waste dumpster where desks, sofas and other large items are sent,” he said.

Pender County Solid Waste is accepting Christmas trees for disposal at the Rocky Point and Hampstead convenience sites only.

Discarded Christmas trees deposited at the convenience sites must have all ornaments and lights removed. All residents must show the “recycle” decal. For a complete listing of convenience centers and daily schedules visit the website.

In Perquimans County, Christmas trees are to be deposited in yard waste containers at the solid waste convenience sites.

“They become part of our yard waste compost program, which provides free compost to the community,” W. Frank Heath, Perquimans County manager, said.

Brunswick County and the North Carolina Coastal Federation are partnering to increase oyster shell recycling by offering more drop-off sites throughout the county.

Recycled oyster shells are used to build or restore oyster reefs and provide habitat for other marine life. Oyster shells can cost up to $3 per bushel when purchased for coastal restoration. It is also illegal to dump the shells in North Carolina landfills making recycling a better option.

Brunswick County’s Solid Waste and Recycling Program, which has been collecting shell at the county landfill in Bolivia, now provides drop-off sites at the following convenience centers:

• Sunset Beach: 736 Seaside Road.
• Supply: 1709 Oxpen Road.
• Southport: 8392 River Road.
• Leland: 9921 Chappell Loop Road.

From 2003 to 2018, the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries operated a state-funded oyster shell recycling program that provided 6 to 15% of the shell needed for restoration projects. The state-run oyster shell recycling program ended in 2018 as a result of budget cuts and staff reductions.

The federation, which publishes Coastal Review, is filling that gap by providing a way for people and businesses to support a healthy coastal environment and keep shells out of the trash. Support for the Cape Fear region Recycling for Reefs program comes from the Orton Foundation.

For a complete list of coastwide recycling sites, visit the website.

Projects to preserve and protect habitat and improve water quality in eastern North Carolina have been awarded a total of $866,591 in grants through the Environmental Enhancement Grant program, Attorney General Josh Stein announced Tuesday.

This year, the program is awarding nearly $3 million to 27 grantees across the state.

The grant program began after an agreement made in 2000 between the North Carolina attorney general’s office and Smithfield Foods, which provides $2 million to the state every year to be distributed among environmental projects across the state. Including this year’s grants, listed below, the attorney general office’s has awarded nearly $37 million to more than 190 projects in the state.

Jacksonville

Jacksonville is to receive $175,000 to continue efforts to preserve and protect the New River.

The grant is to help the city expand 12 of the existing New River Estuary Oyster Highway sites, construct 1,850 small patch reefs and add nearly 2.5 million oysters to improve biofiltration.

“The City of Jacksonville is committed to preserving and protecting the New River, a process which began 21 years ago with the close of the City’s Wilson Bay WWTP (waste water treatment plant) and the immediate cleanup efforts utilizing an innovative process called bioremediation,” said Pat Donovan-Brandenburg, stormwater manager for city.

“We continued those efforts three years ago with the “New River Oyster Highway” where we created 12 half-acre artificial reefs or stepping stone habitats for oyster and fish populations in the region between Wilson Bay and Stones Bay within the New River, Donovan-Brandenburg continued. Using funds these funds will enable the city to expand the 12 existing New River Estuary Oyster Highway sites by adding more than 2.48 million oysters and constructing an additional 1,850 or so patch reefs across all sites.

“This grant will help safeguard the New River,” said Stein. “It will help marine life thrive and help improve the quality of water sources.”

New Bern

New Bern is getting $134,000 to build stormwater infrastructure in an underserved neighborhood that has long been subject to flooding. The grant is a part of the city’s larger resiliency and revitalization project.

“The Attorney General’s Environmental Enhancement Grant Program award supports the city’s overall resiliency initiatives and one of the primary goals of our Resiliency and Hazard Mitigation Plan, to improve conditions for our most underserved and socially vulnerable populations,” said Jeffrey Ruggieri, Development Services Director for New Bern.

“Flooding is the biggest concern and most frequent hazard experienced in the Greater Duffyfield Community. The Stormwater Enhancement Project is a representative mitigation solution to retrofit sustainable practices and nature-based solutions in our older neighborhoods that have been plagued with disinvestment. The project will make the neighborhood safer, improve water quality, and add an amenity for the surrounding residents,” he continued. “EEG funds have been imperative to the city’s broader planning efforts, which encompass a holistic approach toward building the resilience capacity of New Bern and being better prepared for the future.”

Stein said in a statement that New Bern is making smart investments in improving water quality and preventing flooding in historically underserved neighborhoods. “I hope this grant will help improve the quality of life for people in New Bern.”

North Carolina Coastal Land Trust

The North Carolina Coastal Land Trust is receiving $50,000 for the Hoggard’s Millpond Conservation Project, which will help the trust acquire 348 acres of Hoggard’s Millpond Tract and transfer it to the town of Windsor in Bertie County to create a new public park.

“Coastal Land Trust is ever appreciative of this recently approved EEG grant for our Hoggard’s Millpond Conservation Project which represents a unique community conservation partnership to protect a site with significant wildlife, historic, water quality, and recreational resources,” said Janice Allen, director of land protection, adding that the trust’s primary partner, Windsor, is one step closer to having a new nature, historic park for all to enjoy.

“Public parks make our communities stronger and happier,” Stein said. “I’m pleased to distribute these funds to help the town of Windsor create a new public park that the community can enjoy for decades to come.”

Ducks Unlimited

Ducks Unlimited is getting $75,000 to restore wetlands within the Goose Creek Game Lands in Pamlico County, a project to increase water exchanges between Smith Creek and its estuary.

“The Environmental Enhancement Grant award serves as a critical funding source in support of our project to enhance 25 acres of tidally-influenced managed wetlands,” said Ducks Unlimited Regional biologist Ethan Massey.

“The grant funds will be leveraged with the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission (NCWRC) and Ducks Unlimited matching support to complete the project. Wetland restoration projects like these are important to maintain and improve wetland function and water quality in North Carolina,” Massey said, adding that the project will also allow the commission to manage the area more effectively to provide high quality wildlife habitat and public outdoor recreational opportunities.

“Wetlands protect our communities from flooding and enhance water quality,” said Stein. “I’m proud to partner with Ducks Unlimited to preserve this area for more people to enjoy in the future.”

Bertie County Hive House

Bertie County Hive House is receiving $74,350 to improve a 4-acre greenspace in Lewiston Woodville through cleaning, stormwater remediation and planting. The greenspace provides recreational and educational opportunities for the underserved community.

“Public green areas are vital to our community health,” Stein said. “This grant will help create a community space people can visit and enjoy.”

Other EEG awards in eastern North Carolina:

Pollocksville will receive $114,000 to construct publicly accessible wetlands in Riverfront Park to help protect flood-prone properties.

Kinston Cares, a nonprofit organization run by the Center for Community Self-Help, is receiving $95,000 to rehabilitate Federal Emergency Management Agency flood buyout property in east Kinston through research, community planning and environmental education.

East Carolina University will receive $149,241 to identify and evaluate stormwater control measures throughout Greenville. The project will help the city determine which locations are at a higher risk for flooding and poor water quality and take steps to reduce the environmental damage caused by stormwater runoff, especially in underserved communities.

ST. JAMES — Years ago, the phrase “living shoreline” wasn’t well known in North Carolina outside of, say, the circles of coastal scientists and researchers.

“I don’t recall that at the time we used the term ‘living shoreline’ as much as we do today,” chuckled Taylor Ryan of St. James in Brunswick County. He’s project leader and founder of the community group, The Royal Order of the Honorary St. James Oysters.

When Ryan went to the University of North Carolina Wilmington and the North Carolina Coastal Federation, which publishes Coastal Review, to ask how his town could reduce erosion along its waterfront park, he had no idea his request would result in a burgeoning, 16-years-and-counting relationship forged by a passion for education, research and resiliency.

The small, relatively young town of St. James in Brunswick County in August created an endowment fund at the university with a gift of $25,000 to support students’ work and research at the town’s living shoreline, officials announced last month.

UNCW has more than 2,000 funds that support an array of programs, but the St. James endowment is special because it was set up by the town.

“This is unique in that the town actually created the endowment fund,” said Lindsay Crighton, director of development of UNCW’s Division for University Advancement. “This is unique because it is pairing a town and the university in looking at coastal resiliency and looking at how a coastal university can partner with a coastal community and have such an impact in the region.”

It all started in the mid-2000s when Ryan attended a seminar about oysters — specifically, the value of an oyster.

A single oyster can clean between 40 to 50 gallons of water a day, Ryan learned. Their shells can be incorporated into a living shoreline, one that is built of natural materials to stabilize and protected a shore.

Such a project sounded like the right fit for the shoreline along St. James’ Waterway Park nestled along the Intracoastal Waterway.

Ryan went to St. James’ then-Mayor Shelley Lesher to ask for $5,000 to kickstart a living shoreline project at Waterway Park. Her answer was an immediate “yes.”

Fast forward through the permitting process, which was not a simple one, to the first build, one where UNCW students and their professors, Coastal Federation officials and 94 St. James residents worked together.

Since that first build, 9,000 bushels of shells have been placed along the shoreline and more than 27,000 plugs of Spartina grass have been planted, according to St. James Mayor Jean Toner.

The town’s website states that some 540 feet of shoreline has been restored and stabilized with plans to do another 2,360 feet.

“Every year, twice a year, we have students and staff join with our residents to work along our intracoastal shoreline to build up the oyster reefs,” Toner said. “It’s been an excellent project. We’ve learned a great deal from the staff and students. We’ve really enjoyed the partnership we have with them. This program, in particular, I’ve just never seen this much dedication.”

Their enthusiasm ultimately led to a natural collaboration between the town and university, one that reaches beyond the confines of St. James’ boundaries and affords college students a treasure trove of research opportunities.

Over the past year and a half, the university has been hosting presentations open to residents in the region.

Those presentations have included conversations about coastal habitats and the dynamics of living shoreline erosion, issues that are of general interest to the broader community.

“When we’re doing a build it’s not just a build, it’s also an outreach and education,” said Martin Posey, a professor and director of UNCW’s Center for Marine Science.

The benefits of the project have become multifaceted.

“That’s one of the great aspects of having this long-term study where we’ve been able to see over the 15 years how has it done as we are beginning to get more storm effects and sea level rise,” Posey said. “And, the endowment sort of solidifies this research can continue another 10 or 15 years. We’re not going to be here forever, but the endowment will help ensure that work continues and we’re able to continue to see how do these systems respond in the long term when they’re faced with these pressures of climate change.”

Posey and Troy Alphin, senior research associate at the center’s Benthic Ecology Laboratory, have been involved in St. James’ living shoreline from the get-go.

The town’s support has afforded a great opportunity for dozens and dozens of students, both graduate and undergraduate, they said.

“The classroom is good. The classroom tells you the facts and the figures and the labs give you some controlled approach. But, to actually get out there and do the research, to see how things don’t always work out the way you want them to work out, to see the fact that results can be fuzzy and you have to sort of figure out what’s happening, to learn the art of science is something that is absolutely critical that has to be done hands-on,” Posey said.

Kenneth Halanych, who took the helm in June as the UNCW center’s executive director, said the relationship between the town and the university has an even broader outreach.

“Engaging both the community and the young researches in science really helps build the trust in science from the community perspective,” Halanych said.

“One of the things we’ve had a huge problem with in this country, especially in the last little bit, is the trust in science and the trust in expertise has been greatly eroded. So, this is a chance for scientists to go and interact with the community, to interact with young researchers or young individuals and say, look, the science is critical in your everyday life,” he said. “This sort of activity I actually think is really important for helping people understand the importance of science and the scientific process. These types of partnerships between communities and universities and the involvement with students is critical for building a productive future.”

The St. James endowment will provide funds to continue the partnership at the university and support students’ work in the town.

“Our hope is eventually that other people in Brunswick County, people that are interested in coastal resiliency and marine biology and applied learning at UNCW that they will be interested in supporting this fund as well because we want other towns, communities, etcetera to look at this opportunity and think well maybe we could do this as well,” Crighton said. “As more support comes in we’re going to be able to do more work, not only in the town of St. James, but also in Brunswick County and expand the ability to have more applied learning opportunities for our students at UNCW, which is a big thing.”

Updated Nov. 9 Environmental Management Commission meeting date

North Carolina Coastal Resources Commission is scheduled to meet next week to consider approving the 2021 Coastal Habitat Protection Plan update.

The meeting is set to begin at 9 a.m. Wednesday, Nov. 10, at the DoubleTree by Hilton, 2717 W. Fort Macon Road, Atlantic Beach. A public comment period is scheduled for noon Nov. 10. Comments may be limited to 3 minutes per person at the chairwoman’s discretion.

The Coastal Resources Advisory Council meets at 3 p.m. Nov. 9, also at the Atlantic Beach hotel.

Full agendas and briefing materials can be found on the CRC website. Times indicated on the agenda for individual items are subject to change. Both meetings are open to the public.

The Coastal Habitat Protection Plan is the state’s long-term effort to improve coastal fisheries through habitat protection and enhancement efforts. The plan details habitats’ distribution and abundance, ecological functions and importance to fish production, status and trends, threats to the habitats, and includes recommendations to address threats, according to state Department of Environmental Quality. North Carolina Marine Fisheries, Environmental Management and Coastal Resources Commissions unanimously approved the document December 2004. The plan is to be updated every five years.

The 2021 draft plan amendment recommends addressing five priority issues: submerged aquatic vegetation protection and restoration through water quality improvements; wetlands protection and restoration through nature-based solutions; environmental rule compliance to protect coastal habitats; wastewater infrastructure solutions for water quality improvement; and coastal habitat mapping and monitoring to assess status and trends.

The draft amendment also includes Appendix A, early public comment submitted by an independent stakeholder workgroup led by the North Carolina Coastal Federation and The Pew Charitable Trusts.

The three commissions now must vote to approve the draft 2021 amendment. The Environmental Management Commission has a meeting scheduled Nov. 17-18 but the agenda had not been released at the time of this report. The North Carolina Marine Fisheries Commission is expected to vote during its Nov. 17-19 meeting.

To reduce the spread of COVID-19, all attendees should wear a mask and maintain social distance during the meeting.

The agenda for the commission meeting also includes the following:

• Consider a variance request from Kure Beach regarding a development line.
• Review of proposed beach management plan rules.
• Consider amendments to shoreline access policies, parking fees and clarifying language.
• Continued discussion of amendments to Land Use Plans – enforceable polices.
• Discussion of proposed amendments regarding floating structures associated with shellfish leases.
• Consideration of fiscal analyses regarding structural boat covers and general permit for beach bulldozing.

A handful of environmental initiatives in North Carolina have been awarded $170,000 in nature grants from the Duke Energy Foundation, including The Nature Conservancy, which will use its $25,000 to document the history of indigenous and enslaved communities on its preserves.

Duke Energy announced the awards Thursday. Statewide, in addition to the Nature Conservancy, North Carolina Wildlife Federation was awarded $25,000 and $20,000 to Conservation Corps North Carolina.

“As we move ahead with North Carolina’s clean energy transition, we remain committed to investing in organizations that help ensure future generations enjoy our state’s amazing natural heritage,” said Stephen De May, Duke Energy’s North Carolina president, in a statement. “By supporting nonprofits that are delivering meaningful results in this important work, we help preserve natural resources as well as ensure equitable program access in the communities we serve.”

The Nature Conservancy plans to work with academic researchers to document the history of indigenous and enslaved communities on its preserves in Bladen, Brunswick, Henderson, Hoke, Pender, Robeson and Sampson counties – specifically, the conservancy’s Dunohoe Bay, Calloway Forest, Green Swamp, Nags Head Woods, Bat Cave and Black River sites.

“This Duke Energy grant will provide resources to research the history of our preserves and gain an understanding of their significance to indigenous people and enslaved Africans,” said Debbie Crane, communications director of The Nature Conservancy’s North Carolina chapter, in a statement. “When The Nature Conservancy acquires land, we typically focus on its location, biodiversity, riparian corridors and the current landowners. Understanding the deeper history of these preserves is one way the Conservancy can respect and take an initial step toward honoring the native and enslaved communities who came before us.”

She told Coastal Review that The Nature Conservancy owns and manages the 16,000-acre Green Swamp Preserve in Brunswick County and believes the area is important to indigenous people.

“We have also heard that escaped slaves once hid there. We want to establish that history and acknowledge it. The Green Swamp is also a good example of the role that Colonialism played in even naming land features. It was named after John Green, an early white settler of the region who had property on the Swamp’s edge,” she said.

Over the last decade, the conservancy has received more than $1.2 million in Duke Energy Foundation funding.

“Duke Energy has been a valued partner in our work throughout North Carolina for more than a decade,” Crane continued. “Such year-in, year-out continuity is critical for nonprofits like ours as we help people connect with nature.”

The Wildlife Federation plans to use the funding to mobilize 1,200 volunteers to restore habitat in urban and rural communities that are historically marginalized and more likely to experience negative impacts of climate change. By removing 75,000 pounds of litter and planting 3,500 trees and pollinator plants, the Wildlife Federation said it will restore habitat, improve water quality, sequester carbon and lower urban temperatures.

The Conservation Corps grant is to be used for a new community weekend program to introduce youth to local natural areas, conservation and camping. Young people are to work on projects that preserve parks and trails in or near their communities while they learn about environmental stewardship.

Regional awards include the following:

• $25,000 to Cleveland County for the planned Lawndale Park along the First Broad River on Main Street.
• Sylvan Heights Bird Park in Halifax County was awarded $15,000 to extend a nature walkway.
• Wake’s The Conservation Fund, Raleigh, Walnut Creek Wetlands Community Partnership, and Rochester Heights and Biltmore Hills neighborhoods received $15,000 to restore native wetland habitat and improve access to the Walnut Creek Wetlands Park, providing more equitable park access for the historic African American neighborhoods.
• TreesCharlotte in Mecklenburg County received $20,000 to support a citywide tree planting program.
• Triangle Land Conservancy received $15,000 for the Good Ground Initiative to permanently conserve prime forest and farmland while providing farmers of color with access to affordable land in the Triangle region.

Since 2015, the Duke Energy Foundation has awarded more than 150 nature grants in North Carolina totaling nearly $7 million, investing in and working beside environmentally focused community partners to protect and increase access to the state’s natural resources.

The Duke Energy Foundation is funded by Duke Energy shareholder dollars. More about the foundation can be found at duke-energy.com/foundation.

University of North Carolina Wilmington alumnus Joe Oliver and his colleagues at the Bahamas-based Coral Vita have won a prestigious award for their work restoring coral reefs. The prize, along with global recognition, comes with about $1.3 million.

The Earthshot Prize is an award given by the Royal Fund of The Duke and Duchess of Cambridge to initiatives that are doing important environmental work. Every year for the next 10 years there will be five, $1.3 million prizes awarded, providing at least 50 solutions to the world’s greatest environmental problems by 2030, according to the Earthshot Prize website.

Coral Vita, the Revive Our Oceans winner, and four other winners were announced Oct. 17 in London. The five are the first-ever winners of Prince William’s Earthshot Prize.

Oliver was born in Wilmington, and said that marine biology called to him from an early age. He grew up playing in the water — always fishing, boogie boarding, and the like. As a preteen, he participated in UNCW’s MarineQuest program, a youth outreach initiative that provides young people with the chance to explore and become immersed in the marine environment. This experience solidified his track.

“I’m actually proof that a proper outreach education program works,” Oliver said.

Oliver graduated from UNCW in 2006 with a degree in marine biology, and went on to become an instructor for the MarineQuest program. A particular interest in coral reefs and a connection through a friend is what led him to Coral Vita, a company dedicated to regrowing the world’s dying coral reefs. He accepted a job as director of restoration operations, relocated to the Bahamas and got to work.

“I couldn’t let the opportunity to run this type of facility pass me by,” Oliver said.

Coral reefs are made from colonies of coral polyps that are fixed together by something called calcium carbonate, the hard material that gives reefs their structure. As a whole, coral reefs encapsulate an entire underwater ecosystem, and are critical to the health of the ocean. It is estimated that as much as 25% of the ocean’s species depend on coral reefs during at least some portion of their life cycle. This makes coral reefs one of the most diverse ecosystems on the planet, not just in the ocean.

But factors such as ocean warming, ocean acidification, overfishing and pollution pose imminent threats to the health of coral reefs. According to the Coral Vita website, these factors have contributed to the loss of 50% of the world’s reefs within the last few decades. Without intervention, that number will rise to more than 90% by 2050.

Enter Coral Vita. Oliver and his teammates work with aquaculture farms to regrow coral. One of the main practices they use is called micro-fragmentation. They can take a broken piece of coral and break it into smaller pieces consisting of just a few polyps apiece. They begin growing the coral fragments individually in aquaculture raceways. Then, they integrate them into plates where they can grow back together cohesively. Normally, coral grows very slowly. But the separation that occurs during micro-fragmentation stimulates growth for the coral. In this environment, they can speed up a process that normally takes much longer.

“What would take 100 years, we can hopefully do in 10,” Oliver said. “Maybe even less.”

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Some corals of different species do not grow harmoniously together and will try to outcompete each other for resources. But as long as the coral is of the same species, they’ll grow back together happily. Oliver and his team are also experimenting to find out what combinations of species can grow together without conflict.

And then they can transplant the cultivated coral back to the ocean. They use ocean-friendly concrete to make the transplant, but are experimenting with other methods of securing the farmed coral in place to make sure the impact to the ocean environment is minimal.

An important part of this process, said Oliver, is to increase the adaptability of the coral before they put it back in the ocean. Using special treatments at their aquaculture facility, they can get the farmed coral used to harsher conditions than coral can normally handle. Once they are back in the ocean, the idea is that they won’t be as prone to succumbing to the hazards that currently kill coral.

Currently, Coral Vita’s success rate is high — a 50 to 70% survival rate for transplanted coral. They aim to get it even higher.

The monetary prize will go to continuing Coral Vita’s work and expanding outreach, said Oliver. The win was important for Coral Vita, but ultimately extends beyond them as well.

“We didn’t win it just for us, we won it for everybody that does coral restoration,” Oliver said. “And for me, what I hope to be (a) secondary benefit in the future, is that more people will be paying attention to these problems and looking at how to be a part of the solution.”

The other organizations to win the 2021 Earthshot prize were:

• Build a Waste-Free World Winner: Milan, Italy. The city came up with an initiative that redistributes food that would have been discarded to those who need it, thereby reducing waste and feeding the hungry.
• Clean Our Air Winner: Vidyut Mohan of India. Takachar is a technology that converts polluting agricultural outputs into usable biofuel and fertilizer that can ultimately be resold.
• Fix Our Climate Winner: Enapter Project. This technology converts renewable electricity into hydrogen gas that is free of emissions.
• Protect and Restore Nature Winner: Costa Rica. This nation developed a policy that pays citizens to plant trees in an effort to preserve the rainforest.

The North Carolina Coastal Federation is asking your help to give oysters a second chance by recycling your oyster shells.

Once shells are collected, the federation works with partners to return them to the water where they provide new habitat for fish and shellfish. Whether from an oyster roast, restaurant, or backyard cook out, every shell collected can help protect and restore the coast, the nonprofit said Monday.

The federation oversees several shell recycling stations along the coast to help make the process easy.

The federation said oyster shell is a valuable resource in North Carolina that can cost up to $3 per bushel when purchased for coastal restoration. It is illegal to dump the shells in North Carolina landfills. From 2003 to 2018, the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries operated a state-funded oyster shell recycling program that provided 6-15% of the shell needed for restoration projects. The state-run oyster shell recycling program ended in 2018 due to budget cuts and staff reductions.

The federation said its recycling program is filling the gap by providing a way for people and businesses to support a healthy coastal environment and keep shells out of the trash.

“The Town of Duck is happy to provide an oyster shell recycling collection site at the Town Park, making it more convenient for our restaurants, residents, and visitors to contribute to this program that restores habitat for the North Carolina coast,” said Duck Public Information and Events Director Christian Legner.

Duck is just one of numerous shell drop-off points along the coast.

For a complete list of coastwide recycling sites visit the federation’s website. 

For more information about the Recycling for Reefs program or to volunteer contact federation Coastal Specialist Leslie Vegas at 252-473-1607 or lesliev@nccoast.org.

The state Department of Environmental Quality is accepting public comment on the Draft Coastal Habitat Protection Plan 2021 Amendment.

Comments are being accepted until 5 p.m. Oct. 21.

The Coastal Habitat Protection Plan is a long-term strategy to improve coastal fisheries through habitat protection and enhancement efforts.

The plan, which must be approved by the Environmental Management Commission, Marine Fisheries Commission, and Coastal Resources Commission, is to provide information on habitat distribution and abundance, ecological functions and importance to fish production, status and trends, threats to the habitats, and includes recommendations to address those threats, according to NCDEQ.

The draft plan amendment focuses on recommendations to address five priority issues:

• Submerged aquatic vegetation protection and restoration through water quality improvements.
• Wetlands protection and restoration through nature-based solutions.
• Environmental rule compliance to protect coastal habitats.
• Wastewater infrastructure solutions for water quality improvement.
• Coastal habitat mapping and monitoring to assess status and trends.

Also under public review and comment is Appendix A, which includes the findings, conclusions and recommendations by an independent stakeholder workgroup steered by the North Carolina Coastal Federation and The Pew Charitable Trusts during development of the 2021 amendment to the CHPP.

Related: Panel with stakes in clean water adds to coastal habitat plan

The public may comment by 5 p.m. Oct. 21 on the draft amendment and appendix by submitting comments online through a survey; by mail to CHPP 2021 Amendment Comments, P.O. Box 769, Morehead City, N.C. 28557; or sign up to speak during an advisory meeting. Those who wish to speak at the meetings must register by 5 p.m. the day before the meeting. 

The committees will meet by web conference on the following dates:

• Southern Regional Advisory Committee 6 p.m. Oct. 12. Register to speak by 5 p.m. Oct. 11.
• Northern Regional Advisory Committee 6 p.m. Oct. 13. Register to speak by 5 p.m. Oct. 12.
• Finfish Advisory Committee 6 p.m. Oct. 14. Register to speak by 5 p.m. Oct. 13.
• Shellfish/Crustacean Advisory Committee 6 p.m. Oct. 19. Register to speak by 5 p.m. Oct. 18.
• Habitat & Water Quality Advisory Committee 6 p.m. Oct. 20. Register to speak by 5 p.m. Oct. 19.

This is the fourth in a multipart special reporting series on coastal water quality. Read more.

An amendment to North Carolina’s Coastal Habitat Protection Plan is now approved for public review, and thrust into the forefront of proposed modifications to the long-standing document are ways to mitigate the impacts of climate change and unregulated sources of stormwater runoff to those habitats.

“This year we’re doing something a little differently in that we’re doing an amendment rather than a revision to the source document,” said Jimmy Johnson, coastal habitats coordinator with the Albemarle-Pamlico National Estuary Partnership. “We were comfortable with the source document as it was written in 2016. We wanted to specifically focus on some other issues that we felt needed to be made a priority and so we decided to do an amendment rather than revising the source document.”

The Coastal Habitat Protection Plan, often referred to as CHPP and pronounced “chip,” was born out of the 1997 Fisheries Reform Act, a comprehensive management plan for fish and shell species. The goal of the plan is to protect, restore and conserve coastal habitats that sustain coastal fisheries.

The Coastal Resources Commission voted Wednesday to approve public review of the amendment and a related appendix with input received during an early public comment period facilitated by the North Carolina Coastal Federation and The Pew Charitable Trusts with the Coastal Habitat Steering Committee’s approval.

Pew Charitable Trusts Officer Leda Cunningham said Pew encourages the public to support the plan during the comment period and learn how they can contribute to conservation efforts.

“North Carolina is a special place in terms of coastal habitat and the CHPP is a really solid plan that prioritizes collaboration for protecting and restoring that habitat,” she said. “It’s going to take many of us pulling together to achieve common goals of sustainability and resiliency.”

The CHPP officially began in 2005, shortly after it was first adopted in late 2004 by the state’s three regulatory commissions with oversight on coastal issues: Environmental Management Commission, Coastal Resources Commission and Marine Fisheries Commission.

The Marine Fisheries and Environmental Management commissions approved the amendment for public review during their respective meetings earlier this summer.

The plan is reviewed every five years by environmental officials within the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, or DEQ, the divisions of which must work together to implement the recommendations set forth in the CHPP. It identifies six coastal habitat types: wetlands, submerged aquatic vegetation, marshes, soft bottom, shell bottom and water column, which is the space between the water’s surface and the bottom.

Casey Knight, a coastal habitats biologist with the state Division of Marine Fisheries, explained how, this time around, officials are focusing on specific issues, identifying concerns related to those issues, researching ways to mitigate the impacts of those issues on coastal habitats, and using that research to implement rules and regulations to reduce those impacts.

The priority issues include the following:

1. Submerged aquatic vegetation, protection and restoration through water quality improvements.
2. Wetland protection and restoration through nature-based solutions. This one tackles the development of living shorelines over hardened structures and, as Johnson puts it, letting “nature be nature” by leaving natural wetlands undisturbed.
3. Environmental rule compliance to protect coastal habitats. This issue addresses the need for additional field representatives to routinely conduct compliance checks and issue notices of violations. “We just don’t have enough of those positions to do the work and so that is just trying to get the existing rules we have on the books enforced better and complies with better,” Knight said.
4. Wastewater infrastructure solutions for water quality improvement. Wastewater and stormwater underground collection systems are old and in need of repair throughout the state. But, the situation in the coastal region is exacerbated by the threat of sea level rise. “It’s fairly frequent that we read about spills and pipes rupturing and spilling wastewater into the estuaries and streams and creeks,” Johnson said. “It’s an expensive proposition and the problem in eastern North Carolina is so many of these smaller communities just don’t have the money to be able to retrofit or to repair their infrastructure and so we’re calling attention to that.”
5. Coastal habitat mapping and monitoring to assess status and trends. Mapping and monitoring the work currently being done to protect coastal habitats will help officials make more educated decisions on how to carry forth protection and restoration efforts. “Without the proper amount of monitoring and assessing of things that are already being done on the ground now we need to be able to know in which direction to move in the future and the only way to do that is map and monitor the work that’s being done now,” Johnson said. 

Issue papers have been created to address each of these priorities. And, though they’re specific issues, they’re all tied in two common denominators – water quality and climate change.

“One thing we did see with the source document is that it did not really cover climate change in the aspects of coastal resiliency in the manner that we speak of it today,” Knight said.

North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper issued Executive Order 80, a commitment to tackle climate change and build the state’s green energy economy, in October 2018, two years after the CHPP’s was last updated.

The order led to DEQ’s creation of the North Carolina Climate Risk Assessment and Resilience Plan, a climate adaptation plan released in June 2020. Through the development of that plan, the North Carolina Institute for Climate Studies, a research institute of the University of North Carolina system, created the North Carolina Climate Science Report.

“We’ve taken a lot of that information, specifically coastal information, and created another chapter that will be part of this amendment called climate change and resiliency and that speaks to a lot of compounding issues that go along with sea level rise,” Knight said.

More frequent, heavier rain events associated with climate change and rising sea levels are exacerbating issues relating to water quality issues, with wide-ranging impacts across all coastal habitats.

During heavy rain events, rainwater gets sucked into underground wastewater pipes, overflowing systems. Heavy, frequent rainfall creates more unregulated stormwater runoff, which makes its way into coastal habitats. This runoff equates to higher levels of nitrogen in those habitats.

“We’ve done a decent job of dealing with point source pollution, but now we’ve realized that some of those gains are being outweighed by all of this nonpoint,” Knight said. “By creating and looking further into water quality standards for some of these nutrient indicators we will be able to definitively say the water quality standard here is not being met and what actions can we start taking to make sure that those standards are met.”

An overabundance of nitrogen in water causes eutrophication, a process where rapid algae growth depletes oxygen levels in the water.

Algae growth blocks the light submerged aquatic vegetation needs to survive and grow. SAV provides food and shelter for coastal fish.

“We also acknowledge that water quality improvements for SAV are going to be beneficial to most other habitats and the animals that use them,” Knight said. “Through that issue paper we are hopefully looking at developing additional water quality standards around some of these nutrient indicators or factors that could be actionable and see hopefully a difference within the next period of the CHPP review in the next five years.”

The wetlands issue paper includes ongoing research on how to help marshes keep up with the pace of sea level rise.

“If we can’t keep the marshes keeping up with sea level rise then we’ll lose the marshes altogether and that’s the last thing we need,” she said. “So, we need to plan for the migration of those marshes inland. We need to protect the areas that these marshes are potentially going to migrate to as sea level rises.”

One way to do this is potentially through a method called thin layer deposition.

Thin layer deposition takes material dredged from coastal waterways that is not suitable to be placed on an ocean shoreline and sprayed, in a thin layer, onto a marsh, giving the marsh “a little more meat at their roots,” Knight explained.

“As the tide comes in and washes over it should be bringing more sediment to them so they need that sediment to survive, which is a double-edged sword when we talk about sediment in other ways as far as water quality concerns,” she said. “We don’t like the ideas of sediment, but we’re talking about that nearshore kind of over wash during that tide change that they need just to kind of push that extra layer of sediment onto their bank just to make sure that they continue to rise as the sea level comes up and that tide pushes in farther. There’s a lot of permitting issues involved in that too that we’re going to hopefully work through. We need to be able to have the research that proves that it’s viable and feasible and then we can start moving toward some of the permitting barriers that we have there.”

Research is ongoing as to how much is the right amount to spray onto marshes.

The benefits of living shorelines and their adaptation to sea level rise as compared to hardened shoreline structures are continuing to be researched as well.

The discussion is now turning from whether they are a better shoreline protection alternative to bulkheads to how the state can incentivize property owners and companies to choose living shorelines over bulkheads.

“Leaving those big wetland buffers and creating things like living shorelines instead of bulkheads that have lawns right up to the edges of the waterway, that’s going to be key in helping kind of buffer those floodwaters both coming from hurricanes when they’re pushing water in, or these heavy rain events when they do occur,” Knight said.

The state is expected to take public comments on the proposed amendments in October.  

Coastal Resources Commissioner Larry Baldwin noted on Wednesday the months of work and stakeholder efforts to address particular water quality concerns that produced the amendment.

“I think we got it about as good as we can. I like it because it’s not heavy regulatory. It’s trying to coordinate many different groups and funding to be able to improve water quality, which I think is a good thing, Baldwin said.

Johnson said the hope is that an updated CHPP will be adopted by the end of this year or early 2022.

“We have tried to incorporate all of those main issues into what we’re trying to do,” he said. “We’ve pulled in a lot of information from other plans and the document that we have, it’s a pretty remarkable amendment that we have come up with. We just need to realize that we need to keep on the land the things that were intended to be on the land and not let them get into the water. That’s the best that we can possibly do and if it’s buffers or wetlands or whatever to make that happen then we need to do all we can to enforce that.”

The North Carolina Coastal Federation is wrapping up 2021 National Estuaries Week taking place Sept 18-25 the afternoon of Sept. 26 with oysters and pints at Outer Dunes Brewing Co. in Wilmington.

There will be drinks, games and a raw oyster bar from Cape Fear Oysters Co. from 4-7 p.m. Sunday, Sept. 26 at Outer Dunes Brewing. One raffle ticket is included with the purchase of a beer or are $1 each. A percentage of the proceeds from this event will be donated to the federation.

National Estuaries Week is a celebration of bays and estuaries and the many benefits they provide to communities when hundreds of organizations throughout the country host beach cleanups, marsh restoration events and kayaking tours, according to Restore America’s Estuaries organization.

National Estuaries Day began in 1988 to promote the importance of estuaries and the need to protect them. In partnership with the National Estuaries Program, National Estuarine Research Reserve Association, Restore America’s Estuaries, and many other organizations, festivities have been extended to a whole week, National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said.

NOAA recommends visiting one or all of the 29 national estuarine research reserves, four are on the North Carolina coast, or the following additional ways to get involved:

• Visit the Restore America’s Estuaries map to find or to register a virtual or in-person event.
• Join a National Estuarine Research Reserve System friends group, which are private nonprofit citizen organizations that support environmental education, stewardship of natural and cultural resources, and scientific research of specific research reserves through volunteer initiatives, citizen involvement, and community partnerships. Find a reserve system citizen-support organization.
• Sponsor a local naturalist or historian to provide an in-person or virtual guided tour or lecture.
• Sign up for a monitoring or stewardship program, such as volunteering to help with sea turtles, an oyster restoration project, or a terrapin tally.
• Find resources for highlighting estuaries in the classroom at coast.noaa.gov/estuaries. Many reserves provide virtual lessons, Facebook Live events, YouTube videos, and other virtual education activities.

Follow #EstuariesWeek on social media to join the conversation and post photos of what you #Explore within your estuary.

This story has been updated to note final approval for public review.

The Coastal Resources Commission this week approved the Coastal Habitat Protection Plan amendment for public review.

The commission voted Wednesday to approve public review of the amendment and a related appendix with input received during an early public comment period facilitated by the North Carolina Coastal Federation and The Pew Charitable Trusts with the Coastal Habitat Steering Committee’s approval.

The plan has been guiding the state’s “long-term enhancement of coastal fisheries through habitat protection and enhancement efforts” since its approval in 2004 by the North Carolina Marine Fisheries, Environmental Management and Coastal Resources commissions, according to the state. It is to be revised every five years to reflect changes in the status of habitat protection.

The Marine Fisheries Commission approved the 2021 amendment for public review during its meeting Aug. 27 and the Environmental Management Commission voted similarly last week.

Patricia Smith, communications director for the divisions of Marine Fisheries and Coastal Management, told Coastal Review that the meetings to accept public comment would be held by web conference and scheduled in conjunction with five Marine Fisheries Commission advisory committee meetings that are tentatively planned for October.

Related: Resilience, natural approach basis of habitat plan tweaks

The public also may submit comments through an online survey. Meeting dates and times, and links to the web conference and an online survey are to be announced in the next couple of weeks, she added.

“After the public comment period, the draft CHPP amendment will go back to the three commissions at their November meetings for final approval,” she said.

Before the Environmental Management Commission’s vote, Jimmy Johnson, coastal habitats coordinator with the Albemarle-Pamlico National Estuarine Partnership, explained to commissioners that the 2016 Coastal Habitat Protection Plan source document had not changed and will continue to serve as the science document for the amendment.

The Coastal Habitat Protection resulted from the 1997 Fisheries Reform Act and concerns over declining fish stocks and the need to address habitat and water quality in order to improve those stocks.

Johnson said that in addition to healthy fisheries, there are a number of other benefits that go along with healthy fish habitats and water quality. The healthy habitats provide ecosystem services such as water filtration, erosion and flood control, and these services help to sustain the coastal tourism economy, the fishing industry and help to build coastal community resilience.

Anne Deaton, habitat program manager with the Division of Marine Fisheries, told the Environmental Management Commission that there’s an emphasis on water quality improvements in the amendment because of the effects of water quality on fish habitat and some concerning trends.

The recommended amendments focus on five priorities presented in the following issue papers: Subaquatic Vegetation, Protection and Restoration through Water Quality Improvement; Wetland Protection and Restoration through Nature-Based Solutions; Environmental Rule Compliance to Protect Coastal Habitats; Wastewater Infrastructure Solutions for Water Quality Improvement; and Coastal Habitat Mapping and Monitoring to Assess Status and Trends.

Deaton said the five issue papers may not seem related at first glance, but they are. If recommended actions in the environmental rule compliance and wetlands issue papers are put in place, then impacts to wetlands should be reduced, and possibly increase wetlands, which will lead to improved water quality, and, in turn, help the seagrass. In addition, the wastewater issue paper will help water quality as well benefit seagrass. The mapping and monitoring issue paper will help understand habitat trends and help target future actions as needed.

“So, the overall goal for these collective action is to have healthy habitats and more fish and at the same time increased coastal resilience,” she said, adding that it’s important to know that protecting and restoring coastal habitats is a solution “that we’ve been hearing more about that can reduce climate change impacts, and therefore, it increases coastal community resilience.”

In addition to the amendment, Appendix A will also go out for comment and review.

Deaton explained that the appendix includes early public comment from a stakeholder workgroup organized by the North Carolina Coastal Federation and The Pew Charitable Trusts with the approval of the Coastal Habitat Steering Committee.

“The purpose was to develop some crosscutting voluntary water quality recommendations that would be beneficial for coastal habitats and relevant to the issue papers in this amendment,” she said.

Their summary report was presented to the CHHP steering committee at the last meeting, and the steering committee then directed the team to include the report in the appendix, so that the public can see that and weigh in on those recommendations as well as those in Chapter 9 of that CHHP amendment.”

The CHPP Steering Committee is made up of members of the Marine Fisheries, Coastal Management and Environmental Management commissions. These commissioners review and approve the plan, recommendations and action for implementation.

The steering committee discussed convening a stakeholder workgroup during its January meeting. In April, state Department of Environmental Quality staff and steering committee members voted unanimously to encourage the two organizations to convene the workgroup, according to the appendix.

From May to July, the federation, Pew, steering committee members, DEQ staff, partners and others, collectively known as the North Carolina Coastal Habitat Coalition, worked to identify a set of voluntary water quality improvement actions that would support the plan’s goals, could be executed over the next five years and help minimize the need for regulatory action.

A virtual public meeting is to set for 6 p.m. Sept. 27 on implementing the Lake Mattamuskeet Watershed Restoration Plan approved Aug. 7, 2019, by the state Department of Environmental Quality.

The North Carolina Coastal Federation was contracted in 2017 by Hyde County, the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service to lead the 18-month process to address the lake’s declining water quality and elevated water levels, according to the federation.

The goals of the restoration plan are to protect the way of life in Hyde County, actively manage the lake water level and restore water quality and clarity. The Clean Water Management Trust Fund, Office of State Budget and Management and National Science Foundation have provided funding being used to move ahead with several of the priority management actions identified within the watershed restoration plan.

The agenda, which includes the Zoom meeting registration, for the Sept. 27 public meeting includes an overview of the watershed plan approved, future carp-removal efforts, agricultural cost-share programs, and engineering designs that could be put in place to restore the lake’s water quality and reduce flooding throughout the watershed.

Those wishing to attend the meeting at the Hyde County Government Complex need to reserve a seat in advance by contacting Daniel Brinn at dbrinn@hydecountync.gov or 252-926-7253. Capacity is limited due to social distancing requirements and will be provided to those who register in advance.

Contact Federation Coastal Specialist Michael Flynn at 252-473-1607 or michaelf@nccoast.org for details on the watershed restoration plan.

This report has been updated to note the Environmental Management Commission’s action Sept. 9 and correct date for the Marine Fisheries Commission meeting.

This report was updated Sept. 3 to include details on stakeholder recommendations.

The North Carolina Environmental Management Commission voted Sept. 9 to approve the 2021 amendment to the Coastal Habitat Protection Plan for public comment and advisory committee review.

The North Carolina Marine Fisheries Commission voted Aug. 27 to approve the proposed update for review. The latest action marks two of the three required approvals needed before the public review period can begin for the Department of Environmental Quality plan and related stakeholder recommendations. The Coastal Resources Commission is expected to consider approval for public comment during its meeting Sept. 15.

The 2021 amendment contains several recommendations focused on achieving the plan’s goal, which is long-term enhancement of coastal fisheries through habitat protection and enhancement efforts.

Stakeholder recommendations also approved

The approval for public review also includes Appendix A, the findings, conclusions and recommendations of an independent stakeholder workgroup convened by the North Carolina Coastal Federation and The Pew Charitable Trusts.

Input for the stakeholder workgroup came from a broad array of expertise, including farming; fishing; wetland and water quality mitigation practices; land development; local governments; environmental programs, laws and regulations; environmental engineering and management; and property management. The group reached consensus and recommended an array of nonregulatory actions to improve water quality.

In December 2004, the North Carolina Marine Fisheries, Environmental Management, and Coastal Resources Commissions unanimously adopted the North Carolina Coastal Habitat Protection Plan, which is to be revised every five years to reflect changes in the status of habitat protection, according to NCDEQ.

Other commission business

The commission also Thursday opted not to immediately initiate modifications to small-mesh gill net rules but agreed to address gillnet issues as needed through the fishery management plan process.

The commission considered a suite of potential management options for the small-mesh gill net fishery that focused on reducing regulatory complexity, potential bycatch, and user conflict. The Division of Marine Fisheries developed the proposals at the direction of the commission.

Division Director Kathy Rawls assured the commission that the division already does and will continue to address gill net issues through the fishery management plan process, according to the release.

In other business, the commission voted to:

• Ask the division to develop an issue paper to assess needed changes the mutilated finfish rule (15A NCAC 03M .0101).
• Set the cap on the number of licenses in the Standard Commercial Fishing License Eligibility Pool for fiscal year 2021-2022 at 500.
• Approve the five-year Fishery Management Plan schedule for review and final approval by the secretary of the Department of Environmental Quality.
• Approve notice of text to begin the process of readoption, repeal, adoption, and amendment of a slate of rules under a mandatory periodic review schedule (G.S. 150B-21.3A).
• Re-elect Doug Cross as commission vice-chairman.

The North Carolina Environmental Management Commission is set to review next month the draft amendment to the Coastal Habitat Protection Plan, which is revised every five years to reflect changes in the status of habitat protection in the state.

Committee meetings begin at 9 a.m. Sept. 8 for the Air Quality Committee, Groundwater and Waste Management Committee and Water Quality Committee. The virtual, full commission meeting begins at 9 a.m. Sept. 9. The public is invited to attend the meeting online or by phone. Access the EMC meetings through the state Department of Environmental Quality website.

The commission when it meets remotely also will look at approving the 2021 Pasquotank River Basin Water Resources Plan and rule changes to address a permitting gap created by recent changes to Clean Water Act Federal Jurisdiction for wetlands in certain landscape positions.

The draft habitat plan 2021 amendment focuses on the following five priority issues:

• Submerged aquatic vegetation, or SAV, protection and restoration through water quality improvements.
• Wetland protection and restoration through nature-based solutions.
• Environmental rule compliance to protect coastal habitats.
• Wastewater infrastructure solutions for water quality improvement.
• Coastal habitat mapping and monitoring to assess status and trends.

The request is approval to take the draft plan out for public comment.

The North Carolina Marine Fisheries, Environmental Management and Coastal Resources Commissions unanimously adopted the North Carolina Coastal Habitat Protection Plan in December 2004 to protect coastal fisheries through habitat protection and enhancement efforts, according to NCDEQ.

The document provides information on the habitats’ distribution and abundance, ecological functions and importance to fish production, status and trends, threats to the habitats, and includes recommendations to address threats.

The North Carolina Coastal Habitat Coalition, an independent stakeholder workgroup headed up by the North Carolina Coastal Federation, which publishes Coastal Review, and The Pew Charitable Trusts submitted a document earlier this month to the North Carolina Coastal Habitat Protection Plan Steering Committee recommending actions the state and stakeholders should take to improve water quality in the next five years. The document is included in the agenda packet.

The Environmental Management Commission is responsible for adopting rules for the protection, preservation and enhancement of the state’s air, land and water resources. The commission oversees and adopts rules for several divisions of the Department of Environmental Quality, including the divisions of Air Quality; Energy, Mineral and Land Resources; Waste Management and Water Resources.

The North Carolina Coastal Land Trust recently purchased for preservation Hutaff Island in southern Pender County, the last privately-owned undeveloped barrier island in the state, according to the conservation organization.

The 2.5-mile long beach and the 1,000 acres of saltmarsh and island hammocks are an example of a natural, dynamic barrier island system. The island, the first line of defense against storms for local communities, helps provide critical habitat for threatened species like sea turtles and beach-nesting birds, as well as rare plants, Coastal Land Trust said.

“Hutaff Island is a classic barrier island landscape that supports the full complement of plants and animals that depend on North Carolina’s barrier islands, and it is equally important to people that live on and visit our coast,” said Walker Golder, executive director of the Coastal Land Trust, in a statement. “We are so very grateful to the Hutaff and McEachern families and the partnership that made this possible.”

Hutaff Island will be protected in perpetuity by the Coastal Land Trust and managed in partnership with Audubon North Carolina. The property was purchased with the support of conservation philanthropist Tim Sweeney, the Hutaff and McEachern families, which owned the land, and a partnership between the Coastal Land Trust and Audubon North Carolina.

The Hutaff and McEachern families, who have owned the island since 1925, are “thrilled the island will be conserved and remain as a natural habitat forever,” according to a statement shared by the families.

The protection of Hutaff Island will help sustain the “Outstanding Resource Waters” as designated by the North Carolina Division of Water Quality, officials said. The North Carolina Natural Heritage Program has recognized Hutaff Island as a critical component of the Lea-Hutaff “Significant Natural Heritage Area” because of its “special biodiversity significance due to the presence of rare species, unique natural communities, important animal assemblages, or other ecological features.”

“Nothing epitomizes our land conservation aspirations better than acquiring Hutaff Island — a property at the top of our Top 40 List,” said Janice Allen, director of land protection for the Coastal Land Trust.

Dr. Stan Riggs, coastal geologist and longtime friend to the Coastal Land Trust, said that the conservation of Hutaff Island is critical.

“Hutaff Island not only serves as important habitat for coastal wildlife, but, like other barrier islands, it also serves as nature’s speed bump slowing down the forces of storms before they reach the mainland. Even with sea level rise, Hutaff Island will still be around and will continue to roll back like these undeveloped islands do,” he continued.

The North Carolina Coastal Habitat Protection Plan Steering Committee is scheduled to meet next month to review a draft amendment, including recommended actions.

The meeting is set for 1-4 p.m. Aug. 3 and will be held online by web conference.

Also on the meeting agenda, the North Carolina Coastal Federation and Pew Coastal Habitat Protection Plan Workgroup will give a report to the steering committee.

The public can join online at https://ncdenrits.webex.com/ncdenrits/j.php?MTID=m4966e838e55ab48954a4a6e92a9d1b5b. Use meeting number, or access code, 161 675 1697 and password: 1234. To join by phone, call 1-415-655-0003.

A coastwide habitat plan became needed in the 1990s when fish populations, habitat, and water quality concerns were becoming increasingly evident. Resource managers, fishermen, the public, and the legislature recognized that addressing habitat and water quality degradation was critical to improve and sustain fish stocks, as well as the coastal ecosystem, according to the draft.

For more information, contact Jimmy.Johnson@ncdenr.gov with the Albemarle-Pamlico National Estuary Partnership or Anne.Deaton@ncdenr.gov with the Division of Marine Fisheries.

Updated at 2 p.m. Thursday: After an hourlong debate early Thursday afternoon, the state Senate voted 26-20 to reject the nomination of Dionne Delli-Gatti as secretary of the Department of Environmental Quality.

Original report follows below.

RALEIGH — After a surprise move by Senate leaders to pull the plug on Dionne Delli-Gatti’s nomination to lead the state Department of Environmental Quality, Gov. Roy Cooper accused Republican legislators of using the confirmation process to strong-arm state energy policy and said the decision had nothing to do with qualifications.

“First, Secretary Dione Delli-Gatti is well qualified to serve as DEQ secretary. She is a scientist, she is a veteran, and she has years of experience in environmental and energy policy. I would hope that the Senate would not vote on this tomorrow, she is well qualified to handle this job and to do the job,” Cooper said at a press conference Wednesday. “And I’ll say this to anybody who’s listening, any lobbyist or whoever, nothing is going to stop this administration from working toward a clean energy future for North Carolina, and protecting our air and water.”

Following a short, tense discussion Wednesday morning, the Senate’s Agriculture, Energy and Environment Committee voted not to confirm Delli-Gatti, who has served as DEQ secretary since February.

Sen. Paul Newton, R-Cabarrus, Delli-Gatti’s sharpest Senate critic, accused her of not having developed a sufficient strategy on natural gas and moved to have her confirmation voted down.

Before the vote, Democrats on the committee demanded Delli-Gatti be allowed to answer Newton’s accusations. When committee chairman Sen. Chuck Edwards, R-Henderson, refused, they called the proceeding a sham and walked out.  

In a subsequent press conference, Senate leader Phill Berger, R-Rockingham, said the Senate is likely to vote down Delli-Gatti’s confirmation as early as Thursday.

Berger said he informed Cooper of the decision Tuesday after a GOP caucus discussion on the matter. 

Under the 2016 law that requires Senate confirmation of a governor’s cabinet picks, Delli-Gatti would lose her position.

Berger said his understanding of the law means she could not be reappointed.

At the press conference, both Berger and Newton said they were disappointed by Delli-Gatti’s responses on natural gas infrastructure during her one appearance before the committee five weeks ago.

“Experts recently told the Senate that North Carolina’s reliance on a single natural gas pipeline is the state’s — quote – ‘number one vulnerability,’” Berger said. “Based on our confirmation testimony, Ms. Delli-Gatti has only a cursory understanding at best of the most urgent energy problem facing North Carolina, that is disqualifying.”

Delli-Gatti, a former Environmental Protection Agency governmental liaison and director of Southeast Climate and Energy for the Environmental Defense Fund, testified at the April 27 hearing for about two hours on topics ranging from wastewater infrastructure to fishery policies.

The committee held a separate meeting May 18, after the Colonial Pipeline cybersecurity hack during which Newton and others continued to make the case for more natural gas and petroleum pipelines, saying the state is at risk having only one major pipeline for each.

Newton, former president of Duke Energy North Carolina, said with so much of the state’s electricity and heating needs shifting to natural gas, the lack of pipelines is a top vulnerability.

Berger noted that the recent gas shortage had sharpened public awareness of the need for more pipelines and the possibility of interruptions.

As one of the chief negotiators in the southeast for energy policy at EDF, Delli-Gatti is on record as supporting Cooper’s clean energy initiatives and she’s advocated that power producers, including Duke Energy, not rely too heavily on natural gas in the transition away from coal.

Wednesday afternoon Duke Energy issued a statement of support for Delli-Gatti’s nomination.

“We are committed to a clean, reliable energy transition for North Carolina. While the communities we serve are seeing the benefits of this transition already, we understand there are many opportunities left to further this good progress,” the statement from the company said. “Based on our many years of experience working with DEQ Secretary Delli-Gatti, we fully support her confirmation to lead the Department of Environmental Quality. Secretary Delli-Gatti previously served on our North Carolina president’s advisory council, and we have appreciated her willingness to collaborate on key energy issues and the perspective she brings as the state works together to chart a path forward.”

“Based on our many years of experience working with DEQ Secretary Delli-Gatti, we fully support her confirmation to lead the Department of Environmental Quality. ” pic.twitter.com/Vu6JLVma3G

— Kirk Ross (@ludkmr) June 2, 2021

The Senate’s plans drew a sharp reaction from environmental groups, who called the move partisan politics.

“Dionne Delli-Gatti has significant education and experience to lead DEQ, a job she has done well for over a month. The refusal of committee members from the majority party to accept her in this role isn’t founded on any question about her qualifications,” Cassie Gavin, senior director of government affairs with the North Carolina Sierra Club, said in a statement. “This action does a disservice to North Carolinians who want qualified leaders like Delli-Gatti to run our state agencies professionally and competently.”

If the Senate moves forward and votes not to confirm her, Delli-Gatti would be the first cabinet nominee to be rejected since confirmations were required in 2017.

David Kelly, director of North Carolina political affairs at Environmental Defense Fund, said in a statement that Wednesday “should have been notable because our state was poised to advance the confirmation of the first woman to serve as North Carolina’s Secretary of Environmental Quality — not because it was the first time a cabinet-level nominee was blocked since the process was created in 2016.”

Calling Delli-Gatti “a thoughtful, capable and eminently qualified leader,” said her professional qualifications and accomplishments speak for themselves. “She is a committed public servant, a veteran, a successful working mom who’s dedicated her career to bettering the lives of people and families in the communities she serves. We hope the Senate will think better of today’s vote and move forward with Secretary Delli-Gatti’s confirmation.”

In the hearing Wednesday, Democrats warned against heavy-handed use of the relatively new confirmation process. They said there was no reason not to give Delli-Gatti time to respond. 

Sen. Natalie Murdock, D-Mecklenburg, said she was disheartened that the process had so quickly become politicized and the state would lose a well-qualified leader as a result.

“The secretary is here with us today. We have the opportunity to extend the process to continue to engage to continue to have conversations. That is the right of this body to do that,” she said. “I think it’s unfortunate that we’re not doing that.

RALEIGH — House budget committees are due to start up Wednesday after an abrupt shift in plans were announced late last week ahead of the legislature’s Memorial Day break.  

North Carolina House Speaker Tim Moore, R-Cleveland, told members last week that with the Senate running late on its budget plan, the House would move forward on its own version.

House and Senate negotiators so far have failed to settled on an overall spending target. Senate leaders began a rollout of tax breaks last week as part of their proposal, but have yet to release details of a spending plan.

Under the North Carolina General Assembly’s rules, the Senate was charged with producing its plan first. Gov. Roy Cooper issued his budget proposal in early April.

The impasse raises the prospect that the legislature could resort to the strategy it adopted in 2019 when it failed to reach an agreement with Cooper on a final plan.

Much of the government was funded either through a series of so-called minibudgets or continued at the previous year’s levels via an automatic stopgap provision in state law that kicks in if a new budget isn’t in place by the beginning of the new fiscal year on July 1.

Flood resilience, mitigation

In addition to budget committee hearings, the House is due to review major flood resilience and mitigation legislation in a hearing scheduled for 3 p.m. Tuesday by the House Environment Committee. Video and audio for the hearing is available on the website.

House Bill 500, the Disaster Relief and Mitigation Act of 2021, includes $219 million in additional state funds for disaster relief and flood resilience and mitigation. The proposal includes $98 million to develop a statewide flood resilience blueprint and flood mitigation on the Neuse and Lumber rivers; $30 million for the state’s Coastal Storm Damage Mitigation Fund for living shorelines, oyster reefs and marsh restoration; and funding for floodplain and wetland restoration, and coastal planning grants.

The bill also makes the North Carolina Office of Recovery and Resiliency, created in the wake of Hurricane Florence in 2018, a permanent part of state government under the Department of Public Safety.

PINE KNOLL SHORES – About 3,000 salt marsh sea grass plugs were planted recently as part of a large-scale living shoreline project in Bogue Sound by town hall.

The project was one of a handful focused on coastal restoration and living shorelines tackled through a partnership between Conservation Corps North Carolina – the first of its kind for this group, according to one organizer — and the North Carolina Coastal Federation.

Conservation Corps N.C. engages ages 16-27 in conservation work and is a program of Conservation Legacy, a national organization dedicated to supporting locally based conservation service programs. AmeriCorps members serve on most Conservation Corps projects.

The six-person AmeriCorps crew, volunteers and federation staff planted the salt marsh grass, completing a restoration project put in place to reduce shoreline erosion, protect the area’s maritime forest from storms, provide fish habitat and help improve coastal water quality, according to the federation. The AmeriCorps crew also collected marine debris and did maintenance work at Cape Lookout National Seashore, Carolina Beach State Park, Morris Landing in Holly Ridge and other spots on the central and southern North Carolina coast.

The living shoreline was built with bags of recycled oyster shells placed along the shoreline by Restoration Systems LLC, an environmental restoration business based in Raleigh. The state Department of Justice’s Environmental Enhancement Grant program and the North Carolina Land and Water Fund funded that portion of the project.

Though there was a torrential downpour that morning and into early afternoon, the sky cleared by about 2 p.m. May 7, allowing enough time to plant the thousands of plugs.

AK Kelly, from Florida, was among the six-member crew planting salt marsh grass that day.

Kelly joined the Conservation Corps earlier this year, after deciding it was time to get back into the field, literally. Kelly earned a degree in environmental science focusing in conservation a few years ago, but after graduating, ended up in the service industry.

“I was just ready to get back into my field, ready to get back into stuff relevant to my degree,” Kelly said about choosing the organization. “Conservation Corps was a great opportunity for me to do that in a way where I’m going to very clearly build my skill set, get my confidence back, get to do a wide variety of work, and remember why I love what I love.”

Kelly continued that the conservation world is broad, and the Conservation Corps crew has been able to learn about different types of work and meet numerous people. It gives the opportunity to ask how people ended up in a certain area of conservation, what they studied and, “My key question: How often are you in your office?”

Conservation Corps Program Manager Jan Pender of Raleigh observed the sea grass planting work at the living shoreline that day.

She said Conservation Corps crews have worked in Croatan National Forest and performed habitat and trail work as well as facility maintenance for the North Carolina Coastal Land Trust on their preserves, including work on Gales Creek Preserve near the Croatan.

Pender said the work includes a lot of habitat restoration.

“We are a legacy of the Civilian Conservation Corps, so a lot of our public land work looks a lot like what they did,” she said. A part of the New Deal, the Civilian Conservation Corps was a volunteer public work relief program from 1933 to 1942 for unemployed, unmarried men in their late teens and early to mid-20s.

Living shorelines are “relatively new to natural resource management and so we really wanted to get our folks involved in it and educate people about it, especially because it does seem so important in North Carolina,” Pender continued. That’s why Conservation Corps approached Duke Energy Foundation for funding.

“There’s Corps all over the United States but as far as we know this is the first time a Corps has ever done living shoreline work. There’s always this thing about putting boots on the ground. Yeah, well, this is the first time we’ve had boots in the water,” she said.

Pender said the crews had a positive experience and learned a lot about sustainable environmental management.

“We just hope that we can be a conduit to getting more young people involved in this kind of work and getting more people aware of this (work),” Pender said, adding that the hope is that this will be a bigger part of the contribution the Conservation Corps can make to the state.

In a follow-up interview, Pender said the federation’s experience working with coastal communities to protect shorelines made the organization the ideal partner to pilot the nation’s first Conservation Corps living shoreline project. 

“Because of their professional and dedicated staff, CCNC AmeriCorps members had a transformative education and community service experience. We are grateful to the Duke Energy Foundation for making this partnership possible,” she said.

Conservation Corps Director Michael Meredith gave a brief introduction inside town hall before the team of more than a dozen headed to the living shoreline. He said that Conservation Corps NC is much in the tradition of the Civilian Conservation Corps. “our little program stays in North Carolina. We work from the mountains to the sea.”

The crew working on the Pine Knoll Shores living shoreline is one of 15 crews working this year, Meredith said.

“This crew of six are serving 300 hours of service in our communities, and this group is dedicated to living shorelines work,” Meredith said. We have a lot of other crews around the state doing climate resiliency work, trail construction — you name it — in a wide variety of communities across the state, but we’re thrilled to have this crew here, focused on living shoreline work and this partnership with the Coastal Federation.”

Meredith explained later that afternoon while observing the sea grass planting that the partnership, along with the federation, included Cape Lookout and Cape Hatteras national seashores.

“Our role as Conservation Corps North Carolina is to steward these AmeriCorps volunteers to service opportunities in their communities,” Meredith explained. The AmeriCorps participants commit to volunteer hours and are given a living allowance during their service as well as additional education opportunities such as the AmeriCorps education award.

Conservation Corps North Carolina began as a program with Conservation Trust for North Carolina in 2017. It was just one crew at that time. Conservation Corps then grew a couple of crews. Meredith said that for a brief period the service organization was supported by the Vermont Youth Conservation Corps.

“We’ve been on our own for just two years now,” he said. “Our program is here to service the communities in North Carolina. And with Conservation Corps North Carolina, our goal is to get youth from North Carolina engaged with service and public lands and the public spaces are in their backyards.”

Charles Rocci, town clerk for Pine Knoll Shores, said that he has been working closely with Dr. Lexia Weaver, coastal scientist and manager for the federation’s central regional office, and other federation staff to get the living shoreline project underway.

“I think that the idea of the project came from our town’s value to keep the natural look of the Bogue Banks, and you can see that difference between our towns and a lot of other towns,” Rocci said.

The federation has been working with the town for at least five years on stormwater retrofit projects to reduce polluted stormwater runoff entering into Bogue Sound.

Weaver said that the town recently approached the federation about installing a living shoreline on its property, which had severe erosion from Hurricane Florence in 2018.

“The living shoreline is going to help prevent additional erosion that’s occurring at the shoreline and it’ll provide habitat for fish and crabs and at the same time help improve water quality,” she said, adding it’s a better approach than bulkheads or sea walls.

“Our goal is to get more and more of these projects in the water, rather than bulkheads,” Weaver said.

Carolina Wetlands Association highlights each May during American Wetlands Month special sites across North and South Carolina.

The association designates wetlands that are ecologically valuable, protected by conservation plans, and home to an abundance of plant and animal diversity through its Wetland Treasures of the Carolinas program, which now has a new logo. There are 30 sites designated as Wetland Treasures, many of which are in North Carolina.

Through the Wetland Treasures of the Carolinas program, the association seeks to increase public awareness and appreciation of wetlands, and to generate community pride in and commitment to stewardship of wetlands that have regional, national and even international importance, according to the website.

“We are excited to highlight and celebrate the 2021 Wetland Treasure sites. We hope Carolinians will take pride in our wetland heritage, and we owe a great deal of gratitude to the organizations and agencies that are protecting these natural treasures,” said Carrie Caviness, program coordinator.

Caviness added that this year they’re excited to display our Wetland Treasures logo which will give this program a brand and increased significance.

“I am proud of our Wetland Treasures program and this logo will give the program lasting significance. We hope to see all of our Wetland Treasures make use of this logo as we continue to engage our Wetland Treasure communities,” she said.

“The logo is a wonderful addition to our program and gives greater fulfillment to being designated as a Wetland Treasures of the Carolina Wetlands Association” stated Heather Clarkson who coordinated the development of the logo.

“This year, we excited to be back to doing in person tours with the proper safety precautions as required by the site managers. This includes standard COVID-19 protocol of masks and social distancing,” Caviness said.

One of North Carolina’s last privately owned undeveloped barrier islands will now be protected through a partnership between Audubon North Carolina, North Carolina Coastal Land Trust and the Hutaff/McEachern family, funded by conservation philanthropist Tim Sweeney.

Hutaff is 2 miles of beach and saltmarsh, about 1,300 acres, located between Lea Island and Topsail Beach to the north and Figure 8 Island to the south.

An agreement has been signed and the Coastal Land Trust will complete the process within 60 days.

Conserving the wild and uninhabited place in perpetuity will keep the island’s natural inlets and dynamic ecosystems intact, providing critical habitat for sea turtles, vulnerable beach-nesting birds like black skimmers and a host of other rare and threatened wildlife, according to Audubon.

“Hutaff Island is a rare gem on the North Carolina coast. It’s one of the last, best examples of a natural barrier island with dynamic dunes and productive saltmarsh,” said Walker Golder, executive director of the North Carolina Coastal Land Trust. “We are so very grateful to the Hutaff/McEachern family for their commitment to conserving the island forever and to the partnership that brought us to this important day.”

Audubon North Carolina and the Coastal Land Trust have worked in partnership to protect Hutaff Island for years. Audubon said its biologists will continue to manage the bird and turtle nesting grounds on the island, as part of a network of coastal sanctuaries that protect 40% of all nesting waterbirds on the North Carolina coast.

“For so many of our most beloved coastal birds and sea turtles, Hutaff is one of the last remnants of habitat they have left. That’s why the island’s conservation is so important—it ensures birds like Least Terns and marine animals like Loggerhead sea turtles will continue to have a home on our coast. We’re grateful to all our partners for making it possible,” said Andrew Hutson, Audubon North Carolina executive director and National Audubon Society vice president.

Audubon provided the following ecological highlights of Hutaff Island:

• Provides critical stopover habitat for thousands of migrating birds, including federally threatened piping plovers and red knots.
• Serves as an important migratory stopover and overwintering area for the imperiled saltmarsh sparrow, a species that could be extinct by 2060 if current trends continue.
• Encompasses more than 1,000 acres of tidal marsh and creeks that serve as primary nursery areas for fish, shrimp and crabs.
• Serves as a launchpad for baby loggerhead sea turtles, which fare well because there are no lights to distract the hatchlings when they head toward sea.
• Protects Outstanding Resource Waters, a rarely assigned designation by the state Division of Water Quality for exceptionally high water quality.

Coastal geologist Dr. Stan Riggs said conserving Hutaff Island is critical.

“Hutaff Island not only serves as important habitat for coastal wildlife, but, like other barrier islands, it also serves as nature’s speed bump slowing down the force of storms before they reach the mainland. Even with sea level rise, Hutaff Island will still be around and will continue to roll back like these undeveloped islands do,” Rigg said.

Several hundred acres on the northeast and central coast of North Carolina are to be conserved and the Currituck National Wildlife Refuge will be able to protect 70 acres of waterfowl habitat with funding awarded this week.

The Migratory Bird Conservation Commission approved $78 million through the North American Wetlands Conservation Act, or NAWCA, for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and partners to help conserve or restore nearly 500,000 acres of wetland and associated upland habitats for waterfowl, shorebirds and other birds in the U.S., including North Carolina, Mexico and Canada, the Department of Interior announced Wednesday.

“Not too long ago, a study found that there are 3 billion fewer birds in North America than there were 50 years ago. This Commission’s investments are critical to keep habitats whole and connected and help birds flourish for the next hundred years and beyond,” said Secretary of the Interior Deb Haaland in a statement.

NAWCA grants conserve bird populations and wetland habitat while supporting local economies and outdoor recreational opportunities, such as hunting, fishing and birdwatching, according to the release. The $78 million in grants through the North American Wetlands Conservation Act, or NAWCA, will be matched by nearly $125 million in partner funds.

North Carolina Coastal Land Trust, state Division of Parks and Recreation, contributors and the town of Windsor were approved for a grant of $1 million for the fourth of five phases of conservation act projects in the Embayed Rivers Initiative Focus Area. The proposed match is $2.24 million. This project is to secure the fee title acquisition of 348 acres in Bertie County; conservation easement acquisition of 600 acres Roanoke River/Bull Hill Tract in Northampton County; fee title acquisition of 161 acres in Bertie County; and a conservation easement of 130 acres in Currituck County.

Also on Wednesday, North Carolina Coastal Land Trust, Outer Banks Conservationists and contributors were awarded $1 million for the final phase of the Embayed Rivers Initiative Focus Area on the northeast and central coast. The proposed match is $2.3 million. This phase is to acquire two fee titles totaling 1,300 acres in Bertie and Hertford counties, and one bargain sale conservation easement acquisition of 10 acres in Currituck County. The fee title acquisition of 350 acres in Craven County and the conservation easement donation of 10 acres in Pitt County, two match tracts, are included in this project.

A complete list of the approved U.S., Canada and Mexico NAWCA projects is available online.

Haaland also announced the Migratory Bird Conservation Commission awarded $1.8 million to three wildlife refuges to conserve more than 2,000 acres. The sale of Federal Migratory Bird Hunting and Conservation Stamps, or Duck Stamps, and import duties on imported arms and ammunition go to this effort through the Migratory Bird Conservation Fund.

“It’s remarkable that the programs we are discussing were established before we appreciated what climate change was – or how threatened many bird populations are,” Haaland said.

Currituck National Wildlife Refuge will be awarded $525,000 for 70 acres of wetlands and surrounding uplands to provide habitat for waterfowl including American black ducks, wood ducks, mallards and other migratory birds. The acquisition will provide make access to the northwestern portion of the refuge easier.

The other refuges to receive grants are the Supawna Meadows National Wildlife Refuge in New Jersey and the Umbagog National Wildlife Refuge in Maine.

“These projects are a testament to the ongoing value of the Duck Stamp and funding support for the protection of wetland habitat for waterfowl and numerous others species in the National Wildlife Refuge System,” said U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Principal Deputy Director Martha Williams in a statement. “These new areas will provide increased public opportunities for wildlife-dependent recreation, including hunting, fishing and wildlife observation.”

Since 1934, the Federal Duck Stamp Program has provided more than $1.1 billion for habitat conservation in the National Wildlife Refuge System.

Walker Golder is the new executive director of the North Carolina Coastal Land Trust, the conservation group announced Monday.

A native of North Carolina, Golder was with the National Audubon Society before succeeding Coastal Land Trust’s founding executive director Camilla M. Herlevich.

Golder, who spent his youth in Wrightsville Beach, said that the North Carolina coast is his home.

“It’s where I learned the lasting value of protecting the places that make our coast so special, and the importance of land trusts. I believe that conserving natural and working landscapes and investing in land stewardship is one of the best ways to have a lasting impact on natural and cultural resources that are so important to the North Carolina coast,” he said.

“I had the pleasure of working with the Coastal Land Trust on several land protection projects where the missions of Audubon and the Coastal Land Trust aligned, and I am excited for the opportunity to get back to coastal land protection,” Golder added.

Golder attended the University of North Carolina Wilmington for graduate school, where he earned a master’s degree in marine biology. He then began his career at the National Audubon Society, where he held many roles including the position of deputy state director of Audubon’s North Carolina state office. He most recently served as the program director of the Atlantic Flyway Coast Strategy.

“We met good candidates from across the state during our search and are extremely pleased to have found Walker, who brings deep coastal conservation experience and expertise and has had a long professional relationship with the Coastal Land Trust,” said Ann C. Simpson, chair of the executive director search committee and past president of the board of directors of the Coastal Land Trust.

Golder has received awards including the National Audubon Society’s 2013 Charles H. Callison Professional Award. This annual award honors one volunteer and one staff member from Audubon who have made remarkable contributions to conservation through coalition-building, creative thinking and perseverance.

“I am very excited and honored to join the Coastal Land Trust as executive director,” Golder said of his new position. “The work of this organization will shape the legacy that we leave to future generations.”

Golder’s work has contributed to the protection of coastal birds and their habitats, and has established sanctuaries for 35% of North Carolina’s breeding shorebirds. Golder’s photographs have appeared in dozens of publications, including eight book and magazine covers, according to the release.

“Walker’s decades of experience in conservation and deep commitment to the Carolina coast make him a perfect fit for Coastal Land Trust,” said Melanie Allen, president of the board of directors of the Coastal Land Trust. “He has the skill and enthusiasm to lead the Coastal Land Trust’s talented staff into this next chapter.”

Third in a series of columns on the origins of North Carolina’s natural heritage program and the statewide network of private land trusts conservancies. Read more.

Twenty years ago, in June 2000, the North Carolina General Assembly enacted a legislative goal that then-Gov. James Hunt Jr. had first set forth as his executive goal the year before, declaring that 1 million more acres in North Carolina should be permanently protected as parks, forests, natural areas, farmlands, streamside natural buffers, and other urban and community “open space” reserves before the end of 2010.

The goal was to increase the scale of protected lands in North Carolina to a total of 3.8 million acres in permanently conserved lands, equating to about 11% of the state’s total land area.

By the end of the year 2020, North Carolina finally attained that original goal to have 3.8 million acres of protected land, 10 years “late.” Good, but why so slow? The short answer is because of reduced public funding for land conservation by the state legislature and its termination of the state’s tax credits to private landowners willing to conserve their land.

Approximately 86.5% of protected lands in North Carolina is in public ownership, owned and managed by national, state or local governmental agencies. The rest of the protected land is held in ownerships either by private landowners who voluntarily entered into conservation easement management agreements or are owned by nonprofit conservation organizations including The Nature Conservancy, National Audubon Society and the statewide network of land trust conservancies.

The Division of Land and Water Stewardship in the state Department of Natural and Cultural Resources tracks the progress of land conservation in North Carolina. Its land conservation 2010 status report observed that the importance for protecting natural areas and rural landscapes continues to grow as science and the public recognize the critical values of ecosystem services, clean water, clean air, locally produced food, environmental buffers against climate changes, the links between human and environmental health, and the interconnections between environmental and economic vitality. Those observations remain true today. North Carolina’s population continues to grow along with greater land development pressures and conversion.

People are increasingly visiting and using public parks and greenways and valuing protected green spaces. Practically every year, our parks in North Carolina experience another 10% increase in public use and visitations. Practically every local public referendum for increasing funding for parks and land conservation passes by large margins. For example and in demonstration of that overwhelming public support for land conservation, Wake County voters overwhelmingly voted in November 2019 by nearly a 70% margin in favor of greater public funding ($120 million) for more county parks, nature preserves, greenways and protected rural “open space” lands.

North Carolina should be striving to increase the scale of protecting our premiere natural heritage land assets, rural landscapes, and vital environmental resources.

The mission for land and environmental conservation is not accomplished. With all the pressures of population growth, continued conversion of private farmlands and forests to intensive development, demands and impacts on limited water supplies, consequences of a changing climate, diminished food production, and greater public needs for more outdoor recreational opportunities and environmental health security, North Carolina should be striving to increase the scale of protecting our premiere natural heritage land assets, rural landscapes and vital environmental resources.

We would be smart to expand our strategies to embrace more incentives and public education, as well as higher investments of state and local public funds to achieve a greater scale and scope of land conservation and protection across our state and in all our communities. We should expand efforts to educate and engage more private landowners in natural resources conservation management and enhancement agreements, providing them greater levels of financial incentives and technical assistance.

President Biden has recommitted the USA’s engagement with efforts by the world’s community of nations to reduce the dire consequences of climate change. One important element of that ambitious international strategy is to assure conservation and preservation of at least 30% of the Earth’s land areas and waters by 2030. That “30 x 30” goal will translate down from the international, to national, to state levels. Of course, Western states possess much larger amounts of protected natural and rural landscapes, particularly where much of the land in those states remain in public ownership.

To contribute to attaining a substantial increase in the scale of natural and rural land resources protection, North Carolina needs to expand its land conservation efforts and funding.

At present, only 11% of North Carolina’s total land area is considered protected for its natural and environmental resources. To contribute to attaining a substantial increase in the scale of natural and rural land resources protection, North Carolina needs to expand its land conservation efforts and funding.

In demonstration of that need, the North Carolina Coastal Land Trust recently completed its $35.8 million capital campaign that expanded its conservation of high-priority natural areas in the coastal region and helps finance its growing land conservation stewardship responsibilities. The tasks and needs for protecting other important natural land resources are far from completed.

Let’s enlarge our vision to protect more natural areas and essential water bodies and to assure the conservation of more forests and farmlands in private ownerships. Let’s aspire and invest to protect and conserve our premiere natural heritage, rural landscapes, and water resources.

The North Carolina Coastal Habitat Protection Plan Steering Committee will meet 9 a.m. Jan. 21 to review issue papers on wetland protection and restoration, reducing inflow and infiltration from wastewater infrastructure, and habitat monitoring.

The public can join online, by visiting Webex, use access code 178 194 5326 and password is q5JaSC32iuf.  Join by phone by calling 1-415-655-0003 US TOLL.

The three papers to be reviewed for the upcoming Coastal Habitat Protection Plan Amendment are on the following:

• Wetland Protection and Restoration with Focus on Nature-Based Methods.
• Reducing Inflow and Infiltration (I & I) from Wastewater Infrastructure to Improve Water Quality.
• Habitat Monitoring to Assess Status and Regulatory Effectiveness.

For a full meeting agenda and other meeting materials visit the website.

In December 2004, the state Marine Fisheries, Environmental Management, and Coastal Resources commissions unanimously adopted the North Carolina Coastal Habitat Protection Plan, which provides information on the habitats’ distribution and abundance, ecological functions and importance to fish production, status and trends, threats to the habitats, and includes recommendations to address threats, according to the website.

The Coastal Habitat Protection Plan is revised every five years to reflect changes in the status of habitat protection in North Carolina. The 2021 draft is currently under development.

For more information, contact Jimmy.Johnson@ncdenr.gov with the Albemarle-Pamlico National Estuary Partnership or Anne.Deaton@ncdenr.gov with the Division of Marine Fisheries.

A split decision of the North Carolina Court of Appeals to reroute millions of dollars funneled to environmental enhancement projects to the state treasury rules where the money will go, not how or by whom it is to be disbursed.

The court’s decision filed Dec. 15 on where money Smithfield Foods, Inc. pays each year to the state as part of a settlement agreement “leaves a bunch of little things unclear,” said Mary Maclean Asbill, a senior attorney with the Southern Environmental Law Center, or SELC.

The opinion didn’t elaborate,” she said. “It simply said the monies have to be paid into the state treasury or the general fund. It’s not just like tax money or bond money that might go into the general fund. It’s money paid through a specific contract between Smithfield and the attorney general.”

That contract is known as the Smithfield Agreement, the result of a settlement in 2000 between then-Attorney General Mike Easley and the pork giant made in the wake of massive hog lagoon spills responsible for releasing millions of gallons of hog waste into public waterways.

As part of the arrangement, Smithfield and its subsidiaries agreed to pay up to $2 million each year for 25 years to a savings account where the money is held until it is distributed by the attorney general to projects designed to enhance the environment.

After now-Gov. Roy Cooper took the office of attorney general in 2001 he established the Environmental Enhancement Grant, or EEG, Program, which disburses the funds collected under the agreement to nonprofit organizations, academic institutions and government entities for the purposes of conserving, preserving and restoring the state’s environmental and natural resources.

Francis De Luca, former president of Civitas Institute, a Raleigh-based conservative policy organization, filed a complaint in October 2016 alleging the payments made as part of the agreement were civil penalties and, per the state Constitution, the funds should go to county schools. De Luca added the New Hanover County Board of Education as party plaintiff in early 2017.

Since then De Luca removed himself from the case, one that has bounced from court to court and could very well end up back in the state’s highest court.

The dissent

The latest ruling in this case by the Court of Appeals reverses the state Supreme Court’s April 2020 ruling. The court — one judge dissented — ruled in favor of the attorney general’s office on the grounds that under the Smithfield Agreement the payments did not constitute penalties.

Two of the three appellate court judges reversed that ruling, saying that a law signed by Cooper in 2019 applies to present and future funds paid under the agreement and that the law mandates those funds be deposited into the treasury.

Judge Philip Berger Jr. concurred with Judge John Tyson that the date N.C. General Statute 147-76.1 was signed into law, which was the day before the case was argued in Supreme Court, applies to funds collected through the agreement.

“Our courts have held, ‘[t]he general rule is an appellate court must apply the law in effect at the time it renders its decision,’” the ruling states.

In a separate opinion, dissenting Judge Wanda Bryant concludes, “It is premature for this Court to rule on such a claim before a trial court has done so.”

“In short, neither the trial court, this Court, nor our Supreme Court initially addressed this issue,” she wrote.

Her dissent means that Attorney General Josh Stein can file to have the case sent back to the Supreme Court.

Laura Brewer, the office’s communications director, wrote in an email, “Our office is reviewing the decision.”

“The attorney general’s office, like us, are still digesting it,” Asbill said. “We agreed to circle back after the holiday and figure out our path forward to ensure these funds are used for environmental enhancement.”

The SELC is representing the North Carolina Coastal Federation and Sound Rivers Inc., which joined the case in 2017 in support of the attorney general.

The program

These nonprofit environmental groups are among dozens of organizations that have over the years received grants through the EEG Program.

More than $25 million has been dispersed to more than 100 projects since the program began, according to the attorney general’s website.

Each year, applications submitted for a shot at a grant are reviewed by a panel consisting of representatives from the state’s Department of Justice, Department of Environmental Quality, Department of Natural and Cultural Resources, academic institutions, and conservation-focused nonprofits. That panel recommends to the attorney general which projects to approve.

Grants are awarded between $5,000 up to $500,000.

Grantees must complete projects within three years of receiving an EEG.

In order to qualify for a grant, a project has to meet the goals of the Smithfield Agreement, which includes wetland restoration, land acquisition, stormwater remediation, and restoring and protecting degraded surface waters.

Applications for projects are taken from areas throughout the state, but the attorney general’s office notes, “consistent with the Smithfield Agreement, priority will be given to projects that directly improve the water quality in the Cape Fear, Lumber, Neuse, Tar-Pamlico, and White Oak River Basin.”

Since the program launched, 240 inactive hog lagoons have been closed and more than 23,000 acres of land and wildlife habitats have been restored or conserved. Grants have also been awarded to environmental education and research initiatives.

In 2020, Stein distributed more than $3.5 million to 27 grantees.

Last October, his office announced nearly $3 million will be awarded to 22 grantees.

Projects that will receive funding — more than $540,000 — in the latest round of grants include those designed to protect and enhance the environment in Bladen, New Hanover, Pender and Robeson counties. Another $339,000 is being awarded to projects in Western North Carolina.

Two state-wide research projects will also receive grants. A little more than $100,000 will go to the University of North Carolina Charlotte to research whether per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, enter surface, groundwater and soil through biosolid land application.

Waterkeepers North Carolina is getting $188,000 to research microplastic pollution in 30 streams and rivers.

And the money goes to …

The state statute signed into law in 2019 “mandates the location and depository where the public money is to be deposited and held,” Tyson wrote.

Funds collected through the agreement – no more than $2 million a year, or $1 per hog in the state – must go into the treasury rather than a private bank account “under the exclusive control and discretion of the Attorney General.”

The ruling changes where the money should be held, but it does not alter the terms of the agreement, a point Tyson addresses.

“The stated purpose of the public funds being used for environmental purposes was not changed by the statute,” he wrote.

Still, the decision leaves room for debate as to which organizations and entities are eligible to receive the funds.

Paul “Skip” Stam, lead attorney for the plaintiff, did not return a call seeking comment.

Stam told Carolina Journal, “The way you can maintain the purpose of the gift for environmental enhancement, and also use it for public schools, would be if the Assembly were to appropriate this for environmental enhancement at public schools,” according to Dec. 16 article.

The court’s opinion dictates only that the money go to the treasury, Asbill said. It does not reclassify the money.

“The part of the agreement that is at issue here is about the monies that are paid,” she said. “It’s the nature of the money that would make it belong to the school system. It’s only fines and forfeitures and penalties that would be distributed to the schools.”

TOPSAIL BEACH – A growing expanse of undeveloped land at the southern tip of Topsail Island is once again on the market, prompting debates and speculation about what could happen to the property if it sells.

The 110-acre tract that stretches from the ocean to New Topsail Inlet to Banks Channel offers stunning, panoramic waterfront views – a potentially high selling point on an end of a barrier island that has consistently been migrating south and gaining ground for decades.

Any developer eyeing the property would have their fair share of hurdles to clear if they wanted to build on the land.

The property is zoned C-4 Conservation District – Inlet Area, which is defined by the town of Topsail Beach as a district designed to preserve and protect areas of environmental concern and identifies land “that is not zoned for residential use.”

The land is also within a federally designated Coastal Barrier Resources Act, or CBRA, zone.

While building is allowed in CBRA (pronounced “cobra”) zones, the federal government discourages development in these hurricane-prone, biologically rich areas by prohibiting federal subsidies, including national flood insurance and Federal Emergency Management Agency aid. Public utilities that have received federal funding are prohibited from providing service to developments within a CBRA zone. Counties and towns that allow developments in a CBRA zone to tap into public utilities run the risk of being cut off from future federal funding.

Thus was the case a few years ago in Brunswick County when commissioners there reversed an offer to let a proposed development in a CBRA unit at the west end of Sunset Beach tap into the county’s public utilities.

County commissioners rescinded their vote to allow a developer to connect to Brunswick County Public Utilities for water and sewer service after receiving a letter from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service warning of possible implications for the county if it provided service to the CBRA zone.

Fish and Wildlife officials explained that even establishing connections outside of the CBRA zone and allowing public utilities to travel through private pipes could cause the county to be cut off from receiving future federal funds.

Topsail Beach Town Manager Mike Rose was not available for comment in time for publication of this report.

Town Commissioner Steve Smith said he could not specifically address CBRA restrictions.

“There’s a lot of issues in terms of this property being developed. It’s actually been on the market several times. I think this is just a cycle.”

Steve Smith, Topsail Beach commissioner

“I know the town would follow all the federal and state guidelines to any property like this,” he said. “There’s a lot of issues in terms of this property being developed. It’s actually been on the market several times. I think this is just a cycle.”

The property’s unspoiled, sandy shores have been a popular draw for locals and tourists, many of whom are calling out efforts on social media to conserve the land, which has, for years, been on the radar of the North Carolina Coastal Land Trust.

“We made a serious run at acquiring this property almost a decade ago before the real estate recession,” said Coastal Land Trust Executive Director Camilla Herlevich. “We never did get it under contract.”

Then the recession hit. Grants the trust applied for did not come through. The North Carolina Clean Water Management Trust Fund grant the land trust did receive came in at less than the amount needed to buy the land.

“We are very aware of its conservation values,” Herlevich said. “It would make a great conservation property.”

But coming up with the money to meet the current asking price of $7.95 million, more than three times its listed tax value of about $2.9 million, would be a real challenge for the nonprofit.

“The price right there is not a price that would be easy to put together,” Herlevich said. “That’s a lot of money, so we’ll just have to wait and see.”

The Nature Conservancy’s North Carolina chapter is focusing its efforts in the southeastern part of the state protecting and restoring longleaf pine forests as well as ancient cypress trees on the Black River.

“Currently, the Conservancy is not doing acquisitions on the low-lying islands off North Carolina’s southern coast,” Debbie Crane, the chapter’s communications director, said in an email. “With sea level rise, those areas are likely to be inundated in the not-to-distant future. As we evaluate land acquisition going forward, we are managing to a changing coastline. We are actively looking at providing corridors for species to migrate on our coastal plain.”

North Carolina Coastal Federation Executive Director Todd Miller said in an email that the federation does not have current plans to attempt to buy the land, “and such an acquisition at this significant price will require a lot of leg work and community support to make happen.”

“Such public acquisitions typically take a year or two to undertake, and this one in particular will require a big effort by a lot of collaborating parties to purchase,” Miller said. “Major funds have been earmarked in this year’s state budget (one the Governor has vetoed) by the N.C. General Assembly to acquire property on Lee and Hutaff Islands just south of this property (the other side of the inlet). There might be a chance that additional acquisition could take place in future years to complement that land that is being protected.”

The land is owned by the McLeod Family LLC, according to Pender County property records. Franklin McLeod III of Wake Forest is listed as the principal on company documents on file with the North Carolina Secretary of State’s Office. The real estate holding company was formed in October 2008.

The description in the real estate listing publicized late last week describes the property as “a very unique opportunity to purchase one of the last remaining large oceanfront tracts in the region” with more than a mile of water frontage along the ocean, inlet and Banks Channel.

The property description goes on to state that New Topsail Inlet’s steady southern migration is significant “because while other beaches have seen trends of erosion, the Subject has considerably increased in size due to the steady and consistent accumulation of sand along the oceanfront and southern boundary.”

In March, the North Carolina Coastal Resources Commission approved preliminary boundaries and building rules at inlets.

The proposed updated inlet hazard area, or IHA, includes all of the southernmost end of Topsail Beach. If approved, the IHA at the south end of the island would extend another 170 acres.

The North Carolina Division of Coastal Management recommends that if the inlet continues its southerly migration, the IHA should move with it.

OCEAN ISLE BEACH – New boundaries and rules governing development at about half of North Carolina’s inlets may be adopted next year.

Currently a little more than 2,800 acres of land is designated within inlet hazard areas, or IHA, boundaries at 10 of the 19 active inlets in the state.

The science panel that advises the state’s Coastal Resources Commission recently presented to the commission proposed changes to IHA boundaries at those 10 inlets.

The proposed maps expand IHAs collectively by a little more than 1,830 acres and remove about 470 acres from existing boundaries.

A majority of IHAs would gain ground under the proposed boundaries. Acreage would be reduced at three inlets, including Tubbs Inlet at Sunset Beach and Ocean Isle Beach in Brunswick County, Mason Inlet at Wrightsville Beach and Figure Eight Island in New Hanover County, and in Pender County New Topsail Inlet at Lea-Hutaff Island.

Undeveloped inlets within state or federal management lands, such as Oregon Inlet, were excluded from the science panel’s yearslong study.

IHAs are defined as shorelines especially vulnerable to erosion and flooding where inlets can shift suddenly and dramatically.

“Inlets are complicated,” science panel member Bill Birkemeier said during a presentation at the CRC’s Nov. 29 meeting.

Inlets typically move over time in one of two ways. An inlet migrates, meaning it moves in one general direction, or it oscillates, wagging back and forth.

About five of the state’s inlets migrate, Birkemeier said. The rest are oscillating inlets.

Because no two inlets are alike, the challenge for the science panel has been to develop a method that fairly defines IHAs.

When IHAs were first drawn in late 1970s they were established based on the historic migration of the inlet shoreline.

The science panel determined that using the hybrid vegetation line, or landward most position of the historic vegetation line, is a more equitable method in determining an IHA.

Each new proposed boundary was created based on the annual inlet-shoreline erosion rate and the “30-year risk line” and the “90-year risk line.” The 30-year line is calculated by multiplying the annual inlet shore erosion rate by 30 and measuring landward from the hybrid vegetation line. The 90-year line is multiplied by 90 and measured landward from the hybrid vegetation line.

Birkemeier said that the method is objective and, for the most part, works at all 10 inlets the science panel has been studying for more than a decade.

Talk of updating IHA maps stretches back to 1998-99, when members of the first-appointed science panel suggested to the commission the boundaries were outdated.

About 10 years passed before the state Division of Coastal Management, or DCM, presented updated boundaries to the CRC around 2010.

The proposed boundaries were larger, prompting a host of questions and concerns that essentially pushed back progress on updating the IHAs.

It would be several years before the science panel studied the inlets: Tubbs, Shallotte and Lockwood Folly inlets in Brunswick County, Carolina Beach, Masonboro, Mason and Rich inlets in New Hanover County, New Topsail and New River inlets in Pender County and Bogue Inlet in Carteret County.

During the 40 years that have passed since IHAs were initially established, three inlets have closed and two have moved outside their original boundaries.

The science panel’s recommendations to the CRC include updating the IHAs every five years.

What may change

Long-term erosion rates are about five times greater at oceanfront shorelines near inlets.

“Inlet shorelines can also fluctuate much more than those farther away from the inlets,” according to a Nov. 15 DCM memorandum to the CRC. “These fluctuations may not increase the overall erosion rate but still contribute to the short-term risk to development.”

Rules governing development within IHAs were established to control density and structure size along the shorelines affected by the dynamic waterways.

“Right now (the rules) separate residential and commercial,” development, said Ken Richardson, DCM shoreline management specialist.

Current rules do not allow lots about one-third of an acre in size to be subdivided. Residential structures of four units or fewer or non-residential structures of less than 5,000 square feet are only allowed on lots within an IHA.

A majority of the inlets included in the study are pretty much built out, Richardson said, with the exception of New Topsail Inlet at the southern end of Topsail Island. That inlet has been moving south about 90 feet per year since the 1930s.

The division staff is proposing concepts for the CRC to consider as the commission discusses possible rule amendments, including grandfathering existing structures within the new IHAs.

Under the grandfather provision, structures within the IHA could be rebuilt at the same size if destroyed in a storm.

Perhaps the most significant concept DCM officials are proposing is establishing building setbacks based on annual inlet erosion rates, not the oceanfront erosion rates used now.

“Right now, we really can’t say definitively what the rules will be,” Richardson said. “That’s going to be strictly up to the commission in terms of the rules they’re going to try and amend.”

The CRC is expected to discuss the proposed boundary revisions and rule amendments at its February meeting.

COLUMBUS COUNTY — Earlier this year, nearly 3,000 acres along the Waccamaw River was protected thanks to the North Carolina Coastal Land Trust and a host of conservation partners in an effort initiated by a $1 million court-ordered hog farm pollution settlement from 2012. In the weeks since, environmentalists have had more reasons to be grateful for the preservation work.

“A month after completing the Waccamaw purchase, Hurricane Florence ravaged the coast, and our preserve was under water,” said Camilla Herlevich, executive director of the Coastal Land Trust. “We know that preserving, reclaiming and restoring our natural wetlands can’t prevent the damages of catastrophic storms like Florence and Michael, but it certainly can lessen the impacts — by spreading rising floodwaters out over larger areas, and by slowing down and filtering floodwaters as they move downstream.”

And that’s what’s happened. The land that was undeveloped had a better ability to mitigate the damages from the storm, said Cara Schildtknecht, the Waccamaw Riverkeeper.

“I was able to visit the northern Waccamaw recently,” she said. “The river levels are getting back to normal and the water chemistry is getting back to normal.”

Easing potential storm damage wasn’t the first reason that the area was protected. Perhaps higher on the list, when it isn’t hurricane season, are the many endemic species, unique habitats and critical wetlands of the Waccamaw. It all began with the settlement of a Clean Water Act violation brought by the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of North Carolina against Freedman Farms and Columbus County hog farmer Barry Freedman, accused of dumping 324,000 gallons of untreated hog waste into a tributary of the Waccamaw in 2007. He pleaded guilty to negligent violation of the law and was ordered to pay the $1 million.

“That was the catalyst. And instead of using that money outright, we leveraged it by working for other grants,” Herlevich said. “You’re in a much better position for many of these grants if you have matching funds.” Project WOW, for Waters of Waccamaw, was years in the making but the end result, completed with the help of a dozen other organizations, has a much larger impact in terms of land saved, she said.

“Since 2013, we utilized the $1 million court award to secure more than $5 million in matching grants,” she said. The thousands of acres include blackwater bottomland hardwood forests, cypress swamps, and 7 miles of Waccamaw River frontage.

“The area has a rare water chemistry and many of the plants and animals that flourish in the Waccamaw are found nowhere else on Earth,” she said. “It’s a treasure chest of natural wonders.”

“What we’re excited about is that it covers so much of the area around the river,” Schildtknecht said.

Although the Waccamaw, which runs about 140 miles across southeastern North Carolina and eastern South Carolina, is considered a clean river, there is a persistent worry about the effect that development can have on water quality. This conservation effort should help, she said, and draw more attention to the river.

“I think in North Carolina, the river doesn’t get a lot of attention. But it is such a beautiful, wild, blackwater river,” she said.

Part of what makes this ecosystem unique is the limestone that underlays the basin. The alkalinity is one reason there’s such a high level of species diversity and endemism. The Waccamaw Basin supports six endemic fishes including the Waccamaw silverside and the ironcolor shiner, several rare mollusks and is a system with 62 documented fish species. Rare plant species include the greenfly orchid, Plymouth gentian and swamp forest beaksedge.

The 3,000 acres is the third of three acquisitions in the area, Herlevich said. The Land Trust also closed on 670 acres in October 2014 and 670 acres in May 2016. The Coastal Land Trust purchased the property managed by Campbell Global, a global investment manager focused on timberland based in Oregon, with offices in Wilmington.

“We were able to work with them in terms of what would be better for conservation and what tracts worked better for their goals,” Herlevich said.

She added that another success of Project WOW is that it joins lands to other conserved properties. These 3,000 acres are located directly across the river from the Columbus County and Juniper Creek Game Lands, which encompass more than 28,000 acres. It also connects to 17,000 acres of The Nature Conservancy’s Green Swamp Preserve, resulting in one of the largest conservation corridors in the state.

“By linking there’s a much bigger protected corridor,” she said. “Bigger is better in terms of habitat, especially for larger animals.” Although smaller tracts of protected land have their place, conservation theory shows that larger animals need more acres to thrive and larger tracts result in less interference with people, she said.

The Coastal Land Trust transferred about a thousand acres of the property to the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission as an addition to Columbus County Game Lands for public game lands, which will be managed through timber thinning, prescribed fire, and restoration of distinctive remnant forest types to benefit wildlife such as white-tailed deer, wild turkey, wood stork and Swainson’s warbler, according to Brian McRae, land and water access section chief for the commission.

The Coastal Land Trust will retain the remaining 2,000 acres for management as a nature preserve. Herlevich said the organization hopes to restore and preserve stands of Atlantic white cedar and is leasing the property to a hunt club, which will help it maintain and monitor the property.

The Coastal Land Trust secured grants from a total of 12 different funders including the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s North American Wetlands Conservation Act program, National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, North Carolina Clean Water Management Trust Fund, North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission, Fred and Alice Stanback, the state’s Environmental Enhancement Grant Program, Open Space Institute, Enviva Forest Conservation Fund, The Conservation Alliance and the Merck Family Fund.

Considering recent hurricanes, Herlevich said the organization plans to continue to conserve this critical area.

“We’d like to protect much more land along the Waccamaw — for wildlife, flood control, and clean water.”

WANCHESE — Baby oysters have a new habitat here along the shoreline near the North Carolina Coastal Federation’s northeast office.

Around two dozen concrete oyster reef balls weighing in at 1,300 pounds each, were deployed last week along 100 feet of shoreline, giving baby oysters plenty of space to attach and grow, the federation announced Wednesday. Over the next two years, the oyster reef balls will recruit oysters, helping to improve water quality in Broad Creek. These oyster reef balls will help create more habitat around the shoreline that can provide foraging and refuge areas for important fish species.

Area contractor, Total Marine Services, deployed the 25 oyster reef balls measuring at 3 feet by 4 feet apiece near the federation’s office in Wanchese Marine Industrial Park.

The reef balls are adjacent to a 100-foot sill built by volunteers out of recycled oyster shell and show two different ways oysters can be used to create habitat and protect the natural shoreline, according to the release.

“These reef balls help to demonstrate the variety of ways that oysters can be restored to our waters,” said Erin Fleckenstein, coastal scientist and regional manager for the federation’s Wanchese office, in a statement. “The reef balls and nearby oyster shell bags will provide a surface for baby oysters to naturally attach to and develop into an oyster reef along the shoreline.”

One of many projects being built at the federation’s offices, the staff continuously works to demonstrate techniques for building oyster reefs, protecting natural shorelines and limiting stormwater runoff from entering nearby coastal waters.

“We look forward to educating everyone about these techniques. Already we’ve been using the oyster bags along the shoreline in our summer programming,” said Sara Hallas, coastal education coordinator, in a statement.

The project is supported by Camp Younts Foundation and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Community-based Restoration Program.

Oyster restoration is one of the federation’s major initiatives. By 2020, the organization plans to restore 50 acres of oyster reef through its 50 Million Oyster Initiative.

Learn More

• 50 Million Oyster Initiative

SWAN QUARTER — The fifth public meeting for the Lake Mattamuskeet Watershed Restoration Plan, originally set for July 10, has been rescheduled for 7-8:30 p.m. Sept. 18.

The meeting was rescheduled because of scheduling conflicts with other public meetings.

The July 10 agenda will be covered during the Sept. 18 public meeting at the Hyde County Government Complex.

During the September meeting, the planning team will present and discuss the priority actions to be included in the watershed restoration plan, according to the release. The meeting will also review technical presentations and research updates that are being used to prioritize future actions for the lake. There will be an opportunity for public review and input on the draft watershed restoration plan.

A final, day-long public open house will be held on Monday, Dec. 3 to reveal the full plan.

Questions about the watershed restoration plan can be directed to Erin Fleckenstein, Coastal Scientist for the North Carolina Coastal Federation’s Wanchese office, at 252-473-1607.

Learn More

• Restoring the Lake Mattamuskeet Watershed

BEAUFORT – Concerns about marine debris, derelict and abandoned vessels in Taylor’s Creek and having the waterway remain an attraction for transient boaters were some of the key issues the more than 70 residents voiced last week during the Beaufort Harbor management public meeting.

Held at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Fisheries Beaufort Lab in partnership with the town and the North Carolina Coastal Reserve and National Estuarine Research Reserve, which manages the Rachel Carson Reserve, the meeting is part of an effort to clean up Taylor’s Creek, the body of water separating downtown Beaufort waterfront and the reserve.

Town Mayor Rett Newton explained that the harbor management piece is very complex and part of a bigger clean water coastal community initiative for Beaufort.

In the early 2010s, while volunteering at Rachel Carson Reserve, Newton said a sailboat caught fire and sank in the middle of Taylor’s Creek, becoming a hazard to navigation. Then in February 2016, he watched from the Duke Marine Lab dock as a waterspout came in, causing about a dozen vessels to drag anchor toward Beaufort docks.

“It was very fortunate that the boats stopped short of the docks,” he said. “Just imagine what would have happened if they had gotten hung up in the docks, if they had been hung up around some of the vessels that were there as well.”

In addition to the hazards derelict and abandoned boats present, there are concerns about water quality, such as gray water, which is household wastewater from washing clothes, bathing, showering and from the kitchen, and blackwater, which is wastewater from toilets, as well as Beaufort services being used by without paying for Beaufort services, he said.

Town Manager John Day explained to the residents gathered that Beaufort has the ability to deal with abandoned and derelict vessels in the waterway but he said the town feels that it’s important to hear what citizens are concerned about, what they see as safety issues, how they want Taylor’s Creek to look. “What’s important to you.”

Day added that as staff and officials receive feedback from residents, the town board of commissioners then will be able to decide the direction they want to move. If the board wishes to move forward, there will be drafts of possible ordinances and regulations and more public meetings for feedback.

The town has had authority since 1981 to make, adopt and enforce ordinances for navigable waters within the town limits, Day explained. That authority includes regulating the operation and anchoring of boats and vessels, speed zones, no-wake zones and other types of activities, the placement and maintenance of channel aids and markers and making general rules and regulations for the safe and proper use of waters for the occupants of boats and vessels, swimmers and fishermen.

“It’s fairly broad authority,” Day added.

Last fall, he said he had the moorings in Taylor’s Creek pinpointed. Though none of these moorings were permitted, they’ve been there a long time, he said.

To receive a permit, someone either has to have riparian rights or have been given the use of those rights by the property owner. The Coastal Resources Commission, or CRC, issues permits under the purview of Coastal Area Management Act, or CAMA. There are no records of any permits for moorings, which is an issue, he said.

Day continued that he found while reviewing the enabling legislation that the town has the authority to put moorings in and manage the mooring fields if it decides to do so but it also has the authority to regulate areas where anchorage is permitted, if it chooses, adding to why it is important to hear from town residents.

Paula Gillikin, who manages the Rachel Carson Reserve, explained to the crowd that the reserve partners with the town on various management issues, including waterway management issues.

The reserve performed some mapping in conjunction with the town’s effort to better understand what boats were inside the reserve boundary, they also recorded if the boats were anchored or moored, the types of vessels as well as documented registration numbers. Out of 40 moorings in the creek, 13 are within the boundaries of Rachel Carson Reserve.

She said while most of the time, boat owners will retrieve their vessels once it’s on the reserve, there are occasions that the boats are abandoned because the owners are no longer in the area or don’t have the financial resources.

“Some of the vessels become stranded on the reserve for months at a time, and then it takes us months to work through our legal layers to address those vessels,” she added that recently they’ve been able to work with the town, which has exercised its abandoned vessels ordinance, to help remove abandoned boats.

“In the past 10 years, we’ve had 15 boats that have landed on the reserve for what I’ll call a significant amount of time, and that’s more than a matter of days, it’s a matter of weeks or months,” she added.

The site is protected as a pristine coastal reserve, Gillikin explained, but it is also maintained for education and research uses as well as for the public to visit. In addition, the reserve is also a good buffer for the town, reducing its vulnerability to storms.

When vessels wash up on the reserve, they must be pulled off, causing the reserve to lose chunks of shoreline.

“Naturally, when you pull a vessel off, it’s going to slough some of that sediment and marsh off,” she continued. “That’s definitely causing some habitat damage, in some cases more extensive than others.”

One vessel abandoned on the reserve had copious amounts of drug paraphernalia on board, she said. The boat was on the reserve for a while as officials were trying to figure out how to remove it.

Gillikin said to address the issue of derelict and abandoned boats, as well as some other issues in the waterway, the town and reserve applied to the NOAA marine debris program for a grant to remove medium and large objects, primarily submerged in the creek, to improve habitat conditions.

She said the need is for about $175,000 total. That number breaks down to a $4,000 cash match, about $103,000 will be an in-kind match and they’ve applied for about $67,000 in grant funds from NOAA.

Those funds can be used to remove some of the sunken vessels in the creek and address different areas of bottom debris if it’s not currently serving as habitat for fish or shellfish.

Gillikin said that as a pilot project, the reserve worked with Towboat US to map with sonar half of the creek and found at least three sunken sailboats, which could potentially be removed using funding from the NOAA grant.

After hearing the presentations to get a better idea of the hurdles town and the reserve face with Taylor’s Creek, attendees were split into five groups to participate in a roving flip chart exercise. They were asked to answer the following five questions:

1. What do you see as the economic benefit or potential benefits of the Beaufort Harbor and Taylor’s Creek waterway?
2. Do you have concerns about how the harbor looks?
3. Do you have concerns about harbor safety?
4. Do you have concerns about harbor function and accessibility for locals, visitors and transient boaters?
5. Do you have concerns about the habitats and water quality in our harbor? Sailboats in the Harbor?

Regarding how the harbor looks, most everyone agreed that while the view is appreciated, boats that are derelict or in bad condition distract from the waterfront’s charm. Other concerns related to litter in the marsh and the remains of sunken boats.

As for harbor function, largely there was worry about the lack of organization for boaters, assistance for transient boaters and no enforcement of the no-wake zone. Additionally, there was a consensus about the need for a registration system for all boats, a harbor master, a fee and liability insurance.

With habitat and water quality concerns in the harbor, residents felt it would be important to have a baseline of what is happening now in the waterway. The primary concerns, however, focused on stormwater runoff, marine debris and sewage outflow, plus there was a mixed consensus on the effect of boat traffic on the habitat.

Safety concerns in the harbor included submerged and non-submerged hazards, the need for more signage and enforcement of the no-wake zone, vessels breaking loose or dragging from its mooring or anchor, better management of transient boaters and issues with anchoring within the federal channel.

It was agreed that the harbor is an economic benefit because it is an attraction to the area. However, some residents felt that there was lost opportunity because boaters avoid Beaufort due to lacking structure in the waterway.  Suggestions were made for affordable mooring and accessible pump out stations, as well as communicating with the cruising communities because transient boaters are vital to the businesses.

“We were really very pleased at the level of response that we had and the willingness toward a better harbor management plan,” Newton said after the meeting. “The community engagement was excellent.”

He added that the town appreciated the help of Gillikin and Whitney Jenkins, training coordinator for the coastal reserve, for putting it all together.

Newton explained that he and Day have been talking about a harbor management plan for quite some time, and now it’s building some momentum. The next step is to synthesize the information, see what the data says and take it to the board of commissioners. As the plan develops, there will be more public sessions.

“This is all part of a clean water community as well, it has components of that clean water community,” he said.

Gillikin echoed Newton.

“The meeting was well attended, with 72 members of the public enthusiastically participating in the facilitated input session,” she told Coastal Review Online after the meeting. “It’s important to make sure that the public can make meaningful contributions to launching a process that will ultimately enhance Beaufort’s harbor and waterway for visitors and locals alike. I think the meeting accomplished this well. We are receiving positive feedback from many participants who felt that their opinions were efficiently and effectively captured during the meeting.”

SWAN QUARTER — Hyde County and other stakeholders working to develop a voluntary watershed restoration plan for Lake Mattamuskeet will hold their second meeting will be at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 7, in the Hyde County Government Complex.

The first stakeholders meeting was in August. The third scheduled meeting is set for Feb. 6, 2018.

The goal of the watershed restoration plan is to provide a blueprint for how to best address water quality and flooding issues that harm the lake’s fish and wildlife and affect nearby landowners.

Community members can expect to hear a draft of the watershed restoration plan goals that were discussed and approved by the plan’s stakeholder group.

Stakeholders include members of Hyde County’s residential, farming and hospitality communities, as well as Hyde County employees and representatives from U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission.

The North Carolina Coastal Federation is helping develop the plan. An overview of core stakeholders and their responsibilities is available online.

Other topics include an overview of water quality trends and submerged aquatic vegetation in the lake from Michelle Moorman of U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. The North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission will present on waterfowl trends.

Randall Etheridge, assistant professor in engineering at East Carolina University, will present on the current mapping and survey efforts being conducted at the lake. This mapping effort has helped Etheridge develop a preliminary outline of identified problems and solutions.

Once completed, the plan will explain how the lake should and does function, its current status and health, and will identify management options to address water quality and flooding. Upon approval, it can be used to secure grant funds for implementation.

Any questions can be directed to Erin Fleckenstein with the North Carolina Coastal Federation at 252-473-1607 or erinf@nccoast.org.

Learn More

• Updated information about the plan development
• Lake Mattamuskeet Watershed Restoration Plan: Core Stakeholders/Project Team Roles and Responsibilities

The Ocracoke Observer contributed to this report.

FIGURE EIGHT ISLAND – David Morrisette leans over the white porch railing of his family’s home overlooking acres of unspoiled beach at the north end of this exclusive island.

“Look at it. It’s incredible,” he says.

Somewhere in the distance, his children and wife are enjoying their last evening on the white sands of Figure Eight Island before heading back to their home in the mountains of Virginia.

As much as he’d hate to walk away, not so much for his sake, he says, as for that of his wife and children, Morrisette has made up his mind that’s exactly what he will do if a terminal groin is built on the island’s northern end. A terminal groin is a wall-like structure made of rock or other material placed perpendicular to the shore adjacent to an inlet to control erosion.

He and his siblings, all of whom share ownership of the house, do not support the proposed project and they’re in a unique position that could stop the project in its tracks.

“I’ll sell my part of the house,” Morrisette said. “I’m not going to keep a house here with this kind of garbage going on. I’m not going to bear the cost of this thing. There’s absolutely no need for it.”

The Figure Eight homeowners’ association’s board of directors is awaiting approval of a federal permit to build a 1,500-foot-long rock groin across the tip of island’s north end. The permit application was filed in late June after the Army Corps of Engineers released a final environmental study on the proposed project. The public had until Aug. 1 to submit comments about the project to the Corps.

The homeowners’ board estimates the project will cost $7.3 million for initial construction and beach fill costs with costs of $23 million for maintenance and necessary beach fill over a 30-year period. However, an official study conducted by the state estimates that over that same timeframe a groin like the one proposed for Figure Eight can cost upwards of $50 million.

Figure Eight is unincorporated, and the homeowners’ association doesn’t have the legal authority to condemn property. Without easements from property owners, the project, in its proposed location, can’t move forward.

The board will need anywhere from 12 to 15 property easements, including a portion of land Morrisette and his siblings own. They’re not budging, he said, and, according to him, neither are some of his neighbors.

“From what I understand there’s a lot more people against it than for it,” Morrisette said.

Sand has for years steadily accreted at the north end, creating what is now nearly 60 acres of natural vegetation, wetlands and beach at Rich Inlet in New Hanover County.

Morrisette wholeheartedly believes the pristine earth that Mother Nature has built up at the north end will erode away and that Rich Inlet, one of the few remaining natural inlets in the state, will forever change if a terminal groin is built.

Environmental groups, including the North Carolina Coastal Federation, which formed the “Save Rich Inlet” campaign two years ago, point out that the project’s own environmental study indicates land north of the terminal groin will eventually erode.

The loss would affect thousands of shorebirds, including federally endangered piping plovers and red knots, which nest, rest and forage at Rich Inlet.

In the 30 years since his father bought the house, Morrisette has witnessed the land grow, putting more distance between the home and the Atlantic Ocean. When the house came under the ownership of the Morrisettes, ocean waves at high tide licked the steps at the base of a short, wooden walkway leading to the house. Now, it’s easily a 10-minute walk from those steps to the beach.

White stakes, one roughly 60 yards from the Morrisette’s back door, mark the location of the proposed terminal groin.

The light-gray colored home with bright white trim sits between a well-manicured front lawn with lush, green bushes and trees and a backyard view of the uninhabited Hutaff and Lea Islands and Topsail Island to the north and Wrightsville Beach to the south.

Figure Eight Island was like no other place William Morrisette had seen on the North Carolina coast, his son says. Its beaches were not cluttered with sunbathers. There were no high-rises. No commercial development.

William Morrisette offered half of the asking price on the house after his first visit to the island. The sellers accepted.

“He said this is the greatest manipulation his children have ever pulled off,” David Morrisette recalls. “We gambled. The ocean was practically at the back door. We took a chance and we won.”

He and his siblings rotate their summer getaways and holidays at the home.

The three-story, 6,000-square-foot, six-bedroom home is an unassuming dwelling in comparison to the sprawling mansions on the southern end of the island.

A series of navy- and white-striped beach towels, individually monogrammed with the names of each of his 10 children, hangs uniformly over the front porch railing of the house.

They plan to come back for a couple of weeks in September, one last pre-autumn beach break from their rural countryside home where Morrisette runs Chateau Morrisette Winery, one of the largest wineries in Virginia.

“I wonder, is my house going to be devalued because of this?” Morrisette says as he looks across the back of the property. “That’s the least of my concerns. I love the beach, but it’s much more for my family. I want them to be able to have this memory growing up. You can see just how natural this is. Why are we messing with nature?”

To Learn More

• Figure Eight Homeowners Association
• Army Corps of Engineers permit

Deserted beaches, migrating shoals and expansive marshes make Lea-Hutaff Island a restful respite for dozens of species of birds. Photo: Walker Golder, Audubon North Carolina

TOPSAIL BEACH — Boastful cries of fish-toting least terns overpower the sounds of waves lapping over the inlet-side shore and the roaring Atlantic Ocean in the background.

Several males in the colony of birds make the “fish call,” alerting the females as to the prize they grip between their small beaks.

On a warm day in early May, before the summer season inevitably draws thousands of tourists to the coast, birds enjoy the serenity of Lea-Hutaff Island.

Addison peers through a Nikon spotting scope mounted atop a tripod she has rested in the shallow waters around the southern end of the barrier island. She has the tedious job of counting the birds roosting and feeding along the shore.“Having areas where they can feed, areas where they can rest is essential to their survival,” said Lindsay Addison, a coastal biologist with Audubon North Carolina. “This is the kind of habitat that they need.”

She picks a group by species, counts, notes their location on the island then records the information in a pocket-sized notepad.

Audubon has been actively tracking birds on Lea-Hutaff since 2007, research that helps its scientists understand the way different species use inlets throughout the year.

“No one has ever looked at the way these birds use the inlets,” Addison said. “The data we’re collecting is unique in that regard.”

Lea-Hutaff offers biologists this rare opportunity because undeveloped barrier islands are themselves a rarity.

Formed between the southern end of Topsail Island and the north end of the exclusive Figure Eight Island, Lea-Hutaff is one of the only un-bridged, natural barrier islands remaining along the N.C. coast.

“It is in a more natural state than about most any other barrier island in the state,” Addison said.

The relatively flat island stretches almost four miles long and is framed by the Atlantic Ocean and two inlets – New Topsail Inlet to the north and Rich Inlet to the south. It was once two islands: The northern one was owned by the Lea family and the southern one the Hutaffs. The islands joined during the 1990s when hurricanes closed Old Topsail Inlet.

An American oystercatcher chick on Lea-Hutaff Island. Photo: Walker Golder, Audubon North Carolina

The conservation of Lea Island is part of a long-standing partnership between Audubon, the N.C. Coastal Land Trust and the state, which established the Lea Island State Natural Area in 2003. With a generous donation from staunch environmental advocates Fred and Alice Stanback of Salisbury, Audubon North Carolina in 2010 bought almost 36 acres of the Lea portion of the island, nearly doubling the amount of protected land. This year, schoolchildren around the country are raising funds through the Pennies for the Planet campaign to help Audubon’s conservation efforts on the island.

The Hutaffs have not sold their land, but they keep it open to the public.

Altogether, the island includes nearly 5,500 acres of what Audubon describes as “important bird area” – the shores, marsh and inlets.

The shoals of Rich Inlet provide an abundance of marine organisms and small worms – tasty morsels to the thousands of birds who stop here throughout the year.

Migrating shorebirds travel upwards of 4,000 miles. A typical migrating bird will increase its body weight by about 50 percent.

Barrier islands are crucial to the birds not only because they are spots that provide essential food supply, they are also roosting and nesting havens.

Rapid development on the coast’s barrier islands in the past 20 years has depleted the number of places migrating shorebirds may stop, rest, feed and nest.

As a result, most shorebird populations are on the decline, Addison said.

Lea-Hutaff Island is the southern-most extent of the many birds’ breeding range. Audubon officials take great care in posting signs around nests throughout nesting season, which runs April through August, in the hopes of keeping people away.

For the most part, Addison said, people visiting the island respect the wildlife. Visitors are asked to keep their dogs leashed and to stay away from nests, which are protected by state and Federal laws.

As the sea foam green-colored water of Rich Inlet gently washes over Addison’s ankles, she intently counts a roosting colony of red knots. A color-coded band on one of the bird’s legs lets her know that this particular colony has flown up from Argentina. They’re making their way to the Arctic.

“They’re one of the world champion long distant migrants,” Addison said. “They’re definitely only stopping here to rest and refuel.”

She moves carefully, at a calculated distance from the birds. If they flock, she’ll never get an accurate count.

Lindsay Addison, a biologist with Audubon North Carolina, counts the birds on Lea-Hutaff Island. Photo: Audubon North Carolina

“What we get from the birds is the timing of how they use the inlets by and large,” Addison said. “So many of these birds use the inlets as staging areas to feed. This demonstrates the importance of natural inlets, when sand is able to move freely. Take the piping plovers for example. They feed on shoals like this as the tide exposes them.”

Birds such as Wilson’s plover, American oystercatcher, black skimmer, least tern and piping plover, which are on the federally threatened list, nest and raise their young during the spring and summer on Lea-Hutaff Island.

In the fall and winter, Nelson’s and seaside sparrows gather on the island by the thousands. Last winter, Addison said between 1,300 and 1,400 Dunlin alone were on the island. Loggerhead sea turtles also visit the island’s shore to lay their eggs beginning in May.

After about four hours, Addison has counted more than 1,800 birds representing 32 species. The list was impressive: black-billed plovers, American oystercatchers, greater yellowlegs, willets, sanderlings, semipalmated sandpipers, short-billed dowitchers, black skimmers, boat-tailed grackles and double-crested cormorants, just to name a few. Addison even spotted a graceful osprey flying overhead.

Some birds stay on Lea-Hutaff for a few days. Others may spend up to six weeks here.

Addison’s last stop before she re-boards a boat and makes her way back to the Wrightsville Beach is on the northern tip of Figure Eight Island.

“There’s a lot of shorebirds here,” she said as she looks through her spotting scope. “When you think about it, the distance that they travel, they’re pretty remarkable.”

A few yards away, another colony of nesting least terns fly around the area in which their eggs are nestled in shallow pockets of sand.

Addison stops and glances toward the ruckus.

“They’re certainly making a lot of noise today,” she said.

From a distance, Jones Island seems remote and wild, like a set from one of those reality TV shows.

SWANSBORO — As you approach Jones Island in a skiff, it’s easy to imagine you’re in the South Pacific, speeding toward a grand adventure much like the ones that unfolded for six seasons on “Lost.” The island seems very much like a remote, partially abandoned patch of land far removed from civilization where nature is, or should, be queen.

It is not, however, anywhere near the South Pacific nor is it very far removed from civilization. In fact, Jones Island is located in the mouth of the White Oak River with a clear view of Swansboro and parts of Cedar Point. But it is under threat from predators just as menacing as any smoke monster or a settlement of mysterious “Others.”

The biggest threat to Jones Island is erosion caused by the ripple effects of human development, recreational boating and the rising tides of climate change. To protect the island, the N.C. Coastal Federation, working in conjunction with Hammock Beach State Park, has an educational program in place aimed at replenishing two key island defenses – marsh grasses and oyster beds.

Since the inception of the Jones Island Environmental Education and Restoration Center five years ago, the federation has planted more than 60,000 marsh plants along the island’s shoreline; it’s erected more than 1,200 feet of low-lying oyster walls, or sills; and it’s created five stand-alone patches of oyster shell habitat, all with the help of more than 2,500 volunteers.

The students are members of the school’s environmental club, and once a year they take a field trip to Jones Island to see first-hand what they’ve learned from Sarah Phillips, a federation education coordinator who visits the school three to four times a year to talk to students about water quality and habitat restoration.Many of the volunteers are students much like the group of 22 students from Beaufort Middle School who showed up in mid-April to plant marsh grass and learn about the sea creatures that thrive in and around the oyster beds.

As the kids disembarked from the state park ferry and walked ashore, each one was promptly handed a dibbler, a shovel-like tool that’s used to part the sand deep enough and long enough to insert a marsh plant and its small bundle of tangled roots.

Within an hour, they had added roughly 1,500 plants to the Jones Island shoreline. By summer’s end, Phillips said she hoped the total number of new plants would exceed 10,000, all of them planted in similar bit-sized chunks by small groups of volunteers – both young and old.

“I like knowing that I’m making a difference,” said eighth-grader Spencer Valentine. “I didn’t know how much planting grass like this would help.”

Several of the students had planted marsh grass the previous spring, and they could see just how much it had thrived in a year’s time. This was particularly true of the grass that was planted close together, a lesson learned inadvertently from a former student volunteer. To keep him focused, Phillips said she challenged him to plant as much grass as possible in a small space. A year later, that patch was the one that had done the best.

Marsh grass plantings are one of several activities planned for the island from now until the end of August. Others include the restoration of oyster reefs, scientific monitoring of restored areas, trash clean-ups, summer camps for kids, kayaking and yoga retreats for adults, and marsh cruises that wind their way through Bogue Sound and the mouth of the White Oak River.  Check the federation’s Events Calendar for specific dates and times.

The education program began in 2007, two years after part of the island was rezoned for commercial development, a move that prompted the federation to fight for its preservation. With a grant from the N.C. Clean Water Management Trust Fund, the federation bought seven acres. At the time, the Audubon Society owned another 10.

The two groups donated their parcels to Hammock Beach State Park, and the federation has been working in tandem with the park ever since. Roughly a third of the island is still in private hands, and, to date, all of it is still undeveloped.

As seventh-grader Jonathon Deaton wisely noted, “Just getting to come out here is a privilege.”

A volunteer measures the growth of newly planted marsh grasses.

“Look at it,” he said, gesturing toward the pristine nature of the island’s evergreen forest, its live oaks, and its yaupon and wax myrtle shrubs. Just beyond the tree line and the shrubs, lies the shoreline, where, later in the day, the students waded into the water, cast their nets along oyster sills and scooped up a menagerie of small sea creatures, including crabs, clams, scallops, fish and a lot of baby shrimp.

The bounty of shrimp was particularly pleasing to Wayne Guthrie, owner of Beaufort-based Outerbanks Seafood Co. and the father of twin seventh-graders at Beaufort Middle School. “Hello full moon in June,” he said, referring to the time when shrimp leave their protective estuarine hiding places and head for deep water.

In addition to Guthrie, three other adult volunteers were also part of the mid-April excursion. Two were a husband and wife team that owns property on Clubfoot Creek, a tributary of the Neuse River.

Worried about erosion, Ida and Clarence Arrington were all set to install a seawall until they learned about the dibbler and the power of marsh grasses. “We didn’t know you could plant it like this,” Ida Arrington said.

“We just called the contractor,” she said, adding that they’d decided to put the seawall on hold.

The fourth adult was Bree Kerwin, an environmental scientist, who summed up the oysters in our midst this way: “They look really ugly, but they’re such an interesting organism.”

A single oyster can filter up to 50 gallons of water a day, a feat that rivals the best of what Brita has to offer. In addition, oyster beds serve as a natural habitat for roughly 300 underwater species that find both nutrients and refuge among the shells’ ragged edges; and the beds, or reefs, protect landmasses, like Jones Island, from erosion by slowing down wave energy as it approaches the shore.

Historically one of the biggest threats to the oyster population has been human consumption. Whether they’re raw, steamed, served up with butter and salt or lime juice and hot sauce, they are beloved worldwide. Americans eat roughly 28 million pounds of oysters each year, according to estimates done at Louisiana State University.

Day camps on Jones Island offer children a chance to experience the natural wonders of our coastal rivers.

Baby oysters, however, prefer shells of other oysters to attach to. A single oyster discharges millions of fertilized eggs into the water. The larvae float about for a two to three weeks, but then they need a place to settle, and the place that works best is another oyster shell.

Until it became illegal a few years ago, odds were that discarded oyster shells ended up in a landfill, where the reproductive cycle came to a screeching halt. Since the late 1800s, overfishing, depleted habitats and pollutants from stormwater runoff have reduced North Carolina’s oyster population by an estimated 50 percent, and the yearly harvests are 10 percent of what they were a hundred years ago.

As one leaves Jones Island with these thoughts in mind, one realizes that as “Lost”-like as the island may seem, there are, indeed, much greater threats than smoke monsters and mysterious “Others.”

Katie MacLellan, left, and Carissa McHone of Wingate University pull a seine net near an oyster reef in Stump Sound as part of ongoing monitoring of these created reefs.

By Ladd Bayliss and Skip Maloney

NAGS HEAD — When most college students envision spring break, rarely do ideas of filling and schlepping oyster bags around a desolate sand dune in North Carolina dance through their minds. They dream of Cancun and Fort Lauderdale, frosty cocktails and sun-drenched beaches. The goal is to return to campus with just the right amount of tan that begs the question: “Where did you go for spring break?”

That’s what most college kids do. Not these college kids from Austin Peay State, Wingate and East Carolina universities. They decided to give back instead.

Shannon Fennimore of Wingate University works with third graders at Alderman Elementary School in Wilmington.

Thirteen students from Austin Peay in Clarksville, Ten., spent a week recently volunteering to help restore the Bodie Island Lighthouse and teaming up with Jockey’s Ridge State Park and the N.C. Coastal Federation on a living shoreline project at the park.

While the Austin Peay students worked at Jockey’s Ridge, nine students from Wingate, which is near Charlotte, pitched in at the federation’s Clean Water Preserve at Morris Landing on Stump Sound in Onslow County and monitored oyster reefs near Surf City. Meanwhile, students from East Carolina were shoveling oyster shells into mesh bags to create reefs near Jones Island in the White Oak River.

More and more students are foregoing the usual vacations in the sun for these types of “alternate spring breaks,” notes Ted Wilgis, one of the federation’s coastal education coordinators. More colleges are offering students the alternative and more groups like the federation are providing them with meaningful things to do, he said.

“I’ve been impressed by the students’ knowledge and awareness of the greater world around them,” he said.  “It’s exciting to see them becoming aware of a whole suite of issues and trying to become active in them.”

The Austin Peay students first heard about the trip late last fall, when Alexandra Wills, the assistant director for service and civic engagement, began pasting the school hallways with flyers. A native of Southern Pines, Wills was excited about the prospect of designing a service trip on the Outer Banks.

“My grandfather is from Ocracoke, and I have always loved this place,” she said. “Finally, I had the chance to pick a trip destination where I would know where we were going without a GPS – there’s only one road in and one road out.”

Austin Peay State University students bagged oyster shells at Jockey’s Ridge State Park.

Once interest about the trip was sparked among the student body at the university, students went through an intense application and interview process. Although the 10-day trip mostly consists of manual labor and defined schedules, students were only required to pay a $60 fee to go on the trip. The school was able to pitch in on several other expenses, including a hang-gliding trip for a few of the trip participants.

“I love volunteering,” said Lyddia Claire Wilson Lyles, an Austin Peay senior. “Being able to meet and work with different types of people from my school, who all come from all different regions and walks of life – that’s pretty special.”

At universities like Wingate, there is a faith-based component to these alternative break programs. Founded in 1896 by the Baptist Associations of Union County in North Carolina, and Chesterfield County in South Carolina, Wingate has a strong history of service to its surrounding communities, which, though the university is no longer affiliated with the Baptist Association, continues to this day.

For Alex Yarborough, a sophomore in the school’s pre-pharmacy program, the service that she and her classmates provided for the federation was an extension of her upbringing. “Most of us are involved with student ministries on campus,” she explained. “We all have strong family backgrounds, and most are involved in our churches at home.”

Wilgis kept the Wingate kids busy while they were in Wilmington. “We always have a range of tasks to do,” he said, “and we’ll normally organize a particular volunteer day around certain tasks, initiatives or projects. What we did with this group was to combine or condense several projects into a week-long time frame; took a bunch of different things and put them all into this one week to make it work.”

The students cleaned up at Morris Landing and then helped third graders at Alderman Elementary School in Wilmington maintain their rain garden. They bagged oyster shells and marl at Waterway Park in Oak Island and looked for signs of life at oyster reefs the federation has built.

Sitting in the grass at Sound Side Park in Surf City, the students compiled data from four artificial reef samples that Wilgis had labeled and brought in from Spicer Bay and Old Settlers Canal. They were up to their elbows in dark, muddy water, pulling out algae, oyster shells and anything else they could find to record the growth of life on the artificial reef samples.

They counted and measured – live oysters, shrimp, and barnacles – and tallied their find on data sheets. Wilgis would use the information to measure the progress of the artificial reefs. When they were done, the students joined Wilgis on the Federation’s flat-bottom boat and returned the samples to their homes on the reefs.

Wingate University srudents bagged shells on Oak Island.

“I liked the fact that we were doing different things every day,” said Shannon Fennimore, also a pre-pharmacy student. “It was very educational.”

The Austin Peay students also kept busy. Although the weather wasn’t ideal at the start of their week, temperatures rose and the wind diminished to make the work more enjoyable. No matter the weather, though, it seemed the volunteers weren’t easily deterred, especially senior Keith Winn.

“I’ve lived in Clarksville all my life, and this was my first time swimming in the Atlantic Ocean,” said Winn, who studies accounting, finance and real estate. “I can’t explain to you how cold the water was, but it was worth every second.”

In Their Own Words

Here’s what some of the Wingate University students had to say about their week volunteering on the coast.

Shannon Fennimore: This was my first experience working with the North Carolina Coastal Federation. I am now well informed on the problems facing the preservation of our coasts and also the role we play as citizens to help fight for this cause… Some of these issues included pollution, mainly from stormwater, destruction of the wetlands, and possible degrading of the coastal environment as a whole…Not only did we learn a lot about our coast and the species that inhabit them.

Jordan Hartman on working at the Alderman Elementary rain garden: I learned that Wilmington’s coastal environment encompasses more than just the sand and water. Land and water on the coast and even hundreds of miles away can affect the well-being of the coast, which is the concept that we shared with the third graders. Mia, a 10-year-old lover of butterflies and flowers, lit up with joy as I handed her an Echinacea (Joe Pye Weed) plant to add to her school rain garden. “Plant, I give you birth and energy,” she proclaimed as she patted the surrounding dirt after planting it.

Wingate University students with Ted Wilgis, far right.

Katie MacLellan on bagging oyster shells:

Today we did a lot of hard work, cutting mesh bags and putting either marl or oyster shells in them. Although we were working hard, we also learned a lot. Ted (Wilgis) explained to us exactly how these bags will make a living shoreline to help prevent pollution and erosion. He also explained other interesting things, like how marl sometimes has fossils, and he even showed us a few.  He also found a jellyfish, and I got to hold it. Another thing I learned is how much work goes into all of this. Not only are the bags really heavy to carry and shovel, but the oyster shells are very difficult to even get in the shovel.

Alex Yarborough on oyster reef monitoring in Stump Sound Today was by far the most incredible day so far. We started off the day by learning about the life cycle of an oyster and the surrounding organisms that inhabit oyster beds. We learned that crabs, snails, different species of fish, and shrimp all coexist with the mollusks. Ted went out earlier that morning and collected four samples from the created reefs in local bays and canals… We found two mud crabs, shrimp, a couple of fish, a ton of worms and barnacles… Once lunch was finished, we all piled into the boat and headed to return the oysters to their natural habitat… Once complete, Ted took us to an open oyster bed and we, if we were brave, got to try raw, fresh oysters. I was extremely excited because they are my favorite food.

• Wingate student photos

A commercial fishermen loads oysters shells to be placed in Stump Sound. Fisherman were paid to help build oysters reef as part of the federation’s federal economic stimulus grant.

A landmark report on conserving our coastal habitats gives all of us concerned with preserving coasts and estuaries a new argument, one that will appeal to new and larger audiences: It’s good for the economy.

“Jobs & Dollars: Big Returns from Coastal Habitat Restoration” tackles the need to protect and restore our coasts from a perspective some have dubbed “coastal capitalism.”

The report shows that public and private investments in coastal habitat restoration not only produce jobs in this cash-and-job-starved economy, but do it at a higher rate than many more touted job sectors, including oil and gas, road infrastructure and green building projects.

The report was prepared by Restore America’s Estuaries, an alliance of 11 conservation organization that formed in 1995 to preserve our nation’s estuaries. The N.C. Coastal Federation is a member.

Some of the report’s key findings

• Coastal habitat restoration—that includes things like wetland reconstruction and improvement; rebuilding depleted oyster beds; removal of dams, culverts, and other obstacles to fish passage; tree planting and floodplain reconstruction; and invasive species removal—typically create between 20 and 32 jobs for every $1 million invested. Compare that with road infrastructure projects that, on average, create seven jobs per million, oil and gas at just five per million, and green building retrofits that produce 17 jobs per $1 million invested.

• Habitat restoration creates local jobs and brings dollars to local businesses. In one of the report’s case studies, a watershed restoration project in Oregon, 80 percent of the money invested in the project stayed in the county, and 90 percent stayed in the state.

• Restoration not only creates direct jobs—people hired to use their skills and equipment to restore damaged wetlands and similar projects—but also stimulates indirect jobs in industries that supply project materials like lumber, concrete and plant materials, and induced jobs in businesses that provide local goods and services—food, clothing, shelter—to restoration workers.

• Most importantly, are the long-term economic returns from habitat restoration: tourism and tourist dollars, hunting and fishing revenues, freshwater supplies and, in an economy where house prices have plummeted, increased property values.

In 2009, the federation was one of 55 groups nationwide that received an economic stimulus grant administered by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The $5 million grant was used to restore nearly 60 acres of oyster reefs in the Pamlico-Albemarle Sounds region. That $5 million was put to good use: It helped create or protect 150 jobs along the N.C. coast.

Darren Burrus, one of the project contractors and a Buxton resident, had less work for his company in 2009 when the project started. Thanks to the federation’s grant, things started looking up for his small business, Cape Dredging Inc., built oyster reefs off Hatteras Village.

“We’re excited to get back to work, the marine construction business has been slow,” Burrus, a co-owner of the company, said in 2009.  “And having more oysters and fish around will be good for the watermen and oystermen. I love North Carolina oysters.”

A barge dumps oyster shells into Pamlico Sound as part of the federation’s stimulus grant.

Another component of the project paid fishermen to plant 40,000 bushels of oyster shell in 19 locations from Ocracoke to Myrtle Grove Sound and Topsail Sound.  This program, which the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries began in the spring of 2009, provided supplemental income for many fishermen hit hard by the economic downturn.

“The project provides immediate job benefits and enhances ongoing efforts to improve oyster and fish populations, as well as improve water quality,” Louis Daniel, the division’s director, said in 2009.

All of which begs the question: How valuable are our coasts and estuaries to the nation as a whole?

While coastal-estuarine counties make up only 13 percent of the U.S. land area, they generate half the nation’s GDP, and provide 40 percent of all American employment. More than three-quarters of all commercial fishing depends on estuaries, generating an estimated $1.4 billion for local fishing concerns. U.S. coastal wetlands provide spawning grounds, nurseries, shelter and food for 85 percent of waterfowl and other migratory birds. Tourism and recreational pursuits—angling, bird watching, canoeing-kayaking and similar activities—add more than $70 billion to the economy every year.

But despite their obvious value, both ecologically and economically, America’s coasts and estuaries are in trouble.

Historic losses alone are staggering. The report documents that 97 percent of Columbia River salmon are gone. Likewise, 95 percent of all San Francisco Bay wetlands have vanished, sacrificed to development and commerce. The Chesapeake Bay oyster population is down to one percent of historic levels.

Louisiana’s wetlands are in a class by themselves. The state’s coastal wetlands are receding at an astounding rate of one football field an hour. Loss of the state’s wetlands not only threatens lucrative local industries like shrimping and crabbing, but also puts 45 percent of the nation’s oil and gas refining capacity and 43 percent of its strategic petroleum reserves at risk.

Locally, it’s no secret that the loss of North Carolina’s coastal wetlands from erosion, rising sea levels and increasing storm intensities pose a threat to economic interests on the Outer Banks. No less important, though, is the threat these new realities pose to the nearby inland areas and communities that depend on healthy coastal and estuarine ecosystems. Flooded coastal marshes; salinization of aquifers and drinking water; impacts to fisheries and wildlife; and property loss and devaluation due to flooding may be consequences of ongoing threats and loss of North Carolina’s coastal resources.

The report’s key recommendation

It is critical that the United States invest in coastal habitat restoration. Not only will it address many of the problems listed above, it can and will provide much-needed jobs—everything from out-of-work commercial fishermen, marina and boat captains, barge operators, and seaside businesses ranging from bait shops to four-star hotels and restaurants—in an economy still hurting from the 2008 crash and recession.

First of two parts

ENGELHARD — This summer ground will be broken in northeast Hyde County for a restoration project conceived by unlikely partners—a farmer and environmentalists.

The farmer hails from a community of avid outdoorsmen and women in one of the most conservative areas of the country, a group that doesn’t generally cotton to environmentalists.

Working alongside him will be restoration staff members from the N.C. Coastal Federation. They all hope to put a whole landscape back in order.

When the last shovelfuls of dense black peat are put into modified dikes and sloughs on Lux Farms, much of the agricultural drainage from 1,400 acres will be removed from Pamlico Sound and redirected into its natural flow through wetlands toward the north.

As future phases move forward, the farmer will be able to store drainage water in irrigation ponds for use in dry times. The installation of flood gates will help protect farm soils from poisonous salt water as the world’s seas rise.

And improvements in water quality in Pamlico Sound will enable conservationists to build low-profile oyster reefs offshore, enhancing local fisheries and helping provide a buffer from storm surges.

It Began With an Oyster

A researcher in 1907 drops a buoy on an experimental oyster reef in Pamlico Sound. Photo: Freshwater and Marine Image Bank, Washington University Libraries.

The story of the landscape-scale restoration work in Hyde County begins, as many tales do, with a remarkably small player: the humble oyster.

In 2004, the federation received a grant from the N.C. Clean Water Management Trust Fund to write a coast-wide blueprint for resuscitating the state’s badly depleted oyster population. The federation targeted oysters for a reason: These energetic filter feeders remove copious amounts of pollution from estuaries. In a few hours a single oyster can clean a 10-gallon tank of muddy water.

But the state’s once-great oyster reefs have been decimated by a combination of overfishing, disease and habitat destruction. The grant required the federation to convene a group of experts to figure out how the oyster population could be brought back.

The federation established work groups on the north, central and southern coasts. The northern group’s assignment was complicated by the sheer size of the region’s waters, including Pamlico Sound.

Picture a dozen scientists, conservationists and fisheries biologists in a room, all talking about the research they’ve done on oysters and trying to figure out what more is needed. This writer was there and was impressed by the brain power. Trouble was, no one seemed to have a game plan for moving forward.

Previous work by researchers, the Nature Conservancy and the N.C. Division of Marine Fisheries had found that oyster larvae, or spat, would attach to chunks of limestone stacked in underwater piles. Limestone reefs were being built to replace historic oyster rocks that had been covered by sediment or destroyed by oyster dredges.

Building rock piles in the sound was expensive, and oyster spat must depend on currents to carry them to suitable habitat. Unless new reefs were built in places where currents would deposit spat, the work would be wasted.

But how could the group figure out the seasonal track of subsurface currents in Pamlico Sound? Such detailed flow studies had never been done.

An answer came not from the academic brain trust but from an Ocracoke waterman named Gene Ballance, who had painstakingly reconstructed maps of oyster reefs drawn in the 1880s drawn by Navy researcher Francis Winslow. Ballance is an Ocracoke native with thick glasses, a wide, friendly grin and an abiding love for oysters. He views the fate of the oyster and the commercial fishing industry as intertwined, and he is not willing to let go of either one.

His reconstruction of the Winslow maps showed a necklace of oyster reefs off the Hyde County mainland. If currents had carried oyster spat to those locations in the 1880s, it was likely they would still do so.

Gene Ballance

What’s more, the historic reefs lay in a region that had been shown by a Nature Conservancy study to have some of the highest biodiversity in southeast U.S. waters. New oyster reefs would provide habitat for other estuarine creatures—as well as knocking down storm waves that were causing severe erosion along the Hyde mainland.

There was just one problem. Stormwater from agricultural fields carried sediment, bacteria and plumes of tannic, overly fresh water into the sound just off Hyde County, ruining the waters for oysters.

A ‘Natural Partnership’

Wilson Daughtry and his wife, Debby, own Alligator River Growers. He is known in Hyde County as the go-to man for onions. In a county of soybean, corn and cotton fields, the Daughtries have made a name for themselves growing high-value crops like broccoli and the sweet onions that thrive in the black peat soils. Besides farming his own land, Wilson manages the adjacent Lux Farms property for several partners.

The federation in 2005 convened a group to look for wetland restoration projects that could help clean up the local waters for oyster restoration. Daughtry was one of the farmers invited to attend. The goal of the group was to find sites where water from ditches and canals could be diverted into wetlands, removing some of the runoff that poured into Pamlico Sound.

Daughtry and Mac Gibbs, director of the county’s agricultural extension service, had been collaborating on ideas for what were called tail water projects, in which drainage could be held in low-lying farm fields instead of being pumped to the sound.  The water could be used for irrigation, saving money on pumping expense. “When we heard that the Coastal Federation was interested in holding back water to improve the sound for oysters,” Gibbs said, “it seemed like a natural partnership.”

The federation had something the farmers lacked: a working knowledge of how to write grants and experience with hydrologic restoration at North River Farms in Carteret County.

Daughtry is a respected farmer with a sense of humor. One afternoon when the federation staff stopped by his farm office to chat (a folksy custom that’s become an art form in Hyde County), he casually pulled out an infrared satellite image of Lux Farms. “Take a look at that,” he said.

The image showed a wide swath of red running through the middle of the farm—low, wet land, most of it grown up in the unusual bog known as pocosin. An excited expression spread across the face of Christine Miller, an assistant director at the federation. “Is that—is that an old slough going through the middle of the farm?” she asked.

Wilson rubbed his chin. “Some people say it is.”

The image showed that water from the western end of Lux Farms had historically drained north toward what is now the Alligator River National Wildlife Refuge. If the slough could be restored, much of Lux Farm’s drainage could be removed from Pamlico Sound.

They were looking at a project the size of which had seldom been done—and that, they knew, had the potential to become a national model for restoration.

Tuesday: A plan takes shape