THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, October 2, 1994 TAG: 9410020067
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY LANE DEGREGORY, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: OUTER BANKS LENGTH: Long : 110 lines
While politicians are reviving a campaign for the $97 million proposed project, opponents are still trying to turn the tide against building rock jetties around Oregon Inlet.
And at least one area environmental organization is trying to figure out which wave to ride.
``It's so unclear what is the right thing to do here,'' North Carolina Coastal Federation President Melvin Shepard said Friday. ``I don't know what should be done.''
Hundreds of commercial and sports fishing boats along North Carolina's Outer Banks rely on Oregon Inlet to get to the Atlantic Ocean. In the past 50 years, shoaling has caused sand to shift and build up in the channel. Dozens of million-dollar fishing boats have sunk and been grounded. At least eight watermen have drowned.
If two rock jetties are constructed on either end of the inlet, engineers say, the solid structures will slow the sand. The channel will remain open. Boats will be able to get through, and the fishing business will boom.
In 1970, Congress authorized construction of the jetties. But the Interior Department, which owns the land on either end, has not approved the project. More than 24 years later, the jetties remain only a plan.
Millions of dollars have been spent studying the proposal. Dozens of environmental impact assessments, economic feasibility reports and other issues have been reviewed.
In the meantime, the federal government spends more than $8 million a year dredging the channel to keep it passable.
``For the money that's already been spent on studies, reports and dredging, those jetties could've been built by now,'' North Carolina Senate President Pro Tem Marc Basnight said last week. ``It's going to take the effort of both Congress and the Clinton administration.
``But I'm not optimistic that Clinton is a supporter of the jetties.''
Last week, North Carolina Gov. James B. Hunt Jr. promised to personally travel to Washington, D.C., to meet with the president and push the waterway stabilization project. The Northeastern North Carolina Economic Development Council kicked in $25,000 to update a four-year-old Economic Impact Study on the 1.5 mile-long jetties. But a state commerce official - who lauded the grant - admitted that another report might not do any good.
``Studies have not been terribly relevant or effective in getting the jetties built out here,'' state Commerce Department Chief Planner Tom Richter told the Dare County Oregon Inlet and Waterways Commission at a Thursday night meeting in Manteo. ``But things have changed a lot since 1990.''
``This just may be the time at bat that you all are finally able to hit a home run.''
Commission Chairman Robert G. Williams of Manteo said he is ``very encouraged about what's been going on at the state level'' in making progress on the jetties project. His 11-member group is hoping to receive the updated report by December. Then, they will decide how to proceed.
``Right now, we're trying to determine what direction to go,'' Williams said Thursday night. ``We've got to understand opponents' concerns. Then we can address the real issues.''
Commission member Arvin Midgett had another idea.
``What we really need to get this job done,'' he said, ``is a Genie. And I'd like to be the one to uncork him.''
Some groups, however, have different wishes.
``I hope the Interior Department never gives that land up,'' Virginia Beach resident John Newbold said. As president of the North Carolina Beach Buggy Association, Newbold said he represents 4,000 sports fishermen on conservation issues. His group, he said, has always opposed the jetties.
``Jetties would do more damage than they would common good,'' Newbold said last week. ``I have a lot of problems with the state and local governments lobbying for this. I don't see how it would benefit the entire country. But the $97 million would have to come from federal taxpayers' funds.''
Newbold's primary objection to the project is cost. He also is concerned about what effects over-fishing might have on offshore stocks. And environmentally, he said, no one can be sure what outcomes might occur when a rock structure is erected in a constantly shifting channel.
``Our principle concern is that the jetties would increase erosion down-drift of their construction,'' Bill Holman said. A lobbyist for the nation's oldest environmental conservation organization, the Sierra Club, Holman said his group has been against jetties for more than 15 years.
``We're going to monitor the effects Hunt and others have on this project,'' Holman said last week from his Raleigh office. ``We've written to Reagan and Bush in the past and will continue to express our opposition.
``We're afraid that Pea Island, which already has severe erosion problems, might face even more if the jetties are built.
``We're also concerned that the jetties might not work - at all.''
In a seven-minute video recorded for legislators several years ago, a cameraman pans across egrets and geese on Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge. The narrator says jetties would build beach around the sanctuary - not erode it. Predictions vary with individual scientists' opinions.
This month, a private producer will begin filming a new 10-minute video on Oregon Inlet and its need for jetties.
The $32,500 project was financed by state and county money. It will be shown to state and federal legislators.
``On one hand, so many fishermen's livelihoods - and lives - depend on that inlet being stable, you can see why they want jetties,'' said Shepard, who also is a member of the Southeastern Watermen's Association.
``But on the other, environmental effects would tend to make land to the south fall away.
``I'm not sure the bridge to Hatteras Island would stay there without the jetties,'' Shepard said. ``But when you wage wars against nature, you cannot win. Taxpayers' money just keeps getting washed away.
``To build those rock jetties or not - it's a hard call.'' ILLUSTRATION: Photo
DREW C. WILSON/Staff
Hundreds of commercial and sports fishing boats along North
Carolina's Outer Banks rely on Oregon Inlet to get to the Atlantic
Ocean.
by CNB