Brunswick County Public Utilities customers must restrict the times and days in which they use irrigation systems or face possible fines.

The county is now under extreme drought conditions, according to the most recent update from the North Carolina Drought Management Advisory Council. Drought conditions are “contributing significantly” to rising irrigation demands and “the availability of source water from the Cape Fear River,” according to a county release.

To prevent the need for additional water restrictions, particularly as the Fourth of July holiday weekend approaches, the county announced it has moved to a stage 2 mandatory water conservation alert.

The alert applies to residents in unincorporated areas of the county, Boiling Spring Lakes, Bolivia, Calabash, Carolina Shores, Caswell Beach, Navassa, Northwest, Sandy Creek, Shallotte, Southport, St. James, Sunset Beach, and Varnamtown.

Customers of Bald Head Island, Holden Beach, Oak Island and Ocean Isle Beach utilities, which receive their water from Brunswick County Public Utilities, are under the same restrictions.

“Brunswick County asks these customers to diligently use water wisely,” according to a county release. “Demand for water has exceeded 90% of the available production and distribution capacity. As Independence Day approaches, water demands are expected to increase.”

Water customers may not use their irrigation systems on Mondays. Customers with odd address numbers and non-addressed facilities may irrigate on Tuesday, Thursdays and Saturdays.

Those with even address numbers may use their irrigation systems on Wednesday, Fridays and Sundays.

Irrigation systems may only be used between 8 p.m. and 4 a.m. This includes irrigation for residential lawns, landscaping, athletic fields, and golf courses that do not use private groundwater wells or reclaimed water.

A complete list of prohibited uses of water is available online.

Brunswick County Public Utilities will notify properties that may be out of compliance with the mandatory irrigation schedule “or other required actions” through the ReadyBrunswick notification system or contact information associated with the property’s utility account.

Calls or messages through the BrunswickReady system will be made from 910-253-1977.

Those who do not comply may be assessed with fees up to $300 and disconnection of their water service. Habitual offenders of the alert may receive penalties of up to $5,000 and water disconnection.

County officials will continue monitoring drought conditions and water usage to determine whether to move to the next water shortage warning stage. A stage 3 water shortage warning prohibits the use of automatic sprinkler systems for residential and commercial lawn and landscapes.

The alert does not apply to customers of Brunswick Regional – H2GO, private groundwater well users, or those using highly treated reclaimed wastewater.

Residents may directly contact their water service provider with questions or Brunswick County Public Utilities at 910.253.2657 or utilityadmin@brunswickcountync.gov.

Additional information and updates may be found at brunswickcountync.gov/WaterWise.

This story has been updated to include a corrected description of land ownership. Information initially provided to Coastal Review had incorrectly identified the owner.

More people moved to North Carolina last year from different parts of the country than any other state in the nation.

North Carolina’s population grew by almost 150,000 people, trailing behind only Texas and Florida, according to U.S. Census Bureau estimates released last month.

As political leaders grapple with the demands that growth is placing on essential services like water and sewer, public safety and education, pressure is mounting on conservation groups to acquire, conserve and preserve land.

This month, more than 2,000 acres in coastal counties have been secured for permanent protection from development.

These newly protected areas are filled with natural landscape features that reduce flood risk, improve water quality, and provide habitat for plants and animals that are increasingly getting squeezed out by encroaching development.

In Brunswick County, one of the fastest growing in the state, North Carolina-based conservation nonprofit Unique Places to Save acquired land that serves as a corridor between two protected natural areas, bridging what amounts to nearly 10,000 acres of conserved landscape.

“We really want to be able to maintain large, connected natural areas for habitat for species and to maintain biodiversity of our natural areas,” Unique Places to Save Executive Director Christine Pickens told Coastal Review in a recent telephone interview. “And, particularly, in the southeast of North Carolina, we have some really cool endemic species and really wonderful habitats that you don’t find anywhere else.”

Within the 1,040-acre tract nestled between the towns of St. James and Boiling Spring Lakes are forested wetlands, Carolina bays, sandy pine and wet sandy pine savanna.

The tract, referred to as Boiling Springs Wilderness, specifically connects thousands of acres of privately conserved land including Orton with the North Carolina Boiling Spring Lakes Plant Conservation Preserve.

“When you connect these large areas, you’re connecting a mosaic across the landscape and there’s tiny variations of habitat availability,” Pickens explained. “What that does is allow species that use that area for habitat or refuge or migration to use those slight variations of habitat. When we experience extremes in weather, precipitation or drought or big storms, having just a little bit of wiggle room in terms of available habitat goes a long way to allowing species to be resilient to some of these extremes and some of these changes.”

Habitat that is free from being sliced up by ditches or roads is valuable to species that rely on that habitat, she said.

Take the red cockaded woodpecker, for example. These birds, which were reclassified in late 2024 from endangered to threatened, live in groups, or clusters, helping each other raise their young.

They depend on large, connected natural areas – typically anywhere from 125 to 200 acres – where living pine trees, preferably mature, longleaf pine forests, grow.

Boiling Springs Wilderness includes varying types of soils that support different sets of plants, trees, shrubs and forbs, more commonly referred to as herbs.

A good deal of pond pine and a “little bit” of young longleaf pine grace its landscape, Pickens said.

The headwaters of Orton Creek are within the project area, as are wetlands that blanket the Castle Hayne aquifer, a drinking water source for thousands of Brunswick County residents and tens of thousands in other coastal North Carolina areas.

“That’s a long-term way to protect water quality,” Pickens said. “The areas around streams act as buffers to absorb nutrients, runoff, excess components in surface water that soak in, and they get absorbed by the plants and the roots and the soils around streams. That prevents excess nutrients getting into waterways.”

Then there are the wetlands, which function like nature’s sponges, absorbing stormwater that might otherwise flood developed properties.

“Every chance we get to conserve wetlands is really important right now,” Pickens said.

That’s because state lawmakers decided to align North Carolina’s definition of wetlands with that of the federal government, which is in the process of changing the interpretation of waters of the United States that may omit protections for millions of acres of wetlands in the state.

“It may result in more wetlands being nonjurisdictional, therefore a lot more likely to be converted to uplands through ditching and draining. These conservation easements are perpetual. Once we protect it, that’s it,” Pickens said.

The Boiling Springs Wilderness project was funded through a $3.68 million North Carolina Land and Water Fund grant.

Unique Places to Save will own and manage the tract, while the state will hold the conservation easement. The Coastal Land Trust will steward that easement.

Last year, Unique Places to Save applied for another state Land and Water Fund grant to protect about 500 acres of predominately wetlands between the town of St. James and N.C. Highway 211.

“We’ve got a provisional award from the Land and Water Fund so if they have enough funding we may get funded this year for that effort,” Pickens said.

She touted efforts among other groups that work to conserve land throughout the state, including the North Carolina Coastal Federation, which publishes Coastal Review, The Nature Conservancy, North Carolina Plant Conservation Program, North Carolina Coastal Land Trust, and Cape Fear Arch to name a few.

Tyrrell County parcel transferred

Last week, national nonprofit The Conservation Fund finalized the transfer of ownership of about 1,550 acres of coastal wetlands and forestland in Tyrrell County to the Coastal Federation.

“This partnership reflects years of careful conservation planning and cooperation,” Coastal Federation Executive Director Braxton Davis stated in a release. “This acquisition protects important coastal wetlands that help filter water, support fish and wildlife habitat, and provide natural flood buffering in on the of the state’s most ecologically significant regions.”

Portions of the Tyrrell County property, which is valued at an estimated $1.7 million, are in the Land and Water Fund’s Stewardship Program, one designed to establish, monitor and enforce perpetual conservation agreements.

The property will be included as part of the Coastal Federation’s Land for a Healthy Coast program, which focuses on protecting estuaries, reducing polluted runoff, buffering floods, and boosting long-term coastal resilience.

“Some lands are simply too important to risk losing,” Coastal Federation founder and senior adviser Todd Miller said in the release. “When a property protects water quality, supports fisheries, and strengthens the natural defenses of the coast, we believe it’s our responsibility to step forward and ensure it is permanently conserved and well managed.”

This story has been updated.

Any time Barry Fulton spots a species of bird in his yard he has not seen before, he can’t help but ask himself the same question.

Did I do that?

“You see new species coming and you just ponder, was that because I have more water sources or more plants that have berries for a food source?” Fulton said. “Next thing you know, you’re downloading apps to identify birds.”

Fulton and his wife, Debi Gallo, are among dozens of St. James residents who have in the past several months become part of a unique, yet growing club of property owners who’ve worked to get their town certified as a Community Wildlife Habitat by the National Wildlife Foundation.

St. James officially earned the designation in late February, making it the only coastal town certified in the state. Wilmington is registered but not yet certified — that could happen next year.

To date, nearly 20 towns, cities, communities and neighborhoods in North Carolina have achieved the designation, one that denotes areas where residents have put in the time to create and enhance wildlife habitat on their land.

Proponents of the program say earning the designation is not particularly difficult or expensive.

“In someone’s typical yard they’ve already done some landscaping, so a lot of people are well on their way in what would be needed to certify their property,” said St. James resident Ernie McLaney.

McLaney, member at-large on the St. James Conservancy’s executive board, moved from Charlotte to the coast a couple of years ago to settle in a life of quasi-retirement with his wife, bringing with him a wealth of knowledge about the National Wildlife Federation’s Wildlife Habitat Certification program.

He was one of the originators in supporting Matthews earn its certification in 2012. Three years later, Charlotte picked up the designation, making it, at the time, the largest certified city east of the Mississippi.

McLaney said he was immediately struck by what the town of about 7,000 residents had to offer as a wildlife habitat community.

“When I saw the beauty and amount of tree canopy that St. James has designed into this development here I was just really blown away,” he said.

Roughly 42% of land within the town, which incorporated in the mid-1990s, has been set aside as natural preserve. Natural buffers cushion areas along N.C. Highways 211 and 906, main county thoroughfares that intersect at the town’s northwest corner.

“With all of that in mind and seeing that people were incorporating native plants, bird feeders and birdhouses in their landscape, I thought that this would be an easy project to take on,” McLaney said.

He reached out to the conservancy with the idea, eventually landing him on the nonprofit’s board. Soon he would discover that around 45 properties in St. James were already certified. The requirement to become certified was 150 individual wildlife habitats from everyone including homeowners and churches to fire stations and schools.

The conservancy, with help from organizations including The Garden Club at St. James, hosted a number of community environmental education and outreach programs to spread the word.

“It took us less than a year to get St. James certified,” McLaney said. “Record time. We were impressed.”

Today, around 165 properties in the town are certified.

Certification can be as simple as placing a bird bath or other water feature, birdhouses or nesting boxes and feeders, or planting berry-bearing shrubs in your yard.

“It’s something you can do at your own pace as your time and finances allow,” McLaney said.

That’s a message he hopes resonates throughout other communities in coastal North Carolina.

“It’s an easy lift for some and it’s a recognized process that if people see habitat destruction in their community from growing developments they can counter some of that loss by enhancing what they have in their yard,” McLaney said.

Fulton agreed.

“It’s important that we maintain habitat for our wildlife,” he said. “There’s so much of the habitat that is getting clear cut for development. Everybody can do their fair share to provide some more shelter. They’re getting chased from their natural environments in every way. It’s important to do what we can now.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The benefits of the project have become multifaceted.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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