THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, July 19, 1996 TAG: 9607190458
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY DALE EISMAN, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: WASHINGTON, D.C. LENGTH: 95 lines
If federal authorities can't find enough money to build rock jetties around Oregon Inlet, they should get out of the way and let North Carolina take charge of the $120 million project, North Carolina Gov. James B. Hunt Jr. told senators Thursday.
``We will pay for it one way or the other,'' Hunt testified in front of a congressional subcommittee. ``We will make this project work if they will authorize it.''
Though his state's legislature is in the throes of a budget crisis, Hunt said North Carolina's growing economy could bear the burden of stabilizing the Outer Banks inlet.
Just this week, he said, the North Carolina House of Representatives rearranged the budget to provide $100 million to repair storm damage that Hurricane Bertha caused along the coast.
Hunt led a bipartisan group of federal, state and local elected officials who debated the controversial and long-delayed jetties project with environmentalists, sportsmen, and Army and National Park Service representatives at a Senate subcommittee hearing.
Proponents say the 9,000-foot jetties and a system that would carry drifting sand around the inlet are vital to preserving Outer Banks tourism and boosting the area's depressed commercial fishing industry.
They warned that continued narrowing of the inlet threatens the stability of the Herbert C. Bonner bridge, which carries traffic on N.C. Route 12 over the waterway from Nags Head to Hatteras Island.
Oregon Inlet is the only deep-water passage to the Atlantic between Hatteras Inlet and Virginia.
But critics said that continued dredging of the inlet, which now costs taxpayers about $6 million annually, would be as effective as the jetties in keeping the waterway open. And the jetties could trigger severe beach erosion that would be even more expensive to control, they asserted.
There was no indication Thursday of how or whether the subcommittee will deal with legislation introduced by Sen. Jesse Helms, R-N.C., to expedite the project.
But it was clear that even if Congress blesses the jetties, actual construction is not assured - and could not begin for several years.
Armed with aerial photos showing movement and narrowing of the inlet over the past 10 years, Hunt gave Sens. Ben Nighthorse Campbell of Colorado and Rod Grams of Minnesota a spirited sales pitch for the project.
The perils of navigating the inlet have claimed the lives of 25 boaters - and an equal number of boats - since 1960, he said. Watermen say Oregon Inlet is the most dangerous on the East Coast. Its hazards, Hunt said, have influenced many commercial fishermen to carry their catches all the way to Virginia.
Hunt scoffed at suggestions that because only about 300 commercial fishermen use the inlet, just giving each of them $1 million would be cheaper in the long run for the state and federal governments than building and maintaining the jetties.
Thousands of recreational anglers - in charter boats and private crafts - also traverse the inlet annually.
``There are plenty of people ready to start fishing,'' the governor insisted. ``. . . We can have a very bullish future (on the Outer Banks) if we stabilize this inlet and let people get in and out.''
``Lack of fish stocks, not lack of channel access, is the limiting factor in the commercial harvesting of fish off North Carolina,'' countered John P. Newbold, president of the North Carolina Beach Buggy Association.
Since 1980, commercial fish landings in the state have declined by more than 60 percent - from 356 million to 118 million pounds. Newbold argued that fishermen docking their boats at Wanchese, who primarily use Oregon Inlet, account for only about 12.5 million pounds of the total landings - and could never expect to bring in the additional 20.2 million pounds per year claimed by jetty supporters.
And Katharine Dixon, a Duke University researcher specializing in shoreline development, cited National Marine Fisheries Service studies suggesting that the jetties actually could hurt fishing by making it harder for fish larvae to move between the Atlantic Ocean and the Pamlico and Albemarle sounds.
Helms' bill would transfer control of about 100 acres on each side of Oregon Inlet from the Department of the Interior to the Army Corps of Engineers.
The Interior Department maintains the property as part of the Pea Island National Wildlife Refuge and the Cape Hatteras National Seashore. The Corps of Engineers would construct the jetties. But Interior Department officials have refused to grant permission to build the rock walls.
Congress first authorized the jetties in 1970. But a lack of funds and a long series of economic and environmental studies - 97 in all - have kept it from coming to fruition for more than a quarter-century.
``This project has been studied to death,'' Helms asserted Thursday.
But H. Martin Lancaster, who once represented part of the Outer Banks in the House and now is an assistant secretary of the Army, said that even if the bill passes, the Corps of Engineers will proceed with two more studies before deciding on whether to go on with the project.
Lancaster said completing those reports, on the project's design and environmental impact, could take another two years.
Until a final decision to build the jetties is made, he said, the Corps would prefer that the Interior Department and the National Park Service remain responsible for the property.
KEYWORDS: OREGON INLET by CNB