Second and final in a series

As the North Carolina Coastal Resources Commission’s Science Panel studies the effects of permanent beach erosion control structures such as seawalls and jetties, a critical aspect of the analysis will be looking at the lessons learned.

The commission banned hardened structures on the ocean shoreline in 1985 because of the down-shore erosive effects on the beach. Still, there are numerous examples of such structures in place along different parts of the coast, with varied degrees of effectiveness.

Erosion is not only more severe and longstanding on the Outer Banks, which are more exposed to the power of the open ocean and coastal storms than other parts of the North Carolina coast, it is the most dramatic and unforgiving, especially on Hatteras and Ocracoke islands. But coastal erosion is a statewide issue. To that point, federal beach nourishment projects in North Carolina began in 1965 at Wrightsville Beach and at Carolina Beach, and nourishment at both locations has been done in recent years.

When development and tourism took off on the Outer Banks in the 1980s, it didn’t take long before beach cottages began lining ocean shorelines.

Still, the forces of erosion had no mercy, and Kitty Hawk began losing beachfront properties. After the commission issued a variance to the hardened structures ban in 2003, permitting sheet-piling along N.C. Highway 12 in the beach community, then-Sen. Marc Basnight strongarmed the state’s ban into legislation.

Then in 2011, the North Carolina General Assembly passed a law that permitted four “test” terminal groins and has since expanded the permissible number of groins to seven. To date, four communities submitted permit applications: Figure Eight Island, Ocean Isle Beach, Bald Head Island and Holden Beach. Holden Beach has since withdrawn its application.

Long before the ban, numerous attempts were made to shore up the beach oceanward of the 1870 Cape Hatteras Lighthouse in Buxton. By 1930, the nation’s tallest brick lighthouse was a mere 98 feet from the ocean.

According to National Park Service records, interlocking steel sheet-pile groins were installed in the 1930s on the beach near the lighthouse and reinforced a few years later. Over the years, dunes were built, grasses were planted, the beach was nourished, revetment and sandbag walls were installed.

In 1969, the U.S. Navy installed three reinforced concrete groins to protect its base, which was adjacent to the lighthouse at the time. But the erosion continued. More sandbags were put in place; more beach nourishment was done. The Navy left in the 1980s. While the National Park Service officially gave up its beach nourishment and dune stabilization efforts in 1973, it continued trying in ensuing years to protect the lighthouse from the sea with rip-rap, artificial seagrass, sandbags and a scour-mat apron.

Finally, after much study and public debate, with the ocean lapping at its foundation, in 1999 the lighthouse was relocated about a half mile from the beach.

Fast-forward a quarter-century and, since September 2025, 19 unoccupied beach houses near that same beach in Buxton have collapsed into the ocean.

Escalating beach erosion along the state’s entire coast, but especially in Buxton, has put difficult discussions about lifting the hardened shorelines ban back on the table. The few existing permanent erosion-control structures built over the years on North Carolina beaches have yielded mixed results.

Oregon Inlet

One of the most successful examples of a terminal groin doing what it was intended to do, and with relatively minimal harm, is the 3,125-foot terminal groin and 625-foot revetment built in 1991 to protect the N.C. Highway 12 tie-in at the Herbert C. Bonner Bridge, which has since been replaced and renamed the Marc Basnight Bridge. The $13.4 million groin is substantial — ranging from 110 to 170 feet wide at its base and 25 feet wide at its landward end, and 39 feet wide at its seaward end — and was built to withstand waves as high as 15 feet, according to an analysis done by the state Division of Coastal Management, “North Carolina’s Terminal Groins at Oregon Inlet and Fort Macon,  Descriptions and Discussions.”

Located on the south side of Oregon Inlet at the north edge of Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge land, the groin placement encouraged sand buildup, or accretion, landward, resulting in a wide expansion of 50 acres of sandy property on the inlet side of the historic state-owned Oregon Inlet Life-Saving Station. The building is vacant, but has been weatherized to preserve it for future use.

The groin site and surrounding beach have been regularly monitored by state and federal coastal scientists. Studies have shown that the structure has likely increased shoaling of a spit on the Bodie island side and deepening of the channel. Yet, the groin has cause little if any destructive downstream erosion while adequately protecting the highway and bridge infrastructure.

But the report warned that within the next 20 years or so, the continued southward migration of the Bodie Island spit could push the inlet’s main navigational channel up against the terminal groin structure itself.

“If this were to occur, the result would be severe scour and an increase in the maintenance necessary to preserve the threatened integrity of the structure itself,” according to the document.

Beaufort Inlet/Fort Macon

Since Fort Macon was constructed in 1834, about 25 erosion-control structures adjacent to Beaufort Inlet have been built, including groins, breakwaters, timber cribbing, sand-fencing and seawalls, as well as multiple beach nourishment projects, according to the terminal groin report.  The first phase of the terminal groin project began in 1961 and included a 530-foot seawall, a 250-foot revetment and 720-foot long, 6-foot-high terminal groin. Phase II, beginning in 1965, extended the groin 410 feet oceanward, and another groin was built west of the revetment to address extensive soundside erosion, while 93,000 cubic yards of sand was placed on the ocean beach.

The third phase, started in 1970, extended the terminal groin another 400 feet, to a total of 1,530 feet long. A 480-foot-long stone groin was built to stabilize the beach fill, and another 100,000 cubic yards of sand was placed on the ocean beach. Total costs for the three-phase project was $1.35 million.

Effects of the project include increased wave energy along the Fort Macon State Park and Bogue Banks area, and continued increases in wave energy were predicted. A sediment deficit has created erosion on the inlet’s western shoreline. Meanwhile, the sand spit at Fort Macon has migrated into the western bank of the navigation channel, indicating that the terminal groin has become inefficient at trapping sediment.

“Without constant beach nourishment, the terminal groin would no longer perform as observed historically and potentially fail altogether,” the report concluded.

Buxton

Dare County is planning a nourishment project in Buxton, as well as restoration of one of the Navy’s three abandoned reinforced sheet-pile groins that had been installed in 1969. According to the recent application to repair the southernmost groin, which is 50% or more intact, that groin had been lengthened in 1982 on the landward side by 300 feet, and armor stone was added two years later. New sheet piles and additional scour protection were added to the structures in 1994. The other two groins in the original groin field are too damaged to qualify under the Coastal Resources Commission’s “50% rule” that permits repairs.

Dare County Manager Bobby Outten has said publicly that the county is under no illusions that the project planned for this summer will solve the erosion issue for good. But the hope is that it will serve as a Band-Aid long enough to find a more permanent solution to erosion that is now so severe it is threatening the livelihoods of community residents and the island’s tourism economy, as well as N.C Highway 12.

Retired East Carolina University professor and veteran coastal geologist Dr. Stanley Riggs, who has studied the Outer Banks since the 1970s, agreed that the fact that the lighthouse had to be relocated to save it illustrates why Buxton’s erosion is not going to be easy to tame for long, with or without groins. When the first coastal survey from Virginia to Ocracoke was done in 1852, the original 1802 Cape Hatteras Lighthouse, which was destroyed, had been 1,000 feet from the shoreline, Riggs recently told Coastal Review. All told, the shoreline has receded 3,000 feet, or about two-thirds of a mile, at the cape, he said.

“And it’s been constant,” Riggs said. “It oscillates a little bit, but the main direction has been constant.”

As Riggs explained, offshore just north of the motel area in Buxton, there is an underwater rock structure that is set at an oblique angle relative to the barrier island. Similar “old capes” are also off Avon and Rodanthe, he said. The rocks are under as much as 50 feet of water, and they dictate how the waves refract there.

“And so, if you fly over it, and you get the right angle down there, what you see is a series of cusps, and one side of that cusp will be stable, the other side will be highly erosional,” he said. Groins will only make the eroding side erode faster. And when there are permanent or semipermanent structures along the beach, the shore face — the part that is under water — starts to erode and gets steeper and steeper, he said. And the steeper it gets, the more severe the overwash and the more difficult it is to hold the sand in place. That’s a big reason why beach nourishment is having to be done more frequently.

Not only does the Outer Banks stick out farther into the Atlantic, there is also a narrower continental shelf, which allows the bigger waves to come ashore from the open ocean without the wider “speed bump” needed to dissipate the power.

There’s no negotiating with the ocean, Riggs said. Considering the combination of coastal dynamics at play in Buxton, efforts to control erosion will continue to fail.

“It’s that land-sea-air interface that is really the highest energy place that we’ve got on our planet,” Riggs said. “And there’s some things you can do there. There’s some things you shouldn’t do there, you can’t do there, and it’s a matter of understanding how that system works.”

Ocracoke Island

A persistent erosion hot spot on the north end of the island along N.C. Highway 12, the only road between the Hatteras Ferry Docks and Ocracoke Village, has been patched on and off for decades by increasing numbers of ever larger numbers and size of sandbags.

But even the type of large, new, trapezoidal bags permitted at Ocracoke, Pea Island and Mirlo Beach have not held up as expected, according to a presentation provided by Paul Williams of the North Carolina Department of Transportation at the February Coastal Resources Commission meeting.

Williams presented details at the meeting of NCDOT’s revised request to increase the base of the sandbags from 20 to 30 feet and the height from 6 feet to 10 feet, to better protect them from being undermined by waves.

The newer bags have open ends at the top, which proved to be a problem at Pea Island, Williams told the commission. The Pea Island Refuge at the Visitor Center, he added, faces similar risks now to that seen at Mirlo Beach in Rodanthe in the years before the hotspot was bypassed with completion of the Rodanthe “Jug-Handle” Bridge.

“The performance has not been what we anticipated,” he said, describing how they were flooded at the top, which caused the sandbags to deflate. “This product, there may be some modifications that can be made to make them more resilient.”

Some of the new bags were also installed along with traditional sandbags at Ocracoke, and they’re still covered, Williams said, but roughly 1 mile of sandbags along N.C. 12 are at risk of being undermined during the next big storm.

“So it’s basically to give us more latitude on different products, to try to protect the roadway out there better than traditional sandbags have,” Willams told Coastal Review after the meeting. “We’ve used them for decades out there, and especially Mirlo, they really got tossed around during storms. We were looking to find a more resilient product, and we’re working on evaluating other options out there.”

The new sandbags with an opening at the top are quicker to fill, he said. They’ve worked at other areas, but conditions elsewhere are not as fierce.

“When you’re on the Outer Banks, you’re under constant pressure during some of these storm events, because we’ll have a storm set up on the coast and grind for days at a time,” Williams said. “And every tide cycle is just steadily pulling sand out of the bags, and we need to have some way to stop that.”

Even though many of the traditional sandbags without the troublesome opening are still in place at Ocracoke, Williams said that about half of them, or about 1,000, have been exposed and need to be replaced. Another issue on the island is the limited amount of sand available to cover.

Sandbags, which are considered temporary erosion-control structures that are permitted parallel to shore to protect imminently threatened roads or structures, have rules about color and size, but those rules have been notoriously abused with regard to the “temporary” part, with extensions often adding up to decades at a site, making them “hardened structures” in everything but name.

Before Nags Head in 2011 started nourishing its eroded beaches in South Nags Head, for instance, even battered and torn sandbags weren’t removed for years, and property owners often successfully sued the state to keep longstanding stacked rows of protective bags in place in front of their oceanfront homes on the eroded beach.

As sea levels continue to rise, storms intensify and erosion accelerates, even sandbags as fallbacks in the absence of other impermissible erosion-control structures are becoming less effective, as evidenced by photographs of huge piles of sandbags lined up against undermined houses at North Topsail Beach.

Ocean Isle Beach

Responding to the state legislature’s repeal of the ban on hardened erosion-control structures on the coast, Ocean Isle Beach in 2011 began the planning process to pursue permits to install a terminal groin at Shallotte Inlet to stem erosion that for decades had chewed away at the island’s east end. Five years later, state and federal approval was in hand to build a 750-foot-long terminal groin, but environmental groups in 2017 filed a lawsuit to stop the project. A ruling in March 2021 in the 4th Circuit U.S. Court of Appeals affirmed a lower court’s ruling that the project alternatives were properly considered. By April 2022, the $11 million terminal groin was completed.

Today, a diminished beach remains in front of multi-million-dollar homes that were built after the groin was in place. Rows of sandbags block the surf from reaching some of the oceanfront homes, and several lots remain vacant because there is no longer enough property left to meet setback requirements.

In November, the Coastal Resources Commission allowed the owners of eroding vacant oceanfront lots to use larger sandbags to protect their properties.

Interest in future terminal groins

The Village of Bald Head Island, the first community to build a terminal groin after the “test groin” law passed, was issued a permit in October 2014 to build the erosion-control structure, which was completed in 2015.

North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality monitoring of the project after its completion did not turn up significant issues requiring corrective measures, according to its January 2024 report.

“While ongoing post-construction monitoring performed by the permittee has not identified any significant issues that would require corrective or mitigative measures, the Village performed a maintenance beach nourishment event, received nourishment from the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers’ regularly scheduled Wilmington Harbor maintenance project, and is currently seeking permit authorization for a second Village-sponsored maintenance nourishment event,” according to the document.

Six other communities have expressed “varying degrees” of interest in building a terminal groin project, including North Topsail Beach and Figure Eight Island, as noted in the report.

A contractor out of New York has been selected to begin next month a five-month-long paving project at Oregon Inlet Marina.

Cape Hatteras National Seashore, which owns the marina, announced Wednesday that Yorkshire Industries was awarded the contract to remove the top layer of asphalt, regrade and apply a new layer of asphalt in the approximately 195,650 square foot parking lot.

The project is expected to be completed by March 31, 2025.

The resurfaced parking lot will be elevated to address flooding issues, and the parking lot striping and drainage system will also be repaired, according to seashore officials.

The road-based fueling station will be closed for about 45 days, starting Nov. 4. Access to the public kayak launch and to the Oregon Inlet Campground’s RV dump station will be closed starting Dec. 9 for about 60 days.

“Campers should make other arrangements during this time,” officials said.

Access to water-based marina charters, the future air station, the public boat ramps and Oregon Inlet Fishing Center’s replacement facility, restaurant and tackle shop, are not expected to be impacted by the paving project.

NAGS HEAD — What was lacking in Oregon Inlet Fishing Center’s unadorned functionality was made up for in its singular location at the edge of Outer Banks’ premier fishing grounds.

For decades, fishers, campers and folks just watching the fleet come back through the ocean bar after a day offshore stopped at the marina on the northwest side of the inlet, which provides passage between the Pamlico Sound to the Atlantic under the high span of the Basnight Bridge.

Now, the 70-year-old fishing center’s retail tackle shop and charter reservation business will relocate to a new, two-story, climate-resilient building that is elevated 11 feet above ground and topped by a metal roof that can withstand 150 mph winds. Inside, a restaurant run by award-winning chefs and a full retail area on the first floor, and offices and an event room with a deck on the second floor.

“At the end of the day here, we have the best charter fleet up and down the East Coast, if not the country,” Russ King, managing operator of Oregon Inlet Fishing Marina LLC, said before a ceremonial ribbon-cutting Monday morning. “And we now are going to have facilities that match. So, with that, we’re really hoping to make a true destination for the family, for the customer experience, for people coming to the national seashore.”

For the majority of the time the 1950s fishing center has been at Oregon Inlet, it was operated by a group of stockholders that was originally 22 of the who’s who of famed Outer Banks’ fishing boat captains, including Omie Tillett, Billy Brown, Warren O’Neal, Buddy Canady, Lee Perry, Arvin Midgett, Rudolph Peele and Tony Tillett.

In earlier days, the captains had moored in a ditch near the current Pirate’s Cove Marina before establishing a small outpost at the Oregon Inlet location. After Cape Hatteras National Seashore, which encompasses the Oregon Inlet area, was established in 1953, the Oregon Inlet Fishing Center, LLC, partners operated the marina under a concession agreement with the National Park Service.

But the partnership, stressed by changes over the decades, eventually failed to reach terms to renew the agreement with the park service. In December 2018, the agency announced that it had executed a lease with Oregon Inlet Marinas, LLC to operate and maintain the fishing center.

In an open letter after the announcement, Capt. Kenneth Brown, president of Oregon Inlet Fishing Center Inc., recalled the joy the center provided to the many visitors who came to see the catch of the day or admire the custom vessels at the docks.

“Regardless of the reason, Oregon Inlet Fishing Center has offered family and friends the opportunity to spend time together and make lasting memories,” the letter said. “We have seen our customers return year after year and measure success in their patronage. For that we say thank you.” 

At the time of the transfer, according to a park service press release, Oregon Inlet Fishing Center was comprised of a 60-slip marina, seven buildings totaling 7,369 square feet, around 7.4 acres of land, a parking lot with about 220 spaces, six vessel fuel pumps, one vehicle fuel pump, and associated fuel system and storage. A public boat ramp and the parking lot were managed by the park service. 

The center’s annual gross receipts were $3.38 million in 2014, $3 million in 2015, and $2.93 million in 2016, according to the park service.

“The Oregon Inlet Fishing Center and the talented captains docking at the marina have put Oregon Inlet on the map as one of the best offshore fishing destinations in the world,” David Hallac, superintendent of National Parks of Eastern North Carolina, said in the statement.

The park service’s request for proposals required the lessee, managed by Russell King, to create “a safe, sustainable, environmentally sound and resilient marina bulkhead” for operations.

According to terms of the 20-year lease, the company will pay 5% of gross receipts and an annual fixed fee of $40,000 to the park service.

In turn, Oregon Inlet Marinas would be authorized to continue the fishing center operations, including renting slips to charter fishing vessels, headboats, tour boats and dive boats, as well as large commercial and government vessels. Sales of food and alcoholic and nonalcoholic beverages, and special events associated with the use of the marina are also permitted.

Replacement of the bulkheads along the 1,700-linear-foot marina began in 2019, King said in a media tour before the ribbon-cutting. The marina, which is expected to open in early May, will offer in-slip fueling with nonethanol gas or diesel at the 60 slips, and a reinforced 17-foot bulkhead.

A 60-foot-long test section of the boardwalk is made of Titan decking, a resilient composite material that allows drainage. A 90-foot-long transient dock, which along with a dock walkway, is built with marine treated wood and reinforced with multiple pilings to protect the marina from vessel strikes.

““This dock is not going anywhere,” King said. “What we wanted to do was create a more safe experience for the charter boats.”

In addition, the park service will replace the asphalt in the parking lot and add improved stormwater drainage.

Construction of the nearly 10,000-square-foot building started in June 2022 where the original center had once stood, before it was severely damaged by the infamous Ash Wednesday Storm in 1962.

The old building was renovated by the new operators so customers could still be served in the interim. That building, which was expanded at its current site across from the U.S. Coast Guard Station, will be demolished and an open-air pavilion, owned by the King family, will be installed.

The new fishing center, designed by Beacon Architects of Kill Devil Hills, is notably more expansive than the modest former fishing center. On the 5,600 square-foot first floor, there’s a retail store, operated by Oceans East Bait and Tackle, a dedicated charter reservation area and a restaurant that offers counter service and provides takeout food and “tackle box” meals.

The restaurant, Sea Chef Dockside Kitchen is already open, serving its all-day menu from 11 a.m. to 8 p.m. six days a week, said Mac Buben, half of the father-son chef team running the eatery.

Jeff Buben, a 45-year veteran of the restaurant business, is an award-winning chef who worked in New York City and Washington, D.C., restaurants before moving last year to the Outer Banks. 

His son, Mac Buben, who most recently worked at Blue Point restaurant in Duck, said the building will be open early for pre-dawn fishing trip departures, when “tackle box” breakfasts and sandwiches will be available.

Hours of operation, he said, will be adjusted and expanded as time goes on.

“It’s a soft landing, if you will,” Buben said.

On the 4,000-square-foot second floor, along with administrative offices, there is a conference/event room with a capacity of 50, that opens to a large open-air deck.

“And what I consider the best view on the Outer Banks,” King added, as he stepped outside and pointed to each part of the panoramic view. “You see the ocean here, you see the sound here, you see the lighthouse right here.”

And soon, visitors will be seeing many a glorious sunrise and sunset from those decks.

The Old Oregon Inlet Life-Saving Station is one of the most beautiful historic buildings on the Outer Banks, situated at a dramatic coastal location that would befit a movie setting. 

But it’s got to go.

Where and when and to whom is what the North Carolina Aquariums — the building’s current owner — is trying to figure out.

“It’s a piece of history — we would really like to see it preserved,” Larry Warner, the director of N.C. Aquarium on Roanoke Island, recently told Coastal Review. “Our goal now is to move it.”

Built in 1898 for about $7,000 on a picturesque corner of beach between the Atlantic Ocean and the East Coast’s most unruly inlet, the station has not been in use since it was decommissioned by the U.S. Coast Guard in 1988. Standing exposed for decades on the northern tip of Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge, the deteriorating building was nearly buried in sand and a magnet for vandals.

In 2007-08, the state paid $7 million to elevate and renovate the structure, demolish 1970s-era dormitories, weatherize the building and restore its historic good looks.

Around that time, the North Carolina Aquariums system was planning to turn the site into a satellite facility for students and interns to study in what was envisioned as a marine and coastal wildlife research center on the Outer Banks.

“Then Jennette’s Pier jumped into the picture,” Warner said. “All the focus and all the funds went into the pier.”

With Jennette’s Pier in Nags Head since transformed into a major research/educational asset and attraction for the aquariums, the fate of the life-saving station was put on the back burner.

In the governor’s proposed fiscal 2022-23 budget, Warner said, the Aquariums requested $600,000 to relocate the station, potentially to a 16-acre site near the Roanoke Island aquarium. But the funds never made it into the final budget, and it’s not clear when or if another request will be submitted.

Although the Aquariums is seeking the move, it’s still open to where it might go.

“We are not married to the building coming over to the aquarium,” Warner said.

In addition to the station, the state owns 10 acres under and surrounding it. The Pea Island refuge, managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, has an easement at the site for management of wildlife, said Rebekah Martin, manager of Coastal North Carolina National Wildlife Refuge Complex.

During the construction of the Marc Basnight Bridge, which opened in 2019 to replace the 1963 Bonner Bridge, the state Department of Transportation right of way easement was modified, she said, resulting in DOT abandoning some of it and maintaining portions of it. The refuge easement was part of the mitigation DOT agreed to provide.

DOT had briefly proposed building a boardwalk between the parking lot and the station, Martin said. But at the realization that it would be constantly covered in sand, the idea was dropped.

The refuge has neither demanded nor requested that the station be moved from Pea Island, Martin added.

Last year the state presented a concept that included moving the building to Roanoke Island, she said, with the condition that costs would be shared by DOT and Fish and Wildlife. But Martin said in a later email that there is no record that she is aware of that documents the discussion between the agencies about the proposed move or the potential cost share.

“From our perspective, we would certainly support the relocation of the building to a safer site,” Martin said in the interview. “We don’t have the funding available to move the building at this point.”

Since the refuge does not own the footprint property or the building, any decision, and the timing, to move the station would be up to the state, she said.

Meanwhile, the refuge continues to manage wildlife on the 10 acres with implementation of seasonal shorebird nesting closures and coordination of bird and other species’ monitoring, Martin said.

Today the station, backdropped by a vista of swirling sea, sitting amid undulating dunes and facing the inlet, presents a living postcard of 19th-century maritime life to drivers crossing the inlet heading south over the Basnight Bridge.

But with its doors and windows reinforced against intruders, the building is inaccessible. Curious sightseers can park at a public lot near the station and follow a foot path in the sand to get a closer look at its exterior.

It’s a rather sad plight for one of the few authentic life-saving stations remaining at its original location on the coast. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places, the station, deemed to be in remarkably good condition, has had a bumpy road to its state of benign uselessness.

After the Coast Guard departed, relocating to its current station on the calmer northwest side of the inlet, the old 11,361-square-foot, wood-frame station was turned over to Dare County. That prompted a long battle with heirs of Jesse Etheridge, who gave the U.S. Lifesaving Service the land in 1897 with the condition that it would revert to him if the property ceased being held by the service. But evidently the eventual heirs did not make a timely claim to the property, and the U.S. government deeded the station to the county.  Finally, in 2000, the county handed the property over to the state, which promptly assigned it to the N.C. Aquariums to administer.

Aquariums Divisions Director Maylon White said that the situation with the proposed relocation of the station “remains status quo.”

White said that it is too soon to know if the Oregon Inlet station relocation request will be part of this year’s new proposed budget.

“We’re very much interested in preserving it,” he said in a recent interview. But he reiterated that conservation more than location is the overriding goal.

“We’re open to suggestions,” he said. “What we need to get is funding, and then we need to have discussions if there are better places to put it.”

If the relocation is eventually funded, he added, the N.C. Aquariums would “be happy” to discuss the potential transfer of the state’s 10 acres it owns at the station to the Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge.

One contender who has put their name in the hat for a location for the station is the nonprofit Pea Island Preservation Society, which owns and operates the Pea Island Lifesaving Station Cookhouse, which was moved from Rodanthe to Collins Park in Manteo.

According to its website, the group’s primary mission is to preserve and interpret the history of the station and of its keeper, Richard Etheridge, the only Black Life-Saving Station keeper in the history of the Lifesaving Service, which was inherited by the Coast Guard.

Etheridge’s gravesite has been memorialized at the Roanoke Island aquarium grounds.

Joan Collins, the Pea Island Preservation Society director of outreach and education, said that the group is in the preliminary stages of investigating the possibility of moving the Oregon Inlet station to a lot near the Cookhouse site in Manteo.

“It’s such a beautiful building and it connects to our history,” she told Coastal Review. But securing that relocation, she acknowledged, would require numerous steps and much planning.

“We would love to get it if we could,” Collins said. “If we can acquire the funding.”

MANTEO — Nearly 20 years ago, the White House Council on Environmental Quality seemed to have finally put its federal sword through the heart of the Oregon Inlet twin-jetty proposal, a project that Congress had approved in 1970 after it had brewed in local committee rooms for at least a decade.

But now, as shoaling has continued to create hazardous conditions for vessels in Oregon Inlet, North Carolina U.S. Rep. Greg Murphy, a Republican representing North Carolina’s 3^rd District, is asking the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to take another look at building twin jetties. Murphy and the bill’s cosponsor Rep. Rob Wittman, R-Va., have introduced legislation directing the Corps to conduct a new feasibility study for construction of the proposed jetties.

“While dredging has been somewhat effective in easing the issues at Oregon Inlet, it’s not a permanent solution,” Murphy said Thursday in a press release.  “It’s clear that a dual jetty system, which requires an act of Congress, is necessary for long-term navigation, commerce and flood control purposes.” 

Murphy had announced introduction of the legislation, the Oregon Inlet Jetty Feasibility Study Act, Aug. 19 during a press conference in Manteo, but the bill was not published on the congressional website until Thursday.

The legislation needs House and Senate approval. The study would then have to be done within eight months, and a report submitted to Congress within a year.

In an interview after the press conference, Murphy was uncertain what support the measure would receive in Congress, although he said he has had good discussions with members and with the Corps about the need for the jetties. 

Murphy also said that the feasibility study is not funded. The congressman, who had voted against Biden’s Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act and the Inflation Reduction Act, said he did not expect either bill to provide funds for the study, but he would welcome wherever the funding could be found.

As of late Thursday, the Congressional Budget Office cost estimate for the measure had not been received, according to the congressional legislative website.

At the press event, Murphy acknowledged the complexity of the more-than-60-year history of Oregon Inlet dual-jetty plan, which involved countless studies, hundreds of meetings from local boards to congressional committees, and millions of dollars. 

“It’s really going to take a concerted effort,” he said. “This is the most studied inlet in the country, but we have to start from scratch again.”  

In May 2003, when the Council on Environmental Quality announced the consensus agreement between jurisdictional federal agencies not to proceed with the proposed project, part of the explanation was that economic and environmental data created uncertainties about any benefits.  

Those questions, “and the risk to important resources,” Council Chair James L. Connaughton said at the time, “weigh against proceeding with the project.”

Although Outer Banks watermen were deflated, it didn’t take long before they began pursuit of new efforts — so far with no success — to get the project built. Proponents say the jetties, which would be walls on either side of the inlet by the Marc Basnight Bridge, would block sand buildup in the navigational channel.

They say that the jetties are needed to prevent loss of life and vessels in the inlet, to protect water quality, and to protect the enormous economic benefit of the inlet to the local economy and the fishing and boating communities.

The state and Dare County have been consistently in support of the project.

After Congress had authorized the jetties in 1970, it had never funded the estimated $100 million or so cost. The project called for the Corps to dredge a 20-foot by 400-foot navigation channel for deep-draft fishing vessels and construct two long jetties to divert sand from the channel.

Oregon Inlet, the only ocean to sound passage between Virginia and Hatteras, is known for its dangerous currents and constantly shifting shoals.

Barton Grover, Dare County waterways administrator, said the county currently allocates $3 million for Oregon Inlet dredging each year. With state match, that has meant $9 million in nonfederal funds have been available for dredging each year.

The inlet and its shoreline are within Cape Hatteras National Seashore, which has historically been opposed to the jetties. Opponents, including numerous environmental groups and public agencies, say that the jetties would cause serious erosion farther south and would have a detrimental effect on fish populations.

Located adjacent to the Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge and between the Atlantic Ocean and Pamlico Sound, the inlet and its marshes are important fish nurseries and habitats for dozens of species of fish, including crab, shrimp, sharks, bluefish and numerous other finfish and shellfish.

In 2014, Duke University coastal scientist Orrin Pilkey — a longstanding and vocal opponent of the jetty project — expressed to Coastal Review his shock that the state was studying how to get control of the inlet so the jetties could be built.

“I’m extremely concerned and appalled that the issue still exists,” Pilkey said at the time. “The jetties have been thoroughly discredited on all levels.”

After the council killed off the jetty project in 2003, it promised that the federal government would provide resources for more surveys and dredging of the inlet. Although both improved, the dredging has proved inadequate, whether because of funding shortages or increased demand.

The dredge Miss Katie, a private-public in partnership with Dare County and the state, arrived in Wanchese last week. The hopper dredge, built by private company EJE, will be taking over much of the dredging responsibilities in Oregon Inlet once it starts work in coming weeks.

Officials with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Wilmington District said Friday that vessels were unable to navigate a portion of Oregon Inlet along the Marc Basnight Bridge.

The Corps surveyed the condition of the federal channel at Oregon Inlet Wednesday in response to the weather system that hit the coast during the week of May 8.

A portion of the marked federal channel between buoys 17 and 21 was completely shoaled in, with depths of 2-3 feet at mean lower low water and unnavigable for most vessels. MLLW is the 19-year average lowest of the two daily low tides.

Depths are too shallow for the Corps to use shallow draft-dredges to clear the channel.

The Coast Guard is expected to publish a notice to mariners concerning channel conditions and advising that the current channel markers will be removed in the coming days, officials said.

The Coast Guard and Corps were working together to investigate other potential areas where a marked channel can be established to provide access to and from Oregon Inlet.

The National Park Service has approved plans to make improvements and upgrades at Oregon Inlet Marina, a commercial charter fishing marina south of Nags Head that’s part of the Cape Hatteras National Seashore.

On Friday, Park Service South Atlantic-Gulf Acting Regional Director Pedro Ramos signed a Finding of No Significant Impact, or FONSI, for the Oregon Inlet Marina Improvements: Site Plan and Environmental Assessment, officials announced Monday.

The environmental assessment addressed the management of aging buildings that are not adapted to sea level rise, vessel traffic, navigation, fueling challenges in the marina, parking, viewshed and pedestrian and traffic flow, according to the park service.

After evaluating two alternatives, the park service chose the preferred alternative that allows for the replacement of 1960s-era buildings and improvements to fueling facilities, parking and circulation, and for dredging at the popular charter fishing marina. The facilities will be built to better withstand climate change, sea level rise and associated storm-related vulnerabilities.

The marina is north of Oregon Inlet and operated by Oregon Inlet Fishing Center, LLC through a 20-year lease. The lessee is to fund and implement most of the construction subject to NPS approval.

“The Seashore looks forward to continued collaboration with the marina lessee to develop final plans and specifications and implement the project in the coming months,” said David Hallac, superintendent, National Parks of Eastern North Carolina, in a statement.

The park service has permitted or contracted fishing center and marina operations since 1953 and the marina has been in operation in its current location since December 1956.

Sinking of the Valley Forge to become an artificial reef. Video: DMF

The Valley Forge, a 108-foot tugboat, was sunk Friday off Oregon Inlet as part of the state Division of Marine Fisheries’ Artificial Reef Program, in partnership with the Oregon Inlet Artificial Reef Committee, the division announced Monday.

The Valley Forge is a 108-foot firefighting tugboat, originally commissioned by the U.S. Army and constructed in 1954. It served for many decades, undergoing a refit in the 1990s. The tug was later decommissioned and put up for auction in 2012.

The Valley Forge joins tugboats, the America and the American at the site AR-165, located about 7 miles southeast of Oregon Inlet. The site contains about 7,200 tons of recycled concrete pipe. GPS coordinates are 35 degrees 41 minutes north and 75 degrees 26 minutes west.

An artificial reef is a manmade underwater structure, typically built to promote marine life in areas with a generally featureless bottom, that serve as crucial spawning and foraging habitat for many commercially and recreationally important fish species.

The Valley Forge was cleaned of environmental pollutants in accordance with Environmental Protection Agency, Coast Guard, and Army Corps of Engineers regulations prior to reefing.

Its placement leaves a navigational clearance of around 20 feet. The division plans to sink some large reef balls and concrete pipe at the site later this year.

The site, AR-165, was established and all materials placed as part of a Coastal Recreational Fishing License grant awarded to the Oregon Inlet Artificial Reef Committee.

The division maintains 68 artificial reefs, located from estuarine waters to 38 miles from shore. They are situated so that they can be reached from every maintained inlet in the state.

For more information about the program or the vessel sinking, contact Artificial Reef Program Coordinator Jordan Byrum at 252-808-8036 or Jordan.Byrum@ncdenr.gov.

WANCHESE — As Oregon Inlet continues to thwart nearly every effort to tame it, North Carolina Congressman Greg Murphy, a Republican from Greenville, is lending his voice to reviving pursuit of twin jetties to prevent sand clogging the inlet’s navigation channel.

“What we need to do is we need have the jetties built,” Murphy said at a brief press gathering Friday after touring Wanchese Marine Industrial Park. “That will be the fix.”

Despite being the subject of 40 years of battles from Manteo to Washington, D.C., the controversial Oregon Inlet jetty project was finally killed off in 2003 by the White House Council on Environmental Quality after a report the prior year that described economic and environmental concerns as unresolved. But it has since transformed into a mythical zombie, its huge shadow looming over frustrated attempts to harness the channel.

During a brief interview at the marine park office, Murphy explained that he had met several times with the Oregon Inlet Task Force Chair Jim Tobin, also a member of the Dare County Board of Commissioners, who had taken him to see the conditions in Oregon Inlet for himself.

The inlet, the only opening from sound to ocean between Virginia and Hatteras, has been badly shoaled from recent storms, making it hazardous for fishing vessels and charter boats to navigate. The authorized depth of the navigation channel is 14 feet, although the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has had difficulty maintaining the channel to that specification. With the new Basnight Bridge having multiple high spans, there is now flexibility to re-mark the navigational channel to follow best water, but shoaling persists.

Dredging, which can be costly and difficult to schedule, has not been able to keep up with maintenance needs.

“We’re putting good money after bad,” Murphy said.

The design of the proposed jetty project includes one, 2-mile-long jetty on the north side of the channel and a 3,500-foot-long jetty that would be attached to the existing half-mile-long south terminal groin. The project also would include a sand-bypass system to promote sand movement and prevent beach erosion.

Murphy said there’s an “exceedingly good economic argument” for the jetty project.

But for now, with dredging the only available solution to keep the channels open, he said he found more money to help. In February, Murphy submitted a special request for an additional $1.3 million from the Army Corps of Engineers to do more work in Oregon Inlet, Silver Lake Harbor, and New River Inlet, according to a press release.

“Dredging is an indispensable and critical service to eastern North Carolina’s commercial and recreational fishing industries,” Murphy said in the statement. “Livelihoods as well as our national defense depend upon navigable waters in the Third District.”

The congressman won a special election in 2019 to replace Rep. Walter Jones, who had represented the district for 25 years until his death in February 2019. Murphy was reelected to a full, two-year term in 2020.

Although he was not specific, Murphy said it was “suggested” that he visit the marine park, which opened in 1981, except then it was known as the “Seafood Park.” Originally, the park was supposed to be a hub for commercial seafood industries with trawlers moving local catch from the harbor out through Oregon Inlet to the ocean. But Oregon Inlet proved too unpredictable and difficult to maintain the channel depth required for the huge trawlers. Before long, most of the trawler fleet relocated to deeper ports, and by the mid-1990s, the park started its transformation to a premier boatbuilding location.

“It’s an amazingly well-run, well-equipped facility that’s not only known in North Carolina, but internationally,” Murphy said. “This is a gem for eastern North Carolina.”

Oregon Inlet, as legend has it, was named for the first ship that navigated through it — and promptly struck a shoal — after the inlet was carved out by a vicious hurricane in 1846. Ever since, the inlet has moved steadily to the south, at a rate of as much as 100 feet a year. Known for its powerful currents and fickle conditions, Oregon Inlet is regarded by coastal scientists and mariners as one of the most dynamic inlets on the East Coast.

In the brief time that Murphy made himself available Friday, he did not elaborate on what he would do to support the jetties.

In January, state Sens. Bob Steinburg, R-Chowan, and Michael Lazzara, R-Onslow, introduced Senate Bill 26. The one-page bill, “An Act to Clarify That A Terminal Groin Is Not An Erosion Control Structure And Therefore Is Not Subject To Limitations On Those Structures,” strikes out the words, “A ‘terminal groin’ is not a jetty.”

Rep. Bobby Hanig, R-Currituck, introduced a companion bill in the House. Hanig told Coastal Review in January that the measure was “a first step” to restart legislative action on the inlet and changes to the bill were possible.

As of Wednesday, both measures were still in committee, where they’ve been since early February.

Steinburg did not respond to multiple messages for comment and information about the bill.

“I stand ready to help in any way I can at the federal level.”

Rep. Greg Murphy, R-N.C.

Murphy said a jetty at Oregon Inlet would improve navigation.

“I am supportive of the effort in the North Carolina General Assembly spearheaded by Rep. Hanig and Sen. Steinberg to clear the path for this to become a reality. The inlet would continue to need further dredging, but I stand ready to help in any way I can at the federal level,” Murphy said Tuesday in an emailed statement his office provided in response to Coastal Review’s query.

Harry Schiffman, the vice-chairman of the Oregon Inlet Task Force, said in interview that he did not know the impetus for the bill in the North Carolina General Assembly. The task force was not aware of the legislation, he added, nor did it ask for it.

“My feeling was, well, there’s a lot of history out there on the meaning of these names,” he said.

In short, groins protect property, jetties protect channels.

At Oregon Inlet, a terminal groin — a structure built at the end of a piece of land — was built on the south side to protect the Bonner Bridge and N.C. 12 from erosion. Over time, sand built up — about 60 acres —behind the rock wall.

“So, it was very successful in what it was intended to do,” Schiffman said.

But Schiffman, who has spent his lifetime navigating Oregon Inlet, knows better than most how difficult it would be to not only get approval for the twin jetties, but to get the funding to build them.

The immediate hurdle is the fact that the U.S. Department of the Interior owns the land.

“The first thing that would have to happen is that the state would have to get control of both sides of the inlet because the DOI has always opposed the jetties,” he said. “Then you’d have to reengineer the project and there would have to be environmental assessments. All of that would have to be ramped up.”

Watermen started lobbying in the early 1960s for the twin jetties, which they argue would block sand from entering the inlet channel. In 1970, Congress approved the $108 million jetty project, but failed to fund it. But for the next 33 years, the lobbying continued, with proponents, including Schiffman, saying it would create jobs, save lives and allow for the inlet to be able to safely flush.

Environmentalists and scientists said it would harm fisheries and worsen erosion.

In 2013, the state created a task force to study acquisition of the inlet. But the effort fell flat, in large part because the federal government was not interested in trading or selling its land.

Schiffman said he believes the current plan that is underway to build a private-public dredge to maintain Oregon and Hatteras inlets is the most realistic option to maintain the waterways.  The Oregon Inlet jetty project would be a much heavier lift.

“What kind of success we would have, I don’t know,” he said. “I’m scarred and worn-out on that one. So, if (the dredge) fails, then only thing left is the jetties. And somebody else is going to have to fight that battle.”

The National Park Service has approved a plan to issue a special use permit to Dare County to use a privately owned hopper dredge to perform maintenance dredging within Oregon Inlet.

In compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, the park service adopted an environmental assessment drafted by the Army Corps of Engineers for their Section 404 permitting of the Clean Water Act, which the park service was a cooperating agency, according to a news release Thursday from the park service.

“This plan is important to support safe navigation for commercial fishermen, charter boats, the Coast Guard, and recreational boaters that use the inlet on a daily basis,” said Superintendent of the National Parks of Eastern North Carolina David Hallac. “It will allow Dare County to assist the Army Corps of Engineers in the maintenance of the federally authorized channel.”

The entire project corridor is about 2,300 acres, including the ocean bar and Pamlico Sound channels and the nearshore disposal area at the north end of Pea Island, according to the park service.

A 15-day public review and comment period for a draft Finding of No Significant Impact, or FONSI, for the adopted assessment was in May and the FONSI was finalized June 11.

Oregon Inlet is within Cape Hatteras National Seashore boundaries. The Corps’ regulatory control over the project includes the dredging and discharge of dredged material in the Oregon Inlet corridor and disposal areas as a federally authorized navigation channel.

Dare County needs the special use permit to use the privately owned dredge under the same conditions as the Corps for maintenance dredging of small or isolated regularly occurring shoals in Oregon Inlet.

The public has 15 days from Monday to review and comment on the draft of the Finding of No Significant Impact, or FONSI, for dredging of Oregon Inlet with a Dare County dredge.

Cape Hatteras National Seashore announced Monday that public comments will be accepted until May 25 electronically through the website or mailed to Superintendent, Cape Hatteras National Seashore, 1401 National Park Drive, Manteo, N.C. 27954.

Dare County is seeking a Special Use Permit from the seashore to use a privately owned hopper dredge in the same manner and under the same conditions as what is currently authorized for the Army Corps of Engineers to perform maintenance dredging of small and isolated, regularly occurring shoals within Oregon Inlet, which is within seashore boundaries, according to the National Park Service.

The Corps’ regulatory control over the project includes the dredging and discharge of dredged material within the the Oregon Inlet corridor and the disposal areas as a federally authorized navigation channel.

In compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, the National Park Service is adopting the environmental assessment the Corps drafted for the Clean Water Act Section 404 permitting in which the National Park Service was a cooperating agency.

An environmental assessment, or EA, is a document that provides sufficient information to determine if a federal action has the potential to cause significant environmental effects. Section 404 of the Clean Water Act establishes a program to regulate the discharge of dredged or fill material into waters of the United States, including wetlands, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

The Corps and National Park Service reviewed Dare County’s January 2019 draft environmental assessment, which examined alternatives and environmental effects of the proposed project.

The statements and conclusions reached in this draft FONSI are based on documentation and analysis provided in the Corps’ environmental assessment with supplemental analysis provided in the Dare County environmental assessment to support the National Park Service decision. To the extent necessary, relevant sections of the Corps’ environmental assessment are incorporated in the FONSI.

The Oregon Inlet boat ramp and parking lot will be closed for up to a week later this month while the parking lot has a 3/4-inch layer of asphalt pavement overlay placed on top of existing pavement.

The Federal Highway Administration will begin the process March 23 of preserving the existing pavement at the Oregon Inlet boat ramp parking lot, the National Park Service announced Wednesday.

During this phase of the project, a part of the Federal Highway Administration’s pavement preservation project at Cape Hatteras National Seashore, the parking lot and public boat ramps will be closed for three to five days. The reopening of the Oregon Inlet boat ramp parking lot will be announced on the Seashore’s Facebook and Twitter accounts.

While the boat ramps are closed, boaters can use the North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission’s Washington Baum Bridge Boating Access Area at the west end of the Washington Baum Bridge in Manteo.

The Federal Highway Administration began a project in April 2019 to preserve around 43 miles of paved roads and parking areas within Cape Hatteras National Seashore, Fort Raleigh National Historic Site, and Wright Brothers National Memorial. The contractor for the $6.9 million project is Bryant’s Land & Development Industries, Inc. from Burnsville.

WINSTON-SALEM – The decision on what to name the Bonner Bridge replacement over Oregon Inlet is final.

After much discussion by the Dare County Board of Commissioners  and requests for input from the public, the North Carolina Board of Transportation voted Thursday morning to designate the new N.C. 12 bridge over Oregon Inlet the Marc Basnight Bridge, according to a news release.

A segment of the old bridge will become a pedestrian walkway and will retain the Herbert C. Bonner name. Bonner was a Democratic congressman who served 1940-1965 and represented 14 northeastern North Carolina counties.

Dare County Board of Commissioners and Kill Devil Hills, Manteo and Nags Head town councils requested the resolution to name the new bridge that opened to traffic on Feb. 25. A community day was held Feb. 9, when pedestrians were permitted to walk across the bridge.

The resolution also rescinds the 1983 designation that named the entire length of N.C. 12 from U.S. 64 to the Ocracoke Ferry Terminal as the Marc Basnight Highway.”

Born in Manteo, Basnight represented Dare County in the Senate from 1984 until 2011, serving as president pro tempore from 1993 until 2010. NCDOT described Basnight as a force behind the replacement project from the beginning.

NAGS HEAD – The newly completed 2.8-mile bridge across Oregon Inlet opened to the public at 12:20 p.m. Monday, the North Carolina Department of Transportation announced.

The new bridge, which at its highest point is 90 feet above Oregon Inlet with 8-foot shoulders on each side, is expected to last 100 years. It is the first bridge in the state built with stainless reinforcing steel, which will provide extra protection against its salt water environment, according to NCDOT.

A dedication is planned for April 2 for which details will be announced. An informal “community day” event to celebrate completion of the new bridge was Feb. 9.

“It’s a great day for all residents and visitors to the Outer Banks,” said NCDOT Board Member Allen Moran in a statement. “This new bridge will be a critical lifeline to the people and the pristine beaches of Hatteras Island for generations to come.”

Construction began in March 2016 on the state-of-the-art $252 million replacement for the Herbert C. Bonner Bridge built in 1963.

Demolition of the old bridge will begin soon and should be complete by the end of the year.A 1,000-foot section of the south end of the old bridge will remain in place as a pedestrian walkway.

IT’S OPEN! ?
The new bridge over the Oregon Inlet is open for traffic. Please be safe and enjoy your travels. pic.twitter.com/HyRkiRHNRX

— NCDOT NC12 (@NCDOT_NC12) February 25, 2019

DARE COUNTY — Oregon Inlet Marinas, LLC, and the National Park Service have signed a 20-year lease agreement for the company to operate Oregon Inlet Marina, Cape Hatteras National Seashore announced Tuesday.

The lease is effective Dec. 31. Oregon Inlet Marinas, LLC, managed by Russell C. King, will provide for the maintenance and continued operation of Oregon Inlet Marina, also known as Oregon Inlet Fishing Center, for use as a charter boat marina.

Oregon Inlet Marinas, LLC was selected to negotiate a lease for Oregon Inlet Marina in accordance with the request for proposals, or RFP, issued June 7 and closed Sept. 5.  The National Park Service received multiple proposals in response to the RFP, selecting Oregon Inlet Marinas, LLC as the best responsive proposal in accordance with the selection criteria published in the RFP.

According to the press release, the lessee will be authorized the use of the marina premises for the following purposes:

• Marina slip rentals only for charter fishing boats, or for-hire fishing vessels; headboats; tour boats;  dive boats, collectively such boats and watercraft are referred to as “Commercial Watercraft”; and large commercial or governmental vessels such as dredges.
• The rental of non-motorized watercraft such as kayaks, canoes and sailboats, excluding personal watercraft.
• The sale by Lessee to the public of opportunities for activities on lessee-owned commercial watercraft.
• The sale of fishing and boating goods and services including: ice, bait, tackle, fishing and boating apparel, camping supplies, fish cleaning services, photography supplies and services, and fuel.
• Booking services for users of Commercial Watercraft.
• The sale of food and both non-alcoholic and alcoholic beverages.
• The sale of other retail items not included above provided that the sale of such items is consistent with Park Area purposes.
• Special events associated with the use of the marina for charter fishing boats, such as fishing tournaments.
• Provision of a small children’s play area.

As Oregon Inlet Marina comes under new management, the National Park Service extended its gratitude to Oregon Inlet Fishing Center, LLC for its many years of providing charter fishing services on the Outer Banks.

“The Oregon Inlet Fishing Center and the talented captains docking at the marina have put Oregon Inlet on the map as one of the best offshore fishing destinations in the world,” said David Hallac, superintendent National Parks of Eastern North Carolina, in a statement.

NAGS HEAD — The National Park Service is requesting proposals now through Sept. 5 from parties interested in a long-term lease of Oregon Inlet Marina at Cape Hatteras National Seashore in Nags Head.

The proposals may be submitted from June 7 to Sept. 5.

Currently operated as Oregon Inlet Fishing Center, the Oregon Inlet Marina is at 98 N.C. 12, Nags Head, just north of the Herbert C. Bonner Bridge.

The property includes a 60-slip marina; seven buildings totaling 7,369 square feet; 7.4 acres of associated land area; a 220-spot parking lot; and six vessel fuel pumps, one vehicle fuel pump and associated fuel system and storage.

The park service seeks to do the following:

• Enable continued use of the property for marina slip rentals and associated services for charter fishing boats or for-hire fishing vessels, headboats, and tour boats.
• Provide regular maintenance and upkeep of the marina and associated facilities.
• Undertake improvements necessary to ensure that a safe, sustainable, environmentally sound and resilient marina bulkhead or equivalent shoreline stabilization project is implemented to allow for marina operations throughout the term of the lease.

Learn More

• Request For Proposals

Reprinted from Outer Banks Voice

A new artificial reef to be built 8 miles south of the Oregon Inlet sea buoy has been funded by a grant from the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries.

Through the sale of coastal recreational fishing licenses, a two-year grant in the amount of $882,000 was awarded to the Oregon Inlet Artificial Reef Committee for the construction of AR-165.

In addition to fishing licenses money, local matching funds were donated by TW’s Bait & Tackle, Manteo Marine and Southern Bank. Local funding is still being sought and donations can be made through the website of the Outer Banks Anglers Club.

Prior to beginning reef construction, all state and federal permits must be obtained. A Coastal Area Management Act major permit is expected to be issued within the next few weeks. It is anticipated that federal permits will follow thereafter, although the exact time period is unknown.

The initial reef construction will consist of one ship about 100-140 feet in length. The retired vessel will be towed to the reef site and sunk in place.

In addition to the ship, 2,000 tons of concrete material consisting of assorted concrete pipe ranging in size from 36- to 76-inches in diameter and 8-feet in length will be used in the construction of AR-165.

The concrete will be barged to the reef site and deployed as directed by a North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries Artificial Reef Group representative.

Second-year plans call for an additional 6,000 tons of concrete material and possibly another ship, if funding allows.

No material from the demolition of the Bonner Bridge will be used on this new reef. That debris is all scheduled to be used to enhance four older reefs in the vicinity of Oregon Inlet.

For more information, visit www.outerbanksanglersclub.com and click on the link to the Oregon Inlet Artificial Reef Committee.

This story is provided courtesy of the Outer Banks Voice, a digital newspaper covering the Outer Banks. Coastal Review Online is partnering with the Voice to provide readers with more environmental and lifestyle stories of interest about our coast.

Last of two parts. 

NAGS HEAD — Efforts to tame Oregon Inlet began in earnest a half century ago, when watermen started having problems navigating through sand-choked channels. Legislation was introduced, projects were proposed, studies multiplied like barnacles and maintenance budgets were steadily slashed. Today, inlet conditions have been worse than ever – although the inlet is currently open – but state and county officials have ambitious plans for a long-term solution.

While the state is trying to find ways to acquire the inlet from the federal government, a proactive regular dredging program is being pursued.

“Nobody can definitively say that this will work until we try,” Harry Schiffman, vice-chairman of the county Oregon Inlet Task Force, said of the proactive approach. “But it’s the only option that everybody can get behind.

“If the state gets control of that land,” he added, “then that would change.”

The appropriations bill passed by the N.C. General Assembly last year authorized state Department of Administration Secretary Bill Daughtridge to negotiate terms of an acquisition agreement with the landowner of Oregon Inlet, which is the U.S. Department of the Interior. If the property is acquired, the state Department of Environment and Natural Resources would have the authority to add Oregon Inlet State Park to the state parks system.

The bill also requires the state Department of Administration, or DOA, on July 1 to start condemning federal property that is “necessary to manage existing and future transportation corridors on the Outer Banks.”

What that legislation did not do is provide funding, and it appears doubtful that the department will meet the mandates.

“The Department of Administration is in conversation with the federal government with regard to Oregon Inlet and the surrounding federally owned property,” agency spokesman Christopher Mears said in an e-mail. “We are discussing all options listed in the 2014 Oregon Inlet Acquisition Task Force Report.”

Jordan Hennessy, a legislative aide for state Sen. Bill Cook, a Beaufort County Republican, said that a new bill, SB 160, will be introduced soon that would pay for the unfunded costs. It would provide $1 million to the DOA for attorney fees and preparation required to meet the legislative deadlines. The proposed bill also would reimburse DOA $150,000 for costs associated with exploring acquisition, including surveys, appraisals, legal research and sand management studies, and would increase the appropriation to the state Shallow Draft Inlet Fund by $1.7 million.

Hennessy said that a line item in the bill would appropriate about $4 million for intermediate dredging at Oregon Inlet. He added that the bill is likely to pass the Senate within weeks, and he expects that it will be supported in the House.

Rep. Paul Tine, I-Dare, did not respond to a request for comment on the proposed legislation.

In its 27-page report to the General Assembly last May, the Oregon Inlet Acquisition Task Force, an ad-hoc study panel created in 2013, recommended that the state:

• Acquire necessary easements to develop effective and environmentally sound engineered solutions to maintain stability of the inlet.
• Continue legal research into property titles north and south of the inlet.
• Assess whether various engineered alternatives are feasible in addressing navigation issues in the inlet.
• Conduct a larval transport study to determine impact on fisheries.
• Advance the chosen project timeline and facilitate permitting.

“The situation involving the inlet has reached a critical point,” the report concluded. “Human safety, economy viability and environmental safeguards can all be enhanced. But taking no action is no longer an acceptable option.”

It wasn’t long after the Bonner Bridge was built in 1963 that watermen and local government officials began lobbying for construction of twin jetties that would theoretically stabilize the inlet by blocking sand traveling along the shoreline from entering the inlet. In 1970, Congress finally approved the $108 million jetty project, but failed to provide construction funds.

For the next 33 years, lobbying by the watermen – some of them the same people  – continued unabated. The U.S. Department of the Interior and environmental groups, however, opposed the rock walls, saying that they would harm fisheries and property within Cape Hatteras National Seashore and Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge, as well as erode beaches south of the inlet.

Jetty proponents said that in addition to creating jobs and tourism income, a stable, open inlet also promotes flushing that maintains water quality in the surrounding estuarine waters and allows a safe outlet for storm-driven surges.

Finally, in 2002, the White House Council on Environmental Quality announced that the jetty project was not warranted. Instead, the federal government promised to do more extensive dredging – a promise that Dare County and the state claim has not been kept.

But the rebuff by the council inspired renewed talk of getting state control of the inlet so the state could move ahead with an engineered project. It wasn’t until the task force was established in 2013 to study acquisition of the inlet that any action was taken. With advancements in science and technology, according to the report, a combined sand bypass-jetty system could address the shoaling problem in the inlet without negative effects on the beaches and fisheries.

In this video shot in Wanchese, locals describe the effects that an unruly Oregon Inlet is having the economy and the livelihoods of fishermen.

David Hallac, superintendent of the National Park Service Outer Banks Group, which owns the submerged land and portions of the shoreline of Oregon Inlet, said that there has been no contact from the state about potential acquisition.

“I’ve never had a single request from anyone in the state of North Carolina to even discuss the issue,” he said last week.

But Mike Bryant, manager of Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge, which owns the land on the northern tip of Hatteras Island on the inlet’s south side, said that about one month ago, he attended a meeting in Atlanta with DOA leaders to discuss Oregon Inlet.

“It was just a conversation,” he said. “There were no commitments. They were information-seeking.”

As far as he knows, Bryant said, no specific proposal of a land deal has been submitted to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service regional office. The service owns the wildlife refuge.

“It’s a state initiative,” he said, “and we’re waiting for it to be fleshed out in order to give a proper response.”

In the task force report, it was stated that in preliminary discussions, Fish and Wildlife officials expressed interest in potential land trades that could link pieces of federal property.

If a proposal is made, Bryant would issue a compatibility determination, which would then be sent to the regional office to concur, or not.

The report cited a market value appraisal of about $30 million for the 710 acres that the state would be interested in acquiring on either side of the inlet.

Meanwhile, Dare County is working feverishly to find the $3.5 million it needs to match state funds for the annual dredging budget. In the proposed agreement between the state, the Army Corps of Engineers and the county, the inlet could be dredged by the Corps for 12 hours a day for 340 days a year for about $7.3 million.

Federal allocations for dredging have shriveled in recent years. Of an estimated 1,000 federally authorized dredging projects across the nation, 700 received zero funds. Oregon Inlet did receive $900,000 in federal dollars last year, but it was only enough to cover surveying. A previous agreement between the state and the Corps provided for some dredging in the inlet this year to protect the Bonner Bridge, and Congress was able to move funds around to provide costs for some additional dredging.

Initially, Dare County proposed to borrow from its countywide beach re-nourishment fund that is fed by a 2 percent occupancy tax and shared by the county’s towns and the tourism bureau. But after a furious backlash, the county promised to use only its share of the fund to put toward dredging. Another potential fund source, a ¼-cent sales tax, was killed off almost instantly by the state legislature.

A follow-up proposed by Dare County Commissioner Warren Judge to use funds from a repealed 1-cent sales tax collected previously for beach re-nourishment — an idea the board agreed to pursue — would be illegal, according to Hennessy, because the purpose of a tax cannot be changed after the fact.

While the county continues looking under the cushions for stray funds, a family feud has broken out between its Oregon Inlet Task Force and the Oregon Inlet and Waterways Commission over a proposal to merge the panels. Hatteras Island residents are insisting that the money and focus include Hatteras Inlet, which has its own navigation problems. Others believe the focus has to stay on Oregon Inlet to prevent confusion.

The elephant in the room, the aged and deteriorating Herbert C. Bonner Bridge that everyone has to navigate under or drive over, still cannot be replaced until a lawsuit is resolved. A new bridge is designed to allow for safer boat passage, at least until the wild inlet rules otherwise.

First of two parts

NAGS HEAD — Conditions were pleasantly calm and overcast on a recent spring morning in Oregon Inlet, one of waterway’s better days after a stormy winter rendered it nearly impassable and clogged with sand. The navigational channel under the Herbert C. Bonner Bridge had been freshly dredged, deep enough for charter boats to transit safely. Mother Nature had helped the effort by shifting the late April winds to the southwest, a seasonal change that scours sand out of the channel.

Still, as he steered his 26-foot World Cat out of Wanchese Harbor, Harry Schiffman kept a keen eye on his depth finder and the red and green channel markers as he made a right turn into Roanoke Sound Channel, heading to the bridge. Navigating in Oregon Inlet has been tricky business for decades; in recent years boaters say shoaling has worsened, making it too challenging for anyone but locals to chance.

So far, the boat has been running nicely in 12 feet of water, said Schiffman, owner of Salty Dawg Marine Towing, a subsidiary of TowBoat USA.

“But,” he added, “the channel is no better than the minimum depth.”

Even for an Oregon Inlet old-timer like Schiffman, transiting the waterway is akin to a city dweller walking through the rough part of town – you have to be hyper-vigilant and agile.

Moving along at about 27 mph, the boat passed Duck Island, its handsome hunt club peeking over the tree line, and continued past the turn to Pamlico Sound.

About four miles out, the channel splits. Walter Slough on the left leads to the Oregon Inlet Coast Guard Station, to the right is Oregon Inlet Channel. The boat turns right.

It’s about here where boats coming from the south would make a choice to go to Manteo or Wanchese for the night, or head to Albemarle Sound toward Coinjock and the Intracoastal Waterway.

Straight ahead, the Café Petron, a 50-plus-foot cruising vessel, sat in the water, spurring Schiffman to wonder aloud if it was caught on a shoal. He radioed the captain, who said he was just considering his options where to fuel up before heading to Atlantic City.

“I just kind of peeled off here to get a little breathing room,” he said.

Responding, Schiffman told him to proceed under the bridge cautiously, watch his depth closely and don’t rely on the channel markers, which had not been updated.

There was a long pause, and then the captain laughed. “Okaaay!” he said. “That sounds interesting. I know when I headed outbound, I’ve had a few little bumps.”

Here is an illustration of what tourism officials and marine businesses hate: the reputation Oregon Inlet has gained with out-of-towners as an unnavigable waterway, making recreational and commercial fishermen avoid the inlet, and by extension, the Outer Banks. According to a recent economic analysis, the inlet has an overall economic effect of $550 million, and could nearly double that if the inlet is maintained properly.

Schiffman volunteered to escort the vessel through the navigational channel, and while the captain regrouped, Schiffman resumed heading toward the bridge. He gestured toward a large patch of smooth water as he approached the span – a shoal, lurking just beneath the shimmering surface.

Under the lovely blue-green inlet waters, that shoal has created havoc for watermen, spreading northward toward the equally insidious Bodie Island Spit on the north end of the inlet that was inching southward. For three days in March, they had joined up and choked off the navigational channel.

“That’s a massive shoal,” he said. “It goes from deep to no water at all. It’s grown larger and longer.”

In March, the water in the federal navigational channel, which is supposed to be maintained at 14 feet deep and 400 feet wide, was just 3- to 4-feet deep and very narrow. When the two migrating shoals joined and pinched the channel, the Coast Guard closed inlet traffic in the vicinity of the bridge to all but the smallest boats, an action that infuriated local charter captains who had been managing to get out in alternate channels.

The Army Corps of Engineers soon sent dredges out, and by the end of April, the main channel had been widened to a manageable 100 feet and deepened to 8 feet. Further dredging was promised to carve it out even more.

Closer to the bridge, the powerful current runs parallel to the bridge, creating a river of swift water. Some of the force spins off into wild swirls that encircles bridge pilings, funneling an energy so fierce that even large boats have to gun their motors so as not to be sucked toward the pilings.

As he moved west of the span, Schiffman alternated between looking at the depth finder and looking in front and behind him.

“That current, running like does, it can grab you unsuspectedly and take you off course,” Schiffman explained, counting out as the water went from 8 feet to 15 feet. “We’re out in good water now, but we had to come about 1,000 feet from the bridge.”

For months, until the main channel was dredged, highly motivated fishermen used an alternate channel about 1,000 feet to the south that went between bridge bents, or pilings, with lower vertical space and no protective fenders around the structure. It wasn’t until recently that any of the bents were numbered, making finding the unmarked channel an even more remarkable feat.

If a boat had to come through in bad weather, or at night, the risk of straying out of the channel, bumping bottom or hitting the bridge increased. In recent months, at least two vessels bounced into the bridge, creating little or no damage to the bridge but alarming the Coast Guard and the state Department of Transportation about the impact on the structure, not to mention the safety of the boater.

Opened during a hurricane in 1846, Oregon Inlet has since been moving inexorably south – about two miles so far. With its powerful currents and propensity for shoaling, it is widely considered one of the most volatile and treacherous waterways on the East Coast. But it is also a critical passage for commercial and recreational fishermen, and habitat for birds and fish.

Trouble with navigating the inlet, the only ocean-to-sound passage between Virginia and the south tip of Hatteras, has been unceasing since the 1960s, when trawlers and other large vessels started having difficulties getting through the navigational channel under the new Bonner Bridge, built in 1963. It wasn’t long before smaller-draft recreational boaters also were affected by shifting shoals, especially after storms.

Boaters say that recent hurricanes, in particular Isabel, Irene and Sandy, have altered the Outer Banks and made shoaling far worse, most noticeably in Oregon and Hatteras inlets. The storms coincided with steep decreases in federal funding for coastal and waterway management projects.

Schiffman, who is the vice chairman of the Oregon Inlet Task Force, an advisory panel established by Dare County to advocate for Oregon Inlet, said that the Army Corps is working on an agreement with the county and the state to provide 340 days of dredging for $7.3 million a year, with costs divided between the county and state.

Although conditions are not as severe as they’ve gotten at Oregon Inlet, the shoaling problem in Hatteras Inlet has forced the state Ferry Division to use a longer route because the Hatteras-Ocracoke short ferry channel had become impassable.

But Robert Dolan, professor emeritus at the University of Virginia’s Department of Environmental Sciences, said that from his perspective, Oregon Inlet is “pretty stable.”

Dolan, a coastal scientist who has done extensive study of Oregon Inlet, including a current study at Pea Island, said that overall, there has been a fairly calm period for the sand transport process, although nor’easters can dramatically alter the system. What is important, he said, is the balance of the “sand budget,” that is, how much sand is going in the southerly direction, and how much is going in a northerly direction.

Too much in either direction will upset the balance, Dolan said. And then the difficulty is determining what is creating the surplus. For instance, he said, Oregon Inlet is “snuggled up to” Wimble Shoals, a vast offshore deposit of sand, but he is puzzled why there has not been research on its sand budget.

“It’s spotty research – a little bit here, a little bit there,” he said. “That’s what needs to be done.”

Otherwise, what’s going on lately with coastal shoaling may remain speculative.

“The point is,” Dolan said, “we don’t really have all the data we need.”

Whatever the cause of Oregon Inlet’s latest challenges, Outer Banks watermen and local and state officials are determined to find a solution.

Thursday: Is there a fix?

This story was compiled from two articles that appeared in the Outer Banks Voice.

Dare County tourism officials voted Monday to spend $300,000 as county’s share for dredging Oregon Inlet, which has shoaled so badly that the Coast Guard last month took the unusual step of assuming broader power to regulate inlet boat traffic.

The Dare County Tourism Board approved the grant to help secure matching funds from an agreement with the state and the Army Corps of Engineers. The money will be used to allow the Corps to dredge out the channel under and just east of the navigation span of the Herbert C. Bonner Bridge.

Tim Cafferty, vice chairman of the tourism board, told commissioners that his panel recognized the emergency in approving the grant. He said continued grant funding would be more difficult. “It is our understanding that matching funds are available if we start with a $300,000 giving, if you will, the state will come help us here on what is truly a federal problem,” he said.

The tourism board is funded by occupancy tax money paid on hotels and vacations rentals. The board provides grant money for projects that would benefit tourism. The Board of Commissioners must approve the grants, but the commissioners in this case requested the grant and included it in the county’s budget.

Estimates to keep the channel at the specified 14 feet depths would cost as much as $14 million a year. But federal funding has been reduced to around $1 million.

Depths around the bridge have been less than three feet in some areas.

No timetable has been announced for any new dredging projects in Oregon Inlet.

Shallow conditions at Oregon Inlet have forced even the smallest boats to risk passing under the bridge where there are no fenders protecting the bridge support pilings. The Coast Guard is responsible only for federal channels and has discouraged using other routes under the Bonner Bridge but has not had the power to prevent it. But the Coast Guard said new rules allowing quick action were necessary because boats routinely run between unprotected pilings south of the marked channel.

“The Coast Guard will impose restrictions only when necessary based on inlet conditions, and will provide the public with as much advance notice as possible,” a Coast Guard statement said.

Enforcement power anywhere within 100 yards of the span is essential now “to reduce the risk of a bridge strike resulting from a vessel transiting through alternative spans of the Herbert C. Bonner Bridge, which are not intended for navigation,” said a notice in the Federal Register announcing the new rules.

“A bridge strike to un-fendered or unprotected structural elements of the Bonner Bridge would introduce a clear and present danger to stability of the bridge, motorists, mariners, and indirect impacts on local businesses and residents of Hatteras Island, N.C.”

The notice said that a recent bridge inspection by the N.C. Department of Transportation “noted weakened pile supports as a result of section loss and substructure erosion to the point of showing exposed rebar.”

Soundings done last year by the Army Corps of Engineers show the ebb and flow of shallow water, shown in shades of red, under the Bonner Bridge. Illustration: Army Corps of Engineers

Oregon Inlet is the only passage to the Atlantic on the northern Outer Banks. Commercial fishing vessels and charter boats can use Hatteras Inlet, which to most is impractical. In addition, Hatteras Inlet is facing its own problems with shifting shoals.

Under recent contracts for just over $1.2 million, repairs will be made to the underside of the bridge deck and to steel support braces on the south end of the span.

Efforts to replace the 50-year-old bridge with a new parallel span have been delayed by a lawsuit filed by environmental groups. The state has awarded a construction contract for the work, and the parties in the suit are now trying to work out a compromise.

The source of contention is the plan to manage erosion problems along N.C. 12 between the inlet and Rodanthe with a series of bridges and beach re-nourishment in the Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge. The environmental groups are pushing for a longer bridge around the old right-of-way, which routinely washes out during storms.

Even after a massive emergency dredging project costing $7 million last year, the inlet quickly filled with sand again. A survey earlier this month showed the navigation channel and areas south of it shoaled to as little as 3 feet or less.

Vessel groundings have become more frequent, but the prospects for reliable federal funding are dim. Some of the maintenance dredging is being done by the Army Corps of Engineers through Memorandums of Agreement that allow the state to provide the money.

Engineers say that the new parallel Bonner Bridge will be built to allow vessels to pass much farther south, where depths exceed 30 feet.

Portions of a story that appeared in the Outer Banks Voice were used in this story.

NAGS HEAD — For Outer Banks residents who pay attention to complicated legal decisions that affect their daily lives, the recent U.S. Court of Appeals ruling on a lawsuit over the Bonner Bridge replacement project was yet another frustrating turn that had both sides claiming victory but will surely mean more delays in building a new bridge.

The three-judge panel handed down a split decision that upheld the lower court’s ruling that highway planners had complied with federal law when reviewing the possible environmental consequences of the new bridge.

The appeal court, though, also ordered the lower court to take a closer look at her ruling that the state Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration were exempt from certain regulations that would apply to construction in the Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge.

Judge James Wynn

Bobby Outten

The appeals panel said it was not convinced that plans for a public road — N.C. 12 — and the establishment of the refuge in 1938 were “concurrent,” which was the basis of the exemption.

“The part that they affirmed is excellent,” said Bobby Outten, the Dare County manager who is also a lawyer. “That’s a big chunk of what (the case) is”

But Outten said it was disappointing that resolution of the lawsuit will take yet more time, especially in light of the poor condition of the bridge over Oregon Inlet and the 25 years of twists and turns in the replacement project.

“We’ve come not to expect anything with regards to the Bonner Bridge,” he said. “And, being a lawyer, I’ve learned that you can’t read into the questions of the justices.”

Lawyers with the Southern Environmental Law Center in Chapel Hill didn’t return requests for comments. The center represents the Defenders of Wildlife and the National Wildlife Refuge Association.

Like Outten, though, the law center found much to be pleased about in the appeals court ruling.

“Today’s court decision affirms that NCDOT must protect national treasures like Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge while it addresses the unreliability of this stretch of N.C. 12,” Julie Youngman, the group’s senior attorney who argued the case in Richmond, said in an Aug. 6 press  release.  “After decades of NCDOT’s single-minded determination to keep throwing taxpayer money into the sea . . . the court’s ruling gives NCDOT an opportunity to . . . provide a safe, reliable route that will serve the state for the next 50 years.”

The Herbert C. Bonner Bridge and N.C. 12 are the only routes to communities south of Oregon Inlet. The road, however, frequently washes out and has been shut down after storms in recent years, most notably hurricanes Sandy and Irene.

Environmental groups argue that a 17-mile bridge over the Pamlico Sound bypassing the refuge is the best alternative.

In the Fourth Circuit ruling on Aug. 6, written by Judge James A. Wynn from Robersonville, the judges affirmed that planning for the Bonner project had met the National Environmental Policy Act, or NEPA, requirements, but reversed U.S. District Court Judge Louise Flanagan’s opinion on an environmental requirement known as  “Section 4(f)” and remanded it back to her court.

In September 2013, Flanagan had issued a 42-page ruling that rejected all claims made by the law center in a 2011 lawsuit challenging construction of the bridge. The law center contended that the state had violated NEPA and other environmental rules by analyzing the project in segments and by choosing to build an alternative that was not the least harmful to Pea Island refuge.

The law center filed an appeal in October against the N.C. Department of Transportation and the Federal Highway Administration, and the oral arguments were heard in May at the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals in Richmond.

The Cape Hatteras Electric Cooperative was allowed to intervene on behalf of the defendants because costs of running its transmission lines would be far more expensive under the environmental groups’ preferred alternative.

Joined in the opinion by Judge Allyson K. Duncan from Durham and U.S. District Judge Michelle Childs, a designee from South Carolina, Wynn said that the court was deciding whether the defendants had complied with the law, not whether the panel agreed with their policies or preferences.

N.C. 12 runs north from Rodanthe through the Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge. Photo: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

“This has been no easy task, given the tortured decision-making history of this project,” Wynn wrote, “the difficulty of determining exactly what defendants intend to construct, and the extensive administrative record underlying the district court’s decision.”

Currently, DOT is planning to build a short bridge parallel to the existing one, and address places along N.C. 12 threatened by erosion as needed. Already, a permanent bridge over an inlet formed by Hurricane Irene is being built and another is planned near Rodanthe on Hatteras Island. The environmental groups had argued that the two components could not be separated.

Work on the bridge project ceased last year when the groups challenged the state’s permit for the bridge. That matter will be heard by an administrative law judge in the fall.

In upholding Flanagan’s opinion that NEPA was not violated in DOT’s planning, the panel cited case law that permitted a tiered or multi-phased approach with large or complex projects. The transportation agencies made no attempt to circumvent the law, Wynn wrote, and in fact “conducted a full, site-specific analysis.”

But the court’s opinion on the exemption was more complicated. The federal Department of Transportation Act of 1966 includes a special provision — Section 4(f) – that requires DOT to prove it had chosen the most “prudent and feasible alternative” in order to use refuge land.

The state had claimed an exemption to the provision because it said that the original road project was a product of joint planning when the refuge was established. The lower court accepted that argument.

The appeals court, however, took issue with application of the exception, saying that the evidence “was wholly insufficient” to affirm the lower court’s view.  The exception can only be applied, the panel said, if it is determined that N.C. 12, the road running through the refuge, was both formally reserved around the time the refuge was established, and was jointly planned with the refuge.

Based on that reasoning, the court vacated Flanagan’s analysis of the 4(f), and instructed her to review the evidence and determine that the defendants’ complied with the requirements of the law.

Kitty Hawk attorney Norm Shearin, who represents the electric co-op, did not see the court telling Flanagan that she was wrong. “I think the highway folks can claim victory,” he said. “At least it’s historically consistent. There’s been nothing clear about this project.”

What Wynn wanted, Shearin said, is for Flanagan, not his court, to plow through the record to find more information about the 4(f).

“His concern, it was about the procedure employed,” Shearin said. “I think anybody who’s been close to this knows that the highway has always been a joint planning effort between DOT and Interior.”

Although finding further documentation from the 1930s, ‘40s and ‘50s could be a challenge, Shearin said, “I don’t think it’s a mountain that can’t be climbed.”

Common sense, he said, would conclude that a road would not be built through a wildlife refuge without the permission and cooperation of the refuge. And when you come down to practicalities, he added, it is difficult to see an alternative to the road.

Shearin, a partner with Vandeventer Black, said that over his 40-year career, he has witnessed the slow crawl of projects in public lands.

As counsel for the electric cooperative, he acquired the easements needed for transmission lines through the refuge and Cape Hatteras National Seashore.

“When I started, Jimmy Carter was president,” Shearin said. “When we finally obtained those easements, Bill Clinton was president.

“It’s just really difficult to build facilities through the park.”

WANCHESE — After five meetings trying to nail down how to seize control of the most intractable inlet in the nation, it’s gotten down to the wire for the state’s Oregon Inlet Land Acquisition Task Force.

The deadline for the 11-member body to submit its report to the General Assembly is today.

“The task of drafting the report was given to us in late January and we are working on a thorough and complete report,” said Christopher Mears, a spokesman for the N.C. Department of Administration, in an e-mail Wednesday morning. “Our intention is to meet the May 1 deadline.”

The legislation passed last year charged the panel, which first met on Feb. 6, with “determining, reviewing, and considering” options, including condemnation, for acquiring the submerged and surrounding lands of Oregon Inlet from the federal government.

But between weighing the myriad issues with property law, coastal processes, fisheries management and economic impacts, as many questions as answers have been raised by the panel. Meanwhile, the inlet’s navigational channel, clogged weeks ago, remains impassable, an uneasy reminder of the bear the state is trying to slay.

The Oregon Inlet Land Acquisition Task Force is studying state acquisition of land at Cape Hatteras National Seashore, left, and Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge, right. Photo: N.C. Department of Transportation

A draft report released at a meeting last week at the UNC Coastal Studies Institute includes an almost $30 million market value appraisal of the 710 acres that the state would acquire on either side of the inlet, but sidesteps details of potential land swaps or negotiations with the landowners, the National Park Service and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service. With the submission of the final report, the task force will be officially disbanded.

Many questions remain dangling: Will the state try to claim eminent domain? Would the feds even be willing to consider trading? How would the state pay for in-depth surveys, biological reports, geological analysis and, not to mention, the inlet land?

State and county officials say that Oregon Inlet is vital to the economic and environmental well-being of Dare County. The stated goal of the task force was to study how to acquire the inlet so that jetties can be built to anchor the channel. But jetty opponents say the rock walls would cause downstream erosion and harm fisheries.

“The aspect of possible exchange or acquisition of property with the federal government is a promising approach toward developing a workable and cost effective solution to the continual problems associated with keeping the Oregon Inlet channel navigable and safe,” the draft report said.

On the north side of the inlet, 530 acres owned by Cape Hatteras National Seashore were valued at $17.9 million, according to the draft report, and 180 acres owned by Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge on the south side were valued at $12 million.

“This was really difficult property to appraise,” the report said, “because there were no comparable land sales on this kind of property.”

Complicating an already complex situation is the disputed ownership of a 298-acre parcel on the north side of the inlet, which may or may not be accreted land owned by a man who has paid taxes on it for years.

Norm Shearin, a lawyer in Dare County who has expertise in property rights issues, has been hired by the state to do a title search of the property.

The draft report noted that earlier discussions had been held with Fish and Wildlife officials about potential land exchanges. But David Viker, refuge chief for the southeast region of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said he would not cast a brief head’s up from task force Chairman Bill Daughtridge as a “discussion.”

Viker said that the state has communicated little more than its interest in a property exchange, and it would be premature to react to even the potential of a land swap.

“We first have to receive the proposal, and see what it would do to Pea Island,” he said. “We would evaluate any proposal very carefully.”

Daughtridge, the secretary of the N.C. Department of Administration, had said previously that he intended to negotiate directly at the administration level with agency officials. When asked after the May 25 meeting about negotiations with the National Park Service, Daughtridge said only that the state “will be having discussions” with the Park Service.

Officials at Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge said that any land swap with the state must benefit wildlife at the refuge, such as this black skimmer. Photo: U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service

Refuge manager Mike Bryant said that, beyond one phone call looking for a contact name, no one from the state or the task force has contacted him, nor has he discussed any proposed land swaps with anyone in his agency.

“It would be highly unusual to divest ourselves of refuge land,” Bryant said in an interview Tuesday. “But it’s not unprecedented. It’s not an everyday occurrence, that’s for sure.”

Bryant said that before any trade would be considered, there would have to be “absolute certainty” that there is a net gain for the refuge system and for the wildlife that is supported by it.

Nor has any conversation yet been broached with anyone in Cape Hatteras National Seashore about trading or selling Oregon Inlet, said Outer Banks Group superintendent Barclay Trimble.

“I have not heard from anyone,” he said, adding he finds that “curious.”

Potentially attractive Oregon Inlet land swaps, Trimble said, are not on his radar screen.

“I have not given that any thought,” he said.

Other issues the task force has been looking into is whether jetties and a sand-bypass system would be effective, or if one or the other would be feasible solutions.

In a presentation to the panel last week, Billy Edge, program head of sustainable coastal engineering at the Coastal Studies Institute, said that jetties combined with a sand-bypass system used at the Nerang River in Queensland, Australia, have worked well.

Edge said that Nerang is similar to Oregon Inlet with its powerful wave action and high volume of sediment transport. The jet pumps would be spaced about 15 feet apart on a pier, drawing water and sediment through pipes. Ideally, he said, the sediment would be able to be discharged on the beach south of the inlet.

Of all the engineering options available today, Edge said that the jet pump option was worth investigating as a way to manage sand in Oregon Inlet. He said a modeling survey and a three-year fish larva transport study would be necessary to determine whether the option is viable.

When Oregon Inlet was opened by a hurricane in 1846, the only cut between Virginia and Hatteras created new commercial and recreational fishing opportunities in Dare County. But its continual southward movement – two miles, so far – renders it an unreliable and treacherous passage between ocean and sound. Powerful currents and constantly shifting sand has made the 14-foot channel, first dredged in 1950, difficult and expensive for the Army Corps of Engineers to maintain.

Frequent nor’easters this winter and spring aggravated the shoaling in the inlet. It got so bad that even the dredge was unable to make any progress removing sand and was forced to leave until conditions improved. A side-caster dredge is currently carving a pilot channel to allow a hopper dredge to come in next week to start clearing the channel.

Billy Edge

In 1970, Congress authorized construction of twin jetties to block sand from the channel, but money was never appropriated. A presentation done for the Department of Administration illustrated the subsequent three-decade struggle by watermen, boaters and local officials to get the $108 million jetty project built over the objection of the US. Department of Interior. Finally, in 2003, with the consensus of involved federal agencies, the White House Council on Environmental Quality announced that the project was dead.

The ruling, however, does not preclude the jetty permitting process from being started anew, said Shearin, the local attorney hired by the task force to analyze the disputed deed.

Shearin, a partner with Vandeventer Black in Kitty Hawk, had represented the state Commerce Department, overseer of the Wanchese Industrial Park, in its interests with Oregon Inlet back when the White House had done its review.

“This has been an ongoing battle and it’s been very frustrating for those of us involved with it,” he said. “I just think it’s still a very difficult problem to solve and it’s going to involve some cooperation from the federal government.”

Shearin said he has not been asked to assist the state in the federal property matters, but he did say that he does not expect that the state’s rights issue, or eminent domain, will be applicable.

“There’s nothing clear cut about it,” he said, “but that issue is not alive and well.”

The titles to the federal land preserve certain rights to the state to protect its property. That provision allowed the terminal groin on the south side of Oregon Inlet to be built in 1991 to protect N.C. 12 and the Bonner Bridge.

Shearin said he has long been familiar with the disputed deed. According to a 2009 article in the Island Free Press, the Dare County tax records list a 316-acre parcel at the Bodie Island spit as owned by the W.A. Worth Estate and James C. Fletcher, a Manns Harbor waterman. The property taxes are still being paid on the parcel, the online newspaper said in a recent update.

Shearin said that accredited land like the Bodie Island spit involves very complicated legal rules, and it could take weeks to resolve.

“It’s been coming and going and moving around,” he said. “It’s not just enough to look at the title. We’ve got to look at what Mother Nature did out there.”

Reprinted from the Outer Banks Voice

NAGS HEAD — A provision in the proposed state Senate budget that would consider options to acquire Oregon Inlet in Dare County was a surprise to officials at Cape Hatteras National Seashore, the owner of the waterway’s submerged land and much of the adjacent property.

“We have not had conversations with anybody at all about acquiring Oregon Inlet,” said Darrell Echols, deputy superintendent of the National Park Service Outer Banks Group. “This is news to us.”

Passed the Senate last week, the $20.58 billion spending plan awaits action in the N.C. House.

Dredges have had a hard time keeping a reliable channel open in Oregon Inlet.

It was approved on a final vote Thursday and goes to the House.

“I’m proud of the Senate’s commitment to delivering budgets that reasonably and responsibly direct available resources toward real needs,” said Phil Berger, Senate president pro tempore , R-Rockingham.

The bill provides for the creation of a 13-member “Oregon Inlet Land Acquisition Task Force” to determine, review and consider ways to have the inlet and its adjacent real estate transferred from the federal government to the state.

“Acquiring the property . . . will allow the state to preserve Oregon Inlet and to develop long-term management solutions for preserving and enhancing the navigability of Oregon Inlet,” the bill said, “which is both a critical transportation corridor and a critical source of commerce for the state’s Outer Banks.”

The task force would be charged with consulting with the state property office, relevant federal agencies and the North Carolina congressional delegation “to establish the monetary value” of the inlet and the surrounding property. It would also be responsible for determining whether the federal government would be willing to sell or exchange the inlet for state-owned property.

Finally, the task force would explore any options for the acquisition, including “condemnation of the coastal lands conveyed to the federal government in a deed dated August 7, 1958” that are listed by longitude and latitude at the end of the section.

Echols said that, in general, the Park Service has been involved in land acquisitions and trades, so “obviously, it’s possible.” But he said that no one from the state has talked to seashore managers, or anyone else at the agency, about the possibility of relinquishing Oregon Inlet.

“The only conversation we’ve had in the last few months is with Congressman Jones’ office about Park Service boundaries at Oregon Inlet,” he said.

Rep. Walter B. Jones Jr. is a Republican from Farmville. His district includes Dare County.

Bobby Outten

Darrell Echols

As a notoriously mercurial waterway prone to dangerous currents, Oregon Inlet has frustrated boaters, fishermen and even dredge operators with its shifting shoals and unpredictable conditions. For decades, watermen tried to get funding for twin jetties to secure the navigational channel, until the federal government finally shot the proposal down for good 10 years ago.

Since then, the channel has been dredged repeatedly by the Army Corps of Engineers and marked by the Coast Guard, but maintenance funding is an annual battle. A string of recent storms has exacerbated the shoaling, resulting in long periods where the inlet has been virtually impassable.

Dare County favors most anything that will keep the inlet “open, stable and viable,” including state control of the waterway, said Bobby Outten, the county attorney and manager.

“We would certainly support it,” he said. “It’s a good idea.”

Outten said that the county was expecting that some sort of measure would be introduced in the General Assembly that would help to stabilize the inlet.

“It’s something that Dare County and the Oregon Inlet Task Force have been talking about,” he said. But he said the county did not have direct input into the proposed bill.

“We didn’t draw that language up and say, ‘Here, do that.’ ”

Outten said that the county is willing to entertain any potentially effective solution, whether it is a dredge stationed at the inlet, a sand by-pass system or a terminal groin, as long as it is environmentally and financially feasible.

Ownership of the inlet was not discussed during a recent visit from Gov. Pat McCrory and Secretary of Transportation Tony Tata, Outten said. The acquisition bill also has not been brought up with Jones or with the Park Service, he said.

If the proposed bill leads to a way to keep the inlet maintained and passable so that marine commerce can be revitalized, Outten said, it would buoy the economy statewide.

“Oregon Inlet has generated a tremendous amount of revenue for Dare County and North Carolina,” he said, “As it closes, we lose that revenue.”

The Senate bill also proposed to fund dredging shallow draft channels like Oregon Inlet with about $2.2 million from the Highway Fund, provided partly from revenue from a motor fuel tax and increases in boat registration fees.

Reprinted from the Island Free Press

HATTERAS — No high-speed ferry exists today that could safely carry millions of vehicles a year across the heavily shoaled Oregon Inlet and Pamlico Sound, according to a new transportation report released late last month.

And even if engineering a shallow-draft, high-capacity ferry were possible, it said, the cost would be prohibitive.

The Federal Highway Administration and the state Department of Transportation took a new look at the feasibility of using ferries rather than a bridge to carry vehicles and people across Oregon Inlet in Dare County.  Their report was a response to renewed public questions about a ferry alternative to the replacing the Herbert C. Bonner Bridge at the inlet.

“The problem is two-fold,” said Jed Dixon, the state Ferry Division deputy director. “Unless you have a vessel that doesn’t displace water, like a hovercraft, the draft is a major concern. Then there’s the environmentals and maintenance of that channel.”

The hovercraft Princess Margaret, top, leaves Calais, France, in 1998 for a trip across the English Channel. The famous hovercraft ferries that crossed the channel were retired in 2000 and replaced with high-speed catamarans, bottom. Neither type of vessel,according to a recent state report, are suitable for the coastal waters of the Outer Banks.

After Hurricane Irene in 2011 blew an inlet through Pea Island, flattened dunes and severely damaged the road at the S-curves in northern Rodanthe, some environmental groups and coastal scientists have suggested that ferries could be a better long-term solution than a bridge to providing access to Hatteras Island.

But in reviewing available options and the cost involved, the report concluded that ferries remain “an unreasonable transportation alternative” for the island. And there is no high-speed ferry on the horizon that could operate in shallow Outer Banks waterways.

“We’re up against a lot of challenges just running conventional ferries,” Dixon said. “There would have to be a whole lot of money spent dredging and maintaining that channel.”

Every year, a total of about 2 million vehicles cross Bonner Bridge, averaging about 5,400 per day, said the report, which was signed on Jan. 31.   As those who regularly cross the bridge know, traffic, mostly from tourists, increases vastly in the summer.

But the bridge, the only land route to Hatteras Island, also provides critical year-round access to the island for Outer Banks residents and for emergency personnel. It also is vital for carrying supply and service trucks, as well as telephone and electric wires across Oregon Inlet.

If a ferry system operated between Bodie Island and Rodanthe, the range of the Bonner project, about 420 acres would have to be dredged to create an 18-mile channel, removing about 10.8 million cubic yards of material.  About 38 river class ferries would be needed, twice the number of vessels currently in use by the division.

Total costs to operate and maintain the system for 50 years at the current traffic levels are estimated at $6.3 billion, substantially more than any other option.

River class ferries cost $12 million each and can travel at 12 mph. The vessels hold 38 vehicles and have a 4.5-foot to 5.5-foot draft, the report said, the shallowest of any known standard ferry in operation.  As it is, the channel depth required is 10- to 12-feet, which has been nearly impossible to maintain this winter in Oregon Inlet and Pamlico Sound.

Hovercraft and catamarans, which skim the top of water, can carry about 80 vehicles and travel up to 50 mph. The down side is there is no offsite maintenance facility available, and the high speeds could be dangerous in Outer Banks conditions.

Even if an air-cushion vessel could be built specially for the Outer Banks, according to input from a British representative of a hovercraft company, “It is doubtful that custom-manufactured vessels would be cost effective, even taking into account the amount of dredging required,” the report said.

“I’m not going to say that it’s impossible,” Dixon said, “but it’s going to come with a huge expense. We would have to dig a whole new channel.”

Other high-speed ferries used successfully overseas for both passenger and vehicular traffic have drafts that are too deep to operate here safely, Dixon said. Channels routinely shift and shoal up, often in the course of hours.

“It’s not safe when you’re running that kind of speed — 40 knots,” he said. “Because if it runs aground, you’re talking major damage. It could potentially damage the hull.”

The use of ferries over Oregon Inlet was first considered in 1991 as part of NCDOT’s feasibility study of bridge replacement options, and the study was among the alternatives discussed in the project’s 1993 draft environmental impact study.  Ferry transport on a three-mile route across Oregon Inlet was then deemed impractical because of high cost, decreased service and increased natural impacts from dredging.

Further study of a ferry alternative was done in subsequent project reports, with equally unsatisfactory results. Findings included an increase of conflicts with other vessels; limited capability to transport traffic; dramatic increase in hurricane evacuation times; loss of bird habitat and negative impact on benthic life and fisheries; docking facilities being located in a national seashore; instability of the channel; difficulty transporting goods and services; the need to create an alternate system for telephone and electric transmission; and isolation of the Hatteras Island community.

Privately-run ferry service, another suggestion from the public, would have to charge $126 round-trip to be profitable, the report said.

More Information

• Groups challenge Bonner Bridge permit
• Geologist offers a new vision for the coast

A version of this story first ran in the Outer Banks Voice, an online newspaper in Nags Head.

NAGS HEAD — Emergency legislation before Congress that is intended to provide relief to victims of Hurricane Sandy would also send $11 million to the Outer Banks to dredge clogged Oregon Inlet and the Hatteras ferry channels, Sen. Kay Hagan, D-N.C., said yesterday.

The $60.4 billion relief bill would also provide money to dredge the Morehead City harbor, the Intracoastal Waterway, Beaufort harbor, Wainwright Slough, Carolina Beach Inlet and Lockwoods Folly Inlet.

The Senate is scheduled to consider the bill this week, but conservative advocacy groups have urged Republicans to vote against it or pare it down because it pays for billions of dollars in projects, such as dredging inlets in North Carolina, that aren’t related to the hurricane.

Sen. Kay Hagan

A prominent geologist at Duke University also has complained to the Senate’s majority leader that the bill gives too much leeway to the Army Corps of Engineers to choose projects that aren’t hurricane related and allows the Corps to sidestep regulations and rebuild disaster-prone beaches.

Of the $1.8 billion in disaster recovery funds that the Hurricane Sandy Relief Bill sets aside for the Corps, $9 million would go toward dredging at Oregon Inlet and $2 million to clear the ferry channel between Hatteras and Ocracoke, Hagan said.

“What the Hurricane Sandy relief bill does, it ensures that North Carolina will have adequate funding to keep our inlets open to commercial fishing and the shipping vessels and to ensure that our ferries can navigate our channels and carry residents and visitors on and off the barrier islands,” Hagan said in an interview with the Outer Banks Voice, an online newspaper.

In her conversations with the Corps, Hagan said, $6 million was identified for work on the outer channel at Oregon Inlet if the bill passes. Shoaling under the Bonner Bridge navigation span has left the channel virtually impassable. Another $3 million would pay for dredging the inner channels.

Those numbers far exceed the $1.3 million in President Obama’s 2013 budget proposal and are about equal to funding the Corps had received annually before the federal government put shallow-draft inlets on a back burner.

Hagan also said she was told today that the side-cast dredge Merritt was able to make its way through the navigation span of the bridge at high tide. The corps said last week that dredging would not be possible because depths were as little as 2 feet in that area.

“I think it’s too early to tell whether the inlet’s going to stay deep enough for the Merritt dredge to start dredging, but I think this is obviously welcome news,” she said.

The Sandy relief bill contains money to continue the dredging of Oregon Inlet. Photo: Army Corps of Engineers.

A Corps survey Monday showed some improvement but depths still at 4 to 6 feet, not enough for oceangoing trawlers requiring at last 8 feet.

Overall, the Corps has identified about $30 million in recovery work for the North Carolina coast, Hagan said. The projects include $600,000 for the ferry channel from Ocracoke to Cedar Island and $150,000 for the emergency ferry channel between Rodanthe and Stumpy Point.

The bill includes money to reimburse states for repairs on damage attributed to Hurricane Sandy, which passed the Outer Banks offshore Oct. 31 and created high surf, wind and rain for almost a week.

State highway crews are still working to get N.C. 12 north of Rodanthe open for traffic. Hagan said the state or local governments might qualify for reimbursement for adding sand to the beach.

The bill has met with stiff criticism from Republicans for including money for projects and programs not related to Hurricane Sandy.

“You’re at the end of the Congress, and there’s always an interest in attaching anything you can to bills that are going through the Capitol Hill station,” Steve Ellis told the Web site Business Insider. He’s the vice president of Taxpayers for Common Sense, a nonpartisan watchdog group. “This is one of the last trains going through the station.”

According to an analysis by Ellis, the Sandy emergency spending package includes $150 million for fishery disaster areas in Mississippi and Alaska; $20,000 for a new car for the Inspector General of the Justice Department; $10.8 billion for the Federal Transportation Administration; and cancellation of loans related to Hurricane Katrina. It also contains $4 million for repairs at the Kennedy Space Center and $3.3 million for the Plum Island Animal Disease Center.

Club for Growth, a conservative advocacy group, is urging Republicans to vote against the relief package, according to a statement on its web site.

Hagan said, however, that based on passage of similar bills after hurricanes Katrina and Irene, she was optimistic of approval by the end of the year. She noted that about 300,000 people had been displaced in New York and New Jersey.

Orrin Pilkey

“I think people need to realize that this has had a devastating impact on people who have lost their homes,” she said. “And, you know, these are working-class people. These are not second beachfront homes that we’re talking about.”

Orrin Pilkey, a marine geologist and professor emeritus at Duke University, has for decades advocated for sane development of  the country’s beaches. He worries that the bill will unleash the Corps to rebuild beaches that will just get destroyed again in the next storm.

“I believe the bill is a recipe for a major loss of the quality of our East Coast shorelines and beaches and will only encourage further development in dangerous areas,” Pilkey wrote in a letter Monday to Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and the Senate’s majority leader.

The bill, Pilkey wrote, gives the Corps almost $3.5 billion to spend on almost any non-relief project and exempts those projects from public participation and laws that regulate development in flood zones and hazardous areas.

“To make a long story short, the bill gives the Corps the freedom to choose its own projects and requires recovery of shorelines back to where they were pre-storm,” Pilkey wrote. “If the shoreline is moved back to where it was pre-storm, the next storm, either large or small, may do the same amount of or more damage in the same places.”

Pilkey urges Reid to rewrite the bill.