THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, September 22, 1994 TAG: 9409220458
SECTION: FRONT PAGE: A1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: AHOSKIE, N.C. LENGTH: Medium: 66 lines
North Carolina Gov. James B. Hunt Jr. pledged on Wednesday to sit down with President Clinton to cut through the controversy that has prevented construction of two mile-long stone jetties at Oregon Inlet.
For nearly 30 years, commercial fishermen and Dare County officials have battled with U.S. Interior Department lawyers and private environmentalists who have repeatedly blocked the $100 million jetty project.
Treacherous and shifting sandbars in the unprotected Oregon Inlet channel have caused dozens of shipwrecks and more than 20 deaths in the past half-century.
Hunt sent word to the Northeastern Economic Development Commission of his plans to meet with Clinton, a longtime political ally. The commission quickly agreed to spend $25,000 to put together an information package, requested by the governor and state Commerce Department officials, to take to the White House.
``What the governor wants is a study that will present North Carolina's position on the jetties and the regional benefits that would result from an all-weather Oregon Inlet,'' said James Lancaster, director of the economic development commission.
R.V. ``Bobby'' Owens, chairman of the Dare County Board of Commissioners and Hunt's eastern representative, said in Nags Head that a key meeting on Oregon Inlet between state and county officials was held Tuesday in Wanchese.
``There's a lot of high-level movement on the jetties going on behind the scenes,'' Owens said. ``The governor wants to be prepared to do what's necessary in Washington to get the jetties built.''
Hunt's intention of meeting with Clinton to resolve the Oregon Inlet deadlock was relayed to Lancaster by state Commerce Department officials after Tuesday's unpublicized Wanchese meeting.
Lancaster said he was told by Tom Richter of the state Commerce Department that Hunt thought previous studies of Oregon Inlet were out of date and ``too narrow in scope.''
Economic Development Commission members said they would now focus on larger benefits that an improved inlet would bring, including:
Regional impact beyond Dare County.
Real estate benefits outside the fishing industry.
Reduction of regional unemployment.
Hunt's determination to resolve the jetty controversy reflects his interest in the project during his first and second terms as governor in the late 1970s and early 1980s.
During that period, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers proposed to ``stabilize'' Oregon Inlet by building the stone breakwaters out into the ocean from Bodie Island and Hatteras Island on each side of the existing channel. Hunt then pushed to begin construction of the $9 million Wanchese Seafood Industrial Park at the south end of Roanoke Island.
The Seafood Park was designed to create one of the country's largest fishing ports in the marshy village of Wanchese. The reasoning behind the huge project was that an all-weather channel through the Outer Banks would bring commercial fishing boats from the entire Atlantic coast to Wanchese.
But the Seafood Park remains largely an empty showcase. Few commercial fish-packing companies came to the park when repeated legal maneuvers prevented the Corps of Engineers from building the jetties, and storms continued to drive trawlers ashore in the shifting channel. by CNB