SURF CITY – Kerri Allen acknowledged early on what was also obvious to her audience.

“I do not need to tell anyone in here we have a really high density of leases,” the North Carolina Coastal Federation’s coastal management program director said. “In our public trust waters, when you have that many users, there are going to be conflicts.”

Several people sitting inside the Surf City Municipal Complex’s town council chambers that April 14 afternoon nodded in agreement, eager to share their thoughts on the subject.

With either temporary or permanent shellfish leasing moratoriums in North Carolina waters to its north and south, Topsail Island’s waters have become a hot commodity for oyster growers.

There are now nearly 190 shellfish leases in the waters behind the 26-mile-long barrier island from the New River and its adjacent estuarine waters south to Topsail Sound.

That’s a roughly 46% increase from the collective number of leases in 2018 in Onslow and Pender counties.

The squeeze put on the waters around Topsail Island has prompted ongoing calls for a temporary moratorium on new shellfish leases in the area.

The Topsail Island Shoreline Protection Commission, or TISPC, which is composed of elected officials from each of the island’s three towns – Topsail Beach, Surf City and North Topsail Beach – initiated a request for a temporary pause on leases more than a year ago. Commissioners in Onslow and Pender counties did the same.

Shellfish lease moratoriums in the state may be enacted only by the North Carolina General Assembly.

On April 10, 2025, Rep. Carson Smith, R-Pender, introduced legislation requiring a statewide study on shellfish leasing and the current lease moratorium.

House Bill 841 made it no further than the Senate’s Rules and Operations Committee.

“If there is a temporary moratorium, we don’t feel that’s unreasonable,” Allen said last week.

A pause would give the Coastal Federation and North Carolina Sea Grant more time to talk with those who live along and use the waters around the island and come up with suggestions to help shape future policy that would protect the industry, make it sustainable long term, and ease user conflicts, she said.

Additional focus groups, including one for shellfish growers, will be scheduled this fall.

Meanwhile, a temporary moratorium that has been repeatedly extended since it was first enacted in New Hanover County in 2019 is set to expire in July.

“It’s very reasonable to say if we were able to open up some of these other areas that could help alleviate the pressure that this area is seeing,” Allen said. “A lot of the oyster growers that we work with in this region live in New Hanover County and they would love not to have to drive up here to take care of their farms. We are actively trying to get New Hanover to not extend their moratorium. I do not have a good feel, one way or another, how that’s going to go yet, but we are having those conversations.”

Surf City Mayor Teresa Batts said officials on the island do not intend to wait for a decision before asking for a temporary moratorium.

“I know you’re going to go through the procedural steps, but the TISPC, we’re not going to sit back and wait,” she said. “If we see that New Hanover County is trying to extend their moratorium, then we’re going to try to slide in there on their session and piggyback on their moratorium.”

The Coastal Federation, which publishes Coastal Review, and North Carolina Sea Grant teamed up last year to launch a Geographic Information System, or GIS, database pinpointing areas where leases may or may not be suitable in the waterways behind Topsail Island. The GIS database is anticipated to be published next year.

Recommendations shared with the organizations will help shape the North Carolina Strategic Plan for Shellfish Mariculture, a plan commissioned by the General Assembly in 2017.

This document is effectively the state’s roadmap for a sustainable shellfish industry. It’s not meant to be a fixed document, rather one that evolves as the industry evolves and conditions change, Allen explained, adding, “which they very much have changed since 2017.”

In the years since, the state has seen a shift where shellfish farmers are using floating gear to grow oysters in the water column, a method that allows them to maximize the spaces in which they grow their product.

Unlike cages that are placed on the waterbed, those in water column leases poke up from the water’s surface.

And, as more water column leases have been granted, complaints have mounted about their impacts to the viewsheds of waterfront properties, boating and kayaking access, and infringement on popular fishing spots.

Fishing guide Capt. Ray Brittain offered to take Allen and N.C. Sea Grant Extension Director Frank López on his boat, and on his dime, to show them how the leases affect his business.

“There’s so many PVC pipes out there,” Brittain said. “You don’t need a thousand PVC pipes to mark,” a lease area. “We can’t fish in those. I mean, mark your outer edge to show people where it is, but a lot of it is just unnecessary stuff.”

Brittain was among nearly 30 attendees at the April 14 meeting, where participants were asked to break into two groups to discuss concerns and recommendations that will be documented and shared with local elected officials, legislators, and state agency officials.

Those at the meeting in Surf City last week touched on a host of issues, raising concerns related noise associated with shellfish farming activities, nighttime navigation around shellfish leases, the density of leases around Permuda Island Reserve, and linear placement of leases along estuary island shorelines blocking anglers from following fish.

Some asked for shellfish farmers to be required to carry liability insurance, while others suggested the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries create a more robust public notification system announcing lease applications that would include property owners whose land is within and adjacent to the viewshed of a proposed lease.

Other recommendations included an implementation of buffers by moving leases further from shorelines based on specific locations within a waterbody, potentially increasing lease fees, decreasing the length of time a lease is valid, and the possibility of commissioning studies on the impacts of floating cages on the ecosystem.

The Coastal Federation and Sea Grant are accepting comments online through the Stump Sound shellfish mariculture planning – stakeholder input form through Aug. 1.

Plans for the sprawling, undeveloped, south-end tract on Topsail Island that the North Carolina Coastal Land Trust purchased last year call for its eventual transfer to the state to be managed and preserved in perpetuity.

But first, the North Carolina Division of Coastal Management must hear whether the public supports its proposal to use no more than $50,000 in grant funding to cover closing costs related to the trust’s donation of that land to the state.

A public hearing has been scheduled for 4:30 p.m. on Feb. 25 during the Coastal Resources Commission meeting at Dunes Club, 710 E. Fort Macon Road in Atlantic Beach.

The division would tap funds from the state Public Beach and Coastal Waterfront Access Grant on a non-competitive basis to cover closing costs, including deed preparation and recording fees and, if obtained, title insurance.

The Coastal Land Trust finalized its $7.5 million purchase of ‘The Point’ last April.

The proposal to use non-competitive funds would cover costs associated with the state’s acquisition of nearly 100 of about 150 acres the land trust bought last year in Topsail Beach. The Division of Coastal Management “will manage and preserve the property for public benefit and support current and future public access to coastal waters,” according to a release.

“The exact amount of closing costs associated with this property transfer is currently unknown and will be determined at the time of closing based on applicable legal, recording, and administrative requirements,” the release states.

The division has opened a public comment period that continues through April 1.

Written comments may be mailed to Tancred Miller, Director, Division of Coastal Management, 400 Commerce Ave., Morehead City, N.C. 28557, or emailed to DCMcomments@deq.nc.gov with the subject line Non-competitive Use – NC Public Land Trust.

Jean Beasley was one of those people seemingly born to lead, happy to work in the trenches with a fervor and tenacity that magnetized others to her.

It was her charisma, her penchant to teach others about sea turtles, her drive to protect the iconic ocean dwellers, and her determination to carry out her daughter’s vision that led to the founding of the beloved Karen Beasley Sea Turtle Rescue and Rehabilitation Center on Topsail Island.

Beasley died early Tuesday morning “in the company of loved ones,” according to a center Facebook post. She was 90.

As word has spread of her passing, the center has received an outpouring from former interns expressing how Beasley’s passion and guidance shaped not only their career paths, but also their lives.

“I can attest to that because my life was completely changed after I met her,” Terry Meyer, the center’s deputy and conservation director and Beasley’s longtime friend, said Wednesday morning.

Meyer was introduced to Beasley in 1995 at Topsail Beach’s annual Autumn With Topsail Festival. Tucked somewhere among booths featuring handmade arts and crafts was Beasley’s stand, where she explained the Topsail Turtle Project Nesting Program to any interested passersby.

“She mentioned that there was a nest in front of her house if we wanted to go look at it. She lives about a block away from my house so I did walk down there, and she came charging out of the house in a very protective mode, which I would later learn the turtle people do,” Meyer said.

Those initial, brief encounters would later prompt Meyer to attend a volunteer meeting of the Topsail Turtle Project.

“She’s so charismatic. When I left that meeting, I thought protecting sea turtles was the most important, noble thing I could do with my life. I mean, she’s just, it was like three hours of brainwashing, and I never looked back,” Meyer laughed.

By that time, Beasley had long established a home in Surf City.

The native North Carolinian grew up in Henderson, a small town a little more than 40 miles northeast of Raleigh. She was awarded a full scholarship to Duke University, where she earned a degree and received her teacher certification in 1958.

She first moved to Topsail Island with her husband, Fred, after he received orders to Camp Lejeune, according to a 2005 report in the Wilmington Star-News.

The couple lived on the island two short years before Fred Beasley got out of the Marine Corps and took a job in Ohio, where they lived for 20 years. There, they raised sons, Barney and Kevin, and daughter, Karen.

Each year, the family would vacation in Topsail Island. Jean and Fred returned to Topsail Island to live full time in the early 1980s after he retired.

Less than 10 years after their move to Surf City, Karen, 29, died in 1991 from leukemia. Jean picked up the torch and carried forward Karen’s plans for the turtle project.

Within five years of Karen’s death, Jean struck up a deal with Topsail Beach to lease a small, waterfront lot nestled along Banks Channel and just behind town hall for $1 a year.

The new sea turtle hospital opened in 1997.

“A lot of groundbreaking, excellent work went on in that 900-square-foot building and that’s where our heart was,” Meyer said. “When I tell people we literally fished off the end of the dock to feed the turtles, that is a true story. Those are our humble beginnings. It was all running on a dream and it was running on Jean’s charisma.”

Beasley “had a big smile, and she had a hug for everybody, but she also had an iron will and she ran the program from a position of strength,” Meyer said.

Patient demand pushed the hospital to capacity, and then some, on a recurring basis, and, in 2013, a new, 13,000-square-foot center was opened on Surf City’s mainland.

“Our success over the years and being in this building today is because of Jean’s stewardship and leadership and our ability to properly manage our funds while saving hundreds of turtles,” Meyer said.

As of Wednesday, the hospital had cared for “at least” 1,701 turtles, she said. Of those, 1,290 had been rehabilitated and released.

In its Facebook post announcing Jean’s death, center officials thanked her “for sharing your dreams with us.”

“You inspired us to create a better world – for the turtles, for Mother Ocean, and for all. We will do our best to carry forward your legacy. Swim in Peace.”

Beasley was awarded Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Sea Turtle Society in 2017.

She stepped down as the center’s executive director in 2021 and later moved to Tennessee to live with one of her sons and daughters-in-law, Meyer said.

Up until this year, Jean would return in the summers to visit the center.

“It was very important to us and to her to have her meet with our interns and just impart some stories and some history,” Meyer said. “We followed her because she demonstrated every day what it took to save sea turtles because she did the work. She was down and dirty doing the work every day, and she didn’t shy away from any task. I watched her – from medical treatments on sea turtles to gluing PVC together, to repairing a pump – she did all things and she led by example. You know, it’s like she was our beating heart.”

Coastal Resources Commission members will hear from the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality Secretary Reid Wilson before settling in for the two-day regular business meeting this month, when they will be updated on the latest rules review objection to designating Jockey’s Ridge as an area of environmental concern.

The meeting is set to start at 1 p.m. Wednesday, Nov. 19, when Wilson is on the agenda to speak. The meeting will resume at 9 a.m. Nov. 20, ahead of the public input and comment period scheduled for 9:05 a.m. At the chair’s discretion, comments may be limited to three minutes per person. The public may attend the commission meeting in person or join online.

Jockey’s Ridge, the centerpiece of Jockey’s Ridge State Park, is located in Dare County and is home to the tallest living sand dune system on the East Coast, according to North Carolina State Parks.

Development in and around the state park boundaries has been regulated by Coastal Resources Commission rules since the designation of Jockey’s Ridge as a Unique Geologic Feature Area of Environmental Concern in 1984, according to state documents.

During the periodic rules review process in October 2023, the rules designating Jockey’s Ridge as an Area of Environmental Concern, or AEC, and establishing use standards were returned to the agency by the Rules Review Commission and removed from the North Carolina Administrative Code.

In response, the Coastal Resource Commission adopted emergency and temporary rules that went into effect Jan. 3, 2024, to reestablish the AEC and use standards. The rules expired May 13, 2024, when the Rules Review Commission objected to the temporary rule.

The commission moved forward with permanent rulemaking on April 25, 2024, and adopted the permanent rule on Nov. 14, 2024. The Rules Review Commission on Dec. 19, 2024, objected to the rule “on the basis of failure to comply with the public noticing provisions of the Administrative Procedure Act” and staff have taken the necessary steps to be in compliance and satisfy this objection, according to meeting documents.

The Coastal Resources Commission on Aug. 27 of this year adopted permanent rules designating Jockey’s Ridge as an AEC with use standards that are “nearly identical to the original 1984 standards,” document state.

The Rules Review Commission objected On Oct. 30 to paragraph a “Description,” which they deemed as “unnecessary and is not the same as a ‘designation’ as required” under general statute.

The Coastal Resources Commission must respond to the objection by Dec. 1. Members can either amend the paragraph to address the Rules Review Commission’s concerns or submit a written response indicating that the rule will not be amended.

Other action items include to consider approving:

• The Topsail Beach Management Plan.
• Variance requests for artificial turf in the 30-foot buffer at Carolina Beach, and for sandbag alignment and size on Ocean Isle Beach.
• Proposed amendments to rules on septic tanks seaward of the vegetation line, and on alternative sandbag design use to protect public roads.

Also on the agenda are updates on the boundary recommendations, erosion rates and setbacks for Inlet Hazard Areas, information on the 2025 hurricane season, and have a discussion on threatened structures.

The in-person only Coastal Resources Advisory Council will meet ahead of the commission at 10 a.m. Nov. 19 at the hotel.

A full meeting agenda and briefing materials are available on the commission’s website. Times indicated on the agenda for individual items are subject to change.

The North Carolina Coastal Land Trust has purchased the expanse of land at the south end of Topsail Island known as ‘The Point.’

“This landmark conservation victory follows an ambitious, yearlong fundraising effort and culminated with the purchase of the property,” on Tuesday, the Coastal Land Trust announced.

“This is a once-in-a-generation victory for conservation on the coast,” Harrison Marks, the trust’s executive director, said in the release. “We are deeply grateful to the partners, donors, and volunteers who made this possible.”

After launching a fundraising campaign in March 2024, the Coastal Land Trust raised nearly $8 million, including more than $1.6 million in contributions from nearly 800 donors, and through several major public funding sources.

One acre of the site, which includes a parking area managed by Topsail Beach, was sold to the town as part of the transaction.

The nearly 150-acre tract was on and off the market for decades, but attempts from prospective buyers, including Topsail Beach, which wanted to keep the land free from development, never panned out.

Efforts to keep the land development free gained traction after the CEO of a Raleigh-based software company and his wife initiated talks with the town to rezone a portion of the property to allow the couple to build a family compound, complete with about a half-dozen homes, a private marina, pool and beach and sound accesses.

Their proposal was met with fierce opposition from area property owners, regular vacationers to the town, and environmentalists who’ve enjoyed walking the shores of the land that has accreted as New Topsail Inlet migrates south.

The tract stretches from the ocean to Banks Channel and includes expansive dunes, estuarine wetlands, and maritime shrub forest that provide critical habitat for dozens of bird species and loggerhead sea turtles.

“This beautiful and beloved section of Topsail is now protected forever,” Topsail Beach Mayor Frank Braxton said in a release. “We’re thrilled to partner with the Coastal Land Trust to ensure its natural beauty is preserved for future generations.”

The land will be placed in conservation in perpetuity and will be transferredto the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Coastal Management.

Division Director Tancred Miller announced the purchase during the Coastal Resources Commission’s Wednesday meeting in Dare County.

Miller said Coastal Land Trust will transfer the land at no cost in the next year or so, after which time the property will be managed by the division for “public access and environmental protection.”

“So we’re very grateful for that partnership with Coastal Land Trust. We think it’s a wonderful thing for the state of North Carolina and everyone who visits that area,” Miller said.

Funding for the project has been approved by the National Fish and Wildlife Foundation through Walmart’s Acres for America program, the North Carolina Land and Water Fund, and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service’s North American Wetlands Conservation Act and National Coastal Wetlands Conservation Grant programs.

Coastal Land Trust has secured a bridge loan in order to meet the closing deadline since the organization will not receive grant funds for several more months, according to the release.

“This project is a model for collaborative coastal conservation and an excellent example of the lasting benefits that Acres for America grants can provide to wildlife and communities,” Chris West, Acres for America Program director, said in the release. “This effort will conserve critical habitat for wildlife and offer lasting benefits for current and future generations of North Carolinians to enjoy.”

Until the land is transferred to the state, it will be owned and managed by the trust, which will work with volunteers and partners to protect nesting bird habitat, remove debris, and lead educational beach walks. Partners and volunteers will include Audubon North Carolina and members of Conserve the Point, a grassroots organization.

Additional information on volunteer opportunities is available at www.CoastalLandTrust.org/TopsailBeach or by emailing Topsail@CoastalLandTrust.org.

Leaders from Holly Ridge, Surf City, North Topsail Beach, Topsail Beach, a state transportation official and a legislative representative have been invited to speak during the Greater Topsail Community Update set to take place in May.

The Greater Topsail Area Chamber of Commerce & Tourism meeting is scheduled for 8 a.m. Tuesday, May 13, at the Holly Ridge Community Center, 404 Sound Road.

A breakfast buffet will be served while speakers share firsthand updates on upcoming initiatives, including capital improvement projects and other key developments.

“This informative gathering is an excellent opportunity for residents, business owners, and stakeholders to stay informed and engaged with the progress of our local communities,” organizers said.

Cost is $20 per person. Register online or at topsailchamber.org.

Topsail Island leaders are unwavering in their pursuit of stopping new leases of shellfish farms in the waters around them.

Months have passed since the island’s three towns — North Topsail Beach, Surf City and Topsail Beach — and their respective counties banded together to ask state legislators for a moratorium on new shellfish leases in Onslow and Pender’s coastal waterways.

“Of course, we all support aquaculture,” North Topsail Beach Alderman Mike Benson said during a recent town board meeting.

But the rising number of leases, fueled because of moratoriums in surrounding coastal counties, has led to what local leaders say amount to mounting conflicts between recreational uses of public waters and shellfish leases that restrict access to those waters.

Prohibiting all new shellfish leases across Onslow and Pender counties could be detrimental to the state’s growing shellfish industry, one that reportedly boasts an economic impact of $30 million annually in North Carolina.

“This industry is a particularly bright spot for North Carolina in that farming clams and oysters is quite sustainable environmentally,” said Dr. Jane Harrison, a coastal economics specialist with North Carolina Sea Grant. “We’ve seen a huge uptick in production numbers from farming oysters, in particular, over the last decade and we don’t want to lose that momentum.”

North Carolina Sea Grant and the North Carolina Coastal Federation have teamed up in hopes of launching a plan that would result in the creation of a Geographic Information System, or GIS, database that pinpoints areas where leases may or may not be suitable in the waterways behind the 26-mile-long island.

That database would be built by a GIS specialist from North Carolina State University using feedback the organizations aim to get from different focus groups made up of users of those waters, be it shellfish farmers, fishing guides, recreational fishers, or island waterfront property owners.

“We want to bring together many different voices to gather their perspectives and then put their information, their interest, into that GIS database,” Harrison said.

Sea Grant and the Coastal Federation, which publishes Coastal Review, have applied for a grant through the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Sea Grant Office to fund the plan.

If awarded the grant, the plan would kick off around September, when the GIS specialist would gather existing data, including information from the University of North Carolina Wilmington’s Shellfish Lease Siting Tool, to work up a baseline of information that will be presented to focus groups. UNCW’s interactive tool assesses coastal conditions in the state to help shellfish growers locate new or expand current operations.

There would be three focus groups: one consisting of shellfish growers in Pender and Onslow counties, one that includes recreational water users and waterfront property owners in Onslow County, and one that includes those groups in Pender County.

Those groups would be initially separated out “because we want folks to feel like they can fully share whatever their concerns or needs are and we don’t want to create an environment of conflict,” Harrison said. “We just want spaces where people can give us every piece of information they have and then we will digest it, compile it, and then have some community conversations.”

Feedback from those conversations would be gathered and used to create a draft resource use agreement and guidelines for equal water access in partnership with the North Carolina Division of Marine Fisheries.

Once finalized, that resource use agreement and guidelines would be published to the public, where it could be used in other coastal regions in not only North Carolina, but other states.

The proposal has gained traction with local officials. The Topsail Island Shoreline Protection Commission, or TISPC, and the counties, has signaled its support for the plan, Harrison said. The commission is made up of elected officials and local government appointees from the island’s three towns.

In an April 2 letter to the Division of Marine Fisheries, North Topsail Beach highlighted the plan as “another justification for a pause” on new shellfish leases.

“A temporary pause would allow us to evaluate the current situation, develop comprehensive management strategies, and ensure that future growth in the shellfish industry is balanced with the needs of our community and the environment,” the letter states.

The North Topsail Beach Board of Aldermen unanimously agreed to send the letter to the division ahead of its April 22 public hearing on six new proposed shellfish leases in Onslow County.

The hearing is scheduled to be held in person at 6 p.m. at the Holly Ridge Community Center and virtually via Webex.

That hearing will follow one on two proposed shellfish leases in Pender County scheduled for 6 p.m. April 15 at Topsail Beach Town Hall, 820 S. Anderson Blvd., and virtually via Webex.

During the April 2 meeting of North Topsail’s town board, Alderman Benson said the consensus of the island’s shoreline protection commission is that the towns and counties continue their request for a moratorium.

A proposed draft bill for a moratorium was not introduced in either the state Senate by its March 25 deadline or the House as of publication of this report. The deadline for the House was extended to April 10. 

“There are 111 leases in Onslow County,” Beson said. “We have 647 acres of land in those 111 leases.”

North Topsail Beach and the northernmost portion of Surf City are in Onslow County.

There are opportunities to identify areas within the waterways of the island that are “truly not well served by shellfish aquaculture,” Harrison said.

“There may be special fishing spots that the charter captains want to make sure they have access to,” she said. “There may be viewsheds that are very important to local residents. We have a lot of successful entrepreneurs in shellfish aquaculture in these two counties and shellfish aquaculture produces seafood that many of us like to eat. At the end of the day, it may be that the industry in Pender and Onslow counties can’t grow at the rate it has been. There might be a need for it to be less expansive because of existing leases and farms. But what I want to steer us away from is just a blanket prohibition, as if no new farm could ever take place in a copacetic way.”

Topsail Beach Mayor Morton Blanchard, a longtime resident and public servant of the Pender County town, died Sunday afternoon, according to a town release.

“Mayor Blanchard leaves a huge voice in the Town of Topsail Beach,” the release states. “His leadership, wisdom, and compassion will be greatly missed by all who knew him.”

The husband, father, and grandfather was appointed mayor about five months ago after former Mayor Steve Smith died last September.

Blanchard moved to Topsail Beach in 2004, though he’d been going to the island his entire life up to that point. The Wallace native’s family bought property on the island in 1956, about seven years before Topsail Beach was established.

Blanchard bought property in the town in 1998. He attended Western Carolina University and Wake Tech, where he studied electronics and refrigeration. He operated Blanchard Refrigeration, a commercial refrigeration company, since 1976.

Prior to their move to Topsail Beach, Blanchard and his wife of more than 40 years, Patricia, also a Wallace native, lived in Rose Hill for 31 years, raising their two sons, Joe and Benjamin.

He served 12 of those years as a town commissioner and chaired the Rose Hill Chamber of Commerce for three years.

Blanchard served as a Topsail Beach commissioner for more than a decade.

“Mayor Blanchard had a passion for serving his community and has worked on many initiatives for the Town but worked especially hard on trying to bring public sewer service to residents and property owners,” the town release states.

A celebration of his life is planned for 7 p.m. Saturday, March 22, at the Historic Assembly Hall in Topsail Beach. Padgett Funeral Home of Wallace is handling the arrangements.

The Historical Society of Topsail Island has invited Kenneth Chestnut to speak about “Ocean City Community Beach, NC Past and Present” at its next Luncheon and Lecture program.

Scheduled for 11 a.m. Thursday, Feb. 13, at the assembly building in Topsail Beach, tickets for the luncheon and lecture are $17. There is no charge to attend the lecture only. Register online by Sunday to reserve a spot.

Son of Ocean City founder, the late Wade Chestnut, Kenneth Chestnut is the current treasurer of the Ocean City Beach Citizens Council, and is to discuss the development of the Ocean City community on Topsail Island and the Ocean City Jazz Festival planned for this summer.

“Ocean City was founded in 1949 as a family oriented beach for African Americans who at the time did not have the opportunity to purchase property anywhere else on the Atlantic Coast,” according to the website. “The community not only still exists, but is thriving today. It has withstood the challenges of hurricanes, the economy, and beach erosion. Many of the property owners are third generation in addition to a large number of new property owners and homeowners.”

Chestnut is the retired president and CEO of IBG Construction Services LLC, a company he founded in Atlanta in 1998.

A Vietnam War veteran, he graduated from Williston Senior High School in Wilmington, and majored in civil engineering at Duke University. While in Atlanta, Chestnut served on various nonprofit boards and holds the title of trustee emeritus at Oglethorpe University.

He returned to Wilmington after retiring and is active both in his church and the community. He fills his days mentoring at Williston Middle School, serving as a Wilmington Housing Authority commissioner, is on the board of Cape Fear Community Land Trust, and is vice president of the North Carolina Coastal Federation’s board of directors. The Coastal Federation publishes Coastal Review.

The Historical Society of Topsail Island offers the monthly luncheons September through May and features speakers that promote the organization’s mission of education.

They did it.

The final $1 million grant the North Carolina Coastal Land Trust needs to top off the cash pot necessary to buy the undeveloped southern tip of Topsail Island has come through.

Coastal Land Trust Executive Director Harrison Marks said he anticipates closing on the nearly 150-acre tract known as “The Point” by April.

“We’ve raised the amount of private funds that we said we needed to fund that part of the project,” Marks said during an interview Tuesday morning. “We’re waiting to hear on a final grant and hope to hear in the next few days approval of the last million-dollar grant. If that comes through, then it would appear our funding is in place and we would close on The Point.”

A few hours later, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service sent out a press release that it is awarding a $1 million grant to the North Carolina Division of Coastal Management, in partnership with the Coastal Land Trust and others, to go toward the land purchase.

Fish and Wildlife’s Tuesday afternoon announcement effectively wraps a vigorous and relatively short fundraising campaign Coastal Land Trust launched last spring after entering into a contract with the land’s owners.

In the months since, the nonprofit has received more than $1.5 million in private donations to go toward buying the land, a feat Marks said “is amazing.”

“Close to 800 people contributed,” he added.

Marks has declined to reveal the price tag of the land. He said in an interview last year that the organization expected to spend about $8 million on various expenses, surveys and title searches, and the land itself.

Michele Rivest, vice president of the grassroots organization Conserve the Point, said the pending purchase of the land, which will result in its permanent conservation, is “a dream come true.”

“It’s monumental,” she said Wednesday. “It’s the culmination of decades of effort by the community. It just speaks to the lifelong commitment of so many people who revere this very special place on the planet and have wanted to see it conserved, really left undeveloped and wild for all future generations.”

The Point includes salt flats, maritime shrub and estuarine wetlands providing habitat for federally listed species including red knots, piping plovers, green sea turtles and loggerhead sea turtles.

Conserve the Point initially formed nearly two decades ago after the property’s long-time owners put it on the market in 2005. It was around that same time the Coastal Land Trust tried to buy roughly 45 acres of the property, but a deal fell flat.

The land has been routinely on and off the market since then. Attempts to buy the land, including those by Topsail Beach to keep it free from development, did not pan out.

Efforts to keep the land development free gained traction after the CEO of a Raleigh-based software company and his wife initiated talks with the town to rezone a portion of the property from C4: Conservation – Inlet Area to conditional use. The change would have allowed the couple to build what would have eventually been a family compound, complete with about a half-dozen homes, a private marina, pool and beach and sound accesses.

Their proposal was met with fierce opposition from area property owners, regular vacationers to the town, and environmentalists who’ve enjoyed walking the shores of the land that has accreted as New Topsail Inlet migrates south.

Conserve the Point regrouped, eventually earning official nonprofit status and expanding its reach as far as 8,000 people from 15 states, Rivest said.

In November 2023, the couple withdrew their rezoning application request from the town and pulled the plug on their contract with the property owners, a move that opened negotiations between the owners and the Coastal Land Trust.

“I have to say we’re indebted to the Coastal Land Trust for getting us to the finish line here,” Rivest said. “Without their fundraising efforts and expertise I don’t think we would have made it.”

Rivest, who along with her husband splits their time living at their home in Carrboro and the house they bought in Topsail Beach roughly six years ago, said she believes Conserve the Point will maintain a role as stewards of the property.

“There’s so much more than I think there is to really share with young children and future generations about how special the planet is and this particular place is such a gift to all of North Carolina and beyond,” she said. “Thousands of people come here every year for The Point’s beauty and serenity and wildness and I think our organization and others will want to see it maintained like that. So, I think our role will evolve, but the community will continue to be very active in protecting this property.”

North Carolina is one of 11 states receiving a portion of the $25.7 million from the Fish and Wildlife Service through the National Coastal Wetlands Conservation Grant Program.

This year’s annual funding supports nearly 30 projects that will protect, restore or enhance more than 10,000 acres of coastal wetlands and adjacent upland habitats and more than eight miles of shoreline and streams.

Topsail Island towns are banding together to dramatically reduce the presence of an invasive plant that chokes out native vegetation on oceanfront dunes.

Beach vitex, a thick, woody vine that sheds its leaves seasonally, is growing on more than 170 properties spanning the three towns on the 26-mile-long barrier island.

Those properties were identified in what has been described as a cursory, “windshield” survey conducted to give officials an idea of where and how much of the plant is on the island’s oceanfront dunes.

“We know there’s more out there,” said Topsail Beach Assistant Town Manager Christina Burke.

The survey provided enough information for that town, North Topsail Beach and Surf City to jointly apply for a North Carolina Coastal Storm Damage Mitigation Fund grant.

In May, the North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Water Resources awarded those towns a collective $690,060.50, enough to cover half of the total projected cost of the first two years of what will be a four-year project.

According to the interlocal agreement, the towns “will continue to work together to secure additional funding to carry the project out to completion.”

Each town will be responsible for matching its portion of the grant.

North Topsail Beach last week joined Surf City in adopting an interlocal agreement that sets the terms for the aptly named Topsail Island Vitex Eradication Project.

Topsail Beach commissioners are expected to consider the agreement at their meeting Wednesday evening.

If the board greenlights the agreement, a resolution to accept the grant funding will be put to a vote most likely next month, Burke said.

The idea is to put out a request for proposal, or a formal document asking for contractor bids, by either December or January.

Topsail Beach agreed to be the fiscal agent to administer the grant funds, which are the culmination of a partnership initiated by the Topsail Island Shoreline Protection Commission.

The commission functions as a collaboration to preserve the beaches and surrounding waterways of the barrier island and is made up of elected officials and local government appointees from each town and Onslow and Pender counties.

Commission members began a couple of years ago discussing the need for an island-wide project to tackle eradicating the invasive plant that has wound its way over and along oceanfront dunes in the Carolinas after being introduced to the Southeastern United States in the mid-1980s.

But what was originally planted for ornamental purposes and sand dune stabilization escaped cultivation, crowding out sea oats, American beachgrass, seaside panicum and other native plants, ultimately threatening endangered loggerhead sea turtle nesting habitat, federally threatened seabeach amaranth and other rare plants and animals.

The state initiated efforts in 2005 to document locations of beach vitex and control its spread by creating the NC Beach Vitex Task Force in February of that year.

“Knowing it’s an invasive species and threatening to the dune system and the ecological system that we have here, the turtles, we decided to do something about it,” Burke said.

Based on the survey, Topsail Beach has the most properties – 93 – where beach vitex is present. Surf City has 45. A total of 35 properties were noted to have the plant in North Topsail Beach.

“That is just so incomplete still,” Burke said.

Eradicating beach vitex can be a rather painstaking process, one that requires a scratch-and-dab method where the bark of a vine must be scratched off before an herbicide can be applied.

Glyphosate, a systemic herbicide that blocks an enzyme essential for plant growth, is a chemical commonly used in killing beach vitex.

Beach vitex usually requires a couple of treatment applications, after which the plant must be monitored to ensure it is dying back. Treatment must occur only in summer.

“You have to kill it first and then you have to cut it out,” Burke explained.

Precautions must be taken when removing dead beach vitex to ensure seeds do not fall from the vines onto the ground and recultivate.

Treating the 93 properties in Topsail Beach alone is expected to cost an estimated $584,000.

The Topsail Island Shoreline Protection Commission will provide up-to-date information on its website as the project moves forward and continue efforts to educate property owners about the pesky plant.

Property owners will receive a waiver to sign off on that will the contractor to access individual lots to begin treatment, Burke said.

“They see all this lush vegetation and they’re like, oh my gosh, look at my dune system, it’s great, it’s so healthy. I think with the education of vitex and how dangerous it is to the dune system, people are going to me more apt to allow us to come in,” she said. “We have people who call us that say, please put me on that list, I have vitex and I want to be part of this project so I think the attitude has changed with the education of vitex.”

Lovers of “The Point,” the sprawling, undeveloped southern tip of Topsail Island, can get in on the action to help raise money needed to buy and conserve the land forever.

Two community events are scheduled next month to generate financial contributions that will help the North Carolina Coastal Land Trust meet an $8 million goal to purchase the land in Pender County.

An Oyster Roast for The Coast will be held Oct. 1 at Surf City Brewing Co., where local oysters, beer and wine will be served, and music provided, during a silent auction on items donated to raise money for land purchase. Tickets for that event are available at  https://coastallandtrust.org/event/oyster-roast/.

Later in the month, the Coastal Land Trust and community supporters will at the Autumn with Topsail Festival with new merchandise for sale and raffle prizes. The festival is scheduled for Oct. 18-20 in Topsail Beach. Tickets are available at https://www.eventeny.com/events/2024-autumn-with-topsail-festival-9893/#ticket-section

Local residents and businesses have so far raised more than $990,000 toward a $2 million goal, according to the Coastal Land Trust.

The money will be pooled with a recently approved $700,000 North American Wetlands Conservation Act grant and a $350,000 grant Topsail Beach has received to assist in improving public access to the property.

The privately owned land has been on and off the real estate market for years. Topsail Island residents, visitors and environmentalists banded together to conserve the land after a Raleigh-based entrepreneur sought a rezoning request of the land, upon which he wanted to build a family compound. He eventually withdrew the rezoning request.

So far, more than 40 businesses have posted flyers, set up donation boxes and created special merchandise to help promote the community support campaign.

Conserve The Point, a local nonprofit formed specifically to raise awareness and funds to protect the south end of the island, in July launched a community Go Fund Me page to accept donations from $10 to $500.

“Community excitement about the possibility to finally purchase and conserve The Point underscores the love people have for this special part of the Island,” Roy Costa, president of the board of directors for Conserve The Point, said in a statement. “Local residents and Town officials have tried for years to purchase and conserve The Point without success. Now thanks to the NC Coastal Land Trust and the willingness of the property owners to sell the property for conservation, the community is doing its part to realize a lifelong dream to conserve one of the last undeveloped tracts of this special barrier island for future generations.”

Steve Smith made it a point to go outside the boundaries of the Topsail Island town he served for nearly a decade to educate himself on coastal issues up and down the North Carolina seaboard.

“He was all the time keeping up with information as it became available at all different levels — state, federal, local,” said North Topsail Beach Mayor Pro Tem Mike Benson on Monday. “He was always doing his homework and had his background figured out before he brought issues forward. So, most of the time he was right. He also knew things that were going on in Virginia and South Carolina and how some of their policies might be good here.”

Smith, who was serving his second mayoral term in Topsail Beach, died “peacefully” Friday, according to a town news release. He was 73.

His death, “leaves a huge void in the Town of Topsail Beach,” the release states. “His leadership, wisdom, and compassion will be greatly missed by all who knew him.”

Topsail Beach Mayor Pro Tem Morton Blanchard said Smith was a “consummate mayor.”

“He was a better politician than I’ll ever be. He knew how to get to the legislators and get this little town money,” Blanchard said in a telephone interview Monday afternoon. “Through our time together I’ve been upset with him a few times, but he always managed to stay calmer than me. He was a good friend. Personally, he loved this beach as much as anybody.”

A native of Portsmouth, Virginia, Smith’s childhood was that of a typical military brat, moving from duty station to duty station.

The family’s final post was Fort Bragg in Fayetteville, where Smith left as a high school graduate for the halls of East Carolina University, earning a Bachelor of Science in 1973.

More than 40 years later in 2016, his alma mater honored him with its Outstanding Alumni Award, one of the most prestigious awarded by the university and that recognizes alumni for “outstanding and uncommon achievement in one’s profession, civic affairs and/or politics.”

Smith’s career in business and industry in the United States, Southeast Asia and Africa spanned nearly four decades.

He retired in 2011, moving with his wife, Edna, to their home in Topsail Beach.

It would become evident Smith had no intentions of living a life of complete leisure once the couple settled as permanent residents in the small Pender County beach town.

He was first elected to the town’s board of commissioners in 2015, holding that position for four years before running for and winning the mayor’s seat in 2019 and again in 2023.

He would come to serve on countless boards and committees, “a visionary leader who had a passion for serving his community,” according to the town release. “His commitment to preserving the town’s unique character and natural beauty was evident in his many accomplishments over the years.”

During his time in office, he chaired the Topsail Island Shoreline Protection Commission, or TISPC, and, in 2019, served on the North Carolina Beach, Inlet and Waterway Association’s Board of Directors.

Smith was known for his calm, easy disposition. It wasn’t uncommon to spot him sitting in the audience at quarterly North Carolina Coastal Resources Commission meetings, the locations of which rotate among the north, central and southern areas of the coast.

Benson, a fellow member of the TISPC, somberly recalled in a telephone interview Monday morning the man he considered to be a friend.

“Steve had such a positive outlook on life,” he said. “He would call you and say, ‘how are you today?’”

Kerri Allen, coastal management program director and coastal advocate with the North Carolina Coastal Federation’s Wrightsville Beach office, said that Smith was kind, dedicated, “and always willing to think outside the box and try innovative solutions when it came to coastal resiliency.”

“He genuinely cared about his community and always put them above any personal or political agenda,” she responded to Coastal Review in an email Monday. “He was a true leader, and had a way of making anyone and everyone feel welcome and valued. His passing leaves such a void in the Topsail community.”

Benson highlighted a number of contributions Smith made over the years, including leading the TISPC in support of state funding for beach nourishment projects on Topsail Island and Coastal Barrier Resources Act-related issues, supporting the North Carolina Marine Debris Action Plan, helping secure funding approval for Surf City’s proposed federal coastal storm risk management project, and, more recently, leading local efforts in conjunction with the Coastal Federation up to the state level in support of a ban on abandoned vessels in coastal waters.

In addition to his wife, Smith is survived by his son and daughter-in-law, two grandchildren and a brother.

A service is scheduled for noon Thursday at Emma Anderson Memorial Chapel in Topsail Beach with a reception to follow at the town Assembly Building.

Blanchard said the town board is expected to meet next week to select a mayor. A date and time for that meeting is to be determined.

“We’ve got a good team down here,” Blanchard said. “I don’t think we’ll miss a lick. Whoever gets [mayorship], it’ll be daggone hard to fill his shoes.”

The first oceanfront community where Black North Carolinians could have home ownership takes the spotlight Saturday in Topsail Beach.

The Historical Society of Topsail Island is set to open its newest exhibit “Ocean City Beach,” at the Missiles and More Museum at 720 Channel Blvd.

The museum is hosting an open house from 3 until 5 p.m. so that guests may meet members of the historic community that continues to thrive on Topsail Island.

Ocean City was established in 1949 after Edgar L. Yow, a white Wilmington attorney, initiated a plan to establish an area on Topsail Island where Black families could buy oceanfront property.

The community was developed by Wade H. Chestnut Sr., who sold his interest in his family’s auto repair business in Wilmington to build the beach community for his and other Black families to enjoy.

The milelong stretch of land within North Topsail Beach became part of the N.C. Civil Rights Trail in 2022.

The community is celebrated annually during the Ocean City Jazz Festival, a nonprofit event held each Independence Day weekend to, among such goals as elevating jazz appreciation and boosting the economy, seeks to “inspire a new generation culturally through the history of the Ocean City Beach Community.”

This year’s festival is July 5-7.

Tell the public about a contract to buy land?

This isn’t business as usual for the North Carolina Coastal Land Trust.

But this time around, the prospective buy is a 150-acre tract of barrier island that has been written about in media outlets across the state and, on occasion, in national publications on and off for years. And it’s going to take some very public fundraising efforts to make the purchase possible.

So, pursuing the pristine, undeveloped expanse of land at the southern tip of Topsail Island affectionally named “The Point” has the Wilmington-based nonprofit established in 1992 breaking precedent.

“Our normal approach is we work privately with the sellers and we go through all our work and then, when it’s all done, we announce a deal. So, this is very different for us,” said Harrison Marks, the trust’s executive director. “This is a tight budget year for the state and we depend on state funds typically for projects. We don’t have a formula (for public fundraising) because this isn’t something we normally do.”

He’s hoping the state will come through on giving at least some money toward the purchase.

The Coastal Land Trust has a little less than a year to seal the deal. It has to close on the land on or before March 31, 2025.

Marks declined to reveal the actual price tag of the land, but said the appraisal is “somewhat more” than the purchase price.

All told, the organization expects to spend about $8 million on various expenses, surveys and title searches, and the land itself.

A little more than a week has passed since the trust announced that it had a contract with the four families who own different chunks of the land.

As of Thursday, more than 100 online donations approaching $50,000 in total had been made, Marks said. Substantial pledges, some in the range of six figures, have also been made.

Roy Costa, founder of the more-recently formed nonprofit, Conserve the Point-Topsail, said his organization is working with the Coastal Land Trust to figure out how to best support the fundraising efforts.

Costa said the contributions Conserve the Point has received have to date covered the organization’s operational costs.

“We really see that the Coastal Land Trust is a good place to do, in particular, major donations,” he said.

Conserve the Point was born out of a grassroots effort to raise public and private funds to buy the land at the south end of Topsail Beach, an opportunity that arose when a young, wealthy couple backed out of plans last November to build a family compound on the land.

Todd Olson, co-founder and CEO of Raleigh-based software company Pendo, and his wife Laura spent months trying to persuade Topsail Beach officials to rezone fewer than 30 acres of the property from C4: Conservation — Inlet Area to conditional use. The change would have allowed about a half dozen homes, a private marina, pool and beach and sound accesses to be built.

The property has steadily accreted over the years as the southern end of the island at New Topsail Inlet has gained sand, making it a favorite spot for island property owners and tourists who enjoy walking its beaches.

The Olsons’ proposal was met with fierce opposition from other area property owners, regular vacationers to the town, and environmentalists.

Thousands signed an online petition urging town officials to reject the rezoning request. People passionate about keeping the land as-is flooded town meetings whenever the request was up for discussion.

Months before pulling the plug on their contract with the property owners, a deal that was contingent upon getting their rezoning request approved, the Olsons signed a letter of intent with the Coastal Land Trust to grant the organization a conservation easement for a minimum of 80% of the land.

Attempts to buy the land, including those by the town to keep it free from development, have yet to pan out. Around 2005, the Coastal Land Trust tried to buy roughly 45 acres of the property, but a deal was not reached at the time.

This time around, supporters of conserving the land are hopeful the signed purchase and sales agreement between the Coastal Land Trust and the property owners will come through and end the threat of development.

“Everybody’s quite excited, including a lot of people in our community,” Costa said. “This is perfect timing, the perfect opportunity. I think there’s a groundswell of support for conservation efforts, particularly here in North Carolina, and so I think with all the conservation efforts that are going on that this is definitely something that can quite easily happen with the help of everybody.”

The Coastal Land Trust is looking to host a meeting in May in Topsail Beach to discuss its plans with town officials and answer questions from the public.

“We just are very grateful that (the property owners) gave us an opportunity to talk with them and I feel fairly confident that they could have done something with other people who had an intent to develop some of the property and, ultimately, think that would have occurred,” Marks said. “They were will to sell us the property at the price that they did because I think they care about seeing the property conserved as well.”

Once the Coastal Land Trust buys the land, it will be transferred to state ownership and managed by the N.C. Division of Coastal Management. That agency said it hopes to partner with the state Wildlife Resources Commission, which would help manage and monitor shorebird nesting areas.

Details about the upcoming public meeting are to be announced on the Coastal Land Trust’s website. Donations may be made online.