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.

Guest Commentary

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

Toxic exposure is a common occurrence in the military, affecting thousands of veterans, many years after service. Thus, providing compensation and free healthcare is a federal obligation to those who have served their country. Nevertheless, up to 2022, only a few diseases were presumed to be connected with military operations.

For most veterans, receiving compensation meant undergoing an extensive bureaucratic process to demonstrate exposure and prove causality in the development of their condition. With the implementation of the PACT Act, the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) recognized more than 20 diseases as presumably caused by toxic exposure during service. However, while this list is constantly expanding, the list of toxic agents for which a presumption of causality exists under the PACT Act remained the same. This leads to paradoxical situations, where some veterans receive compensation while others still need to prove causality, albeit these people suffer from the same conditions.

VOCs’ toxicity and military exposure

Volatile Organic Compounds, or VOCs, are among the toxic agents that are only partially recognized by the PACT Act. These chemicals are common in industrial solvents, degreasers, and cleaners, as well as jet fuel, adhesives, and certain paints and coatings. Given their properties, VOCs such as trichloroethylene (TCE) and perchloroethylene (PCE) were extensively used by the U.S. military for decades in equipment maintenance, aircraft cleaning, and parts degreasing.

Although very efficient in these operations, VOCs quickly turn from liquids or solids into vapor, leading to a high probability of being inhaled by personnel operating with these substances. TCE and PCE are classified as chlorinated solvents, widely used in degreasing and cleaning metal parts. These substances present significant risks not only for military staff using them, but also for their families and local communities due to improper storage and leakage in and around military sites.

There is a strong body of literature built from epidemiological studies and research on human and animal models demonstrating that TCE has carcinogenic effects in various tissues, including kidneys, lungs, liver, testicles, and stomach. These effects are observed either as a result of ingestion or inhalation. Noncarcinogenic effects have also been reported for TCE, with serious effects in neural and cardiac tissue. Similar effects are observed in PCE exposure, indicating a strong potential for carcinogenic effects. Notably, PCE’s impact on neural tissue demonstrates stronger neurotoxicity, especially in children, where exposure is associated with reduced cognitive capacity.

To date, the Department of Defense (DoD) recognizes contamination with VOCs, for which compensation is provided, only in relation to contamination from Agent Orange, a pesticide used in Vietnam, burn pits, and Camp Lejeune. Although various other military bases are recognized to have VOCs pollution, affecting both veterans and their families, these areas are not considered part of presumptive toxic contact. Pressure from the public and extensive investigations carried out by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) forced the DoD to recognize Camp Lejeune as a site of exposure to dangerous VOCs, including TCE and PCE. Similar pressure may thus be necessary to have all sites recognized by expanding the PACT Act list of toxic agents impacting veterans for years on end.

Exposure in North Carolina veterans

More than 620.000 veterans live in North Carolina and many of them have been directly impacted by VOCs exposure while working for the military. Camp Lejeune is now a well-known documented site where veterans and their families suffered long-term health effects due to prolonged exposure to toxic chemicals in the water supply. At the time when contamination was documented here, increased media attention and pressure from the civic society led to the creation of a compensation fund for those affected. Today, exposure at Camp Lejeune is valid for automatic compensation under the PACT Act.

While support is offered for those affected at this site, many other locations in North Carolina are known to be contaminated. For example, the Military Ocean Terminal Sunny Point is currently under monitoring by the EPA, while PFAS levels here measured in 2024 exceed EPA’s new recommended limits of 4 parts per trillion in drinking water more than three times. Despite clear evidence of environmental risk, sites such as these remain excluded from presumptive coverage and lack VOCs monitoring and impact assessments. 

VA pressures, funding, procedural inconsistencies

Since 2022, the VA has processed over 1.7 million claims and granted more than 6.8 billion in compensation to veterans and their families. The costs of this program are therefore substantial. Any new agent introduced on the toxic list will likely increase these costs. Yet for any agent dismissed, thousands of veterans’ claims are denied, even following long battles to demonstrate causality. This is far from a just representation of how the VA’s mission aligns with supporting and protecting former military personnel.

Recognizing the full scope of toxic exposures, including compounds such as TCE and PCE, is essential to ensuring equitable access to benefits for all veterans and removing inconsistencies from this system. With the EPA’s recent ban on TCE and PCE, the continued lack of recognition by the DoD may become increasingly difficult to justify. As scientific evidence continues to demonstrate the health risks associated with VOCs, expanding the list of recognized agents would represent a necessary and evidence-based step toward improving the integrity and fairness of the veterans’ compensation system.

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

The Kayak for the Warriors annual paddle challenge is set this year for Saturday, June 7, on the Bogue Banks.

Kayak for the Warriors is a group based in Pine Knoll Shores that raises funds for Hope For The Warriors, a national nonprofit organization founded in 2006 aboard Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in Onslow County.

“All funds go to ensure that the sacrifices of wounded and fallen warriors and their families are never forgotten nor their needs unmet, particularly with regard to the short and long-term care of the severely injured,” event organizers said.

The 3.2-mile paddle through the Pine Knoll Shores canals begins at 10 a.m. Fee is $50 for a single kayak/paddle board and $100 for a tandem kayak. Fee comes with a shirt and lunch for each paddler.

The awards ceremony and barbecue will follow from 11 a.m. to 1 p.m. at Garner Park. For those not racing in the event, the cost to participate in the lunch is $10 per person or $15 per family.  Kayak shirts will be available for sale.

“Join us for the annual Kayak Challenge, a thrilling event where participants race through scenic waters to raise funds for veterans. Enjoy a day filled with excitement, camaraderie, and the spirit of giving back. All proceeds go directly to Hope for the Warriors, supporting veterans and their families,” organizers said.

Kicking off the weekend is a reception with silent and live auctions set for 4 to 7 p.m. Thursday, June 5, at the Crystal Coast Country Club in Pine Knoll Shores. Tickets are $25 each. Registration to attend closes Monday.

There will be hors d’oeuvres, music, silent and live auctions. Online bidding for silent auction items opened Thursday.  Bidders do not need to be present to win.

The annual Warrior Golf Tournament scheduled for Friday has sold out.

The North Carolina Coastal Land Trust announced Wednesday that an additional 593 acres along the Newport River have been purchased from Weyerhaeuser Co. and transferred to North Carolina Coastal Federation for long-term management and restoration.

The Coastal Land Trust purchased the acreage in November, a tract that features estuarine marsh, managed loblolly pine forest, and bottomland hardwoods along more than 4 miles of the river and its tributaries.

The property lies within the Newport River and Black Creek Natural Heritage Area, which the North Carolina Natural Heritage Program has deemed of “very high ecological significance.”

Earlier this year: Groups conserve old Weyerhaeuser tract on Newport River

The latest acquisition is adjacent to the Coastal Federation’s 215-acre McCotter Preserve, upstream from the Coastal Land Trust’s 530-acre Newport River Marsh Preserve and close to the Croatan National Forest. It’s the second phase of a conservation partnership among the Coastal Land Trust, the Coastal Federation and the U.S. Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point to protect and restore land along the Newport River.

The Coastal Federation publishes Coastal Review.

The first phase, completed in 2023, protected 1,436 acres just downstream from this newest conservation project, officials said.

“This conservation success and our partnership with the Coastal Federation have been critical steps forward in connecting existing conservation lands and continuing our efforts to restore significant natural habitats,” Coastal Land Trust Executive Director Harrison Marks said.

The revised 2021-25 N.C. Oyster Restoration and Protection Plan, a collaborative restoration blueprint, ranks the Newport River as one of the most economically valuable and environmentally endangered oyster-growing estuaries in the state. Stormwater runoff is recognized as the largest source of coastal water quality impairment. The Coastal Federation plans to restore the natural hydrology and vegetation on portions of each protected property.

“Our close partnership with the Coastal Land Trust has provided important new opportunities for coastal restoration and conservation in North Carolina,” Coastal Federation Executive Director Braxton Davis said. “By protecting and restoring these ecologically rich lands along the Newport River, we’re not just preserving habitat, we’re also improving the downstream water quality and fisheries of the Newport River for generations to come.”

The Coastal Land Trust cited retired N.C. Wildlife Resources Commission wildlife biologist David Allen, who said the estuarine marshes along the Newport River near the property likely hosts important habitat for many species of greatest conservation need as identified in the 2015 North Carolina Wildlife Action Plan, including diamondback terrapin, little blue heron, glossy ibis, snowy egret, tricolored heron, and American oystercatcher.

In addition, the combined 2,029 acres are militarily strategic, including transit route between U.S. Marine Corps New River Air Station and the Piney Island Bombing Target, or BT-11, and helicopter turf routes in Carteret County and a flight-holding pattern for Cherry Point.

“Conservation partnerships and projects like this one are important for both coastal resiliency and military training,” said Deputy Assistant Chief of Staff for Government and External Relations Carmen Lombardo of Marine Corps Installations East-Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune. “We were pleased to provide Department of Defense funds toward both projects.”

Funding for the acquisition came from North Carolina Land and Water Fund, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service North American Wetlands Conservation Act Grant Program, Department of Defense Readiness and Environmental Integration Program, and U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities Enviva Forest Conservation Fund.

The New River has drastically recovered in the more than 20 years since its waters were first reopened to the public after being closed nearly that same amount of time.

Bacteria levels in the river when it was shut down for recreational and commercial uses from 1980 and 2001 were astronomical. River samples collected during those years contained bacteria levels ranging anywhere from 35,000 to 70,000 organisms per 100 milliliters of water.

Today, the New River’s waters are close to those of federal drinking water standards, according to weekly sampling results, a success story that got its start when the city shuttered its downtown wastewater treatment plant and Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune stopped discharging from its wastewater facility into the river.

“So, we’ve addressed the bacteria problem in the river,” said Jacksonville Stormwater Manager Pat Donovan-Brandenburg. “What’s left still is the nutrients.”

The city is now in the beginning stages of mapping out how to reduce the amount of nutrients getting into the river, one classified by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as nutrient-sensitive.

Jacksonville City Council members recently signed off on the approval of a $400,000 state grant awarded to the stormwater department to develop a New River Nutrient Management Plan, one that will focus on nonpoint sources of nutrient loading into the river.

In other words, stormwater that flows from streets, subdivisions, commercial and industrial areas into the city’s drainage system.

“All of that stormwater runoff from development carries two things,” Donovan-Brandenburg said. “It still carries bacteria, but that’s from natural sources; birds, deer, raccoon, cats, dogs, those kinds of things. It’s in smaller amounts, way smaller amounts, but it does still carry nutrients in the form of ammonia, phosphates and nitrates.”

While watersheds can manage a certain amount of nutrients, she explained, too many nutrients spur the growth of microscopic organisms that cause algal blooms. These blooms dissolve oxygen in the water and, when oxygen plummets in water, that causes fish kills.

Decomposing fish put more nutrients into a watershed.

It’s a vicious cycle, Donovan-Brandenburg said, but one that the river has, for the most part, evaded the past 10 years.

Last year, there were algal blooms around Sneads Ferry, a small town down river from downtown Jacksonville.

Donovan-Brandenburg attributes one of the causes of that algal bloom to that town’s population increase.

“It’s all tied to development, stormwater runoff,” she said.

In 2008, the city took over its stormwater permitting program because, unlike state employees whose offices are no closer to the city than Wilmington and Raleigh, Jacksonville city employees can be on-site short notice.

Since that year, the city issued more than 150 stormwater commercial and residential subdivision permits.

“And I will tell you we’re increasing,” Donovan-Brandenburg said. “We’ve received more plans this year than we have in the last three. So, we’ve got to do a better job with our (stormwater control measures) and we’ve got to do a better job, not only of building them, but putting them in critical locations where there is a lot of nutrients entering a tributary or the watershed.”

Stormwater control measures, or SCMs, includes things like wet retention ponds and wetlands, bioretention cells, infiltration systems and permeable pavement.

Those need to be maintained and inspected regularly in order for them to work effectively and treat the first 1.5 inches of rainfall by removing stormwater pollutant sediment, bacteria and nutrients.

“The SCMs are to remove the top three pollutants before that water reenters the watershed,” Donovan-Brandenburg said. “The city of Jacksonville, that’s a water quality component. The city of Jacksonville actually goes one step further and does a water quantity component. Instead of making the engineers design to the one-year, 24-hour storm active design to the 10-year, 24-hour storm. That’s not the state rules. That’s the city’s ordinance because we are seeing more and more flooding.”

Why? Because there has been a surge in development, she said. And those additional impervious surfaces – rooftops, driveways, and streets – create more stormwater runoff, which goes into a coastal watershed that’s also being affected by an increasing prevalence of king tides brought on by climate change.

The nutrient management plan will map out which areas of the New River are impaired by chlorophyll a, the predominant type of chlorophyll found in algae.

The New River snakes 50 miles before emptying into the Atlantic Ocean. It’s a slow-moving river, one that flushes once every 60 days, making it particularly vulnerable to nutrient loading.

The nutrient management plan will include developing milestones to track when management measures are implemented, develop criteria to measure progress toward meeting watershed goals, monitoring, and creating an information and educational component.

“This plan will tell us on what areas we need to focus on,” Donovan-Brandenburg said. “Determining those areas will help us identify what areas we need to strategically plan for and implement better and newer SCMs, or retrofit the older SCMs with something more functional. We will be trying to determine the non-point source pollution areas. We’ll be trying to come up with watershed management strategies. We’ve had a lot of people move into our area in the last five years. I don’t think that’s going to stop so we’ve got to do better about what’s coming at us in the future.”

While many know most historic towns in eastern North Carolina like Edenton, Beaufort or Wilmington because of their prominence during the Colonial period, there are a number of communities that gained importance during the era of the canal and the railroad.

Richlands is one of those towns.

While there are references to the “Rich Lands of the New River” that can be found as early as the Colonial period, the Onslow County community began to grow in the early 20th century from a rural, unincorporated crossroads — one of many in the region — to a center for education and railroad commerce.

Along the way, the town, which is about 20 miles from Jacksonville, eventually became central to the future of rural Onslow County while retaining its small-town atmosphere.

An official at the Richlands branch of the Onslow County Library said that the town “reminds me of a postcard. It’s a quaint little town without the hurry and bustle of Jacksonville.”

The community of Richlands was part of the decades-long migration of English settlers into eastern North Carolina throughout the mid-18th century.

Following the defeat of the Tuscarora by British Colonists in the 1710s, settlers began to move into their former territory, founding tobacco and corn plantations, tapping trees for naval stores, and building modest homes and communities as they went.

The fertile areas along major rivers were settled first, leading to towns such as New Bern, Brunswick and Tarboro. Areas further from navigable rivers and on smaller rivers received settlers next, including Richlands on the New River.

Richlands was a center for education as it was home to Richlands Academy, one of many preparatory schools founded in North Carolina before the Civil War.

These institutions survived in a time before compulsory public education and were less expensive than the tutors hired to provide instruction in wealthy families.

Founded in 1848 but with earlier roots, Richlands Academy remained small and limited in instruction, but it served as a preparatory school for the well-known Randolph Macon College in Virginia.

The school lasted for 60 years, much longer than many of the state’s antebellum academies. This legacy of education lives on both in the local high school and the Onslow County Museum located in town.

Incorporated March 29, 1880, Richlands did not begin to grow substantially until the early 20th century.

In 1905, the Dover and Southbound Railroad came into the area. This railroad offered a lifeline to larger towns on the former Wilmington and Weldon Railroad like New Bern and Jacksonville.

As noted in the town’s historic district National Register nomination, “Richlands quickly became the major collection and distribution point for farmers in the surrounding countryside.”

A business district popped up along the rail line around the corner of Hargett and Wilmington streets. This area became the home of numerous commercial buildings that comprise the town’s present historic district. 

Along with education and the railroad, the most important development for Richlands was the establishment of nearby Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in the early 1940s.

Camp LeJeune absorbed one community, the aptly named village called Marines on the New River, and affected social and economic patterns in the greater region.

A new base meant jobs, housing, and an influx of millions of dollars from contractors and the federal government. Richlands, which is about 20 miles northwest of Camp LeJeune, soon began to feel the effects of this growth. The population nearly doubled between 1940 and 1960.

Today, Richlands is facing the same predicament as other towns and communities around North Carolina’s military bases.

Like Sneads Ferry and Goldsboro, Richlands has centuries of heritage, a considerable historic district, and a host of small businesses.

But the lure of millions of dollars and thousands of new residents from Camp LeJeune is already threatening Richlands’ small-town setting. Traffic increases daily, and chain restaurants and stores have already begun marching up U.S. Highway 258 from Jacksonville toward the town.

It may be possible for Richlands to retain both its historic center and the suburban sprawl that typifies rapidly growing military-adjacent towns in the 21st century. But the possibility of being relegated to a bedroom community still looms for the town at the rich lands of the New River.

What officials are calling the largest battery energy storage system in North Carolina is now operating in Onslow County.

Duke Energy announced Thursday that the 11-megawatt system will operate frequently in tandem with a nearby 13-megawatt solar field on leased land within the confines of Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune.

“Battery storage is an important resource for our transition to cleaner energy,” Duke Energy North Carolina state president Kendal Bowman said in a release. “Pairing the energy storage system with our existing solar facility at Camp Lejeune helps strengthen the reliability of our energy grid and makes better use of our existing solar generation.”

The battery storage and solar systems can also be operated independently. The battery system takes up about an acre.

Each system is connected to a Duke Energy substation and will be used to serve the energy company’s customers.

These systems could in the future enhance the base’s resiliency against outages.

“Through an enhanced use lease (EUL) and strategic partnership with Duke Energy Progress, Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune has been able to make an important investment in the pursuit of energy security inside the fence-line,” Navy Cmdr. Ross Campbell, director of base public works said. “Integration of the solar plant with a battery energy storage system, unthinkable a decade ago, presents the installation with a number of opportunities to achieve energy resilience objectives. These systems are part of the ongoing collaboration with the Department of Defense and its utility providers to ensure energy security at federal facilities.”

This is Duke Energy’s latest addition to its battery storage capabilities. A 9-megawatt lithium-ion battery system is online in Asheville and a 4-megawatt system is part of a microgrid in the town of Hot Springs.

The company has about 90 megawatts of battery energy storage projects operating in three states and anticipates having more than 1,600 megawatts of battery storage in service by 2029.

Duke Energy says battery storage helps maximize intermittent power generating sources like solar and wind on the energy grid.

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.

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.”

The U.S. House of Representatives last week passed a bipartisan measure that would treat toxic exposure as a cost of war, including judicial relief for victims of drinking water contamination at Camp Lejeune.

The Camp Lejeune Justice Act was attached to House Resolution 3967, the Honoring our PACT Act of 2021, which passed the House 256-174 on March 3. The bill had the support of all 222 Democrats and 34 Republicans and would improve access to health care and benefits for over 3.5 million toxic-exposed veterans.

That’s according to a statement issued by North Carolina 3^rd District Congressman Greg Murphy, who introduced the Camp Lejeune Justice Act and provided one of the Republican yes votes. The provisions are “long-overdue,” he said.

“When we send our men and women overseas, we make a promise to care for them when they come home,” said Murphy. “We failed our veterans when they were exposed to toxic drinking water at Camp Lejeune, and it is up to us to make it right. My bipartisan bill, the Camp Lejeune Justice Act eliminates burdensome red tape to ensure that those exposed to toxic chemicals, including servicemembers, Marine dependents, civil servants, and contractors, can receive their day in court. As the proud representative of more than 89,000 veterans, I am honored to lead the effort to make sure our Camp Lejeune community gets the care and benefits they’ve earned. I am relieved to see bipartisan support for the Camp Lejeune Justice Act today, and I look forward to bringing this much-needed bill across the finish line for families in Eastern North Carolina.”

According to the Veterans Administration, those who served at Camp Lejeune or Marine Corps Air Station New River for at least 30 cumulative days from August 1953 through December 1987 — and their family members — are eligible for health care benefits. The VA will reimburse out-of-pocket health care costs that were related to various illnesses associated with the contamination, including cancers and infertility or miscarriages. The bill would go further.

“PACT” in the bill’s title refers to “Promise to Address Comprehensive Toxics.” The Honoring our PACT Act was introduced last year by Rep. Mark Takano, D-Calif., the chairman of the House Committee on Veterans’ Affairs.

The measure would create new procedures for the VA to follow when establishing new presumptions for toxic exposure and improve data collection by VA. It would include those exposed to airborne hazards, burn pits, radiation and Agent Orange. The bill also authorizes the VA to conduct additional research studies and develop an outreach program and standardized training on toxic exposure.

“For too long, Congress and VA have been slow to act on toxic exposure — but today, the House took a bipartisan vote to change that and finally make good on our promise to toxic-exposed veterans by passing my Honoring our PACT Act,” said Takano. “After years of diligent input from toxic-exposed veterans, my colleagues, our staff, VA, and VSOs, we passed the most comprehensive legislation to date to treat toxic exposure as a cost of war and ensure that all toxic-exposed veterans can access the care and benefits they’ve earned. This fight is not over, but I will not rest until our veterans have a guarantee in statute that their government will take care of them when they come home— no matter the cost.”

Guest commentary

For nearly a century, military personnel have been victims of toxic exposure to a wide range of toxic agents, oftentimes without them even knowing.

Doing a deep dive into the history of this issue only highlights a bitter irony: Veterans who have been trained and prepared to bravely fight and face the horrors of war are now suffering or being killed by a silent and slow enemy — toxic exposure. Moreover, their suffering often feels invalidated by the crushing bureaucratic process that is claiming Veterans Affairs benefits related to this issue.

Although toxic exposure in the military has been extensively discussed throughout the years and is a known issue, when it comes to connecting the dots between their disease and military service, many veterans and their families still have significant gaps, especially if they haven’t been deployed. This is exactly why it is critical not only to continue discussing, researching and informing about this issue but also to have a system in place that first and foremost acknowledges the full spectrum of side effects to toxic exposure and the existing link to veterans’ military service, facilitating their access to benefits.

Extent of exposure

Regardless of rank or role in the military, many service members have been exposed to toxic agents such as asbestos, per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, agent orange, and many others that have been used throughout history and have contaminated military sites, locations, and grounds. The truth is that almost all veterans have been exposed to hazardous or toxic products at some point during their service, whether it was during training, work duties, or on the base. Many of these agents have been linked to cancer and noncancerous illnesses.

While the focus now in the media might be on the issue of toxic exposure related to burn pits in Afghanistan and Iraq, and rightfully so, it is extremely important to keep shining the light on the others as well. And unfortunately, there are many identified toxic agents and, worse still, full-blown hazardous disasters that have plagued military service ever since World War I with the rise and popularity of asbestos. But perhaps the worst one that needs more acknowledging is the disaster that was Camp Lejeune.

In the early 1980s, tetrachloroethylene (PCE), trichloroethylene (TCE), dichloroethylene (DCE), benzene, and vinyl chloride were discovered in two water-supply systems on the Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune in North Carolina. These water treatment plants supplied the water systems that served enlisted-family housing, unmarried service personnel barracks, base administrative offices, schools, and recreational areas. They also supplied water to the base hospital and an industrial area. However, officials did not close the contaminated wells until 1985, when they finally informed Marine families that chemicals had been detected in the water. According to health officials, up to 1 million people may have been exposed to water toxins for up to 30 years before the wells were closed.

Because the chemicals used at Camp Lejeune are extremely toxic to humans, those who were exposed are now at a high risk of developing a serious, even fatal disease as a result of their exposure. Some of the most common diseases associated with the exposure at Camp Lejeune are bladder cancer, breast cancer, kidney and lung cancer, leukemia and reproductive health problems.

Although Camp Lejeune is widely regarded as one of the worst cases of water contamination in U.S. history, it is far from the only toxic military site. The Environmental Protection Agency currently has 128 military installations on its list of Superfund sites, which are areas so contaminated with hazardous substances that the federal government has designated them as National Priorities List sites for cleanup.

But that’s not all. When speaking of contaminated sites, one must mention the thousands of PFAS contaminated sites.PFAS are a group of toxic fluorinated chemicals whose primary source is aqueous film-forming foam, also known as AFFF. For years, PFAS, also known as “forever chemicals,” have contaminated thousands of sites in the United States, including military bases where thousands of service members and their families live and work. Because of their nature, efforts to clean up contaminated sites are slow and will most likely continue for quite some time, as there are approximately 2,854 locations in 50 states that are still known to be contaminated as of August.

Exposure to toxic agents, be it asbestos, PFAS or contaminated water can lead to very serious health consequences that many veterans are struggling with today. In many cases, those health consequences are cancers that slowly develop over a long period of time and that oftentimes are either misdiagnosed or discovered in terminal phases. It is truly a tragedy that so many veterans have to battle today with these diseases after years of service and, as if that’s not enough they also have to battle for their rights.

Problematic approach

While it’s true that there are ongoing efforts to clean up the contaminated sites and the VA does acknowledge the link between toxic exposure and some diseases (some being the key word here), what’s being done is not nearly enough.

One of the veterans I work with has recently stated that:

”Starting the process for accessing VA benefits feels like jumping through hoops. Sometimes even like a slap in the face, especially trying to prove a link between my disease and the publicly known contaminated base I was on. There is too much bureaucracy that gets too complicated that it just makes you wonder if you’re fighting for nothing. But in the end, all you can do is ask for some help and hope for the best.”

Hope indeed. In lack of clearer, more broad and efficient legislation, all veterans can do is hope that their benefits will get approved. And here is exactly what is problematic about it. Veterans shouldn’t “hope for the best” after completing their service and being diagnosed with a severe or terminal disease. They should be automatically protected, helped and have their diseases validated by the responsible authorities. By this point there is sufficient research on the effects of toxic exposure and more than enough evidence to its extent at military installations throughout history. So why are things moving so slowly? Why is it so complicated? Why is toxic exposure still treated as if it is a light issue in terms of urgency, although the reality shows just how serious it is and even declaratively, lawmakers acknowledge it?

A law passed in 2012 provides veterans and family members who lived on the base with health care coverage for 15 conditions. Veterans may also be eligible for disability benefits for eight conditions that are thought to be related to the contamination. As part of the Caring for Camp Lejeune Families Act of 2012, qualifying veterans can receive VA health care (except dental care) if they served on active duty at Camp Lejeune for at least 30 cumulative days between Aug. 1, 1953, and Dec. 31, 1987.

There is some hope for veterans suffering as a result of toxic exposure at military bases with the traction that the Toxic Exposure in the American Military Act, or “TEAM” Act has recently gained. The TEAM Act was also proposed in Congress last year, but it failed to gain traction.

This is a bipartisan bill that would expand access to VA care and benefits for veterans who were exposed to toxic substances while serving, create a consistent process for determining presumptions of service connection for illnesses, create an independent scientific commission, and authorize additional research to determine whether conditions are linked to toxic exposure.

The TEAM Act would benefit not only veterans who served at Camp Lejeune, but also those who have been exposed to burn pits and other toxic substances. Now, Congress must act to ensure that military servicemembers and veterans who have been harmed by toxic exposure as a result of their military service receive the medical care and benefits they are entitled to. Unfortunately, to date, there doesn’t seem to be much urgency or significant movement in regards to this bill.

Earlier this year the Comprehensive and Overdue Support for Troops of War Act of 2021, also known as the COST of War Act, was introduced as part of a larger effort to assist veterans who have been exposed to toxic substances. If passed, this would automatically grant 3.5 million veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars access to VA health care. They would also, among other things, reform VA’s current process for handling toxic exposure claims and add new conditions to the presumptive list for toxic exposure. However, again, not much progress seems to have been made until now.

The lack of urgency to pass these bills and to reform the VA’s process for handling toxic exposure claims is problematic to say the least and should become a priority. The fact that after 100 years of proven toxic exposure in the military veterans still have to fight for their rights is a travesty. We need to do better, as a nation, for our veterans.

To stimulate discussion and debate, Coastal Review welcomes differing viewpoints on topical coastal issues. See our guidelines for submitting guest columns. The opinions expressed by the authors are not necessarily those of Coastal Review or the North Carolina Coastal Federation.

MARINE CORPS BASE CAMP LEJEUNE — Base officials are emphasizing its no trespassing policy on Browns Island and surrounding navigable waters near Hammocks Beach State Park and Onslow Beach because of the frequent live-fire training exercises conducted in the area and the danger of unexploded ordnance.

Military police and the Coast Guard regularly patrol the area and issue citations to trespassers that requires an appearance before the federal magistrate in Wilmington. Violators can be imprisoned up to six months and fined a maximum of $5,000, according to Camp Lejeune.

Hurricane Florence exposed more previously buried unexploded ordnance on the island, which is one of the major Camp Lejeune impact areas used since the 1940s for military training, The Globe reports.

Travelers of the Intracoastal Waterway should know that the area between the south bank of Bear Creek and the north bank of Browns Inlet are base property and are strictly off-limits due to highly sensitive unexploded ordnance in the area, and if close to the island, boaters may not stop, tie up or disembark their vessels.

Bear Creek and Muddy Creek leading are open to unrestricted navigation but there is some risk in this area because of the possible presence of unexploded projectiles, according to  Code of Federal Regulations.

Boaters may travel through Browns Inlet without stopping when it is not in use by the military, but for safety reasons, because of the presence of unexploded projectiles, any contact with the bottom of the waterways or any bottom disturbing activity is prohibited. Additionally, there can be no crab pots, fishing with bottom-dragging nets, anchoring or any bottom-disturbing activities anywhere in the vicinity of Browns Island.

Coastal Review Online is featuring the work of North Carolina historian David Cecelski. Cecelski writes about the history, culture and politics of the North Carolina coast. Cecelski shares on his website essays and lectures he has written about the state’s coast as well as brings readers along on his search for the lost stories of our coastal past in the museums, libraries and archives he visits in the U.S. and across the globe. 

On at least two trips to the North Carolina coast, a Greensboro photographer named Charles A. Farrell explored the fishing villages near the mouth of the New River in Onslow County. His first trip was in the fall of 1938, and he visited again sometime in the first half of 1941. On the first trip, he may only have visited Sneads Ferry, a fishing village on the west side of the river.

On the second trip, he returned to Sneads Ferry, but he also crossed the river to Marines, a village on the east side of the river. I expect that he was drawn there because the War Department had recently announced its decision to take all of the land on that side of the river in order to build one of the largest military bases in the United States — Camp Lejeune.

A few months after Farrell’s visit, the military confiscated thousands of acres on that side of the river, moved out the residents and burned and bulldozed the village of Marines.

Today I’d like to present some of Farrell’s photographs of Marines on the eve of the village’s destruction. I’d also like to share some of what I learned about the village from some of the last people alive who grew up there.

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This photograph was taken in a skiff crossing the river and looking east toward the village of Marines. Melba Marine McKeever, now 92 years old, grew up in Marines and was the person I found that had the best memory of what the village had been like before the war.

Over the course of several long visits and telephone calls, Melba described for me what she saw in this photograph.

She told me that the pier on the right-hand side of this scene was the center of community life, and the only one in the village.

Before her time, a cotton gin had stood next to it, but she recalled only a spring at the foot of the pier where the local people used to cool watermelons in the summertime. When she was a girl, she and her friends often swam off the end of the pier.

Moving left to right along the shore, we can see a white vacation home on the far left that belonged to the Sleeper family. In the late 1930s, a few non-local families had begun to summer in Marines, and several had hunting and fishing cabins in the area as well.

Moving down the river, a hickory tree rises high above the wood line and, next to it, a large white house. That house originally belonged to Wiley Marine, Melba’s great-uncle and one of the early settlers of the community.

Another of Melba’s relatives, Della Marine, lived in the house when Melba was a girl. Della married Luther Hardison. He was a master carpenter and built furniture and boats. He and Della also took in summer boarders.

In front of their house, we can see William Hanes’ boathouse. He kept his skiff there and went clamming or oystering everyday, weather permitting.

Moving downriver again, left to right, we next see Ollie Marine’s general store behind the pier. Gasoline pumps are beneath the overhang. The little shed in front of the store is his blacksmith shop, where he made flounder gigs, oyster knives and other items.

Ollie Marine’s gristmill was located in a lean-to on the far side of his store, but can’t be seen from this angle.

Electric lines had not yet come to that part of Onslow County. An old automobile engine powered the gristmill, while an array of Delco batteries provided electricity to the store.

First introduced in 1916, the Delco-Light system was an important part of rural life in the early 20^th century. While too expensive for most families in eastern North Carolina, the Delco units provided electricity to some individual stores, farms and homes in rural areas prior to the construction of centralized electric systems.

Invented by an Ohio engineer named Charles Kettering, the system involved a bank of large lead-acid storage batteries that, when low on power, was recharged by a gasoline generator.

Behind Ollie Marine’s store stands the village’s other general store, belonging to Edward Smith. Both stores face the village’s main road. A tall pecan tree can be seen behind the Smith general store.

Continuing downriver, we can see a big live oak tree at the foot of the pier, and then the old Baptist parsonage. At the time this photograph was taken, Bruce Hardison, the son of Luther and Della Hardison, lived in the parsonage. Like his father, he was a master carpenter and builder.

The tiny shed in front of the old parsonage was once Ollie Marine’s smokehouse.

Finally, the last house on the right belonged to the Hunt family, summer people from New Jersey.

Outside of the village, the community also had two churches, a school, a sawmill and Joe Wilson’s dance hall, as well as quite a few other homes, farms and hunting and fishing camps.

Not long after this photograph was taken, all of them vanished, like the village, with the coming of Camp Lejeune and World War II.

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Marines, on the New River, 1941. This is a closer view of the right-hand side of the scene in our first photograph. We can see gill nets hanging on spreads over the water, the edge of the village’s pier and several skiffs.

At a community gathering that was held recently on the other side of the river to discuss Farrell’s photographs, a local gentleman named Ray Midgett referred to these boats as New River dead-rise skiffs.

Rowed or rigged with a spritsail and sailed a few years earlier, they were usually equipped with gasoline engines by this time, though all had oarlocks, and they were sometimes still rowed in shallow water. Locals used them for fishing, oystering and generally getting around on the river.

Jess Brown may have built some of these boats. He lived in Marines and was considered the village’s best boatbuilder.

At the time that photographer Charles A. Farrell visited Marines, the white cottage belonged to Seymour and Rose Hunt, a New Jersey couple that had originally come to Marines just for summers, but eventually stayed.

Next to the Hunts’ cottage is the two-story Baptist parsonage, Ollie Marine’s old smokehouse, then the big live oak tree that marked the landing. On the far left, we have a view of the side of Ollie Marine’s general store.

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A young man named Wiley Taylor stands in the bow of a skiff, lantern perched on the boat’s breasthook, waiting, gig in hand, for the light to reflect off a flounder on the river bottom.

Taylor lived at Courthouse Bay, on the north side of the village, but in this photograph he is at New River Inlet, perhaps a half a mile south of the village.

Of his talent with a flounder gig, his daughter, Betsy Taylor Sergomassov, told me not long ago, “He was good at it. Always got them right behind the head.”

His father, a boat captain named Matt Taylor, had died of apoplexy when Wiley was only 9 years old. He dropped out of school, borrowed a little money from a friend and bought a gasoline motor and started fishing.

Betsy recalled, “Despite his lack of education … he was smart. He could build nearly anything, voted Democratic and had a beautiful handwriting.”

During the Great Depression, the young man did a little bit of everything. In addition to fishing, he worked at a Civilian Conservation Corps, or CCC, camp, which in Onslow County usually meant building fire roads, bridges or drainage canals.

For a time, he also worked on a snag boat on the Tar River, 90 miles to the north, and maybe on other waterways as well.

If Charles Farrell took this photograph on his first trip to the New River, in the fall of 1938, Taylor was a 21-year-old bachelor who maybe wasn’t missed so much when he went flounder gigging at night.

On the other hand, if Farrell took this photograph on his second trip to New River, in 1941, then Mr. Taylor was a married man and had someone to whom he could look forward to sharing his flounder.

Her name was Elizabeth Turner. She hailed from Hadnot Point, further up the river. I published two of Farrell’s photographs of Ms. Turner visiting Browns Island elsewhere on this blog.

They married in 1939. “Both of them poor,” their daughter Betsy told me, “but they made a lovely couple.”

When I published those photographs, I also wrote about the great pleasure of meeting Elizabeth Turner Taylor at a reunion of the people who were dispossessed by Camp Lejeune.

At that time, she was 99 years old and remembered life on the New River as if it was yesterday.

Betsy’s parents told her that Wiley courted her mother by boat, quite possibly the skiff in this photograph. “He liked to take her to visit people who did not have a wharf,” Betsy was told, “because he could anchor and wade ashore carrying her in his arms.”

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James “Jim” Bell splits firewood in Marines in 1941. He and his wife Ella and their children resided on a farm 2 or 3 miles from the village’s center. The 68-year-old made his living by farming, fishing and shingling, but he also did a variety of jobs in the village.

Ollie Marine’s daughter, Melba Marine McKeever, recalled him fondly and remembered that he sometimes worked for her mother’s father, Edward Smith, at his general store.

Mr. Bell was especially close to her Uncle George. She remembers him helping at oyster roasts at his farm, and he also assisted her uncle in making muscadine wine in the late summer.

Melba has also not forgotten the Saturday mornings when Mr. Bell would drive his cart into the village with a load of corn to be ground at her father’s gristmill.

As with the rest of Marines, the military intended to confiscate his home and farm. On the original print of this photograph, Farrell simply wrote, “He’ll have to look for a new home.”

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Two men from the village of Marines fishing with cane poles in a deadrise skiff on the New River, either in the fall of 1938 or early in 1941. The man in the bow is Wiley Taylor, the man in the stern is Ollie Marine. On the horizon we can see Poverty Point and, to the left, Fulford’s Landing, a collection of fish houses, stores and fishermen’s homes that was part of Sneads Ferry.

Ollie Marine’s daughter, Melba, told me that her father was straight talking, kind and giving, not especially warm (at least outwardly), “honest to a fault” and “could do just about anything with his hands.”

In addition to his general store, her father had the gristmill, his blacksmith shop and a little tobacco field. He and his brother had an oyster garden on Courthouse Bay, and he probably fished when the mullet and spot were running in the fall.

People called him “Mr. Ollie.” A newspaper feature story once called him “a walking encyclopedia,” though he had very little schooling.

The daughter of the other man in the skiff, Wiley Taylor, recalled that he came up hard, but was generally well liked. He seemed to make friends easily, even on the other side of the river in Sneads Ferry. That was no mean accomplishment, given the two villages’ rivalry.

“Daddy was friends with the Sneads Ferry boys,’” Betsy told me recently. She explained that he was “one of the few boys from `across the river’ who could get away with courting Sneads Ferry girls.”

More typically, a young man from Marines that courted a young woman from Sneads Ferry, or a young man from Sneads Ferry that courted a young woman in Marines, was likely to find their boat cut adrift the next morning, or maybe discover sand or sugar in their fuel tank.

“Not to mention getting beat up, but that was one of their main entertainments in the 1930s I think,” she told me. In her voice, I could hear her affection for those boys who obviously had some things to work out.

Her mom told her that the young men from Sneads Ferry often crossed the river to go to Joe Wilson’s dance hall, but sometimes wouldn’t even go inside: instead, they’d take on the local boys in the parking lot.

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A gentleman traveling in a high-wheeled cart down what is probably the main road into Marines, early 1941. He is holding the reins loosely so his horse clearly knows the way.

I have not yet been able to identify the cart’s driver, but the photographer Charles Farrell indicated that the man’s first name was Reuben. In a brief notation on the back of the original print, Farrell indicated that he “is among those who will have to move.”

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William “Bill” Hanes tonging for oysters on a creek near New River Inlet, just downriver from the village of Marines, circa 1938-41. Hanes wasn’t from Marines, but seemed to fit in well there.

He was from Durham, and, like so many other people over the years, he had come to the coast to recover from what I will call personal troubles and get his life straight again.

He had left his family and a job as an accountant in Durham, and made a temporary home in Marines. While there, he made a living by clamming and oystering and was, by all accounts, reluctant to miss a day on the river.

He also sold bread at Ollie Marine’s store, as well as clams and oysters, usually in exchange for groceries and supplies. I’ve written about Ollie Marine’s store ledgers and what they say about trade and daily life in the village of Marines elsewhere on this blog, by the way.

Hanes seems to have resided in Marines for several years. According to those old enough to remember the village at that time, he eventually got his life together and reunited with his family.

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A final photograph from Marines, early 1941. At the community’s landing on the New River, a trio of fishermen is carrying bags of cornmeal down to their boat. They’ve just come from Ollie Marine’s gristmill, and they’re returning to their homes in Sneads Ferry, on the other side of the river.

Behind them is the river. Gill nets are drying on spreads, and an old dory rests beneath the big live oak tree that marked the landing.

I was not able to identify the two men on the right with confidence, but Ginny Midgett Richardson (who turned 95 earlier this month) immediately recognized the older gentleman on the left.

She used to call him “Pappy.” His name was Louis L. Midgett, and he was her grandfather.

He lived in Sneads Ferry, attended Yopp’s Chapel Primitive Baptist Church and made his living as a fisherman.

When Ginny was young, her grandfather Louis still had a sailboat, most likely a deadrise skiff rigged with a spritsail or maybe an old sharpie — they were traditional wooden boats built for working in shoal waters but could also be used for pleasure.

He took her family to pick “sea kale” (sea rocket, Cakile edentula) on the ocean dunes in the springtime, and he carried them to oyster roasts on the dredge spoil islands around the inlet in the fall.

In the days before “gas boats,” he and Ginny’s father, Lester Midgett, would row upriver and spend all week fishing away from home. They slept in little camps along the side of the river, and they sold their catches in Jacksonville, the county seat, 20 miles upriver.

Ollie Marine had the only gristmill on the lower part of the New River, so the people of Sneads Ferry often crossed the river to get their corn ground in Marines, like Louis Midgett and his two companions have done in this photograph.

In a moving and lyrical memoir called “Memory is a River,” Ginny recalled that her Pappy always had a cornfield.

“What we didn’t eat fresh during the summer, he would store in a crib until it was completely dry, then shell it and have meal for cornbread made from it,” she said.

She described how her grandfather “would row his boat over (to Marines) with the corn and come home with bags of cornmeal.”

Charles Farrell’s small group of photographs proved to be among the last taken of Marines. War was coming, and the construction of Camp Lejeune was looming. Beginning in the fall of 1941, nobody would ever again cross the river to visit the little fishing village on the New River.

A note from the author: This is part of a series that I’ve been doing on Charles A. Farrell’s photographs of fishing communities on the North Carolina coast in the 1930s. In recent years, I’ve been taking his photographs back to the coastal communities where he took them and searching for the stories behind them. You can find my earlier posts on his photographs from Browns Island  and Colington Island.

RALEIGH – Researchers during a 10-year study found that natural processes have a greater effect on Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune’s complex ecosystems than the military training taking place on the installation in Onslow County.

During the decade-long Defense Coastal/Estuarine Research Program, or DCERP, that wrapped up in October with a symposium, 26 research projects were carried out to better understand coastal and estuarine ecosystems within the context of a military training environment.

Key Findings titles from DCERP included a new method developed to determine how the estuary “breathes”; fertilization may help coastal marshes keep pace with sea level rise; a new discovery in barrier island evolution; tidal influence from rising sea level was observed further upstream; climate change over the last 30 years changes life history traits of red cockaded woodpeckers; a rise in water temperature in coastal tributary creeks; climate change to beach landscapes may impact sea turtle selection of a nesting site; and the Intracoastal Waterway acts to trap sand destined for mainland marshes.

Funded by the Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program or SERDP, the Department of Defense’s environmental science and technology program, DCERP was divided into two, five-year components: DCERP1 from July 2006 to January 2013 and DCERP2 from February 2013 to October 2017.

DCERP principal investigator Pat Cunningham, environmental biologist with the program lead, the nonprofit RTI International, explained in October during the DCERP Symposium at North Carolina State University’s McKimmon Conference & Training Center, that DCERP was structured to be an integrated monitoring and research program with the goals of the individual research projects to complement the overall program goals.

The overarching goals are to understand Camp Lejeune’s biologically diverse coastal barrier island, estuarine, marsh and terrestrial ecosystems and their interactions with military training activities; identify infrastructure and training land impacts from climate change that risk our nation’s military readiness; develop easy-to-use decision-support tools, models and other products to help managers balance training needs and natural resources and understand the trade-offs between carbon management and other management decisions to attain potential installation carbon goals in a future changed climate.

SERDP Director Dr. Herb Nelson was one of the first speakers during the symposium. He said that the reasons that SERDP got started in the DCERP business is to see if large group can look at base management holistically, “and can we really make a difference.”

He added that many DoD installation managers have a great deal of responsibilities … “We need to develop techniques and knowledge to allow them to do these things in a sustainable and proactive manner, and that’s exactly what’s going on in DCERP.”

During DCERP 1, Cunningham said at the symposium, researchers looked at the structure, composition and function of the ecosystems as well as the effect of military training on base lands.

“What we discovered was that, regarding the military training impacts, that the natural forces actually far outweigh the impacts of military training and Camp Lejeune was very proactive in taking care of the base lands,” she said.

The DCERP2’s technical objectives, she continued, are “We wanted to continue to study ecosystem changes associated with changing climate through direct measurements, in some cases of changing parameters, and through the use of ecological process models to forecast future scenarios.”

Cunningham added that they looked at ways to enhance carbon storage in the coastal ecosystems at Camp Lejeune. “If carbon trading or credits become important in the future, the base will be well positioned to take advantage of this.”

“We also looked at ways to convey results of scientific studies to the DoD installation managers,” she said, because DoD was the sponsor and primary target for decision support tools, models and other tools that would help them make actionable decisions about the natural resources of the base.

Cunningham explained that the 156,000-acre Camp Lejeune was originally selected because there was concern that Onslow Beach, which is a “pre-eminent amphibious assault training area” seemed to be disappearing and that additional training on the lands may cause increased pollution in the New River Estuary.

During the early stages of DCERP1 and DCERP2, the team met with the base managers who provided a list of challenges of managing natural resources. Some of those challenges included water quality, preserving wetlands, sustaining the use of the training area on Onslow Beach and preserving the terrestrial landscape, where they wanted to obtain their recovery goals for the red-cockaded woodpecker, which is a federal listed species. 

“Around the time that DCERP1 was started, DoD was getting very interested in climate change and the risk to installation,” Cunningham said. 

The first theme, the aspects of climate change, that DCERP wanted to understand included the historic, current and future climate, then project scenarios into future climate.

“The four drivers of climate change that we were looking at were increases in temperature, changes in the variability of rainfall and drought periods, episodic events like hurricanes and storms and of course sea level rise,” she said.

She said the second theme was carbon, the carbon cycle and understanding the carbon cycle, which they studied because DoD is either the major or one of the major institutional consumers of fossil fuel.

“We created a carbon budget for the New River Estuary and coastal system and we wanted to look at how future climate and management may influence the carbon budget for the system,” Cunningham said. “We also are looking at forestry management practices and climate change and how these might influence carbon storage in the pine forests of the base.”

The final theme, she said, was to translate science into practice, or to produce actionable information for the base managers so that they can make more informed management decisions. SERDP wanted this to be a web-based data management system to disseminate the information from DCERP to a wider audience.

Kim Matthews with RTI International, explained during the symposium that they are translating science into practice, or trying to communicate DCERP results to different target audiences.

“Throughout this whole process, we’ve had management needs in mind, so we’re trying to present those results in a meaningful way. It’s not enough to report the results, we need to provide context for that result,” she said.

The three different audiences the information has been geared toward were the scientific community, the DoD installation managers and stakeholders, Matthews said.

The opportunity to read more the 26 research projects, are on the website. There’s a summary of the findings, link to final reports and list of publications per each research project, she added.

During DCERP 1, a web-based data and information management system, or DIMS, was created to make this information accessible and usable, she said. DIMS is a portal for DCERP available to technical and non-technical audiences.

Matthews said there’s a public site that provides an overview of the program with key findings, resources and news and a data portal page that has three components: MARDIS, Documents database and ecosystem based management tools. Some areas require a password.

Mike Piehler, executive director of UNC’s coastal Studies Institute at Manteo and a professor at UNC’s Institute of Marine Science in Morehead City, has been part of DCERP since 2007.

“The key to this project was to make sure that the good science we were doing was connected to the base but also we had this remarkable opportunity to tackle a big coastal question,” he said.

“So what does that mean and what are big coastal questions? … The challenges associated with changing climate, the challenges associated with human utilization of the coastal zone and how do we sustain that” Piehler said. “That was our big challenge, how can we understand the function of the system of the New River Estuary and the effects of all of the things that the military has on that system and, in doing that, can we create generalizable results that can be conveyed to the rest of DoD and also conveyed to other people living in coastal areas.”

“I really feel that this is a unique program and hopefully the lessons learned from this highly integrated research and monitoring program will serve as an example for other such SERDP endeavors,” Cunningham said at the conclusion of the symposium.

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• DCERP Monitoring and Research

MOREHEAD CITY – There probably are relatively few people who understand the importance that the U.S. military, particularly the Marine Corps, places on understanding and protecting the environment of the land and water it uses.

Hans Paerl, professor of marine and environmental sciences at the University of North Carolina Institute of Marine Sciences in Morehead City, is one of them. He and colleagues from UNC and other universities are preparing to publish a paper that will outline the results of a multi-year study they conducted in and around the New River, which flows as an estuary through Marine Corps Base Camp Lejeune, then enters Onslow Bay in the Atlantic Ocean through New River Inlet.

The overall study, funded by the government, looked at the terrestrial portion of the area as well as the aquatic, and Paerl’s portion mostly involved quantifying the carbon and nutrient flows through what’s technically called “the freshwater-marine continuum of a temperate, micro-tidal estuary.”

Carbon, of course, is the building block of life as we know it. But carbon dioxide, or CO₂, the main greenhouse gas that most climate experts believe traps the Earth’s heat and is leading to significant changes in the climate, including sea level rise. And because Camp Lejeune and many other Marine Corps bases are near coastal waters – Marines are the nation’s amphibious fighters, and need to train in and around those waters – sea level rise and coastal habitat changes are important to them.

“They want to know what’s going on, on their properties and around them,” Paerl said. “And they want to know what their role is in what’s going on.”

Part of that is economic, part of it is planning.

“Many of the generals and others at the top are very forward-thinking,” Paerl said. “They can look down the road and see that at some point in the future, there might very well be carbon regulations and taxes. They want to know where they stand.”

In Lejeune’s case, Paerl said, the base is in pretty good standing. The study shows that 85 percent of the “nutrient budget” in the estuary – carbon is a nutrient, as are such things as nitrogen, phosphorus, potassium and calcium – comes from upstream, not from the base.

The river, which is only about 50 miles long and entirely contained in Onslow County, rises in the northwestern region and flows east-southeast past Jacksonville, where it widens into a tidal estuary about 2 miles wide. But before it gets to Jacksonville, it flows through mostly rural and agricultural land. That agriculture includes not only row crops, but also many hog farms with millions of hogs and their necessary waste lagoons. Nutrients abound.

So, Paerl said, it’s not surprising that the estuary’s nutrient load mostly comes from upstream, and the military officials are surely “delighted” to know that.

“What it means is that if we start getting more nutrient regulations, they’re in a pretty good position to show that they are not primarily responsible” for the problems that cause the need for regulations, Paerl said.

And there are plenty of examples of regulations arising from water quality problems. The state declared the Neuse River “nutrient sensitive” in the 1980s, after numerous algae blooms and fish kills, and developed and implemented rules designed to regulate sources of nutrient pollution in the basin, including wastewater, stormwater and agricultural runoff. The rules also require vegetative buffers along the water.

But beyond that, Paerl said, the Marine Corps and other branches of the military are concerned about climate change. At Camp Lejeune, they want to protect and maintain their ecosystem, because it’s similar to conditions in many areas of the world that Marines might have to fight. So they need to train in that ecosystem. Sea level rise and other ramifications of climate change could threaten those training grounds.

And, Paerl noted, military officials have long been concerned that an increasingly less stable climate with more droughts that disrupt food supplies, more major storms and continually rising sea levels, will create less stability in other countries, possibly leading to more need for U.S. intervention. They’re interested, perhaps more than most politicians these days, in limiting climate change.

What did the study find out specifically about organic, or vegetative, carbon and carbon dioxide, that predominant greenhouse gas, in the New River estuary?

Interestingly, Paerl said, it turns out that the estuary is, in general, pretty balanced between being a carbon sink, or holding carbon so it’s not released as carbon dioxide, and a contributor of CO₂ to the atmosphere.

“But that can change year-to-year,” he said. It turns out that much of that variation is related to weather, which is affected by climate.

“What we’ve found is that when we have major perturbations, chiefly storms, much more CO₂ is released,” Paerl said. “There were five or six major perturbations (during the study period), and we had the opportunity to look at (the effects) of those.”

What they’ve found is that “you can lose almost as much carbon to the atmosphere” from one major storm as had been stored away, or “fixed” by plants, in the estuary during the entire year in which the storm occurred.

“It’s kind like a gigantic ‘burp,’” the scientist said, that can, instantly negate a year of carbon storage by the algae and other plants.

Algae, another area of expertise for Paerl, can be terribly bad for estuaries, as it robs the water of oxygen when it decomposes, sometimes leading to fish kills. But, Paerl quipped, “I don’t think storms are really a good way to clean up our estuaries.”

At any rate, it sets up what Paerl said is a classic feedback loop.

“The more storms we have, then (based on the research) the more emissions we get,” he said. “And the more emissions we get, the more unstable the climate is likely to become, which means more storms. You have to wonder where it ends. Are we eventually to going to end up with 10 times more storms?”

It’s not, of course, “a perfectly linear world,” Paerl acknowledged, as there are other factors, such as El Nino, that influence the number of hurricanes and other storms. But you have to look at it not just from one year to the next, but decade by decade.

The New River work pretty much confirmed what previous work by Joseph Crosswell, also of UNC-IMS, found previously through work in the Neuse River, the largest tributary of the huge Pamlico Sound estuary, Paerl said.

The bottom line, he added, is that estuarine systems are very effective at holding carbon, unless disturbed. Some carbon even comes out and is “stored” by humans, through harvest and consumption of seafood.

But when those storms do hit, the negative atmospheric carbon effects can be quick, as in the windy Hurricane Irene in 2011, or slower and more sustained in the case of other, less windy storms that are mainly rainfall and flooding events.

Paerl said the overall study was funded by the Department of Defense’s Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program, and has been headed by RTI International, an independent, nonprofit research institute based in the Research Triangle Park. Other researchers have come from private companies, as well as from Duke University, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, the College of William and Mary and the Virginia Institute of Marine Science.

“It’s been a big effort, with a lot of parts,” Paerl said, and he credits the Department of Defense for being interested.

“They are really pretty good stewards of their environment, and it makes sense for them to be,” he said.

Paerl noted that the military also help preserve habitat outside the base gates by sometimes giving money to local governments to protect properties in the flight paths of Marine Corps aircraft that would otherwise be developed.

That’s happening now in Carteret County, where Emerald Isle is working with Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point officials to get money to help pay for the purchase of 30 acres of undeveloped land behind the town hall. That property, mostly maritime forest, has been zoned for years for more than 200 condominiums, and is in the flight path of planes going to and from nearby Bogue Field, an auxiliary landing strip for Cherry Point.

If the town gets the land, it will preserve up to 20 acres of it.

“A lot of people don’t realize how much they do,” Paerl said of the Marines. “It was good to work on this project to try to help them identify what’s going on in the estuary that runs through (Lejeune).”

And, he said, the study aids the cause of science and scientific research, which has recently been under attack in some circles, because the modeling involved should be applicable to not just other coastal military installations, but to similar estuarine systems that aren’t in government hands.

“We’ve learned a lot,” he said.

This is one of 17 solar arrays that officials plan to erect at Camp Lejeune. Photo: Advanced Solar Photonics

JACKSONVILLE — In a city that is home to the largest Marine Corps base on the East Coast, caravans of Humvees carrying helmet-clad Marines are often spotted in the mix of traffic on Jacksonville’s roads.

Low-flying helicopters from nearby Marine Corps Air Station New River, distant pop, pop, pop sounds from Marines firing rifles and earth-shaking booms from large-caliber rounds fired at the bombing range in southeastern Onslow County – it’s part of life residents here get accustomed to.

But there’s something locals aren’t used to seeing that catches the attention of passers-by traveling on N.C. 24 by the entrance to Camp Johnson, home to the Corps’ combat service support school – a field of solar panels.

These sun-catching, energy producing photovoltaic panels mark the latest milestone in the Marine Corps’ green efforts and a Department of Defense initiative to use alternative energy.

Camp Lejeune began installing photovoltaic cells, or PVs, in 2009. Each panel is about 2.5 feet wide by 5 feet long. They’re made primarily out of silicon and covered in a protective glass coating durable enough to withstand debris such as tree limbs.

If a cell is cracked, it is still able to produce electricity, explained Navy Ensign Walter Anderson, Camp Lejeune’s assistant public works officer.

PVs capture sunlight and convert the sun’s energy into electricity. That electricity is then transferred either directly to a building or to the base power grid.

Several barracks already use energy generated from panels.

About half of the 17 PV sites the base plans to construct are up and running. Panels are spread out in fields like the one on Camp Johnson, placed on rooftops and even used as canopies over parking lots on base.

The PV site near Camp Johnson’s gate should produce about 1 megawatt, Anderson said. That’s enough energy to sustain more than 100 homes.

“Once everything’s completed we’re going to have over 14 megawatts of PV here,” Anderson said. “A big part of that is reducing overall the energy we use.”

More than 1,000 solar panels cover parking spaces to maximize space. The panels provide electricity and 8,000 gallons of hot water a day to the mess hall. Photo: Baker Renewable Energy

The defense department’s goal is to create 25 percent renewable energy by 2025. About 7.5 percent of that total should be from renewable electric generation, Anderson said.

It’s in some of Camp Lejeune’s newest housing developments, where old, asbestos-riddled houses built in the 1950s and ‘60s, are being demolished and replaced with high-energy efficient homes, officials are already seeing the benefits of alternative energy.

“We are reducing the electricity by about 15 to 20 percent,” said Matt Lynn, development operations manager for Atlantic Marine Corps Communities, the private company that owns and operates base housing.

Camp Lejeune is the first Marine Corps base to have silver certified Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) homes, a benchmark developed by the U.S. Green Building Council based on design, construction and operation of high-performance green homes.

In May, the housing company announced that it was the first company to build on a Marine base a “net zero” energy and LEED platinum home, one that runs on 54 percent less energy than homes of comparable size.

Solar panels are being installed on new base housing.

By 2013, about 700 LEED silver homes will be in Midway Park.

These homes are equipped with things like hot water solar panels, which produce electricity to heat water in showers and dishwashers.

They are built with materials from the region, which cuts down on transportation costs, have better insulation and high-rated heating and air conditioning ventilation systems than your average house.

The homes have radiant barrier roof sheathing, material underneath the shingles that reflects heat, making the home cooler.

“By building all those features the home actually produces more energy than it consumes,” Lynn said. “If the home produces more energy than it consumes, we consider it to be ‘net zero.’”

Most of the homes are 1,600-square-foot to 1,800-square-foot duplexes and include solid surface countertops and energy star appliances.

Outside, drought tolerant grass and plants eliminate the need for irrigation systems. Stormwater is routed to bio-retention swales, reducing runoff into tributaries.

So far, the company has built about 2,500 LEED homes at Camp Lejeune and Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point in Havelock.

The private housing company has also constructed similar homes at Marine Recruit Depot Parris Island and Marine Corps Air Station Beaufort in South Carolina.

Marine officers break ground for a new solar array. Photo: Marine Corps

“We’re pretty much way above the standard outside the gate,” Lynn said. “We have a vested interest in long-term utility cost. We can put more money back into homes. The more we can stabilize our costs, that’s going to be better for the families in the long run.”

Families who live in base housing are encouraged to do their part by recycling.

Alicia Filzen, Lejeune’s Environmental Management System’s pollution prevent manager and qualified recycled program manager, said the base is on track to reduce landfill waste by 50 percent by 2015.

“Right now we’re at 32 percent,” she said. “We’ve done very well considering that we’ve had such a population growth.”

In 2007, the Corps announced a five-year plan to increase its active-duty force to 202,000 by 2011. For Lejeune, that meant nearly 10,000 more Marines and civil servant employees and another 11,000 dependents.

Marines, sailors and their families who live in base housing are supplied with recycling bins and offered curbside service. There’s four, 24-hour recycling drop-off locations on base.

Recyclables collected – everything from scrap metal, plastic, white paper and aluminum cans – are used to fully finance the base’s $1.4 million recycling program budget.

“Our biggest waste stream that we make the most money off of is fired brass from shooting ranges,” Filzen said. “Fortunately with the increase in the brass metal sales it has allowed us to do a lot more for recycling.”

The money has provided the program with a recycling manager/coordinator, who has gone to each unit on base and explained the program.

“We try to make it where they realize it’s just the right thing for them to do,” Filzen said. “Unfortunately, we do not recycle at the barracks right now.”

Officials are looking into ways they can offer recycling at the barracks, including recycling contests. They also hope to begin to collect compost at the base mess halls, a program already implemented at Camp Pendleton, Calif.