THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, October 12, 1994 TAG: 9410120428
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: HERTFORD LENGTH: Short : 45 lines
The executive committee of the Northeastern North Carolina Economic Development Commission will meet here tonight ``to find out what we're going to get for the $25,000 we appropriated for the Oregon Inlet jetty project,'' a committee member said Tuesday.
``We expect to hear from state officials or members of the Oregon Inlet Waterway Commission about how they're going to spend the money,'' said Charles Ward, a Hertford businessman on the executive committee of the development commission.
Three weeks ago the commission, in an unexpected action, approved spending the $25,000 to help Gov. James B. Hunt Jr., get the Oregon Inlet jetties off dead-center.
But there were reports this week, after an Outer Banks meeting of the Oregon Inlet Waterway Commission, that the Hertford development commission had decided not to fund the jetty effort.
``There's no problem - we simply want to know where the money's going,'' Ward said. ``It's just good business practice.''
When the commission agreed to appropriate the $25,000 for a new environmental study of the jetties, the action came hurriedly after representatives of Hunt reported that the governor was prepared to go to Washington and meet with President Clinton if that would speed construction of the jetties.
A representative of the North Carolina Department of Commerce told the commissioners that Hunt and his advisers felt that a new study was needed to present the state's view of the jetty project. In the past, the breakwaters have been turned down by the U.S. Interior Department, reflecting the views of out-of-state environmentalists.
Although favored by many commercial fishing and boating interests, the proposed $97 million project has been stalled for more than 10 years in the deadlock involving environmentalists, Congress, the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and the Interior Department.
The executive committee will meet tonight, starting at 7, in the Centura Bank building offices of the commission in Hertford. by CNB