Millions will be awarded to broadband providers across rural North Carolina to connect homes, businesses, and community anchor institutions to high-speed internet access.

The governor’s office announced last week that $26 million will go to bring 5,161 rural homes, businesses and community anchor institutions in 66 counties access to high-speed internet infrastructure by the end of the year through the Stop-Gap Solutions program.

A part of the North Carolina Department of Information Technology’s Division of Broadband and Digital Opportunity, the program administers funding from the federal American Rescue Plan Act to coverage gaps in internet access. This is done by targeting broadband line extensions to reach individuals and small pockets of homes and businesses in hard-to-reach areas.

“These broadband projects will ensure more families can soon access telehealth, students can complete their homework, businesses can compete in larger markets, and communities can thrive,” Gov. Josh Stein said in the release. “I am committed to improving broadband access across the state and making sure no community is left behind.”

On the coast, FOCUS Broadband, also known as Atlantic Telephone Membership Cooperative, has been selected to receive $1.65 million to connect 145 locations in Duplin and Pender counties.

Connect Holding II, LLC, doing business as Brightspeed, will be awarded $1.68 million to connect 2,439 locations in Beaufort, Camden, Carteret, Craven, Currituck, Hertford, Hyde, Onslow, Pamlico, Pasquotank, Tyrrell and Washington counties on the coast. Other counties to benefit from this award are Alamance, Bladen, Caldwell, Caswell, Chatham, Columbus, Cumberland, Edgecombe, Franklin, Greene, Halifax, Harnett, Hoke, Johnston, Jones, Martin, Montgomery, Moore, Nash, Northampton, Orange, Person, Pitt, Randolph, Rockingham, Sampson, Stokes, Surry, Vance, Wake, Warren, Wayne and Wilson counties.

HarvestBeam Inc., a broadband provider for rural North Carolina, will receive $413,260 for 95 locations in Craven and Pitt counties.

Roanoke Connect Holdings, operating as Fybe internet provider, will be awarded $2.4 million to connect 826 locations in Bertie, Chowan, Gates, Granville, Halifax, Hertford, Martin, and Northampton counties. 

Wilkes & RiverStreet Networks has been selected to receive $959,828 to connect 306 locations in Camden, Currituck, Stokes and Wilkes counties.

Other providers to be awarded serve customers in Alexander, Bladen, Buncombe, Durham, Henderson, Hoke, Iredell, Forsyth, Jackson, Macon, Orange, Robeson, Rowan, Sampson, Scotland, Swain, Transylvania and Yadkin counites.

“High-speed internet access is the foundation for health care delivery, public safety operations, workforce development, and economic growth in our state,” Teena Piccione, NCDIT secretary and state chief information officer, said. “This program allows us to move with urgency and precision to connect more North Carolinians.”

AHOSKIE — Between 35 and 40 protestors gathered on a downtown street corner Saturday to call attention to the proposed reopening of the Rivers Correctional Facility in Winton as a federal immigrant detention center.

While the number protesting was modest, they were buoyed by the overwhelmingly supportive response from passing drivers.

The 257-acre, 1,450-bed facility shuttered in 2021 is being considered as a facility to house people seized by Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers and suspected of not being in compliance with U.S. immigration law. The facility is owned by international private prison company GEO Group, “the largest detention services provider to ICE, with nearly 40 years of operational experience under ICE contracts,” according to the American Civil Liberties Union.

The ACLU on Jan. 29 released the information it had obtained via a Freedom of Information Act process, and within three weeks, during the Hertford County Board of Commissioners Feb. 16 meeting, at least 10 people spoke out against the prison plan.

One individual, while not expressing support, noted that the decision about the fate of the Riverside prison was in the federal government’s hands, leaving county officials little, if any, recourse.

County commissioners, as of this publication, had declined to take a position on the property. Soon after the Feb. 16 commissioners meeting, Coastal Review asked County Manager Bill Shanahan whether he had been contacted about reopening the facility.

“I can tell you that the county manager has not been contacted,” he said, indicating that he had no more to add.

In an email following Saturday’s protest, Shanahan said nothing had changed.

Caroline Stephenson, who helped organize the protest, told Coastal Review that while she opposed ICE moving in, she had also been thinking about the “implications for citizens and residents,” she said. “I think the implications are not great.”

She said the facility would overwhelm the sheriff’s office, emergency medical services and hospital. “We’re a really small, rural county in terms of the amount of capacity that we have,” she explained.

Hertford County had fewer than 22,000 people when the last census was taken, and the official estimate was fewer than 20,000 as of 2024. Its population is roughly 58.4% Black, 36% white, 6.7% Hispanic or Latino, 1.9% Native American and 1.2% Asian. Nearly 23% of residents live in poverty and the per capita income is less than $29,000.

Walking along the protest line, Bobby Riddick used his cellphone to record the protest, planning, he said, to use it on his Facebook page. As cars passed by honking in support, he talked about the challenges of organizing a protest in Hertford County.

“It’s a very small area. A lot of people here have been here all their life,” he said. “They’re not used to protesting. They’re not used to fighting for their rights.”

Stephenson agreed, telling Coastal Review, “A lot of people, I think, are unsure or afraid of using their First Amendment rights and any of their rights that are provided under the Constitution. I think it’s important to educate people about their rights, but also about the dangers of not speaking.”

Standing with two friends behind a sign reading “ICE Out,” C.S. Brown High School senior Bird Lashbrook spoke clearly about her feelings.

“I have a voice that should be put to use, and I’m happy to give my support,” she said.

In 2021, President Biden, citing Justice Department reports that found private prisons were often less safe and had lower safety standards, as compared to publicly managed facilities, ordered the Justice Department to no longer renew contracts with private prison companies.

Across from the Pleasant Plains Baptist Church and just outside of Winton in Hertford County, it remained unclear for years whether the historic but badly damaged Rosenwald Pleasant Plains School built in 1920 could be saved.

If it could not, the school building, which replaced an earlier structure built on the grounds in 1866 that may have been the first “Colored” school in Hertford County, would probably be lost.

And then, in September 2024, a driver ran their car off U.S. 13 where the school is, and slammed it into the building with such force that the entire structure was moved off its foundation. The driver was drunk at the time.

With the one corner of the building crushed, the school off its stone foundation, and brick and other debris littering the inside, things looked bleak for the building that the National Register of Historic Places described in a 2016 report “as the only graded public school that served both local African American and Native American students in the Pleasant Plains community … from 1920 to 1950.”

As the report notes, the building was “a very intact, representative example of early twentieth-century rural school design.”

Yet what at first seemed like a disaster, may ultimately have saved the building. The insurance settlement was enough put the structure back on its foundation, repair the roof and exterior and paint the building.

There is, though, still work to be done.

Even before the accident, the roof had been leaking, and a new roof “stopped the problem with the leaks,” Roy Pierce said, who has been monitoring the condition of the school and handling repairs for years. “But before that took place, there were some leaks around those old chimneys, and the water seeped in and damaged some of the wooden ceiling.”

The ceiling needs repair, but it is just one of a number of problems pushing the cost of bringing the building back beyond the means of the Pleasant Plains Church, which owns the building and property.

Pierce pointed to the windows that have been boarded up to prevent vandalism. He explained that when restoration experts looked at the windows, he was told much of the glass was original, as were the frames.

“The estimate on just fixing those windows, was $17,000,” he said.

The land where the school rests has always been owned by the Pleasant Plains Church. The church, founded in 1851, is one of the oldest multiracial houses of worship in North Carolina. When founded, the church was for the nonwhite, free people of color only.

“Permission was granted to organize a church provided no slaves nor their descendants were allowed to join the church. The church was to be solely for the use of free-born people,” Corinne Hare Brummell wrote in Pleasant Plains Baptist Church 150th Anniversary Program in 2001.

At that time, and well into the 20th century, a person of color was anyone who was Black, African American or of mixed ancestry.

It is possible that there was a school associated with the church as early as the 1850s, but early church records were destroyed in a 1941 fire. It is known, however, that as early as 1866 “ten men were responsible for building a school house at Pleasant Plains,” the Hertford County Herald wrote recounting the history of Hertford County.

The first school house was one room, and “the only elementary school accessible to people of color, including African Americans and the descendants of Native Americans, in the Pleasant Plains community,” the National Register of Historic Places notes.

By the turn of the 20th century, it was clear a one-room school house was inadequate and in 1902, the county approved $90 “for the school with a total of ninety-eight students in the three classrooms,” according to the historic places document.

In 1920, hoping to improve the Pleasant Plains school, the community raised $750, the Hertford County school board contributed another $850 toward building a new three-room school, and the community received a $300 grant from the Rosenwald Foundation.

Although about a third of the construction cost of the school was low compared to other Rosenwald schools, Julius Rosenwald, the founder of the fund, “agreed to allow … funds to help rural Southern communities erect schools for black,” the historic places document explained if the community also contributed.

The school was in use from 1920 to 1950. When it closed, students began attending C.S. Brown School in Winton, which was also a Rosenwald-funded school that is now the Hertford County C.S. Brown Cultural Arts Center and Museum in Winton.

Chief Thomas Lewis, chief of the Meherrin nation, began his formal education at the school, but he recalled, “the floor fell in, and we had to go from there to one of the county schools. So by living in this area, we went to C.S. Brown.”

When he got to his new school, he and his brother who was in the second grade, “had to repeat grades,” he said. “I don’t know the reason, but that’s what they made us do.”

Although he attended the Pleasant Plains school for only the one year, Lewis has a clear memory of at least one of his teachers.

“Miss Ardelle Garrett, she was my girl. I brought her an apple every day,” Lewis said.

Garrett who, was born in 1904 in Ahoskie, had a long association with the school. As early as the 1930 census, Garrett is listed a teacher in a public school on the census form. And “the North Carolina Education Directory in 1939 notes the school with three teachers, including Ardelle Garrett, the principal,” according to the historic places research.

As a teacher, Garrett seemed to have had an impact on all her students.

“My father’s 96 and he talks about Ardelle Garrett to this day,” Lewis said.

There are other memories of what the school was like as well. Lewis mentioned that in the morning “we had people designated to go to the coal power and get coal, because that’s how the classrooms were heated.”

There is also a mention in the historic places report that Lewis recalled using “the outhouses in back of the school.”

There was a strong sense of community among the families surrounding the Pleasant Plains community.

“This stretch of highway, at one time you could leave Winton and drive to Ahoskie, and you knew that was Roy’s house and Thomas Chavis’ house, and whoever’s house. Back then, we knew everyone,” said Dr. Terry Hall, Pleasant Plains Church deacon, in describing U.S. Highway 13 that passes the church.

Yet if the C.S. Brown School was a larger and more modern school, it still took the community keep it going.

“There were a lot of fundraisers,” Lewis recalled. “They would sell cakes and pies to buy band uniforms and football equipment, all that kind of stuff.”

“They used to show movies. You could pay 15 cent and go see a movie,” Pierce added.

Although the school did not have the resources the white schools of the county had, what it did have were very good teachers.

“The teachers were good. We had people from here that went on to colleges and did well,” Hall said. “I think in some of the competitions, they used to have debates and stuff like that. They did good.”

In 1968, Hertford County Schools began the process of consolidating their schools and for the first year, student attendance was optional.

“It was part of what they called freedom of choice. I wanted to try to get a new experience. So I transferred (to Ahoskie High School),” Pierce said. Pierce graduated from Ahoskie High School in 1968.

The greater opportunity that was offered by the white schools may now be playing a role in how difficult repairing the Pleasant Plains School has become.

“We’ve gotten into an older population and people have gone into different professions,” Hall said. “Years ago, Thomas and his father and other people that did carpentry … they would have been buying the materials would have been all that would have cost us.”

“It’s like my younger brother, he said, ‘I’m leaving here because I’m not doing nothing with my hands,’” Lewis said. “And he moved to Roanoke Rapids.”

One distressed coastal county has been selected to receive an economic development grant through the Southeast Crescent Regional Commission.

Gov. Josh Stein’s office announced Friday that $7.2 million would be awarded to 15 counties, $400,000 of which will go to Hertford County to replace the “inadequate and deteriorated” booster pump station that serves the Como area, a small municipality on U.S. 258 near the Virginia line.

Project activities include installing a new prefabricated unit.to improve service for 32 businesses and 644 households in the surrounding area, which currently experiences routine low pressure and insufficient capacity, according to the release.

Funds are awarded under the State Economic and Infrastructure Development program.

The Southeast Crescent Regional Commission is a federal-state economic development partnership authorized by Congress in 2008 to promote and encourage economic development in parts of Alabama, Georgia, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Virginia, and all of Florida.

The commission invests in projects that support basic infrastructure, business development, natural resource preservation, and workforce development in the 428 counties of the seven-state region.

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

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

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

USFR did not respond to requests for comment.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Nucor did not respond to a request for comment.

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

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

MOREHEAD CITY – Keep telling your story.

That was the message to those who attended the first meeting of the North Carolina Coastal Counties Fisheries Coalition held Tuesday afternoon in the Crystal Coast Civic Center.

Dare County Board of Commissioners Chairman Bob Woodard, who initiated the coalition to be a voice for the commercial fishing industry, welcomed elected officials and staff from Beaufort, Camden, Carteret, Chowan, Craven, Currituck, Dare, Hertford, Hyde, Onslow, Pamlico, Pasquotank, Perquimans, Tyrrell and Washington counties, and 10 coastal legislators or their representative.

“We’ve got a lot of folks here today concerned about this coalition, and this effort,” Woodard said, adding that many of the more than 100 in the audience were in Raleigh to protest House Bill 442.

But the head of the state’s recreational fishing association called the group’s goals “disappointing.”

‘No due process’

First introduced in March to open up the recreational season for flounder and red snapper, the Senate amended the bill in mid-June to include a trawling ban in the state’s inland waters and within a half-mile of the shoreline.

The proposed ban was met with both outcry and support, but when the Senate kicked the amended bill back to the House, representatives chose not to advance the bill. Since June 25, the bill has been parked in a House committee.

Woodard set the coalition in motion July 3 with a letter to the 18 other coastal counties that border bodies of water from which licensed commercial fishermen are required to report their catch, representing 20% of the state’s counties, he explained.

“That should send a clear voice to our legislators, that we got 20% of the entire counties in the state of North Carolina, and hopefully we will grow up more for people that believe in eating the fresh local seafood from clean, clear waters in our state, rather than foreign food that comes into our country. I don’t know about you, but I want to eat fresh, seafood,” he said.

When Woodard began the meeting Tuesday, he told the crowd that he was “appalled to see that (proposed trawling ban) went to the House,” and wrote a letter June 30 to Senate Leader Phil Berger.

Woodard read the second paragraph of that letter aloud: “Our democratic system, established by our forefathers, was designed to ensure that every voice in leadership could be heard-whether in support or opposition. At its core, our Constitution is built on mutual respect and, most importantly, due process.”

Woodard said, “everyone in this room sitting here today certainly knows there was no due process,” and then explained how he pitched the idea to form the coalition to a fellow commissioner.

“I said, ‘Enough is enough.’ I’ve been a chairman in Dare County for the last 10 years. I’ve been on the board the last 12 years,” Woodard said. “Every single year, we have to fight the regulatory agencies. We have to fight the leadership.”

It was time “to come together, not just counties, not just fishermen, but stakeholders all over the south and this entire state. We need to educate those legislators that aren’t living on the coast.”

Once given the board’s blessing, Woodard sent the letter proposing the North Carolina Coastal Counties Fisheries Coalition.

“The goal of this coalition is to bring together county leaders from coastal regions to address these critical issues with a unified voice. By coordinating our efforts, we can better advocate for the long-term health and sustainability of our fisheries, our local economies and our fishermen’s way of life,” Woodard said.

About the coalition

Members agreed that the coalition would be a public body and have its next meeting at 1 p.m. Sept. 16 in the civic center, ahead of when the legislature is expected to convene.

After that, the coalition will meet quarterly in Carteret County because of its central location.

Woodard emphasized he wanted the coalition to be “as transparent as humanly possible,” adding he wanted the “public to be here.”

The coalition adopted a mission statement to support commercial fishermen and fishing communities, protect their livelihoods, preserve coastal heritage, “and safeguard the economic vitality of our working waterfronts. Together, we work to ensure the continued harvest of high-quality North Carolina seafood—feeding families, strengthening communities, and ensuring North Carolina Catch remains a priority for consumers to enjoy throughout our state and beyond.”

During the discussion, Pamlico County Commissioner Candy Bohmert said that the coalition should focus on promoting — rather than stating it’s out to save — the commercial fishing industry.

“We don’t need to save these people. They save themselves. We need to empower them,” Bohmert said. “We really need to kind of change that language. We’re promoting them. We’re promoting our commercial history. We’re promoting all of that because they’re important.”

Bobby Outten, Dare County’s manager and attorney, is to serve as staff to the board.

Outten explained that the intention with the coalition is to act as a governmental body.

“The fisheries groups have for years been working hard to deal with fisheries issues, and what we found is the legislators aren’t listening, and it’s a hard road, and it’s a tough time,” Outten said.

The idea is to get the governmental entities of the affected counties together and “then be the voice for the political side of this,” Outten said.

Fisheries groups will still be the resource to disseminate the information, but the coalition will be “the voice of the political counties.”

From the legislators

There were nearly a dozen coastal legislators at the meeting, including Sen. Bobby Hanig, R-Currituck. Hanig has been a vocal opponent of the trawling ban since it was first proposed at a Senate committee meeting June 17.

“We’ve never had the opportunity to tell our story. Well, guess what God brought us? He brought us H442, and you know what that did? That wasn’t the shot heard around the world. That was the backfire heard around the world. Let me tell you why. Now we have the ability to be on the offense, and we have to keep that ability to be on the offense,” Hanig said.

That bill “is allowing us to tell our story,” he said, adding that it led to the coalition and got 700 people to Raleigh in about three days.

The turnout in Raleigh brought together various aspects of the industry, such as commercial fishermen, packing houses, “everybody. You know why? Because what’s the first thing they went after? The shrimp, right? They’re going after everything,” Hanig said. “Because that’s what they’re after, folks, they make no qualms about it. They’re after our industry.”

In response to an audience member asking who “they” are, Hanig said “Pick someone. The CCA, the Wildlife Federation, certain legislators, you know, their efforts. They’re after this industry. They make no bones about it. They’ve been telling the wrong story, the false story, for too long, and we haven’t stopped that.” The CCA is the Coastal Conservation Association North Carolina.

“I implore you, tell your story. Do not be afraid to tell your story,” Hanig said. “Let them know where you’re coming from, because those stories matter.”

Rep. Carson Smith, R-Pender, told the crowd that people in Raleigh think there’s no fish, no crabs, no shrimp, that “our fishery is completely depleted, because that’s what the Marine Fisheries Commission is telling them.”

He added that this message is what he feels pitted recreational against commercial fishing, and “they think that the shrimp trawl has killed all the fish.”

Smith suggested two resolutions: Ask the “General Assembly to completely redo the Marine Fisheries Commission,” and “tell the Wildlife Resources Commission, ‘hey, stay in your lane.’ You count the trout in the mountains, but don’t use state resources” to try to close the commercial fishing industry down.

Sen. Bob Brinson, R-Beaufort, said the best way to educate folks in Raleigh is by “getting them on your boats, getting them in your oyster beds, getting them in your fish houses, and showing them what it is you do and how you do it.”

Sen. Norm Sanderson, R-Carteret, explained that when the Senate voted on House Bill 442 June 19, four voted against, but 40-plus voted in favor, which he didn’t expect.

He later found out that the votes for the amendment were for the “environmental side because they claim that shrimp trawling was destroying the environment in our sound. That it was going to destroy all kinds of fishing. Well, that’s one of the talking points that the CCA has used for the last 20 years,” he said.

Sanderson said that he was also upset about how the bill was amended in the Senate, “because the process stunk to high heaven.”

He explained that he was co-chair in the Agriculture Committee when the amendment “first came about, and that is the last thing that you ever do to a committee chairman,” he said. “If you’ve got something that’s going to be contentious, if you’ve got something that’s going to cause a lot of outcry or pushback,” you should go to them before the meeting. But Sanderson said that’s not what happened in this case.

“Let’s stay strong. Keep helping us. Keep telling your story, spreading this message across and around this state, so that the next time this happens, there’ll be an outcry from all over this state,” he said.

Response from CCA-NC

Coastal Conservation Association-North Carolina Executive Director David Sneed told Coastal Review in an email that “it is disappointing to read the goal of this new coalition is apparently to create a vehicle only for ‘battling issues that affect the state’s commercial fishing industry’ (fewer than 2,000 people who profit from a public trust resource) rather than acting in the public interest for the 11 million citizens of North Carolina who own our public trust resources and would benefit enormously from a healthy, sustainable coastal fishery.”

The coalition would be better served by recognizing the foundational, bedrock principles established by the public trust doctrine and the state’s constitution. “That North Carolina’s coastal fisheries resources belong to all 11 million citizens of this State and must be managed, preserved, and protected for the overall benefit of those citizens and future generations.  In addition, the coalition’s approach only divides and disenfranchises the not-for-profit fishing public that lives in and visits our coastal counties,” Sneed continued.

“There are more than 91,000 Coastal Recreational Fishing Licenses sold across the state’s 19 coastal counties each year, and it is reliably estimated that more than 300,000 people spend nearly $1.5 billion annually across the three Congressional Districts that encompass these 19 coastal counties—people who not only live in our coastal counties but also people from inland counties who visit our coast and spend money supporting our coastal fishing communities,” he said. “Our hope would be that any efforts by this coalition will be focused on building a true coalition in the public interest—one that will support the sound management of our coastal fisheries resources to achieve the long-term sustainability that all North Carolinians deserve and are entitled to under the law.”

A Hometown Heritage marker telling the story of the Atlantic District Fairgrounds in Ahoskie was dedicated last month as part of a Juneteenth celebration.

The fairgrounds were, at one time, the cultural centerpiece of the region’s African American community.

But those times are gone. The track established in 1920 where trotters pulled sulkies for almost 90 years is overgrown and covered with grass. The brick grandstand, built in the late 1950s, is still there and from a distance looks intact, but the roof of the building next to it that once housed the stables is sagging and the paint is peeling.

The fairgrounds haven’t been used since 2010, but, for most of the nine decades it was in operation, it was a place where people of color in Hertford, Bertie, Gates and Northampton counties had the opportunity “to submit items of work and pride: preserves, needlecraft, woodcraft, cooking, livestock and art for possible prizes. It was rare for people of color to have such opportunities and rewards: to win a ribbon along with a dollar or two,” wrote Marvin Tupper Jones, executive director of the Chowan Discovery Group in a grant application for the nonprofit William G. Pomeroy Foundation.

The marker was unveiled June 14 at the R.L. Vann School Community Resource Center at 415 Holloman Ave. in Ahoskie, located beside the historic fairgrounds, during a Juneteenth program.

The Chowan Discovery Group works to preserve the history of the Winton Triangle, a 280-year-old landowning community of people of color. The Pomeroy Foundation was established in 2005 and offers several grant programs to help communities honor their history.

For a brief time during segregation, there were two fairs in Hertford County. The Hertford County Fair in Winton was first held 1918.

Prominent African American business owners and educators from Ahoskie and surrounding areas formed the Atlantic District Fair Association in 1920 after being denied access to the Hertford County Fair in the county seat.

“The Atlantic District Fair Association, incorporated, Ahoskie in Hertford county, to conduct a district agricultural fair and to promote agriculture, authorized capital $20,000, with $1,000 paid in by Augustus Sessoms of Ahoskie, C.D. Nichens, Winton and many others,” the Greensboro Daily News reported in February 2020.

The fair proved an immediate success, with the Hertford County Herald reporting on Oct. 28, 1921, “Since Tuesday, the opening day of the Atlantic’District Fair (colored), immense crowds have paid daily visits to the grounds…The opening day witnessed the smallest crowd of the 3-day fair. Wednesday’s and today’s crowds have met the expectations of the officials of the fair, who have been making extensive preparations for their initial fair.”

For three years, 1921-1923, the two fairs took place within a few weeks of one another.

But, according to the Ahoskie News Herald, by 1923 the Hertford County Fair was in financial trouble.

“The Hertford County Fair Association has called a meeting of the stockholders of the association … next Thursday, December 6. At that time a report of finances will be given and records of this year’s fair given. On account of the quick change in weather and postponing of the first day of the fair this year, the final report shows the association to have lost money, to the extent of about $350 this year (approximately $6,600 in 2025). This leaves the association worse off financially than before, and the meeting at Winton will probably decide the fate of the organization for another year,” the paper reported.

No further references to a Hertford County Fair was found in area newspapers.

Yet the Atlantic District Fair thrived throughout the 20th century. As the 32nd annual fair got underway in 1954, the Gates County Index reported in its Oct. 7 edition that, “President Clarence Chavis (had) received from Commissioner of Agriculture L. Y. Ballentine a letter in which the Atlantic District Fair was described us the third ranking fair in the state in the amount of agricultural exhibits and premiums, thus only one other fair besides the NC Stale Fair ranked higher than the Roanoke-Chowan’s Atlantic District Fair which in all its history has been promoted and managed entirely by Negroes.”

The paper did not identify the fair that ranked second.

Almost 40 years later, the fair continued to thrive. In a 1993 addendum to “History of the Atlantic District Fairground Association Incorporated … A.D. 1919 – A.D. 1991” wrote author Clarence Newsome, vice president of the association. “The 1993 episode of the Atlantic District Fair … was one of the most auspicious events in the recent history of the association.”

Paid attendance totaled nearly 8,000 people.

If 1993 was an auspicious year, there were storm clouds gathering.

“The population of the area started declining. A lot of the people active in the fair were business people. In the 70s,” Jones explained to Coastal Review. “We weren’t creating new retailers. We weren’t creating any more stores and business people and business people know how to run things.”

The population of Hertford County and Ahoskie have been in decline for more than 50 years, but the past 10 years have seen some of the more significant declines. From a population of almost 25,000 in the county in the 2010 census, the population is now estimated at less than 20,000. Ahoskie’s downtown district, which was at one time a thriving railroad transportation hub, reflects the broader changes seen countywide.

The entire downtown is a historic district, architecturally seemingly frozen in time between 1900 and 1940.

“The range of architectural styles found in Ahoskie is limited due to the relatively short period of the most of the town’s development,” wrote the North Carolina Department of Cultural Resources in documents creating an Ahoskie Historic District.

Today, however the downtown is almost entirely deserted, many of the buildings empty and in disrepair. Not all of them though. Toward the west side of town, The Sweets on Main opened in May after renovating a 1948 building that had once housed a doctor’s office. The watermelon sorbet was perfect on a hot summer day, according to this reporter.

Yet even if there are a few businesses trying to bring the downtown back, Jones isn’t sure if there is enough of the same spirit that had once created a bustling, viable downtown Ahoskie.

“I don’t know if I see a new generation of leaders,” Jones said. “In the late 60s, 70s and up, we were trying to hang on to what our parents and grandparents…had passed down to us, but we don’t see a generation behind us that’s going to bolster what we’re doing.”

This story has been updated. A previous version misidentified the date of the harness racing photo.

Of the more than $265 million that will go to fund 99 drinking water and wastewater infrastructure projects in 45 counties, about $60 million will go to the coast, the governor’s office announced last Friday.

“When we invest in our infrastructure, we build a stronger and safer state for every North Carolinian,” Gov. Josh Stein stated in a release. “This funding will help ensure more North Carolinians have access to safe and clean drinking water and will strengthen our communities for decades to come.”

The awards that are to fund projects include $500,000 to Nags Head to finance repairs and replacements for about 400 malfunctioning residential septic systems. This is the first award from the Decentralized Wastewater Treatment System Pilot Program.

“We’re excited to be the first recipient of funding from the NC Department of Environmental Quality’s Decentralized Wastewater Treatment System Pilot Program,” officials said on social media. “This funding aligns with our Todd D. Krafft Septic Health Initiative, which has helped Nags Head residents maintain their septic systems for over 20 years. By offering free septic inspections, low-interest pump-out loans, and financial assistance for system repairs, this initiative plays a vital role in protecting our water quality.”

New Hanover County will receive $3 million in funding to install 1.3 miles of water lines and connect 50 occupied residential units to the water system.

Cape Fear Public Utility Authority, also in New Hanover County, will receive $35 million for the ongoing southside wastewater treatment plant replacement project.

Opened in 1972, “much of the Southside Plant’s infrastructure is nearing the end of its useful life,” according to the the public utility that provides drinking water for the Wilmington area and New Hanover County.

This is the fourth low-interest loan of $35 million the utility has been approved for through the state since summer 2023, totaling $140 million. The project is expected to be around $450 million, according to the utility’s website.

River Bend in Craven County will receive $10.4 million to complete improvements to water treatment systems and water supply wells.

Murfreesboro in Hertford County will receive $3.8 for townwide lift station improvements.

Plymouth will receive close to $2.5 million to inventory and replace lead and copper service lines, and $1.87 million for lift station improvements.

Bay River Metropolitan Sewage District in Pamlico County will receive $2.6 million for wastewater treatment plant Improvements.

Elizabeth City will receive $300,000 for sewer and water management plan updates.

Askewville, First Craven Sanitary District, Windsor and Winfall will each receive $150,000 for asset and inventory assessment projects.

The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Water Infrastructure reviewed 203 eligible applications, totaling a request of $1.63 billion. The State Water Infrastructure Authority approved the awards during its Feb. 19 meeting. 

“Every family expects and deserves clean water when they turn on the tap,” NCDEQ Secretary Reid Wilson said in the release. “These investments will provide critical infrastructure to help improve public health and quality of life for North Carolinians in communities large and small across our state.” 

Funding came from the drinking water and clean water state revolving loan funds, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law Emerging Contaminants funds, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law Lead Service Line Replacement fund, the Drinking Water and Wastewater State Reserves, the Viable Utilities Reserve, and the Community Development Block Grant-Infrastructure program.

The State Water Infrastructure Authority is an independent body with primary responsibility for awarding federal and state funding for water infrastructure projects.

Update Feb. 20: The dedication ceremony scheduled for Saturday, Feb. 22, has been postponed due to inclement weather.

A grassroots civil rights attorney from Hertford County is being recognized by the North Carolina Highway Historical Marker Program.

The marker commemorating the late James Robert Walker Jr. is to be installed at the intersection of U.S. Highway 13 and N.C. Highway 42 in Ahoskie. The dedication ceremony is scheduled for 1 p.m. Saturday, Feb. 22, at the New Ahoskie Missionary Baptist Church, 410 West Hayes St., Ahoskie.

The Highway Historical Marker Program is a collaboration between the North Carolina departments of Natural and Cultural Resources and Transportation.

The first of eight children, Walker was born in 1924 and died in 1997. He was reared in Ahoskie in a family of educators with advanced degrees and the grandson of a preacher.

He served in World War II and, after being honorably discharged from the U.S. Army, he earned his bachelor’s degree from North Carolina College, now North Carolina Central University, according to a press release.

He was the first of two Black graduates from any program at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill, graduating from its law school in 1952. He returned to northeastern North Carolina where he fought for voting rights in Halifax, Northampton, Warren, Bertie, Hertford and Gates counties.

Walker was the principal organizer and president of the Eastern Council on Community Affairs. The organization advocated for Black representation in local and state governing bodies, including town councils and state legislatures, and opposed bills for school separation or segregation, the press release continues.

Walker became the first Black member of UNC Chapel Hill’s Dialectic and Philanthropic Societies, the school’s debating and literacy society, and the oldest student organization on the campus.

The state’s NAACP also recognized him with its Distinguished Service Award for his efforts in civil rights. In 1961, he was the keynote speaker for the National Lawyers Guild in Detroit, Michigan, and in 1978, was named Lawyer of the Year by the same organization.

The Meherrin Tribe that settled in northeastern North Carolina in the late 1600s is set to be recognized with a historical highway marker.

The North Carolina Highway Historical Marker dedication ceremony is planned for 1 p.m. Saturday, Oct. 5, at the Meherrin Tribal Grounds between Ahoskie and Murfreesboro.

The Meherrin, whose traditional name Kauwets’a·ka means “People of the Water,” was formally recognized by the North Carolina government in 1986, the state’s Department of Natural and Cultural Resources announced Monday.

The marker is one of nine being dedicated this year that highlights American Indian culture and history in North Carolina. Historical markers were approved for the Coharie, Haliwa-Saponi, Lumbee, Meherrin, Occaneechi Band of the Saponi, Sappony and Waccamaw Siouan tribes. Historical markers were approved for the East Carolina Indian School and the Buie Mound sites, as well.

The North Carolina American Indian Heritage Commission staff worked closely with tribes in the state to complete the applications to be considered historical marker program, organizers said.

The Meherrin Tribe was first documented by in 1650 English merchant and explorer Sir Edward Bland, who visited the Meherrin village of Cowonchahawkon near present-day Emporia, Virginia. In the years that followed, European settlements began to encroach on native peoples, including the Meherrin, forcing them to move to other parts of Virginia. In 1691, they moved to present-day North Carolina where their tribal territories are found in Hertford, Bertie, Northampton and Gates counties.

A new Pleasant Plains Indian School was built in Hertford County in 1920 to replace the original school built in 1866. It was the second Rosenwald-funded school in the county. The school closed in 1949 and was converted into a community center to serve Indian and mixed families in 1950.

In 1975, Meherrin descendants reorganized the tribe and reclaimed its identity under Chief Wayne Mackanear Brown. They created a modern tribal government, led by a chief and seven elected council members. The tribe holds an annual powwow during the first week of October on the tribal grounds. A more complete history of the Meherrin Tribe can be found at www.meherrinnation.org.

The Highway Historical Marker Program is a collaboration between North Carolina departments of Natural and Cultural Resources and Transportation. For more information visit the website or call 919-814-6625.

The Inner Banks region of North Carolina is home to numerous of the state’s most historic small towns.

Settled early in the 18th century, these communities host famous restaurants, architecturally significant homes, and a wide variety of civic institutions. Some of these places have a reputation that reflects their importance and beauty, with towns such as Edenton and Washington being regionally or even nationally known. On the other hand, there are a number of unsung towns that have not been featured in the New York Times. One of these is Murfreesboro.

This gem on the Meherrin River has attracted civic and educational leaders for the past three centuries and is just as poised for growth today as it was in the colonial period.

Murfreesboro was one of the first areas of North Carolina settled by the British. Its establishment was part of a wave of migration that extended out from the Albemarle Sound region in the early 18th century.

Following the earliest settlements and displacement of Native Americans like the Chowanoac, British settlers continued to seek more land for tobacco. As in Virginia and South Carolina, they moved west, marching across the colony until they reached the falls line in the mid-18th century. In North Carolina, the region closest to the Virginia border was also one of the most prosperous, as its inhabitants could trade with the wealthier Virginians and use their navigable rivers.

One of the rivers that crossed state boundaries was the Meherrin River. Passing through the home of the Meherrin Native Americans, this river provided an outlet to the Chowan River and the Albemarle Sound. Its miles of surrounding fertile farmland gained numerous tobacco plantations throughout the 18th century. By 1707, a small community had formed at a bend on the river.

Murfreesboro was incorporated as a town in 1787 and named for William Murfree, a local landowner and Revolutionary-era politician. The town’s heyday occurred during its first few decades. Architectural historian Catherine Bishir notes that in the early 1800s, the town “enjoyed trade that crowded the streets with wagons bearing produce from as far as the Blue Ridge and brought so many ships to its wharves that ‘one could cross the river on the decks of vessels lying in the stream.’”

The tobacco economy of the Murfreesboro area relied entirely on slavery. The town was a center for plantation agriculture, and enslaved workers constructed its buildings. The proximity of the Virginia border also made Murfreesboro a destination for free African Americans, many of whom were formerly enslaved and had escaped harsher conditions in Virginia. Hertford County, where Murfreesboro is located, had one of the largest populations of free African Americans in the entire state in 1860, according to historian John Hope Franklin.

Murfreesboro still retains a number of buildings from its earliest period as a town. These include nearly a dozen homes built before 1820, as well as at least three homes — Melrose, the Myrick House and the John Wheeler House — built in or around 1805. There is also the William Rea Store, which was built in 1790 and is one of the oldest commercial buildings in the state.

The antebellum period was also the beginning of Murfreesboro’s best-known site. North Carolinians’ zeal for education during the Revolutionary period led to the formation of a number of academies, along with the state university in Chapel Hill.

One of these institutions, Hertford Academy, was established in 1811 in a Murfreesboro home. It was eventually bought by local Baptists and became Chowan Baptist Female Institute, later, in 1910, Chowan College, and in 2006, Chowan University. The institution moved to its present flagship building in 1851. This structure, known as the Columns, is considered an excellent example of Greek Revival architecture and is one of the largest antebellum college buildings in the state.

The Civil War inflicted some damage to Murfreesboro. The town was attacked and looted by Union troops, but it was not burned like Winton, its neighbor to the east. As throughout the South, the war devastated the town’s economy. Tobacco declined in importance for decades. Most importantly, the abolition of slavery erased the forced-labor system upon which the entire region had relied entirely.

Like other towns of the time, Murfreesboro took a middle path as it recovered from the war. It did not embrace — or was not embraced by — industry to the extent that nearby towns such as Ahoskie or Elizabeth City had. Ahoskie, which was formed a century after Murfreesboro, passed the older town in population by the 1910 census. Still, Murfreesboro was eventually able to relax its reliance on cash crops, especially the traditional crop of tobacco. Murfreesboro had become a center for peanut cultivation as well as the home of an iron foundry and manufacturing plant by 1916.

The 20th century in Murfreesboro was defined by the growing importance of both industry and Chowan University. Murfreesboro became the home of Riverside Manufacturing Co., believed to be the world’s largest basket company, in 1927. The plant employed thousands of Murfreesboro residents for the next seven decades.

Outside of baskets, the university is a considerable draw. Chowan College closed for six years in the 1940s, but has prospered since reopening, and it became a four-year institution again in 1992. Chowan graduated a number of its best-known alumni in the late 20th century, including NBA coach Nate McMillan. Chowan counted 1,500 students in 2017, a notable achievement for a town with only about 2,800 full-time residents.

In recent decades, Murfreesboro has remembered its three centuries of history and embraced historic preservation and tourism. The Murfreesboro Historical Association incorporated in 1963 and now owns more than a dozen properties and hosts numerous events and tours each year, most notably a candlelight tour in December.

Murfreesboro is also home to the Brady C. Jefcoat Museum, a nationally known museum dedicated to the sprawling collection of everyday objects, antiques and historic artifacts owned by one man — who happened to have helped build the Memorial Belltower at North Carolina State University and dozens of other Raleigh structures — and displayed in the former high school.

While many small towns in North Carolina have at most one or two historic homes open to the public, Murfreesboro Historical Association James Moore credits the town’s commitment to sharing its history and preserving and promoting the college and the town since 2000. It has become a bedroom community to much larger, more bustling areas nearby. As Moore noted, “You can be in downtown Norfolk in an hour.” And as people continue to move to Murfreesboro, the community bolsters the historical association and provides it with the donations and interest needed to continue its work.

Today, Murfreesboro has carved its niche as a center of both education and tourism in the Inner Banks. It remains the second-largest town in Hertford County and continues to welcome new businesses such as restaurants, tattoo parlors, and recently a “barcade,” Insert Coin Arcade and Bar.

More people visit the town’s museums every year, and the Historical Association says it has the potential to expand its offerings and tours even further. Murfreesboro may not be the size of New Bern or have the prominence of Edenton, but it shows that the past — and historic preservation — can still be the future for North Carolina’s smaller coastal towns.

Several coastal residents have been appointed to state boards and commissions, and one government official to the North Carolina State Ports Authority, Gov. Roy Cooper’s office announced Monday.

Clean Energy Economic Development Assistant Secretary Jennifer Mundt of Raleigh has been selected as a member at-large to the ports authority board of directors.

Mundt, whose office is part of the North Carolina Department of Commerce, represents the state in the Southeast and Mid-Atlantic Regional Transformative Partnership for Offshore Wind Energy Resources and the Federal-State Offshore Wind Implementation Partnership.

Alfred L. Hobgood IV of Atlantic Beach has been appointed to the Marine Fisheries Commission as a person actively engaged in recreational sports fishing in coastal waters in North Carolina. Hobgood is the senior vice president and financial adviser at Hobgood Peatross Investment Group of RBC Wealth Management. He has over 24 years of financial services experience.

Joy B. Futrell of Ahoskie has been appointed a director of a local management entity of mental health, developmental disabilities and substance abuse services for North Carolina Brain Injury Advisory Council. Futrell is the CEO of Trillium Health Resources, and former CEO of Roanoke-Chowan Human Services.

Mary Beth Newns of Currituck has been appointed as a representative of emergency managers for North Carolina Emergency Response Commission. Newns is the emergency management director for Currituck County, where she has worked for 22 years.

Benjamin F. Bobzien of Rocky Point has been appointed to the North Carolina Local Governmental Employees’ Retirement System Board of Trustees as an active or retired member of the Firemen’s and Rescue Squad Workers’ Pension Fund. Bobzien is a fire captain with New Hanover County Fire Rescue and has over 24 years of experience in fire service.

Charles Herty Piner III of Morehead City has been appointed to the Morehead City Navigation and Pilotage Commission as a representative of maritime interests. Piner retired after over 20 years as a quality assurance specialist for the North Carolina State Ferry Division. Piner has an extensive career as a tug master and docking pilot at the Morehead City Port.

Visit the governor’s website for a full list of appointments.

A wood pellet production facility in Ahoskie has to install new air pollution control devices to reduce pollutant emissions under a newly issued modified air quality permit.

Under the newly modified permit, Enviva Pellets’ flagship plant in Hertford County must install a regenerative thermal oxidizer and a regenerative catalytic/thermal oxidizer to cut volatile organic compounds, or VOC, and hazardous air pollutants, or HAP, emissions.

A thermal oxidizer creates heat that converts emissions into carbon dioxide and water.

The N.C. Department of Environmental Quality said Thursday that the permit modifications will reduce emissions of nitrogen oxides and particular matter, including fine particulate matter.

The Title V permit allows the plant to increase its pellet production from 481,000 oven dried tons to 630,000 oven dried tons per year and the production of softwood pellets to a maximum of 100%, according to a DEQ news release.

Enviva Pellets Ahoskie began manufacturing pellets in November 2011 and it has been considered a major source under the Prevention of Significant Deterioration program, one established by Congress to prevent significant environmental impacts on regions where air quality meets the protective health standards under the Clean Air Act.

After the controls are installed and tested, the company will be a minor source under the program. The permit restricts the facility’s VOC emissions to less than 250 tons per year and hazardous air pollutant emissions to less than 10 tons per year.

The facility will be required to conduct stack testing if monthly softwood content or the production rate increases by more than 10%.

The permit updates follow a public hearing and comment period held last year on a draft permit for the facility.

Under the modified permit, the plant must submit a new fugitive dust plan to the Division of Air Quality within 90 days of installing new control devices to show how it will maintain and operate equipment while preventing dust from drifting beyond the property’s boundaries.

Residents concerned about dust at Enviva Pellets Ahoskie should contact the division’s Washington Regional Office at 252-946-6481.

Enviva Pellets Ahoskie operates 24/7 and has a production capacity of about 410,00 metric tons, according to the company’s website.

The final permit and other documents related to the permit are available online.

The state has put on hold final action on a controversial draft air quality permit for Enviva’s Ahoskie Plant to increase its wood pellet production by more than 30%.

Enviva submitted the request to increase its output from 481,800 oven dried tons to 630,000 oven dried tons per year in August 2020. The draft permit went before the public in July of this year.

The deadline for action on the air quality permit was Nov. 28, but after hearing concerns, particularly about air pollutants from the plant and its location in the economically distressed Hertford County, from the public and the DEQ Secretary’s Environmental Justice and Equity Board, Division of Air Quality officials said the deadline no longer applies. 

No final action had been taken as of Monday, Dec. 5, Shawn Taylor, public information officer for the division, told Coastal Review.

“In response to questions raised by the board, DAQ determined that our rules did not require final action by Nov. 28, as we had earlier stated,” Taylor explained. He continued that the division is considering the concerns raised during the specially called environmental justice board meeting held Nov. 17 in Raleigh before taking final action.

“DEQ appreciates the Environmental Justice and Equity Advisory Board’s attention to this issue and the board providing an additional forum where community voices can be heard,” he continued. “Through its permitting and compliance programs, the Division of Air Quality has required significant reductions of dust and other air pollution emissions from all the Enviva Pellets facilities in North Carolina. The Division will continue to use permitting and non-permitting methods to address concerns raised by residents in Ahoskie and other communities near these facilities.”

The division first permitted Enviva Pellets, LLC – Ahoskie Plant in 2010 and it began manufacturing in November 2011. The plant in Hertford County is one of four Enviva plants in the state with the others in Sampson, Richmond and Northampton counties. 

All four are designated Tier 1 counties, or economically distressed, by the N.C. Department of Commerce, the board explains in a letter dated Sept. 27 to the Department of Environmental Quality Secretary Elizabeth Biser about the proposed permit.

“Every North Carolina biomass facility is in a community that is at least 25% non-white with slow growing or declining populations and high poverty rates,” the letter continues. Hertford County is home of the Meherrin Tribe and is 60% African American. The census area the facility will be located in is 69% African American. Hertford County has a poverty rate of almost 22%, ranking in the bottom 25% of counties for health outcomes determined by the commerce department, and has a death rate that exceeds the statewide death rate.

Enviva in North Carolina

The state Division of Air Quality received on Aug. 28, 2020, a permit modification request from Enviva to increase production from 481,800 oven dried tons to 630,000 oven dried tons per year at the Ahoskie plant. 

The division requested more information on the Title V renewal with modifications. Enviva submitted an addendum in December 2020. In December 2021, the company submitted a new Title V renewal and modification application to replace the first draft permit with additional proposed changes, Air Quality Division Director Mike Abraczinskas, said during the special meeting.

Abraczinskas explained that each Enviva plant in the state holds Title V permits, required by the Clean Air Act. The permits are legal documents that include pollution control requirements from federal or state regulations that apply to a source, according to the EPA. The federal agency’s regional offices oversee the state programs that issue these permits.

Air pollutants from wood pellet manufacturing include particulate matter emitted from multiple parts of the manufacturing process, as well as volatile organic compounds, toxic air pollutants and hazardous air pollutants, primarily emitted from drying and milling operations. Carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides are released from drying operations, and greenhouse gasses are emitted by pollution controls such as thermal oxidizers that burn other pollutants to destroy them, according to the division.

Abraczinskas said some of the original permits under Title V, or major source, for the facilities were developed in 2010 and began production in 2011. Once facilities began operating and executed some testing required in the initial permits, the division saw that the emissions in some cases were higher than what was anticipated, and were major sources for prevention of significant deterioration and hazardous air pollutants.

“Those emissions being higher caused a problem from our perspective. In some cases, they were not in the right permit. In some cases, they were in direct violation of the permit that we had issued,” he said. Staff pursued a variety of enforcement actions for the four facilities to get the right permit and install proper controls to reduce air pollution at the sites. 

After a settlement with Enviva in 2019, facilities were required to apply for and install equipment to control emissions. After the new controls are installed as scheduled in their permits, each facility will be minor sources under the state prevention of significant deterioration permitting program or below major sources for hazardous air pollutants thresholds.

Because the division required Enviva to install more stringent controls to reduce emissions of volatile organic compounds, hazardous air pollutants and particulate matter, emissions have declined even as production increased, Abraczinskas said. The facilities requested production increases in most cases. 

Most recently, the division drafted a modified air quality permit for Enviva Ahoskie, the last plant of the four undergoing adjustments necessary to address compliance, Abraczinskas explained. The draft permit would require the facility to install the same pollution control devices already required at the other three Enviva facilities in the state.

Abraczinskas said when the draft permit went to public comment July 13, the division began an outreach effort in collaboration with the DEQ’s environmental justice team, including the public hearing in Ahoskie Aug. 16, public notices, and community outreach.

As a result of the public input process, Abraczinskas said the division made some changes to the draft permits, including a requirement to update the fugitive dust plan to develop strategies to control fugitive dust emissions from all new sources. The division also added hydrogen chloride stack testing requirements for hazardous air pollutant emissions and conditions to limit hazardous air pollutant emissions. Also, the plant will be required to test during the construction phase of the project.

These changes were made to the draft permit before the start of EPA’s 45-day review period Sept. 29. EPA had no further comments in its Nov. 9 response, Abraczinskas said.

“I’ll emphasize no final action has been taken at this time. But after updating the draft permit based on the recommendations from both the hearing officers report and all the comments received during the comment period, and after EPA’s 45-day review, which just concluded with a response of no further comments or concerns with the draft permit,” he said.

The division’s engagement with facilities like Enviva don’t end when the permit is issued, but is the beginning, he explained. The division makes unannounced inspections of these types of facilities every year, which he said is more frequent than what EPA requires. The permit also requires the facilities submit reports for staff to make sure data is in line with monitoring parameters and metrics in the permit. 

Abraczinskas explained that for noise complaints, the division does not have the authority to put anything in the air quality permit for those but they do see what ordinances exist in the area to include in the response. 

Community voices 

Dr. Ruby Bell, a Sampson County resident, presented to the board on behalf of The Impacted Communities Against Wood Pellets Coalition.

The coalition is a group of residents impacted by the pollution, dust, noise and forest destruction of the biomass wood pellet industry, and the forest protection and environmental justice organization, Dogwood Alliance, she said. Coalition members have been studying the impacts of the wood pellet industry since the first plant opened in Ahoskie in 2011.

The wood pellets industry does not advance North Carolina’s clean energy economy, “Yet NCDEQ has continued to approve permits to expand wood pellet production in North Carolina. Enviva has received nearly $10 million dollars in subsidies in North Carolina,” Bell said.

The current Enviva permit application under consideration for the Ahoskie plant requires the installation of air pollution controls, but is also allowing the plant to greatly expand production, “resulting in more dust pollution, foot traffic, forest destruction and the increase of some harmful toxins.”

Enviva should install these air controls at Ahoskie, but their request for expansion warrants further consideration, Bell explained before sharing with the board the coalition’s eight recommendations, beginning with denying Enviva’s permit to expand production at the Ahoskie plant, and require them to install pollution controls.

Other recommendations include requiring Enviva to install fugitive dust plans at all facilities and strengthen their existing fugitive dust plan in Ahoskie, install air quality monitoring within a quarter-mile of the facility, install continuous emissions monitoring to capture fluctuations in emissions, and acknowledge and measure the greenhouse gas emissions of industrial logging and the wood pellet industry in the state. 

Additionally, the coalition recommends addressing noise pollution through limiting Enviva’s nighttime operations and/or coordinating with local towns to address noise ordinance violations. 

DEQ should recognize their obligation under Title VI of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 to consider disproportionate impacts, and deny permits such as this one that adversely impact communities of color and require Enviva to consult with the Meherrin Tribe prior to any issuance of a permit for expansion, Bell said.

La’Meshia Whittington, a member of the advisory board and the North Carolina Black Alliance deputy director of programs, said, “We have to understand that Tier 1 counties have been the target communities by which these corporations.”

The counties are chosen for the natural resources that many community leaders work to maintain and protect, “but also because it’s economically distressed, meaning that that community and its local leaders are going to choose a corporation because it’s the promise of jobs, even though, unfortunately, it comes with health disparities that our community members don’t deserve,” she continued. 

The Department of Commerce ranks health impacts and health factors annually in addition to economic distress. The two different ranking systems provide the measure of overall current health and health outcomes of each county. The 2022 health factors and health outcomes have the four counties where Enviva plants are ranked in the bottom 50 for both systems.

“We have to understand when assessing environmental justice communities, cumulative impact means that if your environment is contaminated, it leads to diseases and cancers you wouldn’t have had,” she said.

An extensive body of scientific evidence shows that long- and short-term exposure to fine particulate pollution, also known as fine particulate matter, can cause premature death, harmful effects in the cardiovascular system, including increased hospital admissions and emergency department visits for heart attacks and strokes, and links to respiratory effects like asthma attacks, Whittington explained.

Major pollutants in Hertford County include nitrogen oxide, carbon dioxide and carbon monoxide. Carbon monoxide exposure can lead to serious tissue damage, nitrogen oxide exposure can lead to respiratory infections and asthma, and sulfur dioxide is causing an increased risk of hospital admissions or emergency room visits.

She said she acknowledges that the reality is there are policies and red tape that prevent state departments from being able to engage with the permitting process beyond what they’re doing. 

She recommends engaging with local elected leaders and asking how long the industry is committed to staying in the area and providing jobs, because wood pellets are not a long-term industry. Rather it’s a short-term industry subject to international market demand. 

Enviva response

Enviva provided the following email response Monday to a request for comment:

“At Enviva, we understand being a successful business includes more than providing well-paid jobs and creating a positive economic impact; it entails being an integral part of the communities we call home and demonstrating environmental leadership, including in the way we operate our facilities and engage with our communities. We invest in our plants and make them the most environmentally controlled facilities in the industry, with best-in-class emissions control technology to minimize any impact from our operations on neighbors and communities.

“We test our facilities regularly with a third-party expert and those test results are made available to the public by the state regulatory agencies, in addition to air monitoring performed in the vicinity of our plants, which all confirm that the air quality in our communities is in compliance with strict environmental laws and regulations, including the U.S. Clean Air Act.   

“As part of our community relations efforts, we engage with our communities in advance of any of plan for new plant construction or expansions as well as in the course of our continued operations, to answer questions and address any concerns from our neighbors while also providing our support to the communities’ needs. We also work closely with state regulatory agencies throughout the entire permitting process to involve broad public participation and educate our communities about our plans, permitting process and operations.

“Specific to Ahoskie: We are currently waiting to receive the Air Quality Permit for our Ahoskie plant following a thorough review by North Carolina’s Department of Environmental Quality (NC DEQ) and the EPA. This permit would authorize us to begin installing and operating additional state-of-the-art emission control equipment—including a regenerative thermal oxidizer (RTO), and a regenerative thermal or catalytic oxidizer (RTO/RCO)—to support the expansion of our plant.”

This post has been updated, statement from Enviva added.

A wood pellet manufacturing plant in Hertford County has submitted a draft permit asking to increase production.

Plant officials want to increase production from 481,800 oven-dried tons to 630,000 oven-dried tons.

The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Air Quality is to hold an an in-person public hearing 6 p.m. Aug. 16 on the request and others in the draft Title V air permit renewal for Enviva Pellets Ahoskie plant.

The meeting is to take place in Roanoke-Chowan Community College gymnasium, New Student Services Center, Room 101, 109 Community College Road, Ahoskie.

Title V permits are to comply with permitting requirements under Title V of the federal Clean Air Act Amendments of 1990.

In addition to increasing pellet production, the proposed permit requires the installation of air pollution control equipment and operational limits to reduce emissions of volatile organic compounds, or VOC, and total hazardous air pollutants, or HAP. To reduce volatile organic compounds and hazardous air pollutants emissions, the draft permit would require the facility to install a regenerative thermal oxidizer and a regenerative catalytic/thermal oxidizer.

The draft permit limits the facility’s VOC emissions to less than 250 tons per year and HAP emissions to less than 10 tons per year of any one HAP and less than 25 tons per year for all HAPs combined.

The public is invited to attend the hearing and provide its comments on the proposed action. Signup will be available upon arrival. Oral comments at the hearing should be limited to 3 minutes.

Written comments may also be submitted during the hearing or by email to DAQ.publiccomments@ncdenr.gov with the subject line “Enviva Ahoskie.20B.” Comments can be left by voicemail at 919-707-8430.

The public comment period ends at 5 p.m. Friday, Aug. 19. Division officials said all public comments will be considered before a final decision on the proposed permit is made.

Enviva communications team provided July 14 the following comment to Coastal Review:

“In consultation with the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality (NC DEQ), Enviva submitted a draft Title V permit for our Ahoskie wood pellet production plant to renew the existing air permit with modifications to enhance the plant in terms of efficiency, environmental performance, and production. A major highlight to the permit application is to install additional state of the art air quality control equipment to further reduce emissions. The requested expansion permit would bring total permitted production capacity to 630,000 oven dry tons of pellets per year, up from the current permitted 481,800 oven dry tons of pellets per year. Enviva will install the new air quality controls before being allowed to pursue the higher level of production.

“This type of investment of capital and our company’s resource allocation demonstrates our strong environmental and compliance leadership in the industry, as the world’s largest wood pellet manufacturer. It is also representative of our company’s core values of caring for our people and forests, accountability, and integrity.”

Copies of all data and the application submitted by Enviva Pellets, LLC – Ahoskie Plant are available for public inspection on the DAQ website or in person by appointment only at NC DEQ Division of Air Quality, Air Permits Section, 217 West Jones St., Suite 4000, Raleigh, or Washington Regional Office, 943 Washington Square Mall, Washington.

Bertie and Hertford counties are among the 19 rural communities chosen for a new, state-led initiative to help increase planning, implementing and managing economic development programs and opportunities. 

The Rural Community Capacity, or RC2, program, is a pilot effort by the North Carolina Commerce Department involving Appalachian State University’s Walker College of Business, the state announced last week.

The first group of participants were welcomed May 24 in Boone.

“As we build on North Carolina’s economic development success, we must make sure that success is shared among both urban and rural communities across our state,” Gov. Roy Cooper said in a statement. “This program will strengthen the ability of local governments in rural communities to secure major economic projects and bolster North Carolina’s economy.”

The RC2 program, part of the Department of Commerce’s broader Rural Transformation Grant program, provides educational programming, technical assistance and guidance to local government staff in rural and distressed communities. 

Funding can go to downtowns impacted by the pandemic, removal and remediation of environmental contaminants or hazards from vacant or abandoned properties by the public sector and cleanups of vacant lots.

“Our rural communities can become stronger and more vibrant places to live and work, but to reach that goal we must build up local governments’ capacity to plan and execute proven economic development strategies,” said North Carolina Commerce Secretary Machelle Baker Sanders. “This new program, part of Commerce’s efforts to transform rural economies, will equip local governments and their staffs with the education, technical assistance, and implementation grants they need to succeed.”

As part of the RC2 process, communities have access to the Commerce Department’s rural planning team for additional training and technical assistance, including a strategic planning process focused on identifying economic development assets and priorities that are specific to each community.

Communities that complete the RC2 campus curriculum and participate in the rural planning process will then be eligible to apply for Community Implementation Grants offered by the Rural Economic Development Division through the new Rural Transformation Grant Fund.

“Success in economic development takes intentional preparation,” said Assistant Secretary for Rural Development Kenny Flowers. “We know the approaches that work well and lay the groundwork for success, and we’re excited to share these best practices with more local government officials.”

Other communities participating in the program include Martin County and the towns of Archdale, Carthage, China Grove, East Spencer, Garysburg, Hildebran, Jonesville, Liberty, Mars Hill, Marshville, Maysville, Pilot Mountain, Rosman, Spruce Pine, Vass and Wilson’s Mills.

More information about the Rural Transformation Grant Fund and the Rural Community Capacity initiative is available at nccommerce.com/transform.

Part of a history series examining each of North Carolina’s 20 coastal counties.

The region around the Albemarle Sound was the first part of North Carolina to be settled by Europeans, but they quickly expanded outside of that region and moved on to both the south and the west.

One area they quickly settled in, later named Hertford County, gained an identity all its own over the next three centuries. Although it is small and still mostly rural, Hertford County remains one of the most vibrant, successful counties in the otherwise economically challenged region of northeastern North Carolina.

The area that became Hertford County, home to the Chowanoke and later Meherrin Native Americans, was an early frontier for the colony of North Carolina. It was settled by Virginians moving south and North Carolinians moving west once they started to exhaust the most fertile land east of the Chowan River.

The first European land grants in the area date from 1710. Hertford County was formed in 1759 from sections of Bertie, Chowan and Northampton counties. According to the Colonial Records of North Carolina, the county was formed because the large size of existing counties “render[ed] it grievous and burthensome to many of the Inhabitants thereof to attend the Courts of Justice, and other Public Meetings appointed therein.”

The county was named after Francis Seymour Conway, Marquis of Hertford, whom David Leroy Corbitt described as a nobleman and soldier.

Hertford County grew prosperous during the antebellum period. It was a rural county, focused on tobacco and corn cultivation. Two navigable rivers, the Chowan and Meherrin, connected the county to Virginia. Residents used the rivers to send their produce downstream and also receive goods from southside Virginia. Where bridges were not an option, they used ferries. One of the last cable ferries in North Carolina, Parker’s Ferry over the Meherrin River, was still operational as of 2020.

The county’s wealth was produced using the work of enslaved and free African Americans. Hertford County had the ninth largest percentage of slaves in the state according to the 1860 Hergesheimer map compiled by Edwin Hergesheimer using information from the 1860 census to show the distribution of the enslaved population of the southern states. That proportion, 53%, was more than every other county north of the Albemarle Sound, except for Bertie at 58.6% and Chowan at 55.5%.

The county’s wealth enabled the construction of stately homes throughout Hertford, most notably in the town of Murfreesboro. Several of these homes still stand today, including Melrose built in 1805 and the Freeman House built in 1810. Murfreesboro grew along with the county seat of Winton, incorporated in 1766.

The courthouse in Winton was burned in 1862 and rebuilt in 1875. That historic structure was torn down in 1955 and replaced with the modernist building currently located on Justice Drive.

One of the most well-known institutions in the county, Chowan University, began during the antebellum period. It started as Chowan Baptist Female Institute in 1848 and became coeducational in 1931.

The hallmark of the school in the antebellum period and today is the McDowell Columns building. Catherine Bishir and Michael T. Southern, in “A Guide to the Historic Architecture of North Carolina,” described the Columns building as a massive one whose size is emphasized by eight fluted columns and a sizable cupola on top.

The Civil War devastated Hertford County more than many other counties in the Albemarle region. Winton became the first town in North Carolina to be burned by the Union.

In February 1862, Union troops under Ambrose Burnside led an expedition to the Wilmington and Weldon Railroad and, after facing stiff resistance from the town, set it ablaze. According to the North Carolina Highway Historic Marker Program, the act was controversial and set a precedent for later examples of “total war” throughout the next three years.

Following the war, Hertford County had to change its economic model. Slavery was over. There were few financial resources and no sizable towns. As in much of the Albemarle region, tobacco was no longer profitable. The county responded by turning to peanut cultivation and truck farming throughout its rural areas. Residents also embraced industry more than surrounding counties such as Gates or Bertie.

The town of Ahoskie, incorporated in 1893, became a site of industry for the county. Ahoskie grew up as a stop on the Norfolk and Carolina Railroad. It housed a basket factory and a sawmill that employed 100 employees in the early 1900s as noted in the historic register nomination for the Ahoskie Historic District.

The 20th century in Hertford County was defined by a shift in growth toward Ahoskie. This town currently has about 4,800 residents, more than any town north of the Albemarle Sound except Elizabeth City. Murfreesboro also grew along with Chowan College.

The 19th and 20th centuries saw many famous residents of the county and its college.

Notable people from Hertford County include diplomat John H. Wheeler, tennis pioneer Julian Myrick, and Richard Gatling, inventor of the Gatling gun, who was born in the small town of Como.

As for Chowan University, the most famous alumnus of the college is Nate McMillan, longtime NBA player and coach of the Atlanta Hawks.

There was also Donald Strehle Whitehead, an Idaho lieutenant governor who became briefly famous for seeing a UFO in 1947.

Hertford County’s earlier shift toward industry has made it more economically resilient than some of its neighbors to the east. It still has industry in the form of steel, aluminum and plastic factories as reported by the Ahoskie Chamber of Commerce website.

The county’s position on the border with Virginia has brought it close to the growing Suffolk area. Hertford County also has the potential to grow with Chowan University, with the placement of a university being a major indicator of small-town success in the 21st century. As author Alana Semuels wrote in The Atlantic in 2017, “college campuses and educational institutions can bolster the economies of small towns that otherwise would be struggling.” 

In many ways, Hertford County is well poised to use its land and university to help continue the mix of agricultural and small-town growth that has characterized it for the past two centuries.

Sometime this summer, there is to be a new highway marker placed at the New Ahoskie Baptist Church in Ahoskie.

The marker, part of North Carolina’s Civil Rights Trail program, is to read, “New Ahoskie Baptist Church in Ahoskie, North Carolina, where church members led 1960s civil rights efforts. Their word expanded access to public offices, resources, and employment.”

Two short sentences that hint of a time of turmoil, fear and change. And it was not just in Ahoskie. The call for equality, for voting rights, for equal access to schools, jobs and medicine swept across northeastern North Carolina, forcing change upon a society that had been inexorably stripping Black Americans of basic rights for more than 90 years.

The North Carolina Civil Rights Trail is an initiative of the African American Heritage Commission, a division of the North Carolina Department of Natural and Cultural Resources. Plans call for 50 highway markers to be placed between now and 2023 in counties throughout the state, “highlighting and acknowledging tireless civil rights efforts that are well known and, in some cases, unsung,” according to the African American Heritage Commission website. The commission partnered with the North Carolina Office of Archives & History and Visit NC for the marker program.

The New Ahoskie Baptist Church has been at the center of the Black American community in the Hertford County town since it opened its doors in 1866. When the Rev. Dr. John L. Scott arrived in 1963, he arrived just in time to dedicate the new building the parishioners had built and paid for, but that is a small part of his legacy.

Scott had just graduated from Crozer Theological Seminary near Chester, Pennsylvania, but he had grown up in Roanoke Rapids in Halifax County, just to the west of Hertford County. Even during his time in the seminary, he had already been active in the area. In December 1962, the Rev. Martin Luther King spoke at the Edenton Armory within 50 miles of Ahoskie. Scott was there as King’s plane landed outside Elizabeth City.

“King flew in from Rocky Mount in a single-engine plane out on an unlit running strip where we were asked to put our cars together, opposite each other on either side to light up the runway, so that the airplane could see how to land. I said to myself, ‘My God almighty. What nerve.’ Because he got off that plane, wasn’t shaking a bit. I’d have been scared to death,” Scott recently recalled.

And Scott was an important part of King’s appearance at the event.

“I remember being one of the people who introduced him,” he said.

He is now the pastor at St. John’s Baptist Church in Harlem, New York, but when Scott took to the pulpit in Ahoskie, he knew it was time for change.

“When I came, I knew that I would have to be directly involved,” he said. “So, I hit the ground running … on fire.”

Ethel Tyree, now 88, recalled the first steps Scott took to force the change that was needed.

“He and all of his members, I got to give credit to his deacons and all of those who went to the Ahoskie Chamber of Commerce and told them if they did not hire some Black folks, we were going to take our trade other places,” she said. “My husband was in that group and his name was Gerald Edward Tyree.”

Local merchants were being challenged throughout the small towns of northeastern North Carolina. The stores were willing to sell clothes, shoes and hats to their Black clientele, but trying on the clothes was prohibited.

Norm Brinkley, whose father was the first head of the Edenton Chapter of the NAACP, remembers what shopping was like.

“We had to catch the bus to go get clothes from Norfolk (Virginia) because they wouldn’t let you try it on, the clothes. You bought it, you had it,” he said recently.

There were other restrictions as well, and a childhood memory of one of them may have contributed to Scott’s activism.

“I remember walking down Main Street in Roanoke Rapids (as a boy). At that time, Gene Autry and Dale Evans were very popular, and I wanted to go to the movies. And my father said to me we couldn’t go. I wanted to know how come I couldn’t go. He said ‘because we have color. We are not allowed to go.’ So I told him, ‘Daddy when I become a big boy, I’m going to do everything in my power to break it up,’” he recalled.

In Edenton, Golden Frinks was one of 12 national field secretaries for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and was instrumental in organizing the 1963 March on Washington. But if Frinks’ footprint was national, his activity was local.

“Mr. Frinks started to group young people to march and make a difference and just decry segregation,” said Emma Bonner, who has a doctorate in education. “We were not allowed to go to the movies unless we sat in the balcony, and they did not allow us to go in the drugstore and sit down. All of that I experienced.”

And so, they marched.

“I was one of the ones marching to open up the movie and then stop segregation,” she said.

And they were arrested, often by people who seemed to have less education than the marchers had.

“I was arrested by a policeman who couldn’t even spell the words ‘picketing without a permit,’” she said.

The effects of segregation were felt beyond the streets of the towns, beyond the stores, movie theaters and drugstores.

When the Roanoke-Chowan Hospital opened in 1948 it was segregated, and it was still segregated when Marvin Tupper Jones went in for surgery in 1964.

“I woke up from surgery at 12 years old, in the hallway after appendicitis surgery. And the reason why I woke up in the hall from surgery was, there was no more room in the colored section of the hospital,” he said.

His experience was not unique.

“A year later … my older cousin woke up from surgery in the hallway,” he added.

It may have been the cousin waking up in the hallway that finally triggered the threat of a lawsuit.

“His father is working with Reverend Scott,” he said. What Scott realized was that the hospital was taking federal money for its operations, but federal law prohibited discrimination.

“He told the hospital director that because the hospital is getting federal funds, they can’t discriminate like that, they can’t keep one area separate,” Jones said.

Scott went to see the CEO of the hospital, hoping to avoid filing the suit.

“I said we don’t want to file this suit and everything, but we cannot take this oppression in any longer. He pulled off his glasses and said to me. ‘Preacher, if you think I’m going to injure the health of white people by putting Black folk in their room you got another thought coming.’”

The case proceeded and, as a result, the hospital was desegregated in 1966. After the suit had been settled, Scott got a phone call from the hospital’s CEO.

“‘Thank you,’” Scott was told. “‘By God, you had to do it. And I’m glad you made us do it, because if I’d have voluntarily done it on my own, they would have run me out of town.’”

While a court order could force the hospital to desegregate, not even a Supreme Court decision seemed to move local school districts to integrate their schools. It was not until 1970 that the schools were fully integrated.

The 1954 Supreme Court decision Brown v. Board of Education of Topeka held that separate-but-equal facilities were inherently unequal. For the students growing up in segregated communities, the inherent inequality was readily apparent.

Brinkley played football in high school, and his memory is still vivid of how unfair the system was then.

“In Edenton they had the stadium, and we could play football in the stadium. But they had a dressing room that was paid for by taxes and everything, and we couldn’t even use that,” he said.

For North Carolina schools, integration was a slow process, and in Ahoskie, Ethel Tyree was in the middle of it.

“I can tell you when the school integrated because I worked at the school the summer before. We did not integrate until September of 1970,” she said.

With integration came the skills of the Black educators and opportunities for them. For the Ahoskie schools, what Tyree offered was invaluable. With a degree in history and graduate degrees in library science and education, she brought needed skills to the district when she moved to the high school.

“I was a full-time librarian. I worked at that for 10 years. And then I went to central office, where I was over all of the libraries. Then I was the testing coordinator,” she said.

But the journey to professional accomplishment began when no one dared challenge segregation.

“I was one of the ones who had to get up and move to the back on the bus because I rode the bus back and forth to North Carolina Central from 1952 until 1955,” she said.

Perhaps no battle for equal rights was as difficult as the right to vote. Beginning with the end of reconstruction in the 1870s, North Carolina legislators began creating carefully crafted laws specifically to limit the ability of Blacks to vote.

Blacks faced literacy tests that were not required of white voters, and the tests were arbitrary and changed from place to place.

Dr. Ben Speller, an officer with the Edenton Historical Commission, former first dean of library sciences at North Carolina Central University and whose leadership in preservation is cited as inspiration in creation of the African American Heritage Commission, grew up in Bertie County and remembers what it was like in northeastern North Carolina.

“Over in Bertie they would pick the hardest thing in the Bible, and you would read it, and then they would make you interpret what that meant, and you know the Bible can wind you up if you’ve not read it right,” he said.

Scott has memories of that time as well.

“They would ask us how many bubbles were in a bar of soap. I mean, ludicrous … It had no intelligence in it at all. It was all a means of suppression,” he said.

When the Voting Acts Right of 1965 was passed, it opened the door for participation, but participation called for education, telling people how to register and where to vote, and Scott was motivated to get out the vote.

“George Wallace was running for president. And they had a big sign there that said George Wallace for President,” he said. “That’s why I led that voter education campaign. We met about 15 churches a week. I wasn’t married at the time, so I was free to get about … and fortunately George Wallace did not carry Hertford County.”

The fight for voting rights continues, Scott believes, as states look to limit voting access and early voting.

“It is a backward move. It is a repressive move. It is a move to indirectly shackle the Black church,” he said.

Bonner, looking back over her time bringing change to Edenton, agreed.

“Of course, it’s an ongoing issue. You know the story of the United States. It is an ongoing issue. They’re trying to suppress voting rights, so it is an ongoing issue,” she said.

After being out of service for nearly two years, the Parker’s cable ferry that crosses the Meherrin River in Hertford County went back to work Tuesday.

The only other cable ferries in the state are the San Souci Ferry that crosses the Cashie River in Bertie County and the Elwell Ferry that crosses the Cape Fear River in Bladen County. The cable ferries carry no more than two vehicles and are guided across the river by cables connected to both shores.

Parker’s Ferry service was suspended in November 2018 for a major overhaul of the vessel, which included a new engine, propulsion system and hydraulics, as well as a complete refurbishment of the vessel’s hull, said North Carolina Department of Transportation officials Tuesday.

“We’re very pleased to be returning the Parker’s Ferry to service for the people of Hertford County. We’re confident that this recent overhaul will keep this important and historic transportation option in operation for many years to come,” Tim Hass, communications officer for NCDOT, told Coastal Review Online.

NCDOT contracted with Hunt’s Enterprises of Ahoskie to operate the ferry.

The overhaul of the vessel was completed earlier this year, but the Parker’s Ferry’s return to the river was delayed due to budget issues related to COVID-19.

Hertford County commissioners in April passed a resolution requesting funding for ferry operations from the state for the continued operation of Parker’s Ferry transportation services. The resolution states that NCDOT would on June 13 cancel the ferry operations contract, prompting commissioners to respond that the funds lost will have “a particular adverse effect on the economy beyond that of COVID-19.”

The department has operated the ferry since the 1930s, though versions of the ferry have been used to travel across the Meherrin River since the early 1900s.

The Sans Souci Ferry returned to service Aug. 22, which was suspended in June due to COVID 19-related budget issues.

“We are extremely pleased to be returning the Sans Souci ferry to service,” said NCDOT Division One Engineer Sterling Baker in the release. “We know it’s very important to the people of Bertie County, both as a form of transportation and a part of local history.”

The Sans Souci Ferry connects Woodard Road and San Souci Road over the Cashie River in rural Bertie County. Like Parker’s Ferry, NCDOT has operated the ferry since the 1930s. Similar versions of this ferry have been transporting passengers across the Cashie River since the 1800s, according to NCDOT.

Both San Souci and Parker’s ferries were built in the 1970s. The last refurbishments were 12 to 15 years ago.

The Sans Souci Ferry underwent a yearlong overhaul from October 2017 to November 2018 to allow for a complete overhaul and rebuilt the gear house and other accessories on the boat. The total cost of the overhaul was $100,000.

“Sans Souci and Parker’s ferries have become a bit of a tourist attraction in their areas. People actually drive out of their way to take a ride on them. Both Bertie and Hertford counties were fairly adamant about restoring service as soon as possible when they were out of service,” Hass said in an interview.

When asked if there are any plans to replace the two ferries with bridges, Hass explained that “Both the Sans Souci and Parker’s ferries are at the end of unpaved roads, so building a bridge would involve paving roads as well. The daily traffic counts on these roads would not justify the cost of building bridges.”

The Elwell Ferry that transports travelers across the Cape Fear River was suspended in early 2020 after the death of the contractor and has yet to resume service.

Andrew Barksdale, public relations officer for NCDOT, said that earlier this year, around January or February, NCDOT suspended service after the contractor died.

“Before we could advertise for a new bidder, the COVID-19 pandemic hit, and that severely hurt our revenues as a department. By late March, we stopped entering into any new contracts or awarding any new projects that were not mission critical – or an emergency,” he said in an interview. “Thus, we have not yet resumed the Elwell Ferry service.”

Barksdale said the intention is to resume that service sometime in 2021. NCDOT has indicated that the closure will end on Dec. 31 on the traveler information website, but that’s just a placeholder. “We’ll update as soon as we have more information,” he said.

“As an aside, over the past few years, it was operational only about 50% of the time. This was mostly due to high river levels – we’ve had a lot of wet seasons and months over the past few years,” said Barksdale. The Elwell Ferry averaged 25 a day to 70 a day, depending on the time of year.

In 1905, brothers Walter Hayes Russ and John Roland Russ petitioned the Bladen County commissioners to be allowed to operate what’s now the Elwell Ferry, named for an early family in the area, according to the state Department of Cultural Resources.

Before the state took over operation of inland ferries in the 1930s, Elwell ferry was rowed or paddled across the river by the brothers, who were paid by Bladen County. Mules and wagons were the primary passengers until 1916 when motor-powered vehicles came to the county.

The state built larger flats and used cable to pull the vessel. Around 1939, the state installed a gas engine. Three years later, Walter Russ died in an explosion caused by the poorly ventilated fumes igniting in the bilge. Until 1952 the Elwell Ferry was the only river crossing between Wilmington and Elizabethtown, which are 65 miles apart. That year a bridge was built 12 miles from the ferry. Traffic slowed on the ferry but the vessel continues to carry about 60 vessels per day, according to the state.

The inland cable ferries are just one aspect of how COVID-19 budget issues have affected NCDOT.

NCDOT is expecting a $300 million budget shortfall for the fiscal year that ended June 30, and anticipates significant financial impacts in the next fiscal year, according to officials.

NCDOT depends on the Motor Fuels Tax, Highway Use Tax and DMV fees. However, traffic volumes decreased significantly while residents were staying home to prevent the spread of COVID-19. This impacted revenue streams that pay for the transportation system.

In April, NCDOT notified local governments, stakeholders and the public that all but about 50 major projects planned to begin in the next 12 months were delayed because of budget issues. Additionally, the department in April said it was only allowing critical purchases, laying off temporary and embedded consultants, suspending or decreasing programs and services, and had instituted a hiring freeze.

Projects that are funded by Grant Anticipation Revenue Vehicle, or GARVEE, bonds, BUILD NC state transportation bonds and federal grants will move forward.​  NCDOT has also published a list of projects that have schedule changes​.

In May, NCDOT announced that the department fell below the statutorily mandated cash floor of $293 million. The new cash floor was set at $267,322,500 in July under Session Law 2020-91​. According to state law, once the department falls below the cash floor, it can no longer enter into new contracts that spend money on transportation projects.

The Hertford County Board of Commissioners is set to hold a public hearing to consider a proposed moratorium on solar farm development.

The meeting at 9:30 a.m. Monday will be in the commissioners’ chambers, multi-purpose room, second floor of Hertford County Courthouse, 119 Justice Drive, Winton.

“Hertford County citizens have expressed concerns to the county commissioners about the proliferation of solar farms.  So, the commissioners have decided to hold a public hearing to receive comments, before making a decision about whether or not to adopt a moratorium,” David Cotton, county manager, told Coastal Review Online Tuesday.

The April 2020 meeting minutes show that a commissioner suggested that the county regulate solar farms because of complaints with the farms affecting property values. The county attorney advised the board that the county has guidelines in place and if those are followed, solar farms are allowed.

The manager proposing during an Aug. 17 meeting to address solar farms at the Oct. 5 meeting. The public hearing was approved at the Sept. 8 meeting.