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.”

Communities near Marine Corps bases in Jacksonville and Havelock, as well as the auxiliary landing field in Bogue on N.C. Highway 24, should expect through February increased military vehicle traffic and noise associated with a monthlong training exercise starting Friday.

The 24th Marine Expeditionary Unit will begin Friday training, which will include various land-based, ground troop activities, and aircraft and night operations, as part of a larger certification exercise at Bogue Field, the U.S. Marine Corps announced Thursday.

Bogue Field is an outlying property of Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point based in Havelock. Training will also be carried out at Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune and Marine Corps Air Station New River, both in Jacksonville.

For a list of scheduled noise-generating events at Marine Corps base Camp Lejeune, please visit https://www.lejeune.marines.mil/News/Noise-Advisories.

For activity at Bogue Field, direct inquiries to Cherry Point’s Communication Strategy and Operations at 252-466-4241 or cherrypoint@usmc.mil.

Motorists planning to travel along N.C. 101 near the primary entrance for Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point should expect delays and detours the remainder of the month.

In total, lane closures are expected to last about two weeks on the 20-plus mile roadway that connects Beaufort and Havelock, bypassing Morehead City, North Carolina Department of Transportation officials said Monday.

Plans are to close both lanes of N.C. 101 between Roosevelt and Cunningham boulevards for milling and resurfacing work starting Tuesday. The road is expected to reopen 5 p.m. Thursday.

Beginning Friday, travelers can expect intermittent lane closures on N.C. 101 between Cunningham and McCotter boulevards while additional milling and resurfacing work is underway. One lane will remain open to through traffic.

There will be signed detour route along McCotter Boulevard.

Use caution when traveling near the area and seek alternate routes to avoid delays, officials said.

For real-time travel information, visit DriveNC.gov or follow NCDOT on social media.

Editor’s note: The following is from historian David Cecelski’s “Working Lives: Photographs from Eastern North Carolina, 1937 to 1947.” The Carteret County native introduced the nearly 20-part photo-essay series earlier this year on his website, explaining at the time that the images he selected from the N.C. Department of Conservation and Development Collection were taken in the late 1930s into the early 1950s of the state’s farms, industries, and working people.

In this photograph, we see a long line of fishing nets drying in the sun on Harkers Island, N.C., in the fall of 1944.

It is hard to see them, but there are two men talking in the midst of the net reels.

The photographer’s notes only identify one of the men: Stacy W. Davis, a local fisherman, charter boat captain, and fish dealer. That’s his fish house and dock on the far side of the net reels and fishing nets.

Capt. Stacy had built the fish house just before the war. He and his brother Leslie also owned the S.W. Davis & Brother Seafood Co. in Beaufort, on the other side of the North River.

The shoreline is beautiful, but in a way the tranquility of the scene belies the great upheaval that was happening on the island just before and during the Second World War.

When I was younger, old timers from Harkers Island often told me that it all seemed to start with the great hurricane of ’33, which is a story in itself and one that I think I’ll save for another time.

But not all storms come out of the Atlantic, and what happened over the next few years turned island life upside down more than any hurricane or nor’easter ever had.

Just a few years after the ’33 storm, in 1936, Harkers Island’s first road was paved. The age of automobiles and trucks was coming.

Three years later, in 1939, electricity arrived on the island, delivered via a submarine cable that ran beneath North River.

The stars would never be as bright again.

A year later, in the latter part of 1940, the biggest thing of all happened: workers finished building the first bridge from the mainland to Harkers Island. The bridge opened to the public a few weeks later.

That was on New Years Day 1941. Many a time, I have heard old timers say that it was the best and worst day in the island’s history. More than anything, it marked the end of one way of life, the dawn of another.

Then, of course, the war came. Young men and women went away to fight in distant lands and on distant seas. On the island, families crowded around radios to follow the news from places that few of us had known existed until that moment. Soldiers and sailors were everywhere.

An Army camp was built on the island. Soldiers and sailors seemed to be constantly coming and going.

During the war, untold numbers of islanders also crossed the new bridge and went out into the larger world to take jobs at shipyards, military bases, and defense factories. Some commuted every morning to defense jobs as close as the Naval Section Base in Morehead City; others moved as far away as the big shipyards in Wilmington and Newport News.

The Great Depression had worn people down, but suddenly there seemed to be work for any and all.

A hundred things about the war changed the island, but few things more than the War Department building the Cherry Point Marine Corps Air Station only 25 miles away in 1942.

Nearly 10,000 men came together at at a remote crossroads on the south side of the Neuse River to build Cherry Point – carpenters, brick masons, ditch diggers, logging crews, railroad builders, and many, many others. Among other things, they laid enough concrete to build what is believed to have been the largest aircraft runway in the world at that time.

Most of those workers were fresh off the farm or right off a fishing boat.

When Cherry Point was finished, people came from all over the country to work there, and most particularly to find jobs at the base’s assembly and repair department, a massive aircraft repair and refitting operation that relied on civilian workers and was usually just called “A&R.”

Those workers included many a Harkers Island fisherman. And when they left their boats and crossed the new bridge, they began a new life in more ways than they possibly could have imagined at the time.

Some of those islanders, my older friends on Harkers Island used to tell me, were saved by that trip to Cherry Point. Others lost.

For the island’s women, the coming of Cherry Point meant, if anything, even more. Because so many men had gone to war, the base employed thousands of women in jobs that would have traditionally fallen to men.

Those jobs ranged from aircraft painters to mechanics, PX and commissary managers to electronics specialists.

My grandmother was one of those women. She lived on a farm in Harlowe, about halfway between Harkers Island and Cherry Point, and she found a job in A&R’s machine shop during the war.

With the opening of Cherry Point, a daughter fresh out of school, perhaps still living with her parents, might suddenly be earning more than her fisherman father and all her brothers put together.

Of course, that changed things. Maybe not right away, but over time.

Likewise, with the coming of the bridge and the war, a lad that had never taken to the water — and there were plenty of young men like that even on Harkers Island — suddenly had a chance for a different kind of life.

I guess what I am saying is that photographs tell some stories, but not others.

Our tranquil scene of fishing nets drying in the sunshine also does not really speak to what had been happening out at sea during the war.

By 1944, things had calmed down out in the Atlantic, but only a couple years earlier, in the first months after Pearl Harbor, the war had seemed much closer to Harkers Island that it did to most of the United States.

Many of the island’s young fishermen had gone into the Navy and Coast Guard, and they were serving all over the world. But the U.S. Navy had also recruited the island’s fishermen for war duty closer to home.

As German submarines torpedoed merchant ships out in the Atlantic, one of the islanders patrolled the beaches out at Shackleford Banks, watching in the surf for the corpses.

Others, when they heard the explosions offshore, had the duty of taking their boats far out into the Atlantic to search for survivors and the dead.

Out in those seas, 15 and 20 miles off Cape Lookout, they often found themselves in a hellish seascape of charred hulls, burning oil slicks and scenes of which few of them would ever speak.

Special thanks as always to my friends at the Core Sound Waterfowl Museum & Heritage Center on Harkers Island.

Officials with Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point said Friday that residents near the air station and its outlying airfields can expect multiple military training operations throughout May.

Ground training will be conducted at Marine Outlying Field Atlantic, May 12-16 and will include improvised explosive device simulator that produce sounds mimicking explosives detonations, officials said.

While the operations will go as late as midnight, the repetitions of IED sounds are only planned to occur between 8:30 a.m. and 4 p.m., daily.

Neighbors can also expect an increase in military vehicular and aviation activity in and around the outlying field during these periods.

Special boat operations will be conducted in the waterways in and around MCAS Cherry Point, proper, coupled with surface and direct live-fire training at bombing targets BT-9 and BT-11, Brandt Island and Piney Island, respectively, through May 15.

These operations will also go as late as midnight.

The Explosive Ordnance Disposal units may be conducting explosive ordnance training at the MCAS Cherry Point range at varying times throughout the month. Residents who live on and around the installation can expect to hear the occasional loud explosion.

The military has been a boon to North Carolina’s economy. It has brought in millions in government spending, thousands of jobs, and generations of families eager to live and retire where they used to serve.

Newspapers, historians, and the media often focus on large cities, base locations such as Fayetteville and Jacksonville, when discussing the impact of these military installations. But smaller towns also play an important role. This is the story of two coastal towns and how their histories have been shaped during the past 80 years by the Marine Corps bases nearby.

For more than 200 years, Snead’s Ferry, the vessel for which the Onslow County community was named, plied the waters of the New River between Ferry Point and Pollocks Point. It served as a vital connection on the King’s Highway, a colonial postal route near present-day U.S. 17 that was essential to communication in remote parts of eastern North Carolina. The ferry continued long after the end of colonial rule, the widespread building of bridges and new turnpikes, and the emergence of railroads in the 1840s. Snead’s Ferry finally ceased operations in 1939 following the construction of a nearby bridge.

Today, Snead’s Ferry likely could not legally run the same route. The Ferry Point side is still part of the historic community, surrounded by fishing companies and old homes. But the other side of New River features a small wildlife viewing area surrounded by Camp Lejeune, a Marine Corps base with more than 40,000 stationed Marines and restricted public access

Camp Lejeune, founded in 1941, has severely limited outside traffic on the base since the terrorist attacks of 2001. Just 1,500 feet on the other side of the Sneads Ferry bridge on N.C. 210 is a gate that would stop any prospective traveler. Except for the wildlife area, there would be nowhere for the ferry to land that was accessible to the public.

Sneads Ferry, the community that grew up along the New River ferry, is just one of several coastal towns that have been shaped by military expansion in the past 70 years. Nearby towns such as Sneads Ferry and Newport in Carteret County are now destinations for thousands of military families and employees. Before the bases were built, these towns were small, located on naturally advantageous river bends and points of land. They operated small-scale businesses and were mostly bypassed by the large-scale agricultural and industrial developments of the past century. 

But the needs of military bases changed the nature of their locations. Chosen for their cheap land and access to water, these installations ended up radically transforming not just their host towns but the overall region in which they were located. This new situation presents challenges and opportunities that create a new way of living for many in coastal North Carolina.

Sneads Ferry dates back nearly three centuries to the earliest years of the North Carolina Colony. In 1725, Edmund Ennett began running a ferry across the New River. It was known as the Lower Ferry because it was down river from Wantland’s Ferry, near present-day Jacksonville.

A later ferry at the same spot was operated by Robert W. Snead, who moved to the area in 1760. By the mid-18th century, the ferry was an established part of postal communication in the colonies. 

Like many places in eastern North Carolina, Sneads Ferry was overlooked by the historical forces that built up much of the state. It was not attractive to railroad lines or a productive location for industry. The railroad did not reach the vicinity of Sneads Ferry until the 1880s.

Robust growth in Wilmington and New Bern did little to change the fortunes of New River communities. In his history of Onslow County, Alan D. Watson makes only the occasional reference to Sneads Ferry, the main examples being its historic relevance to the post road and its status as the home of John Everett, an African American who fought for the Union during the Civil War. Sneads Ferry remains unincorporated to this day.

This quiet history was surpassed only slightly by development in Newport, about a 60-mile drive from Sneads Ferry and about 10 miles from Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point.

Settled in the 18th century, Newport remained a mostly isolated spot on the Newport River. During the Union occupation, it was the site of a Civil War battle in which a Union barracks and a railroad bridge were destroyed. The town incorporated in 1866, but from 1870 to 1940, Newport’s population never exceeded 500. The town remained small until the middle of the 20th century.

In 1941, the futures of these two towns were dramatically changed. It was during that year that the Marine Corps began work on what would become Camp Lejeune on the New River. The Marine Corps acquired a sizable tract of land in what was once the community of Marines and began constructing barracks and warehouses. Men and women from Sneads Ferry, lured by the prospect of well-paying jobs during the Great Depression, flocked across the river to pitch in. By 1942, thousands of Marines were living in and being trained just a few hundred feet north of the community. 

That same year, in Havelock, construction began at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point. The air station became home to thousands of Marines as well as various squadrons and aircraft repair facilities. Those repair facilities saw active use during the Vietnam War and drove the 488% population spike in Havelock during the 1970s.

Neither Newport nor Sneads Ferry is host of a military base. Neither has witnessed the expansion seen in Jacksonville or Havelock. But of the two, Newport is closer to embracing its status as a military town.

In Newport, town leaders early on saw advantages in putting out the welcome mat by way of a land swap for national forestland to create a large residential neighborhood primarily for military retirees from the air station.

Plans for Newport’s Cherry Point Veterans Mutual Housing Association development were drawn up in 1951, and the first houses were completed before the new streets were paved. The new part of town, also referred to as West Newport, included more than 70 homesites near the still-standing Forest Service fire tower.

Newport today is mainly composed of two areas, the older downtown along old U.S. 70, or Chatham Street, and the more recently developed areas on either side of the U.S. 70 bypass. This divide is clear when looking at historical growth patterns versus the growth that characterizes development connected to Cherry Point. The town has grown from fewer than 500 residents in 1940 to nearly 5,000 residents today. This growth does not take into account the expansion along the U.S. 70 bypass, where the ZIP code that includes the town has ballooned to approximately 10,000 housing units. As Mayor Dennis Barber told Coastal Review, the downtown was small prior to the base’s construction.

“Newport had everything they needed,” Barber said, referring to the community’s resistance to change for much of its history. This resistance led to an outflow of population, as mainly younger residents left the town in search of new opportunities and did not return.

Sneads Ferry, on the other hand, has grappled with its connection to the massive base across the river. Like Newport, the community is in many ways split in two. There is the historic town area near the site of the former ferry, also known as Fulcher’s Landing and home to the Riverview Cafe. This area is the site of the annual Shrimp Festival. It is still tied to the seafood industry. A 2009 Our State feature on Sneads Ferry described the town as one defined by “shrimping, family, and the pleasures of life in flip-flops,” not as a military retirement community.

Beyond the waterfront, Sneads Ferry is growing. Businesses stretch back several miles up and down nearby N.C. 210. These are not historic seafood restaurants and local shops but are modern retail chains, much different from the coastal community at Fulcher’s Landing. 

Newport, meanwhile, continues to embrace its reputation as a small town that attracts current and former military personnel. Mayor Barber said he’d like to see Newport remain a military destination. Barber is a former Coast Guardsman and has been connected to the town for decades, loving both its military connection and its being the kind of small town where “people still wave at each other.”

Meanwhile, Sneads Ferry continues to develop its waterfront. When asked about Sneads Ferry’s future, Lisa Whitman-Grice, director of the Onslow County Historical Museum, credited Camp Lejeune with making the county part of a global community. But she added that despite the trappings of military-related growth, “Sneads Ferry really wants to keep its historical connections.”

Library assistant Amanda Summers agreed. A local with connections to the seafood industry, she noted that “the town is growing and everyone can feel it,” but she rejected the idea that there was any conflict associated with military growth.

Sneads Ferry and Newport continue to be defined by their relationships to the Marine Corps. Both towns welcome more military-related newcomers and the infrastructure challenges associated with rapid growth on the North Carolina coast. These challenges include land use, sewer, and water infrastructure. Newport, for instance, is about to build another water treatment plant, and town officials have touted the town’s exceptional water infrastructure for a municipality of its size.

Despite numerous obstacles and the threat to small-town life, proximity to a military base means money and activity for these towns, both of which many of its residents welcome.

As Dee Lewis, genealogist and volunteer at the History Museum of Carteret County, said when asked about Newport’s future as a military retirement center, “The weather is nice, the people are friendly, and you can golf all year round. Of course people would want to retire there.”

An effort is in the works to bring back the eastern oyster to a section of the Neuse River.

The eastern oyster, or Crassostrea virginica, thrived 80 years ago along the Neuse River near what is now Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point. Since then, the local Eastern oyster population has gradually faded, according to environmental specialists at the military instillation.

Through a partnership between Cherry Point Environmental Affairs Department, or EAD, and Duke University, Duke is leading a study to determine the feasibility of reintroducing the once native oyster species back into this section of the Neuse River, Cherry Point announced Sunday on social media.

Dozens of settlement plates were placed along various sections of the shoreline. According Cherry Point EAD Natural Resources Manager Jessica Guilianelli, the plates are used to test if the environment along the Neuse River would foster the growth and survival of juvenile eastern oysters. The plates contain juvenile oysters. If the oysters grow, and attract other oysters to the area, this could be a positive indicator.

The partnership came about through Duke University’s Duke Restore program, a new initiative to build partnerships within the academic community as well as with government and nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs. The project has multiple teams researching different themes like living shorelines and blue carbon. The project incorporates scientific design and mentorship as well as hands-on training for scientists.

Cherry Point’s partnership with Duke University is part of a much larger, ongoing project on the installation.

Cherry Point EAD records show the Neuse River shoreline has suffered significant erosion, receding more than 20 feet in some locations since 1994.

Additionally, more than 5,000 linear feet of shoreline along the Neuse River was severely damaged during Hurricane Florence in 2018. Since then, Cherry Point EAD has been working to secure funding to repair the damage and make extensive improvements to the shoreline’s design.

EAD is planning to construct a living shoreline, a combination of an offshore sill and native vegetation that maximizes shoreline protection and generates ecological benefits such as carbon storage and essential habitats for vertebrates, such as fish, and invertebrates such as shellfish, the announcement states.

The new shoreline layout will incorporate designs that will allow the shoreline to accumulate sediment material as opposed to continual erosion.

Guilianelli said that the project paves the way for a shoreline that protects the infrastructure, is environmentally conscious, and sets the installation up for success for decades to come.

The N.C. Coastal Land Trust has purchased 302 acres of forested land along Mill Creek in Carteret County near Newport.

The trust will manage the property, which includes longleaf pine forest, pocosin and brackish marsh wetlands, all of which are home to a variety of wildlife. The property is adjacent to the Croatan National Forest and features 2,400 feet of creek frontage. Mill Creek is a tributary of Newport River and designated as state shellfish waters.

In addition to its conservation value, the property provides a buffer for the military flight path that leads to the main runways at the Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point. Development here, or installation of tall structures such as towers or wind turbines, would be incompatible with military air traffic, officials say. The Mill Creek project is the 20^th Coastal Land Trust property acquired to help buffer Marine Corps installations at the coast since 2006.

Janice Allen, trust deputy director, said the projects add up to more than 8,000 acres of land that buffer the Marine Corps’ bombing range, main base and outlying landing fields from incompatible development that could affect training.

The trust bought the property from Doug and Carolyn Brady of Beaufort. Weyerhaeuser sold the trust mineral rights to the tract.

Learn More

• Coastal Land Trust

HAVELOCK — Environmental officials at a North Carolina military base are working to reduce stormwater runoff funneling into the state’s longest river.

Plans are underway at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point in Havelock to remove a concrete linear ditch that dumps untreated runoff directly from base housing into the Neuse River estuary.

“The ditch is about three or four feet deep,” she said. “With the stagnant water in there, there are safety concerns. From the environmental perspective, a natural channel is certainly more beneficial.”Concrete from the 700-foot ditch, which is partially piped, will be dug up and replaced by a manmade channel with wetlands. The project will rid residents in the base neighborhood of an eyesore and potential hazard, while alleviating direct runoff into the Neuse River, said Jessica Guilianelli, natural resources specialist with the air station’s Environmental Affairs Department.

The air station received Department of Defense funding last fall to design the project. Just how much the total project will cost is unknown at this point, Guilianelli said, but to help cover additional funding Cherry Point Environmental Affairs officials have turned to the N.C. Coastal Federation for help.

“What we’re trying to do for them, of course, first is to find funding,” said Lexia Weaver, a coastal scientist with the federation’s main office in Ocean in Carteret County.

Early last year, money was available from the Community Conservation Assistance Program, run by the N.C. Division of Soil and Water Conservation, she said. With no project design, it was too early to apply for funding from that pot.

The federation is now turning to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency for construction funding.

“We have a request for funding where we could apply for construction money for their project for an EPA 319 grant,” Weaver said.

Section 319 of the Nonpoint Source Management Program, part of a 1987 amendment to the Clean Water Act, provides grant money for states, territories and tribes to support everything from technical assistance, education and training to assess the success of polluted runoff projects.

Since 1990, millions in grants have been allocated to such projects. Last year, applicants received more than $175 million in grants.

The ditch collects stormwater runoff from some of the air station’s various neighborhoods and delivers it untreated into the Neuse River.“On the community side, I think it’s great for [the air station] to be able to demonstrate that even though they may be impacting the environment in some ways that they’re also willing to improve it,” Weaver said. “These neighborhoods and all of the impervious pavement out there, the way it’s draining, it’s a concern.”

Just how much runoff dumps into the Neuse from the channel is unclear, Guilianelli said. The concrete ditch and pipes were likely built during the 1950s around the same time as some of the earliest base housing , she said.

As the largest Marine Corps air station in the world, Cherry Point hosts more than five neighborhoods of townhomes, duplexes and single family homes to more than 1,500 Marines, sailors and their families.

Home to roaring EA-6B Prowlers – radar-jamming jets – AV-8B Harriers and C-130J Hercules cargo aircraft, the air station and its support locations span more than 29,000 acres in eastern North Carolina. Since its first runways were built in the early 1940s, Cherry Point’s boundaries have expanded to include Hancock and Slocum creeks.

It is in Slocum Creek that the air station’s Environmental Affairs Department is undertaking another project. Preliminary plans are in the works to remove an old bulkhead and nearby docking facility at the air station’s Pelican Point Marina.

Both the bulkhead and docking facility were heavily damaged in the wake of Hurricane Irene in late August, leaving sedimentation in the creek near the air station’s Pelican Point Marina.

“We found that replacing the bulkhead was just not going to be cost effective,” Guilianelli said.

Preliminary plans are to restore the natural shoreline, making it more easily accessible for kayak and canoe enthusiasts.

“We have not seen anything to review so we are in the very preliminary stages,” Guilianelli said of both the bulkhead and stormwater ditch projects.

She did not have a timeline for when either project is likely to be completed.

Weaver said the federation appreciates the air station’s efforts.

“I think it’s great,” she said. “I hope that this leads to more projects out there.”

U.S. Military installations have stepped up environmental conservation efforts in recent years. Several green initiatives have been recently implemented, including the use of alternative energy such as solar and wind.

Recycling programs that help conserve water, promote sustainability and reduce waste are also being implemented on bases throughout the country.