THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, March 20, 1996 TAG: 9603200474
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
SOURCE: BY MASON PETERS, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 86 lines
President Clinton included millions of dollars for major improvements to North Carolina's inlets, harbors, and beaches in the 1997 White House budget proposals announced Tuesday.
The unusually large funding package for the Outer Banks and other North Carolina coastal areas included:
$6 million to keep the treacherous ship channel open at Oregon Inlet for another year.
A $400,000 study of beach replenishment and restoration along the Outer Banks resort beaches in Dare County. ``We've tried to get this for years,'' said Charles Hartig, a Dare County spokesman.
Additional dredging and harbor improvements at Avon Harbor, on Hatteras Island, and at Stumpy Point and Swanquarter on the mainland.
Another multi-million funding package to finish a Belhaven harbor project in Beaufort County and channel dredging at Bogue Inlet, Morehead City and Drum Inlet.
All of the projects will require approval by Congress.
But the bulk of the proposed Outer Banks and coastal North Carolina improvements represents the influence of former Congressman H. Martin Lancaster, now assistant secretary of the Army for civil works.
Lancaster supervises dredging and coastal improvements performed by the U.S. Army Corps ofEngineers. Many of the North Carolina projects were previously sought by Lancaster during his four terms in Congress.
``I know personally how important these projects are to the area,'' Lancaster said Tuesday.
``We exerted some special efforts to keep many of the projects in the budget and now we must help get them through Congress,'' Lancaster added.
President Clinton appointed Lancaster, a Goldsboro Democrat, to the Defense Department post following his 3rd District defeat two years ago by Republican Rep. Walter B. Jones Jr. of Farmville.
Robert G. Williams, a retired Manteo Coast Guard commander who is now chairman of the Oregon Inlet Waterways Commission, praised Lancaster and the White House for including $6 million for Oregon Inlet dredging in the proposed budget.
The Corps of Engineers would use the money to maintain a channel 200 feet wide and 14 feet deep that the engineers - and Williams - say is needed for an all-weather passage through the Outer Banks. In this century, shoaling at Oregon Inlet has claimed many fishing boats and their crews.
``Dredging will help us try to keep the channel wide enough and deep enough to let storm surges get out of Albemarle and Pamlico Sounds,'' said Williams.
Williams said the inlet is narrowing because the 3,000 foot groin that protects the south shore anchors Hatteras Island in place while the unprotected north shore on Bodie Island creeps southward under prevailing winds and currents.
``If the inlet pinches together too much it will act like a plug and when storm-piled waters in the sounds try to get out they'll eventually burst through someplace else and cut another channel,'' Williams said.
Lancaster's titular influence over the Corps of Engineers is expected to bring renewed efforts by commercial fishing interests to get the Engineers to build a pair of $100-million stone jetties at Oregon Inlet.
For nearly 20 years pro-jetty factions have battled with environmentalist opponents to get the breakwaters built. The Engineers, in many hearings, have argued that the jetties would make a major East Coast fishing port out of Wanchese on Roanoke Island that would pay for the cost of building the breakwaters.
During the first and second terms of Gov. James B. Hunt Jr., a $12-million, deep-water port was built at Wanchese where fish packing plants were expected to flourish after Oregon Inlet was dredged and jettied.
But the jetties were repeatedly defeated and an underground utilities system built to meet the demands of a city of 30,000 remains largely unused at the still-empty Wanchese Seafood Industrial Park.
The U.S. Department of the Interior, under a Republican President, won the last round at Oregon Inlet. To prevent the Army from building the jetties, the Interior Department simply refused to let the Engineers anchor the breakwaters on each side of the inlet on Interior's land.
``I can tell you that a lot of officials in Dare County are going to send thank-you notes to Martin Lancaster when they find out about this White House budget,'' said Hartig.
However, the proposals still need to be approved by Congress before any action can be taken. by CNB