THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, October 14, 1994 TAG: 9410140552
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: HERTFORD LENGTH: Medium: 94 lines
The language seemed straight out of the gritted teeth of Galahad or Lancelot:
``This is a gra-a-a-and, quixotic QUEST we're embarking on!''
But the words came from a tall, scholarly N.C. Department of Commerce planner named Thomas B. Richter and his ``quest'' had to do with a 20-year search for the magic words that will allow the U.S. Corps of Army Engineers to build two mile-long jetties at Oregon Inlet.
Richter's determination this week convinced the executive committee of the Northeastern N.C. Economic Development Commission that it should spend $25,000 to help Gov. James B. Hunt Jr. win President Clinton's support for the breakwaters.
Richter was sent from his office in Washington, N.C., Wednesday to the meeting in Hertford to explain why the $25,000 cost of still another survey of jetty feasibility won't be wasted.
Three weeks ago, the development commission agreed to appropriate the $25,000 from its $1.2 million 1994-1995 operating budget. But some of the members got nervous about writing a blank check for a new study without knowing more about it.
``The governor brings up the question of the jetties every week,'' Richter said. ``He wants action, and he wants to be able to sit down with the President and show him the benefits a stabilized Oregon Inlet will bring to the state and to the economy of coastal counties.''
Since the late 1970s when Congress first authorized the jetties, at least half a dozen surveys of the $97 million breakwater proposal have been made by federal agencies and environmental groups, as well as by the Army Engineers.
But each time it appeared that all objections had been overcome, to the delight of most commercial fishermen who want the jetties, legal blocks have sunk the Army Engineers' best laid plans.
Environmentalist lawyers in the U.S. Department of the Interior have obtained court orders that prevented the Army Engineers from anchoring the jetties on Interior Department land on the north and south sides of the inlet between Nags Head and Hatteras Island.
``So far, it's always ended up as a fight over federal turf. None of these studies has given North Carolina's version of the Oregon Inlet jetty story,'' said Richter. ``Nearly all of the U.S. surveys have talked about national `impact' and environmental `impact.'
``We want to show that `impacts' are not necessarily bad - that there can be good `impacts' from projects like the Oregon Inlet jetties,'' said Richter.
One of the positive impacts sought by Richter and Hunt would result from an all-weather Oregon Inlet, he said. In the last half-century many fishing boats have been lost with their crews in the treacherous channel.
``It shifts in bad weather,'' explained Richter. ``The jetties would keep the channel in place and also protect the present Oregon Inlet bridge and probably reduce the cost of a replacement bridge that will soon be necessary.''
Richter's eloquence convinced the economic developers that they should spend the $25,000. But some members of the executive committee felt they needed a more detailed explanation to take back to the full commission.
``We want to find out exactly what the governor wants and then give it to him,'' said Jimmy R. Jenkins, chancellor of Elizabeth City State University and vice chairman of the Northeastern development commission.
Richter again spelled out that the governor had stated repeatedly he wants to go to Washington armed with arguments for the breakwaters that reflect North Carolina's regional needs, not just national analyses.
The development commission has already begun negotiating with Lawrence Saunders, a civilian employee of the Army Engineers who recently retired after 37 years with the Corps.
For the past two decades, Saunders has worked at the Army Engineers' office in Wilmington, N.C., and he was recommended to the development commission as the best person to make a new study for the governor.
``Larry Saunders probably knows more about Oregon Inlet and all of the economic ramifications than anyone else you can find. He has a national reputation,'' Richter told the executive committee meeting.
``Several members of the governor's staff said they felt that the Northeastern economic commission was the best agency to get the new information.''
In Wilmington, Saunders acknowledged that he hoped to do the new study.
``Most of the earlier Oregon Inlet surveys have have addressed national economic and environmental aspects,'' said Saunders. ``Very little has been said about the regional benefits in North Carolina.''
Saunders said he expected to hear from James Lancaster, director of the Northeastern Economic Development Commission, before the end of this month.
``We'll talk about a contract and see if we reach an agreement.''
The six executive committee members who met Wednesday at the commission's headquarters in the Hertford Centura Bank building voted to have a proposed contract for Saunders drawn up by next week.
Richter said on Thursday that ``Governor Hunt wants the information by December at the latest.''
It was then that he described the new Oregon Inlet urgency as a ``grand, quixotic quest'' for a solution that has remained elusive for so many years. by CNB