NEWPORT — State Rep. Celeste C. Cairns, R-Carteret and Craven, members of the Carteret County Board of Commissioners, county staff, area town officials and project partners broke ground Friday for a new public boat launch in the growing western part of Carteret County.

The ceremonial groundbreaking for the Western Carteret County Boat Launch Facility at 4411 N.C. Highway 24, Newport, has been in the making for a long time, said Commissioner Mark Mansfield, the county board’s vice chairman, at the event. “As you can see, the western part of the county has been deficient in access to the water for quite some time, and this will hopefully enable us, with all the growth that’s going into the western end of the county, provide access to the waterways, which actually helps with the tax base and the property values in this area”

Former Commissioner Robin Comer, who was in office years ago when the project was conceived, was also on hand for the ceremony. He said the launch site is on one of the last available parcels that would facilitate the kind of facility needed in this part of the county where residential development has been rapid.

“This project became so popular — and when I say popular everywhere — everywhere we went to try to round up money for this thing, everybody was on board,” said Comer during his remarks.

Comer said the state provided money, as did the federal government using funding from a Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point program to buffer its nearby auxiliary airfield from residential encroachment. “And everybody wound up, everybody we asked, wound up putting money, time and effort in this thing.”

He said that Emerald Isle businessman Ronnie Watson represented the site’s then-landowner, Steven Stroud.

“If anybody knows Steve, he’s a tough businessman, so a lot of appreciation goes there to (Watson),” said Comer.

Cairns, in her remarks, credited her predecessor, former Rep. Pat McElraft, who served eight consecutive terms ending Jan. 1, 2023, for providing the initial momentum that made the project possible.

“I’m here to celebrate this occasion, that it has finally come to fruition with all the hard work that your county commissioners and my predecessor and others have put into it,” Cairns said. “It’s a wonderful opportunity for folks on the western end of the county to be able to get access to the water. A wonderful collaboration with the Coastal Federation conservation folks. It’s just beautiful all the way around this great project. And I’m just honored, as I can be, to be a part of it today.”

The North Carolina Coastal Federation, which publishes Coastal Review, is developing an abutting parcel for its new Center for Coastal Protection and Restoration being built on Bogue Sound. Construction on that project began in late 2024 and is anticipated to wrap up later this year. The center will share access with the county facility through a common driveway.

County Commissioner David Quinn, who represents the Newport area, expressed how meaningful the boating access is to residents here.

“If you’ve lived in Carteret County, you know that the water isn’t just scenery, it’s part of our daily life. It’s how we relax, it’s how we work, it’s how we make memories with our families,” Quinn said. “Bogue Sound has always been central to who we are, and having safe, dependable access to it matters. That’s exactly what this facility is going to provide for folks who live here year-round and for visitors who come to enjoy the coast. This gives people a safe, convenient place to get on the water. It also helps take pressure off of other boat ramps that have been overcrowded for years.”

Quinn said that with six launch ramps and a transient floating dock, boaters will be able to get in and out more efficiently with less waiting and less congestion, especially during peak season.

“That makes a real difference for families, makes a real difference for fishermen, makes a real difference for anyone that’s trying to enjoy a day out on Bogue Sound without frustration,” he said. “But in Carteret County, access alone isn’t enough. We also understand, if we don’t take care of the waters, then the waters will not take care of us. This project was built with that in mind.”

He explained that the 159-space trailer and vehicle parking lot will help keep vehicles out of sensitive areas. A channel connecting to the Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway was designed to minimize the environmental impact while still proving easy for navigators.

“One of the most important features is the living shoreline,” Quinn noted. “Instead of concrete walls, we’re using natural systems that protect marshes, reduce erosion and preserve submerged vegetation that helps improve water quality and it keeps it healthy for a long time for fishing, for boating and, more importantly, for future generations. This site isn’t just about boats, the nature trails connecting Bogue Sound to the Croatan National Forest will give people another way to experience our outdoors, whether that’s a quiet walk, learning about the marsh, or just slowing down and enjoying where we live.”

He said the partnership with the Coastal Federation was important.

“It shows what can happen when public access and environmental stewardship work together instead of against each other. That kind of cooperation reflects Carteret County values: It’s practical, responsible and rooted in long-term thinking,” Quinn said.

Quinn said that in addition to the expected economic benefits of the facility, the project strengthens our connection to the water and to each other.

“It’s a place where kids learn to fish, neighbors cross paths, families spend time together, making memories together, the same way generations did before us,” said Quinn. “Found here in this body of water is the mind-clearing quiet of nature, and the small sounds of its islands are stark and healing, the squeaky flap of a cormorant’s wings overhead, the sizzle of salt foam over broken shells in a backwashing wave, the clicking of sandfiddler claws as they scuffle in the mud, and the splash of a jumping mullet breaking that flat water.

“My granddaddy was a commercial fisherman on these waters. My daddy was born here. I was raised on Bogue Sound. It isn’t just a place that I love, it’s who I am. I want to see my sons and future generations of Carteret County citizens to enjoy, to protect and to appreciate this beautiful place we call home.”

Nature-based coastal shoreline erosion control structures that successfully attract and grow oysters can better defend shores from waves, according to a study led by East Carolina University researchers.

The study, published late last year in the journal Scientific Reports, found that the more oyster-dense a breakwater designed to recruit and grow those shellfish is, the better that structure is at dissipating waves.

“We actually found that wave attenuation increased or improved as the structures recruited oysters,” said Georgette Tso, a doctoral candidate in ECU’s Integrated Coastal Sciences Program and co-author of the study.

As more and more oysters grow on a surface, their shells building layer by layer, those shells alter that structure’s surface, making that surface rougher and less permeable.

After documenting two seasons of oyster recruitment, researchers found that living shorelines constructed with living oyster breakwaters absorbed wave activity by an increase of 10-15%.

Their findings are based on observations of living shorelines at two private properties along Bogue Sound in Newport in Carteret County.

The structures were installed between May and June 2022 by Native Shorelines, the coastal resiliency division of Davey Resources Group, using concrete-based breakwater systems called QuickReef.

QuickReef is built from materials primarily of natural calcium carbonate formed into concrete slabs. Those slabs are installed to allow water flow and attract oyster larval, which attach to and grow on the structures.

Living shorelines are becoming increasingly attractive for coastal waterfront property owners seeking ways to curb erosion of their land.

“I think there’s been a lot more awareness within coastal North Carolina about living shoreline options as an alternative to a hardened shoreline, like bulkheads or some other vertical structure, which oftentimes actually costs more over time to repair. And, they’re not as resistant to hurricane damage because of that vertical profile,” Tso said.

The benefits of living shorelines, including their resiliency against the effects of rising sea levels, have been documented through research spanning back more than a decade.

But Tso said that there is little data how smaller-scale living shoreline projects like the ones she and her fellow scientists observed for this study actually change the way waves interact with shorelines.

Their observations proved to be “an exciting finding,” Tso said, because they prove what researchers have suspected for some time.

“Oysters grow vertically and they increase the roughness on the surfaces that they grow on. They also can grow within interstitial spaces and reduce porosity in that way. So, we hypothesized that the amount of wave attenuation a structure could provide would increase with the recruitment of live and healthy oyster populations,” she said. “This additional factor that’s not been explored, of it actually improving the wave attenuation potential and reducing the wave energy that hits the back of your shoreline over time, is something that we should communicate more to homeowners because they’ve actually bought into a solution that has increased benefits over time that they may not have anticipated when they first put in the structure.”

And while it’s fair to say the longer these structures recruit oysters the more protection they may offer to a shoreline, Tso said there is one important caveat.

“This is just a two-year study so we’re not capturing the point in time where the oyster population will eventually plateau. The size of the structure and the amount of food available to the oysters in the water is limited, obviously, so the oyster population will eventually plateau. So, though we’ve observed increases in wave attenuation potential, probably it’s going to cap off at some point,” she said.

It is also important to note that oyster recruitment and growth will not be the same at every shoreline.

Shorelines bend and curve, leaving pockets where water does not circulate to deliver oyster larvae.

“What we found is only relevant if your structure can actually recruit oysters, and that’s not true on all North Carolina shorelines,” Tso said. “If you don’t have baby oysters being delivered to your shoreline, you’re not going to be able to recruit oysters. If you’re in a site where that’s not possible then the wave attenuation potential that you have at construction is what you’re going to have. It’s not going to improve because you’re not recruiting oysters.”

Successful oyster larval recruitment and growth also depends on things like water temperature, salinity, and tidal variation.

Tso is in the process of analyzing data researchers collected last summer at more than a dozen QuickReef living shoreline sites. Scientists during that time also revisited their two original study sites, which continued to recruit oysters, Tso said.

The other researchers on this study include Dr. Siddharth Narayan, assistant professor in ECU’s Integrated Coastal Programs, Megan Geesin, a doctoral candidate at ECU, Dr. Matthew Reidenbach, professor and chair of environmental sciences at the University of Virginia, Dr. Jens Figlus with Texas A&M’s Ocean Engineering Department, and Dr. Rachel Gittman, assistant professor with ECU’s Department of Biology.

To get a sense of just how severe Battery Island’s shoreline is changing, look no farther than its trees.

As waves lick away at the fringes of this little island in the middle of the Cape Fear River near Southport, trees rising off its shores are toppling.

“The mature trees that the birds nest in are being lost along the shore,” said Lindsay Addison, coastal biologist with Audubon North Carolina.

Each tree that plops into the river is one fewer on an island that is globally significant for nesting white ibis and home to one of the largest wading bird colonies in North Carolina.

To Battery Island’s east rests Shellbed Island, a large marsh system edged by elevated banks of old oyster shells called shell rakes.

In good condition, these rakes do not flood at high tide or during storms, making them a crucial and rather niche nesting habitat for American oystercatchers.

“The Cape Fear River supports almost 30% of the state’s nesting American oystercatchers. And about half of the American oystercatchers that nest on the Cape Fear River nest in these types of habitats. So, it’s a very important habitat type for American oystercatchers and they are a state listed species,” Addison said.

Like Battery Island, waves have altered Shellbed Island’s edges, where the elevated shell rakes have been flattened out and pushed back into the marsh by coastal storms.

In an effort to protect the threatened bird habitat on these islands, Audubon and its partners, Sandbar Oyster Co. and the North Carolina Coastal Federation, have teamed up to design and install two pilot living shoreline projects and test their effectiveness at protecting the low-lying islands on the river.

The Coastal Federation, which publishes Coastal Review, is contributing $13,800 in cost share for the $51,500 projects. Of the Coastal Federation’s contribution, $5,250 has been set aside for Battery Island and $8,550 for the project at Shellbed Island.

Georgia Busch, a coastal specialist in the Coastal Federation’s Wrightsville Beach office, said these projects, “align with our mission for preservation of critical habitats in our coastal and estuary systems.”

“But, particularly in the lower Cape Fear River, there’s a need for some extra reinforcement of those habitats there. Historically, the birds have used this area for a long, long time and we just want to make sure that stays intact. These sites were chosen for both their exposure and their critical points in the river,” she said.

Battery Island’s shores have for years been battered by waves from large vessels that navigate the river to and from the Port of Wilmington, recreational boats that skim the waters around Southport, and the Bald Head Island ferry.

“What makes Battery Island special for the nesting birds is it’s relatively small, it’s far enough away from the mainland that it doesn’t have any mammalian predators on it, and so that allows this colony to have a lot of success,” Addison said.

There’s also little human disturbance on the island. The island, which is managed by Audubon, is closed to people March 1 to Sept. 15 each year.

A test section of about 70 linear feet of living shoreline will be installed along the roughly 100-acre island’s southwest corner, which has experienced some of the most severe erosion.

A reef constructed of Sandbar Oyster Co.’s Oyster Catcher reef building substrates, which are made with plant-fiber cloth, infused with different cement mixtures, and molded into different shapes to promote sediment accumulation and marsh growth.

The test project at Shellbed Island has been designed to prevent shell rakes from washing away.

Power hurricanes, including Florence in 2018 and Dorian in 2019, pushed the shell rakes back into the marsh and flattened them out. And the oyster reefs that at one time provided an abundance of oyster shell in the river are not as plentiful because of overfishing, pollution and habitat degradation.

“There’s still plenty of spat, larval oysters, in the water, but there isn’t a lot of substrate for them to settle on because oysters typically grow on other oysters,” Addison explained. “When you put in a living shoreline-type of material, or almost any hard substrate, you’ll get oysters recruiting onto it. What we would like to do is to help jumpstart some oyster populations in areas of these shell rakes.”

The project at Shellbed Island includes installing roughly 67 feet of living shoreline in front of the shell rakes and material behind the shell rakes, “so that when nature moves those loose shells around, it can build back up into a more sustainable nesting habitat where the oystercatchers are not losing so many of their nests to overwash,” Addison said.

Audubon has a received a grant for a separate project to place loose oyster shell directly on the existing rakes.

Busch explained the test projects are a first-of-their kind because they will be at isolated islands “where we’re really only looking at habitat and this will be really helpful for testing out the strength and feasibility of the Sandbar Oyster Company’s products and of living shorelines.”

“These sites were chosen for both their exposure and their critical points in the river,” she said. “We want to see how this product will work somewhere where we get a lot of wave energy. We’re going to find out.”

Addison said she has “high hopes” for the living shorelines in curbing erosion at the islands.

“If it turns out to look like it’s working well then we could seek larger pots of money and expand our permit to be able to do this at a larger scale,” she said.

Audubon is continuing to fundraise for the projects. Donations may be made by contacting Addison by email at lindsay.addison@audubon.org.

More than $4.6 million will go to coastal conservation efforts such as property acquisition and living shoreline projects out of $36 million in statewide grants through North Carolina Land and Water Fund, the state announced earlier this week.

The fund gets appropriations from the N.C. General Assembly to support projects by local governments, state agencies, and nonprofit organizations that restore and protect the state’s natural and cultural resources.

“North Carolina is home to remarkable natural beauty,” Gov. Josh Stein said in a release. “These grants will help preserve that beauty.” 

These projects, which “will support North Carolina’s $28 billion outdoor recreation economy,” are broken up into four types: acquisition, stormwater, planning and restoration, the North Carolina Department of Natural and Coastal Resources said in the announcement.

Property acquisition projects selected for the coast are:

• $1.57 million to Kill Devil Hills for land at Nags Head Woods.
• $1.06 million to North Carolina Coastal Land Trust for land at Powells Point on the Albemarle Sound.
• $1.27 million to the town of Leland for the Silver Timber Tract – Nature Park.
• $752,000 to the North Carolina Coastal Federation for land in Carteret and Onslow counties.
• $3.5 million to Unique Places to Save for the St. James — Boiling Spring Lakes Wetland Complex, however this is a provisional award and depends on if the funds are available before July 1, 2026.
• $335,000 to The Nature Conservancy for land in Onslow and Pender counties. One of the three awards is provisional as well.

In addition to property acquisition, the Coastal Federation, which publishes Coastal Review, has been selected for just shy of $1 million for the following projects:

• An update to the Oyster Blueprint for Action Restoration and Protection Plan.
• A stormwater plan for the Ocean City Jazz Festival site on Topsail Island.
• The second phase of a living shoreline for Jockey’s Ridge State Park.
• A living shorelines cost-share program.

Sound Rivers Inc. has been awarded $243,200 for a stormwater wetland education site in Craven County and nearly $30,000 for a watershed plan for a section of Slocum Creek.

A North Carolina State University-sponsored program in Onslow County has been awarded $234,241 for a stormwater infrastructure maintenance robot.

New Hanover County has a $75,000 grant for a Pages Creek feasibility plan.

A statewide list is available online.

Previously the Clean Water Management Trust Fund, the fund was put in place in 1996 to protect the state’s drinking water sources. The General Assembly expanded the fund’s mission to include conserving and protecting natural resources, cultural heritage and military installations.

There’s still time to register for the annual Ocean Innovation Conference at the University of North Carolina Wilmington.

The conference is scheduled to take place in UNCW’s Burney Center from 8:30 a.m. until 4 p.m. Tuesday.

Virtual registration closes Friday. The fee to register to attend the event virtually is $30. Questions will be taken from virtual participants for keynote speakers and panelists and some virtual innovation fair booths will be available to those who register to attend online.

In-person registration runs through to the day of the conference and costs $129. Seats are limited.

All UNCW students may attend in-person or virtually for free. Tenants with the university’s Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship receive a 50% discount and CIE members and coworkers a 25% discount.

For more information about discounts contact cie@uncw.edu.

Now in its third year, the conference brings together UNCW’s deep research expertise, the entrepreneurial ecosystem of southeastern North Carolina and those passionate about the ocean and coastal communities to spark conversations about topics including marine biotechnology, alternative materials, living shoreline projects, ocean data science, and emerging innovations.

Highlights of the conference include updates on marine and coastal research, trends in blue economy innovation, and showcasing opportunities for investment, collaboration, and action.

This year’s featured keynote speakers are Deborah Westphal, author and executive advisor at The Karen Toffler Charitable Trust, and world surfing champion and author of The CODE Method Shaun Tomson.

Sessions are held throughout the day and will focus on the regional blue ecosystem, cutting-edge ocean technologies, and efforts to preserve and restore ocean resources.

The event is organized by the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship and the Alliance for the Blue Economy (All Blue).

Researchers found in a recent study that, over the long term, bulkhead structures have a “significant negative effect” on marsh habitat size.

Using high-resolution imagery from 1981 of Carteret County’s Bogue and Back sounds and Newport and North rivers, the team measured the marsh extent, or total marsh area, at 45 sites with bulkheads and 45 natural sites, or those without the type of hardened structure. The 1981 measurements were then compared to the data from images collected in 1992, 2006 and 2013 of the same 90 sites.

The study found that all 45 bulkhead sites experienced marsh shoreline erosion during the 32-year study period, with complete marsh loss at 11% of the sites with bulkheads. More than 80% of the 45 natural marsh control sites experienced shoreline erosion, but at seven sites, around 15%, the marsh shoreline accreted waterward. None of the control sites experienced complete marsh loss.

“Our study found bulkheads nearly tripled the rate of marsh loss over a 32-year period. All of the 45 marshes we studied in front of a bulkhead got smaller or disappeared entirely,” Principal investigator Brandon Puckett explained to Coastal Review.

Puckett is a research marine biologist for the Coastal Resilience, Restoration and Assessment Branch in National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Centers for Coastal Ocean Science, which partnered with Duke University and North Carolina Division of Coastal Management on the study.

“At the 45 natural marsh sites without bulkheads, the story was different. While many of them also eroded, more than a third actually held their ground or even grew by migrating inland into upland habitat. Bulkheads prevent marsh migration leading to a process known as ‘coastal squeeze’ whereby the marshes are not only eroding at the front edge, but are also blocked from migrating upland,” the Beaufort-based scientist said.

The study, “Bulkheads Reduce Salt Marsh Extent: A Multidecadal Assessment Using Remote Sensing,” was published this summer in the nonprofit Coastal Education and Research Foundation’s Journal of Coastal Research.

“Think of it this way,” Puckett continued. “Over the 32 years of our study — close to the length of a mortgage — the average marsh in front of a bulkhead lost about 15 feet of width. A natural marsh, on the other hand, lost only about 5 feet of width on average, because it could often make up for erosion by migrating upland.”

Of Carteret County’s 1,530 miles of estuarine shoreline, salt marsh accounts for about 1,270 miles, roughly 87 miles is hardened with bulkheads, and the remaining 11% is a different shoreline type or hardened structure other than bulkheads, like riprap.

The Division of Coastal Management, which is under the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, calls bulkheads the “most commonly used estuarine shoreline stabilization method” in the state “but could have deleterious impacts on the marsh habitats where they are being constructed.”

Factors contributing to the deterioration of salt marsh habitats include sea level rise and coastal development, which often result in hardened shoreline stabilization structures like bulkheads or seawalls constructed to protect against coastal hazards such as erosion, flooding and subsequent property damage, according to the study. “Concurrently, the many ecosystem services salt marshes provide, such as storm surge protection, carbon sequestration, improved water quality, and nursery habitat, are also diminishing.”

Authors state that the study is intended to offer a better understanding of how hardened shorelines like bulkheads “can have a significant negative effect on marsh extent through increased erosion of the waterward edge and prevention of landward migration with” sea level rise.

Why look at bulkheads and marsh loss?

Puckett told Coastal Review that the team decided to pursue the study after they realized they were “watching two powerful trends collide: the decline of essential marsh habitats and the increase in shoreline armoring,” provoking the question “’Is the solution to one shoreline erosion (bulkheads) actually making the other problem — marsh loss — worse?’”

He noted that scientists have long suspected that the hardened structures harm marshes but there wasn’t a lot of long-term data demonstrating these impacts. “We wanted to look back in time to objectively compare the long-term rates of change in marsh loss in locations with and without shoreline armoring.”

To get what Puckett called a “fair, apples-to-apples comparison,” the team “essentially became historical detectives” using the old aerial photographs, which were taken around low tide, when marsh shorelines were most visible. The study area was chosen because the historic aerial imagery was available.

They pored over the 1981 photos to find 45 locations where a fringe of salt marsh already existed with a bulkhead behind it. Then, for each of those 45 bulkhead sites, they located a nearby natural marsh without a bulkhead.

“We were careful to select control sites that were exposed to similar wave and wind conditions so that we were comparing like with like,” Puckett continued. “We meticulously traced the waterward and landward edges of the marsh at each site for each of the four imagery sets. By comparing these digital outlines over time, we could precisely measure both the erosion at the front of the marsh and its migration (or lack thereof) at the back.”

One of the more striking surprises from the study, Puckett said, is that the negative effects of bulkheads are almost invisible over shorter time spans.

“When we analyzed the data in smaller chunks — say, over a seven- to 14-year period — the difference in erosion rates between the bulkhead and natural sites wasn’t statistically significant. It was only by looking across the entire 32-year period that the dramatic, long-term impact became undeniable,” he said. It’s a true ‘death by a thousand cuts,’ and it tells us that short-term assessments can easily miss the entire story.”

The discovery also raises a new question about what’s driving erosion.

“We found that the fastest erosion rates occurred between 2006 and 2013, the period during our study with the highest rate of relative sea-level rise,” he said, “but not the stormiest from a tropical storm and hurricane perspective. This suggests that the constant, daily pressure of higher water levels might be a more powerful force in eating away at marsh edges than the occasional big storm, which challenges some common assumptions.”

‘Study is unique’

Authors state that this study is “the first to investigate the long-term impacts of structures on loss of marsh extent and provide useful information for better understanding the effects of shoreline hardening on salt marsh ecosystems,” which Puckett expounded on for Coastal Review.

“This study is unique for a few key reasons,” Puckett said. “Conceptually, we’ve known that bulkheads can expedite loss of marsh through reflecting wave energy and preventing migration, but this is one of the first studies to provide empirical evidence to support our conceptual understanding.”

The study analyzes more than 30 years of data, enabling the team to illustrate the slow, cumulative impacts that shorter studies could miss. “Environmental changes often don’t happen overnight, and this long-term view is critical,” he continued.

The research specifically focuses on what happens to the existing marsh that is left in front of a bulkhead, as well.

“Many people might think that as long as you leave some marsh, you’re preserving its function. Our work shows that while this may be true in the short-term, this leftover fringe marsh is often living on borrowed time because it can’t easily adapt to rising seas,” Puckett said.

And lastly, the team didn’t just measure erosion at the water’s edge, but also measured the movement of the landward boundary.

“This allowed us to calculate the net change in marsh area and definitively show that preventing landward migration is a critical factor that turns a shoreline erosion problem into a catastrophic loss of habitat. It’s this comprehensive look at both sides of the marsh over such a long period that is a unique component of this research,” he said.

Though disheartening, Puckett said it’s crucial to know that “this isn’t just a story about loss. It’s also a story about resilience and hope. The ‘good news’ from our study is that where marshes had space to move, they did.”

In the 45 natural sites studied, more than a third of the marshes were stable or even grew by migrating into upland habitats, both proving that marshes are naturally resilient and can adapt if given the room and pointing to a path forward to help address marsh erosion and migration.

“First, to combat erosion at the water’s edge, we can use living shorelines. Instead of hard walls, these solutions use natural materials like oyster reefs and native plants to slow wave energy while maintaining the vital intertidal connection between land and water. This helps preserve the marsh’s front edge. However, a marsh still may need room to move inland to adapt to sea-level rise,” Puckett said.

And a “second, equally critical part of the solution is to protect marsh migration corridors through land-use planning and conservation,” he added.

The corridors are undeveloped land set aside to allow marshes to move upland to survive rather than drowning in place.

“It is the combination of using living shorelines to reduce erosion and allowing for landward migration that can reduce the effects of coastal squeeze. We have a chance now to help protect our salt marshes that are the nurseries for our fisheries, our buffer from storm surge, and our natural water cleansers,” Puckett said.

More than 30 North Carolina coastal communities have been awarded grants to boost their resilience to hazardous weather events.

The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Coastal Management announced Thursday the award of nearly $6 million in Resilient Coastal Communities Program grants to 32 counties, cities and towns along the coast.

“Increasingly catastrophic storms like Helene and Chantal underscore how important it is for communities to take concrete steps to strengthen their resilience to hazardous weather events,” DEQ Secretary Reid Wilson said in a release. “These grants provide technical assistance and resources so that community leaders can identify the most important actions they can take to safeguard their residents, their infrastructure, and their economies.”

Of the grant money awarded, $1.9 million has been funneled for the completion of phases 1 and 2 of the Resilient Coastal Communities Program, or RCCP, which includes technical assistance in risk assessment and resilience planning and incorporating resiliency into Coastal Area Management Act, or CAMA, land use plans.

Those plans, which communities use to guide development and drive future public investments, will include resilience policies and projects that focus on highly vulnerable areas.

“Given that many existing land use plans are outdated and typically only designed to be relevant for up to 20 years, the RCCP aligns with the growing demand in North Carolina for updated land use plans to better anticipate future development and weather hazards,” according to a release.

During phases 1 and 2, the division contracts with third-party firms, which directly receive the funding, to provide technical assistance services to the local governments.

Funding for those phases is going toward technical assistance for Beaufort, Dare, Hyde, New Hanover, Pamlico, Pasquotank, Pender and Tyrrell counties.

Municipalities for those phases include: Carolina Beach, Wilmington, Colerain, Holden Beach, Elizabeth City, Jacksonville, Manteo, Murfreesboro, Newport, Oak Island, Shallotte, Southern Shores and Southport.

More than $4 million in grants have been awarded to communities for phases 3 and 4 of the program to assist with engineering, design, construction and implementation of projects.

Nearly $3 million of that is being passed to five counties, including Beaufort, Carteret, Dare, Hyde and Pasquotank for the engineering and design of projects that will incorporate natural and nature-based elements like wetland restoration and living shoreline design. Municipalities receiving funding for engineering and design projects include Aulander, Belhaven, New Bern, Edenton, Elizabeth City, Holly Ridge, Plymouth and Washington Park.

Burgaw, Nags Head and Vandemere have been awarded a total of more than $1.2 million to complete phase 4 projects for stormwater management and flood mitigation. Those projects include building rain gardens and living shorelines to mitigate flooding and erosion.

The RCCP has awarded a total of about $16 million through 108 grants to 56 coastal communities.

The National Park Service is accepting public comment through Aug. 20 on the proposed next steps in the effort to protect an erosion-threatened mile of Fort Raleigh National Historic Site’s shoreline.

The 355-acre site at the north end of Roanoke Island was established in 1941 to safeguard the known portions of England’s first settlements in the Americas from 1584 to 1590. It is also home to the Waterside Theatre, where a dramatic retelling of the “The Lost Colony,” based on the group of 117 English settlers that disappeared in 1587 from Roanoke Island, is performed every summer.

Erosion “poses a serious threat to potential archeologically significant sites and park facilities. Without action, the erosion will most likely continue, potentially jeopardizing the Waterside Theatre’s costume shop and parking lot, park roadways, and park housing along Pear Pad Road,” park officials said.

As part of the shoreline stabilization plan, the draft environmental assessment and start of the comment period was announced Monday.

“Public participation is an important element of the planning process, and Fort Raleigh welcomes comments on the EA through August 20, 2025,” park officials said, adding comments received during a Feb. 12 meeting and 30-day comment period helped inform the environmental assessment.

The federally required assessment analyzes the likely impacts of the three proposed alternatives to protect the shoreline: a rock revetment, a rock berm, or s combination of the two, with the combination being the preferred alternative, officials said.

Officials said a rock revetment would mitigate erosion by lining the existing shoreline contours with rock material, similar to an existing rock revetment at the site.

A rock berm would mitigate erosion by placing sand, and then a raised berm made of rock along the widened shoreline to mesh with the existing rock berm in front of the Waterside Theatre.

The preferred alternative would “maximize shoreline protection based on topography, land use, and constructability,” officials said.

Comments may be submitted electronically, which park officials said is the preferred method, or mailed to: Superintendent, 1401 National Park Drive, Manteo, NC 27954.

Guest Commentary

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

Life along the North Carolina coast is steeped in saltwater – but the future seems to be drowning in it. With 1 meter of sea level rise expected by 2100, rising waters are already encroaching on low-lying coastal communities. Chronic flooding and intense storm damage have become the new normal. Stands of ghost forests, stressed to death by saltwater in the soil, announce a clear message: Move, adapt, or drown.

Folks who live here are figuring out how to trade resistance for resilience. Coexistence with the sea could become a bridge to the future. Bulkheads attempt to enforce a static line on a dynamic shore. The ocean continues to defy this hard boundary. The soft boundary of a living shoreline ensures connection doesn’t transform into fear, cooperation doesn’t sink into combativeness. Where do we start to build a future that works with the shorelines of North Carolina?

A rising crisis 

The issue of sea level rise is urgent and unavoidable on NC coasts. Where roads keep flooding from higher tides and ditches don’t drain anymore, “you’re seeing it. This is sea level rise,” says Christine Voss, retired research associate at the University of North Carolina Chapel Hill’s Institute of Marine Sciences based in Morehead City. Even if they don’t use the phrase “sea level rise,” she says “people are noticing changes.”

Voss likens the situation to the health of a patient: “Sea level rise, that might be like your allergies… and then comes a hurricane. And because you may have been worn down by your allergies, when the cold or the pneumonia or the flu comes by, you’re actually more susceptible.”

She says that it’s easier for us to notice the big events like hurricanes, but really what we’re seeing with sea level rise is a cumulative effect of both hurricanes and a higher water table. Higher groundwater levels decrease soil’s ability to absorb floodwaters. The constant stress of waterlogged existence makes the coastal ecosystem immunocompromised. 

For properties that border the ocean, a range of options exist to “hold the line.” Traditional gray infrastructure manages the coastline with solely hard materials. This includes concrete seawalls and fiberglass bulkheads that act as armor against constant wave action. Fully natural, or green shorelines, include sandy beaches and salt marshes that fluctuate with the tides. There are also shoreline management strategies that combine gray and green elements, such as sills with planted vegetation or oyster reef breakwaters. 

Walling ourselves off

When threats loom, we resort to division, installing walls to armor ourselves against a fight with the waves. “We’re still pretending like we can hold it all in place for forever, everywhere…from Maine all the way around to Padre Island, Texas,” says Rob Young, geologist and director of the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines at Western Carolina University. Fighting the ocean is a losing battle.

“Seawalls don’t stop the shoreline from moving,” he says. “It just sort of draws a line in the sand. Eventually the beach disappears in front of the seawall, because the seawall isn’t halting erosion.” 

This combative approach against the sea is destructive to the very ecosystems that would protect us. The erosion of beaches amplified by seawalls is paralleled by the undoing of marsh by estuarine bulkheads. North Carolina has restricted the building of new seawalls since 2003 to protect beaches, but bulkheads against estuarine waters are ubiquitous, and the salt marshes they neighbor are in danger. 

When a bulkhead is built, “the marsh is going to drown in front of it over time,” says Young. The waves bounce off the bulkhead and “tear up that marsh.” The impulse to protect our properties threatens the protection of our collective future.

Waves deflected by a bulkhead eat away at the land beside it, prompting another bulkhead to be constructed. Alyson Flynn, environmental economist at the North Carolina Coastal Federation, describes this hardening cascade: “it got to the point where people had no choice, because their neighbors’ property was causing their property to erode so much faster, because they had a seawall up, that they felt like the only way to protect their property was to also put up a seawall. And so then it had this barricading effect across the whole shoreline.” 

A wall necessitates more walls until we’ve replaced the breathing border of marsh. Eight percent of NC’s coastline is hardened through bulkheads, groins, and jetties. A survey in North Carolina found that waterfront homeowners perceived bulkheads as the most effective shoreline protection, even though properties with bulkheads reported twice the cost of repairing hurricane damage as properties with natural shorelines. Yet permitting processes and homeowners still favor hardened infrastructure in pursuit of shoreline preservation.

“There’s this tendency to think that a seawall is easier and less expensive, and that’s not the case,” says Flynn. “Especially when it comes to some of the maintenance costs with living shorelines, it can actually be quite a bit cheaper, especially after storm events.” 

Adding life to the line

Living shorelines, which replace the hard line of a bulkhead with opportunities for vegetation and wave attenuation, are a step in the right direction.

When Havelock homeowner Vernon Kelly looked out at the bulkhead on his property, worn down by years of storms, he had a decision to make: “Do I just replace it back with another and better bulkhead, or do I really look at creating another alternative?” 

Kelly recognizes the value of nature that he witnessed as a state land surveyor. “I was out in the coasts, in the swamp…everywhere from Jacksonville to Down East,” he says.

He has seen his North Carolina change, witnessed the bulkheads of his neighbors fail to block the oncoming ocean. With assistance from the Coastal Federation, he installed a living shoreline and has since seen “a world of a difference.” 

The nature Kelly treasures has become part of his backyard, complete with new saltwater neighbors. “Minnows seem to have figured out, ‘Hey, we’ve got a sort of a haven here.’ I’ve seen an increase of blue crabs in that sill area. And I actually had one oyster starting to grow,” he says.

The living shoreline didn’t just protect as a bulkhead would, it created space for life on that section of shore.

“What we’ve done, it’ll save it for my lifetime, maybe my kids,” says Kelly. “But if Mother Nature really decides she wants to do something, we can’t stop her.” 

Not a solution, but a start

Living shorelines can’t stop the ocean from rising, can’t stop seawater from creeping inwards from the shore and raising the water table from below. Development on the precarious line between land and sea is built on the assumption that the line can be held with stronger armor. The coastline is not a property line to be guarded but a continually negotiated convergence of ocean and land. 

The sea has sustained community here since the Coree fished the Core Banks and the Neusiok harvested along the Neuse River. Yet these life-giving waters are now described using language of wars and monsters. Framing storms and floods as opponents sinks us deeper into a combative mindset. We can’t hold the battleline if the ground itself is transforming beneath our feet. The coasts as we know them will not be the coasts of our future. 

Embracing change might be the only way to navigate the changes we fear. “People are adaptable,” says Voss. “Enough people have to decide that things have to change.”

The salt marsh has a lesson to teach about handling change. Many shoots rooted in the soil, united in density and scope, can diffuse the force of oncoming waves. As the saltwater rises, the marsh travels. 

Marshes migrate landwards, racing against sea level rise toward safety. Responding to change allows for a chance of survival. Marshes might not keep up with dire projections of sea level rise, but hardened shores don’t even give them a chance in the race.

When a migrating marsh hits a bulkhead, a line that refuses to budge until a storm forces collapse, the marsh is made static. Trapped between wall and rising water, the marsh suffers from “coastal squeeze” until it drowns. Confronting an inundated future, those on the coasts can choose to heed the lesson of the moving marsh or drown with the walls.

Living shorelines are not the answer to save the coasts but they are a potential action toward reimagining future coastal resilience. Relinquishing the ideal of a manicured waterfront is the start of embracing an alliance with the ecosystems we inhabit. Starting in backyards like Kelly’s, there is an opportunity to recognize the value of wetlands and begin to dissolve the walls, physical and philosophical, built between humans and the sea. 

Note from Kocher: This article was reported, photographed, and written in partnership with the Pulitzer Center and the science journalism course at the Duke University Marine Lab in Beaufort.

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

MOREHEAD CITY – Carteret Community College is launching in March its Living Shoreline Academy, a course of instruction to help people design, permit and install their own living shoreline projects.

A living shoreline is a nature-based solution for managing shoreline erosion. The technique uses natural materials such as oyster shells, granite rock or marsh plantings to work with nature in buffering the shoreline. This helps to prevent erosion, builds habitat for wildlife, and improves water quality, organizers said.

A condensed version of the Living Shoreline Academy is offered March 12.

The full Living Shoreline Academy program runs March 19-May 7.

Funding for the Living Shoreline Academy at Carteret Community College is through the U.S. Coastal Research Program in partnership with East Carolina State University and North Carolina Sea Grant.

To learn more about the program and to register, visit the Living Shoreline Academy website.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Most vulnerable infrastructure

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Coastal Management announced Thursday that it is awarding 20 grants totaling more than $6.21 million to 19 town and county governments.

The grants are for Phases 3 and 4 of the four-phase Resilient Coastal Communities Program, which was created to provide a community-driven process for setting coastal resilience goals, assessing existing and needed local capacity, and identifying and prioritizing projects to enhance community resilience to coastal hazards.

The primary objective of the program’s Phase 3 is to provide funding to assist communities with the engineering and design of prioritized projects identified in their RCCP Resilience Strategy or other existing plans that meet the program’s Phases 1 and 2 planning criteria. The division also said that some communities will receive money to develop or amend ordinances to enhance their resilience to coastal hazards.

“Funding the valuable resilience work of these communities allows them move their projects from concept to completion, building a stronger future by protecting residents and the coastal economy,” Secretary Elizabeth S. Biser said in a statement.

A total of $4.31 million is to be available to complete 15 projects in Phase 3. Most of these engineering and design projects incorporate natural and nature-based elements, such as wetland restoration and living shoreline design, the division said.

Specific projects include living shoreline construction to reduce erosion along public shorelines, updating development ordinances to align with resilience strategies, and comprehensive stormwater action plans with detailed drainage studies and easement acquisitions.

Dare County is to receive $234,000 for its Salvo Flood Mitigation Project, and the following 14 municipalities will receive engineering and design money for the completion of their Phase 3 projects:

• Ahoskie: $500,000 for stormwater action plan, upgrade the stormwater system.
• Aulander: $173,250 for permeable pavement and green stormwater infrastructure implementation projects.
• Beaufort: $100,000 for development ordinance resilience updates.
• Belhaven: $500,000 for stormwater action plan and easement acquisition plan, upgrade the stormwater system.
• Burgaw: $55,000 for rain garden installation and educational demonstration.
• Creswell: $500,000 to reduce flooding impacts in the First-Fourth street area.
• Elizabeth City: $140,000 for resilient stormwater ordinance project.
• Holly Ridge: $143,000 for multi-use greenway connection feasibility study.
• Nags Head: $500,000 to design living shorelines to restore and protect coastal community infrastructure in the Roanoke Sound.
• Ocean Isle Beach: $170,000 for living shoreline feasibility study and demonstration project.
• Plymouth: $500,000 for Stormwater Action Plan upgrade stormwater system.
• Vandemere: $57,800 for Vandemere Waterfront Park living shoreline.
• Washington: $500,000 for living shoreline and levee at the wastewater treatment plant.
• Washington Park: $237,300 for living shoreline at public shoreline areas.

Phase 4 money will go to implement shovel-ready projects to enhance coastal resilience previously awarded funding for Phases 1-3.

A total of $1.9 million is to be available to complete five projects in Phase 4 featuring a range of nature-based solutions, infrastructure improvements, and community-focused strategies to manage stormwater and mitigate flooding.

Specific projects include the construction of bioswales to store and filter stormwater runoff and ocean overwash, creating low-impact development demonstration sites with educational components for the public, stabilizing road shoulders with environmentally friendly materials that promote natural vegetative growth, and improving flood-prone roadways with permeable pavers and bioretention basins.

The following will receive implementation funds for the completion of Phase 4:

• Aurora: $1.1 million for wetland restoration and berm improvements at wastewater treatment plant.
• Beaufort County: $194,166 for low impact development demonstration site at Beaufort County Community College.
• Dare County: $160,000 for Hatteras Village bioswales.
• Duck: $144,000 for Teresa Court stormwater management improvements.
• Surf City: $331,535 for roadside infiltration resilience project.

Community applications were reviewed based on project alignment with the community resilience strategy and priority ranking; project outcomes including environmental, social, and economic impacts; the project’s ability to reduce the vulnerability of a critical asset or population; the project’s inclusion of nature-based or hybrid components; and the project’s ability to achieve the community’s vision and goals.

The program receives funding from a combination of state and federal sources.

For more information about the Resilient Coastal Communities Program, go to the division’s program website.

Nearly $6 million of $30 million in state disaster-relief money is marked to go to 10 resiliency efforts along the coast.

North Carolina Emergency Management announced Tuesday that a total of 27 grant recipients statewide were selected for the first round of funding through the 2023 Disaster Relief and Mitigation Fund. Emergency Management is under the N.C. Department of Public Safety.

State agencies, local governments, nonprofit organizations and public authorities could apply for the $30 million authorized through the 2023 Appropriations Act.

Eligible categories of work authorized for the grant are flood mitigation efforts, transportation resilience, disaster relief and flood mitigation technical assistance for small and underserved communities, and local cost share assistance for federal funds on approved federal mitigation grants.

“I would like to thank all of the applicants for taking the time to submit well thought out and actionable projects that will reduce North Carolina’s vulnerability to natural disasters” N.C. Emergency Management Director Will Ray said. “It takes all members of a community to come together to find solutions to the disasters that threaten our state.”

The funding for coastal communities includes the following:

• $1.26 million to North Topsail for beach stormwater infiltration.
• $1 million to Duck for N.C. Highway 12 living shoreline resiliency.
• $1 million to Leland for Old Fayetteville culvert replacement.
• $820,000 to Elizabeth City for Flora Street stormwater improvement.
• $770,000 to Dare County for Old Lighthouse Road Stormwater Improvement.
• $565,200 to Surf City for roadside stormwater project.
• $425,000 to Friso Volunteer Fire Department Fire Station for resilient design.
• $400,000 to Vandemere for Shell Castle Lane improvement.
• $270,500 to Pine Knoll Shores for phase three of its East End stormwater project.
• $225,000 to River Bend for stormwater system assessment.

The full list of grant recipients is available on the state Department of Public Safety website.

Anyone who has taken a stroll along downtown Morehead City’s waterfront in the last six or seven months may have noticed the hundreds of concrete, flat-top pyramids being strategically placed in rows around the rapidly eroding Sugarloaf Island.

Those are wave attenuation devices, or WADs, and part of a bigger, hybrid project to restore 3,520 linear feet of the barrier island’s shoreline.

Teaming up with the city on the effort to save the island are Sea & Shoreline LLC., a Florida-based aquatic restoration specialist with offices in the Carolinas, the nonprofit North Carolina Coastal Federation, engineering consultant Quible & Associates of Kitty Hawk, East Carolina University and Sandbar Oyster Co., a Beaufort-based habitat-restoration business.

“About 25 years ago, the Coastal Federation worked with the town of Morehead City to purchase the island. At that time, it had been slated for development — there were some condo plans in the works,” Coastal Federation Living Shoreline Division Lead Dr. Lexia Weaver explained. “Thanks to that purchase the island was able to be protected and conserved and be the natural resource it is for both for the public and the environment, as well but since that time the island has eroded significantly, as much as a football field.”

Sea & Shoreline Chief Sales and Marketing Officer Heather Herold told Coastal Review that if this erosion, which is taking place at an accelerated rate because of rising sea levels and wave energy, isn’t addressed, “the island could disappear, leaving the town vulnerable to climate-related events.”

Weaver added that the state invested $6.6 million to “protect this crucial natural asset from ongoing and worsening erosion, especially as a result of storm systems that are frequent to our coastal region.”

The money is from a 2022 appropriation of $2 million and $4.6 million in 2023. The town held a ceremony when the work began in mid-November to thank Sen. Norm Sanderson, R-Pamlico, who also represents Carteret County, Rep. Celeste C. Cairns, R-Carteret and Craven counties, and former Rep. Pat McElraft of Emerald Isle for supporting the project.

“Restoration methods for this project include reducing wave energy with an offshore living breakwater, planting seagrass behind the living breakwater, and planting a living shoreline on Sugarloaf Island,” officials said. “The living break water will not impede normal vessel traffic because it will be installed in areas too shallow for vessels to navigate safely at high speeds. The breakwater will also be staggared so that fishers can fish around them or pass through sections of the wave attenuators.”

Herold said the project is expected to bring back habitat and lead to benefits such as shoreline restoration, water quality improvement, resiliency, fish habitat, upland habitat and flood control.

Weaver said the design was based on a 2022 study of the island, as well as other studies. There was also evidence of significant erosion through mapping imagery combined with local knowledge and testimonials.

Plans call for a total of 1,200 wave attenuators to be installed around the island. The attenuators are 7 feet tall with a 9-foot base on each of the three sides, weighing in at around 7,500 pounds each.

Tina Harris, Sea & Shoreline’s pre-construction manager, said that as of Monday, a total of 443 attenuators are in the water. Of those, 376 had been deployed at the west end of the island, completing the attenuator portion of the project on that end of the island. Work is now taking place on the east end of the island where another 67 attenuators, or units, have been deployed. Harris said they have about 650 left to deploy.

“Once we complete the east end of the island, we will deploy units along the entire south side moving from the east back towards the west,” Harris said, adding they anticipate completing the attenuator placement part of the project in late June to early July of this year. “The nature of the project is heavily dependent on weather conditions.”

The patented attenuators being installed are to “stop the wave energy and accrete sand behind them to naturally renourish and rebuild the shoreline without the need for beach renourishment,” Herold explained, adding the attenuators provide water quality benefits, including attracting oysters that filter water. Other installed projects are filtering 22 million gallons of water per day.

Herold said that, together, “these measures will protect and restore the island, improve water quality, create essential fish habitat, protect shorebird nesting areas, and enhance the shoreline for recreational boaters to enjoy.”

Herold added that the patented device is created by Living Shoreline Solutions Inc. and made out of a pH-neutral mixture of concrete and fiber-mesh. 

“We pour this mix into molds, allow for drying time, unmold them, let theme cure, then place them in the water in arrays that are pre-determined based upon scientific wave study modeling,” Herold said. As of Thursday, 682 total attenuators had been manufactured.

Harris added that the company manufactures the units at a Core Creek site and they are then moved the 10 miles by barge to Sugarloaf Island. Once the attenuators reach the island, the units are placed into the water using a large excavator, “where the units are leveled and aligned for maximum performance.”

In addition to the attenuators, Weaver said last week that two Oyster Catcher sills made by Sandbar Oyster Co. and totaling 550 feet have been put in place. These structures that resemble tables and made out of cement and plant-based cloth will continue to be manufactured and installed through the spring.

A total of 9,375 plugs of Spartina alterniflora, or smooth cordgrass, and 3,200 plugs of Uniola paniculata, or sea oats, were ordered as well and are scheduled to be planted this spring. Plans are to plant more in the spring of 2025, Weaver said.

They’re starting to see results of this work.

Weaver said that wave energy is already being reduced landward of the attenuators and sediment is already starting to accrete landward of the Oyster Catcher sills, promoting the natural expansion and growth of salt marsh grasses.

“The structures are also providing valuable habitat for fish, oysters and other marine life. Seagrass is expected to grow landward of the WADs in the quiescent waters,” Weaver added.

Morehead City Public Information Officer Anna Smith said Wednesday that the town “is grateful to be working with our partners on the Sugarloaf Island Restoration Project, and we are excited to already see positive progress,” adding that the “critical initiative would not be possible without $6.6 million in state legislative funding and the hard work” of the city’s partners and staff.

Post has been updated.

A team of educators and scientists is combining efforts to build a program that makes small-scale living shorelines a practical option for waterfront property owners.

The N.C. Living Shoreline Academy held its first introductory course last fall at Carteret Community College in Morehead City and is getting ready to offer it again, along with the new structure and design course.

The introductory course is scheduled for 2-5 p.m. March 27, where attendees can learn about living shoreline concepts, construction and permitting processes, existing natural shoreline stabilization techniques, and different types of living shoreline projects.

A four-week structure and design course will follow and be held from 2 to 5 p.m. each Wednesday in April. This course offers a step-by-step approach on design, construction materials, and addressing vulnerabilities, as well as guide students on designing effective, research-based living shoreline solutions for private property projects.

Tuition for each course is $35 and there are some seats open for both. Register online or contact Lauren Daniel at Lauren8421@carteret.edu to get more information on the program.

The college’s Maritime Programs Coordinator Scott Leahy and Dr. Rachel Gittman, an assistant professor at East Carolina University, are co-principal investigators for the program that was awarded a $460,186 grant in 2023 through National Sea Grant College Program’s work with the U.S. Coastal Research Program.

In addition to the college and ECU, partners in developing the program are North Carolina Sea Grant, the North Carolina Coastal Reserve, and the North Carolina Coastal Federation, which publishes Coastal Review.

Gittman, who has been working with different organizations on living shorelines for about a decade, said that while there are a lot of definitions out there of what a living shoreline is, she tends to view a living shoreline as one that has native living components incorporated into the design and that maintains the land-to-sea continuum, or not interrupting the transition between the land and the sea with a wall or other type of hard barrier.

“That’s the real key for me, that the land-to-sea transition is maintained,” she said.

Research shows that this green infrastructure technique, which is a natural alternative to riprap or bulkheads, sustains less damage during storms, is more environmentally friendly with a lower carbon footprint, and there’s life within the structure, Leahy said.

By comparison, a bulkhead wouldn’t have much growth or increase biodiversity, he added, “Whereas it’s been shown through research that if you put an offshore sill, it will increase the biodiversity within the scope of your project.”

He said that the idea for the Living Shoreline Academy was planted during a conversation with Lauren Daniel, who is developing the program, while she was attending one of his other courses. They discussed “how great” it would be to have a class on how to build living shorelines on private property.

Gittman explained she was at the college working on a different proposal with the aquaculture program when she learned there was interest in developing the living shoreline program.

They submitted a grant proposal for the new program through National Sea Grant and the U.S. Coastal Research Program.

One of the grant requirements is to translate the ample research by other institutions on living shorelines into practical application for property owners and contractors who would be interested in building small-scale living shorelines.

“We proposed that we would take a lot of the research that’s been done over the last decade or so, really more than that, and try to integrate it into — not just your intro to living shorelines — but a more in-depth, module-based course,” Gittman said.

“Our goal is to read through the research and be able to present it to folks,” who want living shorelines, Leahy said, adding the courses are being geared toward property owners and marine contractors.

The academy is focusing on projects around 100 feet or less, which would fall under the general Coastal Area Management Act, or CAMA, permitting in North Carolina, Leahy said.

“We are not training people to do the really large projects,” Gittman explained. “We’re really focused on helping typical homeowners with backyard-type living shorelines that would fall under the state’s general permitting program because that’s where most of the projects are, and where I think there’s the most opportunity for growth in the living shoreline market is to do these smaller, private property living shorelines.”

The first session being held Wednesday is designed to expand on what a living shoreline is, its purpose, benefits and drawbacks, Leahy said.

The structures and design course takes a deeper dive into the different types of living shorelines, available materials and products, and what would work best for different types of shorelines.

For example, if you’re in an area with high wave energy, you don’t want to use oyster bags because they’ll get destroyed. “That would not be the best method there for your goals,” he said. “We’re trying to match the materials with your location.”

Participants will learn the basics on how to understand and apply for a CAMA permit, too.

“So, you think about it, then you design it. You get a permit and then you build it,” he said. “This class is all about that design, how you make it.”

Leahy said the academy’s first class was held in the fall and that was just the intro class.

Gittman said they had a full range attend the intro course last fall, including property owners who have shoreline issues and wanted to know about their options, and marine contractors who had been doing mostly bulkheads and wanted to diversify what they offer.

This spring, they’ve added the structures and design course and, in the fall, these two classes will be held and a vegetative component will be added, Leahy continued.

“We’re going to work with our horticulture department here on campus, we’re growing marsh grasses,” he said. “We’re going to discuss the different types of Spartina grass, we’re going to propagate the grass products, potentially planting some in a sample site, and then we’re going to be focusing on the upland plants that go into supporting healthy shoreline.”

Then, there are plans to add a logistics course and a live project. Once those are in place, when a student completes the academy, they’ll earn certification.

Leahy said the ultimate goal is for a contractor to be able to present their certification to potential clients to show they’re knowledgeable and have been trained, or so a homeowner will be better equipped to build their own following CAMA guidelines.

He’s hoping that as more people install living shorelines, these projects can become more affordable.

“I think there’s definitely interest there and learning what other options are out there,” Gittman said, adding that these smaller projects are important because they do add up.

“There is evidence from the research that we’ve done and others have done in other states that it is kind of like a domino effect. Whatever your neighbor chooses to do, tends to influence what you do. And so, if we can get whole communities to kind of buy into this idea that there’s opportunities beyond just building a bulkhead to prevent erosion of your shoreline,” she said. “The more seeds we can plant in the community, I think the more advocacy we’ll have from residents.”

The Coastal Federation’s Coastal Resiliency Manager Sarah S. Bodin said that the academy “is a wonderful hands-on training tool” for homeowners, contractors, and laborers who wan to increase their education and skills in the design, permitting and implementation of living shorelines.

“Living Shorelines are a vital nature-based technique in the preservation and restoration of coastal wetlands, especially in light of sea level rise, increase in storm events, and where migration corridors are limited,” Bodin continued. “Living Shorelines have been around for more than 25 years, yet their use is not the norm. This course will help to address the knowledge gap between the public and these tried and true nature-based techniques.”

Post has been updated

Registration is open for two courses to learn the latest techniques, materials and funding opportunities for shoreline management.

The Living Shoreline Academy is holding a one-day introductory course in March and a four-part course on structure and design each Wednesday in April. Both courses are to take place on Carteret Community College’s campus in Morehead City. Register for the courses through an online form. Tuition is $35.

During the one-day introductory course that covers the basics of natural shoreline stabilization techniques scheduled for 2-5 p.m. March 27 students will be able to learn about living shoreline concepts, construction and permitting processes, and hear an overview of different types of living shoreline projects.

Organizers said the course will prepare students to be familiar with effective stabilization options and considerations, as well as how to navigate the permitting process to install living shorelines within Carteret County.

The structures and design course scheduled for being offered April 3, April 10, April 17 and April 24, all from 2 to 5 p.m., is to offer participants information to consider for design, construction materials, and addressing vulnerabilities found commonly on the coast.

The course is going to focus on guiding designs for effective, research-based living shoreline solutions for projects based on visual assessments, organizers said. By the end of the course, students will be proficient in designing and utilizing appropriate materials for their projects.

The Living Shoreline Academy at Carteret Community College is through a U.S. Coastal Research Program Grant, and administered through North Carolina Sea Grant.

The divisions of Coastal Management and Marine Fisheries, both under the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, have received funding to expand efforts along the coast.

The Division of Coastal Management has received more than $13 million in state and federal funds to provide final engineering and design technical assistance for local government projects through the four-phase Resilient Coastal Communities Program.

Of that, $13 million, $3 million is one of 109 grants announced by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration in November. The division was allocated $10 million in the recently passed state budget to be used for the Resilient Coastal Communities Program, as well.

“These most recent investments in our Resilient Coastal Communities Program will help more coastal communities plan, design, and complete projects that help reduce impacts and speed up recovery following coastal storm events,” Braxton Davis, Division of Coastal Management director, said in a statement.

Additional details about the local government grants, including timing, eligibility, funding levels, allowable activities, and match requirements, will be published to the Division of Coastal Management website in early 2024, followed by a request for proposals.

The department’s Division of Marine Fisheries was awarded more than $89,000 as one of the 109 grants for final design and planning to install living shorelines and low-impact stormwater retrofits.

The division, in partnership with the University of North Carolina Institute of Marine Sciences, is planning to install a living shoreline along about 775 feet of the adjacent properties in Morehead City, as well as install stormwater retrofits to reduce runoff at the division’s headquarters campus.

Matching funds of $5,500 brings the total amount of Phase 1 of the project to more than $95,000. The division plans to seek funding in subsequent years for the construction and monitoring phase of the project.

“The project will demonstrate dual benefits to both coastal communities and habitats and will result in the restoration of natural systems to increase the resilience of communities from coastal hazards and improve habitats for fish and wildlife,” Division of Marine Fisheries Director Kathy Rawls said in a statement.

The grants were awarded through the National Coastal Resilience Fund, a partnership between Fish and Wildlife, NOAA, the Department of Defense, Shell USA, TransRe, SalesForce and Oxy. The fund supports capacity building and larger-scale planning, design, and implementation projects to help improve community and coastal habitat resilience and reduce risks and devastating impacts of rising seas, coastal flooding, and more intense storms.

Of the $2.3 million going to 18 recipients in North Carolina this year through the North Carolina Department of Justice’s Environmental Enhancement Grant program, just shy of $1 million is going to projects either on the coast or for waters that eventually flow to the coast.

Attorney General Josh Stein announced the statewide awards last week.

The EEG program began after a 2000 agreement between the Attorney General’s Office and Smithfield Foods. Through the agreement, Smithfield provides $2 million to the state every year to be distributed among environmental projects across North Carolina.

Including the 2023 grants, the attorney general’s office has awarded nearly $43 million to more than 228 projects in the state.

Shoreline stabilization

The Craven County Department of Solid Waste and Recycling will receive $200,000 to stabilize shorelines and reinforce swales in the county to help prevent erosion.

“We’ve seen all too often the damage that flooding and erosion cause the homes and habitats in eastern North Carolina,” Stein said in a statement. “I’m pleased that this grant will help the people of Craven County prepare for and stay safe during storms.”

Craven County Planning and Community Development Director Chad Strawn said in the release that the county is grateful to receive funding through the EEG program to build a living shoreline at the confluence of the Neuse and Trent rivers in New Bern.

“This living shoreline will protect critical water and road infrastructure that is highly susceptible to erosion, wind tides, and storm surge,” Strawn continued. “The introduction of this living shoreline will prevent future road compromise or failure like we experienced during Hurricane Florence in 2018. From this highly traveled route, we will showcase to the public the positive effects of natural shoreline stabilization while enhancing the environment through newly created wetlands.”

Manure, flood risk management study

North Carolina State University will receive $176,391 to study improving the management of manure and flood risks on farms in eastern North Carolina.

“North Carolina’s farmers are the backbone of our economy and help us feed our families,” Stein said. “This grant will help them make the best decisions to ensure their farmlands stay healthy even as the climate changes.”

Dr. Mahmoud Sharara, the principal researcher on the project, said this project aims to minimize impacts of climate variability on North Carolina swine farms.

“To that goal, the project team will develop and make available a farm simulation tool to guide swine producers on optimal effluent management strategies to optimize nutrient use and reduce the risk of extreme weather events on lagoon stability,” Sharara continued.

Sharara’s research focuses on investigating pathways for the sustainable management of agricultural waste and byproducts to generate value-added products and reduce agriculture-related impacts on ecosystems, according to the university.

PFAS contamination in oysters

Coastal Carolina Riverwatch will receive $128,751 to study whether farm-raised and wild-caught oyster populations in the White Oak River basin are contaminated with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, dangerous, toxic chemicals that are harmful to health and do not degrade in the environment.

“I’m fighting to hold accountable the companies that polluted our air and water with dangerous forever chemicals,” Stein said. “But more research only strengthens our understanding of the harm that’s already been done. I’m grateful to the Coastal Carolina Riverwatch for studying PFAS closely.”

The White Oak River basin covers most of Onslow and Carteret counties, as well as small portions of Craven and Jones counties, and includes Bogue and Core sounds, according to NCDEQ.

“Coastal Carolina Riverwatch (CCRW) staff and partners are grateful for this funding that will help us conduct crucial research on per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS) and heavy metal levels in wild and farm-raised oysters,” Executive Director Lisa Rider said in the release.

“This project aims to reveal the impact of these industrial pollutants on coastal fisheries. The data obtained is pivotal for understanding the environmental consequences of these pollutants and will help us promote restoration and policy improvements through future planning and advocacy efforts. CCRW highly values the NC Environmental Enhancement Grant (EEG) Program, considering it essential for assessing pollution in local water bodies,” she continued. “This financial support greatly advances public knowledge of pollutants, promotes consumer safety, and urges effective pollution reduction measures in the State of North Carolina. It underscores the urgency of addressing pollution for both ecosystem health and public well-being, aligning with the goals of the NC EEG program.”

Land conservation

The Conservation Fund will receive $150,000 to protect 3,530 acres along the Lumber River, which will become a part of the Lumber River State Park in Scotland, Hoke, Robeson and Columbus counties.

“Preserving this land helps us to protect water quality in southeastern North Carolina,” Stein said. “That means folks will be safer and healthier. We’re also helping ensure that future generations can enjoy the beauty of their surroundings.”

The Lumber River basin is found in 10 counties, including Brunswick, and contains the coastal watershed of the Shallotte and Lockwoods Folly rivers, according to NCDEQ.

“The Lumber River State Park is a gem in Southeastern North Carolina,” The Conservation Fund’s NC State Director Guenevere Abernathy said. “It provides many public benefits, including outdoor recreation, wildlife conservation, economic development, and flood storage. The Conservation Fund thanks Attorney General Josh Stein for providing an EEG grant to help us expand the state park and increase public access in Robeson County.”

Wetlands preservation

The Wildlife and Outdoor Recreation Foundation will receive $200,000 to purchase 48.12 acres in Nashville, a part of the Tar-Pamlico watershed, to add to existing wetlands and implement measures to prevent flooding and erosion.

“Wetlands are crucial to keeping our water clean and helping habitats thrive in Nashville,” Stein said. “This grant will help increase North Carolina’s wetlands and safeguard against flooding.”

The Tar River begins in north central North Carolina in Person, Granville and Vance counties and flows southeasterly until it reaches tidal waters near Washington and becomes the Pamlico River, according to NCDEQ.

“The Environmental Enhancement Grant (EEG) played a crucial role in the success of the Wildlife & Outdoor Recreation Foundation securing the land for the Stoney Creek Environmental Preservation Project,” Wildlife and Outdoor Recreation Foundation Executive Director Tammy Rundle said. “The acquisition of the property was needed to preserve and enhance the wetlands within the Town of Nashville in an effort to help mitigate flooding, while conserving the native ecosystem biodiversity. Being awarded the EEG funding, this project can move forward, allowing for the restoration and preservation of these vital natural habitats that contribute to our clean air, land, and water.”

Feral swine population study

Catawba College in Salisbury will receive $28,875 to identify, study and map feral swine populations across central and southeastern North Carolina.

“Wild boars damage our environments, pollute our water, and threaten our farms,” Stein said. “This grant will help us better understand the challenges we face and how to effectively solve the many issues that stem from this feral population.”

The college will partner with the North Carolina Department of Agriculture and Consumer Resources and the North Carolina Feral Swine Task Force to find solutions to mitigate the environmental harms of feral swine.

“Feral swine are an increasing threat to North Carolina’s environment and economy. Mitigating their impact is an initiative that reaches ‘across the aisle,’ advancing the health and well-being of ecosystems and agribusiness in our State,” said Luke Dollar, chairman of the Environment and Sustainability Department and professor at Catawba College. “The Attorney General’s Environmental Enhancement Grant support of our efforts will greatly advance our ability to collaboratively address this growing hazard. We are grateful for this generous funding.”

Recovery, resiliency plans for underserved communities

East Carolina University will receive $44,656 to help local governments with largely underserved communities better develop and act on sustainability, resiliency and recovery plans.

“Eastern North Carolina has taken it on the chin in recent hurricane seasons,” Stein said. “This grant will help make small communities in the east more resilient to the challenges they face now and in the years to come.”

“Eastern North Carolina is a diverse and growing region, but it is one that also faces a number of environmental challenges including flooding and sea level rise,” said ECU Professor and Chair of the Department of Political Science, Dr. Alethia Cook. “This project will aid communities to comprehensively develop resiliency plans that address a combination of air, water, and land quality concerns.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Learn more about the North River Wetlands Preserve, 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The North Carolina Department of Transportation, citing its commitment to consider nature-based solutions for resiliency, has partnered with the nonprofit North Carolina Coastal Federation on a living shoreline project along the causeway between Swansboro and Cedar Point to protect N.C. 24.

The Coastal Federation publishes Coastal Review.

This is NCDOT’s first living shoreline, said Brian Lipscomb, stormwater engineer with the agency’s hydraulics unit, during an event Thursday in downtown Swansboro’s Bicentennial Park to show the media the project’s progress.

“This project for DOT really represents our commitment to looking into and considering nature-based solutions for providing resiliency and climate adaptation in our state’s highway infrastructure,” he said.

This living shoreline, expected to be compete this summer, is one of three being built along the causeway with the other two managed by the Coastal Federation. The first living shoreline was completed in July and the third will be built sometime this year. The total for all three is $3.6 million.

Lipscomb explained that living shorelines combine engineered and natural features to reduce wave energy and reduce erosion along a shoreline.

“They’ve been proven to be much more resilient, and less prone to failures than traditional bulkheads, as well as providing some environmental uplift with creation of some diverse fisheries habitat,” he said, adding that living shorelines also can also improve water quality, reduce erosion through nutrient uptake of the vegetation and the oysters that’ll eventually come in and be in the area as well can filter water.

That section of N.C. Highway 24 was selected for the project because it is a vital route for hurricane evacuations and for military installations like Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune. The causeway has been vulnerable to extreme storm events in the past and suffered damage on numerous occasions, Lipscomb noted.

Lipscomb said the NCDOT project includes a quarter-acre of new salt marsh and 900 feet of granite rock and oyster structure sill to serve as a wave breaker. Work on the project began in December, and Lipscomb expects it to be completed by this summer, coming in right at about $2 million.

The project was made possible through funding from the North Carolina General Assembly, NCDOT bridge maintenance money and a grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation awarded to the Coastal Federation in partnership with the DOT.

Dr. Lexia Weaver, coastal scientist and living shoreline program director for the Coastal Federation, explained that one of the organization’s main goals in protecting and restoring the coast is “to make living shorelines the norm for shoreline stabilization, and this project is another example of many that are moving that goal forward.”

She expressed the organization’s gratitude to DOT’s commitment and decision to pursue “this more resilient, environmentally friendly approach to erosion control.

“Living shorelines have proven time and time again to work significantly better are more cost effective and more resilient to the effects of storms compared to the traditionally used bulkheads and seawalls that have hardened our shoreline and reduced our valuable salt marsh and oyster habitats in the process,” she said.

Planning for the project began in 2019 when NCDOT and the Coastal Federation worked together to submit a proposal to the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation. That grant was awarded in 2020, and the project team began to design and permit the three living shorelines along the causeway.

The first living shoreline, which spans 300 feet, was built by Native Shorelines in 2022 using their patent-pending QuickReef material. The DOT-led living shoreline project are the second and the third living shorelines planned to be built along the causeway will total 500 feet in length.

“These living shorelines, they will help to reduce wave energy and protect the roadway while at the same time while protecting and restoring valuable salt marsh and oyster habitats. So we look forward to seeing many more of these DOT living shoreline projects being implemented along our coast,” Weaver said.

While looking at the project after the media event, Lipscomb said DOT had a longstanding history with Coastal Federation, including projects to build saltwater wetlands in Manteo and a restoration project in Beaufort. He said the relationship was especially helpful on NCDOT’s first living shoreline project that was not part of a Coastal Federation project.

Lipscomb said since the project was approved, construction proceeded smoothly. He explained that design changes were needed because of utility conflicts and environmental reasons.

“I think the agencies have been really happy with what they’ve seen,” Lipscomb said.

DOT will likely consider using living shorelines in other projects, he said. Once the shoreline in Swansboro is finished, Lipscomb said monitoring would continue, “but we’ve seen this from other projects across the state, across the country, that the shorelines are really good and really help for resilience and stand up to traditional hardening methods.”

A collaborative effort to protect North Carolina shorelines is underway.

North Carolina Sea Grant, East Carolina University and Carteret Community College are working together to develop a framework for coastal protection design and siting, as well as living shoreline training courses and a certification program, Sea Grant announced Thursday.

The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Sea Grant College Program and the U.S. Coastal Research Program are backing the new work to protect North Carolina’s shorelines.

Frank López, extension director for North Carolina Sea Grant and one of the project leads, explained that the team will survey community members to capture their views on different options for coastal adaptation.

At the Coastal Studies Institute, ECU’s Outer Banks campus in Wanchese, Dr. Rachel Gittman, assistant professor in the biology department at ECU, will build on her previous research for the U.S. Coastal Research Program on living shorelines.

“New data will help enhance the effectiveness of different substrates and designs for living shorelines,” López said in a statement. “The team will develop strategies that will help shoreline property owners, permit issuing agencies, and contractors.”

López said the collaboration will inform improvements in coastal protection training and outreach programs, including an expanded pilot course that covers advanced design tracks for waterfront property owners, as well as a design certification program through Carteret Community College in Morehead City.

“This project will help keep our state at the forefront of coastal resilience planning and adaptation,” said North Carolina Sea Grant Executive Director Susan White.

The collaboration is one of 10 to receive support through the NOAA’s National Sea Grant College Program’s work with the U.S. Coastal Research Program to enhance resilience in coastal communities.

“Through this partnership with the U.S. Coastal Research Program, Sea Grant is able to effectively leverage its nationwide network to help coastal and Great Lakes communities tackle some of the most pressing issues that they face now and in the future,” NOAA National Sea Grant College Program Director Jonathan Pennock said in a statement.

Programs across the nation are receiving additional NOAA Sea Grant support to increase local capacity, engagement, research, and implementation to address resilience challenges. As a result, North Carolina Sea Grant will offer for the second year Coastal Resilience Team Competition fellowships.

The fellowships will provide up to $20,000 for one or more student teams to conduct two-year projects that will lead to more resilient habitats and communities. Each team will be made up of two to four members, including at least one graduate student who will serve as the project lead, and at least one undergraduate.

The second Coastal Resilience Team Competition will begin accepting proposals Feb. 1. More information is expected to be available online.

To keep up with how the shoreline stabilization industry is evolving, a team of shoreline restoration specialists during its recent meeting invited a handful of companies to talk about their proprietary techniques to build the alternative for hardened bulkheads and seawalls.

Living shorelines are made of materials such as salt marshes, sand, rock or oysters, and are a natural barrier for estuaries, bays, tributaries and other sheltered shorelines. They protect shorelines from erosion, provide habitat for fish and other living resources, improve water quality and store nutrients, increase stability over time, can outperform hardened shorelines during a storm, and attract natural wildlife, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. 

Dr. Lexia Weaver, coastal scientist for the North Carolina Coastal Federation, and Jimmy Johnson with Albemarle-Pamlico National Estuary Partnership, an Environmental Protection Agency-funded program based in the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, co-chair the North Carolina Living Shorelines Steering Committee made up of scientists, federal and state agencies, and other invested organizations that work to identify and bring together efforts focused on promoting and implementing living shorelines. 

Weaver explained to Coastal Review that innovative options for living shoreline construction materials have really exploded in the last few years, which is why the committee brought in the companies to present their materials. Those companies were Atlantic Reef, ECOncrete, Native Shorelines, Natrx, ReadyReef Inc., Sandbar Oyster Co. SoxErosion and Living Shoreline Solutions.

The companies have their own methods and designs for shoreline stabilization systems and use local or biodegradable materials, concrete or a combination, to build their systems, most of which have wave attenuation properties to slow erosion. One company offers a product that can be added to the concrete mix to keep it from breaking down under water. 

Depending on the business, the units making up the shoreline stabilization structures are shaped like discs, rectangles, triangles, pyramids, blocks or a site-specific design. Many of the units are texturized to give oyster spat a place to hold on and grow. Most are installed in the intertidal zone either by the company or through a local contractor. 

Johnson reiterated at the beginning of the Nov. 30 meeting that the committee was not trying to compare companies or methods, rather give the members a better idea of what’s being used by those in the restoration and living shoreline business. 

Weaver said in an interview that the federation’s goal is for living shorelines to be the go-to approach for shoreline stabilization. 

“Living shorelines reduce shoreline erosion while at the same time restore and protect our salt marsh and oyster habitats. Living shorelines are also more economical and a longer-term option when compared to bulkheads and seawalls,” she said. 

Weaver added that it was important to hear these new perspectives because there is a need for an alternative living shoreline construction material instead of the traditionally used plastic mesh for bags of recycled oyster shells. 

“The ideal mesh material would last long enough — at least three years — in the marine environment to allow oysters to attach and grow. Although these plastic mesh bags of recycled oyster shells stay in place along living shoreline sills and marsh-toe revetments, and are extremely successful at reducing shoreline erosion and providing valuable estuarine habitat, they are still plastic, which is not the best material to be placing in our waterways. Even mesh bags that claim to be biodegradable are still plastic, Weaver continued. “We have been searching for an alternative mesh product to bag our oyster shells for a very long time and it may not exist or just has not been developed yet. In the meantime, multiple companies have developed materials that can be used instead of the plastic mesh bags of oyster shells and we are excited to test them and use them in living shoreline construction.”

Weaver said after the meeting that attendees now have a variety of tools to use and test for living shoreline construction. A variety of materials were presented that each can be used at specific distances from shore, wave energies and site conditions. 

“There were a lot of great before and after photos that really tell the story of how effective the products can be for use in living shoreline construction,” she added.

About the methods

Atlantic ReefMaker, based in Wilmington, has developed a flow-through, pile-based wave attenuation system with ecological benefits, co-founder Phillip Todd said during the meeting.

These artificial reef systems, designed to reduce shoreline erosion caused by tidal energy, are made of what the company calls ecodisks. A mechanical support system on a 12-inch diameter fiberglass pile holds the stack of concrete disks above the substrate. The height and length of the system are dependent on the project. When it comes to sea level change and how to adjust for it, Todd said these stacks can easily be made taller without any additional impacts to the substrate.

Dr. Andrew Rella is the technical director of business development of ECOncrete and he is in New York though the company is based in Israel. The company has a compound that can be added directly into the concrete mix that creates a hard layer to keep the concrete from breaking down. The company also has technology to make the concrete molds used to build the site-specific infrastructure have complex textures to give organisms something to grab onto and grow, holes that serve as shelter or breeding spaces, and tidepool or cave-like features that offer intertidal habitat generally missing from rocky coastal riprap, the website states.

Rella said this method can be used in any concrete in the marine environment, such as shoreline protection, waterfront infrastructure or offshore applications. 

Native Shorelines, a division of Restoration Systems based in Raleigh, has a material called QuickReef that combines the aesthetics and ecological benefits of an oyster shell bag shoreline with the stability of heavier materials and eliminates the use of plastic, according to the website.

The company’s Coastal Restoration Director Mary-Margaret McKinney, who is also on the committee, said during the meeting that the QuickReef system was designed for the intertidal zone so as to be underwater at high tide and exposed at low tide.

The system is a row of rectangular units, mostly made of native coastal materials, like limestone marl and oyster shells. These units are about 12 inches wide by 5 inches thick, weighing in at about 90 pounds. The units are arranged in a trapezoidal shape to create as much space as possible for habitat inside the structure. 

Matthew Campbell, co-founder of Raleigh-based Natrx, a company focused on coastal restoration, said the company has a manufacturing technology called dry forming.

Sort of like a 3-D printer, water is robotically injected from several needles into a dry bed of concrete mix. The water diffuses through the dry mix, creating spheres with rough surfaces.

The spheres that form merge together to create a solid structure that resembles a simple sandcastle with a similar texture. The dry forming method allows for creating different designs using different materials. 

Chris Davis with ReadyReef Inc., of the Chesapeake Bay area, said he is a marine contractor who uses a range of options for shoreline erosion control in the intertidal zone. The company “provides turnkey shoreline erosion control installations” according to its website and custom builds systems using low and high sill oyster reefs, which they backfill for living shorelines, and use nonwoven growth bags, tied concrete blocks and geobags, together or individually.

Dr. Niels Lindquist with Sandbar Oyster Co. in Carteret County said the company uses plant-fiber cloth as the foundation of its material, which is infused with different cement mixtures and molded into different shapes, such as a pillow to promote sediment accumulation and marsh growth. 

One shape they use is called a table design, which combines vertical and horizontal elements. The design can be modified to allow for the tables to interlock to create different configurations, adjust the height and add a range of elements to reef design with little effort.

SoxErosion’s Regional Manager Greg Bell, a Myrtle Beach resident, said this system can be used along any stream, lake, retention pond or the Intracoastal Waterway. SoxErosion, based in Boca Raton, Florida, this shoreline-stabilization method is designed with a double layer of technical mesh, which is a high-density polyethylene material. The pervious, flexible mesh is folded in half, like a taco, Bell said, and tethered to two or three rows of strategically placed anchors, depending on the size of the project. The ends are sewn shut making an envelope that is filled with soil material. The mesh molds to the topography of the bank itself. It is covered in sod, seed or plants to establish a root structure.

Florida-based Living Shoreline Solutions President and Founder Scott Bartkowski said the company designed wave attenuation devices, or WADs, that are three-sided pyramids made out of marine-grade concrete and fiber mesh, and are about 4.5 inches thick. These are placed in what he calls a WAD array, or designs specific to the shoreline area to prevent predominant wind and wave energy from reaching the shore. The company manufactures the forms based on the needs of the client. Those forms will be shipped to a local manufacturer that pours concrete and then the company uses local marine contractors to deploy the system. 

The North Carolina Coastal Federation is to receive funding to complete the designs for three living shoreline projects at Marine Corps Air Station New River and Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune.

The award to the nonprofit organization is one of 88 new grants totaling more than $136 million through the National Coastal Resilience Fund, announced Tuesday by NOAA and National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.

The Coastal Federation grant is for the project, “Designing Living Shorelines to Protect Critical Infrastructure and Estuarine Habitat,” that totals $1,020,600. Of that, $510,600 is a grant award and matching funds are $510,000.

The three living shorelines at the military installations are to protect their critical estuarine-side infrastructure from storm-based erosion, the release states. Once implemented, the project is expected to benefit the installation and its residents as well as provide habitat for many species of fish and wildlife, including six threatened and endangered species.

A full list of the 2022 grants is available online.  

The National Coastal Resilience Fund is a partnership between National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, NOAA, U.S. Department of Defense, Shell USA, TransRe and Oxy, with additional funding from the Bezos Earth Fund.

The 88 awards, using funding from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and other sources, generated over $94 million in matching contributions from the grantees, providing a total conservation impact of more than $230 million.

The Coastal Federation publishes Coastal Review.

Lined with charter boats, old homes, restaurants and retail stores, Morehead City’s downtown waterfront has long been its biggest attraction, and a stone’s throw across the water, Sugarloaf Island has long helped protect the economic center of town from the brunt of coastal storms.

But Sugarloaf, which was created when Harbor Channel was dredged decades ago and forms a barrier to the wider expanse of water just inside Bogue Banks and Beaufort Inlet, has been eroding rapidly for years and causing alarm about the loss of protection from severe storm damage and flooding.

Now, with a $2 million state appropriation, a team of professionals is setting out to combine the best shoreline stabilization methods for the island in a way that officials said will balance shoreline protection, public uses and natural resource conservation. While the city has yet to secure all the money to complete the project, officials said the restoration would be incremental with $2 million enough for the first phase.

“When the town cut was first dredged and Sugarloaf Island was built back in the ’30s, I believe it was, it gave Morehead City the economic opportunity of growth on the waterfront,” Mayor Jerry Jones explained Thursday during a press conference at the Ottis Landing Deck on Shepard Street. “And over the years in my lifetime I’ve seen at least 1,000 feet of Sugarloaf erode away. It used to extend as far west as 12th Street and now it’s about Ninth Street. We’ve lost about three blocks and that erosion is accelerating.”

The erosion leaves uprooted trees and vegetation and the currents and wave exposure carry sediments and nutrients and degrade water quality.

Also in attendance at the press conference were members of the city council, waterfront business owners and Sen. Norm Sanderson, R-Pamlico, and Rep. Pat McElraft, R-Carteret, who helped secure the funding in the state budget.

“We are so blessed here in Carteret County to have our marine sciences, who have — all of them — banded together with the Coastal Federation to find the right solution, environmentally friendly solution for what I call the buffer, or the speed bump, protecting this beautiful city of Morehead City,” McElraft said at the event Thursday.

She said the funding was available for storm mitigation and resiliency because the legislature had built up copious “rainy day money.” The state’s rainy day fund, a budget surplus savings reserve for lessening the effects of sharp economic downturns and disasters, is projected to be about $4.75 billion by the end of next year.

Sanderson said that looking at Sugarloaf Island from above, from 20,000 feet or 10,000 feet with a drone, the tiny island might not look very important. “It’s very small on the grand scale of things, if you look at that, compared to our coastline. But because of this strategic location, it is extremely important to downtown Morehead City,” Sanderson said.

He said the North Carolina General Assembly shares the town council’s and coastal conservation group’s desire to be good environmental stewards.

“I don’t want, 50 years from now, somebody standing on this dock, saying, ‘Didn’t there used to be an island out there?’ and ‘Yeah, it was but it started going away, and even though we had technology to do something about it, we just didn’t think it was that important.’ Well, it is important,” Sanderson said.

Robert Purifoy owns and operates Olympus Dive Center at 713 Shepard St., directly across from Sugarloaf. He told Coastal Review that he had seen water coming up through the floorboards of his business during coastal storms, and while the structure is on pilings, it is normally over dry land. He said the restoration was a critical project for the waterfront.

City officials, aquatic restoration company Sea & Shoreline, the nonprofit North Carolina Coastal Federation, which publishes Coastal Review, and Quible & Associates announced in July the start of the project to restore and protect the island using wave attenuators that disperse wave energy to reduce erosion and help rebuild the shoreline, seagrass plantings to stabilize sediment, create essential fish habitat and improve water quality, and a living shoreline to build salt marsh and upland vegetation.

The combination of methods should also address tree and shorebird habitat loss on the island and provide carbon sequestration benefits. Officials said ecotourism opportunities from increased beach area and improved water quality conditions were another expected benefit.

Brian Henry, director of Sea & Shoreline’s North and South Carolina offices, said the project was his idea for the Florida-based firm’s entry to the market here. He said the legislators supported the idea from the start.

“Without hesitation, they dove in very quickly and told us that this is very, very important, critical infrastructure for Morehead City and that they would see what they can do. A lot of things had to come together to get this money,” Henry said during the press conference.

He said the project is in the permitting phase with about another 35 to 40 days likely remaining.

“No questions or real objections at this point because we had a really good team on the front end that put all the work together from a technical perspective,” Henry said.

Coastal Federation scientist Dr. Lexia Weaver explained that the plan to use living shorelines was a natural, long-term shoreline-stabilization method.

“These living shorelines have proven time and time again to work significantly better, are more cost-effective, and they are incredibly more resilient to the effects of storms compared to the traditionally used sea walls that have hardened our shorelines and unfortunately have led to the reduction in our valuable salt marsh habitats and oysters, as well, in the process,” Weaver said.

She explained how the island protects the entire downtown area from the winds, waves, storm surge and other damaging effects of strong storms that have increased in intensity and frequency in the last few years.

“Unfortunately, the island has eroded due to these rising water levels and these strong storms,” Weaver said. “More than three whole city blocks of the island have been lost and it has exposed this waterfront to the direct effects of Mother Nature, and it continues to shrink in size. So, if nothing is done to protect this island, this waterfront is in trouble.”

The planned project components to be installed off the island’s shoreline will not impede navigation as they are to be placed in areas too shallow for vessels to navigate at high speed, according to information provided at the press conference. The breakwater will also be staggered to allow fishers to reach areas around them.

Construction is expected to begin this year on a project to increase the resiliency of downtown Morehead City by protecting Sugarloaf Island from continual shoreline erosion, officials announced Wednesday.

City officials, North Carolina Coastal Federation and Sea & Shoreline, a Florida-based aquatic restoration firm, are working together on the project with Currituck County-based Quible & Associates and other experts to identify and design the best shoreline stabilization methods for the island that balance shoreline protection, public uses and natural resource conservation.

Sugarloaf Island is parallel to the downtown waterfront, separated by Harbor Channel. Currently, the seaward shoreline of the Island is eroding, leaving uprooted trees and vegetation behind. Add to that wave exposure and swift currents eroding the shoreline, sweeping nutrient-rich sediment into the water column, degrading water quality, and filling in navigational channels, officials said.

“We are excited to partner with not only the Federation and the City on this project, but also other local companies to restore our beloved island,” Brian Henry, director of Sea & Shoreline’s North Carolina and South Carolina offices, said in a statement.

The $2 million project funded in the latest state budget is expected to do the following: stop erosion, tree loss and shorebird habitat loss; increase the shoreline, fish habitat, carbon sequestration, and fishing and ecotourism opportunities; and enhance seagrass, water quality and the coastal resilience of Morehead City.

“Protecting and restoring our island has been a priority to this City for years and now, thanks to the State Legislature, we finally have the funding to make it happen. We’re looking forward to working closely with the professionals from Sea & Shoreline and the North Carolina Coastal Federation to see this project come to fruition,” Morehead City Mayor Jerry Jones said in a statement.

One method being considered is a hybrid approach using offshore wave attenuation devices, or WADs, to reduce erosion, seagrass plantings to stabilize the sediment and create essential fish habitat, and a living shoreline to build salt marsh and upland vegetation.

The restoration techniques will not impede normal vessel traffic because they will be installed in areas too shallow for boats to navigate safely at high speeds. Wave attenuation structures will be staggered so that fishing can occur in and around the structures.

“This is a wonderful opportunity to protect and restore Sugarloaf Island so that it continues to provide important recreation, fish habitat, and storm protection values,” said Coastal Federation Executive Director Todd Miller. “The Federation supports and appreciates the financial support provided by the North Carolina General Assembly to Morehead City to allow this project to move forward in preventing this island from washing away.”

Construction began early this month on the first of three living shorelines along N.C. 24 between Cedar Point and Swansboro.

The combined $3.6 million project is a partnership with the North Carolina Coastal Federation, publisher of Coastal Review, and the state Department of Transportation, with support of the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation.

The first 300-foot section of living shoreline is being built along two lots that the town of Cedar Point owns. Construction is by Native Shorelines, a Restoration Systems division previously called RS Shorelines, using the company’s proprietary QuickReef units. Work on the other two living shorelines, totaling an additional 1,345 feet, is expected to begin this fall.

This project is part of NCDOT’s efforts to make more than 500 miles of coastal roads resilient to storms using nature-based solutions, officials said.

Living shorelines are built to help improve resiliency against the effects of storm surge on the adjacent sidewalk and highway while protecting and restoring salt marsh and oyster habitat at the same time, according to the federation. The goal of this project is to naturally stabilize the shorelines, decrease wave and storm surge impacts, and provide habitat restoration and water quality enhancement, according to the Coastal Federation.

The initial idea began April 1, 2020, but was put on hold for a few months because of the COVID-19 pandemic. During that time NCDOT program functions were suspended.

Federation Coastal Scientist Dr. Lexia Weaver said that the partnership with NCDOT is significant as it promotes an environmentally friendly option for protecting valuable infrastructure rather than the traditionally used bulkheads and seawalls that damage our coastal habitats.

“This project has been years in the making and we are excited to have a partner like NCDOT who values finding a nature-based solution to protecting this stretch of highway,” she said.

Updated to clarify length of N.C. 12 elevation

Duck officials heard late last year that the Outer Banks town had been selected for a $1.85 million grant for a proposed living shoreline and N.C. 12 resiliency project.

The funding is through the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities, or BRIC, program. The Federal Emergency Management Agency, which administers the BRIC program, announced the nearly two-dozen selected competitive projects in early November 2021, but as of Friday the town was still waiting on official word.

Town Manager Joe Heard told Coastal Review that he had received information Thursday suggesting that the town’s “official” BRIC grant award from FEMA likely will not occur until March 2022.

The BRIC program supports states, communities, tribes and territories as they take on hazard-mitigation projects with the goal of reducing risks from disasters and natural hazards by focusing on larger infrastructure projects. These projects are to enhance human health, provide ecological benefits and benefit a multitude of residents, according to FEMA.

During an earlier interview, Heard had explained that once the town gets the go-ahead, it can move forward with the plan to elevate a flood-prone section of N.C. 12 — the only north-south roadway through Duck.

Duck’s is one of 22 projects selected across the country for fiscal 2020. The projects are under one of seven categories: elevation, flood control, floodproofing, relocation, shelter project, utility and infrastructure protection, and wildfire management. The Duck project is in the elevation category.

Duck occupies a narrow swath of land between Currituck Sound and the Atlantic Ocean and is situated on the northern end of Dare County, adjacent to Currituck County. The town has around 500 year-round residents, but during peak season, the population can reach up to 25,000, according to the U.S. Census Bureau and the town. North of Duck, in Currituck County, the population can be in the tens of thousands during peak season. The only way for those folks to leave Currituck County is on N.C. 12 through Duck.

N.C. 12 is “a low-lying highway where floods frequently impact residents, tourists and emergency services,” according to FEMA – and anyone familiar with the Outer Banks. The stretch of highway at the north end of Duck routinely floods, blocking traffic and emergency services, and is threatened by shoreline erosion.

The project

The town has proposed for the project installing a living shoreline to help protect coastal habitat and mitigate shoreline erosion, which threatens the roadway and private property, according to the BRIC application. “Flooding in the project area affects a short but critical stretch of NC 12.”

“The project Includes 988 linear feet of breakwater sills, protection of 21,234 square feet of existing marsh, 12,168 square feet of marsh restoration, and 920 linear feet of riprap revetment,” the application states. The proposed revetment Is to prevent erosion and protect the roadway and adjacent private property, help reduce wave energy, and prevent debris from accumulating in the roadway.

Heard explained that the living shoreline is intended to stabilize the section of the Currituck Sound shoreline along the roadway. The town obtained a substantial grant from the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation for the living shoreline. The engineering design is complete and ready to be permitted.

The town also plans to add a bicycle and pedestrian pathway along this area. Duck had a fourth and final phase to complete of its sidewalk and bike lane project through the village. Coincidentally, it’s the same quarter-mile stretch that would tie into an existing crosswalk north of the area, Heard said.

Nature-based solutions to improve stormwater runoff conditions are to be put in place, specifically, an infiltration trench between the roadway asphalt and the concrete sidewalk. The town obtained a grant from the Dare County Tourism Board for this project.

“So we had these two components (living shoreline and sidewalk projects) that were already locked in, but when the BRIC came up, suddenly, we’re now looking at larger numbers — a capability to accomplish something much more significant than those two projects by themselves,” he said.

To apply for BRIC, the living shoreline and pedestrian path projects were rolled into another project to elevate that section of Highway 12, Duck Road, in that same area, “that had been identified as the single most vulnerable piece of public infrastructure by that Western Carolina study,” he said.

A 1,260-foot section of N.C. 12 will be elevated. Heard added that the town didn’t think that the road work would happen for another decade, but BRIC was an opportunity to accomplish elevating the road and the other projects at the same time. 

The town also plans to use subsurface infiltration chambers, which will provide a place to store runoff that will be filtered as it infiltrates the native sandy soils, avoiding direct discharge to the sound, the application states.

“Basically everything east of the project area rises up significantly, it’s part of a large dune, that goes up substantially,” Heard said. There was a lot of runoff from the streets and property in that area and right now it’s just a sheet of water flowing across the road, directly into the sound.

The underground component planned for north of Olde Duck Road would capture stormwater and gradually release it as the water table allows, Heard said. It’s like a system that was installed at the southern end of town more than 10 years ago, “that really made a substantial difference” in an area that flooded consistently. “And we’re looking for the same type of results here.”

Heard added that native plants are also part of the plan to help filter any remaining roadway runoff.

“That’s one of the big benefits of that as well. It’s not just recreating habitat, these plants will help filter that water before it goes into the sound,” he said.

By raising the roadway, installing the living shoreline and making the sidewalk improvements, the project will mitigate threats and loss associated with erosion and damage to critical Infrastructure, roadway infrastructure replacement costs, interfering with emergency vehicles and hospital access, blocking storm evacuation route, and disruption of safe pedestrian and bicycle travel, according to the application.

First steps

Heard explained that Duck had gone through several steps in applying for the BRIC program. The project and grant itself are the result of three town planning efforts in 2020.

One was when Duck did a vulnerability assessment in partnership with the Program for the Study of Developed Shorelines at Western Carolina University in February 2020. Heard said that the assessment identified the town’s most vulnerable assets, which included this section of N.C. 12.

Then in June of that year, work was completed on the Outer Banks regional hazard mitigation plan, which includes Currituck and Dare counties as well as Dare’s local governments, Duck, Kill Devil Hills, Kitty Hawk, Manteo, Nags Head and Southern Shores — a total of eight governing bodies.

“And again, that was a project where we spent over a year identifying what some of the hazards are and the risks that all of our communities deal with,” Heard said.

In addition, each community created its own plan.

“We do have a sub plan that focuses just on Duck and the things that we hope to accomplish to make ourselves a more resilient community,” he said.

The third project took place in August 2020, when work was completed on Duck’s comprehensive land use plan.

Heard said the land use plan was a little over the year in the making.

“We interacted with the community in a variety of ways during that process to try to get input from property owners, citizens, business owners, and different stakeholders in the town,” he said.

Christian Legner, the town’s public information and events director, distributed a survey that received more than 800 responses, which was “off-the-charts” engagement Heard said for the town to only have 500 or so year-round residents.

The survey enabled town officials to “feel very confident that the types of goals, objectives and actions that we identified in that plan were the will of the community. It gives us a lot of confidence that we were heading in the right direction,” Heard added.

Not long after, Heard said that town officials became aware of the BRIC program and learned that many of the town’s planned projects were eligible.

The town worked with the North Carolina Department of Public Safety to apply for BRIC.

“We lumped it all together into a single, cohesive coastal resiliency project that would elevate the road, have the living shoreline, have the bike path and sidewalk, and we also have some stormwater management improvements in there as well that’ll help with water quality,” he explained.

Heard said he believes the project was selected because of its use of nature-based solutions, and because the road elevation would help keep N.C. 12 from becoming flooded and unpassable.  

If N.C. 12 floods in that area during the peak tourist season, based on figures from Currituck County, well over 60,000 people could be stuck.

“This little weak spot would impact all of those people’s ability to evacuate and their ability to receive emergency services were extremely important. We’re hoping to prevent the type of situation that would cause that by doing the road elevation,” he said.

Heard explained that the town hopes the project, which would fulfill key goals in previously approved plans, will also improve water quality, recreate lost habitat and increase resiliency. It could also be an educational opportunity.

It’s a highly visible stretch of road, Heard said, and particularly with the bicycle-pedestrian pathway, the public can get a close look at the work.

“We’ve got a great opportunity to educate the public about what the project is, what it’s doing,” Heard said, especially with the living shoreline part of the project, “we really want to educate people about this type of nature-based alternative. We want to let people know and give them good visible examples of an alternative. “

The town began in the fall working on the interpretive information and for the educational angle that explains the development and purpose of the project, “And hopefully give them something to think about if and when they’re looking at a similar issue along their own shoreline. They might choose to look at this rather than a bulkhead.”

The project can be an example for other communities, he said.

“To a great degree, we’re on the forefront of coastal communities that are dealing with coastal resiliency and those issues,” he said, adding there’s interest from agencies and organizations “in getting more and more examples on the on the ground, or I guess, in this case, in the water.”

A virtual online training course is scheduled for next month to go over the basics of nature-based solutions that can help reduce the impacts of coastal hazards on communities.

The course, Nature-Based Solutions for Coastal Hazards 101, is from 2 to 4 p.m. Jan. 11 and is free to attend.

Trainers from National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Office for Coastal Management will instruct the course that organizers call a starting point in preparing coastal managers and planners to plan and implement green, or natural, infrastructure projects to reduce impacts of coastal hazards to their community. 

After registering online, which is required, details on how to join the training will be emailed.

There are two parts to the course.

Part 1 is an hourlong self-guided online module that reviews green infrastructure. This should be completed before the Jan. 11 virtual training course, which is part 2. During this two-hour webinar, participants are to interact with their peers and experts to learn more about green infrastructure implementation and overcoming challenges.

Also on the agenda are presentations by Holly White with Nags Head who will discuss the town’s Estuarine Shoreline Management Plan and Lauren Kolodij with the North Carolina Coastal Federation who will talk about the implementation of Swansboro’s Watershed Restoration Plan. They will also hear about coastal hazards of concern and location, ecosystem services and green infrastructure practices.

After completing the course, participants should be able to describe the green infrastructure practices that can reduce hazard impacts and build resilience in their community. Other session objectives include connecting with experts and colleagues who can provide additional information and guidance on implementing green infrastructure and learn about resources and future opportunities for learning, organizers said.

The course offers three hours of continuing education credits for the American Institute of Certified Planners and Certified Floodplain Manager professional certifications.

ST. JAMES — Years ago, the phrase “living shoreline” wasn’t well known in North Carolina outside of, say, the circles of coastal scientists and researchers.

“I don’t recall that at the time we used the term ‘living shoreline’ as much as we do today,” chuckled Taylor Ryan of St. James in Brunswick County. He’s project leader and founder of the community group, The Royal Order of the Honorary St. James Oysters.

When Ryan went to the University of North Carolina Wilmington and the North Carolina Coastal Federation, which publishes Coastal Review, to ask how his town could reduce erosion along its waterfront park, he had no idea his request would result in a burgeoning, 16-years-and-counting relationship forged by a passion for education, research and resiliency.

The small, relatively young town of St. James in Brunswick County in August created an endowment fund at the university with a gift of $25,000 to support students’ work and research at the town’s living shoreline, officials announced last month.

UNCW has more than 2,000 funds that support an array of programs, but the St. James endowment is special because it was set up by the town.

“This is unique in that the town actually created the endowment fund,” said Lindsay Crighton, director of development of UNCW’s Division for University Advancement. “This is unique because it is pairing a town and the university in looking at coastal resiliency and looking at how a coastal university can partner with a coastal community and have such an impact in the region.”

It all started in the mid-2000s when Ryan attended a seminar about oysters — specifically, the value of an oyster.

A single oyster can clean between 40 to 50 gallons of water a day, Ryan learned. Their shells can be incorporated into a living shoreline, one that is built of natural materials to stabilize and protected a shore.

Such a project sounded like the right fit for the shoreline along St. James’ Waterway Park nestled along the Intracoastal Waterway.

Ryan went to St. James’ then-Mayor Shelley Lesher to ask for $5,000 to kickstart a living shoreline project at Waterway Park. Her answer was an immediate “yes.”

Fast forward through the permitting process, which was not a simple one, to the first build, one where UNCW students and their professors, Coastal Federation officials and 94 St. James residents worked together.

Since that first build, 9,000 bushels of shells have been placed along the shoreline and more than 27,000 plugs of Spartina grass have been planted, according to St. James Mayor Jean Toner.

The town’s website states that some 540 feet of shoreline has been restored and stabilized with plans to do another 2,360 feet.

“Every year, twice a year, we have students and staff join with our residents to work along our intracoastal shoreline to build up the oyster reefs,” Toner said. “It’s been an excellent project. We’ve learned a great deal from the staff and students. We’ve really enjoyed the partnership we have with them. This program, in particular, I’ve just never seen this much dedication.”

Their enthusiasm ultimately led to a natural collaboration between the town and university, one that reaches beyond the confines of St. James’ boundaries and affords college students a treasure trove of research opportunities.

Over the past year and a half, the university has been hosting presentations open to residents in the region.

Those presentations have included conversations about coastal habitats and the dynamics of living shoreline erosion, issues that are of general interest to the broader community.

“When we’re doing a build it’s not just a build, it’s also an outreach and education,” said Martin Posey, a professor and director of UNCW’s Center for Marine Science.

The benefits of the project have become multifaceted.

“That’s one of the great aspects of having this long-term study where we’ve been able to see over the 15 years how has it done as we are beginning to get more storm effects and sea level rise,” Posey said. “And, the endowment sort of solidifies this research can continue another 10 or 15 years. We’re not going to be here forever, but the endowment will help ensure that work continues and we’re able to continue to see how do these systems respond in the long term when they’re faced with these pressures of climate change.”

Posey and Troy Alphin, senior research associate at the center’s Benthic Ecology Laboratory, have been involved in St. James’ living shoreline from the get-go.

The town’s support has afforded a great opportunity for dozens and dozens of students, both graduate and undergraduate, they said.

“The classroom is good. The classroom tells you the facts and the figures and the labs give you some controlled approach. But, to actually get out there and do the research, to see how things don’t always work out the way you want them to work out, to see the fact that results can be fuzzy and you have to sort of figure out what’s happening, to learn the art of science is something that is absolutely critical that has to be done hands-on,” Posey said.

Kenneth Halanych, who took the helm in June as the UNCW center’s executive director, said the relationship between the town and the university has an even broader outreach.

“Engaging both the community and the young researches in science really helps build the trust in science from the community perspective,” Halanych said.

“One of the things we’ve had a huge problem with in this country, especially in the last little bit, is the trust in science and the trust in expertise has been greatly eroded. So, this is a chance for scientists to go and interact with the community, to interact with young researchers or young individuals and say, look, the science is critical in your everyday life,” he said. “This sort of activity I actually think is really important for helping people understand the importance of science and the scientific process. These types of partnerships between communities and universities and the involvement with students is critical for building a productive future.”

The St. James endowment will provide funds to continue the partnership at the university and support students’ work in the town.

“Our hope is eventually that other people in Brunswick County, people that are interested in coastal resiliency and marine biology and applied learning at UNCW that they will be interested in supporting this fund as well because we want other towns, communities, etcetera to look at this opportunity and think well maybe we could do this as well,” Crighton said. “As more support comes in we’re going to be able to do more work, not only in the town of St. James, but also in Brunswick County and expand the ability to have more applied learning opportunities for our students at UNCW, which is a big thing.”

Another step has been completed to save Brunswick Town and Fort Anderson from rapid shoreline erosion.

Scenic Consulting Group, a coastal and environmental engineering firm focused in environmental planning and coastal management based in Wilmington, announced last week the completion of Phase 3A of a shoreline stabilization and restoration project at the state-owned historic site.

Brunswick Town was a major preRevolutionary port on North Carolina’s Cape Fear River that was razed by British troops in 1776 and never rebuilt. Fort Anderson was built on top of the old village site during the Civil War, and served as part of the Cape Fear River defenses below Wilmington before the fall of the Confederacy, according to the state.

Brunswick Town staff noticed in spring 2008 an increase in erosion along the site’s river shoreline and coastal resources related to the widening and deepening of Cape Fear River from NC Ports Wilmington to the Atlantic Ocean to accommodate large vessels to the port, creating a ship passing lane in front of the historical site, Scenic Consulting Group officials said.

The accelerated erosion quickly uncovered and destroyed three Colonial-era wharfs and damaged the Civil War-era earthwork batteries. Many other historical archaeological artifacts were being washed away.

An Atlantic Reefmaker, a wave attenuation technology that allows water to flow through and dissipate wave energy, was installed in the first phase of the project involving 220 feet of structure along the area with the highest erosion. The second phase included installing 240 feet, just before Hurricane Florence hit the coast in September 2018.

Phase 3 of the project was split in two. Phase 3A was completed in May involving 468 feet of Atlantic Reefmaker. Phase 3B work has begun. The shoreline protection project is expected to total 742 feet in length and include the Atlantic Reefmaker structure.

Scenic Consulting Group principal Randy Boyd said in a statement that the company appreciates the continued confidence of the state and the opportunity to design and install the innovative wave attenuation structure in Phase 3A to protect and restore the natural and historic site.

“The Atlantic Reefmaker was able to meet the challenges at the historic wharfs with its minimal substrate impact. The State and Scenic Consulting Group are pleased with the resiliency of the structure along with its dissipation abilities for vessel-generated waves. An added bonus is the environmental benefits of shoreline accretion, marsh grass expansion and marine life utilization,” Boyd said.

An online briefing on a proposed living shoreline project in Pine Knoll Shores is set for 8:30 a.m. Wednesday.

The online briefing is expected to take an hour and will be followed by an in-person tour of the recently completed living shoreline at Veteran’s Park.

Because town hall is closed due to COVID-19 restrictions, the public can only listen to and participate in the briefing online.

The project would involve installation of a living shoreline in the public trust waters of Bogue Sound, about 30 feet north of existing shorelines and seawalls. Installation would be on a voluntary basis.

The town recently learned of a grant program from Federal Emergency Management Agency to fund projects to help make communities more resilient to nature, Town Manager Brian Kramer wrote in a public notice.

Town commissioners authorized staff to submit a letter of interest to the state Department of Public Safety, which administers the grant. The letter will outline a proposal for a $3.2 million project, with a cost share of FEMA 75% and 25% nonfederal cost share.

During the presentation Wednesday, Kramer is expected to explain the program objectives, timelines, obligations to the town, costs and cost share options for the nonfederal share. Dr. Lexia Weaver of the North Carolina Coastal Federation is expected to be on hand to explain the configuration of the proposed shoreline project, the effectiveness of a living shoreline against wave energy and the reduction of erosion, and the natural benefits. A question-and-answer session is planned for after the presentations.

The briefing is to end at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday. Following a 15-minute break, those who want to take a tour of the recently installed living shoreline will need to meet at the flagpole behind the town hall where Weaver is expected to discuss the shoreline installed last spring.

To learn more about living shorelines as protection during storms, visit the Coastal Federation’s webpage on living shorelines. 

Real estate professionals are encouraged to join next month a workshop on the benefits of living shorelines for waterfront properties.

The free, online workshop is from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m. Sept. 2 via Webex. Organizers ask attendees join 15 minutes early to confirm their real estate license number. Registration before the event is required. The agenda is online.

Organizers plan to share the benefits and limitations of using living shorelines for erosion control, different shoreline stabilization techniques, including living shorelines, living shoreline permitting process; using marsh plants and oyster shell to prevent erosion; and living shoreline projects in North Carolina. 

Real estate professionals will receive four elective continuing education credits from the North Carolina Real Estate Commission.

Prior to the workshop, organizers ask attendees review the Virtual Workshop Best Practices.

The workshop is being presented by the state Department of Environmental Quality, North Carolina Coastal Federation and North Carolina Sea grant.

Construction will begin this week on living shoreline demonstration projects in Topsail Beach to reduce soundside erosion and maintain valuable fisheries habitat.

The town has partnered with the North Carolina Coastal Federation to install four shorelines. Restoration Systems will begin constructing the first phase of the living shoreline this week along Banks Channel, near the soundside public access at Rocky Mount Avenue.

The project will serve as a training tool and demonstration for property owners, marine contractors and other shoreline professionals. An opening will be included to allowed for continued water access for canoes, kayaks and other small watercraft.

Wrapping up a $26 million post-Hurricane Florence storm damage reduction project, the town says it is ready to create storm resiliency projects along some of the island’s soundside properties, according to the federation.

The town will use a portion of a $5 million state grant awarded in 2019 through Senate Bill 95, granting about $1.6 million equally among Topsail Beach, Surf City and North Topsail Beach to complete living shoreline projects.

“We are very grateful for the opportunity to be proactive in creating island wide readiness and resiliency projects and address some long-standing issues of flooding and shoreline erosion,” Mike Rose, town manager for Topsail Beach, said in a release. “We’ve worked very hard on our ocean-side projects, and we are very excited to partner with the federation to focus some attention and efforts on the other side of our island.”

The living shoreline project will include the construction of a sill structure built from bagged oyster shell that will provide erosion control and serve as a living reef for new oysters. The shoreline landward of the sill will be restored with marsh species, providing critical habitat for fish and other estuarine animals.

“The work the Coastal Federation is doing to promote living shorelines is incredibly important for our coast,” said Mary-Margaret McKinney, director of coastal restoration for Restoration Systems, LLC. “Every time a landowner chooses to protect their property with a living shoreline instead of a hardened bulkhead it’s a win for their property, their neighbors’ properties, the plants and animals that live at the land-water interface, and coastal resilience as a whole.”

Living shorelines reduce the impact of waves through various techniques, offering an effective and environmentally friendly solution to estuarine shoreline erosion. Recently, the N.C. Division of Coastal Management, in coordination with other state and federal agencies revised the Coastal Area Management Act (CAMA) general permit for marsh sills.

The amended general permit now makes the process of obtaining a living shoreline permit quicker and simpler. For more information on the revised general permit visit https://www.nccoast.org/project/advocating-living–shorelines/.

Learn more at https://www.nccoast.org/project/topsail-beach-living–shoreline/.

For more information on this project, contact Tracy Skrabal at tracys@nccoast.org, or 910-231-6601.

NAGS HEAD — As one of the Outer Banks’ earliest tourism destinations, the town of Nags Head has dedicated considerable resources to protecting its more than 10 miles of ocean beaches, where millions of visitors flock every summer. Now the town is turning its attention to its less dramatic backyard: the 17.3 miles of Roanoke Sound shoreline that has been quietly eroding away, or periodically flooding, in numerous spots.

With a recent $75,000 grant awarded by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation, the proposed Nags Head Estuarine Shoreline Management Plan would develop a broad strategy to address challenges related to sea level rise and storm damage while balancing private property protections, ecosystem and public health concerns and recreational access.

“We didn’t want to be in a situation where we’re doing projects in a vacuum,” Michael Zehner, the town’s planning director, said in an interview. “We want to do it more comprehensively.”

Zehner said the town board agreed Dec. 2 during its regular meeting to provide the $75,000 local match. After accounting for in-kind work, he added, the actual dollar amount for the matching funds would be $64,500.

Rain garden in works at town hall

Also during the meeting, the board approved construction of a rain garden at the town’s administrative building off U.S. 158 and N.C. 12. The garden would be situated between the parking lot and the road, which is often plagued by standing water after rainstorms. It will include a gutter system at the front entrance of the building and an extension pipe to carry water through the natural rain garden, which will be planted with native plants.

According to information in the grant request, the shoreline plan’s objectives include conducting a biogeographical inventory of the current and historical shoreline and to identify best management practices, uses and policy. The plan would also investigate legal and regulatory issues as well as examine the potential future impacts from rising seas.

“The Estuarine Shoreline Management Plan will be made up of a series of both traditional and innovative design approaches,” according to the town project overview. “While a Shoreline Management Plan can be viewed as a more traditional, planning tool, this project proposes to use innovative approaches within the plan.”

As just a tiny part of the massive Albemarle-Pamlico estuarine system — the nation’s second largest behind the Chesapeake system — Nags Head’s sound shoreline is subject to similar forces as its beachfront. Wave-action, currents and sea level rise are all factors that influence estuarine shoreline erosion and accretion, just in a sneakier, less rip-roaring way. It is not unusual, for instance, for a person to stroll along the sound one day and come back after an overnight storm to find the beach is gone, leaving only exposed roots and downed trees.

Dramatic erosion is evident along the west side of Jockey’s Ridge State Park, where the vegetated backside of the park ends along the beach that stretches north to the backside of Nags Head Woods.

On the south end of the town, the Soundside Event Site, owned by Nags Head and the Dare County Tourism Board, is wide open to the sound, but does not appear as eroded. Potentially, the plan could include constructing a boardwalk along the water, Zehner said.

“That fits in nicely with this plan,” he said. “It would be sited in a such a way that’s going to serve to protect and reinforce what we’re doing to preserve and protect the shoreline along the sound.”

Most of the year-round families in Nags Head live in subdivisions on the west side of the town, meaning on the sound side. And anyone who lives close enough to the sound knows that it can look like a bathtub in the morning, and with a shift in weather, become a raging river by afternoon. Although soundfront homes and roads are often protected from sound tide by bulkheads, rip-rap or sand-trapping groins, those measures can cause more erosion down the shoreline. For that reason, Zehner said, there has been a lot more interest from property owners in constructing living shorelines, which use natural measures such as oyster reefs and marsh to buffer wave action.

“All of this is interconnected,” he said. “We want to make sure we’re not creating missed opportunities for the town and the stakeholders.”

Once the town selects an engineering consultant — likely by May — a plan will be developed, Zehner said. If all goes as anticipated, the plan should be completed by 2022. But before then, the town will hold meetings with the public to get input and to keep everyone informed. Also, additional funds will be required to implement the plan’s action items.

A working group of stakeholders would be established to guide the consultant during the planning process, which will include a scientific analysis of the erosion rate and the suitability for natural shoreline stabilization projects. It would represent a diverse range of interests and
and backgrounds including, Nags Head staff, the Coastal Studies Institute (CSI), The Nature Conservancy, the North Carolina Coastal Federation, large estuarine shoreline property owners (Jockey’s Ridge, National Park Service, The Village Golf Course), and individual property owner representation.

The Coastal Studies Institute has volunteered to collect and analyze bathymetric data for the Roanoke Sound.

Reide Corbett, executive director of the Coastal Studies Institute, said that the institute already has numerous datasets available on estuarine shorelines that CSI digitalized from previous state research projects and survey maps. He said that CSI is willing to help as much as possible, within its budget and time restraints.

“We want the science we’re doing to always be impactful for our communities,” Corbett said.

KITTY HAWK — More than 100 volunteers for two weeks this summer joined North Carolina Coastal Federation, the town, landowners and Dare Soil and Water Conservation District to plant nearly 10,000 plugs of black needlerush, a native marsh grass species, to complete the 600-foot Moor Shore Road living shoreline project.

The project was put in place to stabilize the shoreline along the historic Moor Shore Road in Kitty Hawk and build back lost marsh habitat.

The project began in December with the installment of seven vertical sills intended to slow waves and dissipate energy. The planning and construction of the sills was executed through a partnership of  property owners along the road, the town, North Carolina Department of Transportation and Dare County Soil and Water, according to the federation. This is the first living shoreline project in the state involving NCDOT.

After the sill was installed, marsh grasses were planted over the two weeks in July by volunteers from Better Beaches OBX, Outer Banks Running Club, North Carolina Aquarium at Roanoke Island, a summer camp group from the Aquarium, 4-H Groups from Dare and Camden counties, River City YouthBuild of Elizabeth City, as well as community members.

The marsh grasses, which further dissipate the waves and hold the shorelines sediment in place, also serves as a habitat for wetland species like crabs, small fish and shrimp and improve water quality.

“The generosity from the volunteer groups saved the federation and the town of Kitty Hawk a great deal of time and money,” according to the release.”It also served as a great way to engage the community in the living shoreline project and help people understand the project’s value and importance.”

Ann Daisey of Dare County Soil and Water said in a statement that she’s happy for the many benefits this marsh sill will provide to the community, including providing wetland habitat for flood mitigation, wildlife and fisheries habitat, reducing shoreline erosion and filtering stormwater runoff.

“The funding partners and partnerships created through this project showcase a perfect example of what we can accomplish together, especially when it comes to managing the county’s natural resource concerns,” Daisey added. “I’m proud that the Dare Soil and Water Conservation District played a part in securing funds from the state’s Community Conservation Assistance Program for this great project.”

Learn More

• History of the Moor Shore Road living shoreline project
• Kitty Hawk Living Shoreline to Protect Road

In Kitty Hawk, the encroaching waters of Kitty Hawk Bay threaten to close Moor Shore Road, one of the oldest roads on the Outer Banks.

For lifelong resident Amy Wells, the rising waters and disappearing shoreline is something she has observed over her lifetime.

“Along Moor Shore road there were trees. My father had aerial photos, you could see there were trees out there. That was in the 1970s,” she said.

Moor Shore Road is a short but beautiful road that parallels Kitty Hawk Bay. One of the oldest roads on the Outer Banks, it is the route the Wright Brothers traveled to get from Bill Tate’s house in Kitty Hawk to their campsite at the base of Kill Devil Hill.

At one time the road was on the north end of a series of roads and paths that followed the shoreline of Roanoke Sound, connecting Nags Head and Kitty Hawk.

A United States Geological Survey map as early as 1876 shows a road paralleling Kitty Hawk Bay, and a 1938 state Department of Transportation map depicts Moor Shore Road.

More easily seen in the highway map, but in all of those early maps, one thing is apparent: there is a marsh or land between the water and the road.

The road is important even today. In November, it is part of the Outer Banks Marathon. In the summer, when traffic is backed up on the main roads, it is a welcome if brief respite from the madness of summer traffic. When ocean overwash from tropical storms or nor’easters close the main roads in Kitty Hawk, it is part of an emergency route that allows traffic to keep moving.

To protect the road, a living shoreline is being constructed.

Living shorelines deflect and dissipate wave energy through offset sills or breakwaters, allowing sediment to accrete on the landward side of the protection. As the sediment increases, grasses and reeds take root recreating the marsh that was lost. The plants of the marsh further dissipate wave energy.

Although an effective means of shoreline protection, there are limits to what a living shoreline can accomplish.

“The way that water is pushed into a system is critical. They’re not going to stop a 10-foot or 20-foot storm surge,” explained Erin Fleckenstein, coastal scientist and manager of the North Carolina Coastal Federation’s northeast regional office in Wanchese.

Hardened structures like bulkheads can be effective in certain situations, but they can create significant environmental damage.

Bulkheads work by deflecting wave energy, but do very little to dissipate the energy. Typically that energy goes to either side or in some cases, down. After a few years, land on either side of the bulkhead often shows significant erosion, or land behind a bulkhead is sometimes eroded.

Carlos Gomez of Coastal Engineering noted what he has seen with bulkheads.

“They put in a bulkhead and in five years they have no marsh,” he said.

It is an ambitious undertaking. At almost 700 feet, it is significantly larger than most living shoreline projects. The $270,000 cost of the project and how residents, federal, state and local governments came together seems to set this project apart from others.

“The number of entities involved in this, I don’t think I’ve seen this before. And I doubt many of us have seen it,” Kitty Hawk Mayor Gary Perry said. “And it all started with a homeowner that said it will also benefit the greater good and the public, so the public trust entering into this is not untoward.”

As a homeowner with property facing Kitty Hawk Bay on Moor Shore Road, Wells knew the marsh had disappeared and that the road was prone to flooding.

She had become aware of living shorelines as a method of shoreline protection from volunteer work she had done with the University of North Carolina Outer Banks Field Site, a precursor to the Coastal Studies Institute. The lessons stayed with her and as she witnessed the disappearance of the marsh, she came to the conclusion that a living shoreline would be the best way to protect her property.

“I had seen it through the UNC Field Site,” she recalled. “That’s how it all got started.”

One of the lessons she took from working with the field site was how important it was to engage the public.

“They had what seemed like a real incentive to do (projects) where there was a real public exposure. So maybe somebody else could see it,” she said.

And Moor Shore seemed like the perfect location for that visibility. She had made the decision that even if she was the only property owner on the road with a living shoreline, she was going to install one.

“If nobody else wants to do it, I wanted to try it. It’s kind of a visible piece, where people can see it, and if it works, maybe somebody else would see it,” Wells said.

She had, in the past, worked with Gomez, an engineer, and mentioned to him she felt her property would be a good candidate for a living shoreline.

Gomez was familiar with the concept of living shorelines but had not worked with them, however a 2015 North Carolina Coastal Federation seminar in Columbia convinced him Well’s idea was worth pursuing.

“After the workshop (Gomez) reached out to me to see if Amy’s property would be a good candidate for a living shoreline,” Fleckenstein said. “I said it could be, but would be more effective if we could work with the neighbors to extend it along that whole stretch of road.”

“Her property was (only) 75-100 feet wide,” Gomez said. “Talking to Amy, I said, ‘Maybe we can talk to other people.’”

“I could tell the man on the other side of me (north), he really didn’t want a hardened structure there,” Wells said.

Other property owners also signed on and the project was selected for a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration cost share on living shorelines with private property owners.

With the NOAA grant in hand, Gomez and the federation made a presentation to the town of Kitty Hawk. The presentation went very well.

“We budgeted $180,000,” Perry said. The funds, he pointed out, are to protect access to properties that rely solely on Moor Shore Road.

“We’re saving the road, we’re not saving the property,” he said.

Although property owners were concerned about protecting land, a significant portion of funds for the project are dedicated to protecting infrastructure, which is how NCDOT became involved.

According to Perry and Fleckenstein, Kitty Hawk and the federation approached NCDOT about the project. There was interest, and for the first time the state’s transportation department contributed to a living shoreline as a way to protect a road.

“NCDOT is … contributing about $30,000 on the $270,000 project,” NCDOT Public Information Officer Tim Hass said. “We’re certainly at the table on this one, and we certainly have an interest in protecting the road and seeing how well this project works …”

Dare County also contributed to the project, Fleckenstein said, “An application was submitted to the Dare Soil and Water CCAP (Community Conservation Assistance Program) grant in August 2017 for additional cost share funds.”

With so many funding sources, some of the money Kitty Hawk has earmarked may not be needed, although it will remain available.

“Right now we’re coming in under that ($180,000 town grant) … If they should run short, we maybe can help with that,” Perry said.

The permitting process for the project has been unusually drawn out, something Fleckenstein acknowledged.

“It did have a lengthy permit process,” she said. “Part of the hurdle we overcame was there were a lot of moving parts and pieces. A lot of people involved and trying to keep everyone coordinated and moving toward the same end goal.”

After two years, though, the sills are being installed. With the nearshore protected from the full force of the wave energy, phase two will soon follow.

“The sills should be in place by March 2019 and marsh grass plantings will occur this summer and next,” Fleckenstein said.

WILMINGTON – The Army Corps of Engineers is accepting public comment until 5 p.m. Oct. 4 on a proposal for a general permit to stabilize eroding shorelines using marsh sills in the state’s coastal waters.

“The general permit authorizes the construction, maintenance and repair of marsh sills for shoreline stabilization along eroding shorelines within waters located within the 20 coastal counties of North Carolina and subject to regulatory jurisdiction of the Wilmington District, Corps of Engineers,” according to the public notice from the Corps. A type of living shoreline, marsh sills are low-profile structures constructed parallel to shorelines to reduce wave action and provide protection for existing coastal marshes and shorelines.

Written comments may be mailed to Wilmington Regulatory Division Office, Attention: Ronnie Smith, 69 Darlington Ave., Wilmington, NC 28403.

Comments received will be used to assess impacts on endangered species, historic properties, water quality, general environmental effects and other public interest factors and to determine the overall public interest of the proposed activity, according to the notice. Comments will also be used in the preparation of an environmental assessment and an environmental impact statement, or EIS, pursuant to the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA.

A public hearing on the application within the comment period may be requested in writing with particular reason for holding the public hearing, which will be granted, unless the district engineer determines that the issues raised are insubstantial or there is otherwise no valid interest to be served by a hearing.

This proposal is to be reviewed by state agencies for relevant permits and certificates such as the Division of Water Resources, Division of Coastal Management, Department of Administration, Council of State and the Land Quality Section of the state Division of Energy, Minerals and Land Resources. The Corps said the general permit will not be issued if any required state or local authorizations or certificates are denied.

Learn More

• General Permit Application Public Notice
• Department Of The Army General (Regional) Permit