As North Carolina’s population grows, local and state governments, elected officials, educators and nonprofit groups are bracing for the demands more residents will put on the state’s already taxed and aging water infrastructure.

The 2026 Emerging Issues Forum: Future Forward Water held Feb. 25 brought together these decision-makers and advocates to forums in Morehead City, Winston-Salem and Asheville, where they could share their challenges, ideas and solutions regarding the often-unnoticed necessity.

The forum featured several speakers, including Gov. Josh Stein, and group discussions that focused on four main challenges: aging infrastructure, resiliency, the water workforce crisis, and maintaining safe and reliable water systems.  

In a video message, Stein said that North Carolina’s water infrastructure faces serious challenges. The American Society of Civil Engineers recently graded the state, giving it a C-plus on drinking water, C-minus on stormwater, and a D-minus on dams and on wastewater.

“Storms like Hurricane Helene, Hurricane Matthew, Hurricane Florence and tropical Storm Chantal damaged wells and water systems across the state, leaving many communities without clean water,” he continued. “At the same time, continued population growth in some of our areas require expanded service and new infrastructure. Life sciences, companies, data centers coming to North Carolina also require large amounts of water to operate, further straining our infrastructure. Many rural communities struggle in aging systems and limited financial capacity. Contaminants such as PFAS further poison our water supply. We must take all of these challenges on as a clarion call.” 

Usually held in Raleigh, this year’s forum was hosted in the three locations to celebrate the 40th anniversary of the Emerging Issues Forum, the idea of the late Gov. Jim Hunt, who died in December. Institute for Emerging Issues, established in 2002 at North Carolina State University, hosts the forum. The institute “is a nonpartisan connector, bringing North Carolinians together across sectors, regions and perspectives to address the state’s most significant challenges while advancing its economic competitiveness.”

Sandra Merkel DeJames, who is a member of the Institute for Emerging Issues National Advisory Board, explained to the more than 100 attending the Morehead City forum that the challenge being addressed that day is how to keep up with the unprecedented population growth facing the state. Population growth is the topic of the three-year Emerging Issues Forum series that kicked off in 2025, and focused on energy infrastructure. Next year the event will address housing.

“Last year, the state added an average of 400 new residents every day. That’s over 145,000 people by 2050. Some 14 million residents will call our state home, compared to the 11.2 million today,” said DeJames, who is president and CEO of Harmonize Strategy Group.

“People are moving to North Carolina for work, education, our climate and a host of other reasons,” she continued. All of these “new residents will need access to housing, energy and water that’s safe and affordable. They’ll need transportation and broadband and all of the other critical infrastructure needed to support a thriving economy, like childcare, healthcare, public safety and education.”

Companies are moving to the state as well, she continued.

“We’ve been named the best state for business in three of the past four years by CNBC. Once here, they too need infrastructure to support their operations,” DeJames said. “As to those businesses already here, this population and business growth will not be even across the state, or even within this region, but all areas have infrastructure needs, and we must now meet them.”

DeJames continued that forum organizers spent the last year learning more about the state’s water issues, “and we’ve learned the following: Water is a truly hidden infrastructure.” But, it is also the “most local form of infrastructure.”

The state is one of 10 with more than 5,000 public water systems – it is closer to 6,000 — and that number does not include the more than 2 million people who use privately owned wells and septic systems.

While water issues vary by region, there are common themes.

“First, our water infrastructure is aging,” DeJames said, despite some of the largest increases in water infrastructure spending in recent years.

“One conservative estimate is that we need $20 billion in new investments for drinking water and $21 billion in new investments for wastewater treatment and sanitary sewers in the coming decades, left unaddressed, our state’s economic vitality and public health are at risk.”

Next is the need to treat water for new contaminants.

“The emergence of new contaminants that can impact our health, such as PFAS, and the additional billions of dollars in cost to treat them will further compound financial pressures on our water systems and our customers,” DeJames said. Per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, are long-lasting chemicals found in water, air and soil that are linked to harmful health effects.

Third, the state’s water infrastructure is too vulnerable.

“The damage done to wells and water systems from Hurricane Helene, Tropical Storm Chantal and other storms add to longer-term challenges to water and wastewater systems across the state. We need to increase our infrastructure’s resiliency,” she said.

“And finally, we need more workers in the water sector. There is significant shortage of qualified workers as the current workforce ages out, and not enough new workers to enter these fields.”

N.C. State’s Peter A. Pappas Real Estate Development Program Director Chuck Flink expressed similar points in a message delivered to all three forum locations via video.

The state’s population is expected to grow by between 3 and 3.5 million people in the next 25 years, and the growth is not going to hit North Carolina in a uniform manner. “A lot of it’s going to congregate in our two metro areas, which we expect to grow by more than a million people each in this 25-year period,” Flink said.

Wake County currently is the third fastest growing county in the country, averaging around 65 to 75 people moving there each day. It is the most populated county in the state. Charlotte is currently the sixth fastest growing city in America, averaging around 65 residents a day, and it’s the 15th most populated city in the country today, Flink continued.

By the year 2050, 75% of all residents will live in cities, and that’s a new phenomenon for the state, and at the same time, while we have this population growing, the state is experiencing population loss, with 41% of North Carolina’s municipalities in decline.

“We have vast swaths of our eastern part of our state and some portions of our western counties that are losing population,” Flink said. “In fact, we have a band of counties that stretches from the Virginia border to the South Carolina border, where we need more population, we need more economic opportunity. So it’s not a real simple picture there.”

He paused to say that he loves that the state is a collection of small communities, “and yet some of these small communities, especially in the eastern part of the state, are literally being abandoned due to population loss.”

“In North Carolina, 50% of us derive our drinking water from underground reservoirs, aquifers, and when we look at other elements of our water infrastructure, our water and wastewater systems are antiquated and they’re failing,” he said.

In some cases, there has been an overall decline in water quality across the state because of drought, overconsumption, and pollution, including forever chemicals.

The people that manage water infrastructure are aging as well. More education and training is needed for a new workforce to manage the infrastructure going forward.

However, Flink said he’s optimistic about where the state can go.

“It really begins with planning. Planning for growth. How do we want to grow? I think that’s the ace of spades that we control,” Flink said, adding that growth can be controlled and that’s how these challenges will be met.

There were four panel discussions throughout the day. The panels each had participants represented different sectors who shared the hurdles they’re facing, their frustrations and ways they’re navigating these challenges.

Martin Doyle, professor of River Systems Science and Policy at Duke University’s Nicholas Institute for Energy, explained that water systems are not supported by general tax revenue, but are covered by the funds generated by billing its customers.

The UNC School of Government surveyed water systems around the state, and found that less than a quarter of those water systems actually collected sufficient revenue to be considered economically viable.

“They’re not collecting sufficient revenue to cover their costs as well as to cover the cost of preventative maintenance,” Doyle said. “The challenge for this is that we have a large number of water systems that are operating right at the financial threshold. They’re just getting by” and unable to keep up with preventative maintenance.

East Carolina University Water Resources Center Associate Director Samantha Mosier said that there are a number of ways to solve some of the state’s problems. She encouraged raising awareness about infrastructure needs, but the “real solution” is to help municipalities establish or join a regional authority.

“Most small local governments in North Carolina have their own water and wastewater system because that was part of becoming a town, years and years ago when we had lots of population,” Mosier said. “But in the eastern part of the state, we’re seeing that loss of the population.”

With the population dwindling, utilities are losing their customer base, making it no longer feasible for every small town to maintain a water system. Encouraging regionalization brings folks together to have those conversations. 

“To me is that next critical strategy we’ve got to embrace as a local, regional and state level,” she said.

Belhaven Town Manager Lynn Davis said that Beaufort County town’s obstacles are many, including a limited budget. “How do we not just look at the day to day, not just look at the infrastructure that we have, but how do we plan for if something breaks and that’s a challenge that faces us.”

She said staffing is another challenge. Half of the town’s staff could retire right now, and it won’t be easy to replace those workers. “You just don’t find people that have the knowledge and the skills.”

Cape Fear Public Utility Authority Security and Emergency Manager Craig Malone said when it comes to tackling these issues, “it’s not the plan itself that we need to focus on, it’s the process of planning. It helps us look at these contingencies, look at these risks, and our options to address these emergencies.”

He incorporates resiliency planning into his capital improvement plan. “Now you don’t have to stop and plan for emergency. Now you don’t have to stop and plan for that resiliency action or that upgrade to your facility.”

Nags Head Mayor Ben Cahoon said the town has 3,000 year-round residents, and around 45,000 in the summer time, and 80% of the properties have on-site septic systems. On a summer day, millions of gallons of water goes through the houses and into the septic systems.

“At the same time we have sea level rise, which is bringing the water table up under those wastewater systems, causing them to perhaps function less effectively. And then we get a storm, and you get a lot of water in those ditches and in the ground, and you can imagine the dynamics of what’s happening in the ground.”

Cahoon said the town has to plan for these issues.

“We do integrate drinking water, wastewater, stormwater, capacity into our zoning, development/redevelopment decisions. We do that by tying our infrastructure capacity directly to our long-range planning and adopted master plans and our resilience strategies, rather than treating any of these separately. So in Nags Head, our land use and development decisions are guided by the town’s comp plan.”

To address the retiring workforce that most local governments seem to be facing, some town leaders are changing how they recruit. For example, Maysville Town Manager Shcumata Brown said they’re looking for employees who have the aptitude to learn and not focus on certain certifications.

Perry Harker, vice president of Workforce Continuing Education at Carteret Community College, said that students aren’t hearing about this type of career, and the college is trying to introduce students to water and wastewater industry opportunities.

Compounding these issues is water quality.

Ben Farmer, planning and development services director for Upper Coastal Plain Council of Government, said raw water is pumped to a treatment plant, and that water has to fall within certain threshold or maximum containment levels. The systems, regardless of the town or city’s size, have to make sure that drinking water is up to that very extreme standard to keep the water safe.

Cape Fear Riverkeeper Kemp Burdette told the attendees that many residents get their drinking water from rivers — the Cape Fear River basin provides about one in five residents with the drinking water – and “protecting rivers is the single most effective way of protecting drinking water supply and reducing infrastructure costs for communities, period.”

Jacksonville Stormwater Manager Pat Donovan-Brandenburg said that we all need to be part of the solution.

“Each one of us impact stormwater. Meaning we have a home, we have a car, we have a road to get to and from work. I challenge all of us to look at our individual yards, our individual businesses,” she said.

“What can we do to disconnect our stormwater runoff from ever making it out to the storm drain in the road and out to a stream? Can we get it to infiltrate instead of making it to our surface waters? Making it to our surface waters does not recharge our aquifers, and we need to recharge aquifers in order to have the drinking water,” she said. “There’s the connection. So can you disconnect your storm drains or your gutters and put it into your landscape beds? Can you put in an infiltration trench? Can you put in a rain garden or rain barrel? Everybody’s yard, everybody’s business counts toward stormwater runoff, so we can all be part of the solution,” she reiterated.

There’s so much technology out there, so ask your engineer to think outside of the box. “Yes, it may cost a little bit more, but if you’re building there for the rest of your life, invest in your community. Because that’s what it is. We’ve got to invest in our neighborhoods, invest in our communities. So my message is very simple, reduce the storm water that you’re creating individually off your own property, and collectively, we will make a difference.”

“We have had nine 100-year storms in the last 20 years,” said Dr. Reide Corbett during a conference in Wilmington back in November. “Somebody said that math doesn’t math.”

Corbett is dean of the East Carolina University Coastal Studies Institute Campus in Wanchese and he was addressing the fourth annual Water Adaptations to Ensure Regional Success, or WATERS, Summit held Nov. 13. He said the statistical model used to predict precipitation frequency is no longer reliable.

The model, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration Atlas 14 data server,  is widely used in infrastructure planning and flood risk assessments. Atlas 14 provides statistical modeling that is based on rainfall amounts and storm intensity for the 30 years leading up to the 21st century.

The server “contains precipitation frequency estimates for the United States and U.S. affiliated territories,” according to NOAA.

Corbett told those attending the summit that Atlas 14 “doesn’t hold any longer.”

In a follow-up interview with Coastal Review, Corbett said the problem with Atlas 14 is that it does not factor in how the climate has changed during this century.

“It does not take into account changes in the moisture that the atmosphere has, and it certainly doesn’t project forward,” Corbett said.

That’s why NOAA is developing an Atlas 15 model, which is to be rolled out in stages this year and 2027. When completed, “Atlas 15 will supersede NOAA Atlas 14 as the national standard and will become the authoritative source for precipitation frequency information across the United States.,” according to the NOAA website.

Dr. Jared Bowden, interim director of the North Carolina State Climate Office, agreed that, as a predictive model, Atlas 14 is flawed.

“It doesn’t use the most recent observations. (Atlas 14) hasn’t used any of the data in the past 20 or 25, years, really,” Bowden said.

Atlas 15 is expected to correct that shortcoming nationally, but in the meantime, the State Climate Office has developed a dataset that illustrates how precipitation patterns represented in Atlas 14 may evolve over time. 

RaInDROP, an acronym for the statistical information for the state model, Rainfall, Intensity, Duration and Return for Observations and Projections, is “a product that is tailored to North Carolina,” Bowden said. “Some things in the methodology that we do behind RaInDROP are very North Carolina specific.”

The datasets the State Climate Office developed use the Atlas 14 model as a baseline, but also predict what the future climate will look like. The modeling also takes into account North Carolina’s geography, Bowden said.

“There’s eight climate divisions across our state, and we use these climate divisions to help think about how we scale Atlas 14 values,” Bowden said. “We took climate change projections and tried to figure out how you would scale up based on the different climate divisions.”

The online RaInDROP tool maps show marked variations from Atlas 14 data. For instance, the southeast corner of the state, New Bern, Jacksonville and Wilmington, in particular, will experience significantly more rainfall and more intense events than previously modeled. Bordering the Atlantic Ocean, that output is consistent with climate change data that shows a warming atmosphere.

Climate change is not a linear increase with temperature and moisture, Bowden explained. Rather it’s an exponential increase and an exponential increase in moisture capacity.

“If you’re able to saturate the atmosphere and have a forcing mechanism to wring it out of the atmosphere, such as a hurricane, then you get these really big downpours. You get these really big flooding scenarios that will create just larger and larger problems for our infrastructure.”

The climate office tool is designed to have practical applications in designing infrastructure.

“If you’re looking out at midcentury, let’s say 2050- or 2060-time frame, and you were to design a culvert that’s supposed to last that period of time, how would your design criteria change based on using plausible future scenarios?” Bowden continued.

Public and private infrastructure rely upon reasonably accurate climate models to determine design criteria. Retention ponds, as an example, typically use a 4% annual chance of a 25-year storm as design criteria. Based on that assumption, a retention pond should perform as expected provided the storm events occur as predicted by Atlas 14.

However, climate events predicted by RaInDROP suggest that what is now thought of as a 25-year storm will be more frequent and more intense, and if that happens “it’s not going to perform as you expect, and it’s going to be overwhelmed more frequently, and it’s going to be become a problem,” Bowden said.

Environmental engineer George Wood, owner of Environmental Professionals of Kill Devil Hills for nearly 40 years, told Coastal Review that private infrastructure systems in particular would be overwhelmed by more frequent and increased storm intensity and rainfall. And, compounding the problem is less recovery time for the system between storms.

Wood was particularly critical of how private stormwater systems are maintained – or not — noting that private retention ponds are often overgrown with subaquatic vegetation and culverts are often clogged and incapable of even handling the rainfall amounts for which they were designed.

The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality has suffered the highest percentage of staff cuts of any state, with nearly one-third of its workforce eliminated between 2010 and 2024, according to an environmental watchdog group.

A whopping 32%, or 386 DEQ staff positions, were wiped out during that 14-year period, according to an Environmental Integrity Project report released earlier this month.

Those staff cuts, the report concludes, leave the state agency responsible for administering regulations to protect water, air quality and the public’s health “ill-positioned to confront” pollution from the state’s growing factory farming industry, climate-driven storms and flooding in coastal communities.

The report notes how the agency was downsized when former Gov. Pat McCrory signed the 2015-16 state budget into law, triggering a shift of several divisions from what was then the Department of Environment and Natural Resources to the Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.

The Republican governor, who also renamed the agency the Department of Environmental Quality, said the move aligned with his vision for government efficiency.

Josh Kastrinsky, DEQ’s deputy communications director, said in an email last week that it is “difficult” to directly compare present staffing levels to those in 2010 because of the changes that were made to the department in 2015.

“However, for several regulatory divisions that existed in 2010 and 2025, staffing levels declined by at least 25%,” he wrote, adding that, “The EIP report focuses on regulatory work and does not include DEQ’s non-regulatory work, which affects the total numbers of staff shown.”

As of the week that began Dec. 8, the departments vacancy rate was 8%, Kastrinsky said.

“This includes an engineer vacancy rate of 14% and an environmental specialist vacancy rate of 9%,” he said. “Several DEQ programs have larger workloads and several programs have less staff than they did in 2010.”

North Carolina’s population has increased by more than 11.5% since 2010, according to USAFacts, a nonprofit organization that gathers data from federal, state and local governments.

The state’s population growth corresponds to an increase in environmental permit applications filed with the department.

Since 2010, the department’s Division of Mitigation Services has seen a 200% increase in projects.

During that same time period, the number of erosion and sediment control project applicants filed with the Division of Energy, Mineral, and Land Resources has jumped by nearly 60%, and the Division of Waste Management has received a 62% increase in underground storage tank applications.

“The 2010-2025 period also includes several destructive hurricanes, and DEQ staff have been heavily involved in recovery and long-term resilience in impacted communities,” Kastrinsky said. “DEQ’s ability to hire and retain sufficient staff levels has a direct effect on its ability to provide permit oversight, technical assistance to businesses and customer service to North Carolinians.”

The department’s “roughly 1,700 staff members remain dedicated to providing science-based efforts to ensure clean air, water and lands by managing applications, conducting inspections and permit oversight, investigating complaints and taking enforcement measures as appropriate under law,” he continued. “DEQ also continues to focus on a variety of funding and assistance programs to maintain critical infrastructure and make communities’ aging systems more resilient to increasingly severe natural disasters.”

The Environmental Integrity Program analyzed the budgets, annual expenditures and staffing levels from 2010 through to 2024 of the environmental agencies of all 50 states.

North Carolina topped the list of 31 states found to have cut jobs at their environmental agencies from 2010 to 2024. Connecticut experienced a 26% cut during that same time, followed closely by Arizona, which saw a 25% reduction in its environmental agency’s staff.

Seven states, including Texas, Mississippi, South Dakota, and Connecticut, reduced their pollution control funding by at least a third, the report concludes.

The impacts of such cuts will likely only be exacerbated by the Trump Administration’s plans to downsize the Environmental Protection Agency, the program warns.

“The Trump Administration is attempting to dismantle EPA and rollback commonsense federal pollution rules, claiming that the states can pick up the slack and protect our communities – but that’s not the case,” Jen Duggan, Environmental Integrity Project executive director, stated in a release. “The implementation of our environmental laws depend on both a strong EPA and state agencies that have the resources they need to do their jobs. But our research found that many states have already cut their pollution control agencies and so more cuts at the federal level will only put more Americans at risk.”

The report highlights North Carolina’s factory farming industry, which includes the production of nearly 1 billion chickens annually for sale as meat. And, as of March, there were 8.1 million hogs in concentrated animal feeding operations, or CAFOs, in the state.

Poultry waste at these CAFOs is sometimes dumped in open-air heaps and, when it rains, washes into nearby streams, discharging harmful nutrients into waters downstream, including those in the Cape Fear River Basin, which has the highest density of CAFOs in the world, according to Cape Fear River Watch.

“The unchecked expansion of hog and poultry farms has left the state environmental agency unable to even evaluate the cumulative impacts,” Drew Ball, director of Natural Resources Defense Council’s Southeast Campaigns team, states in the report. “At this point, policy experts and advocates can’t even get the information they need to protect the public. You can’t respond if you don’t know what’s coming online. We need to think a lot harder about keeping track of potential pollution and what it could mean for downstream communities.”

Coastal Review will not publish Wednesday, Thursday and Friday in observance of the Christmas holiday.

The North Carolina Sedimentation Control Commission, during its meeting Thursday, is to consider continuing to give N.C. Department of Transpiration authority to review and approve erosion and sedimentation control plans for land-disturbing activities.

The meeting is scheduled to begin at 10 a.m. Thursday in the Archdale Building in Raleigh. An agenda and supporting documents can be found on the commission webpage.

The public may attend in person or join online using the WebEx meeting link. The meeting number is 2429 642 9815 and the password is STOPMUD. Organizers ask those logging on to mute their audio and turn off the video when joining. To listen by phone, call 415-655-0003 and enter the meeting number 2429 642 9815.

The commission was created to administer the state’s Sedimentation Control Program in accordance with the  N.C. Sedimentation Pollution Control Act of 1973. The program is “to allow development within our state while preventing pollution by sedimentation,” the webpage explains.

In 1974, the commission and NCDOT came to an agreement that the transportation agency would be allowed to design, review, monitor and train for all aspects of the Erosion and Sedimentation Control Program. The agreement was reviewed and updated in 1991.

NCDOT submitted its annual summary that reviewed projects from July 1, 2024, to June 30, 2025. The state sedimentation engineer based his report on that summary, and the recommendation that NCDOT continues to manage its erosion and sedimentation control program.

Commission members are scheduled to take action on updates and clarifications counsel provided to the memorandum of agreement between local governments and the commission.

Information items include an update on materials from the Environmental Protection Agency regarding the municipal separate storm sewer system, or MS4, permit changes and the potential impacts to the sediment program.

Staff are to also give an update on the sediment education program, on the land quality section’s current statewide plan approval, inspection and enforcement activities, and current number of vacancies in the land quality section.

BOILING SPRING LAKES – For the most part, work had wrapped on Pine Lake Dam here back in mid-June.

The light at the end of a tunnel of headaches caused since the closure of one of this city’s main traffic arteries, portions of which run atop Pine Lake and North Lake dams, was shining brighter and brighter.

With the dams complete, reconstruction could begin on sections of East Boiling Spring Road that have since the summer of 2023 been closed while crews rebuild and restore the dam system crippled by rainfall during Hurricane Florence nearly seven years ago.

But a swift burst of rain that drenched this little Brunswick County city on June 14 revealed that something was not right about the nearly finished Pine Lake Dam. It did not seem to be functioning properly.

That was the message one of the city’s commissioners relayed in a phone call to town staff that day. Rainwater, the commissioner reported, wasn’t stacking up behind the dam.

“In other words, there wasn’t a lake there,” City Manager Gordon Hargrove said. “It was a significant rainfall and it should have held some water. It did not hold water. It was running right through the dam.”

An investigation found that Pine Lake Dam, the design for which was vetted in multiple reviews by both federal and state agencies, is at an elevation of about 5 feet too low.

More than a month has passed since the city informed its residents of the revelation, one that has drawn a firestorm of criticism and finger pointing in a matter that might very well end up getting hashed out in court.

No timeline in sight

Today, large bright-white and blaze-orange barricades block off a roughly 750-foot stretch of neatly packed dirt and coarse sand imitating a road over top of Pine Lake Dam.

Pine Lake Dam is part of a system of five earthen dams initially built here in the mid-1960s.

Throughout the years, the dams withstood the brute force from powerful coastal storms that have swept through the region.

But the unprecedented rain Hurricane Florence dumped in September 2018 over the area – up to more than 30 inches in some parts of coastal North Carolina – proved too much.

Rainwater filled the 275-acre Boiling Spring Lake to the brink, overtopping Sanford Dam. The breach, paired with substantial embankment erosion, led to the dam’s catastrophic failure.

The breach caused a domino-like effect of failures at all four of the smaller upstream dams in the city, and then the lakes that made up Boiling Spring Lakes were no more.

During the years since, the city secured about $56 million in funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, through Department of Defense grants, and Brunswick County to repair and restore the dams it owns and operates: North Lake, Pine Lake, Sanford, and Upper Lake dams. A fifth dam, Middle Lake Dam, is privately owned.

That funding has been spent, in part, on hiring firms to undertake the task of designing and building dams that meet today’s safety codes.

Work to restore Sanford Dam was progressing nicely, Hargrove said, when another coastal storm, one often referred to in these parts as the “unnamed storm,” caught Brunswick County and southern portions of New Hanover County by surprise last September.

Potential Tropical Cyclone No. Eight pummeled Boiling Spring Lakes with more than 20 inches of rain within a short period of time. Rain waters swept away Sanford Dam’s bypass channel, destroying the work that had been completed thus far and forcing construction crews to essentially start from scratch.

“Weather forecast was for 3 inches,” Hargrove said. “We got 22. It flooded out the detour route and so people were stranded in particular pockets in that side of town with no way of getting out.”

The city experienced a similar scenario last May with residents becoming trapped in patches of the community as a wildfire spread through the area and jumped N.C. Highway 87.

East Boiling Spring Road is a primary entry and exit point as a hurricane evacuation route through the city.

“So, yes, there’s a lot of angst involved with getting this road open,” Hargrove said. “I mean, we have looked at every possible alternative short of building a bridge, but by the time we finish a bridge, this project will be done.”

When that might happen remains an unanswered question.

“The setback with Pine Lake Dam, I can’t even give you a timeline of how long it’s going to keep that road closed. It took 12 months to get our permits last time” from the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality’s Dam Safety Program, Hargrove said.

Days after Hargrove met for an interview with Coastal Review in city hall, he returned to the commissioners’ chamber for the board’s Aug. 5 meeting, where he provided an update on the dams.

Work continues at Sanford Dam. Had it not been for the potential tropical cyclone last September, that dam would be finished, he said. Upper Lake Dam is complete.

The section of East Boiling Spring Road atop the newly reconstructed North Lake Dam will hopefully be finished in the next two to three weeks, Hargrove told commissioners.

There was still no word as to when construction to fix Pine Lake Dam might begin.

Hargrove explained that Sequoia Services, LLC, the Greensboro-based construction company hired by the city to rebuild the dams, agreed to build a temporary road atop the dam.

But the city would be responsible for any damages to the site should any occur if the temporary road, one that would cost an additional $175,000, were to be built. Pine Lake Dam is valued at $3.5 million.

Commissioners voted against the proposal, saying it was a liability too steep.

Who’s responsible?

Hargrove didn’t mince words when he sat down for an interview with Coastal Review on a late July morning.

“There’s going to be some things I’ll talk about and then there’s, for liability reasons and that sort of thing, I’m not going to comment on them because this is obviously an issue that could grow larger over time,” he said.

The defunct Pine Lake Dam is not the construction contractor’s fault, Hargrove said. The contractor built the dam to the design the company was given.

“I’m not willing to say where the problem exists and how that problem came about. It’s the city’s position that this is a third-party responsibility,” Hargrove said.

The city hired consulting firms Ashville-based McGill Associates and Greensboro-based Schnabel Engineering to design the project.

Those designs were vetted through a series of agencies, including the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, FEMA and N.C. Dam Safety.

“As it goes up through the line, they’re really not getting into the hydraulics and analysis,” Hargrove said. “They’re just looking to make sure that the math works. So, the primary responsibility for the design of that dam is McGill and Schnabel.”

During the city commissioners meeting July 8, McGill Vice President Michael Hanson said that, unlike the other dams, there were no sufficient surveys or as-built records for Pine Lake Dam.

“We relied on information that was provided by the city, which was the best available information that was the original design plans,” Hanson said at the meeting, according to a WECT-TV report. “We relied on that information and moved forward. That was reviewed and approved by city staff. That was reviewed and approved by Dam Safety.”

This was Hanson’s first update to commissioners in a public setting since June 27 when the city announced in a social media post that Pine Lake Dam was defective.

The public’s response to that update was biting. There were one-word retorts including “Figures” and “Unbelievable” to accusations of “backdoor deals” and at least one call for city tax refunds to residents.

One commenter correctly pointed out, “THE HOOVER DAM WAS BUILT IN 5 YEARS, Y’ALL! In the 1930’s.”

The engineering marvel that spans the Nevada-Arizona border was, in fact, built from 1931-36, but not without disaster. The official number of people who died at the dam site during that time from causes ranging to drowning, blasting, rock slides, falls from the canyon walls, and heavy equipment and truck accidents, is 96, according to the U.S. Department of Interior’s Bureau of Reclamation.

City officials understand the mounting anger and frustration from Boiling Spring Lakes residents.

Hargrove wants them to know that commissioners have and continue to be “very proactive” and have tried to make sure the dam reconstruction cost doesn’t fall on the city’s taxpayers.

Earlier this year, commissioners approved an 8-cent tax hike, revenues of which will cover the costs of the city’s new stormwater department.

“This board does focus and look at the future and how we can improve it,” Hargrove said. “It just takes time. We’re catching up to 30 or 40 years of inactivity, but this board, my administration, are working hard to put that into play.”

Dare County officials announced Friday that the public library in Manteo had to close temporarily because of extensive flooding on Burnside Drive and surrounding side streets.

The flooding was caused by a storm that arrived Thursday with rainfall that continued overnight.

“The area is currently unsafe for pedestrian traffic and low-lying vehicles and should be avoided,” officials said in the announcement.

The Manteo Library will remain closed until water levels return to a safe level and access to the facility is restored, officials said.

Once the library can reopen to the public, information will be posted on Facebook.com/DareCountyLibrary.

Library officials encouraged patrons to check out the variety of digital resources available online.

Another project on the University of North Carolina Wilmington campus is underway to help protect the quality of nearby waters.

Crews are transforming a 250-foot hard, compacted service road at the newly renovated Brooks Field into a permeable drive that soaks in rain. The material helps to reduce flooding and decrease the volume of polluted runoff flowing into the Bradley Creek watershed, the North Carolina Coastal Federation said Tuesday.

The project is one of many on university in New Hanover County that implements the Bradley and Hewletts Creeks Watershed Restoration Plan. Wilmington adopted the plan in 2012 to guide reducing the volume of stormwater runoff in the two watersheds that connect the city, Wrightsville Beach, and Masonboro Island.

UNCW is the largest landowner in the Bradley Creek Watershed.

“We are pleased to be working again with the North Carolina Coastal Federation and Heal Our Waterways to reduce runoff on campus and showcase nature-based solutions on site,” UNCW Chief Sustainability Officer Feletia Lee said in a release.

Since 2019, the University has partnered with the North Carolina Coastal Federation, which publishes Coastal Review, and Wilmington, particularly the city’s Heal Our Waterways Program, to install rain gardens and parking lot retrofits on campus.

“We’re proud to see this partnership continue to make meaningful progress toward the goals within the Bradley and Hewletts Creeks Watershed Restoration Plan,” said Wilmington Watershed Coordinator Anna Reh-Gingerich. “It’s encouraging to see the momentum from these projects steadily grow at UNCW and throughout the community, especially with a new permeable paver project set to begin soon at Mad Mole Brewing after the current installation is complete.”

Construction on both the UNCW and Mad Mole projects is being completed by the team at Thorpe Landscapes of Wilmington. The company provides landscaping, hardscapes, permeable pavers, and outdoor construction services in the Cape Fear region.

“These projects serve as a great showcase of responsible and attractive stormwater management that any landowner can implement,” Coastal Federation Water Quality Director Bree Charron added.

This stormwater retrofit project was supported by the North Carolina Division of Water Resources’ EPA Section 319 Water Quality Program.

Just beyond a wooded area that marks Paws Place Dog Rescue’s east-facing property line, signs of neighbors to come dot the horizon.

Rooftops of two-story houses in various stages of construction peek over treetops in a new development cropping up on one side of the rescue’s land in Winnabow, an unincorporated area along U.S. Highway 17 in Brunswick County.

On a recent May afternoon, Paws Place President Lee VanOrmer looked in the direction from where the steady sounds of building filled the air and mustered up her best, glass-half-full shot of optimism.

“That’s more families that can come here and adopt dogs,” she said.

The reality is that the new neighborhood, like so much of the seemingly endless development occurring in Brunswick County, is not one welcomed by existing residents worried that too much building, too fast, is creating problems.

Here in North Carolina’s southernmost coastal county, it’s not uncommon to read local news stories about mounting traffic-related issues, concerns about flooding exacerbated by stormwater runoff and human run-ins with alligators being squeezed out of the once-secluded areas they prefer.

And, by all indications, development here is not going to slow down.

Years of building to come

Since June 1, 2015, the county has approved 123 developments that call for the construction of more than 45,900 housing units, according to information provided on Brunswick County Planning and Community Enforcement’s website.

Only 13 of those developments are 100% complete. Construction of residences in more than half – 75 to be exact – has not begun.

“It is so much,” Brunswick County resident Christie Marek said. “When I started this I didn’t realize how much I was getting into. It’s like the more you try to change something you learn that we’re several years behind homebuilders. It’s like they almost planned on this.”

Marek founded Brunswick County Conservation Partnership, a nonprofit born out of a coalition of residents concerned about their county’s future. The aim of the partnership is to protect Brunswick’s natural resources and advocate for “responsible” development.

That can look like any variety of measures, be it creating wider buffers between a new development and wetlands or adjacent properties, limiting clearcutting, or implementing stormwater mitigation plans to ultimately keep runoff from flowing into and polluting streams and rivers, Marek said.

Marek lives in Ash, a rural, largely agricultural, unincorporated area along N.C. Highway 130 that she refers to as “the country side of the beach.”

“We don’t have a lot of growth out here,” Marek said.

So, when builders asked the county to approve a sprawling, multiuse development of thousands of homes and commercial space next to her small family farm, she took notice.

County officials in March 2024 approved Ashton Farms, a development that will include more than 2,700 single-family lots, 200 townhome lots and a little more than 20 acres of commercial space.

Early this year, the county planning board approved the 645-acre King Tract, an 1,800-home development through farm and forestland adjacent to Ashton Farms.

Residents persistently raised concerns about potential impacts these developments may have on what equate to hundreds of acres of wetlands in the area.

Months before the King Tract was approved, Marek began asking county leaders to adopt a temporary building moratorium.

“I would love to see a moratorium to just halt development until we get a flood study done and wildlife study done,” she said.

Brunswick County commissioners in a split vote last fall turned down that idea.

The county later posted an explanation on its website that local governments are barred from adopting temporary building moratoria.

“State law provides little to no ability for local governments to issue temporary moratoria on development projects within their jurisdiction,” the website states. “This aspect of state law is important to keep in mind whenever the County receives questions or suggestions to put a moratorium on residential development due to reasons like amending the Unified Development Ordinance (UDO) or writing or updating plans.”

The website goes on to explain that proposed developments undergo “a thorough review process” and that impacts to infrastructure and water and wastewater systems are addressed before proposals go to the county planning board.

Several projects are either under construction or planned to expand capacity at wastewater treatment plants and the county has “dedicated significant time and resources” to updating its 20-year water and sewer master plans and five-year capital improvement plan, according to the county.

Brunswick County Conservation Partnership has applied for a $1 million grant to study the potential effects, including flooding, overdevelopment in the area may have on everything from wildlife to wetlands to trees.

But as the federal government guts grant programs, Marek said she’s not counting on those funds to come through. The partnership late last year launched an online donation campaign to raise funds to cover the cost of the study.

“It’s not that we want to stop all development,” Marek said. “It’s stopping irresponsible development and that’s what’s going on here.”

Wetter ground

There’s a patch of marsh on the grounds of where Paws Place Dog Rescue has operated the last eight years.

“We could count in the summer on it being dry,” VanOrmer said.

That’s no longer the case.

The kennel where dogs are housed in a sprawling building that sits at the end of a gravel road stretching hundreds of yards off N.C. Highway 87 is on 17 acres classified as being of minimal flood risk.

Yet, since the no-kill shelter opened in spring 2017, flooding and the threat of it has been on the uptick. VanOrmer is convinced that is due, at least in part, to encroaching development, despite assurances from officials that developers have to comply with the county’s stormwater management and discharge control ordinance.

Unprecedented rainfall from two coastal storms that swept the area within the span of less than a decade caused historic flooding.

Paws Place’s 7,000-square-foot building was inundated with 3 feet of water following Hurricane Florence’s record rainfall in September 2018.

U.S. National Guard troops were called in to help evacuate the kennel’s inhabitants at the time to dry ground at a local gas station.

Last September, Potential Tropical Cyclone Eight, more commonly referred to in these parts as the “unnamed storm,” dumped more than 20 inches of rain, destroying dozens of homes, washing out roads and causing millions of dollars in damages.

“We had water come up to the door and we used dog food to keep the water out,” VanOrmer said.

But the two people who rode out the storm at the kennel were trapped by floodwaters that cut off the entrance to the property.

The unnamed storm amplified to the rescue’s board of directors the need for an on-site storm shelter, one a quick walk from the kennel that, as of May 20, housed some 35 dogs.

The rescue had just enough money to pay a contractor to pour an elevated concrete slab that will be the base of the storm shelter.

Now the rescue is racing to raise enough money to finish the shelter, the ground level of which will house lawn equipment and a van. Walls of the second level, which will be climate controlled, will be lined with crates ready for dogs that get moved from the main building during storms.

“Really, the situation has become, we need an evacuation-type scenario,” VanOrmer said.

She said $95,000 in pledges have been made to the rescue, closing in on its $150,000 goal. VanOrmer said she hopes construction will begin in early June with the building being finished before September.

Next door, homes will likely continue to be erected in the new neighborhood of Saltgrass Landing, plans of which call for nearly 260 residences.

Another large housing development is planned adjacent the Paws Place property across Town Creek, which winds to the Cape Fear River.

“Unfortunately, we can’t seem to stop development,” VanOrmer said.

Guest Commentary

To stimulate discussion and debate, Coastal Review welcomes differing viewpoints on topical coastal issues. Morty Gaskill is a member of the North Carolina Coastal Federation Board of Directors. The nonprofit advocacy organization publishes Coastal Review, which remains editorially independent.

In 1976, a North Carolina Sea Grant newsletter sounded the alarm: large-scale land drainage was wiping out wetlands that protect our coastal fisheries. Fishermen saw their livelihoods at risk and 3,000 of them pleaded for action.

“We, the undersigned, being commercial and sport fishermen who use the creeks, rivers, and bays adjacent to Pamlico Sound and the waters of Pamlico Sound, petition the Marine Fisheries Commission and state officials as follows: … to investigate the effect of changing salinity in said waters upon the economy of Pamlico Drainage areas and to initiate proper controls to insure the continued health of commercial and sport fishing in this area.”

They saw it coming. But there was hope — state and federal leaders acted. For decades, farming, forestry, development, and fisheries co-existed under federal and state wetland safeguards — rules that carefully balanced economic growth and environmental protection. These safeguards didn’t create unbearable hardships; they provided stability for all.

Yet here we are again, nearly 50 years later, facing the same crisis — not just for our fisheries, but for our homes, businesses, and communities. Given the changing economic and environmental conditions of many coastal communities across North Carolina, it could not come at a worse time.

This time, the rollback of wetland protections isn’t coming from local drainage operations. It’s happening due to recent federal and state government actions. The Supreme Court’s Sackett v. EPA decision has dramatically narrowed the definition of federally protected wetlands. The North Carolina General Assembly followed suit, choosing to adopt the weaker federal standard instead of maintaining the stronger state level protections that had been in place for years. And now, under new leadership, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is further diluting the Waters of the United States (WOTUS) rule, stripping even more protections from wetlands and streams that feed our coastal estuaries.

The consequences? More wetlands drained. More freshwater rushing unchecked into saltwater nurseries. More flooding. More property damage.

Costly gamble

History has already shown us what happens when we fail to protect our wetlands. In 1976, Rose Bay fisherman Troy W. Mayo spoke out as catches dwindled.

“Twenty-five years ago, I owned a 26-foot shad boat. We used to go out in Rose Bay, two people, for five or six hours and we’d catch 35 to 40 tubs of oysters—that was two men pulling by hand,” said Mayo. “Today you go out in this same area with a power winder and all modern equipment, and I’d be surprised if you catch 10 tubs of oysters.”

Scientists confirmed what fishermen already knew. “Salinity is a major ingredient for survival in the estuaries”; reported the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries. Preston Pate, who studied juvenile shrimp in Rose Bay, found that freshwater intrusion “definitely disrupted the salinity of small creeks in the area. The result was a smaller shrimp harvest by fishermen.”

But wetland loss isn’t just bad for fisheries. Wetlands absorb floodwaters, buffer storm surges, and keep pollution out of our waterways. Every acre lost means more homes and businesses at risk.

In North Carolina, our coastal communities have already been battered by hurricanes, rising insurance costs, rising property taxes, lack of affordable housing, and an aging drainage infrastructure that can’t keep up with heavier rains. Weakening wetland protections only adds fuel to the fire. It shifts costs onto property owners, local governments, and taxpayers — many of whom will be left paying for flood damage that could have been prevented.

Commonsense approach to conservation

Those lessons from the 1970s helped shape policies that kept North Carolina’s wetlands intact for decades. But now, history is repeating itself. The rollback of WOTUS protections and the state’s decision to weaken its own rules mean more wetlands will be drained, increasing flooding, pollution, and economic losses.

This shouldn’t be a divisive political issue. Wetland protections aren’t just about environmental policy — they’re about practical economics, public safety, and community well-being. They help prevent costly flood damage, safeguard private property, and support the resilience of coastal economies that depend on fisheries, tourism, and clean water.

Jim Brown of the Division of Marine Fisheries put it best nearly 50 years ago:

“We love beans and beef, and we have a serious need to extend agricultural operations. At the same time, we dearly love shrimp and oysters. There exists a very serious need for imposing compatibility between the two. Can it be done? That’s the question. Or do we just keep plodding along with our fingers crossed?”

If we ignore history, we aren’t just crossing our fingers — we are guaranteeing a grim future for our coastal communities. The fishermen of Rose Bay warned us decades ago. Will we listen this time? Or will we, once again, pay the price for failing to protect the wetlands that sustain our way of life?

Opinions expressed by the authors are not necessarily those of Coastal Review or our publisher, the North Carolina Coastal Federation. See our guidelines for submitting guest columns.

Brunswick County commissioners will not pause new development.

Instead, board members agreed during their Monday night meeting to further explore the possibility of creating a stormwater utility as a way to address mounting concerns about the county’s ongoing building boom.

“The stormwater utility would help solve the problem of increased growth, polluted stormwater, and improve the drainage capabilities of the county that are susceptible to flooding,” Commissioner Pat Sykes said. “Within this we should be able to designate certain areas as special protection areas. These areas would determine, should they be low, medium or high density.”

This utility is created to collect fees from property owners, which are then used to maintain and improve drainage systems.

Sykes eventually seconded a motion made by Chairman Randy Thompson to direct county staff to move forward with coming up with a plan to establish a temporary moratorium on new commercial, multifamily and single-family home construction. Thompson suggested a moratorium would span 120 days.

Commissioners voted down the motion 3-2.

“I’m sorry, but I’m not in favor of a moratorium,” Commissioner Marty Cooke said. “I don’t see legally we can do it.”

Thompson reiterated concerns he raised at the board’s Sept. 23 meeting as reasons for implementing a building pause, one he and supporters of a moratorium say is needed to give the county time to examine its water and wastewater service capacity, current fire service adequacy, impacts of pending construction, floodwater management, and update its unified development ordinance, or UDO.

“I honestly believe that all these things need to be addressed,” he said Monday night. “They need to be addressed quickly, but it takes time to address them properly and so that is why I am still firmly in the belief that we need to do a moratorium.”

Others agreed, arguing that the county can make the case a building moratorium is needed to address imminent public health and safety concerns.

Gene Vasile, president of the Alliance of Brunswick County Property Owners Association, said Thompson’s comments at the Sept. 23 meeting summarized the most serious consequences of “excessive development.”

“Ask yourself, how can developments the size of small towns be approved in areas that are served by volunteer fire departments?” Vasile said. “The consequences of rapid development without advanced planning for its ramifications are serious and irresponsible. In the interest of public health, safety and good order, a moratorium on the approval of certain new development is essential.”

Shallotte Mayor Walter Eccard shared those sentiments, saying he believed county commissioners have the authority to declare a moratorium “for the purpose of addressing public safety and adequacy of infrastructure.”

Eccard, who said he was speaking as a resident of the county, referenced widespread damage in the county caused by flooding from the unnamed storm that dumped more than 15 inches of rain onto the area last month.

“The impact of recent uncontrolled growth and its related clear-cutting raised, at a minimum, serious questions with respect to the adequacy of the county’s rules for stormwater control, flood mitigation and other matters,” he said. “As you know the recent storm resulted in local flooding, road closures, bridges destroyed, limitations of emergency vehicle access and inadequate evacuation routes. These present serious public health and safety concerns.”

Major new developments, Eccard said, have been approved without a review of whether existing fire and emergency services could adequately serve them.

“It’s clear to many of us that this is a recipe leading to catastrophe,” he said.

Rather than call for a building moratorium, St. James Mayor Jean Toner asked commissioners immediately approve text amendments to the county’s UDO that address trees and green space, transportation overlay zoning and transportation impact analysis.

Toner said rampant clear-cutting, high-density housing and inadequate requirements for developers to create open space, “have created a situation where development is neither well-managed nor responsible.”

“Since 2020 the county has approved 37,500 new housing units,” she said. “UDO text amendments are necessary to mitigate the problems that result from these changes. Revisions to mitigate flooding associated with stormwater runoff are overdue. How much more flooding, damaging homes, businesses and roads and bridges, must we experience before change is made?”

Rather than establish a building moratorium, County Manager Steve Stone recommended to commissioners amend the county’s stormwater ordinance and enhance the flood prevention ordinance.

Specifically, Stone suggests developers be required to include stormwater designs for a 100-year storm event rainfall. Currently, the ordinance requires plans for a 25-year event.

“It’s technically feasible to implement this change within 120 days of beginning the process,” he said, referring to a stormwater ordinance amendment.

The state’s southeastern counties hit with historic rainfall in mid-September have been granted a federal major disaster declaration, and eligible residents and businesses can apply now for low-interest disaster loans through the U.S. Small Business Administration.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency declaration Gov. Roy Cooper’s office announced Saturday makes funding available for Brunswick, Carteret, New Hanover and Onslow counties to repair or replace public facilitates damaged between Sept. 15-20 by potential tropical cyclone No. 8.

The low-interest disaster loans Small Business Administration Administrator Isabel Casillas Guzman announced Friday are for those affected by the severe storms and flooding that took place Sept. 16–20 in Brunswick, Columbus, New Hanover and Pender counties, and in Horry County in South Carolina. For more information and to apply online visit sba.gov/disaster.

The governor issued Oct. 16 a State Type 1 Disaster Declaration for individual assistance for Brunswick, Columbus, New Hanover and Pender counties, as well.

“This storm brought historic rainfall and severe flooding to several areas of our state causing significant damage,” Cooper said over the weekend referring to the September storm. “These disaster declarations will help bring needed relief for folks impacted by the storm, including small business owners.”

The Small Business Administration offers disaster loans to businesses, homeowners, renters and private nonprofit organizations that can cover physical damage repairs, expenses for small businesses, funding to prevent future damage and operating expenses for companies with employees on active duty leave.

“The SBA is strongly committed to providing the people of North Carolina with the most effective and customer-focused response possible to assist businesses of all sizes, homeowners and renters with federal disaster loans,” Guzman said. “Getting businesses and communities up and running after a disaster is our highest priority at SBA.”

Cooper requested the disaster assistance in letters sent last week to President Joe Biden and Small Business Administration Director Kem Fleming.

The Small Business Administration has disaster loan outreach centers in place to help with loan applications. Applicants can schedule an in-person appointment or drop by the centers in Brunswick or New Hanover County.

Hours for the Brunswick County center in the Town Creek Community Building in Winnabow are 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday, and from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday. The center will be closed Oct. 29, close at 5 p.m. Oct. 30, and close permanently at noon Nov. 1.

The New Hanover County center at Carolina Beach Town Hall was scheduled to open at 11 a.m. Monday and close at 6 p.m. Hours are 9 a.m. to 6 p.m. through Friday, 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday, and permanently close at 4 p.m. Monday, Oct. 28.

While potential tropical cyclone No. 8 was moving across the Carolinas Tuesday, parts of central and southeastern North Carolina were dealing with the aftermath — historic rainfall, road washouts and flash flooding.

National Weather Service forecasters began tracking the low-pressure system off the coast of the Carolinas late last week.

The center of the low pressure was onshore near Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, by the 5 p.m. Monday update and did not develop into a subtropical or tropical storm as forecasters had said was possible. As of 1:40 p.m. Tuesday, the remnants of the low were “well inland over” South Carolina, forecasters said.

Several inches of rain associated with the low-pressure system dumped on coastal North Carolina Sunday and Monday.

“Brunswick and southern New Hanover counties measured 12 to 20 inches, largely confirming radar estimates,” forecasters said, adding much of that fell within a 12-hour period Monday.

“This storm brought historic rainfall totals and flash flooding to portions of New Hanover and Brunswick counties in Southeastern North Carolina. Climatological analyses preliminarily indicate local rainfall of this magnitude is expected to occur at a point, on average, once every 200 to 1000 years,” National Weather Service’s Wilmington office meteorologists said in an email Tuesday morning.

Southport and Carolina Beach were among the towns that experienced more than 15 inches of rainfall. Each had closer to 20 inches.

Carolina Beach Town Manager Bruce Oakley told Coastal Review Tuesday afternoon that it had been a “crazy” 24 hours.

“We rescued 115 people and 14 animals from homes and cars since yesterday morning, Things are improving, but we are still pumping water from our lake and other areas,” Oakley said. “There are also still a few roads under water including a section of the main thoroughfare through town. We did our initial damage assessment today and expect damages to residential, commercial, and public property to be well over a million dollars.”

Southport Public Information Officer ChyAnn Ketchum told Coastal review Tuesday afternoon that residents and visitors are urged not to leave their houses unless absolutely necessary.

The only way into and out of Southport as of this report was N.C. Highway 87. Officials fully closed N.C. Highway 211 and Moore Street because of collapsed road or bridges.

“There is still quite a bit of standing water around the city and in people’s yards, with many people experiencing flooding in their yards and homes. We are encouraging all residents, businesses, and property owners to document any damage with photos and videos and to measure water levels,” she said. “The devastation in Southport and Brunswick County is devastating, but Southport is resilient.”

Bald Head Island officials said Tuesday that several of the island’s main roads were unpassable, and they advised against traveling. The ferry that is the only link between the island and mainland had suspended operation.

Brunswick County and its towns and townships, Boiling Springs Lakes, Oak Island, Southport, Saint James, Sandy Creek, Bolivia, Bald Head Island and Varnamtown were under a state of emergency.

Brunswick County Communications Director Meagan Kascsak​​​​ said late Tuesday that the total number of damages is still being assessed as the response is ongoing and some damaged roads may still be under water.

“We will be able to make greater assessment of damages to structures when the period of threat is over and as we transition to recovery efforts,” she said.

Farther north, the National Weather Service Newport/Morehead City office forecasters reported rainfall in its coverage area as ranging between 1 and almost 8 inches over the past 48 hours. This office serves the area from the North Carolina-Virginia border to where Onslow and Pender counties meet.

Parts of Carteret and Onslow counties saw the highest rainfall amounts, with volunteers in Beaufort and Morehead City recording around 7.5 inches during that time, Atlantic Beach around 6.63 inches, and Jacksonville recording 5 to 7.88 inches. Counties in the northeastern part of the state saw no rain or only up to 4 inches.

The low-pressure coincided with one of this year’s king tides Sept. 15-23, which are the highest high and lowest low tide events of the year.

Storm response

State emergency response, highway patrol and transportation officials were still responding to closures and reports of damage in the southeast, the governor’s office announced Tuesday afternoon.

“Yesterday’s weather system reinforces why we prepare for the worst impacts of a storm and do not focus on the category or whether it is a named system,” Gov. Roy Cooper said in a statement. “As we move into today, please be safe as there are many roadways impacted and unsafe conditions persisting around the state. Check on your neighbors, do not drive through flooded areas and do not let your guard down, as additional rainfall is expected through the afternoon.”

The storm compromised infrastructure, washing out roads and damaging culverts. Though the road closures were changing constantly, throughout the day Tuesday there were between 45 and 50 closures in the state.

More than two dozen closures were just in Highway Division 3, which covers Sampson, Duplin, Brunswick, New Hanover, Onslow, and Pender counties.

“Do not drive through standing or moving water. It does not take much water to cause a vehicle to lose control or float,” Cooper’s office said.

Visit DriveNC.Gov for the latest roadway conditions.

“North Carolina Emergency Management is continuing to support the impacted communities across our state, especially in Brunswick and New Hanover Counties, to ensure that any needs are met. A part of this support will include an assessment of damages when safe to do so that will help to inform recovery efforts as quickly as possible,” Emergency Management Director Will Ray said in the release.

North Carolina Department of Transportation Communications Officer Lauren Haviland said Tuesday that NCDOT was assessing roads to determine the repairs needed.

“While the weather has improved, the N.C. Department of Transportation continues to urge people to stay at home for their safety and the safety of others, including emergency responders. The Department is working as quickly as possible to assess the damage and repair roads,” Haviland said.

Division 1 Communications Officer Tim Hass said Tuesday the only closure in the region that includes the Outer Banks was N.C. Highway 12 at the north end of Ocracoke Island. That area was closed Monday night due to ocean overwash, but the road is expected to be reopened by noon Wednesday, according to NCDOT.

“Other than that, we’ve had some sand and water on N.C. 12 in places, but no other closures,” he said.

Post-storm advisories

State recreational water quality officials on Monday advised that the public avoid swimming coastal waters from Mason Inlet down to Shallotte Inlet, to include Holden Beach, Long Beach, Oak Island, Caswell Beach, Bald Head Island, Kure Beach, Carolina Beach and Wrightsville Beach that are being heavily impacted by Tropical Cyclone 8.

State recreational water quality officials advise avoiding the floodwaters being pumped to waters at two oceanfront towns to minimize the flooding damage and to ensure roads are accessible for emergency vehicles.

Emerald Isle began Monday pumping floodwater into the ocean at Doe Drive, and on Tuesday at Fawn Drive, Seventh Street and 15^th Street, and into the sound at Channel Drive. Oak Island has pumped floodwater into the ocean near Crowell Street.

Town officials will place signs at the discharge site along the ocean beach to warn the public of the possible health risk and will remove the signs 24 hours after the pumping stops. State officials will notify the public after the signs are removed.

Water consumers of Brunswick County Public Utilities in St. James on Cedar Crest Drive, Oak Bluff Circle, Glenscape Lane, Pinecrest Drive and Pine Bluff Circle advised to boil all water or use bottled water for drinking, making ice, brushing teeth, washing dishes, and food preparation until further notice. Periods of low water pressure and outages caused by a water main break, which can increase the potential for back-siphonage and introduction of bacteria into the water system.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Decomposing fish put more nutrients into a watershed.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thousands of dollars in rebates are available for commercial businesses, owners of apartment complexes and other large-scale property owners who want to help reduce the amount of pollutant-laden stormwater runoff reaching two Wilmington watersheds.

The city in January launched a green infrastructure cost-share rebate program, one intended to further boost ongoing efforts to cut down on the amount of runoff that flows from rooftops and other impervious surfaces during rainfall and into creeks and waterways directly downstream.

This new program specifically targets Bradley Creek and Hewletts Creeks watersheds, which collectively span a little more than 21 square miles and include connections to two Atlantic Intracoastal Waterway drainage areas.

Local government programs like New Hanover County Soil & Water Conservation District’s that focus on helping residents install nature-based features like rain gardens and cisterns, and host rain barrel sales, have become increasingly popular, said Anna Reh-Gingerich, watershed coordinator of Wilmington Stormwater Service’s Heal Our Waterways Program.

“We have waitlists and people are seeking out site visits, which is awesome, but we’re also trying to reach those commercial properties, those high-density developments and HOA (homeowners associations) properties to make sure that everybody has access to these resources too,” she said.

The cost-share program offers rebates up to $10,000 for eligible projects where property owners go above and beyond what the state mandates them to manage runoff from their properties.

“This is for going above that so that we can actually reduce the total volume of stormwater runoff rather than just maintain the status quo,” Reh-Gingerich said.

For example, a commercial business owner who replaces an existing parking lot of impervious pavement with a pervious surface or installs a pervious parking lot as part of a new development, would qualify, depending on the size of the project.

That’s just one of many options from which property owners can choose. Properties with room for larger-scale projects might consider installing a rain garden that includes native plants or constructing a wetland.

Install a cistern above or below the ground to capture stormwater runoff and use the water to irrigate greenspace. Remove an old concrete pad, slab or patio to create more greenspace, “because you’re removing impervious surface, which creates stormwater runoff,” Reh-Gingerich said.

There is also the option of installing a green roof, which has vegetation on it that helps soak in rain. A stormwater runoff mitigation method not common in the area, but one Reh-Gingerich said is included as an option in the city’s stormwater manual.

“It is cost-share so we do want property owners to invest in the projects that they’re putting in, but we want to offer a little bit of additional funding to help them make it happen,” Reh-Gingerich said.

The city has a brochure detailing the cost-share breakdown.

Reh-Gingerich estimates that the annually funded program will help fund about two projects each year.

These projects help implement further the Bradley and Hewletts Creeks Watershed Restoration Plan the Wilmington City Council adopted in 2012.

The plan was created by the city in the mid-2000s in partnership with Wrightsville Beach, the University of North Carolina Wilmington’s Center for Marine Science, Withers & Ravenel Engineers, and the North Carolina Coastal Federation, which publishes Coastal Review, in response to heavily degraded water quality in the creeks.

Bradley Creek’s water quality has been impaired since the mid-1940s, according to the plan. Much of shellfish harvesting has been closed for decades in Hewletts Creek, the watershed of which by 2021 had about 25% impervious surface coverage and a population of about 20,000, according to a North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality report.

But efforts to reduce pollution in the watershed by reducing the amount of runoff going into the creek have been paying off, according to that report.

A North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries Sanitary Survey from 2016 until 2021 noted that while shellfish harvesting in Hewletts Creek is prohibited, “significant strides have been made in reducing fecal coliform impacts,” the report states.

“Fecal counts at sampled sites have gone from tens of thousands of colony-forming units (CFU) per 100 milliliters (mL) in pre-2006 to the hundreds or tens of CFU/100 mL in the 2016-2021 sampling period, with some sites meeting the state coastal standard of 14 CFU/100 mL fairly consistently,” according to that report.

Quarterly sampling at four tidal sites on the creek coordinated by Dr. Michael Mallin, a professor at UNCW’s Center for Marine Science, substantiate water quality improvements in the creek. That sampling has occurred since 2007.

“It’s important to continue to do what we can on land because we all live downstream of each other and we’re all connected by the way that water flows,” Reh-Gingerich said. “So, what we can do to improve our stormwater footprint, the more that we can help protect these resources for years to come.”

UNCW, the largest landowner in the Bradley Creek watershed, has partnered with the Coastal Federation to install nearly half a dozen rain gardens and retrofit a number of parking lots since 2019.

Mad Mole Brewing has tapped the university as a resource for interns to help figure out how to reduce stormwater runoff coming from the property off Boathouse Road near Bradley Creek.

The business received funds through an U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Section 319 Nonpoint Source Management Program grant awarded to UNCW to remove portions of impervious pavement from its parking lot and refill those areas with permeable pavers, explained Dano Ferons, Mad Mole’s operations manager.

“Our building has four downspouts in the back and two in the front and that runoff just goes straight out into Bradley’s Creek,” he said. “The goal is to get that first inch of rainfall from the roof into the permeable pavers up against the downspouts and then the rest of the parking lot could collect that first inch down at the end of the driveway.”

To capture that amount of runoff, they will have the parking slots at the two downspouts on the front of the building ripped up and replaced with the permeable pavers. A strip of pavers will be installed across an end of the parking lot to infiltrate rain water that flows across the lot.

The project, which is expected to be underway later this year, will cost about $10,000, Ferons said.

“But of that $10,000 we’re not responsible for any monetary valuation. Our entire contribution is going to be education, employee time and on-site resources,” he said.

Next on his list is figuring out how to best mitigate runoff coming from the downspouts on the back of the building, a project that would potentially be eligible for the city’s cost-share rebate program.

“We’ve got a curb back there in a private alley behind the building and [our intern] is going to see if we can knock out part of the curb and put a swale in,” Ferons said. “I’m not sure if we’ll be allowed to do that so the other option that we’re looking at is cutting the pipes and running them into rain barrels and then rigging up a pump system and making a rain garden out the back of the brewery in that same swale area. Then we would have a whole other area that we could put a rain barrel or potentially divert the downspout and use it for water around the grounds.”

North Carolina’s coast will see more than $50 million in funding for drinking water, wastewater and stormwater infrastructure projects, with $40 million of that going to the Cape Fear Public Utility Authority.

The State Water Infrastructure Authority approved awards for 70 projects in 30 counties Tuesday during its meeting. The authority is an independent body with primary responsibility for awarding federal and state funding for water infrastructure projects.

“Strong water and wastewater systems are vital for safe drinking water and economic development,” Cooper said in a statement. “Thanks to federal funding from the Biden-Harris Administration and state appropriations we’ve made historic investments to rebuild and replace aging systems, especially in rural communities, which will make our state stronger.”

The 70 projects were chosen out of the 221 eligible applications from 65 counties, requesting $2.64 billion. A list of all projects is available on the Department of Environmental Quality website.     

“Replacing aging infrastructure and adding the capacity to remove forever chemicals from drinking water benefits the health and pocketbooks of North Carolinians,” said DEQ Secretary Elizabeth S. Biser. “Funding these projects supports the future success of communities across our state.”

The Cape Fear Public Utility Authority provides drinking water for the Wilmington area and New Hanover County.

Public Information Officer Cammie Bellamy explained Thursday that $35 million in low-interest loans will support replacing the authority’s Southside Wastewater Treatment Plant.

The plant was built in 1972 and parts of its infrastructure are nearing the end of their useful life. The replacement and expansion of this facility is the largest capital project in CFPUA’s history, with construction costs estimated at $250 million. This is the third low-interest loan the utility has been approved for through the state. The project was awarded $35 million this winter and $35 million in the summer of 2023.

The $5 million in grants and loans from the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law Drinking Water State Revolving Fund will go to the state’s galvanized service line replacement project, Bellamy continued.

Under the Environmental Protection Agency’s revised lead and copper rule, all water systems in the United States are required to complete a survey of water service lines in their systems by October.

“This is to determine whether there are any lead service lines across their systems. CFPUA’s survey has been underway since 2020, and while we have not found any lead service lines we have found a few hundred older galvanized service lines. CFPUA is replacing all of these galvanized lines as part of this project,” Bellamy said.

“We are very grateful to the State Water Infrastructure Authority for this funding, which will allow CFPUA to advance these critical projects while saving our customers money,” she added.

The town of Hertford will receive $3 million for a wastewater treatment plant rehabilitation project.

Gates County, designated as distressed, will receive $1.3 million for the Buckland School Wastewater Improvements Project, $2.81 million for the Cooper School Wastewater Improvements Project, and $233,000 for an asset inventory and assessment.

Asset inventory and assessment grants from the Viable Utility Reserve are considered a vital step in planning and inventorying that can lead towns on a path to future viability, according to the state.

Other coastal local government units designated as distressed that were selected for asset inventory and assessment grants include the town of Creswell, which will receive $325,000, and the Swan Quarter Sanitary District, which will receive $250,000.

Another Hyde County community, Fairfield, will receive $3.6 million for drainage ditch improvements.

Jacksonville will receive $2.27 million that will go to equipment for its public utilities complex.

The city of Washington will receive $460,000 to perform a lead service line inventory.

The awards also include funding to address per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, for local government units in Goldsboro, Lenoir County, Orange County and Rocky Mount.

The application period for fall funding for drinking water, wastewater, lead service line and emerging contaminants projects opens July 30 and ends at 5 p.m. Sept. 30.

There will be five, in-person training sessions in the coming weeks, with the closest to the coast being Aug. 8 in Kinston. The meeting in Raleigh Aug. 9 will be live streamed. Visit the the division website for registration information and other locations.

A stormwater retrofit project aimed to improve water quality in the Bradley Hewletts Creek Watersheds is in progress on the campus of University of North Carolina Wilmington.

The work to replace sections of conventional asphalt at Randall parking lot with permeable pavement began in late June and is expected to be complete in about a week. This type of pavement allows stormwater to pass through to the ground underneath, rather than flow directly into storm drains.

The North Carolina Coastal Federation, UNCW and the city’s Heal Our Waterways Program have been working with Coastal Stormwater Services Inc. and DiMaio Concrete, both based in Wilmington, on the stormwater retrofit project.

The project is one of numerous that have taken place since a watershed restoration plan was adopted in 2007.

“This collaborative initiative continues to make great strides towards achieving the goals within the Bradley and Hewletts Creeks Watershed Restoration Plan. We’re thrilled to see more nature-based solutions to help protect Bradley Creek come together through the hard work and determination of this partnership,” Anna Reh-Gingerich, watershed coordinator with Heal Our Waterways, said in a statement.

Since 2019, the university, the Coastal Federation and Wilmington have installed several rain gardens and numerous parking lot paving retrofits.

“We are pleased to have this parking lot help reduce runoff and be able to showcase these techniques along with our campus rain gardens as a living classroom,” Feletia Lee, UNCW’s chief sustainability officer, said in a statement.

This stormwater retrofit project was supported by the North Carolina Division of Water Resources’ Environmental Protection Agency’s Section 319 Water Quality Program. 

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

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

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

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

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

The funding for coastal communities includes the following:

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

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

Tidal flooding is creating a potential public health hazard on the streets and roads of coastal towns, according to a recently published study.

The study found elevated levels of fecal bacteria in water samples collected over the course of two months from a tidal creek in Beaufort and its streets following rainfall.

Dr. Natalie Nelson, an associate professor at North Carolina State University, explained that the study reaffirmed what researchers already knew — stormwater runoff is the largest culprit of elevated levels, or levels that exceed regulatory recreational water quality standards, of enterococcus bacteria in Taylors Creek.

Tidal flooding forces water into the town’s stormwater system that empties into Taylors Creek. When the system exceeds capacity, water overspills onto road surfaces.

This type of flooding occurs when rainfall causes saltwater to overflow from the ocean, sounds and estuaries and, because of sea level rise, it’s becoming more prominent in coastal areas like Beaufort.

Samples collected from floodwater patches on roadways almost consistently had elevated concentrations of enterococcus bacteria.

And, in some cases, bacteria in those samples maxed out the detection limit, Nelson said.

“What it indicates to us is that the concentrations were likely high because of a source from within the stormwater network,” she said. “We say that because the floodwaters, it’s not like they were so extensive that we could really argue that they might be flushing the land surface. But, because those floodwater patches were pretty small, we think the elevated concentrations were coming from within the stormwater network.”

When floodwaters glazing the roadways drained back into the stormwater system during ebb tide, researchers recorded higher levels of bacteria in the creek, indicating that the contamination in the creek is coming from the stormwater network, Nelson said.

The contamination wasn’t present in all of the locations sampled and the presence of the contamination was brief, she said.

Enterococci are bacteria that live in the gastrointestinal tract of humans and warm-blooded animals. People who swim or play in waters with bacteria levels higher than state and federal standards have an increased risk of developing gastrointestinal illness or skin infections.

“I think the problem that we uncovered is not at all unique to Beaufort,” Nelson said. “The stormwater network was never designed to have water come back up through it and then go into places where pedestrians encounter and so we’re now in an era where we have to think about how our infrastructure systems are being stressed in new ways and how that might lead to new types of issues like maybe floodwaters having issues with contamination, but it’s a topic of ongoing research.”

In recent years, Beaufort has repaved hundreds of feet of one downtown street with pervious pavement, which allows water to soak through to the ground rather than route the water to the town’s stormwater system.

That project fell under the 2017 Beaufort Watershed Restoration Plan, one that aims to restore hydrology and reduce polluted runoff using retrofits that direct stormwater to filtrate into the ground or collect it for later use.

The town is among a number of coastal communities that have been examining how to best respond to what researchers often call “sunny day flooding” and other weather-related issues that are being exacerbated by the changing climate.

Dozens of coastal municipalities and counties have received grants through the North Carolina Division of Coastal Management’s N.C. Resilient Coastal Communities Program, or NC-RCCP.

The program is a creation of the state’s 2020 Climate Risk Assessment and Resilience Plan, which was the result of Executive Order 80 signed by Gov. Roy Cooper in October 2018.

NC-RCCP aims to boost resilience efforts in the state’s 20 coastal counties and encourages those who live and work along the coast to participate in finding solutions to prioritize projects designed to help their communities bounce back from storms and floods.

For more information about tidal flooding and precautions, visit North Carolina Sea Grant’s website.

More than $45 million awarded through the North Carolina Land and Water Fund will go to projects, including several on the coast, to protect North Carolina’s natural resources.

“Our natural areas, rivers and streams are critical to the health and well-being of North Carolinians and our economy,” Gov. Roy Cooper said in a statement. “These grants will help protect our state’s land and wetlands for generations to come.”

Money from the fund, which was formerly known as the Clean Water Management Trust Fund, will go to projects to restore or enhance over 10 miles of streams, rivers, lakes, and estuaries and more than 7,000 acres of wetlands, for projects to evaluate innovative techniques for managing stormwater, and to planning projects to identify key water quality and conservation opportunities in watersheds.

“In addition to protecting water quality, these state investments will conserve wildlife habitat, preserve historic and cultural sites, enhance quality of life, and increase recreation opportunities,” said Reid Wilson, secretary of the N.C. Department of Natural and Cultural Resources.

The Conservation Fund has been awarded $5 million to protect 3,900 acres along the northeast Cape Fear River, which contains part of the northeast Cape Fear River Floodplain natural area. This project would protect the last, large, undeveloped privately-owned land in New Hanover County.

The fund has been awarded $265,690 to purchase 158 acres along North River in Carteret County. The project would provide new access along the North River and possible trail connections to the Mountains-to-Sea Trail and the Outer Banks Scenic Highway. The property will be owned and managed by the North Carolina Coastal Federation.

For Worrells Mill in Hertford County, the fund was awarded $72,250 to purchase 36 acres along Hares and Institute branches, which contain the former Worrells Mill site. This project is to provide recreational and educational opportunities and connect Hertford Middle School with a neighborhood via trails.

The North Carolina Coastal Land Trust was awarded $1.05 million to purchase 587 acres along the Newport River, which contains Black Creek Wetlands natural area. The property, which also protects flight routes of Marine Corp Air Station Cherry Point, will be owned and managed by the Coastal Federation.

The Conservation Fund was awarded $200,750 for the Point Comfort tract on the Chowan River in Bertie County. The funds will go to purchase 17 acres.

Unique Places to Save was awarded $3.68 million to convey a conservation easement to the state on 978 acres along Orton Creek, including portions of the Boiling Spring Lakes Wetland Complex natural area and buffering Military Ocean Terminal Sunny Point. The property would contribute to extensive conservation efforts in the area and protect pocosin, longleaf pine, and wet pine savanna natural communities.

The Coastal Federation was awarded $964,691 to protect 786 acres along North River that contains portions of the North River Brackish Marshes natural area. The property also protects flight routes of Marine Corp Air Station Cherry Point from encroachment and is a protective buffer against pollution for the headwaters of North River — a prime location for harvesting cultivated and wild shellfish.

The Coastal Federation also was awarded $484,189 to continue the living shoreline cost-share program. The program works with local landowners and volunteers to build living shorelines at the edge of sensitive marsh shorelines.

The Nature Conservancy was awarded $137,540 to restore 7,500 acres of drained pocosin wetlands at Angola Bay Game Land in Pender County. A network of water control structures will enable managers to effectively mimic the hydrology of intact pocosins and reduce downstream storm flows.

Coastal Carolina Riverwatch has been awarded $40,537 for a Lower New River Watershed Restoration Plan. The plan will assess the threats from development, storms, and industry to surface water health in the Lower New River system on Onslow County and offer solutions to improve this ecosystem’s resilience to pollution.

Sound Rivers has been awarded $251,586 to evaluate the utility of using riparian corridors as locations for regenerative stormwater convenances. A 20,000-square-foot Regenerative Stormwater Conveyance would be constructed with riparian sand seepage berms. The proposed site is on the campus of West Craven Middle School, where stormwater improvements are desired.

“The board considered 114 outstanding applications from our conservation partners for a wide variety of great projects throughout the state, from removing a century-old dam and reconnecting a huge watershed in Swain County, to protecting almost 4,000 acres along the Northeast Cape Fear River for a new park just 10 miles from downtown Wilmington in New Hanover County,” said John Wilson, chair of the North Carolina Land and Water Fund board of trustees.

This report was updated to include the swim advisory.

Water quality conditions along the North Carolina coast appear to be one of the most quickly identified problems resulting from rainfall associated with Tropical Storm Idalia. Officials on Thursday put in place immediate temporary closures of shellfish areas in much of the state’s coastal waters and advised against swimming.

State recreational water quality officials on Thursday advised the public to avoid swimming in North Carolina coastal waters from Wright Memorial Bridge in Kitty Hawk south to the South Carolina state line.

Division of Marine Fisheries Director Kathy Rawls, upon the recommendation of State Health Director Dr. Betsey Tilson with the Department of Health and Human Services, announced the closures early Thursday morning in a proclamation.

“These temporary closures are due to heavy rainfall and resultant runoff associated with Tropical Storm Idalia,” according to the proclamation.

Areas in the northeastern part of the state are permanently closed to shellfishing.

It is unlawful for any person to take or attempt to take any oysters, clams or mussels or possess, sell or offer for sale any oysters, clams or mussels taken from the following polluted areas:

• All those waters bordered on the northeast by a line beginning at the Cedar Island Ferry Terminal, running southeasterly along the shore of Cedar Island to Camp Point; thence running southeasterly near Wainwright Island to a point on Core Banks at 34° 59.0185′ N – 76° 09.9344′ W; and bordered on the southwest by the South Carolina state line, to include all waters in Brunswick, New Hanover, Pender, and Onslow counties, as well as Bogue Sound, Newport River, North River, Ward Creek, Straits, Back Sound, Whitehurst Creek, Sleepy Creek, Jarrett Bay, Oyster Creek, Brett Bay, Nelson Bay, Thorofare Bay, Cedar Island Bay, and a portion of Core Sound.
• All those waters bordered in the east by a line beginning at Long Shoal Point, running southwesterly to the southern tip of Hog Island; thence running southwesterly to Bluff Point; thence running westerly to the southern tip of Great Island Marsh; thence running southwesterly to Maw Point, thence running southeasterly to Flashing Beacon “NR”, thence running southerly to Point of Marsh, thence running southeasterly to Point of Grass, thence following the shoreline of Cedar Island to the Cedar Island Ferry Terminal, to include Long Bay, West Bay, Turnagain Bay, Neuse River, South River, Adams Creek, Bay River, Jones Bay Pamlico River, Pungo River, Spencer Bay, Rose Bay, Swanquarter Bay, Juniper Bay, Wysocking Bay, and Long Shoal River.
• All those waters bordered on the north and west by a line beginning at a point 35° 28.2328′ N – 75° 29.0549′ W on the Outer Banks, running westerly to a point 35° 28.2938′ N – 75° 31.2790′ W on Gull Island; thence running southwesterly to Brooks Point.
• All those waters bordered on the north and west by a line beginning at Brooks Point, running southwesterly to the southern tip of DOT Island near Hatteras Inlet at 35° 12.1796′ N – 75° 45.6698′ W; thence running southwesterly to Channel Marker “6” off Ocracoke Village; thence running southwesterly to the northern tip of Beacon Island at 35° 05.9383′ N – 76° 02.8513′ W; thence running southeasterly to the southern tip of Ocracoke Island.

Shellfish Sanitation maintains an online temporary closure public viewer to help the public interpret written shellfish closure proclamations.

Swimming advisory

The storm caused flooding of streets, yards and housing that have resulted in some municipalities having to pump floodwaters into the ocean, state recreational water quality officials said. Avoid swimming near ocean outfalls, including the wet sand where the floodwater is pumped, even if no sign is posted.

“Severe weather events like tropical storms and hurricanes bring excessive amounts of rain, storm surge and cause extreme flooding. These conditions increase levels of harmful bacteria in our coastal waters that can cause illness,” said Erin Bryan-Millush, manager of the N.C. Recreational Water Quality Program. “The sources of bacteria can vary and include failing septic systems, sewer line breaks and overflowing manholes.”

While state officials do not have immediate laboratory confirmation that disease-causing organisms are in the water, storm impacts increase the chance that contamination is present thus increasing the risk of adverse health effects from swimming in these waters.

Residents and visitors should avoid swimming in these waters until bacteriological testing indicates sample results within the state’s and Environmental Protection Agency’s standards. Testing will begin as soon as conditions are safe and areas are accessible. The advisory will be lifted in part or in whole as test results become available.

Since the impacts are widespread, it is not possible to post signs in all areas.  

Recreational water quality officials sample 215 sites throughout the coastal region, most of them on a weekly basis, from April to October. Testing continues on a reduced schedule during the rest of the year, when fewer people are in the water.

Communities statewide, including several on the coast, will receive a total of $223 million in water and wastewater infrastructure funding.

The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Water Infrastructure reviewed 338 eligible applications from 83 of North Carolina’s 100 counties, requesting $2.68 billion. Of those, 60 projects in 40 counties were chosen, including 41 construction projects, Gov. Roy Cooper’s office announced Thursday.

A full list of awards is on the NCDEQ website.

“This funding will help us achieve our goal of safer, cleaner drinking water for all North Carolinians,” Cooper said. “We have already seen the positive impacts funding like this can have for drinking and wastewater projects across our state and are ready to get to work to help more communities.”

Plymouth, a local government unit on the coast designated by the State Water Infrastructure Authority and the Local Government Commission as Distressed, will receive up to $7.3 million in low-interest loans for their water system improvement project to replace all of the town’s old water metering systems and old galvanized water lines, as well as up to $9 million in low-interest loans to replace old sewer lines and reduce inflow and infiltration.  

Cape Fear Public Utility Authority will receive up to $35 million in loans for a project to replace and expand its Southside Wastewater Treatment Plant, including the addition of a new activated sludge treatment process.

Hyde County will receive up to $400,000 in grants to develop a comprehensive stormwater master plan for Ocracoke Village and capital improvement plan that will include conceptual design plans for three stormwater projects.

Washington will receive $6.15 million for water treatment plant rehabilitation and $390,000 for either Simmons Street drainage improvements or Jacks Creek Pump Station automated screens.

Beaufort will receive $6.2 million for wastewater pump stations replacement.

Burgaw and Nags Head will receive $400,000 each to update their stormwater master plans.

Rocky Point Topsail Water and Sewer District will receive $25 million for reverse osmosis water treatment plant and associated improvements.

Over the last two years, the authority has approved funding for 770 drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater construction and planning projects, for a total of $1.6 billion.

“With each funding round, we continue to see that the need for infrastructure funding is far greater than the funding available,” said Secretary Elizabeth S. Biser. “DEQ is focused on providing funding to the communities that need it most to address aging infrastructure, PFAS contamination and access to affordable clean water and sewer service.”

The awards are through State Revolving Funds, the Community Development Block Grant-Infrastructure program, $58.9 million in Bipartisan Infrastructure Law general supplemental funds, and Local Assistance for Stormwater Infrastructure Investments fund.

The application period for the fall funding round for water and wastewater infrastructure projects opens Aug. 2 and ends at 5 p.m. Oct. 2. 

Funding application training for this round will be provided through five in-person statewide sessions Aug. 2-10, with a virtual option available and a recorded training session to be available online. The training session time and location schedule is on the division website.

Reprinted from Carteret County News-Times

PINE KNOLL SHORES — Current state Attorney General and gubernatorial candidate Josh Stein sat with staff from the North Carolina Coastal Federation and town officials Monday at Pine Knoll Shores Town Hall to learn more about the work being done to maintain a living shoreline and manage stormwater runoff in the community.

Since 2005, the Coastal Federation has received more than $2.5 million in Environmental Enhancement Grants, or EEGs, from the attorney general’s office to protect the environment.

During the discussion, Stein said his office has given more than 200 grants totaling $40 million over the years for conservation efforts.

Part of the money comes from an agreement with Smithfield Foods in which they pay the state $2 million annually to be regranted for environmental purposes.

“The funds go towards things like stormwater runoff mitigation or riparian buffers,” Stein said. “These water quality enhancements make sure our drinking water is safe and clean. We are trying to train the next generation of scientists, with one element of the program that identifies important agricultural technologies to try and mitigate the potential impact of particularly large-scale animal agriculture.”

Environmental enhancements are not limited in the state to only the coastal regions, Stein continued. Western North Carolina also has seen significant strides to address water concerns.

“Water quality is a real concern for all across North Carolina,” Stein said. “It’s been a really important program that we’ve been very proud to operate.”

Town Commissioner Clark Edwards explained at the meeting that the situation of sea level rise and recurrent flooding wasn’t something that was always really accepted, but that the public’s perception was finally catching up to the science.

“We live on the coast and people used to say if it floods, it floods, but we had no provisions for water,” Edwards said. “We’ll never say we’re there, but we’re almost to where people feel much more confident, and we have to recognize that mother nature is really in charge. That doesn’t mean we’re guaranteed no floods, but we’re much better off than we were 15 years ago.”

Also speaking on the subject at Monday’s meeting was Coastal Federation Executive Director Todd Miller, who addressed the progress that has been made over the past decade.

“Since 2018 and 2017, these types of living shoreline projects have caught fire around the nation,” Miller said. “It’s become easier to happen for the residential side.”

Part of these demonstration projects already installed in the area have made people comfortable with the technology and how it’s done, Miller explained.

“The consumers are more comfortable, and we’re seeing more demand,” Miller said. “Moderate and smaller scale projects happen more quickly, larger ones are still in the early adopter phase of getting people working through the policy questions. The big projects are still tough. Particularly at the federal and state level, they are doing a pretty good job keeping up with it, but there is a bottleneck in permitting. They just don’t have the staff to manage these big projects.”

Miller said his organization has several larger projects in the works right now that are sitting in limbo until regulations and permits are figured out, including a shoreline project soundside at Fort Macon State Park.

Following the discussion, Stein and company took a tour of nearby Memorial Park to view its living shoreline. They also visited Acorn Court to check out the subsurface water systems.

This story is provided courtesy of the Carteret County News-Times, published in Morehead City. Coastal Review partners with the News-Times to provide our readers with news of the North Carolina coast.

Swimmers and surfers are on notice, potentially polluted rainwater from Oak Island streets and neighborhoods is being pumped to the ocean.

State recreational water quality officials announced the advisory late Friday, noting that beachgoers should be aware and surfers and swimmers should avoid the outfall site.

Officials with the N.C. Recreational Water Quality Program said the stormwater was being pumped to minimize flood damage and to ensure roads are accessible by emergency vehicles. The town said the floodwater was being pumped to an ocean outfall near Crowell Street.

Pollutants can include waste from wildlife and pets, oil and gasoline from parking lots and waste from septic systems or sewers, officials said.

But officials also noted that the notice is no guarantee disease-causing organisms are in the water. They said the advisory is to caution beachgoers of an increased risk of contamination that can cause adverse health effects.

Town officials are to place signs at the discharge site and remove the signs 24 hours after the pumping stops. State officials said they would notify the public after the signs are removed.

Officials with the state Recreational Water Quality Program sample 215 sites throughout the coastal region, most of them on a weekly basis, from April to October. Testing continues on a reduced schedule during the rest of the year, when the waters are colder.

For more information on the N.C. Recreational Water Quality Program or to a view a map of testing sites, visit the program’s website, and follow the program’s Twitter feed.

During the next North Carolina Environmental Management Commission meeting, members will consider a resolution asking state and federal leaders to allot more funding for landowner cost-share programs that reduce pollution entering coastal estuaries.

The commission is to meet 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Thursday in the ground floor hearing room of the Archdale Building at 512 N. Salisbury St, Raleigh. The public can attend the Thursday meeting online or in person.

An agenda and meeting materials can be found online.

The Stakeholder Engagement for Collaborative Coastal Habitats Initiative, or SECCHI, is the public-private partnership the 2021 Coastal Habitat Protection Plan Amendment recommended be developed. The group has already presented the resolution to Marine Fisheries Commission and Coastal Resources Commission for endorsement and support. Both commissions approved the resolution during their recent meetings.

The full commission will also consider a request to approve the hearing officer’s report on proposed revisions to sulfur dioxide emissions from combustion sources.

Committees are scheduled to meet Wednesday before the full commission meeting. These meetings can be attended online or in person.

The day begins at 10:30 a.m. with the groundwater and waste management committee, when there will be an overview of the Division of Waste Management Site Assessment and Remediation.

During the 12:30 p.m. water quality committee, members will hear about the resolution from SECCHI going before the board on Thursday, and NCDEQ’s Updated Stormwater Nitrogen and Phosphorus, or SNAP, Tool that calculates annual runoff and nitrogen and
phosphorus export from a development site and other stormwater data.

The meetings will wrap up with the 2:45 p.m. air quality committee who will hear an update on the proposed Advanced Clean Trucks Rule, or ACT Rule. Gov. Roy Cooper signed Oct. 25, 2022, and executive order charging the Department of Environmental Quality to initiate the rulemaking process for ACT program.

The Environmental Management Commission is responsible for adopting rules for the protection, preservation and enhancement of the state’s air, land and water resources. The commission oversees and adopts rules for divisions of the Department of Environmental Quality.

Municipalities and counties have until 5 p.m. Sept. 30 to apply for funding through a new, state-run program to address stormwater quality and quantity issues.

Called the Local Assistance for Stormwater Infrastructure Investments, or LASII, the grant program is administered by the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Water infrastructure and is funded through the state’s allocation of the American Rescue Plan Act, or ARPA. 

The program provides grants for construction and planning for stormwater projects to improve or create infrastructure for controlling stormwater quality and quantity, according to DEQ.

The new grant program “is creating an exciting opportunity to increase resiliency and to address stormwater quality and quantity needs in communities across the state,” DEQ Secretary Elizabeth Biser said during a recent webinar about the program. “State leaders have prioritized investing in water, wastewater and stormwater infrastructure in our communities to improve public health, build economic capacity and make us a more resilient state.”

The North Carolina General Assembly appropriated $103.6 million to the program in the Current Operations Appropriations Act of 2021. Of that, $18.5 million was directed to 11 recipients, including $75,000 to New Bern, for stormwater projects. 

The division intends to award the remaining $82 million to municipalities, counties, councils of government and nonprofit partners for construction and planning projects.

To qualify, applicants must be able to document a stormwater quality or quantity issue, and show significant hardship paying for stormwater management activities. Applications must include a resolution approved by the county or town governing board for the project.

Biser explained during the August webinar that there had been interest and support for the program, “And I’m glad because there’s also a large need. For municipalities with a population of more than 2,500 people, the Environmental Science Center estimates that there is $2.6 billion in stormwater capital spending needs between 2020 and 2034. That’s a significant need. We want to make sure to maximize the impact of the funds we have available by making strategic and equitable funding decisions.”

Investments in stormwater infrastructure are sorely needed in North Carolina’s communities, Biser said.

“Major storms, hurricanes and floods are all too familiar in our state. They endanger people’s lives. They impact water quality, and cost billions of dollars in repairs and loss revenue as municipalities and people tried to rebuild,” Biser continued. “Aging inadequate infrastructure compromises our ability to effectively address these challenges. Stormwater must be managed responsibly to protect our communities and to allow for growth. This new stormwater funding program and the Division of Water Infrastructure will tackle these problems and much more, reducing flooding of streets and structures, improving and safeguarding water quality and building more resilient communities.”

Francine Durso, a professional engineer and senior project manager with the Division of Water Infrastructure, responded to Coastal Review in an email, explaining that the stormwater grant program had been introduced to the public in March during two virtual sessions. During the sessions, which had 350 attendees, division staff collected input on prioritizing stormwater funding for construction and planning projects, project purposes and benefits, stormwater management practices, recipient characteristics, and equity or disadvantaged areas. 

Durso said the division used the input to develop the draft priority rating system for construction projects and the draft priority rating system for planning projects, and worked with the State Water Infrastructure Authority to fine tune the documents. The division received around 135 comments during the public review and comment period May 4 to June 3. The draft priority rating systems were revised based on public comment and given final approval in July by the State Water Infrastructure Authority.  

As part of the division’s outreach, training was offered at six locations in early Aug. 2-10 on how to apply for the fall 2022 funding. On Aug. 16, the division held a webinar solely on the stormwater funding program, during which Biser spoke.

Materials for the stormwater infrastructure funding were posted on the division website in late July. Since that time, the division has received emails with questions about LASII from about 30 to 40 people, Durso said. She said that while it’s hard to gauge how many applications will be received, the division anticipates it will be a large number.

“Throughout the webinars and in ‘How to Apply’ training, the division has stressed the importance of applicants bringing the appropriate resolution before their Governing Boards as soon as possible in order to meet the Sept. 30 application deadline,” Durso said in the email. “The Division has been responsive in answering questions, some of which have been about the resolution wording. So far, no potential applicants have mentioned that they are having difficulty with having the resolutions in time to meet the deadline.”

Nags Head Town Manager Andy Garman, told Coastal Review that the town chose to apply for the grant since there is currently limited funding available for stormwater projects in the state. 

He said the town staff found the division’s outreach efforts to be helpful, especially the webinars they have hosted on available grants, eligibility requirements, funding limits, and the application rating system, as well as the individual help offered to help navigate the application process.

“Being a relatively small community situated in a dynamic coastal environment, conventional solutions to address stormwater management can be very limited when considering potential environmental impacts. As such, we are directing our focus on innovative solutions to comprehensively address areas susceptible to repetitive flooding. In the case of the proposed projects, innovation can result in additional funding needs for project implementation,” Garman said. 

There are two low-lying projects areas along South Old Oregon Inlet Road in south Nags Head targeted for potential grant funding. Portions of the proposed projects were designed and bid in late-2019. The lowest bid exceeded the available funds for the two projects. 

“We saw the Local Assistance for Stormwater Infrastructure Improvements as a mechanism to make up for the shortfall in funding,” Garman said.

Hertford County is also applying for funding through the program.

County Manager David Cotton told Coastal Review that the Board of Commissioners approved the three resolutions needed to apply during its Sept. 6 meeting.

Cotton said that there are several objectives associated with the resolutions, “which range from extending water services to disadvantaged areas of the county, improving water pressure in targeted regions of the system, to increased storage capacity.”

Dare County Manager Bobby Outten said in an interview that the county is interested in applying for the grant, but officials are in the midst of creating a stormwater master plan to help the county prioritize stormwater projects. 

The county’s stormwater master plan is intended to “identify critical project areas and potential mitigation measures to further guide resiliency efforts and reduce future environmental impacts in the unincorporated areas of Dare County,” according to the website. There’s an online questionnaire for county residents and public meetings are set for 6 p.m. Sept. 28 in Fessenden Center Annex in Buxton and 6 p.m. Sept. 29 at the Dare County Administrative Building in Manteo.

Outten said that if the county has the necessary information to meet the Sept. 30 deadline, application would be made. If not, he said they’ll wait until the next cycle. 

The State Water Infrastructure Authority is to hear during its July 13-14 meeting a summary of public comments on a proposed plan to administer American Rescue Plan Act funding for stormwater projects and revisions to the ARPA stormwater fund entity eligibility requirements.

The meetings are to begin at 10 a.m. Wednesday, July 13, and 9 a.m. Thursday, July 14, at the Steve Troxler Agricultural Sciences Center in Raleigh. The public may listen to the meeting online or by phone.

Other items on the agenda include a welcome from DEQ Secretary Elizabeth Biser and an update on bipartisan infrastructure law and Impacts on state revolving funds. Also during the meeting, decisions are expected to be made on final priority rating systems for projects seeking funding through Division of Water Infrastructure programs.

The two-day agenda is available on the state Department of Environmental Quality’s website.

The July 13 meeting will be available online through WebEx. Password is NCDWI. To listen by phone, call 415-655-0003 and use access code 2421 726 4707.

The July 14 meeting also will be available online through WebEx. Password is NCDWI. To listen by phone, call 415-655-0003 and use access code 2439 003 8119.

To speak during the public comment portion of the meeting, email Jennifer.Haynie@ncdenr.gov by 5 p.m. Tuesday.

The authority is an independent body with primary responsibility for awarding federal and state funding for water and wastewater infrastructure projects, according to DEQ. Other responsibilities include developing a state water infrastructure master plan, recommending ways to maximize the use of available loan and grant funding resources, and examining best and emerging practices.

Surf City was recently awarded a grant that will pay for a portion of the town’s project to move floodwaters off the road and into the ground.

The $250,000 Golden LEAF Foundation grant the town was awarded earlier this month will pay to implement recommendations from the town’s South Shore stormwater feasibility study.

Stormwater issues have plagued the Topsail Island town for years along a portion of South Shore Drive, where insufficient stormwater infrastructure exacerbates flooding that blocks vehicles from safely passing the roadway.

South Shore Drive is also N.C. 50, which is the main thoroughfare that runs through the island’s center from Surf City into neighboring Topsail Beach.

The town’s stormwater project includes creating an infiltration chamber system to collect rainwater and release it back into the ground.

“This is a nature-based solution the Town can implement to increase its resilience to large rain events,” Surf City Town Manager Kyle Breuer said in a statement. “In addition, this is a major thoroughfare that provides the only way in and out for our residents on this portion of the island, as well as residents of Topsail Beach. A major factor in working to seek funding for this project is to assist our emergency services.”

The N.C. Department of Transportation has been working with the town to assess the area and helped fund and develop the feasibility study, according to a press release.

Learn how stormwater pollutes waterways and how to make a positive impact during the Stormwater 101 workshop June 13.

The New Hanover County Soil & Water Conservation District is offering the workshop from 6 to 7 p.m. in the New Hanover County Extension Service & Arboretum at 6206 Oleander Drive in Wilmington. Register online.

Any Wilmington resident who registers and attends the workshop will be entered to win a rain barrel valued at $85 and a $50 gift certificate to Home Depot.

New Hanover Soil & Water Conservation District Director Dru Harrison will explain where the water goes when it goes down a storm drain and what pollutants it might be carrying. Harrison will suggest actions that can be taken or devices that can be installed to reduce the amount of pollution carried into waterways.

The New Hanover Soil & Water Conservation District works to bring environmental education to any interested class, group or organization, to assist public and private land owners with storm-water management, and to aid the community in open lands preservation and conservation, according to the website.

The state is asking for public comment on a proposed plan to administer $100.5 million in federal funds appropriated in the state budget for stormwater projects.

Through the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Water Infrastructure, the money is for cities, counties, their regional councils of government and nonprofit partners for projects to improve or create infrastructure for controlling stormwater quantity and quality.

The proposed plan describes how the funds will be administered, eligibility requirements, and draft priority rating systems for both stormwater construction projects and stormwater planning projects. The proposed plan may be viewed online.

The state is accepting comments until 5 p.m. June 3. Submit comments by email to dwi.publiccomments@ncdenr.gov with “Comments on Division of Water Infrastructure Proposed Plan for Stormwater Funding” in the subject line, or by mail to Cathy Akroyd, Division of Water Infrastructure, 1633 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC 27603.

The grants are administered from the Local Assistance for Stormwater Infrastructure Investments fund.

The money must be spent by the end of 2026.

The funding is part of the $1.69 billion appropriated by the North Carolina General Assembly from the state’s allocation of the American Rescue Plan Act for drinking water, wastewater, and stormwater investments. Information about the drinking water, wastewater and stormwater funding administered by the Division of Water Infrastructure is available at: https://deq.nc.gov/about/divisions/water-infrastructure

Litter traps are being placed in creeks and rivers throughout the state to catch plastics washing off roadways.

The statewide effort to install Trash Trouts, a device that traps litter in stormwater, is part of a growing effort to lower the amount of macroplastics and microplastics getting into waterways and, eventually, into the ocean.

Waterkeepers throughout the state will be monitoring the amount of trash collected from the traps and use that information to boost collaborations with local governments to cut down on the amount of plastics making it into the sea and, more importantly, advocates say, curtail consumption of single-use plastics.

“Plastic pollution isn’t a problem we can clean our way out of, although it’s important to get it out of our waterways,” said White Oak Waterkeeper Rebecca Drohan. “We kind of envision the Trash Trouts’ role in that as having data on what sorts of litter, what sources they could possibly be coming from, track that and use that to work with our municipal leaders to inform some of the plastic problems that we’re seeing.”

Coastal Carolina Riverwatch partnered with Jacksonville to install earlier this month a Trash Trout on Scales Creek, a tributary of the New River.

The creek is an unintended recipient of roadside trash, making it an ideal location for a litter trap to catch plastic debris from getting to the Atlantic Ocean.

Trash Trouts were designed by the nonprofit environmental group Asheville GreenWorks. The device works like a metal strainer, capturing and holding trash on the surface of the water.

The litter traps are funded through a North Carolina Environmental Enhancement Grant as part of a statewide microplastics research and pollution prevention infrastructure project sponsored by Waterkeepers Carolina.

Up to 75% of trash in the nations waterways comes from roadside litter. A majority of that trash is plastics.

When they enter waterways, larger pieces of plastic, referred to as macroplastics, begin to break down into smaller pieces known as microplastics. These tiny pieces of plastic are consumed by marine life and humans.

At least 14 million tons of plastic ends up in the ocean each year, according to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, an organization made up of more than 1,400 government and civil society organizations.

Last year, about 5,500 pounds of trash was rounded up during cleanup efforts throughout the White Oak and New River watersheds, according to Drohan.

The amount of trash collected during cleanups this year overseen by Cape Fear River Watch surpasses that.

“We’re over 6,000 pounds of trash and recycling this year alone and it’s only April,” said Rob Clark, Cape Fear River Watch water quality programs manager.

Roughly 80-85% of the litter collected is plastic of some kind, he said.

The Trash Trout Cape Fear River Watch is installing in Burnt Mill Creek by ARIUM apartments in May will complement litter traps to be placed in storm drains in Wilmington and Leland.

The storm drain devices called LittaTraps, which are catch basins designed by New Zealand-based company Enviropod, are tentatively scheduled to be installed in four locations over the next couple of weeks. The traps were funded by a grant through the Jandy Ammons Foundation.

Related: Project to gauge how well storm drain traps catch litter

In Wilmington, a trap is to be placed in a curbside drain at Waterline Brewing Co. on Surry Street and in a storm drain at the intersection of South Front and Dock streets downtown.

“The idea of the projects is, if we can remove macroplastics from the waterways, we can reduce the levels of microplastics because a lot of microplastics come from macroplastics that break down in the water over time,” Clark said.

A year after the Trash Trout’s installation, river watch will continue sampling and comparing levels of microplastics before and after the trap was placed in the creek. There is a second, controlled site at Island Creek where samples will also be compared.

Two quarts of water will be collected at each location and shipped to the Watauga Riverkeeper in Boone, where water samples are analyzed under a microscope, Clark said.

“Microplastics seems to be a persistent problem globally,” he said. “The structural solutions are super important to collect data and reduce litter levels, but we really need to figure out some source-based reduction because we’re just getting swamped with this stuff. It’s hard to stay on top of the issue without reducing it at the source in some way or another.”

Cutting back at the source was a topic of discussion Friday during the North Carolina Plastic Policy Workshop at the Duke University Marine Lab in Beaufort.

Michelle Nowlin, a clinical professor of law at Duke and co-director of Duke Environmental Law and Policy Clinic headed a session at the workshop discussing policy tools local governments can use to stem the tide of plastic waste going into fresh and marine waters.

Nowlin spoke to Coastal Review a couple of days before the workshop. She said it is incredibly important to draw public attention to litter traps and their effectiveness in reducing the amount of plastic getting into the ocean.

“What we need to do is keep the trash out of the waters to begin with,” she said.

That’s something that can be managed at every level of government, but particularly at the local level.

“The General Assembly has pretty unlimited authority to adopt comprehensive legislation and obviously that would be more effective if they would do so, but the General Assembly has had several bills that various lawmakers have proposed over the years to try to have more effective waste management policies and those have not made it out of committee,” Nowlin said. “Waste management really happens at the local level. Local governments have considerable authority to decide what is the best waste management strategy given the concerns and considerations in our community.”

Nowlin and other researchers have done comprehensive research looking at what other states and cities across the country and national governments throughout the world have done to address plastics in their communities to put together a list of several options local governments here can use.

Those options include everything from banning certain types of single-use plastics by, for example, working with local school districts to rid the use of Styrofoam, to imposing consumer fees on plastic shopping bags, which research indicates is more effective than banning bags outright.

One of the easiest things a local government can do is require vendors it contracts with not use single-use plastics or products contaminated with per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS — think GenX.

“That’s a very easy, straightforward thing that local governments can do and it doesn’t require any new authorizing language,” Nowlin said. “They can decide as Durham County has done that we’re not going to provide single-use plastic water bottles anymore at county-sponsored functions.”

State officials recently announced that $1.3 million in federal funding is available for watershed restoration projects.

Local governments, agencies, nonprofits, educational institutions and communities in areas with a state-approved watershed restoration plan have a little more than a month to get their application together for the grant to help improve and protect water quality.

The funding is provided for in Section 319(h) of the federal Clean Water Act, a provision typically called the 319 Grant Program. 

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency funds projects designed to reduce nonpoint source pollution, such as stormwater, and the Division of Environmental Quality’s Division of Water Resources selects the qualifying applicants that have an approved restoration plan for a water body listed by as impaired.

“The 319 Grant Program allows governments and organizations to actively engage in protecting North Carolina’s water resources,” said Richard W. Gannon, supervisor of the division’s Nonpoint Source Planning Branch, in a statement. “Projects that incorporate climate change adaptation or benefit historically underserved communities are encouraged to apply for this funding.” 

Nonpoint source pollution usually comes from land runoff, rain and snow, from the atmosphere, drainage, seepage or hydrologic modification, according to the EPA. When rainfall or snowmelt moves over and through the ground it collects and carries away natural and human-made pollutants, eventually depositing the pollutants into lakes, rivers, wetlands, coastal waters and ground water.

The application deadline is midnight May 4. An interagency workgroup is to review the proposals and schedule interviews for eligible candidates in June. Awards are to be announced this summer.

About 10 projects have been awarded each year since the program began in 2005. The nonprofit North Carolina Coastal Federation, which publishes Coastal Review, has worked on 17 projects funded through the 319 program, federation Deputy Director Lauren Kolodij said.

Kolodij explained that intense rainstorms cause flooding and water quality degradation as the runoff funnels pollutants to coastal waters. “It is the greatest polluter of our creeks, rivers and sounds,” she said, adding that “increased flooding from the greater frequency, intensity and duration of heavy rain events is plaguing the coast and the state. Altered hydrology from land use is contributing to the severity and impact of storms.”  

The EPA section 319 grant is a source of funding that communities across the state depend on to develop, design and construct restoration projects in jurisdictions with an approved watershed restoration plan, she said, adding that the funding is invaluable for communities that want to use hydrologic restoration at a watershed scale to become more flood-resilient.

The federation works with communities, researchers, local governments and state agencies to address flooding and water quality problems and priorities. Recent projects include the Bradley and Hewletts Creek watershed restoration plans in Wilmington, a watershed restoration plan in Pine Knoll Shores, a project to reduce stormwater runoff at the Swansboro Municipal Complex, and work to reduce stormwater volume on the University of North Carolina Wilmington campus, as well as in Beaufort and Swansboro.

“The plans developed by the federation and partners all share a strategy for watershed restoration that is based on maintaining or mimicking the natural hydrology of the landscape and a key component of stakeholder involvement,” Kolodij said. “The plans have resulted in the use of cost-effective nature-based stormwater strategies to mimic the natural capacity of the landscape to manage billions of gallons of water, built community buy-in for a watershed approach, and provided a foundation for securing federal, state and local funding for plan implementation.”

She said that science demonstrates that there are fewer flooding incidents and better water quality in watersheds where natural hydrology is protected, restored or mimicked.

The Coastal Federation has “embraced a watershed restoration framework built on the key benefits of hydrologic matching and has been implementing the framework across the coast,” she added.

Dr. Bill Hunt, a William Neal Reynolds distinguished university professor and extension specialist in North Carolina State University’s Department of Biological and Agricultural Engineering, told Coastal Review that he had worked on five or six 319 projects, mostly in Wilmington focusing on Bradley, Hewletts, and Burnt Mill creeks.

Nonpoint source pollution impacts many things that people who live, or visit, the coast care about such as swimming. “When we devise potentially inexpensive ways to keep pathogens out of our creeks, we open up the opportunity for currently restricted water-based activities to be enjoyed again by lots of people,” he said.

He said he most recently worked on a now-complete 319 project in Jacksonville, and about 18 years ago, he worked on a project focusing on the White Oak watershed, leading to projects in both Carteret and Onslow counties.

“Much of what we have examined has been to trial practices that we know will work, but maybe not know exactly how well — and then monitor them as part of the project. The monitoring helps us determine the exact benefit these treatments can have,” Hunt said.

One recent accomplishment was evaluating how well shallow media depth, shallow water table bioretention cells worked, both in Jacksonville and Wilmington.

A bioretention cell, one of many nature-based, stormwater management strategies, is an area that has been dug out and then filled with media, or specific soils, plants or grass, and is designed to temporarily hold and filter stormwater. Current state standards require no less than 2 feet of soil or plants, depending on the plant, and the lowest point of the bioretention cell must be a minimum of 2 feet above the seasonal high water table.

Hunt said that while the type of bioretention cell they used does not currently meet current state standards, the “style” of coastal-specific bioretention did well removing residual water treatment, or WTR, pollutants of both pathogens and nutrients.

 The success of this bioretention cell is leading N.C. State to recommend to the Department of Environmental Quality to consider the new design for the coast, he added.

There are benefits from putting these best management practices in the ground, Hunt said. “People can see and touch their tax dollars at work. Beautifying a parking lot or creating simple infiltration zones can lead others to want to copy. That’s what we are hoping for.”

One of the best parts of working in coastal North Carolina are the town staff and officials. N.C. State cannot do these projects alone, and by working with staff at the city of Jacksonville or Wilmington, lots of improvement is possible, he said.

Applications must include an approved watershed restoration plan for a water body named on the 303(d) Impaired Water list as described in the Clean Water Act, division officials said. Instructions to create a plan and case studies are available on the DEQ website. 

The Nonpoint Source Planning Branch approves the watershed plans required to apply for a 319 grant, after review by appropriate Division of Water Resources staff and any needed revisions to meet EPA’s nine elements to develop a watershed plan.

The division can wholly fund, partially fund or not fund any proposal or any component of any Section 319 grant proposal. Availability of grant funds, amounts and award schedules are conditioned on Congressional Approval of the EPA budget and subsequent allocation to the state of Section 319 funds.

State officials are in the early stages of developing what is being called the North Carolina Flood Resiliency Blueprint, a planning tool for major watersheds affected by flooding, including the Cape Fear River and the Neuse River basins.

The Division of Mitigation Services, under the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, is heading up the statewide effort to develop the blueprint, which is intended to establish a framework and tools to help communities in decision-making related to reducing flood risk and increasing resilience, according to the division. The blueprint is to be the first of its kind for the state, officials said.

All interested parties may submit input and help identify problems, address barriers and prioritize solutions using the online survey or request for information on the Mitigation Services webpage.

The state budget signed in November included $20 million for Mitigation Services to develop the statewide blueprint. Now the division is accepting bids from organizations to develop the plan. The invitation to bid is on the Mitigation Services webpage. Bids are to be opened Feb. 24. The initial draft is to be delivered no later than Dec. 31, 2023.

“The watershed blueprint shall form the backbone of a State flood planning process that increases community resiliency to flooding, shall be a resource for riverine and stream management to reduce flooding, and should support the establishment and furtherance of local government stormwater maintenance programs,” according to the invitation document.

Division officials said the blueprint should do the following:

• Identify sources and types of flooding, causes, frequencies, scale of damage and statewide geographic distribution of risk.
• Identify major watersheds affected by flooding.
• Account for existing resilience programs, stakeholders and funding sources, as well as programs and funding established in the current budget.
• Inventory for existing data and data gaps.
• Identify the appropriate scale and roles for potential future state funding to address gaps.
• Develop appropriate visualization and decision-making tools for various stakeholders to quantify and map flood risk within a watershed, match appropriate resilience tools and tactics to areas of risk, match available funding sources to specific actions and prioritize specific actions.
• Make recommendations for statewide implementation, including governance and decision-making structures, future blueprint iteration management, watershed-scale stakeholder engagement, and stewardship of projects that receive state funding.

Cape Fear River Watch is launching a new project to cut down on the amount of litter getting into the Atlantic Ocean.

The nonprofit organization has purchased catch basins that are set to be installed in a handful of storm drains in Wilmington and Leland, the town that sits west across the Cape Fear River, to intercept litter from getting into the river.

The “80% Project” — a title referencing estimates that 80% of marine litter comes from land-based sources — will study the effectiveness of LittaTraps, catch basins designed by a New Zealand-based company called Enviropod.

Cape Fear River Watch received a grant of a little more than $9,500 to purchase four of the mesh, basket-like traps, which are designed to sit inside stormwater drains. The grant, funded by the Jandy Ammons Foundation, will also cover the cost of signage that will be placed at the drains where the traps are installed.

The traps capture trash and other debris carried by stormwater from getting into a drainage system.

Robb Clark, Cape Fear River Watch’s water quality programs manager, is overseeing the project, which entails tracking for one year what kind of trash and how much of it is captured by the traps.

The traps are to be emptied weekly, and trash and debris, such as leaves and other yard debris, captured at each drain will be sorted and then weighed.

Clark said that by tracking by weight the amount of trash collected from the LittaTraps, the organization will have reliable data on how much trash is being caught before it enters the river and, ultimately, the ocean. That information could turn out to be a major selling point to municipalities to budget for future investment in additional traps.

Officials in Wilmington and Leland have agreed to install traps in two storm drains. The city and town determine in which drains to place the traps, which are to be maintained by Cape Fear River Watch for one year.

Adrianna Weber, Leland’s town engineer, said in an email that if the traps are a success, “the Town will absolutely look into continuing the use of these devices and similar technologies.”

“We want to keep our community and the waterways in and surrounding our community safe and clean,” she said in the email. “LittaTraps are just one way to help accomplish this goal for our residents and the natural habitats around Leland. The Town regularly checks and cleans stormwater catch basins; therefore, the maintenance of the LittaTraps would align well with our current maintenance operations.”

Leland partners with Cape Fear River Watch to host two stream cleanups each year.

“Anywhere there are public roads and rights-of-way there is always the possibility of trash accumulating over time, but fortunately, the Town does not currently have any major issues with trash and litter,” Weber said. “Maintaining clean roadways, waterways, and public areas is important to the Town and something we maintain focus on through programs like our regular street sweeping and stream clean-ups.”

During a March 27, 2021, cleanup along Mill Creek in the Surgeon Creek watershed, about 140 pounds of bagged trash, about 70 pounds of recycling, and 100 to 150 pounds of miscellaneous trash was collected, including a flat-screen television, car seats, cushions and a large pallet, according to a report provided by Weber.

In May, about 130 pounds of bagged trash, 20 pounds of recycling and 150 to 200 pounds of miscellaneous trash, including wood, shingles, metal car parts and furniture, were picked up along Navassa Road near the creek.

Last year, more than 7,000 pounds of trash was collected from monthly litter sweeps hosted by Cape Fear River Watch, Clark said.

“The vast majority of litter that we find in our watersheds is plastic of some kind,” he said. “Cleanups alone are a Band-Aid on a bleeding artery. I could do cleanups every day and we would still be behind. You need structural solutions like this to intercept litter that the cleanups are just not going to be able to get.”

LittaTrap’s mesh basket is designed to capture and retain 100% of plastics and “other gross solids over 5mm,” according to Enviropod’s website.

Plastics in the ocean are a global problem.

According to the International Union for Conservation of Nature, an organization made up of more than 1,400 government and civil society organizations, at least 14 million tons of plastic ends up in the ocean each year.

Clark said he isn’t aware of municipalities on the East Coast using LittaTraps, but there are communities on the California coast that do.

In 2020, the California State Water Board certified Enviropod’s LittaTrap FC, or full capture, basin insert as a full capture device for trash treatment control.

The traps are available in three standard sizes to fit various catch basin structures. Custom designs and filter liners designed to capture different pollutants are also available.

Cape Fear River Watch will likely purchase liners designed to capture generic litter, such as plastic bottles and bags, Clark said.

Liners must be replaced every three to five years and cost about $30 each.

“As for the maintenance itself, they only recommend you need to go into them quarterly,” Clark said. “That’s not a lot of labor and time input. It’s very hands off. They’re designed to hold up to 600 pounds of litter or debris.”

Clark said he hopes the traps will be installed some time in February.

“Wilmington has a pretty massive (litter) issue,” he said. “I anticipate that to increase year after year based on the way Wilmington’s population is increasing. It’s important to keep these things out of the river. We get our drinking water from the Cape Fear River.”

The state is proposing a plan to administer about $1.6 billion in grants for drinking water, wastewater and stormwater projects and wants feedback.

The North Carolina General Assembly appropriated the funds from the state’s allocation of the American Rescue Plan Act, including $839.6 million directed to specific local governments and public entities.

The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Water Infrastructure will administer the remaining $758 million as grant funding, as detailed in the proposed plan. The funds are subject to federal statutory and budgetary requirements and all funds must be expended by Dec. 30, 2026.

The Proposed Plan to Administer the American Rescue Plan Act’s State Fiscal Recovery Fund Appropriated in the State Budget is available online.

The Division of Water Infrastructure said it will accept comments until 5 p.m. Jan. 12 by email to dwi.publiccomments@ncdenr.gov with subject line “Comments on Division of Water Infrastructure Proposed Plan for State Fiscal Recovery Funds,” by voicemail to 919-707-9187 or by mail to: Cathy Akroyd, Division of Water Infrastructure, 1633 Mail Service Center, Raleigh, NC 27699-1633.

Based on the proposed plan, the deadline for applications for the first round of this drinking water and wastewater project funding will be May 2, 2022. The deadline for applications for stormwater projects is currently projected to be Sept. 30, 2022. Future application funding rounds will be used to award remaining funds.

Information about the water, wastewater and stormwater funding administered by the Division of Water Infrastructure is available at: https://deq.nc.gov/about/divisions/water-infrastructure.

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

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

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

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

There are two parts to the course.

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

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

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

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

Updated Friday afternoon to include new information from NCDOT

Ocean overwash could render sections of N.C. 12 impassible through early next week, especially around morning high tides, as a coastal low slowly moves along the coast.

The 7 a.m. Friday briefing from the National Weather Service’s Morehead City office warns motorists that significant overwash is expected Saturday through Tuesday on Hatteras Island while minor to moderate overwash is expected south of Cape Hatteras, including Ocracoke Island and Core Banks.

The forecast also calls for minor to major coastal flooding, strong winds and dangerous seas.

“The threat of minor to locally moderate coastal flooding, ocean overwash, beach erosion, and rough surf increases late Saturday into Monday morning as we enter a higher tide cycle coupled with strong winds and increased wave heights as a strong low pressure system moves NE off the coast,” according to the weather service‘s hazardous weather outlook Friday morning.

The higher tide cycle taking place this weekend is often called a king tide event, a nonscientific term used to describe the predicted highest high-tide and lowest low-tide events of the year.

The areas of N.C. 12 that could be most affected by overwash include the vulnerable sections from Buxton to Oregon Inlet around morning high tides Sunday and Monday, and possibly Saturday and Tuesday, according to the briefing.

North Carolina Department of Transportation officials announced Friday afternoon that crews used heavy equipment to push sand onto dunes from Pea Island to Ocracoke and then staged graders, excavators and other equipment along potential trouble spots to respond in case conditions worsen through the weekend.

Digital message boards along N.C. 12 were updated Friday to alert travelers of possible dangerous driving conditions.

Forecasters expect rainfall totals between 3 and 6 inches, which could cause localized flash flooding to areas along and east of U.S. 17, mainly along the coast late Saturday through Sunday morning.

Moderate to major coastal flooding — 2 to 4 feet above ground level — is also predicted for the southern shores of the lower Neuse River, Down East Carteret County, and the southern Outer Banks, south of Cape Hatteras. Standing water will likely be in low-lying roadways and parking lots as well as very low-lying properties later Saturday through at least Sunday night.

The northern shores of the lower Neuse River could experience minor to moderate flooding. Very low-lying areas next to the southern Pamlico Sound and along the coast south of Cape Lookout and from the Bay River to the lower Pamlico River could have minor flooding 1 to 2 feet above ground level.

The predicted wind gusts of 40 to 50 mph or higher along the coast could bring scattered power outages and downed limbs with the strongest winds expected to be along the Outer Banks all day Sunday into Sunday night.

Dangerous seas and strong, gale force winds are anticipated though storm force winds possible, on most coastal waters, sounds, and rivers late Saturday through Monday. Waves in the surf zone could reach 15 to 20 feet. Expect dangerous surf and beach erosion.

Cape Hatteras National Seashore officials expect the seashore will be impacted by the storm this weekend. Because the coastal storm is forecast to bring strong wind gusts, heavy rainfall, beach erosion and powerful surf, off-road vehicle routes will likely be impassable for the next several days. All Seashore users should stay out of the Atlantic Ocean until conditions subside.

“Visitors should take this storm seriously as it could be one of the strongest storms of the season,” David Hallac, superintendent, National Parks of Eastern North Carolina, said in a statement. “If possible, visitors should avoid travel to Seashore destinations until after the storm leaves the area.”

Dare County officials advised Friday that residents, visitors and property owners — especially those in oceanfront areas and places prone to soundside flooding — to take precautions now to protect property. Outdoor furnishings, trash cans and any loose items should be properly secured. 

Kill Devil Hills announced Friday that the beach driving will be closed starting Saturday due to the hazardous conditions anticipated. Beach driving will remain closed until further notice.

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

North Carolina King Tides Project organizers are asking residents and visitors to photograph this week’s king tide — extreme high and low tides events of the year — through Tuesday and share their images on the Coastal Observer app.

The King Tides Project is an international effort to document extreme high tide events with photos used to help visualize how “normal” high tides could look in the future caused by sea-level rise.

“From these images we can create a record of how our shoreline looks today and track future changes. By visualizing these higher tide events we can start to understand how rising sea levels will impact local resources and community investments,” according to the king tides website.

These extreme tides are regular and predictable, occurring when the sun, Earth, and moon are in alignment and the moon is at its closest point to the Earth. The next king tide event is Dec. 2-7, according to the project.

More immediately, the weekend forecast for the coast calls for conditions that could push water on shore, compounding the likelihood for flooding.

NC King Tides project researchers plan to fly with SouthWings to capture aerial imagery of the Crystal Coast area from 10-11:30 a.m. Monday during high tide and again 4:10-5:10 p.m. Monday during low tide. They’ll take flight again for high tide 10:45 a.m.-12:15 p.m. Tuesday.

Researchers are asking the public to submit photos of water levels from the ground during these time frames as well as images from established water-levels gauges, such as the North Carolina King Tides Project, the Flood Inundation Mapping Alert Network, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, or the U.S. Geological Survey gauges during this king tide event. 

Federal Emergency Management Agency officials are calling for feedback on the National Flood Insurance Program.

The National Flood Insurance Program provides flood insurance to property owners, renters and businesses as well as works with communities required to adopt and enforce floodplain management regulations that help mitigate flooding effects, according to FEMA.

FEMA is hosting two, 90-minute virtual meetings when the public can comment. The first meeting is 2:30-4 p.m. Thursday. Participants must register in advance on the webpage. The second meeting is from 3:30-5 p.m. Nov. 15. Register in advance online to attend or speak.

The meetings will look at the program’s floodplain management standards for land management and use and an assess the program’s impact on threatened and endangered species and their habitats, FEMA officials said. Floodplain management is a community-based effort to prevent or reduce the risk of flooding.

Published Oct. 12 in the Federal Register, the notice says FEMA officials want to hear from the public what updates are needed for the program’s minimum floodplain management standards to help communities become safer, stronger and more resilient, according to the agency. The agency also seeks input on minimum floodplain management standards to promote conservation of threatened and endangered species and their habitats, as consistent with the Endangered Species Act.

In addition to providing verbal comments at the meetings, written comments can be submitted through the Federal eRulemaking Portal using Docket ID: FEMA-2021-2024. Click on the “Comment” button and complete the form. The comment period closes Dec. 13. 

FEMA officials said that the type of feedback that is most useful to the agency:

• Identifies opportunities for the agency to improve the minimum floodplain management standards for land management and use.
• Identifies specific program components that promote conservation of threatened and endangered species and their habitats.
• Refers to specific barriers to community participation.
• Aligns the program with the improved understanding of flood risk and flood risk reduction approaches.
• Identifies better incentives for communities and policyholders, particularly for Endangered Species Act-listed species and critical habitats.
• Offers actionable data.
• Specifies viable alternatives to existing approaches that meet statutory obligations.

University of North Carolina Wilmington and the Coastal Land Trust are among the more than two dozen recipients of this year’s Environmental Enhancement Grants from the North Carolina Department of Justice.

UNCW faculty members Michael Mallin and Lawrence Cahoon were awarded $92,192 to study the water safety of wet detention ponds, Attorney General Josh Stein announced Thursday during a visit to UNCW’s Center for Marine Science.

The grants, given annually, are to preserve and enhance the environment. Across the state this year, nearly $3 million in grants will be awarded to 27 recipients. Since the program began in 2002, almost $34 million has been awarded to more than 150 projects, the Department of Justice website states.

“Your work to study these issues along North Carolina’s beautiful but at-risk coast is critically important,” Stein said during his visit Thursday, according to a news release from the university.

“At this center, researchers and educators are fighting the threats of climate change on two fronts: you’re conducting research that will help us address some of the problems, and you’re educating and training the next generation of experts who will continue and grow that work,” he continued.

Mallin and Cahoon, faculty in the Department of Biology and Marine Biology, are tp sample pond water for algal blooms and toxins, fecal bacteria and other water quality measures, and sample sediments for toxic chemicals, heavy metals, nitrogen and phosphorus.

Mallin said ponds are ubiquitous throughout the urban and suburban landscape, and they receive polluted stormwater runoff from all kinds of land uses.

“Such stormwater treatment systems are everywhere in the urban and suburban landscape and easily accessible to adults, children and pets, and no comprehensive analysis of their potential biological and chemical dangers has been accomplished,” he said. “The data should be valuable throughout the North Carolina coast and elsewhere in the state and out of state.” 

The researchers’ data will be statistically compared with pond physical characteristics and drainage area factors to see what physical and land-use factors most impact pollutant loads, said Mallin. The research will take place in New Hanover County, primarily in the summers of 2022 and 2023. Using the collected data, researchers can then determine which ponds are most unsafe and why.
 
“We will work with and inform our long-term collaborators in the City of Wilmington Stormwater Services and their public outreach program,” Mallin added.

Mallin’s laboratory is based in UNCW’s Center for Marine Science. CMS has been associated with local water quality analyses and issues for the past 25 years. 

“CMS-affiliated faculty and students work around the globe, from the Arctic to the Antarctic, from the deep sea to the Appalachians,” said Chancellor Jose V. Sartarelli, in a statement. “The center has garnered more than $25 million in external funding to address local, state, national and global issues across biological, chemical, physical, health and engineering disciplines.”  

Water is a critical aspect of our environment that is often overlooked, said Ken Halanych, executive director of UNCW’s Center for Marine Science.  

“This research allows us to use and enjoy resources, such as local ponds and waterways, more fully,” he said. “The grant represents a key partnership between the state and CMS researchers to assess and maintain safe ecosystems to the betterment of our community.” 

Coastal Land Trust to get $50,000

The North Carolina Coastal Land Trust is another recipient of the grant. The Land Trust will receive $50,000 for the Hoggard’s Millpond Conservation Project, which will help the trust acquire 348 acres of Hoggard’s Millpond Tract and transfer it to the town of Windsor to create a new public park, Stein said in a release.

“Public parks make our communities stronger and happier,” said Stein. “I’m pleased to distribute these funds to help the town of Windsor create a new public park that the community can enjoy for decades to come.”

“Coastal Land Trust is ever appreciative of this recently approved EEG grant for our Hoggard’s Millpond Conservation Project which represents a unique community conservation partnership to protect a site with significant wildlife, historic, water quality, and recreational resources,” said Janice Allen, director of land protection, in a statement. “Our primary partner, the Town of Windsor, is one step closer to having a new nature/historic park for its residents, and visitors, to enjoy.”

The Coastal Land Trust will also receive $50,000 for the Cape Fear River Conservation Partnership to acquire a 272-acre parcel along Cape Fear River. The land will be transferred to the state of North Carolina to be managed by the North Carolina Wildlife Resource Commission as either game lands or a state conservation area.

“Conserving this area along the Cape Fear River will allow generations of North Carolinians to enjoy it in the future,” Stein said, adding that he is glad that this grant will help preserve North Carolina’s environment.

“The recently approved EEG grant for the Coastal Land Trust’s Cape Fear River Conservation Partnership will greatly assist us with our efforts to acquire an additional 272-acres of land along this iconic river,” Allen said. “The Cape Fear River property is a special place on our coast with old growth cypress-tupelo swamp forest important to rare fish and wildlife including the federally threatened Wood Stork and state significantly rare Swallow-tailed Kite.”

Statewide winners

• Pembroke will receive $62,000 to create a stormwater utility program with community input meetings, a management plan, an operations and maintenance plan and stormwater ordinances.
• The Winyah Rivers Alliance will receive $172,420 to create a water-quality monitoring program in the Lumber River Watershed that will be supported by the local community and the University of North Carolina at Pembroke.
• North Carolina A&T State University will receive $133,000 to research how dissolved organic nutrition from landfills impacts the environment in eastern North Carolina water bodies and determine effective treatment strategies.
• Wake Forest University will receive $250,000 to develop a low-cost lake water quality monitoring system using drones and satellite data in conjunction with North Carolina Central and North Carolina A&T State Universities.
• The Southwest Renewal Foundation of High Point will receive $87,000 to help fund the creation of 2.15 acres of a public botanic garden at the headwaters of Richland Watershed in High Point.
• RiverLink will receive $150,000 for the Southside Community Stormwater Project. The project will fund a restored wetland and measures to capture and filter polluted stormwater runoff and prevent flooding at the Erskine Apartments, a historically Black neighborhood in Asheville.
• The Foothills Conservancy of North Carolina will receive $100,000 to help acquire 2,681 acres on Pinnacle Mountain, including areas with public access to a 12-mile segment of North Carolina State Parks’ Wilderness Gateway State Trail.
• The Blue Ridge Resource Conservation and Development Council will receive $100,000 to restore and repair a stream bank along Bledsoe Creek and prevent further sedimentation and erosion.

After a year-long collaborative planning effort to address flooding and polluted runoff caused by heavy rains, Atlantic Beach’s Watershed Restoration and Stormwater Resilience Plan has been approved by the state.

The town’s impervious surfaces have increased over the years and contributed to the lands inability to absorb rainwater. The plan focuses on identifying and targeting sites to improve infiltration and provides targeted strategies to reduce flooding and improve water quality.

The North Carolina Coastal Federation, GPI Engineering and the Eastern Carolina Council of Governments partnered with the town to develop the plan funded by the state Division of Water Resources 205(j) program.

“One of the goals was to prioritize cost-effective stormwater reduction projects and increase community awareness and support for reducing runoff,” said Lauren Kolodij, deputy director with the federation.

“Storm resiliency and water quality are obviously very important for Atlantic Beach. We were excited to work with community partners on our Watershed Restoration & Stormwater Resilience Plan to addresses these issues,” said Atlantic Beach Mayor Trace Cooper. “And now, we’re even more excited that this plan has been approved from the N.C. Division of Water Resources. With this plan in place, our town is better positioned to continue our work to tackle these chronic issues.”

The council unanimously approved the plan and from there it went to the North Carolina Division of Water Resources to ensure the plan met criteria established by the Environmental Protection Agency for watershed plan development. Formal approval was recently awarded and now positions the town to apply for implementation funding from the state’s 319 grant program. The town is also reviewing additional funding sources in an effort to get the ball rolling to reduce runoff.

“What we’re trying to do with this watershed restoration plan is turn back the clock to mimic the natural hydrology of Atlantic Beach and increase infiltration of the rain. Increasing the infiltration of stormwater will not only improve water quality but also improves the Town’s stormwater resilience,” said Jonathan Hinkle, professional engineer and project consultant with GPI.

The YMCA Wrightsville Beach Sprint Triathlon’s swim portion was canceled after state recreational water quality officials detected abnormally high levels of bacteria in the area.

The bacteria exceeded the Environmental Protection Agency’s standards for what is safe for recreation, and warnings were posted that cautioned against swimming at multiple locations along the Banks Channel, where the swim portion of the triathlon was to take place.

The YMCA Wrightsville Beach Sprint Triathlon was established in 1979, making it the longest-running triathlon on the East Coast. Canceling or abridging the event because of bacteria levels has never happened in the triathlon’s 42-year history.

A triathlon is a three part endurance event consisting of running, cycling and swimming portions. Instead of canceling the Sept. 25 event completely, race officials gave participants the option to either postpone their registration until next year’s triathlon, or to participate in a duathlon — just the running and cycling legs of the race. The revised event itinerary included a 2.4 mile run, leading into an 11.5 mile bike ride, and culminating in a 5K run, about 3.1 miles.

Race Director and owner of Without Limits Tom Clifford said that the changes to the event happened at the last minute.

“We decided it two hours before packet pick-up,” Clifford said.

He was informed of the high bacteria levels the day before the race, and had to decide whether or not to cancel the swim portion. If he hadn’t canceled it, participants would run the risk of getting sick after the race.

“That’s just not worth it,” Clifford said.

This year’s event had about 1,100 athletes signed up to participate, one of the highest registration rates the triathlon has had in almost a decade. Clifford estimates that around 800-900 people participated in the revised event.

The bacteria group detected was enterococci, which is present in the intestines of humans and animals. Enterococci are indicator bacteria. That means that their presence demonstrates a likelihood that other, more harmful bacteria are also present. Because of this indicative relationship, high levels of enterococci can result in posted advisories that caution against swimming.

According to Erin Bryan-Millush, environmental program supervisor in the Division of Marine Fisheries within the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality, enterococci is recommended by the Environmental Protection Agency as the best thing to test for in areas like the Banks Channel because of salinity levels.

“Enterococci live longer in the areas with higher salinities so it’s a better indicator of public health,” Bryan-Millush said.

High-use recreational waters like the Banks Channel get tested for bacteria once per week to make sure the levels are still within an acceptable range. After an exceptionally high test, recreational water quality officials will revisit the site for another test.

The weekly tests are used to calculate a “logarithmic average,” which indicates how the waters are trending. The average needs to be within an acceptable range before the NCDEQ will lift the advisory.

“That logarithmic average tells a story,” Bryan-Millush said.

Bryan-Millush believes that the high levels of enterococci were caused by heavy rainfall that passed over the area in the week leading up to the triathlon. Rainfall causes water to collect over impermeable surfaces like pavement, roads and sidewalks, and wash contaminants into water sources.

However, these are the first advisories that the NCDEQ has had to issue in the Banks Channel since 2016. Before 2016, they averaged five to 10 advisories per year during the swimming season, which runs from April through October. Bryan-Millush attributes the difference to pretreatment measures that the town of Wrightsville Beach has taken to ease the effects of stormwater on local waters.

“They’re one of the few beach communities that have taken the steps to remediation,” Bryan-Millush said.

The YMCA Wrightsville Beach Sprint Triathlon has never come up against high bacteria levels before, though Clifford is used to adapting the event at the last minute. After Hurricane Florence in 2018, the only portion of the event that was still doable was a short running segment. And last year, a fallen telephone pole required a last-minute redirection of traffic.

For Clifford, situations like these are a community lesson in adaptability and grace.

“There’s always a risk with an outdoor event,” Clifford said. “We’ve got to use the cards we’re dealt.”

Zena Underwood and her husband Mark bought in October 2011 what they thought was the perfect house for their young family on Holly Lane in Swansboro.

Not long after the first-time homeowners moved into the four-bedroom, single-story house at the bottom of a hill next to a creek, they learned from their neighbors that there was a history of repeat flooding.

“After the first time it flooded with us there, we had neighbors show us photos of cars parked in the street in front of our house with water up to the windows,” Underwood, a 36-year-old business owner and mother of two, recently told Coastal Review. “I was so upset. We were stuck, too — young, doing OK, but certainly not in a position to buy another house, or to keep fixing the one we were in over and over. Flood insurance was just too expensive. Also, (we) found out the neighbor had so many claims that their flood insurance provider dropped them.”

Now in a different home on higher ground, the Underwoods got relief through a state-funded program managed by the North Carolina Office of State Budget and Management’s disaster recovery section, although that help didn’t come until more than a year after Hurricane Florence in 2018 had severely damaged their home and destroyed belongings and after yet another flood in 2019.

As a result of Florence, everything in the house below 2 feet high had to be ripped out and tossed — drywall, flooring, furniture, cabinets, personal belongings. Demolition revealed a cracked foundation. Sinkholes formed in the yard.

Marcia Evans, communications specialist with the Office of State Budget and Management, told Coastal Review that the Underwoods qualified for the state assistance because, in addition to the damage sustained during Hurricane Florence, the property was subject to recurring flooding and Onslow County had recommended the family for assistance.

The State Acquisition and Relocation Fund, or SARF, provides relocation assistance up to $50,000 for homeowners whose primary residence has been approved for buyout under the state 2018 Disaster Recovery Act. To qualify, buyout homes must be in a flood-prone area where elevation is not feasible or where acquisition of the structure would minimize flood risks or support stormwater mitigation. The State Emergency Management Act part 6 addresses emergency assistance funds and the governor’s authority to set up programs to distribute them.

Underwood told Coastal Review that she and her husband heard about the program after reaching out to town officials in Swansboro, local media and officials at the state level, “trying to get someone to help. Someone to look, see that the drainage was not working, or something was not right. There was just nowhere for runoff water to go and more and more neighborhoods kept going in. It was only going to get worse over time.”

The couple attended a meeting with other Onslow County residents, including their next-door neighbor, whose home had also flooded repeatedly. Families were presented with the options of assistance for relocation, elevating the house or repairs for homes that could be fixed and had no record of flooding before Hurricane Florence. The Underwoods selected relocation assistance.

Before being awarded the SARF funds, Underwood had penned a letter to the Office of State Budget and Management pleading for help. She explained that what attracted them to their house was the neighborhood, which was close to the schools and had lots of children around. She had a son who was just beginning to walk when they bought the home. A few years later, they welcomed a baby girl.

“We could see our little family here. Again, we were young, excited and inexperienced. We didn’t research the address, talk to neighbors about the history, etc. We made them an offer and they accepted. We are NOT in a flood zone. This is an important note. We did not have flood insurance,” she wrote.

First signs of a problem

After moving into the house and experiencing a few thunderstorms, the Underwoods began to see signs of a problem. Often, they would have to park up the street and wade through deep water to get home.

“Once I got a call from my husband at work telling me I should park at the top of the hill when I got home, and there would probably be water in the living room. He was right. That was the first time we had to replace the floors. Again, not in a flood zone. No flood insurance,” Underwood wrote.

There were two other rainstorms that brought water to their front door, and “then we had Hurricane Florence. We flooded again, with no flood insurance. And no huge nest egg of savings, so we were faced with two options. Walk away from the house, take the hit as a foreclosure and walk away, lose everything we had worked for. Or just fix it, again,” she said, adding that the damage was worse than ever. The walls, cabinets, furniture, beds, toys, clothes, appliances – all ruined.

With two kids, five pets and a business based in their home – Underwood owns her own event consulting and florals business — they didn’t have a choice but to fix it.  

Then during summer 2019, they experienced flooding again, this time during a thunderstorm. Floodwater reached the front door in under an hour.

Underwood wrote that when a came letter later that year asking her family to attend a meeting, they jumped at the opportunity. 

“We need this. This home needs to be demolished. As sad as that makes me to say, the millions of memories we have made here, I still believe that no house should be here. It will continue to flood. This drainage issue can’t be fixed adequately until they can dig under where we are. They recently came out to check the drain and discovered a very large sinkhole. Right beside my driveway, where my kids have played for years. The ground is literally washing away around our home,” she wrote.

The family was notified by the Office of State Budget and Management in December 2019 that they were preapproved for SARF housing support for up to $50,000, because the residence was to be purchased by the county or state for hazard mitigation related to the recovery efforts from Hurricane Florence.

In a vote taken Feb. 17, 2020, Onslow County commissioners signed off on the purchases of Underwood’s home and her neighbor’s. The county received funding from North Carolina Emergency Management in 2019 through the Disaster Recovery Act of 2018. The funding was made available to property owners not eligible for federal recovery programs that also met certain income and residency requirements, according to the meeting minutes.

Jessica Rhue, director of planning and development for Onslow County, told the board at the time that county staff had been working with the Office of State Budget and Management for six months on coordinating the buyouts. With county commissioners’ approval, the Underwoods’ home became town property and cannot be redeveloped.

Evans told Coastal Review that the Office of State Budget and Management works closely with Department of Public Safety’s Division of Emergency Management, or NCEM.

The state, through the Office of State Budget and Management Disaster Recovery Section, put out the invitation for bid in late December 2019 to demolish the Underwood home and two others on behalf of Onslow County, pursuant to a disaster recovery grant NCEM awarded the county for housing recovery.

The land has since been cleared.

Within six months of the commissioners’ meeting, a few people had come to take photos and perform an appraisal, an offer was presented and accepted, and the family had moved out.

“It was a nice and easy process and the representative that was assigned to help us has been so patient and helpful,” Underwood said. “We drove by recently and noticed the two sinkholes have grown since we left. One was right under our son’s room, the other — the large one — was next to the driveway.”

Underwood said that her family wasn’t ready to buy a new house so quickly and options were few, so the state extended the buyout assistance payout portion for them until the end of 2020.

“Then there were no homes available in Onslow County that met the criteria — we can’t be in a floodplain. Then COVID, so it was extended again. We are hoping to finish it all up at the end of this year,” she said. 

Phillip Smith, senior project manager with the disaster recovery division, explained in an interview last week that the program that helped the Underwoods was for those who suffered flooding damage from hurricanes. 

“When we buy out a property, they of course have to find a new place to live, and we also require that new place to be outside of a flood zone,” so they don’t get flooded again, he said. Land that is flood-free is usually more expensive than property that floods frequently. So, the program provides up to $50,000 to make the difference in land values.

“When we buy a property, we have it appraised – what we call a retrospective appraisal — and we’ll go back and figure out the value of the property prior to the hurricane before any flood damage. So they’re getting the value of their property before the hurricane and then we offer the $50,000 on top of that funding,” he said.

For example, if the buyout property is appraised at $150,000, the homeowner would get that $150,000 and SARF will provide up to $50,000 to cover the difference for their next home.

Smith explained that the flood maps have been revised since hurricanes Matthew and Florence because those were such unusually devastating storms that the flood maps weren’t accurate.

“Zena was getting flooded — she lived at the bottom of the hill next to a creek — after every rainstorm,” Smith said, adding the water from the neighborhood above her was funneling to her house and a sinkhole was developing between her and her neighbor’s house.

Smith said that since the SARF program deals mostly with primary residences, much of the work has been from riverine flooding in interior counties, rather than vacation homes on the immediate coast.

Although there are similarities between the state program that helped the Underwoods and others like ReBuild NC, there are differences. State Acquisition and Relocation Fund monies are dispersed through the Office of State Budget and Management while ReBuild NC, which as its name indicates is a rebuilding program, falls under the Department of Public Safety. ReBuild NC also has access to SARF but the funds are used differently.

Also, ReBuild NC primarily uses federal funds. Generally, state funds have less red tape, so Smith’s office can respond to families that don’t fit into federal programs. “To work with our group, you can’t qualify for federal,” he said.

Smith added that at the time, the Underwoods’ home was not designated as part of the 100-year floodplain, “that’s one of the big distinctions between where we can help. Federal can only help within the 100-year floodplain.”

Smith added that the program through the Office of State Budget and Management has helped 50 families relocate and has helped more than 400 families with repairs, elevation and reconstruction.

“I think it does so much good. We encounter a lot of situations where people have had their homes destroyed or have been enduring regular flooding, and it just don’t make sense to keep repairing them over and over,” he said, adding there’s not too many places where you can get a grant like this to be somewhere safe and free from flooding.

Underwood encourages anyone who finds themselves in a situation like hers to reach out to their town’s planning and zoning officials.

“Be the squeaky wheel. Sometimes plans need to change and be modified over the years to accommodate growth and development within communities. Go to the meetings, get the contact, send emails. Take pictures, post online. Keep pushing for someone to listen and take notice of a problem,” she said.

New Hanover County plans to use funding included in the latest coronavirus relief measure to cover part of the cost property owners in unincorporated areas pay for stormwater services.

A public meeting via Zoom is set for 4-6 p.m. Wednesday, June 23, for residents to ask questions and to learn more about the program and the fees. Join the Zoom meeting at: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/86204843544.

The Stormwater Services Program is to maintain the stormwater management system throughout the unincorporated areas of the county, create a more strategic and comprehensive approach to stormwater management and relieve property owners of the responsibility of maintaining and cleaning ditches and pipes on their property, according to the county.

Starting July 1, a single-family residential property will pay a flat rate fee of $1 per month, or $12, for the program. Commercial properties, nonprofits, churches and any other nonresidential properties will be charged a fee based on their impervious surface area. Visit Engineering.NHCgov.com/Drainage to see how that fee is calculated.

Next year, once funding is exhausted, the fee is expected to return to $5.65 per unit per month.

The county’s stormwater fee will be billed as a separate line item on New Hanover County tax bills in August for property owners in the unincorporated county, and will not be applied to properties that have not been developed.

The county’s stormwater services began in July 2020. During the first year of the program fees were not collected because of the financial impacts of COVID-19 on residents, businesses and organizations. About $4 million in funding was provided through the Emergency Watershed Protection Program to remove debris caused by hurricanes Florence, Dorian, and Isaias to improve the flow of stormwater in area watersheds.

“We have been working over the past year to clear out debris and create better stormwater flow in several watersheds in the unincorporated areas of the county, and also assess the current stormwater system and conveyances,” said County Engineer Jim Iannucci in a statement. “Now we will start prioritizing maintenance for existing drainage easements where it is needed most. Residents may not see our teams right away clearing out their ditches – because that will take time. But what you will see is our crews focusing on the easements in highest need, and then working our way throughout the entire unincorporated areas.”

In America’s bays and estuaries, stormwater runoff is the second largest cause of water degradation. North Carolina’s coastal watersheds are no exception, making stormwater management techniques necessary to preserve the quality of the state’s waters.

A study published in the Journal of Environmental Management in January by Amy Grogan and Michael Mallin of the Center for Marine Sciences, University of North Carolina Wilmington, examined the effectiveness of a set of stormwater best management practices, or BMPs, implemented at a study site in Wrightsville Beach.

The study, “Successful mitigation of stormwater-driven nutrient, fecal bacteria and suspended solids loading in a recreational beach community” found that the BMPs implemented in Wrightsville Beach had reduced the overall amount of contaminants in the study area.

Wrightsville Beach is an island community on the North Carolina coast near Wilmington. Running between the town’s two islands is Banks Channel, an estuarine sound dotted with boat docks, a beach and places to rent kayaks and paddleboards.

The study looked at the drainage area of two particular stormwater outfall pipes that drain into Banks Channel. Like many urbanized areas of the coastline, the study area in Wrightsville Beach was high in impervious pavement. Impervious pavement does not allow water to seep into the ground, instead it’s washed into the waterways. It carries with it any contaminants it has come into contact with. Stormwater pollution has been identified as an issue meriting attention in the Wrightsville Beach community.

Funding for the project was provided by the North Carolina Coastal Federation, using a grant from the North Carolina Land and Water Fund, formerly known as the North Carolina Clean Water Management Trust Fund. The Coastal Federation publishes Coastal Review.

A BMP system was installed to replace impervious pavement with pervious pavement, designed to let stormwater seep into the ground, at the Hanover Seaside Club in Wrightsville Beach. An infiltration chamber also was built in the parking lot. This BMP system was installed in the spring of 2018.

Mallin and Grogan’s study endeavored to test the efficacy of the BMPs at the study area. They tested stormwater discharge in the two outfall pipes into Banks Channel both before and after the installation of the BMPs. They tested for things like fecal bacteria, suspended solids and nitrogen. In coastal communities, high levels of nitrogen can be the canary in the coalmine for more significant issues.

“(When) you load nitrogen in the water, you increase your chances of causing an algal bloom,” Mallin said. “And some of these blooms might be toxic.” 

Harmful algal blooms have become increasingly common in the United States. Because they can be destructive to the ecosystems in which they occur and produce toxins that are poisonous to humans,there is significant interest in monitoring nitrogen levels in waterways.

Mallin and Grogan found that the BMP system reduced overall stormwater runoff by 62%. Total nitrogen was decreased by 87% and the fecal contamination indicator bacteria enterococcus by 76%. Mallin considers these overall results to indicate that the BMPs were successful in ways that can positively impact the community of Wrightsville Beach.

Water quality is significant not just to the habitats and ecosystems in contact with Banks Channel, but to the local economy and residents as well. In warm weather, Banks Channel is a popular spot for sunbathers, swimmers and kayakers. These are all tourist activities that depend on water quality.

Shellfish growers in the area are also directly dependent on water quality for their line of work. When fecal microbial pollution reaches high levels in coastal waters, shellfish farmers have to shut down their operations. For an island community like Wrightsville Beach, the usability of the channel is significant to the local economy.

“That becomes not only a health thing, but it’s an economic pressure on the local municipality,” Mallin said.

According to Mallin, these BMPs demonstrated success in Wrightsville Beach, but could also prove useful in comparable coastal communities, as well as certain inland riparian habitats. That being said, the efficacy of BMPs has to be individualized to different study areas.

“The BMPs that work in one location may not work in another one, depending on the geology of the area,” Mallin said. A lot of it depends on the type of soil. Wrightsville Beach is very sandy, and comparable areas may see similar results.

While the overall numbers indicate success, the breakdown between the two pipes studied shows that even though enterococcus decreased in the north pipe after installing the BMPs, it actually increased in the south pipe.

According to Dr. Rachel Noble of the University of North Carolina Institute of Marine Sciences in Morehead City, this shows that the efficacy of BMPs like these is an ongoing conversation.

Much of Noble’s work has focused on water quality and microbial contaminants, and she was part of a research team that identified stormwater in the Wrightsville Beach area as contaminated and meriting further study. Noble says there is a bigger picture of systemic issues that cause this pollution.

“We can’t continue to develop the coast and increase impervious surfaces without attention to promoting infiltration for rain and floodwater,” Noble said.

According to Noble, there are multiple pressures on North Carolina’s coastal systems that challenge effective stormwater management. These pressures include things like aging sewage systems, sea level rise, groundwater height and wastewater management. Furthermore, coastal topography doesn’t have much variability when it comes to gradient. This makes it hard to always make water move in the desired direction. The variability of the study’s results, said Noble, illustrates the complexity of the issue.

“There’s just no magic bullet,” Noble said.

So while Noble believes that BMPs like pervious pavement show promise and offer hope, systemic issues need to be addressed in tandem.

Noble said that the more information that can be gathered, the better coastal communities can do to keep heading in the right direction. And stormwater BMPs like this show promise for reducing certain contaminants.

“It shows some possibilities,” Noble said. “But there’s a lot more work to be done.”

The state Department of Transportation is evolving in how it tackles runoff along North Carolina’s more than 80,000 miles of roadway, adding a host of nature-based designs to slow stormwater, reduce flooding and improve water quality.

“We’re anticipating about a 60% increase in the number of tools to be added to the toolbox,” Andy McDaniel, the department’s highway stormwater program supervisor, said in a recent telephone interview.

That toolbox is the department’s stormwater design manual, the how-to on implementing stormwater control measures along the state’s roads.

The manual has been updated only twice since it was created in the late 1990s.

The latest update, which is expected to be finalized by year’s end, will be major, McDaniel said.

The department has hired a consultant to assist in searching nationwide to glean nature-based solutions and innovations other state transportation departments and federal agencies are using.

“It reflects our approach to how we intend to more thoroughly incorporate nature-based solutions into transportation,” he said. “We see it as a whole program level initiative where nature-based solutions have a spot in the planning in avoidance and minimization phases of transportation planning. It has a place in the hydraulic design of the project and it also has a place for post-construction maintenance. So, we are looking at it from a very holistic perspective.”

Department officials already have been creating, installing and testing some of the natural designs, like the commonly called bio-embankments, that will be added to the manual.

A bio-embankment is a trench that runs parallel to a road surface. Rainwater is diverted into the trench, which slows down and filters the runoff.

“It reduces the flow rate so it really acts more like a natural system, natural interflow through the soil,” McDaniel said. “It filters the water, so, from a coastal perspective, these are very good for removing bacteria, which is a problem in shellfishing waters.”

Their design is based on reviews of similar designs used in five other states.

“That’s an example of a tool that will be moving forward,” McDaniel said.

DOT has also been using a type of porous pavement that allows rainwater to absorb into the pavement then flow laterally out from the roadway surface onto the shoulder section, where the runoff is infiltrated. This pavement, a blend of holey asphalt, is used commonly along the coastal region where roadways are flat.

Flat roads pose a greater risk of hydroplaning.

The porous pavement causes very little water spray to come up from a vehicle’s tires.

“That has not only a safety benefit, but it also reduces pollutants considerably because you don’t have the under-washing of the carriage of the car,” McDaniel said. “That can be useful if you’re hauling say, hogs from Duplin County somewhere, and not having that spray washing the hog truck down is going to reduce fecal coliform.”

He said he anticipates this type of pavement will be added as a stormwater control management measure in the manual, a move that will make North Carolina the third state in the nation to include it in a state transportation stormwater best management practices manual following Texas and California.

The updated manual is also expected to include biofiltration conveyance, a tool that may not be as commonly used along the coast as it will be in the piedmont because it is designed for steep slopes, but one that also slows and filters runoff.

One such system has been installed in Brunswick County, where runoff is infiltrated before the water flows into a tributary of the Lockwoods Folly River.

North Carolina State University researchers have been monitoring a biofiltration system built at a state-operated rest area in Alamance County and found that runoff is discharging at almost half of the capacity it was prior to the installation of that system, McDaniel said.

“It was pretty amazing how well this worked,” he said.

These more natural alternatives to stormwater management will, in at least some cases, mean the department will have to dig deeper into its pockets.

Traditional stormwater systems, say for example, a riprap stormwater conveyance, does not require much engineering and takes uses less material than biofiltration.

“I dare say this could very easily be on the order 10 times or more expensive,” said hydraulics engineer Stephen Morgan with NCDOT’s hydraulics unit. “It’s hard to compare some of these because, stepping back, we’re trying to figure out what’s the performance standard or what are we trying to achieve and you have to figure that out for every single site. We have many, many miles of roadway across the state and we look at the entire system and, in particular, certain areas along our system. It’s both done holistically and it’s done at a project level.”

There are a number of variables that go into what types of nature-based systems may be best suited for different areas.

Before designs are drawn, transportation planners must think about the soils in the area a road may be built, how big the roadway needs to be, and the surrounding environment.

“If this is a roadway facility that’s designed to take people from point A to point B in a fairly rural area then we’ll really focus in highly on having vegetated shoulder sections and vegetated median that will allow water to infiltrate without having to build a lot of structural facilities along the roadway that require a lot of expensive maintenance,” McDaniel said.

He said that over the years, officials have conducted a tremendous amount of research on how to improve the native roadside environment of the state’s transportation system. Specifically, they’re trying to determine how to get shoulder sections to infiltrate stormwater without having to build highly engineered systems that require a lot of maintenance and annual inspections.

He calls these solutions the “holy grail” of what they’re trying to do.

DOT has a handful of research plots in different soil conditions across the state in the mountains, piedmont and coastal regions.

“These are a great story because you have a triple bottom-line benefit by improving the infiltration capacity of the right-of-way,” McDaniel said. “We are reducing runoff, we’re better treating pollutants, which is great for the environment, and, by selecting native plants thoughtfully that have nice flowers we beautify the road.”

Stormwater management officials within the department want to lay out as many different options as possible and, hopefully, partner with local governments to implement more nature-based systems, Morgan said.

For example, a municipal beautification board could maintain the wildflowers and native vegetation planted in a bio-embankment system.

“Stormwater and runoff and floodwaters and any movement of water across the land is irrespective of boundaries, so I think one of the biggest — it’s both a challenge and an opportunity — is how we can develop partnerships with our neighbors along the right-of-way,” he said. “From our standpoint, we would like to do a lot more of these, but the maintenance burden associated with these is tremendous, depending on the type, and that’s why we want to expand the toolbox and try to optimize some less maintenance-intensive devices. That’s kind of the philosophy that we’re trying to focus on is finding elegantly simple ways to manage our stormwater.”

Pine Knoll Shores and the North Carolina Coastal Federation recently completed a project to reduce flooding and runoff in the town.

With the support of the North Carolina Land and Water Fund, the town and nonprofit organization had launched the effort, which included installing a series of pumps and perforated pipes to move groundwater from flood-prone residential areas to the Crystal Coast County Club golf course pond, where it is stored. Drawing down groundwater levels increases the capacity of the land to soak in the rain on site.

“The Town has been addressing flooding issues for decades. The normal practice has been to pump water into Bogue Sound, the canal, and the Atlantic. This water has been impacted by state highways, public roads, and septic fields,” said Pine Knoll Shores Town Manager Brian Kramer in a statement. “We now, with the federation’s help, have a means to reduce this by preemptively lowering the water table and creating greater capacity for infiltration. We have to deal with flooding issues to protect public health and property, and we now have it means to do it in an environmentally healthy way.”

The project also enables the town to preemptively pump down groundwater before large storms to prevent future flooding. A second pump at the golf course sends water to an infiltration basin and level spreader for large emergencies when the town needs to dewater the golf course ponds for storage.

Officials said reducing flooding greatly reduces the amount of pollution entering surface waters. The intent is to avoid using previous approaches that involved pumping surface water from flooded septic fields directly to adjacent waters, according to the federation.

Monitoring is planned to evaluate and fine tune the system and determine how the approach can be used in other communities.

“It’s great to work with such a committed partner to reduce large volumes of runoff,” said Bree Charron, coastal specialist with the federation.

The project was identified in the town’s watershed restoration plan developed in partnership with the federation and Eastern Carolina Council and adopted in 2019. The plan prioritizes projects to reduce the volume of stormwater runoff entering coastal waters.

It is also they type of restoration approach encouraged across the state in the recently released Nature-based Stormwater Strategies Action Plan that was unveiled in early March. Learn more at https://www.nccoast.org/project/pine-knoll-shores-watershed-restoration/.

For more information on this project, please contact Bree Charron at breet@nccoast.org, or 252-393-8185.

Wilmington city staff are offering a tour of various stormwater solutions and information on how to achieve similar results in reducing waterborne pollution.

The tours are set for 11:30 a.m.-1 p.m. Tuesday, April 27, at Anne McCrary Park by Randall Pond, 4000 Randall Parkway.

The in-person, socially distanced tour will include rain gardens, pervious pavement  and a how-to on setting up rain barrels, all methods that slow down and allow stormwater to soak in rather than run off and wash pollutants to local waterways. Information will include examples and typical maintenance needs.

Email healourwaterways@wilmingtonnc.gov for more information and to register. Drop-ins are welcome, but registration will guarantee a free goodie bag, officials said.

Organizers encourage carpooling and biking because of limited parking availability.

At downtown Swansboro’s Ward Shore Park there are eight new parking spaces built using material that lets stormwater soak through, one of many taking steps the town is taking to improve water quality.

The town worked with the North Carolina Coastal Federation and used funds through the Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Water Act Section 319 grant program for the project to install eight parking spots for public access that were designed by Coastal Stormwater Services Inc. and built by Task Contracting.

For the project, sections of asphalt and compacted turf were removed and replaced with rock-filled permeable paving grids that allow stormwater to soak into the ground to help reduce runoff.

“With this funding we were able to create an environmentally sound parking area instead of resorting to the conventional asphalt projects that are typically installed,” said Town Manager Chris Seaberg in a statement. “We now have three permeable parking areas in the town and hope to install more in the future as part of our effort to implement our watershed restoration plan.”

Swansboro’s watershed plan was approved in 2017 and focuses on ways to reduce the volume of stormwater runoff with techniques that infiltrate the rain. The plan sets a framework for reducing runoff to the White Oak River and Queens Creek. The overall goal is to reduce nuisance flooding and restore water quality, according to the federation.

“This project adds to the six projects we have partnered with the Town to construct on over the past few years. Those included two permeable parking lots at town hall, two cisterns at the public works building and fire station and two rain gardens at Town Hall, all collectively reducing runoff in the Town,” said Bree Charron, coastal specialist with the federation. “It’s great when you can add parking without increasing stormwater loads to nearby waters. We do this by giving it the space to infiltrate.”

The federation works with local governments, businesses and coastal communities to embrace nature-based stormwater strategies to reduce flooding, improve water quality and help balance economic development with natural resource management. Learn more at the federation’s website.

Reprinted from the Carteret County News-Times

They did not agree on a means to fully pay for it, but Beaufort commissioners agreed to accept a $23.6 million package of low-interest loans and grants from the U.S. Department of Agriculture for a major overhaul of water, sewer and stormwater infrastructure.

The USDA Rural Development’s Water and Waste Disposal Loan and Grant Program offer, and a motion to accept the terms took place during a special board of commissioners meeting March 1.

Coupled with budgeted borrowing for around $6 million in street paving projects, the combined effort to repair and replace underground infrastructure before resurfacing streets totals around $30 million.

Commissioners John Hagle, Charles McDonald and Ann Carter said they did not support an increase in water rates or property taxes in town to accommodate the borrowing.

The borrowing would not affect sewer rates, currently more than double water rates and higher for those on the system outside of town.

The work will include sewer collection system repairs, rehabilitation and replacement, water distribution system main replacements, and stormwater collection and transmission pipe replacements and upsizing.

The town applied for $9.03 million in grant funding for sewer upgrades, to be coupled with a little more than $3 million in loans. The USDA’s return offer included a sewer package with $5 million in grant funds and $7 million in borrowing, for a total of $12 million.

The proposed areas for sewer work include stretches in the southern side of town, some on N.C. 101 and along Live Oak Street corridor.

The town hoped for $830,100 in grants with $7.2 million in loans for water upgrades. The USDA’s offer included no grant funding but offered more than $8 million in borrowing. The water project, mostly focused in the southern part of town, comes in at $8.03 million.

For stormwater improvement funding, the town sought $3.43 million in borrowing. The USDA offered $500,000 in grants to pair with a loan of more than $3.5 million.

The funding for stormwater, sewer and water totals $23,579,000. Financing will be at a rate of 1.25% over 40 years. Town Manager John Day said the lifespan of the new infrastructure is likely 60 years.

According to staff, the full borrowing exceeds the amount the town budgeted for the effort. Under the adopted five-year plan, Beaufort has $350,000 available annually for debt service for water and sewer and $120,000 annually for stormwater.

The stormwater grant means the town can take on the borrowing for that work, but the water and sewer offers require an additional roughly $151,000 annually in debt service.

Staff made several suggestions to close the funding gap. The board is set to discuss covering the borrowing deficit at its March 22 work session.

The start of water, sewer and stormwater upgrades is still some time off. Day said the town has to finalize the funding agreement and other administrative steps, in turn allowing engineering firm Rivers & Associates to preparing engineering and construction documents prior to sending out the work for bids. That design period is expected to last around a year.

Once a contractor is approved, the sewer improvements are expected to take up to two years, while the water project is estimated at 18 months.

This story is provided courtesy of the Carteret County News-Times, a tri-weekly newspaper published in Morehead City. Coastal Review Online partners with the News-Times to provide our readers with news of the North Carolina coast.

State and local leaders now have access to a guide that details what its creators describe as cost-effective, nature-based strategies to better manage stormwater, reduce the risk of flooding and improve water quality.

The nonprofit North Carolina Coastal Federation released Wednesday its “Action Plan for Nature-Based Stormwater Strategies,” developed with the support of The Pew Charitable Trusts.

The plan includes recommendations on how to use nature-based stormwater strategies such as permeable pavement, cisterns and rain gardens to promote infiltration and rainwater reuse, and help reduce stormwater runoff as well as steps government, communities, businesses and nonprofit organizations can take to improve resiliency and water quality.

Yaron Miller, an officer with The Pew Charitable Trusts’ Flood Prepared Communities Initiative, told participants in a press conference that can be viewed on Facebook Watch that last year was the second wettest on record for the state, and communities are looking for ways to deal with the intense rainfall and costly flooding.

“In a fast-growing state like North Carolina, these challenges are often compounded by the fact that traditional development uses impervious surfaces like concrete and asphalt, which prevents rain from soaking into the soil, or pipe stormwater into waterways, which can exacerbate dangerous flooding conditions downstream,” he said. “One proven, cost-effective way to mitigate those consequences is through the use of nature-based stormwater solutions, which allows stormwater to soak into the ground near where it falls.”

Yaron Miller said that these strategies can be applied on small-scale projects such as a rain garden in the backyard or permeable pavers in a parking lot, to efforts to restore natural water flow and infiltration on entire landscapes. The comprehensive blueprint also reflects the findings of the state’s Climate Risk Assessment and Resilience Plan.

“The nature-based solutions are a core strategy for increasing disaster resilience and should be developed right away,” Yaron Miller said.

The action plan was developed over the course of a year with input from 60 stakeholders — real estate developers, engineers and planners, state agency and local government officials, land managers, academic and legal experts and conservation professionals.

The plan calls on a collaborative approach and state and local governments to lead by incorporating nature-based designs and projects, making these taxpayer-funded investments more resilient to flooding, and helping reduce runoff from storms. It also recommends that state leaders take into consideration that water moves across municipal boundaries and flooding doesn’t stop at city or county lines.

“By looking across regions and accounting for all the factors that influence flooding, watershed planning can help us make coordinated strategic decisions to reduce risk, like the design and placement of nature-based stormwater projects,” Miller said.

While there are examples of communities and businesses using these practices to reduce flooding and improve water quality, the vision is that the plan helps more communities across the state “realize the benefits and become more resilient from Main Street to working lands.”

Todd Miller, the federation’s director, called the plan’s unveiling “a watershed moment” for the state.

“Extreme weather and floods touch all of us. Even if you haven’t been in the eye of a hurricane, you pay for flood and water quality disasters in your taxes and insurance. And when you take a drink, swim or eat seafood, you share my concern for clean water,” Todd Miller said.

He continued that state leaders are taking significant steps to address flood risk — the North Carolina General Assembly spent more than $1.4 billion on hurricanes Matthew and Florence recovery – and lawmakers are now working with the governor to make the state more resilient to climate extremes, and to administer disaster recovery.

“Nature-based stormwater strategies can reduce the repetitive losses caused by floods,” Todd Miller said. “This action plan focuses on how to expand the use of these strategies.”

The recommendations in the plan are based on input from the four stakeholder groups.

“Our stakeholders identified many impediments that curtail the use of nature-based strategies. To sum them up, we must conquer inertia,” he said. “More floods and degraded water quality are inevitable unless we employ nature-based strategies.”

Todd Miller explained that the stakeholders called for engagement and leadership.

“People who own land, homes, businesses, farms, developed property — all recognize the need to work together so that nature-based stormwater strategies go well beyond government mandates and become a part of our culture and commerce,” he said. “Many stakeholders see future economic development opportunities around the design, construction and operation of these nature-based stormwater practices.”

Also imperative is the need to increase public education and outreach as well as professional training on nature-based strategies.

“Until all stakeholders and decision makers understand the utility and cost savings of these strategies, their widespread use will continue to be stymied. Professional workplace training needs to focus on how best to design, construct, retrofit and maintain our land uses to protect and restore and replicate natural landscape hydrology,” he said.

Government needs to lead by example, Todd Miller added. “Policies need to facilitate the use of these strategies in publicly funded projects, when they are the most cost effective and alternative stormwater practice.”

The federal government has a policy in place, and it’s time for state and local governments to follow suit, he said.

“Finally, and most importantly, a statewide framework for value-based watershed management investments is essential,” Todd Miller said. By focusing on flood reduction and water quality enhancements, both objectives are achieved.

Pine Knoll Shores Town Manager Brian Kramer gave what he called real-life examples of how such practices are being put in place in the Bogue Banks town. Pine Knoll Shores worked with the federation, Eastern Carolina Council and University of North Carolina Wilmington’s Environmental Science Department to develop a watershed restoration plan completed in early 2019.

The town’s new approach to flooding is minimizing the pumping of polluted surface water into waterways, which has been done for 40 years during storms or heavy rains, by using infiltration when possible, mimicking the natural flow of water to avoid collecting in flood-prone areas, Kramer said. The town is also trying to manage the water table to create more capacity for additional infiltration.

“We’re trying to do this with help from the state, most notably the Clean Water Trust Fund (now the North Carolina Land and Water Fund), with the Coastal Federation’s assistance,” he said.

Kramer said the alternative to the town’s use of pumps to move water from public roadways, usually into waterways, in an emergency, is to reduce the volume of water by avoiding the addition of impervious surface coverage, using infiltration and adding capacity.

“The value I see in this state plan that the Coastal Federation put together is emphasis on natural features,” he said. He also likes the recommendation for funding for technical specialists, “Because towns like us need it. We don’t have engineers on staff, we need coastal design specialists to help us.”

Kramer noted that the plan stresses the need for public education and projects to be both economically and environmentally feasible, “because if you make these things so expensive, developers won’t use them.”

John Preyer, cofounder and president of the Raleigh-based environmental firm Restoration Systems, told attendees that the “benefit to natural systems is very obvious when you are not only restoring wetlands or restoring a stream, but you’re getting the additional benefit of flood storage.”

He mentioned a recent project to restore more than 5,000 acres at the North River Farms Wetland Preserve in Carteret County, which had been used for agriculture. Rainfall that used to drain into nearby waters in two hours now takes more than two months.

“We’re looking forward to seeing the action plan come to fruition over the next coming years,” Preyer said.

Now that the plan has been released, Todd Miller said there will be an effort to continue educating about nature-based solutions.

“We’ve actually already done some briefings with some of the key agencies to give them a heads up on what some of the key recommendations are in the report,” he added, and a handful of state agencies have been receptive to the idea.

Yaron Miller added that state and local government representatives participated in the workgroups to help inform the plan and the recommendations, so there’s already a level of knowledge but there will certainly be more outreach and getting the word out.

“I think probably what’s most exciting and why we need this watershed planning framework is that it looks like there’s going to be a lot more federal resources being spent on trying to mitigate future flood losses rather than spend all that money on recovery,” he said, also noting the need to get out ahead of disasters rather than getting caught in a cycle of responding to them. Funding from various federal agencies is increasingly prioritized for mitigation and nature-based strategies, he said.

TOPSAIL BEACH – Pockets of water left by swift, hard downpours or a series of rainy days typically flood the same streets in this town at the southern end of Topsail Island.

The waters of Banks Channel spill over street ends through some areas of town, only exacerbating flooding issues during lunar or king tides, evidence of the rising sea level.

Topsail Island is now in the early stages of addressing some of these water issues in a multifaceted approach to reduce stormwater-related flooding, enhance water quality and curb soundside erosion.

“We’re doing this as a coordinated effort as a stormwater/living shorelines project,” Town Manager Mike Rose said.

The town is working with engineers and coastal scientists who are currently hashing out project details for seven stormwater projects and four living shorelines.

Topsail Beach has contracted with engineering firm LDSI Inc. to focus on the stormwater infiltration projects, details of which are still in the works, Rose said.

Important projects, he said, but not quite as exciting as rolling out what will be the town’s first living shorelines.

“We think it’s a great chance for this to be almost a springboard,” for more living shoreline projects, Rose said.

The town has contracted with the North Carolina Coastal Federation to design and oversee the installation of living shorelines on town-owned property at the end of four streets: Rocky Mount, Haywood, Sidbury and Nixon avenues, all of which dead end at Banks Channel.

Living shoreline projects are built with various structural and organic materials, such as plants, submerged aquatic vegetation, oyster shells and stone. These projects generally work best along sheltered coasts such as estuaries, bays, lagoons and coastal deltas, where wave energy is low to moderate.

Tracy Skrabal, a coastal scientist with the federation, said the plan is to design at least three different types of living shoreline, such as a vertical wall sill, oyster bag sill or other new, innovative measures.

“All of them will include marsh plantings,” she said. “Our goal for this is not to just put four living shorelines on the channel, but to use this as a training tool, a demonstration for other property owners. They have a lot of bulkheads in Topsail Island.”

Each site has about 100 feet of shoreline.

“They vary,” Skrabal said. “Some have a little bit of marsh. Some of them have a little bit of erosion.”

Mounting research shows that living shorelines hold up better through storms than hardened structures, enhance intertidal habitat for fish and other marine resources, and better defend against sea-level rise.

Topsail Beach recently wrapped up a $26 million storm damage reduction project, one that pumped more than 2.2 million cubic yards of sand onto the ocean shoreline and deepened about three miles of inlet and channel waterway.

“The town has invested a lot into the ocean side of this island,” Rose said. “This gives us an opportunity to focus on the other side of the island. We’re excited about this.”

Topsail Beach hopes to pay for the projects from a portion of a $5 million state grant the town received last summer.

Senate Bill 95 split the state Division of Water Resources grant equally at a little more than $1.66 million each among Topsail Island’s three towns, Topsail Beach, Surf City and North Topsail Beach.

The law required the towns to submit a report on prospective projects no later than last fall to the Joint Legislative Oversight Committee on Agriculture and Natural and Economic Resources and the Fiscal Research Division.

“We’ve put these projects into that application request, which has been recommended for approval,” Rose said.

If, for whatever reason, the projects are not approved for that grant, Rose said the town will commit funds to the projects.

The hope is for construction to begin on a portion of the living shoreline projects this year, but with ongoing uncertainty of the pandemic, original projected start times will likely be pushed back.

“We are moving forward with design,” Skrabal said. “We will try to communicate with people virtually, but most of our education and training will happen after the projects are on the ground. My goal is to have at least two sites constructed in 2020 and two sites constructed in 2021. We’re just really impressed by the commitment of the town to move in this direction. These two projects combined will really increase our ability to educate professionals and residents on all these techniques. To their credit, the town is trying to get ahead of all of this.”

ATLANTIC BEACH — This Carteret County town has received a $15,000 grant from Duke Energy for stormwater resiliency planning.

The town announced the award Friday, saying it had been battling stormwater issues for more than a decade but was limited in its options.

Despite some success, officials said they continue to look for innovative ways to manage flooding while also maintaining the water quality. Earlier this year, the town partnered with the University of North Carolina Institute of Marine Sciences and pledged $15,000 annually for water quality testing to identify areas where improvements were still needed.

The town was notified Aug. 16 of the award from the Duke Energy Foundation. The foundation supports nonprofit organizations in alignment with its four main areas of focus: the environment, economic development, education and community vitality.

The town plans to match the grant for a total of $30,000 to develop a stormwater resiliency plan.

Town officials are partnering with the North Carolina Coastal Federation, the Eastern Carolina Council of Governments and LDSI Engineering to create the plan, which will also make the town eligible for additional grant funding in the future.

“We are very thankful for the support of the Duke Energy Foundation to help us develop this plan,” stated Mayor Trace Cooper. “Their support underlines their commitment to our communities and will allow us to leverage the support of our other partners in this process — the Coastal Federation, the Eastern Carolina COG and LDSI Engineering.”

Reprinted from the Outer Banks Voice.

NAGS HEAD  — Homes and businesses in Nags Head were inundated by rainwater twice in the span of six days recently by slow-moving thunderstorms that poured millions of gallons of water onto the town in less than two hours.

Water is receding about as fast as Nags Head can address chronic flooding between the Beach Road and bypass that first came to a head after Hurricane Matthew’s record-breaking rainfall.

The Outer Banks topography is not exactly ideal to handle any significant rainfall, as a “trough” probably best describes the peninsula and island chain. Man-made dunes to the east and much taller natural dunes to the west funnel water in between, where the most structures happen to be located.

Although it usually takes only a few hours for water to percolate into the sandy soil during normal rainfall, the problem is compounded by a drainage system that dates back as much as five decades and can barely handle a heavy rain when it is in perfect shape.

“Ditches full of sand, mud, weeds and water,” said South Wrightsville Avenue resident William Broadhurst. “The culverts under streets and storm drains are choked with weeds and debris. No flow at all. None.”

“We are responding to all inquiries to assess the situation on the ground so that we can take the necessary corrective actions,” said Town Manager Cliff Ogburn.

On July 11, 3.96 inches of rain fell in just 90 minutes at Nags Head Town Hall from the same thunderstorm that garnered attention nationwide because it also spawned numerous waterspouts in the Albemarle Sound off Colington.

The connecting streets between Virginia Dare Trail and Croatan Highway from just north of the Kill Devil Hills line to South Nags Head disappeared under as much as 2 feet of water, and sections of both N.C. 12 and U.S. 158 were inundated, bringing traffic to a near standstill.

Other than video of the flooding on the Beach Road shot by The Outer Banks Voice and shared by The Weather Channel’s Jim Cantore on Twitter, there was no mention outside of Dare County about the freak storm’s flooding.

Water was still standing in the yards and driveways of the homes of permanent residents, vacation rentals and businesses from that storm and several others that passed through over the next few days, when another “frog-strangler” formed early July 16.

During a two-hour period, 4.97 inches of rain fell, sending up to a foot of water into the lowest level of a number of homes.

Since July 1, the town’s rain gauge has collected more than 15 inches of rain, and measurable rainfall had been recorded in 14 of the first 18 days of the month.

“We have had personnel performing maintenance activities pre-, during and post-rainfall events,” Ogburn said.

Broadhurst said the water table is now just 3 inches below the ground surface in the area where he lives, near the corner of Wrightsville Avenue and Blackman Street, and that septic tanks and drain fields are under water.

He said many residents can’t do laundry, take a shower or even flush their toilets.

According to a “Drainage FAQ” issued by the town on Tuesday, “the rainfall frequency is contributing to elevated groundwater conditions, reducing a ‘drying out’ period, as well as the ability for the Town’s drainage network to recover.”

Rainfall runoff is primarily managed by allowing it to infiltrate into the surrounding sandy soils.

But what isn’t absorbed is supposed to move through the network of “drainage infrastructure,” a third of which is owned and maintained by the North Carolina Department of Transportation, including five ocean outfall discharge points.

While those pipes are located at low points in the town, the majority of them were installed in the early 1960s in response to the Ash Wednesday Storm, which inundated nearly the entire northern Outer Banks with primarily ocean overwash.

No design records for the outfall systems are available, according to the town, but the system has a capacity of less than a two-year level of service, or a 2-inch rainfall occurring over a 24-hour period.

Along South Virginia Dare Trail, South Croatan Highway or South Old Oregon Inlet Road, the stormwater systems are owned and maintained by NCDOT.

“A significant challenge exists due to state regulations prohibiting any new outfall connections or size increase,” Ogburn said.

“This is further compounded by the outfalls having a minimal level of service, having to overcome tidal influences to function efficiently in addition to continual maintenance by keeping the pipes free of obstructions.”

The outfall pipes have no control mechanisms, such as a flood gate or valve, which regulate the outflow or inflow of water from these systems, and the town has no means or authority to close or provide maintenance to the pipes.

Kitty Hawk has been installing a system of drains and pipes in key locations since Hurricane Sandy flooded much of the area between the highways.

Temporary pumps are then placed at the end of the pipes to move the water into the ocean.

But Nags Head has yet to move beyond the planning stages on a similar system, and is in the second year of a three-year effort to update its stormwater master plan and a 10-year capital improvement plan.

“All available options will be explored to include both innovative and conventional stormwater management techniques to increase the level of service throughout the town,” Ogburn said.

“In addition, the town is currently working on the development of an emergency pumping plan, which is required to be approved by the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality in advance of operation under emergency conditions,” said Ogburn.

“While it’s understandable the unusual rain causes unusual problems, one would think there would be crews out addressing the issue immediately after the rain,” said Broadhurst. “It’s Wednesday now and I’ve seen not a single truck or man with a shovel even. And the water remains.”

“Our initial efforts were focused on the downstream areas prior to our outfalls to ensure that all were flowing and free of obstruction,” Ogburn added.

“We are currently working our way upstream and in some of the most affected areas in an effort to alleviate flooding,” Ogburn said. “It will take some time to cover the entire town, but we ask our residents to be patient until we are able to get there.”

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. You can read other stories about the Outer Banks here.

Last of two parts

NEW BERN — One of the main objections voiced at a public hearing in New Bern on a package of proposed stormwater rules focused on provisions that exclude landscape architects from submitting applications for the new fast-track permitting process.

Current rules allow licensed professionals, including landscape architects, to submit permit applications. As proposed, only professional engineers will be able sign off on projects submitted for permitting under the new expedited process.

“Prohibiting landscape architects from using the fast-track method of stormwater permitting will cost clients additional fees and time,” said Marsha Wyly of Wyly Landscape Architects of Greenville.

Wyly, speaking at the hearing, said the state is “acting as an agent for the engineering profession and suppressing competition,” by giving preference to engineers over landscape architects. “This is a business practice that harms consumers and places a barrier before small and women-owned businesses run by landscape architects. This action is something that is totally against the direction the governor is taking the state of North Carolina in his effort to support small business.”

Annette Lucas of the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality’s stormwater permitting program told Coastal Review Online that landscape architects and engineers will continue to be allowed to apply under the regular permitting process, which many engineers are expected to continue using as well.

The legislature mandated the fast-track process. The decision to limit fast-track permitting to engineers was based on enforcement controls already in place, Lucas said.

“We have to have a fast-track stormwater-permitting program where the department issues permits with no technical review, but at the same time we have to establish liability and we also have a way to enforce when the minimum design criteria are not met,” Lucas said. “It was a challenge to come up with a way to do that.”

A team that included engineers, a landscape architect, environmental consultants, representatives from the construction industry and local and state government officials worked for more than a year to create the minimum design criteria. The work involved replacing outdated standards no longer believed to protect water quality. It also involved determining which professionals were best suited for the expedited permitting process.

The team decided on a method that requires little review up front in the permitting process, but requires more intense scrutiny of as-built, or post-construction, drawings to ensure compliance.

“The team decided what people were qualified and the team decided as a group that professional engineers would be only type of professional to submit applications under the fast-track program,” Lucas said.

“We wanted to hear about their disciplinary process,” Lucas said of the landscape architect profession. “Professional engineers are a much larger group, with full-time professionals on their licensing board. Landscape architects don’t have as much statutory backing for their ability to design stormwater systems.”

Minutes from the team’s July and August 2015 meetings indicate that there was considerable debate about the qualifications of landscape architects to design stormwater systems. Tim Clinkscales of Paramounte Engineering Inc. of Wilmington and a member of the team pressed for the restriction, which met resistance, especially from Jeff Gray, a lawyer for the N.C. Board of Landscape Architects, but also from others representing the profession.

Clinkscales rejected arguments that landscape architects were generally qualified, as a group, to handle stormwater projects, according to the minutes, saying it was up to the team to determine who was qualified. Clinkscales in an interview said his position was based on his concerns for public safety.

“I don’t think they (landscape architects) have the same education background as engineers. I don’t think the exam is the same background as the engineering exam,” Clinkscales said. “Experience-wise, they may know more than myself but that’s irrelevant. It’s about the safety of the public. When stormwater systems are being designed there’s an element of public safety and I don’t think the landscape architect board is equipped to deal with, or the rigors that public safety requires. This also deals with flood control and, based on what I’ve researched, that doesn’t seem to be in their curriculum.”

Clinkscales noted that the team’s decision was unanimous.

Landscape architects at the hearing said they may be equally qualified to handle stormwater projects, based on their individual education and experience.

Myriah Shewchuk, coastal section chairman of the state chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects, said during the hearing that her profession had been a leader in stormwater design for decades. She said the education and licensing requirements for landscape architects are rigorous and thorough.

“Our understanding of stormwater systems is not trivial,” Shewchuk said.

She said neither all professional engineers nor all landscape architects are experts in stormwater management and each individual must know their limitations and practice accordingly. The proposed exclusion would conflict with other state laws that allow landscape architects to design stormwater plans, she said.

Michael Mullis, a landscape architect with Mullis Design Group of Raleigh and past president of the state chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects, said many of the new rules are welcomed but licensed landscape architects should continue to be considered licensed professionals under stormwater rules.

Todd Miller, the executive director of the N.C. Coastal Federation who also served on the design criteria panel, said it remains unclear whether professional engineers will be willing to risk their license on certifying that a stormwater system was built according to the criteria.

“If there’s an issue, it’s the engineer’s license on the line,” Miller said. “Enforcement would be ultimately filing complaints with the licensing board and the question is, how many engineers are willing to take that risk?”

Lucas agreed. “I think a lot people will continue to use the regular review process. That’s what we do now,” she said. “The fast-track process is risky for the design professionals, who are putting their credentials on the line. They might be subject to enforcement action. I’ve heard a lot of professional engineers say they would prefer to use the regular process anyway.”

Others took issue with the rule changes at the hearing in New Bern.

Knapp Brabble, manager of the Washington County Airport in Plymouth and secretary for the N.C. Airport Association, said stormwater retention ponds that are required for areas with large impervious surface coverage, such as malls, industrial complexes and other large buildings, aren’t appropriate at airports because they attract birds. Airports should be exempted, he said.

“At airports we have a runway cleaner than any highway you can drive on,” Brabble said, adding that birds take flight and scatter when they hear the noise from aircraft, creating a hazard to aviation.

Also, Steven Webb, lobbyist for the N.C. Home Builders Association, said his organization’s members have problems with the rules as proposed, especially changes to definitions relating to storm events and rainfall rates, requirements related to vegetated setback buffers and protections for shellfish waters.

Learn More

• Stormwater rules review and readoption

First of two parts

New state stormwater rules are set to be adopted this summer, but it remains unclear how effective the rule changes will be in terms of protecting water quality.

State officials say the proposed rules mandated by the N.C. General Assembly provide clearer guidelines that are based on the most recent stormwater science, but an environmental advocate says the new rules don’t go far enough to protect shellfish waters and swimming areas.

The public has two remaining opportunities to learn more and comment on the proposed rules. Hearings are scheduled today in Mooresville and Wednesday in Salisbury. The first public hearing was held March 7 at the New Bern-Craven County Library. The public comment period continues through April 18.

The proposed rules continue the legislature’s push for deregulation by authorizing state-licensed professional engineers to design and oversee construction of stormwater systems without state review before construction. It’s part of a fast-track approval process expected to cut permit-approval times from the current 90 days to about a month. Stormwater systems would only be checked for compliance with minimum standards after they are built.

“The whole concept of self-enforcement is an example of a system that hasn’t worked in the past and now we’re getting to use it much more routinely,” said Todd Miller, executive director of the N.C. Coastal Federation.

State officials counter that professional licensing boards will act as a safeguard to ensure design specifications are met. They estimate the proposed rules package will save state residents about $17 million during 2017.

Miller said the self-enforcement issue is just one of a number of changes that may help businesses and developers but do little to protect highly sensitive coastal waters, especially swimming and shellfish areas, from pollution carried by stormwater runoff. That protection is federally mandated.

“The bottom line is all these programs are supposed to be protecting water quality standards, not economics. Any regulation that allows for routine violations of the law is not sufficient,” Miller said.

Annette Lucas, an engineer with the N.C. Department of Environmental Quality’s stormwater permitting program, disagrees. Lucas said the legislation mandates that water quality waters must be protected. Stakeholders and experts worked exhaustively to agree on design criteria that takes into account the latest stormwater science, she said. Miller also served on the committee.

“They looked at every part of the design criteria to make sure it was protective of water quality and whether they were necessary or not,” Lucas said.

The team included experts from N.C. State University and East Carolina University, Lucas noted.

“They agreed the old criteria were no longer relevant,” she said, adding that the team also agreed the updated rules package was not only more cost-effective but also more protective of water quality.

Legislative Changes

The state’s stormwater management program was launched in the late 1980s. Rules adopted in 2008 added restrictions on new development in coastal counties within a half-mile of high-quality and outstanding resource waters.

The proposed rules, which a state official at the New Bern hearing described as “a reorganization of everything stormwater,” are set to be adopted by July 14. The changes were mandated by a state law passed in 2013 to “impose a less stringent burden on regulated persons,” according to a handout at the meeting, by developing a fast-track permitting process for stormwater systems and establishing minimum design standards for structural stormwater-control measures. The revisions also stem from another 2013 law that directs state agencies to review and update their rules every 10 years.

The rewrites in the proposed rule include efforts to decrease repetition from rule to rule; clarify unclear requirements; incorporate current technology and design standards; improve consistency between the programs; and codify policies that are actually requirements.

For new development in areas within a half mile of shellfish waters, the proposed rules reduce the current capacity requirements for stormwater-control measures from a one-year, 24-hour storm, or more than 3.5 inches in most coastal areas, to a 95^th percentile storm depth, or a rainfall event with a precipitation depth greater than or equal to 95 percent of all 24-hour storms on an annual basis. A 95^th percentile storm event is about 40 percent less than a one-year, 24-hour storm.

The change also adds the requirement of a sand filter system at the outlet of discharging stormwater-control measure, rather than another stormwater system in series. The result is a net savings for developers. Miller said this change eliminates a long-standing prohibition on discharges of stormwater by allowing the option of treating runoff and discharging it.

“This discharging option should be eliminated from this proposed rule,” according to written comments the federation plans to submit to the state.

Lucas said the change isn’t that different from existing rules.

“Both the old and the new rules do allow some stormwater discharge into SA (shellfishing and recreational) waters but the new rules are more clear – you can only discharge when infiltration is not possible,” Lucas said.

She noted that infiltration is the most effective way to treat stormwater runoff, but it’s not always possible in coastal areas. The proposed rules clarify what must be done in those cases.

“A lot of times on the coast you have good soil but there are situations where the high water table prevents infiltration,” Lucas said. The changes specify what is allowed and what is required in these cases, she said.

The proposed rules also slightly increase the size of the required storm depth for other coastal waters from the 1.5-inch storm to a 90^th percentile storm event. This amounts to an increase of about 15 percent more than the 1.5-inch storm, based on the state’s calculations. As far as savings for developers, the change is of minimal effect.

As far as protecting water quality, the changes will “maintain existing environmental protections at an equivalent level,” according to the state.

“If that’s correct then we get more control for the majority of the coastal area, which would more than offset what we’re losing,” Miller said. “Whether that’s sufficient is a huge question. We went to the current design based on the recommendation that water quality was going downhill, based on bacteria levels.”

Changes in hydrology occur because of how people use the land. Most of the problem bacteria that leads to swimming advisories and shellfish closures on the coast are from wildlife. Those bacteria only survive a day or two, so protecting coastal waters is about controlling land uses that have immediate effects on adjacent waters.

Development creates the runoff that carries the pollution, which is a threat to public health.

Miller said the changes may basically be a wash. “The sad thing is, what we had wasn’t adequate, this isn’t adequate,” he said.

The proposed new minimum design standards are to encompass, regardless of location, all requirements defined under the state stormwater program’s best management practices for siting, design, construction and maintenance. These standards are meant to ensure that a stormwater treatment system functions forever to protect water quality standards.

Miller said the flaw in the minimum design criteria is that the capacities specified relate to a single rainfall event and many times rainstorms happen before the stormwater can be absorbed into the earth.

“That’s the fallacy of this storm design, it only captures one rain event. The systems have to draw down before they’re capable of performing at that level again,” Miller said.

Lucas said it would be “very unusual” to have two or more storms of the 90^th or 95^th percentile intensity within a short period of time. It would be like having back-to-back hurricanes, she said. Most permitted designs should be able to handle their respective rainfall amounts within two or three days.

“Nearly all the time, you should have capacity for the next storm event,” Lucas said.

Tuesday: Fast-Track Permitting

Learn More

• Stormwater rules and readoption
• Regulatory impact analysis

WILMINGTON — The idea was to award developers who go that extra mile to protect natural resources.

Builders who take the time to think creatively in an effort to be environmentally responsible deserve to be recognized. So went the conversation that initiated what would become the Lower Cape Fear Stewardship Development Coalition.

An alliance of groups normally thought to be at odds with one another – environmentalists and developers – the coalition is now a platform on low-impact development, a concept that some believe will eventually become the norm in building rather than the exception.

“For a builder to stretch beyond meeting a particular rule or regulation and being more creative than that and going further than that is significant,” said Donna Girardot, executive director of the Wilmington-Cape Fear Home Builders Association.

This LID method is a rain garden at the Brunswick Government Center that captures runoff.

Girardot, one of the stewardship’s originators, remembers the first awards banquet that the homebuilders hosted seven years ago in Landfall, one of Wilmington’s premier gated communities.

With little funding, the Girardot’s group invited anyone thought to be interested in learning more about the projects being awarded.

“It was kind of an experiment to see who would actually come,” Girardot said.

The turnout was better than anticipated and the banquet fostered what would become a long-lasting dialogue on best practices to contain and recycle stormwater runoff, which is now the largest source of water pollution on the coast.

The homebuilders and the Wilmington Regional Association of Builders sponsored the first event, honoring developers in Brunswick, New Hanover and Pender counties in southeastern North Carolina.

“Then we started thinking about it and we didn’t want people to think this was just about builders rewarding builders,” Girardot said.

So, they invited the N.C. Coastal Federation and other environmental groups to join in.

“It has just kind of built over the years and here we are,” Girardot said. “It’s taken a whole separate identify all of its own. We’re proud of the way it’s come about. I’m proud of the relationship we have with the Coastal Federation.”

Lauren Kolodij, the federation’s deputy director, said that before the stewardship, there wasn’t really a dialogue about low-impact development between environmental groups and developers.

Federation board member David Paynter, left, and Rep. Mike McIntyre.

“We’ve been at odds over the past with low-impact development,” she said. “This has become a lasting opportunity for us to have these discussions.”

Before this year’s awards banquet – held in Wilmington Feb. 23 – participants were invited to join in an education seminar about low-impact development.

Low-impact development, or LID, is a land and engineering approach to managing storm water runoff much different than typical conventional storm water management practices.

“Instead of taking and building the retention ponds that you see all over the state, it looks things like rain gardens, rain barrels, bioretention areas, infiltrating and storing rainwater and putting it back into the soil,” said Cameron Moore, the HBA’s Business Alliance for a Sound Economy director of governmental affairs.

“At the end of the day the developers are operating a business,” he said. “If we can reduce the amount of curb and gutter, the amount of drainage issues, there’s a cost-saving element to the developer, who passes it down to the consumer. They have to look at these things in different elements to keep their costs down so they can keep the housing costs down.”

Guest speakers at this year’s event included U.S. Rep. Mike McIntyre, and Roya Stanley, director of the Policy and Technical Assistance Team in the Weatherization and Intergovernmental Program at the U.S. Department of Weatherization. Both lauded the stewardship coalition’s efforts to promote low impact-development.

A cistern is a LID technique that collects rain water from a roof top.

The HBA has a joint grant with the Coastal Federation to research current state and local stormwater rules that may actually impede some LID practices.

More than two years ago, the HBA began work on a LID policy manual as a guiding document to help developers, Moore said.

“What we found moving through it is that there were a lot of things that we saw in the regulations that could potentially stymie a residential or commercial developer,” he said.

The state is also looking at LID efforts.

“I think the state recognizes that we need to look at alternatives to the way we’ve been managing stormwater,” said Mike Randall of the N.C. Division of Water Quality’s stormwater program. “I believe LID meets all of the state requirements so we encourage people to do LID.”

Randall said the stewardship coalition is one outreach effort that goes a long way in changing developer’s mindsets with regard to stormwater management.

“I don’t think it’s as simple as saying, ‘Don’t do it the way you’ve been doing it,’” he said. “I think it is changing. The traditional methods right now are the easy way to go. I think, in time, people will be the motivator. They will have the expectations. I think it’s going to take that shift.”

And the Winners Are..

.The winners of the Lower Cape Fear Stewardship Development Coalition’s Awards for 2012 are:

Significant Achievement

• Sunset Beach Fire Station #2, Sunset Beach

Outstanding Recognition

• New Brooklyn Homes at Robert R. Taylor Estates, Wilmington
• South Front Apartments, Wilmington
• Snipes Academy of Arts & Design, Wilmington
• Wilmington Convention Center